The Rise of the Light Emiting Diode (LED)

They are cool.. literally.. you know them by name as well as by sight now.. they set the tone in swanky night spots and they let you know you are in a modern place, the adorn cars looking for street cred as well as those so helplessly geeky they only appeal to the efficiency obsessed. When you were a kid they blinked on your hi fi and on the bridge interments on the Millennium Falcon, and they seemed to last forever and glow on the other side of your TV room a bit evilly when you were trying to fall asleep. They made remote controls possible, saving that tired ass trip to the Zenith to change from the Yankees game to Maverick, and for some reason it took years to go from these simple uses to being basically everywhere, but now they almost are, at a time we need them most...

A Sanctuary in the Last Crevice of the Cold War: The Natural Oasis of the Korean De-Militarized Zone

Prologue:
I am traveling in the northernmost reaches of South Korea, along the DMZ, and a friend has given me a kind of special task: To visit the area he worked in as a young Lieutenant after entering the army in 1964 for what would become a long and fruitful career. The area was given an American code name, Spoonbill, and the Internet has told me it isn't too far east of the Visitors area of the DMZ. I find myself, after waking up in a Love Motel, which seem to exist almost everywhere in South Korea that you could possibly need a room at good rates, chatting with a group of South Korean soldiers manning a checkpoint on a bridge over the Imjin River at Jangpa-Ri...

A Trip on a Dreamliner: The Tesla of the Skies, or is it the Chevy Volt?

I am writing from the economy plus section of a 787-8 Dreamliner (free upgrade because I begged for a window seat), someplace just east of Japan, and this is the second post I have written about it. Something about being on it has inspired me to revisit it, and there are things to be inspired by.

Post Theme Song Link

I have been traveling for months, looking for good stories, and most of the stories I have found are more loaded with Fear than Hope. I am seeing a lot of Environmental Alamo's in the Third World, but coming back to the first world, you see that something is happening.. that people are getting the picture, and that action is being taken so our worst fears are not realized environmentally, in part because unlike in the tropics, the volatility of the weather is serving as a huge wake up call to anyone who isn't trying to ignore things. In the tropics, as with a lot of places, the weather is either creating more intense storms, or longer periods of dry clear weather from what I am reading and seeing, and this is something that people can shrug off aside from the storms, but the temperates are not so lucky. I skipped a winter in the northeast United States that was like a winter I did experience in Florida a few years back, the winter of 2009-'10 where every few days a new storm whipped by, the jet stream acted erratic, and record cold temperatures were set. In Alaska and the west, things were warm and dry, and although not as numbing to the soul, everyone could tell something was wrong.

The Cutest Things on Earth: The Recovery of the Eastern Pacific Sea Otter

There are times where nature astounds with it's power, with it's grandeur, with it's scale and intricacy. Think storms, sweeping vistas, the size of the Pacific or so many impressive landscapes, and the beauty of a butterfly wing or a banana leaf if you stare close enough. Now you might not expect Grumpy to think this way, but sometimes it astounds in it's cuteness! If Walt Disney or Walter Lantz had tried to come up with the cutest damn thing they could dream up, I am not sure it could come close to a few of Natures more compelling creations, passing perhaps the puppy, kitten, Shamu, Cambodians, baby pandas and seals in the fuzzy whiskery big eyed charmer category, and to make it funnier, what if perhaps the cutest creature ever had the personality of a grumpy drunk or combative crack head, something Dave Chappelle would love to take on...and that personality only made it all the more Daffy Duck lovable. Now throw on an environmental survival story that is really one for the books, a story with bad guys, exotic intrigues and a final surprise so fascinating that you are surprised more people don't know about it...

Hope for the Holidays: The Unexamined Eco-Revolution caused by the IPad and it's Copycat Tablet Devices

I am writing from a decidedly un-Christmasy culture.. They aren't Christians, 97% of them anyways, and they aren't that consumeristic, although that is changing (spreading like a flower scented cancer from the malls of the capital city)... but they aren't my readers in any large measure I would guess either, and my readers are staring down the barrel of a loaded 'fun gun' called 'Christmas in America' right about now.
I get it, I grew up with it, I wanted my Red Rider BB Gun once, and I felt no shame in the filthy orgy of misinterpreted Christianity and greed it was...it was fun, some of the presents did change my life and the life of my family and friends for the better, and it was one of the only times of the year that anything approaching reverence crept into the cocky wreck we called a family. And I get the Christianity part too.. I took it quite seriously for a while...and I like to think that my now South Park version of Jesus would be kind of shrugging with amused chagrin at it all...

The Electric Scooters of Shenzhen

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/import-electric-scooters-from-china.html

Post Soundtrack (click here and keep reading)

Every once in a while you stumble upon something, and you are surprised at the change. I travel so much, I know what to look for when it comes to change, and I know how slowly change usually happens. If the change is environmental in nature, in this case the application of a technology to reduce air pollution, and you see a complete turnaround in 4 or 5 years, you get a bolt of Hope in a hurry, especially if it happened in the heart of the world's new global warming bette noir, The Peoples Republic of China, and to be exact, it manufacturing powerhouses in the areas around Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the old Canton. What am I talking about.. it's gunna seem small, it is small, but I hope I can find statistics to explain to you just how large it really is. I am talking about 2 stroke scooters, or the apparent lack of them, in Shenzhen. I used to have to imagine Asia without the whine of these ubiquitous little motors, now I can experience it. Every scooter in Shenzhen that I saw during a long days night of pacing the streets was electric. It was a complete change out of inventory in a way that could only occur under the type of authority extant in the wold's largest Capitalist Dictatorship, the PRC, which just passed These Here United States of America for Overall Atmospheric Carbon Emissions a few years back. Let's not talk per capita just yet, that's embarrassing for the west. But in this blog, I wouldn't be pointing such a hairy finger of blame, in part an accident of demographics, if it wasn't somehow involved in displaying something good.

Renegotiating the Colorado River: It's Return to the Sea

Perhaps all it took was a conversation.. 58 years avoided... but it looks like the Colorado River, the long standing symbol of the tragedy of the Cadillac Desert of the American West, might very soon be rejoining it's old amigo, The Sea Of Cortez, or the Gulf of California if you like, since semantics no longer are going to stand in the way of this symbolic waterways attempts to travel to it's destiny. It might be a momentary meeting of any consequence, to be measured in days for anything above a small base flow, a bit like when the big wigs sat down together to ink what is letting it happen, but it promises bigger things. To quote vice president Joe Biden's famous gaffe, when this happens, perhaps even next spring, it's gonna be a "Big Fu*&ing deal!" for anyone who loves the West, The Colorado, or Sonora, Baja and El Mar De Cortez.
Before I go into the minutiae of how a negotiation of something called Minute 319 to the Treaty of February 3rd, 1944 might be in fact a big f@#ing deal (trying to imagine Secretary Ken Salazar and the Mexican Border and Water Commission Head Roberto Salmon making the same lovable flub, since that's who it would be in this case), how's about a little color and background, before your restless mouse wanders to that Viagra commercial flashing on the left of the screen...

Island Restoration Worldwide

For some reason, this is among the purest and most satisfying types of conservation and ecological restoration projects. I love it.. it usually involves remote places, peaceful and exotic.. places where birds congregate their chattiness juxtaposing the serenity off the surroundings, where the sea meets the land and the outside world doesn't seem to exist. This story takes place in the lands that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson, Daniel DeFoe, and the movie maker and King Kong creator Marian Cooper. It also is finite, accomplish-able, and the results can be incredible, and uncompromised. What I am talking about is Island Restoration.
Now let me explain.. most islands are not disappearing, they don't need to be pushed back up.. well, the people of Vanuatu and Tuvalu, might disagree these days, but this term means something specific, it generally means the removal of invasive species from ecosystems that have evolved in relative isolation. These invasive creatures seem to have most often come from the Whaling Industry of yesteryear, although natives and 20 and 21st century man also contribute endlessly to this problem, but it's a case of a distinct act, usually of culling or relocating invasive mammals, having a measurable result that improves the survivability of the worlds biodiversity, and somehow restores of rescues nature's, or even perhaps some divine power's, intent for the complexity of the world, if only in these remote corners.