Time Bomb

On Sunday we entertained guests for Easter. We ate a lot, and a lot of great food. We enjoyed a good conversation, that, inevitably, turned to climate change and the mess we're all in. There were some threads of hope, and some threads of somber defeat in the conversation. But I don't want to give up. I want to believe that if we actually change our ways, one person at a time, and influence governments and organizations to also change their ways, change will come. Changes have been made in the past. Changes that have led to civil rights and women's right to vote. Important changes. They have certainly taken some time. The question this time, as leading environmental thinker Bill McKibben puts it, is on a rather compressed timeline. McKibben writes in Orion Magazine: Simply by doing something that seemed both normal and relatively benign—burning fossil fuel—we have begun to set off cascading and dangerous changes. And here’s what makes global warming different from most other issues that most other reformers have faced over the years: there’s a time limit. An unbelievably short time limit. What will this take? Some simple changes, like convincing your church or office that the use of styrofoam is a freaking bad idea. The stuff can't be recycled. Decycled, but not recycled. Use less water. Use less energy. Drive a more efficient vehicle. Don't drive at all. Take public transit. Walk. Ride a bike. But there's so much more beyond these simple answers provided at the end of Gore's movie. There are so many more ways that we need to change. But it's just too inconvenient. Why buy a fuel efficient car if you really want that gas guzzling army vehicle they just made available for anyone with a hero complex who wants to ravage the roads of suburbia? Why do anything if the world's gonna blow up anyhow? Defeatist thinking sometimes gets me down. But I'm hopeful. Hopeful for change, one person, one organization at a time. I pray my hope isn't misplaced, even tho it's hard to believe it isn't some days.