Drive into the wide open landscape beyond Drummond, Montana, set on an old cattle farm amid a twelve-foot polar bear and wooly mammoth sculptures, you’ll find Bill Ohrmann’s museum and gallery—and a lifetime’s worth of commentary captured in his paintings.
Month: April 2013
Uganda: Coffee Farmers Sing Delicious Peace
A community of coffee farmers in Uganda has formed the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade Cooperative, focused on people of different faiths putting aside their differences to overcome generations of conflict and poverty. Now a Smithsonian Folkways recording has been released to celebrate their achievements.
Los Angeles River Revitalization: A City Rediscovers its Flow
The LA River, an over-engineered concrete “water-freeway,” is undergoing a long-term greening and revitalization. A 32-mile greenbelt, developed through numerous projects, promises to improve the health of the ecosystem and the value of the river as a regional public amenity, while managing flows and protecting properties.
Lauren Steiner: Fracking Threatens California and How to Stop it
Despite what you’ve heard about natural gas being clean, fracking also contributes to climate change. Although the burning of the gas is clean, the process of fracking releases so much methane into the air, that if all the shale in California is fracked, it will delay the implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, by 80 years.
Fees on Carbon in the Era of Trans-Pacific Partnership – By Peter Jefferson Nichols
The revenue generated from a Carbon Tax, which should really be called a fee, would be returned to the citizenry, either through reductions in taxes or monthly dividends. That money would offset any increase in the cost of gas at the pump and would off-set already exorbitant financial stress caused by carbon release (i.e. medical bills and (un)natural disaster relief).
Spring Equinox, the Eostre Bunny, and Other Wiccan Mysteries
Eostre – the Germanic goddess of dawn and fertility, whose name gives us the word Easter – must be pleased. Two millennia of Christianity, and she has yet to be displaced from our annual celebration of fecundity. Easter eggs, representing birth, nod to both pagan and Christian traditions.