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18 Dec 2007 @ 16:43, by anniewarmk. Environment, Ecology
During this holiday season I find myself bowing out of the common life of America...most days it feels hollow and bankrupt. Each morning I seem to wake up to the WOUB radio just as they issue the war report, and even less hopeful the global warming report. Over my morning tea I try to make some sense of it, but I find there isn’t any sense to be made so I decided to put together my own credo for the future. Here’s hope for the future – for our precious children and their children…Annie
1. Politicians, I repeat "POLITICIANS" (American ones anyway) are not going to stop what is happening with global warming. There are no big companies representing global warming, solar or wind renewable energy in a position to pay for their causes in the halls of Congress. AND if the person in office has been there for any time at all they are owned by corporate America so it is absolutely fruitless to waste one ounce of energy in their direction.
2. We must work on our local elected officials – the ones who haven't had enough opportunity to become politicians. Focus on township trustees - most folks don't even know who they are in their area. Focus on city council and county commissioners. They control your life!
3. Many reports say to change your household light bulbs to compact fluorescents but doing that alone is like spitting into the wind. That's not to say we shouldn't change out the old light bulbs, but it isn't the message we can promote and expect change. Folks change their light bulbs, then they drive their SUV to shops 10 times that day for something made in China, something they forgot on the first five trips or another electric-guzzling appliance.
We need to focus on those locally elected folks to get them to make town centers where it is possible so that transport by car isn't necessary, and show them how to work towards community gardens, rehabbing existing buildings instead of tearing them down, and on and on and on.
4. The Earth has the ability to heal itself if given the opportunity. I'm hanging onto this mantra for dear life.
5. We owe it to our children to teach them through our example about peace with our land, our homes and our relationships. In order to do this - THEY must hang out the clothes on the line, THEY must do the dishes by hand (dishwasher is a job description, not a machine), and THEY must sit down with us at mealtime and talk about their day.
6. We must never stop visualizing in our minds and hearts that there is hope for the earth because right now everywhere we turn we are saying there isn't any. Our children are the ones who will suffer from this thinking - and most of the rest of the adults aren't really listening. They are too busy shopping for those new-fangled light bulbs or buying that cheap food that has ingredients no one can pronounce.
7. So just for today (and tomorrow and all the days after that) I am going to visualize a world of peace, filled with trees, and bees and flowers and people who aren't shopping, but instead are savoring what they already have.
Annie Warmke is the co-owner of Blue Rock Station Science Center, a writer, a scientist and a grandmother who milks goats and never stops talking about how much she loves the Earth. More >
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 18 Dec 2007 @ 08:48, by jazzolog. Environment, Ecology
When to the new eyes of thee
All things by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly,
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.
---Francis Thompson
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
---William Blake
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
---Kikuyu Proverb
The chart illustrated an article by Les Blumenthal in Sunday's McClatchy newspapers, under the headline "Oceans' growing acidity alarms scientists."
[link]
Last week my wife of 25 years fired off a letter to the editor. She didn't used to do this kind of thing, but world developments in recent years have convinced her wake-up calls like this are crucial. She comes from a family tradition of citizen involvement in current affairs. There's a big difference between a demonstration with folk singers and the hard work of political organizing. Increasingly she's going to community meetings nearly every evening, some of which she chairs.
The letter went to our biweekly newspaper, The Athens News. It was about global warming. The editor, Terry Smith, emailed back saying the piece was too long for the letters feature, but offered to publish it in the occasional Reader's Forum on the Opinion Page. He asked her, though, to compose a blurb about who she is. Well, that's kind of hard to do so we sat down together and came up with something simple and to the point:
"Dana Carlson has been a teacher for 30 years. She's been an advocate for sane environmental policy even longer." Here's her article~~~ More >
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14 Dec 2007 @ 02:55, by a-d. Environment, Ecology
[http://www.yesmagazine.org/newsletters/dec07/dec07_web.html?utm_source=dec07&utm_medium=email&utm_content=3_html]
At least it presents a growing challenge for me... and most likely for many of us... and for those, who already are doing all that can be done; please, tell us, who still are working on it as the saying goes, and let us know step by step how and what you did, eh? Can't wait to get some Hands-On tips! More >
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12 Dec 2007 @ 04:58, by bushman. Environment, Ecology
I so love the way NASA explains things.
[link]
Anyway they have sent up so many solar observing sats, and other devices, makes me wonder why all of a sudden its so important. But thanks NASA, you do open my eyes to some truth. :}
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"THEMIS has also observed a number of relatively small explosions in Earth's magnetic bow shock. "The bow shock is like the bow wave in front of a boat," explains Sibeck. "It is where the solar wind first feels the effects of Earth's magnetic field." When a knot of magnetism within the solar wind hits the bow shock--"Bang!" he says. "We get an explosion."
The technical term for these explosions is "hot flow anomalies" or HFAs. HFAs boost the temperature of solar wind particles ten-fold (as high as 10 million degrees) and they can stop the solar wind dead its tracks. "This is no mean achievement considering the fact that the solar wind moves at supersonic speeds near a million miles per hour."
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It dosnt say where this heat goes, but seems to me that 10 million degree solar wind could heat up some part of our atmosheric layers. So they don't really say it has anything to do with global warming or climate change, but seems like it could. So how many of these so called HFAs hit our planet's magneticfield during solar max? Guess we will have to wait a few more years to find out, but in the mean time, lets sell carbon credits and make some bank, lol.
Heres the link again if you missed it at the top:
[link] More >
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 20 Nov 2007 @ 02:23, by jazzolog. Environment, Ecology
The timpanist plays upon a living being. The stars are bursting with their messages: Turn to a child for the star's announcement.
---Robert Aitken
Greed is the basic cause of misery. Free yourself of greed, and the mountains, rivers, and earth do not block the light of your eyes.
---She-Hsien
To enter one's own self, it is necessary to go armed to the teeth.
---Paul Valery
Why 2015? That is the year, dictated by consensus of the 2500 scientists whose work created the UN report on global warming, when further growth of carbon emissions on this planet must cease. Within 35 years from that date, carbon dioxide and other atmospheric polluting gases must be reduced by 50 to 85 percent to avoid killing as many as a quarter of the species on Earth. [link] This was the announcement on Saturday, when the final portion of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) study was released to the public by this group that already has won the Nobel Prize.
I try to be a patient man. I waited Sunday and I waited today. I expected lead items in newspapers and broadcasts in this country. Well...let's say I hoped for them. Certainly it is the case elsewhere in the world, where concern is at the forefront. One of the good things about Google News is you can see what makes news in the various nations of the world...and what that news is. At the moment you have to type "global warming" into Search to find anything about these stark pronouncements.
We have people campaigning for President right now. The New York Times reported today that in Iowa, a sixth-grader asked Mrs. Clinton if she had any views on global warming. The paper went on to consider whether the question had been planted in the student's mind. There was no mention of what the candidate replied. [link] Have we all gone mad?
Recently it has been the pattern in this country for a person elected (or otherwise achieving the office of) President to serve 2 terms or 8 years. If that continues, whoever ends up President in 2008 still may be there in 2015. Do any of these candidates have a plan for such an incredible challenge? Next month---that's NEXT month---President Bush will lead the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on climate change in Bali. Last year around this time that man announced he was pretty sure global warming wasn't caused by anything consumers in the free market might be doing...like burning coal or oil. US News & World Report asked this morning Do we HAVE to have this guy representing us? [link]
I listened pretty hard to my world today to see or hear if anyone seemed concerned about the IPCC report or global warming. It's going to be in the mid to upper 60s tomorrow and probably for Thanksgiving. People did remark on that...and sorta smile and shake heads. Ten years ago Dana and I were proud to go out to the garden and kick some snow off a little kale that was left to serve our smoked oysters on for Thanksgiving dinner. The other day people were telling me the crocuses and daffodils they planted in September are coming up already. What will it take to crash through all this denial? More >
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  5 Nov 2007 @ 01:05, by magical_melody. Environment, Ecology
THE MAYAN PROPHECY PILGRIMAGE - (Also see Mayan Calendar)
Mayan Prophecy - Elders Gathering 26-27 November, 2007 More >
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  24 Oct 2007 @ 02:28, by magical_melody. Environment, Ecology
(Also see Mayan Calendar)
Hello Everyone,
It was just three days ago that my husband Max and I were given a message from the Earth about the upcoming shifts for the next cycle and a couple days later we received this message from a friend within our community confirming what we had been told.
This wisdom as expressed as the 5th Hoop is also referred to as the Fifth Night within the Mayan Calendar, for more information see the previous article within this log about the upcoming Fifth Night. We encourage you to read this very important message from our brother Larry.
Heart Blessings,
Alana & Max
Heartstory Website More >
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 10 Sep 2007 @ 11:20, by feecor. Environment, Ecology
Today and tomorrow in Berlin, the G8, UN organisations, and Stakeholders are assembling for a new round of climate policy negotiations 3rd Gleneagles Dialogues in Berlin. Keynoters include Gro Harlem Brundtland, and top representatives of the 20+ leading countries in the fields of energy and environment, and their pendants heading the top international organisations in the field.
Talking to Timothy Wirth United Nations Foundation, and Ricardo Lagos Club of Madrid and Global Leadership for Climate Action was very informative, .... please read MORE More >
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 3 Sep 2007 @ 15:29, by paretokid. Environment, Ecology
The global market for fish now means that the shrimp, salmon, sea bass, or cat fish could have begun life on in an Indian, European, or Chinese "farm." Since seafood farming is actually farming of both fresh and salt water species, it's referred to as aquaculture.
How much seafood is produced by aquaculture? < http://www.aquaculture.co.il/Markets/world_output.html>
In 2003, World aquaculture seafood production contributed about 40 million tons, or about 30% of total World fisheries production of about 130 million tons. A decade ago, aquaculture contributed merely 17 million tons, making it the fastest growing food production branch Worldwide.
Where is aquaculture conducted? Almost everywhere, in cold climate developed countries, as well as in tropical climate less-developed countries, over all continents:
Asia 37.0 million tons, mostly in China Europe 2.0 million tons Americas 1.2 million tons Africa 0.28 million tons, mostly in Egypt.
Fresh water aquaculture: contributes about 58% of World aquaculture output. Marine aquaculture: contributes about 42% of World aquaculture output.
What is produced in aquaculture? In developed countries: Salmon, Sea bream, Sea bass, Catfish, etc. In less-developed countries: Marine aquatic plant Kelp, various Carps, Nile Tilapia, oysters various Shrimp species, mostly produced in extensive, low grade systems.
OK - sounds good - so what's the problem?
1. Remember the recent rounds of problems with Chinese exports to the US? Now, the Chinese are just as good a people as any other... but just as bad too.
2. Raw and greed-based capitalism could well lead Chinese producers of much of the shrimp now being sold in the US to be as unethical as those who poisened pet foods and slipped lead into the paint of children's toys.
3. Seemingly beneficial traditional integrated farming methods of the Chinese may become the source of mutating a new flu pandemic or other animal to human pandemic disease transfer.
Integrated farming of fish and livestock: [link]
Integrated farming of fish and livestock is an old practice consisting of the culture of fish (or shrimp) associated with the husbandry of domesticated animals such as pigs, ducks, chicken, etc. The aim of integrated farming is the recycling of animal wastes (faeces, urine and spoiled feeds) to serve as fertilizers, and sometimes as food for fish raised in ponds, enclosures and cages.
Food for thought eh? More >
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 3 Sep 2007 @ 14:25, by nraye. Environment, Ecology
I was raised on vegetables and fruit grown mainly on mountain humus. This was collected from the Mountain rising steeply about 100 yards away behind the new house. The humus was fresh leaf mould, black powdery and cool, and apparently bursting with natures’ goodness. Lettuce, cucumber, beans, beetroot, potatoes, carrots, leeks, celery, gluts of strawberries, mulberries, asparagus, parsley, and gluts of tomatoes were all grown copiously from this admixture of soils. I am quite sure though that this was insufficient protection from any blight or pests because all this rich produce would also be copiously sprayed with the latest scientific or even the oldest, being darkest afrique, deadly concoction against blight or pest. Once in the kitchen sink, further scientific sprinklings of potassium permanganate for the eggs of pests would take place which may have attached themselves to these lovely eminently edible fruits of the earth.
The Mountain provided all our water too with fresh spring water all year round except in times of drought. The same spring water was used for everything including washing the car with the exception of the swimming pool which was filled from a borehole. Even the lawn received its sprinkling with the spring water! The water destined for drinking had to be “treated”, boiled for hours and put in a large china storage jar with two compartments through which the pure mountain fresh water was filtered and dripped. A tap at the lowest end brought forth the final source of this drinking water. More >
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