(no subject)
Aug. 15th, 2012 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogThere's a petition being put together to request that the EPA grant the Badger, the last commercial steamship operating on the Great Lakes, a license to continue operating next year. The EPA is unhappy with the fact that the Badger dumps a significant amount of coal ash into Lake Michigan at the ends of her runs.
This is an example to me of the finite nature of beauty. See, I think the Badger is a beautiful piece of history. I'm very grateful I had the chance to take a trip across Lake Michigan on her. I'm enthralled by the idea that her engines, voted a mechanical engineering landmark by the ASME, are still faithfully doing their job after sixty years.
But part of what makes her beautiful is the fact that she won't be there forever. Part of what makes it so important to appreciate what is there now is that someday, it will no longer be there to appreciate. Nothing lasts forever, and even if it did, I still could not possibly see everything there is to see as an individual person.
I used to be much more concerned with the preservation of things like this. I used to be much more personally affected when something old and beautiful and without its place in the world is destroyed. My feelings on that have really been changed through getting to know so many abandoned buildings, as well as by having once unexpectedly found myself caretaker of some human remains. A great deal of the physical world seems much less constant to me than it once did. More transient. And that's part of what's lead to my current interest in history and anthropology, but that's another story. My point was that I feel this way about buildings and slide rules and old computers and any number of other things that, despite a great personal interest in them, I realize that they will not be around forever and that that's ok. (Theatres sometimes sneak in around this understanding; they're a weak spot for me.)
If coal ash is causing significant environmental problems, then I can't firmly argue for continued operation of the Badger. Perhaps her time has come, as it has for so many other industrial relics of the world. So I can't go and sign the petition to keep her running under current conditions (Though if you want to, you certainly should! You can find it at her website.) But I can highly recommend that, if you'd like the chance to sail on the Great Lakes in a real steam-powered passenger vessel, you give strong consideration to planning a crossing on the Badger this Summer. You may not have another chance.
-----
On an unrelated note....
I love this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78PnPd-V-A&feature=share
I don't think it's possible to emphasize too much how interconnected we all are and how much investment in *the public*, that is, *IN US*, is a net good for *all of us*.
This is part of why I am an economic liberal.
This is an example to me of the finite nature of beauty. See, I think the Badger is a beautiful piece of history. I'm very grateful I had the chance to take a trip across Lake Michigan on her. I'm enthralled by the idea that her engines, voted a mechanical engineering landmark by the ASME, are still faithfully doing their job after sixty years.
But part of what makes her beautiful is the fact that she won't be there forever. Part of what makes it so important to appreciate what is there now is that someday, it will no longer be there to appreciate. Nothing lasts forever, and even if it did, I still could not possibly see everything there is to see as an individual person.
I used to be much more concerned with the preservation of things like this. I used to be much more personally affected when something old and beautiful and without its place in the world is destroyed. My feelings on that have really been changed through getting to know so many abandoned buildings, as well as by having once unexpectedly found myself caretaker of some human remains. A great deal of the physical world seems much less constant to me than it once did. More transient. And that's part of what's lead to my current interest in history and anthropology, but that's another story. My point was that I feel this way about buildings and slide rules and old computers and any number of other things that, despite a great personal interest in them, I realize that they will not be around forever and that that's ok. (Theatres sometimes sneak in around this understanding; they're a weak spot for me.)
If coal ash is causing significant environmental problems, then I can't firmly argue for continued operation of the Badger. Perhaps her time has come, as it has for so many other industrial relics of the world. So I can't go and sign the petition to keep her running under current conditions (Though if you want to, you certainly should! You can find it at her website.) But I can highly recommend that, if you'd like the chance to sail on the Great Lakes in a real steam-powered passenger vessel, you give strong consideration to planning a crossing on the Badger this Summer. You may not have another chance.
-----
On an unrelated note....
I love this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78PnPd-V-A&feature=share
I don't think it's possible to emphasize too much how interconnected we all are and how much investment in *the public*, that is, *IN US*, is a net good for *all of us*.
This is part of why I am an economic liberal.
