Home and Hearth

Not being a football fan, I've reading back issues of the NY Times, long a favorite. Since September 30, the paper has run some really interesting, "lifestyle," articles. The first dealt with the guilt felt those who commit, "environmental sins," such as using disposable dispers. One couple admits to using disposble diapers, but they also claim to watch the kid for signs of poo and/or pee. They rush the kid to the toilet thus using fewer diapers. Of course if the kids grows up to enjoy torturing small animals, he can always blame it on Mom and Dad their green conscience. My favorite in this article was a five gallon bucket filled with sand with a toilet seat on it. You can carry the bucket from room to room and when it's filled just empty it onto your back yard compost heap. I doubt this will fly in urban areas. Several weeks back, there was an article on folks who do not shower and shampoo every day! This one left me sort of cold as I had just finished reading THE DIRT ON CLEAN by Katherine Ashenburg. It is really only the last hundred years or so that we have developed a taste for daily bathing. The reason for foregoing personal cleanliness is, of course, to save water. OK. The article that really set me off was entiled, "A Love Affair Cools," published on Thursday, January 20. It's all about how fireplaces are an environmental hazard. Burning is BAD, BAD, BAD!! It got me to thinking about the whole issue of fire.

The greatest achievement of the human race was learning how to control fire. Everything we have today, EVERYTHING, is possible only because some remote ancestor on the African plains learned how to control fire. How to start a fire. How to transport lives coals to start another fire. Because of fire we learned to cook. Because of fire, we kept wild animals at bay (the darkness was less terrifying). Being able to control fire, allowed folks to move to other places, colder places as fire would keep them warm. They were able to smelt metals and make tools. (Yeah, and weapons). The Greeks and Romans had a great respect for fire.

Since burning wood, peat, you name it, pollutes the air, we have been polluting the atmosphere for about fifty thousand years now. And what about the societies that cremate their dead?

It's one thing to want to help make the earth a cleaner place. But I believe we must be careful not to slide from the ridiculous to the sublime. The only way we can avoid leaving a carbon footprint is to regress. Go back to a semi-upight position and grunt at each other.