The most terrifying video I've ever seen

Back when this first came out, in 1968, nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. It was just some kind of nonsensical sci-fi vision of something we knew would never happen.

And it's all coming true.

We didn't do the green thing back then

(This is the sort of pass-it-around thing I don't usually like, but the more of it you read the more light bulbs come on.)

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked upstairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Day of the Ice Heave (or: the Earth Strikes Back)

This is raw footage, shot in portrait rather than landscape (which I thought went out of style 5 or 10 years ago), but I include it in its entirety because it is way more dramatic than anything that was shown on the news.

This is an ice heave, a bizarre weather phenomenon in which an ice sheet on a lake is bulldozed by winds with such force that it becomes alive. It moves with frightening speed, making a deafening sound like a shattering chandelier, with an even more bizarre "sh-sh-sh-sh-sh" sound that reminds me of the locust-like cameras flashing in The Right Stuff. This is a glacier forming not in thousands of years but in a couple of hours, and comparably moving at light speed.

This video goes on pretty long and includes some confused, shrill commentary, but I still like it better than the snippets shown on the news. It's more immediate and captures the confused reactions of people who do not know what the hell is going on (including the woman who keeps yelling at her kid, "Keep away from that!"). The tinkly fingers of the edge of the eerily accelerated glacier sneak forward like spider's legs, and the ice sheet moves with so much relentless force that it shatters windows and pushes in walls.

Nature is striking back. There is no doubt about it now. We've become completely accustomed to stories about wildfire, flood, insane amounts of snow and parching drought: what is happening to the weather now? We all walk around with question marks hanging over our stupid heads, when we bloody well know the answer.

What we've done, all that we've done through industrial pollution, millions upon millions of cars, and other forms of casual rape, is to destroy the world's millenia-long balance of climate permanently. Whatever we do now is too little, too late. We have barely begun to awaken to a nightmare which can't and won't go away: we can't fix it now and still refuse to take responsibility for it. 

This will only escalate, and soon: the ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, species are going extinct, and green space is being ruthlessly ripped out to build soulless condos not suitable for a robot to inhabit, let alone human beings. Nowhere is that better illustrated than around here, where the horror of narrow, ugly attached "homes" assaults the eyes. With unusual candour, these have been named "saltbox" homes, but to me they look more like crackerboxes made of particle-board, cement and wire. These "homes" have no yard, front or back, and only the odd sickly sapling bolstered on both sides with sticks. I can only imagine how a family would ricochet off those narrow, cramped walls. A bed would take up the entire room.

What does it mean? Can you guess?

We've run out of space.

How have we come to live like this?  Rip out the green space, pile all our discards into the landfill and forget about it, and I won't even get into the massive, ever-growing, floating horror called the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch (and I have news: they've found another one in the Atlantic) made of discarded computers and other throw-away plastic debris. We look at these things, think "too bad", then quickly push the delete button in our minds and carry on. 

My husband is a scientist, and he refuses to see that any of this is related to climate change or global warming. He just says "everything goes in cycles", meaning that very soon, perhaps next year, everything will return to calm, pastoral beauty with gentle rains and benevolent sun.

Don't count on it. It's not going to happen any time soon. Or ever.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm