I'm sitting on the floor in the "A" line waiting to board my Southwest flight to New Orleans; my condo closing is this afternoon. (There's free wireless internet in the terminal) My mind hurts, though, because I've been thinking too much, gathering ideas, figuring out how to order them, since my last post, since Kristy's comment, and since I finished reading Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear. Seeing as I'm in a very transient place (sitting on the floor), I'm going to try to get some thoughts out now but they might be cut off randomly and in a nonsensical place. I apologize in advance for my not following proper complete-blogging rules. (Which there aren't really any of)

The world is warming, of this I am sure; though I suspect it will increase by less than an integer amount over the next hundred years. This incremental increase begs the question of where the cost-benefit lies in certain "green" technologies and treaties like the Kyoto Protocol. Papa S and I had a discussion two nights ago about Kyoto: I say it has perhaps the right intentions but possibly bad science motivating those intentions, Dad says that it encourages growth and monetary infusion in clean technologies and more efficient production. Those are good things, yes, but is the money necessary for minute changes the best approach, and is the goal of decreases a few numbers by small amounts worthwhile on a macroscopic scale? Let's flush this out a bit more...

Is it fair for us to continue developing cleaner technologies that are extraordinarily expense to implement for lesser developed countries with the idea that they can skip our environmentally-unfriendly developing schemes and go straight to using the clean technologies they can't afford, that don't address how these technologies will be integrated into very different cultures and societies in a successful way?

And even since Aldo Leopold, the "father of adaptive management" we haven't come very far in learning how to "preserve," successfully, our environment. The earth's surface has constantly been altered by the beings ruling the food chain at the time -- so what is "natural" and "original" that should be saved for future generations to observe, for current generations to use and enjoy. As discussed in my environmental ehtics class last fall, where's the balance between "saving the environment" and providing beauty for the society who pays for the preservation to enjoy? At what point can you say "you can't use this public good any more because you'll cause it more harm than good" but what is harm? foot traffic, littering...

so what do we know what to save? how do we measure "success"? this i'll think about on my flight, which i have to go board now.