Reinventing This Blog
If you're reading this, you may also have noticed that the name of my blog has changed. I've been struggling with a few things over the past two years or so. First, I'm reading a lot more about the science of climate change, and about how incredibly nonsensical some parts of our non-natural world have become. This fills me with an urge to take some action to help counterbalance this insanity, which brings me to issue number two: Emily and I are only here in Gainesville for a couple more years, while she finishes up graduate school. Then, we're hitting the road again for some unknown destination...hopefully somewhere nice where we can put some roots down. This is really difficult for an emerging environmentalist, since it means I can't really hope to reap the rewards of things like composting or large efficiency upgrades to the house. It also means we need to watch the money a little bit, which in turn means that I will be driving my Dodge Ram truck for awhile longer, regardless of the piss-poor mileage it gets.
So, in the meantime, I have to be happy with taking small steps toward being more environmentally responsible, and study up for a time when I can take larger steps. This actually fits pretty nicely with my outlook on the world, though. You see, I'm from Kansas, a place not exactly known for its environmental bent. Most people I know there don't think it's worthwhile to sacrifice their air conditioning and smooth-riding SUV for a few polar bears. Many of these people see some real practical advantage in being able to ship goods cheaply, so the opening of a Northwest Passage through the Arctic sounds okay. It's a very tactical lifestyle, with a lot of trust in what the marketplace offers (as not being dangerous). So, when I think about how to save humanity from climate change - and I believe Al Gore is right, that this makes the threat posed by Hitler look like small fries - I know that even these people will have to be convinced to change their lifestyles. The way we've been approaching environmental activism to date, this sounds a little like standing up in the middle of a Super Bowl party and talking about the virtues of becoming a monk.
I don't think it has to be like this, though. I've read quite a bit about the collateral damage - not just harming nature, but harming our own lifestyles as well - caused by the way we construct our material lives. Based on some really common-sense principles, along with a little more attention and focus on what we're really trying to accomplish in life, I think we can make environmentalism attractive to everyone, even those more concerned with having fun or maximizing their retirement nest-eggs.
The problem is that, in order to get access to this very practical, simple advice for living with a lighter footprint on this Earth, you have to read some aggressively environmentalist literature...the exact sort of thing many of my family and friends back home aren't likely to do. It doesn't have to be that way, though. So, this is what I intend to do with this blog: shout, with the loudest voice I can, the things I learn while I'm consuming these aggressively environmentalist media, and try to shed more light on a better way of life. Emily and I have started implementing some very simple changes in our own lives, and we've been able to make some pretty stunning progress...progress like cutting our utilities bill in half, for example. And so far, we're not living in a straw-bale house, using a composting toilet, going off-grid. The things we've done make a lot of fiscal sense by themselves, and they don't make a huge impact on our lifestyle.
So, please keep your eyes glued here. The first thing you can do to help fix this situation is tune in and realize what your own footprint looks like. Then, start thinking about living a little more lightly.