Year: 2011

tipping point

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It’s not that you are discounting yourself – it’s that the personal you with all its small indulgences, its interiorities and subjective biographical events is turned inside out suddenly and asked to be someone else. Someone who acts within the bigger picture. Your own Spring uprising.

Peak Moment 191: The vegetarian myth

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What we eat is destroying both our bodies and the planet, according to author Lierre Keith, a recovering twenty-year vegan. While she passionately opposes factory farming of animals, she maintains that humans require nutrient-dense animal foods for good health. A grain-based diet is the basis for degenerative diseases we take for granted (diabetes, cancer, heart disease) – diseases of civilization. Annual grain production is destroying topsoil and creating deserts on a planetary scale. Lierre urges the restoration of perennial polycultures for longterm sustainability.

More fish in the sea

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Still in their infancy, sustainable fisheries trusts were born of the mounting need for new ways to aid community-based fishermen who stand as frontline stewards of the fisheries they have depended on for generations. Trusts now emerging in selected U.S. ports provide footholds for transforming the act of buying fish into a direct investment in the health of the fisheries where they are caught and the livelihoods of the fishermen who catch them.

Japan’s once-powerful nuclear industry is under siege

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Once hailed for enabling the post-war renaissance, construction — including construction of nuclear power plants — has become a juggernaut. Astonishingly, tiny Japan, smaller than California, recently boasted the largest construction industry in the world. (It now rates third, behind China and the U.S.) To maintain its hegemony, its lobby has run advertising campaigns identifying nature as “the enemy,” tapping into fears of earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons.

The psychology of disaster

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The events unfolding in Japan would be considered a “universal crisis” – a crisis so catastrophic that anyone living through it would experience tragic reactions. It strips everyone experiencing it of safety, security, and threatens survival, regardless of an individual’s level of skill or cognitive resources. There are no “solutions” to be found in such a disaster, and therefore trauma survivors are disrupted in their capacity to “plan” such a solution.

George Will: Driving a wedge

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The facts are these, in case Mr. Will is interested: we have a serious energy crisis and an even graver potential crisis. Petroleum resources are depleting worldwide, and new reserves aren’t coming into production fast enough to offset the rate of depletion. Fuel prices are once again on the rise. Many people can’t afford to operate their automobiles now, and it’s likely to get worse. The civil unrest in the Middle East threatens to disrupt the flow of petroleum and, thus, torpedo our global economy…In this age of energy instability, do we really want to say no to rebuilding our passenger rail capabilities?

Public transportation: Not a high priority in Ohio

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Just look around: the cities that are vibrant and alive all have excellent and convenient transportation services that the residents use frequently; they are cities that are designed for people and not automobiles. Then take a look at many of Ohio’s cities: the central cores are deserted after business hours. Walk around the downtown areas and notice the wide streets cluttered with fast-moving traffic; then look at the relative lack of safe places for people to walk. Notice the parking lot deserts where shopping and other services, as well as residences, could be built instead. If we want to rebuild our great cities, we need a real commitment to invest in public transportation.

The age of activism

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In recent months, people have filled the streets in the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa, and many parts of the United States. Their targets are local: autocratic leaders, corrupt politicians, and dismal economies. They’re not performing acts of global solidarity. Nor has there been an outbreak of some protest virus. These demonstrations are responding to specific conditions. Tunisia isn’t Bahrain. Croatia isn’t Burkina Faso. Madison, Wisconsin isn’t Frankfort, Kentucky. Let me rashly and prematurely propose a name for our era: the Age of Activism.