Desert Mosaics

It seems that much of my art work is inspired by place these days - place, or the environment, the world around us.

Tonight I started working on a set of desert-inspired mosaics. I've done a good number of pieces that are about water and these next two or three will be about the lack of water. I spent a lot of our hike in the Mojave a couple weeks ago thinking about how I would represent a desert in a mosaic- not the Mojave, per se, but the idea of a desert...

Tonight's work was mostly selecting and cutting stone - sandstone, marble, slate and onyx (tans, browns, oranges, reds and grays) - and choosing glass (reds, oranges, blues, grays and black) that will blend well with the stone I have selected.

The small piles are individual sandstone rocks that I picked up in the Mojave. A couple of the rocks have a really cool layered coloring - I think it's from baking in the relentless sun out there. The outer surface of the rocks have a patina-like coloring that is very different from the inner parts.

Permaculture Winona - 2

One of the things I heard in the permaculture group meeting that keeps spinning around in my head was a wistfulness about being able to sell one's old, outdated, inefficient house and build the sustainable dream house - which, to me, smacks of naivety and the consumer-driven model to get another chance at living well...

That's not really very articulate, but I'm still trying to form a response to the knot in my stomach/chest that this kind of thinking causes. I'll try to say it better:

Imagine you could discard the old house, that you could sell it and build your perfect sustainable home... who wouldn't love to do that? Who wouldn't feel ten-times better about oneself in doing that? Wouldn't that be great? Just think about how great it would be for the world if we all did that...

But wait a moment - what would happen to this house that I'd be leaving behind. One of four things would happen to it:

1. another person would buy the house and live unsustainably in it,
2. no one would buy the house and live unsustainably in it because everyone would be looking for sustainable housing - which actually would probably preclude me being able to build my dream house,
3. if I did find a way to build my dream house without someone else taking on this unsustainable albatross then this house would either sit empty (much like the abandoned and foreclosed on houses across the land - which spawns a whole other list of issues)... or,
4. the house would be torn down and someone (maybe even me) would build a new sustainable house on the property - and all the history and culture in this 110-year old building would be lost...

Wouldn't the best solution be to make every house more sustainable instead of building new sustainable houses?

I'd like to see serious discussion on this idea. How can an old house - one whose "ecological mortgage" has been long paid in full - become part of the sustainable life we want to live?

Abelisto talks about sustainability and the treadmill of production. The idea about selling this old house and building a new sustainable one is very much akin to the idea of producing our way out of the mess we're in.

Sustainability - Problems & Solutions

One problem with talking about sustainability is that it is an overwhelming idea. There is great resistance to changing our lives, especially if we think it means deprivation of any kind... even inconveniencing ourselves is sometimes more than we can deal with. I admit it - I have those days.

Another issue is that it is so very difficult to know when we are hearing/reading valid information, and when what we are hearing/reading is just sales hype - just Greenwashing.

A third major problem with sustaining the sustainability movement is it is so DAMN expensive to go green - or at least it feels like it is. Products seem to cost so much more when it bears the label - "Green."

And one last issue (at least the last that I can think of right now) is that there is not much solidarity in the movement. So many people are doing so many different things. I know that there rarely is the unity in a social movement that people think there is, but I cannot help thinking that a bit more unity and common direction would help considerably.

So, we are adding new sustainable ways to our lives, one thing at a time - CF lightbulbs, buying local produce, using cloth tote bags, riding bicycles whenever possible, driving less, investing responsibly, using fewer toxic chemicals and trying to talk more with people about sustainable living.

I have to think about all the work it takes incrementally or I will give up on it.

The “year of citizens’ rights”

Going to try not to buy goods from China anymore. That will align with my ecological views and my political views...

In Sentence of Activist, China Gives West a Chill

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: December 26, 2009

Human rights advocates said the punishment for Liu Xiaobo was intended to send an unequivocal message to others who might agitate for political reform.


But this will make it hard to do...um, make that impossible.

Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: December 26, 2009

Some renewable energy technologies rely on a group of elements called rare earths, but they mainly come from environmentally damaging mines in China.

Clean Water, Clean Air

When I hear the "Green Jobs, Green Jobs" mantra I wonder about a couple things.

First and foremost is whether or not the so-called green jobs really are "green" or if they're simply being repackaged - like changing the name of Kellogg's Sugar Smacks to Honey Smacks... without changing the nearly 50% sugar content (see Consumer Reports - Health.org)...

I also wonder how we're going to convince the public to buy/use green alternatives since they're bound to be more expensive (I've a suspicion that the greenwashed products will be even more expensive than the actual green products since it's marketing behind the green, instead of an actual product revision... but that may just be my cynicism surfacing).

Even when there are real green alternatives, there is often great resistance to implementing them.

I listened to a MNPR story this morning about the proposed Prairie Island power increase.

Xcel Energy has made the decision to increase production at the Prairie Island plant - beyond what the plant was built to safely produce - instead of choosing to use renewables to meet increased demand, because it was CHEAPER.  In reality, the expansion of nuclear power is only cheaper when you close your eyes to the environmental effects - the unsolvable environmental effects.

The most chilling aspect of this increase is the increased waste problem. Nuclear waste isn't like other waste. It isn't feasibly recycled; it cannot be filtered out of the air or the water; it lasts as near to forever as matters to any who are alive now...

The proposed increase in power at the Prairie Island facility would not only cause significant stress on the structure of the power plants (think - higher pressure, higher heat, pipe corrosion, pipe cracks...), but also would generate many more casks of spent nuclear waste. This potentially increases the risk to anyone living near or downriver from the power plant.

Currently waste casks sit on a concrete pad next to the plant, on an island in the Mississippi River which is the source of drinking water for many communities downstream. There currently is only a small amount of leakage of radioactive materials into the air and water - in an amount that is deemed by some to be safe for human exposure. Others have concerns that the monitoring may be insufficient, and still others wonder if any additional exposure to radioactive materials, beyond what occurs naturally, is really safe. The proposed increase of power is expected to increase the radioactive discharges into the air and the river by 10 percent.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has already approved this "uprate" at Xcel's other nuclear plant at Monticello. The federal government is expected to approve it. Next on the docket is the Prairie Island decision.

It's up to the Minnesota government to stop this risk. We should be telling our representatives and senators to vote no on this expansion. Make a real commitment to our health, and our planet's health. Keep us safe from this kind of risk. There are alternatives to nuclear power and its deadly waste.