Every hour should be Earth Hour

March 31, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 2 Comments

My daily commute takes me past a small farm with a field where sheep graze every afternoon. Lambs walk with their mothers beneath the sunshine and play at the edge of a small pond where geese paddle lazily and shake droplets from their feathers. No matter how rotten a mood I’m in, how intense the tribulations of the day’s labours past, the innocence of this little place is unfailingly soothing, like visual yoga for the soul. Tonight we are asked beginning at 8:30 pm to turn off our electronics and live in that same silence and simplicity for an hour. Communities around the globe have thrown down the gauntlet to see who can outdo the other in terms of the biggest percentage drop in power demand. The ostensible goal of Earth Hour is to raise awareness of what the consumptive attitude of humanity is doing to its only home. But it behooves us as a species to be aware of the earth every hour of every day; of the treasures it holds and of the unparalleled, impossible-to-duplicate magnificence in something as small as a blade of grass waving in the breeze. Just pause, for one cleansing breath, before we climb back in the SUV and crank up the thousand-megawatt subwoofers.

This is a tough time for our planet. The human population has surged past 7 billion, and shortsightedness and greed on the part of a wealthy few has led to extreme poverty for the majority. And when the economy slows down, it is left to the earth to make up the difference. Dirty industry flourishes in the interest of quick growth; environmental review processes are gutted to get factories moving fast. Moneyed interests push misinformation about climate change into mainstream accepted thought. Anyone who suggests we slow down and give less destructive alternatives their due consideration is pilloried as a job-killing, tree-hugging, pinko Communist (Stalin’s and Mao’s lasting legacies being their keen environmental stewardship, naturally). The Lorax, the recent movie based on the fable by Dr. Seuss, was trashed in certain segments of the press for pushing an undesirable agenda onto kids, because it dared to suggest that levelling all the trees in sight wasn’t necessarily a good idea. We are in an era of reverse ecology – it has somehow become “cool” to hate the earth, and morally sound to sacrifice it on the altar of the GDP at every opportunity. As a result, turning one’s lights off for an hour one Saturday night a year feels like shouting into the winds of a rising storm.

The ad hominem counter-arguments will no doubt come fast and furious. “Oh yeah, well, why don’t you give up your car and your computer and go live in a cave somewhere, you stupid eco-fasci-socialist.” I’m not suggesting that the world shut itself off and return to a purely agrarian existence; that’s fantasy. Surely human beings are clever enough to figure out a way to have our toys and clean air too. As Al Gore said in An Inconvenient Truth, what is lacking is the will. How do we change our collective attitude from hungry consumer to responsible warden of a suffering world?

Maybe it begins with taking that moment to watch the lambs in the field, to reconnect with the innocent. To recognize that whatever you believe put us here – God, evolution or random chance – also gave us the capacity to appreciate and cherish beauty in all its forms, and an abiding wish to not see beauty destroyed for selfish, temporary gain. If it is indeed our duty to leave to our children better than we ourselves have inherited, then we owe each of them the chance to experience the forest, the ocean and the snow-capped mountain peak as we have. This can be the nobler purpose to which we aspire. We can start making the hard choices that reflect both our individual and societal commitment to achieving that purpose – saying no to the cheap and easy solutions and the leaders who peddle them, and embracing our human responsibility to tend the garden of our unique home. For all the beauty present in the world is of the earth, and as the earth dies, so does beauty. No matter our political stripe, we can agree that beauty is worth saving. And it is a solemn obligation that extends far beyond the dying seconds of Earth Hour.

Zen and the art of snowman construction

November 18, 2011 ~ Graham Milne ~ 2 Comments

After an unseasonably warm and extended fall, the first snow of the season tumbled to earth yesterday. It didn’t last long, but for half an hour at least November looked like it’s supposed to. With the mercury plunging below freezing last night I’ll go out on a limb and say we even stand a better than average chance of a white Christmas – call me old-fashioned, but it doesn’t seem right exchanging gifts and eating turkey when outside is a sea of dead leaves and asphalt. If global warming reaches its zenith that’s one Bing Crosby song future generations will find inexplicable. “What are you talking about, there’s never been snow on Christmas.” (The duet with David Bowie on “Little Drummer Boy” is the other – still don’t know what was up with that pairing.)

Something else we’ll miss too is building snowmen. Even when it does snow nowadays it’s difficult to find that perfect, temperature-teetering balance that proves ideal for snowman construction. Too warm and your raw materials are slippery slush; too cold and the snow won’t pack together. Ironic too, that the temperature best suited to build a snowman is also least suited to keep it around for long. In a few short hours your masterpiece becomes a lump on the lawn with only the corncob pipe and button nose to remind anyone of the gentleman who once stood there greeting the passersby. As illustrated in the lyrics to Frosty, the snowman by his nature is a transitory creature. He is emblematic of the need to seize the moment, and to appreciate that moment to the fullest while it lasts.

The best snowman I have ever built, bar none, was an ambitious creation assembled on a snowy December day in 2007. A healthy blanket had fallen during the night and the temperature was hovering around zero – prime conditions to start rolling. It started out with the usual approach – roll a big ball for the body and a smaller one for the head. Luckily there was plenty of snow in the driveway to use without having to spoil too much of the area around where the snowman was to stand. We had the basic structure in place and were pondering how to finish it off when my better half suggested a twist – why not make a snow bunny?

That set the imagination afire. We remolded his head, adding a snout and carefully shaping it to ensure it didn’t look too much like a pig. Ears were next, followed by shoes, some stubby arms and a puffball of a tail. A bow from an old Christmas decoration was repurposed as a necktie. Unfolded paper clips became whiskers. The master stroke, however, was cutting up pieces of a charcoal air pre-filter to use as buttons, nose, mouth and the all-important eyes, taking a little design inspiration from Looney Tunes along the way. Now all he needed was a name. The proximity of the holidays provided le mot juste, and Hoppy the Snow Rabbit was born.

Hoppy Holidays — Not the kind of snow bunny you'd see on the slopes...

Much like his famous brethren, Hoppy was not long for this world. The air got progressively warmer and snow became rain. The first to go was an ear, and by the time the sun fell, after providing smiles to pedestrians and the drivers of many passing cars, Hoppy was no more, living on only in scores of photographs taken of our accomplishment. Perhaps we knew we wouldn’t top ourselves, because we haven’t tried to build a single snowman since. Life – or, more to the point, the desire to stay warm on snowy days – has gotten in the way. But that December day we brought Hoppy to life is one we remember with clarion detail, unlike so many others that have ebbed away into the stream of lost thoughts. Was it the sheer joy of working together to build something special, or the surprise at the wonderful creation that resulted? I suppose it’s a bit like the day I wrote about a few posts ago; the one thing they share is the act of creation itself. Making something, even if it isn’t lasting. Building becomes building memories. Good ones.

If you have the chance, if the temperature is just right, get off your computer, bundle up, step outside and build a snowman. It doesn’t have to be a work of art. It just has to be. Then step back and let yourself smile. I think you’ll be glad you did.