Hindsight

Traveling up Hwy 1 on the Coast of Oregon this summer, to a sustainability bike tour, I passed truck after truck after truck of logging trucks carrying huge trees. The saddness welled up inside me greatly. At one point I just reached over, grabbed the camera and without looking through the viewfinder, I took this picture (this is the one that turned out of many shots). This is a hopeful image for me, as it makes me realize that someday in hindsight, we may have moved beyond these sights of diesel spewing logging trucks carrying these life sustaining trees to the sawmill. It is ironic that the trees that are laying dead and lifeless on these trucks are no longer able to do their job and contribute to the ecosystem in the way that they are naturally designed for. They breathe Carbon Dioxide. These logging trucks are spewing out more carbon dioxide than most other vehicles do. It is just completely insane that we are cutting down the earths natural carbon dioxide filterers of the air, and transporting them in trucks that spew out more carbon dioxide into the air than is naturally supposed to be there. It is like we humans have a death wish or something and are pumping in carbon dioxide into the air while taking away the filter. Sounds similar to suicide by car running in a garage.

I heard soon after I took this picture that all these logging trucks in Oregon right now are a result of the price of oil going up. Logging companies are supposedly in a hurry to cut down as many trees as possible to stockpile the wood before the price of oil goes up so high that it makes transporting the wood too expensive. Maybe this clearcut frenzy, and the resulting environmental catastrophy, will make us realize immeadiately that we need to find alternatives to our demand for wood.

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There is irony in my posting this picture today as this sight was similar to the sight I saw in my rearview mirror this weekend as a HUGE double trailer vegetable transport truck sideswiped my car. As it was clipping my car, it smashed this very same rear view mirror, and damaged the drivers side of the car. Hopefully everything will be repaired in time, but thankfully no one was hurt, and we were actually able to continue on our trip to LA.