United Paved Precincts

• The threat of physical violence posed by police and associated agencies that can instill fear without even making direct contact with civilians

unloading sailed rum

Voyage of the Tres Hombres, June 3-6 to Amsterdam

A sailboat can be part of nature, a living state that no motorboat can ever accomplish. This makes intellectual sense, but you feel it on the sea especially in a wooden boat under sail. The relationship between a human being and the sea is intimate and deep. It is also the basis of the current revival of sail transport.

On a rainy day in Berlin there's wonderful reason to be indoors on the Internet or writing a song. I didn't manage any time in nature due to the weather, so I took my meditation break outdoors on a crowded but peaceful, umbrella-crammed street. Not surprisingly, a thought came to me.

Editor's note: Andrew Willner is a key environmental activist for the New York City region, with a long track record in conservation and political alliances. Baykeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance are prestigious groups he has helped lead that have been templates for other regions' progress.

The too-successful human species catches up with nature-based realism upon questioning the side-effects of destructive technologies. We are not yet all on the same page, but human consciousness may turn on a dime, like global climate when it reaches a tipping point. The latter may have to happen to enable the former.

What a place, what a time: Berlin's transition from a hard winter to a welcome summer.  No time for springtime; we've all arrived at the global warming cook off. Who wants to contemplate such a thing? Yet, posing that question has a purpose here, to tell of progress on Culture Change's sail transport transition. The backdrop of Berlin is significant as a unique city of keen interest to those involved in social change and who are chafing in more stressful urban scenes.

Imagine boarding a flat-bottomed sailing barge for a 300-mile voyage from the shores of Lake Champlain to New York harbor. The hold is laden with twelve tons of locally produced wheat, flour, dry beans, maple syrup, apples, cabbages, and hard cider. This is not a historic re-enactment. This is the future!

At some point, many a discerning citizen comes to say "This nation is f---ed up!"  The danger of this mindset is that it shuts down further analysis and any constructive action.  But it also counts as as open-eyed, justified alarm.

The artificial environment hasn't yet been questioned by environmentalists. They accept it pretty much as is -- they and it are wedded to the notions of progress, science, and "Better living through chemistry" (Dupont's old slogan appropriated by acid-head hippies). When a grassroots wing of the environmental movement went after road building and pavement (tarmac) two decades ago, it was quite fringy for mainstream enviros. Then when we went after plastics a decade ago, this too was considered "out there," and kept low on the list of concerns for the average campaigner.