Thinking Green, in more ways than one

Last week, Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the world bank, unveiled The Stern Report, an extensive analysis of the "cost" of global warming. The report takes a major step in the consideration of global warming, because it casts environmental issues in a light usually far removed from the environment: economics.

Yes, the Stern Report concluded, even staunch economists need be concerned about global warming because it will prove to be detrimental to our thriving economy (among other things). David Suzuki sums up the report concisely and resonatingly here.

(Got some time to kill? Download the complete 700-page report here.)

election day blues

As I stared down at my ballot this morning, slowly filling in the bubbles, I found myself quite contemplative. Once a year we're asked to think about the future, to make our individual voices anonymously heard, to select the individuals we want shaping our lives and the rules we live by. Yet sometimes politics seems so trivial--just think of the enormous amounts of energy, dollars, and resources spent each year to fuel political rivalries, fight fierce campaign battles, and promote bureaucratic propositions to funnel funding here or redirect tax revenue there.

Undoubtedly, I care about a good number of these political fights, some more passionately than others. Yet sometimes I wish we could just send each other messages without subversive undertones, base our actions on honesty rather than strategy, and focus our efforts on putting forth messages that actually benefit the common good.

Serendipitously, after returning home from the polls I came across a message so perfect I had to smile.

This mosaic apparently graces the entrance to a G train platform at a subway stop in Brooklyn: