Earth Day Entry

My own Earth Day weekend experiences were somewhat modest in nature. On Friday, I fired up my old Viscount bike for a morning trip downtown. All the way down the Billy Wolff trail along Antelope Park and creek.

First thing was to take my bike to Monkeywrench to get my wheels trued up. The rear one had developed a rather nasty wobble which made setting the brake a bit tricky and made me worry about the wheel going “potato chip” on me if I had a heavy load of groceries.

Then I marched over the the University of Nebraska student union to see what was going on with the Earth Day celebration there. Fairly sedated but very enjoyable displays. Nebraska Green Party was there along with the usual suspects of Ecology Now, Nebraskans for Peace, Sierra Club, Wasabi (the sushi joint downtown), Atkins and the Open Harvest Food Coop (which is located next to the Meadowlark coffeehouse), the Pakistani student organization (selling food) and other recycling organizations for the city and university.

Spent some time helping to talk to the customers at the Green Party which was fun. Had my Land Institute t-shirt on which got quite a bit of attention and had folks asking me if I worked with them. This allowed for all kinds of other interesting discussions. Last one was with a kid from Colorado (father from Scotland) who was in environmental studies. I hope we’ll be able to continue that discussion later.

Off to spend the afternoon at the Nebraska Farmers Union (NEFU). Task for this week is to work up some briefing papers and a packet on wind and ethanol for local politicos. Major focus on how different kinds of development impact things on the local economic level.

Yesterday there was no Earth Day celebration in Lincoln from what I could tell. Maybe I just missed reading about it or maybe there’s no Earth Day organization to make it happen. I guess I’ll find out what I may have missed in today’s paper.

Had the option of going to Kearney to the state Green convention but it sounded like not much of a convention so decided to spend my time working on things here instead of driving several hours out and several hours back just to spend a couple of hours watching a DVD on Wal-Mart, listing to a speech by the only current Green Party state candidate and then tabling.

The Nebraska Greens lost a couple of key activist members to Fresno and the Bay area and that has really hurt them organizationally. Another active Green up in the Omaha area has been afflicted with a brain tumor but seems to be on the mend, thank goodness. Not been a good year for the local Green organization.

Our friend in Omaha has kept his sense of humor in all this (as much as that is possible). He has decided to blog his experiences at the LiveJournal site dubyathetumor. I’m sure he’d appreciate supportive comments from his readers.

One highlight might be that my friend Steve Larrick will run for an unchallenged-by-Democrat seat, state auditor, that could get us the 5% support we need to get ballot access. Democrats are really on the run in this state. The registration numbers are really lopsided state-wide and the only Democrats that seem to win are more like “moderate” Republicans (see Ben Nelson for details).

Had planned on doing some biking downtown again and spending some time at The Coffeehouse (that’s the name of the place - it was first coffeehouse in our town) wi-fi-ing and such but got caught up in the nuclear aspects of energy policy (not really part of my activities at NEFU). So spent most of the day googling papers and articles for my nuclear power file. Killed a few trees. Not very green, eh?

Also tried to call a few folks and actually got in touch with one for a nice chat on global warming from the standpoint of a geologist (that would be Richard). He said that among climatologists the debate over global warming was pretty much over by around 1986. It has been just refining the process from that time on.

Most recently they figured out the effect of particulates because of the events after 9/11 where aircraft were grounded for several days in the United States and they could measure the effects of contrails coming from their particulate laden exhausts. This helped to explain why global warming wasn’t as bad as their models seemed to indicate. It has been moderated by particulates which have generated a cooling effect.

Cleaning up the air thus could be a major wammy in global warming effect. Perhaps there might be more healthy and environmentally sound ways of introducing “global dimming” if this proves to be the concern that it currently seems to be. PBS’s NOVA science program “Dimming the Sun” did a bang up job on covering this story. I see that the New York Times has an article on this program and one that HBO has done.

Finally friend Eric called. He’d just gotten back from a bike ride about halfway to Omaha and was on his way back. So I got my act together and rode over to our favorite cheap Chinese place for some grub and conversation. Then it was off to get groceries and the mail and home for the evening.

Been getting into used DVDs (four for $20 at Hollywood Video with lifetime warranty) what with the high price of cinema (imo) for this area. The cheap second run theater downtown is being bombed by the Democrat mayor and associates (along with the Wasabi sushi joint) to put up a large tower (over 20 stories). Their urban re-development (destruction) will soon have cleared out all of that funky small and cheap independent business. Someday we might grow up to be just like Omaha. (Don’t get me started.)

At any rate, watched “Goodnight, and Good Luck” and the rest of “Alfie” last night. Both were interesting movies in their own ways. “Alfie” was a re-work of the Michael Caine work from the 60s and started Jude Law as the new Casanova in this instance. Somehow the whole movie wasn’t completely satisfying as a complete work but it did have it’s excellent moments and I’d still give it a thumbs up. They lost the famous theme from the first movie.

“Goodnight, and Good Luck” was was pretty good but from a much different direction. It was George Clooney’s take on Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and CBS’s Edward R. Murrow’s war over McCarthy’s political terrorist activity of those Cold War days. It also has a good chuck of lecturing from the past of the media’s responsibility in a democracy. Played a bit too much like a documentary so didn’t have much of a chance of having big box office. Overall, a satisfying piece of work.

While I’m on the politically themed movie review mode, I’d also recommend a look at “V for Vendetta”. Kind of an intellectual action movie if there ever could be such a thing. But enough of this digression.

Lincoln is still Lincoln for the most part. Still mostly a small town in a big body. The powers that be still have to work at completely screwing things up on that level. There are some good signs in the planning department about making it more friendly for the youth in our community to stick around after graduation.

There’s a fight for the first designated bike paths downtown for example. The business community frets about parking. Still no bike racks on the buses but I might see if I can’t help to get thoughts along that line going. I think this current group might be into it.

After all, Omaha just got some so it must be good. :)

Website of the day! Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy by Ted Nace

Earth Day Entry

My own Earth Day weekend experiences were somewhat modest in nature. On Friday, I fired up my old Viscount bike for a morning trip downtown. All the way down the Billy Wolff trail along Antelope Park and creek.

First thing was to take my bike to Monkeywrench to get my wheels trued up. The rear one had developed a rather nasty wobble which made setting the brake a bit tricky and made me worry about the wheel going “potato chip” on me if I had a heavy load of groceries.

Then I marched over the the University of Nebraska student union to see what was going on with the Earth Day celebration there. Fairly sedated but very enjoyable displays. Nebraska Green Party was there along with the usual suspects of Ecology Now, Nebraskans for Peace, Sierra Club, Wasabi (the sushi joint downtown), Atkins and the Open Harvest Food Coop (which is located next to the Meadowlark coffeehouse), the Pakistani student organization (selling food) and other recycling organizations for the city and university.

Spent some time helping to talk to the customers at the Green Party which was fun. Had my Land Institute t-shirt on which got quite a bit of attention and had folks asking me if I worked with them. This allowed for all kinds of other interesting discussions. Last one was with a kid from Colorado (father from Scotland) who was in environmental studies. I hope we’ll be able to continue that discussion later.

Off to spend the afternoon at the Nebraska Farmers Union (NEFU). Task for this week is to work up some briefing papers and a packet on wind and ethanol for local politicos. Major focus on how different kinds of development impact things on the local economic level.

Yesterday there was no Earth Day celebration in Lincoln from what I could tell. Maybe I just missed reading about it or maybe there’s no Earth Day organization to make it happen. I guess I’ll find out what I may have missed in today’s paper.

Had the option of going to Kearney to the state Green convention but it sounded like not much of a convention so decided to spend my time working on things here instead of driving several hours out and several hours back just to spend a couple of hours watching a DVD on Wal-Mart, listing to a speech by the only current Green Party state candidate and then tabling.

The Nebraska Greens lost a couple of key activist members to Fresno and the Bay area and that has really hurt them organizationally. Another active Green up in the Omaha area has been afflicted with a brain tumor but seems to be on the mend, thank goodness. Not been a good year for the local Green organization.

Our friend in Omaha has kept his sense of humor in all this (as much as that is possible). He has decided to blog his experiences at the LiveJournal site dubyathetumor. I’m sure he’d appreciate supportive comments from his readers.

One highlight might be that my friend Steve Larrick will run for an unchallenged-by-Democrat seat, state auditor, that could get us the 5% support we need to get ballot access. Democrats are really on the run in this state. The registration numbers are really lopsided state-wide and the only Democrats that seem to win are more like “moderate” Republicans (see Ben Nelson for details).

Had planned on doing some biking downtown again and spending some time at The Coffeehouse (that’s the name of the place - it was first coffeehouse in our town) wi-fi-ing and such but got caught up in the nuclear aspects of energy policy (not really part of my activities at NEFU). So spent most of the day googling papers and articles for my nuclear power file. Killed a few trees. Not very green, eh?

Also tried to call a few folks and actually got in touch with one for a nice chat on global warming from the standpoint of a geologist (that would be Richard). He said that among climatologists the debate over global warming was pretty much over by around 1986. It has been just refining the process from that time on.

Most recently they figured out the effect of particulates because of the events after 9/11 where aircraft were grounded for several days in the United States and they could measure the effects of contrails coming from their particulate laden exhausts. This helped to explain why global warming wasn’t as bad as their models seemed to indicate. It has been moderated by particulates which have generated a cooling effect.

Cleaning up the air thus could be a major wammy in global warming effect. Perhaps there might be more healthy and environmentally sound ways of introducing “global dimming” if this proves to be the concern that it currently seems to be. PBS’s NOVA science program “Dimming the Sun” did a bang up job on covering this story. I see that the New York Times has an article on this program and one that HBO has done.

Finally friend Eric called. He’d just gotten back from a bike ride about halfway to Omaha and was on his way back. So I got my act together and rode over to our favorite cheap Chinese place for some grub and conversation. Then it was off to get groceries and the mail and home for the evening.

Been getting into used DVDs (four for $20 at Hollywood Video with lifetime warranty) what with the high price of cinema (imo) for this area. The cheap second run theater downtown is being bombed by the Democrat mayor and associates (along with the Wasabi sushi joint) to put up a large tower (over 20 stories). Their urban re-development (destruction) will soon have cleared out all of that funky small and cheap independent business. Someday we might grow up to be just like Omaha. (Don’t get me started.)

At any rate, watched “Goodnight, and Good Luck” and the rest of “Alfie” last night. Both were interesting movies in their own ways. “Alfie” was a re-work of the Michael Caine work from the 60s and started Jude Law as the new Casanova in this instance. Somehow the whole movie wasn’t completely satisfying as a complete work but it did have it’s excellent moments and I’d still give it a thumbs up. They lost the famous theme from the first movie.

“Goodnight, and Good Luck” was was pretty good but from a much different direction. It was George Clooney’s take on Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and CBS’s Edward R. Murrow’s war over McCarthy’s political terrorist activity of those Cold War days. It also has a good chuck of lecturing from the past of the media’s responsibility in a democracy. Played a bit too much like a documentary so didn’t have much of a chance of having big box office. Overall, a satisfying piece of work.

While I’m on the politically themed movie review mode, I’d also recommend a look at “V for Vendetta”. Kind of an intellectual action movie if there ever could be such a thing. But enough of this digression.

Lincoln is still Lincoln for the most part. Still mostly a small town in a big body. The powers that be still have to work at completely screwing things up on that level. There are some good signs in the planning department about making it more friendly for the youth in our community to stick around after graduation.

There’s a fight for the first designated bike paths downtown for example. The business community frets about parking. Still no bike racks on the buses but I might see if I can’t help to get thoughts along that line going. I think this current group might be into it.

After all, Omaha just got some so it must be good. :)

Website of the day! Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy by Ted Nace