A hiking group and a lifeline This newsletter may be called “Mostly Water”, but it’s not all water all the time. This week’s essay is merely water-adjacent. It’s the latest in what has now become a series of essays celebrating community. It was a year or two after coming to the island that a neighbor persuaded me to join the local mens’ hiking group, the Sons of the Beach, or SOBs for short. There’s a story behind the name of course. There had been for a while a group called Ladies of the Beach, who would walk the beaches and … Continue reading SOBs

An exploration of water and community ***Updated on Sunday, July 23 to include the local triathlon and a couple of other things. In the second of what may yet become a series on community and recreation on and in the water, this week’s post is about kayaking. You can read part one, about working to build a community pool, right here. Here’s my first “kayak”, in quotes because in North America that would be a canoe. Here I’m paddling in Kimmeridge Cove, Dorset. To stiffen it, my dad made a wooden floor from the cabinet of an old console TV. … Continue reading From paddling my own canoe to kayaking into community

The first of what may be a series of posts about community and water. After recent posts on drinking water and groundwater, we’re going to focus on recreation in and on the water, and celebrate the communities around it. At a time when civil society and public infrastructure are under threat from the privatization of everything, where we’re pushed to be consumers rather than citizens, it’s important to look for lessons in areas where community is working. Last Saturday I spent a few hours with these amazing volunteers who are trying to get a community swimming pool built for the … Continue reading Putting the community in community pool

The first of July is the 38th anniversary of my arrival in the US. This newsletter is mostly water, but not all water all the time. Here’s something different for your fourth of July weekend. It still has a sea, an ocean, a river, and a lake in it. See if you can spot them all! The first of July is the anniversary of my arrival in the US, and this year it’s the 38th. Back in 1985, I flew in over the ocean from Amsterdam into the international arrival terminal at JFK. I was here on an L-1 visa1. … Continue reading Across the Sea

A follow up to last week’s post on denial and the lizard brain I last week’s post I wrote that: …politicians, corporations, and others have weaponized our lizard brains against us. They have done this by taking advantage of our fixation on personal freedom and property rights to portray solutions to societal problems as threats to liberty so that our lizard brain reacts. and that: The skill set that helps us recognize environmental problems can also help us recognize the denial and reactance in others. We can take steps to offer solution paths with small, achievable, non-threatening first steps that … Continue reading A roller coaster and a sign

Our fixation on freedom has been weaponized against us. Most of the work I’m doing, and most of what I post about here, is at the interface of environmental and public health issues and society and culture. Although the science is clear on climate change, sea level rise, and contamination in water, we have a hard time making progress on implementing solutions. Why is it that seemingly reasonable solutions run into a buzzsaw of objections? Here are a couple of examples from projects I’m working on. In my back yard My drinking water comes from a small community water system … Continue reading Denial and the lizard brain

Last week saw new lawsuits and a settlement. The stock market shrugged. The past week saw two new lawsuits naming manufacturers of “Forever Chemicals” (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS) from the State Attorney Generals’ offices of Pennsylvania and Washington, and a settlement in the South Carolina aqueous film-forming foam multi-district litigation (AFFF MDL), where the trial was due to start today. Stock prices in the companies affected rebounded sharply Friday June 2nd. A settlement, and a punt As reported in , Dupont and two related PFAS manufacturers settled Friday ahead of the South Carolina trial due to start today, … Continue reading Lawsuit week for PFAS

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