Two weeks remain until i depart for Iceland. Many of my friends like Tess, Mat, Haley, Dare & Brendan are just now returning to America from various study abroad locations around the world. It saddens me to leave them after such short time together, but Their stories have gotten me more excited than I already was. I will also sorely miss my parents who recently moved closer to my university, my yogi Emily, and my boisterous beatboxing best friends & roommates Justin, Aaron and Eric.
Almost all preparations for departure are complete except for packing and reading. I have compiled two pages of interview questions I hope to ask people in the village as a part of my own ethnographic research. I plan on meeting with my Cultural Anthropology professor this week to refine the direction of my individual study as well as get in touch with one of his Icelandic friends who is an anthropologist at the University of Reykjavik. I am still waiting to find out if I was awarded the National Geographic Glimpse Photo Correspondent position that would pay me for photojournalistic coverage of my trip. My sister will be mailing me her HD Video Camera to bring with me and I am getting re-used to my old digital camera. I will be shipping some or most of my belongings to the village in Selfoss to bypass the cost and stress of checking baggage through several connecting flights. The book we were assigned to read is called "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to save civilization" by Lester R. Brown, the president of Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC. Below you will find a response to some of the themes I have read about so far in this thought-provoking book.
Plan b calls for a substantial transition from coal, Oil & natural gas to wind, water & solar sources of energy. Renewable resources must be embraced for the sake of every species on the face of the planet. The transition is in the early stages, but will spark when more & more people realize the clean potential in front of us. Lester R. Brown says that the transition needs to be executed at wartime speed, similar to our nation’s effort to transform domestic factories during World War II. It seems that such swift action on a massive scale could only be spurred by a major national rising of awareness. Surely, then the consciousness of the masses would rise to a level of self-awareness of what we are doing to all earthlings. Was the most recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not such an example of an event that shook everyone up to the same level of disgust with our current methods of energy production? Please do not overlook such blatant opportunities to demand change. What will it take for wind turbines, solar devices, organic eating and farming, de-scaling the food chain & waterless composting toilets to catch on? We are now inhaling the final exhaust fumes of the Industrial Revolution. We are now entering a new phase in human existence in this ever-changing world. A paradigm shift from competition with everything & everyone to cooperation with everything & everyone should unfold, and we are the only ones who can do it. Namaste.
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