change

August

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The final month of summer has arrived. It’s the warmest and most mature month, and meadows run their wildest. The nights are not as long as previous months, and while it’s often hot and humid in the day, the nights start to have little hints of a fall chill that’s certain to come next month.

August is the time of Altamont fair and many people’s vacations. It will be time of sitting out and soaking up the sun, of long days out in the canoe, and climbing mountains in the early morning. They’ll be nights sitting around the campfire drinking beer and whisky, watching flames as the burn towards the sky.

Swimming Hole

August can be a lazy month. The last of the summertime season, the last time we are laid back before our youth go to school, and before things get more serious at work as people’s vacations end. The heat makes some outdoor activities challenging, so we choose to lay back.

There will be plenty of warm days in September, but it won’t be as much summer as the month of August will be. It will be different. September will see many of the final harvests of the year, our society’s agricultural bounty, and the signs of fall. Much hope and sadness we enter that month.

Independence Day

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Today is Independence Day or July 4, the day many of us take off to celebrate the day we declared our independence from the British. Most of us know the significance of this day that forever changed our history, but we also at the same time forget how much we have changed since those revolutionary times.

Back in 1776 and for nearly a century there-after we were largely an agrarian and rural society. Most people farmed, their livelihoods were connected to the land. Few people traveled long distances, and most would die only a few miles from where they were born. The connections to community and the land that supported us was strong.

While Americans had some of the resources of industrialising Britain, we were largely dependent on our ourselves. We made most of what we needed, our foot print on the modern world was small. People could act even in foolish ways and have a minimal impact on the world. Today technology with all it’s destructive power simply did not exist.

Daisy

We certainly have farmland and rural areas today. Yet, we now hop in our pickup truck and our able to be transmitted to an urbanised area in minutes. Few people are very free at all to chose their own lives. We are always connected using information technology from the simple telephone to the sophisticated Internet. Yet that’s not community in the old sense.

Even the meaning of declaring war is different today. We could not go to war the way once were able to. Primitive firearms and cannons, while increasingly loud and dangerous in 1776 posed minimal risk to human kind compared to war today. The emotions of yesteryear and the fear of war today is changed by it being almost instantaneous and destructive to all in it’s path.

We will never be able to go back to those times. We have to live in the world of today, and realize that while we are blessed by all this technology it poses problems that simply did not exist years ago. We may celebrate what our founding fathers once did, but we must also be aware that we can never return back to their old world.

Some brief thoughts on this Independence Day ...

When the Big Red-era Comes to An End

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One of the consistent thoughts I’ve had in recent months — both before and after buying Big Red — is Big Red-era coming to an end? Big Red, as those who regularly read my blog know is my Chevy Silverado pickup truck, which is my big truck, and primarily my toy for camping.

Gas prices are up big time this summer. They are significantly higher then a five or ten years ago. Some analysis suggest that gas prices will only continue to increase, as global petroleum stockpiles decrease — especially the easiest sources of petroleum are tapped. Some peak oil folks are almost in a panic.

At the same time, the signs of Climate Change are becoming more pronounced. We have had a record warm spring time this year, with record temperatures being smashed throughout the spring. We have also seen increasingly violent weather touching many parts of country in the past year.

NY Population Change 1970 to 2022

There are those who advocate more conservation now. We should immediately all take steps to reduce our climate footprint. Indeed, one of the reasons I take public transit around time, is to reduce my carbon footprint (plus driving in town is so annoying).

Yet, I have to ask, why did they get to have their fun when they were young, driving Mustangs and other Big, Fast, and Powerful Cars. while I don’t? Their response is we didn’t know better back then, even though they should have known better.

Being Uneconomical for an Uncertain Future

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.There is a common line of thought that argues that we should undertake a massive restructuring of the economy, even if it has no current clear benefit, in preparation for some dramatic future change like climate change or peak oil. Folks like Bill McKibbean have the logic, unless we make drastic changes now, the future will be bleak.

Their logic reminds one a lot of the logic of a High School Guidance Counselor, pushing over-priced college educations at so-called “select institutions” that are very over pricd. They argue unless one gets an expensive college education, the future will be bleak. They say, unless you go seriously in debt, you will have no future and be without a good job.

Trees Lines

Nobody today can tell us for sure about when or if climate change will occur, or for that matter what the impacts of peak oil will be. We have projections and models that extrapolate data based on today’s conditions and projected changes, but they probably are not accurate as effects rarely are linear. It�s quite possible that effect our growing use of fossil fuels may be far different then anything yet predicted.

Yet, it�s also hard to object to efficiency standards and pollution controls on power plants that benefit society now. More energy while burning less fuel will benefit the economy by lowering costs over the long-run. More fuel efficient cars, while possibly more expensive up front, will provide drivers with lower fuel bills over the car�s life. Good standards that improve efficiency, conserve resources, and reduce pollution, help us now.

Medusa

I disagree with folk like Bill McKibbean who argue for a radical transformation of the economy based on a projection of climate change or peak oil. We should work to conserve resources and clean up our generating plants, but not because of a future projection, but to improve economic efficiency and the quality of our lives today. If with incidentally also help change the projection for bad things to happen tomorrow, then all the better.

Getting Outside Our Shells

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It seems too often as a society are in denial about how our world works. Our modern, technocratic society often denies us experience and knowledge about how things work. It often covers and hides the evil that lurks in our world.

It is amazing how much of society is devoted to hiding the truths that make up our society. We cover buildings with complicated siding and paint, to deny their function. We build great landfills, farms, and energy producers far away so we don’t have to see or think about them.

Plowing Day's Trash

I’m sure insiders would argue that technology or morals demand that how our world work be hidden. They will say that we outsiders don’t really understand how things work, and that our misunderstandings of the inside will lead to misguided policy.

We should always be asking how does something work. We should be looking behind the wallboard, and questioning and pushing the insiders to do better. We should try to step out of our comfortable world, and try to do better.

Being Told to Change

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I must admit I have a personal weakness — I hate to be told to do anything, much less change. While I believe in the importance of change, and always challenging one’s views against the changing backdrop of the world as it may appear today, I have an awful strong resistance to being told to do one thing or another.

Distant

When people tell me something, my first response is either no or that I am morally right. I can be an awful difficult person to bargain with, and sometimes I should take my hat off and put it behind me and realize that I’ve made a mistake. Yet, too often I fail to do that until it’s too late. I hate to be viewed as a total jerk with things, but sometimes that just in my nature.

Closer

I need to learn to accept the changing world, and make sure that I know all the facts before I tell people no. Sometimes I should just be honest and say I need more time to consider the proposition before I tell people what I really think of them.

Time Disappears

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It seems like as one gets older that the time goes by quicker and quicker. Days and months that once seemed like they could last forever, quickly recede into the past, and the world continues to change in ways that only a few years ago seem unimaginable.

Reflecting Clouds

The past summer disappeared in a blink of the eye. While it originally seemed like it would last forever, it is now gone. It’s already started to get colder out. When I was younger, time never seemed to disappear so quickly. The youthful innocence of yesterday has disappeared.

Farm

I don’t really know how to react to all these changes in my life. I just take them in one day at a time.