A Bit About This Journal

Please think of this online journal as a practice tablet. A place for me to develop communication skills as I work on honing narrative.

I have a lot of different areas of interests and find it difficult to keep my journals organized. PossumHaw is an attempt to clear the clutter and serve as a catchall medium for my personal reflections; A place to bring together a disparate collection of thoughts and interests.

I welcome thoughts and comments.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Major Fires of the Last Decade


 A visual database of wildfire across the USA for the last 10 years or so developed by John Nelson using NASA satellite imagery provides dramatic animation demonstration.  After watching I found myself wondering; is the larger, more dramatic fires are drowning out our awareness of how prevalent fire is becoming?

The graphic is more poignant in the absence of editorial regarding cause or effect.

I find that we often get wrapped up in the political ramifications of climate change and we loose sight of the state of climate change (what-ever the cause).

In researching European Oak and Cork Oak, I was impressed by how pervasive and in depth the conversation on climate change is (and has been for some time now) in various countries around the Mediterranean

Are policy makers in the USA less vocal regarding the issues of Climate Change due to the heated nature of the issue?  If so, what are the implications on our preparations for a world where the weather is dramatically different.

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/3216-wildfire-map-united-states.html
Andrea Mustain, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer - Jul 20, 2012 11:39 AM ET

The creator of the graphic is Justin Nelson (IDV User Experience) his blog is here with more information on how built this great tool:
http://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/








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About Me

The Eastern Ouachitas
Perhaps it is an Arkansas thing, but I grew up listening to story tellers... everyone seemed to have a nack for telling tales, not faerie-tales or yarns, but stories based on biography, familial history and area lore. I find today that I seem to fall back on 'the story' to convey concepts and thoughts that I have on just about every subject -perhaps to a fault. But the further along this journey I go the more I see the narrative utilized in the broader world of marketing, advertising, and politics. Engaging in or even controlling the narrative seems to be the way we function as a community. I am reminded of something I read from Bruce Chatwan, The Songlines, perhaps, where he spoke of the Songline as a tool for conveying one's personal story along with the spiritual story of creation. The Story is a tool used by society to explain where we are and how we got here. It is used to help us understand who we are and why. It is also a weapon used by aggressors and the aggrieved to delineate the "Us from Them". This was a poingant concept which Chatwin touched upon (or perhaps someone he was writing about touched on...) which was reinforced for me in reading Joseph Campbell.