OUR THREE MINUTES ON THE SOAP BOX...
(by Jim and Mindy Phypers at Solar Haven)

Solar Haven is much more than just a comfortable and inexpensive home where we can live simply and close to the natural world and be free of most utility costs and a big mortgage. It is also a political, moral, and spiritual statement about what we feel is happening to our country and to our planet and what we think should be done about it.

It is absolutely heart breaking and frightening to follow the news every day. It is not easy to watch the rich continue to get richer and the poor (including America's own "middle class") just get poorer and poorer, to watch the natural beauty of our planet stripped, its environment poisoned, and its resources squandered, and to see our political institutions become enslaved to the wishes of large, greedy, immoral corporations and watch democracy and individual rights disappear before our very eyes. The degree of environmental damage, national indebtedness, social and economic chaos, and growing hatred of our country around the globe that we are going to leave to our children and grandchildren is terrifying. And it is hardly fair.

Isn't it time to start taking responsibility for what we are doing to our world NOW and not leave it to someone else to clean up?! But if we wait for our government to do it, we may be waiting a long time. Mindy and I feel the situation can only change one person at a time. It can only change one piece of recycled garbage at a time and one watt of electricity produced by the sun and wind at a time rather than a watt produced by oil or coal or gas which pollutes our air and water. It can only change one small piece of land set aside for a tree instead of asphalt and one small plot of more wholesome, natural food grown at a time. It can only change one vote at a time for someone who cares and is not beholden to special interest groups which paid to get him into office.

One act of trust, one act of caring, one act of love at a time can work miracles... "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not" (The Lorax by Dr. Suess). Thanks for listening!

Sincerely, Jim and Mindy Phypers

P.S. - we highly recommend the following four books:

1 - "The Future of Life" by Edward O. Wilson: Vintage Books, 2003

2 - "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated" by Gore Vidal: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002

3 - "Earth Odessy: Around the World In Search of Our Environmental Future" by Mark Hertsgaard: Broadway Books. 1999

4 - "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond: Viking, 2004.