Coffee and University

I'm so hopped up on caffeine right now, it's not even funny. I drank a large Tim coffee this morning, then another coffee at my break, another at lunch, iced tea while I was eating dinner, and now another x-large Tim coffee.. whew! I had a great day today though, I FINALLY filed my admission demand at university less than an hour ago, I still need to provide my 2nd reference letter, but I bought myself a whole week to get it, and I already got one, which is good stuff nonetheless. I applied for a Certificate in Creative Writing, and another in Sociology (2nd choice). I wanted to include Ecology, but I guess the first two are required first, to get good grades and then apply for that program with grades from a University, instead of with experience (I don't have in the area).

On a related subject, I have this project that I've been procrastinating on. As you all know because I blogged about it before, I'm currently watching the Carl Sagan's Cosmos series on youtube, I'm almost done, and this weekend I watched a few documentaries with my mom also. I want to write a children's book about the climatic changes we are facing because of human activity. Perhaps if we train the next generation to think about these things when they are very young, we'll get through this?! I somehow doubt it, but I'm just tired of sitting here and babbling about how irresponsible human kind is, while very certainly not doing anything to help the situation. I feel like a hypocrite of the worse kind, one that condemns the Industry, and then turns around and buys from McDonald's once in a while and consumes at least as much as the other guy in useless goods.




I feel that at least, even if I was not trained to "think green", I can make my best effort to train the future generations to think for themselves! It'd help me sleep better at night knowing that I'm part of the solution and not part of the problem. I gave up my car, and meat (mostly anyways...), and when I think of what's ahead for the next generations, I can't justify sitting on my ass and writing about fashion (for example). I can certainly do both! And I will. Eventually you'll read a great piece on ethical clothing and the awesome ways to re-use your old, worn out pieces of cloth! Until then though, I reaally wanna see this project take off before my friends' kids grow out, so I can give them the gift of eco-responsability (or at least a certain sense of who and what we are in the Universe).

I couldn't believe that my mother, 57 years old, did not know that clouds were formed by water vapor, and that rain was the result of that water falling back down when it reaches colder fronts. Like seriously, I could NOT believe that even this most basic information was news to her. Science is a recent human endeavor, and I guess you have to be interested to even research things like quarks, anti-matter and fractals, but what is considered GENERAL science, like.. evolution, atoms, gravity, climate, those are things we should ALL be aware of. The Church has made great efforts through the centuries to keep us in the dark about things like.. hm.. the Earth being round, and the sun being the center of the planetary system, which is in turn part of a greater cosmic picture. All of it for what purpose? Power and all things Holy. Fear. Blind obediance to dogmas are unfortunately not a thing of the past, but I guess what I'm REALLY trying to say (I know, I'm all over the place..) is that we KNOW BETTER now.

I was watching The Day After Tommorow on TV this weekend, and I could use the Vice President's character, which later in the film becomes the President, as a good example of what we're going through right now. He believed the scientists were plotting to gain more power, or threaten the economy, until well.. people started dying massively in his own country. Unfortunately, we're witnessing the same thing happening, on a slightly more realistic time scale. Think Katrina, think tsunamis in Asia, think of desertification, think of cyclic rainfalls like the monsoons and other known meteorological patterns affecting the poorest, most vulnerable people on the planet. I still can't believe that we, the Homo Sapiens, the Wise Men, haven't figured out yet that we only have one hospitable planet to inhabit in close proximity, and unfortunately, it will remain that way until we a) find another Earth somewhere in reasonable distance, and invent a ship big enough to carry humanity and travel at almost the speed of light, or b) master the art of terraforming, which is too, far beyond our current skill level. (We, however, don't seem to have much difficulty performing the inverse operation. Just sayin'.)

One big rock falls through our protective atmosphere and we're most likely wiped out, just like our friends the dinos were annihilated 65 million years ago. We are nature, we are star stuff, as Carl Sagan says. We have been bestowed with not only life, but a planet capable of sustaining life long enough for it to evolve into complex life, and eventually, maybe conscious beings like us humans. We are conscious, and consciously destroying our own habitat. Yeah, we are unique alright, I bet you never heard of anything like this, a bird destroying its own nest. Sometimes I wonder who's smarter.. us men, or the animals that harmoniously shared and shaped the planet we now inhabit, millions of years before we did. 

Bacterias, I'm a fan of yours. I "like" you.

Wowza, what did I say about having too much coffee!! LOL

Edit: Two large Timmy's coffees today, and STILL no free nothin'. :( I sucks.
Edit again: I just read a nice Wiki article on the ethics of eating meat, and there was a slab of info in there about "anthropocentrism", that is EXACTLY what I mean.

Quote:

"The concept of anthropocentrism, or human-centeredness, alleges that unequal treatment of humans and animals constitutes a form of bias. Val Plumwood (1993, 1996) has argued that anthropocentrism plays an analogous role in green theory to androcentrism in feminist theory and ethnocentrism in anti-racist theory. Plumwood calls human-centredness "anthropocentrism" to emphasize this parallel.

Defenders of anthropocentrist views maintain that a healthy, sustainable environment is necessary for human well-being rather than for its own sake."

Read the whole Wiki article