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Viridian Notes 401-450

 

  • 00451: Every Word is True. [Attention Conservation Notice: This recitation of the obvious by longtime global warming activist Ross Gelbspan deserves to be pinned to every telephone pole in America. Especially the thousands of them that just blew over.]
  • 00452: The Return of Laurie Garrett. [Attention Conservation Notice: Likely to make you feel even worse about Katrina than you do already.]
  • 00453: The March of Khaki Green. [Attention Conservation Notice: We Viridians have been talking about this notion since 1998, and, well, here it comes.]
  • 00454: Hello Alpha. [Attention Conservation Notice: Consists almost entirely of time-consuming links. May not be readable if you are in Florida, New Orleans, or the Yucatan. If you panic easily, it may not be readable, period.]
  • 00455: Al Gore 2005. [Attention Conservation Notice: who on Earth wants to read a speech by Al Gore?]
  • 00456: State of the World 2006. [Attention Conservation Notice: cites a little-known Los Angeles alternative newspaper and the overexposed NY Times columnist Thomas "Flat World" Friedman.]




  • 00457: Broken Rabble, Brutal Warlords. [Attention Conservation Notice: James Lovelock is in his mid-80s, so won't live to see any of this utter mayhem he's prophesying.]
  • 00458: Global Viridian Linkfest. [Attention Conservation Notice: A hemorrhage of time-consuming links that have piled up in the Viridian hopper. Could take all day. Maybe you're snowed in. Enjoy!]
  • 00459: Emerging Technology 2006. [Attention Conservation Notice: it's a Bruce Sterling speech at a California technology conference. Delivered at alpha-geek central, it may include indecipherable techie in-jokes. Well over 6,000 words. Includes illustrations.]
  • 00460: The Wolf is at the Door. [Attention Conservation Notice: you probably don't live in Austin. Your turn is coming, though. If your turn hasn't happened already.]
  • 00461: The Wolf does not enter the Door. [Attention Conservation Notice: This Note implies that all the other 460 Viridian Notes have been unnecessary alarmism.]
  • 00462: Spime Watch. [Attention Conservation Notice: This Viridian Note consists entirely of web-links to phenomena involving ubiquitous computation and the Internet-of-Things, and it could easily consume endless amounts of attention.]
  • 00463: People Hate Exxon. [Attention Conservation Notice: It isn't news that people hate Exxon-Mobil, but a wider variety of people are hating Exxon more bitterly for an interesting variety of reasons.]
  • 00464: Florida is Becoming Uninsurable. [Attention Conservation Notice: Same story, latest verse. More sure to come.]
  • 00465: Civil Discord.. [Attention Conservation Notice: Not a particularly cheery set of developments.]
  • 00466: Return of the Aral Sea.. [Attention Conservation Notice: Better news than anyone expected about a situation that was long a very byword for enviro hopelessness.]
  • 00467: Corporate Green.. [Attention Conservation Notice: What if the world becomes "green" and yet is even more ruthlessly liberal-capitalist than it is today?]
  • 00468: Those World-Killing Yankees. [Attention Conservation Notice: It's a contrite American discussing American climate politics for an audience of left-wing Britons.]
  • 00469: Those World-Killing Chinese. [Attention Conservation Notice: Understanding this Note requires some elementary math skills, in the sense that, for instance, one planet Earth isn't as big as four planet Earths.]
  • 00470: Clutching at Straw. [Attention Conservation Notice: It might take you a couple of beers' worth of ethanol to work your way through all of this.]
  • 00471: More Clutching at Straw. [Attention Conservation Notice: I'm frankly enjoying this mind-scrambling opportunity to properly cite the loony cultist organ "Washington Times" within a Viridian Note.]
  • 00472: Wall Street's Darling. [Attention Conservation Notice: BUSINESS WEEK supplies a handy scorecard for the movers and players in the Global War on Terror green-fuels industry. Believe it or not, the fact that this industrial transition is almost, actually happening in real life is the best Viridian news we've ever spread. Goes on and on and on and on. And on their website, there's even more.]
  • 00473: Treehugger 02006. [Attention Conservation Notice: Fun green things to look at, think about and possibly even purchase.]
  • 00474: Climate and Civilization. [Attention Conservation Notice: A new theory about climatic impacts on human history.]
  • 00475: Getting Real. [Attention Conservation Notice: A glum and comprehensive fit of handwringing as it dawns on everybody that matters that climate change is not just "an issue" but destined to become "the" issue. ]
  • 00476: Green Austin. [Attention Conservation Notice: I'm in Austin a few days, and can't help but look around a little. ]
  • 00477: WorldChanging: The Book. [Attention Conservation Notice: Pay attention. This is important.]
  • 00478: Mark Twain, Climate Visionary. [Attention Conservation Notice: Mark Twain's novel "The American Claimant" was published in 1892. It involves a daffy American inventor trying to sell climate change. Hey, it's an old book, but that was news to me.]
  • 00479: The Sulfur Cure. [Attention Conservation Notice: This proposition is straight outta of Mark Twain's novel "The American Claimant" from 1892, except, uh, it just came out in WIRED.]
  • 00480: The Algae Hummer. [Attention Conservation Notice: There are tropical ibises nesting in New York. Not fifty years from now. Now.]
  • 00481: The Counterpurge. [Attention Conservation Notice: It's a notion that may seem a little improbable at first glance, but it's much less improbable than tornadoes in London and a lost war for oil.]
  • 00482: Big Changes Ahead. [Attention Conservation Notice: Happy new years... these meditations by Washington-based pundit John Peterson seem to reflect the current mood of the times in the Beltway, which are about as dazed and miserablist-apocalyptophile as one can imagine. Looks like the world will be hit on the head with a series of hammers until morale improves. I'm having a lot of black-humored fun at this guy's expense here, but I think he's dealing with the season as best he can. His newsletter FUTUREDITION is consistently amazing.]
  • 00483: Green Plutocracy. [Attention Conservation Notice: Imagine yourself spending Christmas websurfing for eco-doom, and sitting through a long speech by Michael R. Bloomberg, the Republican media tycoon who bought himself the mayorship of New York.]
  • 00484: Climate Optimism. [Attention Conservation Notice: Thinking seriously about the sober prospects described here can inspire Lovecraftian cosmic fear.]
  • 00485: Metcalfe on Enertech. [Attention Conservation Notice:Bob Metcalfe, one of the gray eminences of the Internet and the inventor of Ethernet, explains to an audience of Massachusetts politicos why it will take thirty years to defeat the Greenhouse Effect and by what means he expects this to happen.]
  • 00486: Energy Policy for Europe. [Attention Conservation Notice:Who cares what a bunch of Eurocrats say? They don't even have a real Constitution!]
  • 00487: We Are Winning. [Attention Conservation Notice:The Viridian struggle has met with success. We are winning.]
  • 00488: Sublime Climate. [Attention Conservation Notice:Just 'cause we're winning, doesn't mean we're dead quite yet. Come on, a little cheery schadenfreude is in order.]
  • 00489: Contests and Prizes. [Attention Conservation Notice: you probably won't win these contests or these prizes. Might be pretty fun to watch, though.]
  • 00490: Peter Schwartz at Davos. [Attention Conservation Notice: You're basically at this guy's elbow as he goes to Davos to network with the Great and the Good. There's a great deal of discussion there about the climate crisis and what to do about carbon. Davos is the watering hole of the global plutocracy, so if you're interested in the tides and currents of planetary development, you're a lot better off reading this stuff than you are wasting your time on political blogs.]
  • 00491: Massive Green Buyout. [Attention Conservation Notice: Stuff like this is gonna start happening all the time. Might as well learn how it works and get used to it.]
  • 00492: Austin Green Capitalism. [Attention Conservation Notice: It's about a bunch of start-up companies asking rich people for money.]
  • 00493: British Military Describes Khaki Green. [Attention Conservation Notice:keenly depressing, yet something of a tribute to Viridian foresight.]
  • 00494: Climate Change and Nuclear War. [Attention Conservation Notice:some Russian worrying a lot about the steady approach of doomsday.]
  • 00495: Serbia and the Flames. [Attention Conservation Notice:guest-star Viridian pundit is wife of Bruce Sterling.]
  • Not a Viridian Note. [Attention Conservation Notice:an announcement probably pretty typical of the work I will be up to for the next seven months. It's about Italian cyberculture and design.]
  • 00496: Al Gore Wins Nobel. [Attention Conservation Notice: great news for greenies all spoilt by glum Viridian futurism.]
  • 00497: Al's Unified National Grid. [Attention Conservation Notice: It's a long speech by Al Gore annotated by the Viridian Pope-Emperor.]
  • The Last Viridian Note. [Attention Conservation Notice: This is the last one.]