The Secret Museum

The Gal from The Green E-Magazines

Last week I went to Verdopolis: The Future Green City with a comix-worthy dual identity: reporting for both Grist Magazine and WorldChanging. Seems to be working out, as I got sprightly dispatches off to Grist, and have luxurious time to think things through a bit more for WC.

Grist Dispatch One: Chillin' Verde

Grist Dispatch Two: Next and the City

Grist Dispatch Three: The Three Marketeers

WorldChanging Report One: To Feed the Future Green City, Invite the Earth to Dinner

WorldChanging Report Two (forthcoming): Having Your Heirloom Free Range Turkey and Eating It at Your Sustainable Table in Your Couture Green Jeans, Too

Titan!

ESA Cassini-Huygens

Worldchanging on the WELL

Join WorldChanging on the Well from August 27 through September 10. We'll be discussing everything WorldChanging on the world's best-known virtual community. Even if you're not a Well member, you're welcome to participate -- come on by and say hi!

Bush Administration vs. Science: The Ongoing Annals

From an interview between George W. Bush and the New York Times, written up in today's edition:

On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming.

Three high-level appointees signed off on the report, but the administration's position has not changed?

It sure seems like something changed. Maybe these signatories recovered their senses of shame.

What Are Whales For?

What happens after an international environmental policy seems to have worked? Do we return to old habits now that the crisis, maybe, has passed? How do we resolve different cultural practices, and varied economic needs?

What if someone just wants to eat whale?

As Andrew Revkin writes in today's New York Times, this scenario is being played out right now, as member nations of the International Whaling Commission (IOC) contemplate data suggesting that some whale populations have recovered enough to resume hunting.

Checking in

Sorry not to have posted more in recent days. Full work schedule (good!) and getting outside on bicycle and in kayak (summer!).

Right now: in San Francisco. Have just done two days of very engaging scenario building with some Worldchanging colleagues and about a dozen invited guests.

Starting August 27, four of us from Worldchanging--co-founders and editors Alex Steffen and Jamais Cascio, plus contributors myself and Jon Lebkowsky--will be guests at the open-to-all WELL conference inkwell.vue, riffing on models, tools and ideas for building a better future. C'mon by.

Disturbing Domestic Tranquility

Last week, six Greenpeace activists were charged with multiple state and federal felonies following a direct action. The activists scaled a Pennsylvania smokestack to hang a banner reading "The Bush Energy Plan Kills – Clean Energy Now!” Charges include burglary, rioting, and interfering with the function of a power plant--which the Greenpeacers did not actually do. Nor did they burgle or riot, needless to say. Greenpeace has always avowed and followed a philosophy of non-violence, including no damage to property.

These arrests follow the recent dismissal of a Justice Department indictment of Greenpeace under an obscure 19th century maritime law.

Apparently the FBI considers "ecoterrorism" (including animal-rights actions) to be the leading domestic terrorist threat in the United States. This is a disturbing announcement, coming as it does on the toes of a summer of intense non-violent activism to protect ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest.

Property destruction as an environmentalist tactic, one often employed by Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, is easy to reject. The Southern Policy Law Center, a pretty unimpeachable source for good information, reports on the more violent nature of the eco-fringe in Europe, noting that research scientists--people I tend to respect--are particularly worried about their projects and safety.

I don't say that it can't happen here.

However, as things currently stand in the U.S., Earth Island Institute notes that "the sum total of people killed or injured by ALF and ELF is, not to put too fine a point on it, zero," while "[L]iterally hundreds of incidents of violence - or threats of violence - against environmentalists fill police blotters nationwide."

Why doesn't the FBI consider anti-abortionists the most dire domestic terrorist threat? The fringe of that movement includes people who have actually mudered a doctor and a police officer, injured health care workers, and physically harassed private citizens trying to use women's health clinics.

As reported recently by Paul Krugman in the New York Times, the Justice Department seems to be keeping quiet about less politically expedient arrests, such as the foiling of a right-wing domestic terrorist plot in Texas in April 2003.

Independent progressive media group Common Dreams reports on the off-kilter priorities of domestic anti-terrorism efforts, which seem to emphasize surveillance, harassment and curtailing the free speech of dissenters from various Bush administration policies.

Small Creature on Big Sidewalk

Seen last night, walking home from the subway just after the rain:

I didn't want it to get crushed by some kids running by with a basketball, or nosed by someone's dog on the way to the park.

So, I found a leaf, and put it in front of the snail. The snail crept up onto the leaf, and as I took hold of it, began to shrink into its' shell even as it crept.

I thought about walking the shell-snail-leaf over to the park, which was still most of a block away, and maybe, not exactly what the snail was looking for. How to know. Right next to us was an ivy-and-hedge shaded front garden, which is kind of where the snail was headed. So I put the leaf, with the snail stuck to it, onto the stoop in front of the garden.

Eco Disaster Porn: Let's Go!

Although I enjoy the curmudgeonly rants of environmentalists like Bill McKibben, I'm still pleased with the green crowd's creative response to The Day After Tomorrow.

In case you're not caught up on the pop culture media press, TDAT is an upcoming disaster film. Rapid climate change, indeed! In TDAT, during a few short epic Hollywood weeks, tornados destroy Los Angeles (the Hollywood sign is turned into toothpicks, natch), a tidal wave engulfs New York, the temperature drops, and then a hell of a lot of snow falls, leading to scenes like this one:

Our heros exploring what I presume to be the 42nd Street Library, which is done up like the dacha in Dr. Zhivago.

I was resistant at first. I had to set aside my irritation at New York getting destroyed, AGAIN, in the movies. This is a Roland Emmerich film, and he took entirely too much glee in populating New York City with nebbishy stereotypes in Independence Day, and then let aliens destroy The Big Apple.

I got over it. New York City always gets it in the movies. And, despite 9/11, we almost never get it in real life, compared to London, Baghdad, Sarjevo, Moscow, or Dublin.

The destruction of New York City is THE universal cinema cliche for "death of The Cosmopolis by mega-event." May the Statue of Liberty live on for decades more as our time's Ozymandian symbol of the folly of human endeavor.

Then, a few folks, such as my Worldchanging editor Alex Steffen, raised a call to actively use the film to raise consciousness about climate change.

I was skeptical at first. Not because of the bad science, but because it's a Roland Emmerich film. The guy made bombastic hash of one of the best all time science fiction novels, and classic sf films, War of the Worlds.

However, finally, I come down on the side of TDAT. Why?

Because it is tiring to be so earnest that one can't simply enjoy pop culture. Roland Emmerich hacked H.G. Wells to pieces artistically, and all I got was this aesthetic headache.

While I worked at Greenpeace in DC, in '89-90, The Hunt For Red October came out. Most of the office went to see it opening night, organized by the Nuclear Free Seas campaign staff. Why? Because it was FUN. We laughed, a few of us groaned over Sean Connery's Scottish Russian accent, we had drinks afterwards.

One of our more wonky campaign issues made it to the big screen, in a completely glossy, over-the-top, Hollywood extravaganza, with handsome actors and high technology. Life was good.

So, now, activists have the same opportunity to see themselves moved from the fringe to the center on a complex issue, thanks to American big-budget movie excess. In their dead serious ways, NRDC gets it, Rainforest Action Network gets it, Worldwatch gets it.

Greenpeace, unsurprisingly, takes an especially media-rich approach.

And in delicious irony, this movie is financed by Fox, the Official Vertically Integrated Transnational Media Empire of the Bush Administration. Apparently Fox was not prepared for the uses that enviros would make of this movie in the face of Bush's stolid, anti-science, ideologically-driven refusal to act on climate change.

It comes out May 28. Let's go to the movies!

Worldchanging update

Here are some of my recent entries on Worldchanging:

They're Young, They're Hip, They...Garden

Wedding Bell Greens: Highly amusing for those who've known me for a long time--I'm not a wedding afficionado. It was all about finding an excuse to use that image! And it got lots of comments, so clearly folks enjoyed it.

Independent Journalism: Back to Iraq 3.0

Underground Literature--free books in the Mexico City subway

Fresh Kills: An Unnatural Context

Ambient Orb

Ambient Technologies, while already pretty well covered in the press, deserves a mention, for threatening to tear us all away from our keyboards and Internet connections by seamlessly integrating wireless communication of everyday data into our daily lives via cute, colorful interfaces shaped like orbs, pinwheels, panels, and key fobs.

So that we might actually be able to get up and go do something not tied to this chair and CRT.

Ok, well, anyway: Wil Wheaton really loves his Ambient Orb.

Heck, buy a bunch of 'em from Amazon and maybe I'll get a few cents in the mail.

Joining Worldchanging

I'm joining the ranks of regular contributors to Worldchanging. Very pleased to become the NYC representative for this great info blog. Thanks, Jamais and Alex.

My essay today is on the book (and idea) Pet Architecture Guidebook.

Freecycling goes mainstream

Today's local edition of the New York Times, Metro section, features an article on freecycling: One Sock, With Holes? I'll Take It. I recently signed up for the freecycling list myself, after reading about it on Worldchanging.

Now, what to cast off?

Several NYT stories today touch on facets of urban development, sustainability, alternative electrics, nature, laced with a heady whiff of corporate crime:

Jets Campaign for a Manhattan Stadium: NYC's Olympics 2012 bid, in part, fuels this idea to erect a major sports arena on Manhattan's west side. To counter community opposition, the Jets have partnered with local unions, agreeing to unionized staffing at high-end restaurants within the proposed complex.

The neighborhood that would be obliterated to make way for this project is a delicate, worn-down lattice of old brick buildings, warehouses, and parking lots. Some of the buildings have been renovated for new businesses and residences in recent years. They are human scale, elegant bridges between New York's past and present.

The Garbage and the Governor: Enron in Impeachment Inquiry: "Billed in 2001 as an energy trade by the trash authority, because it involved electricity generated by burning trash, the deal has since been characterized by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal as an illegal, unsecured loan to a company desperate for cash. Residents in 70 towns and cities served by the authority, representing 30 percent of the state's population, are now paying higher bills to make up for the loss."

Plus: Before a Fuel-Cell Deal, Enron Lobbyists Met With Rowland

Bitter Division for Sierra Club on Immigration: Land has carrying capacity. But ignoring the social context of an environmental issue is, well, wrong-headed.

A hopeful article in the Science section: Wolves Come Back (on Their Terms)

My favorite article of the day didn't make it online: Yesterday afternoon, police confiscated a caiman and a python from a man out for a stroll with these, his pets, in Central Park (he was allowed to keep his cockatoo). Exotic illegal pet stories are becoming a staple of NYC news, what with last fall's spectacular tiger recovery in Harlem, and six monkeys being found in Washington Heights last week.

I think the real story here is how marvelously prepared and sympathetic New York police and animal control seem to be towards these creatures. Writer Sabrina Tavernise quotes Michael Pastore of NYC Animal Care and Control in today's article: "There's a myriad of problems with these animals. They don't make great pets. A caiman belongs in a swamp in Central America and the python should be clinging to a tree somewhere."

What kind of threat to the Bush administration are you?

Found on The Creepy Turtle Pages, the "What threat to the Bush administration are you?" quiz.

Ah ha ha. It pegged me but good (the question about demontrating against the destruction of habitat was a dead giveaway):

Threat rating: Low. You are annoying, but too much
of a softy tree hugger to pose any threat to
the mighty machine of Republican progress. And
the FBI know where you live.

Art making and world events

How do we make art in the face of overwhelming world events? Since 9/11, at least three ideas for photo-based installations have come and gone while I sat and did nothing to realize them. Thinking too long brought on doubt.

In a recent issue of Orion Magazine, composer John Luther Adams wrote,

What is the value of art in a world on the verge of melting? An Orkney Island fiddler once observed: "Art must be of use." By counterpoint, John Cage said: "Only what one person understands helps all of us." Can they both be right?

Three decades ago I came to Alaska to help save the wilderness, and I was an environmental activist for years. When I left that work, I did so with the feeling that someone else could carry on my part in it, but that no one else could make my music. In recent years I'm wondering again about the meaning of my life's work...[H]ow can I make art that doesn't speak directly to world events?

I am able to decode how to respond to world events as an activist. Finding myself in direct, desperate opposition to the Bush administration, I write my articles, I register voters.

But as an artist, I am mute on the big issues. I can only observe small things: individual lives and deaths, the map of human nostalgia, loss, sadness, regret and depression. Perhaps a bittersweetness over the mixed blessing of memory.

I made this bowl (and burned the candle) the day after Spalding Gray's body was identified:

Report from a mad cyclist

My friend Lenny recently updated me on his doings as an Auckland, New Zealand bicycle activist (not his day job). I, in turn, have written it up as my first contribution to WorldChanging: New Zealand Commuting Challenge.

Thanks, Jamais.

Gale Norton bakes Alaska

The Bush Administration's answer to our dependence on gas and oil, the dependence that has left over 500 U.S. troops dead and nearly 10,000 injured in Iraq (and of course, a lot of Iraqis, but no one knows how many, and a few reporters and some nice people from the United Nations): drill it out of fragile, irreplacable Arctic wilderness. Or, as the Department of the Interior calls it, "National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)."

Some birds and whales may wonder what destroyed their their migratory rest stops, but that is a small thing when compared to the American SUVs, exempt from fuel efficiency standards, needing to get to highway rest stops. Dad, I gotta go!

The petro-spoils from the NPR-A should supply American needs for six months at current usage rates, folks! Who knows what it will cover by the time the Friends of Bush & Cheney, Inc. are actually pulling it out of the ground!

Alaska Wilderness League's backgrounder on the NPR-A

Environmental News Network (by AP): Interior finishes plan to open nearly 9 million acres in Alaska to drilling

A helpful map, courtesy of The Olympian (WA)

Well, not everyone's smoking a cigar: Rocky Mountain News, out of Colorado, reports that Area gas producers feel left out by Norton.

Well, whatever. I guess it will all be melted before the century's over, anyway.

little blue planet

Do you, like me, want to keep up with George Bush & Co., as they turn the nation's natural resources, air, water etc., and open/public lands over to their energy industry cronies and other fellow travelers? Undermine international environmental treaties? When they're not simply ignoring them?

There's a lot to read! A few links that can help:

BushGreenwatch — Tracking the Bush Administration's Environmental Misdeeds sends out daily updates. If by luck there's no new outrage in that day's news, BushGreenwatch fills in the background on Bush's environmental record. Back issues are archived; notable quotes noted.

Environment 2004, composed of former Clinton administration officials and other prominent enviros, looks to put the environment on the 2004 election agenda. It's got potential.

Tidepool is practically an elder of environmental news online. Daily updates of stories relevant to Salmon Nation, the central and northern Pacific coast of North America, with a very inclusive and intelligent editorial eye. Do you like to eat fish? Use wood? Well then, what happens in the Pacific NW will interest you.

The Viridian Design Movement archives Bruce Sterling's Viridian mailing list, which is mostly concerned with the progress of global warming. There's a lot of other shiny bright green material here too, and it's not strictly about Bush, the U.S., or climate change for that matter. Bruce uncovers stuff you might never otherwise hear about.

Soggy, deadly and hot enough for ya?

Climate change news:

WHO says climate change killing 150,000 a year , Reuters-India. And this is just the human death toll.

Extreme weather of climate change gives insurers a costly headache, The Guardian, UK. Deaths, schmeaths. This is costing real hard currency!

Inuit threat over global warming, from the BBC. Arctic natives from at least four separate countries threaten human rights suits against nations that don't abide by global climate treaties.

Scientists Criticize U.S. Reluctance To Acknowledge Climate Change, Deutche Welle, Germany. Asia and Africa drown. The U.S. emits one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. Must be the Bush administration calling for more research into climate change.

Bush's Most Disastrous Policy, from Republicons.org. I don't know anything about this site or who puts it up, but it's gratifying to read. Don't I deserve a few minutes of self-satisfaction?

Shafted, Salon, U.S.A. The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees uses (and abuses) of the nation's wildlands, including coal, oil and gas extraction. Bush appointee J. Steven Griles, Interior's deputy secretary, regularly meets with 20 years worth of friends and former employers in the energy industry. Now he's being investigated for ethics violations. Ya think?

It's been brilliantly, freakishly sunny

It's been brilliantly, freakishly sunny every day I've been in the Pacific Northwest so far. Meanwhile, at home in New York City, the wind is ripping the roofs off trucks and uprooting trees.

A girl's thoughts turn to global climate change at times like these.

Stopped by the office of The Bear Deluxe yesterday, to discuss future writing contributions with editor Tom Webb. (Here're some Sextoids I helped compile for the Winter 2000-2001 issue, Sex and the Environment.) The Bear's newest issue, Art and the Environment, is available not only west of the Rockies, but south of the Catskills, at Blackout Books, the St. Marks Bookstore, Gotham Book Mart, Gallery M.

I'm going to bring a few issues home to Brooklyn, towards arranging some distribution in the nation's largest Democratic county.

This morning I woke up fully adjusted to the fact that I was perched on the left coast, with the ocean to my west, instead of the right. Feels good.