What I did today to help the environment - Part 2: The Earth Charter

Being a Buddhist, I was wondering today what the SGI (Soka Gakkai =value creation society) was doing in terms of helping the environment. I remembered the exhibition "Seeds of Change" that I was part of in London, which was a exhibition to promote peace through stopping environmental destructions and poverty. The exhibition was initially created in 2002 by the SGI and the Earth Charter Initiative for the World Summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg. I then focused my interest on the "Earth Charter" which is a king of international declaration of rights to build a peaceful world for all individuals by respecting the environment. By the way, some governments, religious groups, organizations and environmental groups signed this charter. In the future, I will try to find who they are. Let's see some of the key points of this charter:

1. Respect of Earth and Life in all this diversity
2. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion and love.
3. Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable and peaceful.
4. Secure Earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations.

I really find these principles humanistic and inspiring for building better communities that respect each other and that respect their environment. These principles may be just "ideals" right now, because we know what's going on with the environment and to be honest, as a nation, the United States is not giving the right example....We may be recycling plastic but we still impose our superiority through war...The Iraqi war is an example. This war has already had catastrophic human and environmental consequences. I remember that the U.S.A did not sign the treaty on greenhouse emissions. What kind of Leadership are we demonstrating? To me, the U.S government acts with a lot of hypocrisy. I just hope that change will come if Obama is elected...although I have lost trust in politics. I think that the power of ordinary people or individuals working together for the betterment of society will have much larger influence in the future.