Happy Solstice! I hope the summer sun is brightening your world!
I was blessed to be born on the longest day of the year and I do have a very special affinity for the sun!
And yet...I always wear sunglasses, and not just because the risk of ocular melanoma is rising exponentially with the loss of the ozone. My pale blue peeps are remarkably light sensitive and I am easily blinded by any form of daylight.
And I own stock in the makers of SPF. My fair skin (a kind euphemism for my particular shade of pallor) is prone to horrific burning, though I do make a better run of it than my sister, who has on more than one occasion found herself hospitalized for sun stroke, sun poisoning and high altitude burns. The up-side, from what I understand is that we melanin-challenged individuals are far less prone to frostbite than others.
And frankly, I hate to be hot. I live the Pablo Neruda line: "In the full light of day I walk in the shade."
As I have been watching the recent flooding in the mid-west and the onset of the fire season in the far west, it's occurred to me that we all suffer from this kind of weather-related paradox. In farm country, run-off is a blessing, an anticipated ritual, a marker of time, and a signal that the new season for growing crops has begun. Run off brings a torrent of plenty and the promise irrigation throughout the summer. And yet too much rushing water brings dread, anxiety and destruction.
The ancients believed they might gain an upper hand with Nature by praying and sacrificing to the gods. Bringing pleasure and satisfaction to the spirit world was meant to appease those forces that would otherwise bring flood, famine, lightning and forces of destruction. Sometimes it appeared to work...
Today, we build levees and dikes, dams and reservoirs. And at times, it appears to work.
I think it is inevitable that we humans will keep trying our hand at this. Just as the sun will bring the solstice again and again, we will make our efforts again and again. What's most interesting to me, though, is our relentless optimism, our apparent belief that we will some day find the way to prevail.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
All Hail the King!
This morning at breakfast my middle child, a 19-year-old soon-to-be-sophomore biology major, surprised me by announcing: "I searched your blog and found that you have not mentioned me. You haven't even mentioned that you have a son."
Actually, I haven't mentioned that I have two sons.
The older one will graduate from college in May of 09. If you happen to be the one who scores the Foreign Service Exam, I hope you take notice of him! He's named Josh, has an incomprehensible love of comparative politics, mad gaming skills, a certain aversion to dirt, and --by graduation day--experience working for the Canadian consulate. Not that Canada is all that foreign, but we in the Pacific Northwest love our neighbors to the north. Plus, they speak English and French. Like Josh.
Hopefully, if the ice age comes along in the next year, Josh's Canadian friends and colleagues will lend him a dog sled and teach him the finer points of trapping. It's not as exotic as Micronesian friends and colleagues or Canary Islander friends and colleagues or even Australian friends and colleagues. But it's practical. Like Josh.
Now, my other son is not known for his aversion to dirt. Or being practical. In fact, he's rather lofty and is known far and wide as King.
This is not his given name, of course. But his given name is one of those adrogonous names gone all girly. He hates it (or perhaps he hates his parents for saddling him with it), and has always gone by his middle name. But in a modern world, your first initial leaks out, and by second or third grade everyone wanted to know what his mysterious first initial, K, stood for.
"Simple," he would say, "It's King." Then he would humbly explain that he was sparing their dignity by not using his haughty moniker, and by middle school absolutely everyone--friends, neighbors, teachers, the mailman--everyone believed that we had named our first child Josh and our second child King. "My name is King Cole," he would declare, and no one would laugh or giggle or ask any questions.
Just for the record, he is not named King Cole, nor is he named King Kong, which might be more appropriate given his flair for the dramatic.
The King is extaordinarily gifted. He has an IQ of about 8,000 and a Midas touch that won't quit. And he's quite certain that global warming isn't real, or at least not worrisome, which is the real reason I haven't worked him into the blog until now (in case you're reading, my wunderkind).
He's making me read The Beak of the Finch so that I might learn just how we living organisms will adapt to a crisis such as climate change. But I'll confess: I don't really understand it.
Still, I find myself nearly persuaded each time I hear The King argue that polar bears will survive; after all, they have already begun to adapt. I'm not sure if he learned this in his evolutionary cellular biology class or because he attends the only university in the country to have a polar bear as a mascot.
And yet, for all his blustery objection to global warming propaganda, here he is, reading--searching, even--InnerNeanderthal. What else could a mother ask for? What else could a blogger ask for? My goal here is to stretch the limits of imagination, and clearly, I've captured some tiny corner of his.
As an adult educator, I am well aware that human beings can neither discuss nor act on anything that is beyond the boundary of our imagination. And we cannot imagine global warming.
Or more strictly, we cannot imagine how six, or at the most eight, degrees of warming will change our world. And since we cannot imagine, we cannot talk about what's coming or what we could realistically do to stop it.
We can, however, imagine how difficult it would be be to whittle all our possessions down to a short list we could pack and carry in a hurry. And that is the point of the exercise.
The King may be right. Maybe global warming is a natural phenomenon that has not been accelerated by humankind. I find this a bit unlikely. But also a bit irrelevant.
We should all radically change our behaviors right this minute, just to be sure. And certainly, The King and his brother Josh have been most cooperative in our family efforts to live a one-car life and to slash our electrical use.
But even if we cease to produce any more greenhouse gases tomorrow, global warming would continue...the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere need time to dissipate; they will continue to influence the weather until they're gone.
And so, it is most likely that we will see climatic catastrophes for decades to come.
It seems to me that it is time for all of us--skeptics and saints--to shine a little light on the corner of our imagination and talk about what we're going to do about the impending reality, regardless of its ultimate cause.
Perhaps, in the end, The King knows that his mother is right. Perhaps that's the real reason he's searching for his Inner Neanderthal!
Actually, I haven't mentioned that I have two sons.
The older one will graduate from college in May of 09. If you happen to be the one who scores the Foreign Service Exam, I hope you take notice of him! He's named Josh, has an incomprehensible love of comparative politics, mad gaming skills, a certain aversion to dirt, and --by graduation day--
Hopefully, if the ice age comes along in the next year, Josh's Canadian friends and colleagues will lend him a dog sled and teach him the finer points of trapping. It's not as exotic as Micronesian friends and colleagues or Canary Islander friends and colleagues or even Australian friends and colleagues. But it's practical. Like Josh.
Now, my other son is not known for his aversion to dirt. Or being practical. In fact, he's rather lofty and is known far and wide as King.
This is not his given name, of course. But his given name is one of those adrogonous names gone all girly. He hates it (or perhaps he hates his parents for saddling him with it), and has always gone by his middle name. But in a modern world, your first initial leaks out, and by second or third grade everyone wanted to know what his mysterious first initial, K, stood for.
"Simple," he would say, "It's King." Then he would humbly explain that he was sparing their dignity by not using his haughty moniker, and by middle school absolutely everyone--friends, neighbors, teachers, the mailman--everyone believed that we had named our first child Josh and our second child King. "My name is King Cole," he would declare, and no one would laugh or giggle or ask any questions.
Just for the record, he is not named King Cole, nor is he named King Kong, which might be more appropriate given his flair for the dramatic.
The King is extaordinarily gifted. He has an IQ of about 8,000 and a Midas touch that won't quit. And he's quite certain that global warming isn't real, or at least not worrisome, which is the real reason I haven't worked him into the blog until now (in case you're reading, my wunderkind).
He's making me read The Beak of the Finch so that I might learn just how we living organisms will adapt to a crisis such as climate change. But I'll confess: I don't really understand it.
Still, I find myself nearly persuaded each time I hear The King argue that polar bears will survive; after all, they have already begun to adapt. I'm not sure if he learned this in his evolutionary cellular biology class or because he attends the only university in the country to have a polar bear as a mascot.
And yet, for all his blustery objection to global warming propaganda, here he is, reading--searching, even--InnerNeanderthal. What else could a mother ask for? What else could a blogger ask for? My goal here is to stretch the limits of imagination, and clearly, I've captured some tiny corner of his.
As an adult educator, I am well aware that human beings can neither discuss nor act on anything that is beyond the boundary of our imagination. And we cannot imagine global warming.
Or more strictly, we cannot imagine how six, or at the most eight, degrees of warming will change our world. And since we cannot imagine, we cannot talk about what's coming or what we could realistically do to stop it.
We can, however, imagine how difficult it would be be to whittle all our possessions down to a short list we could pack and carry in a hurry. And that is the point of the exercise.
The King may be right. Maybe global warming is a natural phenomenon that has not been accelerated by humankind. I find this a bit unlikely. But also a bit irrelevant.
We should all radically change our behaviors right this minute, just to be sure. And certainly, The King and his brother Josh have been most cooperative in our family efforts to live a one-car life and to slash our electrical use.
But even if we cease to produce any more greenhouse gases tomorrow, global warming would continue...the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere need time to dissipate; they will continue to influence the weather until they're gone.
And so, it is most likely that we will see climatic catastrophes for decades to come.
It seems to me that it is time for all of us--skeptics and saints--to shine a little light on the corner of our imagination and talk about what we're going to do about the impending reality, regardless of its ultimate cause.
Perhaps, in the end, The King knows that his mother is right. Perhaps that's the real reason he's searching for his Inner Neanderthal!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Top Ten List of Entreprenuerial Possibilities for the Ice Age
Ever since I discovered that homo sapiens and neanderthals are separate species I've been holding out hope that the future ice age will be a little more civilized than past ones. We have so much wisdom and so many conveniences to help us along this time around.
And yet, too many of our best tools still rely on electricity or a network of some kind. With hundreds of feet of ice on the ground, our electronic umbilical cords will be severed.
Once a critical mass of fresh water melts off the polar ice caps, slowing the Gulf Stream and triggering massive cooling, life is going to get a lot less complicated. We'll forget all our passwords and PINs and head south, focused on staying warm, finding food, and protecting our own.
Sure, we'll have Gortex and wool socks and protein bars. But what's still missing? What will we need that's not yet been invented or isn't properly powered for the ice age?
Here's my Top Ten List of Entreprenuerial Possibilities for the Ice Age:
10. Ice batteries. Putting batteries in the refrigerator is supposed to be good for them, so there must be a way to generate power in the cold! Since many of our most essential conveniences need some juice, ice batteries should be at the top of the R&D agenda!
9. No melt candles. Light bulbs are complicated and electricity will be in short supply. Candles are the obvious solution, if only they didn't insist on melting away! If we can make them dripless, we can make them no-melt!
8. Ice floe toilet. Floe, flush, whatever works. Need I say more?
7. Battery operated coffee grinder. I'm not a big coffee girl myself, but I know what happens when the dancing goats go without for too long. A wise ice traveller will make friends and build alliances along the way by carrying a closely guarded supply of beans, a grinder, and the means for whipping up a steamy mug wherever (s)he goes.
6. Ice cows. I don't really like to admit it, but it is possible that a sudden ice age might elminate a quite a number of species and limit our ability to hunt down food. What's more, most of us are quite domesticated--which is to say, we don't really know how to hunt. We need a herd of ice cows to travel with us, produce milk, and serve as an occasion gustatory sacrifice. I'm sure they can be engineered and domesticated in a freezer laboratory until we need them....
5. Solar powered blow dryers. Really, why don't we have these already? I'm not a huge fan of the curling iron, and the flat iron is ridiculous, but as long as there is vanity, these items ought to run off the sun as well!
4. Blow dryer co-generation capacity. Manufacturers have been co-generating products and energy for quite some time. Blow dryers put out inordinate amounts of heat, which we ought to harness for important endeavors, like grinding coffee or lighting the cave.
3. Toothbrush making kit. It's an unfortunate fact of life that toothbrushes wear out. We need to be prepared. We could schlep a thousand toothbrushes along (is that enough for an average lifetime?), but as the old saying goes: give a man a toothbrush and he is minty fresh for a day; teach a man to make a toothbrush and he is cavity free for a lifetime.
2. Water deriver. Every Inner Neanderthal will want and need one of these easy-to-tote contraptions. Just break off a piece of relatively clean ice and lock it in the chamber to melt it down and sanitize it for drinking. Just think of it as the next generation of bottled water!
1. Solar Powered iPod. I have been talking with people for years now about the most essential items to pack in the event of climatic catastrophe, and they have provided me with a long list of sensible items: fire, tampons, all the ammo I can carry. The iPod never comes up though; it's just not sensible. It's not essential. And yet, it appeals so deeply to our sensibilities, reflects our individual identity, captures history and art. Even if I could never upload another tune, I'd sure like to have a Nano on hand, ready and able to play Like a Virgin till all eternity.
And yet, too many of our best tools still rely on electricity or a network of some kind. With hundreds of feet of ice on the ground, our electronic umbilical cords will be severed.
Once a critical mass of fresh water melts off the polar ice caps, slowing the Gulf Stream and triggering massive cooling, life is going to get a lot less complicated. We'll forget all our passwords and PINs and head south, focused on staying warm, finding food, and protecting our own.
Sure, we'll have Gortex and wool socks and protein bars. But what's still missing? What will we need that's not yet been invented or isn't properly powered for the ice age?
Here's my Top Ten List of Entreprenuerial Possibilities for the Ice Age:
10. Ice batteries. Putting batteries in the refrigerator is supposed to be good for them, so there must be a way to generate power in the cold! Since many of our most essential conveniences need some juice, ice batteries should be at the top of the R&D agenda!
9. No melt candles. Light bulbs are complicated and electricity will be in short supply. Candles are the obvious solution, if only they didn't insist on melting away! If we can make them dripless, we can make them no-melt!
8. Ice floe toilet. Floe, flush, whatever works. Need I say more?
7. Battery operated coffee grinder. I'm not a big coffee girl myself, but I know what happens when the dancing goats go without for too long. A wise ice traveller will make friends and build alliances along the way by carrying a closely guarded supply of beans, a grinder, and the means for whipping up a steamy mug wherever (s)he goes.
6. Ice cows. I don't really like to admit it, but it is possible that a sudden ice age might elminate a quite a number of species and limit our ability to hunt down food. What's more, most of us are quite domesticated--which is to say, we don't really know how to hunt. We need a herd of ice cows to travel with us, produce milk, and serve as an occasion gustatory sacrifice. I'm sure they can be engineered and domesticated in a freezer laboratory until we need them....
5. Solar powered blow dryers. Really, why don't we have these already? I'm not a huge fan of the curling iron, and the flat iron is ridiculous, but as long as there is vanity, these items ought to run off the sun as well!
4. Blow dryer co-generation capacity. Manufacturers have been co-generating products and energy for quite some time. Blow dryers put out inordinate amounts of heat, which we ought to harness for important endeavors, like grinding coffee or lighting the cave.
3. Toothbrush making kit. It's an unfortunate fact of life that toothbrushes wear out. We need to be prepared. We could schlep a thousand toothbrushes along (is that enough for an average lifetime?), but as the old saying goes: give a man a toothbrush and he is minty fresh for a day; teach a man to make a toothbrush and he is cavity free for a lifetime.
2. Water deriver. Every Inner Neanderthal will want and need one of these easy-to-tote contraptions. Just break off a piece of relatively clean ice and lock it in the chamber to melt it down and sanitize it for drinking. Just think of it as the next generation of bottled water!
1. Solar Powered iPod. I have been talking with people for years now about the most essential items to pack in the event of climatic catastrophe, and they have provided me with a long list of sensible items: fire, tampons, all the ammo I can carry. The iPod never comes up though; it's just not sensible. It's not essential. And yet, it appeals so deeply to our sensibilities, reflects our individual identity, captures history and art. Even if I could never upload another tune, I'd sure like to have a Nano on hand, ready and able to play Like a Virgin till all eternity.
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