This is the third and last installment on my series of posts from the Climate Existence 2010 conference, organized by my friends and colleagues at Uppsala University's Center for Environment and Development Studies (CEMUS). To read the posts in order: 1. Bill McKibben 2. David Abrams I am on the 5:23 morning bus, leaving the … Continue reading On Being an American Troubadour at the Swedish Climate Change Conference
David Abrams: Breathing ourselves aware on planet “EAIRTH”
This is the second in my series of posts from the conference "Climate Existence 2010." The series began with a post on Bill McKibben's opening keynote. This one covers the afternoon keynote and the workshop I went to, which awakened some memories ... "We don't live on the Earth. We live in the Earth. Or … Continue reading David Abrams: Breathing ourselves aware on planet “EAIRTH”
Bill McKibben on Climate Change: The Depressing Bad News, and the Amazing Power of People to Create Good News
I'm attending a conference in Sweden called Climate Existence. I'm here not as a speaker, for once; I'm here as a musician, scheduled to perform this evening. I'll blog some of the highlights over the course of the day. Here is what was happening just as I walked in (late) to the event, in Sigtuna, … Continue reading Bill McKibben on Climate Change: The Depressing Bad News, and the Amazing Power of People to Create Good News
Saving Life-As-We-Know-It
Nature-lovers (which should include all of us on planet Earth, but strangely does not) breathed a sigh of relief today as we read the news from Nagoya, Japan. After two weeks of negotiations, the nearly 200 nations assembled in Nagoya, Japan, decided set aside more of the Earth's surface as natural preserve. The decision hardly … Continue reading Saving Life-As-We-Know-It
Why J.M. Coetzee may be the greatest living writer in the English language
If you were a novelist committed to writing great novels, in the literary sense, and you won the Nobel Prize, what would do? Coetzee, who won the prize in 2003, keeps writing great novels. I picked up his most recent, Summertime (2009), in an airport bookstore, and started reading it while waiting in line to … Continue reading Why J.M. Coetzee may be the greatest living writer in the English language
Live from Iceland: Joan Davis on “Food for Life”
Here on Iceland, the Balaton Group Meeting is entering its third day. With models of Food Futures still spinning in our heads from yesterday, we are now listening to Joan Davis. Personal reasons kept her home in Switzerland this year, but this meeting's theme touches her "heart-question" as we say in Swedish: organic agriculture. Joan … Continue reading Live from Iceland: Joan Davis on “Food for Life”
Food Futures: Sirens, Warning Lights, and All That
So I'm sitting on a rather large lump of volcanic rock in the North Atlantic ocean - Iceland - at the annual meeting of the Balaton Group. We've already had several days of (truly) mind-boggling presentations on topics related both to the global financial system, and the global food system, and more on that later. … Continue reading Food Futures: Sirens, Warning Lights, and All That
International Buy-a-Qur’an Day
I bought a copy of the Qur'an today. It seemed the best way to register my support to all my Muslim friends in the face of the media circus around this low-minded Florida "pastor," whose behavior is so antithetical from the Christianity I learned as a child (a child in Florida, as it happens). Buying … Continue reading International Buy-a-Qur’an Day
Can a Glass of Orange Juice in Sweden be “Climate Smart”?
Sometimes you just wince. I’m complicit, of course. I bought the juice. I like the juice. And of course, I routinely wonder at the general sustainability of shipping orange juice (and a lot of other stuff) around the planet, using fossil fuels. It doesn’t seem quite right. There are a lot of things that “don’t … Continue reading Can a Glass of Orange Juice in Sweden be “Climate Smart”?
Launching “The Life Thief”
Today I took a dive into the Twitterverse -- the "Twitter Universe," the new online parallel reality of 140-character phrases with their followers, @s, cross-links to Facebook, and a vast number of other particles with strange names and functions that I barely understand. Or actually, don't really understand. The Twitterverse reminds of the science book … Continue reading Launching “The Life Thief”
Alan AtKisson 