The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011, will bring together representatives of the world’s governments, international organizations and civil society. The discussions will seek to advance, in a balanced fashion, the implementation of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the Bali Action Plan, agreed at COP 13 in 2007, and the Cancun Agreements, reached at COP 16 last December.
Go to this site throughout the next ten days to keep track of progress toward these goals and to use this information to contact your congressional representatives and local government for energy and economic steps that would contribute toward reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG). We have an exceptional opportunity to make better decisions today but they are complex, pitting national goals seemingly against one another (jobs versus alternatives to fossil fuels i.e. oil sands, nuclear power, “clean” coal.)
Go to Yes! Magazine to keep a vision of what’s possible and what is already here in new technologies, new ways of knowing, and fresh ideas for sustaining communities with robust local economies. Improve your ecological knowledge by going to Ecoliteracy Institute and Small Planet Institute and New Economics Institute.
The Pulitzer Project
Last month I set out to read one Pulitzer Prize (PP) and one National Book Award (NBA) each month. My habitual reading has not included the books deemed the best writing in its genre. Since it is common advice by successful writers to read the best to improve one’s own writing, I began with fiction hoping to learn something and more, to enjoy reading great works.
November I read A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011 PP fiction) and Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (2010 NBA.) For December I will read Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010 PP fiction winner) and Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (2009 NBA.)
Check back this next week for my experience reading Egan and Gordon’s novels. I will create a separate page for the Pulitzer Prize and for the National Book Award discussions. If you have read any of these books please leave me your impressions, thoughts, and reactions to my reviews.
One thing: the first two books jolted me from my usual reading expectations—each was very hard to read. A Visit from the Goon Squad challenged my resolve to carry out the project. Lord of Misrule did, too, but for different reasons. I realized its similarity to Mark Twain’s stories that plop the reader into a world, time and characters without an instruction manual. A Visit from the Goon Squad brings particularities about our culture (digital divide among generations, fractured nature of experience) and historical period into focus. Lord of Misrule could be just about anytime in horse racing.
The uphill experience of reading the first two novels in itself taught me that true creativity is disruptive by its very nature. John Steinbeck asserted that writers should strive in their writing to uplift the human spirit. I wasn’t sure that these books did that for me. I will have to reread them.
A Turkey Story
Last night PBS aired a remarkable documentary: “My Life As a Turkey.”
From Facebook Page for PBS Nature: About the film: Based on the true story of writer and naturalist Joe Hutto, portrayed by wildlife photographer Jeff Palmer, this film chronicles Hutto’s remarkable experience of imprinting wild turkey eggs and raising the hatchlings to adulthood. Deep in the wilds of Florida, Hutto spent each day out and about as a “wild turkey” with his family of chicks — until the day came when he had to let his children grow up and go off on their own. As it turned out, this was harder than he ever imagined. Watch a preview.
For all of us Floridians, the scenes from hammock communities and the rich biodiversity supported by that habitat should be a reminder of our roots! One of the best books about Florida habitats is Priceless Florida by Ellie Whitney, D. Bruce Means, and Anne Rudloe. On page 86 it shows readers where they can observe temperate hammock communities. For Pensacoleans, Eglin Air Force Base has extensive hammock habitat, camping and hiking.
Go here to learn more about Joe Hutto’s book, Illumination in the Flatwoods. It is next on my reading list.
On Imprinting: Whose Your Mama?, PBS Nature
The Camellia Blossoms in Pensacola
Pensacola is home to America’s oldest Camellia Club, founded in 1937. I had the rare privilege of listening to Gordon Eade on Friday afternoon on the campus of University of West Florida. Gordon is a retired UWF faculty member and active in the Pensacola Camellia Club. In fact as we walked around the UWF Camellia Garden (established in 2007) he told me story after story of the plant’s namesake and showed me three varieties that he himself cultivated.
These photos were taken by moi last winter at UWF before I knew anything about the garden or the club. I just love the UWF campus—festooned with giant oaks with trains of silver moss above our heads as we walk to the office or to class. Azaleas, crapemyrtle and of course, camellias make me joyful no matter the cares of the day….
Return to Prodigal Summer…
By some magic I recently decided to reread Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. Swept down into the moist, green of an Appalachian holler, I experienced the author’s luscious language of procreation, love and desire. Only a biologist with the writing skills of Kingsolver can blend fiction with science and get away with it. Readers barely notice they are being instructed gently through storytelling to consider what may be lost under our feet through our inattention and by our misconception of where we humans fit into the larger scheme of things.
The third sentence of Prodigal Summer is the whole of the story:
Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, every choice a world made new for the chosen.
Nature is not simply wallpaper in our lives. Kingsolver weaves a story of interrelationships reflective of the true reality of all living things: we are utterly dependent on each other.
Moving Planet
September 24, Moving Planet Day
Pensacola’s Moving Planet drew a hearty crew of bikers and riders. We had an enjoyable ride and speaker program and bike-building demonstration. View Photos. Our Mayor, three City Councilpersons, and the Director of the Escambia County Environmental Services.
At a time when unprecedented climate events are impacting all areas of the United States and much of the planet, renewed interest in climate change action is more than timely. Moving Planet is an international day of action organized by 350.org, a global community for reducing global warming by transition to non-fossil fuel economies.
In Pensacola, a dynamic event is planned with representation from bike shops, cycling clubs, University of West Florida Yellow Bike Program, Pensacola City Council Members, local activists, artists and citizens. Moving Planet-Pensacola will bring hundreds of people together to ride and to act to transform city neighborhoods and downtown to walkable, bikeable communities and area accessible to everyone. Sherri Myers and Brian Spencer will speak to the crowd about the ordinances and activities they are promoting at the council level, and to hear from citizens who walk and bike about kinds of planning and modifications that are needed on the street level.
This local event is part of an international day of action planned by Bill McKibben and 350.org, the organization he founded to galvanize collective action to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts per million or less. Since its founding in 2007 350.org has raised awareness of the imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to safe levels and how citizens can empower themselves to make a difference while having a Whole Lot of Fun!
September 22th update: An NPR program aired today about legislation that would support cities trying to improve bike infrastructure receiving resistance by Republicans in Congress.
BP Ramps Up Activity in the Gulf of Mexico
“BP LOOKS TO RAMP UP GULF OF MEXICO ACTIVITY”
From the Society of Environmental Journalists:
“BP Plc is looking to ramp up activity in the Gulf of Mexico in the
coming months and is applying for new well permits there this quarter,
an executive said on Tuesday, as the firm looks to move on from a huge
oil spill last year.” Prashant Mehra and Henry Foy report for Reuters
September 7, 2011.
Out and About
Living on the Gulf of Mexico heightened my awareness of the good sense to make refuges, parks, and preserves. Pensacola has one of the least developed barrier islands and is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, 130 miles of national parkland stretching from Ocean Springs, Mississippi to Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.
As a National Park, it is charged with finding the balance between preserving the ecological communities in its boundaries, but also making them accessible to people for their knowledge and enjoyment. This is increasingly a difficult balance.
On a recent visit to Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, I was also reminded that a refuge has a different governing body – the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Each American inherits 623 million acres of protected lands at their birth. Within this great treasure, parks, refuges, and wilderness status protects land in different ways and each system is governed by a specific governing agency. A wilderness designation protects land from any development – roads, etc are not allowed. However, people can hunt on wilderness lands. For species, a wilderness is an unencumbered, natural system.
Florida has numerous wilderness areas. But, all this may change sooner than we like to think. Check out the latest article in Grist Magazine on Florida’s shrinking coastline as ocean level rises.
The First American Democracy
“The future is a construct that is shaped in the present, and that is why to be responsible in the present is the only way of taking serious responsibility for the future. What is important is not the fulfillment of all one’s dreams, but the stubborn determination to continue dreaming.”
~ Gioconda Belli, The Country Under My Skin
Nothing can replace the act of seeking knowledge for oneself. I can read about it, have it explained, or live it through another person’s experience, but in each case I see it incompletely, like the blind man holding the elephant’s tail.
For Americans eighteen and older this has never been more relevant.
In 1990 I sought to learn about our nation’s first people by going to them. I left a high profile position at a well known institution, sold or gave away most of my possessions, packed up my pick up, and traveled to a dusty border town trusting my inner compass. There was a man and woman who agreed to take me on as an apprentice and student to help me understand American culture and my own life’s course through an examination of my country’s historical relationship with the First Americans and with the land, water, air, and wildlife of the North American continent.
Why did I do that, you may wonder. I had come to the realization that instead of my nation being a beacon of light in the world, it was in fact an empire to many other nations and peoples whose cultural beliefs and lands were at odds with ours. How could there be hunger in a land of plenty? Why were democratic rights applied conditionally to members of our own society and in the world – and my culture accept that? How could we destroy the great natural beauty and abundance of our lands even while extolling how much we love it?
It made no sense to me and created a pervading sense of living a lie. I remember the unreality of my life then as I drove to work where architecturally beautiful buildings and the expansive green of a golf course tumbled down to the deep blue of the Pacific ocean. My day was stressful administering programs at a world renown health care facility where patients—banged up in the American market wars and social striving—suffered from heart problems, addiction, or complications from obesity.
One day I sat looking out the picture windows of my corporate office on a singing blue-sky day in southern California. Internally I felt lost and weak. My eyes settled on a book that had lain unread on my shelves for many years: Touch the Earth (T.C. McLuhan.) It is a book of Indian values from Indian voices.
At the first reading I experienced a profound sense of sanity return to me. In them I found a direction to pursue the answers to my deepest questions. I became aware of a pulsing hunger at my core for this knowledge, like something precious lost and then vaguely rememberd. Could it be that we have within us the knowledge of past human wisdom buried in our brains at birth? Looking back now, I realize that I had no choice but to make the decisions that led me to seek guidance and leave all I had known before – to clear the decks and make way for something new.
The next three years of living in the daily presence of two American Indian educators (one a Mojave elder, college professor, Korean veteran and social worker; the other an Iroquois artist and musician.) Their guidance changed the way I see myself and the world around me. I still believe the experience made me a better person. But the story of how that evolved is a hard one and definitely not what I had expected. The path to self-understanding is a crucible where falseness is burned away and a tender new skin grown. It requires humility, determination, and humor. It is anything but glamorous.
I hope you will return to my blog for journal entries about my experiences. Until then, here are some links to explore:
American Pubic Media “On Being”
I know that my discovery of “On Being” at 6 am on my local public radio station, WUWF.org, reveals just how out of it a person can be in a world with a cornucopia of media sources. Apparently the program has been broadcasting since 2008! However, humbly, I submit this link to this interview with Terry Tempest Williams.
The recorded podcasts on their main page are a treasure trove of some of our greatest spiritual voices and cultural innovators. This might be a very good way to “reset” your moral compass after a day or week out on Main Street.
Krista Tippett is the moderator. The link above to the unedited discussion with Terry includes many personal statements by both Terry and Krista that give additional insights into their focus and personalities.
I’ve been reading Terry’s books, blogs, and following her activities for the last 15 years. I am convinced that she is on the forward edge of an emerging sensibility that seeks to bring together divergent perspectives in American culture for open dialogue and understanding. She gives numerous examples of how she personally is able to sit with people who hold opposite points of view and learn from them and stay in the dialogue….
If you read one book by Williams, read Refuge. You will understand then how Terry weaves the deeply personal, landscape, religion, spirituality, politics and the art of dialogue. This perspective might be similar to present and previous Earth – focused cultures (e.g. native cultures worldwide; ancient earth-based cultures.) However, what is evident in this interview and many others on the site, is an emergent blend of our best past and present thought. There is a heightened awareness of something much greater than ourselves, the issues at hand, and what we can perceive.
Listen and learn from a person who has learned to stay in the crucible of conflict and transform it into something of beauty….
Susan Feathers 