September 2011
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“The earth gives only one crop of gold. When that crop is divided among a...”
– Richard Whiteside said that, in John Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven.
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“It’s either one fluky summer or a harbinger of what climate change is...”
– It’s not every day that we see climate change mentioned (and taken sort of seriously) in a baseball column in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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August 2011
1 post
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July 2011
3 posts
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“Without water we are nothing, the traveler thought. Even an emperor, denied...”
– That comes from Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence.
Wise words.
Makes me think of Cortés in Tenochtitlan and, more currently, the south-north water diversion project.
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“The smell of gasoline made the sight of the palm trees seem sad.”
– Pulled that from John Fante’s Ask the Dust.
Here’s the whole paragraph:
And so I was down on Fifth and Olive, where the big street cars chewed your ears with their noise, and the smell of gasoline made the sight of the palm trees seem sad, and the black pavement still wet from the fog...
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What Plato Might Think of the Climate Change... →
Far too quiet on the blogs these past couple of months. Too little reading. Too much family. Too much Chinese study. Too many excuses.
But right now is a new right now, so maybe the dry spell is ending. With some nice, neat philosophical logic.
Thank you, Larry, for the heads up.
June 2011
3 posts
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“After a century in which medical diagnosis and treatment, computer and...”
– James Fallows wrote that, in an article he published last December about China, energy demand, experimentation, and coal-fired power.
Achieving the magical. Great goal.
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“Who were these people? How did they live? What were their weird beliefs? What...”
– The world could probably do with a little more Aztec sensibility.
Thank you Sesshu Foster.
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May 2011
3 posts
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“In its first year, the Refresh campaign garnered more than eighty million votes,...”
– That’s from a New Yorker article about Pepsi’s attempt to increase it focus on the long term.
According to the Wall Street Journal (via a parenthetical reference in the New Yorker article), Pepsi’s problem might have something to do with who drinks Pepsi and who...
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The Chinese Government Eats Organic Veggies →
Maybe the CCP is about to accomplish by accident what Jimmy Carter didn’t on purpose.
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Climate Change, Political Objectivity, and the...
KPCC’s Larry Mantle talked to Geneva Overholser and Eric Alterman on Thursday night about objectivity in journalism. (The conversation airs on Monday.)
Geneva said she favors a reporter that fights his inevitable biases and wrestles his mind (and published material) open to people and arguments with which he disagrees.
Eric said he favors a reporter that investigates, presents evidence,...
April 2011
2 posts
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“The Mongol invasion scrubbed nearly 700 million tons of carbon from the...”
– That’s the lede on a Mother Nature Network article from early this year.
Scrubbed. Wrong word. Slightly celebratory. Fuel for the anti-environmentalist fire.
Fascinating research. Could be useful someday. Needs good reporting.
Thanks to bokane.org for the heads up.
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On Radiation, Activism, and Science →
Above is a link to an article by George Monbiot about a recent email conversation he had with Dr. Helen Caldicott, who he calls “the world’s foremost anti-nuclear campaigner.”
To support his article, Monbiot has posted on his blog both the emails themselves and what he calls an “interrogation” of Dr. Caldicott’s responses to his questions.
Fascinating (and...
March 2011
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“While the average citizen can receive harsh punishment under federal law for...”
– Read that in Vanity Fair’s fracking article from last summer.
The federal law it references is the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which, according to VF, was “crafted by Dick Cheney in closed-door meetings with oil-and-gas executives.”
Clearly not the best we can do.
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“Coal was a meaningless rock 500 years ago. Then coal was the basis for an...”
– Andy Revkin said that, in an interview snippet he included in a recent blog post.
The post’s message is a relative (likely a long lost relative) of Bob Thurman’s assertion that compassion is more fun.
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Monsanto Hires Algal Fuel Company To Do Genetic... →
Sapphire Energy’s CEO on the partnership:
By leveraging our algae platform and tools to improve crop yield and enhance crop performance, Sapphire will be able to accelerate our ability to produce a renewable crude oil replacement and reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil.
Can’t blame Sapphire for wanting a little income as they work on producing their fuels at...
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Seth Godin on People That Resist Evidence →
Here’s the key moment:
What would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds. When people who are respected in a social or professional circle clearly and loudly proclaim that they’ve changed their minds, a ripple effect starts.
Makes me wonder about former climate skeptics. Who are...
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February 2011
4 posts
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“Like plants we need to recycle. On a cosmic scale we are no more mobile than...”
– Terence McKenna wrote that, in an essay called Plan, Plant, Planet.
It’s radical, beautiful, inspiring, and, for at least one sentence, unintentionally hilarious (in my opinion at least).
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On Farming and Trademarking →
The Dervaeses are amazing farmers and fascinating people. But claiming to own the words “urban homestead” is greedy, paranoid behavior.
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January 2011
6 posts
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The J440 Blog →
Been hanging out with Larry Pryor and his environmental journalism students at USC Annenberg.
A few days ago, we launched this little blog. While J440 is a content-focused journalism course - its primary goal is to give students a solid understanding of some of the most covered and most coverage-worthy environmental issues of the moment - Larry also wants the students to understand the challenges...
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“But what specifically interests me here is how the long-term re-formatting of...”
– BLDGBLOG’s Geoff Manaugh wrote that, closing a post on agricultural evolution.
For better or worse, some little things turn big.
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“I think we should rediscover a view of humans as resourceful, creative,...”
– Brendan O’Neill wrote that, in an email exchange with Andy Revkin about population and population control.
Also noteworthy, in my opinion, is Revkin’s justification for engaging O’Neill, who seems as interested in stirring proverbial pots as he is in educating his...
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“With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global...”
– The Pastafarians believe that. Or so says Wikipedia’s correlation does not imply causation page.
Amazing what you learn when you catch yourself reading baseball blogs in the middle of a workday in January….
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December 2010
3 posts
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On Education
“How early do you start your science teaching?”
“We start it at the same time we start multiplication and division. First lessons in ecology.”
“Ecology? Isn’t that a bit complicated.”
“That’s precisely the reason why we begin with it. Never give children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation.”
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“So as far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian, but I have enough...”
– WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that, in an interview with Forbes blogger Andy Greenberg.
Assange has “mixed attitudes toward capitalism,” but he loves markets; the more information available to consumers, the better:
“For a market to be free, people have to know who...
November 2010
6 posts
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Watch(IMATTERMARCH.ORG)
Site’s online (heavily featuring the video above). OddBird built it. Looks damn good (I expected nothing less from the Meyer brothers).
Update: Neither OddBird nor I remain involved in iMatter March. It’s still an event worth watching, however.
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Peak Stuff →
Janet Carmosky of The China Business Network notices that, thanks to the recession, the US is buying less “trim-a-tree” (cheap, low quality, low artistry, one-time-use decorative objects) from China. She thinks it’s a good thing:
I begrudge no one the enjoyment of holiday decorating, nor the trade-up from grueling subscale agricultural drudgery to a salaried indoor job. If...
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Relentlessness →
Thanks to an Aussie developer named Nigel Leck, there now exists a robot that scours Twitter for comments disrespecting the scientific consensus that humans are destabilizing the climate and refutes them.
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Maybe A Republican Congress Will Be Good For Our... →
Or maybe a Republican Congress will reveal the next Joe McCarthy and start hunting witches.
October 2010
9 posts
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“No one in 1954 would have claimed that everything that needed to be known about...”
– Normal scientific honesty.
Reminds me of something I read on Dot Earth the other day about science and news:
“Readers will gain the resolve to act in the face of uncertainty once they absorb that some uncertainty is the norm, not a temporary state that will give way to magical clarity...
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Trees, Mountains, and Civil Disobedience →
I’ve never seen such a genuinely physically constructive form of lawbreaking.
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“Knowing who in fact we are results in Good Being, and Good Being results in the...”
– That comes from a little green booklet called Notes on What’s What, and on What Might Be Reasonable to Do about What’s What.
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“I think fossil fuels were discovered before our consciousness had evolved enough...”
– Janine Benyus said that, in an interview with The Sun.
Makes me think of hypnosis and its relationships to power:
The crackle and flash of a bonfire, my inability to look away. The domestication of animals. Slavery. Propaganda.
And, as accurate as it is, the evolution of consciousness language is...
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