Jim Welter lives in Brookings, Oregon, where he has spent his life as a fisherman. I first met Jim when he was in his eighties and blind in one eye — a wiry, thin, smallish man. He came to an open public meeting I ran for fishermen and fishing guides, which was part of a study I was doing for the state of Oregon about the relative effects of forest practices on salmon. I … [Read more...]
Archives for 2007
American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace by John C. Culver and John Hyde (W. W. Norton & Company, NY. 2000)
Comments by Daniel B. BotkinCopyright (c) Daniel B. Botkin 2007The life of Henry A. Wallace is a fascinating lesson for our times, as we try to solve large problems about food, energy, and environment. Wallace was a remarkable man: a scientific genius who as a young man invented hybridization of crops; a successful businessman who founded the Pioneer Seed Company, still … [Read more...]
It’s time to replace Smokey Bear as a Image of Nature
MORPH THE MOOSE (TM) Copyright (c) 2003 Daniel B. Botkin Change is natural; nature is always changing, and we need a new image that represents this fundamental feature of our environment. Smokey Bear, who says, "only you can prevent forest fires," stands for the old idea of nature as static, unchanging. I was asked to suggest alternatives, and Morph the Moose (TM) won. … [Read more...]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
This is the title of a book published first in 1841 by Charles Mackay. This is a fascinating book, a classic, still in print, but little known. It has influenced many famous people. Of this book, Bernard Baruch wrote that his study of it saved him millions.Andrew Tobias wrote, in his preface to a recent edition, that "As with any true classic, once it is read it is had to … [Read more...]
The Solution to our Energy Problem
ENERGY FOREVER: A SOLUTION TO OUR ENERGY PROBLEM Daniel B. Botkin Copyright © Daniel B. Botkin 2007The answer to our energy crisis lies in a farm field in Bavaria, Germany. There, sheep graze beneath an unusual crop: an array of black rectangles mounted on long metal tubes that rotate slowly during the day, following the sun like mechanical sunflowers. This is the world’s … [Read more...]
What’s the Likely Future of New Orleans? History Tells Us What’s Likely
(Copyright © Daniel B. Botkin 2007)The news that residents of New Orleans are giving up and leaving after trying hard to stay makes us wonder whether the city can survive as anything like it once was. While we may blame events on particularities, including mistakes by politicians and government officials, underlying all this is an ecology of cities, an almost environmental … [Read more...]
Energy Pros and Cons
Energy is the number one environmental problem today. But we don't want to minimize our use of energy --- abundant energy makes possible civilization, especially our kind of high-technology civilization. So the question is: how can we maintain abundant sources of energy without ruining our environment? Here is some information that can help. This post is under … [Read more...]
A 1990s Forecast of a Possible Effect of Global Warming on an Endangered Species
The underlying reason that we are having trouble dealing with global warming is that we are not used to dealing with environmental change. This is true both in the history of beliefs and ideas in Western Civilization and in modern environmental sciences, which are formulated primarily in terms of steady-state conditions and theory. In Western Civilization the idea is known as … [Read more...]