The 21st Century is destined to be a watershed moment in human history. Our lack of timely action to thwart Global Warming will push us to the paramount of our human ingenuity. Will we rise to the challenge and preserve our institutions, global markets, and industries as we know them? Or will we fail to adapt to climate change and set ourselves back a millennia? I believe the answer depends on our actions here in 2019 and the meanings we give them.
Orlando is a unique place. Here I have had the great privilege to serve on the boards of numerous environmental and humanitarian non-profits that have leveraged me to belong to many societies.– Clayton Louis Ferrara, Biologist and Executive Director of IDEAS For Us
We are in a time of amazing potential and change. I refuse to sit on the sidelines and wait for others to act while I am capable of taking the personal responsibility to make my community and myself better – environmentally, socially, and economically. For the last 15 years of my life, Orlando has been my ecosystem of innovation – a unique, global melting pot on the brink of becoming a true world-class city. My time as Executive Director of the United Nations Accredited NGO, IDEAS For Us, has given me the unique perspective to understand environmental issues from the grassroots level, up to the massive bureaucratic behemoth that is The United Nations. My classical training as a biologist has made me a world traveler, having conducted research on five continents concerning evolution, conservation, and ecology. And what I have learned over this time, is that advancing sustainability is everyone’s responsibility and the actions it takes to sincerely create a positive change is a life-enriching journey worth undertaking. Your life will become better the more responsibility you take on for yourself and the environment around you. Embrace that.
Orlando is a unique place. Here I have had the great privilege to serve on the boards of numerous environmental and humanitarian non-profits that have leveraged me to belong to many societies (some secret) that have brought me to council with the likes of Pope Francis and the descendants of Charles Darwin. Two years after I graduated from Rollins College with degrees in Biology and Environmental Science, I received the Young Alum of Significant Distinction Award, for my work building a small Natural History Museum on the Southern shore of Lake Apopka and the founding of my school for naturalism, The Terra Firma Institute. As a handpicked member of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s GreenWorks task force, a member of the Development Advisory Board for Orange County, and a lecturer at Rollins, UCF, Valencia, and Seminole State Colleges, I have resolved myself to search for and share solutions. The environment and Nature are supremely important to me.
It is up to each of us to find meaning in the madness. I believe that the purpose of life is to find a mode of being that is so meaningful, the fact that life is suffering becomes no longer relevant or an obstacle. For me, Orlando has been the stage of this joinery. The stage is set for us to advance ourselves as a place where others can find their meaning, and share those fruits with the world in hopes that we all live a life greater than those that came before us. That is City Beautiful we all deserve.
