My name is Brian Ettling.  This is my first blog posting.  I am jumping into an unknown realm.  I do not even follow other blogs as of this point.  However, I will have to start following them to see how my blog compares.  Furthermore, I will have to seek out the information to make this blog most effective for my life’s mission.  My mission is to be part of the conversation to somehow shift American society past the tipping point to be fully engaged in resolving climate change.  Will I be successful?  It does not matter.  As my hero Marjory Stoneman Douglas once said about restoring the Everglades, “When it comes to saving the Everglades (or the environment), it is not a matter of being optimistic or pessimistic.  It is something that just has to be done.”

Sadly, I do not feel like I have lived up to my inter potential in my life so far of making a difference for the planet.  I graduated from William Jewell College in Kansas City, Missouri with a degree in Business Administration in 1992.  Since then, I have made a career of working in the national parks, primarily Crater Lake National Park in Oregon and Everglades National Park in Florida.  For the past 13 years, I have worked as naturalist guide/interpretation ranger in those national parks.  I lead various ranger programs, such as narrating boat tours, leading guided sunset walks, leading bird identification walks, providing geology and history talks in both national parks, performing evening campfire programs using power point on the birds that utilize both national parks, and so many other programs.  I love nature, the outdoors, and our precious natural environment.  In my ranger programs, I aimed to instill an appreciation of the natural world and hopefully inspire my audience to take actions to protect it.  During my time leading leading ranger programs, I came up with my two of own mantras that I believe are uniquely my own.

1) Think Globally
Act Daily

2) Each and everyone of us can change the world. We do this by
    a) The way we vote
    b) The products we buy
c) The attitudes we share with each other.

I hope these ideas continue long after I have lived my life on Earth.  Please feel free to share these quotes, but I hope you would attribute them to me.  In future blogs, I hope to get more specific on how I hope to contribute and facilitate this conversation to make the planet and my life greener.  I have lots of thoughts that I want to share.  I also want to learn from others who are making the world a greener place and pass along those ideas here.

It has been a blessing to stick my toe in the water in the blogging world.  May this blog be a blessing to you.  Furthermore, may it somehow contribute to the massive effort and conversation of other people to inspire American society to fully resolve the issue of climate change.

Namaste!
Brian Ettling