IS THE WORLD GONNA END SOON OR WHAT?

The last month has been an absolute blur. I went down to Santa Barbara and got my trike. Now i am back home planting trees to pay for my carbon sinnings. And the news!! Can anyone even stand to listen to it any more? Seems like the world is falling apart at the seams. Scandal this, bankruptcy that, foreclosure here, soaring energy prices there. But maybe having the economy slow down is a good thing. We all seem to be trying to destroy the very world upon which we sit, munching our turkey sandwiches and filling the air with our foul smelling pollutants. Last night i crawled in my tiny hobbit hole, snapped on the mini electric heater (yes, it is still freezing here), and sat back to watch the video The 11TH Hour on my laptop. It is an amazing film about all the things that our human activities are doing to the planet. I also watched the special segments in the menu afterwards and got to see the authors and scientists go into more depth about what it is we could do to help the problems. Did you know that since Kennedy became president in the early 1960's that the population of the world has DOUBLED! Did you know that nature is truely the most remarkable life form on the planet and that we are literally a part of that amazingness? That scientists are slowly learning how to mimic nature so that we will make more intelligent decisions about how to live in this world? This is how it goes. Nature has been working on the problems of survival for 3.5 billion years. That's a very long time. And all life forms have worked out ways to live in harmony with the other living organisms. Like really good neighbors. If you're not such a good neighbor, chances are you become extinct in a short while. Then us rowdy human beans show up a very short time ago in earth's history. Do you know how long we have really been around? If the whole of earth's history (3.5 billion years) was the height of a skyscraper the size of the World Trade Towers, we humans would represent the LAYER OF PAINT on the very top!!!!! And yet, look at the crazy destruction we have waged in just 100 plus years since the Industrial Revolution! This film is great. It points out what we have done, then gives lots of solutions that are currently under way and also ideas for you and i to help out today. I am going to recommend that local teachers show it to their students and you should too. There's no way that we should be allowed to continue our rape of this planet we call home. Everything we do needs to be a closed system, cradle to cradle, and done only with the power of "current sunlight" not ancient sunlight (fossil fuels). What can you do today to radically change the way you are living? I want answers now!! What we are all doing will not leave an acceptable planet for any of the generations to come. What gives us the right to do this? Get your old bike out. Stop being so lazy. Hang your clothes on the line. Grow some food. Sign up for wind power. Get a clue. Make it right. HOBO

Comments

[Peter Green]

I have been living as low an impact life as I can for years and I try to get others to do the same, but it doesn't happen very often :-(
I think that we should not try to find other sources of energy, it's so much like a drug to us that we should go cold turkey for a while and kick the habit all together!
Love and peace, Peter

[Mary]

d- check out this link for April 15- it's addressing what you are talking about - http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/. Mary

[Peter Green]

Hey thanks Mary, that looks interesting. I'm going to peruse it for a while! :-)

[Mary]

Peter-
Glad you like it. I find it very encouraging now that every where there are people talking about low impact, whereas for years only a few seem to be aware. I think the internet is really helping to connect us. We live in interesting times, don't we?

[Alex]

Dan,
Your books are among the most precious things I keep. I live in Portland, OR and wanted to know if I may interview you for a book I am writing called Diving Off the Map. Its about people like you who willed and created a way to actually live right on the road almost nearly never traveled!
I'll drive to whereever you are-and I'll bring the tastiest of lunches with me for your time.
My email is leapbrightly@yahoo.com -
Thank you!
Alexandra

[Lisa]

Hey Dan: Talk to Alexandra... keep this all going. I want to know more about this book she is writing. Look at the good you have done by traveling around... Although things look bad, I do see a little tiny light at the end of the tunnel, and it is up to us to feed it and make it brighter.