New Year’s Resolutions

Here’s my list of resolutions:

Stop reading political blogs. I’ve read a post by David Pollard (“How to Save the World”, in the blogroll) which simultaneously celebrates folks such as the political bloggers, especially the liberal ones, for their ideals and sense of community, while at the same time observing that their zeal for political solutions is a distraction which actually serves “The Man”, the 1% of all of us representing the political and economic elite. I’ve come to agree with him that they’re a distraction from other things I really should be doing. His solution, which is to just walk away and form communities of love and conversation while civilization lasts, sounds beguiling but seems to be an invitation for chaos, conflict and megadeath to join the party early (a bit more about apocalyptic visions in a minute). I’d rather go down fighting for civilization, but I agree with David that fighting doesn’t involve worrying about which presidential candidate is going to win the New Hampshire primary.

Stop paying attention to apocalyptic visions. Most everyone has their own version – for many Christians, it’s the Rapture. Science fiction-reading geeks have the Singularity. Deep Greens have Peak Oil and the ecological footprint. Greenpeacers have “Our Stolen Future”. Neocons have the Long War. I recognize this tendency as identity politics. David Brin points out that human nature always conspires against Enlightenment. Another perspective is that perhaps there is a bit of a human longing for catastrophic events. There is probably a nasty fall of one sort or another waiting for us humans, but hoping for it just to be able to say “I told you so” is the coward’s way out.

Have less stuff. We’re moving soon, and I am in the process of giving away a lot of stuff and hauling away more in the mother of all dump runs (yes, I know that’s a BAD THING; but we might as well get use to the fact that we will be mining landfills for resources some day soon). David Brin, who’s going on the blogroll, had an interesting perspective on our trade deficit and Walmart culture, noting that our penchant for buying stuff may have lifted a chunk of the Third World into the middle class. Still, it’s unsustainable, and as a species, we’re going to need to find a better way to spend our time and to make money beyond making and buying stuff (see below).

Start finding something else to do. I could probably spend the rest of my productive life cleaning up hazardous waste. But over the next few years, I’m going to turn my efforts to working on climate change. Very, very soon, we need to exert an effort reminiscent of the New Deal, the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project combined to reverse the damage, and it’s going to be a better way to spend our time than packing Walmarts with cheap Chinese-made stuff then buying it. So over time, I’ll be taking my existing skills developed from 20 years of hazardous waste investigation and cleanup and applying them to issues such as increasing energy efficiency in buildings and implementing carbon sequestration.

Celebrate the sparks of human ingenuity and initiative when I encounter them. For example, the Z Recommends consumer information site, which published a survey of baby bottle and cup manufacturers, ranking those using polycarbonate which could leach bisphenol-a as opposed to those manufacturers who use other plastics. Or Nanosolar, which manufacturers extremely thin and flexible solar panels. Or MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) program, allowing you to take college-level courses online for free.

Start writing more: more posts to Impact Analysis. I write when I learn about stuff, so perhaps the more I write the more I’ll learn. Look at it as exercise for the brain, and, if you’re going to exercise, pick something that’s strenuous and that you’ll enjoy. “Exercise” and “enjoyment” don’t go together for most people, which might help account for the epidemic of overweight and obese people in the U.S. Also, I’m starting another blog that chronicles my adventures in fitness. Over the past several years, I’ve steadily lost body fat and become stronger. There’s a lot to share about how those things happen. I want to publish something that makes money, perhaps a book or an e-book or an article; I have ideas in all those directions. The wealth-creating aspect is not driving this resolution. Most writers don’t sustain themselves by writing along. But it would be a kick to have people pay to read something I’ve written.