old loves

There are at least two influences I can identify that shaped my attitudes about sustainablity and the compromises to convenience it must pose.

Diffuse, but pervasive would be my father's unquenchable urge to camp, hunt, hike, fish and just generally be as far out of sight of "civilization" as possible. We kids and the camping gear were loaded into the car on many a Friday after noon and not let out until it bumped and lurched to the farthest point it could safely reach on some jeep road in the sierras. Camping, and the experience of unspoiled nature generally, were more spiritual exercises for our family than any visit we had ever made to a church.

Much more focused and slow in evincing its present influence was my high school encounter with the works and words of Bucky Fuller. Already a fan of Leonardo DaVinci, I was thrilled at the pure power of a determined and uninhibited mind that Fuller exemplified. After reading of his works and ideas, the geodesic dome particularly, in Time Magazine, I bought a copy of his book "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth". I was of course impressionable but his analysis of history simply blew away anything I was hearing in school or out. And my ability to form reasonably short sentences may have suffered permanent damage. Soon after, my attitude about a number of things that were unquestionably wonderful in the esteem of high school boys of my era began to sour. Cars particularly seemed dirty dinosaurs to me. I managed to put off learning to drive a full year while classmates bussed tables, bagged groceries and skimped on homework in order to nurse some old Chevy back to conspicuously powerful or at least noisy health.

So I was delighted to discover today that the Whitney museum in New York is running a summer long exhibit of collected works Fuller. Then I started digging around in the BFI.ORG website and found a delightful document on the levels of change this world could use. I imagine that Gerry would grasp and enjoy Dr. Meadows little essay...assuming he hasn't already read it.
The essay is constructive advice in the abstract...it gets delicious:

People who cling to paradigms (just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possibility that everything we think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it a basis for radical empowerment.