- Is There a Better Word for Doom? – Six disparate views on the value and ethics of actively re-framing the public discussion surrounding climate change. (tagged: politics policy environment communication propaganda climate change science )
- Clay Shirky: How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history – A talk given by Clay Shirky to the State Dept. a month or so ago, on the global, social, ubiquitous and cheap media landscape of the 21st century. Especially relevant in light of Iran's elections and protests at the moment. (tagged: web2.0 media propaganda technology social twitter politics transparency )
- Iran's Disputed Election | A Revolution in Pictures – Images are streaming out of Iran. Hundreds of thousands of people marching. Guns, fires, roads blocked by burning busses, riots and blood in the streets. The para-military storming the University. Protesters improbably evacuating an injured riot cop. Tear-gas ping pong. All revolutions look the same on the ground. They are not in practice ideological affairs. (tagged: iran politics election 2009 photos protest police )
- Gadget Teardowns – How to completely and utterly disassemble… just about anything, from a banana to your brand new Macbook Pro. Unclear whether you can put it all back together again! (tagged: technology design maker )
- The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online – An essay by Wired editor and Long Now pundit Kevin Kelly, making analogies between the "socialism" of the 20th century, and the open collaborative systems which have taken hold of the Internet. Larry Lessig hates the fact that he used the S-word, since it's got such a black name in the US, but I'm not so sure it was a bad idea. Actually I think that more than anywhere else, "socialist" ideas can probably work in the world of pure information. We're certainly nowhere near the limits of sharing online yet. (tagged: technology economics politics internet web2.0 socialism lessig longnow )
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- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
An aerial/telephoto exploration of the Canadian Oil Sands operations. Two trillion barrels of oil in the ground. Pyramids of sulfur and coke. Lakes of oil stretching to the horizon. At $200k/yr, it's easy to understand how one might get roped in, gold rush style. - Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak.
- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
Twitterfeed
- Incredible photo essay on the Athabasca Tar Sands operations: businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-s… 2 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 5 days ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 6 days ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 3 months ago
Incoming Memes
As for changing the name of doom – the diversity of the responses argues for the correctness of having a diversity of frames. Which I take to, among other things, mean that it is fine to keep talking the way I want to about climate change and appropriate solutions and using the words I choose to use. Hopefully they will resonate with an audience somewhat like myself. If I had a more public role in this, as perhaps we should all seek to do, I would think a little bit about my audience before choosing my words. I must admit to being more concerned with solutions. I only discuss the direness of the problems with people I already know to be informed and on board. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not. My short term goal is outreach in my neighborhood, and so far that has meant inviting the neighbor kids into my back yard to help water my apple trees and mine the castings from my worm bin. Never once have I mentioned climate change while talking to my neighbors, but I do talk a lot about gardening and getting rid of my lawn and my preference for biking. And I talk about it from the side of really enjoying these things. As far as framing the discussion for national legislation/international action/etc is concerned I think we need a diversity of approaches here. Different things will resonate with different people. I like a little gloom and doom, and voluntary simplicity as long as I can see the gleam of enhanced human connection. Others, not so much. I know.