Got Hope?

Last night, just before midnight eastern time, I watched Barack Obama walk onto the stage in Chicago as the president-elect. Rather unexpectedly, I burst into (joyful) tears. In that instant, I felt not just immense hope for my country and for myself, but a relieving hope for my child and his or her future.

Until then, I hadn’t realized just how worried I was that John McCain would win and just how scared I was to bring a child into that world.

And I mean “that world” in both the figurative and literal sense. Instead of McCain’s commitment to continue to be a seemingly reason-free aggressive force on the international scene and to strip the planet of its resources with no thought to the consequences, Obama is looking to bring people together (both in this country and across the globe) and to help solve the environmental crisis.

In fact, during Obama’s speech, when he mentioned the challenges facing the United States, the first thing he mentioned was the two wars, the second thing he mentioned was the environment (!), and the third was the economy. Obama gets it and, as a result, we all get a healthy dose of optimism.

Question of the blog: Has your hope for positive environmental changes improved with the election results?