This Time Is Different

One more post in response to the Gulf Oil disaster and then we want to introduce you to our second new calf. This article particularly caught my attention because it was published in the New York Times. Not a left wing bleeding heart blog or a radical environmental magazine but the NEW YORK TIMES for pete's sake. Maybe, maybe, we will finally get it. I hope you have time to read the entire article but if not, Mr. Mykleby's letter makes a very clear point.

“I’d like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s fault. It’s not the government’s fault. It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame and I’m sorry. It’s my fault because I haven’t digested the world’s in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life. If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn’t do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 didn’t do it; if the current economic crisis didn’t do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle. ‘Citizen’ is the key word. It’s what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government’s role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you’ll give up and what you’ll contribute. Here’s the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I’m sorry. I haven’t done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V. Mark Mykleby.”

Who Tortured the Pelicans

Who Tortured the Pelicans?
We did.
I did.
When I drove to the store to buy chips and cheese and maple syrup.
Do you know how much fuel is burned to make syrup from sap?
Do you know the entire path from subterranean oil pockets to plastic wrap?
I do. And still I drive to the store.

I could tell you I have no choice.
What a big fat stinking lie.
I have a hundred options.
Some are hard. Others are even harder.
The easy ones are made easy by surrendering to the tide
of a million feet following a path set down as
The right way, the real world.
This path leads to a slimy red beach covered
with slaughtered pelicans.

But I am just one little ol' gal - I'm just a
Drop in the bucket. I cannot
Save the pelicans. Can I?
I can save maybe one pelican. Just like my
Child is one child. Her life would be worth
Choosing a different path. Or so I've prayed.
Please god, spare this one child.

Is one life worth following the hard choice?
Will I never eat maple syrup again?
I don't know, is it worth a pelican's life?

Stop Protesting, Begin Thinking

I'm going to take a break from our regularly scheduled happiness. It would be wrong not to do so.

The news is full of "protests" - protesters advocating a boycott of BP gas stations, protesters angry at Israel's latest attack and justification, protesters demanding that Arizona behave as if they didn't indeed have unbearable crises they must address, protesters wanting the government to step in use a nuclear bomb to stop the flow of oil into the once rich Gulf, for God's sake. Every protester wants someone else to make things better, better according to their own perspective of how things should be.

Enough.

My heart aches so badly, I rant rather than speak. Fortunately, Fe at planetwaves.net is more than capable of speaking the words we each MUST hear.

There has been an incredible series of risks and innovations that have moved the world from the industrial to the virtual age. We’ve gone from steam engines to 4G networks in little over 100 years. We have invented ourselves to a place where we’ve eliminated distance between people on different continents, changed night into perpetual day and made the leap past our planet’s gravitational field into another part of our solar system. We have been supermen in that we have overcome the known boundaries of the world, exceeding well past them.

Longing for a new horizon has been hard wired in the consciousness of this country since it began, and indeed into the consciousness of humanity. Once we found our way to our furthest western shore, we unfortunately brought that consciousness to other nations, assuming it was our manifest destiny to use others’ resources to feed our material ambitions. We have gotten used to exploring the new boundaries: space, power, energy, chemistry, knowing that miracle cure, that mystic power, that marvelous new thing — regardless the cost to ourselves and others — was just around the corner. Our needs and ambitions have far exceeded our planet’s capacity to cope and right now, there is no horizon but deep water. We haven’t invented anything yet that can save us from ourselves.

I’m not advocating halting our quest to knowledge and innovation. On the contrary, we need to constantly improve the quality of our lives. But that improvement is not going to be from our gadgets, toys and vehicles or for that matter our energy sources. Our improvement needs to be in the quality of our thoughts and feelings, which affect how we live. It begins not with a product but with me. I need to take a look at what I’ve been thinking and reacting to and realize that I must confront my consumerism, my vanity, my insecurity and my desire to isolate myself from people different from me. This is more than just about driving too much. Its about what I spend my time on, what I’m chasing around pointlessly for, and what cost these pursuits have on our world.