Transition Towns

 

Locally grown foods sold at a farmers market

So I just heard of this thing called Transition Towns, and I am in the process of joining one.  The overall idea is to adjust to life without oil and with climate changes in order to make life “Post Oil” livable and even enjoyable.  Read more here.

The first problems which come to mind are our oil dependencies in the areas of food and heating.  

I am writing from central Illinois, so food is all around us, but delivering it to the rest of the country/world will become impossible.  Industrial agriculture is also dependant on oil.  Without our tractors, combines, and other oil driven machines our capacity to produce will be diminished.

Living in the mid-west is an exercise in suffering the elements.  This year we had several cold snaps lasting for more than a week during which the temperature did not raise above zero degrees Fahrenheit.  No amount of insulation would have kept our house warm enough without gas heating.

Further Post Oil challenges include but are not limited to transportation, medical care, law and order, art, and education.

The climate change element is something I am not certain we can completely prepare for.  The idea of unpredictable weather patterns disrupting agriculture and displacing large urban populations is staggering.  Does that mean the interior of continents should prepare to host millions of refugees?  To do so while facing food and transportation shortages is going to be a challenge if we don’t have an oil free solution ready to implement when crisis strikes.

Emergence

Emergence, in the realm of origin of life questions, is the idea that nature will order itself in increasing complexity. Start with protons, electrons and neutrons (or at a lower order of substance which makes these) they will order themselves as Hydrogen. Then a bunch of Hydrogen will make a star. The star will make all the elements. Those elements make our planets and moons. They form things like water and rocks. Which form things like bacteria. Which form things like amoebas, and algae. Which form things like plants and fish. This theory goes beyond this as a possibility in nature, but Emergence is the theory that all things will increase in complexity by law of nature.

Now, I don’t presume to know what you’re thinking, but if I were you reading this right now I would think Marcus is a Christian and is offended by any creation story other than the Genesis story. No, that is not where I am going. This idea of nature ordering itself into complexity does not offend me as a Christian, it offends me as a science minded person.

Richard Dawkins has said he is unsatisfied with creationism as an explaination for existence because it stifles inquiry (because the answer to every question is “God did it”). And he’s right, absolutely right . Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” The Message says, “God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things.” I’ll add this to it, “this way everybody wins.”

But this new theory doesn’t answer any questions… at all. Richard Dawkins should be critical of this new idea because the new answer to the origin question is “Emergence did it”.

Here we are going to introduce a term I hope to revisit again and again: Mysticism. There are many definitions, I would like to focus on one aspect and apply it. It can mean a belief in the existence of dimensional realities beyond empirical perception, or a belief that a true human perception of the world goes beyond current logical reasoning or intellectual comprehension.

Is Emergence a mystical idea? An easier question: Is string-theory an mystical idea?

Young Earth Creationism

Tomorrow I will be attending a creation science seminar my dad told be about. True, it mostly serves to get me out of the house while a little girl has a birthday party at my parents house (don’t ask, I will explain another time). This is the site given on the flier: www.pointsoforigins.com

But it got my dad and I talking about the literal understanding of the creation story and the short comings of that view of prehistory. I always feel the need to to point out that what is commonly called the “literal” understanding is actually a narrow view of scripture. Such as “the son of” means both the next generation male descendant and any male descendant. This makes the time line much more vague. The book of Genesis is not a science text book nor is it a history text book, but for this understanding to prevail we must understand it to be that. And ignore the poetic nature of the tome.

My father also pointed out that it would be very strange, even out of character, for God to have created fossils and carbon-14, but nothing is ever out of the question. And what of genetic mutation, which we can measure and track in contemporary specimen? This is all very strange.

To what end? If the Earth is proven to be around 6,000 years old the Bible is accurate and the god of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the one true god, and his son came to the earth and lived as a man, died, on the third day rose, and assended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, and will judge the living and the dead? Or, if the Earth is billions and billions of years old, is all faith bunk?

Seems we have much faith in science, any bit of science that makes us appear to be correct. This theme is woven through many a hot debate.

Another time I will think about “Intelligent Design”.