James Sherry

We usually understand that our thinking takes place in our brain, but we can also model thought as a series of connections between ourselves and the world. There’s no reason to continue to imagine thought as only in our minds. A cook is looking for the thyme. She doesn’t remember where it is on the shelf, so she runs her forefinger along the labels until she finds “thyme”. The image of the letters on the label match the model in her mind. Thinking takes place between her mind and the label as an exchange of language.

Another example, a beaver could have evolved stronger legs and bigger claws to run out and eat the bark off the tree before the wolf gets her. But instead, she figured out a better idea, expand her safe zone by building a dam. Less energy, less risk. (thanks to Mark Rowlands)

The solutions to climate change do not avoid manipulating the environment. We must make smart changes as we get smarter about our world. How can our manipulation of environment heat our homes, power our lamps and transports with less impact. You know the answers: renewable energy costs less overall. Even if the transition costs money the costs of cleaning up fossil fuel including wars is becoming too big to bear. We are choking and drowning in our own effluent. Renewables make sense. And the cost, see prior post. In many geographies solar is already cheaper than oil. It’s not a holistic solution, but a distribution of power with more types of systems in more places, each in its appropriate geography. And distributed systems are more resilient. Solar in deserts, hydro near moving water, geothermal in hot spots. Each person sees the solutions somewhat differently, but there are social types, and I may be similar to you, or different.

James Sherry

We can start to arrest climate change today. In fact we are arresting it at the same time that we continue to change the climate. Significant objections are raised by vested interests regarding the cost of change. But the cost is much less than the cost of doing nothing. And the cost is not that great. Nordhaus and Stern disagree on how to calculate it, using net present value or rolling future value, but the costs are able to be calculated and compared to the cost of doing nothing. Right now the cost of acting is significantly less than the cost of doing nothing if we look out 20, 50, 100 years. Therefore we should begin to act. You can begin to act. How should you act? That depends on who you are. Interestingly you don’t have to change who you are but how you think about yourself.

James Sherry

The remediation  of climate change lies not in chemistry, legislation or poetry, but in their relationships. Relationships may be of several kinds from active to inactive, from one directional to bi-directional, active or passive links that are only energized under certain circumstances. When does climate change effect you enough to cause you to act? When you hear about it? When your friends try to convince you to participate? When the water starts tasting bad? When the water covers the streets? When you have to move your house because it is under water? When there is no more potable water? What’s your trigger?

What is your relationship to the world around you? When do you notice the connections? When do you think you are an independent being acting in your own self interest? We flip back and forth. Every organism separates itself from its environment. Otherwise we cannot know to breathe or eat or defend ourselves. But every organism maintains many and varied connections to the world. Which of these connections are being altered by climate change? Do you know?

These interactions with the world comprise the political environment. Communication about the connections defines the border of our political system. How can we affect it?

James Sherry

Have we made mistakes? Every day is imperfect, every action fraught with the terror of error, yet we persist. In the Climate March, artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese destroy THE FUTURE. Well, they more let it melt_away. And the people coming to see it at the Flatiron building on 23rd & 5th today September 21st, get the point, but the point is different for all of them, yet they all get it. That’s environmentalism–they’re all different and they all get it, for themselves, for us, for the same presence ourselves and various collective pronouns. Yes the climate is changing, but to arrest climate change we have to change, each and all.

James Sherry

Marshall and Nora are making a specific statement that because of their choice of words has many interpretations. But there is the sense of ticking time in melting ice, not so different from our body deteriorating. We know this anxiety; how does it change our behavior to be aware of this situation? How can we, today, while a million people are marching to raise awareness of the dangers, alert powerful people exercising power about the risks they are taking, alert them in such a way as to change how they think about themselves, to change how we think about ourselves? If we think, it’s someone else’s problem, if we think we are alone in the world, what kind of society do we line in? If we imagine that we are powerless and the hierarchy gives us no power, what kind of hierarchy can we imagine that gives us power?

James Sherry

I’ve known Marshall and Nora since the early 80s. This project is the first time our detailed interests in environment have crossed, so I’m pleased to be typing while looking at the dripping ice sculpture: THE FUTURE. Their art plays with time by moving faster than time, because the scale of art is small and quick. The planet is moving slowly but that is deceptive, because it is moving as a result, partly, of our actions. What are we doing?