El Phoenix Sun

Sometimes words alone are not the best tools for getting a point across, even for a writer. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blow-out, with 11 missing and presumed dead and oil still gushing from the sea floor unchecked, I decided to put my grief and anger into an image. This is the result, starting, of course, with Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Individuals or organizations are free to use the image however they wish — there’s no copyright. I originally thought of adding “Ban Offshore Drilling” at the bottom, and then decided it was best to leave it blank and let others use that space if they want to.

[The full size image is 745 x 986 pixels]

As a special Fourth of July treat, here’s a sampler of some intriguing Web-based graphics related to solar power. Think of it as candy for the eye, brain and spirit.

Led by Amory Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has been promoting smarter energy policies and practices for decades. The graphic above comes from RMI’s Flash-video that uses a scrolling timeline marked with key historic events and “pipelines” that change size over time so that viewers can get a sense of how much oil the United States has imported, from where, over three and a half decades. Beautiful and revealing.

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In 2003, Writer/activist Bill McKibben wrote a wonderful piece about how instant feedback effects human behavior. In “My Mileage is Better than Your Mileage,” McKibben discussed his obsession with the real-time MPG readout on the dashboard of his Toyota Prius. Was it driven by his passion to fight global warming? he asked, rhetorically.

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