Sandy Visits Downrigging Weekend

Photo courtesy of "Behold the Earth"

This past weekend some of us were priveledged to hear David Conover and Tim Eriksen present at the Prince Theater. Conover spoke of the intersection between society and nature that he explores in his forthcoming documentary "Behold the Earth." In this film Conover uses breathtaking scenery, haunting folk melodies, and poignant interviews to explore America's divorce from nature. While sitting in my house this morning watching the trees groan in the winds of Hurricane Sandy, I couldn't help but hear the soulful notes of Eriksen's song "Every Sound Below" and consider the power of this storm.
Rain lashing, candles sputtering, birds calling, the street cleaner slowly driving by. These were the sounds reaching through my "cocoon." Conover described Americans as a people who travel between a series of cocoons, forgetting to spend time outside of our meticulously managed environments. Today, Sandy is forcing the people on the east coast out of their cocoons.

Satellite image of Hurricane Sandy

Since agriculture became the modus operandi for humankind we have slowly moved to create more distance between ourselves and our surroundings. This process was much enhanced by the dawn of the technological era. Humans now have so much power over their environment that some suggest we have entered an "anthropocene," or geological period defined by human action disrupting the surface of the Earth. Socially this technology has moved children away from the outdoors and in front of screens. Conover noted that in the last decade children have spent an average of over 7 hours a day in front of a screen.

Photo courtesy of "Behold the Earth"

Conover does not seek to provide a particular answer to this problem, rather he is making an attempt to understand why our divorce from nature started and exactly what that divorce looks like. The fierce embrace of Hurricane Sandy brings this question right into our homes, through leaky windows, flooded basements, and loss of power: electrical and otherwise.

Kent County booth at the annual MACo convention

Earlier this month, I traveled to Ocean City for the second time this summer, this time to represent Kent County's Office of Tourism and Economic Development at the annual Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) convention.  I was fortunate enough to be accompanied by Mrs. Cunningham, of connect.the.dots. fame, who's design eye gave zest to our booth (see pic below).

After setting up our booth on Wednesday afternoon, we were feted at a cocktail reception at Fagers Island restaurant that was hosted by Funk & Bolton law offices, a wonderful social gathering that allowed for lots of networking.  I then spent all day Thursday manning our booth, meeting vendors, talking with employees and representatives from other counties, and generally spreading the word about all the good works that have been going on recently in Kent County.  There was a steady flow of visitors through the exhibit hall for most of the day.  It still amazes me the number of "giveaways" that the exhibitors provide and the convention-goers gobble up...bags and bags of them.  Thursday evening found us at the Sunset Grille in West OC dining on mahi mahi, tuna, crab imperial, and countless other goodies, all thanks to our hosts from Standard Solar.

On Friday, Mrs C and I kept up the message spreading at our booth for the better part of the day, handing out brochures along with free note pads and lemon meringue-flavored salt water taffy.  It seemed there were more families visiting the exhibit hall during this session, probably in concert with family vacation time at the beach.  The day was shorter than the previous, but still we had decent attendance in the hall.  Commissioners stopped by, and we also had a chance to converse briefly with U.S. Senator Ben Cardin who admitted that he was aware of all the cool projects going on in the county.

Our thanks to Bernadette Van Pelt and Michelle Wood of the County's Office of Tourism and Economic Development for putting together all of the display materials for us to transport down to the convention.  Also, special thanks to the Town Creek Foundation for supporting our work to help Maryland's municipalities increase use of renewable energy systems, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and move toward a healthy and sustainable future for the Chesapeake Bay region.

Briggs Cunningham mans the Kent County booth at the 2012 Maryland Association of Counties convention in Ocean City in August.

Briggs Cunningham is Climate Action Coordinator at the Center for Environment & Society, and can be contacted here.

Downrigging Weekend Lectures

October 27, 2011
The Politics of Climate Change- with Dr. Ryan Lizza
5:00 PM
Prince Theater
On Thursday, October 27, veteran magazine writer Ryan Lizza, who covers the 2012 Presidential campaign and national politics as Washington Correspondent for The New Yorker, will share his insights into how and why Congress and the White House failed to reach agreement on breakthrough energy legislation designed to be both business- and consumer-friendly.
The free public lecture, “The Politics of Climate Change,” is based largely on a major feature article Lizza published in the October 2011 issue of The New Yorker. His talk will be held at 5 p.m. in The Prince Theatre of the Garfield Center for the Arts, 210 High Street, Chestertown, MD.

October 28, 2011
Longitude - with New York Times best-selling author Dava Sobel
8:00 PM
The Prince Theatre, 210 High Street, Chestertown - FREE
The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. How did one man in the 18th century change the way we envision the vastness and the boundaries of our physical world? What led one self-educated man to solve a problem that Newton and Galileo could not? And how can studying the scientific leaps of the past help us envision our future? In this elegant talk, Dava Sobel weaves a powerful historical narrative to show us how Henry Harrison’s invention of the chronometer changed the way we look at the world and how it continues to shape our concept of distance and place. Sobel is one of the most influential science writers of our time. A former New York Times science reporter, she is the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter -- which spent five weeks as the #1 New York Times non-fiction best-seller -- and The Planets. Co-sponsored by Sultana Projects and the Center for Environment & Society. For more information contact jfairchild2@washcoll.edu or 410-778-7295.

For a full listing of Downrigging events visit http://www.sultanaprojects.org/downrigging/index.htm.

Poisoned Waters

On October 30 at 5:00 PM at the historic Prince Theatre in downtown Chestertown, Hedrick Smith will explore how the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound are indicators of a larger national problem. Mr. Smith is a Frontline producer and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, formerly with the New York Times. What's shocking about his latest feature on the water crisis is how well-known the problems are. Scientists for years have been scooping up samples with chemicals, mostly from everyday household products. They've been pulling PCB-riddled salmon out of the water for decades. There are documented cases weirdly mutated frogs with six legs, intersexed fish (males carrying eggs), and drinking water loaded with contaminants— two-thirds of which are so new they elude modern filtration methods. By focusing on the home of the blue crab and the playground of the orca, which aren't overwhelmingly similar, Smith highlights a pervasive decline in the nations waterways and he takes us beneath the surface to see the terrible trouble caused by sprawl-related pollution and unregulated toxic industrial, agricultural and municipal runoff.
Both events are free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Center for Environment & Society, the Chesapeake Semester at Washington College, and Sultana Projects. For more information, visit www.ces.washcoll.edu or www.sultanaprojects.org or call 410-778-7295.