🎤 Global warming is like R. Kelly
I made the mistake of reading some messages on Twitter on #schiphol. I know I shouldn't but I did. What struck me was that the arguing of the right oriented was so bitter and sharp to the left OP. I actually sat down to think about it. I challenged myself to find a way to give their way of thinking a place without choosing sides. You can argue for years about the effects of global warming if the other side doesn't accept the facts that have been presented to them.
It made me think about this epic monologue from Pete Davidson. In it Pete says that R. Kelly is a horrible person BUT that he'll still listens to his music. As long as we acknowledge the fact what he did, we don't have to cancel his musical legacy. We can of course choose to not listen. He doesn't justify his behaviour as a person but still likes his music.
I think this goes for global warming as well. For me personal there's a time before the effects of global warming actually landed and the time after. Since I've been in school people have told me about the effects but it never actually hit me. I still remember when I finally got a student room after searching for months and finding out that it had an old skool gas heater in the room. Was I going to say no to the room? Hell no, I searched for months. I was aware though and tried to be as smart as I could with it.
Whenever a problem is super big I like to go back to the real basics. Where did it all start and can we relate to that moment to get a clear objective of the current times. If we go all the way back to the homo sapiens era there where of course no airplanes. We didn't even knew how to make fire. So if we keep that in mind, that we got resourceful from that point on, what can we learn about aviation? First and foremost, we always traveled. Actually we needed to travel in order to stay alive. We collected food before we hunted. We thought we where smart when we figured out how to grow food as farmers but that when our stress started (read the book Sapiens, it's brilliant). We stopped traveling because we where lazy which actually costs more human energy and thus we needed holidays to travel. The same goes for exhaust gases and fumes. You can believe in global warming or you don't but nobody can deny that exhaust gases exist. Put your hand next to an exhaust and you feel heet, put your noses next to it and you smell gasses. Now go into a room which you call the atmosphere and park your car in it and sit down next to that with the doors closed. It's a super simple but deadly science experiment which even children understand. Make the experiment even cooler by putting plants in it and start burning the plants one by one.
Now what's my point? If we know that we are responsible for both the heat and the gasses that we create we can only do one thing. Acknowledge it! Yes you can take the plane to your holiday as long as you say out loud that you think the impact that that makes are justified.
I have no kids and no intention to make them so I couldn't care less if you did. I do however get a kick out of looking at art from the roman era and would love to think that next generations will look at this blog and think, OMG we still exist. We have a super simple decision to make a. we're selfish and don't think about our impact (positive or negative) on whatever the future may bring or b. we have an impact and are able to change the future bit by bit.
At one point my car collection counted 30 cilinders. Even though I love driving and working on cars I saw that it was a bit much. Replacing them with electric cars would pollute even more because the cars need to be made and we can't agree on that precise impact of that. The easy way out was: saying out loud I thought spending exhaustible energy sources and possible future negative effect for the task I was doing.
The result: I cycle to Amsterdam in stead of going by car. It sucked at first, upgraded to a Speedpedelec which I now use instead of my combustion car. I cycle everything within 15km distance, I never did that for the last 10 years. I still don't cycle when it rains. I still go on holiday trips with the hybrid convertibles in the Alps. I understand my impact and stopped eating meet to compensate.
The most funny thing about it is that I have to laugh to myself a lot. When I stand fully dressed to go somewhere with my car keys ready to go and ask myself if I couldn't rather go for a walk. 9/10 times I go for a walk. My income made a deep dive because of my walks over work behaviour but since I drive less I need less money. Funny how that works.
If only I would be able to do the same for my sneaker addiction.