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>>> Coming up next on "Arizona
Horizon" -- we'll hear about
education nation, traveling
summit that looks at how to
improve education in America.
We'll talk to a former U. of A.
professor who left academia to
live in the wilds of New Mexico.
And we'll meet Denver based
landscape artist Lelija Roy.
Those stories Mexico on "Arizona
Horizon."
>>> "Arizona Horizon" made
possible by contributions from
friends of 8, members of your
PBS station.
Thank you.
>>> Good evening.
Welcome to "Arizona Horizon."
I'm Ted Simons.
NBC, education nation, is a
traveling event that brings
together community leaders to
look at education issues.
It stops in Phoenix this week.
Paul Luna joins us now,
president and CEO of the Helios
foundation, education foundation
I should say, which helped bring
education nation to town.
>> Great to be here.
>> give me a better definition
of education nation.
>> We're talking about shining a
spotlight in Arizona on the
issues of education through the
lens of a national partner in
NBC news, who has been doing
this on a national basis but is
now active in bringing this
discussion and focus on issues
of education to a community and
to a state.
The key I think is starting to
focus also on the really
positive things happening in
education.
Arizona has many activities to
celebrate as well.
>> that that what you mean by a
solutions focused discussion?
>> It's about bringing the
voices of community leaders,
students, teachers to the
forefront to talk about how can
we improve education in the
system in our state?
How do we make sure we're
focusing our students to be
college and career educated and
ready in our current economy.
We have some collaborative
partnerships but there are
challenges as well.
We want to make sure we're
addressing those issues.
>> Recent stops in Detroit, New
Orleans, now if Phoenix.
How did Phoenix go ahead NBC
education nation to stop here?
>> Helios works in Arizona an
Florida with a goal to help
residents in both states be more
successful in college and
career.
We had a chance to participate
with education nation when it
was in Miami last year.
We began conversations and were
able to become the lead sponsor
to bring education nation to
Phoenix to get this discussion
going in Arizona.
>> Let's talk about what the
discussion will emphasize.
What are the most pressing
challenges and the most pressing
opportunities if you will?
>> I think what we would say is
what's most important to
understand is the need to ensure
that our students are college
and career ready when they
graduate from high school.
We're losing to many students as
they come through the education
system.
When we think or they think that
they have graduated from high
school and are capable to move
on to postsecondary education
success they are not reaching
those education goals.
This is the attainment level of
success the students need.
The certificates, licensing, two
and four year degrees.
Those are what students need to
be successful in career and in
life.
>> is there a shift, though?
I remember when I went to
college I still -- this feeling
that I went to college for a
well rounded education and to
learn how to be an adult in many
ways but also to be exposed to
many things and take my life in
the direction and to be like a
lifelong -- these sorts of
things seems like it's very much
focused on career these days.
>> I think education is still
that lifelong learning.
It begins in the earliest
stages, with early care and
education.
We describe the education
continuum from birth through
career and beyond.
I think that's important to
understand.
But it's also about making sure
we're preparing students for the
type of work force and careers
and skill sets they are going to
need to be successful in those
careers.
So it's also about learning but
also about how do they do in a
team environment?
How collaborative are they?
How are they thinking and
problem solving, about making
sure we're teaching the students
the type of skills they need to
be successful.
There's an academic focus to
that as well.
The importance of stem education
plays into this, making sure
they understand the concepts for
the types of jobs we want in our
state.
>> where does Arizona stand on
academic excellence?
>> There's a number of ways to
position that.
We like to say we want to create
a world class education system
in Arizona.
To do that we have some
improvements to make.
Everyone needs to play a part.
That's why it's so important to
get the student voice and
teacher voice into this
dialogue.
It's not about necessarily
measuring our system and our
students compared to other
states.
This is a global economy.
Our students will be competing
with students from around the
world.
The key is how do we create that
type of education system that's
going to prepare them for that
21st century environment.
>> you mentioned students and
teachers.
How do you get parents involved?
How best to engage Arizonans in
general on education?
>> That's exactly the point of
education nation, to engage all
Arizonans around the important
topics of education.
Parents are clearly an important
voice and have an important role
in supporting their students
through this education
continuum.
Part of it is educating
Arizonans to under what a world
class education system looks
like.
What's important?
Why is it important for students
to have high expectations, to
want to pursue high academic
achievement and to find the
right type of career path.
Not every career path is the
same for every student.
We need to make sure we have
those multiple pathways as well.
>> in terms of leadership and
government agencies what are we
seeing in Arizona?
>> From our viewpoint and in
terms of especially Helios
perspective we believe to truly
improve our education?
It only happens through
collaboration.
We need the business community,
governmental entities,
Department of Education and
others, philanthropic
communities focused on what we
need to do to improve education
in our state.
That's the only way we'll create
the type of systemic change we
need.
>> Helios foundation.
Give us a definition.
>> We're an education foundation
that serves Arizona and Florida
with the primary goal to help
students be successful in
postsecondary education.
>> good to have you here.
>> thank you very much.
>>> In 2009 guy McPherson left
his tenured full professorship
at the University of Arizona to
live off the grid in a straw
bail house in New Mexico.
McPherson's life has been made
into a film entitled somewhere
in New Mexico before the end of
time, which debuts this weekend
in Tucson.
Joining us now is guy
McPherson.
We talked to you back in 2008
when you still were a professor
at U of A.
Why did you leave?
>> I went to somewhere in New
Mexico, ergo the name of the the
film.
I left the easy life of a
tenured professor after 20 years
to the day at the University of
Arizona to go back to the land.
I left as an act of conscience
because the industrial economy
is destroying every aspect of
the living planet.
I didn't want to be part of that
any more so I walked away.
>> we talked about that in 2008.
We keep hearing you're living
off the grid.
What does that mean?
>> We have solar panels that
provide our limited electricity.
We also have two goats.
I suspect I'm the only person in
the room who milked goats this
morning.
>> probably.
>> We have several chickens and
ducks and a goose that lays
eggs.
We grow a vast majority of the
food we eat as well as using
solar panels to get water off
the ground.
>> the house is heated and
cooled with solar energy?
>> It's passive solar heated.
It provides almost all the heat
we need by aligning the south
facing windows and getting the
eves right.
It's a straw bale house, very
well insulated.
The thermal mass is a concrete
floor.
It has a woodstove in it.
We burn a little bit of wood on
the coldest winter nights.
No artificial heating.
We just open the doors and
windows.
>> there you are in the wilds of
New Mexico?
>> Not far from Silver city,
about 4600 feet elevation.
>> You did this as an act of
conscience.
We have talked back in 2008
about your idea that you said at
the time by 2015 a depression
will seem like the good old
days.
I don't know if that's going to
happen but you still see a
collapse, don't you?
>> I see two collapses going on
simultaneously.
I see collapse of the industrial
economy and witness events in
the European union.
For example, things are falling
apart.
Things are falling apart
everywhere because oil is very
expensive.
It's hard to maintain a well
oiled industrial economic
machine at 100 oil.
I see a collapse of the
environment as well.
We're driving some 200 species a
day to extinction.
Environmental decline is
proceeding apace.
We're destroying the air we need
to breathe and water to drink
and climate change every single
day so according to the latest
projections it seems we're
heading for human extension as
early as 2030.
>> You mentioned 2015 for a
first collapse seemed like it
was coming up the pike.
It's getting closer, but I think
critics would say, this doesn't
seem realistic that you're
obsessed with collapse and human
ingenuity always seems to find a
way.
>> human ingenuity so far has
managed to enable us to increase
the rate of extinctions every
single year, to increase the
rate of erosion into the world's
oceans every year.
To increase the level of carbon
buy objection -- dioxide in the
atmosphere.
We're going to blow through 400
parts per million in carbon
dioxide.
Last time that happened was
before human beings walked the
planet in any form.
It's a big deal. Human
ingenuity may get us through and
already has gotten us farther
than I thought we would in terms
of economic collapse, but
everything we're doing in terms
of ingenuity is making the
environmental situation worse.
We're conquering nature.
>> Right.
>> That has consequences.
>> But how do you avoid
conquering nature if you are a
human being and need -- I
imagine there's a duck out there
thinking you're conquering him
right now.
>> exactly.
We did live in a reasonably
sustainable manner for the first
two, two and a half million
years of the human experience.
It was only with arrival of the
first civilization a few
thousand years ago we went into
human population overshoot, that
we began to contaminated you're
as if it was ours to tame.
In fact I had a visit with a
primitivist this morning who
lives not far from me who has
been living as indigenous people
do for the last 34 years of his
life.
I suspect he would not view
favorably me putting those goats
and ducks and chickens in every
night.
He lives literally on the land.
He's a hunter gatherer.
>> Why, though, back to the idea
of adapting, why can't societies
adapt?
Why can't individuals adapt?
Obviously you have adapted in
your own way.
But is there a way to adapt
where you can still have some
progress?
I think a lot of people think of
primitivist, they think of
collapse, doomsday type folks.
Doesn't sound like a heck of a
lot of fun, good way to live for
them.
>> Right.
I absolutely agree life is
easier when you live in a big
city.
Extract all your materials from
elsewhere.
Think about what happens in
Tucson, Phoenix, any major
metropolitan area.
You extract your water sometimes
as far away as 300 miles across
the desert uphill.
You import your food in.
What do you return?
Garbage and pollution.
With fewer than 5% of the
world's population in the United
States produces a quarter of the
world's pollution, quarter of
the carbon dioxide emissions, a
quarter of the inmate population
and so on.
There are consequences for the
way we live.
We keep ratcheting up the stakes
and losing those species we need
to survive, dirtying the water,
fouling the air.
We need that stuff.
We do.
We don't need smart phones but
we're willing to trade smart
phones for a couple hundred
species a day.
It's a bad trade.
>> Can we as a society recycle
more or to the point where a
sustainable, some form -- is
sustainability even possible as
you see things?
>> At this point, far into human
population overshoot.
A problem we ratchet up to the
tune of about 217,000 people a
day, birth minus death.
At this point we are so far into
human population overshoot, I
strongly suspect the only way
out of that is to have happen to
us what happens to every other
animal that goes into human
population overshoot.
A decline or crash.
Ingenuity got us here.
Is what allowed us to keep
kicking the can down the road in
the name of progress.
But we can't have infinite
growth on a finite planet.
>> in 2030 what do you see
happening?
>> Well, I'm going to give you a
couple quotations here.
On a planet 4 degrees hotter
than baseline, about one degree
ago, baseline is 1850, all we
can prepare for is human
extinction.
That's from an article in the
guardian from 2008.
Five years ago.
That provided a synthesis of
climate change literature to
that point.
Five years ago we knew 4 degrees
centigrade hotter was human
extinction.
According to an informed
assessment of B.P.'s energy
outlook for 2030 we'll hit that
four degrees centigrade Mark by
So it seems that the last people
on the planet will meet their
end in about 2030, maybe a
little later.
Those people won't be living
here, by the way, in the
northern hemisphere.
Human habitat will be gone from
the northern hemisphere 10 or 15
degrees earlier than in the
southern hemisphere because
there's so much land relative to
amount of water.
>> you're talking 17 years.
>> yes, I know.
>> okay.
>> I have limited math skills
but I worked that one out.
>> me too.
I'm thinking 17 years, I can
think of 17 years back and
that's a huge change.
>> Absolutely.
We have triggered 12
self-reinforcing feedback loops.
There's been one assessment of
one of those, methane release in
the arctic.
The White House recently
admitted today I believe that
all the arctic ICE will be gone
within two years.
Actually, that statement was
released today but made in June.
That's the planet's air
conditioner is arctic ICE.
So somebody has studied
scientifically one of those
feedback loops, methane release
in the arctic.
Their conclusion was loss of all
life on earth by mid century.
In the northern hemisphere, by
about 2030.
>> I don't want to go without a
quick question.
Simple response perhaps.
Are you optimistic?
>> I used to be very optimistic.
Up until the scientific evidence
behind these feedback loops just
overwhelmed me.
So I'm pretty realistic I think
about the prospects for human to
be sustained into the future.
>> Guy, good to have you here.
>> great to be back.
>> diss quieting conversation
but good to have you.
>> I'm not depressed but I'm a
carrier, apparently.
Thank you.
>>> Tonight's edition of Arizona
Art Beat looks at the landscapes
of aspen trees and the spaces
between those trees as depicted
by Denver-based artist Lelija
Roy.
We welcome you to "Arizona
Horizon."
Thanks for being here.
>> this is great.
>> Why landscapes, why aspen
trees?
>> I get asked that a lot.
I have been obsessed.
>> Why?
>> Okay, first of all I thought
they were Birches.
I'm from New England.
Black and white trees.
Must be a Birch.
I got corrected really fast.
The interesting thing about
aspen trees besides the fact
they are beautiful is that you
see a grove that's a single
organism.
When you're walking into a
grove, you are actually walking
into the heart of the sisterhood
of aspen.
To me that was just so cool that
I started spending a lot of time
in different groves, noticing
how they change from season to
season.
The paper white that you get in
winter.
The almost opalescent in summer.
>> Let's go to some of your work
starting with something autumn
glory is the first work we're
looking at.
Why paint?
Why use paint as your chosen
medium?
>> Well --
[laughter]
I use acrylic paint mainly
because of all the opportunities
to push the medium, push the
color.
In the painting autumn glory
what you have is you have paint,
pastel, you have ink.
You have four, maybe five
different painted papers.
Each of which has a different
texture.
>> is this a collage?
>> About a 20-layer collage.
Some of the collage elements are
strictly for the color.
Some are for the texture, some
are for both.
By the time I finish layering,
it all becomes one surface.
>> Let's look at your process
here.
There's a piece called solstice
at dawn:
>> Yes.
>> what's happening here?
>> This is the same painting.
All I did was move some of the
lights in my studio.
>> Oh.
>> So what you're seeing is how
the metallics, the iridescents,
interference paints will change.
This is a commissioned piece.
I talked to the party that
wanted it.
It's a large piece, three feet
by five feet.
They fell in love with a nine
inch by 12-inch painting.
That was the other challenge.
But I knew that light in their
home was going to come from
different sources during the
day.
It was a big, open space.
So I wanted to make sure that
the painting remained very
interesting as the light sources
changed.
>> As we watch the light sources
change and the painting change
and we end up with a final
product, how do you know you
have the final product?
When do you know to stop?
>> Magic?
>> Well, maybe --
>> It's a hard question.
There are times that I'll finish
and then I literally need to
leave it alone for several days.
I'll work on one of these pieces
probably over a three or four
week period.
Each of these 20 layers needs to
dry before I add the next one.
As it dry it is changes.
So it's a process of looking at
it, changing the lights.
Knowing in this case I knew
where it was going, I knew the
colors around it.
But you kind of just get to the
point where you say, I'm happy.
That's my first criteria.
I have to be happy with the
piece.
If I'm not happy it doesn't go
on to a gallery wall.
>> There's one called river
reflections.
This is very interesting, more
of a vertical thing here.
Again, it's representational to
a point.
How do you know it's
reputational enough?
Perhaps too representational?
>> Tough question.
I usually think things are much
more representational than
someone who didn't spend three
weeks doing the painting.
River reflections is a memory of
sitting on a riverbank watching
the sunset, watching that dance
among the rocks and everything
else, and then it starts with
some very, very different
colors.
So that painting started with
just purples and Greens.
>> like what we saw with the
solstice.
>> Yes.
Then it changes.
Then it continues to change.
Even as you brought down and
scrolled down you can get lost.
Part of what you alluded at the
beginning talking about the
spaces, where does the aspen
start, where does it end?
Where does the reflection start,
where does it end?
This is inviting you into that
space.
That's what I'm trying to do.
I'm not trying to show you a
river.
A photographer would do a much
better job with that particular
scene.
I'm inviting you into that
space.
As you enter that space, you're
following that emotion, that
feeling I had that beauty, that
hope, that wonderful feeling of
seeing the river and knowing
that it was a wonderful day.
>> Must ab wonderful sense of
accomplishment.
Where can we see your work?
>> On tomorrow evening, Friday,
I'll have an opening at James
Ratliff gallery in Sedona at the
to
I'll be doing an artist talk at
They have about 20 of my
paintings.
I invite everyone to come and
join my aspen world.
>> Again, it's wonderful work.
It's good speaking with you.
I love speaking with artists,
finding out what they are
thinking.
Half the time they enjoy talking
about it.
>> I always enjoy talking about
it.
Thanks for joining us.
>> Thank you.
>>> it's a journalists'
roundtable.
The latest on the battle over
Medicaid expansion, and a bill
that would make gold and Silver
legal tender in Arizona.
That's Friday on the
journalists' roundtable.
>>> That is it for now.
I'm Ted Simons.
Thank you so much for joining
us.
You have a great evening.
>>> "Arizona Horizon" is made
possible by contributions from
the friends of 8, members of
your Arizona PBS station.
Thank you.
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>>> Later on 8H.D. --
>> Richie, this was your
selection?
>> Really interesting place.
It's just a great atmosphere,
great feeling.
The food is very good.
>> Going there for a long time
and the burritos are probably
the best I have had in my life.
>> I love the Phoenix city
grill.
When you walk in there's such
warmth.
My entree was almond encrusted
fish dish.
It's a party in your mouth.
>> join us when three new guests
recommend their favorite spots
right here on check, please,
Arizona.
I'll see you then.
Cheers.
>>> 8H.D., 8 life, and 8 world.
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Venom, on nova Wednesday.
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