Hey, I don't personally dismiss that pain, but in a way your post confirmed what I suggested: many people do dismiss it and don't think twice about hurting animals and destroying the environment.

But I'm with you on this one. I refuse to visit a good friend of mine in the country because his wife insists that he kill any viper that strays near their house. Vipers around here are not dangerous, and just like possums and buzzards there, they are actually quite beneficial. And I think they're beautiful. I also love seagulls, even though I don't know anybody else in Helsinki who more than just barely tolerates them. Last spring and early summer I had a chance to watch fledglings grow up near my window, and that was a wonderful experience.

I think you just misunderstood my point, which was that this film is not going to impress people who are not already worried about peak oil, climate change etc. The rest of us will find it quite inspiring.

Saw a quote along those lines today:

You know of the disease called "sleeping sickness." There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. You soul suffers if you live superficially. --Albert Schweitzer

That pickup truck gave that boy authority. He had to demonstrate that he could use it.

Thet rifle gave that man in the truck authority over another life form. He had to demonstrate that he could use it.

As I type this, I have just been given notice from my city that they are unhappy I have recovered some brick and stacked it around some bushes in my yard, behind a fence. They want me to move it to where it can't be seen from the street.

They are unhappy with the desert jade plant I planted all over because of our Southern California water shortage. Even though I have been able to drop my water usage to about 1000 cubic feet per two month billing cycle, they are more concerned that I have left dead leaves around the bushes. I need those leaves there to keep what little water that is in the soil from being boiled off by our hot sun.

I am trying to conserve, but it ain't easy if it isn't what everyone else is doing. How long before I get a complaint that I hang my laundry on a rope in my back yard to dry?

Most of my neighbors cut down the trees on their property years ago. I am the holdout on my block and have several on my property. I love my two big Eucylyptus trees despite the fact they drop lots of branches every time we get a Santa Ana wind blow through. My neighbor nixed his matching pair of trees about five years ago.

Enormous disparity in the income we each live on fuels a raging "keep up with the Jones" thing, whereas if one of us falls behind on our consumption, the "bitty from the city" is called up to issue a "demand to comply" letter.

Although I would LIKE to conserve, its difficult to get permission to do so. As an engineer, I am well aware of the BTU's consumed and carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere to make the brick. That's why I recovered it, as I felt it was too valuable to throw away.

I have reserved sufficient funds to commission a local brick artisan to build me some brickwork with it, but I need to wait for the upcoming recession so I do not compete against everyone else for the artist. The artist will really need the work as well.

But it looks like I will be forced to throw the brick away just because someone else doesn't like seeing it in my yard.

Yup, yet more fuel to make useless haul to the dump. The only upside being getting approval from the bitty from the city. The downside being I won't get my brick planters and the artisan will not get the money I reserved for him.

Yet, others are free to buy cars that won't fit in their driveway, forcing me to walk out in the street to get around them. But if I have bricks stacked in my own yard? Oh, its a terrible eyesore. Its construction materials visible from the street!

Other people can have an old wagon wheel in their front yard, and that's OK. But my stack of brick? NO!

And all sorts of stuff about "trimming" plants. I wonder if its my tomato bushes she's demanding that I remove?

The State may exhort how dire our water crisis is, but they don't have the authority to cause me financial pain like the "bitty from the city" can. Nobody's gonna hold a bitty from the city personally financially responsible for demands she issues to citizens like me to pour water all over the ground to make up for the leaves I removed as per her request.

It seems a lot easier to tell the farmers to make do with less water. Besides if the City needs more money for her to hire her own gardener, they can just raise our water rates again.

I have to go with who has the authority. She does. All the State can do is tell me that I need to conserve. I can see the lakes dry. I can TRY to conserve and do things in a minimal energy use way, but I can not override the authority of the bitty from the city. As a community, we are forced to PAY for someone to butt in and tell us NOT to conserve.

The City CAN and WILL ding my property any assessment they wish.

I know I shouldn't use TOD to vent personal frustration, but please forgive me. I am mad, and feel so damned helpless. It seems every attempt I make to try to save resources is met with "order to comply" from the City demanding I waste them - for mere appearance's sake.

There is no-one at the State or Federal level on my side with any authority to help me stand my ground when it comes to wasting resources. All I am seeing is needless enforced consumption. It takes a lot more than convincing people that there are other ways to live, it takes convincing those who have the authority to demand us to live otherwise. Unfortunately, those guys literally write their own paycheck and don't have the constraints the governed do.

Steve.

When I was at the Detroit Institute of Arts about 15 years ago, I saw a young couple coming out laughing from a room exhibiting 15th century wooden sculpture, most of it of a religious nature. You could tell they had just done something outrageous. I went in and saw a fresh wad of gum stuck on the nose of one of the sculptures, a 600 year old wooden sculpture. That was a moment of my spiritual pain. Even as a child, such an action would have been unthinkable. I look back and wish I had immediately sought out security and had them confronted with their action. It is the fault of their upbringing. I certainly hope it is not a fault of their generation which would be in their late 30's now. It does show that there are those out there who will act in a way contrary to anything you could imagine possible. Preconcieved notions of what people are capable of, in the post oil world, could be fatal.