Winston looking cute

There’s a For Better or Worse cartoon on my fridge. It’s from the early days of the strip, showing Elly shivering in her bathrobe in the cold as their new puppy wanders around sniffing at leaves, ignoring his mission. Finally she yells at him in frustration: “GO ALREADY!”

That scene has been repeated many times in my back yard since my boyfriend decided he couldn’t live without a dog any longer. Winston, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, came into our lives during the cold of winter, and like all puppies, needed to go out constantly. Over a year later, it still seems he needs to go out constantly. And as the early riser, I’m the one shivering in my bathrobe yelling “GO ALREADY” as Winston sniffs the air and examines every stick and leaf for the specialness only dogs can detect. To rush him back inside often has unpleasant consequences, so we wander about while he looks for just the right branch or pile of leaves to position his posterior over. As a lifetime cat owner, it’s been a mystery to me why the training has taken so long. As I constantly point out, training a cat takes about 30 seconds. “Here’s the cat box”. “Okay, thanks”. End of lesson. We both remain warm and dry. With Winston, the failures have been seemingly endless. The signal for “I have to go out” is quite similar to “I want to eat what you’re eating” and “Play with me NOW”. Giant bottles of Pee Pee odor eliminator are a regular item in our grocery cart.

The obvious solution is to fence in the yard, and I fully plan to do so. However, I still expect to spend a good deal of time watching him sniff the air. First, in the interest of neighborhood tranquility, we will need to prevent his habit of barking frantically at every pedestrian on the side street by our yard, especially those with dogs. Second, he has a profound interest in consuming the most disgusting items he can find. He will turn up his nose at the most gourmet of dog food, exhibiting a pickiness any cat would envy. But his poor neck has suffered from being constantly tugged about on every walk – once the snuffling starts, the swallowing is not far behind, and by the time we realize what’s in his mouth it’s often too late. We have pried sticks, rocks, sharp walnut shells, deer droppings, and maggoty dead birds from his mouth. Inside he delights in stealing items, as all puppies do, and we’ve caught him with cell phones, glasses, knives, bolts, ear plugs, heating pads, and other potentially dangerous objects. The canine lack of judgment very nearly cost him his life recently. The baby gate we installed to keep him out of the basement was left open briefly, long enough for him to pay a visit to the cat box for a delightful meal of cat litter and droppings. We try to prevent this, not caring for his resultant cat poop breath. But this time his breath was the least of his problems. The litter I had begun using was Arm & Hammer Super Scoop with baking soda. It was unscented (I hate perfumed cat litter) and does a very good job of eliminating odors. It almost eliminated Winston. The baking soda reacted with his stomach acid, and his stomach inflated like a balloon. He began vomiting and trying to burp but the gas would not escape. He could barely walk due to the discomfort. About $600 later, with an overnight stay at the vet, about a dozen x-rays, much medication, and a temporary bland food diet, he seems to have mostly recovered, and his extreme thirst seems to be abating somewhat. Will he stay away from the cat box? Probably not, so we will be using the expensive recycled newspaper litter – without baking soda. And we’ll continue to try to protect him from this dangerous world we have created – that no species can adapt to quickly enough.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date April 3, 2009)

Not! First of all, walking a dog is bit like walking a two-year-old. I like a nice brisk blood-moving, muscle stretching walk. Two-year-olds like to stomp in every puddle and investigate every bug, rock, or gum wrapper. Dogs are not that different, except they will attempt to eat the gum wrapper, the bug, and the remains of the squirrel who couldn’t figure out which side of the road it wanted to be on. All that takes time, as does the sniffing of each rock and bush that’s required to determine its pee-worthiness.

Winston begging for a "walk"

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Oct. 7, 2009)

Lime and Coconut, two happy budgies

I’ve never lived with parakeets before, so fostering two parakeets this summer has a new experience. I’ve found them to be quite low maintenance, and rather soothing – most of the time.

One of my favorite Monty Python skits features two “ladies” discussing how best to “put one’s budgie down” when it gets to be annoying. One might choose to hit it with a book, or shoot it above the beak, but at all costs, one should not flush them down the toilet, since they “breed in the sewers”. Not too longer ago I almost put one of the budgies down by accident – I didn’t close the cage door by the seed tray, and was surprised to suddenly have a parakeet careening through the house. I finally caught him/her behind the toaster oven, and had to carefully balance the need to hold on to the tiny squirmy body without squeezing too hard and accidentally reenacting the budgie skit. I quickly found out that that tiny little beak can exert quick a mean bit of force on the unsuspecting finger.

Once back in the cage, he or she immediately went back to normal, which for parakeets consists of an almost constant chittering and chattering, punctuated with occasional mad squawking and fluttering around for no discernable reason. As a human I have no way of knowing if they are happy or not; I can’t imagine being happy in a cage, but they do seem to enjoy each other quite a bit. They are constantly in conversation and mirror each other’s movements as well as vocalizations. They have their own personalities – the green one expects the gray one to provide grooming and will poke him if it’s not forthcoming. I’ve been told they like music and singing, so I do try to sing to them; they are quite patient and tolerant of my lack of talent, but suspect they breathe little birdie sighs of relief when I stop.

They have not been trained to talk and are quite skittish; they would never consider perching on a finger. They make an exception, though, for their favorite treat; they tolerate and even investigate my hand when it brings them a millet spray, willing to risk it all for that birdie junk food.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date June 23, 2009)

Loki's screen shot reminds me of better days. Her urn reminds me of reality.

Today I picked up the small metal canister containing the ashes of my almost-perfect cat, Loki, who passed away Sunday morning. The canister comes with a card that tells a lovely little fairy tale about the Rainbow Bridge, when our little pets go at death to frolic together while they wait for us to die and take them to heaven with us. It is meant to comfort, but I found the sheer fantasy of it more painful than the reality, since it raises false hopes.

Here is her story. I tried very hard to be a good pet owner. Since my previous cat, Pumpkin, died due to complications of an infection brought on by his consumption of a wild rabbit, I vowed that this cat would be an indoor cat only. She briefly slipped out a couple of times, but only for a minute, and seemed content with watching the animal world from the safety of the couch.

Eating was her favorite activity, and while she was occasionally picky, she had no trouble maintaining her slightly overweight figure. I don’t think it would have mattered if I had noticed earlier that she was losing weight. Around Thanksgiving, she seemed to be getting much pickier about her canned food, and sleeping on a couch cushion instead of top of the couch where she could look out the window. By early December she had gotten much pickier, and I took her to the vet. She had lost a good deal of weight, and test showed non-regenerative anemia. The usual cause (feline leukemia) was ruled out. We tried an antibiotic and vitamins in case of some strange infection, but her pickiness increased and her weight continued to drop. Another exam revealed a mass of some kind, and an ultrasound showed a large tumor on the pancreas that also pressed on her stomach. A needle biopsy was inconclusive as to cancer, but there weren’t a lot of other possibilities. She was too weak and thin to endure a more invasive biopsy, and removal of the tumor, if she even survived, would result in leaving her with diabetes. The choice was clear. Bring her home and keep her comfortable.

She lasted a little over a month after that initial visit. I soon abandoned the antibiotics and appetite stimulant, since they didn’t help much and giving  her meds only upset her. Since I work at home, I was able to give her attentive care, frustrating as it was. I suspect she not only had little stomach capacity but also suffered from nausea. She would ask for food four to six times a day, but never would eat from the same can or packet more than twice. It wasn’t the temperature, since heating it up didn’t help – she seemed to need that just-opened-can smell to stimulate her to eat. She often would just lick the gravy or sauce off all the meat, and ate very little solid food. My cupboard soon filled up with cans and packets of every brand and flavor as I attempted to find just the right brand of flavor that would pique her interest. As soon as I found something she liked and bought several, she would begin rejecting it. The fridge filled up with opened cans with three bites eaten. Small quantities could be fed to the dog, but the rest ended up in the trash. She ate some dry food, the occasional crunchy treat, and all the Fancy Feast she wanted. Winston, the dog, was very good during this time. In the past I would feed her on a table where he couldn’t reach, but now I got better results feeding her anywhere she was when she asked for food. Winston patiently watched and waited each time, while I blocked his access to her food, rewarding him with an occasional leftover.

How does a pet owner decide when it’s time to let go? It’s a decision I’ve faced a number of times, and I’m never sure I’ve done the right thing. I like to think I was well enough attuned to her behavior that I did not let her suffer unduly. She spent most of her days in the dog bed under my computer desk, sometimes sleeping on my lap until my legs began to loose feeling, then I would move her to a box of clothing nearby. I only heard her cry once, when she needed to vomit, and she still mustered up a bit of purring from time to time. Like many animals, she stoically endured whatever discomfort she might have been feeling.

The night she died I did not take her to bed with me as I usually did, since she seemed a bit uncomfortable. She was responsive and would reply with a silent meow when I talked to her but did not want any food; later that night I checked on her again and she seemed the same. But a few hours later, my boyfriend came and woke me up with the words I was dreading: “Loki’s dying”. He had gotten up and heard something odd. She had gone in a closet and collapsed. She lay limply, and a couple of times a minute gasped loudly. We suspect her heart gave out, and hope that she was unconscious during that long and painful half an hour or so while we watched over her, waiting for her to finally go. This was the first time I have watched a pet die without going to the vet for the magic shot. It was very painful, yet I felt blessed to be there as she became more and more peaceful.

Loki watching birds

I’d like to say Winston watched over her too, with a tender inter-species sympathy. Not so. He decided since we were all up, it must be play time, and kept interrupting our vigil with demands for attention, and now doesn’t appear to miss her at all. But of course, he’ll see her again someday, on the Rainbow Bridge.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Jan. 13, 2010)

Loki, the almost perfect cat

Loki is the latest in a long string of cats who have chosen to allow me to care for them. My late cat, Pumpkin, had not been gone long before I got an email from a friend whose daughter was moving back home, bringing with her a large surplus of pets. After a few hours of hiding in the basement, Loki entered the family and proceeded to tell the resident dog, Winston, who was in charge now.

Loki lacks the bad habits of Pumpkin. She seems content with staying inside, eating (perhaps a bit too often), sleeping, and sitting behind the couch, leaping at birds visiting the window feeder. I’ve learned to ignore the “thump, crunch, thump” as she appears from nowhere like a jack-in-the-box, thumps the window, and falls back down to her hidden lair. I no longer have to worry about hiding food on the counters, table and stove from a marauding feline – her stubby little legs prevent her from jumping that far. Unlike the companionable but aloof Pumpkin, she hears the sound of a body hitting the couch or chair in her sleep, and in short order is in place to share a warm lap. A hassock by my desk allows her to sleep near me as I work, safe from dog harassment.

Her only fault is her lack of a good internal clock. If I wake up in the night for any reason, she decides it’s breakfast time. First the loud purring or meowing in her one-note voice, that sounds like she has just suffered a dreadful tragedy. Then the licking. Any available spot of skin is targeted – if you’ve never experienced having your elbow sandpapered at 3 am, it’s not something you’ll forget easily. My response (hiding under the covers), brings the next phase – tap. Tap, tap, tap. A gentle, persistent whacking begins until I give up and stagger to the kitchen for a spoon and some Fancy Feast. Pumpkin preferred the method of jumping on the dresser and knocking things over, or rattling the mini-blinds. Either way, my sleep has been disturbed and the cat once again reigns supreme.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date April 3, 2009)

Pumpkin watching the gerbil, waiting for his chance to pounce

Pumpkin was a rescue cat, as I often reminded him. When he was small, my daughter and her friends made sure his feet never touched the ground. In spite of all that love and attention, he matured into a companionable but fairly aloof cat; only when reached about 5 or 6 in age did he once again occasionally consent to purr or sit on a lap. In spite of his aloofness, he tolerated being teased, chased, and carried around by children and adults with great patience, finally growling to let us know the game was long overdue to end.

Pumpkin had a number of habits that made him a challenging cat.

A sensitive digestion required special expensive food, and any time he coerced or stole human food, the odor from the litter box let us know he was not feeling well. Worse yet, he refused to engage in typical cat litter digging behavior, so a fresh deposit required immediate human intervention lest the EPA arrive and fine us.

For some reason he had a burning need to chew on things, mainly wires. I will never know how he managed to avoid electrocuting himself. He chewed and ruined power strips, TV cables, monitor cables, every heavy duty extension cord in the house, and the plug to the electric saw. I will never forget the sight of his mouth glowing bright green as he attempted to chew the lights on the Christmas tree. I tried duct tape, foil, and finally the corrugated computer cable covers to prevent further damage; of course he chewed those too.

His biggest joy was escaping to the outside for hunting trips. He developed several methods of escape. Front and back screen doors did not fasten tightly, so I had to add child-proof hooks to prevent him from leaning on the doors until they swung open. The carport door, which we used the most, was more of a challenge. He found that he could hide on the basement steps, waiting for someone to leave, then run up the steps, allowing the extra momentum to carry him around our feet. To prevent being knocked over (an 11 lb. cat has a certain force, when hurled), we developed the Pumpkin exit – exiting backwards, down the steps, with some item (bookbag, purse, newspaper) held in front of our departing feet to block the exodus.

When that didn’t work, it was usually futile to try to catch him (occasionally he would play it as a game – walking forward, looking behind to see if he was being followed, then waiting for the human to catch up, then running some more…). Once outside, he was happy. He would sit under the picnic table, waiting for the inattentive bird or chipmunk to pass by. Often he would return with his prize, still alive, and drop it in the house. The best way to deal with that is to let him catch the (mouse, bird chipmunk, shrew) again, then remove them both. We tried various methods to save the animals – prying them out of his mouth, covering his nose, dumping cold water on him. Sometimes we saved them, only to see  him catch them again a few days later.

This endless destruction was what did him in, finally. He found a nest of baby rabbits, and couldn’t resist actually eating one (the remains appeared on my shoes, so I know he ate it). He developed pancreatitus; antibiotics almost took care of it, but then a congenital heart murmer got worse, due to the infection, and he quickly went into congestive heart failure. It was really hard to say goodbye to him. I knew there was no hope, but he was still young (only 7) and in his prime. He had become more affectionate and all his habits and quirks made him a constant source of amusement (as well as expense).

I chose not to make him wait and suffer for the final shot while I returned to the animal urgent care. I missed my chance to say goodbye. He came back to me the next day, wrapped in a huge swatch of plastic, taped up, in a large box, and cold from a night in the cooler. I buried him out back, with the remains of one of his chipmunk victims, exhumed from a nearby grave, next to him, eternally taunting him to resume the hunt.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date March 21, 2009)

Fitzi the ferret

My ideal pet situation would involve a cat. Maybe two. They are easily litter trained, never bark, entertain themselves for long periods of time without human intervention, cuddle nicely when needed, rarely if ever eat shoes, and their favorite food is generally available at the grocery store. So why am I currently involved in the care of a dog, a tarantula, Madacascar hissing roaches, an African clawed frog, a snake, a turtle, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, parakeets, hermit crabs, fish, mice, and a ferret?

First of all, my significant other has a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Winston. Winston was followed by a tarantula named Fang, and three hissing roaches named Larry, Curly and Moe. Fang and the roaches are pretty low maintenance, although frequent purchases of crickets is in order for Fang. Winston is far from low maintenance, requiring constant outside expeditions and intense play time. Little did I know Winston was just the tip of the iceberg.

A new program in town, called Lifetown, creates a simulated city where special needs children can come to practice using money, learning about safety, making appointments, applying for jobs, all in a safe environment. A highlight of a visit for many is a trip to the Pet Place, where I have become a regular volunteer. As the year has progressed we have learned how to best care for the animals’ physical and social needs. New pets show up from time to time unannounced, adding to the mix and creating more challenges. I now shop for earthworms for the turtle, mice small enough for George the ball python to swallow, carrots and greens for the rodents, and millet sprays for the parakeets. Winston finds my clothing fascinating after a morning of helping young visitors hold or feed all the animals, and if lucky, watch the snake consume his bi-weekly mouse.

Fitzi the ferret has become my special friend. Once I began to research ferrets, I realized how social they are and that they easily get depressed if left alone for long periods, as might happen when there is no session for a week or so. So now Fitzi comes home with me for the school breaks. Moving her cage is a hassle – big wire cage, cat tree inside, plastic bottom, litter box, bowls, food, litter, hammock. Websites tell how to attempt to ferret-proof a home. However, it is impossible to ferret AND puppy-proof a home. They seem to have a very good system – she knocks over the wastebaskets, Winston chews or shreds the contents. Winston loves to play with her – when she wakes up he comes and gets me, and waits for me to let her out to play. Then he chases her, she hides his toys in the chaise, walks in his water bowl, teases him, then runs under the couch, comes out and nips at him if he wanders off. I block off access to the basement, then check on them as they play, waiting for the inevitable crash as she discovers something else she simply has to investigate or push aside so she can investigate something else.

Ferrets sleep 18 hrs. a day – but when they are awake they are frantically active. When they sleep they are not easily awakened. The other day I couldn’t find her when it was time to go back in the cage. I called and searched the entire house over and over. I finally decided she had crawled into a small hole that connected somehow with a crawl space under part of the house. I broke open a panel of insulation to see in, called her over and over, worrying that I had allowed Lifetown’s ferret to be trapped somewhere in a horrible death. About 3 hours later, something scuttled across the living room. She had been playing and got tired, curled up behind the couch in a rolled up rug where I couldn’t see her, and saw no reason to come out when called.

It looks like I may have Fitzi through the summer – I wonder if pet sitters watch ferrets?

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Apr. 3, 2009)

A mellow miner bee

Every April and May my side yard is invaded by bees. Small bees resembling honey bees circle endlessly, low to the ground, on sunny days. Their range seems to be linked to the range of the spring beauties, although I have rarely observed them actually visiting the flowers. When I first saw them I went online and discovered they were miner bees, a fairly common solitary bee, of special importance recently now that the honey bee has been suffering such dire reductions in numbers. These bees neither make honey or sting. After about a month they disappear as quickly as they appeared. The females live 4-6 weeks, the males about half that long.

The miner bee does exactly what its name suggests – the females mine out several chambers in clay soil, and construct an external chimney that resembles an ant hill. They lay 3-4 eggs in each nest, with a nutritious pollen packet stashed nearby for the hatchling to feed upon. After the eggs are laid, the female caps the nest with a plug of clay. The new bees will overwinter as pre-emergent adults, and will come crawling out the following spring. Gardeners who want to encourage these small pollinators to live near their flower beds can construct clay bricks for them to nest in.

I find these bees delightful to watch and when they arrive I know spring is finally here to stay. I am a firm believer in low-impact lawn care. Aside from the occasional application of Roundup to the poison ivy, I use no herbicides or pesticides. I will always have scruffy patches of lawn that can’t be mown right now because something is blooming or digging or flying around right now. My reward for that “neglect” is a delightful array of surprises every spring.

(This a repost, transferred from my older blog. Original date April 14, 2009.)

My favorite noxious weed

A number of years ago I came home to find a notice on my door from a lawn care company. A checklist detailed the ways they could make my lawn lovely by eliminating noxious intruders such as violets. I was offended. I carefully avoid mowing the yard as long as possible each spring, so that I can enjoy the profusion of “noxious” violets that tells me winter is finally over. My side yard is a carpet of Spring Beauties that provide habitat for a large colony of miner bees who circle busily for a few weeks each spring, then disappear for another year. My front yard is a mix of ivy, wild ginger and other wildflowers. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I wonder what people in other less affluent countries think of our lawn obsession. Rearcher Cristina Milesi from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California has come up with what she says is a conservative estimate that there are three times more acres of lawns in the U.S. that irrigated corn, making lawns and golf courses the single largest irrigated crop in America in terms of surface area. The implications of this, in a time of increased pressures on water use, are tremendous. Where else in the world do people grow a crop that no one eats, fertilize it and water it with drinking water so that it grows quickly, cover it with various poisons to create a monoculture, then create huge amounts of pollution trimming it to a uniform height, all so we can pride ourselves on its appearance?

Spring beauties provide food for bees and butterflies

My yard is focused on trees and natural areas of wildflowers. Large parts of my .75 acre lot are still grassy, but they are allowed to develop naturally. I like to think I am a good steward of my space, for a number of reasons:

Mowing: a regular mower creates as much pollution as about 11 cars; a riding mower can match the pollution of about 35 cars. A non-watered lawn grows more slowly and needs less mowing. When the grass grows slowly, clippings are short enough to be left on the lawn, which according to Milesi is actually a pretty good way to store carbon.

Watering: I water certain flowers and vegetables when needed, as well as newly planted trees. I never water my lawn. It gets by just fine. Drinking water is for people, not for sustaining huge swaths of drought-intolerant plants.

Fertilizer: I do fertilize trees and vegetables. Until I get that flock of sheep, I don’t see any need to make the grass any lusher. Runoff of improperly applied fertilizer is a significant non-point source polluter of streams, leading to algae blooms and fish kills.

Herbicide and pesticide: Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. While accidents with large equipment is part of the mix, lifelong exposure to herbicides and pesticides produce high rates of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s. Is this a risk anyone should be taking with themselves, their children and pet’s lives and health? The amounts used on lawns may be smaller, but in the case of childhood exposure, small repeated amounts can be as dangerous. And the workers making these products are exposed to high levels of deadly chemicals – and for what?

I admit to an occasional use of Roundup on pesky poison ivy and bindweed. But the profusion of birds, butterflies and fireflies (which are disappearing at a rapid rate) attest to the ecological benefits of leaving well enough alone.

A perfect grassy lawn is a monoculture which can’t be maintained without artificial means. I’ve tried with various kinds of ground covers and flowers and found that a monoculture lacks vigor and is an easy target for all sorts of insect, fungal or other pests. It’s not how nature works – nature uses a mix of plants that compliment each other in their use of resources. It may be a necessary evil for large scale agriculture to require artificial means of support (well, even that might be argued, but that’s a whole other topic). But why keep a vanity crop on life support in a world with critical need of these resources for life itself?

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Apr. 27, 2009)

Last year's snowdrops. Or maybe the year before.

This year I am waiting for the snowdrops to bloom. Some of the snow has melted, and I searched in vain for a sign that they might have bloomed already and been covered up by snow. Some years they bloom as early as December, often it’s January, but this year it’s early February and I’m still waiting for their appearance. If I were to base my belief in global warming on my own limited sphere of observation, I might think that not only does it not exist, but there is actually a cooling trend. That’s why I’m glad there are dedicated observers like the ones in New York, writing their very mundane observations on note cards, year after year. It’s not likely when they started this that they knew how the appearance of the first whippoorwill every year would be such an important clue to the real effects of climate change on wildlife; they just thought it was significant and worthy of notation. The contributors were not meteorologists or biologists, but have contributed to the study of both, without realizing it.

I think it’s significant that the work was done in a format accessible to everyone. No computers, no scientific jargon. The data could be analyzed much easier if it was in a database. But its biggest significance is the continuity. Which means that someone would need to sit down and transcribe 112 years of daily note cards, not a job for anyone with a short attention span. In the relatively few years since the rise of computers, we’ve seen so many platforms, media, and file formats fade into uselessness, how can we plan for the next 112 years? Will there be some future students glaring into the past, wondering why we couldn’t have just written things on paper?

Note: it’s now Feb. 8, the snow is melting, and at last, the snowdrops are emerging! Only six more weeks of winter!

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Feb. 8, 2009)

Too little, too late?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=PlayList&p=6A1FD147A45EF50D&index=0

Barlett briefly lists several factors currently are creating population growth, While developed countries may have lower birth rates than poor countries, they have lower death rates (due to factors such as good sanitation, improved medicine, peace, law and order, scientific agriculture, accident prevention, lowered pollution, lowered smoking rates). It is possible to ignore the problem, but as Dr. Barlett points out, zero population growth will eventually happen. We can choose to make it happen (through limiting family size), or natural and social factors will make it happen: disease, war, murder violence, famine, accidents, pollution. The failure to take action is still a decision, and the results will not be pleasant.

Zero population growth is a topic even the most ardent environmental advocate often fears broaching. To suggest responsible procreation, that takes into account the ability of the earth to sustain a reasonable quality of life, is seen as flying in the face of divine command to be “fruitful and fill the earth” and is often scorned as some kind of elitist genocide. Some of my favorite people have chosen to have more than two children, and calling for ZPG does not imply that I think some of these delightful people should not exist. I do, however, think these delightful people should have energy and food and medical care all their lives, and wanting to prevent distinct possibility that this might not be the case is hardly elitist or genocidal. Of course there is selfish concern on my part. I have one child and would dearly love to see her live her life and produce her own family in safety and with enough to eat. And since my family history indicates that it’s highly likely I will be around another 35 years or so, I worry that that in the absence of a lowered birth rate, the prospect for the elderly in the future might involve a forced encounter with Dr. Kevorikian or a Soylent Green facility. It’s a nice fantasy that here in the U.S. we might escape the effects of world turmoil, but fences on our borders and government bailouts will not keep out the world that all wants to live as well as we do and will not limit itself while we continue to use more than our share.

Current efforts to change our energy use and turn around global climate disruption are critical and must be increased. But no matter how much we change our energy use in the U.S., if the world’s population continues to rise, and the emerging middle classes of India and China continue their pattern of increased energy use, we will still be at our current state of affairs in spite of all our efforts. We will have replaced all the light bulbs on the Titanic with curly bulbs, filled up the recycling bins, and converted the engines to burn biodiesel, but there’s still an iceberg straight ahead.

So how do we create needed change without resorting to the Draconian measures of the Chinese government? Facing the problem is the first step. The most powerful way is one I don’t hear discussed much. Empowering women to take control over their own lives is highly linked with lower birth rates. Freedom from violence, reproductive control, access to education and employment, all break the cycle of large families struggling in poverty. These are all issues that have not been high on the past administration’s list of priorities. With our encouragement, they will be high on the agenda of the next administration, both at home and abroad. And dare we hope that responsible reproduction and stewardship of the earth might become religious values, replacing the current values that elevate the production of more church members as a woman’s highest calling? There’s no place in the Bible that says “go ahead and make a mess of the earth, I’ll fix it for you”.

The rise of technology has shown that humans can change and adapt rapidly. An equally swift and sweeping change of attitude and behavior will have to take place to prevent the disasters looming in our near future. Unlike the fated Titanic’s voyage, we do have people who can see the iceberg – we just have to listen to them and start steering. Now.

(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Dec. 26, 2008)