I spent a very ambiguous Earth Day today.
I visited the Pajarito Environmental Education Center to consult with
them on the infrastructure/technology for the 30' Planetarium they are
building with their new center in Los Alamos. They have a very
aggressive mission around educating the public and children in
particular about environmental issues. They have a small community
garden now where children and adults can "get their hands dirty" and the
new facility will have a much larger one. It will have stunning views of
the outdoors (Pueblo Canyon and the Jemez mountains) and their programs
all have an element of encouraging people to go out in the real world
and experience it directly as well as through the interpretive materials
they have onsite.
At the end of the day, there was a "groundbreaking" ceremony at the site
on the edge of a beautiful canyon... we were surrounded by huge piles of
recently scraped up dirt, piles of logs formerly known as trees and huge
yellow machines to do that work. Given their mission, it was a minor
bit of cognitive dissonance that nobody else (as far as I could tell)
noticed.
Meanwhile Jack Loeffler was attending and went on to give a very
compelling talk at the Bradbury Science Museum. He articulated many
key things about the environment and threats to it, but focused
primarily on water and watersheds. At the end of the talk he gave out
posters printed up with 4 color indications of the watersheds of the
west as originally created by John Wesley Powell who strongly urged that
the political boundaries of new states formed be aligned with watershed
boundaries rather than arbitrary things such as lines of latitude and
longitude.
It was vaguely poignant given my recent maunderings opposite Glen, Nick
and others on the landscape metaphor of basins of attraction in
dynamical systems.
Meanwhile Jack went on to speak the very well grounded and level if
otherwise radical line that we recognize from his long time friend Ed
Abbey. He mentioned that Ed had died 25 years, N days and M hours
ago... very powerful reminder that he walked Ed out into the Sonoran
Desert where Ed spent his last hours dying as gracefully and privately
as the situation allowed for. Jack said "Ed died with things left to
be done". Later he mentioned Garrett Hardin of "Tragedy of the
Commons" <https://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full> fame
who both he and Abbey were greatly mutually influenced by. He said
that Garrett and his wife decided that they were no longer useful and
chose to "leave this plane"
<http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/tributes/obit_sbnews_2003sep18.html> in
2003.
Jack was not directly critical of LANL or it's mission but did speak
unabashedly about the "military industrial" complex and of the (ab)uses
of Science that are antithetical to a healthy environment over the long
haul. He also spoke directly of the nature of true anarchism which
Jack also took a moment to survey the 50+ people in attendance, almost
exclusively with grey hair and said "do you know, I rarely have anyone
under 50 in my audiences!?" But then nobody was tweeting or txting or
checking their e-mail or looking up references on their Notebook
devices. Nobody asked him digitally sign a digital copy of any of his
books either.
It was a sweetly ambiguous Earth Day.
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise
enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
Edward Abbey <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edward_abbey.html>
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edwardabbe393644.html#SwrH6dIRqSMejstu.99
/Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise
enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule
others. / Ed Abbey
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise
enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edwardabbe393644.html#lllfigmbpmOvJlwZ.99
/Love your Mother (earth)!/// Darryl Hannah
/Earth First! / Dave Foreman
- Steve
I thought this might be of general interest, the author is an
environmental philosopher.
http://enviroethics.org/2014/04/22/blog-when-did-earth-day-get-so-lame/
"Today is Earth Day, April 22, 2014. Like most Earth Days these days, a
few grey-haired environmentalists may take note of the event,
celebrities will tweet meaningless platitudes like Daryl Hannah?s
exhortation that we should all ?love your mother,? and college students
will have celebrations at their campuses emphasizing individual consumer
choice and the pursuit of sustainability through better technology. When
did Earth Day become so lame?"
...
Leigh
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