Sitting together on the shoreline of Hilton Head Island, Milt asks my granddaughter Alex, \u201cShould we dig to China?\u201d The seven year old shoots him a look before answering, \u201dWe can\u2019t dig to China! There\u2019s a molten core down there!\u201d
\nThe aeronautical\/astronautical engineer is taken aback. Being a child is complicated in this century. There\u2019s so much more to know now than back sixty years ago\u2026not that we ever really believed we could dig to China\u2026did we? And anyway, what would we do when\/if we got there? Where did that \u2018story\u2019 come from in the first place? What was its purpose? And were Chinese children trying to dig down to us as well?
\nPerhaps the take away message is simply that the Middle Ages image of the earth as flat, with hell underneath, had been replaced by the realization that the earth is round\u2026ergo you could reach the other side by going down through its center.
\nNow Milt is wondering how to explain to Alex that indeed he does know that the earth has a molten core and, in fact, is planning to tap into the earth\u2019s energy by installing a geothermal pump that will provide our heat, hot water, and air conditioning in a clean, sustainable manner. Our goal is to get off natural gas, with its polluting coal fired production plants and the human and environmental devastation caused by hydraulic fracturing; it\u2019s our way of protecting the planet for Alex. It is also our effort to live within the emerging new story of our era.
\nIt\u2019s complicated being a grandparent in this century!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sitting together on the shoreline of Hilton Head Island, Milt asks my granddaughter Alex, \u201cShould we dig to China?\u201d The seven year old shoots him a look before answering, \u201dWe can\u2019t dig to China! There\u2019s a molten core down there!\u201d The aeronautical\/astronautical engineer is taken aback. Being a child is complicated in this century. There\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}