So we're headed to Europe...

Warning, this is some scattered, tattered thinking that has connections in my head, but I'm not sure where I'm going, so forgive me if we get to nowhere together.

Tomorrow, we're flying to Europe.

And it's a place I love dearly.

But we head there at a time when, well, it's ugly cold, there are terrorist warnings in France, students are rioting in London, and Spanish air controllers only went back to work after being threatened with jail time.

It's just so easy to see chaos outside the door.

Last night I watched a documentary about the Middle Ages. The fall of Rome meant the loss of city living. It meant the loss of many technologies, and I don't just mean aqueducts.

And this morning, yes, while driving through the Starbucks, I thought about the Butterfly Effect.

If a butterfly's wings can affect (for "good" or "bad") weather patterns around the other side of the world, what effect does my crossover have?

I feel on the cusp of something. There is a great deal going on that all begins in a devolution. I think we were all delusional a decade and two ago when we thought we were going to fix everything. Rather, I feel as though we've taken over too much and the world is going to take care of the problem. The universe is a system always in balance, humanity is a system that refuses to balance itself. the two cannot co-exist, and the truth is that while the universe is an unstoppable force, humanity is not an immovable object.

And there is no unless in this picture.

It is not that we are going to be killed off in massive numbers by global warming (for all my far-right friends: warming is defined by longer, hotter summers and shorter more extreme winters, so your snowfall is not proof I'm wrong)unless we do something. It is that it will happen, it is happening, it will continue to happen because the universe is an infinite balance.

And I'm not sure I'm not ok with that.

I am sure the dark ages sucked for the majority of humans. Even without the grey-lit reenactments on the documentary, I knew that life without sanitation, electricity, and water heaters must have sucked.

I watch the green channel, but I know that while I can knit, sew, cook, bake, garden (if forced), and clean (if forced at gunpoint); I knit with store-bought yarn, sew with store-bought thread and machine made needles, ad nauseum.

If Katrina really bothered us, we'd build mass transit and tax road use for private drivers. If the Tsunami really hurt us, we'd start growing hemp for paper and clothing making rather than cutting down trees (which take longer to re-grow), or using petroleum. If this really bothers me, why do I get in my car every morning? How can I?

And what will I do if I can't stop? There is an addiction-level use of, well, everything in my life and world.

And anyone who wants to call me a left wing nut may do so as much as she likes. But the economic model we live with is a stupid one that sacrifices tomorrow's life for today's profits. And anyone who's ever taken an econ class can tell you, that's a bad business model.