Needs and Wants

There's a scene in one of the recent James Bond movies -- Quantum of Solace -- when James (played by David Craig) has his enemy right where he wants him. They're in the desert and the enemy has to get cross miles of open sand without any water. Bond flips the guy a quart of motor oil and says to his enemy that sooner or later he'll drink it, hoping that it will quench the aching thirst he'll surely feel beneath the hot sun of the Bolivian desert.

Bond's enemy is found dead and "M" or "Q" -- someone -- remarks that motor oil was found in the dead man's stomach.

With oil gushing from a pipe one mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and a slick miles wide spreading across the sea to poison marine life along the U.S. gulf coast, I'm reminded of that scene from James Bond: oil or water; which is the most important?

In March, Virginia's governor answered the question when he urged the federal government to allow Virginia to sell offshore drilling rights enabling Virginia to become "The Energy Capital of the East Coast".

But that was before the giant gusher in the gulf coast. Surely, Gov. McDonnell would rethink his eagerness to possibly send an oil slick miles across wafting into the Chesapeake?

Nope. According to numerous news reports, the governor remains committed to offshore oil drilling. He thinks that we need the oil.

It's the jobs, you see. Offshore drilling will create thousands of jobs and bring in millions if not billions in new tax revenue. When you're the governor of a state facing at least a $4 billion revenue short-fall, you'd look everywhere -- even a mile under the ocean -- for new revenue. One thing, though; the drilling wouldn't begin for another few years, probably five, according to an Associated Press article.

And Mr. McDonnell will be long gone from the governor's mansion.

That's the thing with these kinds of plans: folks are never around to see them through. They're plans are potentially lethal legacies like land mines from wars long over. Oh, I'm not so naive to think that there shouldn't be long-range plans -- I have a 401k that I'd like to be around to spend.

But it just seems easy to make plans and promises of new oil tomorrow because people want the benefits of cheap oil today. If we drill and find more oil we'll be able to keep our fantasy alive -- that wanting to base our standard of living on a nonrenewable resource is OK. It's OK because those of us alive today won't have to worry about it, someone coming after us will. That's not long range planning; that's selfishness.

The oil that inexorably is flowing toward the Mississippi and southern U.S. coastline and threatening the livelihoods of fisherman who need the business from fish and shellfish to feed their families is incapable of caring that we want the oil to not reach the shore and the estuaries.

Virginia is a beautiful state and the more time that I spend exploring it, the more I appreciate its beauty. But Virginia's beauty will only remain if we keep it from being abused and polluted. It needs that. I want it.

See the recent story from the Washington Post.

Note. -- The Quantum of Solace plot revolves around a plan to take control of Bolivia's freshwater supply.

Shared Green

The other day I had reason to drive into Winchester, VA from my home in Sterling. I took Route 7 all the way. Climbing some of the hills heading west in my little four cylinder Kia Spectra sent the engine groaning and if I knew that I would be exaggerating I'd swear that a cyclist on one of the multi-thousand dollar carbon fiber jobs past me before I reached the crest. But I exaggerate -- I was passed by a lot of cars and beat up trucks.

But when I reached the top of every single one of those hills and could see the mountains in the distance, tree covered with low hanging clouds nearly touching their tops, I didn't care, and couldn't care that it was a struggle to get there. The view was great, and I had the opportunity to appreciate it.

I was on my way to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. The Food Bank distributes food in Loudoun, Fairfax and other counties. It even has a distribution center in Ashburn, VA. I guess the folks at the Blue Ridge didn't see the article a few weeks ago that said that Loudoun County was the richest county in the U.S. Numero Uno and top of the heap, according to no better measure of wealth than Forbes magazine.

There's a lot of green in Loudoun -- man made and natural.

And there's a lot of need, too. According to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, in 2009 more than 145,000 different people were served by the food bank. The Winchester section that includes Loudoun serced more than 25,000 people. Looks like an average income of $110,000 per household isn't shared by everyone.

Sharing. It's one of those lessons we learn in kindergarten. If we don't share, sooner or later teachers call our parents and eventually we have no friends. Most of us learn that lesson pretty quickly. It's one reason that the Food Bank exists. While it receives some money from the state and taps into federal programs, the bulk of what it provides to the tens of thousands of people it helps is because people share.

I've been thinking about sharing a lot lately when I think of the outdoors. And while I know I'm being a curmudgeon or worse, I've had the feeling lately that the outdoor enthusiasts just don't want to share too much with the rest of us.

For example, I picked up a copy of Blue Ridge Outdoors, a free magazine that is available at Eastern Mountain Sports, REI and even Sports Authority. One of the articles, "Mapping the Secrets" talks about places hikers have found and whether or not those hikers should reveal the whereabouts of their new found treasures.

Come again? Keep a place secret; you mean, not share? That's like keeping the ball that bounces highest to yourself and 'thump-rolling' the flat, dead one to your buddy who sleeps on the kindergarten mat next to you.

The same sentiment sort of appears in the May issue of Outside. Anyone who knows me well also knows that I think Outside is great. I've been reading it since Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Forget The New Yorker and Harpers, the best writing in English is inside the covers of Outside.

But lately as I've been drawn to the outdoors more by Outside's articles, I've noticed a "clique" kind of atmosphere. Forget that I could count the number of African-American faces on two hands with fingers to spare (I'm talking years of issues, not just a single copy), I mean to say that its writers, letter writers/readers seem to want to extol the virtues of the outdoors, but don't want too many other people around. Just those already in the club.

The May issue's feature State Secrets (there's that non-sharing word again) advises readers how to get off the beaten path, avoid the crowds, while still enjoying jaw-dropping views and crazy, near death-defying adventures. Granted, getting away from it all is one of the joys of hiking. I tell my friends that being outside, hearing no sound but the breeze, birds and beat of my heart after a steep climb is where I feel God closest to me. But everyone should have the chance to experience that feeling or something close to it.

Routes to new places should be revealed and those of us who appreciate the outdoors should invite as many people to share these things with us as possible. It's what we learned how to do in kindergarten a long time ago.

Random Loudoun County Thoughts

As the title implies, this post doesn't have much of theme except that it deals with Loudoun County, VA.

With Earth Day less than 24 hours behind me, I decided to continue my commitment to getting out of my car as much as possible and walk up to the nearby Target. The stroll under a cloudless, deep blue sky was alongside a steady stream of cars whizzing by me. I had gotten about half-way to the store when a dear friend of mine rolled up alongside: "Walking anywhere in particular."

I told her where and she volunteered to take me

. I got in. Well at least I wasn't driving solo.

Inside Target I browsed the CD racks and remembered that I'd been meaning to write about how downloading music is good for the environment. I'll expand on this with a later post, suffice to say that if you're not buying your music when its wrapped in cellophane and a hard plastic case, you're doing your part for the environment, if not for your collection of music.

Anyway, since I was on lunch I had to quick step it out of there to get back to my computer and do some work.

Walking out I saw four bins beyond the check-out cashiers -- each one was marked for a different recyclable material. A few hurried minutes later I had the store manager in front of me and he told me that this particular Target had the bins in place for about three weeks now. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd been to Wal-Mart twice in those three weeks).

So, all of you Loudoun County people who live near the Target off Cascades Parkway take note: you can recycle the plastic bottles

, cans and whatnot that I passed along the side of the road on my way to the store. That's right. Target will take your trash even from the outside. Read more about Target's green commitment.

A little down the road from Target is the field where my daughter practices soccer twice a week and where she occasionally has her games. Last weekend, empty coffee cup in hand I looked around for a trash can.

And looked. Nothing. Now this isn't some out of the way place; the field is part of the recreation area for a local elementary school. There's a collection of monkey bars, a small baseball field and the soccer field. But no trash can.

Every parent who has ever had a child play soccer knows that game day includes half-time snacks and then an end of game snack, not to mention water breaks during the game. But no trash cans to dispose of anything, let alone trash cans for recycling the

ubiquitous plastic water bottles.

My guess is that most of the 11 and 12 year old girls on my daughter's soccer team spent some of their time this week talking about Earth Day in school. Probably a good number of parents thought about it too, whether pro-environment or not. I wonder if this Saturday when all of us are walking back to our cars if we'll have made sure that the snack drinks, water bottles and everything else is thrown away someplace properly and not left on the grass.

Stay tuned.

National Geographic -- Water

The April 2010 issue of National Geographic opens the mind the way seeing your first dusty orange, red and purple sunset opens your eyes to a new kind of beauty; or how upon hearing Chopin for the first time opens your ears to your own heartbeat or the rhythms of wind.

The April issue of National Geographic causes sadness so deep that tears can't find their way to your eyes.

The April issue of National Geographic is about Water. In words and images that are amazing even for National Geographic, the magazine details how water represents holiness, life and our ultimate need. Nothing else matters if we don't have water. Indeed, as a Christian I know water to be holy because Jesus said, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I will give them will never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Water, simple H2O -- probably the only chemical compound most of us can identify -- is anything but simple for hundreds of millions of people around the world. According to the magazine, the average person in the U.S. uses about 100 gallons of water at home each day. For Aylito Binayo, a woman at the center of one story and whose four year old son is left to watch his two younger brothers while she climbs down a mountain to draw and bring back 50 pounds of cloudy, muddy and bacteria-filled water, she makes due with fewer than three gallons of water each day. What she retrieves she shares with her children, her husband and the scrabble of farm and livestock.

I would say go out and buy the issue to read for yourself, but the better use of the $5.99 cover price is to make a donation to one of the many fresh water charities.

A friend of mine a few weeks ago told me that he could tell the difference between one bottled water and another. He doesn't lie, so I'm sure that he could. But (and here comes the real sermon), the better thing to do is not to buy bottled water and do this: find an empty plastic bottle in the house, car, office -- somewhere; cut off the top and make a wide opening; every time the thought of buying bottled water comes up, toss a quarter into the opening.

Even at only once a week, after a year the bottle will have thirteen dollars in it. Thirteen dollars is about half the cost of clean water for life for a person in the developing world, according to Water.org.

I haven't yet contributed to water.org. My personal water charity is blueplanetrun.org, but I'm going to find some spare change in couch, the glove compartment of my car -- maybe even a few pennies in the bottom of an old jewelry box.

Not much to be sure, but it doesn't take much to make a real difference. Plus, if you really want to read the issue, I'll loan you mine.

A Couple of weeks before Earth Day

When you think about it, every day really is Earth Day. We're here on Earth (Terra for the sci-fi fans) every single day, but like a lot of things we profess to love, we take the Earth for granted a lot of times.

But one day every year, we're reminded by celebrations, speeches, TV commercials, and if we're fortunate -- by our friends.

A list of Earth Day activities near Virginia and Washington, D.C. can be found on the Earth Day Network website.

But just like when you realize that you've been taking someone that you love for granted, and then turn around and do something nice for them, it's the same for Earth Day -- you don't need a list of planned activities. You can show your care by doing something true, and from your heart for the Earth.

Whether it's choosing not to use plastic straws when drinking soda in a restaurant; remembering the canvas bag your green friend gave you to use when grocery shopping; or electing not to water the lawn that day, there are countless ways to show appreciation for the Earth without joining a worldwide movement. You probably have to drive a car to those events anyway, and how Earth friendly is that, even in a hybrid?