Here’s what Ken Kesey had to say about Wendell Berry:
“Wendell Berry is the Sargeant York charging unnatural odds across our no-man’s-land of ecology. Conveying the same limber innocence of young Gary Cooper, Wendell advances on the current crop of Krauts armed with naught but his pen and his mythic ridgerunner righteousness. One after the other he picks them off, from the flying bridges of their pleasure boats as they roar through his native Kentucky rivers, from beneath the hard hats in the Hazard county strip mines, from the swivel chairs in the Pentagon where they weigh the various ways to wage war on all forms of enemy life beyond the end of their own friendly chin. He’s a crackshot essayist and, for those given to capture, a genial and captivating poet. He boasts a formidable arsenal of novels, speeches, articles, stories and poems from his outpost in one of the world’s most ravaged battlefields where he writes the good fight and tends his family and his honeybees. Consider him an ally.”
The thing is, Kesey said this in 1971. Full Story »
In the introduction to Last Chance – Preserving Life on Earth, author Larry J. Schweiger, the CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, comes right out and says that he’s not trying to change minds with this book. Instead, it’s his hope that the book will motivate millions of people to transform their concerns over global warming into activism.
There are three sections to the book that can be summarized as follows. First, the latest science says that disruptions due to climate change will be worse and happen faster than the best estimates of even a couple of years ago. Second, there are a few global ecosystems that are more sensitive than even average, and there are people who don’t want you to know that and who actively work to keep you ignorant of the facts. And third, there are a few things we can do to help ourselves and the Earth.
EPA officials interviewed for the LATimes article are dismissive of the Chamber’s petition, referring to it in the article as “frivolous” and a “waste of time.” However, given that the Chamber has threatened to take the EPA to federal court to force them to hold this trial-like hearing, it’s unlikely that the Chamber considers their petition “frivolous.” Full Story »
“Fracking” is the slang term used for hydraulic fracturing, a process by which the gas industry injects a slurry of unknown composition into a gas well in order to break up the rock and release the natural gas contained within. At present, the EPA exempts fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), but Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado has introduced legislation into the House (H.R.2766) to force the EPA to regulate fracking. In response, the gas industry has pushed back with studies that purport to show that regulation is both unnecessary and costly.
According to the article, the direct benefit comes down to the creation of a federal Carbon Storage Research Corporation that is funded by per-kilowatt charges on electric bills instead of a tax on fossil fuel-burning utilities. Full Story »
It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese have used these famous black-and-white faces as emissaries around the world. There’s even a term for it: “panda diplomacy.”
Over the years, some 100 pandas have been sent to foreign countries as ambassadors of good will. Currently, around twenty-five countries host pandas, including four zoos in the United States.
I get to see them up close and personal, on their home turf. Full Story »
Last Saturday we decided to explore these strange formations in southwest Washington State. These are large uniform mounds of earth covered in prairie. These formations also go by the name Hogwallows and appear in at least six other states and five other countries.
No one has been able to determine the origins of these mounds, but the leading theory about retreating glaciers got a boost when Department of Natural Resource scientists presented new laser imaging of the mounds.
Every region of this beautiful planet has their treasured local festival and celebration. Spring is not officially Spring in Western Washington State without the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This year marks the 26th year of this springtime icon. Over 700 acres are planted with daffodils, tulips and irises.
I had my ritual visit early this past Friday morning. The tulips are stunning. They speak for themselves. After a walk around the 3 acre show garden I decided to explore the barn on the property.
Kevin Kelly has published a 13,000 word essay on evolution at The Technium. It is engaging, interesting and well worth your time to read. He makes two assertions; one evolving from the other. First, he says that evolution is directional, towards complexity and becoming optimal. Evolution is then “ordained-becoming”. His second assertion is much less developed, but states that technology follows the same path as biological evolution towards complexity with, apparently, pre-ordained outcomes. You may have learned from the likes of Stephen J. Gould that if we rerun the great experiment of life, it would not bring about the same results that surround us today. Kelly disagrees.
I disagree with Kelly, not because his train of thought is faulty but because it seems incomplete and because his thesis requires overlaying the evidence with value statements and judgments. It’s amazing that the eye has evolved independently on multiple occasions, but i’m not ready to say that life must evolve eyes…which may, or may not, have been Kelly’s assertion. Full Story »
I’m having a crisis of faith. No, not that kind. The Big Guy is still number one in my book, and I hope I’m in His… somewhere. I mean I’m losing faith in the power of literature. Am I just bitter because I can’t find a literary agent? Maybe. But I have come to believe that in a very real sense, literature fails us. A novel has a beginning, a setting, a few agreeable characters (usually not too interesting) and some bad folks (usually very interesting), an unfortunate situation that needs to be resolved in the middle, a theme and a last page. The finished product sits on a shelf nice and neat and tidy, just the way real life isn’t.
Real life is far more complicated, with too many twists and turns and unlikely coincidences. Full Story »
“Who-cooks-for-you,” cried the voice in the distance. “Who-cooks-for-you-all?”
My father and I, both standing in the road near the front of his pickup, pivoted in the direction of the call and leaned toward it, cocking our heads, straining to listen against the silence of the night in case the call came again.
Limit development in low-lying coastal areas. Consider abandoning existing development in coastal areas likely to be affected by sea level rise. Require structures built along the coast to be able to adapt to higher sea levels. Discontinue federally subsidized flood insurance for existing property in low-lying coastal areas. Those are some of the recommendations made last week in the first report by California’s Climate Action Team and reported by the LA Times. Full Story »
On February 23, NASA’s newest satellite failed to reach orbit, crashing instead into the southern Pacific Ocean. This satellite, the Orbital Carbon Observatory (OCO), was supposed to monitor the emission and absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) for at least the next two years. This is a terrible loss for the scientists involved, and for climate science in general, for reasons I’ll explain shortly.
Luckily, all is not necessarily lost. Full Story »
A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in early January says that, of the priorities listed in the poll, “dealing with global warming” was dead last, with only 30% of respondents declaring it a “top priority.” This was below other issues such as the economy, jobs, fixing Medicare, crime, and the environment. But as is so often the case with polls, the devil is in the details and the methodology. For example, climate disruption is certainly an environmental issue, yet the issues are polled separately. And when you broaden the poll results beyond just the “top priority” category to include “important but lower priority,” global warming attracts support of 67% of the poll’s respondents. Full Story »
Last year, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released a prediction that record global temperatures should be expected in the next 2-3 years. GISS released their annual wrapup of the 2008 global temperature, and with it an updated prediction: 2008 was the coolest year since 2000 because of a strong La Nina in the tropical Pacific, and record temperatures are expected in the next 1-2 years. Full Story »
It’s winter, and just as ever summer brings out kooks claiming that a hot spell in Colorado is the result of global warming, so too does winter bring out the kooks claiming that record cold temperatures and snowfall in New England means global warming is bunk. In both cases people are confusing weather and climate. So, as an Official S&R Public Service Announcement™, here’s the definitions of weather and climate, as well as a number of easy to understand examples of each. Full Story »
I love plants; in fact, i prefer the company of plants to that of people and i consider our green companions the higher life form. So when i saw Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet (Oliver Morton) staring at me from a shelf in the bookstore, i caved. I didn’t even need the jacket blurbs making statements like, “A book that may reorder the way you think about the world…” (The Economist). I was after the advertised “…complete biography of the earth through the lens of this mundane and most important of processes [photosynthesis].” My expectations were high. Mr. Morton exceeded them with massive amounts of historical and scientific information rendered in rich prose.
Tom Yulsman of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado ran the following post on the toxic nature of coal combustion byproducts at the CEJ’s blog, CEJournal. Tom has been kind enough to permit S&R to crosspost his work here. This is Tom’s second guest post: his first (on a very different topic) can be found here, and the original of this post can be found here.
A truly frightening video from ground zero of the coal ash catastrophe
The New York Times reports today that the coal sludge that surged out of a breached Tennessee Valley Authority impoundment in Roane County was actually three times larger than previously estimated. The updated total is 5.4 million cubic yards, “or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep,” Times reporter Shaila Dewan reports.
The discrepancy casts doubt on the credibility of assurances from the Tennessee Valley Authority that the coal combustion waste from its Kingston Fossil Plant poses little risk to residents of the area. (Several days ago, one TVA official told the Associated Press that the waste “consists of inert material not harmful to the environment.”)
In fact, evidence has been gathering for years that the waste dumps pose a very serious risk to human health and the environment. Full Story »
The holidays tend to be high-energy, high-waste, and thus high-carbon. The following sites have a number of ideas for those of you interested in reducing your carbon footprint this holiday season. Full Story »
Here’s what Ken Kesey had to say about Wendell Berry:
It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese have used these famous black-and-white faces as emissaries around the world. There’s even a term for it: “panda diplomacy.”
Last Saturday we decided to explore these strange formations in southwest Washington State. These are large uniform mounds of earth covered in prairie. These formations also go by the name Hogwallows and appear in at least six other states and five other countries. 
No one has been able to determine the origins of these mounds, but the leading theory about retreating glaciers got a boost when Department of Natural Resource scientists presented new laser imaging of the mounds. 
Every region of this beautiful planet has their treasured local festival and celebration. Spring is not officially Spring in Western Washington State without the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This year marks the 26th year of this springtime icon. Over 700 acres are planted with daffodils, tulips and irises.
by Terry Hargrove
“Who-cooks-for-you,” cried the voice in the distance. “Who-cooks-for-you-all?”
