Thor and Odin
My brother and I got in a long discussion the other night. I told him about some awful news I read in the paper about a forest in the Yukon, 6.5 million acres, totally and completely destroyed by fires and a beetle that had previously not been able to make it through the low temps of the winter, wihch now, due to temperature increase, thrives. It’s just really unforuntunate. It’s upsetting to me how many people are still hiding behind their comfort, calling global warming a farce. This is an exhibition of a high degree of ignorance. The argument has never been whether or not the the weather is changing or that the average global temp is up a degree and a half or so; the argument has been whether or not people are the cause of it. The fact that the global average temperature has increased isn’t arguable-it’s observable, measureable and agreed upon. I can, at least, accept that people want to argue whether or not it’s their fault.
Anyway, a big part of the solution is finding as many simple infficiencies as possible that the average man can change. Scientists, researchers, and engineers are going to have to take care of the tough stuff, making our factories, cars, power plants more environmentally friendly, but the public needs to pick up the slack in the daily grind. I’ve got to be honest, it’s really not that hard, there are leaks literally everywhere. Plug’em all and we can make a damn big difference. The end product is the goal here, but to be honest, it’s pretty damn fun, if you ask me.
I’ll give you a good example, my hobby: trees. Trees, by nature, are not a good long term solution, but they do have the ability to buy us some time, which would be real nice, in my opinion. Much like some baby animals in the wild, something like 9 out of 10 saplings die in the wild simply because they are choked out by others, or they’re not getting enough sun, or enough water, or etc…This is a source of giant potential here. In one area we have a total surplus of trees, in other more urban areas, we have a total shortage. If we know that a lot are being wasted when a lot are needed elsewhere, we have the most perfect situation ever to do something good! Even more perfect is the situation in parks and even reserves where maintenance teams are cutting the grass. Every year seeds fall, take root, and saplings grow. Every late spring, early summer, they are cut down. They are guaranteed to die. Why not just move them? All it takes is a little get’up and go! When tree harvesting, you still have to think about preserving the forest, but you also have to accept the truth, and that is that most of these trees will die where they are and also that there are very many here whereas there are very few there. This combination makes the solution real friggin simple. You just have to do what works and forget about the fact that it’s illegal or against the rules of the park, or whatever it is. Many hardcore environmentalists will be upset, and many law abiding tax payers will as well. You just forget’em and do what’s right. I’ve been doing this for a while now and I think it’s great.
So here’s a pic of Thor and Odin. my two Oak saplings that I took from the miliary base because they cut grass.
There were many many growing, basically all destined to die for one reason or another. These leaks are literally everywhere, in every walk of life; you’ve just got to think of them. We’ve got use what we have in front of us and figure out how to make it better, more efficient. And, again, sometimes, you’ve just got to think about doing what’s right, and what makes sense versus what is legal. Sometimes you just don’t give a **** whether what you’re doing is legal or not; you know it’s the right thing to do, so you do it anyway.
August 26, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Good post. That’s right, the temperature and CO2 levels are increasing. The other details are where the questions remain.
Good luck finding a home for Thor and Odin.