tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-204284192009-11-20T18:49:56.601-05:00Looking for a way forward.Willnoreply@blogger.comBlogger210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1166803969120924512006-12-22T11:11:00.000-05:002006-12-22T11:12:49.160-05:00

Click.

Willnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1166683170776119332006-12-21T01:31:00.000-05:002006-12-21T01:39:30.830-05:00

Via Living in a Van Down by the River:"We clutter the earth with our inventions, never dreaming that possibly they are unnecessary--or disadvantageous. We devise astounding means of communication, but do we communicate with one another? We move our bodies to and fro at incredible speeds, but do we really leave the spot we started from? Mentally, morally, spiritually, we are fettered. What have we

Willnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1165089700825328822006-12-02T14:35:00.000-05:002006-12-02T15:04:45.713-05:00

An Iraqi man mourns a family memberBill O'Reilly denies there is a civil war in Iraq. "...they're all Muslims, and they're doing what they do. They're killing each other. And they're killing Americans."A child cries after her parents were killed by coalition troopsMeanwhile, the other terrorism persists.An Iraqi family mourns for a young boy killed in a coalition attackTags:oreilly iraq

Willnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1164646033634726532006-11-27T11:35:00.000-05:002006-11-27T11:47:22.806-05:00

I've started a new blog at wordpress. It's called Why Nature Matters and it will be home to my writings on, well, why nature matters and how to talk to an environmental skeptic. I'll be spending a lot of time on it, and less time here. I aim to keep the new blog free of politics or personal thoughts, so I will keep posting those sorts of things here. I hope you'll visit the new blog and find

Willnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1164592808857391042006-11-26T20:56:00.000-05:002006-11-26T21:00:08.883-05:00

Dear Skeptics:I am what your side would call an 'environmentalist hand wringer.' I believe that global warming is a threat that should be taken seriously.I have been called a 'useful idiot' by the people on your side. I won't argue about that. I am an intelligent layman with no professional background in science but a concern for the environment and a willingness to learn. And from my perspective

Willnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1163367188292753982006-11-12T16:24:00.000-05:002006-11-13T02:12:37.606-05:00

It costs too much to save the environment. Not so. Take subsidies paid to the fishing industry: "...governments subsidize the destruction of oceanic resources to the tune of $15-30 billion each year. In 2001, subsidies paid to the fishing industry in Japan reached $2.5 billion, equal in value to a quarter of the catch. U.S. fishing subsidies totaled $1.2 billion, exceeding the worth of 30

Willnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1163304035991691032006-11-11T22:53:00.000-05:002006-11-11T23:00:36.013-05:00

There are some glimmers of hope in the dark perspective offered in the last post. The new democratic leadership is showing some guts: Nancy Pelosi is proposing strict anti lobbying legislation and Patrick Leahy is already pushing to restore the right of Habeas Corpus, a right that was written into the Bill of Rights yet ignored by the Bush Administration. And Rumsfeld now faces charges for war

Willnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1163087235403752692006-11-09T10:25:00.000-05:002006-11-11T23:05:12.580-05:00

Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you. -NirvanaSo the democrats won. I was pleasantly surprised, but I can't summon a whole lot of enthusiasm. The damage has been done. We have created so much chaos in Iraq that we cannot pull out without destabilizing the middle east. Every state in the region will be taking sides in the sectarian civil war there, and the likely

Willnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1162952970959301912006-11-07T21:10:00.000-05:002006-11-07T22:09:46.086-05:00

"Fishing and fish farming... are headed for a train wreck," -Jeremy Jackson, a professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and a Senior Researcher at the Smithsonian (The Rise of Slime, by Naomi Lubick).The Rise of SlimeA mass of slime spreads across the ocean floor, sickening the fishermen who come in contact with it. Elsewhere, fishermen pull in their

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1162764029513992392006-11-05T16:50:00.000-05:002006-11-05T17:00:29.566-05:00

Inspired by Coby Beck's How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic, I'm creating this guide to help influence public debate on the environment and convince people that there is a problem. The guide will have two parts: a series called Why Nature Matters and a series on persuasive techniques and the arguments that skeptics use. This first post will cover persuasion. Please comment if you have any

Willnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1162326782684225612006-10-31T15:29:00.000-05:002006-10-31T15:33:02.756-05:00

I'm having a conversation on another blog about ecological footprinting. Recently the Worldwide Fund for Nature released a report that said that humans are using up the earth's resources about 25% faster than the earth can replenish them. The report does this by measuring ecological footprint: the amount of land it takes to support a person or a country. It's a long and interesting debate. I

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1162309450244783792006-10-31T10:38:00.000-05:002006-11-18T13:28:44.390-05:00

In 1914, the Pennsylvania Chestnut Blight Commission issued its final report. The state of Pennsylvania had appropriated $275,000.00 (reference, p. 7) for the investigation of the Chestnut blight. In 1913 the state appropriated $240,000 more. This was above and beyond the $165,000 the Federal government had spent to stop the spread of the disease. The money and time spent could not stop the

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1161921047482558292006-10-26T23:42:00.000-04:002006-10-26T23:50:47.516-04:00

My fellow Americans: Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. Like every other

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1161870923547575242006-10-26T09:45:00.000-04:002006-10-26T09:55:30.423-04:00

Starting some time in June or July, I started thinking about a few things I hadn't thought about in a long time. Revolution would be one word for those things. Cultural evolution might be another. It comes down to a feeling that the world needs a big change if we want our kids to have a happy life. I changed the subtitle of my blog to reflect this new focus. It's time to find a new way

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1161273056869623242006-10-19T11:49:00.000-04:002006-10-19T11:50:56.896-04:00

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Ben FranklinA video that you must watch, and send to your friends: Keith Olbermann on the death of Habeas Corpus and the end of America. I'm surprised to see this on mainstream media, but here it is. If you have a slower connection, you can go to youtube.com homepage and watch

Willnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1161195266285046542006-10-18T14:08:00.000-04:002006-10-18T14:32:48.016-04:00

I can't understand why walnuts are such a puzzle. Everybody loves to eat them, right? So why was it so hard to find out how to prepare the nuts I gathered from my mother-in-law's back yard? Was I supposed to let the nuts dry before trying to get the hulls off or not? Should I leave them out in the yard until after the first frost or gather them right away? Let them dry in a cool place or

Willnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1160752348547073502006-10-13T10:42:00.000-04:002006-10-17T15:33:02.356-04:00

The Power of social networking: Progressive Secretary makes contacting your representatives easy. Protest.net makes it a little easier to find (and organize) a protest in your neighborhood. Save gas by sharing a ride: Hitchhikers.org is a European rideshare network. It's a great idea. Other sites can be found here and here. Global Warming NewsThis might be the biggest global warming news

Willnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1160157012064560322006-10-06T13:47:00.000-04:002006-10-06T13:50:12.066-04:00

I'm back online, so I'll be posting a little more frequently, more like once or twice a week now. I couldn't resist linking to this: a psychological profile of Bush and conservative beliefs that made me smile.

Willnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1160060293717517692006-10-05T10:56:00.000-04:002006-10-11T23:29:08.436-04:00

Distressingly uninformed about the workings of the natural world. That was how I described Lomborg's book to a conservative friend recently. We were discussing global warming and he recommended the book. I first read it four or five years ago, and I felt it seriously lacking. I decided to take another look at the book, however. Perhaps, I thought, a more mature perspective would reveal things

Willnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1159641749714842212006-09-30T14:40:00.000-04:002006-09-30T15:01:49.780-04:00

I've been having an interesting conversation about global warming over on Digg. It's long, so I won't post it here, but I think it illustrates something very important about the debate: for environmentalists and climate scientists, the debate is about science, but for opponents, it is about politics. Any thoughts?

Willnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1159319265244788482006-09-26T21:01:00.000-04:002006-10-11T23:31:17.220-04:00

“Those of us in the United States…who are at least somewhat privileged…must recognize that in a world of shrinking resources it is only a matter of time until the guns are turned on us.”It’s the children in Derrick Jensen’s book that had the biggest effect on me. 150 million children enslaved to make cheap consumer goods. A small Indian boy, running naked from US soldiers, shot down in sport at

Willnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1158969016579440372006-09-22T19:49:00.000-04:002006-09-22T19:50:16.606-04:00

"There was some cruel shit that went down there. Sometimes someone would fall asleep, you know, be standing there on the line, halfway awake. There was a pool of hot water, the pigs fell in there, helped to soften up the meat. They'd fall in and someone'd stick 'em in the neck and kill 'em, then they'd fall in the water before they started cutting. So this guy'd be standing down there by that

Willnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1158518966504005982006-09-17T14:48:00.000-04:002006-10-11T23:33:27.416-04:00

10 years to stop climate change disaster. That's what James Hansen says, and he should know. The NASA climatologist has been studying climate change since the 1970's, and he's already seen his predictions coming true. If you listen to James Lovelock, another prominent scientist, we've already passed the point of no return, and within 50 years the few tattered remnants of humanity will be

Willnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1157771714460294582006-09-08T23:14:00.000-04:002006-09-08T23:15:14.480-04:00

I've been tagged... and you know, it isn't half bad. A book that changed your life:Path Notes of An American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris. The late Doctor Morris was quite a character, and opinions of his book are varied. My opinion of his book varies as well. I find some parts of it too nutty to believe, while at the same time I regularly practice some of the exercises in it (and I get

Willnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20428419.post-1156259807641964342006-08-22T11:15:00.000-04:002006-08-23T23:30:27.943-04:00

In the months before the Invasion of Iraq, I did all the things you are supposed to do in a democracy when you oppose something. I wrote letters to my representatives and my local newspaper. I marched in street demonstrations. I even risked arrest by dropping an antiwar banner over a billboard. I was just one of millions of people in America and around the world who took action against the

Willnoreply@blogger.com3