The "conservation" conversation.... with the Comox Valley at the centre

What's this? More social media coolness, thanks to my friend Angus McAllister of McAllister Opinion Research and SayZu.

Angus and some partners are developing SayZu to do a number of analytic and descriptive things. Basically, it scrapes the internet  - blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds - for selected words and creates word clouds. The bigger the word, the more it's being used in conjunction with the searched word. There's more to it than that, but that's the "simple/stupid" version.

The image you're looking at is what shows up from a SayZu scrape of recent Twitter posts that include the word "conservation," within a 1000 mile (1600 km) radius of the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. That's my home town.

Why would I search "conservation?"
I'm working on a communications project that involves raising the profile of conservation and stewardship issues in this region. My clients think that these should be important topics in the 2011 local government elections. I tend to agree. If we're going to get serious about the kinds of challenges that climate change ("global warming" to some) is starting to pose for our communities, we're going to need to do major maintenance and protection of the natural systems that make life comfortable in our corner of planet earth. 

I'm hoping that things like the SayZu word clouds will help illustrate what's being said – maybe they'll start a few more conversations; maybe they'll help us see where the conversations are heading; maybe they'll help us see how we can provide information and ideas to keep the conversation on track – that is, headed in the direction of community sustainability and quality of life.

Stay tuned. More images to follow. 

(cc) hanspetermeyer.ca / 2010. I encourage non-commercial sharing of my materials (blogs, fotos, audio, etc). Tell me how you use them at ht.ly/25kfR

conservation-CLOUD-29-10-10-1000miles.jpg,

originally uploaded by hanspetermeyer.ca.

Falling in love... with Europa

written 7.10.10

Today I'm travelling by high speed train (approx 150km/hr) through the north German countryside into Denmark. The seats are comfortable, the carriages clean, modern, spacious. We get a free "snack" (croissant with delicious butter, and jam), and all the coffee, tea, and water we can drink. The porter asks, "Porcelain or paper?"

But that's just the start.

Once I've decided on "porcelain," the attention to detail is impressive and noteworthy. First, boiling water is poured into the porcelain cup; the porter then lets it sit while he prepares the small plate: the two napkins, knife, condiments, and croissant are arranged "just so." The plate prepped, he empties the porcelain cup, fills it with standard issue decent German coffee, which so far, has always been better than any "regular" coffee I've had in Canada. He then nests the cup on the artfully arranged plate and presents it to me, telling me that I can have endless refills.

I walk back towards my seat and I notice the "windgeschwindigskeit" (speed) meter: 146km/hr. And here I am, with a delicately balanced plate, including cup of coffee, and I hardly notice that we're moving.

The North German plain that stretches north through Schleswig-Holstein and into the peninsula of Denmark is not dramatic landscape. But, for me, there is a drama: the wind turbines, and not just because of my fondness for Don Quixote.

In 2010 we are living in or near crisis with regard to our human relationship to our environment. Europe and North America have created a wonderfully rich material culture that inspires China, India, and the rest of the world to follow suit. Yet our wealth is fossil-fuelled, and our economic-industrial model is plunging us into a climate change crisis. We urgently need to find new ways to be in our relationship to the world that supports us, and that means a major rejigging of our energy-industry-culture equation.

In Europe I see this rejigging. Here there may be an endless supply of hot air from politicians and bureaucrats. There are also tangibles, things being done that are making a difference. I look out from my train window, travelling unimaginably quickly (by North American standards) and relatively cleanly through the countryside. The popular image of Europe is of densely populated cities. But most of the land is devoted to agriculture. And so my train jets through the gently rolling, pastoral landwirtschaft – these extensive agricultural lands – and here is the drama: the pastoral beauty is punctuated by wind turbines endlessly turning in the North Sea wind. It's a beautiful vision, an image of an energetic-industrial present so far removed from the smutty example of our Canadian oil sands debacle, for example.

This the geography of advanced our industrial-social culture: clean energy in the midst of a gentle landscape. And that is the drama. Seeing these giant turbines on the north German plain I feel a wave of hope, a sense of excitement about things being done in an imaginative, a "right" way. In this moment I have to paraphrase the sentiments that Momo Allan expressed to me yesterday in our interview about immigration into Europe, tango music, cultural and social innovation: at this moment, I am unreservedly in love with Europe.

ps. The image at the top is a snap of the wind farm off the coast of Denmark, taken from the train as I crossed into Sweden. It's fuelling a very cool residential/commercial development in Malmö. More on that later.

October 7, 2010

hanspetermeyer

Related articles

• Growing Wind Industry Moves Europe Closer to Green Goals (cleantechies.com)
• Test Centre for Wind Turbines in Northwest Jutland (planetsave.com)
• "Denmark To Build Testing Center For Massive Wind Turbines" and related posts (aboutmyplanet.com)