Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Reconstituting Public Opinion around the Exigence of Global Warming Despite the cold east wind, the dark orange maple leaves cling tenaciously to the trees on the streetscape.    The yellow mulberry leaves, however, dropped last week and have now been blown out my yard, across the street.   Things don’t seem that different; this feels like November in Albuquerque.   Fall is almost over and its last remaining days have finally killed the plants in my garden.    Winter moves in as I chop firewood, change air filters on furnaces, dig out gloves and warmer clothes.   This is November, not all that different from every November. Yes, we have seasons and sometimes it feels as if life will continue apace as it always has.   Yet, just last week the World Meteorological Society stated that “… 2013 is currently on course to be among the top ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850” (WMO).    That is a not an illusion; things ...

Overview:   In June, around the Summer Solstice, my wife, my dog, and I set out to hike the Albuquerque Bosque from end to end over two days .  It was well over a hundred degrees and after starting later than expected we didn't make it as far the first day as we hoped.  But we did make it. Now, three months later, around the Autumnal Equinox, we set out to do it again.  Our route was slightly different and, with the weather being a lot more pleasant, broke the day into a thirteen mile day and a five mile day:  eighteen total miles from Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the Alameda Bridge right on the border between Albuquerque and Corrales. The things we wanted to do differently this time were pretty straightforward:  1) don't get lost at the south terminus and get into the bosque sooner, and 2) walk even more on the westside.  So, the route was a follows:  we'd walk on the east side from Valle de Oro to the Rio Bravo Bridge, cro...

Talk delivered at Ignite-NM #14 September 11th, 2013                 A friend sent an e-mail about putting in a pitch for this event entitled, "Ignite-New Mexico."   After letting it sit in my in-box for a while, I thought, "What if I did a talk about talks?"  Seems to me that talks are a relatively recent thing, but the question I have is why.   Are we talking more?   For example, we have Ted Talks, Bioneers, BIL, South by Southwest, Poetry Slam, Story Slam, the Moth, and others.   We are talking more, but why?                 I asked a friend and he responded, "People need intellectual stimulation and they used to get it by reading.  Nobody reads anymore."                 Perhaps.  We cert...