I Have Long Striven To Go Lightly

...Ever since my Mercury Meteor caught fire the last time and died in Fresno, Ca. Say, 1972, nearly fifty years ago. The Oil embargo and resulting gas shortages of '72 also help encourage me to stop participating in the 'Gas up and go' lifestyle. My bicycle was my best friend and I could go anywhere on a hearty lunch and a good attitude. I practiced 'carlessness for nearly 15 years...moving from a lowland college town to a mile high mountain town necessitated getting back into the motoring culture that most Californians practiced. You had to gather firewood and drive through snowy winters just to survive. Eventually we accepted a hand-me-down TV and bought cell phones. Now I own two motor vehicles and forced-air heating. Yet, I still strive to lessen my impacts on the planet and my fellow citizens. The bicycle is still key and I have invested my life's work into encouraging as many people as possible to ride one to work and for the 'health of it". Bicycle materialism can become excessive but the impacts are far less than the purchase of a motorboat and a Polaris swamp buggy or a snow machine. Ah America!

What Are We Going To Do About It...Lifestyle Change?

Wow, the 'Summer from Hell' has blown through our region. The Dixie Fire. We've lost villages and towns and the green oasis that always identified our area as the incredibly unique refuge from the dryness that surrounds us. As far as we know, our water quality has not been compromised in Chester. Our beautiful bicycle rides and most of our life-giving/breathing evergreen trees are gone. Our swimming-hole beaches are all covered with ash. The smoldering hills around us have seriously degraded our air quality. However, we persist...moving on with a new state of mind and a renewed awareness that this thing, Climate Change...Global Weirding, is a thing. So, what are we going to do about it? We've known about it for thirty years but, do we drive less? Probably not (We do get better gas mileage than we used to). Do we fly less frequently? I still commonly hear stories of friends and relatives attending 6th grade graduations 3,000 miles away. Do we make fewer demands on the electrical grid by tolerating temperatures above and below 72 degrees to a greater degree than we did last century? Of course not, we continue to pamper ourselves, and employ whatever means necessary to keep us relevant and in-the-know. Climate be damned!