My blog. My bitch.

Okay... so I am watching The Discovery Channel and that awesome show "Planet Earth". It is the episode about the Poles, called "Ice Worlds". Very matter-of-factly, the narrator (Ms. Sigourney Weaver, fyi) states that most scientist agree that we have less than ten years to change our lifestyles in order to avoid more evironmental damage and to slow our planets warming. This wasn't said with bravado or judgement; just a fact.

Enter Patti.

Ten years? Ten years ago, I had a one year old and my oldest wasn't even in middle school. She is now a college student. Ten years ago, I had a new used truck and I was just 31 years old. I am not (uh-hum) 31 any longer and my truck is rusty but trusty and paid for. The point I am trying to make is... ten years goes really really fast.

Hybrid cars are being talked about and evaluated. Everyone is hoping that our cars will run on french fry oil and each of us will have windmills in our back yards. Yes, that would be really cool. Will all of this happen fast enough?

I am just thinking (I do that) if it is going to take awhile to get all of the new technologies not only viable but accessible to the masses, what are we going to do until then?

Isn't this sort of urgent? Shouldn't we be taking drastic measures until the new technologies are available?

Like Nascar. Isn't that a whole lot of fossil fuel being burned for nothing? And air shows. I heard on NPR an entire "green family" canceled out their energy saving efforts with one family flight to Europe. Apparently, flying is very hard on the atmosphere. So, if flying is hard on the atmosphere, should we be entertaining ourselves with planes flying in patterns? For no reason other than amusement? Without passengers? It doesn't seem very necessary to me.

I don't want to be a kill joy; really, I don't. But shouldn't we be a little more than worried? This seems to be a big deal and here we are, just kind of hoping that corn cars and windmills bail us out. This should be considered a global emergency and we need to be aggressive with the solutions.

Park the race cars. Fly less, a lot less. People need to vacation and travel but it can be done responsibly. Donald Trump and Gwen Stefany can plane-pool. No more private jets, for crying out loud. No air shows. Those damn things are dangerous anyway. Turn off the bright lights of Vegas, or at least switch to the weird but awesome twirly little light bulb thingies.

Urgent times call for drastic measures.

But that's just my itty bitty opinion.