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Contents:
FOUNDER’S LETTER by John de Graaf
REFLECTIONS & SPOTLIGHTS: Three Billion Birds Lost, by Vicki Graham
NEW BLOG POST: Poems by Gus Speth
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FOUNDER'S LETTER
John de Graaf
Happy holiday season, friends!
Well, the rains have returned here to western Washington after an unusually dry fall, but fortunately, not a summer when Seattle’s skies were filled with smoke. I’ll try to make this short so you have lots of time for Vicki’s much more informative report and Kara’s always-creative musings. Continually, new evidence comes out about the ability of beauty, and especially the beauty of nature to heal us (see readings at the end of my letter)—who knows, it may even be able to heal some of our country’s painful polarization, but I’m not sure about that.
The divide between those who want to spare the environment and our natural beauty from increased resource exploitation and the ravages of climate change, and those who would cast caution to the wind in the name of economic growth and “prosperity” seems to grow wider by the day. The appalling neglect of climate and the environment strike me as even more worrisome to our country’s security than the efforts to manipulate Ukraine into interfering in our elections (this is not meant in any way to make light of the latter, but only to stress the existential seriousness of the former).
TERRY AND GRETA—FIGHTERS FOR OUR BEAUTIFUL EARTH
This week at the Seattle Public Library I listened to the incomparable Terry Tempest Williams read from her powerful and somber book, EROSION, and speak about how oil and gas interests and “presidential privilege” forced the elimination of more than half of Bear’s Ears National Monument, a beautiful site sacred to many native peoples, which holds the bones of millennia of their ancestors and hundreds of ancient dwellings.
On a more positive note, I thrilled to TIME magazine’s choice of the valiant Greta Thunberg as person of the year for her efforts to wake up the world to global heating. This 16-year old is an inspiration to anyone who is paying attention.
COHOUSING FILM
In November, I was delighted to learn that my newest film THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS (about cohousing, a beautiful and sustainable way to live) will have its world premiere January 18th at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA, and be broadcast four times in March on KVIE-TV, the Sacramento PBS affiliate. You can watch a trailer at the film’s website. After watching the film, Vallejo, CA mayor Bob Sampayan has decided to incorporate cohousing into his city’s comprehensive housing plan. In Vallejo, in November, photographer Steve Dunsky and I videotaped the work of two dozen volunteers to prepare the city’s elegant old Capitol Steps for the installation of beautiful new mosaics. The leader of the project told me that its slogan is FROM BLIGHT TO BEAUTY, ONE STEP AT A TIME! I love it!
WRITE A BLOG FOR US!
We are in great need of blog posts—please send us your writing as it relates to beauty—we’d love to publish it on our website www.andbeautyforall.org.
A NEW DEAL FOR BEAUTY?
On a political note, while AND BEAUTY FOR ALL does not support political candidates I was intrigued by Jerome Segal’s launch of the “Bread and Roses Party” this past week. He wrote:
The Bread and Roses Party takes its name from the famous 1912 strike in which female textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, unfurled a new banner, “We Want Bread, and Roses too!” Over a century ago, striking workers were saying “We may be poor and in desperate need of bread, but we are also complex human beings, with a need for beauty, art, creativity and meaning. We strike not just for money, but for the time to do and enjoy the fine things of life.” Yet here we are, over a century later, caught in an unbalanced politics that focuses on the important problems of health insurance and student debt and fair taxes, but hardly addresses what makes life worth living.
Segal, a philosopher and former Research Scholar at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, is the author of Graceful Simplicity: The Philosophy and Politics of the Alternative American Dream. In his book, he argues that we have a basic human need for beauty, and that there is little gracefulness to be found in lives filled with pressure, rush and anxiety. He proposes policies to achieve a secure simple living option for all, with less time on the job.
Segal has proposed a “Beauty New Deal” that he hopes will be picked up by 2020 presidential candidates. From his announcement: Building on the arts, theater, photography, writer’s and music projects of the original New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, the “Beauty New Deal” agenda seeks to promote beauty and creative expression throughout all aspects of life. The next great turn for America is from quantitative growth to qualitative growth. Aesthetic deepening can be the source of millions of new work roles, and of economic vitalization especially in languishing small towns and cities and low-income neighborhoods, coast to coast.
Segal outlined the Beauty New Deal as follows:
Policy goals and tools
1. Supporting artists, writers, poets and performers.
• Patron of the Arts Program: Providing each year, 20,000 three-year grants of $30,000/year for creative endeavors in the arts and humanities, at an annual cost of $1.8 billion. Widely distributed geographically.
• Re-establish the New Deal’s arts programs, including the Federal Writers’ Project, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Art Project, and the Federal Music Project.
2. Schooling Our Aesthetic Gene
• Establishing as a required curriculum element in every year of K-12 schooling, the development of our abilities to add to the beauty of our natural, social and cultural landscape, each youth in multiple domains, (from poetry to cooking, from sculpture to gardening, from choreography to carpentry).
• Investing in school infra-structure to enable beauty-added education, including studios, stages, craft rooms, gardens, photography centers, cooking facilities, musical instruments.
• Training and hiring teachers able to lead this transformation.
3. Protecting natural beauty
• Preserving and promoting our natural beauty by expanding national parks and strengthening protections from commercial encroachment.
• Re-establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with projects in forestry, fire prevention, hiking trails, park facilities, pollution control and wildlife management.
4. Creating Urban Beauty
• Dedicating a percentage of property taxes to the beautification of public spaces (lakes, parks, streets, cultural centers, open air markets).
• Including beautiful design as a decision criteria in awarding contracts for major infrastructure projects.
• Planting 300 million flowering trees throughout American towns and cities; requiring shade trees in all outdoor parking lots.
• Building public squares and urban mini-gardens.
• Stimulating small-shop urban complexity with aid to micro-businesses.
• Enhancing restaurant quality through support for local culinary institutes, restaurant management and start-up training and finance, and creating a cooking-extension service that would operate nationwide.
5. Equal Access to Beauty
• Eliminating entry fees to America’s national parks.
• Establish “Birthright Trips,” whereby every young American would be entitled to a two-week guided trip to one or more of our national parks.
• Providing free sleep-away summer camp opportunities to children from poor families.
• Providing 150% tax deductibility for contributions to museums that eliminate entrance fees.
• Focusing on the most blighted neighborhoods in urban America as future Renaissance zones which will receive grants and tax incentives for beauty-led economic development.
• Establishing small pocket-libraries with after-school creativity programs and instruction, in every low-income neighborhood in America.
6. Renaissance Between the Coasts
• Fostering small libraries in every town and neighborhood and expanding the role of librarians as directors of cultural services.
• Promoting repertory theatres and other performing arts companies in small towns and cities.
• Enhanced funding for the arts, especially away from the established cultural centers.
• Using colleges to culturally enrich the communities around them.
Dr. Segal says his idea was influenced by AND BEAUTY FOR ALL. I find it intriguing and perfectly in harmony with the Green New Deal. Segal can be reached at 301-675-3260.
NEW READING
How access to nature, greenery and especially water can improve mental health
Great story by friend Ashley Gross of KNKX on a great idea which WA States is adopting from Europe where it is now quite common. We have 40 of these schools in WA, the first state to license them!
How one Bolivian town achieved maximum happiness with minimum impact on the earth
Happy holidays and Happy New Year!
John
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REFLECTIONS & SPOTLIGHTS: Three Billion Birds Lost
Vicki Graham
I am not an avid birdwatcher. I don’t keep a life list. But I am fascinated by birds. Every year I wait for the Swainson’s thrush to fill the forest with hauntingly beautiful flute notes. I go down to the river to watch the spotted sandpiper’s downy chicks follow the parent bird. I study the facial markings of the American kestrel and gaze at the brilliant jewel of a hummingbird’s throat as it turns in the sunlight, foraging among the sage flowers.
Their colors—red, blue, orange, yellow, green, and purple—and patterns--spots, stripes, wing bars, crowns, crests, masks, eye rings--astonish me. Their feats of migration—some birds travelling thousands of miles in a single year—capture my imagination.
Birds are synonymous with beauty to me.
And so it was a shock to receive in the mail the latest issue of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s magazine, Living Bird. The cover is BLACK. Solid black. Instead of the usual stunning photograph of a bird, a single feather drifts down to the right corner, and on the left, in white, the words “3 Billion Birds Lost.”
The study, published in the journal Science in September, 2019, reports a 30% loss of wild birds since 1970 in North America. That’s almost 3 billion birds in fifty years. The sheer number is difficult to imagine. But if we scroll back to the mid 19th century, we find the passenger pigeon in flocks into the millions, passing overhead, blotting out the sky for hours at a time: a bird storm sweeping up and down and across North America.
There were billions of pigeons in 1850 when organized slaughter began. In 1860, people began to notice that the numbers were decreasing, but even so, in 1871, in Wisconsin, there were an estimated 136 million breeding birds. But by the end of the 1890’s, wild flocks numbered in the dozens, and the last passenger pigeon died in captivity in 1914. And now all we have left is the name—Ectopistes migratorius, (wandering migrant—a species in continuous motion, season to season, foraging) and museum specimens stored away in drawers, tags tied to their feet.
It took fifty years to wipe out a single species once numbered in the billions.
The loss of the passenger pigeon was a species loss. A single species gone in a wink, never to return. This new study is sending us a different warning: not a single species, but a general decline in populations of birds many of us know: blue jays, orioles, juncos, warblers, sparrows.
Birds we see in parks, in our backyards, at our feeders. And this loss is a warning, “a signal that our human-altered landscapes are losing their ability to support birdlife, and that is an indicator of a coming collapse of the overall environment” (Ken Rosenberg, lead author of “Decline of the North American Avifauna”).
The study was reported widely in various journals and newspapers. Living Bird offers one of the most visually compelling articles.
The article in Smithsonian is also excellent.
What can we do? Education, of course, is a first step. And then, if possible, action. When people say, “What can one person do?” Kathleen Dean Moore responds, “Stop being one person” (Great Tide Rising). The National Audubon Society (audubon.org) is a good place to start. But even better is finding a local chapter, either at the state or regional level, where you can learn about and watch birds with members of your own community. For example:
State:
Massachusetts: “Mass Audubon protects more than 38,000 acres of land throughout Massachusetts, saving birds and other wildlife, and making nature accessible to all. As Massachusetts’ largest nature conservation nonprofit, we welcome more than a half million visitors a year to our wildlife sanctuaries and 20 nature centers. From inspiring hilltop views to breathtaking coastal landscapes, serene woods, and working farms, we believe in protecting our state’s natural treasures for wildlife and for all people—a vision shared in 1896 by our founders, two extraordinary Boston women. Today, Mass Audubon is a nationally recognized environmental education leader, offering thousands of camp, school, and adult programs that get over 225,000 kids and adults outdoors every year. With more than 135,000 members and supporters, we advocate on Beacon Hill and beyond, and conduct conservation research to preserve the natural heritage of our beautiful state for today’s and future generations. We welcome you to explore a nearby sanctuary, find inspiration, and get involved.”
California: “Audubon California has a network of 49 local chapters throughout the State of California where Audubon members and their families can enjoy and protect local birds and nature. Birds may be the only form of wildlife that everyone encounters every day, and they provide a unique window into California's great outdoors. By bringing people together to appreciate, enjoy, and protect birds and nature, Audubon California and our supporters are building a better future for our state. We accomplish this through conservation, advocacy, community involvement, and by tapping into an active network that include more than 50,000 members and 48 affiliated chapters in communities throughout California.”
Local--counties, cities, and communities:
Portland Oregon: “Portland Audubon’s passionate and growing community has loved and advocated for Oregon’s wildlife and wild places for more than 100 years. With the help of our vast network of advocates, nature enthusiasts, and partners, we inspire and connect people to nature through a variety of programs that are grounded in science and learning. Our mission: To inspire all people to love and protect birds, wildlife, and the natural environment upon which life depends.”
Kalmiopsis Audubon Society: (KAS), Curry County, Oregon, is a vibrant and active local chapter with nearly 400 members, advocating for conservation of bird, fish, and wildlife habitat, monitoring land use decisions and public lands policies, and offering testimony and recommendations to decision-makers. KAS produces the award-winning newsletter, Storm Petrel, and publishes the “Curry County Bird Checklist,” a useful resource for birdwatchers. KAS also sponsors a summer nature camp for children and monthly birdwatching outings, offers programs about birds and wildlife, and sponsors the annual Marbled Murrelet campout and survey.
New York City: “New York City Audubon champions nature in the City’s five boroughs through a combination of engaging and entertaining programs and innovative conservation campaigns. NYC Audubon is an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the National Audubon Society. Through its efforts, NYC Audubon protects many species of birds living in the 30,000 acres of wetlands, forests, and grasslands of New York City. New York City Audubon is a grassroots community that works for the protection of wild birds and habitat in the five boroughs, improving the quality of life for all New Yorkers.”
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Photo courtesy of Gus Speth
Gus Speth, a prominent proponent of the environment, has shared two poems from his new book "What We Have Instead: Poems by Gus Speth" to our blog this month. Speth recently served as dean of Yale's school of environment and forestry and as professor of law at Vermont Law School. At the United Nations, he headed the UN's Development Program. Prior to that, he was co-founder of both the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), where he led on many environmental issues over a period of 17 years. During the Carter years, he served as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In jail in Washington DC with Bill McKibben and others on a climate protest, Speth said the following of his 3-day stay, "I've held a lot of important positions in this town, but none seems as important as this one.”
The poems Speth shares in his blog post offer a glimpse into his own personal concerns for environmental protection. Writing from the perspective of a mountain in “Thinking like a Mountain,” he invites us to imagine what it would be like to be a mountain, helping us to better understand and appreciate not just its beauty but its complex role in the web of life.
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