Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 13
September 1, 2013
Cngratulations to John Picacio
I’m very pleased that John Picacio won the Chesley Award for Best Cover Illustration – Paperback Book for his fabulous cover art for “The Creative Fire.” Here’s a tiny bit about the award from the ASFA website:
“The Chesleys have long been internationally acclaimed as the most prestigious awards in the field of fantastic arts. These awards are nominated and decided upon by the members of our community, the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.”
The post Cngratulations to John Picacio appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
August 24, 2013
Diamond Deep reviewed by the Romantic Times!
Romantic Times gave The Diamond Deep a four star review. I can’t link to it yet because it’s in the current issue, but here’s a short excerpt: ”…. the studied indifference of the rich and powerful to the weak and poor is condemned, not praised. A sequel to 2012’s The Creative Fire, this is a worthy conclusion to Ruby’s story.”
I really love this review for two reasons — one is that it’s in Romantic Times at all (which isn’t really any place I expected to be reviewed) and the second is that it echoes my favorite comment about the book. My editor Lou Anders and I (along with Gabrielle Harbowy and E.C. Myers) were doing a podcast for Speculate! when he called the Creative Fire a science fiction book about Occupy Wall Street.
The post Diamond Deep reviewed by the Romantic Times! appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
August 23, 2013
Backing into Eden Chapter 12: Climate Whispering
Our front yard is different than our back yard. The front is sunny and bright and grows flowers and moss-free grass. The back is partly shaded and often five degrees cooler. The two spaces have different micro-climates. This isn’t new science. Thomas Jefferson understood it. When he gardened at Monticello, he planted grapes on a sunny hillside that saw significant warmth for two months longer than many of his other lands.
A hollyhock planted by a wooden fence will grow differently if that fence is painted white than if the fence is painted brown. In fact, it may burn against the white fence, since it will radiate more heat. A stream creates a microclimate of damper air and soil, which encourages certain plants and animals to live near it. Conversely, deforestation near a stream causes evaporation to increase, perhaps until the stream is no longer healthy or is gone entirely.
A primary premise of this series is that we’re going to have to do much of the work we used to be able to leave to nature. Whether on city blocks, vertical farms, or in rolling hills, we must manage the garden of the earth actively.
This includes the climate.
There is – of course – the macro discussion of climate change and carbon sequestration and big geoengineering. I will write about those. But there are also more subtle tools. We can use our two hands, and perhaps small teams, to whisper to the climate directly around us.
The sunny hillside at Monticello occurred naturally, but microclimates can be created. Microclimate creation and management can help protect threatened species. We might use it to manage animal, bird, or even plant migration. Microclimates could help us grow certain foods or protect existing crops, such as vineyards.
It’s probably safe. Climate control on a scale that stops rain over a major city (as China did for the Olympics) may have large-scale unintended consequences. But small-scale engineering work to use water, shade, color and selected plantings to manage micro-climates is unlikely to cause much harm. We can selectively plant (or create) a slope so that it grows a certain kind of grape, mow a right-of-way so that a rare butterfly can eat, or channel a cooling breeze across a meadow so that a native flower thrives in spite of larger-scale climate fluctuations occurring nearby. Microclimate is being studied as it relates to the burrows of turtles and the caves that bats hibernate in over cold winters. It’s certainly been part of the farming and gardening conversation for years.
While researching this topic, I came across a fascinating company ,“Whole Systems Design,” which self-describes as “…an inter-disciplinary team of land planners, ecological designers, builders, and educators that live in their designs. We unify conventionally disparate fields to develop resilient and regenerative places.” Microclimates are one tool they work with. They state, “Good design creates microclimates intentionally.”
We’ll have knowledge. Real-time data can be mapped , and big-data algorithms applied to a large amount of sensor data. This will help us see what microclimates do, how to design them more effectively, and how they react to fluctuations in the larger climate around them.
We can use information to guide the creation and maintenance of habitats, including habitats for humans. We do this now in a lot of energy intensive fashions (like the misters on outside patios in Arizona restaurants), but it can be done more subtly.
We already understand microclimates. When I lived in California, I looked for houses with shade trees. Here in the Pacific Northwest, I look for houses with un-shaded sunny places.
Innovative microclimate design can improve parks, wildlife preserves, and backyards. This won’t affect the big pictures of climate change, but could very well ameliorate some of the effects, at least for a while. It might buy time.
It’s not terribly difficult work for those armed with a bit of knowledge and a lot of real-time sensor data. Add in some better AI, which is coming along as I write this, plentiful solar power which is doing the same (and can power sensors and networks to collect data), and all of us will be able to whisper to the climate in subtle ways.
Links:
Holly Jones’ own private microclimate, Indiana Green Living, Betsy Sheldon, March 4, 2013.
Really worth poking around on…these people are doing interesting work in resilience. Whole Systems Design website
An article at Huffpo that talks about microclimate management to save the Bay Checkerspot butterfly: And the Butterflies Will Come, Huffpost Green, The Blog, Mary Ellen Hannibal, June 4, 2013
Take a look at this to get an idea of the complexity of microclimate management: Vineyard Microclimates: What’s your ripening curve, Viticision, 2010
For fun, and because the arts really do apply, a poem about microclimates
The post Backing into Eden Chapter 12: Climate Whispering appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
August 18, 2013
Worldcon Final Schedule
I’m pretty pleased with my Worldcon schedule this year. I’ll be busy!
Please note the reading on Saturday — I’ll read from The Diamond Deep, which will be launching a month after Worldcon, at Orycon 35!
Stroll with the Stars Friday
Friday 09:00 – 10:00
Conflicting Cultures When Preserving the Environment
Friday 12:00 – 13:00
Panel will identify first and third world perspectives related to environmental stewardship. Who has to pay, and what is the price?
Colossus, Skynet, or the Culture?
Friday 15:00 – 16:00
If and when our AI masters arrive, how will they come about? Will they spring spontaneously from the internet or be deliberately built by men? Our panelists discuss the possibility. Will they rule us, destroy us, or partner with us?
Europa – What’s Under the Ice? Moderator
Friday 18:00 – 19:00
New data shows a salinity and pH level compatible with anaerobic respiration, and the presence of Epsom salts on the surface says something organic may indeed be happening. What will we find if we do sink a probe through the crust? What kind of biochemistry would work in that setting? (Hint: think glass!) What about sensory systems?
Reading: Brenda Cooper
Saturday 14:00 – 14:30
Big Data. Check. Next Stop: Big Brother?
Sunday 10:00 – 11:00
Google+Facebook+Microsoft+Prism=NSA becoming big brother. Or does it?
The Rapture of the Geeks
Sunday 12:00 – 13:00
Technological convergence of uploading our consciousness into a machine to cheat death… The Science and science fiction of understanding what consciousness is – the mysterious thing that makes you – you. And how to upload it – after all the brain is nothing less than a very powerful and very odd computer – our wetware.
Have We Lost the Future?
Sunday 14:00 – 15:00
Where science fiction once looked to the future as the setting for speculation, nowadays the focus seems to be on alternate pasts, fantasy worlds, or consciously “retro” futures. We’re no longer showing the way to what things might be like. We discuss whether this is connected to the general fear of decline and decay in the English-language world — or has science fiction simply run out of ideas?
Care and Feeding of Your Aliens and Magical Beings (Moderator)
Sunday 15:00 – 16:00
With all of space, time, biology and imagination to work with, why is it so hard to create fictional aliens that aren’t just humans in rubber suits. Our panelists discuss some of the more successful aliens from fiction as well as what to consider when creating new ones.
Autographing: Brenda Cooper, Stephen Leigh, Connie Willis, Michael Underwood
Sunday 17:00 – 18:00
The post Worldcon Final Schedule appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
August 5, 2013
Backing into Eden Chapter 11: Invasion and Migration
Almost every summer weekend, there are programs in the local parks where volunteers gather to remove invasive blackberries and plant native plants. It’s a tough fight – the invasive berries are tall and thick-caned and full of stickers. Volunteers sometime emerge with torn long-sleeved shorts and red rivulets of blood on their arms. At least they are slaughtering plants. Right now, officials are deciding whether or not to hunt down over 3,500 barred owls, an invasive predator that is driving spotted owls away from a limited habitat. This isn’t the first time I’ve referenced this problem in this series, but I find this decision to be terrible and iconic. I love owls, and I cannot image either killing thousands of them – most likely with shotguns from the articles I’ve read. Nor can I imagine stepping back and allowing the spotted owl to die off. We often hear owls in the trees outside of urban backyard. Sometimes we stop our own chatter and listen to them talk back and forth to each other.
There are many more stories about migrations colliding or changing as the climate changes. For example, it turns out that sea life migrates up at night to feed near the surface and down during the day to hide. Even these “horizontal migrations” are affected by climate change, which is expected to lower oxygen levels in the ocean. This may force sea creatures to change the depth at which they hide during the day, trading a safer home for a more dangerous one where it is easier for predators to feed.
In her Kindle Single book, “Battle at the End of Eden,” Amanda R. Martinez discusses the killing of multiple invasive species on islands. The invaders – often rats (but not always) – were killing seabird populations with limited habitats. They ate eggs and babies, and sometimes even adult birds. Islands are a unique ecosystem for this problem – because they are smaller, it’s easier to see what is happening. And perhaps also easier to make a difference. If a species needs to be eradicated (yes, eradicated – or for another word, think genocide), then success or failure is easier to track on an island.
I talked about this problem in chapter eight. I was planning to go on and talk about genetically changed life, but I clearly haven’t finished thinking about killing to save lives. If I said, “Let’s kill off the purple people and keep the blue ones,” it would sound like thinly veiled racism. But now have a federal plan to kill barred owls to save spotted ones. It doesn’t feel right. Very little about this series is comfortable; I don’t want the natural world to need us. I know we need it, but it feels like nature should be stronger and more enduring than us.
Animals compete. This is what evolution is about. As climate change intensifies, animals are going to be moving further into each other’s territory and native animals are likely to lose. Birds that we love (barred owls) are going to threaten other birds that we love (spotted owls).
Speaking of birds, I’ve gained new respect for the Audubon society. I’m not a member. I don’t carry binoculars and bird books with me, or get tweets from my citizen-science friends when a rare species flies through in my neighborhood. I notice the Canada geese and the robins, but they are noisy and plentiful. I can often spot an eagle, but they are also plentiful here in the Pacific Northwest, in this moment. Thank you, Endangered Species Act.
Even though I’m no birder, I recently listened to a GIS researcher talk about the work being done to set conservation goals for the Audubon Society. She mentioned that almost all species of birds are expected to change habitat due to climate change. Then she described three buckets that the Society is sifting birds into. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this:
Bucket: Birds that have a large habitat and are reasonably adaptable. These birds may find that their habitat shrinks on one edge and grows on another, and will probably manage through the changes. The barred owl may be one of these – they have migrated all the way over here from the east coast, and part of the reason they are out-competing the spotted owl is that they have a much more varied diet.
Bucket 2: Birds that have a small to medium sized habitat (or perhaps a narrow migration corridor and time window) and which will still have habitat left for them. These birds will struggle some, but reasonable mitigation and/or direct assistance is likely to save them.
Bucket 3: Birds that have a small habitat, and will have a small habitat, distant habitat, or no habitat left after climate change. Or perhaps, like the spotted owl, habitat where they can’t compete well. Larger conservation efforts might not have any success. The spotted owl may be one of these – difficult to save at this point. I’m not sure how the Audubon classified them, but they aren’t on the priority bird list of birds the Audubon is spending resources on.
After this classification, the Audubon Society is putting its resources into the middle group of birds. Here is what the society says in its most recent strategic plan: “Audubon’s priority bird species are birds of significant conservation need, for which our actions, over time, can lead to measurable improvements in status. Eighteen are Red WatchList species, 23 are Yellow WatchList species, and 8 are Vulnerable Common Birds. The breadth of this list reflects the dramatic loss of habitat and the pervasive threats that confront birds and wildlife.”
Most importantly, this strategy means that resources are being put where they can do the most good. This should be done for other groups of plants and animals as well. Then, the choices about varying parts of the ecosystems (avian mammal, plant, other) can be over-layed on maps which might allow conservation groups to work together (using big data) to make the smartest possible investments in animal conservation.
I sometimes imagine that if we put money and resources into saving the right species, we might not have to destroy others. But even the Portland Audubon Society ultimately – and with great reluctance from what I can tell – chose to say that, “After careful consideration, it is Portland Audubon’s position that the highest priority must be placed on preventing the extinction of the northern spotted owl even to the degree that this entails lethal control of another protected species.” The entire letter is linked below.
Me and a waterfall in the home of spotted and barred owls
Successes are very possible. Bird populations on some of the islands where invaders were eradicated are now thriving. The Audubon society is likely to continue saving birds – they have a long history of conservation, deep pockets, and committed members. I’m not sure what will happen to the spotted — or barred – owls up here. Chances are good that one species or the other will thrive in our forests. It already looks like they can’t live there together.
I’ve heard that up to one in four mammals are expected to become instinct soon. One in four. It seems that some intervention to mitigate the damage we’ve done may be in order, even though we may not like where that takes us. Like the Portland Audubon society, we’re going to have to make some choices and we’re going to have to prioritize.
Oh, and I may go join the Audubon Society. They are likely to be one of the main forces in the gardened world, the Eden we’re backing ourselves into.
Apologies for the time between posts – not only was I worrying about this kind of choice, but I also prepared and delivered a talk on this topic at the World Future Society meeting in Chicago in late July. That took the time I might have given to writing new chapters.
As always, here are some of the links that lead to research I used for this chapter:
The Spotted Owl’s New Nemesis, Smithsonian magazine, January 2009, Craig Welch
Wildlife Officials Consider Killing Barred Owls to Save Spotted Owls, KQED Science, NPR, July 24, 2013, Mike Osborne
Audobon Strategic Plan 2012-2015
Portland Audubon letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service
The post Backing into Eden Chapter 11: Invasion and Migration appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
August 3, 2013
Reading Recommendation: Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I just finished thoroughly enjoying listening to Neil Gaiman read “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” to me. Of note, whenever I get a Neil Gaiman book, I actually choose to have him read it to me. His voice and lyrical writing are so lovely, I just want to drown in them. I then convince myself to listen and walk the dog, to listen and weed, to listen and fold laundry…. In other words, having Neil Gaiman read you a story makes pleasant chores fabulous.
The Ocean at the end of the Lane is what I call a small/big story. That is, the actual story is simple and spans a short time in a young boy’s life. It’s lyrical, a bit frightening, and touched with magic (as are all things that Neil writes about). It’s also far more transcendent than it pretends to be – there’s no real ego or pretentiousness in the book or the story, yet it contains a layer of pretty deep talk about the nature of the world.
If you haven’t gotten it it yet, do. And if you have any love at all for audio books, choose that format.
The post Reading Recommendation: Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
June 25, 2013
Backing into Eden – Chapter 10 – The Elephant Angels
I’m irked at how many elephants we’re losing to the ivory trade. They are one of the most intelligent of animals, often ranked alongside dolphins. Elephants are beloved. They show up early in our lives, as the a common expression of the letter “e” in board books for babies. They are the central exhibit in many zoos. Whole websites are devoted to saving them. Rangers in Africa have died to save them, and yet more rangers risk their lives fighting poachers every day.
Think of the elephants as giant canaries. If we can’t save a species so big that we can see it from space, and so visible to all of us in legend and film and books, what is going to befall the other flora and fauna we share the world with?
So far in this blog series, I’ve written about today. I’ve described the situation today, linked to current technology, and talked about what I think we need. But ultimately, this blog series is about tomorrow, and how we can assure ourselves of a future that can support elephants and mice, wheat and rice. A place where whales and coral reefs and plankton and humans can live. One with a healthy atmosphere and recognizable shorelines. So follow me through some ideas and technologies and social changes that might be good choices in the future. Today, I’m going to talk about elephants, shifts in jobs, and the commons.
Photo credit: digitalART2 / Foter.com / CC BY
The elephants: There is an ivory war, which is resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of elephants a year. The situation in brief and simplistic form: Elephants are being killed for their tusks, which are sold into China. The money is used to fund militias. Tusks for guns.
Changes in jobs: It’s easy to find articles about how slow employment is coming back, to hear whispers of a jobless recovery, and to locate scare-tactic articles about how robots are coming for our jobs. There’s some truth in that, but I’m a perennial optimist who believes that while jobs are changing, there will be plenty of work in the future. Interesting work.
The commons: I’m talking about gardening the Earth in the blog series. It’s a land use problem. And the land that is perhaps the most abused? Land we own in common. The simplest illustration is to go out and join a group cleaning up American highways. The sheer volume of coke bottles and beer cans and other detritus along the road is way too great to have fallen there by accident. People are happy to trash the strips of land near roads. If that’s not enough, take a look at pictures of what marine pollution is doing to animals.
Land and air are not the only commons. Herds of wild animals are essentially either owned by nobody, or owned by all of us. For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume they are owned by all of us. Or perhaps a less slavery-tinged way to think of that is that humanity is putting pressure on wild beings through hunting, habitat loss, and climate change. So we need to take responsibility for creating a path forward for them, especially as we are realize how dependent we are on a functioning ecosystem. I found a definition I really like at the website OntheCommons.org: “The commons include everything that we inherit and create together, from water and forests to knowledge and the Internet.”
If I follow that argument, many elephants live in the commons (in parks and preserves), and elephants themselves are members of the commons. Let’s add one more thing I’ve come to believe. Part of the way forward is to charge businesses for their effect on the commons. So we’ll have an income stream that we can use to pay people to take care of the environment. Money will flow from cap and trade or similar programs. It will come through government hands and be distributed to contractors, NGO’s, or perhaps through expansion of government jobs. I like the NGO’s best, but I anticipate a blend.
This money can be put to work saving the elephants (and a lot more, but at the moment I’m exercised about the elephants). So let’s imagine we use some of it to improve pay and tools for the rangers that are directly on the ground. At the moment, these forces are paramilitary – the average college student is not going to find a job in an African preserve unless they also know a bit about assault rifles and aren’t afraid to use them. But here’s what they can do:
Drones can be used to fly the parks and keep track of elephant herds and poachers.
Fixed cameras can be monitored by a combination of software and humans to watch areas like trails and sources of water.
Each elephant or group of elephants can be assigned an “elephant angel” team – a group of people who use electronic surveillance, real-time sensors (perhaps attached directly to the elephants), mapping and GPS, and storytelling ability to protect “their” elephant herds.
Others can monitor nearby ports, sale of ivory, and the activities of governments responsible for elephant lands.
Still others could teach people about the elephants, and the role they play. For example, according the World Wildlife Fund, “In African Forests, up to 30% of tree species may require elephants to help with dispersal and germination.”
The technology for all of this exists now, albeit in relatively crude forms. It will get better.
The elephant angel program could go further. Perhaps the elephant angels could watch out for other animals that share the same habitat, such as giraffes, zebras, and impalas. Perhaps the elephant angels program could also work for tigers, and if you can have tiger angels, maybe you can also pay for baboon angels….
Obviously we will have choices to make. Not every wild animal will have – or should have – a human angel. Elephants need them because there are human devils out to slaughter them for their tusks. Simply setting aside habitat (which has been done relatively well) is not enough. I am not religious about angels or demons, or much of anything else. But humans are certainly good and bad, and both side of our nature show in the ways that we protect, and slaughter, elephants.
I hope the elephants survive us. It’s possible. Especially if we help.
Some links……
Elephants:
Even on Reserves, Scant protection for Elephants, New York Times, March 16th, 2013
Elephants in Danger, a slide show at The New York Times
China’s Ivory Craze is Killing Africa’s Elephants, CNN, May 2013
2012 Continental Totals, The Elephant Database
Word Wildlife Fund page on African Elephants
The Commons:
The post Backing into Eden – Chapter 10 – The Elephant Angels appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
June 23, 2013
Reading Recommendation: Blue Remembered Earth by Alistair Reynolds
I have no idea why I haven’t been reading Alistair Reynolds forever. I found Blue Remembered Earth to be enchanting. It’s bold and futuristic and full of wonder. Oh, and a little bit, it’s also about elephants. Since this is a current hot spot in my thinking, I liked that part. But even more importantly, its about space, and humanity, and how we might be after we get through the worst bits that are probably coming. It’s a post surviving-climate-change society, where the world is not quite what it seems like today, yet it is thoroughly believable as a future world we might inhabit.
Note that I listened to the audio version, which was also very nicely narrated. You should go buy this book and read it, or perhaps listen to it. You will have to forgive a few places where the plot gets a little tough to believe, but the world building and the audacity of the book more than make up for it.
I’m certain I’ll read more of Reynold’s work in the future.
The post Reading Recommendation: Blue Remembered Earth by Alistair Reynolds appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
Reading Recommendation: Crux, by Ramez Naam
Not that many authors I know pull off good fiction and good non-fiction. My last reading recommendation was Ramez Naam’s non-fiction book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet.
Today, I’m recommending his fiction. I got my hands on an early-release copy of Crux, which follows his debut fiction novel Nexus. Short form? Excellent. For more detail, visit IEET for my full review.
The worst thing is that the book isn’t available yet. But since it is almost certainly better to read after you’ve read Nexus, consider this an opportunity to catch up and to pre-order.
The post Reading Recommendation: Crux, by Ramez Naam appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
June 18, 2013
Backing into Eden chapter 9 – Global Will
Every May, a force for conservation holds an awards breakfast. ForTerra fills a huge auditorium in the Seattle Convention center with a broad assortment of northwest people. There are elected officials and people who want to be elected officials. There are suited-up businessmen and women, and retired dowagers in pearls. There are teenagers and indigenous people and bike riders and housewives. They all write checks while they hear about the successes of the previous year. And there are successes. ForTerra has protected 180,000 acres of land.
One of the awards ForTerra gave this year showcased a couple who noticed a “for sale” sign on state forestland near their house. When they learned the land had been involved in a development-rights swap, they vowed to save it, and preserved 203 acres of forest. The 2013 Goldman Environmental Prizes were given out in April this year. All six went individuals for successes like this: closing two old coal plants in Chicago, restoring Mesopotamian marchlands in Iraq, protesting marble mines in West Timor by sitting on rocks and weaving, changing a whole town in Italy’s recycling rate from 11% to 82%, and winning a court ruling that requires job opportunities for people who want to recycle waste in Columbia.
None of these things were easy. But they happened.
Activists are often in danger. Popular whale defender Paul Watson is in trouble with multiple governments, including his own, and at the moment he’s staying out to sea in boats flagged from other countries. Turtle activist Jaira Mora was probably killed by poachers in Costa Rica last month. Park rangers who try to save elephants are often murdered for their trouble. At the recent Rio+20 conference, it was reported that environmental activists around the world are being killed at a rate of one per week. I suspect this is more likely to be an underestimate than an overestimate. Yet people keep committing environmentalism. They fight for the land and animals they know and love. They do this because it honors their values. Their enemies are poor people who need to eat, dangerous poachers, and gigantic multinationals. This is the bravest face of the will we’re going need.
Another way to change the world is to use capitalism and innovation to transform daily practices. Last month, at technology futurist Mark Anderson’s “Future in Review” conference in Laguna Beach, I met people from startup companies that aim to make the world better. Like direct activism, starting a company means long hours laboring over a dream with uncertain rewards. Graphene Technologies is developing processes to capture carbon at the source by turning it into carbon fiber, which is a unique and useful material. Kind of like spinning straw into gold. Electro Power Systems, SpA is working on hydrogen fuel cells for energy storage and Zinc Air is bringing more traditional but improved battery technology to bear on the grid storage problem. Ibis Networks is designed to increase building efficiency by adding remote control of outlets. HeVT is building better electric motors.
Some of these companies will thrive, and their successes matter. They – and companies like them all over the world – are building the tools we’ll need to manage our ecosystem and to live lighter on it. They’re doing this is a way that adds to overall prosperity, creates jobs, and searches – constantly – for better ways to do things.
A strong economy is fueled by the private sector. Yet there are places that only governments can go easily, if at all.
Indonesia’s president placed a two-year moratorium on new forest clearing permits in 2011, and then extended it for two more years. This matters: in 2007, Indonesia was identified as the third largest greenhouse gas producer because of extensive deforestation. Germany has become a leader in the use of renewable energy sources. In the US, California regularly passes more restrictive environmental laws than the federal government, including a comprehensive carbon cap and trade program.
Making changes as a government can be as hard as the work of the citizens and NGO’s inciting the change. Big lobbying money and corporate money and active disinformation campaigns work against progress. By definition, most actions that protect the planet are born from long-term thinking, but politicians are always aware of the next election.
Getting to a sustainable world is an uphill battle. But there are a lot of examples of sheer gut-it-out willpower making a difference. Way back in chapter 4, I mentioned that we would need data, decision-making frameworks, and willpower to create a sustainable future. We will need to be as successful as the couple who noticed the “for sale” sign and as innovative as Graphene Technologies and as determined as the President of Indonesia.
In the next entry, I’ll talk about some ideas for creating sustainable ways to manage the common places we all share.
As always, links in case you want to do your own research:
Logging the good news, posted on The Economist website, May 25th 2013 | JAKARTA |
Indonesia Proved to be a Top Greenhouse Gas Emitter, Softpedia, Laura Sinpetru, June 25th, 2012
European renewable energy incentive guide – Germany, Norton Rose Fulbright web site, January 2013
Six global environmental heroes honored, USA Today, April 15th, 2013
2012-13 Forest Heroes Award Winners, United Nations Forum on Forests website
Earth Month Heroes, The Wyland Foundation website
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/641Synthesis_report_Web.pdf
Future in Review, Firestarters webpage.
Whale-war Fugitive: Q. & A. with Paul Watson, by Raffi Khatchadourian, The New Yorker, June 4, 2013
The post Backing into Eden chapter 9 – Global Will appeared first on Brenda Cooper.
