• Tag Archives Sierra Club

  • The Environment Political

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                Waning Wild Moon

    Bounced out of bed this morning at 9:30 am.  Yesterday’s early morning and late night at the capitol had taken its toll.  I’m awake now though.  My Latin for Chapter 7 is done, this is 3rd declension nouns.  I’ve already received one of two books of readings that Greg, our tutor, feels will move us forward faster in regard to translation.

    Lobbying in this political environment is tough for the natural environment.  Jobs and deficits rule the world of the legislature; the natural world, or at least the world outside of the built world, intrudes like a beloved relative dropping by for an unexpected visit.

    This session we can set the table for issues of future years, defend against certain potential harms and hope to pass some needed but relatively non-controversial legislation like complete streets (involved all potential users of transportation equally, not privileging motorized vehicles), extension of the open-bottle laws to off highway vehicles, promote economic development tools that promote green jobs and encourage retention of the state’s moratorium against building nuclear energy plants.

    At some point the winds will become more favorable and we’ll be able to tack instead of run before the wind, as we’re doing now.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Our Democracy At Work

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                   Waning Wild Moon

    It’s late and I don’t want to get into too much detail, but I just came back from the capitol.  The event was a hearing on the proposed sulfide mining operation in northern Minnesota called Northmet or Polymet.  Like most hearings it went on too long and heard too much from too many people, but the depth and resonance of the environmental communities testimony made me proud to be there as part of it.

    This issue is not going to go away because sulfide mining represents a real and ongoing threat to fragile wetlands, forests and watersheds, threatening to add mercury and other heavy metals, poisoning the very processes nature created to purify water and adding pollutants upstream from the Lake Superior watershed.

    This one needs people on horses carrying red banners, trumpets blaring, and a town crier saying Beware, Beware, Beware.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Mr. Ellis Goes to the Capitol

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                         Waning Cold Moon

    I spent the morning at the capitol.  Justin and I visited Frank Hornstein and Kathy Bigham.  These are meet and greet sessions where we talk to legislators on committees important to our legislation.  It does put a different spin on lobbying per se, but the general problem–big money talks–remains.

    Figuring out where to park at the legislature is always an interesting process.  This time I chose a lot across from the old Supreme Court building.  By some fickle finger of fate the #1 slot was open, right by the entrance.  I grabbed it.  Only problem with this lot is you only have 3 hours, then you have to come back physically and renew.  Oh, second problem, you have to have a lot of quarters:  $4.50 worth for 3 hours.  I  stocked up on quarters before I left.

    Justin and I used the lengthy system of tunnels to get from the Capitol to SOB and then onto the DOT building where we had lunch in their cafeteria.  When I first moved to Minnesota, I thought it was very funny that they had tunnels.  Now that I’ve been here almost 40 years, I wonder why we don’t have more.

    I like being in the thick of things again.  It energizes me and gives me at least one place where I can help make a difference.


    📂This entry was posted in Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Art and Nature, the Nature of Art

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                          Waning Moon of Long Nights

    In to the Sierra Club for a meeting about legislative work.  The scope of the Sierra Club’s work is impressive, including legislative work at each session of the Minnesota Legislature and scrutiny of the government’s stewardship of our natural resources in between them.  There is litigation work, the primary one right now being the Stillwater Bridge.  There is also the regular work of educating members, the working of the Issue Committees and regular outings.  Perhaps most important of all is the attention of thousands of members to both the particulars of environmental work in all parts of the state and to the developing field of issues, e.g. climate change, renewable energy, efficient public transportation, green planning, work with labor unions for Green Jobs, even climate mitigation strategies to help position Minnesota well when climate change happens.

    After that I went over to the MIA to check on my mail box, nothing in it.  Good.  After I went in there I began to wander through the museum, as I used to do in the days before Collection in Focus, before Docent training, just wandering.  My first stop was the wonderful collection of Chinese paintings that have been up for a while.  Taking them in and meditating on Taoism as I looked, I began to muse about a work that might have the theme art and nature, the nature of art.  Some interesting ideas there.  My favorite collection remains the Japanese, and within it the works on paper:  ukyio-e especially.

    It felt good to be in the museum without a task at hand, or a purpose, other than spending time with the objects.  I could do more of that.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • With Thoughts of Green, Growing Things Dancing in My Head

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                Waxing Moon of Long Nights

    We’ve warmed up to 0.  Midmorning’s brittle sunshine diffuses in the hazy, partly cloudy sky.  The whippets go outside, pee, turn around and come right back inside.  Rigel, unphased, continues to hunt around the machine shed, staying on the hunt for hours at a time.  Sometimes she comes in after midnight, too.  Vega prefers the comforts of home, a couch, a bone, heated air.

    A subtle change has occurred in my inner world.  I have begun to wonder where the seed catalogs are.  I have one in hand but I didn’t like their seeds so I’m waiting for others.  This year’s garden will benefit from last year’s mistakes.  In particular I’m going to make a real effort with leeks, have a better onion crop (sets), plant fewer greens and harvest more regularly (in general), beets, beans, one squash, not many tomatoes since we stocked up this year.  I’ll plant potatoes again, too, but this time I will store them in the basement rather than outside in the garage stairwell.

    It is  time, too, to get back to work on legislative matters for the Sierra Club.  I got a call last night from Josh Davis about a meeting of the Club’s political committee next week.  No tours for the time being, just fine with me.  After Sin and Salvation followed by the Louvre, I can use a rest.

    In the middle of January I head out to Denver for a week to take in the Stock Show with Jon and Jen and  Ruth and Gabe.  This is a premier event of the western US.  I’m going just to see what it’s like.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Great Work Politics Travel Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Gnashing of Teeth

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                    Waning Blood Moon

    Back to the gnashing of teeth.  When I went out to plant the garlic this morning, I discovered Vega and Rigel had decided to become gardeners, too.  They dug up beds, they dug up around beds.  They moved a lot of soil, none of it in a constructive manner.

    This almost made me cry.  After some unpleasant words and gestures, a bit of stomping around, I called Dan the fence guy and said, “Dan, I need another fence.”  When he finishes, this yard will have more fence than many cattle ranches.  It will take days just to walk the fence line.  And this all inside an acre and a half.

    Anyhow, I planted the garlic, covered them with six inches of straw and protected them with left over chain link fence.  Later in the day I mulched the parsnips, which will over winter along with the garlic, and the carrots.  I’m going to try storing them in the ground with a heavy mulch to protect them.  In theory, then, I can go out in the middle of winter and harvest fresh carrots.

    The potato harvest is now in, too.  I dug up the Viking Purples (no kidding) and the rest of the white potatoes, washed them off and left them in a large plastic boxes to cure.  They stay at room temperature for two weeks, then downstairs to the coolest storage we have.  That’s outside the house at the bottom of the basement stairs, but still inside the garage.

    Got some nice feedback today on my organization skills for the Sierra Club and on my writing from a fellow Docent.  Also, a good nap.  That all helped.

    Big dogs bring big problems and big rewards.  Can’t get one without the other.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Garden permaculture Writing 📎and tagged

  • Friends

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                            Full Blood Moon

    “There is no need like the lack of a friend.”   Irish saying

    How many sets of friends do you have?  Not an idle question since study after study shows friendship a vital element of health.  Friends become even more important as we age.  Here’s a couple of examples:  BBC, Science.

    Today at noon a group of friends I still consider new, but whom I’ve actually known for almost 5 years, met for lunch at the Black Forest.  It was those from the Docent class of 2005.  We trained together for 2 years, meeting every Wednesday during the academic year for lectures and tour practice.  The education was fun, since I love learning new things, but over time I’ve found the relationships formed then the most important gift.

    An introverted guy, I need these kind of stable groups.  I’m fortunate right now to have three groups in which I’ve made networks.  The Docent class of 2005 has, by now, blended into the docents of all classes, in particular for me, those who tour on Fridays, my tour day.  I see these folks at continuing education, on tours, in the docent discussion group and in these more casual events that happen from time to time.

    The Sierra Club, the most recent of the three, taps into older networks for me, the DFL political world and the world of community activists, but has opened up a new one in those people whose primary activist commitment is the environment.  I enjoy being around the new generation of political activists, people in their 20’s and early 30’s.  They’re bright, practical, and seem to have a better balance in their lives than I did when I was engaged as intensively as they are.

    The oldest network for me is the Woolly Mammoths.  With the Woolly’s I have 20+ years of twice monthly meetings, annual retreats and social occasions outside those events.  We know each other, each other’s story, our families.  We’ve had fights and reconciled, gone through life and death struggles and will go through more.  As a man, I feel so lucky to have this long term set of relationships in my life.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Friends Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • No Title

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                       Waning Harvest Moon

    Yesterday and today were full of new information, new faces.  Both days challenged my capacity to sit in one place for a long time.  The 40+ Aeron chairs in the Minnesota Foundation’s board room made finding a good chair easy and did make the day more bearable than the plastic backed metal chairs in the Northstar Ballroom.  Both days were long and challenging mentally.  A good thing.  But tiring.

    Tomorrow Kate and I go see our financial planners, I call it visiting our money.  We want to discuss how they will generate cash for our payouts and have them run them run our projections using a 4% drawdown rather than the 4.6/4.7% they used.  This will give us a new and hopefully longer time horizon before our money runs out, but it will also shrink the amount of money available each year.  This is a trade-off than another consultant, Ruth Hayden, says is necessary since we’re all living longer.

    Unless you are very wealthy, living large and living longer are incompatible.  That’s not to say we will, in any wise, be hurting in retirement; it does mean the cruises, trips to Hawaii and expensive purchases will have to be truncated.  Bearable.  Our life does not revolve around luxury.

    The solution to our fence jumpers, according to Junior Lehman, the breeder and caretaker for a large pack of hounds, is an electrified fence.  I thought this was most likely the cheapest and easiest solution, but until I heard from somebody with some experience I didn’t want to spend money on it.  Now it will be off to Fleet Farm and hopefully we can begin letting Rigel and Vega outside again to romp and play, develop as dogs.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Dogs Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Impacts on 2010 Legislature. First Draft. Notes.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                           Waning Harvest Moon

    Just a few notes so I don’t forget.

    Context for this coming session of the legislature:

    1.  2010 Governor’s race.

    2. Deficit will become larger and impact state budgeting more.  Possibly drive tax increases.

    3.  1&2 will make caucus politics chaotic.

    4. Legacy $.  Could produce a they got there’s already attitude for env. issues

    5. Employment picking up on the range.  Might take some pressure off the mining issue.

    6.  Unemployment generally remains high.   Blue-Green Alliance has opportunity.


    📂This entry was posted in Politics 📎and tagged

  • Water and Politics

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                             Waning Harvest Moon

    Kate took her ailing sewing machine up to St. Cloud.  She bought it there.  On the way home she brought maid-rites, a taste of Iowa burger.  Maid-rites have a crumbly hamburger instead of a patty, a little bit like sloppy joes without barbecue sauce.  Kate had not been far from home for several days with this illness.  She’s on the mend now.

    The new plantings, shrubs and trees, need water these next few weeks, before it gets cold.  Their roots will uncurl and extend into the soil, go deeper and wider.  By next spring they should need no extra care.  That’s part of the idea behind permaculture, a maintenance free or low maintenance landscape.  Permaculture achieves this in several ways.  Plant guilds, plants that complement each other planted together, and plants native to the eco-system are two primary strategies for achieving this goal.  Productive plants, aided by plant guilds, and native to the region make them naturally disease resistant and adapted to the particular moisture and soil requirements of your site.

    Even so, they still need to get established, just like all those college freshmen throughout the land, uprooted from home and having to become part of a new place.

    All this meant really long hoses since we have now begun to plant beyond the range our irrigation system.  Since these plants won’t require additional water in the future, it doesn’t make sense to provide new irrigation.

    A few limbs and one tree also had to come down to make sure some of the new plants thrive.

    I checked the bees today, too.  Still little honey.  I’ve provided the hive and the bees have worked all season, so I’m not unhappy.  Even so, I hope next year I can get some honey.  Don’t know right now what I need to do differently, if anything.

    A good part of the afternoon I’ve spent reading Politics In Minnesota weekly reports, a subscription service focused on the ins and outs of Minnesota politics, especially at the state level.  On Monday I’ll attend a Minnesota Environmental Partnership meeting that will try to assess the political context for environmental issues at the legislature next year.  I’m reading ahead.  The context is critical when considering electoral and legislative politics.  Not so much when pushing issue campaigns, at least not in the early stages.  To win, though, requires sensitivity to the political context in which the issue must be resolved.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Family permaculture Politics 📎and tagged