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the biotic mandala, what it is

By Kurt Heidinger on May 17, 2013 in beauty, biome, citizenship, consumerism, Director's Notes, economy, endosymbiosis, energy sources, evolution, imagination, sustainability, time

Time to imagine what a biocitizen is again, if only b/c we learned a few days ago that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 55 years of measurement—and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history. The last time the [...]

A Visit to Amherst’s Sustainability Festival

By Kurt Heidinger on Apr 30, 2013 in citizenship, consumerism, Director's Notes, ecology, economy, endosymbiosis, energy sources, sustainability, technological determinism

Post written, and pics taken, by Evan Hutton, Biocitizen intern and UMass Class of 2013, Legal Studies The Sustainability Fest is one that has all of the elements you want a culture to embrace in order for their community to become green. Over the weekend, Amherst Commons was lined with stands around the border of [...]

the biotic mandala

By Kurt Heidinger on Apr 19, 2013 in beauty, Director's Notes, ecocide, ecology, endosymbiosis, evolution, sustainability, technological determinism

Patterns—in our cells, in the sky and oceans, in the seasons and the rising and setting of the sun. They overlap & interweave and become mandalas. We live in them, or what remains of them. When the question is asked, “Why would a human being set bombs off in crowds of innocent bystanders?,” let’s [...]

new bees, (not the) same as the old bees

By Kurt Heidinger on Apr 06, 2013 in beauty, bees, biome, citizenship, consumerism, Director's Notes, ecology, ecology, economy, endosymbiosis, evolution, GMO, political, sustainability, technological determinism, time

There are times when the environmental news is so bad I wonder if there’s any way to stop the harm that is being done to our shared life—and I say shared life because that’s what our earth is: our body. Last Friday was one of those times. Last Friday I learned that Monsanto-salesman/President Obama signed [...]

Get them out of the machine and into the green

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 28, 2013 in deep biotic immersion, Director's Notes

Our Place Summercamp gets kids of the machine and into the green—

Biocitizen gives a QAPP

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 27, 2013 in citizenship, Director's Notes, ecology, imagination, sustainability, time

One of Biocitizen’s missions is to publish materials in the field of environmental philosophy, and to this end we offer our proposed QAPP—Quality Assurance Protection Plan—written by Jason Johnson, anadromous fish specialist. It explains the wonky aspects of our long-term stream and river monitoring via rapid biotic assessment initiative . I’d like to express gratitude [...]

Spring Hunting

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 26, 2013 in beauty, biome, deep biotic immersion, Director's Notes, ecology, endosymbiosis, imagination, sustainability

Cross-post from Hilltown Families: The Ripple: Hunting for Springs in Western MA Spring Hunting Spring has a leap of the leprechaun in it; who can deny that?—but spring’s called spring not because of its leapiness. Spring’s called spring because of the upwelling waters that appear as the frozen earth thaws. Right now is the best time [...]

Northampton DPW Environmental Engineer David Veleta telling Our Place campers about the how's and the why's of the landfill

Letter of thanks sent to N’Hamp DPW

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 25, 2013 in biome, citizenship, Director's Notes, imagination, sustainability

Northampton Department of Public Works Edward Huntley, Director 125 Locust St. Northampton, MA 01060 3.23.13 Dear Director Huntley, I am writing to express sincere gratitude to you and your department, and especially to Nicole Sanford and David Veleta, for so generously sharing your time and your expertise with students from the Biocitizen School. The fact [...]

Transgenic DNA from GMOs in Chinese Rivers—why is it suddenly there?

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 22, 2013 in biome, citizenship, consumerism, Director's Notes, ecocide, ecology, economy, endosymbiosis, energy sources, evolution, GMO, imagination, religion, sustainability, technological determinism, time

(NOTE: this revised version correctly attributes Sichuan University researchers, and not Dr. Ignacio Chapela, for the discovery discussed below.) UC Berkeley microbiologist Dr Ignacio Chapela has commented on a discovery, by a research team from Sichuan University, of “the escape and establishment of transgenic DNA from GMOs” in rivers in China. That’s not good news. The [...]

Looking for Jonathan Edwards @ Forbes Library

By Kurt Heidinger on Mar 21, 2013 in biome, Director's Notes, imagination, religion, sustainability, time

Confession: this is written by one who’d rather take a train, than drive, to NYC and Boston. I dream of train tracks instead of highways, & like trolleys and bikes more than buses or cabs. See those trolley tracks on Main St? The map, held by Forbes library, is a century old. How time flies… [...]

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