Which is why this collection of photography from Richard Mosse is so astounding. Somehow, by using a special kind of [...]]]> The Congo is simply, probably, the saddest place on Earth. Five hundred women and children raped and gangraped in the eastern provinces. Barges full of people that sink, killing scores. It’s hard to imagine more misery.

Which is why this collection of photography from Richard Mosse is so astounding. Somehow, by using a special kind of film and without using photoshop, he captured scenes from the Congolese conflict in bubble gum hues. Somehow the jungle becomes pink. It makes you take a fresh look at the people and the place and the never ending suffering there, after years when you felt like it was all too terrible not to look away from.

– RC

China is becoming so aggressive in promoting its green tech sectors, to the point that it’s breaking [...]]]> We seem so impotent when it comes to dealing with China on currency, business, human rights, food safety, and other critical matters. This New York Times article should now raise eyebrows for reasons of economic recovery and technological competitiveness.

China is becoming so aggressive in promoting its green tech sectors, to the point that it’s breaking international rules.

We shouldn’t strive to break rules — but can we at least try a little harder than we’re trying now?

– RC and HB

Why does it hurt to hurt? Why, when you try not to cry, does your throat seize up? And why, when your life or your love seems to be crumbling and your heart is cracking, why isn’t that just a figure of speech? Why do you [...]]]> Or, why your heart feels like it’s breaking

By Zoe Hunter

Why does it hurt to hurt? Why, when you try not to cry, does your throat seize up? And why, when your life or your love seems to be crumbling and your heart is cracking, why isn’t that just a figure of speech? Why do you actually feel hurt in your chest?

Start with the crying. Some people say your throat hurts because of  “nasal drip” — the saline falls down into the throat before it comes out the eyes — but that explanation  just doesn’t convince me.

I’m talking about the beginning — when I’m not crying. When the romantic side of me is convinced that the pain in my throat is an army of unspoken words clamoring to be voiced. And that the emotional strength required to keep them at bay is in fact physical- a tightening of the walls of my throat that these words hurl themselves against. Which is of course why my romantic side chose to fall in love with the second scientific explanation that truly involves a battle within.

Of course, tears don’t start in your eyes or your heart. They start in your brain. Specifically, in the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. **

The specific function of the sympathetic nervous system that we’re most familiar with is “Fight or Flight.” (I’m a huge supporter of the inclusion of “Freeze” to the “Fight or Flight” response, because at some point in my evolutionary history, becoming completely paralyzed and dropping to the floor in a fetal position became an instinctive reaction to danger. It’s embarrassing.) The “Fight or Flight” response is simply the body making adjustments to best react to an environmental stressor- and most vertebrates have it in place to counter an attack.  Examples include increased flow of blood, oxygen, and sugar to your muscles. It is the body’s efforts to regulate oxygen in response to stress (in this case sorrow or grief, manifested in crying) that gets us literally all choked up.

Because, to allow the lungs to take in more air, there needs to be an opening of the mouth and throat. This involves expansion of the glottis, the muscle that controls the opening from the back of the throat into the voice box (larynx), so that more air can pass through it. This doesn’t pose a problem until you want to swallow. One of the autonomic nervous system’s other jobs (relegated to its parasympathetic branch) is to close the glottis when you swallow so you don’t choke to death by getting food into your larynx. Choking to death (regardless of whether or not you’re actually eating) trumps crying. So swallowing trumps throat expansion. The muscles for swallowing are fighting against the muscles for crying, and this tug-of-war, like many battles, is painful.

My second question: Why do we feel emotional pain in our hearts? Why not our spleen or kidneys?

So emotional pain is perceived as stress, and alerts the (ever-empathetic) sympathetic nervous system. While the pain in your throat involved your body’s efforts to regulate oxygen, pain in your heart is due to a similar effort to regulate blood flow (which actually still serves to increase oxygen). The emotional stress causes a surge of adrenaline (fight or flight!) that increases the strength of your heart contractions. This will carry more blood to the muscles — blood that provides oxygen.

It’s kind of amazing, and a little sad, to see how far we’ve come. Whereas our animal ancestors had to face near-death experiences to activate this kind of internal tumult, the result of my evolved consciousness has me fighting or fleeing at a few hurtful words, or some seemingly minor indignities. On my best days, I take it as a comfort. That should I choose to find it, there is a veritable GI Jane’s worth of kick-ass behind those tears, that what I feel as pain and interpret as weakness is, in actuality, a physical readying; a strength that my brain faithfully knows comes as naturally to me as breathing.

– Zoe Hunter is a biomedical sciences graduate student at the University of New Mexico.

** The autonomic nervous system is part of the peripheral nervous system, which makes up everything outside the brain and spinal cord — it is a complex network of nerves and sensors. Some of these nerves are voluntary, and some are autonomic. Voluntary nerves are used to walk, to kiss, to write long-winded blogs. The autonomic nerves are do the breathing, blood flow, thermoregulation, metabolism, blinking and swallowing. It’s super busy, and has your best interests at heart. Or at head.

Cultivating algae (capturing CO2) for fish food could offer potential on both issues.

– Hugh Bollinger

“It’s gonna be a tough century,” McKibben said.

“Have you thought about special hats?” Dave said. “Thank you [...]]]> Bill McKibben talks about heat, and pushes the 10/10/10 rally for solar power at the White House. My hero, David Letterman, seems to be turning into an environmentalist — although, like he is about most things, a cynical one.

“It’s gonna be a tough century,” McKibben said.

“Have you thought about special hats?” Dave said. “Thank you for just scaring the crap out of me.”

– RC

And then I got to moderate a talk with her. What a gem.

- RC

Just like the pyramids, I’ll bet this formation was caused by aliens. Or tectonics or a volcano or an asteroid, which are the possibilities the European Space Agency is considering. One of [...]]]>

Much like Michael Jackson's nose, nobody really knows exactly how this bizarre and beautiful feature formed -- Photo from the European Space Agency

Just like the pyramids, I’ll bet this formation was caused by aliens. Or tectonics or a volcano or an asteroid, which are the possibilities the European Space Agency is considering. One of those.

But the pyramids … definitely aliens.

Along those lines, one of our goals as we explore outer space should be to find a world with semi-intelligent life, then build something big and obscure, like a 10 story statue of Dora the Explorer, then leave no record of how or why we built it. Then we should leave and never come back. Just in case the animals evolve … a big ol’ Dora would totally mess with their heads.

Why? Cause screw ‘em, that’s why.

– Reilly Capps

Anybody? Christmas present for me? Anyone? Only $15,500.

Here’s the website.

– Reilly Capps

The skeptical environmentalist now says we should invest $100 billion a year in green tech.

Is this an about-face? Not quite. Bjorn Lomborg has always had interesting and nuanced ideas on the environment. He never denied that it was happening, or that it was human-caused. He just had a different [...]]]> Is this a kind of road-to-Damascus moment?

The skeptical environmentalist now says we should invest $100 billion a year in green tech.

Is this an about-face? Not quite. Bjorn Lomborg has always had interesting and nuanced ideas on the environment. He never denied that it was happening, or that it was human-caused. He just had a different take on what to do about it.

He made an interesting argument that early springs would save people from dying of cold. His big argument was that the economic slowdown from massive taxes on carbon wouldn’t be worth it, and that the money could be better spent fighting HIV or malaria.

But, I’ll be interested in his new argument in “Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits,” his new book. It sounds optimistic. The Guardian says this:

Later in the book, reflecting on analysis by five economists of eight types of solution, he estimates that spending $100bn (£65bn) a year “could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century”.

He finishes: “If we care about the environment and about leaving this planet and its inhabitants with the best possible future, we actually have only one option: we all need to start seriously focusing, right now, on the most effective ways to fix global warming.”

Speaking to the Guardian about climate engineering as a back-up plan, he raises the possibility of “something really bad lurking around the corner”: the small-chance, big-consequence outcome his previous work appeared to dismiss.

– Reilly Capps

Aldo Leopold, one of our great environmental thinkers, once commented: “to be an ecologist is to live in a world of wounds.” He must have ventured around New Zealand before making this observation!

When the first European navigators happened upon New Zealand after touring Australia, they found the islands populated by proud South Pacific [...]]]> By Hugh Bollinger

Aldo Leopold, one of our great environmental thinkers, once commented: “to be an ecologist is to live in a world of wounds.” He must have ventured around New Zealand before making this observation!

When the first European navigators happened upon New Zealand after touring Australia, they found the islands populated by proud South Pacific Islanders living in a landscape covered by massive forests of kauri and other trees the size of massive redwoods.

[A kauri tree from New Zealand]

Even before Europeans came, the Maori had already done a pretty decent job of reducing the big animals of Aotearoa– their name for New Zealand. They brought pigs from other islands that ate the native flightless birds, and they hunted everything else in sight.

But these forests weren’t prepared for the next wave of invaders, arriving in tall ships.

The National Library of New Zealand recently exhibited photographs by Henry Wright captured on glass plates in late 19th century logging camps. His photos tell a major story of deforestation.

New Zealand — unlike Australia and America, which were settled by vagrants and religious types — was largely colonized by Scottish farmers. They didn’t like trees much, and set out to reduce dark forests to pasture. They did an excellent job. Entire mountain chains were cleared of tree cover. Cattle, goats, and sheep now graze there. New Zealand is the world’s third largest dairy producer/exporter, and China has recently gained a taste for milk products. The Scots should have been happy enough just clearing the forests, but they were homesick for their Highlands and decided to add to the new uncovered scenery. The colonists started on a rationalization campaign by introducing species more familiar to them than the ones that are native to the island: kiwis, moas, and takahe birds. And the German brown trout that are now so prized by anglers came from Europe; steelhead were imported from northern California rivers; and rabbits came from the UK. The newly introduced fish of the salmon family ate most of the native fishes, the rabbits munched away at the mossy mountainsides, exposing the soil, and the grazing and tromping done by cattle, goats and sheep caused major erosion that still silts up tidal bays in a rainy clime not dissimilar to the Pacific Northwest.

However, probably the most invasive species of all to NZ was a plant — Scotch Broom, called “gorse” here.

This pea shrub from Scotland flourished on the denuded hillsides and spread like a green plague. It now covers thousands of square miles of once dense forest lands. Gorse can be rather pretty if you like yellow peaflowers — Asian tourists take photos — but nothing can eat a plant with major thorns and tough fiber. And it reproduces, well, like a weed. Gorse is pretty impervious to control, and burning or herbicides are the best approach to eradication, but it’s hard to do that across entire ranges of mountains, some approaching angles of 60 to 70 percent.

That’s not to say New Zealanders are not trying to make environmental amends for their18th and 19th century land use practices. Most urban town councils and rural villages have native tree planting campaigns, and a new research investigation has been undertaken by the University of Wellington, in the capital, to evaluate the positive benefits of tree restoration campaigns. Biodiversity improvements aside, the elimination of gorse hillsides certainly can’t be a bad thing for erosion control and native birds and wildlife seem to agree as well. Many environmental projects are volunteer-based, and the private/non-profit Puketi Forest Trust is trying to restore forests to their status of 100 years ago. The organization initiated a program to reduce feral animals such as rats in the Puketi Forest Reserve. For a $10 donation, individuals can help the process of pest removal by purchasing a trap. This program has reduced the rodent population by 12,000 rats and possums so far. Native birds have responded well, coming back from the brink of near extinction and are now again being heard in the forests. Leopold would be pleased.

Anyway, if natural forests aren’t your cup of tea, NZ produces some of the worlds’ best wines, as well as great rugby teams. That should be reason enough for visiting the antipodes!

– Hugh Bollinger, a longtime consultant in the fields of biotechnology and the environment, is the co-owner of Pondaray.com. He lives in Salt Lake City.