Do you ever find yourself eager to run to your computer, then instead of going directly to your files, you scroll click-bait? Oh, those headlines are good, aren't they?
Click-bait: Right now, with California fires burning up over 10,000 homes, our soon-to-be administration is criticizing the CA administration for not being prepared for fires or some inane thing like a vendetta against the governor. Blame, blame, blame--I'm tired of it.
People are suffering folks.
We need a solution. No we aren't prepared for the wildfires we have been having. We weren't prepared for COVID-19 when it hit us either.
Oregon used to have lookout towers where a person or a couple would spend the summers on a lookout for lightning strikes or puffs of smoke rising through the trees. Those lookout towers set above the forest, and the lookout person could, with an instrument, visually triangle the location of a puff of smoke and notify the position so the rangers. That way, they could catch a fire at a very early stage.
Once surrounded by Oregon forests, we saw a helicopter fly over with a large bag hanging below his plane. Unbeknownst to us, a lightning strike had ignited a tree not far from our house. I don't know who saw that strike, but it set the tree on fire. A helicopter was deployed, and the pilot dropped a water bag on the tree. It was out, just like that. And we didn't know of the danger.
I could spend a month or so in a cabin atop a tower looking up regularly from my computer to watch for puffs of smoke—Think of all the reading you could do between times of surveying the countryside. I don't know how that would work in urban situations. I know that during war situations in our hometown, people were hired to search and document every plane they spotted.
Whatever faults humans have, we are still good detectors. Like other animals, we can see when something is out of the ordinary.
Perhaps we need a net of fire spotters, for it appears that wildfires are regularly upon us—Oregon forests, Lahaina, Hawaii, and now Malibu, CA. Perhaps fire berms could wind through cities- that would be a good place for mountain bikes to travel on dirt roads, and kids could play in the dirt. That would give tractor drivers a weekly job of tilling the dirt. Or what about regularly irrigated gardens planted in the fire berm, or fields of wheat, corn, or oats? One would think that streets would provide fire breaks, but apparently not. Fires jump streets, rooftops send sparks, trees and houses explode.
I asked my physicist husband about detection devices, and he said that satellites can detect a single rocket launch and a fire within a city block, so apparently, they have detection covered. Our problem is with putting them out.
Ocean water could be used for homes near the ocean—pumped under the streets, a spraying device to implement them. Automatic sprinklers in the streets? If you have ever watched the TV documentary, "The Curse of Oak Island," you would see that someone back in the 1700s had the ingenuity to hide a treasure 150 feet underground, booby trap flood tunnels to thwart other diggers from getting it and do it so well that 200 years later no one has found it, and it isn't for lack of trying.
When people are presented with a problem, they will devise a solution.
From the time of tribes, a good governing situation was to take into account all individuals of the tribe.
"When given the choice of whether to work for the benefit of society and future generations, or to act only in their own self-interest, the majority of people will do the right thing. If we allow people to choose, unhampered by undo pressure and disinformation, democracy works."--
A great example is from a study in France in 2019.
The government chose 150 French citizens at random from all walks of life, ranging from 18 to 80 years old. (Hey, why stop at 80?)
They gave the group eight weeks to figure out a solution to the global warming problem. More specifically, the task was to reduce overall carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.
The citizens were provided with a panel of experts to interview and a way for them to all communicate with each other. Throughout eight weekends, this group of 150 citizens would work together, get expert input and feedback, and develop solutions.
The French government informed this group that by the end of these eight weeks, whatever proposals they came up with would be put up for a democratic referendum vote. If one of the proposals gets voted in, it will be implemented.
This acted as an excellent incentive for people to take this task seriously--that their voices mattered.
"The first thing the group concluded was that economic growth would have to be stunted. Remember that this neoliberal capitalist model that we've been talking about is based on unlimited growth with limited resources. We know that this is not a sustainable concept, therefore, the group quickly realized that stunting economic growth was necessary to make responsible decisions to cut emissions."
They decided to ban advertisements of things that are exceedingly harmful to the environment, ban short flights and single-use plastics, and make recycling mandatory. Landlords would be required to renovate their properties to be sustainable by 2034. They would increase taxes on polluters to about 4%, which would apply to anybody who made over $10 million. The higher "pollution taxes" would help pay for these changes. They would also work on eliminating trucking in favor of using trains. It was a comprehensive plan.
"When the French government started to see what they were putting together, they immediately interjected to tell the group that they needed to keep their proposals reasonable because money doesn't grow on trees."
But the group was on a roll. They stuck to their guns, insisting that this was what needed to happen and what they wanted their fellow citizens to vote on.
They came up with a 400-page proposal of actions that could be taken.
Though Macron, (a neoliberal capitalist) promised to put any proposal they came up with to a vote, it shouldn't surprise anyone that this never happened.
The proposal was torpedoed.
They did implement some watered-down versions of the stuff they came up with, but the suggested sweeping changes were never put up for a vote.
Here's the point.
"When you take ordinary citizens, from all age groups and walks of life. Give them pertinent, accurate, expert information, and then ask them to vote… they can be counted on to make the right choice."
And then there is a giant in the form of a small 90-year-old lady named Jane Goodall, who with interviewer, Douglas Abrams has written a book called HOPE, A Survival Guide for Trying Times.
Last night, I read an excerpt. In Abrams's introduction, he wrote this:
"We are going through hard times. Armed conflict, racial and religious discrimination, hate crimes, terrorist attacks, and a political swing so far right that it is fueling demonstrations and protests that all to often become violent. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is evidence fermenting anger and unrest. Democracy is under attack in many countries. And climatic crisis temperately pushed to the background is an even greater threat to our future, indeed to all life on Earth as we know it."
Douglas Abrams also interviewed the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as they talked about JOY. This interview was captured on TV and in The Book of Joy.
I have been a fan of Jan Goodall since I first heard of her, and quickly read her book, In the Shadow of Man (1971)—that was 54 years ago. The shadow was that of a chimpanzee falling on Jane's own shadow. This was after she sat on a hillside for six months watching through binoculars before getting close to one.
When Goodall published the film of the chimpanzee, David Greybeard, where he stripped leaves from a twig and used it as a tool to fish termites out of their termite hill, she set science on its ear. Before that account, one definition of a human being was that he was a tool user.
Then, I read a little treasure: SOLO, The Story of an African Wild Dog by Hugo van Lawick, the photographer who became Jane's husband.
Solo isn't on Amazon, but I found it on Thrift Books—one left for $6.69 plus shipping—you can find one on eBay for 85 bucks. Solo is about a little orphaned wild dog whose legs became deformed from following his pack when he was too young for the job. The team put aside their Prime Directive of non-interference with a wild herd or pack. It figured out what, in God's great plan, it would hurt to rescue one little puppy. They did and later reintroduced him into the pack where they observed him suddenly itching and scratching and wondered what was wrong with him. He was reintroduced to fleas. When in captivity, they used a repellent.
And when the chimps caught polio and would drag their hindquarters around and couldn't clean their beds at night—typically chimps move to another tree and make a new bed every night, the workers climbed into the trees and cleaned their beds for them.
I must tell you all this because when I was young, I used to say that Jane Goodall had my job, but she didn't. It was her job. She was perfect. I do not have the patience to do what she did, and her trip to Africa, a month's trip on a boat, would have killed me. (I get sea sick.) No planes were going to Africa when she went, and the Panama Canal was closed.
Yet, here we have a lady believing in HOPE and two religious leaders of different persuasions believing in JOY. (Their love for each other is contagious.)
Goodall calls herself a Naturalist, not a scientist. A scientist is more apt to focus on facts and the desire to quantify.
A Naturalist looks at the wonder of nature, listens to its voice, and tries to understand it. A Naturalist needs empathy, intuition, and love.
HOPE and Faith are not interchangeable words. Faith is belief in the unknown, "HOPE," says Goodall, "is a survival mechanism." Your dog hopes to be let outside. Your cat hopes to be fed.
Whatever endeavor we begin, whether it's building a gizmo, a home, writing a book, a song, or starting a new job, we HOPE it will turn out well. We HOPE we can make a contribution.
Without HOPE, spirituality dies.
A friend sent this to me a few days ago:
"I listened to a YouTuber speak last night about how some of us are like birds in a cage and don't realize that the door is open, and we can fly out whenever we want.
"Some just want to stay in the cage because they're used to it and are okay with following the rules and belief systems that make them comfortable, and they don't want to leave and enter the unknown while others of us have flown out of the cage but still may be feeling unsettled because we want a home and don't want to be out there by ourselves.
"Also, we have friends and family members still in the cage, and we miss them, but we're not willing to live in that restricted environment to have it. So, we're on the other end of this and feeling very isolated, alone, and unsettled because we gave up the structure and security of whatever that was for this freedom.
"Bottom line - the cage is dissolving and we're moving into a new way of being and we get to choose how we react to it. This is a new chapter in the book that hasn't been written yet. It's being written now."
Thank you, dear one.
P.S. Is anyone trying to read this blog on their phone? How is it working?