Since I made the decision to stick around the north for the indeterminate future, I've been reflecting alot on what the future will hold up here. One of my main concerns about sticking around in this town is how large my environmental footprint has become. Although I don't own a car and walk everywhere I go, almost all the food I eat is flown in (at least until the local greenhouse can feed me, or I catch a Char), and all the electricity in town comes from diesel generation. This is all pretty hard to ignore when you're at ground zero for climate change.
Even ignoring my guilty, lefty, green bleeding-heart, with oil at $135 a barrel (and $200 a barrel oil a possibility in the future), it's going to cost the government and everyone else alot more to live up here, and it makes me wonder how sustainable all of our futures will be.
Anyway, these are some of the things I think about when I contemplate the future of the North, in particluar with me in it.
On a more positive note, I hope to do alot of positive things as an art teacher that I might never get the chance to do down south (more on that later). And I love that I can walk everywhere here... although if I ever get lazy and buy a vehicle while I'm up here (besides my non-enviro-friendly snowmobile), I'm looking at electric scooters, or even electric atvs! How cool would one of those be?* I'll bet I can rig one up to run on solar...
*If the battery doesn't die really fast, which it probably will in the cold winters, as my more practical-minded brother pointed out.
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2 comments:
Interestingly that is why I left the north. Not only did I think my day-to-day life was unsustainable, what with housing and food demands , I was flying south nearly once a month for "duty" travel. What a lot of government employees do and don't seem to reflect upon. I guess my choice of never owning a vehicle compensated for my short time in the north?
I'm not sure what's worse - not owning a vehicle or flying down south constantly. I do think that owning a vehicle is a luxury I don't need in this town, and I would encourage others to go car-free as well.
Thanks for your input!
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