Heroes at Work

That's one long horse!

And bendy.

Greenpeace protestors express their opinion in a gigantic Brazillian rainforest clear cut. Brazille cut down over 10,000 square MILES of rainforest last year. This is year after year.

It's possible to take lumber in such a way that it's a renewable resource... trees grow.

This forest is being taken in a way such that it is not expected to grow back, EVER. And the remaining fields of dirt are designed to support... no life.

yeah it makes me sick. If you treated your kids this way, I'd be pissed, this is our Earth... it IS us. Is this difficult to accept?

I'm an atheist Christian

Perhaps it's no suprise. But I believe the message of Christ. Oh sure, I'm an atheist... but the message of Christ is about our fellow man.

And really, like Christ, I'm a bit of a cynic in terms of sin, I think we have all sinned. Not back to Adam and Even from eating a peach (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean), but actual post-birth unoriginal sins. Screw ups. Double crosses. Lies, travesty and shame. Quite a broadway shows worth. My theory is if you know some one well enough then you have met madness.

It sounds rather depressing in a british sort of, oh dear, sort of way, but no. Not for Christ and me. It's rather inspiring, because it was getting rather tedious, you know, the fronting, stressful, dear oh dear, and it requires reams of blue thread. And really, all we really wanted was to do the best we could and you know, come to think of it we didn't know there was anything wrong with dropping the ball every once in a while. (Just relaxing in the jungle).

But the point is I believe all people are flawed, and it's not bad news, because that means things can get better, there is room for the progress that looks so sorely needed when one looks at the big picture. Eureka, we've found the source of the problem in the big picture! It's people! All fucked up! Should have thought of that ages ago. Whoopee! Of course this is all ages ago.

but you have to love them. People I mean. And why? because they are fuzzy little animals. People are nothing but fuzzy little cute little animals and some of em are frisky and some of them are sanguine and some of them like to cuddle and some of them piss a lot. And you have to love em because they are cute in their twisted little ways. And when they tell me what my problem is, that's nice of them to try to help me improve like that, even though they're usually wrong. Though I have to disagree, it's not the thought that counts, but the action.

But it is what we need, and if you ask me, Christ's message of everyone being screwed up and also everyone can do better. His message, going along with that theme, of tolerance, especially for those that would love to progress, to do better, is wicked cool. I dig totally this groovy concept. Yes! Tell it Jesus! You are cool! I thought that was hype!

I just don't plan to go to Church. Those guys don't really, I mean... I don't know myself, I could be wrong about Christ... perhaps he thought we were all perfect and would never get any better... maybe a prankster took all the "not"s out of the Bible and made it all topsy turvy sometime in the last dozen or so centuries.

I don't mean to be blasphemous but you know what I mean, right? There are lots of versions of the bible. Lots of people got their human hands on it. Whole books of Christianity were not included, or so I've heard. But if the ones I have read are any indication, while it's a bit racy in many parts, if one looks through all the perspectives on Christ what comes out in common seems to be this message of ubuiquitous love and tolerance for all that would improve their lot and turn over a new leaf, that is to all things willing to make progress.

And that is what I mean when I say I'm progressive.

Restore Hetch Hetchy

Hetch Hetchy Valley is the place John Muir called "a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples."

I have a dream of a restoration industry. It is a dream in which Big Engineering is directed not at war, but instead is harnessed into an economic and social force that awakens man's natural sense of being proprietor and caretaker of the Earth. Both concepts are important, but an ecologically minded person such as myself may well cringe at my use of the word "proprietor", which we can discuss in comments if anyone is inclined.

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The power of major engineering projects to drive change is clear, technological but also social progress can and has been achieved by things such as the interstate highway system (war related), the space program (cold war related) or the wave of dam building that occurred last century, to cite three very different examples.  For environmentalists this has always tended to be a negative thing, with projects usually being more destructive of the Earth than the Space Program and more along the lines of dam projects which destroy miles of vibrant and pristine habitat.

Big engineering projects have been decidedly anti-green. Restoration is our chance to make big engineering green.

The picture above is an accurate artist's rendering of Hetch Hetchy, a glacial valley in Yosemite, dear love of John Muir, co-founder of the Sierra Club and a figure commemorated on California's state quarter.  Well, it's not that accurate currently... because the valley floor depicted above is under water, dammed and filled by the City of San Francisco.  

It was called the second Yosemite Valley, and anyone that has visited Yosemite Valley itself will recognize how horrible the reality of filling such a stunning piece of nature truly is.  The movement to restore Hetch Hetchy has gained steam this year, and not only do I support it, but it's about much much more than getting this valley back.

It's about progressive engineering, and ultimately, a progressive economy.

The job of restoring Hetch Hetchy will run in the billions, estimates range from 4 billion to 10 billion dollars.  Yes, that's a lot of money.  But where will the money go?  It will go funding green technology companies, it will go to massive amounts of labor as young naturalists and the willing are recruited for surveys and the manual labor involved.  It will fund research into habitat science.  It will employ a lot of people and yield a lot of science and engineering, all aimed at leaving a place better than how you found it.

It is about Big Engineering finally being used to directly improve the planet we live on.  And there is a lot of this kind of work and worse to do besides Hetch Hetchy.  We need to funnel this energy of man to construct and control into the green and progressive goals.  I hope not only that Hetch Hetchy is restored, but that it should spark a restoration economy, in which mankind invents a new kind of technological infrastructure which nurtures the Earth as the Earth has nurtured us.

The main purpose of damming Hetch Hetchy has always been providing water for San Francisco, and so it is of concern if this resource is taken away.  However, subsequent massive dams further downstream in the foothills and in the San Joaquin Valley exist to hold sufficient water for San Francisco.  Hetch Hetchy is no longer needed for the practical reasons which have cause San Francisco to hold onto it so dearly.

Big Engineering has a hold on the modern human culture and that is not going to change.  A progressive world vision has to imagine how such forces can be put to progressive use.  A strong restoration industry would be a boon for progressives, a source for positive job creation all aiming to rectify our mistakes, restore our urban wildlands and would educate mankind in the specifics of how to caretake our planet for the next few thousand years.