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Ozone Schmozone

Okay, a lot of you have heard me refer to global warming as ‘hooey’- mostly to be provocative. I honestly don’t know if it’s hooey or not, but I am skeptical. A couple of years ago my friend Alex and I went to a lecture given by Michael Crichton here in Munich, ostensibly to hear about his new book. Instead he gave a very compelling talk on why all of the hoopla around Global Warming merits closer scrutiny.

Now, before I continue, let me assure you that I am all for conservation. I’m sure I use at least 30% less resources by default by simply living in Europe – I have no car, no clothes dryer, a fridge the size of a shoebox…you get the idea. My teeny galley kitchen is overrun by a complex system of baskets for recycling. I hate the tyranny of the automobile and think the majority of city planners for a lot of the west coast should be jailed. However global warming smacks of Y2K to me, the doomsday prophecy for the secular left to fill the vacuum where religion would normally reside.

I thought it may be time to challenge my global warming challenge, so we finally got ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ from Amango (Germany’s version of Netflix). Nope. Still think it’s hooey.  Armin is currently reading State of Fear Michael Crichtons’ fictional debunking of Global Warming, so one morning we searched online for a counter-argument to his argument. What we found was this. An NPR sponsored debate between 6 (left of center) scientists and experts (including Crichton) on whether or not global warming is a crisis. Each panel of 3 went at it mano-a-mano and the results are quite interesting. I encourage you to listen with an open mind and decide for yourself.

The Feminine Mistake

Probably about a decade(!) ago, my friend Jill Littlewood gave me Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. I can honestly say it had a big influence on a lot of the decisions I made in the years following. At the root of the book was the question: ‘What is your Work’?. Now, at 35, keenly aware that one phase of life is winding down and another is about to start, I discovered The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. She argues that it is foolish for women to stay out of the workplace for more than 3 years and draws a compelling picture of why it is beneficial for women to work. She talks about the current glamorization of homecaring (which I happily indulge in) and how ‘opting out’ has radical implications not just for women’s long term financial security but also on it’s hidden impacts on marriage and women’s sense of competence, mastery and self-esteem.

She leans a little too much on the ‘your husband could die or leave you’ angle for my taste, but does speak to reaching your creative potential beyond being a care taker, which I found a more appealing argument.

As someone who has had the odd fantasy about dropping out, having kids and never working again, this was a loud wake-up call. This is a hot topic among a lot of us gals right now (either new moms, or thinking about becoming moms) and I strongly suggest you read this, especially if you are confusing marriage with a sound individual financial plan. I definitely want kids, and at the end of the day, I know myself, and I believe I will always need a career (Bennetts lays out why this is utterly NOT selfish) – even though she frankly admits that if you work and have small children you need to be prepared to be exhausted for about 4 years.

Drawing on the work done by Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir, she finishes by discussing the ‘Anxiety of Liberty’ another feeling I can relate to. After reading this book I found that the question still remains: What is your work?