On the Road with A Long Way to Go

I’m proud to live in a place that makes an effort. There’s a duality to that, though. Because it’s not enough, is it? But it’s better than nothing. It’s a start. From a recent piece on Public Radio International called “California’s Low-Carbon Diet”:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions isn’t just a good idea -- in California, it’s the law. The state is the first in the nation to go on a low carb diet. Three years ago it passed legislation restricting the release of climate change gases across its economy.

Do you see what I’m saying? On the one hand, it’s great that we’re on that road; we’ve made a start. So many places in the world haven’t even come to terms with the fact that there’s a problem. On the other… well, sometimes I just think about all the wind and sun and waves out there -- all those lovely clean alternatives -- and I shake my head. Well, sometimes I shake my head and get on my soapbox. I’ll get off it now.

There’s just such a long way yet to go.

The link leads to a transcript of the original broadcast. You can listen to it there, as well. It’s an installment of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Curwood’s excellent Living on the Earth program. The show has been running continuously since 1991.

May You Live in Interesting Times

We live in exciting times. I feel very lucky that life has placed me in a position to be able to see this.

One of the things not everyone knows about me is that my undergraduate degree is in engineering. Yes, yes, it’s true: beneath the smooth façade of the Masters in business and the doctorate -- which makes me very philosophical, indeed -- beats the heart of an engineer. And though you can take the boy away from his slide rule, you can’t always…

Here’s the thing: all these years later, I’m finding this geekish background to be a useful thing. It prepared me to not only accept change, but in some cases to run toward it and to embrace the most useful of it. I’ll tell you what I mean.

I have a sense, sometimes, of the world spinning very quickly right now. For various reasons -- multiple reasons, really -- technology has never moved quite so quickly. Some of this is good news. One of the things I’m most excited about are the new technologies that touch the way we make our individual footprints. There are political, financial and ethical reasons for big, green change and a lot of it is right around the corner. One of the things I’ve come to think of when I hear the word “stimulus” is how we’re rapidly moving toward a time when green, sustainable change is a big part of what is being stimulated. Exciting times, indeed.

We’re starting to see signs of this already. In this regard, everything is changing. From very small and seemingly simple things -- the way we clean our homes. The way we shop for food. The way we bring said food home from the market -- to the things that touch our lives most profoundly -- the way we build our homes. The way we grow our food. The way we fuel our cars and truck our goods across the country and the world. So many thing that we took for granted even a decade or two ago are now being rethought, reimagined. It makes me happy -- and even proud -- to be a part of this change. To do my part in all the ways I can.