Changing Our Behavior

SPONTANEOUS EXPRESSION has its value, within limits. Class, your assignment today is to write a one page essay describing what you did last summer, and why. Its due at the end of class today. Begin. Conversation tends to be spontaneous expression, since one never knows what one's conversation partner is going to say, and a response must be created on the spot. Spontaneous essay writing is probably theraputic, on some level. One can even forget to bring or lose one's reading glasses, and get by. My thoughts invariably return to climate change, at some point, but I can write about many other topics also. Getting rid of Putin, Trump, and several current world leaders is a project worthy of widespread acceptance and support, using the pen, always, and never the sword. I really want my future, remaining conversations with people to be rwearding, agreeable, and worthwhile. To meet that criteria, a conversation does not have to include climate change. However, any conversation which does include climate cahnge, between any two people, is beneficial, because it increases people's awareness of the situation, awareness of the dreadful current situation we are in regarding the Earth's ecosystem, climate system, the health of its land, air, and water, the health of the planet generally, ecologically, environmentally. Although you cannot honestly, verifiably say that the Earth's environmental health is good, you certainly can say that it could sure as hell be a lot worse, if we keep going the way we are now, and don't change our behavior, a lot, fast. I also need to remember that when I talk about this, I am talking primarily to myself, knowing that I can imporove my behavior alone and nobody else's. At some point, for instance, it probably would be a good idea to give up driving, if I live that long. I really don't think I want to be driving a car when I am one hundred, if I live that long. Our internal combustion engine cars need to disappear fast, and be replaced with electric cars, mass transit, or whatever. Bicycles are best. In this, as well as many other ways, the United States should be more like Japan, China, and Europe. What I see as I approach the end of this life is a planetary ecosystem suffering and collapsing because of human activity, pollution of all kinds, as we seem to be plumeting towards our self destruction. At this point I hope I live to be a hundred, close to it, or whatever. At seventy one I am in good shape and health, and I think I can function well, productively, and independently for a long time to come. I want to live long enough to see the day when we humans know for sure that global warming and climate change are not a threat, and that we humans have found ways to stop them. Human nature is complicated, with destructive and creative impulses both. If we choose wisely, our species can survive.