We are hung in the balance at our universal crossroad–whether we deny it or not, the earth’s future depends upon all of us. The path can lead out of the greenhouse, where we are all trapped in the hothouse gasses emitted by our factories, our lawn mowers, our refrigerators, our hand mixers, our power tools, our nuclear furnaces, our electricity plants, our mining tools, our oil rigs, our everything dependent on fossil fuels for power, and the peoples of our planet, have become power hungry, and we must feel what each change in temperature, atmosphere, cloud cover, breath we take measures in one degree, for there are eight billion of us devouring smart phones, computer screens, homes, land, individual bathrooms, farm land, city streets, and the earth, the very dirt upon which we, each of us, stand. We threw away billions of reusable kilos of waste, last year, and this year it will be worse for there are more of us. If population levels off somewhere between 10 billion and 13 billion, we cannot avoid our own destruction. Unless…that’s the question, unless? So does each voice, even one more throat croaking into the air, beware, beware, beware, make a minuscule difference? When so many voices come together even in the few hundred people who will read this blog, there can be hope, for my wife and I recycle toilet paper tubes, plastic caps, scraps of newspaper, plastic bottles, everything we can find conceivable to recycle. We use a battery mower which mulches grass and leaves back into the soil. When we cannot mulch, we bundle twigs, sticks, an abundance of leaves, and though we cannot afford a battery-powered vehicle, we use a gas efficient compact car, and several years ago, we eliminated one vehicle and seldom does our car carry one person. We have added two layers of insulation to the steel-sided house, and the loft in the attic insulation measures between 20 and 30 cm. Our home is small, in ft. 1006 sq ft, and still we maintain an extra bedroom for dad or daughter or guest. Even so, we can convert the study to a third bedroom if need be. I’m sure we could do more; we could eat less meat, less dairy, more legumes, more soy, lentils, lima beans, dozens of beans, but this might not be cost-effective in terms of protein per kilo. We have tried to think of as much as possible, heating with natural gas and emitting as few hydrocarbons as possible with two of us. Still, we could, at the sacrifice of privacy, take in a border. This we chose not to do. So, within the truly possible, we are a green family. Are you? Most are not. Most do not see the brink upon which we are poised, so the earth will change and some will die. This is the truth of the matter; some will needlessly die. As a friend put it, we live in the sweet spot, so it probably won’t be us, or all our children. or all our children’s children. The possibility is there–we might wipe most of us away. But, the hope is, in Jesus name, that we can find peace. I have found peace, and I think about the waste, indelible waste. We might all disappear
, and this would be the ultimate, the end of our species, and though the angles sing, we all might be just our own souls, somehow wishing things had been different.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Published by elgwyn
I was a University and college writing teacher, now retired, so I write poetry, and essays, mostly free verse poetry. I love writing. Computers, tablets, and smart phones are the norm. When one sees university campuses with students looking at phones while walking to class, one realizes writing can be blogging. I am an ordinary man writing for artistic pleasure writing, and simple taste-- blogs are an answer to high priced self-publishing. Walt Whitman had to print his paper books himself, because in 1855, and 1860 poetry did not sell. It does not sell now unless you have a Pulitzer Prize and even then the poet usually makes a living in other ways than writing. In all ages there have been writers writing out of their own needs, and blogs are an answer to get rid of high cost of self creativity. I am an older man with fewer computer skills than my daughter who has been at computers since she was three, so here I can satisfy my need to write without spending too much on self-published books. All three blogs let me reach an audience missed by books and stand a better chance to reach a wider audience. My two books, Winter from Spring, Meditations on Gratitude, as Kindle books and paperbacks did not reach as many people as I wanted, and blogs can let me avoid the printer. Layout and design is expensive. For me writing is more like the charcoal jottings of preexisting civilization made only for posterity. Blogs face two problems as I see it. They might be submerged into a chaos of too much writing, and they depend on electronic storage. Yet, how's that different from electronic books which must have specialized publication? Paper disintegrates, blogs can be physically stored and organized for posterity in data banks. All organization becomes chaos at some point, but charcoal images on cave walls still exist after the author scribbled eons ago. So what if I reach only a few interested people, but hopefully, readers will reach out to me. Writing is essential for showing the ways of culture before history knows those ways. To record each individual is essential especial for billions of people who need to know enough reading beyond pictures to save a planet. Writing without profit isn't new to me. I'm not seeking to impress the audience. Poetry in general never sells, and personal confessional, and emotional writing exists sometimes like journal writings only for the author. At least here is my hope for wider audiences. My writing is personal and informal, but my writing expresses some serious ideas like the writing of contemporary writers to rise above chaos in my own simple way, above self-absorption, a meditation, the simple writing of an ordinary man. I hope to find my own way out of my own chaos and make my record stand alone if even in electrons. Though I hope never to express nightmare in my poetry, fiction, or essays, some serious considerations are important to me after centuries of mechanized nightmare. The next decade is probably of the same failure in our world. This decade looks to be another time of diminished individuals and the next as well. We all wish peace and hope will become normal. It looks like if hope reaches each individual, not governments there is satisfaction in making means of writing available to many. My hope is for each human being to give their own expression out of the abyss. If humankind is to survive in any common way, we must each be able to express maturity and take responsibility in something beyond self. Electronic media offers people these possibilities so long as computers can store individual lives. Here people can freely see what I write and what others write. Though I hold an MFA in creative writing my simple vision never found a wide audience. I was disappointed about this earlier in my life, but now it's just what one expects of such degrees. I found happiness in family and especially in love of my wife and daughter. Writing can be more than a pastime now that I'm older. I approach seven decades living with some disappointing times, and some satisfying times. I'm like most people, and I've been married more than 37 years, and we sent a successful daughter into the world. We happily live in a country where even the poorest have food. Often as a young man when I traveled for nearly one year through Europe, where does a culture begin to feed and house so many people, and how do all these people live in harmony since World War II? Maybe it's been a question of survival. Writers can hold a little corner with blogging, blogging for harmony and peace. This is my hope. This is my question.
View more posts
I am the author, and I have freighted myself. I am afraid for humankind, that we go the way of the dinosaurs. We all could make it different, but will we?
LikeLike