(Picture from New York Times)

(Something of a short post this week, I'm getting over the flu...)

Like many of you, especially if you live in the American Midwest and Northeast, I'm seeing record breaking cold temperatures here in St Louis this week. Dangerously low temperatures. And with such Winter events, comes the people who who misunderstand the difference between climate and weather.

"In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!"
Donald Trump, tweeting from @realDonaldTrump

Perhaps our President might recognize that the two aren't the same.

Why Is the Cold Weather So Extreme if the Earth Is Warming?

"To use an analogy Mr. Trump might appreciate, weather is how much money you have in your pocket today, whereas climate is your net worth. A billionaire who has forgotten his wallet one day is not poor, anymore than a poor person who lands a windfall of several hundred dollars is suddenly rich. What matters is what happens over the long term."

In the first part of this introduction to the valuable Green Wizardry principle, "Thinking In Systems", we saw how simple things like a bathroom shower are in fact an organized and adaptive mechanism, one with a desired "output", in this case "getting a hot wash".

This "output" is affected by three broad "inputs" which we call Energy, Matter and Information. They each influence the overall system in different ways, and can be tweaked to make the system perform in various ways, both good and bad. Understanding how to optimize those inputs to achieve the best performance at the least cost, is key to using Green Wizardry.

Over the next month and a half we will be discussing one of the most important parts of your training in Green Wizardry, the ability to "Think In Systems". It is a way of looking at the World that so few people have anymore. If more did, we wouldn't have the troubles and problems we have. Or we would have less of them. Troubles will always be with us, but how we approach them, makes them either Problems to be solved or Predicaments to be lived with.

I would expect that everyone reading this is familiar with this most basic of household furnishings, the Bathroom Shower. Some are opulent temples of the act of washing, decked in marble and chrome, while others are just a simple hose nozzle over a tree limb at a county cabin. From either extreme, it is one of those technical innovations that no one remembers who invented it but we would hate to do without. A bath or shower is a good example of a "system".

Let us examine it in detail.

Green Wizards are story tellers and every story teller has to start somewhere.

Before we get back to discussing the concept that serve as the foundation of Green Wizardry, Systems Thinking, I have a project for you during the month of January.

After the holidays, I want you to keep track of all of your expenditures for the entire month, from large ones to small ones, paying particular attention to reoccurring expenses like rent, utilities and food but not limited to those. The mid-season months of October in the Fall and April in the Spring are good ones for this, since they both are between the months we use our air conditioning and our heaters. And there are no major holidays in those months to give us large one time expenditures. like Christmas does. Write down each purchase you do, all through the month on a pad of paper or a text document. And most importantly, don't change your habits. If you regularly get a Starbuck's coffee heading into the office, continue to do that. You want a true and complete picture of what you spend in a typical month.

Why are we doing this?

The holidays are a time of cheer and happiness for most people. It is a time to look back at the good things that have happened in the past year we can be thankful for, and to look forward to what the next year will bring.

But for some, perhaps too many, it is a time of depression and sadness.

Now to add to that sadness, comes "Climate Grief". Avichai Scher over on NBCnews posted this article on how the treat of climate change is effecting some people's mental health,

'Climate grief': The growing emotional toll of climate change

"When the U.N. released its latest climate report in October, it warned that without “unprecedented” action, catastrophic conditions could arrive by 2040. For Amy Jordan, 40, of Salt Lake City, a mother of three teenage children, the report caused a “crisis.” “The emotional reaction of my kids was severe,” she told NBC News. “There was a lot of crying. They told me, 'We know what’s coming, and it’s going to be really rough.’ She struggled too, because there wasn't much she could do for them. “I want to have hope, but the reports are showing that this isn’t going to stop, so all we can do is cope,” she said. The increasing visibility of climate change, combined with bleak scientific reports and rising carbon dioxide emissions, is taking a toll on mental health, especially among young people, who are increasingly losing hope for their future. Experts call it “climate grief,” depression, anxiety and mourning over climate change."

In John Michael Greer's "Green Wizardry", he introduces us to several basic principles, that taken together form a core of a new viewpoint, a way to look at the World and our place in it as we begin the Long Descent. The viewpoint of a "Green Wizard". The way we act in a World with limited resources will be vastly different from what has come before, an age of excess.

We discussed the difference between a Predicament and a Problem in our last blog post and why knowing that is important. We will now talk about the second key principle which Green Wizards must understand, that is the difference between a "Fund" and a "Flow".

(This is the first of two posts, on the basic concepts of Green Wizardry)

There WILL be Homework.

While much of what you will learn here, as you read through the tutorials and blog posts, interact and exchange ideas with others on the Forums, is going to be practical and useful to you in your day to day Life in a World Made Harsh, I hope that is not ALL you take away from this site.

There is a more important lesson you need to learn here.

We were going to start with our review of the core disciplines of Green Wizardry, "Thinking In Systems" this week but a recent article in the news needs to be discussed.

"How Big a Deal Is Trump’s Fuel Economy Rollback? For the Climate, Maybe the Biggest Yet"

The current 2012 Obama era standards will require automakers to double the fuel economy of autos by 2025 to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Those same rules also granted California permission to create a separate program mandating that 8 percent of all new cars sold be zero emission cars, such as hybrid, electric or hydrogen fuel cells. Nine other States have adopted a similar program. This zero emission program has been one of the biggest influences in bringing electric vehicles to the market, helped along by the increase in fuel efficiency. The Trump Administration has proposed freezing fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020 which would be 30 miles per gallon as well as challenge the rights of those states to set more stringent pollution standards

Their argument is that meeting the current goals would be too costly for auto makers. You could also argue that Trump's affinity for reversing anything Obama did, the doubts he and his Administration's top leaders seem to have concerning climate change as well as their stated goal of increasing fossil fuel production here in the United States may also be a factor.

Do you remember what you were doing on December 12th, 2012 when the Mayan calendar predicted the World would end? Were you hiding out, surrounded by a cache of food waiting and guns out, or were you at a local pub partying like the last night on Earth? If so, did you get laid?

Be honest, didn't you really want to see the end of the World? Even a just little bit?