It's What You Do
Greetings to the extended clan,
Quick story to set the mood: I was in a bar a long time ago with one of my handsome brothers. A girl asked him for a piece of gum as he was chewing gum. He said sure and handed her a piece. Out of nowhere a goon twice my size, smacked him in the temple with a beer mug. In a complete blur, I did my best Cowboy, (I wrestled in school) and slammed the fool to the ground. Hard. Nanoseconds later the bar keepers were over the bar and dragging us out the door and onto the sidewalk. WHAT are you doing!? "Bruce," said Brad, the bartender who was a friend of mine, "that guy is a frat boy with 15 other of his drunken bros in the bar. I'm saving your life." Oh, huh. Um, thanks, I guess... WTF
Happy Spring! We just passed the equinox and World Water Day last week. Yay yay, but, seems like we have lots of water and more everyday just like the light of Spring. But, I live in Vermont; it's my frame of reference. There's a 90 mile-long lake 300 yards from me and I stuck my feet in it yesterday, accidentally (not recommended), and looked north to Appletree Point. Around the point is South Hero Island and around that is Isle La Motte where one can find the oldest reef in the world. Yep, 480 million years ago, coral was doing what coral does, and now it's a fossilized chunk smashed down by the last Ice Age. Oldest. Almost half a billion years. Right around the corner.
So what?! Let's talk about time. Edmond Becquerel made the first solar cell in 1839. They became commercially viable in 1956, but no one had one. Since 2010, the cost of solar power has been dropping 10% every year, and everywhere you look there's a bunch. I've biked country roads all afternoon, and little wood sheds in the middle of nowhere have panels on the roof. My neighborhood is full of them. Mr. Becquerel's son discovered radiation with Madame Curie in 1897, and 49 years later we blew up an atomic bomb. In 1919, one could book a trans-Atlantic flight on a zeppelin to Europe. Fifty years later we were standing on the moon. Cell phones showed up around 1995 and today there are 4.6 billion. Facebook didn't exist in 2003. Today there are 2.4 billion users. Yikes.
Time moves faster now than in the 1830s and accelerates every day. Good thing? Bad thing? Let's just consider that the crises we face could be resolvable. Pundits once predicted that the size of cities would be limited by the amount of horse manure that would pile up preventing travel. One of my kids is working on an electric airplane being built five miles from here. Beta Technologies is flying "Alia", which can go 180 miles on $20 worth of electricity versus the $600 cost of flying a Cessna the same distance. And, no emissions from the plane. UPS has ordered 150 planes. Yes, glaciers are melting, Greenland is pouring trillions of gallons into the ocean. Wildfires. Storm intensity is rising. Homes are heading out to sea... But if we can fly to the moon and back. If we can make tiny computers for everyone's back pocket in 25 years. If fission took 50 years how long will the promise of power from fusion take? Can we capture carbon on a global scale to make homes and schools, grow all the food we require, and stop spending a bazillion dollars a year on ways to murder each other? Is there a solution to an impending crisis that seems entirely ridiculous, but will work great?! Sometimes there is and it happens rapidly. Kev and I avoided a hospital visit and these are still my real teeth.
Back to the beginning. World Water Day is highlighting 2 billion people around the world who lack access to clean water. That's one in four. If one in four of your neighbors needed water, would you help? You would, in a heartbeat. Well, they are. They just don't live close by. This is about our frame of reference. New research suggests we could stop climate change by becoming vegans. Maybe just being vegan part of the week would be a good start. How about an electric bike? Maybe buy less stuff until your current stuff breaks. Maybe recognize that effective altruism is the only way out as a first world nation consuming around eleven thousand watts per person per day. And that doesn't include the energy cost of our food.
The Chazy Reef shares this water with my toes and cares not a whit about me. This is up to us humans. I'm going to do what I can for my kids and their kids. Join me. We will donate 15% of any sale made from this blog piece until May 10th to World Water Day. My artwork will last for generations. It doesn't use power that you don't already use -- lights in your living room or the sunlight streaming through the windows. AND, these are about reflection, literally and metaphorically. We need to care for this planet because... Beauty. And kids. Reflect on that.
"Frame of reference" is sort of a wooden metaphor for a state of awareness that is super malleable and potentially revolutionary. Avoid fights.
Ciao bella,
b mac
P. S. Would any of you folks like a sticker that says PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST ? I think I need to print a bunch.
P. S. I sold my big piece called "Lost and Found". I find meaning in that. Who wants the new one called "The Eye"?
