Sustainable Peoples

 

 Following the Southern Cross [8:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hey All, the internet in HQ started working tonight, so I’m proud to bring you podcast 3.0! This episode is unlike the others in that its sort of a travelogue- its your VIP backstage pass to the SP project, where you will get to ride along with us on our trip from Santiago to Concepcion in the south part of Chile. you’ll get to hear me comment on the journey after traveling 800 miles through the night on a south American bus. I was barely conscious, but it makes for good listening. Anyhow, tell me what you think about the format and the content- I’d like to make another of these for the upcoming trek northbound, but only if people like them as much as I do.

Sustainable Peoples Blog 11- The Eye of the Hurricane
Santiago HQ
6/17/08
10:05pm

So we are a little over halfway done with SP’s first outing now, and Marcela and I are spending most of the week here in Santiago regrouping, doing a ton of production work, and preparing for our trip north. The respite from constant travel is welcome, especially because I know in the back of my mind we will be getting back on the road so very shortly.

Over the last few days, we’ve been talking about video, and I have been realizing some things about its production. My vision for in-line video production might well be possible, but to achieve that reality would take a team of 4 or 5, rather than just Marcela and me. Now I don’t want to minimize the help of Mr. Alvaro Marmolejo, who is dealing with a lot of production and editing, but the next project will simply have to be better staffed and equipped.

In the mean time, I’ve been trying to take this time to step back a little. Its very difficult to do the deep thinking about the sustainability realities I’m studying while in the midst of the data collection. One conclusion I’ve come to, however, is that the great answers I am seeking, will surely come slowly. I think real truths more often appear as emergent phenomenon, rather than something forced. What I mean is, when your splashing round in a deep ocean of interviews, facts and data, the truths your looking for aren’t discovered like treasure, sunken to the bottom. Instead they very slowly float to the top, always half obscured but the foam of your own thrashing. But only once you’ve been in the water long enough. I haven’t been swimming long enough yet, but I hope that over time, what I seek will make its way up.

Now, I know I’ve banged this gong before, but today, sitting here in SP HQ, I feel compelled to reiterate a fact about living and working in Santiago. The government air quality board uses what I’m sure are scientific methods for figuring out how bad the air is, and what level of “air emergency” they will be at in a given day. I, on the other hand, am using something I’ve come to call the “CBI” or Cylindrical Building Index. You see, there is a 10 or so story tall cylinder shaped building about 3 miles Southwest of my window at HQ. It sticks out because it looks like it belongs in 1970s Las Vegas rather than 2008 Santiago. I’ve come to notice that on “bad air days” I can see the building just fine, and on “Pre Emergency” days, it is hazy between here and there. On the one air quality “Emergency” day I’ve had here in the city, the building’s shape was still visible through the muck. When I got up this morning, and opened the window, this is what I saw…

That outline is where the building usually is, and today I might as well be in a fog bank. This smog is terrible. I have lived through a great many fire seasons in southern California, and the chocking, smoke filled air of those conditions are the only thing that comes close. If that scale of fire is called a natural disaster, then this should be called a human catastrophe. This blanket of asthma inducing filth coats the buildings, people, cars and even plants for 50 miles in every direction. It only appears to dissipate at about 1000 feet above the valley floor, and today, with the cloud cover, it doesn’t appear to end at all. Santiago should serve as a cautionary tale, about what can happen to a city when it moves from “developing” to being “newly industrialized” without instituting proper controls on industrial and automotive emissions. Nowadays, it doesn’t cost much more to have a 4 cycle engine, and catalytic converters are only a marginal expense (especially if an entire country demands them, as opposed to making them an option that the car companies can markup). If Santiago had mandated those two things 10 years ago, this problem would not exist on this scale. I guess its another case for forward thinking.

So, what have we in store for you this weekend? Marcela and I board an airplane Thursday night, bound for Calama in the North of Chile. the flight is about the same as heading from San Diego to San Francisco, but the only alternative here is a 22 hour bus ride (each way). Once we arrive in Calama, we THEN board a bus, and two short hours later, arrive in San Pedro. We will be looking at the realities of Chile’s mining industry, and how they affect the lives and sustainability of Chile’s population. We will be following up on part of Sen. Antonio Horvath Kiss’ grand vision for Chile’s energy future, geothermal production (basically, using heat produced naturally by the earth to generate electricity). We will talk to environmentalists who are fighting the development of geothermal energy, and some who are working for it. We’ll also be visiting the driest place on earth, to have a look on how life gets on in place that seems to try so hard to snuff it out. There are surely some lessons (good or bad) about sustainability there.

I encourage anyone with Internet access to download Google Earth and have a look at the Atacama dessert where we are headed. This place has less annual rainfall than Death Valley in California, and looks like the geologic lovechild of the Sahara and the surface of Mars. Its in a club so exclusive, the only other members are the South Pole, the peak of Mt. Everest and the Amazon Basin. Its going to be wild, and I am looking forward to bringing you thoughts, images, video and audio from one of the most extreme environments on the planet.

I would just like to say congratulations to the 2008 graduates at my alma mater, UC Davis. I know how hard you guys worked- I’m proud of all of you.

 

 Podcast interiew with a genius statesman. [27:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ok, I got the FTP working again, for now. Here goes nothing… Have a listen to podcast # 2. I promise its worth the wait.

Hey everyone,

There are 3 blog posts on the way, and 2 more podcasts, but unfortunately we’ve been having FTP problems, so they will be joinin you soon. In the mean time, partake of 60ish new photos ready for your viewing at our “Photo Gallery” link to the left.

Sustainable Peoples Blog 8- Concepcion and FOCIS
Concepcion HQ- Hotel El Araucano
6/10/08
10:15pm

You never know who you may meet, and how they might change your perspective on just about anything. Today was a real meat-and-potatoes day for SP, in that we interacted with some ground level innovators who are working on the knife’s edge of sustainability at its most basic level.

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Sustainable Peoples Blog 7
Aboard a bus- En route to Concepcion
6/10/08
12:05am

Well, we are off. Marcela is sitting to my right, planning away with her trusty notebook in hand and our next stop is Concepcion in the South of Chile. Before we get to the journey though, let me give you a little recap about what we have been up to the last few days and what has led up to the first journey out of Santiago.

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Sustainable Peoples Blog 6
SP Headquarters, Santiago de Chile
6/6/08
11:55pm

What a day. Let me start by saying that I am a softee. Not for puppies, kittens or flowers, so much, as for a little bright spot in the dreary doldrums of a political process. Maybe it takes the same personality that would choose to visit the grave of Paul Revere, twice, but I’ m just nuts for anything or anyone who makes me say, “yeah, that is what its all supposed to be about.” Yesterday, I met a man who did just that. His name is Sen. Antonio Horvath Kiss, and he represents a district almost farther south than any other politician in the world (save one comrade in Chile, and maybe someone in New Zealand). You might expect someone from on of the last untamed places on the planet to be more concerned with logging and 4×4s that with geothermal power and bicycles, but here you’d be wrong.
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 You already changes the world. [5:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thanks for tuning into our introductory podcast. you’ll learn more abut the project and some ways that you can participate. Give a listen!

Sustainable Peoples HQ, Santiago de Chile
6/3/08
11:59pm

I keep saying to myself, “Drake, Murphy is out to get everyone else just as much as he is out to get you.”, and some days I even believe it. I spent today careening from problem to problem, bumping into and out of solutions that did, finally, resolve all the issues. Today began with something really and truly magical (sarcasm). As I mentioned in the last post, Santiago, with its terrible air quality, has a series of pollution regulations that limit certain businesses from operating and certain cars from driving on days that are considered especially polluted. The cars to be restricted from the road on a given day are chosen by license plate number and whether or not they have a catalytic converter (yes, part of the problem is that not all cars here are required to scrub their own exhaust). Well, today’s air was bad enough, that even Marcela, our wonderful Chilean producer’s car (which I think might be powered by a watch battery, because its about that size), catalytic converter and all, was barred from driving. That would not have been so bad, especially because our interview today (a traditional Mapuche native drugstore which we will be bringing you tomorrow) pushed us back so that they could have us on a day when the most interesting things were going on.
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