They paved over paradise, put up a parking lot

“They paved over paradise, put up a parking lot.”
- Joni Mitchell

Just a few months ago, it was a vast, green lawn. Not wild perhaps, but alive. Now it’s covered by crushed rock and weighted down by tons of metal, glass, and rubber. Nothing lives there anymore.

I used to come to the UofO Library and was lucky to find a seat at a bay window without someone already being there. Now only the last few seats to the left are taken – the seats that look out on the towering firs of the old graveyard. The rest are all empty. Who wants to look out on a parking lot?

I live in a small apartment near campus. Five guys live in the house across from me, each with his own car. The small parking lot between us is overflowing - bursting at its seams. It wasn’t made for this many vehicles. The neighboring lots are suffering from the same affliction. Car use among college kids is on the rise and that’s just the tip of the melting ice berg.

Over the last few decades, automobile use in America has skyrocketed. The number of registered vehicles in the U.S. has more than tripled from 74.5 million in 1960 to 247.5 million in 2005. But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening elsewhere.

In 1990, there were 1 million autos in China. That number has increased to over 17 million in 2007. That’s an increase of %1700 in less than twenty years. Automobile addiction isn’t just an American problem. It’s global.

I’m not talking about global warming either (though that is a serious issue). I’m talking about quality of life. I’m talking about life in general.

Cars require a support system – roads, parking lots, and concrete. As the use of the automobile increases, the amount of the Earth dedicated to it increases and the amount dedicated to anything else decreases. When I think of the current transportation system, I think of a grey slab of concrete reaching out with its crooked, deadly fingers and paving over everything in its path. That may sound a little extreme, but the tradeoff can’t be denied - more cars, means more pavement. More pavement, means less forests, less meadows, less prairies, less savannas, less wetlands, less habitat, less life.

So when I hear about new roads or auto-dependent developments such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, or suburbs further and further away from the urban core, I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling about progress, jobs, new homes, and economic growth. I get a sad and sometimes angry feeling about what’s being lost.

Our auto-dependent transportation system is literally killing the planet. And each time we make a decision that adds to that system, we’re playing a part in that killing. Even if technological advances such as increased fuel efficiency, alternative fuels, and zero-emission vehicles could solve global warming, they can’t do a thing about the finite amount of surface space on planet Earth.

Ultimately, it comes down to what we want? Paradise or parking lots. If we choose the latter, we have nothing to worry about. We can go about our business and live life the way we’ve been living it for decades – more and more cars, more and more pavement.

If we choose the former, changes must be made. We need to get out of our cars.

Each and every one of us can do something right now to start that change. We can designate one day a week to ride a bike to work or take mass transit. We can car pool. We can combine trips. We can make informed purchasing decisions such as buying locally produced products or buying homes closer to where we work and shop. If we make it a priority, we can find all kinds of fun, healthy ways to make the world a better place.

Ultimately, it comes down to what kind of world we want to live in. And perhaps more importantly, what kind of world we want to leave for our children. One filled with green spaces and the diversity of life that depends on them? Or one filled with parking lots?

Fragile Truce?

While visiting my dad in Arizona, I spent most mornings reading the local rag - The Arizona Republic. Everyday there seemed to be an article related to the environment - a welcome surprise. Unfortunately, most of them were pretty wishy, washy. But it is a mainstream paper in a Republican state, so I guess that's progress. I wrote the following letter to the editor based on a cover story about climate change and the Southwest's drought. It didn't get printed - too radical and negative for a mainstream paper I suppose:

I appreciated The Republic's coverage of climate change (Sunday, November 25) and how it is already affecting Arizona. But I had to shake my head at the opening paragraph which describes how rising temperatures are breaking-down the water-delivery system and “upsetting a fragile truce between people and the dry land they inhabit.” What truce? Humans have taken what they want from the land with little regard of the consequences. That's why we're in this mess.

Every action has a reaction. It's the first law of thermodynamics. You cannot have 7 billion people on the planet clamoring for the resource intensive American lifestyle without major repercussions. And that's exactly what's going on.

There are no easy fixes. Until our society grows-up and realizes life-styles will have to change, the problems will only get worse. We can conform to the laws of physics voluntarily or the ecosystem will force us to do so against our will. It's our choice.

Season of the Frog (Part II)

This is the 2nd part in a series.

Under the full moon I went. I locked my bike up at the edge of the park knowing that sometimes the best approach is a gradual one. I walked by the first patch of ash trees all huddled together in mass, like a group of gossiping teens. And there under the full light of the lunar star was a bench – my first stop. I smoked a little, drank a little, and took it all in - the sound of the frogs in the distance, the way the cool night air felt on my hands and face, the night sky being painted and repainted by the incoming clouds. America must have been singing of spring when they said, the days are longer, the nights are stronger, than moonshine.

After while, I moved on, approaching my final destination, getting closer and closer. The moon’s reflection danced off puddles of water – molded by clumps of grass, rippling water, and clouds. And the frogs sang on, getting louder and louder with every step. I’ve been here several times over the years, but tonight they were at a whole new level. They were so entranced by their mating song; they didn’t even notice my approach. Not until I made it to the bench hidden in the darkness, under the trees, behind the water, mud, and grasses of the Amazon wetlands. All it took was one careless step and one frog went silent - then another, and another, and another. They dropped off like dominoes. Only the sound of the night air remained.

So I sat motionless, waiting. The frogs picked-up one by one, as I knew they would, adjusting to my presence, getting louder and louder. Soon they hit their peak and it was deafening. Sill I wanted more. I dreamed of plopping myself right in the middle of all that amphibian madness, but I figured the frogs didn’t want a human messing with their little orgy. So I listened on from a safe distance instead.

16 of the 32 ounces of beer had already made their journey from the bottle to my kidneys and now they were telling me it was time for the next part of the trip. So, I walked to the edge of the wetlands. A few solitary frogs were there singing their love song. “What are you guys doing out here?” I thought in their direction, “All the fun’s over there.” And I considered their chances of finding a mate, all the way out here, away from the crowd. Not too good. Survival of the fittest I guess. But is it really a question of the fittest, the strongest, versus the weak, the weakest? I’m not so sure. Maybe these frogs are just different. It’s not a difference a scientist would notice with all his or her abstract classifications based on physical appearance. No, it’s a difference on the inside, a difference in heart, in spirit, in personality. Maybe these frogs don’t like crowds. Maybe they don’t like following the masses. Maybe these frogs for some reason or another are different from all the other frogs. That doesn’t make them less valuable. After all, it’s diversity that makes the world the interesting, ever changing, beautiful place that it is. And aren’t these frogs just as much a part of that as the others? More? In fact, if variety is the spice of life, aren’t these rare, lonely frogs in some ways, the most precious frogs of all?

“Maybe. But that's a hard life to bear.” I thought to myself as I wished them luck and returned to my bench near the more obvious mass of frog existence.

I stayed with the frogs for some time, and when the beer was gone, it was time to go. I headed home, bought more beer, and spent the night drinking, smoking, writing, and thinking. I stayed-up till five in the morning. I woke at nine for work, had a job interview at one, and at nightfall did it all over again. This is how I live.

Season of the Frog (Part I)

There are two kinds of people in Eugene: those that have been along the Amazon bike path on a springtime evening, and those that haven’t. It’s pretty easy to figure out. You just ask, “Hey, have you ever ridden along the Amazon bike path at night?” You’ll either get a strange look and a comment like, “No, why?” Or you’ll get an excited, “Yeah, isn’t it amazing.” And then you’ll both share a moment reflecting on the crazy, frog sounds of spring.

They’re always on my mind this time of year. Just a couple weeks ago I was telling a friend about them. She falls under the “those that haven’t” category. “They’re pretty cool,” I explained, “Sometimes I get a fourty-ouncer, go over to the park, and just listen to them.”
“Don’t they get quiet when you get near?”
“Yeah, but if you stay there long enough, they’ll start-up again. First you’ll hear one, then another, and then another, one-by-one, and then suddenly they’ll all kick-in at the same time – ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.” I motioned my hands up and down like frogs.
“You can actually see them?” she asked.
“No, I’m just imagining that’s what they look like,” I said as I flashed a smirk in her direction, “And then someone will go by on a bike, and they’ll get all quiet again. But after a while, they’ll start right back up, one by one, just like before. After a few times of that you can’t help but wonder if it’s always the same ones that start-up first.”
“Like the leaders?”
“Kind of, but it’s more like, are they the ones willing to take the biggest risk?”
She got a big smile on her face.

So, I’ve been meaning to visit my raucous friends for some time, but it’s always raining or just too damn cold – until last Sunday.

Earlier that day, someone told me we were seeing the last of the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. The clouds would be rolling in some time that night and the rains wouldn't be too far behind. "It will have to be tonight then," I told myself.

But when the moment arrived, inertia was against me. Time wasn’t on my side either. It was already 10PM and I was expecting a work call at nine the next morning. Not necessarily a big deal, but I wasn’t heading out there just to listen to a few notes and then be on my way back home. No, to truly appreciate something like this, you have to spend time with it. And you don’t go empty handed. A spliff and a fourty are mandatory. But I know myself. If I really start having a good time, well, there may be another fourty, and another spliff, and then maybe another fourty, and another spliff, so on, and so on. I reconsidered, thinking of all the options.

I could just wait till the next nice night - when I don't have to get-up early. But when will there ever be a night like this - it’s fairly warm, there's a full moon, it’s not raining, but it’s been raining really hard the last few days - perfect frog climate. No, this is the night. There will be no other.

I could skip the spliff and/or the fourty. Yeah, right.

So I said, “fuck it,” and threw caution to the wind.

To be continued....