Earth Day blues and smiles
April 22, 2013
Okay, so it’s Earth Day, again, and you have done nothing to sustain our wonderful blue and green marble.
You’ve got the blues because oil is still the dominant energy source, along with the other fossil fuel, coal, polluting the land, the air, the water, and you see no cure in the near future. You just bought a gun because, well, because. Now you might have found a use for it: thy own cranium. You have children whom you know will not be able to enjoy the wilderness as you have, a grandson who will likely be mining coal from someplace in the Yukon for a job, or fracking in the Arctic, once the polar ice cap melts a bit more. Plenty of energy jobs. Yup. But they might not be what you thought. Ask these girls in North Dakota.
http://www.onearth.org/article/growing-pains-scenes-from-the-north-dakota-drilling-boom
Hell, I was so down I wrote a book, you might have heard–or seen if you happen to look at other parts of the website–about how we can cure global warming by getting rid of all the oil; do it in two weeks and we have to go green. It’s actually pretty funny. Think it can’t be done? Well, think again. If nothing else, my twelve years of post-high school education and thirty years as a physician have taught me a few things about research. Yeah, there is someone out there who can likely pull it off if they have a little help.
Now for the bright spots. Time to turn that frown upside down. There are enough of the non-fossil fuels that if we started right now, developed the heck out of them, we would never have to raise the global temperature another two tenths Celcius in the next five years. Don’t believe me. Watch this video. It takes a little time, but well worth it. The other thing is to buy the book, Post Carbon Reader, or check it out of your library and you will be amazed. You will be able to take that gun back, throw out the Zoloft, actually sleep for eight hours and wake up happy you are alive. The Earth can be saved.
Now, go out and replace your lawn with rocks and a few low-water plants, or start biking to work or school a few days each week, or mow your lawn with a push mower, or make sure you never, ever get plastic bags at the supermarket, or … there are so many things, pick two or three and just do them. It’s not the big things. Everyone needs to do a few little things and a lot will happen. You’ll see. Please try.
Thanks.
Milt
