Comments on Little Blog In The Big Woods: The Future of The World... Illustrated.

Brilliant. Someone else aware of the Transition To...

2008-07-21T04:57:00.000-05:00

Brilliant. Someone else aware of the Transition Towns movement.

Hopkins is a genius. I'm going to nominate him for a Right Livelihood award. Right after I figure out a way to make him Prime Minister.

Seriously, PLEASE get people reading the Transition Towns handbook. As you say, the only people who can save us is us.

Greenpa, perhaps you have me confused with another...

2008-07-13T13:08:00.000-05:00

Greenpa, perhaps you have me confused with another person. I do live on an island, but it is all hills, with a few exceptions. I've always been located on higher ground. My shortcoming, and a serious one, is that I am not so sure of continuing fresh water reliability.

One comment from living here; what California need...

2008-07-12T19:31:00.000-05:00

One comment from living here; what California needs, aside from better decisions made in the 1940s and 1950s, is not just budget for more summer firefighting (even the governor has said there's no 'fire season' any longer, it's year-round) but rather work to bring forests back to where they can burn gently and gracefully every decade or so as they did while the earlier residents were managing them.

Here's a good letter on the subject:
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/07/10/imagine-all-fish/

I know this works; I took on a 40-acre parcel that was toast and gravel a few years after its first fire in 40 years, back in the lage 1980s, and managed it for the next fire (which happened late in 2004). It came through well, but that's with a lot of work on the ground in between moving and removing brush and 'fire ladders' and discouraging the invasive annuals and encouraging the slower-recovering deep-rooted native perennials to hold the soil.

Every location is different. Even topsoil will burn if a fire has enough fuel and burns long enough.

The hydrologist who got me kickstarted (I was clueless and asked agency people to come visit) told me my site had had about a foot of soil a century ago from the lichen on the rocks, and had about 2/3 of an inch the day he visited. I did the math and started a 200-year project, hoping I can hand it off gracefully to someone else eventually.

Fun, though. As the letter-writer linked above notes, it could keep people busy year-round doing that with the whole of at least Northern California forests for the next century or two. If we wanted to be smart.

Checked out Rob Hopkins stuff. Very interesting. ...

2008-07-08T19:08:00.000-05:00

Checked out Rob Hopkins stuff. Very interesting. Thinking about purchasing his info and seeing what I can put into practice here. Thanks.

I have been told and told and told (mostly by over...

2008-07-08T13:22:00.000-05:00

I have been told and told and told (mostly by overweight guys who are expecting a Mad Max future staring them -- magically transformed into slim yet muscular babe magnets -- happily running the world with big guns) that we aren't going to get any where by turning to community becuase nothing gets done by a bunch of being singing around the campfire. God only knows where that comcept of community came from. For me,community is a bunch of people who might not agree on much, but agree that if the don't help each other out, the end of the world is coming a heck of a lot sooner and nastier.

It's possible by that neck of the woods will be overrun by hordes of hungery TV deprived ex-CEO zombies who can't tell that the green stuff growing all over what was once lawn (I used the word losely as IMO, crab grass is a great grass subsitute) is what shows of pre-french fries, and all my efforts at teaching (and learning from) my neighbors about gardening, and hard sharpen tools and solar ovens and composting loos will be for naught. But you know, I'd feel so much worse if those zombie CEO never turned up, but I'd been so afraid of being considered a campfire singing sissy that I'd never planted a garden, receieve and passed hand me down along, brought a file, or made an effort to keep on good terms with the neighbors who taste in music is terrible, vote the wrong way in all the elections, and whose gifts of homemade soup are not seasoned to my taste.

I realize there a lot of things I can't do much about -- but what's the point of not doing what we can?

MEA

I was lucky enough to hear Hopkins present at a co...

2008-07-07T08:58:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to hear Hopkins present at a conference (via video) and it has really changed my life. Community has always been an important concept for me, but it was not until his work that I realized how effective it could be as a way to face not just real life but also the unknown future.

RC- hey, maybe this will cheer you up! The NYT is...

2008-07-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

RC- hey, maybe this will cheer you up! The NYT is still selling thesame ole happy advice for surviving the bear market "stay the course!" Keep investing! Another "hilarious if not sad" thing. BTW- have you moved to higher ground yet?

A very short time ago the Ilargi site {Automatic E...

2008-07-06T16:32:00.000-05:00

A very short time ago the Ilargi site {Automatic Earth} and Sharon's site and Kunstler's site, as well as others {Michael Shedlock, Mike Morgan, Nouriel Roubini, many others} seemed alarmist and questionable in intent and factuality. Now this type of story appears on the front page of the Times. Long ago I recognized that the facts were fairly accurate and I wondered why the MSM was not picking this up. Now that they are, I am more anxious than ever!

Melissa- absolutely. I didn't mean to say it's on...

2008-07-06T14:24:00.000-05:00

Melissa- absolutely. I didn't mean to say it's only governments. Somehow all segments of society have absorbed the concept that real experts are there to be ignored, and we deserve what ever we can get away with. sigh.

unfortunately, I don't think it's just governments...

2008-07-06T14:14:00.000-05:00

unfortunately, I don't think it's just governments who aren't learning - I heard a guy on NPR last week talking about re-building his home in Tahoe after last years fires. He had rushed to submit his building permit application before Jan 1 of this year because that was when the new, more "fire safe" building codes went into effect, and he didn't want to have to abide by the new codes (I think he said it would be too expensive). I listened to the whole thing, not too surprised at all...until they announced after all this that this guys job was actually dealing with trying to prevent fires! Somebody I knew once remarked that humanity deserves what's coming to it. I think this is a little harsh and a little cynical...but only a little some days, when I hear things like this.

I read a philosopher's critique of the concept of ...

2008-07-06T13:58:00.000-05:00

I read a philosopher's critique of the concept of "progress" in college for a seminar course. We chewed over his ideas thoroughly. All I remember is that progress ain't always the best answer for the planet and its human & other residents. Hans Jonas was the guy.

We are all spirit - flesh and earth are spirit - and our technologies are part of spirit - and we have to throw ourselves upon the Great Source and then see what's the next thing to do in front of us. For me it's go to chemo every week and care for my children.

I also got an intuitive message recently that I can hire somebody to plan a permaculture garden for our urban lot, and that working in my garden at the level I can handle is part of healing for me. Two days after my 25th infusion I was raking up fallen plums and leaves for the compost pile. I did half an hour's worth of cleanup, all the yard work I have managed in a year since diagnosis, and I felt terrific.

One thing about having such a scary form of cancer is that it forces me to live in the moment. I am very aware of all these looming nightmarish possibilities for the planet; my own nightmarish possibilities are much more generally accepted by society so they are "more real" and yet I refuse to entertain them, for my own peace of mind. I am not dying today, I am living today, and that's what I've got.

Planning and planting a garden requires thinking about tomorrow and next year and beyond. However when you do the work, all you have is the work you do for that day - raking leaves or harvesting plums or whatever. And every gardener knows that time passes and all things die and are composted and reborn.

I take great comfort these days in looking at videos about permaculture. I am choosing to focus my future projecting mind on positive possible scenarios. Why not?

Even California's fires, a half dozen years of them in a row, can be viewed as a positive development. Maybe our government isn't "doing enough" to fight them. But maybe the fires will cause people to change their ways: quit building in remote, waterless hilltops; quit expecting to have luxury homes in the California chaparral. Maybe high fuel prices and peak oil will force us to cut back consumption where Sharon's arguments can't. (fine arguments but appeals to morality don't make people quit driving).

Change usually happens under duress. I only make major changes when I'm in pain. It took cancer recurring to get me organized on what I think my life's work is, my novel and fiction writing. Also it took that to get me to address seriously my cranky, angry, sometimes too negative personality. I don't really want to have this illness and the treatment but OTOH it has forced me to change my ways so that I have more peace of mind than I did a year ago, when I didn't know there was an illness inside me.

Big crises bring about big transformation. There may be big pain and suffering as well. But on the other hand, pain and suffering get us to reach out and comfort each other, and that, too, is a blessing.