2012 ECO Summit:

“This seismic testing is going to destroy our home,” said Mandy Davis, founder of Citizens Opposing Acoustic Seismic Testing, in a key report to people gathered for the 11th annual Ecosummit in San Luis Obispo. “We have a choice, we have a voice,” Davis said of how people can react to seismic testing in the area of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

“Our egos don’t matter. This issue is bigger than us,” said Davis, making clear that low-intensity tests, which are permitted, are causing great harm, and that there is “large bird death” and fish “dying from lack of food.”

The issue is about the “whole ecosystem, not just the whales,” she said, at the gathering at the Grange Hall of representatives of Mothers for Peace, the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Student Coalition, SLO Green Build, North County Watch, Surfrider Foundation, and Transition Towns, who collectively brought up a variety of issues of mutual interest.

Perhaps as impressive to those gathered for the summit, Aaron Kirby, a 12-year- old Arroyo Grande home-schooled boy described his organization, One Rainforest Beacon, and focus on saving trees, animals, the environment, air, land and water, and “what we can do, and how we can do it together.”

People gathered for the summit Saturday (Dec. 1) were clearly impressed with Kirby and his work, and Bill Denneen, the 90-year-old Nipomo environmentalist and a summit favorite, told the crowd about a recent national network special on how important 12-year-old boys and girls are to this country.

Kirby, who recently spoke before the Coastal Commission, is creating a website, onerainforestbeacon.org that will be used to “educate kids.”

A more detailed report on the Ecosummit is upcoming, and will be here, on the ECOSLO website.