It's About Time

There are a few benefits to a sluggish economy and high gas prices:

Trains

&

Fewer Drivers (i.e. fewer dead drivers)

Lollapalooza

My one day of Lollapalooza had come to an end. The first time I went was three years ago, the lineup was awesome, and I went all three days. The next year, the lineup was ok, and I went for two days. This year, the lineup is pretty weak, and I'm only going one day. Maybe that's it, huh? Seems like a pretty clear trend toward zero.

Anyway, saw the following:

Jeff Tweedy
Duffy
Gorgol Bordella
The Raconteurs
Radio Head

The Raconteurs were definitely the highlight. They were much tighter than last year.



They played:

Consoler of the Lonely
Level
You Don't Understand Me
Top Yourself
Old Enough
The Switch and the Spur
[Jam]
Steady as She Goes
Rich Kid Blues
Hold Up
Together
Riff into Blue Veins
------
Broken Boy Soldier
Many Shakes of Black
Solute Your Solution

And now to the dark side.

This is "Green Street," where you can "learn simple yet effective ways to live a life more green. This beautiful and shady spot shows what the festival is doing to minimize our environmental impact and also features real-life examples of how we can all make earth-friendlier choices every day."



And we have these nice tidbits from their website:

"We are committed to respecting the Earth and minimizing our impact at the show and beyond. In addition to our greenifying efforts at the festival, look here for tools and info to help make a difference in your own life."

"Lollapalooza is committed to lightening our load on the earth, and using our giant “microphone” to communicate the green message."

So much for all the talk:







It was disgusting. All the feet crunching the plastic made its own side-soundtrack. It made the whole thing sort of sour.

50 Year Plan

Here's a quote from a current New Yorker article (the bolding is mine, though really, every sentence deserves it):

When carbon dioxide is released into the air, about a third ends up, in relatively short order, in the oceans. (CO₂ dissolves in water to form a weak acid; this is the cause of the phenomenon known as “ocean acidification.”) A quarter is absorbed by terrestrial ecosystems—no one is quite sure exactly how or where—and the rest remains in the atmosphere. If current trends in emissions continue, then sometime within the next four or five decades the chemistry of the oceans will have been altered to such a degree that many marine organisms—including reef-building corals—will be pushed toward extinction. Meanwhile, atmospheric CO₂ levels are projected to reach five hundred and fifty parts per million—twice pre-industrial levels—virtually guaranteeing an eventual global temperature increase of three or more degrees. The consequences of this warming are difficult to predict in detail, but even broad, conservative estimates are terrifying: at least fifteen and possibly as many as thirty per cent of the planet’s plant and animal species will be threatened; sea levels will rise by several feet; yields of crops like wheat and corn will decline significantly in a number of areas where they are now grown as staples; regions that depend on glacial runoff or seasonal snowmelt—currently home to more than a billion people—will face severe water shortages; and what now counts as a hundred-year drought will occur in some parts of the world as frequently as once a decade.

I agree. From everything I've read, which is getting to be quite a lot now, I'd say that 40 to 50 years is the right range. By that point, life for many billions of people on this planet will be markedly worse than it is now.

You might hear some people suggest there is hope, in the form of technological advances, and moves toward "green" energy and products. I'd have to say that all of these solutions can safely be put under the heading "too little, too late." Even worse, some are just fads, or marketing gimmicks to make a company look enviro-friendly. Look at your grocery store. They probably have an aisle devoted to "green," and "organic" products. What then, do they sell in the other 18 aisles? Some clothing companies sell "green" shirts, made of organic cotton. What are their other 40 products made of?

I like to buy eggs (not my picture) that are "certified organic," from free-range chickens, free of antibiotics, and hormones. But these eggs come not just in plastic packaging, but in excessive plastic packaging, with an extra flap that comes down over the eggs, for no apparent reason. Why don't they come in the same simple cardboard as other eggs? I don't know. Probably because the company's logo and rhetoric are easier to present on a nice, flat piece of cardboard they can attach to the plastic, instead of printed on bumpy cardboard, where the text and images would look dull.

This is probably the point where I should talk about what we can do to help. Um.

When you consider that, in a single day, a golf course uses as much water as a family of four uses in four years, it doesn't seem likely that "grassroots" is really the way to go. What can a factory owner do? Quite a lot. What can I do? I don't know, write a letter?

I'm sorry, is that wrong? As a member of this young, new generation, am I supposed to make love to the idea of grassroots? Tough shit. One factory changing its process to use less water and less energy and less material would be as effective as an entire city using "low flow" toilets and showers. Not to mention that it's unlikely that an entire city will ever do that.

So what can we do? I'd say, think long and hard before you conceive any children. If you're 20 years or older, you have a decent chance of being dead before things get really, really bad. If you're under 2o years old, well, best of luck "carrying the fire."

No Shit!

I try to keep the hyperbole to a minimum in these posts, try not to yell and scream and curse. But sometimes, I just can't contain myself. So, here goes:

No shit, you dumb fucking mother fucking idiots! Of course the exurbs are bad idea! Of course building giant houses miles and miles away from any jobs are a bad fucking idea, you dumb fucking shits, you stupid fucking pieces of garbage! It takes high gas prices to make you realize that? Are you fucking stupid? Were you exposed to radiation? Were you dropped on your head? Your house is now worth less than you paid for it 10 years ago? Too fucking bad you fucking idiot. You bought a house in the middle of nowhere and have to drive 50 miles to get to work, what did you think was going to happen? Now you want to live in a place where you can take the train, but you can't sell your house because you'd lose lots of money? Fuck you. Goddamn.

Whew. Ok. So I got that out. Sorry. That was maybe a little over the top, but good lord. These people are just so stupid. Ok. That's enough. Again, sorry. I get carried away sometimes.

Good News for People Who Like Bad News

I like to make sure everyone gets their daily dose of cheery news, so here you go!

Fertilizer!

I always say mean things about golf because of the water waste, and it's getting a little old. Good to add a new one to the arsenal.

Trifecta!

A few weeks ago I was cutting through the Notebaert Nature Museum after a run, hoping to see some herons. I’ve seen a few great blue herons around North Pond, so it figured to be a good bet. It also didn’t hurt that it was sunset.

After looking in a few trees I still hadn’t seen anything exciting, and was about ready to right it off as an evening of nothing but mallards. But then I saw something that could only be a heron, but it certainly wasn’t a blue heron. I looked it up at home, and decided it was a black-crowned night heron. I was excited. It was the first time I had ever seen this species.

So, this Thursday I walked the same way, hoping to another night heron. I looked in the tree where I saw the first one, and there was a blue heron wading in the shallows, but no night heron. I checked the next few trees, but saw no herons.

Then I saw another blue heron stalking around some submerged roots. I scanned the rest of the tree, and saw a funny little bird I’d never seen before. It had a greenish head, a brownish breast, and a white stripe on its neck. It had to be a green heron (look at the second picture--that's more how it looked. And how it was behaving). A blue heron and a green heron in the same tree. And then wait, could it be? Yes! The night heron was in the tree too! Three species of heron in the same tree!

It was the best nature experience I’ve had in at least six months.

Lentils and Shopping

I made some lentils for dinner last night. They were mighty tasty, with some chicken bouillon, cumin, and cayenne pepper. And don’t forget, lentils require less water to grow than many other crops (sadly, I can't find my reference for this, but I'll keep looking).

And now a little tidbit for all you summer shoppers, from my favorite little book, Affluenza:

“According to an EPA study in conjunction with the U.N. Taskforce on Global Developmental Impact, consumer-product diversity now exceeds biodiversity. According to the study, for the first time in history, the rich array of consumer products available in malls and supermarkets surpasses the number of living species populating the planet.”

Affluenza is a wonderful book. But don’t buy it—borrow it from me or the library. Or, go ahead and buy it. We don’t have a chance either way.

Certain Something in the Air Ain't Love

I walked past St. Clement's Catholic Church on Saturday, and there was a wedding in progress. The limo drivers were waiting for the wedding guests to emerge. And they left the cars running. All five of them. With not a single person in any of them. Five big V8's chugging away. Give me a break.

Commerical Lanscape

So I’ve been watching TV at NBC.com. They let you watch shows for the small price of watching a few commercials. You watch about 8 minutes of show, watch one commercial, then another 8 minutes of show, etc. And it’s the same commercial each break.

The one I’ve been seeing a lot lately is for the T-Mobile Sidekick ID. The kids in the commercial talk to each other with their nifty phone to plan a sillystring fight on mall escalators.

The message is—unless I’m missing something here—buy this piece of plastic (filled with mercury, bromium, arsenic, cadmium, lead, chromium, so on and so forth), so you can organize pointless aerosol spraying (from single-use, non-recyclable metal cans), and leave the mess for the underpaid mall cleanup crew (who will use all of the plastic-bottled, toxic cleaners at their disposal).

Cool!

consumeconsumeconsumeconsumeconsume

A picture I took at the 2006 US Open.