Having said that my blog entries are going to be sporadic at best for a bit here, of course then I start blogging like a madwoman.
I am reading a very depressing book right now: The World Without Us. We've really messed this place up. I mean, I knew before starting it that we've really made a grand mess of things, but the level to which we've done it, oil's role in it, and the aeons it's going to take to correct the damage is simply mind-boggling. Stop this ride. I want to get off. Oh, wait, I can't get off: we've only got one planet. OK. I'll just keep trying to do my best to take care of it, then. But do my efforts matter or make even a teeny difference? Right now, I'm doubting it. I mean, I'm only one in 6 billion and counting. All my efforts aren't even going to result in one bean, let alone a hill of beans. What good is anything I do if I'm surrounded by people whose main purpose in life seems to be to buy, consume, and throw away, and drive 8 brazillion miles while they're doing it?
I read in the paper today that oil broke $133 per barrel. American is going to start charging $15 per first checked bag as a way to offset fuel prices. The airlines and auto industries are gasping for air as oil prices continue to surge. There's now doubt about projected oil supplies being as plentiful as previously thought. None of that bothered me, though. In fact, my reaction is bring it. That's right. $4 per gallon for gas? Not high enough. Let's push it up to $10, $12, $15 per gallon. And higher! Because that is the only thing that will finally bring about real, meaningful change. It's going to hurt, no mistake about that. In the interim, it's probably going to get really ugly too. And we're going to see things like opening up the Arctic and the like for drilling. Now, in my opinion that's a band-aid approach at best. Going into currently-protected areas isn't going to do anything to fix the actual problem of this decades-long addiction to oil and the products (plastic, plastic, and more plastic) and behaviors that go along with it. What we need are real alternatives -- and behavioral changes. (On our way to the orthodontist this morning*, I counted only 3 cars with 2 or more people in them and 45 with only one person -- and that was just while waiting to turn off Pilot Knob!) But those don't exist yet, and so people will be screaming about fuel costs, and politicians, their backs to the wall, will be climbing over each other trying to calm the electorate and/or not lose votes...
Anyway, it's only when it starts to hurt, really hurt, that people will begin to reevaluate what they're doing, and then change what they're doing. I say that can't happen fast enough. It's going to take a hell of a long time for this place to recover from what we've done to it. We might as well start now.
*1&1/2 miles from our house. Location/proximity played a big part in why we went with her.
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4 comments:
Your thoughts are mine, exactly! I feel so badly for the next generations, and even though the efforts we make our almost futile, the opposite is so disrespectful and unnecessary. Keep your bean mentality moving in the positive direction.
Positive bean mentality. I like that!
Every generation has its challenges. In my grandmother's lifetime (1905-1994) it was the rise of Germany, twice, the threat of invasion, the Depression, the Soviet threat, loss of British influence (she lived in the UK). Empires come and go in a single lifetime, in hers, cars went from rarities for the rich to ubiquitous. We can't change the big things, we can only work on our own small things, and the effects only matter when lots of people do them. Sure, things are going to change and be difficult for a lot of people, but when has that not been the case?
Matt, thanks for the perspective. I needed that.
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