Sunday Morning Musings

Yesterday's bread baking has led to this morning's French toast.  Sunday brunch with Schlepp is always a good thing.  

As I sit here with a full belly, happy in the benefits of my culinary art, I can reflect on where I am and how thankful I am.  I sit in a comfortable chair at my old mahogany desk with a modern computer at my fingertips.  I have access to an entire world of information... and misinformation.  I have light, warmth, protection from wind, rain, and snow.  I have a wonderful wife.  I am comfortably retired with financial resources such that I worry for nothing.  

Yet...

The world and our country is careening toward a disaster of its own making.  Besides the obvious short-term issues of the survival of the rule of law, the Constitution, and democracy, every day the administration takes us on a path to environmental self-destruction.  

Capitalism, by definition, relies on unlimited growth.  To echo the famous book title, we have reached "The Limits of Growth."  I am reminded of the MOOC at the Athabaska University and their discussions about circular economies, sustainable societies, and donut models of environmental resources.  It's clear that we've hit or exceeded carrying capacity in many critical areas.  

So where and how to apply myself, to push back against regressive, anti-environmental policies and politicians?  Pulling away and becoming a hermit would reduce my individual impacts, but it is not scalable and the effect would be negligible.  Better now is to up my work at the BioPark.  There I can converse with dozens of people at a go and have the Garden Education Department's blessing to bring up topics like conservation, climate change, endangered species, evolution, biodiversity, and so on.  I even get to teach people the value of herbaria and botanical surveys.  Our phenological work with Nature's Notebook is getting wider attention.  

If these small, local connections can be fostered and multiplied, what is the possible impact?  Is there a way to measure the effects?  To quote Galileo Galilei, "Count what is countable.  Measure what is measureable.  What is not measureable, make measureable."