Celebrating completing the Mountain State!
Bluestone NSR, Gauley River NRA, Harpers Ferry NHP and New River Gorge NP are all above. West Viriginia has two shared NHAs, Appalachian Forest and Journey through Hallowed Ground—which includes Carnifex Ferry next to Gauley—, and two unique ones, National Coal—including all three river parks here—and Wheeling NHA. The Appalachian Trail, C&O Canal and Lewis & Clark all pass through. Almost heaven!
The consequences of our carbon pollution provoke an instinctual reaction, but we must consider them rationally. Let’s clearly understand the cause, consider the consequences, and evaluate our options.
Humans have a history of damaging our environment, including driving many species to extinction, from the Wooly Mammoth to the Passenger Pigeon, last observed by Teddy Roosevelt. We have leached deadly chemicals into water supplies, released clouds of cyanide, bleached corals, created toxic fog and smog over cities, poisoned people with mercury, introduced microplastics into most living creatures, burned holes in the ozone, leaked radiation, made rivers burst into flames, filled oceans with garbage, and spilled oil, leaving dead zones. And that’s just pollution, excluding environments and species destroyed by development, drilling, farming, fishing, hunting, logging, mining, ranching, and war.
But our most continuous and consequential pollution is carbon. Especially since Drake’s Well began modern oil drilling, we have extracted fossil fuels of ancient forests that grew 300 million years ago and burned them into our atmosphere, changing our environment into something of which our species has zero survival experience. The last time we had this much carbon in our atmosphere was twice as long ago as when our most primitive ancestors split off from chimpanzees.
These carbon pollution problems are deadly, unprecedented since humans evolved, are synergistic—meaning that they combine and multiply effects—and will affect everyone negatively, at least economically.
We have alternatives to fossil fuel that cause far less damage and risks to life on earth, especially solar and wind power. In many cases, these alternatives are also cheaper.
Hoping that someone will invent some unknown solution that’s cheap, effective and has no side effects is not rational, given how simple and cheap it is to burn carbon fuel. Carbon capture devices are expensive, especially at the scale needed to shrink total carbon in the atmosphere. Geoengineering is unproven, expensive, and will bring unexpected negative consequences. We do not have any inexpensive, reliable way to mitigate the damage of carbon pollution, apart from reducing carbon pollution.
Rationally, the choice to stop burning so much carbon and convert to renewable energy in order to avoid these ill effects is clear and simple. Dishonesty about the causes, effects, alternatives and consequences is part of the problem. Science, including economics, supports reducing carbon emissions before damage and costs worsen. History shows that violent conflicts arise when living conditions deteriorate and governments struggle to feed and house people.
Instinctually, our fear of death should motivate us to stop burning so much carbon. In future posts, I will discuss other ways of thinking about our climate crisis, but I suspect the problem may not simply be how we think. The basic problem may simply be that we aren’t thinking at all.
In 1950 a group of black students were denied admission to the then white school above (now a middle school in a predominantly African American neighborhood). At the time, black schools were severely overcrowded, while white schools had plenty of empty seats for students. Integration was proposed to make education more fair. A law professor at Howard University sued the DC school board president on behalf of one of the students, Spottswood Bolling, pictured to the left of the old entrance above. Bolling v Sharpe became part of the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v Board of Education. This park is affiliated with Brown v Board NHP in Kansas, and it is the only NPS affiliate site in DC.
Alaska awaits, but in the meantime, I have visited all 4 National Parks and 16 park units in the Pacific Northwest region, plus 2 heritage areas, 1 affiliate, trails and biospheres. Part of the Manhattan Project NHP is in Washington too.
The four national parks all contain snow capped volcanoes. There are fossil, cave and geologic sites, 3 lake recreation areas, and many fascinating historic sites to enjoy. The region is beautiful, with rugged coastline, forests, mountains and wildlife.
Idaho
Oregon
Washington
Read my posts, and get out there and enjoy!
Around 200 years ago, America was expanding the National Road (US 40) westward to St Louis and needed a bridge across the Ohio River. It took a couple tries, but the stone suspension bridge in the foreground was completed in 1859. The modern bridge behind it has four concrete bases, but the Wheeling Suspension bridge has none. Most traffic from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic passes on I-70 over the background bridge, so you may have seen Wheeling’s longest operating suspension bridge out your window between Ohio and West Virginia.
The city of Wheeling is marvelously uncrowded with small shops and restaurants around Centre Market in the historic center of the heritage area. It’s the kind of ‘stuck in the past’ place that I love, where the sign on the old bookstore advises folks to ask at the local bar if the owner is not inside his store. They have music, boating and cultural events, and they could use a few tourists pulling off the interstate to buy a hot fish sandwich at Coleman’s Fish Market below. Recommended.
Celebrating the national park units in New Jersey: Great Egg Harbor River, Morristown, Paterson Great Falls and Thomas Edison NHP above. Sandy Hook is part of Gateway NRA, and Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty, both shared with New York. Both the Middle Delaware River and the Water Gap are shared with Pennsylvania, and both the Appalachian Trail and Rochambeau Route are shared with many states. The Garden State (see below) also has the Crossroads of the Revolution heritage area and a lovely coastal drive. Beautiful!
Here’s a practical way to improve your rational thinking.
How fast do you have to drive to average 60 mph across a one mile bridge if you drove 30 mph on the first half? 90 mph?
No, it’s impossible, because you ran out of time driving the first half.
Even rational thinkers can fail to take into consideration all the relevant real constraints when solving problems. Frequently, time is ignored. Rational thinkers can also suffer from ‘analysis paralysis’ when they spend too much time gathering information and thinking without reaching a conclusion. Ignoring the limits of the real world results in elaborate fantastic theories, instead of solutions.
A common mistake, even among the well-educated, is to believe infinity is real. This leads to a lot of nonsensical beliefs and mistaken thinking. 2,500 years ago, a Greek philosopher named Zeno mocked the mathematical concept of infinity as failing to apply to the real world.
Infinity is not real. Even when the concept is presented in calculus, it is simultaneously presented with the concept of a limit. That means that even the mathematical construct of infinity, designed to solve theoretical math problems, is limited. Take the infinitely repeating decimal 0.99999…. Your math teacher may have claimed that it was equal to 1, perhaps using a phrase like “for all intents and purposes”. But the only way that could be true, is if infinity is limited, which contradicts the meaning of infinity. Sure, it’s useful in math, but nothing in the real universe is infinite.
All matter and energy is limited to travel no faster than the speed of light, which is a measurable constant. There is a finite amount of matter and energy in the universe, expanding at a known rate over a known period of time. The universe is undoubtedly larger than humans will ever know, but it is not infinite. If there were an infinite amount of gold, then there would be gold everywhere. If there were an infinite amount of intelligent alien species, who could travel faster than the speed of light, then they would visit Earth every day of the week. If there were an infinite number of multiverses, then no less than one of them would contain a magical version of yourself who would instantly appear before you to disprove what I am writing now. It’s all imaginary nonsense.
The problem here is that humans have an instinctual fear of death, so we imagine an infinite universe or multiverse, which would allow for everything, everywhere, all at once. We hope to be reincarnated in an infinite future, to live forever in some afterlife set in a different dimension, or that there’s some alternate reality where our lives and our species do not end in death. Rather than take responsibility for our fragile existence and the real consequences of our fatal mistakes, we waste time dreaming about imaginary friends and foes, worlds better and worse than our own. How childish and irresponsible.
Rational thinking should be used to solve real world problems, within real constraints, such as limited time, resources and budget. Economic theories may point the direction, but since they contain unrealistic assumptions, they will not solve all real problems. Rational thinking requires real world accuracy. There will never be enough time or resources to solve every problem perfectly, but what time and resources we have to solve important problems should not be wasted on fanciful notions, daydreams or wishful, unrealistic thinking.
Before coming here, I wasn’t sure if this was an affiliate, a heritage area or a trail, but I thought a road trip along the NJ coast between Cape May and Sandy Hook, worthwhile. Cape May above is a lovely old town with Victorian style, boats and beaches. The Pine Barrens near Great Egg Harbor extend for miles. There are wildlife refuges, lighthouses, and historic sites, especially around the Battle of Monmouth, where Washington’s troops eked out a victory after training in Valley Forge. Locals freely admit that Seaside Heights is tacky, but much of the Jersey shore is both classy and trendy, especially in areas like Asbury Park. Technically, it turns out that this is a lapsed trail, that once partnered with the park service and was considered for heritage area status, which explains why it still appears as an obscure NPS site in a few places, but it is no longer authorized under the national park service. However, I’m glad my mistake and my curiosity about this area drove me here, and I enjoyed exploring this fascinating stretch of historic coast.
Jefferson is more controversial than his $2 bill, but like his nickel, you rely on his legacy every day.
Not only was he one of many who signed our Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, but Jefferson was the primary author. Do you believe in freedom of religion? Jefferson ensured that Roger Williams’ ideas were enshrined in our laws, writing that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious beliefs, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” His words are etched in granite in the Jefferson Memorial above in DC.
Jefferson was our second Ambassador to France after fellow inventor Franklin, the first Secretary of State, the second Vice President to his friend and rival John Adams, and friend of revolutionary patriots like Kosciuszko, Lafayette and Patrick Henry. Jefferson first engaged Dolley Madison as official hostess at the White House. Jefferson designed Monticello—below and on the back of the nickel—which is now a World Heritage Site that includes the University of Virginia, which he also designed.
Jefferson, like Washington, was a surveyor. Together they planned the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal route and mapped & owned Natural Bridge. Jefferson scouted Harpers Ferry from the hiking trail there. He designated the Natchez Trace and hired Gallatin, who built the first national highway. Jefferson was the driving force behind Lewis & Clark’s secret mission to map the route to the Pacific. His timely opportunistic purchase of Louisiana Territory—including part or all of 15 states—is recognized at Gateway Arch and now includes his face on Mount Rushmore.
But Jefferson will forever be remembered for his failure to apply his ideal that “all men are created equal” to all men including Native Americans and slaves. While he wrote that slavery was despotism, that slaves should be free and both admired and learned from Native Americans, Jefferson perpetuated both slavery and forced native removal, believing that their fated freedoms should be left to future generations to fulfill. Jefferson supported nullification—the supposed right of states to disclaim laws they did not like—, and such failures are why traitors like Jefferson Davis were named after him, and such failures forever defame Thomas Jefferson’s historic reputation.
Patrick Henry Jolly, a direct descendant of his namesake, greeted me at Red Hill (one of my favorite affiliate sites, above), where his ancestor is buried on a 1,000 acre estate in Virginia. We discussed Jefferson, a man infamous for his many long, bitter personal grudges, and I learned that Jefferson called Henry “the greatest orator that ever lived”. Speaking to Daniel Webster, a well known orator himself, Jefferson described Henry’s gift as being almost magical, delighting and moving him, even when he spoke in opposition to Jefferson, and yet Jefferson, a genius, thought, “what the devil has he said?”
Henry has been described by biographers as the Prophet or Voice of the Revolution, but the title that strikes me is Demosthenes, the greatest orator of Ancient Greece. Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising, wrote, “When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip’”. You may have heard a mistaken version of this quote with the Roman Cicero as Demosthenes’ rhetorical rival, but, of course, Cicero lived hundreds of years after Demosthenes, and attributed some of his success to adopting Demosthenes’ techniques and phrases. Patrick Henry, through his spoken words, ignited the hearts of our country’s founders to declare independence, prepare for war and give their lives and sacred honor for the cause of liberty against tyranny. And they recognized him for it contemporaneously. Jefferson said that “no man was as well suited for the times”, that he didn’t know what they would have done without Henry, and that he was “far before all in maintaining the spirit of the revolution.”
Of course, Henry accomplished much in his own right, including supporting George Rogers Clark and being elected Governor of Virginia five times. But it his speeches with many lines that still resonate today, especially his most famous speech 250 years ago—as a slave owner speaking to fellow slave owners—boldly stealing and reimagining a line from the play Cato, A Tragedy, that make Henry immortal. With Jefferson and Washington listening attentively, Henry convinced the Virginia Convention to fund troops in anticipation of the Revolutionary War, punctuating the final line by dramatically plunging his (blunt) letter opener against his chest. The letter opener was preserved by Patrick Henry Jolly’s family and is now on display at Red Hill.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,
Patrick Henry on 23 March 1775
as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Zero Carbon Travel 