Friday, November 12, 2004
I got going on the Arctic Melting Thing with my physicist friend yesterday and he gently reminded me of what he always gently reminds me -- that the passage of time does not necessarily denote progress. The passage of time is just that. The passage of time. Here one day and underwater the next -- taken over by genetically engineered tuna and pollution-thriving algae. It isn't good or bad. It just is. Of course it would be a lot easier to embrace this way of thinking if I didn't have progeny on the planet.
Today my Stanford-educated, news-savvy friend gave me hope for the future. Because? Because in spite of all the information out there that should have thwarted the idea (including Anna Bloviation's many rantings), she went out and leased a Chili-pepper-red Toyota Highlander a.k.a. S.U.V. I just have to admire her unwavering optimism that mankind will right the consequences of our planet-damaging choices. In which case it's ok to buy a vehicle so blatantly at odds with planet sustainablity. Then again she is a mother-to-be. So it may in fact be her maternal instinct in the driver's seat more than anything else right now. She is hormonally hard-wired to do everything possible to protect her child. Global warming? Perhaps still too intangible a concept. But keeping her baby safer on Boston's roads? That's tangible. And if truth be told about Massachusetts drivers? Not entirely unreasonable at all.
Today my Stanford-educated, news-savvy friend gave me hope for the future. Because? Because in spite of all the information out there that should have thwarted the idea (including Anna Bloviation's many rantings), she went out and leased a Chili-pepper-red Toyota Highlander a.k.a. S.U.V. I just have to admire her unwavering optimism that mankind will right the consequences of our planet-damaging choices. In which case it's ok to buy a vehicle so blatantly at odds with planet sustainablity. Then again she is a mother-to-be. So it may in fact be her maternal instinct in the driver's seat more than anything else right now. She is hormonally hard-wired to do everything possible to protect her child. Global warming? Perhaps still too intangible a concept. But keeping her baby safer on Boston's roads? That's tangible. And if truth be told about Massachusetts drivers? Not entirely unreasonable at all.
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