My Day

Last night I went to an amazing event put on by the Poetry Society of America -- one of those poetry readings you tell people about and remember forever:

Wednesday, April 2nd
panel 4:00pm, reading 6:30pm
Boston, MA
STATE OF THE ART: AFRICAN-AMERICAN POETRY TODAY

Two events showcasing the range of distinctive voices in contemporary African-American poetry. With Elizabeth Alexander, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Nikki Giovanni, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn Lundy Martin, Carl Phillips, Quincy Troupe, Sonia Sanchez, and Afaa Michael Weaver. Hosted by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University and co-sponsored by Boston Review and Cave Canem.

I have been having a crisis of poetic faith of late -- and there is nothing to give you back faith in a process than to see one after the other incredible poet read their work. The beauty in the room last night was staggering, and it felt like an honor to be alive.

Yesterday I went to my favorite spin class. It's with this young extreme sports guy who is always having us close our eyes and imagine a mountain or a river or a certain kind of air. This class, he was on a geese kick. He told us about how geese follow their elders because the elders remember the way.

I thought of that last night because so often the voices in poetry and society these days that we listen to are the young ones -- but if we follow our elders... there are stories of hope and redemption and progress and love to be had.

Yesterday I read an article in the Phillyburbs.com, poet Jorie Graham talked about her new book, "Sea Change," which deals with issues of the earth and of climate:

DW: This collection feels as if it ties the connection between the past and the unknown future into a state of teetering present—yet you weave hope throughout. Would you consider yourself a hopeful person? Do you have faith in the future?

JG: In the short run I cannot but hope, I wouldn’t have written this if I were hopeless. I think artists have a large responsibility at present—that of awakening the imagination of a deep future. If humans have to be asked to make sacrifices for people they do not even know will be alive—sacrifices the results of which will not be evident, if at all, except four or five generations hence, then we are going to have to help awaken an imagination of that “deep” future, in order that people feel “connected” to it in their willingness to act. After all people are going to be asked to radically alter their lives--for their whole lives-- in order that their kind and their world might remain. I happen to feel one can reawaken that sensation of an “unimaginably” far off horizon. We are so collapsed-down now into a buzzing noisy here-and-now, an era of instant gratification, decimated attention-span, that it is going to take some work to help people “see” in their mind’s “eye” that far off horizon many generations beyond their own time, a time towards which they are going to have to try to take a leap of faith—and a leap which involves deep sacrifice at that. But I wouldn’t be making the effort to answer you in this way, at length, or to write such a book, if I did not believe we still had that chance. A real chance. And that art could be in service of that goal.

Spin guy also told us that in the pack, a goose can fly 71 percent farther than he can alone.

So today I will surround myself with poetry -- keep it like a warm coat --
and hope that the real future is the integration -- of poetry and journalism -- of loss and love -- or language and feeling. That if the poets and the poems can -- we too can move to a place of truth -- of balance.

Cornelius Eady read last night.


Crows in a Strong Wind
by Cornelius Eady

Off go the crows from the roof.
The crows can’t hold on.
They might as well
Be perched on an oil slick.

Such an awkward dance,
These gentlemen
In their spottled-black coats.
Such a tipsy dance,

As if they didn’t know where they were.
Such a humorous dance,
As they try to set things right,
As the wind reduces them.

Such a sorrowful dance.
How embarrassing is love
When it goes wrong

In front of everyone.


Cornelius Eady, “Crows in a Strong Wind” from Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997). Copyright © 1985 by Cornelius Eady. Used with the permission of the author.

Source: Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1997).
And the Poetry Foundation website.

My Public

Yesterday I wrote about Obama's advertisement about the price of oil.
Advertising was also the subject of another article in the Washington Post:

"Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history."

Gore says, "The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws."

"The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into national policy changes, Gore said in an hour-long phone interview last week. He said the campaign, which Gore is helping to fund, was undertaken in large part because of his fear that U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to curb the human-generated emissions linked to climate change.

"This climate crisis is so interwoven with habits and patterns that are so entrenched, the elected officials in both parties are going to be timid about enacting the bold changes that are needed until there is a change in the public's sense of urgency in addressing this crisis," Gore said. "I've tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it.""

I'm so glad to hear this -- I'm glad to hear he's putting his peace prize to good use (he's putting in all the profits from the film, the book, the prizes -- according to the article.) I'm glad to think there is someone out there fighting this fight -- with big bucks and brains an know how. Also -- just in terms of government faith and healing, it's good to hear of someone exceeding expectations rather than falling short!

As a mother of young children I think about advertising all the time -- what the kids see and what they do -- who tries to sell them what and when. Junk, always. Consumerism all the time.

Isn't it nice to imagine that aside from the barrage of barbie and webkins (whose sole purpose of gaming is to sell more and make a game of buying!) -- that some of the advertising they receive over their childhood could actually be good information as well. One of the campaign's partners is the Girl Scouts. (I think we need a new cookie! Maybe an oil cookie?)

Furthermore, isn't it a refreshing opinion of democracy! People need to decide. If we do decide -- en mass -- we can effect change. We can vote and change the outcome of the future!

My Candidate

Since the gas lines of the ’70’s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed — except now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas.

I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil.

I approve this message because it’s time that Washington worked for you. Not them.

It's a TV ad -- airing today in Penn. Link Here.

I guess there's some question about whether or not he takes any money from the industry -- a suggested misrepresentation by the Clinton campaign. I hate to see them slandering each other -- I really admire Hiallary Clinton; I think she'd make a terrific president. I really wish we could see what they could do together.

I find it hard to imagine the the oil companies don't give everyone money somehow...

It seems pretty much like what needs to be done -- aside from the obvious omission of the environment -- but I understand that. You have got to choose your motivation, your appeal.

I'm glad to see this ad. I don't really believe in campaign promises or put too much stock in them -- but wouldn't it be nice to believe...


I first saw this ad on The Oil Drum, then followed a link to the NYTimes.

Paint It Black

Last week, a famous British Columbian painter, Robert Bateman, posted a video on Youtube called "Not a Pretty Picture." Bateman has spent his life painting the landscape and wildlife of Northern Canada -- his paintings are in the Smithsonian, and without going too far into it I found one painting listed in an on-line auction for $90,000. They are lovely.



The purpose of the video is to try to prevent the passage of oil tankers through the region. In the video, the 78 year-old artists paints his own painting black.



According to an article in the Vancuver Sun last week,

"Fears over tanker traffic in B.C. waters have escalated since Enbridge Inc. last month rekindled plans for a $4-billion pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat.

If the pipeline is approved, the port would be expanded and crude oil shipped by tanker to overseas markets."

I'll look more into the exploration in BC another morning, but right now I am simply transfixed by this video in which the painter takes one of his own images of the magnificent water way -- filled with whales and birds -- and paints it black.

"We have to think about what can happen to thousands of organisms if there is an oil spill, and we know these can be treacherous waters, from what happened to the Queen of the North and the Exxon Valdez," Bateman said."

Okay -- it looses something -- well, a lot -- to find out the depicted "Orca Procession" a reproduction.

"The picture on the easel is a print, not the original, he admitted slightly reluctantly. It is, however, a digitally reproduced limited edition, probably worth a couple of thousand dollars."

But I love this.

For one thing, he paints beautifully, even as he tries to be ugly with it. His strokes are elegant and his work comes through even here. It's such a violent thing -- the covering over and the blanketing -- an allusion to the image of the landscape after the Valdez spill. Rocks coated, birds coated, a wildlife destroyed.

One of the comments on Youtube said, "oil is a natural substance. The Exxon Valdez disaster was one of the largest so called spills and as little of time as 19 years you have a full recovery. Why? because crude oil is a natural substance. If this substance bubbles up from the bottom of the ocean floor then what. I say lets burn and use as much as possible before it comes to the surface, including off the coast of BC."

But of course, this isn't true. The land and the lifestyle there was devastated and has never returned to what it was. I read somewhere the other day that Exxon is the single most profitable corporation in the history of the free market.

By the way, I looked into oil paint ingredients a few months ago -- vegetable oil; usually linseed, I believe.

Robert Bateman's site is at
http://www.robertbateman.ca/art/arttitlepage.html
The Youtube video is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKVRuelvJ-s

Generating Hope

Over the last two weeks, over the course of spring break, a project has been going on in New Orleans to enlist college students to rebuild the lower 9th Ward. The project had several goals -- affordability, preservation and greening up the place.

"In the Holy Cross Neighborhood of the city's Lower Ninth Ward, the Historic Green project is helping a New Orleans neighborhood become the nation's first zero-carbon community.

"In the short-term, the project will be a success if it gives the neighborhood a sense that they matter. After all the post-trauma, lack of support and other issues they've dealt with, bringing teams of volunteers to show their support is a key element in generating hope for their desperate situation."

--Ryan Evans, Co-founder, Historic Green

For the past two weeks, hundreds of volunteers have been working in New Orleans, bringing their energy and ideas to help revitalize the Lower Ninth neighborhood. They are architects, engineers, city planners, landscapers, interior designers and contractors who are working hand in hand with neighborhood residents to sustainably rebuild their historic houses, parks, playgrounds and community centers."

Story Here. First spotted Here.


Brad Pitt's website Here.

Smart, right -- put it back together better -- the houses will cost less to maintain and be easier on the future. Easier in the future for the people and the earth.

I wrote a few months back that part of the reason that New Orleans was hit so hard by Katrina had to do with erosion because of the states oil industry. There is also talk that global warming is to blame for some of the extreme weather we are getting these days -- though that statement seems to be more controversial.

I love the idea of those kids going down there to work. Spending their money there and doing something good for the people of this country who need it.

Sometimes people ask me if I really do this project everyday -- or are amazed to see that I do it everyday -- or wonder why on earth I would. I love the things I learn.

I think about a drawing assignment I had in college. The prof assigned us a 10 hour still-life. No one did it -- everyone laughed. But I did. I wanted to see what would happen. What it would teach me about drawing. So much -- about depth and growth and seeing. It taught me about time, and dealing with the changes that took place -- in the still life (If I remember right the assignment took place in an unlocked studio over a weekend).

I am intrigued by the life this project takes on on its own. I imagine it will be a book -- though I don't have any idea of what the finished project will look like. Some weeks I'm bored or hate the whole thing -- but it's the continuing through that that matters. I'm also interested in the changes of mood. Sometimes in my poems i feel like there is one emotional place I write from -- my photographs, too -- and this project has forced me to break that open; there are days I need to laugh or scream or be quiet, and solving the problem of how to do that inside of the framework is really interesting to me.

This week I'm looking for hope.

The Best Tool We Have

"The oil rig rumbles to life, breaking the early morning quiet in this neighborhood of urban townhouses and big box stores with a deafening screech and roar."

So reads the lead in a story by Gillian Flaccus for Newsweek. Because the price of oil is so high, many wells previously deemed empty enough are being revisited with new and better technology to drain every last drop.

There are some concerns, according to the article, that some of the wells have been in disrepair for a long time, that some of the new ways of drilling and extracting could prove unstable, and that unforeseen environmental effects could be big.

I am intrigued by this.
What do we revisit when the stakes are raised -- when time passes...
The crumbs we leave behind during prosperity may be nourishment later.

Then I came across a great website. The website for the Union of Concerned Scientists. They have all sorts of great information there!

And look at this:

"Increasing fuel economy is by far the best tool we have for cutting our oil dependence. It will deliver fast results. It has been proven to work from experience—we roughly doubled the fuel economy of our cars between the 1970s and the late 1980s. We can do this right now. The technology needed to increase the average fuel economy of our cars and trucks to 40 miles per gallon (mpg) has already been developed, but for the most part is collecting dust on automakers' shelves.

If we increased fuel economy to 40 mpg over 10 years, then within 15 years we would have saved more oil than we would ever get out of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge over its entire 40-50 year life. And the savings from better fuel economy would keep on growing indefinitely, while the oil wells would dry up."

I'm not exactly sure what these two things have in common -- but I know I was relieved for the second -- and desperately needed a story that sounded not quite so desperate.

Healing

Some days I can't stand to open the newspaper. Today I sat down in front of my bookshelf to begin.

I came to one of my favorite books -- An anthology of Native American Literature I got in college.

I kept finding myself wanting to use a search engine on my books -- but as this is impossible, I went back to the computer.

I googled Yusef Komunyakaa, oil and poems together -- I don't know why him... He's one of my favorites. Seemed likely oil might have crossed his lips -- he writes about the earth -- and about war -- and about people...

I found this:

You and I are Disappearing -- Bjorn Hakansson

The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak

she burns like a piece of paper.

She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.

We stand with our hands

hanging at our sides,
while she burns

like a sack of dry ice.

She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker's cigar,

silent as quicksilver.

A tiger under a rainbow
at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.

You can hear him read it here. I love his readings. He is a veteran of the Vietnam war.

Yesterday I wrote about healing -- or lack there of. About the fact that we can disrupt our own healing down to the cellular level...

and then a friend, a spiritual healer, wrote me out of the blue. I don't think she'd read my post yesterday -- just knew to write.

So there is also healing in the world -- on the energy level. The through the air and the spirit level.

Another poem -- this one from my bookshelf.


The Remedies

Half on the earth, half in the heart,
the remedies for all the things
which grieve us wait for those who know
the words to use to find them.

Penobscot people used to make
a medicine for cancer from mayapples
and South American people knew
the quinine cure for malaria
a thousand years ago.

But it is not just in the roots,
the stems, the leaves,
the thousand flowers
that healing lies.
Half of it lives within the words
the healer speaks.

And when the final time has come
for one to leave this Earth
there are no cures,
for Death is only
Part of live, not a disease.

Half on the Earth, half in the heart,
the remedies for all our pains
wait for the songs of healing.

by Joseph Bruchae
from:
The Remembered Earth
ed. Geary Hobson,
University of New Mexico Press, 1979

This post is for Kim.

Hypocracy is the Greatest Luxury

My friend from Paris said he thought gas was about $7/gallon there. I thought it would be easy to figure out -- but not. I've been looking for a half an hour and the closest I've gotten is an English blog post from December.


They put the price in December at about $9 per gallon.

Yesterday I went to the ocean.

I got a little lost. I do that sometimes -- it's my brain's way of tuning out. When I was really stressed out in college I would just 'go for a drive.' I drove cross country for 3 months when I was 22. Camped with my German Shepard from North Carolina to Big Sur.

Yesterday, I think I spent about $20 on gas -- just judging vaguely from the gauge. I think it should have cost me about $10. Though doing the numbers that estimate seems off. Maybe today I will follow things a little more closely.

I have a big car -- it's a really really safe car -- I got my first one when my daughter was born in 2001, and I've been in several accidents since and think they have saved us quite a bit of injury. I think I get about 20 mpg very roughly on average, driving mostly in the city. It also has a very big tank.

If gas was $9/ gallon it would cost $162 to fill up my tank.
It would cost me $20 to get to the beach and $50 to get lost. I use about a tank a week -- just doing the minimal things that I do -- school work grocery shopping. $162/week is more than I spend on anything else.

I firmly believe we should end subsidies to gas companies in this country. We consume a disproportionate amount of the world's oil and emit a disproportionate amount of the world's pollution.

I am not ready to not be able to afford to go to the ocean on a Sunday afternoon.

Life these days
can be so complex
we don't make the time
to stop and relfect
I know from first hand experience
one can go delerious
seriously it can be like that
But before I put my foot in my mouth
'cause that's what I'm about to start
talkin about
please let me confess before all the rest
that I'm afflicted
by this addicted like most in the US
It's tough to make a living when you're an artist
It's even tougher when you're socially conscious
Careerism, opportunism
can turn the politics into cartoonism
Let's not patronize or criticize
Let's open the door and look inside
Pull the file on the state of denial

Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury
Raise the Double Standard

-- Disposable Heroes of Hiphopcricy

Greasy Hair Clean Up

When I was little I lived for a while in Bowdoin, Maine. My mom built a sweet little house in the middle of 17 acres of woods -- our firewood came from the trees, our corn came from the garden and out water came from a well in the front yard.

Well water. We had a hand pump -- I don't remember what it was used for -- but I do remember the endless up and down with that noise of rubbing the metal against metal -- I think it was red. Inside we did have running water -- but it was often cold, and there were always concerns about it running out. Showers were rationed.

This was a traumatic thing at the time. I kept my hair long like Joan Jett -- and spent hours curling the front pieces with the iron that doubled as a microphone when Genella came over. But the effect was entirely undermined when my hair was greasy. My hair was often very greasy. As in embarrassing greasy -- as in, don't make me go to school like this greasy - as in, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it.

I was reminded of this in my search for stories about oil...

Turns out hair's affinity to oil is the basis of a grass roots oil spill operation in California.

A grass roots organization "A Matter of Trust" used mats made out of human hair to clean up the oil spill in San Francisco last year.

I first read about this last year -- now for some reason the original information isn't available anymore -- so -- at the risk of my memory failing, the hair mats were first designed by Phil McCory (his photo's still on the website) as small mats of mulch for potting plants -- and later applied to the oil spill.



After the mat has been soaked, Matter of Trust covers them with oil eating mushrooms.



Photos from Matter of Trust website.

Last the mat are composted.

"The mission of Matter of Trust is to Link ideas, spark action and materialize sustainable systems. We like to mimick how Mother Nature integrates enduring cycles and provides access to necessities in abundance. We concentrate on ecological and educational programs for manmade and natural surplus. The results are worthwhile, common sensical and often enchanting."

There Will Be No Other End Of The World

Okay -- here's kind of a crazy story. Well, it seems crazy to me, not being a geologist or an oil refiner.

The National Energy Technology Lab (NETL), owned and operated by the Department of Energy, "supports DOE’s mission to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States." All they do is study coal, oil and natural gas.

February 28, about two weeks ago, NETL sent out a press release about the furthering of a new program "sequestering" dangerous carbon dioxide gas. What does that mean? Does it mean that the emissions won't get to read the newspaper for two weeks? Will have to stay in a seedy motel and miss work?

No. It means they are injecting CO2 gas into holes in the earth to see if this would be a viable mean of storing the negative product of our emission-filled lives -- holes formerly filled by oil and coal.

There is the added benefit that by injecting oil basins with the gas it is possible to extract more oil than could previously be retrieved. Displacement as opposed to suction, I presume.

So they are doing this -- in Michigan -- to see how the gas will react.

This from a separate DOE website:

"In an enhanced oil recovery application, the integrity of the CO2 that remains in the reservoir is well-understood and very high, as long as the original pressure of the reservoir is not exceeded."

Umm... as long as...

Youtube has a bunch of videos of Co2 bombs going off. Soda bottle size bombs that explode and make some holes -- in earth in buildings...

"The Norwegian oil company, Statoil, is injecting approximately one million tonnes per year of recovered CO2 into the Utsira Sand, a saline formation under the sea associated with the Sleipner West Heimdel gas reservoir. The amount being sequestered is equivalent to the output of a 150-megawatt coal-fired power plant."

Yesterday I went on a walk in the woods with Sara, a veterinarian turned science professor. She showed me various different signs of spring -- mating bird songs and snow specked with snow fleas. These little jumping creatures have a life cycle of about two days. All they do is wake up, mate eat and jump. I said I wanted to write about them, but she said they were too beautiful to be written about with oil. Then we saw a red plastic gas jug littering the woods. I argued it was not simple to think of backing up our lives -- undoing transportation and mechanization that has altered the lives of humans. Maybe I'm just jealous that she gets to go to Florida next week and I don't.

I feel like I've been very disjointed lately -- almost like one story a day doesn't express what I want to right now -- it's an avalanche of stupidity -- a genocide of shortsightedness and greed and impossibility...

I do stupid things all the time. I set off on endeavors that are clearly misplaced from the start that pose the potential to cause harm...

Still,

They are experimenting with filling the earth with gas.

NOTE: March 13 -- yesterday someone told me that CO2 is inert and would not be dangerous in this capacity. I have to track someone down to tell me about it now...

An Unless

Yesterday President Bush threatened to veto the bill renewing the financial incentives for the production of alternative energy sources. The lead in the Times reads:

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a bill to extend more than $17 billion in tax credits and other incentives to encourage the production of energy from solar, wind and other renewable sources, and to promote energy conservation. The bill would be financed by ending tax incentives for oil and natural gas producers.

It's not easy. It's not going to be easy.

Oil went over $103 in Asian trading this morning. Some analysts are predicting $4 a gallon gas this spring. Some say that it's only by reflecting the true price of oil stripped of the subsidies that people will be motivated to find an alternative. I'm worried that alternative is going to be coal.

Last night I went to a lovely gathering in the home of one of my favorite people which -- the first in a series of gatherings of local moms to talk about what it is that we can do to make some sort of difference. While raising children is an amazing endeavor, there comes a point when you need to be able to both expand your own focus and also feel like you are working to ensure the world for them...

A terrific guy from the Mass. Democratic party came to talk to us -- just for fun. He is two years out of college, and communications director. Very knowledgeable, helpful -- and very starry-eyed.

The problem in trying to figure out any of this is ... well, the pressures from all angles of any issue become so complex.

Alternative energy, clean air, clean water, affordability, manageability, mobility...

I'm so cynical -- and a little bit of a conspiracy theorist at times... Is it possible that this tie in to oil was put into the bill to kill it? It seems unlikely given this administration that a bill funneling money from oil industries to alternative fuels would pass the big red stamp. Was it set up to fail? Was it set up to make a statement?

One Love

I've been interested in the rise of coal production -- I've noticed a few bad signs in my readings over the last few months -- law exemptions, plant openings... the kinds of murmurings that are single lines in disparate stories from time to time.

I wrote my favorite friendly climate scientist, Dr. Andrew Dessler to ask what he'd heard of late. All he said was that "coal production is an unmitigated disaster and should be halted immediately."

Of course, that's not what's happening.

A report from the Energy Information Administration, the official energy statistic site from the US government, projected coal production for the next many years. "In the IEO2007 reference case, world coal consumption increases by 74 percent over the projection period, from 114.4 quadrillion Btu in 2004 to 199.0 quadrillion Btu in 2030 (Figure 54). Coal consumption increases by 2.6 percent per year on average from 2004 to 2015, then slows to an average increase of 1.8 percent annually from 2015 to 2030."

Furthermore, " Although coal currently is the second-largest fuel source of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions (behind oil), accounting for 39 percent of the world total in 2004, it is projected to become the largest source by 2010. The two key factors underlying the increase are a more rapid projected growth rate for world coal consumption than for oil consumption and the fact that carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy output are higher for coal than for oil or natural gas. In 2030, coal’s share of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions is projected to be 43 percent, compared with 36 percent for oil and 21 percent for natural gas. "



I still keep thinking of Dickens -- and illustrations from his books of coal filled air. (This is one of the originals from Bleakhouse.)

One of the biggest factors right now is China -- where the country is changing so rapidly and is searching for ways to keep up with their own population.

But all over people are seeking alternatives to oil. I was reading another story in the Times today about wood heat -- it seems that all over the North East folks are dragging out their wood stoves to combat heating prices. Sounds good to me -- when I was younger, I lived with my mom in the middle of nowhere Maine -- we used an old Russian fireplace for heat -- a wood burning chimney that heated the whole house by conducting heat through bricks and tile floors.

"Air pollution is still a major concern, particularly with wood boilers. A 2006 report from the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a nonprofit association of Northeast air quality agencies, found that average particulate emissions from one outdoor wood boiler equaled that of 22 wood stoves, 205 oil furnaces or as many as 8,000 natural gas furnaces."

That I did not know. I didn't want to know it, either.


(From A Tale of Two Cities.)

Yesterday I talked a little bit about the pitfalls of two opposing motivations finding themselves with the same goal -- I was referring to the desire to find an alternative for oil -- those who would like to find an economic relief from the price of oil and those who would like to find an environmental relief from the price of oil may both move to further the production of ethanol. Still, because their motivations are different, should something go wrong, one group may no longer find the solution palatable. What then?

My friend Debbie said the question reminded her of a protest she saw in downtown Boston a few years ago -- there, Orthodox Jews and Nazi skinheads were protesting along side each other in condemnation of Israel. The Jews believe that Israel is an error because it is the requirement of Jews to live in peace with all living things. Not so much the Nazis.

Is one group glad of the others' success? Do the ends justify the means?

For me, it made me think of a very different situation -- but one, too, where opposing motivations wind up in collaboration of sorts. If one person is pursuing love and another is pursuing sex and the two find themselves together...


(Bleakhouse: The morning.)

What we want is not the same. What we need ...

One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
Hear the children crying (One Love)
Hear the children crying (One Heart)
Sayin' give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
Sayin' let's get together and feel all right

Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One Love)
There is one question I'd really like to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own?
Believe me

One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
As it was in the beginning (One Love)
So shall it be in the end (One Heart)
Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
One more thing

Let's get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One Love)
So when the Man comes there will be no no doom (One Song)
Have pity on those whose chances grove thinner
There ain't no hiding place from the Father of Creation

Sayin' One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
I'm pleading to mankind (One Love)
Oh Lord (One Heart)

Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
Let's get together and feel all right

-- Bob Marley

Back to the Future

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal's Environmental blog "Environmental Capital" ran a post discussing a new type of vehicle featured at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show in January. "Flex-fuel." As the name would imply, these cars can run on either ethanol, petroleum or a mix, I believe. According to the blog, GM hopes to make half of its production "flex-fuel" by 2012.

2012. I find myself asking again what the future will look like...
Who will be running for re-election; will there still be snow storms like the one we had last night...

As a total aside, I was watching "Meet the Robinsons" last night with my kids. It's such a sweet movie -- one of the best parts of it is the idea of a rejected orphan looking into the future and seeing huge happy playful family. May our futures be happy... At any rate, I started wondering how much of my theory of time -- of how everything in time is linked inexorably and every tiny thing leads to the present -- a theory that gives me much peace -- I wonder how much of my philosophy of time and faith in the past has to do with growing up with shows like "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone" I watched with my dad when I was really little -- and later movies like "Back to the Future" and "Groundhog Day..." Charles Dickens must have really shocked people in his day.

I digress.

First of all -- "Flex-fuel" cars fulfill all requirements of being a hybrid vehicle despite the fact that they need never run on anything but petroleum. Loophole much?

Also necessary -- Right now, ethanol isn't widely available enough to count on. Jane Huckabee owns a "Flex-fuel" car -- but can't find corn oil anywhere...

Furthermore, when you do find ethanol, the $.40 or so savings per gallon is canceled out by a possible mpg reduction of over 25%, according to a December story in the Times.

Some of this argument has to do with the pursuit of ethanol as a monetary relief. $1/gallon ethanol is shimmering on the lips of the future...

And then there are the environmental warnings... in the last year many stories have been written about the environmental dangers of growing corn enough for real fuel consumption -- and the pressure on food production -- of ethanol.

Even if we give car companies the most sympathetic of motives -- that they really do want to be part of the solution and are trying to be flexible moving forward to adapt to changes as they might arise... even then we've got issues.

Maybe part of it is that groups with different motivations coming at one problem for entirely different reasons are linked in an unnatural way...

Money and the environment.

If some people are looking for an alternative to petroleum based solely on price -- and others are looking for an alternative based on the environmental situation the use of petroleum worsens -- can those people really work together without the needs of one group ultimately outweighing the other.

Does investment on future promise eliminate our being able to really look around to see what's not working as we go -- do we get into a track we can't find our way out of through momentum...

If the only real purpose of finding a new energy source is to save money we need a time machine to look at that future... the air, the water, the fields...


The Twilight Zone Gallery at SCIFI.com

There's no place like now

A few days ago I wrote that I was playing a bit of an energy game -- one that projected future fuel requirements based on the current state of affairs.
It seems I'm not the only one...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — War in Iran. Gasoline rationing, at $5 a gallon. A military draft. A Chinese takeover of Taiwan. Double-digit inflation and unemployment. The draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

This is where current energy policy is leading us, according to a nightmare scenario played out

played out where, you might ask -- in a basement while mom fixes a snack and a group of 12 year old boys take turns with a joystick? Oil Shockwave...

as a policy-making exercise here on Thursday by a group of former top government officials.

Far into the future?
2009.

The ignition for the game was $150 a barrel oil.
Oil yesterday closed above $100. It had hit $100 but hadn't closed there before.

The factors in the game included sanctions against Iran, instability in Central Asia and the political situation in Venezuela. I don't know what the Story in central Asia is -- guess I should figure that out tomorrow.

The group was led by the national security adviser, played by Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury during much of the Clinton administration. At one point, weighing a variety of unpleasant options, Mr. Rubin said in near despair, “This wouldn’t be this big a problem if the political system a few years ago had dealt with these issues.”

Carol M. Browner, the Democratic former head of the Environmental Protection Agency who played the secretary of energy, chimed in, “Year in and year out, it has been difficult to get a serious energy policy.” She and others noted that previous Congresses failed to act on auto mileage standards, efficiency measures and steps to replace foreign sources of oil. Michael D. McCurry, President Clinton’s former press secretary, who played a senior counselor to the fictional new president, said that energy issues were barely discussed in the 2008 campaign.

I'm not sure what piece is so alarming -- the proximity of the panic date -- the extreme and yet entirely plausible circumstances -- or, more than all that, the fact that private companies and retired government officials are enacting awful scenarios simply to try to get some attention -- and that the answers over and over revolve, in the future, of someone saying no one did anything now.

In the game, now is foregone...

Thursday’s exercise, the organizers acknowledge, was a bit of a stunt to publicize the issues and nudge Congress and the presidential candidates.

A few minutes ago, my alarm went off. I was downstairs and it went off loudly with an annoying rock song and scared the life out of my 7 year old daughter who had climbed into my bed for protection. I wonder what the world will look like for her.

I wrote a a friend I was feeling vulnerable yesterday...

Vulnerablity is a funny thing -- we can feel it and strong at the same time -- regard and disregard concern at the same time.

He didn't answer.

I don't know -- maybe I want to give someone in Washington a pair of ruby slippers:
There's no place like now; there's no place like now; there's no place like now.

How To

This from Slate Magazine:

explainer: Answers to your questions about the news.

Oops, I Made an Oil Spill …What should I do?

By Daniel Engber
Posted Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at 6:11 PM ET

A research vessel ran aground in a Hawaiian marine wildlife reserve on Sunday and appears to be leaking oil. Aerial surveillance of the crash site by the Coast Guard revealed a "rainbow-colored sheen" on the water, and the crew of the ship took actions to control the spread of a possible spill. What happens when your ship spills oil?

First, you report the spill to the Coast Guard, along with an explanation of what you plan to do about it. Big oil tankers must have a pre-approved "vessel response plan," which includes the name of a private marine cleanup company that can get the right equipment to the scene within a few hours. If you don't have a plan, the Coast Guard will hire a cleanup crew and send you the bill.

Big tankers are required to carry "spill kits" so their crews can start to mop up a slick before the pros arrive. Spill kits typically include pads of oleophilic (oil-attracting) material that soaks up the spill. These devices, called sorbent pads, come in many forms. Crews might use an 18-inch square that can be dabbed in the oil and then wrung out on board the ship; sometimes bales of hay are used.

Once a cleanup team has contained the oil, it can attempt to skim it off the surface of the water. Some skimmers work by separating the top layer mechanically; others use a sort of blotter or a suction mechanism. Very thick oils that resemble floating tar can be removed by hand, or with a pitchfork or shovel. Any of these mechanical methods for cleanup can be used immediately after a spill without prior approval from government officials.

Later on, workers can use chemicals or fire to clean up if the spill occurred far enough away from sensitive areas and if the government approves. "Dispersants" are EPA-approved chemicals—deployed from water cannons or from specialized booms—that break up the oil slick into tiny droplets that sink below the surface and wash away. If the oil slick isn't too thin, and if it's contained with a fire-resistant boom, workers can set it on fire. (This creates some local air pollution, which may be less dangerous than the water pollution.) The fire burns off most of the oil but leaves a viscous burn residue that either floats or sinks to the bottom—and must be picked up either way.

Cleanup crews have a few options to protect local shorelines and wildlife before they even come in contact with a spill. The land nearby can be pretreated with chemicals to prevent the oil from sticking when it washes ashore. Birds and other animals that might be affected can be "hazed"—frightened away—by high-tech scarecrows such as floating dummies, helium balloons, or propane scare cans, which fire off a frightening pop every minute or so.

Energyville

Well, I started out writing about a court case -- Environmental groups and local officials up in Alaska are suing to block the development up there -- and it looks like Shell has to wait for the court case to begin exploration on its lease of some 29 million acres of land... I may get back to this tomorrow -- in the meantime I've been playing a game...

Energyville.

I clicked on a paid advertising link on the New York Times article page and came across a very elaborate web site of the Chevron Corporation.

Energyville is a game where you (I) make energy decisions for the future of an imaginary city -- I didn't realize it was imaginary at first though; you put your own town's name in and it calls your city that name. I was really impressed until I noticed the plan and stats are the same for Cambridge and Dallas and Afdser. Energy levels, the site asserts for each city (2007-2015) are based on projected production patterns and lifestyles of prosperous countries in North America, Europe and Asia. There, factories consume/will consume 41.59 percent of the energy consumed; vehicles 19.83%; trucking and freight 9.05% airplanes 2.7%; single family homes 9.09%; apartment buildings 6.53% and commercial buildings 8.48%.

Anyway -- you go through the city and you substitute different energy sources for the current usages -- wind, solar, nuclear, coal hydro and bio fuels -- there are buttons for a few emerging energy sources -- but those options are unavailable because they haven't been discovered yet. The game supposedly tracks cost, environmental ramifications and security risks.

Not surprisingly, this game is an advertisement. After a few substitutions it tells you you need petroleum, and it makes sure to mention the problems with each alternative energy source along the way. I had never thought, for instance, of the issue of sea storms with off shore wind farms -- seem like black outs could conceivably go on for a little longer than usual... If you only load your city up with petroleum, on the other hand, it tells you that you need to work on diversification. Man cannot live on oil alone.

But what alarmed me most about inside of the game was the down play of the environmental effects of coal and nuclear power. The lead story in the Times today is about languishing nuclear waste sites -- waste hasn't been buried -- "The federal government is at least 20 years behind schedule on its obligation to bury nuclear waste." The addressing of our current state solely as a production and energy issue, and not as an environmental one seems to me the most damaging issue before us presently.

The other disheartening thing on this site was a link to the Kyoto Protocol. I spent some time reading some of the text of that agreement. I like the fact that I now have a PDF of the entire thing on my computer...

Elsewhere on the site, Chevron had a set of e-cards that was a print advertising campaign in the New Yorker:







Well, while I would certainly support us all going out and getting tandem bikes, driving a little slower, and downsizing out need for more more more, it seems to me that by offering this focus to consumers Chevron is saying one thing -- the need for larger changes are out of our control -- focus on what YOU can change and trust us to take care of the rest...

Since beginning this project I have made a lot of changes to my life - I've been quite happy about them, and keeping up with them to varying degrees. But I certainly don't think they are going to save the polar bears.

(As an aside I think someone needs to take a look at the health effects of florescent lights.)

Well -- I feel a little badly, but I'm not going to link the Chevron site here. If you really want to play it should be easy enough to find...

They also have a cool little counter on the front of the front of the page ala MacDonalds:
4.57 million gallons of oil were consumed during the writing of this post.

Essential Human Elements

Robert Bateman, Canada
Antarctic Evening – Humpback Whales

I'm still needing art. And I think it's interesting -- at a time when there is so much money being generated by and for oil in this country alone -- that there is no money for the arts. Some of this is a philosophical issue of what we choose as our values and what is important -- other is just logistics. Artists can't afford to do their work and live in this culture. In talking about funding for the arts -- and I include poetry and performance in this term -- we have to look at the role and purpose in art. Politics? Entertainment? Meaning? If we starve the arts what conversations do we end...

Yesterday, Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times bemoaned the lack of initiative in this country. Hard to imagine I could possible be more cynical than a New York Times reporter, but really -- we don't even back the UN...

Following the environmental tenants of that organization is this statement:

Internationally co-ordinated work on the environment has been led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), since its inception in 1973. UNEP has provided leadership and encouraged partnerships to care for the environment, for example, through Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) which have addressed issues such as species loss and the need for conservation at a global and regional level. UNEP has created much of the international environmental law in use today.

The three environmental principles of the Global Compact are drawn from a Declaration of Principles and an International Action Plan (Agenda 21) that emerged from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janerio in 1992. Chapter 30 of Agenda 21, identified that the policies and operations of business and industry can play a major role in reducing impacts on resource use and the environment. In particular, business can contribute through the promotion of cleaner production and responsible entrepreneurship.

The UN is a supporter of the arts in this endeavor.

"Science informs the mind, music and the heart but art connects with the human spirit," said Achim Steiner, Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP.

I love that. The human condition, right -- great art explores the human condition. Maybe that is part of what makes this particular topic so compelling, and so easy to integrate in terms of aesthetics and politics in a way that doesn't alienate one from the other -- demise is not foreign to the soul at all...

Steiner goes on to say: "We urgently need to empower all three of these essential human elements if we are to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities for economic, environmental and social renewal glimpsed through the lens of climate change."

25% of the worlds oil reserves are believed to reside in the Arctic.
The icebergs are melting at a rate that far exceeds all expectations.

For UN World Environment Day 2007, the Natural World Museum in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme produced an exhibition that addresses the theme of Climate Change from a global perspective - the melting and thawing of ice, snow and permafrost are environment-altering changes taking place around the world- from the Andes to the Himalayas to the melting ice caps of the Poles. "Change" the transition that occurs from same to different, the moment of transformation, a change of position or action. Change used in reference to our environment can describe the transformation of material substance -- from ice to water, liquid to gas - the changing conditions of our rivers, our rapidly melting glaciers,, and the overall changes in the earth's climate. Change requires organisms and organizations alike to adapt to new environmental conditions. Metaphorically, change can also refer to the transformation of society's mindset to act in a positive way individually and collectively to work toward a more sustainable future.
Press release from the Natural World Museum.

The Exhibit will be at the Field Museum in Chicago from April to October of this year.
I want to go.

Car free... calm... quiet... breathe...

I don't know -- yesterday I was writing about saying goodbye -- how does that enter in to conversation -- how do you say it when you can't imagine the future -- the new life...

And then comes a breath of fresh air...

A city is being planned in Abu Dhabi which will be entirely solar powered, zero carbon emissions, 100% recycling, car free... a future with clean air and less pollution. If plans hold, it will be up and running by 2016 -- my kids won't even be in college yet!

Groundbreaking is scheduled for Saturday for Masdar City, a nearly self-contained mini-municipality designed for up to 50,000 people rising from the desert next to Abu Dhabi's international airport and intended as a hub for academic and corporate research on nonpolluting energy technologies.

The 2.3-square-mile community, set behind walls to divert hot desert winds and airport noise, will be car free, according to the design by Foster + Partners, the London firm that has become a leading practitioner of energy-saving architecture.

The community, slightly smaller than the historic district of Venice, will have similar narrow pedestrian streets, but shaded by canopies made of photovoltaic panels. It will produce all of its own energy from sunlight.

Water will flow from a solar-powered seawater-desalinization plant. Produce will come from nearby greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or otherwise recycled, said Khaled Awad, property manager for the project.

The first phase, to be completed over the next two years, will be construction of the Masdar Institute, a graduate-level academic research center associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

From an article in The International Herald Tribune by Andrew C. Revkin.

In the Times DOT Earth Blog there's an interactive promotional video about the project -- it looks like something out of the Jetson's -- but it also looks pretty... "enjoy a fresh cup of coffee on the veranda in a car free environment..."

Car free... calm... quiet... breathe...

While it is unrelated to oil, I was further lifted this morning by a new report issued by the World Health Organization proposing a global anti-smoking campaign. The report goes tracks world-wide who is smoking and where in order to combat the situation with a huge anti-smoking communications.

There is hope.

Revkin makes a really big point that none of the major movements in sustainable energy happening here in the US. Even his lead in the International Herald Tribune pits the Gulf as an unlikely spot for such strides and why not Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico... I would further complain that while this story was given prominence in the International Herald Tribune, which is the international paper of the New York Times Corp., the story is relegated to the blog (albeit the best blog in the country) in the Times itself.

The World Health Organization report was funded by mayor Bloomberg himself.

I don't know -- I think where we live is all messed up. Power and money and an inability to change the situation we are in... overwhelming.

But there are people out there doing it -- and I don't care who they are or where they live -- we are all people. We are all here together -- and while I would prefer to say that we will be part of the solution, I'm just glad someone is working on a solution this morning.

Car free... calm... quiet... breathe...

Percentage of Fault Allocated

I couldn't even look at this at a normal hour today -- I'm at a bit of a loss, feeling like I've stumbled into some sort of gap in the project and also my own history that I'm not sure how to handle...

Anyway, I started looking through the NY Times cross referencing Brooklyn and lung disease. The thing is, I'm not really versed in computer assisted reporting, and the kind of project about Brooklyn I'm contemplating... well... I'm not sure I'm up for it.

February 26, 2007 The violinist and composer Leroy Jenkins, one of the pre-eminent musicians of 1970s free jazz, who worked on and around the lines between jazz and classical music, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 74 and lived in Brooklyn.

Larry Fink, 2005

Leroy Jenkins playing with the reunited Revolutionary Ensemble.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said his wife, Linda Harris.

link

*

Donald M. Halperin, a former New York state senator who represented shorefront neighborhoods of Brooklyn for 23 years and then served briefly as Gov. Mario M. Cuomo's housing commissioner, died on Monday in Brooklyn. He was 60.

The cause was lung cancer, said his wife, Brenda Halperin.
link

*

COMPANY NEWS; CIGARETTE MAKER FOUND PARTLY RESPONSIBLE IN MAN'S DEATH
Published: December 19, 2003
link
A New York jury said yesterday that Brown & Williamson, the maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes, was partly responsible for a Brooklyn man's death from lung cancer. A six-person jury at New York Supreme Court in Brooklyn said the man, Harry Frankson, who smoked cigarettes for more than 40 years, was 50 percent at fault for his illness, while British American Tobacco, which has operated in the United States as Brown & Williamson, and other defendants held the rest of the blame. The case was brought by Gladys Frankson, Mr. Frankson's widow. The jury will reconvene on Jan. 7 to determine punitive damages. It awarded the plaintiff $350,000 in damages, which will be reduced by half because of the percentage of fault allocated to the plaintiff. The company said it expected the case to be reversed eventually.

I've talked a lot over these last few months about responsibility --
I think that cigarette companies do have a responsibility for selling -- making money on -- administering toxins. Tobacco is one of the only ingestible carcinogens still for sale in this country --
People also have a responsibility - that of choice and free will...

The Brooklyn spill happened, was not cleaned up and was not revealed. If the worse case scenario were true in, and lung disease skyrocketed in Green Point -- is still skyrocketing -- what does that mean? And to smokers? Would the oil companies then owe a percentage of the fault of death? Would cigarette companies be off the hook?

I still just can't quite get my mind around it --
the biggest oil spill in the country --
unnoticed
unattended to...
Could you examine the birds of Brooklyn? Are there any birds left in Brooklyn?

Out the kitchen window in the apartment where my father grew up you could see the tomato plants in the back few feet of yard...
food grown of toxic soil...
permeated
ingested.

My Grandparents Lungs

some things just take a long time to recover from -- and some things are not cleaned up after well...

I myself am slow to get over things... I've been home for two days now and I'm still so tired I can barely see straight --
furthermore I'm still thinking about Brooklyn.

Here's the thing:
Both of my grandparents died of lung disease.

They were smokers -- so this was a surprise to no one. In his Green Point dining room turned clinic, with oozing bandages and an IV drip, my grandfather asked me if I smoked. I lied and said no -- I was 14 at the time -- he knew, I'm sure. He told me to never start. That is a conversation I have remembered with shame my whole life.

This changes none of that -- But still,
what if it wasn't just the smoke...

I thought I should fish around and look for fume inhalation and its relationship to lung disease... I found so much information I'm going to have to spend the next few days (or months) sifting through it.

Unfortunately, most of what I found was in PDF format... as I said, I can barely see straight, but here is one quote from The Material Safety Data Sheet from Granite Construction Incorporated:

"Inhalation: Petroleum asphalt emissions (fumes and vapors) may have an unpleasant odor, and my produce nausea and irritation of the upper respiratory tract. Elevated concentration of thermal decomposition (hydrocarbons) and chemical asphyxiation (carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide). Systematic effects associated with trace components (less than one percent) are not anticipated during normal use. Chronic exposure to elevated levels of asphalt emissions may result in chronic respiratory irritation and/or other lung disease."

Of course there is no article that I can find that says, "prolonged exposure from a 60 year old unattended oil spill in the earth surrounding ones bedroom results in lung disease."

Of course, I'm seriously contemplating an investigative reporting project. Ugh.

And I'm still thinking about yesterday's carpet cleaner -- satisfied that Exxon bought him a fan -- and saying that when he couldn't smell the fumes because of the fans they must be staying underground...

This was not what I expected to learn about oil.
Sometimes a thing becomes more personal than you could ever imagine.

Some people never talk about anything -- maybe talking is too intimate -- too immediate -- maybe it allows for realities one simply doesn't want to exist...

The thing is, what we don't talk about can kill us.
Things don't go away just because we manage to push them out of our senses.

We don't feel them, maybe -- but they live inside our lungs -- eating away at us.
Maybe they killed our ancestors.
Maybe they will kill our children, too...

I thought I would see what would happen if I learned one thing about oil everyday for a year...