I spend a lot of time during the winter in a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It makes more sense to a jubilado who grew up around California beaches than staying where Skiing is popular. The snow-covered Sangre de Cristo Mountains overlooking Santa Fe, are not a draw for this old surfer. … More Engineering and Experience: Professionals and Us
We usually think of something as fantastic if it is so wonderful and amazing that it seems like fantasy. I suspect that is where Walt Disney got the idea for his “Fantasy Land” and the other fantastical components of Disneyland, Disneyworld, and all those animated entertainments. Much of it suggests unbounded human futures through industrial … More Facing a Fantastic Future: Fantasyland, Apocalypse, or Hopeful Realism?
I ran across a publication on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Website the other day. It seemed useful on one level and very disturbing on another level. Its title is, “Community-Based Adaptation to a Changing Climate.” [1] The eight-page document by the EPA Office of Policy, describes various effects of global warming on local community … More Climate Crisis Confusion: Mitigation or Adaptation
Power over Nature is an old cultural ideal in the Western world. It seemed largely achieved by the exploding rate of industrial invention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This core western value continues unabated today. A major downside of the unprecedented successes of the industrial age is the growth of a deep institutionalized hubris. … More Imperious Imaginaries and the Necessities of Now
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 