Lake Erie is Polluted→

Behind Toledo’s Water Crisis, a Long-Troubled Lake Erie
By Michael Wines, The New York Times:

Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

“It took a serendipitous slug of toxins and the loss of drinking water for a half-million residents to bring home what scientists and government officials in this part of the county have been saying for years: Lake Erie is in trouble, and getting worse by the year.

Flooded by tides of phosphorus washed from fertilized farms, cattle feedlots and leaky septic systems, the most intensely developed of the Great Lakes is increasingly being choked each summer by thick mats of algae, much of it poisonous. What plagues Toledo and, experts say, potentially all 11 million lakeside residents, is increasingly a serious problem across the United States.

But while there is talk of action — and particularly in Ohio, real action — there also is widespread agreement that efforts to address the problem have fallen woefully short. And the troubles are not restricted to the Great Lakes. Poisonous algae are found in polluted inland lakes from Minnesota to Nebraska to California, and even in the glacial-era kettle ponds of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.”

If you don't advance new pollution control efforts now — if you choose the quick and easy path — you will become an agent of darkness.

Public Transit Rankings→

Reuben Fischer-Baum, reporting for FiveThirtyEight:

“New York is the only U.S. system to register on the international level. Most of New York’s trips were on the MTA subway (62 percent), followed by MTA buses (21 percent), NJ Transit buses (4 percent) and LIRR commuter trains (3 percent).

New York, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia — the urban centers of the “Northeast Corridor” — all fall into the top 10 in trips per resident. They also fall into the top 10 of urban population. Do certain regions tend to support better public transit, or is this just a product of city size and density?

Among all 290 cities, there’s a clear relationship between trips per resident and both total population (the r-squared is 0.41) and population density (r-squared = 0.21). ”

Brent Moore

Size matters, ... Look at New York and D.C. Judge them by size, do you?”

Rewilding Europe: reconstructing ecosystems by looking mostly forward→

Elizabeth Kolbert, writing for The New Yorker:

“The newest land in Europe could be used to create a Paleolithic landscape. The biologists set about stocking the Oostvaardersplassen with the sorts of animals that would have inhabited the region in prehistoric times—had it not at that point been underwater. In many cases, the animals had been exterminated, so they had to settle for the next best thing. For example, in place of the aurochs, a large and now extinct bovine, they brought in Heck cattle...

Perhaps it’s true that genuine wildernesses can only be destroyed, but new “wilderness,” what the Dutch call “new nature,” can be created. Every year, tens of thousands of acres of economically marginal farmland in Europe are taken out of production. Why not use this land to produce “new nature” to replace what’s been lost? The same basic idea could, of course, be applied outside of Europe—it’s been proposed, for example, that depopulated expanses of the American Midwest are also candidates for rewinding....

As more aurochs remains have been unearthed and more sophisticated research has been done on them, it’s become clear that the Heck brothers’ creation is a far cry from the original—Heck cattle are too small, their horns have the wrong shape, and the proportions of their bodies are off. All of which has led to a new, de-Nazified effort to back-breed the aurochs. This project is based in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, about fifty miles southeast of Amsterdam, and is entirely independent of the Oostvaardersplassen. Still, it reflects much the same can-do, “what is lost is not lost forever” approach to conservation. ”

We should increase the biodiversity of our domesticated places and conserve species diversity in our wild places. With regard to 'New Nature', we can admire the beauty of organisms regardless how they arrived in the dynamic, very changing world we also live in.

May you be with Nature. May Nature be with you.

Let 'Em Eat Dirt→

Timothy Egan, writing for the New York Times:

“Today, serendipity is something that’s penciled on a kid’s busy, busy, busy calendar. But let that kid wander outside the parental orbit, or explore beyond the bounds of controlled play — God forbid. Twenty-first century Huck doesn’t light out for the country. He plugs into it. And a frog, or a snake, or a spider — ewwww! You’ll never understand what robin’s-egg blue is until you see the color, in a nest in a tree.

What’s wrong with our boys? So goes the lament. They’re insecure, falling behind, unsure of their role. Maybe letting them have a day without a GPS would help.

When you push parents about being too wussy, they bring up a couple of things. Safety, of course. Seatbelts, life jackets, sun screen and bike helmets are great leaps forward. No argument there. But beyond the common-sensical, how long should the leash be?”

Alba Soler

Nature is part of life. Rejoice for those around you who immerse into the full Force of Nature. Mourn those that do not. 

Quest to Save Groundwater→

Elizabeth Dunbar, reporting for MPR:

“Summer water bills that spike and cities that scramble to pump enough groundwater to keep neighborhoods lush and green, even during droughts, are nothing new in the Twin Cities.

But fresh doubts about groundwater supplies are testing long-held assumptions that water is both cheap and plentiful. New technology, more aggressive pricing structures and shifting attitudes are beginning to change how some Minnesotans view and care for their lawns.”

Rachel

Named must your insanity be before banish it you can. The waste of drinking water that is.

Lake of the Woods Algal Blooms are Worsening→

Ron Meador, reporting for MinnPost:

Lee Grim

“Key points from the International Joint Commission’s second “State of the Basin” report, released on Tuesday:

- Massive blooms of blue-green algae are on the rise in Lake of the Woods, despite reductions in flows of phosphorus into upstream lakes and streams from industrial polluters; some of this seems to be driven by phosphorus releases from lake sediments, and some by climate change.
- Rivers in the basin are showing improved water quality, primarily because of controls on paper mills and other industrial sources.
- Walleye, lake trout and sturgeon populations have been recovering as a result of special management efforts, and certain bird populations have returned to healthy levels thanks to reduced pesticide use.
- Mercury levels in fish remain high in many lakes, such that anglers are advised to check the status of public-health advisories before eating any fish caught anywhere in the basin.”

IJC State of the Basin Report

We always find what we dumped in.

Define “Beneficial”, Define "Harmful"→

Dave Levitan, writing for Conservation:

grafvision - shutterstock.com

“When we discuss invasive Asian carp, we’re usually just talking about a few specific species of carp, the silver, black, and the bighead. This is with good reason—in some parts of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers those fish now make up 97 percent of the total biomass, with no predators around to hold them back. The grass carp, meanwhile, though found in all of the Great Lakes and plenty of other places, was actually introduced—theoretically, this was done quite carefully—and has not been considered a nuisance species at all. But new research suggests that even those invasives we think of as beneficial, often aren’t.”

You will find only what values you bring in.

Urban Walkability→

Nyla Hughes, writing for the Great Lakes Echo:

“Despite recent economic challenges, Detroit’s future as a walkable city is promising, according to a recent study by George Washington University.

Significant improvement is expected due to the investment in 40 office, retail, and residential structures by Quicken Loans, according to the study by Chris Leinberger and Patrick Lynch at the university’s school of business. Also, Detroit’s suburbs of Ann Arbor, Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Birmingham are making strides in walkable urbanism.”

Michigan Municipal League; Traverse City, Michigan: 

Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros

Quantify must your amenity be before cherish it you can.

Lakes Legacy→

Tony Randgaard, writing for MinnPost:

Joe Bielawa

“Last week, Mound Mayor Mark Hanus and state Sen. David Osmek, R-Mound, went on the offensive to blame the Met Council for the disastrous recent overflow of raw sewage into Lake Minnetonka and three other lakes. The Met Council fired back, stating that its sanitary sewage systems worked normally during the record weekend rainfall and were not the cause of the overflow. While this is sorted out, it might be instructive to look back at how we once worked together to clean up our landmark city lakes.”

Control, control, you must learn control! To be Honorable is to face the truth, and choose. Give off light, or darkness. Be a candle, or the night.”

Classic Charles Marohn Articles→

Quantification is the path to the light side. Information leads to action. Action leads to change. Change leads to Strong Towns.

The Internet with a Human Face→

Maciej Ceglowski writes and presents about the shortcomings of the internet and along the way uses our car dependence as an analogy:

“The Interstate made it possible to build things no one had imagined before. Like McDonald’s! With a nationwide distribution network, you could have a nationwide, standardized restaurant chain...

Postwar car culture also gave us the landscape we call suburbia. To early adopters, the suburbs were a magical place. You could work in the city while your spouse and children enjoyed clean living in the fresh country air. Instead of a crowded city apartment, you lived in a stand-alone house of your own, complete with a little piece of land. The suburbs seemed to combine the best of town and country.

And best of all, you had that car! The car gave you total freedom.

As time went on, we learned about the drawbacks of car culture. The wide-open spaces that first attracted people to the suburbs were soon filled with cookie-cutter buildings. Our commercial spaces became windowless islands in a sea of parking lots.

We discovered gridlock, smog, and the frustrations of trying to walk in a landscape not designed for people. When everyone has a car, it means you can’t get anywhere without one. Instead of freeing you, the car becomes a cage.”

Your cars, you will not need them.

Reuse: The Next Wave for Water Conservation→

Rachel Cernansky, writing for ENSIA: 

“Today, due mainly to increasing drought conditions and groundwater depletion, nonpotable uses are expanding. Municipalities are figuring out more ways to treat sewage less like waste and more like a resource. In addition to watering golf greens, recycled water is being used for street cleaning, fire-fighting, geothermal energy production, preventing seawater intrusion into freshwater aquifers, industrial processing, commercial laundering, restoring natural wetlands and creating constructed wetlands.

“Everything that goes down the drain here is treated and reused,” says Greg Flores, vice president of public affairs for the San Antonio Water System, citing university campuses, the San Antonio River Walk, and Toyota and Microsoft facilities as examples.

The more notable change, however, is that a growing number of municipalities are shifting toward or considering “potable reuse” — recycling wastewater into drinking water.”

Steve Crise, AWWA

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real benefits of water reuse.

Placemaking in Indy→

Ken Benfiled, writing 'The coolest urban trail you are likely to see' in his blog:

“Something special is happening in Indianapolis, and it’s transforming neighborhoods. As I wrote in People Habitat, revitalization when done well is almost unparalleled in its ability to boost the “triple bottom line” of sustainability: a healthy environment, a healthy economy, and a healthy and equitable social fabric. The good news, of course, is that, after decades of varying degrees of disinvestment, downtowns and inner cities are coming back, albeit at different paces in different markets and sometimes in new forms that differ from the old. ”

Indyculturaltrail.org

Redevelopment is a natural part of development. Rejoice for those around you who transform our places into the beautiful. 

Placemaking in Paris→

Stephane Kirkland, writing for Project for Public Spaces: 

“As Paris enters the final days of a hard-fought Mayoral race, one thing is clear. The terms of political debate permanently shifted during the administration of outgoing Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, and a remarkable consensus has emerged over environmental concerns. When Delanoë took office 13 years ago, he vowed that automobile interests would no longer dominate the city and he would focus on improving public spaces. And he made good on his promise.

Paris is now a radically different place. Less than half of Parisian households own a car and those who do use them far less than the inhabitants of other cities. People have become attached to the quality of life that urban spaces designed as places, and not as conduits for traffic, allow. To be perceived as intending to take that away would be electoral folly for an aspiring Mayor.”

Pat Guiney

A placemaker must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. Decide you must, how to serve them best. If good for Paris, your job it is here. Already know you that which you need.

The Privatization Backlash→

Molly Ball, reporting for The Atlantic:

“In states and cities across the country, lawmakers are expressing new skepticism about privatization, imposing new conditions on government contracting, and demanding more oversight. Laws to rein in contractors have been introduced in 18 states this year, and three—Maryland, Oregon, and Nebraska—have passed legislation, according to In the Public Interest, a group that advocates what it calls “responsible contracting.”...

The vogue for privatizing government began in the Reagan years, experts say, when an ascendant conservative ideology painted the public sector as a callous and sluggish bureaucracy and the private sector as inherently more innovative and efficient. The trend accelerated in the ‘90s, and today, Cohen estimates that $1 trillion of America’s $6 trillion in annual federal, state, and local government spending goes to private companies.

Yet the public impression of privatization as a panacea for the inherent inefficiency of government has been tarnished in the intervening years. From Halliburton to Healthcare.gov to private prisons and welfare systems, contracting has often proved problematic.”

Reuters

Many of the apparent truths that we cling to depend on our point of view. Truly wonderful the mind is.

About 20% of China's Agricultural Land is Polluted→

Lily Kuo, writing in Quartz:

“Almost one-fifth of China’s farmland is polluted, according to a government report released this week. Officials have acknowledged the country’s problems with water and air pollution, but the extent of soil contamination has been a closely guarded “state secret,” for fear of incriminating certain provinces or companies.

About 19.4% of China’s farmland is polluted by cadmium, nickel and arsenic, according to the seven-year study that analyzed a little over half of China’s entire land area. One-fifth of China’s total arable land is about 26 million hectares (64 million acres), the same area as the United Kingdom, by the most recent estimates.”

Reuters

Blind we are, if the negative consequences of weak environmental regulations we could not see. Always two there are, no more, no less: greed and pollution.

Neither Growth nor Greed Is Good→

John R. Ehrenfeld, writing on his blog:

“One of the usual arguments I get after talking about Flourishing, is that economic growth is necessary for the health or a nation and of the businesses within it, and that my way to flourishing requiring an alternative to such growth is either flawed or simply impossible. Before attempting to clarify my reasoning, let me say, categorically, that I do not claim that growth is inherently bad. I argue that the state of the world is such that continuing growth is producing unintended consequences that outweigh whatever benefits accompany it. I am not attacking the neoclassical economic models that lead to the necessity of growth on ideological grounds although there are plenty of such grounds for this tack. My view springs from a non-ideological, pragmatic, systems framework.”

Children of Men

Greed is the path to the dark side. Greed leads to exploitation. Exploitation leads to destruction. Destruction leads to suffering.

Completely Surreal Photos Of America’s Abandoned Malls→

Matt Stopera, writing for Buzzfeed:

“Dead malls are popping up all over the states, particularly in the Midwest, where economic decline has sped up the “going out of business” process. This map, put together by a Dead Malls Enthusiasts Facebook group, shows that well.

As Americans are faced with multiple shopping options and more stores are leaving malls, it should be interesting to see if malls and mall culture will survive. What you are about to see is what happens when malls are abandoned. It’s apocalyptic and really, really creepy.”

Decay is a natural part of systems. Rejoice for that which transforms into back to nature. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Video Summary:

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report - Working Group II - Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Michel Jarraud, the head of the World Meteorological Organization, at the press conference summarized the importance of the science behind this report said: “Thirty years ago, the previous generation maybe was damaging our atmosphere, [and] the Earth, out of ignorance. Now, ignorance is no longer a good excuse. We know—therefore, we have the information to make decisions and to act upon this information.”

Report -- Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Production of Ignorance and Confusion

This Is a Generic Brand Video is a generic brand video of "This Is a Generic Brand Video," written by Kendra Eash for McSweeney's Internet Tendency. No surprise, it's made entirely with stock footage. All video clips used are from dissolve.com. See and license them here: http://www.dissolve.com/generic The original piece is published on McSweeney's: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/this-is-a-generic-brand-video Narrated by Dallas McClain.

Blind we are, if creation of corporate ignorance we could not see. Not if anything to say about it I have.

Cultural Production of Ignorance

Michael Hiltzik, writing for the L.A. Times:

“Robert Proctor doesn’t think ignorance is bliss. He thinks that what you don’t know can hurt you. And that there’s more ignorance around than there used to be, and that its purveyors have gotten much better at filling our heads with nonsense.

Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world’s leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance. It’s a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.

The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson’s files, “Doubt is our product.” Big Tobacco’s method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo’s author wrote, but to establish a “controversy.””

Others are now using the old tobacco playbook. The powerful then exploit our ignorance. The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.