Busy busy

For several weeks, it has been difficult to find time to write here because I have been so busy completing work for conferences, shows and books. A good thing to keep me off the streets of despair, as, when I read the article in the May/June 2007 Mother Jones magazine by Julia Whitty on species loss.

Whitty writes about the impact of species diversity loss as a consequence of global warming. She writes of cataclysmic disruptions to the ecosystems we depend upon and the complexity of inter-dependent relationships between species.

The one many of us are watching now, is the mysterious loss of pollinating honeybees. All those busy bees are disappearing. But do you know that microcospic bacteria and archaea, consume methane gases that will otherwise accelerate global warming even more than we are seeing today? And that we are endangering them with the detritus of scientific explorations? Read the article. I will not spoil the anticipation of mysteries revealed.

The problem is we go unconscious. Or we begin ignorant. And yet we plow forward with our agendas. Whether that is making babies or harvesting the rapidly dwindling bounty of this fragile planet.

It is all happening so fast and our capacities to deter disaster are so cumbersome. Whitty's article is titled, "By the end of the century half of all species will be gone. Who will survive?"

Rather than drive myself mad with worry and grief and frustration, I keep myself busy, busy busy, cat on my lap right now, elderly dog on my couch downstairs, waiting to be walked, irons in the fire.

Collapsing Time

I have been tracking the reports on climate change for the past weeks with increasing concern. yes, I knew it was all worse than Al Gore said, but every day there seems to be a new announcement over how much worse it all is. It all seems to boil down to evolutionary time collapsing upon itself and taking us with it... all thanks to our own short-sightedness.

In the face of that, I have been heartened by the proliferation of shows by artists working on this issue with scientists. I am pleased to say I am several of those artists. One show is opening Saturday in Seville, Spain, "Bios4." Another is opening Sunday at Art Sites in Riverhead, on Long Island,NY. I am working on two others, one for Licherode, Germany and another for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, CO. Last month I was ina show for ESA, in Lueneberg, Germany, that Sacha Kagan will speak about on the Virtual Concert next Tuesday. I will write more about all these events shortly.

I often find it difficult to manage the time to address all these fronts at once. Sometimes, my own time seems to be collapsing. But I feel privileged to be in a position to express some feelings and ideas with my colleagues.

As many are saying now, we are in a war with Global Warming. The real war, of course, is with ourselves. We have met the enemy, and it is us. As I work on preparing the work and completing paperwork for these venues, my most important struggle is simply sustaining a measure of personal serenity and balance. In the face of the dire news I look at daily, it is what helps me stay focused and productive.