The adoptive parents of Idle Dee and Idle Dum choose to retain their daughter’s and son’s respective Korean names.  Family names in Korea are stated first, before the given name.  In this tale, we’ll discover how Dee and Dum have grown to embrace the English language meaning of their family name.  Read on…
 
        Perched on the bus stop bench, Idle Dee watched the traffic whiz by.  More than a few drivers were glancing at their phones as they drove.  Most passers-by were likewise staring at their screens.  Only one of her seatmates was not doing the same, so Dee struck up a conversation.

        Both young women commented on how “plugged-in” people were these days, constantly rushing and seemingly unable to be alone with their own thoughts.   Dee shared the results of a recent survey of college students.  Fifty-two percent reported feeling hopeless and 39% said they’d had a severe bout of depression the previous year.  They wondered if Americans were short-changing themselves on the “down time” critical to emotional health.

        As they parted, Dee’s new friend joked, “Your family name is spot on!  I’m going to reserve some mental ‘idle time’ each day to refresh my soul.”

        Meanwhile, Idle Dum slammed his car into park, left the engine idling, and ran into the fast food joint.  He was only going in for a couple minutes; with the engine running, the AC would keep the car cool.  Over the year, his car engine idled a lot.  In the winter, he’d warm up his car far in advance of actually driving it and then usually leave it running between short errands.  “Hey, it matches my name,” Dum grinned.  “Nothing wrong with leaving the engine idling!”

        What Dum didn’t realize is that modern car engines don’t need “warming up” in the winter and that it does NOT take more fuel to restart a car as compared to leaving it idle.  It’s the10-second rule.  If you’re going to be out of the car more than 10 seconds, turn off the engine.  You’ll save money and wear and tear on your engine, and prevent unnecessary pollution from escaping the tailpipe.

        We can be smarter than Dum.  Foster a healthy soul by reserving some idle time each day.  And foster a healthy planet by reducing engine idling.  It’s a savvy combo; here, where we’re forever…Earthbound.  

           Rain poured down at my sister-in-law, Patty’s, home just outside of Stitzer.   Before long a cascading torrent filled the little creek just beyond her yard.  Moments later, it breeched the lowest bank, and what had been a confined channel of water suddenly became a rapidly expanding lake whose leading edge was working its way up the driveway.  Suddenly, our ’68 VW Beetle was in jeopardy of being set afloat.  Even more concerning, the new lake would soon be lapping at the patio door. 

          It was an amazing phenomenon that I’ll never forget.  In a few short minutes the topography was transformed. Up-stream, each little brook and gully had contributed its small share of water that, when added together, created that flood.  Unexpectedly, a whole new landscape was unleashed.

       Forty some years later, sitting high and dry on Capitol Hill, current members of the House are poised to introduce the first Republican sponsored carbon pricing bill.  The concept of placing a fee on greenhouse gas producing carbon-based fuels has been kicking around for a few years.  The general concept is that, like a fee paid to dump garbage in the landfill, a fee would be charged for dumping pollution into our shared atmosphere.  One popular version of the bill actually provides an economic stimulus while it cleans our air.

        An objection sometimes voiced is that any such fee would have such a miniscule effect on the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted as to be virtually worthless.  A recent analysis asserts a carbon fee in the U.S. would prevent only a 0.07 degrees Celsius average rise in temperatures by 2100 – a trifle.  But I wonder if the researchers considered the potential cascading effect a carbon fee might unleash that would bring about a much greater difference.

        The rains subsided, and Patty’s property suffered only minor damage.  Karen and I drove off the next day in a dry and fully-functional Bug. 

        A price on carbon in the U.S. today could act a bit like one of those small rivulets upstream in Patty’s creek.  By joining other carbon reduction actions world-wide, it could become part of a cascade that frees us from our fossil fuel dependency.  That additional nudge might foster an unforeseen flood of new, cleaner energy options.  It’s a plan to consider because this is the only home we’ll ever know.  It’s where we’re forever…Earthbound.