I dated a guy once who was white and First Nations. I should mention that the First Nations part runs very deep because it's in me as well. I hadn't realized how much it had influenced me cause I grew up as a little white girl until later in life. Some of the things I learned being around my grandfather, who was half and half, still beat within my chest to this day and influence much of my life. Anyway, Rob took me out for target practise one day at the local gravel pit. This was in Zeballos, a tiny wee town on the west coast of Vancouver Island where he was fishing at the time.
He lined up the usual tin cans on a log near the foot of the cliff. Then he showed me how to safely load the gun, set it to my shoulder, line up the sight and fire. I was pretty cocky back then and hit a can with the first bullet. It made me feel really good when he commented on my amazing feat. I aimed again, and decided the cans were too easy, so I pointed up and toward a flock of crows that were flying around near the top of the cliff. From over my shoulder I heard a very steady, deep voice, "If you kill it, you eat it." Rob had an incredible respect for Mother Nature, and on that day I learned just how much. He used to say to never take more than you need and he always reminded me of the power of Mother Nature when we were out on the water fishing.
Native people know about conservation. They successfully gathered and fished and hunted from the land and sea for thousands of years without once bringing a single species to extinction. Today, it seems every species that lives on the earth is in jeopardy except perhaps dogs and cats because we happen to have found a particular use for them that encourages us to keep them alive. They're more fun to walk when they're alive!
The other day I was listening to a documentary about global warming and how things will start to drastically change once we increase the global temperature by over 1 degree. To date we've managed to get to .8 degrees which is close enough to 1 degree, if you ask me. Anyway, I started to think about Mother Nature and Her power. To me, all of those powers that make things happen: that which causes plants and trees to grow toward the sun, the physics behind black holes, miracles, gravity and other such things is what makes up God. The Universe, although seemingly chaotic and random, is no such thing. It is the perfect "fractal geometry" to which everything results.
And Mother Nature...well, She will always "balance" something that is imbalanced. If we spew tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cause an imbalance in the temperature of the globe, She will certainly cause something that will "put us in our place." Just as the increasing temperature will surely melt the ice caps, the resulting rise in the level of the ocean will wipe out many highly populated areas along many, many coastlines. She will be saying to us that we are what must be decreased because we created the problem! How many people will have to die before balance is acheived, or can we get smart in time to decrease the emissions before we become Her target? We might do well to ask ourselves that question on a regular basis.
I can see our future now. As we increase the temperature by two, then three degrees, we will literally have to "shut down" parts of the country to decrease the carbon emissions until the earth can rebalance. No small task. Imagine that your work week becomes three days instead of five simply because you work in a specific industry that will be shut down two days a week for the next three years to reduce carbon emissions. Or, perhaps you're working in a city where half of it is now under water...and the rest of you suddenly need a boat to get to work, a row boat no less. Perhaps your part of the country is on a metered system whereby when your area gets to a certain usage of power each day, everything automatically shuts off. How about only being allowed to have one light bulb at home, and no cooking, computers or television six days a week?
Don't laugh. The alternatives to conservation are not pretty. The US needs to stop digging for more oil and Natural Gas (that's a huge oxymoron if I ever heard one) and seek to replace as much fossil fuel consumption with sun, wind and water power. How stupid have we been to believe spewing carbon into the atmosphere as we have could result in anything but destruction? The answer seems pretty simple if you think about it...
He lined up the usual tin cans on a log near the foot of the cliff. Then he showed me how to safely load the gun, set it to my shoulder, line up the sight and fire. I was pretty cocky back then and hit a can with the first bullet. It made me feel really good when he commented on my amazing feat. I aimed again, and decided the cans were too easy, so I pointed up and toward a flock of crows that were flying around near the top of the cliff. From over my shoulder I heard a very steady, deep voice, "If you kill it, you eat it." Rob had an incredible respect for Mother Nature, and on that day I learned just how much. He used to say to never take more than you need and he always reminded me of the power of Mother Nature when we were out on the water fishing.
Native people know about conservation. They successfully gathered and fished and hunted from the land and sea for thousands of years without once bringing a single species to extinction. Today, it seems every species that lives on the earth is in jeopardy except perhaps dogs and cats because we happen to have found a particular use for them that encourages us to keep them alive. They're more fun to walk when they're alive!
The other day I was listening to a documentary about global warming and how things will start to drastically change once we increase the global temperature by over 1 degree. To date we've managed to get to .8 degrees which is close enough to 1 degree, if you ask me. Anyway, I started to think about Mother Nature and Her power. To me, all of those powers that make things happen: that which causes plants and trees to grow toward the sun, the physics behind black holes, miracles, gravity and other such things is what makes up God. The Universe, although seemingly chaotic and random, is no such thing. It is the perfect "fractal geometry" to which everything results.
And Mother Nature...well, She will always "balance" something that is imbalanced. If we spew tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cause an imbalance in the temperature of the globe, She will certainly cause something that will "put us in our place." Just as the increasing temperature will surely melt the ice caps, the resulting rise in the level of the ocean will wipe out many highly populated areas along many, many coastlines. She will be saying to us that we are what must be decreased because we created the problem! How many people will have to die before balance is acheived, or can we get smart in time to decrease the emissions before we become Her target? We might do well to ask ourselves that question on a regular basis.I can see our future now. As we increase the temperature by two, then three degrees, we will literally have to "shut down" parts of the country to decrease the carbon emissions until the earth can rebalance. No small task. Imagine that your work week becomes three days instead of five simply because you work in a specific industry that will be shut down two days a week for the next three years to reduce carbon emissions. Or, perhaps you're working in a city where half of it is now under water...and the rest of you suddenly need a boat to get to work, a row boat no less. Perhaps your part of the country is on a metered system whereby when your area gets to a certain usage of power each day, everything automatically shuts off. How about only being allowed to have one light bulb at home, and no cooking, computers or television six days a week?
Don't laugh. The alternatives to conservation are not pretty. The US needs to stop digging for more oil and Natural Gas (that's a huge oxymoron if I ever heard one) and seek to replace as much fossil fuel consumption with sun, wind and water power. How stupid have we been to believe spewing carbon into the atmosphere as we have could result in anything but destruction? The answer seems pretty simple if you think about it...
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