Noam Chomsky, Language and Politics (98-99)

"[T]here is a middle ground which I would like to occupy, and I think people are going to have to try to find ways to occupy: namely to try to keep up a serious commitment to intellectual values and intellectual ans scientific problems that really concern you and yet at the sme time make a serious and one hopes useful contribution to the enormous extra-scientific questions. Commitment to work on the problems of racism, oppression, imperialism and so on, is in the United States and absolute necessity. Now exactly how one can maintain that sort of schitzophrenic existence I am not sure; it is very difficult. It's not only a matter of too much demand on one's time, but also a high degree of ongoing personal conflict about where your next outburst of energy should go. And unless people somehow resolve the problem I think the future is rather dim. If they do resolve it I think it might be rather hopeful."
phote taken with my lovely mini dv camera

right hand rule
phote taken with my lovely mini dv camera

NYC (STEADY) STATE: AIR

Stuart Gaffin was scheduled to speak at CCNY yesterday...I missed it...overslept...sadly.

Stuart R. Gaffin is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), which he joined in March 2000. Prior to CIESIN, Dr. Gaffin was a Senior Scientist at Environmental Defense (formerly EDF) in New York City, where he worked within the EDF Atmosphere Program on climate change policy and science for 12 years. He has held two postdoctoral positions at Exxon Corporate Research and Yale University's Geophysics Department. For the past several years, Dr. Gaffin has been active with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), focusing on emissions scenarios for greenhouse gases over the next century. He was a lead author of the recent IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), and was responsible for the demographic analyses that went into the report. He now specializes in the nexus between climate change, population and development and environmental sustainability. He was a consulting scientist with the recent World Commission on Dams and focused on quantifying greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and methane) from flooded vegetation in dam reservoirs in the tropics including Brazil.
Dr. Gaffin received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Climatology/Geophysics from New York University's Earth Systems Group in 1986. He is a frequent panelist and lecturer on climate change and has published extensively on many aspects of the science and policy issues, including within the popular media.

NYC (STEADY) STATE: POPULATION

Laura Lu of the New School Spoke about migration and immigration.

moving slowly...slug...slug...sloth
phote taken with my lovely mini dv camera

in the begining
phote taken with my lovely mini dv camera

aquarium furnature
phote taken with my lovely mini dv camera

NYC (STEADY) STATE: OTHER SPECIES

Jean Gardner of the New School, author of Urban Wilderness, spoke at CCNY today about cybernetics and organic systems thinking vs. classification/ non-systemic thinking.

NYC (STEADY) STATE: MOVEMENT

Alex Marshall, independent journalist, author of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, Roads Not Taken spoke about the history of transportation in shaping the North East.

NYC (STEADY) STATE: FOOD

Jessica Wurwang discussed current food distribution systems and the benefits of locally grown produce.

NYC (STEADY) STATE: GARBAGE

Ben Miller, Auther of Fat of the Land: Garbage in NYC the Last 200 Years lectured at CCNY's Graduate School of Urban Design as part of the NYC (STEADY) STATE series.

NYC (STEADY) STATE: ENERGY

CCNY's Graduate Urban Design Program is hosting an eleven part lecture series on inter-related urban Design topics:

Energy, Garbage, Food, Movement, Other Species, Population, Air, Manufacturing, Water, Thermodynamics, and Building.

The group meets on the fifth floor of Sheppard Hall Thursday mornings to hear speakers and discuss research projects.

Energy, the first topic was addressed by Ashok Gupta of U.S. Natural Resourses Defense Counsel (NRDC).