OK, I realize I am still very much under the spell of Margaret Atwood's brilliant prose. Back to back dystopian novels - two of a planned trilogy - can have an effect on one's attitude to be certain. However, I have harbored these secret thoughts for quite some time now.
When I decided to adopt two of the neighbors' baby rabbits a year ago, I dutifully went on line to do my homework and learn about caring for pet rabbits. I learned, for example, that, as rabbits are prey animals, they really don't enjoy being picked up by overjoyed new owners. It is too close to being grabbed by jaws of death for their innate sense of survival.
I hadn't really thought about this before -- an overall difference in an animals personality based on being prey or being a predator. We don't readily imagine our dogs as predators. I always felt it had to do with how domesticated an animal was - hamsters and gerbils simply weren't as domesticated as cats and dogs.
Not only are they less likely to enjoy being snatched up for a cuddle, they are also not going to let on that they are ill. By the time your pet rabbit looks or acts ill it is very close to dying. This too is a defense mechanism of animals of prey--weak and ill animals are culled.
If you intend to own a rabbit, plan on paying very close attention on a regular basis to how they are doing if you intend to keep them healthy. By now you must be wondering where I am headed with this - the title, that strange picture, sick rabbits...
I believe that Earth, Gaia, is very much like a rabbit when it comes to illness. By the time we are seeing the signs of stress it is quite likely to be too late. I mean, I believe it is too late to prevent significant climate change over the next century. All the CF bulbs, all the bring your own bag to the supermarket, all the recycling, all the Energy Star appliances, all of it is essentially feel good band aid non-fixes.
I wish I were better at drawing because I continually imagine editorial cartoons. My latest was a caricature of President Obama driving down a road at high speed. We are viewing him from the back seat...we can see from the speedometer that we are going very fast and through the windshield we can see that the road is out up ahead...we are just passing a billboard that says "Last Chance Oasis back two miles..." Standing squished in on his left and right side are cartoon little people (can't say midgets anymore)... They are both yanking on the steering wheel from their respective sides...left and right... If this is "in color" dress the one on the left in blue and the one on the right in red...
350 parts per million - scientists say that is the safe level of carbon in the atmosphere for humans. We're at 387 and climbing and still arguing about whether climate change is real or not...whether the change that is happening is due to human cause or just natural cycles...and Rapture Fiends and 12/21/2012 paranoids are all making their own "The End Is Near!" signs.
What are we doing about this in our heavily addicted carbon based economy and lifestyle? We're debating a few m.p.g. in our vehicles - too bad that 1 in 3 hybrid vehicles are the second car of SUV owners! As we run around putting in the mercury laced compact fluorescent bulbs, our homes are using more electricity from all our gadgets and their charging devices, and flat screen televisions and computers that are never completely powered down! No one wants to talk about the fact that significantly more green house gas is emitted from bovine flatulence than from automobiles - hell, beef, it's what's for dinner...
This is why I believe it is too late. One hundred years from now there will be no New Orleans, no Venice, most of Florida will be gone... We can hope that as ecosystems change, our ability to produce grain will continue somewhere if not in our current bread basket regions. The permafrost is melting and releasing trapped CO2 adding to the problem.
Will we ultimately survive? I think so...we're probably a lot more like cockroaches than we realize. I just don't think that life in the wealthy first world will look that much different from the third world by the time the planet is through with us.
Then again, perhaps "tomorrow will be the start of a new and better world for all of us..."
When I decided to adopt two of the neighbors' baby rabbits a year ago, I dutifully went on line to do my homework and learn about caring for pet rabbits. I learned, for example, that, as rabbits are prey animals, they really don't enjoy being picked up by overjoyed new owners. It is too close to being grabbed by jaws of death for their innate sense of survival.
I hadn't really thought about this before -- an overall difference in an animals personality based on being prey or being a predator. We don't readily imagine our dogs as predators. I always felt it had to do with how domesticated an animal was - hamsters and gerbils simply weren't as domesticated as cats and dogs.
Not only are they less likely to enjoy being snatched up for a cuddle, they are also not going to let on that they are ill. By the time your pet rabbit looks or acts ill it is very close to dying. This too is a defense mechanism of animals of prey--weak and ill animals are culled.
If you intend to own a rabbit, plan on paying very close attention on a regular basis to how they are doing if you intend to keep them healthy. By now you must be wondering where I am headed with this - the title, that strange picture, sick rabbits...
I believe that Earth, Gaia, is very much like a rabbit when it comes to illness. By the time we are seeing the signs of stress it is quite likely to be too late. I mean, I believe it is too late to prevent significant climate change over the next century. All the CF bulbs, all the bring your own bag to the supermarket, all the recycling, all the Energy Star appliances, all of it is essentially feel good band aid non-fixes.
I wish I were better at drawing because I continually imagine editorial cartoons. My latest was a caricature of President Obama driving down a road at high speed. We are viewing him from the back seat...we can see from the speedometer that we are going very fast and through the windshield we can see that the road is out up ahead...we are just passing a billboard that says "Last Chance Oasis back two miles..." Standing squished in on his left and right side are cartoon little people (can't say midgets anymore)... They are both yanking on the steering wheel from their respective sides...left and right... If this is "in color" dress the one on the left in blue and the one on the right in red...
350 parts per million - scientists say that is the safe level of carbon in the atmosphere for humans. We're at 387 and climbing and still arguing about whether climate change is real or not...whether the change that is happening is due to human cause or just natural cycles...and Rapture Fiends and 12/21/2012 paranoids are all making their own "The End Is Near!" signs.
What are we doing about this in our heavily addicted carbon based economy and lifestyle? We're debating a few m.p.g. in our vehicles - too bad that 1 in 3 hybrid vehicles are the second car of SUV owners! As we run around putting in the mercury laced compact fluorescent bulbs, our homes are using more electricity from all our gadgets and their charging devices, and flat screen televisions and computers that are never completely powered down! No one wants to talk about the fact that significantly more green house gas is emitted from bovine flatulence than from automobiles - hell, beef, it's what's for dinner...
This is why I believe it is too late. One hundred years from now there will be no New Orleans, no Venice, most of Florida will be gone... We can hope that as ecosystems change, our ability to produce grain will continue somewhere if not in our current bread basket regions. The permafrost is melting and releasing trapped CO2 adding to the problem.
Will we ultimately survive? I think so...we're probably a lot more like cockroaches than we realize. I just don't think that life in the wealthy first world will look that much different from the third world by the time the planet is through with us.
Then again, perhaps "tomorrow will be the start of a new and better world for all of us..."
Happy Halloween!!! Make it a good one!
3 comments:
Wow Larry - Awesome though provoking post.
Yeah...Atwood does have that effect on ya. I remember reading Oryx and Crake and having the willies for weeks - bioengineering, corporate communities, disengagement of humanity and extreme class segregation to stomp out free - scary, scary shit. I can't wait to read this book!
I find that Atwood has an uncanny ability to tease out the most disturbing and possible scenarios that "progress" can bring about - the unplanned for, unintended consequences of messing with natural order.
For a long while now, I've thought that we are Rome burning...people are so caught up in their daily lives and conveniences - we are more concerned about the monetary costs of saving the environment than the actual COST of not saving it - where the monetary costs will be irrelevant. Civilization is so caught up in the positive possibilities of things, that it fails to see the ever present flip side of the coin. Capitalism drags toward profits at any cost, to its own eventual demise - no environment, no humans, no need for money. Welcome back to the dark ages!
Is it too late? Probably. We can't turn things back..but perhaps we can staunch the hemorrhaging - at least that my delusional grasp at hope. But listening to NPR this morning to politicians debating the need for policy revisions based on actual climate change, and the absolute blind willful ignorance of the American public and the servants we've chosen to represent us: I despair.
Larry,
I guess what keeps me going is being the ever-optimist...I choose to go down fighting....It may be too late, but I will not give up trying. Then if there is an opportunity to look back, I can say that I did my best:)
Kim, my faith keeps me going, as I'm certain does yours. I am often struck these days though how ultimately everything is boiled down to marketing and consumerism. Are we really moving towards significant change or are we subject to more saavy marketing where "green" is the new chic and while we buy the new lightbulbs and the new recycling strategy, etc etc etc we continue down the road to climactic disaster.
I hate feeling like a back woods eccentric with "bomb shelter" fantasies of survival in the north woods...but nothing seems to really be changing. Meanwhile the species continue to die off...
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