tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22107192010496722892024-03-13T08:23:40.437-07:00A Quantum of IdlenessHere shall I disperse/
A small parcel of wisdom/
Born of idleness.raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-33664794996164961272015-10-31T08:50:00.003-07:002015-10-31T08:50:51.708-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The global economy currently consumes resources at a rate that would require 1.5 earths to guarantee long term sustainability. In other words, we are living way beyond our means. When we talk about our long term survival on the earth it always seems so difficult and technologically unfeasible, but isn't our long term survival relatively simple? Couldn't we reduce our numbers and our consumption of resources to live within the earth's capacity to sustain us? This option is seldom seriously considered, but why? Prosperous countries like Germany actually have negative population growth, because couples are choosing to have only one child or to remain childless. Unlike China's former one child policy, there is no coercion in Germany. In fact the German government has many incentives for couples to have more children - many months of paid maternity leave, a guaranteed return to work after years of staying home to raise your child, many child care options, etc. I've been to Germany several times, and by comparison, the United States is very anti family. Despite these incentives, young German couples are making the conscious decision to have small families. Isn't this a model that the world can aspire to and ultimately the key to long term sustainability? The article I link to casts the demographic changes in Germany in a negative light, as is common in the press, but doesn't the fact that people in a generally happy, prosperous, and family friendly nation are choosing to reduce their numbers even in the face of policies encouraging the growth of families provide a ray of hope for our long term future?</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/germany-fights-population-drop.html?_r=0" target="_blank"> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/germany-fights-population-drop.html?_r=0</a></div>
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Robert</div>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-67733561582805439002015-06-01T21:07:00.000-07:002015-06-02T08:38:18.750-07:00Autonomous Cars - Why Not Just Take a Bus or the Metro?<span style="font-size: large;">There's been a lot of buzz about autonomous vehicles lately. Wow a car that drives itself! Instead of enveloping each person in his or her own little metal capsule that gets not better mileage than a regular car, why not just take the bus, which will get much better mileage per person than any car, autonomous or otherwise? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cars are the root of all the evil that threatens humankind and its fellow creatures today. Without cars, we wouldn't have the sprawl, the consequent destruction of animal habitats, and the insane runaway consumerism that has so cheapened human life and wreaked our climate. The wide use of automobiles has opened a Pandora's box of ecological devastation, and autonomous vehicles would be just one more step in the hideously wrong path automobiles have put us on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Where has this unquestioning love for technology for technology's sake come from? As a young boy, I loved the Jetsons as much as anyone, but I never thought for one moment that it represented the kind of world I wanted to live in. It represented a fantasy world that was fun to imagine living in, but a nightmare world if it ever became reality. The ideal world for me was one with rushing streams, forests of trees stirred by cool, fresh breezes, and fields dotted with flowers. That was the ideal world I saw myself living in. Such a world has been inhabited by humans for millenia. Why replace such an idyllic world of forests, fields, streams, and animals, with a nightmare world of sterile towers and autonomous vehicles? If I were religious, I would think that civilization had become possessed by a devil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Just because we can do something doesn't always mean we should do something. We can blow up millions of people with a hydrogen bomb, but that doesn't mean we should. Do we want to live in a world full of blithering idiots, riding around in their autonomous vehicles, yapping with both hands free into their Android phones, oblivious to the ecological devastation they are leaving in their wake? Wait a minute... maybe that's part of the reason behind Google's fascination with autonomous vehicles. Currently, responsible drivers, rare as they are, put their phones away while driving. In an autonomous vehicle, you can talk, text, game, and watch Netflix to your heart's content. Meanwhile, the forests are cut down to make way for more asphalt, more petroleum is fracked, and more species go extinct! In an autonomous vehicle you don't even need to look out the window. Just eliminate the windows and project images of lakes, mountains, and castles to give the passenger the illusion he is driving through an idyllic Bavarian fairy tale landscape - much better than the reality of blight that truly lies on the outside. You will be able to go from you neat little home to your cozy office without ever seeing the denuded landscape that lies between your point of origin and your destination. It's the ultimate dream, we can continue destroying the Earth without ever coming into any kind of contact with the ugly reality of what our technological <i>progress</i> is doing to it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's all so unnecessary and pointlessly destructive. If you want to travel with your hands free, then ride the bus, take the metro, and when going really far, go by train. These traditional modes of transport are the ones we should be investing in. Autonomous vehicles, like so much of the hi-tech dreck that intoxicates us these days, are cool technology but ultimately worse than worthless.</span>raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-41294649187702119702015-05-24T21:43:00.000-07:002015-05-25T08:02:00.504-07:00The Roundabout vs. The Hybrid<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Everything clever has already been thought, one must only try to think it again.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Americans love cool, new technology, and it's probably safe to say that most of the world is becoming just as obsessed with novelty as Americans. Cool and new does not always mean better, however. To demonstrate this point, I am starting a new series of posts that will compare an example of something that is undoubtedly cool-and-new with something that many might consider dull-and-pedestrian. In making these comparisons, I will show that dull-and-pedestrian is usually better than cool-and-new. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I will begin this series with a face off between cool-and-new hybrid automobiles and dull-and-pedestrian roundabouts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Stop and go traffic kills automotive efficiency, because when you stop or slow down, you have to speed up again, and it takes force to accelerate the vehicle, and this force comes from consuming energy. The loss of efficiency is suffered by all types of vehicles, even if they are electrically powered. In recent years hybrid vehicles have gained popularity, because they store the mechanical energy normally wasted in braking in the form of chemical energy in a battery, which can then be used to run an electric motor to accelerate the car once you are ready to go again. The use of energy normally lost as heat during breaking is called regenerative braking. The combination of regenerative braking along with using electrical power at low speeds, when electrical motors are most efficient, and gasoline power at high speeds, when internal combustion engines are most efficient, gives hybrids a 25% boost in fuel efficiency over their conventional automobile counterparts. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/828C5ED0-B325-474F-B232-3072787076CF/97786/Bigrock3aWEB1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/828C5ED0-B325-474F-B232-3072787076CF/97786/Bigrock3aWEB1.jpg" title="Image of a roundabout. Source: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">All advantages come at a cost, however. Hybrid technology is complicated and comparatively expensive, and it requires large, heavy batteries that don't last forever. What if I offered you a simpler and more reliable technology that is far cheaper and can boost your fuel efficiency by 30%, a full 5% higher than what is achievable with hybrids? That technology exists and most of you have probably already encountered it - the roundabout. Don't yawn! The old fashioned roundabout, that so many people find annoying and confusing, is a fuel efficiency booster. They save on fuel by eliminating the necessity of stopping. As I mentioned already, most of the energy used in transportation comes from accelerating, that's when most of the force is applied to a vehicle. A roundabout allows traffic to flow </span><span style="font-size: large;">smoothly </span><span style="font-size: large;">through an intersection without the necessity of ever coming to a stop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Roundabouts have gotten a bad rap in the US, because they compete with the far more common intersections regulated by stop signs or traffic signals, and people just haven't had much opportunity to get used to them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In addition to being automobile fuel efficiency boosters, roundabouts are quite a bit safer than stop-and-go intersections. According to a <a href="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm" target="_blank">study</a> by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), roundabouts reduce the incidence of crashes causing injury by 75% at intersections where stop signs or stop lights had previously been used for traffic control. Also, the elimination of traffic signs and signals to control traffic makes roundabouts cheaper to build and maintain than ordinary intersections. I will go further and argue that roundabouts are more aesthetically pleasing than a cross made from concrete or asphalt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's very satisfying to have a nice, new automobile in your drive way, and if you are concerned about efficiency and climate change, it's doubly satisfying to have a hybrid. With a hybrid, you are getting a fun toy that isn't doing as much harm to the planet as your neighbor's gas guzzler. However, your hybrid doesn't make your neighbor's vehicle any more fuel efficient. A roundabout will. In fact, a roundabout will almost magically turn your neighbor's gas guzzler into its hybrid equivalent, and your neighbor wouldn't have to have paid to replace his vehicle. The roundabout will even help your lovely hybrid be just a little bit more fuel efficient. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can't force everybody to buy a hybrid, but with some activist city planning, everybody can be made to use roundabouts. In science, we often speak of Occam's razor, which is a principle that states the simplest solution is usually the best. The application of Occam's principle to the contest of hybrid vs. roundabout, decidedly shows that from the point of view of fuel efficiency, cost, and aesthetics, the roundabout is the clear winner. </span></div>
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raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-81484290332583698302015-05-17T20:09:00.000-07:002015-05-17T20:11:17.737-07:00<h1 class="article-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 36px; font-stretch: inherit; font-weight: normal; line-height: 40px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Future Should Belong to the Reducers, Not the Producers!</h1>
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Elon Musk, no idler he, has given the world the Tesla PowerWall. Thanks to brilliant producers like him, a better world is sure to come.</h3>
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Wow, isn't our technological progress amazing? The possibilities are endless… or are they? Most people wouldn't have imagined the internet 60+ years ago, but the internet we have today lies well within the limits imposed by the science we had more than 60 years ago. The technology of today and the foreseeable future is running on the fumes of early 20th century science. Yes, I’m serious. For technology to go much further, apart from sexier more powerful internet capable watches, implantable brain enhancements, etc. we need new science. It's like talking about architecture using only bricks and cement. You can make amazing structures with those materials: Medieval Cathedrals, Baroque Palaces, etc., but there are limits that you cannot exceed unless you employ steel beams and modern materials. It is that way with our current technology. We are doing impressive things with the science we have, and we will continue doing more, but the future innovations will be incremental improvements. We can't have radical new technology without new science - we need to go beyond the "bricks and mortar" of current science if we want to avoid running into a technological brick wall in the next few decades.</h3>
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I think we will hit that brick wall (PowerWall?), because I doubt we will produce major new fundamental insights into the workings of the world (at least not on the scale of relativity and quantum theory) that will be amenable to practical utilization for the benefit of humankind. Meanwhile, population grows and resources become more scarce. By the way, let’s not forget the other inhabitants, plants and animals, that we share this world with. No matter how clean and efficient we become, increasing numbers of us will result in more space occupied by humans and less habitat for our fellow earthlings. Isn't that a consideration that we shouldn't lose sight of?</h3>
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Growing up in the latter third of the 20th century, my outlook was formed by the zeitgeist that commanded us to innovate our way out of our problems. Our leaders, both on the right and the left, parrot the quotidian call for ever more growth. Can’t they see that growth is the problem? Unchecked growth is cancer. As much as we innovate, our problems will forever outpace our innovations if we continue to follow the clarion call for ever more growth. Study <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #96999c; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Jevons’ Paradox</a> - it’s inescapable. These problems are driven by our growing population and its ever expanding demands on Earth’s resources. Benevolent technology, green technology if you will, is only a treatment for the disease of population overshoot, and though it may delay collapse, it in the long run, will provide a positive feedback to actually worsen the ultimate problem. The only cure is to curb our addiction to growth. Otherwise an apocalyptic global crash lies inevitably around the corner.</h3>
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Our current paradigm is to produce - produce more stuff for ever more people, train more workers to produce that stuff, and produce more consumers to consume that stuff. As much as I dislike it, I find it exceedingly difficult to think outside this paradigm - I frequently catch myself wondering "can’t we make solar panels more cheaply from renewable resources, can’t there be a killer app that will curb humanity's compulsive acquisitiveness, is there anything more adorable than a new baby…?" I need to get these thoughts out of my head as surely as the protagonist of Poe’s <span class="underline" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Tell-Tale Heart</span> felt he needed to stifle the beating of the dead man’s heart to keep from going stark raving mad. Rather than produce, we need to reduce. Instead of celebrating producers, we should revere the <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reducers</em>. When will we hail reducers as heroes? What kind of economy could reward a reducer more than a producer?</h3>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-35804114811364840622015-03-02T19:46:00.004-08:002020-09-24T12:52:18.065-07:00American Viper<div style="text-align: center;">
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"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ..."<br />
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This is my reaction to recent news stories discussing the possible future deployment of tens of thousands of US solders in Iraq to fight ISIS. There has also been a lot of talk about the American sniper, Chris Kyle, so my view of his "heroism" has found its way into my post as well.<br />
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According to the ancient Greek code of conduct, a hero must defeat his adversary in hand-to-hand combat. According to this code, an archer, who is a soldier that strikes his adversary from a remote location, could not earn the epithet of hero. I recently wondered what Homer, who derided archers in the Iliad, would think of a sniper like Chris Kyle. I concluded that he would consider a sniper, no matter what his reasons, as anything but a hero. Yes, the people Kyle killed were going to kill American soldiers, but the American soldiers were invaders! Isn't it right to do anything you can to drive out an invading force? In so far as a nation needs a military, no soldier should ever set foot on another nation's soil. The people killing American soldiers in Iraq were fighting off invaders, just as we would be doing if they came here. If ISIS invaded the US, we would be plotting to kill them off at every opportunity. Would an ISIS sniper then be a hero, since he would be killing Americans who were going to kill ISIS soldiers? Nazi snipers killed Poles who were certainly planning to kill Nazi soldiers. Why not extol individual Nazi snipers in our celebration of the individual soldier? I really see no difference.<br />
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America is a good nation, and other nations I've visited, and I've visited quite a number, are just as good in their own uniquely wonderful ways. The United States extols values that are suited to the people who decided to live and/or stay in this land. Our values are suitable for "here" but not necessarily anywhere else. We should stop believing in the universality of our values. Face it, values are relative.<br />
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America will do well to just leave other people alone. If we feel guilty about the mess we have made in the Middle East, we should put our money where our mouth is, and see to it that every person threatened by ISIS or any other sectarian group in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria should be guaranteed safe haven in the United States. We have already spent upwards of a trillion dollars messing up that part of the world. Surely the trillion we are preparing to spent to blow up ISIS would be better spent simply taking care of the millions of refugees that are fleeing that part of the world.raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-9932256795823279002015-02-08T20:22:00.003-08:002015-03-02T19:49:34.962-08:00Bottoms Up!<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">“It is a strange fancy to suppose that science can bring reason to an irrational world, when all it can ever do is give another twist to a normal madness.” </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">― </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6600597.John_Nicholas_Gray" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">John Nicholas Gray</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/223467" style="color: #666600; text-decoration: none;">Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals</a></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Climate change is a global problem that needs a global solution. Many people advocating for action on climate change take top down approach. They appeal to those of us concerned about climate change to write letters to their politicians to persuade them to take action. I'm all for letters. I've written my share, but I don't expect much from them. Even if the leaders we are appealing to enthusiastically take up our cause, the people we need to convince won't be moved. President Obama can come out forcefully in favor of putting in place policies that help us deal with climate change, but his initiatives will go nowhere unless the majority of the population jumps on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, the climate change doubters are even less likely to take up the fight against climate change if Obama appeals to them than if he does nothing at all. Those who don't believe that humans have anything to do with climate change tend not to like people like President Obama or Al Gore, James Hansen, or me. There is plenty of research that shows that appealing to people to change their beliefs (in this case, the belief that climate change is a hoax or at best a purely cyclical natural phenomenon) merely makes them hold on to their beliefs more stubbornly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We need to approach this problem from below, not above. Better science education will help. Children who understand the science behind climate change will be more likely to see the sense of anti-carbon policies. Of course this will take at least a generation. In the mean time, we need to appeal to people's emotions more than to their sense of reason. Those who can be convinced by reason already have been, those who haven't yet been swayed by rational arguments probably can't be. The fight against climate change has to be turned into something like a religious movement. We need to speak of climate change as an evil that must be defeated. We need to "declare a holy war" on carbon. We have to speak of wasteful use of natural resources as a sin and conservation of resources as a blessed virtue. Discussions of climate change must be couched in the language of religion. The Pope speaking about climate change, as he has, probably can do more, at least among Catholics, to curb the human drive to destroy the world than all the world's politicians put together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm a physicist, so the approach I am advocating is anathema to me, but my views of how to appeal to the public have evolved very gradually over many years. Read books like "Straw Dogs" by the philosopher John Gray. Most people are fundamentally irrational, and the few centuries of humanist-dominated thinking that have passed since the Enlightenment haven't changed that in the slightest. By all means, we should teach our children about greenhouse gases and climate modeling before irrational beliefs are too firmly held, but speak to the present day adult climate skeptics in terms of evil, sin, virtue, and the Earth spirit. If we can cite biblical phrases that support caring for our environment, all the better! Maybe we should start a dialog with theologians and religious leaders and hope that politicians will "see the light" once appeals to the hearts and souls of their constituents have begun to have a transfigurative effect.</span></div>
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Pope Francis is expected to <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/pope_francis_to_issue_unprecedented_edict_on_climate_change_20141228" target="_blank">address climate change</a> in a papal encyclical that will soon be sent to all the Catholic Church's bishops and priests. He rightly excoriates global capitalism for its contribution to the problem.</div>
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His will join the voices of many outside the Roman Catholic church who demand that we do something about climate change. </div>
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<b>To all who are concerned about climate change, I say..</b></div>
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Go ahead - exhort nuclear over hydrocarbon, Cry "let us bring an end to consumerism." Encourage to buy local. Offer ever more treatments for the disease and ignore the cure.</div>
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We must admit WE are the disease. This isn't self loathing. Self loathing is sticking to the status quo. Self loathing is thinking our lives are worth less if we live by any standard other than the current one or one that is even bigger and more resource intensive.</div>
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People led worthwhile lives centuries before we were born. They lived fullfilling lives without cars, planes, 3D printers, and the "green revolution." Judging by the greatness of their art, music, and architecture compared to our own, life must have seemed worth more to our distant ancestors than to ourselves.</div>
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We have been mesmerized by progress. Progress is a false religion. It is a pied piper leading us over a cliff.</div>
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Provided unlimited nourishment, bacteria exponentially grow in numbers until they fill their petri dish, and then they rapidly die off. We are bacteria and Earth is our petri dish. We must heed the lesson of Jevons' paradox.</div>
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The major emphasis should not be on convincing people to go nuclear, wind, or solar. By all means, we should pursue cleaner energy, more and better public transportation, and increased population density, but don't mistake some good choices for solutions. We need to go where all Popes, including Francis, fear or refuse to treat. We should do everything reasonable to convince human couples to have no more than one child, better none.</div>
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This is not selfishness. Selfishness is believing that your genes are more precious than the future of your species and all the species that inhabit this planet.</div>
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By curbing our natural urge to reproduce just as be have curbed our use of tobacco, we can do as much to save our world in one generation as the wildest, techno triumphalist dreamers can only hope to accomplish in ten generations. Yes, such a dramatic, voluntary reduction in our numbers will bring about collapse of our global civilization. But isn't it better bring the whole rotten thing down gently, like a deflating balloon than to depend on technofixes that bring along unforeseeable undesirable consequences (as they always have) that will surely bring us to a sudden, violent DEAD end?</div>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-30860037176874750412014-11-28T18:47:00.000-08:002014-12-03T20:05:40.072-08:00Yes, Virginia, there is Global Warming<div class="MsoNormal">
In this season it is important to look beyond our immediate
material concerns and appraise our existence in a larger context. In an effort
to help accomplish this I have recast a classic editorial to address a modern
concern that is just as important to all organisms living on this planet as the
existence of Santa Clause was to little Virginia O’hanlon 117 years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"<st1:stockticker w:st="on">DEAR</st1:stockticker>
EDITOR: I am 8 years old.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of my little friends say there is no Global
Warming, and even if there were, man can have nothing to do with it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Papa says, 'If you see it posted in <b>A Quantum of Idleness</b> it's so.'<o:p></o:p></div>
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Please tell me the truth; is there a Global Warming
and are people at least partly responsible?"<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:state w:st="on">"VIRGINIA</st1:state>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Somewhere in America."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<st1:state w:st="on">VIRGINIA</st1:state>, your little friends are wrong.
They have been afflicted by the doubt spread by those who mistake their
ignorance for skepticism. They do not accept facts unless those facts align
with their own wishes or agree with what they perceive to further their own
interests. They think that nothing can be which is not acceptable to their narrow
little minds. All minds, <st1:state w:st="on">Virginia</st1:state>,
whether they are men's or children's, can be narrow, but with imagination and
study, they can grasp nature’s subtle workings. Surrounding our vast planet is
a wafer-thin layer of gasses we call our atmosphere; it envelopes the Earth
like the lacquer layer protecting the globe that might be standing in your
living room; it is a mere film, a fabulously thin thermal blanket. He who
doubts that our emissions, which amount to more than 100 times the emissions of
all the world’s volcanoes combined, have badly soiled this blanket is little
more that a cold hearted, blind, and stubborn fool.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is Global
Warming. It exists as surely as greed, avarice and gluttony exist in this all
too often cruel world, and you know that they abound and give to your life its greatest
sorrow. Alas! How nice would be the world if there were no Anthropogenic Global
Warming. It would be as pleasant as if there were a world full of <st1:state w:st="on">VIRGINIAS</st1:state>. If the damage
we humans do to our atmosphere goes unchecked, our world will become a dismal
place indeed, as dreary as a life that knows no poetry and no romance that make
tolerable our existence. As a life without these things to leaven it would know
no enjoyment, except in sense and sight, so will our world become an unpleasant
place, bringing unbearable suffering to mankind. The congenial climate that has
allowed life to thrive these many millions of years will be thrown dangerously
out of whack.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Not believe in Global Warming!
You might as well not believe in atoms and molecules! You might get your papa
to hire men to look over the global temperature record taken on Christmas Eve
to catch the Global Warming trend, but even if they did not see Global Warming in
that small sample of data, what would that prove? Nobody sees Global Warming on
any given day, but that is plenty of long term evidence of Global Warming. Some
of the most real things in the world are what men and children can see only through
the dedicated analysis of complex and long-term data. Did you ever directly see
an electron in action? Of course you did not, but that's no proof that it is
not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and
unseeable in the world without first looking carefully at what the world does
reveal to us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
You can present some men with all
the data in the world and explain how what we have done and are doing is
changing the climate of our planet, yet they close their eyes and plug their
ears to keep out information that the find unpleasant. One hopes that repeated
exposure to the truth through reasoned argument and the presentation of data
can push aside their curtain of ignorance to allow them to recognize that
careful and dedicated study of our atmosphere has revealed the truth behind
global warming to the scientific community. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The current Global Warming trend
not caused by man? Dear God, if only it were true! A thousand years from now, <st1:state w:st="on">Virginia</st1:state>, nay, ten times
ten thousand years from now, our descendants, should any exist, will continue to
wonder why we acted as we did as caretakers of this fragile world that is being
handed to you and your young friends in much poorer condition than it was
handed to me and mine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-84178938170599225142014-09-28T20:48:00.001-07:002014-09-28T23:12:03.443-07:00Putting Out Fire With Gasoline<br />
<span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">I watched a brief excerpt from an interview given by President Obama on 60 minutes Sunday night. He was talking about our airstrikes against jihadists in the Middle East. What hilariously preceded and followed the interview excerpt was a Viagra commercial. Who needs Viagra? Would could be a better cure for erectile dysfunction for many American males than dropping bombs in the Middle East? I've noticed you get a new commercial every time you watch the video, so you will unfortunately not get to experience the irony I experienced first hand.</span><br />
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<embed src="http://www.cbsnews.com/common/video/cbsnews_video.swf" scale="noscale" salign="lt" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" background="#000000" width="425" height="279" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" FlashVars="pType=embed&si=254&pid=E_nmYnzdvvTj&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/how-syria-became-ground-zero-for-jihadists" />
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<span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Here we go again. We are once more bombing evil doers in the Middle East. The evil "flavors of the month" are ISIS/ISIL and the Khorasan Group. </span></span><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">Last Wednesday, in a speech before the United Nations President Obama vowed the US "will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death." </span><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">What are we going to do about the even greater number of people who will be radicalized by our attacks on ISIS and the other groups who are perceived as existential threats? We are trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Everything we do in that part of the world merely adds to the hatred of the United States. Are we going to see a replay of history, with the United States playing the part of Rome and the jihadists in the middle east playing the part of the Visigoths?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the 60 minutes interview, President Obama was quoted as saying "There is a cancer that has grown for too long that suggests that it is acceptable to kill innocent people who worship a different God." Couldn't he be describing the United States? Don't we justify killing innocent people - make no mistake, we are killing innocent people who have the misfortune of accidentally being in our line of fire - by saying they worship a different God. In our case the god isn't in heaven, our god resides in New York's financial district. Does anyone doubt that our military industrial complex is riding high right now? Just look at Lockheed-Martin's stock price this past month, in case you have any doubts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past week, my son turned on the TV to watch a few minutes of NBC's The Today Show. The first story was full of hand ringing over Ray Rice's beating of his wife in an elevator. Immediately following a display of their heartfelt indigence over the Rice story, the normally cheerful team of lovable reporters excitedly told us how the US military was engaging in an all out effort to annihilate ISIS. Beating wives and girl friends is understandably shocking to our emphatic morning pals on the boob tube, but how can they jump into right into a report on the destruction of our enemies in the middle east without revealing some visible discomfort brought on by what should be a massive bout of cognitive dissonance? Last week a story about the cruel murder by a Sarasota, FL man of a Dachshund caught the attention of much of the nation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doesn't anyone see the irony? We are horrified at violence to a little dog, yet we don't seem to be disturbed by violence on a much more massive scale. Some the comments about the surveillance video showing the killing say that the person who killed the dog deserves the same treatment and that he should rot in hell. I've known many people, and they surprisingly often are right wing Republicans, who are horrified by violence against innocent pets, yet many of these same people cheer on the annihilation of human beings in a far off part of the world who we declare as enemies. Violence against an individual, even an individual animal, shocks us, yet our unspeakable violence against masses of people who we have dehumanized is somehow acceptable. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't understand how our country never seems to be able to come up with money to help the poor, provide universal healthcare, or invest in scientific research, but when it comes to killing our enemies or bailing out banks we spend like there's no tomorrow. Medea Benjamin makes this point very powerfully in this recent interview with the folks from Democracy Now.</span></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2014/9/12/insanity_codepinks_medea_benjamin_on_obama" width="400"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why can't we ever hear such voices in the mainstream media? </span><br />
<br /></div>raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-41251052402922765332014-09-15T06:09:00.002-07:002014-09-15T06:48:36.408-07:00Small Is Beautiful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I want to start by mentioning the Scottish vote for independence. I have no skin in this game, but please read the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/yes-vote-in-scotland-most-dangerous-thing-of-all-hope">excellent article </a>on this subject by George Monbiot. The vote that Scotland is facing was brought to my attention by a request by David Bowie to Scotland via the beautiful, albeit undernourished, Kate Moss saying, "Scotland, stay with us." When it comes to contemporary music, I find David Bowie to be nearly infallible, however on the matter of Scotland's independence from the United Kingdom, I think he vastly misses the mark.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kate Moss, upon accepting an award for David Bowie, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">delivers his plea to Scotland to vote to remain a part of the United Kingdom.</span></div>
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I've always had a soft spot for small nations, perhaps most for the smallest nations of all, the city states. It is the city states of Athens, Milan, and Florence to which we owe the greatest aspects of western culture. The German Kingdom of Saxony gave us Bach, the German <span style="font-family: inherit;">Duchy of Saxe- Weimar gave us Goethe. Goethe, the poet, philosopher, and scientist - the German Shakespeare and </span>more - opposed the German unity movement, feeling that Germany was fine as a loose association of kingdoms and duchies that shared much in culture and commerce but fiercely maintained their political independence.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mosaic.cc/mosaic/FK076-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://mosaic.cc/mosaic/FK076-1.jpg" height="320" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from a portrait of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe by Joseph Karl Stieler</td></tr>
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Below, I quote the text of a letter expressing Goethe's opinion on German National Unification.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
I do not fear that Germany will not be united; … she is united, because the German Taler and Groschen have the same value throughout the entire Empire, and because my suitcase can pass through all thirty-six states without being opened. … Germany is united in the areas of weights and measures, trade and migration, and a hundred similar things … One is mistaken, however, if one thinks that Germany’s unity should be expressed in the form of one large capital city, and that this great city might benefit the masses in the same way that it might benefit the development of a few outstanding individuals. … A thoughtful Frenchman, I believe Daupin, has drawn up a map regarding the state of culture in France, indicating the higher or lower level of enlightenment of its various Departments by lighter or darker colors. There we find, especially in the southern provinces, far away from the capital, some Departments painted entirely in black, indicating a complete cultural darkness. Would this be the case if the beautiful France had tencenters, instead of just one, from which light and life emanated? — What makes Germany great is her admirable popular culture, which has penetrated all parts of the Empire evenly. And is it not the many different princely residences from whence this culture springs and which are its bearer and curators? Just assume that for centuries only the two capitals of Vienna and Berlin had existed in Germany, or even only a single one. Then, I am wondering, what would have happened to the German culture and the widespread prosperity that goes hand in hand with culture. — Germany has twenty universities strewn out across the entire Empire, more than one hundred public libraries, and a similar number of art collections and natural museums; for every prince wanted to attract such beauty and good. Gymnasia, and technical and industrial schools exist in abundance; indeed, there is hardly a German village without its own school. How is it in this regard in France! — Furthermore, look at the number of German theaters, which exceeds seventy … The appreciation of music and song and their performance is nowhere as prevalent as in Germany … Then think about cities such as Dresden, Munich, Stuttgart, Kassel, Braunschweig, Hannover, and similar ones; think about the energy that these cities represent; think about the effects they have on neighboring provinces, and ask yourself, if all of this would exist, if such cities had not been the residences of princes for a long time. — Frankfurt, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck are large and brilliant, and their impact on the prosperity of Germany is incalcuable. Yet, would they remain what they are if they were to lose their independence and be incorporated as provincial cities into one great German Empire? I have reason to doubt this.</blockquote>
If only the Germans had heeded Goethe's wise counsel, how different our history would have been!<br />
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I usually deride the state's rights positions of citizens of the United States' southern regions, but perhaps they are truly on to something. The best nations in the world, from my perspective tend to be the smallest - think Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein. San Marino, or Singapore. We hear little about these countries because they are prosperous and at peace. From Texas we often hear <i>idle</i> threats of independence. In the past, I have mocked such utterances with a shrug of my shoulders and a "good riddance." But Texas is a large state with a great deal of human and natural resources and a cultural outlook that doesn't fit well with other parts of the nation, particularly Washington, D.C. Maybe it would be better for them to split off. It might even be better for them to break Texas down into the city states of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Lubbock, and El Paso. The same might be said for California. The remaining states of the Union could just as well declare much greater autonomy. In fact, Goethe's Germany would be an excellent model for the United States. If our founding father's had had a larger measure of the sort of wisdom that Goethe possessed, perhaps they wouldn't have been so quick to dump the Articles of Confederation in favor of our national Constitution. I think North America would have been much better off if they had weathered the rough times that caused them to adopt a more centralized model for our government.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In summary, the most prosperous and peaceful places on Earth tend to be the smallest. The best pages in our history were written in small places: the city states of Greece and Italy, the kingdoms and duchies of old Germany, etc. Goethe saw the threat of unity on too large a scale, and history has proven him right. All peoples should follow Goethe's wise counsel, especially in this day of internet connectedness. We can achieve prosperity in small political entities. Small is beautiful!</span></span></div>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-34633972629493278002014-09-07T20:50:00.000-07:002014-09-07T20:52:41.598-07:00New technology is not necessarily the best solution to problems that are caused old technology.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is a lot of excitement these days, shared by those in the pro-green and high-tech enamored camps, about electric vehicles (EVs). In fact I just finished reading a<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/elon_musks_nevada_gigafactory_may_save_the_world_20140906" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b539d; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">laudatory article</a> on Elon Musk's Giga Factory published on one of the very liberal websites if regularly peruse. The Giga Factory promises to manufacture high capacity batteries that will be much cheaper than those currently on the market. Among other things, the article extols the virtues of imposing "onerous taxes" on gas-powered vehicles. I'm all for onerous taxes on gas-powered vehicles, but I'm not so gung-ho on EVs, since they are still (and likely will continue to be for quite awhile) charged mostly by electricity generated from burning fossil fuels. Incidentally, high-tech batteries and the vehicles they power require rare earth elements. Going from gas powered vehicles to EVs will merely result in shifting our dependence from one limited resource to another. The advanced economies of the West, and particularly the United States, have an insatiable craving for limited resources that is largely behind so much of the international unrest we are seeing today.</div>
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Our salvation rests more in the reduction of our consumption of resources than in the "greening" of them. We should in every way make it economically attractive to reduce sprawl and use the revenues collected from the high taxes on all "non-green" and resource hungry activities to foster more compact, pedestrian friendly communities. We should approach gas powered vehicles as we did cigarettes. It was a good idea to impose onerous taxes on cigarettes, and it is a good idea to tax the hell out of gasoline and gas powered vehicles. Also fostering a social stigma against driving anything, whether it be fossil or electrically fueled, would be effective in reducing the consumption of resources, just as the stigma against smoking had a revolutionary effect on reducing the consumption of cigarettes.</div>
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More tech is not a solution to our largely tech-caused problems. The decision to not smoke, to maintain a healthy diet, and to exercise regularly probably plays a larger role in extending life into a healthy old age than any medical advancements made over the past several decades. In the same way, living closer to work, school, and the marketplace will reduce carbon emissions and the consumption of precious resources and make life in America much more enjoyable and accomplish these goals more effectively than any high-tech developments in electrical power storage. I would even go so far to say that such a reallocation of resources would make our society far less violent, since more compact, pedestrian-friendly communities would naturally nurture better emotional health by reducing the sense of alienation that so many of our citizens are prone to, an alienation from society which instills a terrible feeling of loneliness and self-loathing that causes so many of them to strike out violently against fellow citizens.</div>
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In a healthier society, I bet we wouldn't need to have many of the discussions we are currently having about gun control and mental health. In the broader context, a significant reduction in our consumption of resources would bring about a shrinking of the US economic and military presence around the globe that would likely reduce the level of resentment (and the terrorism that it engenders) felt by people of other nations towards the United States.</div>
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raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2210719201049672289.post-71544472128402143472013-12-06T06:12:00.000-08:002013-12-06T07:05:33.972-08:00I wrote this before Thanksgiving and sent it to my local paper, hoping they might print it as a letter to the editor. It was probably too long for them, so it never appeared.<br />
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Before we dive headlong into our
Thanksgiving turkey, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, champagne, pumpkin
pie, whipped cream, and coffee, before we gorge ourselves on all that good
stuff and fall into the comforting tryptophanic somnolence brought on by eating
that formerly magnificent big bird, we ought to take stock of the things we are
giving thanks for. Are we giving thanks for a most likely mythical sit down
between gentle pilgrims and generous Native Americans that supposedly took
place so many scores of years ago or are we perhaps honoring something deeper
and greater? People around the world have autumn harvest festivals, and they,
like us, sit down with their friends and family members and feast upon the
riches provided by bounteous nature. They celebrate much like we do and
eulogize their own national myths. Yet beneath or above these disparate apologues,
aren’t they and we celebrating the same things – life itself and the world that
sustains it? For a single Thursday in late November, we in the United States honor
the bounty of the natural world that gave us life and sustains us, yet is the
gratitude displayed during this celebration sufficient to compensate for the
distain shown towards mother nature during the other 364 days of the year, when
we are lopping off the tops of green mountains for black coal, opening up
fissures in Mother Earth’s crust to coax out hard to reach oil and gas, and
burning these materials and releasing into the air heat trapping gasses that Mother
Nature spent millions of years removing from the atmosphere and storing deep
within her carapace? Are we being good stewards of the Earth when we are rapidly
and gleefully undoing in a couple of short centuries the work Mother Nature has
done so gradually and laboriously over eons? There are many things as
individuals we can do to show our gratitude to the natural world and our desire
to preserve its health; we can turn down our thermostats in the winter and turn
them up in the summer; we can walk and bike more and drive less and eat locally
grown food. As citizens we can support a revenue neutral carbon fee and
dividend plan advocated by groups like the Citizen’s Climate Lobby to help wean
us from dirty fossil fuels and move us towards a clean, renewable energy
economy. Black Friday comes the day after Thanksgiving swooping down like a
bird of prey to kill the spirit of our beautiful national holiday just as swiftly
and surely as the swing of an axe takes the life of Tom Turkey. Skip black
Friday this year; use a little of that saved money to buy a stamp or two, and
use a little of that saved time to write a letter or an email for your elected
representatives, expressing your support for actions that will help to stop the
dreadful harm we are doing to our planet at an ever accelerating pace. Carry
the spirit of Thanksgiving over to the next day and the day after that and take
a little effort to show the Thanks for what you and all of us have been Given.</div>
raaustinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08264595184097184303noreply@blogger.com0North America25.799891182088331 -81.9140625-2.0907513179116677 -123.2226565 53.690533682088329 -40.6054685