Nature

I've written about the San bushmen from southern Africa. Lately I've been learning about the Hadza, who live in Tanzania. They've both lived on the order of 100,000 years gathering and hunting. I'll write about the Hadza, but it applies to all cultures we drill for oil and mine for resources. Here's a trailer for a documentary I recommend to learn about them: https://youtu.be/2dQWDz4nKbY Here is a link to the full documentary, which it doesn't play here, so you have to click to watch it. I set it to start at a scene that prompts the headline to this post. If you don't feel like clicking, it shows the territory the Hadza being reduced by agriculture and encroaching by others. Here's a still from that…

I used to find people annoying who complained about how supermarket tomatoes and vegetables available even out of season because they're shipped from California. The difference wasn't that great, I thought. The organic stuff was too expensive, inconvenient, and hard to find, I thought. Then I started buying local and fresh. Until then, I didn't know what I was talking about, as, I figure, most people who haven't learned to buy and prepare fresh. This morning, I was chopping some supermarket celery I got when volunteering bringing surplus food from a market to a food pantry. Why the market was getting rid of it, I don't know, since it looked fresh, but I got to keep it as a volunteer. I hadn't had supermarket celery…

I've taken pictures of my neighborhood's descent into disgust from the supply of doof and other garbage. Yesterday morning I opened the shades to see a dusting of snow. I get so down about global warming and roughly 330 million Americans continuing to pollute while saying they're concerned, acting like they aren't contributing. Here was a sign that we haven't lost winter here yet, amid reports of many places 30 or 40 degrees above average. To clarify, there was still plenty of disgusting litter. I tried to avoid taking pictures of it this time. This morning it's drizzling. A decade ago, this drizzle would have been flurries. A decade from now it may be seawater flooding. I hope to help reduce that chance.

What's a circular economy? For those new to it, according to Wikipedia and sources within: A circular or closed-loop economy is "a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible".It continues, "a circular economy employs reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling to create a closed-loop system, minimising the use of resource inputs and the creation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions. The circular economy aims to keep products, materials, equipment and infrastructure in use for longer, thus improving the productivity of these resources"" I've seen lots of meanings and definitions, but a couple criteria seem to clear it up for me: You can't use fossil fuels. You can't close a…

You've probably heard people say we live today better than kings of old could have dreamed of. They point out even poor people have color TVs, internet access, cell phones, and food available from all over the world any time. We can live in air conditioned comfort any time we want. Stephen Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature points out we live less violently than ever, so it's not just material difference. Still, I can't remove the plastic and carcinogens from my blood. I can't change that leaded gasoline lowered my IQ (yours too). I don't want a TV, but I do want peace and quiet in the morning, which I rarely experience. I'd like to hear birdsong but rarely hear any. I'd like a…

"What I do doesn't matter," people say. "We shouldn't get distracted from changing systems by focusing on individual actions. BP is tricking us." I disagree. Another reason for individual action. Asking if there's any point in it to solve our environmental problems is like saying "if we want to lower infant mortality. Should I change my child's diaper?" Helping all babies live sounds vaguely like helping an individual child feel better. If you didn't think too much about them, you might consider them related. They are in the same field of helping babies, but you don't change your baby's diaper to help all babies live. You do it because you do what you think is right. Separately from helping your baby, you also influence others…

Stop saying "the planet will be fine. It's us who may not make it." Everyone knows already. It's not insightful. It's annoying. Everyone knows that when someone says "saving the planet" they don't mean keeping the Earth from falling apart. You don't have to try to show off how insightful you are. You know how smart you are.

Genesis 1:26-28 says And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. I think about the…

People define the term sacred differently, but I talk to a lot of people about what nature means to them and I hear a lot of them describe it as sacred. I understand them to mean it's spiritual, divine, not to compromise on. Recently I came across a word for the first time in a while that hit me as appropriate for pollution, deforestation, and the various other things we're doing that lower Earth's ability to sustain life: Profane. Since then, I think of the word and concept while picking up litter in particular, and while considering what we're doing the environment in general. As with sacred, you can define profane differently, but I think most people's definitions will include pollution. I share the idea…