COWSPIRACY-CONSPIRACY

POST # 130


This past Saturday, after a bike ride I popped into the library downtown for a short while. I noticed a brochure on the bulletin board announcing a documentary titled "Cowspiracy" and it just so happened that it would be aired later in the day. Initially, I was going to give it a miss, because it would mean either hanging around the library for three hours, or heading home and then returning later.

After being home a while, and playing with my Yorkie buddies, Jackson and Peach, I made the decision to peddle back to the library and watch the documentary.

For anyone wondering about the content, you can go to cowspiracy.com and get all the details you would want. But in a nutshell, the premise is that if we all became vegans, we could eliminate the biggest cause of greenhouse gas formation which according to the film is caused by animal agriculture. Now don't get me wrong. There is certainly plenty to be said about the destructive nature of this form of food production, on a variety of levels, from the massive use of water, to land degradation, and the large amount of fossil fuel energy required just to keep the whole industrial meat production industry going. The documentary was very good in that regard as it pointed out many uncomfortable statistics to the standing room only crowd of about three hundred or so people. Another issue that Cowspiracy targeted was the lack of concern shown by many of the mainstream environmental organizations including Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, 350.org and others regarding this subject matter, a Cowspiracy-conspiracy of silence from all of these organizations.

After the film ended, and the house lights came up, the film maker received a standing ovation from the crowd. At first, this surprised me, but then I think I figured out why. At least this is what I speculate. Here was yet another solution to the climate chaos predicament we find ourselves in. So now we can add veganism to wind mills and solar panels and electric cars and ALL WILL BE WELL for evermore. Simple really.

But wait a minute. Let's just say that everyone in that audience became a vegan. Well I guess that is a possibility. What about everyone in Vancouver? I would suspect that would be highly unlikely. Maybe all Canadians, or better yet all North Americans, the population of which totals about 465 million at this point. To that last suggestion, I would have to use the word, impossible. However, even if it was possible that by tomorrow, all 465 million North Americans became vegan,(not to mention the other 6.5 BILLION or so on the planet) it would still not have any impact on the rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap, which could be gone as early as this September. In addition to that, 465 million vegans won't be able to stop the now 37 self reinforcing feedback loops that are currently helping to propel humans and all other species to extinction in the not too distant future.(for details regarding the feedback loops please go to guymcpherson.com and click on the Climate Chaos link at the top of the page, which was updated as recently as today). Just to make sure I am not being misunderstood here. What anyone chooses to eat is up to that individual and I am most certainly not making a judgement about one's diet. My point in regards to climate change, is that it won't make any difference at this late stage.

However, one thing that the documentary did provide the audience with, was a very large dose of HOPE, or as my friend Guy likes to call it, HOPIUM, and it was for that reason, I suspect that the crowd gave the film maker a standing ovation. They could all go back home and continue with their lives as they have done in the past, and as long as they avoided eating meat, all would be well, and everyone can live happily ever after, amen. If only it were that simple. But what we face on the climate front is a predicament, not a problem and there is a big difference between the two.

I didn't stick around for the q and a afterwards, although it might have been interesting to listen to the questions and even ask a few uncomfortable ones myself. But I decided that I had seen and heard enough, and besides, I had my buddies Jackson and Peach to think about, because they were now overdue for their evening walk, so it was time to peddle my butt home to spend some precious time with my baby bonehead friends.


Happy Trails,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

THE STRUGGLE WITH SENTIMENTALITY

POST # 129


I was told not so long ago, that the most challenging aspect of getting rid of personal possessions was the degree of sentimentality that was attached to a particular item(s). This past week has given me the opportunity to prove that as true, at least for me.

This has come about due to the fact that the building in which I have my items stored will be demolished later this year and so me and a bunch of other people are faced with the task of either moving our possessions to somewhere else, or just letting them get bulldozed with the building, a thought which has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. The reason for the building's demise, is because Vancouver needs another condo of course. This particular one is meant to be 39 stories high. I'm speculating here, but I think that perhaps it will never get completed due to a variety of reasons, however I guess time will tell. Be that as it may, it was time to move my stuff.

It's not like I have much, a few photos, some bicycle tools, my bike and assorted other bits and pieces, plus some books. That about covers the list. I have brought these items here to my current housesit as I thought I would use the opportunity to discard items that I didn't want any longer. This has proved to be more difficult than I had originally thought, especially when it comes to photographs. It's really odd. None of my things, including the photographs have rarely seen the light of day in the past three years and so I thought it would be easy to just chuck out most of it. But it's the photos that cause the biggest challenge. Looking back on one's insignificant little life causes the sentimentality to rear its head.

But it has also been fun and nostalgic at the same time. The other night, my dear friend Ted came over for a visit, and when he walked in, and saw all the photos he got all excited about looking at them as well. He featured in a few as we have both been to similar places in Australia, so it was fun for the both of us to bring up old stories from the past. Two old adventurous farts telling each other old stories, while looking at old photos. I also stumbled across a couple of cassette tapes which have the audio version of my 43 day sailing journey across the Indian Ocean from Durban South Africa to Fremantle Australia from 2003 with my friends David and Anthony. Listening to the tapes brought back both good and bad memories.

So today I plan to finish going through my things so that I can decide what to keep and what goes to Value Village. I wonder how many times a particular item of clothing can be recycled through Value Village, before it becomes a cleaning rag? I must be one of their best customers, because they get to sell the same item more than once. This is a perfect time to quote Henry David Thoreau:
"I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes...", a quote which is written on the T-shirt I am currently wearing, which was a gift from my friend Mary. She purchased it when visiting Thoreau's old place on Walden Pond earlier this year. The irony of the quote on this shirt when it was new is slowly fading as is the shirt. Perhaps one day, it will end up at Value Village as well. Only then, will the quote be suitable.

That's enough for now. Time to get back to the task at hand and go out to the garage and continue my struggle with sentimentality.

Happy Trails,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

BUS RIDES, NTHE, BEND OREGON, AND JACKSON AND PEACH

POST # 128

Readers of this blog will be well aware by now that I refer to my friend Guy's website, "Nature Bats Last" every now and again, probably to the chagrin of most. Yesterday during a long drawn out Greyhound bus ride (which I'll get to in a moment) I used that time to read the latest essay by the author Daniel Drumright. Daniel wrote another essay for NBL probably about a year ago which was extremely thought provoking and significantly long and his latest essay certainly fit that bill as well. What better way to pass the time on a long bus ride, then to have something good to read and think about. His current piece which was written on July 11th, covered plenty of territory, however, one thing that stood out for me was the way he talked about the distinction between the intellectual mind vs the emotional mind and how that affects how we process the information regarding NTHE (near term human extinction). To quote from the article:

"There probably isn’t a single aspect concerning NTHE that isn’t a cognitive dissonant trigger. All of us are of at least two minds: how we intellectually process information and how we emotionally respond to such information — the phenomena that exist to be observed and our ability to observe it. And our emotional capacity to observe a thing often dictates what we imagine exists to be observed. While NTHE is rationally and empirically based, acceptance of such dire evidence however, is wholly an emotional endeavor … and that’s where everything flies off the tracks.
So acceptance of NTHE not only demands “we” first put the highest intellectual value on observable empirical evidence that we innately comprehend undermines our sense of self-preservation, but then, “we” must completely shift to an entirely different emotional state of ‘being’ with such evidence. There are very few individuals in the world who are even capable of attempting this, not alone, maintaining their sense of bearing once they have.
*
“We have great difficulty dealing with philosophy in context of real events” (John Ralston Saul)
Yet, here “we” are, attempting to do exactly that, not only in context to an event that has yet to gravely impact the affluent western world, but presuming that when it does, most of life on earth will cease to exist. Like I said, most days I find myself utterly dumbstruck.
Selfishly seeking illumination in the dark light of NTHE is either profoundly absurd or absurdly profound, but then again, so is most of humanity. As to whether “we” agents of demise have any “right” to even seek peace in the wake of our ongoing collective annihilation, is but one of countless questions made irrelevant by the acceptance of NTHE. Never before, has the forced acceptance of thing, so completely erased that which came before it. And where on this side of acceptance, we’ve only the cold vacuum of truth to keep us warm, while virtually every past attempt to define the meaning of life is but now suspended in a state of erasure. There isn’t a single story or event within all of human history that can even remotely serve as a comparative example or an analogy to what the human race is now experiencing."

Having emotionally accepted this idea of NTHE a long time ago now, reading his essay made perfect sense to me. However I do understand that it takes a while, perhaps a long while to come to terms with the information. I am thankful for Daniel's attempt to clarify things.

So, getting back to the bus journey yesterday. I left Bend, Oregon at 7am yesterday on a bus called the Central Oregon Breeze which was scheduled to get me to Portland at 11:00am with 30 minutes to spare prior to my Greyhound journey north to Vancouver. A thirteen year old boy boarded the bus at Madras and was to get off at Government Camp at Mt. Hood, however the adults who were to collect him there, were late arriving, and the bus driver had to wait until they arrived. In the meantime, I was watching the clock and wondering whether or not we would get to Portland on time. If that wasn't enough of a delay, just as we were in Portland on the way to the station, the road was blocked off. Luckily there was an off duty driver on board, who knew an alternate route, otherwise, I am quite sure that I wouldn't have made my connection. I walked into the bus depot and straight into the line up for boarding.

Our scheduled arrival into Vancouver was meant to be 8:30pm, however a big accident just north of Bellingham, followed by an extremely long wait at the border crossing had us arriving about two hours behind schedule. As we sat in the traffic jam, I pondered the madness of industrial civilization which this traffic jam is a product of. The good news if one wants to call it that, is that I foresee a time in the not too distant future, where traffic jams will be a thing of the past, as the population won't be able to afford the cost of the fuel to keep this game going. That will probably make a large amount of people very angry, and there's no telling what social unrest will develop as a result. It should be quite a show.

My purpose for being in Bend, was to help my friend Mary move there. She has grand kids living in Bend and wants to spend time with them. Trying to fit a house worth of things into a smaller unit was a challenge, however I think it went rather well overall.

So here I am back in Vancouver with my buddies Jackson and Peach the Yorkshire terriers. I'm looking forward to spending time with them for the next month.


Happy trails,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

MR. IN BETWEEN

POST # 127

Currently I am on the road in between housesits, spending time in Washington and Oregon, thinking and wandering, prior to my next housesit back with my old four legged friends, Jackson and Peach.

No doubt, there will be more to report by July 14th.

Until then,

Happy Trails,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer