Transformation Travel
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
  • Product
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
  • Product
Join the Slow Journalism  movement. See the world from a 2 mile/hour perspective . 
STORIES  are everywhere

Can Climate Change our Lifestyle?

9/21/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Fall is here; Summer travel is ending. I’m thinking about staying in one place for a time and resuming the writer’s life. The nomads in Morocco are returning from the grazing grounds in the high mountains to the desert plateau where I met them in March of this year. They will await the winter rains and watch the grasses return. We have a kinship across borders and oceans. Moving with the season is an ancient pattern of man and animal. My hikes in the high mountains this summer took me out of the smoke and heat that plagued the valley I call home. 

After an intense wild fire season there is talk of moving in my valley. Talk of finding a place to live that isn’t plagued by disasters caused by climate change. It’s getting hotter everywhere in summer and colder/wetter in many places in winter. Climate change has its effects. Will there still be year round livable places? Will the changes in climate transform our living habits?

History and research tells us life on this planet adapts. How will we adapt to the current big changes we’re experiencing? Will we develop technological solutions to solve the problems we encounter or will we become a more nomadic species?
Technology can’t disappear a smoky sky, stop the sea from rising, stop the wind from becoming a hurricane. We can protect ourselves with new tech inventions, which can give us safe places to hide, breathing masks, amphibious vehicles. But we can’t stop the damage to plant life or animal life as temperatures soar, water warms. Technology offers limited solutions.
Will we experience a more nomadic life pattern to avoid exposure to difficult, dangerous climate changes? We may, especially among the privileged who can afford to be a snowbird, a smoke bird, or a climate bird and migrate with the season. 

What about people who can’t afford to live in two places, who are eking out a living while traditional means of survival are disappearing? Water for agriculture? Forget it! Abundant fish catches? Not happening. Forest lumber? All burning up. 
Right now there are an unprecedented number of refugees, as much as there were after World War II. The refugees are moving away from war, violence, famine, and lack of economic opportunities. They are coming to the few places perceived to be safe, to have food and water and vibrant economies. However, the “haves” want to hang on to what they have, move to the best places to live and close the doors on the desperate and the poor. There’s just too many of us, the resources are dwindling and it will become uglier before it gets better. 

With the world population soaring, moving or migrating is no longer a solution for dealing with climate change. How we live and operate as humans is the better solution. It’s painful because we must change our lifestyle, our habits and adopt new values. Livestock farming contributes 18% of human produced greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This is more than all emissions from ships, planes, trucks, cars and all other transport put together. Can we become vegetarians and save the planet? Chemical byproducts of our consumption society pollute our water and our air. Are we ready to live with less stuff? I remember what my guide and friend in the Himalayas said, when we discussed the increased wish for western products, “You try living here for a winter, and you’ll understand why we want what you have.” Do we have enough empathy in times of climate stress and resource shortages to share with the have-nots? Are we willing to share our shrinking livable land? 

I encourage people to walk, hike and see what’s left of nature. Going out for a long walk gives you increased awareness and may convince you to embrace the place you live in, change your lifestyle, fix things locally and encourage others to do the same. Talk to the person who is drinking water from a disposable plastic bottle, wake 'em up to the facts. Grow a garden or support a local farm and help shift the carbon imbalance.
​Think WE instead of ME and contribute to a real solution for a livable planet.

0 Comments

    Dami

    is an intrepid, energetic transformation traveler. Follow her blogs to see how she does it.​

    Picture
    Picture

    ​thetrek.co

    ​
    For hiking specific blogs check my contributions to TREK magazine via link above

    Categories

    All
    Home Garden
    Mindfulness
    Nature's Lessons
    Pandemic
    Slow Living

    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    RSS Feed

Transformation-Travel
From the Middle of Nowhere, Southern Oregon, USA

About

Contact Us