/travel/canada/I love snow!
The way it billows and blusters. Hits the window and dies against the warm glass. Collects on window sills, and in troughs, and on pipes.
I have no idea why, but it's one of the few things that makes me respond with what can only be described as "glee."
There's about an inch on the ground now, enough to cover the horrible ice that necessarily underlies any southern Ontario snowfall.
In other news, things are well. I mostly work from home now, since I have no immediate coworkers in the office so there's not a lot of point in commuting.
I'm taking Hapkido, and enjoying it. They're making me be flexible and grow some muscles. Clare's into a photography course. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my upcoming leave. Our flat is great. Seeing people I haven't seen in a long time is good too.
We kitted out the flat from Freecycle, Craigslist, Ikea, a bit of Canadian Tire, and a finishing touch of Walmart. I'm pretty happy with the end result. I refinished a table that my landlord gave us, and it looks pretty good. Clare spraypainted a TV table she got for $2, and it looks good too. We've had two rides to grocery stores (from Josh & Katie the first time, for $675 of groceries, and Deirdre the second, at a measly $300.)
Clare and I went to a "GreenTOpia" book launch about greening up Toronto a couple weeks ago. There seems to be a tonne of work in that area, and the city council seems very supportive, which is great. I got a couple contacts and ideas there, and they ran two pretty good panels. I was surprised that in the discussion about the merits and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of individual actions like recycling, nobody even mentioned the potential for amplifying things at work -- maybe because the panelists all work in green organizations. To me, that's totally the biggest scope for making a difference as an individual. Leaning on your bosses to do things more greenly, and applying resistance (no matter how slight, if job security is at risk from it) to wasteful practices (even if they're cost-effective, though there's plenty of evidence that, not surprisingly, there's plent of scope for efficiency improvements that are both profitable and green) can be amplified by the millions of widgets a company makes, or the thousands of computers it runs, or the tonnes of carbon it emits. Especially once you've carved out the big things in your own life (i.e. household & transport efficiency) this seems to me to be what's left.
There was also a general confusion from the panel about sacrifice. Some people said we wouldn't have to sacrifice anything. Many people said anything predicated on individual sacrifice was doomed. Some people said "sacrificing stuff isn't bad, it's great, you'll love it. Therefore we won't be sacrificing anything." All are sentiments I agree with, to some degree. I think the problem is, as a society, we're going to have to sacrifice some things. But as individuals, I don't feel like I'm "sacrificing" a trip to Japan just because it's more than I want to pay for it. If "sacrifice" is higher prices to reflect the real costs of certain goes, it won't "feel" like personal sacrifice.
I also went to a forum at the St Lawrence Center on "The Politics of Food". It was pretty good, though a little lefty in general. One of the questioners from the Ontario Farmer's Association said that instead of international trade rules saying we shouldn't be able to export for more than selling locally, we should have it that we can't import for less than selling locally. Yeah, 'cause I want to pay $25 for a pineapple grown in a greenhouse. That's efficient. In general, it was surprising to me that nobody raised carbon fees ("taxes") as a way of fixing some of the efficiencies. He (or maybe another OFA guy) said that factory farming was the cleanest, safest, etc., kind of farming available, and got booed a bit. He didn't actually say anything about how humane it was -- I'm not sure if that's 'cause he got cut off, or 'cause he wasn't worried about it.
I'm working on a secret, slightly nerdy, slightly activist project. Hopefully it ends up pretty cool, and makes a teeny tiny difference in the world.
New Albums from the Gallery
/life/toronto/Blogging From Toronto
I'm on a GO train. The GO stands for Government of Ontario. It goes from Toronto Union Station to The Boonies, but I'll get off at Whitby where I'm staying with my cousin. The funny GO Train Driver Man just said "This is Pickering Station. GO Transit reminds you that if you've parked your car in Pickering, this is where you should get off. It's a lot easier than walking back from Ajax." Funny man.
Since we landed just under a week ago, I've written two exams (in three hours!), I bought new dress shoes (sheepskin, sigh). we've moved seven bags and a bike box from the airport to my parents' truck to their house to their truck to my cousin's garage, found a flat, and spent some time enjoying the sun. I promised Clare more summer left in Toronto than we had all year in Dublin, and I think we're nearly there -- it's clocked in at 5 gorgeous days so far.
"Rrrrroolling into Ajax, folks, this is Ajax. If you want to get off here, you should wait 'til we stop and open the doors. It makes it much easier."
Before we left, I went cycling, and had a lot of parties, and some stressful packing.
The cycling was good, but my knee kinda gave up after climbing Ireland's tallest cliffs (not the famous cliff's of Moher, but the less accessible Slieve League cliffs.) It was supposed to be 7 or 8 days, but I stopped after 4. On my last night out, there was nowhere for me to stay, so I pulled up a quiet little lane that turned out to be one of Ireland's many walking paths, labeled with recognizable little yellow men. It wasn't the best place, being somewhat visible from the road, but I was quite tired and grumpy. I pitched tent, ate the cold veggie burger and wedges I'd picked up at the last town, drank some water, and gone to sleep.
An unknown amount of sleeping later, I woke up to the sound of a car pulling up. I scrummaged around quietly to find a comforting teddy bear in the form of a metal bike pump and my bike tool. At first, in a fuzzy Canadian mindset, I assumed it was a park ranger coming to patrol the trail -- ha! Then I remember I'd left my bike unlocked outside my tent. Then I heard techno music, and several male voices. This was, dear reader, not a pleasant time for me. Yet somehow, they hadn't seemed to notice me. Then they did "holy shit, a tent!" "Hey is anybody in there?" Shit. "huhhh? yeahhh," I said as sleepily as possible. We proceeded to have a brief conversation where we assured each other we were not threats, and as a token of goodwill I leant my "bogroll" to one of the young gentlemen. The techno music lasted about an hour, but things seemed safe. They seemed to be kids about 16 or 18 doing such anger-inducing drugs as Marijuana and Valium. Yeah. Kids these days. A car pulled up a while later, which was a minor upper for me, and I think a deal went down since one fellow was heard to say "no names, boys, no names," after the tent was pointed out to him.
Those kids should try adrenaline.
I went surfing while I was cycling, (I got off the bike first) by walking into a tourist office, being pointed to the nearest surf shop, knocking on the door and seeing about 7 people ready to go out for a lesson. Perfect timing. It was pretty fun. Though the waves were smaller than last time, the instructors were much better and I felt like I was almost there, including a few brief moments of tentative and wiggly standing up.
The parties were also good -- a monumental gathering at our old faithful, The Waterloo, with a bunch of my work friends and some of Clare's architect friends ended for me at about 4:30 on a buddha bag at a friend's place. It was a great time, with warm conversations and a few people out that don't come out much, which was nice. There was also a shindig with Clare's family and one with her high school friends.
Then frenzied, stressful packing that I'd prefer to forget.
(..time lapse..)
I'm on a GO train again, after my first day of work in Toronto. I have a lot of names to learn. I had a whole 10-desk office to myself today, but Wednesday there will be another engineer back from holidays or something, and then next Monday the office will start filling up with other sales people that don't fit in the main, larger office. The office is on the 27th floor of the TD Canada Trust tower, right beside Union Station in Toronto. Nice view!
This Friday my cousin is getting married, so that should be exciting. Until then, I get to live the commuter's life -- up early and home late. This is distinct from my Dublin life only in the "up early" part, mind you.
/life/I am not dead!
..and neither is this blog.
Tomorrow, I'm going cycling around the north of the island -- much of the time will be in Dunegal, which is a county of the Republic, but I'll also be crossing across the top of Northern Ireland (part of the UK, my philistine readers).
Since last we met, Clare and I have decided to move to Toronto for a year, I've pursued and been promised and eight month leave of absence from Google after Christmas to pursue my economic and environmental interests. I've gone surfing for the first time (and I'm hoping to go again during this cycling trip.) I've been to the Electric Picnic a music and arts and other stuff festival in Ireland.
I've started using del.icio.us and I'm considering switching my blog to use one of them blogging sites, and generally going "web 2.0".
I've had a visit from my parents, and one from my sister Julia and her hubby and sonny. I've been to the Dun Laoghaire festival of world culture, the reception of a wedding, gotten a tonne of facebook friends, gotten food poisining, found a secret magical waterfall in Wicklow, etc. Some day I'll get photos from these things up.
I read Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning by George Monbiot. It's pretty inspiring and depressing. It should be read by everyone; please borrow and share.
I'm back standing on the edge in some ways. Reading that entry from over three years ago is pretty interesting. Some of the questions are answered. There is a U2 song lyric I've always liked: "I'd join the movement / If there was one I could believe in." I think I've found that movement, and it is the environmental one. But I have the same kind of 4-month buffer between now and "no idea" land. Except this time it's "many ideas" land, and I'm working to try to figure out where to expend my effort.
So yeah, not dead, just busy.
/meta/Spring Cleaning
It's a pissing rainy day, and I'm oncall. My economics course is done, and I barely got any sleep.
So I did some spring cleaning -- finally got rid of the old server that I've been paying for unnecessarily for about 6 months, woohoo. And cleaned out some spam from the wiki, and added High Tech Spam Protection™ to this blog; you now have to put the secret password ("potato") in the right place when you post a comment. Please let me know if you can't make it go.
I also cleaned up my laptop, wasted three DVD+R disks trying to backup photos, cleaned up the links section, and dropped the completely-stale projects section from the left bar.
Not that you care.
Oncall again tomorrow for the long weekend, and my parents are coming to visit on Thursday so I'm taking Friday and next Monday off. Woohoo!
/life/Potatos Salad, Haystacks, Banana Bread and Nothing
Today's a comp day for a weekend oncall. It was a quiet weekend, so I got lots of cooking -- my first attempt at potato salad in a long time, and some old standbys. I also cooked dinner for Trev and Krista and Clare -- pretty good burritos, though I didn't quite make enough food. We watched Raging Bull, which was before my usual (tongue-in-cheek but substantially true in practice) 1991 cutoff for movies I'll watch. I spent much of the time cooking listening to an audiobook of Plato's republic. The argumentation is fascinating -- hardly rigourous but the sense that there's adversariality in the dialectic makes you accept it as though it is indeed rigourous. The other fascinating thing is how much stuff that I assumed to be post-Enlightment philosophical developments -- like specialized labour, and some models of justice -- were actually Platonic.
Today I slept in and, given the rainy weather, spent some time reading my Nana's "Nothing Book". My mum and her siblings gave it to their mum in 1980 as a place to record thoughts and things, like a diary but it's certainly written in a style expecting people to read it -- it's a sort of primitive blog, written on thinly sliced dead trees. She speaks of old cash registers, her first microwave, and family events and some of the troubles of old age with a positive outlook on everything. I'm up to 1991 right now, where she writes this about the impending Gulf War on January 11th:
I thought how different was the situation as far as the dissemination of news of events leading to the two previous World Wars in my lifetime. I was too young to remember the time prior to the outbreak of the 1914 war but I well remember the War years. Of course, the Gov't always needed money and they borrowed it from people in War Bonds. Those who had little were encouraged to buy War Saving stamps at 25 cents and when you had $4.00 in stamps in your little book it was an achievement because in 5 years time that would be worth $5.00...In 1939 war we were kept informed in more detail but it was the milkman at 7:00am who told me of the attack on Poland and the outbreak of war.
The perception of the situation as being an impending World War is interesting, and forgotten at least from my mind. Her writing is clear, simple, and proper, yet full of warmth and detail about the little things that made her happy -- salmon sandwiches, birds in spring, the vigour of clearing sidewalks, stars in the early morning.
What else? Lot's of other things -- had a great trip to Canada, visiting family and friends, and working from the Waterloo office -- hurray multinationalism. I'm all into Facebook now, and so's most of my high school class and lots of my University friends.
I've been down and out from running on account of over-stressing my hip joints -- I believe it's trochanteric bursitis, the inflamation of one of the little sacs of fluid that help everything move smoothly. I took a two-week break after things got somewhat painful from carring around my bags in Toronto. Then last week I got sick and taken out from work. So it's been three weeks, and this morning it was pissing rain then hailing, but it's cleared now; I think I'll do a 2km run. If that goes badly, I'll have to bite the bullet and go to a physiotherapist.
I've cut way back on drinking all of a sudden; on Thursday, since I was still recovering, I performed the herculean task of really actually having "just the one." I proceeded to have one of the more fun evenings I've had with coworkers in a while -- it was a really great group of people and I had been a shut-in for two days. But the whole moderation thing reminded me of how reasonable that seemed in Finland -- two pints, no more.
Ireland just had an election. They have the most complicated national voting system I know of -- single transferable vote (like instant runoff voting but not quite) with multi-person (two to five) constituencies. In general it produces a highly proportionate lower house while still having parochial representation. It also makes for an incredibly boring election, as they announce a single winner, transfer and count leftover votes, and announce another, etc. There are 166 seats (minus the speaker); the split amongst the parties was 78/51/20/2/6/4 and 5 independents, with the 51 (Fine Gael) and the 20 (Labour) highly unlikely to join the dominant party (Fianna Fáil), so interesting negotiation ensues. Anyway, I finally understand the Irish political landscape reasonably well, which is nice.
I've reached practical completion (can you tell I have architects and builders in my life?) of my economics course. It's been interesting course, filling out certain things I understood poorly like elasticity, and adding whole new models of behaviour, like monopoly pricing. There was a lot of bullshit, and so much absurd simplification, but so it goes. Reading a textbook wasn't as painful as I'd expected, and I didn't use much of the other course infrastructure, so it wasn't worth my 800CAD except to get a formal credit. I still have to write the two exams, but other than that things are in order. The amount of time that this seems to have suddenly freed up for Plato and my grandmother's writing is incredible, especially in concert with an oncall weekend that I would recently have spent procrastinating a lot and studying a little.
That's about it. And I just missed the window of sunshine to enjoy a quick jog in -- oh well, back to the Nothing Book.
/life/ireland/Wicklow, Cavan, Leitrim
This weekend Clare and I went traveling around Cavan and Leitrim, two counties of Ireland. We went canoeing twice. I've long known that what the Irish call a "canoe" is not what I call a canoe; it's any of a number of canoe- and kayak-like one and two person vessels. A "proper" canoe is, delightfully, referred to as a "Canadian-style" canoe.
The first day's canoeing was on a flat-topped thing with padded seats. You sat with legs straight out in front of you, and used a kayaking paddle. Since you're essentially sitting on top of a closed tapered raft, it's cleverly called a "sit-on-top. It was pretty stable, and sleak and fast, but I found the position incredibly uncomfortable. We were out perhaps two hours, and visited a couple of islands. The lake was cold, so I got to wear a wetsuit for the first time in my life.
We also went to see the Marble Arch caves and took lots of photos there. They had some pretty cool formations.
We crossed the border into County Fermanagh, part of Northern Ireland and thus the UK, and then crossed back to Cavan, back into Fermanagh and back once more, all without documentation. Good thing there's no border controls.
Both of the B&B's we stayed in were taking part in the EU Flower Eco-Label program. There aren't very many in Ireland, but we were glad to know that the same kind of efforts that we make at home were being made when we were traveling. The standards include things like tracking and control of chemicals used, pervasive use of compact fluorescent bulbs, and support of alternative transport. The second one was a lovely restored old home, and was run by a fairly young family. I liked that they didn't make their kids invisible, though they were far from in the way or anything. They had a hot tub — another thing I learned was distinctly Canadian — which we used...I haven't been in a hottob in a long time. The next morning We were loaned bikes for free to take a look around the countryside, and then a real "Canadian style" canoe to go out on the lake. There was a small crannog and we went through some reeds and stuff. Was nice to be out in a real canoe.
We then went and got some pizza for lunch and off to Lough Key Forest Park. Our map showed a nice-looking walk through there. However, there were far more trails on the ground than on our map, so we ended up getting a bit lost. On a tiny island, with a single bridge to access it. We went around twice, before finally understanding how we kept coming across the same bridge.
That park was right on the N4; we basically pulled out and immediately saw signs for Dublin, which was fairly funny given how much we'd been traveling around finding very obscure places in Ireland, and suddenly we saw a sign for home.
All around an excellent Easter weekend. Tonight we went out to Clare's mom's place for dinner, and I saw the house-in-progress that Clare did the architectural design and much of the project management for.
There's also new photos up from Paddy's Day.
/life/ireland/Meeting the Neighbours
Yesterday I was just back from a run (actually, I walked a lot of it, and was fairly disappointed at my lack of stamina and hydration -- apparently I'd drunk more than I thought the night before. :-) ) when upon my door there came a knock. Several. More of a bangbangbangbangbangbang, really.
I threw on a shirt, and went to answer it, entering magical movie land. There stood a middle aged woman in a ping bathrobe. Amongst the first things she rambled were "can you fix my shower curtain?" and "he'll kill me if he finds it," and "you've never met me, even after today, okay?" and "I'm a pretty drunk, so I can't put it back together." It was pretty disturbing, she was pretty drunk and seemed fairly worried. The whole situation was not quite "can I borrow a cup of sugar?" but I couldn't do much but go help this desparately drunken lady.
I went up the stairs with her, which she dragged herself, like I remember my grandmother doing -- made thirty years her elder from the booze. She was muttering worried things. When we got to the landing, I asked if it was up further or not. She said "don't worry, he's not home." Well, that's one less thing to worry about. I asked her if she was sure she couldn't fix it herself, selfishly wanting out of the situation. She slurred her way convincingly through the response.
I've met her other, but I'm not sure I've ever seen her before. I fear she might be a shut-in or something. Her husband is a big burly guy, and I don't think I've seen him sober either.
In the end, I clipped the curtain onto the curtainrod and hung it back up all in about 30 seconds, and was unceremoniously ushered out, and reminded that we'd never met.
I've been living here a year, and it's a pretty big apartment block, but the entrance I use is only shared by three flats. I've barely met my neighbours, but that was hardly the way I expected it to happen.
In other news, had a killer couple weeks at work, but very rewarding in the end -- I beat on something until it worked, and built some pretty good working relationships in the process. Getting on well with my new flatmate. Finally about to book flights for a trip home in April. I'm thinking of trying to run a marathon on Hallowe'en weekend, though we're talking about going to India for a few weeks in September as a work + travel gig, which would make it pretty hard to train enough I think. We'll see.
/life/learning/Accept This Uncritically, Comrade
We make three simplifyting assumptions, none of which affects our conclusions.
How does economics get away with this kind of thing? "Please ignore the man behind the curtain, and also in a chapter we expect you to have forgotten that we asked you to ignore the man behind the curtain."
Also, I ran 8km today. Huzzah.
/life/ireland/Dreams and Accidents
I've been running again lately (just three times, but that's enough to call me back on the trolly) -- I fell off with my January trip to California. It's had an immediate impact on my need for sleep; I woke up at 7:50 this morning without any prompting, and had been having the kind of strange memorable dreams that I have on Saturday mornings when I sleep in. (Does everyone get those?)
One of the dreams was about walking around my high school, looking for a course I was supposed to be taking (yes, a high school course.) I remember after graduating highschool (and again after university) I had a lot of dreams that they had realized I needed one more course...it was strange that this popped back into my head now. I think it's 'cause I just got my annual bonus (weird) and money makes me think about success and success makes me think about high school, and the various courses where we talked about such things.
On my way home last night, there was a care poised to pull out. I didn't think he would, since I was fully lit, but he did. No problem, he was being zippy enough that I could go behind him. So I don't slow down much, but then there's a car parked that had been hidden by his nose. There's too much traffic for me to pull around safely, so I clamp on my brakes and do a perfect lateral stop (i.e. my bike ended up sideways) gently into the back of the parked car. Its lights were off, and it was dark and rainy, so I thought no one was in the car. I hadn't done much damage (if any) so I was about to cycle of to chase down the fucker that cut in front of me. At least, I think that was my motive. It certainly wasn't hit-and-running but that's because I didn't really think about it as a hit.
Anyway, out pops this girl, and says "Hey mistah" in a characteristic North Dub accent. "Hello." "About to ride away, were ya?" "No," I lied lamely, obviously poised to cruise off. Anyway, I think she was expecting an Irish person, and was confused by my accent and politness. She took a look where I bumped, and I went on my way while she got back in her car in a huff. I got the sense she felt an opportunity for righteous indignation had gone unfulfilled. I hate it when that happens.
There's a ton of new photos up, from Paris and around Dublin and Canada. They're a bit out of order, but not too bad.
I've found myself a vermicomposter. I'm very excited. I hope it doesn't breach the "no pets" clause in my lease.
Oh right, speaking of new lease, I have a new flatmate. He's from Armagh (a county in the north), and seems to be a pretty sound guy. We both work a lot, and go out a lot, so we don't se much of each other.
Have I seen any good movies lately? Well, better than I expected.
/life/ireland/Economics is dumb.
Teacheth the 10th edition of "Microeconomics, 10th Canadian ed." by McConnell et al:
At a price of $2 for product B, the consumer represented by the data in the table maximizes utility by purchasing four units of product B. The decline in the price of product B to $1 upsets the consumer's initial utility-maximizing equilibrium. The consumer restores equilibrium by purchasing six rather than four units of product B.
I don't really understand how anyone can write that with a straight face. Maybe they didn't.
/travel/ireland/Comp Day
Today was a comp day — a day off in exchange for a weekend oncall. I went to the Garda station to get my Garda card, wrapping up my immigration troubles for the next 6 months. I went to the Canadian Embassy, but they're only open 9-12, so I can't get passport documents. I did a bit of shopping.
I saw Stephen (I don't know Stephen, but he shouted loudly into his cell phone that "this is Stephen." Or perhaps it's Steven.) Where was I? Oh yes, I saw Stephen, running with a bunch of flowers, making an urgent phone call. I saw a taxi driver yelling at a lorry driver that he was "just sittin' there and you bloody ran into me!" while the lorry driver pointed out that the taxi drivers was making a bloody left turn across two lanes, and was invisible to the lorry driver. I saw a lot of pedestrians doing carefully timed sprints across the road. I did some of those myself. I rode the wrong way on a lot of one-way streets, and survived.
I saw a lot of immigrants in the Garda National Immigration Bureau, and got friendly treatment from behind the glass that seemed to be relieved that I spoke fluent English. I sat waiting for nearly three hours. I estimated that they served one person every two minutes. They were serving around 140 when I got in, and I was 228.
I went to visit a ("my"?) financial consultant at Allied Irish Banks. I didn't like the meeting very much. I don't like being sold funds. I don't like that they didn't have ethical funds. I'll have to find out who does, 'cause investing in Exxon just doesn't really fit my groove.
Last week I had the culmination of my dispute with my former landlord over the "missing" rent and withheld deposit, in the form of a face-to-face adjudication at a large round wooden table — big enough that the disputees didn't have to sit too close together. I think it went quite well. I don't know which way the decision will come down (or whether they're allowed to slice down the middle) but I'm glad I pursued it. The adjudicator was friendly, extremely neutral and professional, and barely gave away a hint of what he was thinking; the only such indication was that he seemed displeased with the landlord's poor maintenance of my rentbook.
I had a wee dinner party on the weekend, and I think it went quite well.
I'm trying to work less. Or rather, I'm trying to spend less time at work, but work about the same amount. I think it's working a bit. Work is otherwise good. I'm a "Team Lead" now, and got my first n00b yesterday. I'm also down from splitting my time between 4 projects to "only" three, which is nice. I'm also hopefully going to be serving on a lightweight committee to assess and address the office's environmental impact, which is very exciting.
In two weeks, Clare and I are going to Paris. How romantique. I've put my phone into French so I get some practice. There's a cute little bakery just down the street from me that mostly employs francophones, but I haven't got up the hutzpah to start speaking French to them.
My flatmate has moved out, mostly — some of her stuff is still here — the dampness and mould in her room were too much, which is fair enough. The landlord is going to do something to try to improve it — more insulation and a vapour barrier, I think. I've borrowed a humidity sensor and been taking measurements around the flat, but they're fairly inconclusive. I'll start looking for a new flatmate in a week or so, once that work is done.
I'm taking ECON 247 from Athabasca University. It's been pretty basic so far, and I have to force myself to remember that I dispute a few of the fundamental assumptions while still pretending to accept them so I get the answers right. However, I got a good few hours of studying in at the Garda Station, so that was good.
I think that's a pretty good update. What's that you ask? Have I seen any good movies lately? Yes, I have.
/life/Global Warming: The New Slavery
I've passively passed around this IHT essay on global warming, and had a couple of conversations with people about it. It has lead me to try to write down an idea that's been rolling around in my head for at least a year. It's also worth noting that my knowledge of the American emancipation of slaves is mostly gained through pop culture and basic education, so could be riddled with misconceptions.
I believe global warming is my generation's slavery. I do not suggest that they are morally of equal weight — that's an impossible thing to measure — but that there are important parallels between them: it's something embedded in our lifestyle, it's something people on the margins have been complaining about for about three decades, and it's slowly, despite all manner of resistance from those who benefit from the status quo (which includes anyone reading this, of course), entering the popular conscience as a real problem. Unlike slavery, it's got a deadline. We don't know what it is, but I share in a growing awareness that it's "soon, possibly too late."
Like slavery, it will be solved (if we manage) in part by innovation and economics — the cotton ginny was, as I understand it, instrumental in having people cope with the loss of slave labour. However, it is profoundly and inherently a moral problem, though people mostly fail to acknowledge that, and many resist solving it on moral grounds. It is also profoundly divisive, and deeply embedded in American politics.
And mostly, I believe that, if we succeed in coping with global warming, atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, water waste and pollution, oil consumption, and the other problems that are bundled with global warming, we will look back on this time — my life — as a profoundly immoral one.
The people who took the first steps to defeat slavery, the earliest people to emancipate their slaves, are looked back upon as having a strong moral disposition. And so will it be seen with those who make real sacrifices to reduce their footprint on the world.
It must be said at this point that I am not, thus far and by far, one of those people. On New Year's Day, I spent 12 hours in an airplane. Flying is utterly dominant in my personal footprint; in fact, according to the Ecological Footprint Quiz it makes up a stunning 76% (5.9 vs 1.4) of my carbon footprint. This is both heartening (my "base" footprint is a plausible-sounding 1.4) and utterly disheartening, since flying a keystone in the life that I set up before I realized all this. I finally bit the bullet and bought some carbon credits in the form of a TerraPass, but I see it as an insignificant gesture, both morally and practically. Personal carbon credits are probably not the answer, though widespread and aggressive cap-trade-and-reduce markets are probably a good start. There's no reason for any country (including my own) to not be doing this right now, and it's despicable that more aren't. But boy I love flying.
