Frying Pan Mania

Sweltering in 118*F isn’t what any of us had expected, (we’re in an emergency, wake up people, time to do something) at least not so soon. Our grandchildren, our grandchildren’s children, they’d take the hit, but by then we’d have figured it out, in 2010 there was no reason to get hysterical, there’s no reason to panic.

Summer of 2021in the American West is already off the charts. Up and down the entire continent including Canada is in the grip of an extended record breaking heatwave.

The new normal is a mix of wildfires, heatwaves, droughts and thick unbreathable smoke filled skies. Planning for a weekend in the mountains? Now we have to check for safe roads in and out of United States National Forests. We carry extra water. Days are so hot most hiking is done at dawn or dusk. A trip to Death Valley? Who needs to drive to Furnace Creek to experience what is now happening almost everywhere you go?

The bikini clad waterski culture is the mirror image of the winter ski culture, there’s never enough snow in the mountains or enough water in the lakes. Even if you do hit the slopes after a fresh dusting, or if you do launch your ski boat and get out for weekend, even if you pull all that off you are left to wonder how much longer this can last? What the hell is going on?

Once we all cut playing the denial game, once we all recognize all hell has broken loose, that the climate we grew up in is no longer the climate we are living in, once we just admit we’re in for a real fight for the survival of civilization, once we have cast ourselves in our favorite role in our modern day Doctor Strangelove we can roll up our sleeves and get down to the business of saving our species from a potential out of control climate driven chain reaction that sends us packing into the permanent fossil record.

Climate driven atmospheric chain reactions that might spiral temperatures beyond our wildest estimates is a knickers in a knot real risk. This is the one more cigarette won’t hurt me mentality of human thinking. One more bizarre year of releasing megatons of carbon into our atmosphere may be one cigarette too many. You got a smoking problem? You ever try quitting?

Quick list of to do’s. Try saddling up posse and ride on the Top 10 carbon belching industries in the world. All our self sacrifice aside the main thing is that there are some very large oil companies, some nationally owned some are corporations and they need to slow down and then stop, and like you know as soon as possible. Putin and MBS are not going to cooperate but we’ll get to the scoundrels in due course.

Agriculture needs a revolution. Regenerative farming is a piece of the puzzle. Consumers need a come to Jesus moment, human beings definitely need to eat less meat, if still insist on eating meat the spoiled and stubborn might try decreasing the amount of meat they eat, you know for a while, you know, for a change, maybe like a smoker it might do your body and the earth some breathing room.

Ocean needs healing so let’s give the fish a few years off from our factory fishing fleets, they could use a breather.

I’m negotiable on dairy, but could we just do the value added thing, you know artisanal cheeses perhaps, put Ben and Jerry in charge of making all the world’s ice cream. Yeah its expensive but so are iPhones and everybody has one of those.

The Department of Agriculture is a complete tangled policy mess. Politics has incentivized farmers to grow the wrong crops with the wrong technologies using way more of our water than we can afford to waste any longer. The red blooded American diet is causing epidemic level heart disease, hypertension, stroke and diabetes. If we could take any policy back it would be our going full factory farming on an industrial scale in 1960.

Electrify our transportation system. Deploy more renewables and build grid scale sized batteries to store energy for use when wind and sun don’t blow or shine. Heat pumps in and old gas powered furnaces are out.

Live closer to work. Try taking vacations closer to home. Stop take frivolous jaunts on jets to exotic globalized tourist destinations. Love your children, walk your dog, take yoga classes, do more with less, recycle your stuff and go to garage sales and buy your neighbors unwanted stuff, relieving others of their unwanted stuff is loving kindness in stuff action.

If you own your own home and have some dirt plant trees that fruit and then eat what you can and give the abundance out to those in your neighborhood. If you are really a sensational fruit and vegetable grower call yourself a farmer and sell into the local Co-op, sell your carefully grown organic crop and then turn around and go home and grow more.

If you are older, I’ll let you decide what that looks like, if you’ve had children and your children are pretty sure they don’t want to have any children then maybe consider building a family planning plan to honor their plan. Maybe you donate time to help other children, lost children, abandoned children, hungry children, any children that may benefit from your helping them.

You really want to see quantitative easing in action offer to take care of your single mother neighbors kid to help keep that woman’s childcare costs down. Pick them up from school, take them to soccer, bring them home make them a snack, help them with their homework. Keep them safe, treat them like the most valuable renewable resource that they are. Help

All of these strategies are in many parts not only practical but also are good for your health and the earth’s health. You’ll feel better, you’ll become part of the solution instead of being part of the ongoing Lamborghini internal combustion engine problem. Choose non motorized sports. Badminton is good, croquet tournaments are fun, tennis anyone?

Use your handsaw when you can. Get rid of your sprinklers install drip irrigators, put your garden on a timer and dial your use of water in. Learn how to catch water. When it gets super hot put some water out for the birds, squirrels, possum and raccoons. They’ll drop by, they appreciate the help.

My wife and I take walks to fortify our health. We try bringing our own bags to the grocery store, sometimes I forget. We shop bulk and bring our own containers. For sport and recreation we sail. Our boat is nearby. A day off away is 20 minute drive and then wherever the wind blows.

One of the trickiest tricks is eating a simpler diet, down the food chain, where what is grown goes directly into this animals mouth. When cooking at home, away on the boat, further afield traveling in our van we can control what we eat preparing desirable dishes that we both find appetizing.

To be sure we have days of pure sloth, we can be part of the problem, we are weak and impulsive creatures. We can get stuck in traffic with the best of you.

Here we are all now firmly in the grip of the long predicted to climate emergency. It’s no longer far away, might happen one day, could be coming, nobody is sure. It’s happening. There is a lot to do, much to take time to be concerned about, but it isn’t hopeless, it isn’t all lost, and we can each act individually and collectively to turn the bow of this ponderous vessel filled with humanity and make our course to a better day. Try doing what is possible, what you can, we’ll all try, a little at a time, then more and more, until we’re all taking the best possible course of action. It is fun to try new things.

I know you’re all feeling better now. You have powers you didn’t know you had. You can do something and it beats doing nothing. Try one or three…you’ll be happier for it.