Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.
poem by Philip Larkin
Larkin is not the first to suggest incorporating water into religion. Predating him by several centuries was the Roman philosopher Seneca, who declared: "Where a spring rises or a water flows there ought we to build altars and offer sacrifices". It is a practice we should consider reviving. And predating Seneca were a host of ancient religions that believed water was holy and sacred, the FONS ET ORIGO, the fount and origin of all forms of life. Linked with the moon through the movement of tides and with women through their moon-like menstrual flow, water was honored as the eternal and essential Female energy, the womb of life itself.
In the ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan creation story, the sun-god Atum (Re) (Male) reposed in the primordial ocean (Nun) (Female) and emerged from the depths of the womb-waters to spark life.
In Assyro-Babylonian mythology, first the gods and subsequently all beings arose from the fusion of salt water (Tiamat) and sweet water (Apsu). Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of the moon, lived within sacred springs, and her temples were often situated in natural grottoes from which springs emanated.
According to the Vedas, the holy books of the Hindus, all the inhabitants of the earth emerged from mätritamäh, the primordial, "most maternal" sea. The sacred River Ganges embodies, for practicing Indian Hindus, is still referred to as the “water of life”.
The Judeo-Christian story of creation tells us about the spirit of God created a "stirring above the waters," and placed, "a firmament in the midst of the waters to divide the waters" (Genesis 1:1-6). The Garden of Eden is watered by a river that divided into four rivers. In Judaeo-Christian culture, God is called "the fountain of living waters" (Jeremiah 2.13). And for believing Christians, baptism links the concepts of the water of life with the waters of purification. And from the Koran come the words "We have created every living thing from water".
But what exactly is water? Water is truly unique and remarkable; it is unlike any other substance on earth. Here are some factoids.
Water is absolutely essential for life on earth. Though water covers about 70 percent of the earth's surface in the oceans, lakes, rivers, and glaciers, 97% of the water on the planet contains a large amount of sodium chloride (common salt). Only 3 percent is fresh, and two-thirds of that is ice.
Despite its ubiquity, the chemical and physical properties of water are complicated and incompletely understood. Chemically, water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, its molecule consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Water's composition by weight is one part of hydrogen to eight of oxygen (or 11.1 percent of hydrogen and about 88.9 percent of oxygen). Scientists believe that the structure of liquid water consists of aggregates of water molecules that form and re-form continually. The water molecule, H2O, is not linear but bent in a special way; part is negatively charged and part positively charged. This may account for its ‘wetness’.
At ordinary temperatures, water undergoes evaporation. When cooled to its freezing temperature (0°C., 32°F., under standard pressure), water changes to a colorless, crystalline solid (ice). Unlike other liquids, water expands when it freezes and is less dense as ice than as a liquid at 4°C. When water is heated to its boiling point (100°C., 212°F., under standard pressure), it vaporizes into steam.
Water is an odorless, tasteless, transparent liquid at room temperature. In small amounts, water is colorless, but it exhibits a bluish tinge in large quantities. Water is relatively incompressible and completely pure water is a poor conductor of electricity. And as all of us have discovered at one time or another, water is a very effective solvent.
It has been said that earth is water planet. We live because of water. Humans are, as someone once remarked, sentient, perambulating bags of water. About a billion plus of the 6 billion bags here on the water planet aren’t very full at all. Another 2.6 billion are pretty full but their contents are contaminated with all sorts of unpleasant stuff from benzene to goat shit. Here in the USofA, most of us are pretty full bags and mostly toxin-free. And we have an added advantage; if we do happen to get thirsty, fresh water is only a Store 24 and a buck away so we can always pick up some to top ourselves off.
But I wonder what would happen if we ever truly begin to think of water in the same terms as we think about oil? Try it out for a while. Whenever you hear that oil is a limited and nonrenewable resource, remember that water is too. Not only is it limited and nonrenewable, it is not evenly distributed across the planet, just like oil. Also, lest we forget; though oil may be essential for your Lexus, you can actually can live a very full life without it. Without water you won’t last more than 5 days.
There is, however, an important difference between oil and water. Unlike oil, water can, under certain circumstances and with the infusion of a lot of technology and energy, be reused. Though in strictly practical terms, water isn’t always reusable at least as far as drinking it is concerned. We can ‘treat’ it and flush out most of the ‘impurities’ and toxins it has collected along the way, but we can’t take out all of them.
But back to the bottom line: water is NOT a renewable resource. There is no way to make any more of the stuff. All of the water that ever existed on this planet, still exists on or about the planet. It’s just been recycled ad infinitum. The next time you guzzle down some Evian, try thinking about this: It’s possible that you contain some of the same water molecules that were once part of the body of Buddha, or Genghis Khan, or your great Uncle Fred, or your favorite now-dead cat Isadore, or a trout from a stream in Wyoming, or, well, you get the picture. We are all composed of recycled H20; we just can't be sure where it’s been. It’s safe to assume it’s been pretty much everywhere.
Following Seneca’s advice about building altars to water is far-fetched these days. In the modern world, economics has replaced religion. Water still has great power, but its value is tallied on ledger sheets more than on pages of scripture. Water inspires not notions of God, wisdom and life, but visions of great schemes, greater profits, and absolute control. Any altars that are built are likely to be sporting corporate logos, and the sacrifice that will be made will be common access to a common resource.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Clothing Conundrum
Did you buy a new sweater this week? How about a winter coat? A new suit? Or maybe just another pair of blue jeans? If you didn’t buy any clothing this week, then you’re probably in the minority. Tens of millions of Americans bought some or several pieces of clothing this week, just like they do every week. They may not be buying it just for themselves but, for someone else in the family, or maybe a friend. And if you are one of those shoppers it means you’re probably holding up your portion of the textile purchasing mania that is sweeping the country. The average American consumer buys 75 or more articles of new clothing each year. Of course a lot of that spending comes during the holiday season, but, if you bought something for someone else, you better watch out: according to a recent Consumers Reports poll, though clothing is the number one holiday gift, it’s also the one that most people are least eager to get. SO, what keeps everyone buying? What’s the biggest appeal of new apparel? In a word: It’s cheap! At least, it appears to be; that doesn’t mean it has no hidden costs. And, by the way, like oil, a lot of clothing is imported. In fact, it’s our #1 import from India and our #2 from China, right after computers.
Clothing overall is less expensive now (prices are down 25% in the last 15 years), and more abundant now than at any other time in history. You can bedeck yourself in togs not even royalty could imagine a couple of hundred years ago without even thinking about hocking your tiara. Clothing ranks 2nd only to food in consumer spending thus making apparel as much of an impulse buying item as candy or snacks. The result, Americans have gone on a deck the halls shopping frenzy. We spend nearly $285 BILLION on clothing each year, according to figures from the U. S. Census bureau, and those figures are from 2002!
Our appetite for clothing is like our appetite for fast and processed food. And just as our unhealthy eating habits have made our bodies obese, an overabundance of cheap apparel is fattening up our houses. Having enough closet space to stuff all this stuff has led to builders not only to make more closets in new homes but to make them a whole lot bigger as well. In some cases the closets in many new homes are almost as large and elaborate as the bedrooms.
While most of our new clothing purchases end up on closet shelves, mountains of textiles are tossed out each year; you know, like all those ugly ties, or those weird colored sweaters and those sequined jeans. On average, 68 pounds of textile products per person are thrown away each year, with most of them ending up in landfills. This alpine range of unwanted waste wearables weighs in at more than 10 million TONS. In case you were wondering, that would equal, pound for pound, about 5 million automobiles.
The real environmental impact of all of this excessive clothing does not come from the disposal or even shipping of the fabrics however; it comes from the manufacturing process. And it doesn’t matter too much whether you are buying an organic cotton yoga outfit or a nylon windbreaker, the production of ALL clothing inflicts severe damage to the natural environment and severely harms human health. Cotton and wool production and processing is only marginally less harmful than that of synthetic fibers.
A nasty truth is that although most ‘synthetic fibers’ come primarily, and some even directly, from petroleum, all textiles are petroleum by-products to some extent. Even ‘natural’ fibers are heavily dependent on oil at various points in their production and manufacturing cycles. And it isn’t only oil that’s the culprit in inflicting environmental damage, all textile fiber processing, from that used in wool and cotton, to nylon and polyester, use corrosive and toxic chemicals in exorbitant amounts.
Even King Cotton is a culprit. Even though synthetic fibers now dominate the clothing market and cotton accounts for only one-third of the U.S. demand for textiles, let’s take a quick look at ordinary, non-organically-grown cotton from growing it to wearing it. Consider the following: [1] one in every four pounds of pesticides used annually in the US is sprayed on cotton; that’s about 22 BILLION pounds of weed killers. This massive dosing occurs even though cotton is grown on less than 2% of our cropland. 2- Toxic defoliants are routinely applied to cotton plants to make harvesting easier. 3- Caustic chemicals such as sodium hydroxide are used to remove naturally occurring waxes in the cotton fiber prior to spinning it into thread. 4- Some, though not all, cotton is bleached, adding additional dangerous chemicals, like chlorine, to the mix. 5- Processing cotton requires vast amounts of water. For example, 15 gallons of water are required to clean and bleach the cotton used in a single shirt. And where do you think that water goes? 6- Want color instead? Dyeing is the most environmentally destructive part of the process. Currently more than 10,000 different dyes and pigments are in use around the world. Many of these colorizing chemicals contain heavy metals, like cadmium and mercury, or salts. And how are these chemical flushed away? By using even more water, which almost invariably carries them into the drinking water system. Many of the factories around the world have little or no treatment facilities for this effluent; and even when they do, some of the dyes can pass right through such facilities without being touched by any treatment process.
What about organic cotton? Is it any better? Marginally to quite a lot. The principal advantage gained by organic cotton is in the production or growing phase of the process. Organically grown cotton doesn’t involve artificial fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides, so the working conditions for those involved in its production are almost always safer. But growing cotton still requires massive amounts of water, and since the yield from an acre of organically grown cotton is lower, more acreage is required to produce an equal amount of cotton. Already, more than half of the irrigated agricultural land in the entire world is sporting a crop of cotton. More cotton=less food. More cotton=less water available for other uses, like adequate and clean and safe drinking supplies.
The irony is that having all of this information, whether it is disturbing or not, probably won’t lead to a significant change in America’s clothing buying binge. Clever, sexy, and savvy marketing almost always trumps appeals to common sense and restraint. Nonetheless it can’t hurt to make such appeals.
When you do go out to buy clothing here are some general suggestions that might help you in making the greenest choices available.
1- Try limiting your clothing purchases. Don’t buy more items than you actually need or are really going to use.
2- Try to avoid buying on impulse. ( Hint: Apply this idea not just to apparel products but to everything you buy.) This may take some conscious effort.
3- Inform yourself.
a- Buy only products that you know are going to last for a long time. Buy apparel that will stand up well not only against the winds of fashion as much as possible, but also the wear of use.
b- Try to be aware of the possible short-term and long-terms issues of disposal of the clothing you purchase. E.g., will it decompose in a reasonable amount of time?
c- Read the labels and take the time to consider what you are reading. For all articles of clothing and shoes, try to become as informed as possible about the origins of the materials they use, the working conditions of the people who are involved in making them, and their effects of production and processing on the environment. If you can afford them, and if you can find them, opt for organically grown cotton, or wool or other animal-born fibers from organically-raised animals. Organic products usually come from environments that are safer for the workers involved as well. By the way, more and more hemp fiber products a reaching the market. Hemp isn’t just a fiber worn by hippies; it’s a highly versatile, highly durable and wholly renewal resource that is being used to make everything from clothing to handbags and shoes.
4- Recycle ALL of your un-wanted clothing if possible. Share items with family and friends, or donate them to some agency that will put them to good use.
All of our lifestyle decisions have an impact that extends beyond the sticker cost, beyond the immediate effect on our bank account or pocketbook. Clothing is one of the basic needs of life. Moreover, what we wear is an important and legitimate means of self-expression and self-care. Living green means living more thoughtfully; it does not mean living less fully; informed and conscious choices usually tend to enrich your life. Choose well.
Clothing overall is less expensive now (prices are down 25% in the last 15 years), and more abundant now than at any other time in history. You can bedeck yourself in togs not even royalty could imagine a couple of hundred years ago without even thinking about hocking your tiara. Clothing ranks 2nd only to food in consumer spending thus making apparel as much of an impulse buying item as candy or snacks. The result, Americans have gone on a deck the halls shopping frenzy. We spend nearly $285 BILLION on clothing each year, according to figures from the U. S. Census bureau, and those figures are from 2002!
Our appetite for clothing is like our appetite for fast and processed food. And just as our unhealthy eating habits have made our bodies obese, an overabundance of cheap apparel is fattening up our houses. Having enough closet space to stuff all this stuff has led to builders not only to make more closets in new homes but to make them a whole lot bigger as well. In some cases the closets in many new homes are almost as large and elaborate as the bedrooms.
While most of our new clothing purchases end up on closet shelves, mountains of textiles are tossed out each year; you know, like all those ugly ties, or those weird colored sweaters and those sequined jeans. On average, 68 pounds of textile products per person are thrown away each year, with most of them ending up in landfills. This alpine range of unwanted waste wearables weighs in at more than 10 million TONS. In case you were wondering, that would equal, pound for pound, about 5 million automobiles.
The real environmental impact of all of this excessive clothing does not come from the disposal or even shipping of the fabrics however; it comes from the manufacturing process. And it doesn’t matter too much whether you are buying an organic cotton yoga outfit or a nylon windbreaker, the production of ALL clothing inflicts severe damage to the natural environment and severely harms human health. Cotton and wool production and processing is only marginally less harmful than that of synthetic fibers.
A nasty truth is that although most ‘synthetic fibers’ come primarily, and some even directly, from petroleum, all textiles are petroleum by-products to some extent. Even ‘natural’ fibers are heavily dependent on oil at various points in their production and manufacturing cycles. And it isn’t only oil that’s the culprit in inflicting environmental damage, all textile fiber processing, from that used in wool and cotton, to nylon and polyester, use corrosive and toxic chemicals in exorbitant amounts.
Even King Cotton is a culprit. Even though synthetic fibers now dominate the clothing market and cotton accounts for only one-third of the U.S. demand for textiles, let’s take a quick look at ordinary, non-organically-grown cotton from growing it to wearing it. Consider the following: [1] one in every four pounds of pesticides used annually in the US is sprayed on cotton; that’s about 22 BILLION pounds of weed killers. This massive dosing occurs even though cotton is grown on less than 2% of our cropland. 2- Toxic defoliants are routinely applied to cotton plants to make harvesting easier. 3- Caustic chemicals such as sodium hydroxide are used to remove naturally occurring waxes in the cotton fiber prior to spinning it into thread. 4- Some, though not all, cotton is bleached, adding additional dangerous chemicals, like chlorine, to the mix. 5- Processing cotton requires vast amounts of water. For example, 15 gallons of water are required to clean and bleach the cotton used in a single shirt. And where do you think that water goes? 6- Want color instead? Dyeing is the most environmentally destructive part of the process. Currently more than 10,000 different dyes and pigments are in use around the world. Many of these colorizing chemicals contain heavy metals, like cadmium and mercury, or salts. And how are these chemical flushed away? By using even more water, which almost invariably carries them into the drinking water system. Many of the factories around the world have little or no treatment facilities for this effluent; and even when they do, some of the dyes can pass right through such facilities without being touched by any treatment process.
What about organic cotton? Is it any better? Marginally to quite a lot. The principal advantage gained by organic cotton is in the production or growing phase of the process. Organically grown cotton doesn’t involve artificial fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides, so the working conditions for those involved in its production are almost always safer. But growing cotton still requires massive amounts of water, and since the yield from an acre of organically grown cotton is lower, more acreage is required to produce an equal amount of cotton. Already, more than half of the irrigated agricultural land in the entire world is sporting a crop of cotton. More cotton=less food. More cotton=less water available for other uses, like adequate and clean and safe drinking supplies.
The irony is that having all of this information, whether it is disturbing or not, probably won’t lead to a significant change in America’s clothing buying binge. Clever, sexy, and savvy marketing almost always trumps appeals to common sense and restraint. Nonetheless it can’t hurt to make such appeals.
When you do go out to buy clothing here are some general suggestions that might help you in making the greenest choices available.
1- Try limiting your clothing purchases. Don’t buy more items than you actually need or are really going to use.
2- Try to avoid buying on impulse. ( Hint: Apply this idea not just to apparel products but to everything you buy.) This may take some conscious effort.
3- Inform yourself.
a- Buy only products that you know are going to last for a long time. Buy apparel that will stand up well not only against the winds of fashion as much as possible, but also the wear of use.
b- Try to be aware of the possible short-term and long-terms issues of disposal of the clothing you purchase. E.g., will it decompose in a reasonable amount of time?
c- Read the labels and take the time to consider what you are reading. For all articles of clothing and shoes, try to become as informed as possible about the origins of the materials they use, the working conditions of the people who are involved in making them, and their effects of production and processing on the environment. If you can afford them, and if you can find them, opt for organically grown cotton, or wool or other animal-born fibers from organically-raised animals. Organic products usually come from environments that are safer for the workers involved as well. By the way, more and more hemp fiber products a reaching the market. Hemp isn’t just a fiber worn by hippies; it’s a highly versatile, highly durable and wholly renewal resource that is being used to make everything from clothing to handbags and shoes.
4- Recycle ALL of your un-wanted clothing if possible. Share items with family and friends, or donate them to some agency that will put them to good use.
All of our lifestyle decisions have an impact that extends beyond the sticker cost, beyond the immediate effect on our bank account or pocketbook. Clothing is one of the basic needs of life. Moreover, what we wear is an important and legitimate means of self-expression and self-care. Living green means living more thoughtfully; it does not mean living less fully; informed and conscious choices usually tend to enrich your life. Choose well.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
From the Sugar Plum Curmudgeon
Well here we are again at the beginning of the ‘holiday season’ in the USofA. Or as some of us like to call it: ‘the Trifuckta’. In the course of the next six weeks or so we’ll ‘celebrate’ Thanksgiving, Christmas (or Chanukah or Kwanzaa, or all three), and New Years Eve. For most of us, celebrating amounts to spending an inordinate amount of money, time, energy, and resources, our own and the planet’s, trying to demonstrate how much we love and care about our family and friends. These efforts will shove millions of well-meaning and truly caring people into severe debt as well as depression. And in a lemming-like display of mob-mind, several hundreds of us will even die trying to ‘live up’ to the holidays. I don’t know for certain but I’m pretty sure Jesus would not actually applaud this kind of sacrificial behavior, but, hell, I’m not a theologian. Radio, TV and now even much of the internet is already awash in holiday hoopla. Maudlin homilies are being spewed out 24/7 from every department store and ‘family-friendly’ big box retailer; Wal-Mart has already begun to spin out tinkling Christmas ‘music’. All of this is in service of the annual unloading of the tons of useless toys laced with toxic waste and slathered with lead paint that they ordered from China last year in anticipation of spreading a Merry Christmas across the land. Most of them will end up in landfills; maybe they'll bring some cheer to the seagulls and rats. ‘O Come All Ye Faithful!’
Let’s face it: if and when you stop to think about it, isn’t it really rather pathetic, not to say deeply and disturbingly ironic, to SELL each and every one of these occasions. We are pounded relentlessly with brassy, and simple-minded entertainments, some even disguised as ‘news’, that try to cheer us into caring or actually feeling something. But all of these cheesy commercial stunts are nothing more than that. Do the faceless cynical marketing clowns really believe that they can impart actual meaning and substance with crap that positively reeks of greed and faux sentimentality? Are cheap trinkets and God-only-knows-what’s-actually-In-it ‘food’ truly the measure of what we are as a culture? As a community? As a nation? Or even as individuals? We’ve come to a very sorry state indeed.
I am not arguing here that we should return or even try to return to some pre-20th century fantasy of how these holidays were or ought to be celebrated. BTW, all of these fantasies usually come to us via the collective Oz of Hollywood, so they can’t really be trusted anyway. This is not to say, that Oz hasn’t come up with some truly moving and inspirational work, but a little bit goes a long way; the mavens of entertainment tend to flail repeatedly at dead horses. I don’t think TV showing “It’s A Wonderful Life” inter-cut with commercials for Home Depot, Dodge Ram Trucks and Viagra exactly rings any bells, whether you believe in angels or not. The next thing you know, they’ll be showing “A Christmas Carol” together with holiday messages from Prez GWB telling us how much he ‘really cares’ about little children and all those maimed returning Iraq veterans. Wouldn’t that be heart-lifting? It’s certainly been a successful ‘crusade’ so far.
Like most of the holidays in the USofA the big three have been slowly but inexorably transformed from their original roots into BIG FAKE occasions. Now their primary roles are to generate billions of dollars for an empty economic system based almost entirely on excessive consumption. Many, if not most retailers are absolutely dependent on these holidays; in many instances the buying that is generated during these holidays accounts for as much as 25 – 30% of their annual revenue. And it’s not only all about money. Venal and sleezy politicians inevitably seize on these occasions to spew gushings of sentimentality archly designed to promote some religio-political agenda of their own. As for the rest of us: we gobble. Now more than ever we pig out, drink too much and try to forget, as much as we can. Nodding off after the turkey, we try not to listen to the ka-ching ka-ching that goes off every time the furnace clicks on, and lose ourselves in watching young men bash each other silly while chasing an oddly shaped ball around a big lawn. But what the hell, it’s America.
None of these are new and original thoughts, but why do we continue to act like amnesia victims or ADD sufferers? Again and again we seem to forget the true inspiration behind these perfectly legitimate and welcome occasions. They were once treated as opportunities for thoughtful reflection and gratitude, genuine celebration, and honest forethought. Instead they have been mangled into something expensive but tawdry, events nearly as empty of substance as Brittany Spear’s brain. Their collective function is to promote the on-going myths that feed our collective fiction of who and what we are, or, as Joe Bageant accurately labels it, ‘the hologram’. Sure it’s necessary to celebrate, to be happy and act foolishly and laugh and get together with the folks we call family and friends, but, damn it, there is a lot of work to be done. Maybe our holiday occasions can act as an inspiration for dedicating ourselves to a better and more equitable future on this planet for everyone. We need to give that future more than a passing thought. How about a conversation over stuffing and drumsticks?
Be well and support one another!
Let’s face it: if and when you stop to think about it, isn’t it really rather pathetic, not to say deeply and disturbingly ironic, to SELL each and every one of these occasions. We are pounded relentlessly with brassy, and simple-minded entertainments, some even disguised as ‘news’, that try to cheer us into caring or actually feeling something. But all of these cheesy commercial stunts are nothing more than that. Do the faceless cynical marketing clowns really believe that they can impart actual meaning and substance with crap that positively reeks of greed and faux sentimentality? Are cheap trinkets and God-only-knows-what’s-actually-In-it ‘food’ truly the measure of what we are as a culture? As a community? As a nation? Or even as individuals? We’ve come to a very sorry state indeed.
I am not arguing here that we should return or even try to return to some pre-20th century fantasy of how these holidays were or ought to be celebrated. BTW, all of these fantasies usually come to us via the collective Oz of Hollywood, so they can’t really be trusted anyway. This is not to say, that Oz hasn’t come up with some truly moving and inspirational work, but a little bit goes a long way; the mavens of entertainment tend to flail repeatedly at dead horses. I don’t think TV showing “It’s A Wonderful Life” inter-cut with commercials for Home Depot, Dodge Ram Trucks and Viagra exactly rings any bells, whether you believe in angels or not. The next thing you know, they’ll be showing “A Christmas Carol” together with holiday messages from Prez GWB telling us how much he ‘really cares’ about little children and all those maimed returning Iraq veterans. Wouldn’t that be heart-lifting? It’s certainly been a successful ‘crusade’ so far.
Like most of the holidays in the USofA the big three have been slowly but inexorably transformed from their original roots into BIG FAKE occasions. Now their primary roles are to generate billions of dollars for an empty economic system based almost entirely on excessive consumption. Many, if not most retailers are absolutely dependent on these holidays; in many instances the buying that is generated during these holidays accounts for as much as 25 – 30% of their annual revenue. And it’s not only all about money. Venal and sleezy politicians inevitably seize on these occasions to spew gushings of sentimentality archly designed to promote some religio-political agenda of their own. As for the rest of us: we gobble. Now more than ever we pig out, drink too much and try to forget, as much as we can. Nodding off after the turkey, we try not to listen to the ka-ching ka-ching that goes off every time the furnace clicks on, and lose ourselves in watching young men bash each other silly while chasing an oddly shaped ball around a big lawn. But what the hell, it’s America.
None of these are new and original thoughts, but why do we continue to act like amnesia victims or ADD sufferers? Again and again we seem to forget the true inspiration behind these perfectly legitimate and welcome occasions. They were once treated as opportunities for thoughtful reflection and gratitude, genuine celebration, and honest forethought. Instead they have been mangled into something expensive but tawdry, events nearly as empty of substance as Brittany Spear’s brain. Their collective function is to promote the on-going myths that feed our collective fiction of who and what we are, or, as Joe Bageant accurately labels it, ‘the hologram’. Sure it’s necessary to celebrate, to be happy and act foolishly and laugh and get together with the folks we call family and friends, but, damn it, there is a lot of work to be done. Maybe our holiday occasions can act as an inspiration for dedicating ourselves to a better and more equitable future on this planet for everyone. We need to give that future more than a passing thought. How about a conversation over stuffing and drumsticks?
Be well and support one another!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Bringing books into the light
While in the process of consolidating my too-many things, particularly books, I went down to the cellar today to assess the extent of disarray. I also wanted to see how much crap I needed to pack up and toss out, and how much should be moved to higher ground. The basement has become a sort of dank, damp sink lately and so this was also something of a necessary recovery effort. I have been keeping books down there because there was no room upstairs and, until a month or so ago, it had been constantly and adequately heated. The heat held off most of the mold and the damp, most not all, but enough to keep the books in a state of suspended animation. When the furnace was turned off, due to lack of use and money, the mold, feeding on the moisture, leapt ahead. So now I must harvest the results.
Many of the books reeked; a sooty, damp and mushroomy odor lifted and hovered around them in an almost palpable cloud. To my nose it felt tangible and thick enough to write on. Most of the books were boxed and though in far from perfect condition, they would recover without any special immediate attention. But one box in particular was clammy and so rimed with mold that it stuck to the floor. After I moved it upstairs I emptied out the books, took them outside and laid them in the sun on the overturned canoe in the backyard. The day was glorious, warm, but not hot, dry and with a fitful breeze. They got a pretty good dose of rays, but not enough. The sun, which not more a month ago would still clear the tree tops until nearly 7, is now hidden behind them by 4:45. It reminded me that seasonal time is galloping toward autumnal equinox and on to winter at a pell-mell pace; personal time also moves relentlessly and deliberately, though events are less predictable. To quote KV: “And so it goes.”
Despite everything, the book recovery turned out to be a propitious endeavor. It was a kind of ritual act, an airing out of old/new ideas and a refreshing of objects that have been part of my life. I wiped them, opened them, ruffled through their pages, and watched the wind thumb through them as they lay open on the red fiberglass. It was not nearly as important as saving the treasures damaged by the floods in Florence, but it was significant to me, especially at this particular time. I am glad to have saved this small part of my library even though my hands still reek as if I have been rooting around in the dirt looking for truffles.
Most of the books fished from the fungal pool are from the early 1990s and nearly all of them concern the ‘environment’. More specifically, they discuss human interaction and exchanges with the ‘natural world’. One or two I have read cover to cover; three or four I have read parts of; and several I have merely admired as they sat on a shelf. Here is the list: Spirit and Nature (1992), ed. by Steven Rockefeller and John Elder; It’s A Matter of Survival (1991), by Anita Gordon and David Suzuki; Talking On The Water (1994), by Jonathan White; Human Descent (1996), by Rick Potts; Wen-tzu, Understanding the Mysteries (1991), translated by Thomas Cleary; A Brief History of Everything (1996), by Ken Wilbur; The Power of Place (1991), by James Swan; Cultures of Habit (1997) and The Geography of Childhood (1994), both by Gary Paul Nabhan; Urbanization Without Cities (1992), by Murray Bookchin; Eccentric Spaces (1977), by Robert Harbison; Kitchen Confidential (2000), by Anthony Bourdain; How To Read Better and Faster (1944), by Norman Lewis; A is for Ox (1994), by Barry Sanders; The Next One Hundred Years (1990), by Jonathan Weiner; Ecology and Consciousness (1992), edited by Richard Grossinger; and Ecological Identity (1995), by Mitchell Thomashow. The last one was at the bottom of the box. It was also a book I had been thinking about and looking for over the last couple of weeks. Maybe now that I have re-earthed these volumes I will finish at least some of those I started and begin to explore those I once was moved to possess.
I want to feed my hobby horse: how to help make the ‘environment’ a real priority and how to encourage ecological thinking to become part of the common and ordinary way we look at the world. I intend to make this effort the priority for the rest of my life.
It is galling and perplexing to me that despite decades of research, countless new environmental studies programs in graduate schools, colleges and high schools, thousands of public forums, hundreds of active and effective national, regional, and local NGOs, and even an Academy Award-winning movie seen by millions, there is still no adequate language for talking about the ‘environment’. We need a nation=wide program to impart ecological knowledge and understanding, not just information. And we need a new vocabulary and language to impart these essential concepts; We need one that is strong, clear, satisfying, informative and poetic; one that engages, inspires, and even compels us to have the important and necessary conversations about our relationship with our planet that we must have. The need is more urgent than ever.
Many of the books reeked; a sooty, damp and mushroomy odor lifted and hovered around them in an almost palpable cloud. To my nose it felt tangible and thick enough to write on. Most of the books were boxed and though in far from perfect condition, they would recover without any special immediate attention. But one box in particular was clammy and so rimed with mold that it stuck to the floor. After I moved it upstairs I emptied out the books, took them outside and laid them in the sun on the overturned canoe in the backyard. The day was glorious, warm, but not hot, dry and with a fitful breeze. They got a pretty good dose of rays, but not enough. The sun, which not more a month ago would still clear the tree tops until nearly 7, is now hidden behind them by 4:45. It reminded me that seasonal time is galloping toward autumnal equinox and on to winter at a pell-mell pace; personal time also moves relentlessly and deliberately, though events are less predictable. To quote KV: “And so it goes.”
Despite everything, the book recovery turned out to be a propitious endeavor. It was a kind of ritual act, an airing out of old/new ideas and a refreshing of objects that have been part of my life. I wiped them, opened them, ruffled through their pages, and watched the wind thumb through them as they lay open on the red fiberglass. It was not nearly as important as saving the treasures damaged by the floods in Florence, but it was significant to me, especially at this particular time. I am glad to have saved this small part of my library even though my hands still reek as if I have been rooting around in the dirt looking for truffles.
Most of the books fished from the fungal pool are from the early 1990s and nearly all of them concern the ‘environment’. More specifically, they discuss human interaction and exchanges with the ‘natural world’. One or two I have read cover to cover; three or four I have read parts of; and several I have merely admired as they sat on a shelf. Here is the list: Spirit and Nature (1992), ed. by Steven Rockefeller and John Elder; It’s A Matter of Survival (1991), by Anita Gordon and David Suzuki; Talking On The Water (1994), by Jonathan White; Human Descent (1996), by Rick Potts; Wen-tzu, Understanding the Mysteries (1991), translated by Thomas Cleary; A Brief History of Everything (1996), by Ken Wilbur; The Power of Place (1991), by James Swan; Cultures of Habit (1997) and The Geography of Childhood (1994), both by Gary Paul Nabhan; Urbanization Without Cities (1992), by Murray Bookchin; Eccentric Spaces (1977), by Robert Harbison; Kitchen Confidential (2000), by Anthony Bourdain; How To Read Better and Faster (1944), by Norman Lewis; A is for Ox (1994), by Barry Sanders; The Next One Hundred Years (1990), by Jonathan Weiner; Ecology and Consciousness (1992), edited by Richard Grossinger; and Ecological Identity (1995), by Mitchell Thomashow. The last one was at the bottom of the box. It was also a book I had been thinking about and looking for over the last couple of weeks. Maybe now that I have re-earthed these volumes I will finish at least some of those I started and begin to explore those I once was moved to possess.
I want to feed my hobby horse: how to help make the ‘environment’ a real priority and how to encourage ecological thinking to become part of the common and ordinary way we look at the world. I intend to make this effort the priority for the rest of my life.
It is galling and perplexing to me that despite decades of research, countless new environmental studies programs in graduate schools, colleges and high schools, thousands of public forums, hundreds of active and effective national, regional, and local NGOs, and even an Academy Award-winning movie seen by millions, there is still no adequate language for talking about the ‘environment’. We need a nation=wide program to impart ecological knowledge and understanding, not just information. And we need a new vocabulary and language to impart these essential concepts; We need one that is strong, clear, satisfying, informative and poetic; one that engages, inspires, and even compels us to have the important and necessary conversations about our relationship with our planet that we must have. The need is more urgent than ever.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Fall Visitors
August and September are Ant Festival months, a much-anticipated annual event in this creaky old house. These pesky little insects just appear one day, and they seem to appear almost everywhere in the kitchen simultaneously. They’re skinny and small, about 3/8ths of an inch long, with rangy stilt-like legs. They’re not stubby and rounded like their outdoor cousins. Also they’re not deliberate and driven as though on a mission. While they can be very fast, most of the time they seem rather aimless. While they usually prowl around on the surfaces in the kitchen, I sometimes find one of them scaling the walls in the living room or wandering around among the flotsam on my desk. They don’t travel in packs or conga lines. They’re almost always alone, solitary and somewhat meandering in their leisurely pace, as though they were out for a stroll or on some ant version of a walkabout.
The only thing that draws a congregation is the maple syrup container. If I forget and leave it out too long in the morning, there are usually at least half a dozen ants, sometimes more, clustered around the cap or moving up and down the sides. Occasionally one makes it inside and I find him (I’m assuming it’s a him because they act so male-like.) breast-stroking in my tea after I’ve spooned in some syrup. Once, when I had failed to tighten the cap, I found a couple of dozen of them paddling around in the syrup inside as though it was some sort of community swimming pool. Their time in the pool seems to render them almost senseless or drunk; they slow way down and become easy to pluck out once you’ve emptied the syrup into a bowl. Then I always try to flush them down the drain; it’s a hopeless exercise and a great waste of water. Even in an inebriated condition their ability to resist a strong flow of water from the tap is astonishing. I don’t feel any compelling need to kill or eradicate them. I probably couldn’t accomplish the latter even if I wanted to. Anyway, my hands and fingernails carry around more possible toxins and diseases than their little feet possibly can.
There’s never enough of them to be really disturbing or worrisome. They’re not like a crowd of sumo wrestler-like carpenter ants, or even a mob of those really shiny black mustard-seed-like ants that accumulate in teeming masses looking as though they’re waiting for some rock concert to begin. These fall visitors are more like reedy hobos looking for the way to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If I listen hard enough maybe I’ll hear one of them singing, “This Land Is Your Land, this Land Is My Land.”
The only thing that draws a congregation is the maple syrup container. If I forget and leave it out too long in the morning, there are usually at least half a dozen ants, sometimes more, clustered around the cap or moving up and down the sides. Occasionally one makes it inside and I find him (I’m assuming it’s a him because they act so male-like.) breast-stroking in my tea after I’ve spooned in some syrup. Once, when I had failed to tighten the cap, I found a couple of dozen of them paddling around in the syrup inside as though it was some sort of community swimming pool. Their time in the pool seems to render them almost senseless or drunk; they slow way down and become easy to pluck out once you’ve emptied the syrup into a bowl. Then I always try to flush them down the drain; it’s a hopeless exercise and a great waste of water. Even in an inebriated condition their ability to resist a strong flow of water from the tap is astonishing. I don’t feel any compelling need to kill or eradicate them. I probably couldn’t accomplish the latter even if I wanted to. Anyway, my hands and fingernails carry around more possible toxins and diseases than their little feet possibly can.
There’s never enough of them to be really disturbing or worrisome. They’re not like a crowd of sumo wrestler-like carpenter ants, or even a mob of those really shiny black mustard-seed-like ants that accumulate in teeming masses looking as though they’re waiting for some rock concert to begin. These fall visitors are more like reedy hobos looking for the way to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If I listen hard enough maybe I’ll hear one of them singing, “This Land Is Your Land, this Land Is My Land.”
Monday, August 13, 2007
THE Grass Really Is Greener On The Other Side Of The Fence
Sometimes it seems as though ‘going green’ is a bright and lively international movement happening everywhere except New England. While there is a lot of jabber and buzz around here about global warming and ‘sustainability’, New England isn’t exactly leading the green parade when it comes to buildings and development projects. Granted that the movement is probably only a handful of years out of its toddler stage, but out on the West Coast it seems to have grown up much faster. Most of the eco-brainiacs as well as the more visible and successful green efforts in the US0fA seem to have settled around San Francisco and in the Cascadian states of Washington and Oregon. Even the mid-west, which we often assume to be a cultural and design backwater, seems to be ahead of New England. Just look at Chicago; it has the Bethel Center, the Green Technology Center and Mayor Daly’s green-roofed City Hall.
Locally, instead of developing a truly green and sustainable plan for the city’s spaces and buildings, we’re squabbling about whether or not to save one of the world’s principal examples of brutalist architecture and planning, Boston City Hall, and its surrounding urban desert, a forlorn, featureless plaza. A ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’ approach might make City Hall a more acceptable place, or maybe we could make it into a mausoleum to hold the remains of ego-driven architects and short-sighted politicians. And perhaps the plaza could be transformed into a New England version of Paris’s Place des Vosges. Together with the Greenway it might create some additional urban jewelry, an Emerald bracelet, to go along with Olmstead’s original necklace. That way Boston could do the impossible; move forward and backward simultaneously.
You would think that New England, with its unmatched collection of colleges and universities, and its rich traditions of intellectual vigor, independence of thought and transcendental heritage, would be in the forefront of sustainable thinking and design. Maybe it is, in the classroom or in some studios but you don’t see much of it in the buildings or developments going up right now. Though it wouldn’t be fair to say that nothing is happening locally, so far, on the ground at least, there’s not a whole lot to see. Maybe there will be soon. Let’s hope so. There’s a lot of talent in residence around here and it would be gratifying to see some of it on display.
Usually it’s the politicians that do the following, but locally, they seem to be doing the leading. On the state level, Governor Patrick has declared his determination to make Massachusetts a leader in the field of sustainable design; and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is already force to be reckoned with. On the municipal level, thanks to the efforts of Mayor Menino, Boston has the most comprehensive green building standards in the nation. Green building standards for public buildings or publicly funded projects are common in most major cities, but Boston is the first to impose these conditions on privately developed properties. Under these new guidelines, all new buildings projects of 50,000 square feet or more must meet requirements in at least 26 of about 70 areas of design and construction. The standards cover not only such things as the materials used and the energy efficiency of walls and glass, but also the disposal of waste. Developers will have to certify they have met the requirements, and city officials will confirm the builders' measures. Pointedly, Boston’s new standards do not require the buildings be certified under the LEED system. These building requirements, whose full name is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design [LEED], was created by an industry group, the US Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org/) is the most commonly used green building rating system in the world.
Boston's certification process will be simpler, though the environmental standards will be almost the same as the LEED list. Boston's list includes additional ways developers can choose to help qualify buildings for certification, including using cleaner diesel construction vehicles, recharging area groundwater, and establishing transportation plans for future building users. It remains to be seen how effective these new conditions will be and how vigorously they will be enforced. This arrangement could lead to some cozy conflicts of interest down the road. There is already one major potential shortfall in the new standards: they don’t address renovation projects.
As to what’s here already. Of the 32 Platinum (the highest award) LEED buildings in the country, 2 are in Boston area: Genzeme’s corporate headquarters in Cambridge, and the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston, near the new Convention Center. Meanwhile, among the most active builders of major new architect-designed structures, namely our colleges and universities, none have yet opted for truly green building projects and so far their record has been disappointing. There have even been some exceptional opportunities blown. Witness, for example, Harvard’s banal, even downright ugly and energy-costly ‘One Western Avenue’. Ironically it sits right next to the Genzeme site. Gazing at this puce-colored box makes me long for a New England-hardy variety of kudzu.
And let’s not forget Boston’s most widely and recently hyped signature building, the ICA. It is woefully, even embarrassingly NG: Not-Green. Unlike Harvard’s B-School lego-block monstrosity though, it is certainly brightly and sparklingly pretty. There is also the doyen of Huntington Avenue, the Museum of Fine Arts. Though its emerging renovations and new additions will enhance the institution’s functionality there seems to have been little to no thought, investment, or interest in making any of the work particularly green or sustainable. Again though, it should be very pretty, but we won’t know for sure for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile, check out the MFA website for a virtual tour of the proposed project.
To be fair, there is much activity underway hereabouts that will blossom in the next few years. Both Harvard and MIT have instituted green initiatives on their respective campus and are increasingly assertive about sustainable practices in their day-today operations. You can check out their websites, www.harvard.edu/ and web.mit.edu/ for more information on what they are doing. Harvard is also planning for extensive and comprehensive green buildings and sustainability development on their proposed new Allston campus.
If there aren’t any high-profile projects available right now, how about some smaller ones? Although no one has made an actual survey, it’s probably safe to assume that there are thousands of acres of available space in the Boston area that, if appropriately developed, could move the Hub into a leadership position in the green movement: all those flat roofs.The majority of roofs may not be suitable for such projects, but many are. For example, Whole Foods is renovating their Fresh Pond store. They’ve expanded by several thousand square feet and the roof over their heads is pool table flat. While they’re throwing buckets of money at redoing the sales floor, why not do the roof too? By the way, while the renovation is going on, the temperature in the store seems to be cooled to somewhere in the 60’s. That can’t be cheap. And in the winter, with their 20’ high ceilings, they must be spending an impressive amount to heat the place, even with good air circulators. So why not invest in a green roof or some solar voltaic panels? Chances are they’d save somewhere between 30 and 40% on their current heating and cooling expenses. Maybe more importantly, they just might inspire others to follow their example and also live up to their own philosophy and mission statement. It’s too long to repeat here, so check out their site at www.wholefoodsmarket.com.
To sum up: Despite the arsenal of brainpower, star power and financial wherewithal in our region, our local design practitioners don’t seem to be on the forefront of shifting the design paradigm of architecture and planning. At least their efforts and their works are not readily apparent, and that’s a shame. It's also a loss for the region. I suspect there are many green projects on the drawing boards, or, more accurately, on the hard drives and in the memory caches of computers of many of the notable design firms in Cambridge and Boston. But I would wager that most of these are destined for places outside of New England. It’s too bad that all of their formidable energy, acumen, and talent is directed elsewhere in the world. Though they probably are really thinking globally, they’re just not acting, or encouraged to act, locally. We should urge these firms and those who retain their services to practice green art on their own turf. That way all of us would benefit from their work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
