Color Plates

Color Plate A.

Joana Ricou and John Pollock, Spiral of Life, digital art, 2008. The authors' work process led to the emergence of a spiral shape at the heart of a radial diagram. Microscopic single-cellular life is graphically depicted at the same size as multicellular forms to reinforce the equality of all life. The rings of color indicate the ages of the Earth: blue indicates Precambrian, green is the Paleozoic, purple is the Mesozoic and orange is the Cenozoic era.

(© Joana Ricou and John Pollock)

Color Plate B.

Mehrdad Garousi, Blue Sun, digital fractal art, 2007.

(© Mehrdad Garousi)

Color Plate C.

No. 1. Anthony Martin's Five Stanzas (1970), re-projected and video captured in 2003. (See article by Robert J. Gluck.)

(© Anthony Martin)

No. 2. Light boxes at the Electric Circus. (See article by Robert J. Gluck.)

(© Richard Friedman)

Tibet is the High Ground: Part IV, 2010. An Ecologically Based Proposal for the Tibetan Plateau (or Qingzang Plateau). Helen Mayer Harrison/Newton Harrison, The Harrison Studio

The research of Chinese glaciologists
And glaciologist from India
Appears to be right
80% of glaciers in Tibet
And surrounding areas
Can disappear in the next 35 years

Research further indicates
These glaciers will shrink so much
That their melting borders will dry up
Profoundly affecting
The Salween, MeKong, Huang-Ho
Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Ganges
And Indus River systems
That traverse inner Mongolia,
China, Tibet, Autonomous-Zone, India,
Burma, Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam,
Bangladesh, Kashmir and Pakistan

A Force Majeure has come into being
In the form of global warming
That will work to the disadvantage
Of 1/6th of the earth's population
Or about 1.2 billion people
Who live in the 7 drain Basins
That comprise
2,404,820 square miles

It is not clear that
The countries of China,
Burma, Laos, Cambodia,
South Vietnam, India,
Bangladesh, Kashmir
And Pakistan can put aside
Differences of culture
Race and religion
Habits of conflict

And governance
Differences in
Border disputes
And legal systems
In order
To create a
Counterforce at
Virtually continental scale

Thus, we make
An unlikely proposal
that culture can offer
a mediating role
in this highly stressed
probable future
by generating
first the research
Which will enable bioregional

And paleo ecological research
To locate forest
And Savannah ecosystems
Which existed in millennia past
When temperatures were
Similar to those
Which are in the process
Of happening in the now
And thereafter
to search to locate local similar
ecosystems that
Exist in our now
And to begin designing and in part
Creating through Assisting the
Migration of a palette of species
Able to replace or restate
Those now coming under
Extreme stress

Thereby
Generating new forest
And grassland
which will in good part replace
The slow water releasing
Properties of glaciers
and snowmelt
by creating
a 2 million square kilometer sponge
To normalize rivers
and secure the lands
from flood and drought

Thus an adaptation
comes into being
At sufficient scale
To sequester 6 gigatons of carbon
Every decade