Devi statues at the Ashmolean Museum

Holiday Wishes

Everywhere i go, everywhere i look, i see hope. People gather to sing carols on the street, just for the benefit of the passerby. Friends send packages, cards, wishes of good tidings. The choir sings songs in the traditional style, wishing us all well. Friends cook together and share stories. People, it seems, care about each other and our common good health. Thank you to all of you, for serving as my inspiration and for envisioning a better world. We make the world we want to live in, and i see a world of random acts of kindness and senseless beauty all around me. Thank you for your part in this. May we continue to advocate, agitate, champion, create, fight, innovate, maverick, make peace, pioneer, provocate, revolutionize, subvert, trailblaze, envision, and make change.

Blessed are Ye - Beatitudes
Blessed are the poor in spirit/For theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are they that mourn/For they shall be comforted
Blessed are the meek and lonely/For they shall inherit the earth
Blessed are they who are hungry and thirsty, seekers of the righteousness/They shall be filled
Blessed are the merciful/For they shall obtain mercy
Blessed are the poor in heart/They shall see god
Blessed are the peacemakers/For they shall be called the children of god
Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake/Theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are ye

The first culture of penicillin (developed by medics in Oxford).

Naomi and Emily standing under a chalk board with Einstein's writing. The equations describe the rate of expansion of the universe.

Monkeys from Africa (left) and South America (right) at the Natural History Museum of London.

8th week summary

Last week was the last week of classes. The infamous "eigth week". It was epic - things happening every day. Here is the summary of how it went.

Monday

• Secured a position volunteering for the Natural History Museum of London. I'll be volunteering over the winter break for 20 hours a week in the herbarium, digitizing and georeferencing records to be posted online.
  
• Simon Yates talk (the mountaineer from "Touching the Void" who cut the rope between himself and climbing partner Joe Simpson). The talk was entertaining; Yates was witty and humble, but has climbed all over the world and has incredible photos of the places he's been - Pakistan, Chile, Scotland. My favorite part was as he was telling about his day job he got in the 1990s as a climber for high-rise construction projects in London. His co-workers dubbed him "Slasher" and he wore a sticker on his helmet saying "Mac the Knife". I wonder if Simpson can joke around like this...

Tuesday

• Monaco Ball. Black tie dinner, drinks, dancing. In Oxford Town Hall. The food was lacking (wasn't enough of it) but the drinks were good and there was a gambling game room set up. Got my fill of Blackjack. And the ball gowns were fun to look at. I went with people from the Geography program, so it was fun to see everyone dressed up. Its the sort of thing you have to do when in Oxford.

Wednesday

• Dinner with Norman Myers. Professor Myers - conservation biologist, pioneered the strategy of identifying biological "hotspots" - hosted ten of us at his house for dinner and discussion. After introductions, we practiced what to say if you're put on the spot, and you have 30 seconds to convince an influential politician of the importance of preserving biodiversity. We also did an exercise where everyone was in a hypothetical airplane, and there aren't enough parachutes to go around. You have to choose what animal you'd be, and explain to the group why we should give you one of the parachutes. What i noticed about this was that most of the animals that people chose require another organism to be valuable or important. So - we are all interconnected... I also learned about Norman and Jennie's (his partner) new book, Gaia Atlas of the Planet they've just completed. Its very interesting, outlining modern sustainability and environmental issues.
  

Thursday

• Crawlage! The first annual (weekly?) Oxford University Centre for the Environment pub crawl! We figured, there are about 150 graduate students in the OUCE we never get to see or interact with; why not take a pub tour together? Here was the itinerary: starting at the Head of the River pub. Proceeding to the Old Tom, then to the City Tavern, and on to the Lamb and Flag. Ending at everyone's favorite, late-closing Kings Arms. We had a good turnout, with about 20-30 people in our roving posse.

That's how it went. I then slept most of the weekend. Photos of Monaco Ball and hopefully the pub crawl to follow soon.

5 things we should do to save the biosphere

In response to the question posed by Norman Myers to our class last week, here is my list:

1. Education programs that get (primary school) kids outside and into wild nature
2. Set out regulations and standards for sustainable consumerism, and impose labeling requirements on products
   
   • Organic and sustainable harvest, fair trade
   • Wildlife-friendly meats and animal products, and organics standards for meat
   
   

3. Bring ecosystem service valuation into economics and worldwide budgets
   

   • using the Balmford approach (and allocate the $40 bn required to preserve wild nature)
   • calculate GNP using ecosystem services as a component
   • take negative events out of GNP, and figure in human well-being

   
   

4. Create systems to deal with the protection of wild nature, and organize the practical implications of valuing wild nature in the economy
   
   • biodiversity assessment and monitoring
   • land management practice improvement, law enforcement
   
   
5. Fund, promote, require green planning and design of all our systems
   
   • using biomimicry approaches, McDonough “Cradle to Cradle” thinking
   • change the way we actually consume and engineer systems around that
   
   
6. Do your part.

I've included 6 because the last encompasses and underlies all others. It is the paramount point. Please consider your impact, and how you can live lightly on the earth. Feel free to contact me about this or any of these points to discuss further.