"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." Abraham Maslow

A group of Columbians are having a conversation about sustainability on Sunday November 5th, 2 pm, at Kevin’s World, 26 North 9th Street. We invite you to join this global community conversation. We Are What We Do We want to belong to our community but for many, Columbia is a lonely place. There are more cell phones and email devices than ever, yet many live alone. Some know few people they can count on. These are peculiar times. We have more people in Columbia, in America, and on Earth than ever. We buy things made from this planet more than ever, yet we can recall childhood where things didn’t matter. Politics has strangled the founding idea, “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Some adults no longer vote. Economic disparity grows every decade and the Central Missouri Food Bank has never had greater demand. We feel things very deeply yet often feel powerless and overwhelmed. The daily news about war and terror, and also about energy costs, water pollution and global warming, seems overpowering. Since 2002, one hundred thought leaders from around the world, the Design Futures Council, have met to discuss the human prospect and the challenges we face. Each year we discuss the gap between what people are taking from nature, and what nature has to offer. We met just last week in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many issues were discussed. China is building 45,000 dwellings per week. The United States is planning 150 new coal fired power plants over the next decade. But the overarching issue is global warming. Global warming or changes in the average temperature of Earth have gone up and down over the 650,000 years of data recorded in the polar ice caps. For all these years the rise and fall of temperature was linked to a parallel rise and fall in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Over the past decade an unprecedented rise in the amount of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere has occurred due to burning of fossil fuel – coal, natural gas and oil. In March 2006 the atmosphere shows CO2 levels of 381 parts per million (ppm). This is 100 ppm over the pre-industrial average. The planet is getting warmer. The estimate of another one degree centigrade average temperature rise over the next decade is now widely understood. How much warmer Earth gets after 2016 depends in large part on human behavior. This could be a wild ride. With each degree of temperature rise, more ice melts and the global water level rises. Over the next 45 years the population of America will rise by 100 million, with 100 thousand or more here in Columbia. During this time, the global temperature and the global water level will rise. In a mere 150 years, global fossil fuel emissions have risen from zero to 24,000 million tones of CO2 per year. This results in the greenhouse effect that causes global warming. Other atmospheric insults, such as the now outlawed chemicals once used in air conditioning and spray cans, have led to a depletion of the ozone layer of the atmosphere. The ozone protects the planet, and all life, from ultra violet radiation. If the hole in the ozone (the size of North America) now over the South Pole were over a land mass, the death rate would be a real horror. A group of Columbians are having a conversation about sustainability on Sunday November 5th, 2 pm, at Kevin’s World, 26 North 9th Street. We invite you to join this global community conversation. Nick Peckham October 27, 2006

en VISION the process

paint music (by brian eno)