"Don't Even Begin to Talk To Them Until You've Forgiven Them For Everything"

It's just too nice to be inside blogging.  So here are a few pics about things I'm not blogging about.  [It turns out I couldn't keep to that goal when I tried to briefly summarize the Citizens' Climate Lobby meeting.  The title gets explained near the end.]

Goose Lake still had ice Saturday

After the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) meeting Saturday morning I biked the long way home and digested what I'd heard.   Dana Nuccitelli, a physicist who writes, among other places, at Skeptical Science,  gave some highlights of the latest U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report.  There were actually three recent reports.  The key findings he reported for the first report:

1. 95% confidence level that humans are the main cause of global warming since 1950.
   And that humans are responsible for about 100% of global warming since 1950.  In each of the reports since the 1990s, they've grown in confidence level that humans are the cause.  
2. Predict how much warmer it will get under three different scenarios
1. Business as usual - about 4 or 5˚C (about 9˚F) warming by 2100 as compared to pre-industrial temperatures
2. The GOOD NEWS:  If take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions we can still limit global warming to 2˚C by 2100.  He said 2˚C is a critical number because scientist believe if we go above that we'll have really severe climate effects.  Some scientists say that 2˚C is already too much, but we've already risen 1˚ and another 1/2 will result from the greenhouse gasses already emitted.  So 2˚ is the only reasonable goal we could achieve. 

The second report focused on Climate Impacts and Adaptation - how various scenarios will impact humans and how we can adapt to them and one of the key findings was:

1. For another 2˚C increase we will see an annual decrease of 2% of global income per year and potentially more than that, and if beyond that, economists aren't even comfortable estimating how large they'll be.   Basically it gives us an economic incentive not to go beyond that 2˚C limit.

The third report that came out about a month ago, focused on climate change and  mitigation and the key finding he reported was that:

1. If we act efficiently we can keep global warming going beyond that 2˚C  and it will only cost 0.06% of annual global economic growth.  Putting that into perspective if the global economy grows at 2.3% per year, using that 0.06% figure, it would grow at 2.24% per year.  

So, for a pretty minimal cost, we could prevent very dangerous global warming.  

You can listen to the international phone in presentation here.   These meetings are content rich and move right along.  If you just want to hear the part where Dana talks, go to 11 minutes, where he's being introduced.  and goes to 27:16. 

This post's title comes from a little earlier in the tape where CCL Executive Director and meeting host Mark Reynolds  is talking about one of the CCL staff who was planning a meeting with the Koch brothers. He was trying to explain his difference between being 'nice' and being 'generous.' 

"Sometimes people get confused about what we're trying to do when we we're attempting to do this in the most generous way we possibly can.   What people translate that into sometimes is thinking that we're trying to be a nice organization.  And I don't have any problem with being nice and I'm not against nice people, but that is not what we're trying to do.  53  In my view, being nice implies a certain phoniness, like when you pretend to like someone you don't like.  Whereas human generosity is asking yourself to do something you can't possibly do.  Let me give you one simple example.  I was at a luncheon last November with [corrected spelling: Peter Fiekowsky] who heads up a couple of big projects for CCL.  He's the head of Team Loyal [Oil] and he's also in charge of our hundred year plan.  We were talking before lunch and he had said he'd scheduled his first meeting with the Koch brothers and he asked my advice on what he should talk about.  I try to take as big and generous a view as I possibly can of dealing with people and I really failed in that case because I told Peter I don't know why you're talking to them, I think these are terrible people, I can't imagine meeting with them, I think they're evil, and it's a bad thing.  Peter's always great with me and he's like, OK, Mark, I got that, that's your feedback [?], do you mind if I talk to Father Gerry?  Father Gerry O'Rourke is an 89 year old Catholic priest, who both Peter and I have known for decades and he was instrumental in the North Ireland peace process.  So Peter went off and talked to Father Gerry and we talked later and I said, what did Father Gerry say to you?  And he said, well, he started by saying basically what you said.  And I'm like, see, Peter?  I told you so.  And then he said this:  I'm going to tell you to do what I told the people in Northern Ireland they had to do.  And that is, Don't even begin to talk to them until you have forgiven them for everything.

So that doesn't mean you say out loud to someone "I forgive you."  But it's asking yourself to do something you're not capable of doing at that moment.  You know, I think Charles Du Bois said it correctly.  "The important thing is this:  At any moment to be able to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."  I think that's the organization we're trying to be and the way of working we're trying to emulate  and sometimes people confuse that with something simple called "nice" and I just wanted to be clear that we're all talking about the same thing."

 As you can see, I got carried away with the meeting and actually did write a whole post.  the picture is of Goose Lake which still had, yesterday, ice on the surface of most of the lake.  But we've had several days with temperatures into the 70s (at least in our backyard) so it can't last long.

I'll put up the other pictures later.   Maybe.

Degrading Goose Lake Skyline

If you think skylines should be buildings and other man made structures rather than mountains, then you'll be pleased with the evolving Goose Lake skyline.  There was a time when a bit of the University of Alaska Anchorage was just barely visible over the treetops.  Then the library addition went in with it's green phallic symbol on top exposed for all to see.  The science building and then the parking garage soon peeked over the treetops.  And this evening as we walked around the lake there was what looked like a factory with smokestacks rising above the trees. [Turns out it is the Science Building, not the sports center.]   The new sports center that required the flattening of acres and acres of forest and now juts up above Providence Drive to block the mountains is the only thing I could imagine the new 'factory' to be. 

Looking west from the bike trail, one could still imagine being out in the wilderness in the middle of town.  I just stood there taking pictures as the duck came closer and closer.

It's early September and one has to think about darkness again. It's a whole new feel being in the woods at twilight. 

Earlier on the walk we came across this huge chunk of soil that had been ripped off the ground felling two trees over a foot in diameter plus a dozen smaller ones.  This could be left over from last fall's ferocious winds that toppled so many trees.

I really do have much more to post, but family matters have been consuming a lot of time.  I have a number of unfinished posts that just need more time to ripen enough to post. 

What October's Supposed to Look Like

After abnormally rainy days, the sun slid out today, and the sky was blue.


Here's the edge of Goose Lake along the bike trail to UAA.  

 The sun made the birch trunks white, white.

Red crab apples, blue sky, and yellow leaves.  Primary colors.  Sort of.  Wikipedia refines this a bit, but I know from camera stuff that it's gotten way more complicated than this, but it's a start.

"RYB (red, yellow, and blue) is a historical set of subtractive primary colors. It is primarily used in art and art education, particularly painting.^[23] It predates modern scientific color theory.

RYB color wheel

RYB make up the primary colors in a painter's color wheel; the secondary colors VOG (violet, orange, and green) make up another triad. Triads are formed by 3 equidistant colors on a particular color wheel; neither RYB nor VOG is equidistant on a perceptually uniform color wheel, but rather have been defined to be equidistant in the RYB wheel.^[24]
Painters have long used more than three "primary" colors in their palettes—and at one point considered red, yellow, blue, and green to be the four primaries.^[25] Red, yellow, blue, and green are still widely considered the four psychological primary colors,^[26] though red, yellow, and blue are sometimes listed as the three psychological primaries,^[27] with black and white occasionally added as a fourth and fifth.^[28]
During the 18th century, as theorists became aware of Isaac Newton’s scientific experiments with light and prisms, red, yellow, and blue became the canonical primary colors—supposedly the fundamental sensory qualities that are blended in the perception of all physical colors and equally in the physical mixture of pigments or dyes. This theory became dogma, despite abundant evidence that red, yellow, and blue primaries cannot mix all other colors, and has survived in color theory to the present day.^[29]
Using red, yellow, and blue as primaries yields a relatively small gamut, in which, among other problems, colorful greens, cyans, and magentas are impossible to mix, because red, yellow, and blue are not well-spaced around a perceptually uniform color wheel. For this reason, modern three- or four-color printing processes, as well as color photography, use cyan, yellow, and magenta as primaries instead.^[30] Most painters include colors in their palettes which cannot be mixed from yellow, red, and blue paints, and thus do not fit within the RYB color model. Some who do use a three-color palette opt for the more evenly spaced cyan, yellow, and magenta used by printers, and others paint with 6 or more colors to widen their gamuts.^[31] The cyan, magenta, and yellow used in printing are sometimes known as "process blue," "process red," and "process yellow."^[32]

To really get into this from a camera perspective, check out Mark Meyers' Photo Journal post "Calculating Color Space Volumes."

 Yes, that white spot is trash at Goose Lake.  I decided not to photoshop it out. 

Crowded Bike Racks, More Downed Trees, and Flying Debris, Cason and Cage

Wasn't quite sure what to make of this sign.

 The bike rack in front of the UAA administration building was full, and even had a notice on where the nearest backup rack was.  Five years ago this never would have happened.

Drew Cason spoke tonight at the UAA bookstore on a project he did this semester - landscape value mapping in the University district.  Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) he mapped survey data to specific spots in the university area.  Cool project.


Tomorrow there will be a presentation in the same spot - upstairs in the campus bookstore, where they sell computer equipment - celebrating composer John Cage's 100th birthday.  Sean Licka from Art,  composer (and blogger) Phil Munger from Music, and Chris Sweeney, also Music, will be there to comment on Cage's music and life.

Cage is considered one of the great, if non-traditional, American musicians of the 20th Century.

3-5pm at the UAA bookstore - free admission and free parking

Thursday September 13, 2012

"I was disturbed both in my private life and in my public life as a composer. I could not accept the academic idea that the purpose of music was communication, because I noticed that when I conscientiously wrote something sad, people and critics were often apt to laugh. I determined to give up composition unless I could find a better reason for doing it than communication. I found this answer from Gira Sarabhai, an Indian singer and tabla player: The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences. I also found in the writings of Ananda K. Coomaraswammy that the responsibility of the artist is to imitate nature in her manner of operation. I became less disturbed and went back to work." John Cage

Evening walk to Goose Lake Tuesday night.

And more downed trees. 

This one even took out the bottom of the chain link fence when it toppled over pulling up its roots and a good chunk of earth.  Saw a number like this one - the earth pulled up, not the fence.

Greening Up

Forget-me-nots brighten this chilly summer in the front yard.











And the sweet peas are coming up. Last year only a few bloomed. Maybe we'll have better luck this year.

















I did my run today around Goose Lake. Here the dogwood carpet the ground adding a bright green on an otherwise grey day.









And here I'm approaching the lake.




























Some sort of larvae on one of the reeds. It rained earlier and the reeds still had drops clinging.

Lazy Run

I took my camera on my run today. The end of November is not supposed to be so snowless. Yes, there's some snow left over, but not very much.


A - I don't know that this little lake has a name. I checked Google maps - that's why there is a map at the end - and it isn't even on that map. But then I checked for the Municipality of Anchorage Trail Maps and found a map with the trails on it. And tweaked that a bit.







This is a marshy area in the summer. B on the map.











From the bike trail bridge over Northern Lights Blvd, looking west.









And east. The bridge pictures are at C on the map.















One day I'll do a whole post on Lanie. She's a wonderful human being and was one of the people who got Anchorage's great bike trails started. This is at D on the map.






These last two pictures are at E on the map, where the bike trail comes right up on Goose Lake.














This is also at the lake at A on the map. I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was, sort of scoter like. Usually only see them in summer and they have somewhat different markings. Maybe Catherine or Dianne (who's on her way back from bird watching in Bhutan - now that's a serious birder!) can identify it. I'm experimenting with different download levels from iMovie. This was CDRom quality. Not very good I'm afraid.





Map from Anchorage Municipality Trail Page I've added the A-E letters and the bright blue lake at A. The yellow dashed trail is my run - just under 4 miles. By connecting the trails through the university and then the Lanie Fleischer trail (the dark green one - covered with the yellow dashes of my route) I get about half the run in the woods.

Mushroom Pictures

Biking home from the trial yesterday, I took the longer way home around Goose Lake. We've had a lot of rain recently and the mushrooms were out. I can't find my mushroom field guide, so I'm going to post without trying to figure out what they are. Anyone who knows, please leave a comment.

Here's a mushroom eye view of the woods.

There were a lot of these brown mushrooms with a cream trim

And these little tiny ones popping up through the moss.

And these were somewhat bigger. You can see the relative size by looking at the moss.

This russet colored one from the top and then from the side.

These scattered clusters of mushrooms are what first caught my eye.

Campbell Creek Bike Trail Under Seward Highway

The Anchorage Daily News has an editorial today about completing the Campbell-Chester Creek Trail loop around UAA. That part just needs better signage for people who don't know it. The real key is completing the large loop of the Campbell Creek to Coastal Trail to Chester Creek. And a major problem is Seward Highway and Campbell Creek.

Yesterday I had to go to CompUSA on Dimond from the University. Should I drive or bike? It was a beautiful day, but the bike trail doesn't quite go the way I wanted to go. The big gap in the bike trail is under Seward Highway. The trail to the highway is great and after, but there's this gap. Lanie Fleischer - who was one (and she emphasizes that there were many others) of the early bike trail advocates and whose name is on the trail at Goose Lake - told me once long ago that she talked to the engineers building the Seward Highway. She wanted them to make sure it would be easy to one day build a bike trail under the highway along Campbell Creek. She said they sneered and purposely built it low. Lanie has no reason to make up such a story.

In any case, yesterday I decided to bike it. Here's the obstacle.

I rode south on Lake Otis to 47th, (#1 on the map) I think, where I picked up the bike trail headed west through the Waldron area, past the soccer fields and the small lake. It winds through a small park to Campbell Creek and then ends.
There is a dirt path through the woods, but I took the quiet neighborhood street to the Seward Highway. (#2) The pictures below are getting under the Seward Highway - the box on the map by #2.











This is where the little dirt path begins to go down and under the first of the four bridges (one each for north and south of Seward Highway, and a frontage road bridge on each side).















Down under the bridges.









While traffic whizzes by above, down under the bridges it's a totally different world.





And after the last bridge, now on the west side of the Seward Highway, you take another small dirt path and the new bike trail begins again with this wooden bridge.
.






















Note on this post. The reason I went to Dimond was to buy iLife08 which includes iMovie08 - a totally new way of putting together movies from iMovie06. I did this movie in the new software just by going to help when I had a problem. It is incredibly easy and intuitive. And I saw the other day that there is a new upload video button on blogger, so I wanted to try that out too. It would mean not having to post first on Viddler. But it is taking forever to upload. Let's see what it looks like when it's done.
Well, there's the answer. [When I'm making the post, there's a video screen saying "Uploading Video" but I also got a message saying it can't upload it.] It appears that I can't upload it in Viddler, it's too long for YouTube and it didn't upload here. A quick Google shows that a lot of people are having trouble with iMovie. So I'll just post this for now and see what I can do. [And it doesn't come up. I'm guessing it's too big. But the file format doesn't work for Viddler and it's clearly too big for YouTube.]