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Family Time and Changes Galore | Weekly Snapshot

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There has been so much going on over here and so much changing soon. I wish I could say I was reading a lot, but it's feeling like a luxury at the moment. 

Family visitLast week, we had my husband's brother and his wife drive down from Boston and stay with us for the week. It had been months since we enjoyed anyone's close companionship for that long so we all enjoyed the time together. We were very sad to say our goodbyes. I hope we can all return to the pre-March era soon. 
While they were here, we celebrated the girl's birthday. (I feel like I have been talking about birthdays on this blog for the past many weeks but we are done for the year! Next birthday is in March.) My daughter had wanted a unicorn cake, and that's exactly what we got, so that made her day. For her birthday present, we wanted to take her to a store and get her a bike but stock is incredibly low. Last week, she had just mastered riding a bike (no training wheels, she went straight from balance …
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Leif Reads Eaarth: 350.org 101

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Yesterday, when I posted about this new feature, Leif Reads, that Ash and I were starting, I totally forgot to mention where the logo came from. It wasn't until some of you mentioned that you love penguins and that Leif looks cute that I spanked my head. So let me get that out of the way first. Ash herself drew Leif. Isn't he really cute? And geeky? If you follow Ash's blog, you would have read some of the comics she has created. That girl sure has an amazing talent - both in drawing and doing comics.

Now off to the main topic. This is our first month, first week and first day of this feature. As I mentioned yesterday, the book we are focusing on this month is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben. Bill's assertion is that the earth as we know it doesn't exist anymore. Instead, it has undergone so many changes over these decades, many of them irreversible, that we may just have to stop thinking of reversing damage or restoring the earth to its old glory and just get on with adjusting to the new one, which he prefers to call Eaarth. The faster, the better for all involved. The changes happening, the drastic climatic conditions, all those failed conferences - they've all been in the news, but the one thing we (or at least I) never really paused to consider is that things may have possibly crossed that invisible line from which there is no return. I still remain optimistic, but I'm not sure how practical it is to be so. That's the gist of the book Eaarth.

So, if we can't go back to normalcy (whatever that is), why bother? That's a question that Eaarth tackles, and something that we want to explore with you. This was the first book by I read by Bill McKibben. And during my conversations with Ash, I found that this environmentalist is actually the founder of 350.org. Don't know what 350.org is? You're not alone - I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago, when I began to get actively (no longer passively) interested in all this. So, if you want to know more about 350.org and who Bill McKibben is, head on over to Ash's blog, because she's doing a post about it today!

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Comments

hcmurdoch said…
Sounds like an intriguing book. I think his idea that we have to stop looking backward is so reasonable. We cannot really fix the ruin we have created, but we can do better as we move forward.
February 4, 2011 at 8:41 AM
Athira / Aths said…
I agree! We always have the mentality that anything can be fixed or not fixed at all. We don't seem to be doing much of either, other than causing more damage. It's hard to make a change with a population of billion people having a billions plans total. But maybe a small collective change at some point can become something bigger.
February 5, 2011 at 12:25 PM
Athira / Aths said…
I think one of our problems is that we don't learn. Animals have been getting extinct for decades, and we don't start taking action until more animals are on the radar, which is sad really. In a very twisted way, these animals, even the most fearsome ones, depend so heavily on us for their survival. It's so sad and unfair that we have so much power in this world - to make species disappear fast.
February 5, 2011 at 12:27 PM
Athira / Aths said…
Thank you! I am pretty fascinated with 350.org's work too.
February 5, 2011 at 12:28 PM
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