On Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0": A Disturbing Vision of the Future

Posted on November 15, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I must first confess that I am NOT a Thomas Friedman fan, which I think makes my enthusiasm more authentic for his nonfiction book Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America. Why am I not a fan? As a columnist for the NY Times, and author of The World Is Flat (2005), among others, Friedman sometimes seems a bit of a Globalization huckster, arguing how the U.S. should be more like India and China (which I think is becoming true, that Globalization is having that effect, of all countries becoming more like each other, sharing the problems of disproportionate wealth, for one thing). But, begrudgingly, I agree with much of what he says, and at times I think I simply find him rather unctuous, perhaps too self-promoting—smug, even. So big deal.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded (the updated version, published in 2009, which has been retitled Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution) is simply quite good—clear thinking, wise, and cautious. I don’t agree with everything he says, but his overall point is right on target. Our politicians should be reading it. He dissects the current financial turmoil, our oddly symbiotic/parasitic relationship with China, and the dangerous path we’re on to devastating climate change.
On that subject, check this out, a rather disquieting fact: Greenhouse gas emissions rose (we should be making them drop, obviously) by a record amount last year. (How do they calculate such a thing?) See here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/09/364895/iea-global-warming-delaying-action-is-a-false-economy/

Posted in books, Climate Change, Politics | Leave a comment

On Werner Herzog's New Film, "Into the Abyss," and the One Currently Opening Wide Its Maw at Penn State

Posted on November 12, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I teach at Penn State, a position which will be uncomfortable to admit for some time. Suffice to say it’s been one bizarre, disheartening week. I’ll let others shout bromides about the charges and the conduct of officials, but I will suggest some understanding for the plight of our students: The night JoePa was fired, people were upset, and understandably so. Most of the students in the crowds outside were simply there to see what was happening. No one can quite believe it. Jack Cafferty called them “punks” who should be expelled from the university. What about some compassion? A man they’ve admired for years, for generations even, has been brought down, and they don’t know what to make of it. The overturning of a news van is wrong, of course. But it’s not so difficult to understand: They’re lashing out at the public spectacle that our campus has become. I’m ashamed of it, and I know most of us are. But the protests aren’t motivated by simply some kneejerk adoration of football, good God. They’re people, young people, who are seeing their heroes brought down. It hurts. We’re all blindsided.
So in this light, along comes a new film titled Into the Abyss by the great Werner Herzog, on crime and punishment in Texas, about a death penalty case, no less. Just last May I blogged about the Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a fantastic film that it seems no one else saw; no one I know, anyway. Here’s the Times review of Into the Abyss. I’m seeing it first chance I get.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/movies/into-the-abyss-by-werner-herzog-review.html?hpw

Posted in books/film, Education, Politics | Leave a comment

Christo's Next Art Project, "Over the River," Gets Approved, and Will Be in My Backyard

Posted on November 9, 2011 by williamjcobb

So there’s good news for art lovers of the world: Installation-art guru Christo has finally got approval for his project titled “Over the River,” which will be located about twenty short miles north of my Colorado home, on the Arkansas River in Big Horn Canyon! His last project was the Gates project in New York’s Central Park, and was a huge success. I think it will be way cool: A shimmering river of mylar panels hovering over the Arkansas River, which Zebulon Pike explored in 1806-7, right after Lewis & Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806. Here’s a url to the Times article about its approval:

Big Horn Canyon is beautiful, and Christo has said he searched the entire Western U.S. to find just the right conditions, and found it there, in my back alley. (I know the distance is more than an alley, but we often drive 60 miles to go to the supermarket out there, so exaggeration keeps it in context.)

Posted in Art, The West | Leave a comment

The Goy Crisis

Posted on November 3, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the other day I was discussing (perhaps ‘talking at’ would be a more accurate description) the Boy Crisis issue with my class of (rather sleepy, uncommunicative) undergraduate students in an Intro to Creative Writing class, and it was something of a depressing eye-opener. As is common, most (but certainly not all) of the males in the class seemed to be somewhat in the category of video-game loving slackers, happy to fail the quizzes (because they haven’t done the reading), content to show up and consider that a triumph. Instead of the Boy Crisis I’m thinking it should be called the Goy Crisis, targeting particularly privileged (or semi-privileged) WASP-type males who seem content to have a good time and lose out in this competitive global economic structure. It seems a waste, of course, and seems as if a segment of the population who should be learning and growing up are stuck in a perpetual adolescence.
Of course every age and generation has its people who succeed and those who fail. As a professor, you want them all to succeed. So I hope how bleak it seems is an illusion. Maybe they will all grow up at some point and learn something. Or maybe they’ll turn out like the salesmen in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glennross. Thank god for Adam Sandler or those Hangover flicks: That way they can laugh as they’re watching the flat-screen in their parents’ den, after returning home to live with them in the post-graduate years.

Posted in Education, Film | Leave a comment

On Paul Gilding's "The Great Disruption," With a Nod to Eugene Linden's "The Future in Plain Sight"

Posted on November 2, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I’m a sucker for ‘big vision’ books about the future and the myriad problems we face with climate change and resource depletion, and right now I’m reading Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption. It manages to be at once peppy and gloomy, which is some kind of accomplishment. I more or less agree with his thesis–that the entire world is in for a major paradigm shift this century. (Although I would also acknowledge that both 19th and 20th centuries saw such shifts.)
Gilding is writing about the usual culprits of Global Warming, economic chaos, and resource depletion, but he waxes a bit rosy on the likelihood of humans overcoming all these problems. I’m at heart an optimist, but I think we honestly can see some dark clouds of human history on the horizon.
A better book than this is Eugene Linden’s The Future in Plain Sight, published in 1998, which warns of problems ahead without seeming alarmist or sugar-coating the story, either. He essentially predicted The Great Recession a decade before it happened. He calls it The Coming Instability, which is not that frightening, but certainly does have its great risks.

Posted in books, Climate Change, The West | Leave a comment

A Great Divide: Attitudes About Climate Change Remarkably Different Around the U.S., With Sharp Divide Along East/West

Posted on October 30, 2011 by williamjcobb

So one thing I’ve noticed the last few years in my peripatetic life of inhabiting both the Eastern and the Western U.S. is a noticeable division in attitudes about Climate Change. In a nutshell, it seems as though the West is much more aware (and fearful of the consequences) of Climate Change, and the East sees it as more theoretical, as something happening elsewhere. There are good reasons for this divide, especially if you’re seeing it through the landscape prism of the Southwest—an area which some climatologists claim has warmed more dramatically than the rest of the country. I’ll leave actual figures for much more data-heavy sites than mine, but the website http://www.realclimate.org/ is a good source for such info. But here’s a bit of anecdotal evidence that says much: My home in Colorado is at the foot of an abandoned ski resort, that flourished briefly in the 1980s, which the locals also claim was a turning point in how much winter snow our area receives: In the past the mountains were regularly snow-clad from November to May, and now it’s an iffy proposition. The ski resort closed from lack of enough snow, and lack of enough business.
There’s a piece in today’s NY Times about an initiative in Boulder, Colorado, to switch away from a traditional utility company, and create a ‘greener’ model, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/us/boulder-seeks-to-take-power-from-the-power-company.html?_r=1&hpw
In central Pennsylvania, where I spend eight months of my year, the main energy argument seems to be how fast we can allow natural gas companies to frack the landscape, and of course at what cost: Or at no cost, as our Republican governor, Corbett, has a no-taxation for natural gas industry policy, in the name of encouraging ‘business,’ or rewarding his campaign contributors. (Almost all other states tax natural gas producers.) Although we certainly have our green energy proponents, and experts, such as Penn State faculty member and climate change expert Richard Alley, the general attitude seems to place Climate Change somewhere on the likelihood of being struck by a comet. Certainly it seems an abstract argument, not a practical one, contrary to the way it is increasingly being perceived as an immediate issue in the West.

Posted in Climate Change, The West | Leave a comment

On the Illegal Immigration Debate, Tim Egan's Savvy Op-Ed, and How It Appears in Novels

Posted on October 22, 2011 by williamjcobb

So Tim Egan has a blistering attack on the scapegoating of Latinos in the latest Republican presidential debates, and the whole issue of illegal immigration and migrant workers, here:

I grew up in a predominantly Latino area of South Texas (San Antonio and just north of Corpus Christi, both places with Latino populations near 50% or above), and from personal experience, I think I understand at least part of the complexity of this topic. It’s not simply Good v. Bad, either way. There certainly are detrimental effects of illegal immigration in some areas, such as the border locales that see much difficult and dangerous crossing, and the human-trade that makes it function—the coyotes who charge high prices to guide people across the border, for instance. But I’ve also worked with illegal immigrants, and know that they are more often than not simply people who are willing to work, going to a country where jobs are more plentiful than in their own. A sound, compassionate policy needs to be articulated—not electrified fences, such as Herman Cain suggests.
And I write about illegals in my new novel, not simply portraying them as one thing or another. Keeping people disenfranchised and downtrodden makes them angry. It creates ugly situations. We as a country should do better. I think most people know that. My new novel is set in Pueblo, Colorado, one of—if not THE—most Latino cities in Colorado. It’s a funky place, with a complicated personality. It’s interesting. That makes for a good place to set a story. I spend much of my life now in a fairly homogenous area of Pennsylvania, and when I visit San Antonio, I’m amazed at the complexity of it. Plus I love the food, la comida mexicana. Life is a lesser thing without it.

Posted in books, Politics, The West | Leave a comment

In Praise of "Boardwalk Empire," Season 2, & Bad Horror Movies on Netflix, Like "The Awakening"

Posted on October 19, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I’m home sick today, and one of the few pleasures for a working stiff on these sick days is catching up on mindless TV. It beats trying to figure out why in the world so many people are transfixed by a fraud like Herman Cain and his bogus 9-9-9 plan. In the category of not-so-mindless TV, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is well into its second season now, and is much better than the first. The plot is cookin’. While the first season seemed too one note—especially for Jimmy Darmody (“Jimmy’s been in the war. Jimmy’s seen some things.”), played by Michael Pitt, like a young Marlon Brando—the second season has great, complicated plots, and Jimmy has risen into a major gangster, who might be about to take a fall. Paz de la Huerta is being underutilized, in my humble opinion, but Agent Nelson Van Aldren (played by the up-and-coming Michael Shannon, who had a wicked role in Revolutionary Road) is doing a great job in that plotline. For those not in the know, it’s set in the early Twenties, all about Prohibition, and is like a period-piece Sopranos.
Then there’s the grab-bag of Netflix. Lately I keep trying to watch B-movie horror flicks, and don’t make it through most of them. One in the so-bad-it’s-good category, was The Awakening. It’s so absurd you have to like it: Dorks (somewhat overaged dorks, at that, for a rave) get invited to a rave by a sexy girl, while plucky archeologist uncovers an amulet that (you guessed it!) unleashes an evil Aztec demon god. Mayhem ensues. Much blood and gore, low-budget style. It’s not My Dinner With Andre, that’s for sure.

Posted in Bad TV, Good TV | Leave a comment

On Prophecies in "The Bird Saviors": Dust Storms in Texas

Posted on October 18, 2011 by williamjcobb

So my forthcoming novel, The Bird Saviors—due out in (what’s left of) bookstores in May/June—opens with a dust storm in southern Colorado, and when I began writing it some five years ago, I imagined it set in a fuzzy ‘near future’ time, when climate change had caused enough drought to cause dust storms similar to the ones of the great Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. Unfortunately, this imagined reality is now coming true. Besides the wicked dust storms of Phoenix that occurred this summer, we’re now seeing dust storms in Texas. This is a quote from the MSNBC article:
“No injuries were reported from the dust cloud reminiscent of those shown in Dust Bowl photos from the late 1930s. The dust cloud was yet another byproduct of the persistent drought in West Texas, Ziebell said. The U.S. Drought Monitor map released Oct. 11 showed much of Texas, including the South Plains, were still experiencing “exceptional drought” — the most severe category. In an Oct. 6 statement, the National Weather Service in Lubbock reported that there was a “high likelihood” that 2011 could be the driest on record across the South Plains.”
You can read the entire article here, which also includes a (shaky) video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44939529/ns/weather/#.Tp1w6JxSl3w
Youtube also has more videos, though I saw this one on London’s Daily Mail, which has some funny voiceover from the people shooting the video, including the line spoken by a child, I think: “What’s so good about dust?” Here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050475/Texas-dust-storm-video-footage-captures-moment-Lubbock-engulfed-clouds.html
And this is in a time when virtually the entire Republican presidential candidate field rejects global warming, and the Democrats don’t have the guts to stand up for science, and to take a stand for the future.

Posted in books, Climate Change, Politics, The West | Leave a comment

Seven Billion Humans & Jared Diamond's "Collapse"

Posted on October 18, 2011 by williamjcobb

So various news organizations are reporting that our planet is now home to this mythical number of seven billion humans, mythical in that we don’t know that for sure, but it’s a good guess, and all its implications. I still regard Jared Diamond’s Collapse as one of the best big-picture nonfiction books I’ve read in a long time. He does a great job of analyzing how various cultures overused their resources, which led to their demise: the Mayans, the Easter Island natives, etc. Tim Flannery’s Here on Earth is in that vein as well, though focused on a myriad other topics besides societal collapse. Both are books we should all be reading, and heeding the warnings of. Here’s Jeffrey Sachs on the implications of 7 billion people:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/17/opinion/sachs-global-population/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Posted in books, Climate Change | Leave a comment