Snow, Forest Fires, and Blockchain Initiatives for the New Year

Happy New Year! I don't know about you but I am truly looking forward to this coming year. I had a New Year's surprise, with snow turning our neighborhood into a winter wonderland. We love snow here, although we don't get it often. You see, I live on a mountain, in the middle of a forest and we have had several hellacious forest fires lately. I live a handful of miles from where the Granite Mountain Hotshots met their end a few fire seasons ago.

Without the snow and rain we get in the winter months, our risk level goes up substantially. After the fire that wipe out Paradise, none of us are feeling the "oh, I live close enough in town that I won't be affected by a fire". Paradise proved to us that we are all vulnerable and I live only three houses from the forest, the one that burned last year.

We use goats to control the underbrush, especially where it is difficult because of the terrain for crews to get to. They do a magnificent job of chomping down the woody plants and weeds that provide fuel for the fires that can turn into instant infernos, wiping everything in their path. But without enough moisture in the winter, even the hardy, 4 legged, plant eating machines can't help enough to forestall a devastating fire.

Late June and early July are our worst months. I think everyone goes around with one eye on the sky, and one ear to the emergency channel. We all have our "emergency room" with it's little stacks of important papers and memorabilia ready to be grabbed as we dash out the door to safety. Mine has a big bag of dog food, another of bird food. But I look around at the inlaid cherry wood furniture my grandfather made and know that a part of my family history would be forever reduced to ash as there is no way I could get it out.

There are only two ways off this mountain, and last year one of those was blocked for three days by a roaring inferno. When August comes around, we all heave a silent sigh of relief - another fire season has been successfully put to bed. But I think we all know it's only a matter of time before our little town looks like Paradise and we are all reduced to sifting through the ashes searching for that wedding picture, or the last letter from our long dead ancestor, or that special bowl our kid made in art class when he was 10.

And then I think about the companies that are coming to the blockchain and not waiting for world leaders to come up with a solution to climate change. Companies that use the blockchain to put consumers and green energy power companies together so green certificates aren't used by coal and oil guzzlers to get around upgrading their own plants to renewable energy.

The blockchain may get headlines about the latest ICO scam, or a cryptocurrency meltdown, but little is said about the changes it is bringing to normal, everyday things. How it impacts lives on even the smallest level. How initiatives to help power plants find customers for their overabundance of renewable energy, and farmers and manufacturers and shippers to become more efficient can make a difference to the climate events that could send me fleeing from my home at a moments notice. And that's only a tiny part of what the blockchain can mean and the changes it can bring to the lives of everyday people.

But for now, my dogs are unimpressed with the life saving snowfall and prefer their warm cozy bed-nests to that lovely white stuff falling from the sky.

Happy New Year! May this be the year that blockchains everywhere push forward and make the dream of a better world a reality.