Blogging, Vlogging and Podcasting for Good
Taking the long view
After taking the little lizard picture in my earlier post I realized there was a kind of irony in that. The page on which the lizard is posed is page 105 of Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded. That's the first page of chapter five about climate change. The book is Friedman's warning about how we're headed for total globalization, very likely disastrous climate change, and population numbers that overburden not only the planet but our social systems for maintaining a world anybody would like to live in. So far it's not an uplifting read. It feeds my pessimism. Some critics would say it's hype and sensationalism, but if it's not...
I've spent many hours in the last week just sitting here looking at the ocean, watching the royal palms sway and thinking just how great the planet can be. I can't get enough of it. The older I've gotten the more I've found it's important to drink in as much of the world around me as I can every day with my eyes, ears, and through my pores.
I'm a Baby Boomer, and in recent years I've thought, "Boy, I'm glad I've lived in the time slot I've had." Back in the 1960s abd '70s, thanks to Vibram soles, aluminum frames, and nylon a significant proportion of the youth population took to backpacking. I remember a bumper sticker that read "Ecology: The Last Fad." The forms of back-to-nature of my generation became a problem in itself. So many people took to High Sierra trails that rangers closed some of them because the terrain was becoming eroded by the foot traffic. We boomers grew up and turned to careers, families, and other responsibilities. The problem of over-love of back country faded. But I'm really glad to have had the chance. The complaint about current young people is that they've become detached from nature because of urban or suburban living and the virtuality of electronic technology. That's too bad.
Hawaii is kind of a case study of how attraction can become self-destructive. "Paradise," as I've been calling it, is so alluring that it is practically the poster-child for over-use and exploitation. If you stick close to the shore here on Maui you can still see some remnants of the older, quaint Hawaii. But the once-quaint Lahaina Town near where I am has become nothing more that a souvenir canter like Disneyland's Main Street with a hundred year-old banyan tree at it's center. The condo I'm staying in is what I'd call a 1G place. It was built in the first wave of time-shares, maybe in the '80s. If you rent one you hope it's been well renovated because these modest apartments have seen a lot of wear. There are 2G resorts that are much larger and more hotel-like, and some under construction that are truly monstrous edifices. There's what I think of as a 3G resort about a mile from here that looks like a giant, pink Mayan ziggurat. It appears to be near completion. And along Highway 30 the latest chain-store strip malls stretch for miles.
The thing is, from the time we started planning this vacation a kind of guilt has gnawed at me. I'm a critic but also part of the problem. I think, "How much jet fuel did it take to ge me here?" "Is it right to patronize the huge Barnes & Nobel bookstore that just opened?" Isn't that how we got hot, flat, and crowded? Vacation like this become a guilty pleasure.
But Hawaii also takes me to another perspective that helps me handle the concerns I have about the 21st Century. These islands are some of the Earth's newest land. (Humorist Will Rogers bvck in the 1930s or '40s said, "Buy land. They ain't makin' any more of it." Hawaii is one of the few exceptions.) On th south side of the Big Island of Hawaii is the active Kiluea Volcano that started a fresh burst of lava last June. It's still adding land to the south side of the island and will be for centuries to come. A hot spot in the Earth's crust has been birthing the islands for about 5.5 million years. To the south of the Big Island the hot spot is pushing up another volcano under the ocean that hasn't even reached the surface yet. But with implacable certainty, another island in the chain will emerge the same way as the others over a few more millions of years. It will become a place for the palms to sway. Geological time puts human foibles in perspective. The Earth has been a fantastic place for life for billions of years--the only place we know of for sure. It will continue to be ideal for life for another couple of billion years no matter what happens in the next century or two. Humanity, as with everything else on this planet, is a work in progress.
I've spent many hours in the last week just sitting here looking at the ocean, watching the royal palms sway and thinking just how great the planet can be. I can't get enough of it. The older I've gotten the more I've found it's important to drink in as much of the world around me as I can every day with my eyes, ears, and through my pores.I'm a Baby Boomer, and in recent years I've thought, "Boy, I'm glad I've lived in the time slot I've had." Back in the 1960s abd '70s, thanks to Vibram soles, aluminum frames, and nylon a significant proportion of the youth population took to backpacking. I remember a bumper sticker that read "Ecology: The Last Fad." The forms of back-to-nature of my generation became a problem in itself. So many people took to High Sierra trails that rangers closed some of them because the terrain was becoming eroded by the foot traffic. We boomers grew up and turned to careers, families, and other responsibilities. The problem of over-love of back country faded. But I'm really glad to have had the chance. The complaint about current young people is that they've become detached from nature because of urban or suburban living and the virtuality of electronic technology. That's too bad.
Hawaii is kind of a case study of how attraction can become self-destructive. "Paradise," as I've been calling it, is so alluring that it is practically the poster-child for over-use and exploitation. If you stick close to the shore here on Maui you can still see some remnants of the older, quaint Hawaii. But the once-quaint Lahaina Town near where I am has become nothing more that a souvenir canter like Disneyland's Main Street with a hundred year-old banyan tree at it's center. The condo I'm staying in is what I'd call a 1G place. It was built in the first wave of time-shares, maybe in the '80s. If you rent one you hope it's been well renovated because these modest apartments have seen a lot of wear. There are 2G resorts that are much larger and more hotel-like, and some under construction that are truly monstrous edifices. There's what I think of as a 3G resort about a mile from here that looks like a giant, pink Mayan ziggurat. It appears to be near completion. And along Highway 30 the latest chain-store strip malls stretch for miles.
The thing is, from the time we started planning this vacation a kind of guilt has gnawed at me. I'm a critic but also part of the problem. I think, "How much jet fuel did it take to ge me here?" "Is it right to patronize the huge Barnes & Nobel bookstore that just opened?" Isn't that how we got hot, flat, and crowded? Vacation like this become a guilty pleasure.
But Hawaii also takes me to another perspective that helps me handle the concerns I have about the 21st Century. These islands are some of the Earth's newest land. (Humorist Will Rogers bvck in the 1930s or '40s said, "Buy land. They ain't makin' any more of it." Hawaii is one of the few exceptions.) On th south side of the Big Island of Hawaii is the active Kiluea Volcano that started a fresh burst of lava last June. It's still adding land to the south side of the island and will be for centuries to come. A hot spot in the Earth's crust has been birthing the islands for about 5.5 million years. To the south of the Big Island the hot spot is pushing up another volcano under the ocean that hasn't even reached the surface yet. But with implacable certainty, another island in the chain will emerge the same way as the others over a few more millions of years. It will become a place for the palms to sway. Geological time puts human foibles in perspective. The Earth has been a fantastic place for life for billions of years--the only place we know of for sure. It will continue to be ideal for life for another couple of billion years no matter what happens in the next century or two. Humanity, as with everything else on this planet, is a work in progress.
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