Thanksgiving Inversion Hike

Well, despite the Thanksgiving holidays and my tight turkey-into-face-stuffing schedule, I'm also obligated to write something for our EH collective blogging effort this week. This is Ross by the way. This past Wednesday, 11/25, I was feeling lots of pent up energy. Having been chained to various tables in the library for the past couple weeks reading and writing papers, I was ready to burst come mid-week. So I rode my bike over to my old childhood stomping grounds, the foothills overlooking the Salt Lake valley and hiked to the top of mountain. Actually the mountain is best known as "the H-Rock", a giant black and white, spray-painted rock on the mountain side, a traditional symbol for nearby Highland High School. It's not a long hike to reach the top, but it's very steep. Hiking over sliding shale you have to take your time, lest you lose your footing and have an undesirable tumble backward.

One of the main reasons I decided to hike up this day was to see if I could actually get above the terrible smoggy inversion layer that engulfed the valley that day. Anyone who has lived along the Wasatch Front for sometime is familiar with what happens to our air quality on cold wintery days. Essentially the high pressure, warmer air presses down the colder air coming off the ground, and the enclosed, surrounding mountains don't allow it to escape. This has been a normal phenomenon in the valley forever. But in recent decades with our population growth, increased development, and more people driving automobiles along the Wasatch Front, things have gotten worse. Now we swim in a massive soup of our own automobile exhaust and factory and power plant emissions. Yuck! To read more about the inversion effect in Utah, this guy did a great job explaining it on his blog here)

From the top of the mountain I found a nice rock to perch on and I snapped off a few photos here with my cell phone camera. Having grown up here, I can testify that Salt Lake winters were never this bad. However, I do remember getting asthma when I went running when I was a high school soccer player, and that's when I began realizing what was happening.















It's hard to know what to do. Many of us can walk or bike, but for the most part we all still have to drive cars to get where we need to go. While UTA is pushing ahead with its mass-transit long range plan, we will just have to suffer through it. However, since the EPA revised its standards for stricter air quality to PM 2.5 (PM meaning Fine Particulate Matter), the State was given 3 years to reach compliance. This winter will be three years since then and the state will need to take serious measures to address our air quality situation. This is a good thing, but it also could mean restrictions on driving, incentives for taking the bus or Trax, handing out gas masks, who knows! You can read more about the State Implementation Plan (SIP) here. I for one favor any actions taken to get more people out of their cars and exercising.

"In The Tunnels You Can Actually Walk On Stars"

a found poem from the Nancy Holt/Helmet Sidney Loe interview in History of the Sun Tunnels Near Lucin, Utah using only Nancy Holt's words.

"I knew it was the right kind of sight for Sun Tunnels, because it was flat and barren and had no other use.

You could see time written on the rocks. In the mountains surrounding the area you can see the lines where the sea bit into the mountains. It was as if my inner landscape and the outer landscape were identical, there was a pervasive sense of oneness.

I don't think there is a way to build to the geographical scale of the environment ... it is so vast, so huge ... I don't think you can compete with the desert scale, even if you wanted to.

These spiraling lines may be the trajectory of bullets. It's not that bad, the lines have a certain energy.

Perception

Distance

Place

Solstice

Scale

I think everything I do is related to the site, to the environment.

It's just part of having something out there in the world."

(photo courtesy of: http://millyboarder.blogspot.com/2007/06/sun-tunnels.html)

Family and Community

Many who follow this blog are currently in a class called Art, Advocacy, and Landscape with Terry Tempest Williams. In this class, on a daily basis, we find ourselves wondering about ways to save the world. (I say that in jest, but it isn’t far from the truth.) Ways we, individually and as a group, can help our community fix its present problems. And those problems can include anything (climate change, human rights, environmental degradation, education, anything), the key is that it needs to be a community action for meaningful change to occur.

As I progress through the class, I realize that right now community, indeed family, is more important than ever. And for me, community and family need to expand to include each other, become synonymous with the other. Only through the mutual respect for people, a recognition that we all share the same blood, will true environmental change occur.

If we respect each other, treat each other as equals, that same respect will surely carry over to the land. Human rights and a broader sense of community and family are the building blocks of a true respect for the environment.

-- a. holland

Confessions of an off-road outlaw

While fishing for articles I came across this one about an ORV supporter turned land activist and it struck a nerve:

http://www.hcn.org/wotr/confessions-of-an-off-road-outlaw

I think it's important to remember that people can change, and that there are complexities to our beliefs. Sometimes all that's missing is an experience that opens someone's eyes to the situation around them. Not all ORV drivers and deaf and blind to the havoc they wreak on the land and the habitats they ride in, which this article is a testament to.

Perhaps what's even more important is making an effort to not polarize this issue- or any issue. Not much will get accomplished in an "us versus them" debate because there are people in the areas in between. It wasn't someone telling VeneKlasen that he was wrong that changed his mind, he had to experience it for himself. It's true that not all people are as open-minded and aware as this author, but it goes both ways.

So today or tomorrow or someday soon, practice keeping an open mind...because you never know what will find it's way in.

-Katie

Happy Campers

I thought we could all use some humor as time tightens and tensions elevate. Whether you like camping or not, this should make you chuckle. Enjoy Jim Gaffigan:

More serious things to come....

-Katie

Wisdom

Andrew Zuckerman presented to the world his project, Wisdom, with the premier at the State Library of New South Whales in Sydney, Australia on October 16th 2008. With the help of Desmond Tutu, Zuckerman interviewed 51 individuals over the age of 65 on their view of wisdom.

The official website states his concept as:
Inspired by the idea one of the greatest gifts one generation can pass to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience, the wisdom project, produced with the cooperation from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, seeks to create a record of a multicultural group of people who have all made their mark on the world. Presented against the same white space, all of the subjects are removed from their context, which not only democratizes them, but also allows for a clear dialogue to exist between them. In an attempt to create a more profound, honest, and truly revealing portrait of these luminaries, the project encompasses their voices, their physical presence, and the written word. This comprehensive portrayal of such a profound and global group is an index of extraordinary perspectives. Wisdom is an ongoing project. Additions to the list of contributors continues.

Here is the trailer/introduction video for the hour long film of all the interviews:

Wisdom - Introduction from State Library of New South Wales on Vimeo.

I really enjoy the words of Robert Redford and Jane Goodall.

Science/Philosophy

This morning, waiting in my inbox, was an email from one of my favorite groups, The Imaginary Foundation. It was a reminder to check out their blog, which of course I did. For those of you new to The Imaginary Foundation here is a little background info from their site;

The Imaginary foundation was established in Geneva in 1973 as an experimental "think-tank" for new ideas. Created by an eclectic group of free thinkers, the foundation’s research spans
all creative endeavors and assigns as its goal; the wish to eliminate set conventions in favor of the humorous, the abstract and the visionary.

In his vision for the Imaginary Foundation, the Director(whose name is never mentioned anywhere...) knew that the human mind has more than one mode, that indeed it has an "ecology" of being. He knew that imagination, intuition, inspiration are basic to psyche. . . . A philosophy of research began to form: imagination as fundamental to all learning; artistic making as a model of integrating vision, materials, structure, and imagery.

"What makes true vision is the poetry of life and the richness of nature"

I have been a long time fan of their philosophy and tee-shirts, a medium The Director considers essential to getting their message out.

The post I would like to highlight focuses on music/science/cosmos/Carl Sagan. This is relevant considering the reading some of us just finished for Terry's class on Gaia and Lovelock, who had conversations with Sagan. It also touches on the level of the Universe which is something Jack Turner challenges us to consider. I find it funny that someone (this guy) would take the time to remix words of Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye to match beats!

Here is the video with subtitles so you can read along.



and the original IF post.

New Found Music

I have enjoyed this song over the past week and would like to share it with you all. It is by The Cinematic Orchestra and called Dawn.

I only recently stumbled upon The Cinematic Orchestra and did a little background check to see what they are all about. Formed in the late 90's they are a British based jazz band and their recorded albums bring together improvised live jazz and electronic elements by the turntablist/DJ.

The barn and mountains provide a great image to accompany the music but I always close my eyes and imagine snow blanketing everything. I love most music and use it for different purposes. This I find truly beautiful and while I do use music to fill the background empty space while I actively participate in something else, I find when this is playing I stop what I am doing to just listen. It is captivating.

Enjoy.

Cinematic Orchestra "Dawn" from JT GURZI on Vimeo.