Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Earthrise film featuring Apollo 8 astronauts Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
The climate crisis magnifies my respect for the free 29-minute film Earthrise, from the collection "Top 10 Films to Watch This Summer" noted by globalonenessproject.org Executive Director Cleary Vaughan-Lee as "[our] most-watched films used by teachers from this past school year."
For teachers, here is my community-building prompt after showing the film. Ask students "What have you learned from being on Earth today, in the past year, and in this lifetime?" Do this in a circle where, after writing for 10 to 30 minutes, each student around the circle gets a turn to "pass, delay, or respond," and no one is allowed to interrupt those who choose to share. After completing the circle, return to those who said "delay," and give each a chance to speak.
Below are quotes from the astronauts.
"In a hundred lunar distances where it's hardly going anywhere in space [Earth] is like a grain of sand. I got to thinking Is that really the center of the universe? [. . . .] You had better hope we land in the blue part. The target for the reentry was something like a mailslot if the mailman had to deliver your letter from 20,000 miles away. If we were too deep [in our calculations to return], we would burn up. [. . . .] [Viewing Earth from space] boundaries we have are really artificial ones. [. . . .] [People] really don't understand and realize what [they] have here until [they] leave it. [. . . .] When I hear people chanting that we ought to go on to Mars, I'm thinking [. . . .] why don't we get our act together here on Earth first, and go to Mars as human beings, not as jingoistic Americans or Chinese or Russians or Indians. Let's just do it as human beings. [. . . .] But at least for an instant in history, I believe that people looked upon themselves as citizens of the Earth."
The globalonenessproject.org film When a Town Runs Dry by Joris Debeij shows effects of climate change-magnified drought on a rural California farming town. Another good one is My Enemy, My Brother by Ann Shin which I used with the prompt "Write about a surprise ending." I wrote about the project's other films and resources in my January 27, 2018 post "Rivers and Stories" by Robert Hass, and global oneness project.
For teachers, here is my community-building prompt after showing the film. Ask students "What have you learned from being on Earth today, in the past year, and in this lifetime?" Do this in a circle where, after writing for 10 to 30 minutes, each student around the circle gets a turn to "pass, delay, or respond," and no one is allowed to interrupt those who choose to share. After completing the circle, return to those who said "delay," and give each a chance to speak.
Below are quotes from the astronauts.
"In a hundred lunar distances where it's hardly going anywhere in space [Earth] is like a grain of sand. I got to thinking Is that really the center of the universe? [. . . .] You had better hope we land in the blue part. The target for the reentry was something like a mailslot if the mailman had to deliver your letter from 20,000 miles away. If we were too deep [in our calculations to return], we would burn up. [. . . .] [Viewing Earth from space] boundaries we have are really artificial ones. [. . . .] [People] really don't understand and realize what [they] have here until [they] leave it. [. . . .] When I hear people chanting that we ought to go on to Mars, I'm thinking [. . . .] why don't we get our act together here on Earth first, and go to Mars as human beings, not as jingoistic Americans or Chinese or Russians or Indians. Let's just do it as human beings. [. . . .] But at least for an instant in history, I believe that people looked upon themselves as citizens of the Earth."
The globalonenessproject.org film When a Town Runs Dry by Joris Debeij shows effects of climate change-magnified drought on a rural California farming town. Another good one is My Enemy, My Brother by Ann Shin which I used with the prompt "Write about a surprise ending." I wrote about the project's other films and resources in my January 27, 2018 post "Rivers and Stories" by Robert Hass, and global oneness project.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
"what matters most is / how well you / walk through the / fire" -- Bukowski
If you are just tuning in to the climate crisis, it may be difficult to process "we are already off the cliff" according to reporter Dahr Jamail, winner of the Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism for his work in Iraq and the Izzy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Media in 2018. It is unknown how hard the crash landing will be. Jamail's July 15, 2019 article "Dancing with Grief" at resilience.org gives details. Using the above quote, Jamail notes "Meanwhile, the business-as-usual economic paradigm continues, and it, too, shows no indication of changing in the radical way necessary. In the U.S., hopes spring eternal that the Green New Deal, or one of the candidates for the 2020 election, or geo-engineering might save us. Yet none of these take into account that we are already off the cliff. Every single one of them is an attempt to try to fix something that is unfixable. [ . . . . ] The reality is, no government on Earth is currently willing to take the dramatic measures necessary that might begin to mitigate what is coming our way. [. . . .] There can no longer be any question that life as we know it, at least for those of us in the privileged West, is now ending."
His section "How to Be" cites "Czech dissident, writer, and statesman Václav Havel [who] said, 'Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.'" Jamail's section "Remaining Connected" quotes Chief Luther Standing Bear: "There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. [par break] Their teepees were built upon the earth and their altars were made of Earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. [. . . .] For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. [par break] This never fails me. And as tragedy strikes, either in my immediate life, or by reading of it afar in the news, I again must remember to be still, get quiet, and listen—listen to the Earth—for what to do next."
Jamail's article reminds me of the end of the poem "How Is Your Heart?" by Charles Bukowski: "what matters most is / how well you / walk through the / fire"
In one of my most-visited posts "PLAYA Climate Change Discussion July 7, 2016" (542 views as of today) I wrote:
"Reflecting on [the climate crisis], I drove to a trout stream and had climate change conversations with ghosts of Socrates, Ed Abbey, Mother Teresa, and Charles Bukowski which I [. . .] put in Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems. I recalled my Outward Bound rock climbing course in the Okanagan Mountains when I was 16, and my instructor Dick Stokes, who later fished with me, saying if the world falls apart he will get his 'last sweet breath in wilderness.'"
"Of the above-mentioned ghosts, Bukowski was least willing. 'Remember, you asked me so I'll speak when I'm damn well ready and not before,' he said. I forgot about him while catching rainbow trout on a size 10 peacock / mallard nymph, then I rounded a canyon corner past a huge boulder and there he was:"
Ghost of Bukowski Speaks on Climate Change
Yes, it's bleak,
bleaker than sheep snot
on barbed wire
but, hope or no hope,
we must find
some way
to make joy
no matter what.
Below is a new poem I wrote on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry Columbia yesterday in Ketchikan about an earlier trip on the Malaspina. Yesterday, the Columbia captain announced the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific walked off the boat on strike, and passengers would have to either wait or find another way home. I told Suz "Be ready for anything." Earlier at a coffee shop I heard the song "The Funeral" by Band of Horses (36,267,926 views), and reflected how the song fit, though unintended by the band in 2006, the current climate crisis. I watched the YouTube, and the man falling asleep driving is like "government[s] on Earth" Jamail mentioned above.
On the Alaska Ferry Malaspina
South of Juneau July 18, 2019
"No Service"
cell phones remark
and people look up
at the sea
and at each other
as it will be
soon with
climate change
like that song
by Talking Heads
that says "My God!
What have I done?"
His section "How to Be" cites "Czech dissident, writer, and statesman Václav Havel [who] said, 'Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.'" Jamail's section "Remaining Connected" quotes Chief Luther Standing Bear: "There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. [par break] Their teepees were built upon the earth and their altars were made of Earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. [. . . .] For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. [par break] This never fails me. And as tragedy strikes, either in my immediate life, or by reading of it afar in the news, I again must remember to be still, get quiet, and listen—listen to the Earth—for what to do next."
Jamail's article reminds me of the end of the poem "How Is Your Heart?" by Charles Bukowski: "what matters most is / how well you / walk through the / fire"
In one of my most-visited posts "PLAYA Climate Change Discussion July 7, 2016" (542 views as of today) I wrote:
"Reflecting on [the climate crisis], I drove to a trout stream and had climate change conversations with ghosts of Socrates, Ed Abbey, Mother Teresa, and Charles Bukowski which I [. . .] put in Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems. I recalled my Outward Bound rock climbing course in the Okanagan Mountains when I was 16, and my instructor Dick Stokes, who later fished with me, saying if the world falls apart he will get his 'last sweet breath in wilderness.'"
"Of the above-mentioned ghosts, Bukowski was least willing. 'Remember, you asked me so I'll speak when I'm damn well ready and not before,' he said. I forgot about him while catching rainbow trout on a size 10 peacock / mallard nymph, then I rounded a canyon corner past a huge boulder and there he was:"
Ghost of Bukowski Speaks on Climate Change
Yes, it's bleak,
bleaker than sheep snot
on barbed wire
but, hope or no hope,
we must find
some way
to make joy
no matter what.
Below is a new poem I wrote on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry Columbia yesterday in Ketchikan about an earlier trip on the Malaspina. Yesterday, the Columbia captain announced the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific walked off the boat on strike, and passengers would have to either wait or find another way home. I told Suz "Be ready for anything." Earlier at a coffee shop I heard the song "The Funeral" by Band of Horses (36,267,926 views), and reflected how the song fit, though unintended by the band in 2006, the current climate crisis. I watched the YouTube, and the man falling asleep driving is like "government[s] on Earth" Jamail mentioned above.
On the Alaska Ferry Malaspina
South of Juneau July 18, 2019
"No Service"
cell phones remark
and people look up
at the sea
and at each other
as it will be
soon with
climate change
like that song
by Talking Heads
that says "My God!
What have I done?"
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Fishin' Solution
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Yesterday my landlord informed me my hot water heater broke and flooded my apartment so there is mold to the ceiling and water everywhere. Most things I owned had to be taken to the dump. Now tell me the bad news, I thought. It gave me more compassion for families in New Orleans and Houston. To work off the stress about my flooded apartment, I went fishing. The fish was estimated at 160 pounds.
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Friday, July 19, 2019
(Nonviolently) Sabatoging Oil and Gas Leasing in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
September 16, 2019 Update: Democracy Now! published an interview with Subhankar Banerjee:
“Biological Annihilation”: The Danger of Opening Alaska’s ANWR to Oil & Gas Drilling.
July 26, 2019 Update: politico.com published "How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic" by Adam Federman with photographs by Nathaniel Wilder and video by Peter Elstner. The article notes, "Documents leaked to POLITICO Magazine and Type Investigations reveal that the work of career scientists has at times been altered or disregarded to underplay the potential impact of oil and gas development on the coastal plain. Moreover, DOI has decided it will undertake no new studies as part of the current review process, despite scientists’ concerns that key data is years out of date or doesn’t exist."
"Many junkies, before hitting bottom, stoop low enough to steal their mothers’ jewels. That’s what’s happening at a national scale on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska" (ANWR) begins this New York Times article by William deBuys on oil and gas leasing there opposed by republicans according to insideclimatenews.org "including EPA administrators under presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H. W. Bush," and I recall democrats, and Gwich'in people many years. I will be forever grateful if my republican friends call their senators and representatives today, and tell them they want ANWR protected for their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren. You get the idea.
Suz and I are halibut fishing in Alaska, and meeting great people.
“Biological Annihilation”: The Danger of Opening Alaska’s ANWR to Oil & Gas Drilling.
July 26, 2019 Update: politico.com published "How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic" by Adam Federman with photographs by Nathaniel Wilder and video by Peter Elstner. The article notes, "Documents leaked to POLITICO Magazine and Type Investigations reveal that the work of career scientists has at times been altered or disregarded to underplay the potential impact of oil and gas development on the coastal plain. Moreover, DOI has decided it will undertake no new studies as part of the current review process, despite scientists’ concerns that key data is years out of date or doesn’t exist."
"Many junkies, before hitting bottom, stoop low enough to steal their mothers’ jewels. That’s what’s happening at a national scale on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska" (ANWR) begins this New York Times article by William deBuys on oil and gas leasing there opposed by republicans according to insideclimatenews.org "including EPA administrators under presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H. W. Bush," and I recall democrats, and Gwich'in people many years. I will be forever grateful if my republican friends call their senators and representatives today, and tell them they want ANWR protected for their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren. You get the idea.
Suz and I are halibut fishing in Alaska, and meeting great people.
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| I'm grateful for my yoga. |
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No matter what else happens in my life, I can say I stood in Kake, Alaska.
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Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Andrew Critchlow's July 9, 2019 S&P Global Article "OPEC is playing into Thunberg’s hands on climate change"
Andrew Critchlow's July 9, 2019 S&P Global article is "OPEC is playing into [16-year-old] Thunberg’s hands on climate change." Here are gems from the article:
"The head of the oil cartel [OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo]– which pumps just under a third of the world’s crude – was quoted last week saying that attacks leveled at producers by a 'growing mass mobilization of world opinion' had become 'perhaps the greatest threat to our industry going forward. [. . . .] children have been mobilized to demonstrate [. . . .] They are beginning to infiltrate boardrooms and parliaments.'"
"All music to the young ears of Thunberg. The Swedish teenager described the comments as 'our biggest compliment yet' in a brief tweet to her army of 723,000 followers on the social media platform."
"Invited to the UN in New York this September, she plans to get there without air travel to minimise her carbon footprint."
"Thunberg managed to inspire an estimated 1.6 million children to walk out of school classrooms around the world in March to demand action on climate change. Her influence has grown impossible for most democratic governments to ignore."
"Doors will get harder to open for Barkindo and an oil-producing industry that is increasingly being branded as toxic by investors and politicians alike. Access to capital is very slowly being choked off by investors [ . . . .] For example, Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund is actively ditching most of its oil-producing investments. [. . .] Japan’s gigantic $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund has placed an emphasis on applying ESG principles to its portfolio and is actively involved in the Group of Twenty Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures."
See the Thunberg videos I posted December 4, 2018. Harlan Howard's 1950s comment about country music seems to fit here: "Three Chords and the Truth"
"The head of the oil cartel [OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo]– which pumps just under a third of the world’s crude – was quoted last week saying that attacks leveled at producers by a 'growing mass mobilization of world opinion' had become 'perhaps the greatest threat to our industry going forward. [. . . .] children have been mobilized to demonstrate [. . . .] They are beginning to infiltrate boardrooms and parliaments.'"
"All music to the young ears of Thunberg. The Swedish teenager described the comments as 'our biggest compliment yet' in a brief tweet to her army of 723,000 followers on the social media platform."
"Invited to the UN in New York this September, she plans to get there without air travel to minimise her carbon footprint."
"Thunberg managed to inspire an estimated 1.6 million children to walk out of school classrooms around the world in March to demand action on climate change. Her influence has grown impossible for most democratic governments to ignore."
"Doors will get harder to open for Barkindo and an oil-producing industry that is increasingly being branded as toxic by investors and politicians alike. Access to capital is very slowly being choked off by investors [ . . . .] For example, Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund is actively ditching most of its oil-producing investments. [. . .] Japan’s gigantic $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund has placed an emphasis on applying ESG principles to its portfolio and is actively involved in the Group of Twenty Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures."
See the Thunberg videos I posted December 4, 2018. Harlan Howard's 1950s comment about country music seems to fit here: "Three Chords and the Truth"
Sunday, July 7, 2019
In 2007 Serge Planton of Meteo-France Warned of European Heatwave "Every two years after 2017"
Many have heard of the June/July 2019 European heatwave, heat records in Alaska, and recent California tidal mussels cooked in shells. Regarding background, according to BBC Studios "3000 people died in Paris on one excessively hot Monday in 2003," and according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), that event "was the hottest in continental Europe since at least 1540." According to a Wikipedia cite, "Peer-reviewed analysis [placed] the European death toll [for the 2003 event] at more than 70,000." What is most haunting about that event is Serge Planton of Meteo-France's 2007 warning "Of course the heatwave of 2003 is very exceptional. What is projected now from our simulation is that we should have such an occurrence of a heatwave every two years after 2017."