There is a wonderful scene that is repeated in several of the 1970s Back To The Future movies where the bully, Biff, knocks on McFly’s forehead and mocks him by saying, “Hello, McFly, anybody home?”

Is that what we need?  Somebody knocking on our collective foreheads, asking, “Is anybody home?”  It must be, because there have been three stunningly revealing events that have happened in the past couple of weeks that have gone pretty much unnoticed.

First of all, on April 29th, Bill number HB 7135 passed the Florida House of Representatives by a unanimous vote of 117 to 0!  What is Bill number HB 7135 you ask?  It was a very good bill until someone slipped in an addition that reads, in part, “to insure consistent and effective implementation, the department shall submit a report with conclusions and recommendations to the Legislature no later than February 1, 2010.  UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT THE LEGISLATURE ADOPTS THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT, NO GOVERNMENT, LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY OR STATE GOVERNMENT AGENCY MAY ENACT ANY RULE, REGULATION OR ORDINANCE REGARDING USE, DISPOSITION, SALES, PROHIBITION, RESTRICTION OR TAX OF ANY AUXILIARY CONTAINERS, WRAPPINGS OR DISPOSIBLE PLASTIC BAGS.”  I had to read this several times to make sure it wasn’t April 1st and they were kidding.  Our elected officials have told you that until they study the situation, we are not allowed to ban plastic bags in our community until February 1st, 2010!  Hey, Florida State Legislature, I got your study right here! 

Anybody who is paying attention knows that plastic bags are an egregious material that we are putting into the environment.  Even China, the most heavily polluting nation on earth, has declared a national ban on the use of plastic bags.  Of course, they are the ones who are making the ones we are using.  By the way, this legislation was lobbied by a group known as Associated Industries, the official lobbying arm of the Florida State Chamber Of Commerce.  Gee, I wonder who the members of that group are.  Could it be the major grocery stores?  Anyway, the bill is sitting on Governor Crist’s desk for signature.  Now that you know, what are YOU going to do about it?  (Crist’s e-mail address is Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com.  Tell your friends).

To top off this past week of “Hey McFly” situations, I attended the GLEE Exposition in Marathon this past Saturday, May 10th (great job GLEE!).  When I walked in the front entrance of the Marathon High School, I was greeted by a fan blowing steadily in my direction with a sign on it saying, “This fan powered by solar energy”.  Sure enough, there was a cord from the fan running out to a solar panel in the yard.  What struck me as the biggest irony of all was that directly behind the solar-powered fan, on the roof of the building, were two massive air-conditioning units blasting away at full force on a huge expanse of roof with … you guessed it … no solar panels (see photo). 

What are we thinking? In the “Sunshine State” and in a community that gets sunshine pretty much all year round, we are building brand new schools without a first solar panel in sight.  What kind of lessons are we teaching our children?  I’ll tell you what kind of lessons we are teaching our children.  The downspouts from the roof of this brand new school go right down into the ground, into the stormwater sewer instead of into holding tanks to water the obviously dry and brown grass around the buildings.  Furthermore, we are serving one million meals a year to Monroe County school children on Styrofoam that is placed into petroleum-based plastic bags and hauled off to be incinerated.  The lesson is very clear.  Talk the talk about environmental stewardship, but when it comes to walking the walk, let’s let the federal and state governments dictate to our local school board how to build and operate our schools.

Hey McFly … anybody home up there in Tallahassee or Washington?

On a brighter note of revealing moments in the past couple of weeks, I would like to applaud the incredibly successful GLEE Expo in Marathon on May 10th.  I have never seen something like this in the Florida Keys before.  The exhibitions were of suppliers and institutions all pounding the drum of a greener, more sensitive treatment of our environment.  Congratulations to GLEE and the enormous amount of work that went into this great exhibition.

At the same time, just a few days later, on May 14th, Last Stand hosted a panel and the monthly “Green Drinks” meeting.  It used to be that you would go to these things and there would be a couple of the same few folks at every one.  This one was standing room only and, in fact, there were ten people standing.  The panel was comprised of speakers from the City, Reef Relief, NOAA and the Monroe County Health Department.  It was a spirited, informed presentation on the status and future of our nearshore waters.  Again, congratulations to Last Stand for hosting the event.

The point is, the groundswell of interest in caring and knowing about what to do in order to be good stewards of our environment should be duly noted by our elected officials because, if someone were to knock on the collective foreheads of the Florida Keys citizenry, they would, indeed, find someone home.

Chris Belland
Love Your Island Co-Chair