Big footprints

July 8, 2010,

Dear Julie,

Summer has brought flotillas of relatives to our burg on the Mississippi. DC's sister Danice's family delivered the two great-grandchildren here from San Diego for Father's Day. For four days at the cabin on the Castor River they ate, swam, slept, ate, fished, ate, watched a movie out at the amphitheater, blew up fireworks, slept and began again. We worried how San Diegans would weather Southeast Missouri's extreme heat and humidity, but they were OK. A river can be a refuge.

My sister Sally's family drove through town on their way from Cincinnati to a wedding in Arkansas. Our nieces Carly and Kim have become lovely young women. On their way back through to Cincinnati their dad complained that the groomsmen spent the entire wedding reception hitting on those lovely daughters. That's the way that the world goes 'round, John Prine sings. "It's a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown."

Receiving summer visitors allows us to see how much children have grown and how much sense the adults still make.

Danice's husband is a likable retired Navy captain who assured one dinner gathering that global warming is a conspiracy foisted on the public by the liberal media as a money-making scheme. I listened, silently outraged. How was I excluded from this conspiracy? Were there coded messages? Where's my money?

Burning fossil fuels currently produces 21.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Natural processes can absorb about half that amount. The rest remains in the atmosphere, helping create the greenhouse effect that is melting the polar ice. If there's a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy of denial.

The biggest deniers are those of us who think we have the most to lose. But what more could be gained by finding cleaner sources of energy, by using less energy, by living more consciously? Many years ago I heard the Japanese dancers Eiko and Koma instruct young dancers in how to walk. Walk, Eiko said, as if you were crossing a meadow filled with beautiful wildflowers. You know that each step you take could harm the flowers. You also know you must cross the meadow. Step with care.

As oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, it's obvious that the more any of us can do to reduce our use of fossil fuels the better off all of us will be.

The Better Carbon Calculator estimates your carbon footprint based on where you live. Here on South Lorimier Street each of us produces an estimated 34.32 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The numbers are shocking no matter where you live. If every one of us knocked off just one of those tons, the Earth could breathe easier.

Part of our challenge is that we've come to value the humongous. Big trucks, big appetites, Big Box stores, big. Sixty years ago the average American home was less than 1,000 square feet. It's now approaching 2,500 square feet, though our families are smaller.

The Earth and Wall Street are demonstrating that the economies and lifestyles we Americans created over the past few decades are unsustainable. They don't work anymore. The challenge that will engage each of us in the 21st century is to figure out what does. That's the way that the world goes 'round.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.