Walden, Walmart, what?!

American philosophers tend not to make the best environmentalists. I like Crispin Sartwell, but I'm not sure he grasps the full meaning of "sustainable."

"Walmart is a perfectly natural object, as much an environment as my woods. [But] Walmart is no Concord... Unlike Thoreau, I have cable... if Thoreau were around today, he’d be pushing a cart through a Walmart three miles from Walden Pond with a bag of socks, a gallon of milk and a Blu-ray player, nodding pleasantly at people he sort of recognizes."

Crispin Sartwell, My Walden, My Walmart - NYTimes.com

A talking head on why we ride

"I got hooked on biking because it’s a pleasure, not because biking lowers my carbon footprint, improves my health or brings me into contact with different parts of the city and new adventures. But it does all these things, too — and sometimes makes us a little self-satisfied for it; still, the reward is emotional gratification, which trumps reason, as it often does...

For me, and lots of other people, the answer to the question “What would improve the quality of our urban life?” involves simple things like ... um ... bicycles, which make getting around — and being in — the city easier, more pleasant and more affordable..

Look around you. Bikes are everywhere: in glamorous ads and fashionable neighborhoods, parked outside art galleries, clubs, office buildings. More and more city workers arrive for work on bikes. The future is visible in the increasing number of bikes you see all over the urban landscape. This simple form of transportation is about to make our city more livable, more human and better connected..."

David Byrne, This Is How We Ride - NYTimes.com

Science literacy is not enough

A Yale study says "as members of the public become more science literate and numerate, individuals belonging to opposing cultural groups become even more divided on the risks that climate change poses." Yale study concludes public apathy over climate change unrelated to science literacy

Wasting time while climate talks stall

"It's absurd to watch governments sit and point fingers and fight like little kids while the scientists explain about the terrifying impacts of climate change..."  BBC News - Climate talks stall with nations 'wasting time':

Fall texts

Blessed Unrest - 0143113658

Rebuild the Dream - 1568587147

Bridge at the Edge of the World - 0300151152

Ecotopia - 9780553348477

The Global Warming Reader - 0143121898

We made corn boring

"...before human selection interfered, corn ears were all multi-coloured.* Kernels are siblings housed on the same ear, meaning that each kernel has its own set of genes, including those that control colour."

The Most Beautiful Corn in the World

"The most dramatic global environmental change"

“I think that, given time and political will and political savviness, we might be able to fix the climate change situation,” says Rodolfo Dirzo, the Bing Professor in Ecology at Stanford University, where he also serves as the director of the Center for Latin American Studies. “But biological extinction is not a reversible thing. To me — and I know that this might be controversial — I think that biological extinction is the most dramatic global environmental change that characterizes the Anthropocene.”

Ecology of the undead: Life and death in the age of mass extinction | Grist

McKibben wins $100,000 Prize for Global Environmental Activism

"Environmental activist, author and journalist Bill McKibben has been selected as the first recipient of The Sam Rose '58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism. The annual prize of $100,000 also includes a short residency during the academic year. McKibben will receive the prize at Dickinson's commencement on Sunday, May 20." Dickinson College Awards $100,000 Prize for Global Environmental Activism

The Climate Fixers: Is there a technological solution to global warming?

"...the idea of interfering with benign nature is ridiculous. The Bambi view of nature is totally false. Nature is violent, amoral, and nihilistic. If you look at the history of this planet, you will see cycles of creation and destruction that would offend our morality as human beings. But somehow, because it’s ‘nature,’ it’s supposed to be fine.’

...scientists worry that if methane emissions from the Arctic increase as rapidly as some of the data now suggest, climate intervention isn’t going to be an option. It’s going to be a requirement. “When and where do we have the serious discussion about how to intervene?” Carlson asked. “There are no agreed-upon rules or criteria. There isn’t even a body that could create the rules."

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_specter#ixzz1ul8Y6h60

Can Geoengineering Solve Global Warming? : The New Yorker

Sound ecology & silence activism

There is an ecology of sound, and an activism of silence, that we neglect on pain of becoming desensitized to other lives.

Gordon Hempton tells of a turning point when he was in his mid-20s... He took a break alongside the highway on a cross-country drive, and lay down to listen to an approaching thunderstorm. He felt like he had never really listened to life before, and pledged to give himself over to it. He went on to become one of the world’s first acoustic ecologists. He has gathered sounds from the Kalahari Desert, the edge of Hawaiian volcanoes, inside Sitka spruce driftwood logs of the same wood as violins. His work appears in movies, soundtracks, and video games. Along the way, he’s also invented another, related vocation — that of “silence activism.”

On Being Blog • The Last Quiet Places: The Sounds of Nature’s...

We can't wait any longer: Hansen

"Every major national science academy in the world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans, and requires urgent action. The cost of acting goes far higher the longer we wait — we can’t wait any longer to avoid the worst and be judged immoral by coming generations." James Hansen

Game Over for the Climate - NYTimes.com:

Advice for a Recovering Environmentalist

Paul Kingsworth calls himself a "recovering environmentalist."

"I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching, I withdraw from the arguing and the talked-up necessity and all of the false assumptions. I withdraw from the words. I am leaving. I am going to go out walking. I am leaving on a pilgrimage to find what I left behind in the jungles and by the cold campfires and in the parts of my head and my heart that I have been skirting around because I have been busy fragmenting the world in order to save it; busy believing it is mine to save." Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist | Orion Magazine

 I understand the sentiment and the appeal of walking away from activism and the human world in general, from the presumption and hubris that we're really up to meeting the environmental challenges of our time. But if we don't save the world, who will?

So I say: walk away for an hour or a day or a week. Walk away for an hour every day, a day every week, a week every quarter,  Renew and recharge yourself. But come back, Paul. Come back, America. Come back, world. We have work to do.

Ernest Callenbach's Last Words to America: "Organize"

"But of course human society, like ecological webs, is a complex dance of mutual support and restraint, and if we are lucky it operates by laws openly arrived at and approved by the populace.

If the teetering structure of corporate domination, with its monetary control of Congress and our other institutions, should collapse of its own greed, and the government be unable to rescue it, we will have to reorganize a government that suits the people. We will have to know how to organize groups, how to compromise with other groups, how to argue in public for our positions. "
Ernest Callenbach's Last Words to America | Mother Jones: 
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Bill McKibben, The Most Important Story of Our Lives | TomDispatch

"...climate change is actually the biggest thing that’s going on every single day.  If we could only see that pattern we’d have a fighting chance. It’s like one of those trompe l’oeil puzzles where you can only catch sight of the real picture by holding it a certain way. So this weekend we’ll be doing our best to hold our planet a certain way so that the most essential pattern is evident. At 350.org, we’re organizing a global day of action that’s all about dot-connecting; in fact, you can follow the action at climatedots.org."

Tomgram: Bill McKibben, The Most Important Story of Our Lives | TomDispatch:
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Start of 2012, March shatter US heat records

The Associated Press: Start of 2012, March shatter US heat records: ""Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good," said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist who specializes in extreme weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "It's a guilty pleasure. You're out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it's not a good thing.""

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The Winner of Our Contest on the Ethics of Eating Meat - NYTimes.com

The Winner of Our Contest on the Ethics of Eating Meat - NYTimes.com: "Is it ethical to eat meat? That short question, posed in these pages a few weeks ago, inspired a debate heated enough to roast a fatted calf (or a really enormous zucchini, depending on your dietary orientation)."

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Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy | Video on TED.com

Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy | Video on TED.com: "Amory Lovins lays out the steps we must take to end the world's dependence on oil (before we run out). Some changes are already happening -- like lighter-weight cars and smarter trucks -- but some require a bigger vision.

In his new book, "Reinventing Fire," Amory Lovins shares ingenious ideas to for the next era of energy."

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Delight Springs: Environmentalism and social justice

Delight Springs: Environmentalism and social justice: "All social justice organizations can trace their origins back to the 18th century..."

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May Day! « Up@dawn

May Day! « Up@dawn: "Octogenerian E.O. Wilson recently asked the youngsters at Grist why they weren’t taking it to the streets on behalf of the planet.

Why aren’t you young people out protesting the mess that’s being made of the planet?"



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