Since becoming a professional environmentalist a few years ago, I have come to understand the profound ability to effect real change of the simple, 2-syllable question Why not?
Today, Spain is a world leader in encouraging its citizens to go solar because more than a decade ago, a newly-elected city councilman in the Mediterranean haven of Barcelona noted that few if any citizens harnessed the sun to heat their water. His response? Why not?
His question was answered with, “That’s not the way we do things.” yet he persisted. Over time, heating water with sunshine in a city with hundreds of sunny days per year simply made too much sense and it became standard procedure. Soon, it was the standard for the whole Spanish state of Cataluña and eventually, the whole country. Is there power in Why not? You betcha!
There are countless other examples in history. The Green Earth Expo, which just concluded its first event last month in Orlando, Florida, is a poignant one. The way it came into being began with the question Why not? and then morphed into a kernel of an idea when I asked Jim Griffin, Why don’t you have a global warming trade show?
I posed my question by telephone in February of 2007. By June, Jim had taken my question and booked the Orange County Convention Center, one of the greenest facilities of its kind in the world. His gumption and no-looking-back determination made my work in helping him with the vision of the Green Earth Expo very easy by comparison.
In the end, we had a very successful event with a roster of nearly one hundred speakers, many hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of visitors and valuable commitments from companies and government bodies to help us make the second event even better. The Green Earth Expo began with that simple question, Why not? in a telephone call between Jim and me and the results were far greater than either of us could have imagined.
Just as important as the success of the event, though, was the message. Jim and I demonstrated that, despite the relative passivity of the average Floridian toward environmental issues, residents of the Sunshine State are worried about green issues and willing to give up part of their weekend to learn what to do. Moreover, they are willing to use their buying power to help green companies succeed.
I was very pleased to tell many exhibitors and speakers what the vision of the Green Earth Expo is but Jim Griffin put it very succinctly.
"This is all about the future of our children. These things that we haven’t been doing.... have put us in a bad place.”
- Jim Griffin
Founder, Green Earth Alliance
Sustainable Justice For All!
Corbett Kroehler
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