In the caves and covered places of the Lower Pecos, on the northern banks of the Rio Grande, grand shamans spread their arms above ghostly congregations, sprout feathers, fur, fangs, and talons, and stretch exorbitantly across great canvases of rock.
Some have held their poses for 5,000 years, frozen in hues of purple, ochre and blood red set by ancient artists who climbed the rocks of these cliff-bound rivers to ply their sacred, colorful trade.
The art we see has been preserved in part because of its felicitous location, high, dry and remote. Nature was kind to it, but so were people. Until now, no one across its thousands of years of constant attention destroyed it.
On a July 8 Science Friday podcast, Solveig Turpin, the archeologist who is most responsible for bringing this treasure to the attention of the world, was asked whether, throughout the centuries, this sacred gallery and place of visions had been vandalized, or erased, or destroyed.
The answer was no. That does not mean it was left alone, set apart as an untouchable specimen of past spiritual messaging. Rather, it was mined as inspiration, an ever-flowing spiritual river alongside the might Rio Grande, channeling the invisible essence of life even as the river carried life's water. Sometimes younger artists drew in the same spaces as their ancestors, layering their work within the images of the previous drawings, nesting generation within generation, essence within essence.
Or sometimes, the archeologist suggested, a bit of the pigments might have been scraped off, mixed into the potent drinks of tribal puberty rights and imbibed by the initiates.
But both ways were expressions of absorption and honor. The one way sought to incorporate the youthful artists into the work of the ancestors. The other sought to incorporate the work of their ancestors into the youthful initiates.
The art is meant to be timeless. Eternal. It is a cycle of spirit and nature and civilization each nurturing the other. Nature-as-canvas and pigment and animal offers itself as a medium for the grand expression of civilization, which, in the hands of the artists, in turn offers a celebration of humankind's grandeur through the vocabulary of nature.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we too could see our civilization in such a way, not as transcending or mastering or subjugating nature but celebrating it? What if we imagined that our creations would one day be ground up and nurture (not poison) the next generations?
What would our world look like if we saw our cities, our medicine, our art, our roads, our buildings as artful expressions of an enduring civilization drawn with the fragile pigment of the earth?
How would we build and manufacture and consume if we imagined that for generations to come our creations would be displayed larger-than-life for all to gaze upon and critique?
How would we design our world if we remembered that we too, like the shamans, dance upon a thin canvas of earth that must be shared by all generations?
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Food Bites
My father taught me that if I bought a Rolex for $15 from a street vendor who swore it was real and later discovered that it was a fake, I was a fool. But if I bought a Rolex for $15 from a street vendor who swore it was real, and later discovered it was, I was a thief.
Nothing of great value comes cheap. Either I should have known it was fake or I should have known it was hot. Either way, I should not have bought it.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Especially when it comes to food. Look at America's food prices compared to those around the world. How we can continue to believe that cheap meat, cheap sodas, cheap junk food is (a) really food (the healthy, wholesome, natural stuff we are born to eat) and (b) cheap. Either it is faked or it is under-priced. In our case, it is both.
Someone, somehow, somewhere is paying for it - and that someone, in a conspiracy of ignorance, is us. In taxes, health and environmental degradation.
U.S. farm subsidies run about $15 billion, corn being one of the government's biggest commodity subsidies. That is why corn is so much cheaper than, say, carrots or broccoli or peppers.
And if you have seen the documentary Food, Inc., or King Corn, or otherwise noticed the ubiquitous nature of corn in products from asbestos to yogurt, you begin to understand the power and impact, both good and bad, of subsidies.
The good news is that we are mining the corn plant - the most heavily subsidize American food commodity - for all it is worth. The bad news is that it is cheaper to buy a box of 10 Twinkies (made with "Corn Syrup, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable and/or Animal Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed and/or Canola Oil, Beef Fat)" than two organic red peppers.
Yes, we can blame the Big Guys and the government in league with them, but we can only blame them so much. For business only works if the consumer buys.
75% or more of America's economy runs on personal consumer purchases. Which means that every purchase we make - or refuse to make - is a vote.
Those of us who can afford to color our hair, get our nails done regularly, eat out several times a week, own more than four pairs of shoes, have two or more winter coats, buy a data plan for our phones and a computer every other year can afford to buy organic, fair-trade, environmentally-friendly, animal-friendly, worker-friendly, restorative food.
We, the consumer, especially the consumer with a modicum of discretionary spending, must admit to our share in supporting environmentally degrading practices in our food system. While we need to continue to lobby for labeling of foods so we know where what-we-eat comes from, what's in it and how it might affect us; while we need to probe into and limit the monopolistic practices of big businesses like Monsanto and Perdue, we also must look to our role in the supporting this bad system.
It is our choices that keep them alive. Those of us with enough discretionary funds to choose to buy this and not that, to support this company and not that company, must do so. Every purchase is a statement; every bite is a vote.
And those of us who can afford it must put our money where our mouth is - or our mouth where our money is. Whichever: we need to buy food that is healthy for us, healthy for the farmers, healthy for the animals, and healthy for the planet. We need to use the power of the purse to support a wholesale change in a broken food system. If we won't, who will?
Nothing of great value comes cheap. Either I should have known it was fake or I should have known it was hot. Either way, I should not have bought it.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Especially when it comes to food. Look at America's food prices compared to those around the world. How we can continue to believe that cheap meat, cheap sodas, cheap junk food is (a) really food (the healthy, wholesome, natural stuff we are born to eat) and (b) cheap. Either it is faked or it is under-priced. In our case, it is both.
Someone, somehow, somewhere is paying for it - and that someone, in a conspiracy of ignorance, is us. In taxes, health and environmental degradation.
U.S. farm subsidies run about $15 billion, corn being one of the government's biggest commodity subsidies. That is why corn is so much cheaper than, say, carrots or broccoli or peppers.
And if you have seen the documentary Food, Inc., or King Corn, or otherwise noticed the ubiquitous nature of corn in products from asbestos to yogurt, you begin to understand the power and impact, both good and bad, of subsidies.
The good news is that we are mining the corn plant - the most heavily subsidize American food commodity - for all it is worth. The bad news is that it is cheaper to buy a box of 10 Twinkies (made with "Corn Syrup, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable and/or Animal Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed and/or Canola Oil, Beef Fat)" than two organic red peppers.
Yes, we can blame the Big Guys and the government in league with them, but we can only blame them so much. For business only works if the consumer buys.
75% or more of America's economy runs on personal consumer purchases. Which means that every purchase we make - or refuse to make - is a vote.
Those of us who can afford to color our hair, get our nails done regularly, eat out several times a week, own more than four pairs of shoes, have two or more winter coats, buy a data plan for our phones and a computer every other year can afford to buy organic, fair-trade, environmentally-friendly, animal-friendly, worker-friendly, restorative food.
We, the consumer, especially the consumer with a modicum of discretionary spending, must admit to our share in supporting environmentally degrading practices in our food system. While we need to continue to lobby for labeling of foods so we know where what-we-eat comes from, what's in it and how it might affect us; while we need to probe into and limit the monopolistic practices of big businesses like Monsanto and Perdue, we also must look to our role in the supporting this bad system.
It is our choices that keep them alive. Those of us with enough discretionary funds to choose to buy this and not that, to support this company and not that company, must do so. Every purchase is a statement; every bite is a vote.
And those of us who can afford it must put our money where our mouth is - or our mouth where our money is. Whichever: we need to buy food that is healthy for us, healthy for the farmers, healthy for the animals, and healthy for the planet. We need to use the power of the purse to support a wholesale change in a broken food system. If we won't, who will?
Sunday, July 24, 2011
A Guest
A single fawn has taken to bedding just outside our daughter's window. Nestled between a sweetbay magnolia and the warm stucco wall, the fawn disappears upon a bed of fallen leaves. (The magnolia is an evergreen that loses its leaves all year-round, which means no matter how voraciously the friendly microscopic beasties in the soil munch away, there is always a soft bedding of leaves beneath the tree.)
The fawn is always alone, and seems to walk with limp, its back legs moving stiffly, well past the time of newborn awkwardness.
So I don't know if it has been abandoned, or chooses to be alone. I don't know if it is happy or sad, at ease or just hanging on. Perhaps it comes out of despair, or perhaps it just wants some time to itself, an uncrowded space free of the demands of display, expectations, comparisons or performance. Perhaps it just likes the view.
The windows of the house there are easily at fawn-eye-level, and the fawn stood for a long time yesterday looking at them. I wonder if it saw its reflection, and if so, was it annoyed at this silent trespasser, this loiterer who crashed its secret place? or was it thinking that finally there was another else like him (her?) to play with, someone who could finally understand?
I am waiting for the fawn this morning, eager to see how it fills its place today.
(photo: the place where the fawn lies - though he/she is not there now)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Dirt is Us
I saw a dirty movie last night.Really. It is a movie about dirt, and is appropriately called Dirt.
It is a must-see, humorous, informative, and inspiring reminder of how awesome is this precious world of ours.
(It is free on-line, too, through Hulu and other video sites. Invite some friends over, turn down the lights, and turn up the sound.)
It reminds us of the essential role played by that humble stuff we step on, sweep away, pave over, push around and otherwise derisively call, a la Mary Douglas, stuff-out-of-place. Dirt is the word we tend to use for the stuff we don't want, that messes things up, that we want to wash off.
And yet, Dirt, soil, humus, adamah, is the stuff we are all made from. The first human, we all know, according to Torah, was called Adam, for he was made from adamah. And it is the stuff that grows the things that give us food, organic materials, shade, medicines, oxygen and much more.
We might as well say Dirt is Us. It is so simple and ubiquitous and yet so complex and increasingly rare.
It is - along with water - the single most unique ingredient of earth that allows the chemistry of our planet to mix with our abundant sunlight and give birth to life.
There is no life without healthy soil. So, while we do not need to fetishize it, or take it home in a jar or make it our pet, we do need to appreciate it, understand it, be in awe of it, and most of all protect and nourish it so that it can in turn protect and nourish us.
Watch the movie. Share it with your friends. And even if you leave the dirt outside, bring the message home.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Funding from Fracking
The Forward recently published a most disturbing piece about Jewish summer camps signing on to allow fracking (hydraulic fracturing) on their land.
Regardless of your view of the future of natural gas extraction, the current technology creates enormous and inequitable problems. And the exemptions that oil companies are extracting from governments are most distressing.
We should make our camp owners and directors aware that many of us are not willing to send our children to sites where the water and air is contaminated by fracking techniques.
Nor do we want to give our money to Jewish enterprises that endorse what is at present a reckless and destructive and inequitable energy effort.
We are now beginning to explore efforts to approach camp owners and talk with them about fracking. If you want to help us, please let me know.
Regardless of your view of the future of natural gas extraction, the current technology creates enormous and inequitable problems. And the exemptions that oil companies are extracting from governments are most distressing.
We should make our camp owners and directors aware that many of us are not willing to send our children to sites where the water and air is contaminated by fracking techniques.
Nor do we want to give our money to Jewish enterprises that endorse what is at present a reckless and destructive and inequitable energy effort.
We are now beginning to explore efforts to approach camp owners and talk with them about fracking. If you want to help us, please let me know.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Privacy Outdoors
There seems to be a consensus among folks who write about homes these days that privacy is (a) a modern value; (b) a modern luxury; or (c) at the very least, a modern amenity.
Perhaps because of the necessary modesty of the pre-modern home (few rooms serving multiple purposes for assorted occupants with little visual and aural barriers) there was an assumption of an accepted, or at least acquired, immodesty of spirit.
But I don't fully agree. We know from the midrash that the rabbis of old valued modesty of person and modesty of household. They cast their imaginations back and tell us that even in the trek through the wilderness, the Jews so valued modesty that they situated their tent openings in such a way that neighbors could not see directly into each others' domains.
And the gemara hailed one woman as being so pious that even the rafters of her house never saw the hair on her head (that is, she always kept her head modestly covered, even in the protected space of her home).
Privacy, so it seems, was always desired, even if not always readily available indoors. It was no doubt hard to finagle in the crowded, well-used square footage of older homes. So where could privacy be found?
One obvious answer is in the cover of darkness, the blanket of sleep, and the feigned deafness of fellow housemates. (Not unlike the way many of us live in apartments these days.)
But there was another way as well, that many of us in the more populated areas of the world have lost. Nature. The great outdoors. Woods and meadows and beaches and glades and gardens.
The rapturous biblical Song of Songs knows of this: "Come, my beloved, let us go into the open; let us lodge among the henna shrubs. Let us go early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine has flowered, if its blossoms have opened. If the pomegranates are in bloom, there I will give my love to you." (7:12-13)
If the indoors was often where we felt exposed, it was the outdoors where, at times, we could be free.
In a dense world that is getting denser all the time, it is hard to imagine that the commons was a place that could hold our secrets. (Though I imagine folks in Wyoming, with just over a half a million people settled across just under 100,000 square miles, might know the isolation of open spaces.)
But it was. We may never be able to feel the power and gifts of nature that our ancestors felt. We may never be able to conjure up what it felt like knowing there was still earth that had not been discovered, places that had not been settled; a "there" that had not been mapped.
We may never surmount the claustrophobic feeling we get when we think of how people have filled the banks and crevices of this tender planet, and peppered the world in volume, construction and waste.
But we should not project such feelings back onto our ancestors, who had a different relationship with relationships, with the gifts of the commons, and the shared-yet-private outdoors.
Perhaps because of the necessary modesty of the pre-modern home (few rooms serving multiple purposes for assorted occupants with little visual and aural barriers) there was an assumption of an accepted, or at least acquired, immodesty of spirit.
But I don't fully agree. We know from the midrash that the rabbis of old valued modesty of person and modesty of household. They cast their imaginations back and tell us that even in the trek through the wilderness, the Jews so valued modesty that they situated their tent openings in such a way that neighbors could not see directly into each others' domains.
And the gemara hailed one woman as being so pious that even the rafters of her house never saw the hair on her head (that is, she always kept her head modestly covered, even in the protected space of her home).
Privacy, so it seems, was always desired, even if not always readily available indoors. It was no doubt hard to finagle in the crowded, well-used square footage of older homes. So where could privacy be found?
One obvious answer is in the cover of darkness, the blanket of sleep, and the feigned deafness of fellow housemates. (Not unlike the way many of us live in apartments these days.)
But there was another way as well, that many of us in the more populated areas of the world have lost. Nature. The great outdoors. Woods and meadows and beaches and glades and gardens.
The rapturous biblical Song of Songs knows of this: "Come, my beloved, let us go into the open; let us lodge among the henna shrubs. Let us go early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine has flowered, if its blossoms have opened. If the pomegranates are in bloom, there I will give my love to you." (7:12-13)
If the indoors was often where we felt exposed, it was the outdoors where, at times, we could be free.
In a dense world that is getting denser all the time, it is hard to imagine that the commons was a place that could hold our secrets. (Though I imagine folks in Wyoming, with just over a half a million people settled across just under 100,000 square miles, might know the isolation of open spaces.)
But it was. We may never be able to feel the power and gifts of nature that our ancestors felt. We may never be able to conjure up what it felt like knowing there was still earth that had not been discovered, places that had not been settled; a "there" that had not been mapped.
We may never surmount the claustrophobic feeling we get when we think of how people have filled the banks and crevices of this tender planet, and peppered the world in volume, construction and waste.
But we should not project such feelings back onto our ancestors, who had a different relationship with relationships, with the gifts of the commons, and the shared-yet-private outdoors.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Friends are not Commodities
The New York Times ran an article recently that talked about how we are all now being scored on our "influence" factor.
Marketing firms are measuring and quantifying who listens to us and how much clout we exert through our presence in cyberspace. Vendors of all sorts can then buy this information to find out who are the leaders of the pack; who can sway consumers in their direction, and who can nudge steer the behaviors and thoughts of the rest of us.
While the metrics are certainly more sophisticated than this, most of us will undoubtedly think: the more "friends" we have on Facebook, the more Twitter followers, the more LinkedIn connections, the higher we will be rated. And whether accurate or not, these studies will likely have the affect of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more people believe someone has clout, the more clout someone has. And sooner or later, someone is going to game the system and figure out a way how to buy or manufacture a veneer of clout.
Which just adds to an already bad feeling I have about social networking (despite all the true good it also does). It turns "friends" into commodities and allows online relationships to be largely transactional (i.e., what can you do for me?).
I always feel a bit chumpish and a bit used when someone I know "friends" me, and I accept (whether out of a sense of obligation or delight) and then find that all they really wanted was to bulk up their collection of contacts or push a pet project or organization or cause through me and my network. In other words, our "friendship" is all about them.
Of course you can say we have been commodifying people for millennia, what with slavery and armies and markets of all sorts. But this new step seems to take people-as-commodity to a whole new level.
Social networking is here to stay. It has already contributed mightily to the democratization of the world and I am not such a troglodyte to rail against it. But I am arguing against the culture that is turning all of us into objects to be used, and against the growing discipline that is manipulating the private tracings (or what should be private tracings) of our social relations so that they are read and studied for partisan (ie, one-side and well-funded) commercial or social engineering purposes.
We know who gets shafted in such a world.
Marketing firms are measuring and quantifying who listens to us and how much clout we exert through our presence in cyberspace. Vendors of all sorts can then buy this information to find out who are the leaders of the pack; who can sway consumers in their direction, and who can nudge steer the behaviors and thoughts of the rest of us.
While the metrics are certainly more sophisticated than this, most of us will undoubtedly think: the more "friends" we have on Facebook, the more Twitter followers, the more LinkedIn connections, the higher we will be rated. And whether accurate or not, these studies will likely have the affect of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more people believe someone has clout, the more clout someone has. And sooner or later, someone is going to game the system and figure out a way how to buy or manufacture a veneer of clout.
Which just adds to an already bad feeling I have about social networking (despite all the true good it also does). It turns "friends" into commodities and allows online relationships to be largely transactional (i.e., what can you do for me?).
I always feel a bit chumpish and a bit used when someone I know "friends" me, and I accept (whether out of a sense of obligation or delight) and then find that all they really wanted was to bulk up their collection of contacts or push a pet project or organization or cause through me and my network. In other words, our "friendship" is all about them.
Of course you can say we have been commodifying people for millennia, what with slavery and armies and markets of all sorts. But this new step seems to take people-as-commodity to a whole new level.
Social networking is here to stay. It has already contributed mightily to the democratization of the world and I am not such a troglodyte to rail against it. But I am arguing against the culture that is turning all of us into objects to be used, and against the growing discipline that is manipulating the private tracings (or what should be private tracings) of our social relations so that they are read and studied for partisan (ie, one-side and well-funded) commercial or social engineering purposes.
We know who gets shafted in such a world.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A Champion in the Senate
Senator Cardin leads fight over pesticides
Maryland Democrat raises national profile on bay, environment
By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun
11:09 PM EDT, July 3, 2011
WASHINGTON — Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a longtime advocate of the Chesapeake Bay, is wading into the high-profile debate over the federal regulation of pesticides -- instantly putting him at odds with fellow Democrats while potentially raising his national profile on environmental issues.
Maryland's junior senator is threatening to filibuster a proposal to limit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's oversight of pesticides that end up in the nation's waterways, including the bay. The move, which at the very least will delay the legislation, has set off a behind-the-scenes scramble among advocates who hope to override him if he carries through on the threat.
For his part, Cardin said he believes the proposal needed slowing down.
"Pesticides have a direct impact on our water," Cardin, 67, said in an interview. "The hold allows us to use a more deliberative process and that gives us more of a chance to review" the legislation.
His decision to hold up the legislation, which sailed through the House of Representatives on a bipartisan vote in March and had recently been approved by a Senate committee, was the latest effort by Cardin to address clean water, an area in which the veteran lawmaker has taken a growing interest since coming to the Senate in 2007.
In April, he chaired a hearing on the natural gas drilling procedure known as hydraulic fracturing. Federal and state officials are studying the environmental impact of "fracking."
A month later, he introduced a bill to require that new federal highways capture polluted runoff after a storm, arguing that every inch of rain that falls on a mile of two-lane highway produces 52,000 gallons of contaminated water.
Finally, Cardin expects to reintroduce a comprehensive proposal this year that he says will strengthen cleanup of the Chesapeake. That measure, which failed to pass last year, requires states to craft plans to meet 2025 cleanup targets and would then prod officials by threatening to cut off federal funds.
The environmental news service Greenwire recently described Cardin as "the Senate's 'King of Water.'"
"He's really emerged as the go-to person in the United States Senate on clean water," said Doug Siglin, federal affairs director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Bob Gibbs, an Ohio Republican, in a response to a 2009 federal appeals court decision that required farmers and others using pesticides to obtain a special permit from the EPA and submit to more strict regulations. The implementation of that ruling, which has repeatedly been delayed, is set for October.
Maryland Democrat raises national profile on bay, environment
By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun
11:09 PM EDT, July 3, 2011
WASHINGTON — Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a longtime advocate of the Chesapeake Bay, is wading into the high-profile debate over the federal regulation of pesticides -- instantly putting him at odds with fellow Democrats while potentially raising his national profile on environmental issues.
Maryland's junior senator is threatening to filibuster a proposal to limit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's oversight of pesticides that end up in the nation's waterways, including the bay. The move, which at the very least will delay the legislation, has set off a behind-the-scenes scramble among advocates who hope to override him if he carries through on the threat.
For his part, Cardin said he believes the proposal needed slowing down.
"Pesticides have a direct impact on our water," Cardin, 67, said in an interview. "The hold allows us to use a more deliberative process and that gives us more of a chance to review" the legislation.
His decision to hold up the legislation, which sailed through the House of Representatives on a bipartisan vote in March and had recently been approved by a Senate committee, was the latest effort by Cardin to address clean water, an area in which the veteran lawmaker has taken a growing interest since coming to the Senate in 2007.
In April, he chaired a hearing on the natural gas drilling procedure known as hydraulic fracturing. Federal and state officials are studying the environmental impact of "fracking."
A month later, he introduced a bill to require that new federal highways capture polluted runoff after a storm, arguing that every inch of rain that falls on a mile of two-lane highway produces 52,000 gallons of contaminated water.
Finally, Cardin expects to reintroduce a comprehensive proposal this year that he says will strengthen cleanup of the Chesapeake. That measure, which failed to pass last year, requires states to craft plans to meet 2025 cleanup targets and would then prod officials by threatening to cut off federal funds.
The environmental news service Greenwire recently described Cardin as "the Senate's 'King of Water.'"
"He's really emerged as the go-to person in the United States Senate on clean water," said Doug Siglin, federal affairs director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Bob Gibbs, an Ohio Republican, in a response to a 2009 federal appeals court decision that required farmers and others using pesticides to obtain a special permit from the EPA and submit to more strict regulations. The implementation of that ruling, which has repeatedly been delayed, is set for October.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Baltimore County Trees
In 2009, Baltimore County was awarded $7.4 million from the Dept of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (part of the ARRA recovery act) to create programs and replicable models that will help us live a low-carbon-emissions life.The newly created Baltimore County Dept of Environmental Protection and Sustainability has allocated $500,000 of that to the planting of trees around school and county government buildings.
Utilizing an "energy tree opportunity index", the county is assessing where they will get the biggest bang for their buck. That is, they are canvassing 253 parcels of land and over 500 buildings to see which can both benefit most from the cooling shade of trees (and other collateral benefits) and which have the necessary infrastructure to support them.
Half a million dollars is a lot of money, and it is a great start. But it doesn't go far enough.
It would be even better if the county challenged home owners, neighborhood associations, apartment building managers, local business associations and local businesses themselves to celebrate this initiative by matching them, tree for tree. Individuals and groups could be recognized as "tree partners" or "tree stewards", helping to lower their energy costs while the county lowers its energy costs.
And wouldn't it even be better if the power companies, especially BGE, would support the organization and implementation of this program, offering something like a "peak rewards" program for houses that properly plant and maintain trees to reduce energy consumption?
But we can begin by ourselves. If we do one thing outside over the course of the summer, why not plant a tree?
For more information on the kinds of trees that are best to plant and for information on how to obtain inexpensive trees (and free delivery for 10 or more trees) contact Baltimore County's Tree-Mendous Maryland Program office.
(Photo: my oak tree nursery!)
Monday, July 4, 2011
MD's new Environmental Literacy Requirement
Maryland has just become the first state in the nation to require an Environmental Literacy Graduation Requirement. This is wonderful. The details have yet to be refined and made public but the initial reports indicate that these studies are not to be add-ons but integrated into the construct of today's curricula.
This should mean that the requirement can be met by teaching math through measuring nutrient and pollutant levels in our water; teaching history through the development of industry and how it conceived of and treated natural resources; teaching literature through books that capture our evolving attitudes to wilderness and cities. Whatever we teach, it needs to be both conceptual and personal.
Such learning is indispensable not only to transmit knowledge but to evoke caring.
Wendell Berry wrote:
In Berry's read of human behavior, to value something means that we may eventually desire it for ourselves, to consume it for our own use or claim it for our own possession. To love something, however, is to want to let it be, to celebrate it as it is. How much more do we care about the world when we know the names of the trees (not just what they do for us), when the peepers come out, where our rivers are born and where the deer nurse their young.
It is this double knowing of the whole and the particular, the expanse and our home, the all and the one, that will drive us not just to appreciate but to preserve the earth.
(Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: an essay against modern superstition. NY: Perseus Books, 2000. p. 40).
This should mean that the requirement can be met by teaching math through measuring nutrient and pollutant levels in our water; teaching history through the development of industry and how it conceived of and treated natural resources; teaching literature through books that capture our evolving attitudes to wilderness and cities. Whatever we teach, it needs to be both conceptual and personal.
Such learning is indispensable not only to transmit knowledge but to evoke caring.
Wendell Berry wrote:
"People exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know."
In Berry's read of human behavior, to value something means that we may eventually desire it for ourselves, to consume it for our own use or claim it for our own possession. To love something, however, is to want to let it be, to celebrate it as it is. How much more do we care about the world when we know the names of the trees (not just what they do for us), when the peepers come out, where our rivers are born and where the deer nurse their young.
It is this double knowing of the whole and the particular, the expanse and our home, the all and the one, that will drive us not just to appreciate but to preserve the earth.
(Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: an essay against modern superstition. NY: Perseus Books, 2000. p. 40).
Saturday, July 2, 2011
In Praise of the Commons
I have been reading about the Commons lately, the stuff of life that is shared by all of us; the stuff that is not and should never be enclosed, cordoned off, claimed or owned by any one person or entity; the stuff that - should it ever disappear, be destroyed or withdrawn - would take civilization with it.
The Commons is air, water, bees, green space, language, culture, knowledge, streets, calendar, holidays, the Fourth of July... Once upon a time, it was a popular, prized concept that guided much of how society thought. Today, if known at all, it is cast as quaint, archaic, at odds with the fast-paced, segmented, possessive (if not possessed) world of the buy-and-sell marketplace.
And yet it is wrong to lament the passing of the Commons. It is still here, used - and abused - and increasingly under siege though it may be.
For the Commons will never go away. It cannot. It is an essential, non-negotiable component of life. And for the first time in decades (perhaps in response to the over-zealous and unfulfilled promises of the marketplace), it is showing signs of renewal: in the resurgence of community gardens, the attraction of walkable communities, the creation of pedestrian malls, the success of wikis, Twitter, and open-sourcing.
Communities the world over are rediscovering and reclaiming the Commons without knowing it, without naming it as such. Reclaiming it is very good, but not good enough. We need to name what we are doing so we can elevate, promote and unite these discrete efforts into a world-wide movement that reclaims the Commons. We need to learn more about what the Commons is, what it means, and expand its use in practice.
We need to speak and believe, once again, in the Commons as a desired value and to place it in the center of society's most precious assumptions. The marketplace, like the mighty Mississippi, is good and essential when it properly runs its course, but it is destructive and unmanageable when it swells beyond its banks. We need to speak of and rebuild the corrective of the Commons, to say that the collective is as every bit as treasured as the individual; that sharing is every bit as treasured as owning; that preserving is every bit as treasured as creating.
This is not a call to undo the marketplace or tear down Wall Street. I am a daughter of capitalism. It is, however, a call to understand its place, and its limits. We need the marketplace just as we need the Commons. But we cannot allow the market's unchecked appetite for possession and profit to be the ultimate definition of value. And we cannot allow its relentless pursuit of wealth to be the undoing of the Commons. The marketplace needs the commons - and the government that builds and protects it. Indeed it will fail without it.
This July 4th, as we travel the interstates to gather on lawns, city streets, river banks, national parks and even around television sets to celebrate this date we cherish in common, let's also celebrate the legacy of the Commons. We would not be here without it.
(A good introduction can be found in "The Growth of the Commons Paradigm," by David Bollier. Chapter 2 (pp. 27-40) in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (MIT Press, 2007), edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom. The pdf can be found on-line.)
The Commons is air, water, bees, green space, language, culture, knowledge, streets, calendar, holidays, the Fourth of July... Once upon a time, it was a popular, prized concept that guided much of how society thought. Today, if known at all, it is cast as quaint, archaic, at odds with the fast-paced, segmented, possessive (if not possessed) world of the buy-and-sell marketplace.
And yet it is wrong to lament the passing of the Commons. It is still here, used - and abused - and increasingly under siege though it may be.
For the Commons will never go away. It cannot. It is an essential, non-negotiable component of life. And for the first time in decades (perhaps in response to the over-zealous and unfulfilled promises of the marketplace), it is showing signs of renewal: in the resurgence of community gardens, the attraction of walkable communities, the creation of pedestrian malls, the success of wikis, Twitter, and open-sourcing.
Communities the world over are rediscovering and reclaiming the Commons without knowing it, without naming it as such. Reclaiming it is very good, but not good enough. We need to name what we are doing so we can elevate, promote and unite these discrete efforts into a world-wide movement that reclaims the Commons. We need to learn more about what the Commons is, what it means, and expand its use in practice.
We need to speak and believe, once again, in the Commons as a desired value and to place it in the center of society's most precious assumptions. The marketplace, like the mighty Mississippi, is good and essential when it properly runs its course, but it is destructive and unmanageable when it swells beyond its banks. We need to speak of and rebuild the corrective of the Commons, to say that the collective is as every bit as treasured as the individual; that sharing is every bit as treasured as owning; that preserving is every bit as treasured as creating.
This is not a call to undo the marketplace or tear down Wall Street. I am a daughter of capitalism. It is, however, a call to understand its place, and its limits. We need the marketplace just as we need the Commons. But we cannot allow the market's unchecked appetite for possession and profit to be the ultimate definition of value. And we cannot allow its relentless pursuit of wealth to be the undoing of the Commons. The marketplace needs the commons - and the government that builds and protects it. Indeed it will fail without it.
This July 4th, as we travel the interstates to gather on lawns, city streets, river banks, national parks and even around television sets to celebrate this date we cherish in common, let's also celebrate the legacy of the Commons. We would not be here without it.
(A good introduction can be found in "The Growth of the Commons Paradigm," by David Bollier. Chapter 2 (pp. 27-40) in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (MIT Press, 2007), edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom. The pdf can be found on-line.)
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