Protect the Sacred

Protect the Sacred

Stand up for your beliefs,

Stand for the downtrodden, the forgotten

Stand for those without a voice, those we cannot hear

Stand for the animals and plants, for the soil and water, rocks and air

Stand strong and purposeful

Root your feet and do not give way, with the elegance and courage of the bison

Soar in the skies with your dreams

Fly above the small-minded

Fly above fear and violence, with your hopes and dreams to guide you

Alight where you can see across the wide wonderful Earth

Where you can see the love that flows through it all

Soar so high that justice and your mind are clear, where your heart is pure

Where you are one with the great spirit

Fly through the air with the power and keen eye of the eagle

Flow like water through life

Never to be defeated

Possibly held up, but never destroyed

Flow with your goal in mind and never forget

Nourish life with your very essence

Course over that which is filthy and cleanse it with your clarity

Strengthen the weak like ripples, and break down hate like a tidal wave

Be as water is, both creator and destroyer

Give birth to life, and help those that have passed to begin again

Bloom as a flower does

Let your petals unfurl towards the sun

Grow as tall as you can

Open yourself to the world with brilliance and clarity of purpose

Bring bright beauty, grace, and joy wherever you go

Be as the flowers are, and remember that life is ephemeral

One day, let yourself fall away, sweet and peacefully

Knowing that you are leaving this place richer than how you found it for your being

Protect the sacred in all that you do 

In all that you are

For you are it as well

And it, you

We just keep growing.

Part humor and part seriousness, I came across this at the Montpelier High School the other day.

Climate Optimism

Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President and long time climate activist, made his first Ted Talk ten years ago. Also in 2006, Gore released his book, and the very influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Far from being his first work on the global climate crisis, An Inconvenient Truth served as a prominent punctuation in Gore's 40+ year career working to raise awareness about, and find solutions to anthropocentric climate change. You remember the terrifying movie, right?

I remember when I first saw An Inconvenient Truth. Already studying climate change in the middle of falling down the rabbit hole of discovery and finding my career path within the field, the documentary solidified my conviction. It also made me quite deeply sad. It is a scary movie, if you let the information sink in.The truth is all that needed to be said. 

A decade later, Al Gore returned to the Ted stage with a slightly different tone. In February, 2016 Gore gave a talk titled "The case for optimism on climate change." Similar to talks he has given in the past, Gore, who has moved from politics into the business field, covers the tragedies that climate change incites, bringing the viewer up to date with events over the past ten years and giving an overview of the lengthy list of things that climate change is and will affect in our natural environment and human society. In the second half of his most recent talk however, Gore takes a turn and talks about why we should be optimistic about our situation and our future. He talks about the changes to industry, and innovations in technology that will help us break our reliance on fossil fuels. With a stable hold of reality and our dire situation, Gore still has an optimistic view and reminds us that there is reason for hope and continued targeted climate action. 

There is a good message in this talk. Climate change is terrifying, dangerous, and sad. What human's have done to the planet and ourselves is justifiable cause for some deep soul searching, as well as financial investment towards finding a better way of living on Earth. We could allow climate change to be the end of us. We could stick our heads in the sand and wait it out. However, if we allow it, climate change can be our largest spark of inspiration and ingenuity. If we allow it, climate change can be the one issue that we all unite around, know that it affects us all indiscriminately. It is not a partisan or national issue, despite some's effort to frame it as such, it is a universal issue. It is also an issue that has rallied people around the world at formal events and small gatherings, in board rooms and science labs, in places of worship and at city hall. Climate change could be our end, but as Gore points out, there are many signs that humanity is not complacent enough to let it. 

Two Young Musicians for a Future in Balance

A beautiful, strong voice far beyond her years, Takiya Blaney speaks for a revolution to improve our relationship with Mother Earth. Ta'Kaiya is from the First Nation tribe of Tla A'min in British Colombia, Canada. She has been active over the past four years as an activist, speaker, and musician. She has won a number of awards for her leadership and inspiring message as an environmental advocate and for honoring her culture and upholding the traditions of the First Nation peoples. 

Here is an example of her message as well as one of her songs at the end. 

This video has better sound for her voice, which is magically haunting.

To learn more about Ta'Kaiya Blaney

This young man has also been active for a number of years spreading a similar message. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez ask us all, especially the young people of his generation, to revolutionize our way of life to create a better future. He visions a future where humans are good stewards of the planet where we have clean healthy thriving ecosystems. He ask for climate action from individuals as well as decision makers like the United Nations General Assembly on Climate Change.

Here he is in 2015, at age 15 speaking at the 

Xiuhtezcatl is also a talented musician and along with his little brother, Itzcuauhtl, perform their original hip hop music for a better future and relationship with the Earth. 

Another of their songs, at Bioneers.

And here he is, as a younger boy, speaking about how climate change is already affecting his home in Colorado. 

The pine beetles have wreaked havoc on western North America. Climate change has been a significant part of encouraging this destruction. This is a little more about that, from my project We are all in this together.

Mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) are native to western North America, covering a swath of land from Mexico to British Columbia. With a black exoskeleton, pine beetles only measure about half a centimeter long. Pine beetle’s first three life stages, egg, larva and pupa occur under the bark of a pine tree. During the last life stage, as an adult, they can be seen flying around in the air.

When a female pine beetle burrows into a new tree to lay her eggs, she exposes the tree to blue stain fungus. This fungus inhibits the tree’s natural defense mechanism against more beetles, as well as its ability to transport water and nutrients within the tree. When a tree is infected, pine beetle larva and blue stain fungus spread throughout the tree, eventually inhibiting the tree’s ability to take up water. Eventually the pine tree will die of thirst. From the time the fungus is introduced, it may only take a few weeks for a tree to be incapable of taking up water.

A native to North America, pine beetles are not new to their ecosystems and when conditions are right they infest a new tree, killing it, but continuing its own life cycle. With climate change large areas of pine beetle’s native habitat are warming, experiencing milder winters and hotter summers. This shift in weather affects both pine trees and pine beetles. Unusually warm seasons can stress a tree and make it less robust at fighting off parasites. On the other hand, warmer weather is beneficial for pine beetles, allowing them to reproduce with a higher success rate and giving them more time and opportunity to inhabit more trees. Pine beetles have in fact doubled their reproductive rate. They used to go through one life cycle in a year and can now complete two full cycles each year. In recent years the absence of cold snaps has allowed beetle populations to explode, causing an epidemic in forests dominated by or wholly made up of pine trees.

This explosion of pine beetle populations has resulted in allowing the beetles to expand into more northern territory.  As the beetles moved north, they caused a mass dying off of forests throughout 19 US states, British Columbia and Alberta. Destruction to the forests is on the order of 10 times worse than previously recorded. Around 80 million acres of pines have been decimated and left dead. These tracks of dead trees have repercussions on all other species in the area, including humans. Stands of dead trees cater to raging forest fires. Dead trees are also not as good at holding soil to prevent erosion, slowing water flow and absorbing snow melt into the earth. These forests, which are usually a carbon sink when their trees are healthy, may easily, become a carbon source by releasing stored CO₂ and furthering global warming.

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Thank you Ta'Kaiya and Xiuhtezcatl,

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The day the people showed up.

Yesterday morning I hit snooze on my alarm and rolled over in bed, just to have a few more minutes under the comfy warm covers. When I opened my eyes again I jumped out of bed and into action. I had stayed in too long, but I got dressed I went right to the kitchen to make some coffee and fed the dog. Then I packed a small bag with some snacks, a jacket, my camera, one of my paintings and a fist full of business cards. Then I went to the guest room door and gave it a little knock. My traveling companion was up, but had also slept in. Even with our delays, we were out in the car and pulling out of the driveway by 7:30 AM, only 30 minutes later than anticipated.

After a three hour drive, made shorter by great conversation, we realized that we had missed our turn off and found ourselves slightly too far east. With a little quick thinking and only a few neighborhood streets we were back on our way towards the George Washington Bridge. From there we worked our way south along the western edge of Yonkers down to Manhattan.

The first thing to strike me as we approached our destination were an exceptional amount of New York City resident runners out and about, porting their fit bodies in the warm and hazy September morning. The local fitness fans were not the only people out on the streets on September 21, 2014. We, like so many others, had come to the city to take part in the People's Climate March. We joked with each other that couldn't find parking because so many marchers had inundated the city.

We walked onto Central Park West on 89th Street behind the end of the designated march site. For about an hour we walked down and then up Central Park West looking at the marches organizing themselves. They held signs, wore costumes, sang, and milled around taking in the scene. The atmosphere was light. Everyone's excitement and positivity was apparent by the smiles and feeling on comradery  that wafted from the crowd. Dreaded hippies, i-phone toting hipsters, Vietnam era weed legalizers, cat-loving grandmothers, youth activists, socialists, monks, drag queens, anti-fracking advocates, meditaters, bike lovers, and even a few dogs came out and a united voice to ask the heads of states who will be converging on the UN headquarters tomorrow for meaningful climate action. At one point I realized how many NYPD officers were lining the streets on either side of the organizers, and for a second I wondered if there was a chance of this ending in violence. I only let the thought cross my mind and then let it go, mustering faith that no one that I could see looked like they wanted anything more than an honest and heartfelt plea for a better future.

Waiting in line people chatted among themselves, danced and sang to the breakout of song from the trumpets, and shared snacks of apple slices and leaves of kale. The feeling of common good, desire for bettering the world, and love of all approaches to get there held everyone together with the common vision of a beautiful and healthy future. This is what really defined the day for me, it was really amazing to witness and be a part of. The police and city staff were right there with us, smiling and chatting or chuckling at the marchers' enthusiasm.

It certainly felt like a lot of people had turned out, but there is really no way of judging when you are in the middle of it all. When we heard that they were estimating over 310,000 people came and that we had filled up about 4 miles of Manhattan streets, we were overjoyed. We were, we all were, making history. We had taken a day out of our busy lives to come together to focus on something that is bigger than us all individually, to focus on the most important and far-reaching issue of our lifetimes.

By about 4:30 PM we had gotten to the end of the march. We had taken about five hours to walk from Central Park West and 83rd Street down to 11th Ave and 34th Street where the march ended. Although the end was slightly anti-climactic, we jumped and gave each other an air high five to commemorate our walk through the Big Apple.

Thank you to everyone who showed up yesterday to make history, and to all those who were with us in spirit around the world. It was a day to remember and be proud of.

There were people supporting all forms of energy, just as long as there is no greenhouse gases involved.

Don't miss the irony here. This scull was a part of a Bread & Puppet performance and represented the death machine of fossil fuels. In the background is a poster for a dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Up on the top of the building's facade stand significant men of science, wondering about all this... 

This is all very hard work!

Love this!

A flooding NYC was a theme. poignant.

A little comedy on some very un-funny issues, always welcome.

All generations represented.

Here they are watching the Bread & Puppet performance.

A group meditating along the side of the march, hopefully magnifying our actions.

Our wishes of what not to loose to climate change.

What is useful anyways?

Although I understand why it happens, I frequently find myself asking "why?" Why are humans so self centered? Why does nature have to benefit humans to be valuable to us? Why is the anthropocentric world view so common and socially acceptable? 

"Oh, it is just human nature." "All species worry about themselves first." "That's natural." 

Maybe to a certain respect it is natural, or at least makes sense on some primal level. It makes sense that someone will worry about their daughter more than an insect, and how a flower may cure their cancer more than a "useless" minnow swimming in a stream. But shouldn't what sets humans apart from other animals allow us to think more deeply and broadly about the value of nature?

I can't help wondering why our consciousness, our understanding of how the world works, and our ability to flourish on this earth rather than just survive doesn't leave room in the human mind to appreciate and value all living things for their innate worth. Let things live for their own sake. Attempt to protect living things for their own right to live. Do we really need more than we already have, more space, more water, more forests, more resources? Or can we understand that our ingenuity is all we need to be perfectly satisfied with what we have and still continue to raise our standard of living in order to leave plenty of space and resources for other life. 

We have all we need in intellectual capitol to live amazing and beautiful lives today without taking away from other living things. Yet, somehow, we still have to convince people to care about the natural world only through describing how the natural word will benefit them in some tangible and utilitarian way. 

Below is an article from New York Times blogger Richard Conniff addressing just this issue. I really appreciate this article and the questions that it brings up. For my last project, that involved raising awareness about 50 species affected by climate change, I thought about this a lot. I chose some species that conjure up sympathy from people, such as the panda bear and the holy cocoa tree. Since I feel pretty passionate about all living things being equally important in the unbelievable complex network that is the biosphere, I consciously chose other species that people usually don't recognize like zooplankton, chytrid fungus, and pine beetles. 

With regards to environmental art, the idea of how to frame environmental conservation and how to get people's attention are central to how to be effective. What do you want your main message to be? Do you want to "market" the environment in order to "sell it better?" Or, do you want to be more raw, crunchy and lean towards deep ecology? Maybe the inherent worthiness of nature doesn't quite sell as well to society. 

Life on earth and all her interconnections are too complex for us to fully understand. Who are we to judge what is important and more worthy of life? Given that we all evolved here together shouldn't the miracle that life is, be enough?

Useless Creatures
By Richard Conniff

September 13, 2014

This article contains no useful information. Zero. Nada. Nothing. If usefulness is your criterion for reading, thank you very much for your time and goodbye, we have nothing more to say. The truth is that I am bored to tears by usefulness. I am bored, more precisely, of pretending usefulness is the thing that really matters.

I mostly write about wildlife. So here is how it typically happens for me: A study comes out indicating that species x, y and z are in imminent danger of extinction, or that some major bioregion of the planet is being sucked down into the abyss. And it’s my job to convince people that they should care, even as they are racing to catch the 7:10 train, or wondering if they’ll be able to pay this month’s (or last month’s) rent.

My usual strategy is to trot out a list of ways even the most obscure species can prove unexpectedly, yes, useful. The first effective treatment that turned H.I.V. from a death sentence into a manageable condition? Inspired by the biochemistry of a nondescript Caribbean sponge. The ACE inhibitors that are currently among our most effective treatments for cardiovascular disease (and which have lately been proposed as a treatment for Ebola)? Developed by studying the venom of the fer-de-lance, a deadly snake found from Mexico to northern South America. The new medical bandage that’s gentle enough for the delicate skin of newborns and the elderly? Modeled on the silk of spider webs.

Every time I begin this line of argument, though, I get the queasy feeling that I am perpetuating a fallacy. It’s not that I’m telling lies; these examples are entirely real. But given, for instance, that three-quarters of our farm crops depend on insect pollinators, or that more than 2.6 billion people rely directly on seafood for protein, it seems a little obvious to be reminding people that wildlife can be useful, or, more to the point, that human survival depends on wildlife. Without saying so out loud, the argument also implies that animals matter only because they benefit humans, or because just possibly, at some unknowable point in the future, they might benefit humans.

You don’t have to look too far to see how silly this can get. In truth, I don’t have to look at all, because university press offices fill my inbox with examples every day: The Harvard scientists who hope their study of cuttlefish skin will “inspire improved protective camouflage for soldiers on the battlefield.” The Berkeley team that thinks studying the genetics of blubber-eating polar bears could help us learn to live with our bacon-wrapped, wide-load lifestyle. And the wonderful folks at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, who believe “Squid sucker ring teeth material could aid reconstructive surgery, serve as eco-packaging.” (And you thought they were good only for calamari.)

I don’t entirely blame the scientists. Their research often depends on taxpayer funding, and their dreams are haunted by the ghost of United States Senator William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award. That award garnered headlines by ridiculing outlandish-seeming items in the federal budget, and animal behavior studies were a juicy target. So now people doing that kind of research all feel obliged to imply that they are two steps away from a cure for the common cold. No basic research here, Senator, sir, no idle curiosity. Useful “R” Us. (They also delight in pointing out that one of Mr. Proxmire’s targets — a $250,000 investigation into the sex life of the screwworm fly — has yielded $20 billion in benefits to American cattle farmers by enabling control of a major insect pest.)

Improbably, wildlife conservationists now also often hear the call of the useful. Along with a large contingent of eco-finance bureaucrats, they try to save threatened habitats by reminding nearby communities of all the benefits they derive from keeping these habitats intact. Forests, meadows and marshes prevent floods, supply clean water, provide habitat for species that pollinate crops, put oxygen into the atmosphere and take carbon out, and otherwise make themselves useful. In some cases, conservation groups or other interested parties actually put down cash for these ecosystem services — paying countries, for instance, to maintain forests as a form of carbon sequestration. The argument, in essence, is that we can persuade people to save nature by making it possible for them to sell it. They can take nature to the bank, or at least to the local grocery. They can monetize it. (The new revised version of Genesis now says, “God made the wild animals according to their kinds, and he said, ‘Let them be fungible.’ ”)

I understand the logic, or at least the desperation, that drives conservationists to this horrible idea. It may seem like the only way to keep what’s left of the natural world from being plowed under by unstoppable human expansion and by our insatiable appetite for what appears to be useful. But usefulness is precisely the argument other people put forward to justify destroying or displacing wildlife, and they generally bring a larger and more persuasive kind of green to the argument. Nothing you can say about 100 acres in the New Jersey Meadowlands will ever add up for a politician who thinks a new shopping mall will mean more jobs for local voters (and contributions to his campaign war chest). Nothing you can say about the value of rhinos for ecotourism in South Africa will ever matter to a wildlife trafficker who can sell their horns for $30,000 a pound in Vietnam.

Finally, there is the unavoidable problem that most wildlife species — honey badgers, blobfish, blue-footed boobies, red-tailed hawks, monarch butterflies, hellbenders — are always going to be “useless,” or occasionally annoying, from a human perspective. And even when they do turn out, by some quirk, to be useful, that’s typically incidental to what makes them interesting. Cuttlefish do not fascinate because their skin may suggest new forms of military camouflage, but because of the fantastic light shows that sometimes play across their flanks. Spider web silk doesn’t intrigue because somebody can turn it into bandages, but because of the astonishing things spiders can do with it — stringing a line across a stream and running trotlines down the surface to catch water striders, for instance, or (in the case of the species named mastophora dizzydeani) flinging a ball of silk on a thread like a spitball to snag moths out of the air.

Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.

And that should be enough.

Midway: a film by Chris Jordan

MIDWAY

Both elegy and warning, Midway explores the interconnectedness of species, with the albatross on Midway as mirror of our humanity.

                                                                              -Chris Jordan

Watch the trailer, beautiful and heartbreaking. 

This needs to be seen: http://vimeo.com/25563376

http://www.midwayfilm.com/

Mazatl

Hello and welcome back!
On this gloriously sunny summer morning I would like to introduce, or revisit you to Mazatl. A Mexican resident, Mazatl is a print maker, illustrator and painter. How work is beautiful and charged with social, political and environmental justice themes. His work is unapologetic and unrelenting, with the goal of justice and a better future.

This is probably my favorite piece of his. Strong colors, strong composition, and strong message. Short, sweet, and to the point. Not afraid of getting right to the point and in your face. This is a possible scene from the not-too-distant future. Sad but true.

Justicia Climatica (Climate Justice)
Four color Silkscreen print
27" x 16"

But I also really like this series about extinction. For those of you who might not know, current day extinction rates, globally, are 10-100 and possibly as much as 1000 times the background extinction rate. To put this even more bluntly, Earth has experienced five mass extinctions, the last of which killed off the dinosaurs. Today's extinction rates could be an indicator that we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction.

Extincion 1
One color Relief Block Print
14" x 25"

Extincion 3
One color Relief Block Print
14" x 25"

The following is an interesting piece. Both social and environmental, it addresses the United Nations Programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD, http://www.un-redd.org/) . The program has been extremely controversial since the beginning. The basic idea is as follows: Forests have a huge Carbon storing and sequestering potential. When forests are cut down and destroyed, the stored Carbon is released into the atmosphere and contributes global warming through the intensification of the greenhouse effect. Many developing countries around the world use their forests as important revenue sources. The REDD program pays partner countries to maintain and protect their forests rather than cut them down. The idea is that if these countries can be compensated for maintaining their forest instead of cutting them down, it will minimize the global warming effects from destroying them

There are many good arguments both for and against the program, and personally I am still on the fence. It is extremely hard to make sure that the program is executed responsibly and correctly, but if it were it could have a lot of positive potential. There are a few aspects in particular that make the program particularly difficult to implement without unintended consequences. Here are just a few:

-Defining an appropriate deforestation baseline. How do you measure if deforestation is increading in a country if the amount deforested changes every year. Do you put your base line at last years rates? 10 years ago? 

-There is also the problem of the payments. Who benefits from the payments? Are the funneled through the central government, which could be a problem in politically corrupt countries? Do the payments trickle down to the locals, who most need the revenue from the forests? 

-Then there is the problem of actually monetarily valuing the forests. Paying for Carbon sequestration is new and there are still many kinks to iron out. The general idea is to pay for tons of Carbon sequestering potential/area measurement. But this leaves out many other values of the forest such as the ecosystem services it provides, climate change mitigation potential (i.e. Maintaining forests means maintaining more stable rain systems which are needed for crop production. Do you value future lives lost from drought and starvation in developing countries? etc)

-If that weren't challenging enough, there is the morality of putting a price on nature. There are some environmentalists and others who deeply believe that the environment is priceless and that it is simply an act of commodification to try to put a price on it. While others believe that since the forests are already receiving a price (lumber and other products) that we must work within the system of trade and commerce to even begin addressing the issue of deforestation and reducing Carbon emissions. 

The commodification of nature is the central, and obvious, issue addressed in NO REDD.  I agree that no amount of money can truly describe the value of forests, and that they are priceless. They are the lungs of the earth, supplying ecosystem services like clean water and clean air, they provide weather and water system regulation, they include habitats and ecosystems teaming with extremely valuable biodiversity, and they have a spiritual value for many that I will not try to describe here. While pricing forests are incredibly complex and possibly impossible, I believe there is value in trying. We are working in a broken system. Forests are being destroyed and their products sold on the market. If standing on the moral ground of how wrong it is to destroy the forests fails, as it appears is the case, is it truly a crime to try for a better system? Dropping REDD seems to me throwing away an attempt for good for lack of the perfect. The program is not perfect, and there are unintended consequences, but I believe that it is a step in the right direction. It is hard to play a game when the players are on different fields and speak different languages.  

Collaboration with Melanie Cervantes
NO REDD
22" x 34"

Here is one last piece by Mazatl. It is more social than environmental, as if these things could be separated. I love the call for collaboration, unification, and standing up for justice. Although not dead, the 99% movement receives much less press these days in the US than it did in the beginning. Despite the lack of press, there are still many throughout the world fighting for justice and a more fair system. 

One characteristic of Mazatl's work that I value most highly is his breadth. Almost across the bored social, political and environmental issues are inextricably linked. Far too often do I see and hear people and programs that try to address these issue separately, trying to fix the symptom rather than the root cause. 

Roger Peet

"I'm an artist and a printmaker. My work tends to focus on the contemporary crisis of biodiversity and what can and can't be done about it. I'm a member of the Justseed Artists' Cooperative (justseed.org), a group of North American artists producing socially and environmentally engaged artwork."

                  -- Roger Peet

Roger Peet has found an active artist who is involved with organizations like the Center for Biological Diversity and the Justseed Artists Cooperative and other projects. More than many other artists that I know, Peet's work is active and purposeful. Making direct commentary on the global biodiversity crisis and other environmental issues. 

This is an image he was commissioned to complete for the Center of Biological Diversity, a very cool commission!

Roger Peet

"I was recently commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/) to design a banner for their new Portland office. They gave me a list of endangered animals that they’ve worked to have listed federally as endangered, and I made them into this image. From left to right: Green Sturgeon, Fender’s Blue Butterfly, Marbled Murrelet, Orca, Wolf, Siskiyou Mountain Salamander, Spotted Owl, Taylor’s Checkerspot Butterfly, Streaked Horned Lark, Caribou, and Fisher."

These next two were also commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity. These were designed for their Endangered Species Condoms. 

Roger Peet
The leatherback is the largest of all sea turtles, growing up to seven feet long. They are the last of an ancient line of turtles. Their numbers are declining rapidly wherever they occur, mostly as a result of human activity: they frequently mistake plastic bags for their favorite food, sea jellies, and die when their digestive systems clog with plastic. As a consequence of their decline (and that of other jelly predators) the oceans are filling with enormous jelly blooms.

Roger Peet
Polar Bear

This piece is dear to my heart, because it is about an issue that I have also worked on. It explores the critical connection between social and environmental issues. The ridiculous and unsuccessful war on drugs has been ruining lives from Colombia to the United States for decades. The ongoing violence and illicit cultivation and trade of the drugs is destroying habitat not only in Mexico, but also throughout Central American and the northern South America. Coca cultivation in Colombia is causing deforestation of the rainforest. The illegality of the cultivation of this traditional crop, forces its growers to go deeper and deeper into the forest, cutting down more and more trees and destroying habitat. The severity of this problem let to the Shared Responsibility initiative supported by the Colombian government.

Central America also suffers from habitat loss from the illegal drug trade. The drug cartels, seeking secrecy and security find refuge in the forests and do what they please to make successfully smuggle their product. Acres of forest are cut to make impromptu airstrips for transporting their drugs. 

Not only do I appreciate this piece for its content, it is a elegant and powerful image. Thank you Roger.   

Roger Peet

And then this one, which made me smile. I have been seeing a lot of buzz recently about the possibility of adding insects to our daily diet. Hmmm....

Roger Peet