The Post-Pandemic

As is sometimes the case, regular commenter Formerly Amherst got me to thinking a bit on a different tangent. I don't like the idea of prognostication where serious events are concerned all that much, for the most part, because I think people have a tendency to ascribe their own meanings and desires on things. Where the coronavirus is concerned, I've already noticed with distaste that some people are viewing it in "cleansing" terms--always a bad sign. I don't think much of people who imagine that a random RNA replicant was sent by some fate to rid the planet of, well, you name it. Old folk. The sick. The poor. The Blue State liberal menace. The Red State conservative menace. The people of XYZ religion. The lousy secularists. To give us something greater than war to worry about. To wipe out the lesser virus, humans, who have been mucking the planet up. Etc. It's a very ugly game some people play--and the only way to win at being human is not to play.

I also don't like the habit of thinking that a sufficiently tragic episode of history will necessarily be didactic. The idea that "Now people will--(do the thing I've always really hoped they would)" is natural, but people often do carry multiple, mixed, and even muddled messages away from events. There is a logic to assuming that people will, after a massive worldwide healthcare crisis, come away with dramatically different opinions about how health care is managed, such as incurring an interest in truly universal "free" (as in "provided as a fully-funded right of all planetary citizens") healthcare--but logical assumptions seem to have little to do with actual human behavior. The human mind has a weird trick of using current events to reinforce one's own priors, even when counter-intuitive.

We're talking monkeys. If that sounds like I'm shrugging at the business of guessing what folks will do--bingo. Look at the differing responses people are having right now to the potential for disaster staring them in the face. The aftermath won't look much different. Fingers of blame will be pointed, but it will be spread around enough to be thinned out. Some people will look back, after a plausible or even implausible interval, to say "Things weren't even all that bad."

Climate Sunday: Recycle your Xmas Trees!

I celebrate a secular Christmas, but I decorate minimally and never have a Christmas tree--my house is just too small and since we don't have kids it's just not that big a deal. My husband sometimes brings home a rosemary bush. That's plenty festive for us--and we use the rosemary in lots of great food! But for those of you who do use cut evergreens for your holiday decorations--please recycle! The sight of dry fire hazards on the sidewalk waiting for a trip to the landfill in mid-January is one depressing sight every year that ends the holiday season on a downbeat.

So one thing I'd recommend is checking with your local municipality to see if they have a tree recycling program. We have one here in Philadelphia, and if you're in a pretty good-sized town, your community should also have one (and if your community doesn't--see what you can do about getting one started).

But that's not all that can be done with old trees. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a use for your old trees, at least, in GA--they use them for fish-habitats in a local lake. You may want to check if they have such a program in your neck of the woods.

You know who loves disposing of evergreen trees? Goats. They find them delicious and it's a pretty good dietary change for them. But they aren't the only critters that enjoy trees. As above, zoos also sometimes take trees as recreational enhancements (big old toys) for their big cats and other animals.

But that's not all! Here's a list of some other cool ideas to get more use out of your tree.

Of course, if you use an artificial tree, you will get years of use out of it. But if you are looking to downsize or are moving and want to unload your artificial tree, be sure to see if a local charity can take it as a donation so it can continue to give holiday cheer.