Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Keep in mind the ongoing scientific research regarding the undersea plume of oil and dissolved methane gas in the Gulf of Mexico from 3,200 to 4,300 feet below the surface. Studies estimated it more than a mile wide, 650 feet thick and at least 35 kilometers (22 miles) long, but probably longer, as the researchers had to break off because of Hurricane Alex.
One only has to piece together the fires in Russia and extreme heat in Europe and the Eastern Seaboard of the US, flooding in New England and the southern midwest, and now, disastrously, Pakistan, to see the warming trend manifesting worldwide.
WilderUtopia: Coexisting into the Great Unknown, By Jerry Collamer
On the plains of Montana, down the hill from the Little Bighorn National Monument, is the annual Crow Fair. Thousands of tipis are set up along the Little Bighorn River, said to be the largest gathering in the world. As well, an array of Native American singers and dancers appear over the four-day event in late August.
Called Astana, it is the world’s latest example of a rare but persistent type, the capital built from zero. It is in a line that includes St Petersburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Ankara and Brasilia and like them it provokes a question: can a city, in all its teeming complexity, really be planned? Or does the attempt lead only to a synthetic simulacrum, a kind-of city that is not quite the real thing?