Happy Birthday!
When we launched May 1st 2007 on a dinky wordpress blog it felt like the topics we were writing about were relatively fringe issues, especially alternative energy. There was still a post-“Inconvenient Truth” buzz and we were constantly asked what “going green” even meant. Cycling in Spokane seemed a diversion. Spokane River pollution was still a whodunit. Now, these ideas and issues are part of our daily conversation. And more people Bike To Work, more people come to the annual Spokane River Cleanup, and the city is justly scrutinized for playing footsies with a Sustainability Action Plan. Along the way we’ve made some incredible friends (and enemies!) in the community. One fellow blogger recently commented that our namesake made sense because of Spokane’s “down-to-earth-like people,” meaning people say what they mean. We originally chose the name as our approach, as our voice, but now, we’ve shaped the blog around our community and two years later to the day after reading our first post we hope DTE has stayed true to its intentions. There’s still much work to be done so bring on the terrible twos.
And now for a trip down memory lane, the first post, in all of its greenness:
Welcome to Down to Earth! An attempt to pioneer a "Green" movement in the Inland Northwest.
You need not look far these days to realize a full force grassroots movement going on. This movement is the "re-greening" of America.
Down to Earth is as excited about this movement as we hope you are or will become.
Down to Earth's main focus will be providing information that is relevant to the communities we live in.
In posts to come, Down to Earth will direct you to eye-opening material that will help you learn more about environmental issues in the Inland Northwest, the State of Washington, our country and our world. Down to Earth will provide you with resources to "Fight the Green Fight." Above all Down to Earth is finally a destination for YOU, the people of the Inland Northwest to meet to share ideas, learn new things, and most importantly, help others understand the importance of a social problem that will undoubtedly become the most important issue of our lives.
When you see the name Down to Earth we hope it evokes to conceived notions.
One: This will be a blog about the Environment.
And.
Two: This will be delivered in an easy going, peaceful way.
Our intent is to steer away from the aggressive, know it all, standing on a soap box screaming from the top of your lungs way that some blogs of this nature are presented.
Down to Earth will be YOUR blog as much as it is ours. We will provide a forum for you to sound off. A forum that we believe is missing in the Inland Northwest. We want to bring the topics out of your homes, out of your inboxes, and out of your minds. We want you to share with us what you know, what you believe and what you want to see happen in the Inland Northwest.
Everyone is welcome, from the activists to those who may be "light" green to those who haven't a clue.
Kermit the Frog once said, "It ain't easy being green."
Little did he know how true that saying would once ring. But we will make it easier and we will make it fun.
