A little more than a decade ago, Marni Magda was reading Scientific American magazine in her living room when she came across an infographic titled “Aging Fleet under Review.” Published shortly after an earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the two-page spread showed a map of nuclear facilities across the United States, with color coding to indicate seismic risk. Looking to her own region, coastal Southern California, Magda spotted a nuclear plant icon superimposed over an alarming shade of red. It represented the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, about 20 miles south of her city, Laguna Beach, and near multiple geological faults. “I realized as a California resident, we were in a great deal of trouble,” she recalled recently.
For Magda, a retired elementary school teacher, the interpretive map has acquired a status akin to a sacred text; she kept it and had it laminated. She handed it to me as we sat at a table in her backyard, birds chirping riotously in a large orange tree […]
Great article, but it seems wishful thinking that we will “learn from life” anything significant for the long run. In my opinion, the Earth is probably a conscious being and the subjects of your article are similar to what we think of as microorganisms on the Earth’s physical body. Most species mentioned in your article seem to be beneficial, but there also exist organisms which are dangerous to the health of the Earth. For instance, the human species is collectively the most ignorant, deluded, dangerous, and destructive on earth; both to ourselves and to our habitat. We appear to be the Earth’s disease and I seriously doubt we will change our nature. For those capable of thinking on this scale, we might consider that the earth may have it’s own immune system which is beginning to become mobilized. “Global Warming” just might be the Earth’s “fever” designed to rid itself of the threat!