Giant tree uprooted by the menacing wind of climate chaos, January 22, 2022, Claremont, California. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos.     It was the beginning of Saturday, January 22, 2022. The angry and loud wind woke me up at about 1:00 AM. It was pitched dark. I looked outside in the darkness and saw nothing. The wind, its menacing sound and fury, overwhelmed my immediate environment and the natural world.    Menacing wind   The fierce wind whistled its warning for several hours. It kept me alert and very concerned about the safety of my family, house, and community.   When the Sun sent its rays of light in the morning over Claremont, California, the reality was not pretty. As a neighbor said to me, Claremont was “a war zone.” Dozens of old giant trees stood uprooted and sprawled in the streets, with a few touching the walls or roofs of homes.   The rumors I heard about the wind suggested the wind attacked a large swath of southern California at speeds ...

Temple of Zeus near the village Machairas in Central Greece. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos.   Modern Greece is a couple of centuries old. Miraculously, in the 1820s, the Greeks joined forces and fought a heroic, determined, and successful war of liberation against the abominable tyranny of the Turks.    Monarchical beginnings   Greece became independent in 1928. Ioannes Kapodistrias, former minister of foreign affairs of Russia, and a patriotic Greek with exceptional political talent, governed Greece from 1828 to 1831, when assassins murdered him.   Since that national tragedy in 1831, Greece has been in a perpetual upheaval, primarily because of debt and dependence on foreign powers.    The antidemocratic kingdoms of Europe (England. Russia, and France) saddled tiny Greece, that had barely emerged from about 400 years of foreign oppression, with a German king. Monarchy guaranteed a free hand in corrupting Greek politicians to do their bidding.  ...

Tree of Life, Prayer for the Planet, painting by Katherine Ferwerda, student at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She took my graduate seminar on regeneration: concepts and applications, Fall 2021. Courtesy Ferwerda.   P rologue   Last August, two professors of anthropology from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Kristen Conway-Gomez, and James Blair, invited me to offer a graduate seminar on ecological regeneration. I accepted.   The Lyle Center and the computer university    For 16 weeks I met 8 students at the Lyle Center / Department of Regenerative Studies, College of Environmental Design. The Lyle Center stands on a hill, overlooking the main campus. Yet there’s very little it shares with the university. The two institutions differ in location, architecture, and mission.    Like most American universities, Cal Poly Pomona has been caught in a fashionable frenzy of multicultura...