Posted by Snow in
Ochre Forest
Check out the New York Times Magazine today and you’ll see the Green issue. Usually these types of issues are very much fluffy with not a lot to say. This issue has a lot of very good articles from various points of view. There is a lot of candid talk about what green means to people and what sustainability will really cost in the long run.
I don’t shill for the New York Times, and as a Californian I don’t read it much, but this is responsible journalism in an era when forestry may have to be sacrificed for housing, where nuclear plants may have to keep coal-based rural areas alive, when states with fiscal debt export energy but are mired in federal tax offsets.
Alternative energy resistance and the cost of doing business, as well as many other concerns of green living make this an issue to re-order for the coffee table. Is it sustainably ethical for environmentally conscious governments to create jobs out of scarring energy production projects? Can some states expect others to sacrifice natural beauty for energy efficacy? What does environmental interdependence mean in the actual nuts and bolts communications and exchanges?
If you like your blurbs green, there is a great interview with Stewart Brand who founded the Whole Earth catalog. This NYT Magazine issue frames the question “How Sustainable is Sustainability?”
We live in an era where Colorado is covered in oil pumps, and the Southwest may become a solar grid of East Coast destined electrical power. Where East Coast states unwilling to plow forests for high density population nevertheless support Southwest wildlands oil drilling. It’s an arcane time to be green but utilize precious resources to do so.
The forests of Massachusetts are at issue. The emergence of a community model called Transition is investigated in the context of an Idaho town. I was fascinated to learn about what they called a process of re-skill-ing. Reskilling is learning to adopt new skills that enhance a community living, local shopping, and energy and conservation way of life.
Of course, there are a lot of people doing things for eco-friendly city and country living now. But articles like the whiz kid who invented the battery swapping robot, the selfish case for environmentalism, and the usual NYT features (Why isn’t the Brain Green?) make for sustainable green reading.
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