1. 27 July 2008

    40 days ago

    There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness. In a civilization which requires most lives to be passed amid inordinate dissonance, pressure and intrusion, the chance of retiring now and then to the quietude and privacy of sylvan haunts becomes for some people a psychic necessity. The preservation of a few samples of undeveloped territory is one of the most clamant issues before us today. Just a few more years of hesitation and the only trace of that wilderness which has exerted such a fundamental influence in molding American character will lie in the musty pages of pioneer books… To avoid this catastrophe demands immediate action.

    Bob Marshall (1901–1939)

  2. 11 May 2008

    Garbage Warrior

    117 days ago

    Here’s an impressive documentary on Mike Reynolds, progenitor of the Earthship concept. 30 or so years ago he started to build houses out of trash: first tin cans mixed with natural cement, then incorporating tires and bottles. His keystone idea was that of a completely self–sufficient home. Harvesting rainwater off the roof, coupled with what’s come to be known as passive–solar to keep the place warm, small–scale electricity generation, and gardening for food. This kind of house covers all your bases. I’ve seen bits about earthships here and there (I’ve always taken an interest in the more marginalized forms of architecture), but learning more about these really fascinates me.

    It’s the perfect blending of home and environment, wrapping you in a microclimate that bends natural processes to your will instead of opposing them. I found a clip of Reynolds on Colbert’s Show, and he said something along the lines of: “we pick banana trees in the middle of winter grown with our own raw sewage.” This isn’t quite true—it’s grey–water that flows through the planters with the banana trees, so not quite sewage—but that’s semantic. Colbert was baffled, his eyes doubled in size, about 5 seconds later he regained his composure and ended the interview with one of his quips. But that about sums it up for me. I’ve always wanted to build up my own place out in the woods, and when I do I’ll be hard pressed not to try out one of these.

    — Garbage Warrior, by Oliver Hodge (torrent)
    — Reynolds’s Organization
    — Here’s a beautiful and recent Earthship being put up by Reynolds and his crew in Nicaragua
    — A pretty decent 7–minute feature from the Weather Channel
    — An equally long feature on an earthship in Normandy (in french)

    Reynolds used to be an architect, but his state liscense was revoked in the 90s. He’s recently had it given back, but fuck that, he calls himself a biotect now.

  3. 10 December 2007

    Natural Architecture

    Alessandro Rocca

    270 days ago

    A showcase of real landscape architecture. Buildings/art objects created from materials right out of the forest. Completely different from what most people would call architecture, but all the same it makes you think of what the world would be like if we could all figure out how to live and work in circular palaces made of willow stalks transplanted into the german forest and allowed to intertwine into a multistory structure (Auerworld Palace, Sanfte Strukturen, p65) or darkened rooms with a built in camera obscura to bring the waves of a nearby lake, the tops of surrounding trees, the clouds drifting above, or undulating grains inside (Cloud Chambers, Chris Drury, p147). Would be cool.

  4. 25 December 2006

    Chased by the Light

    Jim Brandenburg

    620 days ago

    Book of photos taken one-a-day for a 90 day period from autumn to the winter solstice. The images themselves are online, but for want of things to put on my christmas list I went for the book. It was worth it.

  5. 27 October 2006

    679 days ago

    An Elephant Crackup?

    today’s elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma. Decades of poaching and culling and habitat loss, they claim, have so disrupted the intricate web of familial and societal relations by which young elephants have traditionally been raised in the wild, and by which established elephant herds are governed, that what we are now witnessing is nothing less than a precipitous collapse of elephant culture.

    100 years from now will we be looking back on our desecration of the elephant in africa as we look now upon condemnable acts of human vs human genocide?

    Because psychologically, it’s looking like elephants aren’t all that different from us humans. They share tremendous social bonds within their herds, which are really just large familial units.

    The elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans: abnormal startle response, unpredictable asocial behavior, inattentive mothering and hyperaggression.

    Neural studies of elephants are now underway. Holy shit. How long until we can figure out what they’re thinking, even communicate with them?

    Some might think that the way I describe the elephant attacks makes the animals look like people. But people are animals. Eve Abe

    Figuring out how to live with elephants will demand the ultimate act of deep, interspecies empathy.

    I like to think that animals on the most part are so far advanced than us feeble humans that we can’t even comprehend it. We only take the delusional point of view that god made us in his own image to be caretakers of the world. Nature really does have things under control; it’s just waiting for us to overstep the bounds, so it can blow us all to hell.

    via Kjell Olsen679 days ago

  6. 22 July 2006

    776 days ago

    Grizzlies, on the internet

    Grizzly bear webcam. Someone is pointing the camera at all the action on a salmon stream, bears are frolicking. If it weren’t for the grainy 200×200 video stream it might feel like you were actually there. (Impressive tech setup, there’s a remote control wireless video camera hidden in a faux boulder, wireless signal is relayed 100 miles than sent over land to seattle.)

    via Kjell Olsen776 days ago

  7. 05 July 2006

    Saksun

    793 days ago

    There’s definitely something special about the Faroes. I was there a few years ago, and really would love to go back. Just look at this!

  8. 15 June 2006

    813 days ago

    Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument

    I actually think this is the first thing bush has done that I can agree with. (How many months until the next election?)

    via Kjell Olsen813 days ago

  9. 05 May 2006

    854 days ago

    Visible Earth: The Blue Marble

    Amazing images of earth from NASA.

    via Kjell Olsen854 days ago

  10. 20 April 2006

    869 days ago

    Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation

    There may be plutonium in the zone, but there is no herbicide or pesticide, no industry, no traffic, and marshlands are no longer being drained.

    I’m getting the vibe that human industry is more harmful to nature then a nuclear meltdown. Ugh.

    I have wondered if the small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers. James Lovelock

    via Kjell Olsen869 days ago

  11. 29 January 2006

    950 days ago

    Global warming

    Look at the graphs about 3/4 of the way down.

    via Kjell Olsen950 days ago

  12. 28 January 2006

    Reflections from the North Country

    Sigurd F. Olson

    951 days ago

    Sigurd Olson, a minnesota conservationist, explorer and woodsman, on how to live the good life. Olson lets his philosophy on life out in three parts: Primal Heritage, The Search for Meaning, and The imponderables; drawing the conclusion that the only way for man to truly be happy is in a close covenant with nature.

    The more I contemplate the Universe, the more it seems like a great thought. James Jeans, referenced on pg. 33

    Silence is one of the most important parts of the wilderness experience; without it the land is nothing more then rocks, trees, and water. 41

    The thought of being concerned with life is a magnificent achievement for modern man, a simple solution to his problems, which could mean peace for all who take time to know the life around them. 51

    One of the saddest remarks anyone can make is that he is bored, just killing time, with nothing to get excited about, nothing to warrant enthusiasm. When I sense such reactions, I wonder what has happened to the sights and sounds, to the senses of smell and touch, to the realization of an infinite world of beauty and mystery. Part of the answer is that man has removed himself so completely from the natural scene, which used to give comfort and pleasure, his reactions have atrophied through lack of use. 68

    Thoreau advised us to “drive life into a corner and reduce it to its simplest terms,” recognizing the truth that complexity robs us of time and energy by making life so involved with the unessential, the real things are forgotten and never seen. 89

    One cannot run from a challenge without losing. To flee is signing a death warrant to dignity and character, and, having run, there is no return; one is a weakling forever. 96

    There is a certain dignity that comes to those who use their hands in doing something well, a calm assurance in having conceived an object and seeing it through to its completion, which is missing in production lines where workers often do only one essential task and never see the finished product. 108

    Wholeness is part of simplicity and silence, and of all the components of a wilderness experience. It creeps up without warning, cannot be sought or looked for, but suddenly it is there. One never says, “This is wholeness,” for at the time he things of nothing, and often does not realize he has known it until long afterward. But once having felt it, he never forgets. This is the essence, the ultimate. 113

    The good life. 128, among others

    Joseph Wood Krutch. 140

    balance in our use of the earth is the answer, and in the distribution of its riches, recognizing nations can no longer feel isolated or secure, nor ignore the needs of others less fortunate. If this means the integration of mankind with nature in its various forms, it also means the integration of all people on this earth. It is a planetary matter, not a local or national one. 141

    Know Thyself. 143

    You cannot turn your back on any challenge, physical or mental, if you do you diminish yourself, and the next time it will be easier to say, “No, I cannot do it.” If you take the hazards as they come and survive, you will be stronger and better and the trip will be a milestone in your life, one you will always know as a turning point. 146

    Lao Tzu’s Book of Tao. 150

    Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. 152

    Once I asked him [Herman DeCosta, practicing Buddhist] to tell what its [Buddhism’s] basic tenets were, and he replied, “Humbleness before God and nature, selflessness and tolerance in a world of bigotry and greed, simplicity in one of complexity.”

    Emergent God. 166

    grace… is the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. 166

    Man’s only goal, that of human destiny, is the evolution of his mind to the point where he, and mankind as a whole, becomes aware of love, beauty, and truth. This is the emergent God, and if man works towards it constantly in his outlook, thoughts, and actions, he may become godlike. 167

    The great challenge is to build a base of knowledge and understanding of such depth, clarity, and power that it cannot be ignored, and never forger that the stature of man and the development of his culture has increased because of beauty, mystery, and vision, not through ugliness, warped and twisted psychosis. 171

  13. 29 December 2005

    A Walk in the Woods

    981 days ago

    Spectacular book from Bill Bryson. He matches odd quips of knowledge, very much in the fashion of A Short History of Nearly Everything with his trials and tribulations walking sections of the Appalachian trail.

    Bryson’s books really illustrate how little man actually knows. How stupid and shortsighted we really are. But as much as us humans are failing the world we ought to be serving, there’s still beauty and simplicity out there.

    Bryson has a sharp english wit, and uses plenty of it. As sobering as parts of the book can be, most of it is funny in an understated, haw haw sort of way.

    On page 46 Bryson digs into the National Forest Service. More like the National lumber trust. They specialize in building roads: 378,000 so far, 580,000 new miles slated to by cut by the middle of the century 47. 2/3 of 150 million acres is held for out future pulp based product need, the rest up for clear cutting and extraction by private enterprise via the government build roads.

    Oh, and that government tends to sell the trees at a loss. If $4 was spent surveying, appraising and road-building, the trees would go for about $2 (??48??).

    It’s embarrassing I’m willing to put up with the american government.

    I really like the flow of time when you’re out on trail. I’ve done a pitiful amount of distance hiking, only a few trips, but loved every minute of it. The physical exertion is so far above that of daily life. The only comforts offered by the wilderness are pure natural beauty and simplicity. Time really does recede – the sun gets you out of bed in the morning, and by sunset you’re tired enough that it’s not a problem to nod off at 8pm in your tent.

    There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far ot long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. 72

    Somehow that singularity has been pushed far far off to the side of the whole human ethos. How many people do you know have been honest to god off in the woods lately? City parks and ski resorts really don’t count.

    Here, the mountains and woods were just backdrop – familiar, known, nearby, but no more consequential or noticed then the clouds that scudded across their ridgelines. Here the real business was up close and on top of you: gas stations, Wal-Marts, Kmarts, Dunkin Donuts, Blockbuster Videos, a ceaseless unfolding pageant of commercial hideousness. 115

    The whole american attitude towards wilderness is retarded. For every person who enabled conservation and responsible management, hundreds practiced thoughtless mutilation.

    As the forest service senselessly enables logging, private industry all over is kicking the wilderness’ ass. Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech on government treatment of the environment that made the rounds a few weeks ago, and it’s a quite a sobering account of what sort of esteem gov’t (the american one at least) holds the natural world in.

    Everywhere, there was a kind of recklessness borne of a sense that the American woods was effectively inexhaustible. Two-hundred-year-old pecan trees were commonly chopped down just to make it easier to harvest the nuts on their topmost branches. 120

    Bryson also brings up something I’d never thought about – that winter as we know it is just the ceding of the last ice age.

    Here is the thing most of us fail to appreciate: we are still in an ice age, only now we experience it for just part of the year. Snow and ice and cold are not really typical features of earth. Taking the long view, Antarctica is actually a jungle. (It’s just having a chilly spell.) At the very peak of the last ice age 20,000 years ago, 30% of the earth was covered in ice. Today 10% still is. 196

    Bryson isn’t trying to debunk global warming, but pointing how how little we actually know about global climate throughout the history of earth. We can tell that there have been quite a few ice/thaw cycles, but haven’t the slightest idea what caused them.

    What if the quick bit of global warming caused by our great age of industry just tips the globe into a great period of glaciation? How long until the america we all love is covered entirely by ice?

    Ever since reading The Diamond Age, I’ve been finding places that we could do with more subtlety, the ability to handle ambiguity. Things are remarkably polarized. We live in the highest industrial comfort, yet drag ourselves backpacking through the wilds when we chance to have a vacation.

    A more mainstream example: we drive ourselves to the gym in order to counter the sloth introduced into society by automobiles. These illogical habits are all over society, but why?

    In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature is an either/or proposition – either you ruthlessly subjugate it [...] or you deify it, treat it as something holy and remote, as a thing apart. Seldom would it occur to anyone on either side that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit… 200

    Indeed.

  14. 18 December 2005

    992 days ago

    Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts

    However, last summer the ice cap receded about 200 miles further north than the average of two decades ago, forcing the bears to undertake far longer voyages between floes.

    via Kjell Olsen992 days ago

  15. 11 December 2005

    1000 days ago

    Photo Contest - National Wildlife Magazine

    More great nature shots.

    via Kjell Olsen1000 days ago

  16. 10 December 2005

    1000 days ago

    Nature

    Very impressive photos. Coral cache, the actual link takes forever to load.

    via Kjell Olsen1000 days ago

  17. 19 November 2005

    1021 days ago

    Grand Canyon West

    the Glass Bridge will be suspended 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the very edge of the Grand Canyon.

    More than one million pounds of steel will go into the construction of the Grand Canyon Skywalk.

    via Kjell Olsen1021 days ago

  18. 30 October 2005

    1041 days ago

    Gallery of Best Panoramic Scenes by Erik Goetze

    Impressive photos.

    via Kjell Olsen1041 days ago

  19. 20 July 2005

    1143 days ago

    Apple - QuickTime - HD Gallery - wildlifeHD Reel

    Who doesn’t love nature photography. Plus you get to see Quicktime’s H.264 in action, and it is slick.

    via Kjell Olsen1143 days ago

  20. 26 June 2005

    1167 days ago

    june 2004 hastings-mammatus

    Amazing animated looking mammatus clouds.

    via Kjell Olsen1167 days ago

  21. 01 June 2005

    Allen & Mike's Really Cool Backpackin' Book

    Allen O'Bannon & Mike Clelland

    1192 days ago

    A delightful and quick primer on backpacking. Easy to read with lots of drawings and good advice. I’ve always wanted to take a backpacking trip, and now I might just know how to go about it.

  22. 09 May 2005

    1215 days ago

    Timecatcher.com - Experience The Beauty

    Great (landscape) photography site, “dedicated to the beauty this planet has to offer”.

    via Kjell Olsen1215 days ago

  23. 11 April 2005

    Ordinary Wolves

    Seth Kantner

    1243 days ago

    Absolutely stunning novel about a white boy raised as an eskimo: hunting, fishing, and living off the land and not much else. His struggles to fit in both in the Eskimo town a days sled from his home and later in ‘white’ alaskan cities show that the only place he really fits is out on the tundra – living by his own hands.

  24. 19 February 2005

    1294 days ago

    The Nature Anthem

    Watch this – it’ll make your day.

    via Kjell Olsen1294 days ago

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