Recently I watched an incredibly moving and powerful video about our planet (You can find it here and I encourage everyone to watch it with their families and friends: Home). After watching this movie, I sat for hours thinking of it and what I can personally do to contribute. I have already replaced the majority of my appliances, lighting and other electronic devices with energy efficient ones. In just a couple months I noticed a massive decrease in my month electricity bill. By massive, I mean about twenty five percent, which is significant considering the cost of electricity. I'm still not satisfied, but it is clearly a step in the right direction. Still it's not enough.
With this segment of my philosophy (as it were) to Occupied Mind blogs, I would like to share what I plan to do. This is to our fellow occupiers and those who support that movement. I hope that those people, in turn, will share this with everyone. Since it applies.
I know that I can't change the world, but I can change the way some people think about themselves, others around them and the world they live it. Those people I speak of are my children. As of this blog, I have three. All are young and impressionable. Pardon the expression...
I have another son, who is now an adult, but is already knowledgeable about the things I am writing about. In the future, I hope he too chooses to follow this path as it pertains for the future of our world. First I do have a gripe that must be put out before I forget it. The cost of electricity has sky rocketed in recent years and the reasons are obvious: Oil, and the quickly dwindling supply of it. As a species we are trying to find new, cheaper and more efficient methods of producing electricity, particularly with a green planet focus. The problem is that many countries are not following similar mandates. Canada, my country, is quickly becoming the most problematic of the developed nations. We export Asbestos to countries that say they need it, regardless of the consequences we know they invoke: Deadly Mesothelioma. Many countries today do not export it, mine it, or use it within their infrastructure, banning all practice with the toxic fibres. Canada, it would seem, is the largest exporter of a deadly substance that has no business being dug up in the first place. Personally, I think this is just Harper trying to be bum buddies with Quebec. Still, the dependency of electricity is our biggest global problem, and is not being address by our Parliament.
Since I am writing my opinion, I must say I personally believe that household electricity should be free, but that's just me. I cannot understand why solar power has not become a mandated standard everywhere in the world. It's unfortunate that it's illegal to live without it, especially with kids. So why make people pay? Nope, can't figure that out.
Now, when I see the damage being done to First Nation lands because of the oil sands, I see an immediate and necessary need to change the way we think and act. Those oil sands should be left alone until we as a species have the capacity to extract them cleanly. Our current barbaric methods are doing irreparable harm to the environment and no one in positions of power seem to be stepping up to make it stop. I know that my one little blurb here won't change the minds of the money makers in Canada and abroad, but I promise that my children will see the need for oil as a pariah. I will teach them that they must do all they can to consider their impact environmentally. I will teach them about recycling, as I always have. But more so, they will learn that when it comes time to leave the flock and take lives of their own, the desire for an electric car will be the only thing they will seek. They will know how to create and use renewable energy sources using solar and wind. Hydroelectric power has already done damage to our planet on a scale that I would call genocidal. In Canada's interior Rocky Mountains, an eight-thousand year old culture, the Sinixt Nation, was utterly annihilated by the development of hydroelectric dams in the US side of the 49th Parallel and their peoples displaced, unable to return to their ancestral home: In Canada. Last I checked, that is genocide. Want to know what Canada and US did to fix the damage done to an ancient Mother Nation? They threw them out of Canada, revoked their status as indigenous people and are now in the process of building highways through their burial land. Definitely genocide, only this particular form of genocide still continues across Canada.
Our ignorance has created a wake of destruction from which we, as adults, will never repair in time. While I'm not one to predict the future, I do believe that in the next ten years, a terrible ecological calamity will occur unlike anything we have seen in thousands of years. Something that we could have prevented, but refused to heed. Our polar ice caps have been reduced in thickness by forty percent. In fact, almost all the glaciers and permanent ice is thawing at an unprecedented rate. Methane released from the permafrost layers in Canada and Siberia will create a greenhouse affect on our planet that is a thousand times more damaging than any hydrocarbon. Scientist call it a runaway greenhouse effect. So what do we tell our kids? Can we be to blame for the ills of our fathers? If we do nothing, we will be as much to blame as anyone else who attempts to claim that the concept of global warming is a myth (Like our Prime Minister and his Minister of the Environment - someone without any credentials as a scientist). Consider this as a possible calamity resulting from global warming: A winter hurricane, ocean levels increased by thirty feet or more, changes in weather patterns made more violent by the amount of fresh water being dumped into the worlds oceans. Who can hold that tide back? Humans? I think we are a little soft to survive Earth's natural fury. Just ask the people in Burma, Japan, California, Florida, and under the ash of Mt. St. Helens and Pompeii. Those disasters were natural, but their magnitude no less significant. The only difference this time is that this next coming disaster will have been caused by the ignorance of human beings who claimed the earth as their own without the moral foresight to recognize that we share this planet.
So what do we do? We teach our children and we make changes to our personal daily lives. We find a way for governments, corporations and other powers-that-be to standardize renewable energies, first and foremost by NOT buying their oil based products. We look at different methods of creating plastic from materials that are not petroleum based. The production of carbon fibre materials would probably reduce the amount of hydrocarbons being released into the atmosphere. Carbon belongs in the ground, the very purpose of our trees. Simply put, vegetation pulls hydrocarbons out of the atmosphere and replenishes our oxygen. For my part, I will teach my children that it is morally wrong to buy a car that consumes fossil fuels. I will teach them that it is morally wrong not to recycle our every day items. I will teach them that the quest for successful living is in keeping nature natural. I do serve a Christian doctrine (sorry for you, folks that disapprove, but my humanity just says, I really don't care that you disapprove). Using the tenets there, I have raised my children, but also show that science and technology are not enemies of our beliefs, they are useful tools that will better their lives now and for future generations.
I will tell my children that the governments and corporations of the world seek only gain and excess and that to create a better world we should no longer rely on them or their empty promises. Of course, there will need to be some exceptions or even concessions. They will learn that the best method of travel in harsh times is mass transportation. In the near future hybridized and electric cars will likely be the norm. My oldest son, now an adult has purchased an e-bike. An excellent and viable alternative to the standard consumer vehicle. We all need to go green and take a giant step backward from gas and oil power industry and products. In five or even ten years if every sixteen year old decided that the next vehicle purchase they decide on is eco-friendly, imagine what that would do to the currently leaders in the vehicle industries. They would crumble overnight. We need to let those auto companies crumble or they need to start preparing now, because tomorrow no one will be looking to purchase vehicles of destruction. Fossil fuel dependant companies need to mandate renewable methods of energy with all their research and development.
Those corporations need to know that we are not going to buy into the products and services that affect our lives and environment so profoundly. When my children break from the shackles of low-income (and they will), they will have the necessary means and capital to invest their hard-earned assets solely in green technologies, health-care, and renewable resources. My promise as a parent is to teach my children that only they can repair the damage done to the planet, but they will not know how unless we teach them and teach them immediately.
PostScript
PS: I predict a major cataclysmic event within the next ten years that will affect the lives of two-hundred million people, probably more. I hope and pray that it is not sudden, but gradual enough for people to start preparing (ie, moving away from coastal cities).
With this segment of my philosophy (as it were) to Occupied Mind blogs, I would like to share what I plan to do. This is to our fellow occupiers and those who support that movement. I hope that those people, in turn, will share this with everyone. Since it applies.
I know that I can't change the world, but I can change the way some people think about themselves, others around them and the world they live it. Those people I speak of are my children. As of this blog, I have three. All are young and impressionable. Pardon the expression...
I have another son, who is now an adult, but is already knowledgeable about the things I am writing about. In the future, I hope he too chooses to follow this path as it pertains for the future of our world. First I do have a gripe that must be put out before I forget it. The cost of electricity has sky rocketed in recent years and the reasons are obvious: Oil, and the quickly dwindling supply of it. As a species we are trying to find new, cheaper and more efficient methods of producing electricity, particularly with a green planet focus. The problem is that many countries are not following similar mandates. Canada, my country, is quickly becoming the most problematic of the developed nations. We export Asbestos to countries that say they need it, regardless of the consequences we know they invoke: Deadly Mesothelioma. Many countries today do not export it, mine it, or use it within their infrastructure, banning all practice with the toxic fibres. Canada, it would seem, is the largest exporter of a deadly substance that has no business being dug up in the first place. Personally, I think this is just Harper trying to be bum buddies with Quebec. Still, the dependency of electricity is our biggest global problem, and is not being address by our Parliament.
Since I am writing my opinion, I must say I personally believe that household electricity should be free, but that's just me. I cannot understand why solar power has not become a mandated standard everywhere in the world. It's unfortunate that it's illegal to live without it, especially with kids. So why make people pay? Nope, can't figure that out.
Now, when I see the damage being done to First Nation lands because of the oil sands, I see an immediate and necessary need to change the way we think and act. Those oil sands should be left alone until we as a species have the capacity to extract them cleanly. Our current barbaric methods are doing irreparable harm to the environment and no one in positions of power seem to be stepping up to make it stop. I know that my one little blurb here won't change the minds of the money makers in Canada and abroad, but I promise that my children will see the need for oil as a pariah. I will teach them that they must do all they can to consider their impact environmentally. I will teach them about recycling, as I always have. But more so, they will learn that when it comes time to leave the flock and take lives of their own, the desire for an electric car will be the only thing they will seek. They will know how to create and use renewable energy sources using solar and wind. Hydroelectric power has already done damage to our planet on a scale that I would call genocidal. In Canada's interior Rocky Mountains, an eight-thousand year old culture, the Sinixt Nation, was utterly annihilated by the development of hydroelectric dams in the US side of the 49th Parallel and their peoples displaced, unable to return to their ancestral home: In Canada. Last I checked, that is genocide. Want to know what Canada and US did to fix the damage done to an ancient Mother Nation? They threw them out of Canada, revoked their status as indigenous people and are now in the process of building highways through their burial land. Definitely genocide, only this particular form of genocide still continues across Canada.
Our ignorance has created a wake of destruction from which we, as adults, will never repair in time. While I'm not one to predict the future, I do believe that in the next ten years, a terrible ecological calamity will occur unlike anything we have seen in thousands of years. Something that we could have prevented, but refused to heed. Our polar ice caps have been reduced in thickness by forty percent. In fact, almost all the glaciers and permanent ice is thawing at an unprecedented rate. Methane released from the permafrost layers in Canada and Siberia will create a greenhouse affect on our planet that is a thousand times more damaging than any hydrocarbon. Scientist call it a runaway greenhouse effect. So what do we tell our kids? Can we be to blame for the ills of our fathers? If we do nothing, we will be as much to blame as anyone else who attempts to claim that the concept of global warming is a myth (Like our Prime Minister and his Minister of the Environment - someone without any credentials as a scientist). Consider this as a possible calamity resulting from global warming: A winter hurricane, ocean levels increased by thirty feet or more, changes in weather patterns made more violent by the amount of fresh water being dumped into the worlds oceans. Who can hold that tide back? Humans? I think we are a little soft to survive Earth's natural fury. Just ask the people in Burma, Japan, California, Florida, and under the ash of Mt. St. Helens and Pompeii. Those disasters were natural, but their magnitude no less significant. The only difference this time is that this next coming disaster will have been caused by the ignorance of human beings who claimed the earth as their own without the moral foresight to recognize that we share this planet.
So what do we do? We teach our children and we make changes to our personal daily lives. We find a way for governments, corporations and other powers-that-be to standardize renewable energies, first and foremost by NOT buying their oil based products. We look at different methods of creating plastic from materials that are not petroleum based. The production of carbon fibre materials would probably reduce the amount of hydrocarbons being released into the atmosphere. Carbon belongs in the ground, the very purpose of our trees. Simply put, vegetation pulls hydrocarbons out of the atmosphere and replenishes our oxygen. For my part, I will teach my children that it is morally wrong to buy a car that consumes fossil fuels. I will teach them that it is morally wrong not to recycle our every day items. I will teach them that the quest for successful living is in keeping nature natural. I do serve a Christian doctrine (sorry for you, folks that disapprove, but my humanity just says, I really don't care that you disapprove). Using the tenets there, I have raised my children, but also show that science and technology are not enemies of our beliefs, they are useful tools that will better their lives now and for future generations.
I will tell my children that the governments and corporations of the world seek only gain and excess and that to create a better world we should no longer rely on them or their empty promises. Of course, there will need to be some exceptions or even concessions. They will learn that the best method of travel in harsh times is mass transportation. In the near future hybridized and electric cars will likely be the norm. My oldest son, now an adult has purchased an e-bike. An excellent and viable alternative to the standard consumer vehicle. We all need to go green and take a giant step backward from gas and oil power industry and products. In five or even ten years if every sixteen year old decided that the next vehicle purchase they decide on is eco-friendly, imagine what that would do to the currently leaders in the vehicle industries. They would crumble overnight. We need to let those auto companies crumble or they need to start preparing now, because tomorrow no one will be looking to purchase vehicles of destruction. Fossil fuel dependant companies need to mandate renewable methods of energy with all their research and development.
Those corporations need to know that we are not going to buy into the products and services that affect our lives and environment so profoundly. When my children break from the shackles of low-income (and they will), they will have the necessary means and capital to invest their hard-earned assets solely in green technologies, health-care, and renewable resources. My promise as a parent is to teach my children that only they can repair the damage done to the planet, but they will not know how unless we teach them and teach them immediately.
PostScript
PS: I predict a major cataclysmic event within the next ten years that will affect the lives of two-hundred million people, probably more. I hope and pray that it is not sudden, but gradual enough for people to start preparing (ie, moving away from coastal cities).
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