Since I started blogging again, I've tried to revive Organic Matter without the wonkiness that used to characterize the site. So far, if success were salsa, mine would best be described as 'mild.' I even forgot to include a photo in my last post, not that I have one to illustrate any of the ideas I was writing about. If YouTube, philosophy, and climate change have one thing in common, it's that they aren't very photogenic. Anyway, I've created a whole new category to describe the deepest fathoms of my failure. And I intend to plumb these depths with fervor.

This all happened because of a letter which I was compelled to write in response to an op-ed in my parents' hometown newspaper, the Redding Record Searchlight. In his piece, Keith Ritter cites Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger's new book, Breakthrough, to restate and reargue the tired canard that "technology will save us." His argument could very well be a corruption of Nordhaus and Shellenberger's these - I haven't read the book myself, and I'm hesitant to let Ritter put words in their mouths. Like most of his ilk, he ignores economic realities, including entrenched subsidies for carbon-based fuels, and an utter lack of public funding for renewable energy development. The point is, his piece so infuriated me that I couldn't keep myself from writing to the paper. And having been published, I likewise cannot keep myself from tooting my own horn on the Internet. The text of my letter is after the fold, which is after a completely unrelated photograph.

Point of order: now that I am once again a blogger, one of my goals will be to feature some sort of imagery in each post, largely inspired by the format that Christopher has been using to great effect at Hungry Hyaena. To this end I’ve set up a Flickr site. I’ve already uploaded a bunch of photos, including a large number of plant and animal photos (all of which are further tagged with taxonomic information or as “unidentified;” help is appreciated on the latter) and a few photos that I intend to use at some point on OM (tagged with “organic matter”). Most of them will never see the front page of OM, but if you like what you see here be sure to check out the rest of my photo album there, post comments if you like, and add me to your contacts.

Hi. As the title says, it's been a while. Close to two years, in fact. My life has changed considerably in the intervening period, including finishing my graduate program, a healthy dose of soul-searching, a cross-country move, and nearly eighteen months without writing. Well, I wrote, but I didn't really write, if you take my meaning.

I'm not sure if anyone still checks this space, but if they do, I promise that they will be rewarded in the foreseeable future. I've been working very hard lately to get back in the habit of putting my thoughts into words, and I expect to be doing so again here at Organic Matter pretty soon. I'm planning a proper post to ring in the new era of content here, but that's probably still a few weeks off at best, and whimsy suggested that I get something new at the top of the page so that people know it's still active.

There will also be some changes to the site itself. I have a personal blog in addition to OM - the address of which I don't intend to post here - and I'm hoping to merge the two. I'm not sure yet what the result will look like, but I'd like to incorporate a some of the personal things that I write about there into what I do here, while still keeping the content focused on environmental issues. All of the old content will stay here, with the exception of the user blogs, which we're going to disable. Despite the efforts of a few people, that feature never did much for the site, and I hope to simplify things overall.

Anyway, that's the plan. It might take a couple months to really get going, depending on a number of extraneous factors related to my employment and living situation, but it'll happen. Stay tuned.

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. I’d like to blame it on being busy, but I’ve posted much more frequently at time when life was much more hectic. The truth is that I’m a little burnt out on blogging right now. Between Katrina, SCOTUS shenanigans, and the rest of the day-to-day, trying to keep up with everything in order to write about it thoughtfully has been a bit much.

I expect that blogging will be sporadic at best for the foreseeable future, but I do promise to check in regularly and promote (and probably comment on) any user blog entries that are posted on Organic Matter.

If you ever feel bad about the extra carbon that your gas-guzzling SUV (or even your sleek Prius or biodiesel-powered Volkswagen) emits, there’s an easy way to ease your conscious – TerraPass. I’d heard about the TerraPass before, but never bothered to read up on the details until I received an email with a link to a new environmental economics blog (for which, I discovered, one of the professors at my program is an author). There are only a few other articles up so far (I wasn’t kidding when I said it was new), but this looks to be an economic version of RealClimate.org, with contributions only from real experts in the field.

In addition, I’m contemplating a reworking of the blogroll, and I’m interested in readers’ suggestions. I’m not necessarily looking for more links (though good ones are always welcome), but ideas for how a largish blogroll can be presented in a useful way. I don’t just want to have a collection of a thousand links, but rather something that will help people find blogs that fit their interest. One model I’m considering is something akin to what PZ Myers has done over at Pharyngula (if pete has the time and know-how to help me with it, that is). Let me know what you all think.

I'm back from my trip, but I've only just discovered I'm off on another one. Now I'm headed up to Northern California until Tuesday. The same suggestions as before apply now: if you want to read new material between now and Tuesday, you'll have to blog it yourself.

A few photos of what I was up to are below the fold.

Bad news folks – I’ll be out of town for most of the next week, so blogging will be an impossibility. I’m not even sure if I’ll have access to the Internet. The good news (for me) is that I’ll be in Yosemite National Park, which is the closest thing I can think of to Mecca. The other good news (for you) is that this is your chance to take advantage of the group-blog features that we’ve built into OM. So far only a few of our users have ponied up and posted to the user blogs (displayed over there in the right sidebar). Obviously a bunch of you already have blogs of your own, but don’t hesitate to cross-post and siphon off a little of our traffic. Lord knows we’re still getting tons of hits from the Tangled Bank several days ago.

If pete’s around this week I’m sure he’ll promote any user blogs to the front page. If he’s recovered sufficiently from his recent marathon, perhaps he’ll even post something himself.

I'm digging through the [many many] articles submitted so far for the upcoming Tangled Bank, and they're as fantastic as they are numerous. I do promise, however, to fit in any submission received before midnight on Tuesday (though earlier is, of course, better). That gives you up to the last second to polish off that great American blog post that you've been working on and email me a link (chrisATorganicmatterDOTnet).

I hope everyone else is looking forward to this as much as I am.

No doubt I was supposed to post this earlier than now, but Tangled Bank #28 is up at the Medical Madhouse. This is notable for two reasons, both of which were addressed in a previous post, but I'll make a note of them again:

1.) I wrote something for it. If you frequent OM, then you've probably already seen it, but that's neither here nor there.

2.) Organic Matter will be hosting Tangled Bank #29 on June 1^st. Anyone considering submitting a piece of science or medical writing should definitely consider doing so. If you have a blog, post it there and drop me an email at chrisATorganicmatter.net (replace "AT" with @) or send me a PM. If you don't have a blog, go ahead and register here and post your piece to the on-site user blogs.

Tangled Bank #28 was a great read, and I encourage everyone to check it out. I'm really looking forward to putting the next edition together. You know, in between my finals.

I kid!

On June 1^st Organic Matter will be hosting the infamous Tangled Bank (a biweekly collection of top-notch scientific blogging). In preparation I’ve taken the liberty of writing a last-minute piece for inclusion (to be posted shortly) in the soon-to-be-released May 18^th edition of the TB over at the Medical Madhouse. Because the piece I wrote doesn’t fit nicely into any of the existing categories we’ve got, and because I plan to work up some similar pieces of other topics that I find interesting, I’ve taken the liberty of adding a natural history category to the taxonomy. It would just tickle the shit out of me if interested readers felt compelled to write something about their favorite tidbit of natural history in order to fill the ranks of the new category.