Does the Ice have to Melt for us to Learn to Swim

Yesterday's New York Times op-ed suggests we will never change until the disaster comes. Sounds like rational choice isn't very rational to me...
Is there another way? Similarly, a power company will wait till the branch hits the wire before it does anything, and an insurance company will pay to replace a roof, but not to trim a tree before it falls on the roof.  Maybe Thomas is right. If he is, what leads me to make the environmental decisions now (and I do make them now), before the crises comes...or have I decided the crises is upon us? I think it is one more case of my actions not fitting with predictions for popular behavior, which must say something about me and about predictions of popular behavior. Maybe disaster has nothing to do with it. Maybe I am celebrating something wonderful.

Disaster at the Top of the World

By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON

Aboard the Louis S. St-Laurent

STANDING on the deck of this floating laboratory for Arctic science, which is part of Canada’s Coast Guard fleet and one of the world’s most powerful icebreakers, I can see vivid evidence of climate change. Channels through the Canadian Arctic archipelago that were choked with ice at this time of year two decades ago are now expanses of open water or vast patchworks of tiny islands of melting ice. 
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Speaking of Freedom

The free expression of opinion
The ultimate source of authority
Foundation of Democracy
Fueling the Requisite Diversity
Sometimes antagonistic
Antagonism is relative to the status quo
Whose aggressors make enemies
OF THE NON-VIOLENT

photo by Don Kechely, courtesy http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/uarc.html

The Beehive Collective & Creative Acitivism

Project is called " The True Cost of Coal" and the event was at Asheville's Firestorm Cafe.

The completed poster:
http://www.beehivecollective.org/images/coal/coalp_prepress9_viewsize.gif

The Beehive site:
http://www.beehivecollective.org/

The True Cost of Coal website & blog :
http://beehivecollective.blogspot.com/
http://www.beehivecollective.org/english/coal.htm

Firestorm Books:
http://www.firestormcafe.com/

short intro to the project by one of the artists & organizers:
http://www.vimeo.com/14031346

beautiful night,
k

Earthday 40.0 Deepwater Edition

In 1969, just after touring the environmental devastation from the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed that every year a day be set aside to celebrate environmental awareness and education, and April 22^nd was chosen as that day.[i] Flash forward to April 22^nd, 2010, the 40^th Earth Day celebration, and the deepest oil well in history is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, initiating what may end up being the largest oil spill disaster in history. 

The well was capped on July 15th, and on August 4^th scientists reported that approximately 75% of the oil was in a process of degradation. Public talks turned to the liability of British Petroleum (BP). The financial sector had initially estimated the costs of the Deepwater Horizon spill at less than the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound ($3 billion). This premature estimate was soon recalculated at $8.2 billion and by early August was as high as $41.9 billion dollars.[ii]

Negotiations and analyses surrounding the cost of the spill and liability for these costs, occurring primarily between BP and the federal government, may prove more controversial than the actual spill, especially if they release BP from any further liability, approving single payouts and assigning liability caps before the environmental cost of the disaster can be assessed. Kenneth Feinberg was put in charge of dolling out the $20 billion that had been set aside for paying out damage claims, and though Feinberg has assured the public that more money can be made available if necessary, some believe dollar amounts are being decided prematurely, and science made to serve corporate interests.[iii]

Wind in the Urban Environment

Should wind turbines be a part of the urban landscape? I still can't decide. Let me think about it and get back to you...