!A third afoot --- agk's diary 16 Oct 2022 @ 02:32 UTC --- written on iPad Air via ssh.sdf.org in Safari while crickets chirp and a skunk digs in my compost --- In his 2020 climate fiction novel, The Ministry for The Future, Kim Stanley Robinson has a character note people can be classified by transportation: > the people of the world could... be divided into > roughly three groups of wealth and consumption, > measured by their transport methods. A third of > the world traveled by car and jet, a third by > train and bicycle; the final third...on foot. I grew up in a family who traveled by car. From 17 to 20 years old, I traveled by bike, train, and hitchiking. I spent most of my 20s mostly afoot; late 20s to late 30s I traveled by car, pickup, and motorcycle. Transportation highly corrolates with my footprint. When I was mostly afoot I sometimes walked 5 hours round-trip to work or 3 to the grocery. At times I carried water to wash, cook, and drink---or boiled rainwater. I cooked mostly rice and beans, mostly on a single propane burner. I composted bucket toilet waste. My only electronic was a shortwave radio, or later a BlackBerry Pearl. I sporadically had electricity. I was vulnerable to violence and arrest. For a few years I fought with bedbugs. I wore out a pair of tennis shoes each year. My BMI stayed around 19. Now, driving a 14-year-old 2-door hatchback, baby in back, resource constraints are vague, distant. My house has central heating & A/C, water heater, big appliances: washer, dryer, full-size freezer/ fridge, stove/oven, microwave, broken dishwasher. Someone in my house is staring at a screen most waking hours. I even read books on screens of dis- posable electronics. I rarely eat beans, but lots of chocolate. We drive over 500 km/week, mostly for school and work. I'm overweight. I study or read til late by electric light and electronic screen. I hope we return to bike and train as I age. Afoot is humiliating unless everyone's afoot. The way we live now won't last. - - - On 11 Oct, Alex Schroeder reviewed a paper. It noted "billionaires emit more carbon in minutes than ordinary people do in a year," and "if soc- ieties worldwide...matched what their citizens felt was...'fair' inequality," global heating would stay under 1.5 degrees.[^1] There's a long tail to the third that drives and flies, a great gulf between my family's humble, hard-working way of life and the private jet-set. If their assets were destroyed, I'd be more hopeful for the rest of us. As it is, I wonder about a good slow life among the ruins for all the living and our descendents. Bike and train, and the life that goes with them, sounds nice. [1]: gopher://alexschroeder.ch "Tax the rich"