In and Absurd world, the good news can be found in the garden

The avalanche is upon us. Suddenly global warming is being taken seriously. But I feel like I've known it was real all along. The country is finally upset about Iraq. I didn't think we should've gone to war in the first place. The oceans of the world are in peril, and aquaculture is quickly adding to the toll, but I'd been convinced of this more than ten years ago. I should feel vindicated and ahead of the curve, instead it sickens me that it's taken this long for it to sink in. I just read about a common psychological assumption that most people believe everyone knows what they know...well that's for damn sure in my case. I'm still in a state of shock about this. It's not that all the ideas about environmental degradation were mine--I happen to live in the world and notice things, and do a fair amount of mostly main-stream reading. Here's a choice little tidbit from TEN years ago by Paul Hawken, it's slightly dated, but still holds up easily against the drivel printed in the mainstream press on global warming and where we stand today. Put 2+2 together and you can't miss the conclusion.


Now comes the question of what to do about it. Having left my job in a classically wasteful mail-order retail house, I've taken the first step. Raising a child with an awareness of our environmental predicament helps too, but it's not enough. Bio diesel for the car would help, not driving a car at all would be even better. All nice, but really the world needs to change on an industrial and universal level if we are going to save ourselves. The garden gives lots of solace, and a few answers helping remind us that over time we can build a relationship with nature to benefit both. I find the number of creatures that visit my modest plot astounding, and the numbers seems to be growing--hummers, butterflies, ladybugs, jays, finches, as if I've maybe improved the environment in my own little way.


Having just read cradle to cradle, I feel like I've finally stumbled upon someone who is thinking in a way that is way beyond conservation, into a direction of universal symbiosis with nature--on an industrial level. This is finally what I've been waiting to hear, not that any of his ideas were ones that had occurred to me as viable, but he somehow has proven himself, so people are listening. It is so simple it's astounding, but it takes starting over our thinking about everything we currently assume and the way we do things. It's about time.