Viridian Note 00242: German Involuntary Park"Bruce Sterling" <bruces@well.com>Monday, May 28, 2001 5:43 PM
Attention Conservation Notice: A Viridian "involuntary park" is an area of the planet where wildlife returns due to the breakdown of civilization. Prime examples include Chernobyl, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Cyprus Green Line, and a wide variety of artillery ranges, weapons- testing areas and toxic dumps around the world. This Note also features a cleanout of the Viridian link-buffer. Links: http://www.viridiandesign.org Our homepage. If you've never been there before, you should go poke around until you understand us better. http://www.wholeearthmag.com The Viridian Issue is almost complete (whew)!. So soon activity on the list will be picking up, and we'll have a new Viridian Design Contest. http://www.cleanedge.com/ Some new pals of ours. They've got biz connections. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/home.html Global warming over the centuries. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/pollackgraph.gif Here's a graph that cuts straight to the chase: whoopee! http://www.resalliance.org A new Internet cabal of computer-equipped conservation ecologists would like to do something useful. Good luck, professors! http://sustsci.harvard.edu/ Sustainability Science forum. Somewhere below those academic polysyllables, these are the people who know that we're all gonna fry. Perhaps the issue might be politely raised at Rio+10... http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~rael/projects.html Save the world with solar by starting in a Berkeley university and going to, uhm, Kenya. Cool photos, lots of nuts and bolts. http://www.siliconenergy.com/ These guys, by contrast, are using heavy VC money to save Berkeley from its own development woes. http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/biomimetics/ http://phd.stanford.edu/cs348c/final/intro.html Oh to hell with this gloomy stuff, hey look, here's a robot that can run like a cockroach!
"From Death Strip to Lifeline "For 3 decades after World War II, Germany was divided by
a 1400-kilometer long no-man's-land that ran down the
country like an ugly scar == a 'death strip' guarded by
mines, attack dogs, and machine guns.
"Today, chunks of the once verboten zone still harbor
rare animals and plant species, and German officials are
stepping up efforts to turn these Cold War refugia into a
string of nature preserves.
"The environment ministry and the Federal Office for
Nature Protection last month announced that they will
spend $325,000 on a study aimed at evaluating and
expanding the existing 'biotop,' or green band, of 174
reserves that currently cover more than half of the old
no-man's-land and adjacent security zones. Ultimately,
they'd like to protect 85% in a series of preserves that
would be 'a milestone for European nature protection' says
deputy environment minister Gila Altmann.
"The idea is resisted by some farmers and others who want to use the land." (((Okay, let 'em go clear out those landmines at their own expense and hazard, then.))) O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O |
