tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post7799085162517787355..comments2024-03-08T14:23:31.503-05:00Comments on A Puff of Absurdity: For the Love of the SongbirdsMarie Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-74580482982250593952016-03-13T22:11:07.050-04:002016-03-13T22:11:07.050-04:00I think what I saw in that line was different than...I think what I saw in that line was different than just love of nature - or maybe it's our new way of loving things that's the problem. It's a need to count or capture lists of names and numbers instead of appreciating other creatures without adding ourselves to their environment. At least it seemed a very ego-driven enthusiasm. We would all be better off if we could love the <i>fact</i> of animals in the wild - whether birds or dolphins or lions - without rounding them up or disturbing their solitude so they can be enjoyed first hand by us. And in our times, we can see anything online without needing to get up quite so close. <br /><br />There's no question that travel makes for excellent experiences, but I think those experiences must come to an end. The luxury of flying somewhere on vacation has to be seen with the same disgust reserved for eating a rare Ortolan bunting. Who do we think we are that we can take such liberties with such a delicate, suffering ecosystem? Each trip is another step closer to more extinctions as we require extraction of fuels (necessitating destruction of forestry) and then burn them adding GHGs to the atmosphere just to be able to see some stuff far away. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-63978896256673031912016-03-13T20:27:22.898-04:002016-03-13T20:27:22.898-04:00A provocative and thought-provoking post, Marie. I...A provocative and thought-provoking post, Marie. I do think you are perhaps being a bit hard on the birders, however. Although I am not one of them, I do delight in watching birds at my feeders in the backyard, and I suspect that some of what you interpreted as boasting might well have been enthusiasm for the natural world. It is the altar upon which many worship.<br /><br />As for retirement travel, I think today, as a result of our consumer's sense of entitlement, many see it as a means not so much to broaden horizons as to chase the chimera of the perfect vacation. If it is of any value, I will say that I have not been consumed by travel in the almost 10 years of my own retirement. Yes, we have been to Italy, Costa Rica and Cuba, but our excursions have been relatively modest. There is much of interest closer to home, as long as we have the eyes and ears to appreciate them.Lornehttp://www.politicsanditsdiscontents.blogspot.canoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-82490155682128719042016-03-13T18:22:04.756-04:002016-03-13T18:22:04.756-04:00When we were kids, we went camping nearby for a co...When we were kids, we went camping nearby for a couple weeks. That satiated everyone's desire to get out of the house and relax far enough away to no longer hear the beckoning of the peeling paint on the shed or the loose bit of eavestrough. Now vacations are an effort to do and see and experience as much as possible and photograph it all for proof. It seems to me it's progress run amok. We're so bent on having more we can't feel "enough," so we're never really satiated. I think even if climate change didn't exist, we'd still have an existential problem on our hands. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-20543550115006843562016-03-13T17:11:33.766-04:002016-03-13T17:11:33.766-04:00A decade before the threw in the towel on humanity...A decade before the threw in the towel on humanity, James Lovelock said our only hope of survival rested upon accepting what he called "sustainable retreat." What he meant was growing smaller, reducing our carbon and ecological footprint, returning to a lifestyle more akin to what we had in the immediate post-WWII era.<br /><br />I consider myself fortunate, Marie, in that I did a great deal of travel, even by today's standards, before the age of 30. I got to live in distant places and travel through countries before mass consumerism had homogenized culture. In the 80s, Kentucky Fried Chicken opened an outlet in a Tudor building within eyesight of Anne Hathaway's cottage. Today there's a McDonalds on the edge of Red Square. I have no interest in witnessing that sort of degradation.<br /><br />And so, for me, my appetite for travel is slaked. A couple of weeks on my motorcycle every two years or so is plenty. From home I can make Tofino in under two hours and spend the afternoon exploring the beaches and tide pools. That's more than enough. From June through Labour Day we just hunker down and try not to get killed by tourists with giant rental RVs who have no clue how to drive mountain roads.<br /><br />Our "entitled way of living" must indeed end. We've long passed the point where we could perpetuate it without robbing future generations of what should be rightfully theirs. It's a shame.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.com