Organic Matter - Site News

A New Category of Failure

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:40:50 -0800

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.

Photoblogging

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:56:24 -0800

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.

It's Been a While

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:17:35 -0700

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.

Sabbatical

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 09:50:24 -0700

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.

Zero Emission Friday

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:36:21 -0700

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.

Just Peeking In

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:24:03 -0700

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.

Out to Lunch

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 00:38:15 -0700

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.

Tangled Bank Deadline Quickly Approaching

Sun, 29 May 2005 23:04:26 -0700

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.

Tangled Bank, Take 2

Wed, 18 May 2005 23:49:46 -0700

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!

Tangled Bank

Tue, 17 May 2005 01:14:24 -0700

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.

A Call for Authors

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:37:27 -0800

Now that we're getting a nice bump in traffic care of links from Sustainablog, Mister Anchovy, and blog bites (thanks guys!), not to mention the appearance of one of our articles in the 22½ issue of the Tangled Bank, I thought I'd take the opportunity to re-emphasize that this isn't just a soapbox - it's a community weblog.

As it says in the registration FAQ, registered users can actually write their own articles, rather than merely commenting on what pete and I have to say. Thorough as we may be, there is plenty of environmental news that we miss; I bookmark a whole bunch of articles and blog posts every day, and never get a chance to write about even a small fraction of them. I guarantee that there's plenty more news that I don't catch and would love to read about here. I'll quote what PZ Myers over at Pharyngula wrote about his own site: I don't come here "to see what I have written — I always fail to surprise myself — but to see what everyone else has said lately."

Welcome to Organic Matter

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 21:41:05 -0800

Welcome to Organic Matter. My name is Chris and I'm a graduate student of environmental science and management at UC Santa Barbara. While there are a number of worthwhile environmental and ecological resources available on the Internet, I have been unhappy for a long time about the absence of a web-based community where interested parties can locate and discuss developments in ecology and environmental policy.

Just a few days ago I found myself searching the web for recent news on a specific aspect of global climate change, and I was shocked to find a preponderance of weblogs featuring opinion pieces arguing that climate change is a myth of "radical" environmentalists and the ever-manipulative left. For the thousandth time I asked myself why there weren’t any places where people were talking about economically productive ways to stave off climate change, or coming to learn about the science behind it.

I briefly entertained the idea of trying to start just such a site, but wrote it off as a pipe dream. Despite my misgivings, I mentioned the idea to my friend Peter, a graduate researcher in forest ecology at the University of Maine. "Do it," he said, "Immediately." I couldn't embark on such an ambitious project on my own, I told him. I'd never be able to write often enough to make a blip on the Internet radar. "I'd love to work on a project like that," he replied.

Perhaps I should be more reserved in stating my expectations (lest reality fall short), but I'm hoping that this site can become a useful hub for news and opinion on ecological issues and environmental policy. This, of course, raises the question of just what these terms mean. To these questions I can only say that your environment is all around you. I have no desire to limit the scope of content posted here. If you think that a particular issue or piece of news qualifies as "environmental," then it almost certainly does. Our cities are part of our environment. Space is part of our environment. Civil rights and energy reform are environmental issues just as forest policy and climate change are environmental issues.

When all is said and done I suppose that I can't offer a single vision of what I'd like Organic Matter to become. My singular hope is that it can fill the void that I discovered when I first started looking for a community of progressive, ecologically inclined people.