Priorities

 Some NASA bureaucrat recently promoted the idea of a China/US race to gain control of the moon.  Firing that guy would be a good first step toward a rational Space program that actually supports the survival of life on Earth.  The next good step would be to divert all funds currently allocated for lofting humans into Space to funding climate change monitoring and amelioration.

Self Delusion

 The last two books I read by Solnit and Arthur Miller dealt in a large part with the changes brought about by industrialization over the last century, both in our lifestyles and in our conceptions of time and space.  We spend much less of our day occupied with meeting basic needs and the importance of locale has greatly receded.

The disruption of travel during the recent holidays caused by a massive winter storm produced a flurry of interviews of frustrated travelers complaining about cancelled flights and the attending inconveniences.  People these days have an expectation of being able to disregard natural events like that storm, and there is a sense of entitlement to travel anywhere at any time. Interruptions to unlimited travel are seen as a breakdown of technology which needs to be repaired and compensation is expected from transportation providers.

The possibility that people might give more attention to Nature's priorities went unmentioned, as also was the fact that the cancellation of thousands of flights provided a transitory diminishment in the tons of atmospheric contaminants that such numbers normally introduce into the atmosphere.