Curmudgeon Battles Bad Genes…
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My ongoing battle with “bad” (=longevity-challenged) genes continues.
Rather than worrying about what’s beyond my control, I am focused on what
is within m...
4 months ago
8 comments:
Jay -- well said!
Superb talk. Please do more.
Thanks, guys, for the feedback!
Jay - great talk, spoken like a hero.
One question though:
"I quit sailing to shoulder my responsibility to be at the forefront of an authentic movement to transition to a sustainable world"
You intimate that a sailboat is an unsuitable platform from which to make the transition, or at least lead the movement to transition, to a sustainable world. Why do you feel that is the case, or am I hearing you wrong?
Thanks, Abuwabu-- that's a perceptive question and worth a talk in itself, but here's the answer as I see it.
Living on the boats can be a very elegant low impact way of life, even less impactive than how I currently live. The difficulty is that it's very tough to move from "merely low" impact to being part of the "positive good." It's not enough, in my mind, to be merely "less bad" anymore, if we want a future we need to actually in fact move to a better world. While I can imaging that one might be able do do much as I do now on land-- live minimally and offset my impacts by stewarding forest restoration and tree planting--on a boat, I personally couldn't find a very effective way of doing so. That doesn't mean that opportunity doesn't exist,
As a former liveaboard myself, I fully concur Jay. Regardless of materials used, boats are very energy and material intensive to maintain. The marine environment is hell on most everything. However, I do see a potential place for them as one of the most viable means of transportation in a low energy environment. It just won't be something that the average joe can afford to do is has been the case through much of the last few decades, and the boat will have to pay for itself or not be built at all.
As Jay and others have pointed out, there is no need to build any boats. There are thousands of them in various states of disrepair up and down both coasts, and many can be had for for the taking or pennies on the dollar. GRP boats will last longer than all of us, and even wooden boats can last over a century if consistently maintained (rarely the case admittedly). Even without engines the sails and rigging must be repaired and replaced periodically. Still, at least for the next several decades much of that can be scrounged or recycled from existing boats, 2nd hand boating supply stores, etc. Although it does not at present seem obvious how, I do think there are ways of organizing trade in some locations (The South Pacific, Mediterranean, and Caribbean come to mind) such that a sailing vessel might make a positive contribution - especially once gas and diesel get into the $10 to $15 per gallon range in our not-so-distant future.
I was watching this talk by Yvon Chouinard, and some points he makes resonate a lot with your TED talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBbmRLR_DNk
As for living on a boat, I think it's a great exercise for learning to live with less. I don't think anybody is going to move onto a sailboat when they're 20 years old and live there until they die. Living on and learning to sail an engineless sailboat is certainly a fast-track exercise in learning about authenticity and needing less. What's important is whether you take those lessons with you when you eventually move back to land.
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