Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land

Toxic Berkeley pit

Presently known as one of the most toxic man-made lakes on earth, the Berkeley pit in Butte, Montana used to be one of the largest open pit copper mines. Several underground mines were combined to form the open pit in 1955 by Anaconda Copper (the company also owned the largest copper smelter in the world in the nearby town of Anaconda). Imagine that under the city of Butte around 78 km of vertical and 9000!! km of horizontal underground shafts are located. (See: http://www.mbmg.mtech.edu/env/env-berkeley.asp) These mines produced not only 9.6 million tons of copper, but also 2.1 million tons of lead, 22,000 tons of silver and 90 tons of gold between 1880 and 2006. Since Butte lies in the headwaters of the Clark Fork River, the groundwater level had to be lowered as the… underground mining went deeper.

Havasu Falls

The blue-green waterfalls of Havasu Canyon can be found in the Havasupai Tribe’s homeland within the Grand Canyon. The waterfall consists of an approximately 30 meters drop into a series of plunge pools.

Lake Namtso

This impressively blue water is found in Lake Namtso, high in the Tibetan Himalayas. The lake is found at an elevation of about 4700 meters and the waters cover an area of nearly 2000 square kilometers, about the size of the island of Maui. The lake is the 2nd largest lake in Tibet.

These #Tajik kids are learning to use an #astrolabe. This is an incredible sight! During the golden era of silk road trade astrolabes and the modern mathematics that led to their creation were born in this part of the world.

“We CAN afford to seize our own destiny.”

AL GORE once reminded people that the youth of this country are often the driving force for major change, and the status quo establishment who fear change, are often wrong. 

Pragmatism is a very poor substitute for real hope and change, and being a moderate in the face of injustice never addresses the fierce urgency of now.

Incremental, allegedly “pragmatic” change—the kind of “change” that too frequently tends to favor big oil frackers and big Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs—is nothing to get excited about.

On the other hand, true progressives like John F. Kennedy, America’s youngest elected president, proved the value of daring to dream big and talk boldly about doing the impossible.

No it’s never easy, and as JFK reminded us, that isn’t why we choose to do the impossible, but things like Economic Justice and Racial Justice are only impossible until enough of us seize our own destiny and make the impossible reality.