Kind of a heavy one...

I feel I should start this article with a disclaimer.  I do not like to crap in the woods.  I drove an SUV in high school AND college.  But a recent article, which I shall introduce in un momento, got me really riled up about...

Climate change and global warming.  They were always very distant concepts for me until I spent a month in the the Himalayas of India.  I was there to research Buddhist temples with an Art History professor but the culture and people were really what fascinated me.  The green movement there isn't about trendy grocery bags and light bulbs that look like something from Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.  It's about the potential loss of a culture that has been perfectly crafted and sustained over thousands of years in one of the world's unfriendliest climates.  All over the regional capital, Leh, I saw posters starkly reminding the locals and tourists that the nearby glaciers, the very thing that allowed any of us to be there, were rapidly dissapearing.  For centuries people have lived in the Ladakh Region of India because of the water the glaciers provide every spring.  If they go, Ladakhi culture will go.  This guy's efforts are certainly valiant, but it's not just a Ladakhi problem....

I couldn't help but be reminded of my experiences in Ladakh while indulging my fantasy of returning to Asia with this photo essay from foreignpolicy.com: Paradise Lost.  The term "environmental refugees" struck me as particularly poignant and that's really why I felt the need to write this entry.  Though there is no mention of global warming, any idiot can connect the dots and conclude that a lot more of this sort of migration is going to happen in coming years; this got me thinking about issues closer to home.

Reading "Paradise Lost" made me feel incredibly lucky that the choice to give up my Midwestern roots and come to New York was all my own.  The force wasn't environmental and it CERTAINLY wasn't economic.  I came of my own free will but increasing amounts of people don't have that choice.  Really, I just wanted to share the FP photo essay... but now I've got myself thinking...

The truth is I'm no better than the average person when it comes to fighting global warming and climate change, but one of the things I do appreciate about New York is the reduction in waste and carbon use it has forced upon me.  I take public transportation.  I reuse plastic bags.  I suppose my one vice is plastic bottles; I will admit though that the sound they make when thrown into the recycling bin does slightly resemble the whimper of a baby seal.....  

 Anywho, for the sake of my sleep (someone has to be at their therapist at 7:15 am tomorrow!)  I will leave you with the articles I've provided.  If nothing else they will make your bed feel warmer and that glass of water on the nightstand taste a little more precious.