Oils Well That Ends

Everybody (who believes in science) knows that we're in a global warming crisis. In a way that's a smoke screen (exhaust smoke, of course.) It stops us from dealing with a far more serious concern - that we're running out of oil.

I've just checked(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves). Our chjildren, certainly our grandchildren and for sure our great granchildren will not face the global warming crisis due to oil burning. There won't be any.

I'm not thinking now of driving. I think that's the most minor face of this problem. So I can't drive - big deal. I'll telecommute. But waitaminit. How can I repair my computer or get a new one? Isn't everything made of plastic? What will happen to plastic?

Forget plastic.. How will I eat? Everything we eat travels an average of 1,000 miles. Am I going to have to eat locallyt? No more bananas? Kiwi fruit? Pineapples?

Is anyone working on this crisis? Does anyone with any resources have any awareness or commitment in this area? Hey. Personally, I'm 69 years old. It won't affect me.

A Worse Truth?

When I first saw An Inconvenient Truth I was really enthusiastic - Wow! At last! But I've come to realize - it's a movie! Only a movie. It will go through the normal cycle of movies - to lesser theaters - to DVD - to cable. And gone.

Will there be mandatory (or even optional) viewing in schools? Will this be seen by our politicos? Who will pay attention? What happens to ideas in movies? I can make a nice list of movies with important ideas, important theses that are now gone.

We are now in a national debate about immigration. But who has seen the movie, Walkout - an excellent 2006 movie produced by Edward Olmos?

How about Mindwalk, an extraordinary 1991 movie about world conditions - starring Liv Ullman, Sam Waterson and Jonathan Heard? You never even heard of it (no pun) did you? This is as provocative as An Inconvenient Truth - really.

Last year there was a powerful quasi-fictional movie about the Millenium Development Goals - The Girl in the Cafeteria. .

They just become movies. They leave our consciousness as they leave our screens. And I think they lose their power. These are mighty issues. And they devolve into entertainment. But how else? How do we prolong the existence of ideas until they become acted on or at least considered. Unfortunately, we live in the cliche 'out of sight, out of mind.'

Of course, this isn't a conversation about movies, but about the human condition... about the need for viral idea marketing, for having conversations and ideas stick, take root, grow, flourish. It's the ultimate how question.

Blue Monday

Of course, it's Wednesday. But the 4th has caught up with me - just enough family and food; just enough help; too much rain, too much thinking about our growing lack of freedom.

The last time I remember it being this bad -'the McCarthy era' I was in college. We were studying debate and our proposed topic was "resolved: the United States should recognize Red China." No one volunteered to take the affirmative - Because we were an engineering school and every person there was afraid they would jeapordize their future security clearance. (I volunteered.)

This is how the atmosphere is polluted by the climate in Washington. I notice that not only are they recognized (and are still a freedom-supressing country) but they also own a significant amount of the United States. This despite the China Lobby.

About that time I started my favorite cliche and I fight against it always. I said, "You can too fight City Hall. City Hall just doesn't notice." I have been fighting City Hall all my life. They haven't noticed yet.

I've shifted my resistance to three areas: the crisis in environmental sustainability; the severe loss of social justice and our sadly shrinking spiritual fulfillment. I constantly see a ferocious competition where what's at stake is the quality of life and survival of our planet. But I have a hard time defining the other combatants because I can't understand who can be against this.

Who would choose their personal well-being at the cost of our planet's?