Month: May 2020

Clear, Crisp, Clean

I used to live in the foothills of Los Angeles, and from the playground of my elementary school, Thomas A. Edison, on a “clear” day we could see LA and the ocean beyond. On other days it was shrouded in a yellow-brown cloud of smog. I thought of those days when I read how clean and clear the air is in the USA today. I was amazed at how quickly the air cleaned itself up with a washcloth named pandemic. 

  • Typical smoggy day in Los Angeles, California


The line “No purpose but what we make” hits home now because it is not the animals or the plants themselves that pollute, but humans. The cattle farts pollute, you say, yes true, but there would not be so many cattle if we didn’t need millions of them to feed our meat-hungry bellies.  The rest is mostly us – cars, planes, factories, power plants, fires, and the list goes on.  We know what we are doing. We have been told this for decades now. And our rivers, bays, and oceans are suffocating from our waste and dying. 
So what can I, one person, do to take our fragile earth off its respiratory and thrive? I can recycle as much as possible and not buy items that are not in recycled packages. I can cut down on my driving by doing my shopping and errands on one day, not four or five small trips. I can plant trees and shrubs. I can stop eating beef but I doubt I will ever become a vegetarian. I can take those plastic bags back to the grocery store and put them in the bin provided.  I can make my doctor’s appointments two a day, not on separate days. I can pray that if everyone did some of these things, and more I haven’t thought about, our earth might once again be clean, clear, crisp and celebrating that we humans are taking good care of her.

  • March 2020 – Clear skies in Los Angeles, CA

Conflicted

Conflicted

I am rather conflicted about the re-opening of our economy. I am not suggesting immediate re-opening, but rather a controlled opening driven by science and reason. At some point, we must re-open, or we will all be starving, locked in our homes.

If the economy is not re-opened, people will eventually have no jobs, no income, and will not be generating the goods and services we need. Ultimately, not only the food chain will break down as it already is doing, but also the electric grid, the waste disposal plants, the water delivery system, the sewer systems, the medical system, and on and on. We most likely can’t sustain a lockdown for even a year.

We must face the fact that when we re-open the economy, our “new normal” is going to be personal protection and hygiene everywhere as we shop, work, and play. Businesses will also function with a “new normal” of limited exposure to customers and clients who will all be wearing PPE as a daily part of the dress code. There will be increased testing – temperature taking, blood tests, COVID tests. Many more employees will be working from home. Social distancing will be the norm everywhere. Disinfecting facilities and homes will be done regularly.

It may be a limited economy for some time before it is fully opened, but it must and will eventually happen. And yes, we will probably lose more folks to COVID19, but if we don’t re-open and have to go back to hunting and foraging, no medications, no services, no electric, no running water, no sewage facilities, etc. many more will die. I know this is an exaggeration, a worst-case scenario, but at some point, we have to stop focusing exclusively on the virus and consider where a closed economy would lead us.