to read what this guy and others like him are talking about, and not come away feeling like you’re watching a movie in which you’re the only person who knows where the boogie man is.
I can’t get my head around why so many of my otherwise smart friends don’t have a handle on Peak Oil and climate change. Or even a sense that it’s a real, physical thing, something they will have to deal with personally. My friend Dan, who I look up to inordinately, last week told me basically “i don’t have time to think about it, so if it happens, I’ll load up my gun and deal then.” That’s the sentiment of someone who wants to have something strong and forceful to say, but can’t speak the truth, which is they’re going to be caught flatfooted.
We all need to make plans for our future. Starting, oh, NOW. Last night AG and I decided to do our small part, and ditched plans to buy a Subaru Impreza. Instead, we’re giving the Honda Accord to Jim Mason, to feed into his gasification skunk works, and will buy a Mercedes to run on biodiesel. A small step, but perhaps enough to stave off sleeplessness as I watch our little girl sleep.
OK, *now* i get why all parents want to post baby pix everywhere. It truly is extraordinary–one moment Andie is in my arms, in a birthing tub, howling…and a moment later a very blue person emerges from between her legs and lands on her chest. As the seconds pass, it turns from purple to pink, as oxygen floods in, and the capillaries expand now that they’ve got a bit of room. And after a Shroediger’s Cat moment, we turn her over to learn she is, in fact, a girl.
She’s asleep in my lap right now, as I write. It’s notable how virtual most of the primary relationships are in mine and Andie’s life. The fact is, most of the connections we have are via our laptops. So it was entirely natural, if a bit self conscious, to Flickr, Twitter, IM, text, Tribe, Live Journal etc afterwards. She had a gmail and twittr account before she was born–I know, wrong on some level…but I’m also glad I snagged the name all the same.
Young Juniper is born into a world that won’t exist long, racing in both directions: toward the technological singularity, of all information available to everyone, everywhere, instantly, and toward the inevitable, unavoidable disasters of climate change and peak oil. This morning’s story, in which former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta described the moral grinding down that will take place over the next 30 years, as rich nations kick the poor away from our lifeboat, is sobering. What have we done, what can we do, and how will this little girl survive? Sobering thoughts, 21 some hours into her life.
But pretending it’s not otherwise would be worse, I suspect. And so, we plan, we work, we hope…and we prepare. And for the moment, she sleeps, as it should be.