4 - Sunday, November 25, 1990 - North Shore News This decade will probably be the most important in history BEGINNING TODAY, we’re changing the name of this column to Strictly Per- sonal. Instead of writing exclusively about ecology, as I nave been doing for the last while, 'm going to go back to writing about life. Specificatly, my life. It is the one subject I am truly expert on. I find living in the ’90s to be an amazing experience. The future has arrived. It is now. For ar old science-fiction fan — my interest in the genre began in the °50s — there can be nothing more exciting than to experience first-hand the perils and thrills of the actual future. This is the post-Cold War world, after all. It is also the Space Age, even if the pace of ex- traplanetary exploration has slow- ed to a crawl. This is an era in which a Harvard physicist roints to mathematical evidence that parallel universes exist, connected to our universe by submicroscopic interdimensional tunnels. And what a universe it is, just this one! Astronomers have now figured out that our galaxy is but one in a great superctuster of 10,000 galaxies that is drifting, along with several other superclusters, toward a tremen- dous collection of some 75,000 galaxies called the Great Attrac- tor. We’re drifting, incidentally, at the rate of 1,200,000 miles an hour. That’s on top of the other Bob Hunter | STRICTLY PERSONAL velocities we achieve just by lying in bed. As the planet rotates on its axis, it spins us around at the speed of 680 mph, and as it orbits the sun, it carries us along at the speed of 67,000 mph. In turn, as the sun orbits the Milky Way, it sweeps us across the vastness of space at the rate of 560,000 mph. Add to that the speed you reach in your car or boat or plane, and you have every excuse for feeling slightly giddy. It is not just the speeds involved which prompt this feeling, either. The rate of change has acceler- ated, as though somebody’s foot is pressing down hard on the gas pedal of history. It seems every time I turn around, some other astonishing change is taking place. Not all change is for the better, mind you. It has never been more apparent that a tidal wave of ecological disasters is incoming. i’ve seen this building up since the late "66s, but through the last 20 years, environmental collapse has seemed to be occurring in remote corners, like the Antarctic or Alaska. Whereas now, as the last strands of old-growth forest are cut into, the frogs themselves vanish from the landscape, and the rates of skin cancer begin to rise exponentially, it is clear that the final phase of the eco-crisis is upon us. . 1 have no idea how this decade of the '90s is going to turn out, but by any criteria it is a con- tender, probably a shoo-in, for the title of Most Important De- cade In History. The choices ei- tar made or not made in the next 10 years will determine the fate of every species on the planet, in- cluding our own. So how does one cope with all this apocalyptic stuff? My tech- nique is to eat, drink and be merry, and to focus my energy on the important things in life, name- ly my family and friends. At home, we laugh a lot, hug a lot, and generally try to carry on as though the house was the set for a domestic sit-com. It seems to me that the best laughs usually have to do with the kids, to whom I have already explained both the purpose of life and their role in it. “*Kids,”’ sez I, ‘‘there’s two kinds of people in the world. The hunters. And the hunted. And, don’t forget, the purpose of life is love.”’ Thus philosophically armed, we enter the historicalfy-awesome minefield of the ’90s, a time of transportation if there ever was one. It is not just that there’s a millenium behind us and another directly ahead, we are crossing a cultural Rubicon —- nothing less than the emergence of the first true world state, with Europe, as usual, leading the way. Political monoliths everywhere are fragmenting. Even depen- dable, dull old Canada is bending and melting around us, being reforged at its roots. When I was concentrating full- time on environmental matters, I used to joke that I was covering the biggest story in the world, namely the end of it. Which may or may not be true. But certainly that was the feeling I'd get, often enough. Seldom was there an op- portunity to chuckle. One tends to get dour on the eco-beat. Which ain’t my style. So tumultous and interesting has life become that to try to limit my attention to purely ecological matters is to leave out the rich, meaty existential goodness of day-to-day life, with its lessons and pratfalls, giggies and moral dilemmas. Pl still talk about ecology, because that’s a big hunk of all our lives now and it is here to stay. But I’m going to pull my finger out of the ozone hole and try to put it on the pulse of life in the high-tech, post-everything , 90s ROR ORR ORR ob ob ok Oe jailed AN 18-YEAR-OLD North Van- couver man was sentenced Nov. 16 in North Vancouver provincial court to seven days in jail and had his driver’s licence suspended for one year after being convicted of a driving offence. Robert Edward Hofer pleaded guilty to driving June 22 on St. Georges Avenue while he was prohibited from driving. Judge J.K. Shaw also fined Hofer $700. Act I Scene I invites you toa GALA CHRISTMAS SHOW (Live Music) Dec. 1, 1990 7:30-1:30am non-members & small office parties welcome Tickets $25.00 Phone Ry 985-2952, 985-2590 fm - DICK, PACK & TOME = SHOPPERS 2. 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