NASA warning of 'megadroughts' coming to USA

As everyone is aware, it is snowing a lot in the Northeast this winter. The pictures coming out of Boston, MA are pretty much unbelievable.

This, of course, has many folks joking about climate change being a farce. Queue the "Al Gore is fat" jokes from this crowd.

That said, snow melts. New England will deal with it. It's a mess, but it ultimately takes care of itself.

Unless we can learn to economically desalinate ocean water, I'm not sure how the Western half of the United States is going to deal with this.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/14/us/nasa-study-western-megadrought/index.html

It's surprising that anyone jokes about any of this any more. Or that politicians haggle over whether or not they 'agree' with scientists. I don't know when scientific evidence became a thing to 'decide' about whether or not to 'believe'.

Thanks For Giving Thanks

Let me get this straight.

On the third Thursday of every November, we sit around a glorious feast and speak our thanks for the friends and family with whom we share it. We mention those no longer with us and discuss our gratitude for the armed services. We take some time to reflect on life and enjoy each others' company.

Or do we?

This year, we cut our meals short and scrambled out to snap up the Thursday door busters because Black Friday has spilled over into Black Thursday. But really Black Friday deals started online Wednesday. When the real Black Friday rolls around, at 2:00am, we dash out to beat the crowds but lines have already formed. Chaos ensues and at the end of the day we have a car full of great bargains and possibly some bruises.

Small Business Saturday is lost in the shuffle because Black Friday deals are still available (*while supplies last), and also Cyber Monday starts on Sunday. But it’s not Cyber Monday anymore, it's now Cyber Week.

On Cyber Monday, all the brick and mortar stores have re-branded their Black Friday deals to be Cyber Monday specials and nobody has any idea if they have indeed gotten the best deals or not.

Then, Giving Tuesday rolls around. A day meant to donate to organizations who are trying to do good in the world. But by now, we are exhausted from all the hunting for bargains, we question our sanity, and hate our society because this type of stampeding for extra deep discounts brings out the absolute worst in people, and we have no money left because we’ve spent it all on material possessions we probably didn’t need but couldn’t pass up.

So, were our words spoken on Thursday all for naught? Were they real?

How about if Giving Tuesday moves to Thanksgiving Thursday, spills into Friday, coincides with Small Business Saturday, and then takes over Cyber Week. That way, we’ll pre-spend our money on doing good in the world, have less to spend on stuff we don’t need, and don’t have to leave the dinner table.

Now, please pass the pie!

iOS7

I've never claimed NOT to be an Apple diehard. I've been using Apple products since I was in elementary school and have never personally purchased any computer that was not natively running an Apple operating system.

When it comes to the iPhone, it took me a few years to get on board. Due to the lack of availability on my provider's network at the time it first came out, I was not an early adopter of the iPhone but whoooey did I want one badly.

That said, I was one of the masses who pre-ordered the iPhone 4 when Verizon first started carrying it in early 2011. Fast forward to October 2013 and that very same phone is still with me. I'm well past my available 18-month upgrade pricing to get a new phone but have yet to feel the need to upgrade to the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 5. My phone works fine, has a decent camera, and aside from slowing down because I've clogged it up with apps and photos, there is no reason to get a new one.

Recently, Apple unveiled iOS7 and the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

What does any of this have to do with the premise of this blog, you're asking? At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I'll continue.

When iOS7 was announced as a free upgrade, and supported on the iPhone 4, of course I was excited. As an Apple diehard, I'd followed one of the live bloggers from the Apple event and was intrigued by all the new bells and whistles.

Fast forward to a month after upgrading and I wish I could pay to downgrade. If you have an iPhone 4 and have not upgraded to iOS7, don't.

Today is 10/24/13 and "Today"
has been clicked. The date is selected
but is off the screen on my iPhone 4.
Clearly designed for the larger
screen of the iPhone 5.

Does it run? Sure. Does it have all the new bells and whistles? I guess. It's hard to tell when I'm waiting longer for apps to open, have all kinds of problems with iMessage, Facebook won't even load anything, and sometimes my phone just decides not to be connected to the internet anymore. It looks like it is, but it's not. I've even noticed a view of the Calendar that is clearly designed for the larger screen of the iPhone 5 (see photo at right). IOS7 is plagued by bad UI/UX and my experience thus far with it on my device that's a few years old really tells me something, and this is what ties this post back to this blog.

Amidst Apple discontinuing the iPhone 4 and 5, leaving just the 4S (free with upgrade pricing), 5C (new) and 5S (new), they had to find a way to get people like me to upgrade their hardware. I fall into the category of people (in Apple's eyes) who can afford to upgrade and they need me to because they are losing market share to the plethora of Android devices. The problem they face is that I didn't (key word) NEED to upgrade. As I stated before my iPhone 4 is in perfect working condition.

Heck I still have (among about 5 other iPods that have come and gone from my life) an original iPod Touch that is perfectly serviceable as a music and video playing device, for Pandora, etc. what Apple never did to me with that device was to offer an iOS upgrade that rendered it useless - instead whatever iOS version that came out at that time was simply not supported on the device and it would not let me upgrade if I tried. Thank you for that, Apple!

Long story short, I believe that Apple intentionally allowed the iPhone 4 to run iOS7 so that enough of us suckers would upgrade (for FREE! aren't they nice?!) and have a bad enough experience with it that we would finally give in and buy a new phone. It's been well established on this blog how I feel about waste in today's society, and this whole theory of mine highlights the mindset that seemingly will never stop... That we have to constantly upgrade our stuff for the purpose of keeping the economy going, at the expense of the environmental implications of all these iPhone 4 devices that were otherwise perfectly fine and the environmental and personal cost of all these iPhone 5 devices that will offset them. It's the whole concept of buying a car, maintaining it, and keeping it for years and years until it won't run anymore vs. leasing and getting a new car every few years. There are so many implications of the production of that new car every 3 years that far outweigh any slight gain in fuel economy.

I'm a 'buy it, care for it, and use it for a long time' kinda guy. And I don't appreciate my friends at Apple forcing me into a different mindset with my now sluggish iPhone 4.

Nissan Leaf...Reserved

June 16th, 2010... The day I reserved my Nissan Leaf.



About two years ago (and two years after we bought our Prius) I vowed that my next car would be fully electric. Back then I figured it would be a plug-in Prius, or something else from Toyota. After all, they lead the way in hybrid technology.

Gotta admit, before the Leaf, I never even considered buying a Nissan. Why the change? Well because the Leaf is the first fully electric car for the masses. Skeptics will argue about the longevity of the battery life. Or that 100 miles in a single charge is not far enough. After all the $100k Tesla Roadster goes 245 miles per charge.

We don't have that kind of dough in my family. In fact the Leaf, admittedly, is a bit of a stretch too. But I fully believe that to see the world change in the ways that my wife and I want to see it change, takes sacrifices. It's not cheap to go solar and it's a risky move to buy the first mass-produced electric car. But heck, we only live once and why not take a chance on something new. Revolutionary. I can't wait for the day that I am plugging my car into an outlet whose electricity is produced by the solar panels in the back yard.

Toyota affected serious change with the Prius and I applaud them for seeing a niche and going after it with gusto. Next time you are driving around, count how many hybrid vehicles you can find. Every major automaker has at least one model.

Will more electric cars come out with longer ranges than the Leaf? I sure hope so!! With China set to have 200 million cars on the road in the next decade, I can only hope that before long, I can't drive anywhere without seeing hoards of clean, quiet electric vehicles.

Green = Gratitude

As 2009 draws to a close and I look back at the most recent year that will too soon become a distant memory, a feeling of reflection is sweeping over me.

2009 was a year unlike any I can remember in my life. As an environmentalist, whatever that means, it's incredible how much negativity enters my life. Polar bears facing extinction. Pollution not being mitigated. Atrocities to the land and the living creatures across the globe are rampant. An unthinkable plastic vortex in the ocean. Houses constantly re-sided with vinyl, a known toxic material. Oceans rising. Poor people on distant islands suffering at the expense of wealthy nations that for all intents and purposes seem they could care less about. Barack Obama won the presidency in convincing fashion and brought with him a renewed sense of Hope. Then Sarah Palin released a book and was suddenly in the media spotlight again. (Editor's note: Recall that she is in favor of shooting wolves from helicopters and drilling for oil in one of the world's last pristine landscapes). How? No, seriously. I thought her 15 minutes were over.

This is a lot to swallow for an optimist. "Environmentalists" tend to be optimists. We have to be because, well, we care about something other than ourselves. And that "thing" we care about leads us on a Sisyphusian struggle. Actually, I seem to be using the nomenclature—Environmentalist—hesitantly here at the end of the year. I'm not sure why but by the end of this post hope to have clarity.

People care about all kinds of things. The history of humankind has been nothing if not unimagineable. I don't practice any form of standardized religion. I'm not an atheist though. I fear death and find beauty in every single detail of my daily life. That may seem unreasonable but as an aspiring photographer, noticing details is in the fabric of who I am. I believe there is some sort of explanation out there for why the hell we exist on this intricate planet and can't even comprehend how we humans have discovered as much as we have about the universe.

That said, we live on this planet. This is our home. This is our only home.

Try to imagine what your house would look like if you burned toxic chemicals in each of your rooms all day every day. What if when you went to work, your neighbor brought over a giant bottle of bleach and dumped it on your flower beds? Or if he drilled holes in your roof? What if you decided to plant a vegetable garden and down the street, a small factory constantly dumped toxic sludge into the ground, eventually contaminating your own dirt and ruining your vegetables?

Grim. Thought I said I was an optimist...?

The trouble I am having here at the end of the year is not that President Obama hasn't fixed the economy or paid off the national debt or cured cancer or finished my upstairs bathroom. The problem I am having as an optimist is that the groundswell of support for the green movement seems to have plateaued.

My mother still has her reusable shopping bags from the 1970s. She and my dad once owned a Honda Civic that got 40+ miles to the gallon. In the 1980's.

Why do we go through these phases? Are we really so shallow that we care about the polar bears and our carbon footprints only when gas is over $3.00 per gallon? Why? Why does the price of the fuel our cars burn have ANYTHING to do with caring about living responsibly? See, this is where I have gotten lost this year. The green movement started as people really caring, I think, and then after the presidential inauguration, health care became the only thing we talked about. Michael Jackson, the king of pop, died. That's a big deal. Is it big enough for CNN to turn into E! and report on nothing other than 24/7 coverage of MJ? Until the balloon boy story captured our national attention for what seemed like an eternity. Seriously, is this what we care about?

I don't want to call myself an environmentalist anymore. We shouldn't have to. Caring about issues that matter should not require a movement. Or a label. I feel like the quality of life in our country is not getting better. Sure we txt, tweet and have Mafia Wars to get us through the day. But are we also spending time outside? Breathing fresh air?

According to the movie Food, Inc. (Editor's note: This movie should be required viewing for all Americans), 1 in 3 Americans born after the year 2000 will develop early onset diabetes. 1 in 2 for African American babies.

What are we doing? Changing our light bulbs and using fewer plastic bags is not enough. These are great things to do but in the grand scheme of things we as a people need to fundamentally change our definition of the American Dream. If we keep up with this pace of buying McMansions with toxic drywall from China and eating food that is making us sick, what are we really dreaming of?

I had the good fortune of meeting artist David Brown yesterday. He lives in a straw bale house with no electricity and no running water in Old Saybrook, CT. My wife recently helped him adopt a stray cat that needed a home. This was one of the most gentle and kind souls I had ever met. He is so grateful for the simplest things in life.

Hence, the title of this post. People call people who speak up about caring about natural things "Environmentalists" and we people supposedly are part of the Green Movement. But if you boil away capitalism and Americanism and corruption and everything else, all we people really want is for it to be mainstream to live natural lives and to be grateful and appreciative of what we were born into.

I don't mean we all should live like David. I don't think I could. As a society, there are some luxuries I don't think we could do away with and still have a functional society. But there are so many things we could live without and expectations of those things that could away, revealing a less stressful and more enjoyable way of life.

We as a country have completely lost our connection with the land on which we live. We don't farm. We don't need the sun to tell time. We heat and have air conditioning so the seasons don't really matter. Fruits and vegetables are made to look ripe through unnatural processes throughout the year.

Here at the end of the year, and decade, I want more than anything for us to stop and really think about what is real. And what we actually need in our lives in order to be happy.

Aiki Farms and Ed Begley Jr.

My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting one of our heroes yesterday, Ed Begley, Jr.

Ed has been friends with Robert Burns (pictured below demonstrating good composting techniques), of Aiki Farms for years. Robert is an organic farmer in Ledyard, CT and had a small event at the farm to teach some of the practices of organic farming and to get people to come out learn about the challenges small farmers face.

Begley was the star of the event and most participants had seen his show, Living With Ed. He has been an actor since the '60s and has been an environmental activist since 1970.

His show, Living With Ed, is a glance inside the life of he and his tolerant wife, Rachelle. He walks, rides his bike to make toast, she drives a Prius, he cooks in a solar oven, collects rainwater to water the garden, has solar panels, etc.

Why is he one of our heroes? Because he lives among peers who care about big houses, lavish lifestyles, ritz, glamour, and fancy cars. And he has been riding his bike around LA for almost 40 years. I respect that. He is a down to Earth guy who was comfortable chatting with us, answering our questions, and eating fresh vegetables from the farm.

All in all a very memorable, and inspiring Sunday afternoon, if I do say so myself.

Battery-powered lawnmower

I mowed my lawn today.

Historically, this has not been something worth writing about. But today was different. Today was the first time in my life that I cut the grass and could hear myself think. The first time I could smell the fresh-cut grass as it was being shortened without breathing noxious fumes. The first time I didn't spill gas all over the place while filling my carbon dioxide spewing machine.

Enter my new Neuton CE 6 battery-powered lawnmower. It's quiet, maneuverable, and fun-looking. Is it a super powerful manly man beast of a machine? Of course not. I could care less about all that. Then again I am the kind of man that is not impressed by a Hemi, Hummer, or hog.

However, as I mowed under the solar panels that had charged the batteries running this new clean cutting machine, I did have a growing sense of getting somewhere. Lawnmowers are far worse than cars when it comes to polluting, and I am happy to have eliminated that portion of pollution that had been coming out of my yard.

I am so looking forward to the next generation of automobiles that are 100% electric and are charged at peoples' homes, where photovoltaic cells and small wind turbines are commonplace and no longer the exception. It seems that with the right people making the right decisions, that future doesn't have to be too far away.