I'm an endangered species

Cover via Amazon

t r u t h o u t | Are Environmentalists an Endangered Species?

Way back during the first decade of this century, the Earth was roamed by a beast that will soon be extinct. Environmentalists, it seemed, were everywhere: at the supermarket, plucking at organic produce; at the stoplight, breaking in their hybrid cars; on your neighbor’s roof, putting up solar panels. Even oil companies got in on the action, smiling green from the pages of your magazine.

Yet the last 10 years will be remembered as the time that the environmental movement began its slow sink into the tar pits of obsolescence. It’s not that people have stopped caring about the health of the Earth. They’re more concerned than ever. What’s changing is the reasons why. Protecting the planet and its ecosystems is no longer the purview of those who worry about tropical forests, polar bears or the spotted owl. Increasingly, it’s the priority of people who care about themselves.

The public has woken up to the fact that much of what it once considered narrow environmental concerns can have an impact on the way we live. It’s a link that ecologists have labored to make for years, with little success. No matter how often they maintained that a patch of preserved forest could contain a yet undiscovered cure for cancer, what was guaranteed was the virgin timber in its trees and the prairie pasture beneath them.

It took something on the scale of climate change to drive the point home. There’s no telling to what extent the emissions of our cars, factories and power plants contributed to the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina. But the 2005 flooding of New Orleans marked the high-water mark of the environmental movement, the moment when it became clear that caring for nature was not altruistic, but ultimately selfish and self-protective.

Compare Rachel Carson’s "Silent Spring," the book credited with the birth of modern environmentalism, with the movie that marked the beginning of its slide towards death, Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth." The first warns of a countryside devoid of birdsong. The other, of a world stripped of Florida.

The old habits are dying hard, but they’re dying nonetheless. Environmentalism sometimes bore the aesthetics and asceticism of a religion. The new movement is firmly grounded in mammon. The ranks of those who revered nature as a counterbalance to consumerism are being penetrated by a generation that sees sustainability not as an alternative to growth, but as its prerequisite.

Gore himself seems only dimly aware of the change he’s wrought. Speaking at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, he warned the North Pole had a 75 percent chance of being completely ice-free within a decade — a dramatic change, to be sure, but one whose most noticeable impact will be positive. Freed of ice, the Arctic Ocean becomes a channel for shipping and a potential source of mineral wealth.

And while the polar bear remains the symbol of climate change, there’s a growing awareness that the warming of the world will be hitting closer to home. Rising seas will threaten coastal cities. Drifting ecosystems will wreak havoc on health and agriculture. Natural disaster and shifting weather patterns will send hundreds of thousands on the move.

The question for the next decade is what to do about it. It’s no surprise that the Copenhagen talks — long heralded as a make or break moment in the fight against climate change — ended in failure. Environmental challenges are uniquely difficult in that they frequently involve sharing common, but limited, resources. It’s no coincidence that this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Elinor Ostrom, spent her career studying the problem. One thing is clear, however. It’s going to be easier to muscle towards a solution if we realize that what’s at risk isn’t the environment, the planet or nature. It’s each and every one of us.

If selfish solves things - fine.

Going BPA free?

Image via Wikipedia

The myth of the BPA-free diet

Consider a typical cold-weather, American meal: chili. Filled with beans, protein and vitamin-packed peppers and tomatoes, it’s pretty healthy, right? Perhaps not when you consider the packaging some of its ingredients come in. If you’re like most Americans, you make this meal with a couple of cans of beans, a big can of tomatoes, maybe a can of tomato paste. To wash it down, you crack open a can of beer.

All of those products come in packaging lined with bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that mimics estrogen and is raising concern among consumers and many scientists for its links to a host of health issues: prostate, breast and testicular cancer; lower sperm counts; obesity; aggression in girls; reproductive and neurological defects; cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. It’s commonly found in everything from canned foods and drinks to hard, clear plastic adult and baby bottles, pacifiers, sippy cups, dental sealants, sales receipts and plastic utensils.

So what to do? The author spoke with BPA researcher Dr. Frederick vom Saal - guess what he does not like BPA. His suggestions:

• Get an inexpensive carbon filtrating system to attach to your home and work faucet. The carbon can get rid of the BPA before you drink it.

• “Plastics and heat, just stop that,” he says. Even if it says BPA-free, the other chemicals in the bottle aren’t known, so it’s best not to expose it to heat. That means no microwaving plastics—even if they’re labeled microwave-safe—or putting them in the dishwasher. “Anything you buy in plastic that tells you you can heat it, assume that is an absolutely insane thing to do,” he says.

• When possible, choose glass over plastic or cans. Even if the glass has a metal lid, it’s likely to be less BPA than a container fully lined with it.

• If you have to choose between one plastic over another, vom Saal thinks the least worrisome ones are labeled #2 or #5.

James Hansen's New Book

"Storms of My Grandchildren"

We have finally arrived at the main story: what we need to do to solve the climate problem, and how we can save a future for our grandchildren.

People need to make basic changes in the way the live. Countries need to cooperate. Matters as seemingly intractable as population must be addressed. And the required changes must be economically efficient. Such a pathway exists and is achievable.

Let's define what a workable backbone and framework should look like. The essential backbone is a rising price on carbon applied at the source (the mine, wellhead, or port of entry), such that it would affect all activities that use fossil fuels, directly or indirectly.

Our goal is a global phaseout of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions. We have shown, quantitatively, that the only practical way to achieve an acceptable carbon dioxide level is to disallow the use of coal and unconventional fossil fuels (such as tar sands and oil shale) unless the resulting carbon is captured and stored.

Hansen also is set against cap and trade. His solution?

In summary, the backbone of a solution to the climate problem is a flat carbon emissions price applied across all fossil fuels at the source. This carbon price (fee, tax) must rise continually, at a rate that is economically sound. The funds must be distributed back to the citizens (not to special interests)--otherwise the tax rate will never be high enough to lead to a clean energy future.

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• Climate bill chaos: Your guide to the two newest proposals (green.venturebeat.com)

Live simply

Image via Wikipedia

Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life

If you’re interested in simplifying your life, this is a great starter’s guide (if you’re not interested, move on).

The Short List
For the cynics who say that the list below is too long, there are really only two steps to simplifying:

1) Identify what’s most important to you.
2) Eliminate everything else.
Of course, that’s not terribly useful unless you can see how to apply that to different areas of your life, so I present to you the Long List.

The Long List
There can be no step-by-step guide to simplifying your life, but I’ve compiled an incomplete list of ideas that should help anyone trying to find the simple life. Not every tip will work for you — choose the ones that appeal and apply to your life.

My favorites:

1. #56 Read Walden, by Thoreau
2. #62 Create an easy-to-maintain yard
3. #72 Always ask: Will this simplify my life?

My New Year's resolution - simplify!

A friend of the nuclear industry

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Loans to Boost Nuclear Industry Seen Coming Soon

The Obama administration is poised to announce loan guarantees to help kick-start the country's nuclear power industry, which hasn't built a new plant in more than three decades.

Looks like this may be the administration's answer to our energy crisis. What will happen with the waste? How will safety be guaranteed? Those questions may never be addressed.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nuclear Power, Long Dormant, Gets Wake-Up Call (nytimes.com)

Looking ahead

Image via Wikipedia

James Howard Kunstler's 2010 outlook...

The Long Emergency is officially underway. Reality is telling us very clearly to prepare for a new way of life in the USA. We're in desperate need of decomplexifying, re-localizing, downscaling, and re-humanizing American life. It doesn't mean that we will be a lesser people or that we will not recognize our own culture. In some respects, I think it means we must return to some traditional American life-ways that we abandoned for the cheap oil life of convenience, comfort, obesity, and social atomization.

The successful people in America moving forward will be those who attach themselves to cohesive local communities, places with integral local economies and sturdy social networks, especially places that can produce a significant amount of their own food.

Hold on for the rollercoaster ride of one's life!

The Lorax at COP15

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

COP15 - Dr. Seuss Style

From the Now Show, 18/12/09. Marcus Brigstocke gives us a Dr Seuss-style take on events at Copenhagen.

What Book Is Hugo Chávez Reading?

Cover via Amazon

What Book Is Hugo Chávez Reading?:

At the international climate talks in Copenhagen last week, Hugo Chávez railed against capitalism. According to him, in order to reverse the downward spiral of our climate, we need to change the system itself. He pointed out the product driven capitalist system that commodifies true democracy, and results in a global hegemony ruled by a few rich and powerful nations, who perpetuate the top-down model of iron-fisted rule.

President Chávez then held up a copy of How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth (Spanish language edition), which was given to him personally by author Hervé Kempf in Copenhagen, and proceeded to read from the author preface:

To the ecological principle that was so useful at the time we first became aware– “Think globally; act locally”–we must add the principle that the present situation imposes: “Consume less; share better.”

Those 4 words should be the new buzzwords of us all: “Consume less; share better.”

EcoSnoop

iPhone App Lets Your Rat Out Polluters:

"
Images via EcoSnoop

'EcoSnoop is meant as a tool for a gentle form of awareness,' says the creators of this iPhone app. But really, it's a way to vent, and get justice, for all those environmental slip-ups you pass during the day. How many times are you in a public space or an office building and see things that are just not cool - dripping faucets that have been running for three days, a suspicious use of a chemical, a trash bin filled with recyclable items yet there's no option for sorting out recyclables or compostables... - and you want to speak up, report it, or suggest alternatives but you have no idea how. Well, that's what your phone is for...but not to pick up and call someone. No, now there's EcoSnoop.

EcoSnoop is a social networking app for greenies who are mad as hell and won't take it anymore. Or at least, who see something that's questionable and want some advice or input about how to remedy it.

When you see an environmental no-no, take out your iPhone and snap a picture. Your phone's GPS will geotag the photo, and you can upload it to the EcoSnoop website along with comments or suggestions. Fellow EcoSnoopers can add in their input..

How about taking action against idling cars? Love it.

Why the delay?

U.S. To Phase Out Cancerous Flame Retardant Chemical by 2013:

Credit: Public Domain

The most effective and commonly used flame retardant Deca-BDE will be phased out by 2013 in the United States under a new deal between Chemtura and Albemarle Corp., its US producers, ICL Industrial Products Inc., the largest US importer, and the Environmental Protection Agency...

The chemical is a polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) used in upholstery textiles, carpet backings, mattresses, cars, buses, aircraft, and construction materials, that can potentially cause cancer and may impact brain function:

PBDEs are closely linked to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which have been banned for nearly 30 years because they can cause immune suppression, endocrine disruption, and behavioral problems. Deca-BDE's largest U.S. producer ICL Industrial Products Inc. (ICL-IP) has already started on a program to accelerate the market's transition to "sustainable flame retardant solutions," according to Eco Textile News. This includes a three-year phase-out (with a one-year extension for essential uses) of sales of Deca in the US market.

Why wait?

Banksy on Global warming

From Banksy.

Global Warming Hike

May Be Steeper: Research:

Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday.

The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar British study released this month that said calculations for man-made global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.
"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.

And yet COP15 closed with no clear leadership or direction.

A Deal?

Obama Says 'A First Step' Climate Deal Has Been Reached In Copenhagen

Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, gave the following statement:

"This is a declaration that small and poor countries don't matter, that international civil society doesn't matter, and that serious limits on carbon don't matter. The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming. It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear. 189 countries have been left powerless, and the foxes now guard the carbon henhouse without any oversight."


Kumi Naidoo, The Executive Director of Greenpeace, stated:

"Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change.
The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis."

Some great photo opportunities and headlines, but progress?

The question is asked again - next steps?

McKibben: Proof Copenhagen Is "An Elaborate Sham"

This afternoon at Copenhagen a document mysteriously leaked from the UN Secretariat. It was first reported from the Guardian, and by the time it was posted online it oddly had my name scrawled all across the top—I don't know why, because I didn't leak it.

My suspicion, though, is because it confirms something I've been writing for weeks. The cuts in emissions that countries are proposing here are nowhere near good enough to meet even their remarkably weak target of limiting temperature rise to two degrees Celsius. In fact, says the UN in this leaked report, the cuts on offer now produce a rise of at least three degrees, and a CO2 concentration of at least 550 ppm, not the 350 scientists say we need, or even the weak 450 that the US supposedly supports.

In other words, this entire conference is an elaborate sham, where the organizers have known all along that they're heading for a very different world than the one they're supposedly creating. It's intellectual dishonesty of a very high order, and with very high consequences. And it's probably come too late to derail the stage management—tomorrow Barack Obama will piously intone that he's committed to a two degree temperature target. But he isn't—and now he can't even say it with a straight face.

COP 15 - failure

Diagnosis: Inadequate

Extensive analysis of the Copenhagen talks has been put forth by pundits across the political spectrum. In many ways, the scientific bottom line is the most important story here, and it's a story that few are telling.

Which is why we're so grateful to the scientists and statisticians and Climate Interactive, who have presented us with these stark figures about the proposals on the table. Here's the scoreboard right now.

The next step after governments fail to lead?

Weird? Or clever?

Weird Solar Device of the Day: Solar Powered Garden Insect Theatre:

Image via ecotopia

If you need some front porch evening entertainment but aren't into the cruelty of the traditional bug zapper, you can try the solar powered Garden Insect Theater. Like the bug zapper, it draws insects in at night with its bright light. But unlike the bug zapper, it won't electrify them. Instead, when the insects fly in to get closer to the light, you can watch them flutter around for awhile until they find their way out though the holes in the side.

Beats a zapper. Helps you appreciate the beauty of all nature.

COP15 News - it's not good!

U.S. Undermining Effort to Curb Deforestation

COP15 negotiations on a text aimed at curbing deforestation are quickly unraveling, according to several conservation and indigenous rights organizations. These groups are calling a recently released draft text on REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – a major step backwards.


Several people I've spoken with today put the blame squarely at the feet of the U.S. delegation.



U.S. negotiators have successfully pushed for the removal of language that would ensure that financing from developed countries isn't used to convert existing forests to palm oil or bio fuels plantations in poor and developing ones.



Simona Lovera of GFC told me: "Basically the trees that Barack Obama is talking about planting are meant to fuel U.S. cars."

Let's hope we start walking the talk that we heard during the election. Let us hope we look past our deep wallets and look to Mother Earth and all her citizens. Let us hope we begin striving for climate stability and economic justice.

Goodbye Alaska?

Alaskan Coastline Triple-Threatened, Eroding at Incredible 45 Feet Per Year (Video):

Photo via University of Colorado at Boulder

A study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder shows that a substantial piece of the northern Alaska coastline is eroding at an astonishing rate of 45 feet a year thanks to three major threats - less ice, more waves, and warmer water. In other words, climate change is eating away at Alaska, and fast.

Now what did former Governor Palin say about global warming? Inconclusive? Go back home and see the results of the inconclusive crisis.

Tutu's words of advice

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on President Obama: "He Is Now a Nobel Laureate -- Become What You Are":

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa also traveled to Copenhagen this weekend to urge world leaders to tackle the climate crisis. The longtime anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate spoke on Saturday at a candlelight vigil just outside the UN climate summit. []

Perfectly stated!

Delicious pretzel croissants

Inside New York's Most Sustainable Bakery

For nearly two decades, Maury Rubin’s City Bakery has been “quietly green,” building a loyal New York City following on the back of its surprisingly delicious pretzel croissants and legendary hot chocolate rather than its sustainable business practices. Then, in December of 2005, Rubin opened a brand new bakery that proudly broadcast environmental friendliness in its name: Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery. Why?

“The more I think about it, the more I think George W. Bush should get the credit,” says Rubin, whose tongue is more or less permanently in cheek. “I’m a soy bean-eating, recycling-devoted, vintage clothes-wearing, used Volvo-driving, low-carbon-footprint person in the first place. Sometime during the Bush years, that administration’s intense assault on the environment left me feeling that as a business owner with a large and loyal customer base, I had a responsibility to begin talking about the environment.”

IN the city this upcoming weekend. May have to make a small jaunt down to see what Birdbath is all about - and enjoy some food too.

Another reason to drink beer...

The more beer you drink, the more yeast available, the more ethanol for vehicles. Who said beer and cars don't mix?

Blame it on...

Gore Tackles Palin, Fights Back On ClimateGate

In a wide-ranging interview with Slate, Gore talks about environmental policy, why the Copenhagen meeting matters, and the hacked climate science emails. The emails, Gore stresses, were "taken wildly out of context" and the uproar surrounding them is "sound and fury signifying nothing."

His frustration with the hacked-email fallout is palpable. "The basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!--physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore?" Gore asked, and pressed his point harder: "And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?

I think that last line is priceless and sums it up best.

When it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck....it is a duck. So it goes with climate change - we are involved, we are a cause, we are a solution.

Say hello to Merlin and Gandalf Scoby

How to Flavor Kombucha Tea -- powered by eHow.com

Going to try making a papaya flavored batch tomorrow.

Wondering about Merlin and Gandalf? After nurturing and watching the two cultures grow I decided to name them. Had to come up with two magical names - Merlin and Gandalf - for "magic" alive in my room.

Natalie Merchant

Gardener, Mom, Green Activist:

Singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant has been out of the limelight for several years, but she is about to re-emerge with a new album. Merchant recently turned up on Britain's Ecologist website in a Q&A that revolves around her environmental activism , which apparently is still as important to her as when she sang the green anthem “Poison in the Well” with her band 10,000 Maniacs and collected Greenpeace donations at her shows. A resident of rural New York and the mother of a young daughter, she says she supports local environmental groups like Scenic Hudson, Clearwater and Riverkeeper and has thrown her weight behind area campaigns like one opposing logging in Allegany State Park. Here are some snippets from the interview:



What book or film would you recommend all politicians read or see?

“ Koyaanisqatsi , directed by Godfrey Reggio with an astounding soundtrack by Philip Glass, is the film I would suggest everyone see. I saw Koyaanisqatsi in a theater when it was first released in 1982, and the impact that it had upon me is still felt. This film is a prophetic vision of a world gone mad, out of scale and out of control. Without a single word spoken, it hints at the vastness and beauty of the world and then explains that we, tiny and insignificant creatures, have swarmed together to do irreparable damage to it.”

I'll add my vote to "Koyaanisqatsi" and recommend that you also watch "Baraka."

Until then watch:

Greenpeace's call

Obama: You won it, now earn it:

"President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway's capital today. In his own words, this is a 'call to action' rather than a recognition of his own accomplishments. So we're hoping he'll act on his promises to confront the global challenges of the 21st century. We're hoping he will confront the greatest one in history - climate change. Our activists are greeting him in Oslo and urging him to show strong leadership when he attends the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen next week."

Bravo. Let us hope he listens.

The Nuclear Mistake

Kerry, Lieberman, Graham: Climate Bill Will Include Nuclear Incentives:

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham are holding a press call right now to discuss their tri-partisan effort to build support for a Senate climate bill. During the call, which AP_ClimatePool is live tweeting, the senators said that the bill will include incentives for building nuclear power plants. As Mariah Blake reports for the upcoming issue of Mother Jones, what the nuclear industry really wants is for the federal government to underwrite new construction of new reactors that Wall Street has deemed too financially risky. (And when Wall Street thinks an investment is too risky, that should make you very nervous.) Now, it looks like the industry may just get its wish: According to AP's feed, one of the senators just said that a bill must include generous government loan guarantees for nuclear plants in order to secure GOP backing. In other words: the price of getting 60 votes for a climate bill could be a major taxpayer bailout of the nuclear industry.

To be expected from my state's supposed Senator Joey, but surprised by John.

29 years ago...

Imagine...

It's hitting the fan in Time

Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting

For more than a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead. When a bucket in one of his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania. Eventually he takes the resulting soil and spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.

"It's an alternative sanitation system," says Jenkins, "where there is no waste." His 255-page Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure is in its third edition and has been translated into five languages, but it has only recently begun to catch on. His message? Human manure, when properly managed, is odorless. His audience? Ecologically committed city dwellers who are looking to do more for the earth than just sort their trash or ride a bike to work.

"It's one of those life-changing books," says Erik Knutzen, 44, an eco-blogger in Los Angeles. "You read it, and the lightbulb just goes on." Now he eschews his porcelain potty for a big bucket with a toilet seat. He "flushes" by tossing in a scoop of sawdust, which not only neutralizes smells but also helps speed the breakdown of material for compost. Like many back-to-basics sophisticates, he believes Jenkins' humanure system is more sanitary and more rational than the conventional alternative. "Human waste is a perfectly good source of an important resource, nitrogen," Knutzen observes. "Water is a valuable resource too. Why mix the two and turn all of it into a problem?"

This is not the first post I had about this topic. I think the time has come. It will clearly help my garden - though will my family eat my veggies? And now even Time is jumping on the bandwagon.

Truth in DC?

EPA: Greenhouse gases are harmful to humans

The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment.

The EPA said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

A very big step. Wait until Rush gets a hold of this announcement.

Dreaming of spring...

As the cold temps are rolling in I can only dream of planting the seeds that I am drooling over in the many catalogs I have been looking at constantly.

Reusing those dirty diapers

Knowaste Turns Dirty Diapers into Green ($)

Once the soiled products are collected and transported to the Knowaste facility, the products are sent to a shredder that breaks them apart. They are washed, sanitized, deactivated and mechanically separated into plastic components or organic residue. A special chemical treatment is used to deactivate the polymers.

Plastic materials are removed, filtered, cleaned and compressed into small pellets. The plastic is then recycled into a variety of products including shoe insoles, vinyl siding, wallpaper, bicycle helmets and roofing tiles, to name a few.

Non-recyclable waste is converted into green energy, which will power the facility or will be sold to the national grid. The water used during the process is treated and reused again.

Besides diapers from nurseries, the new Birmingham plant will also accept adult hygiene waste from nursing homes and hospitals. The Birmingham facility is the first of five proposed plants in the UK.

Established in 1989, Knowaste recycles other absorbent hygiene products besides diapers – bed-liners, adult incontinence and feminine hygiene products. The company’s main recycling facility is located in Toronto, Canada.

Bring a few of those plants here to the US. Think not only about baby diapers but all those adult diapers as well. Walk through a food store and look at all the diapers and incontinence products. As our population is aging, this will be the issue facing us.

Just think, you can use that Depends today and wear a bike helmet made from that same Depend. You'll be protected on both ends.

Culture shift

Wendell Berry Says Large-Scale Farms Killing Land as Well as Towns:

by Ted Strong

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -- A passive populace obsessed with easy answers has led to an economy that is destroying America's land, author Wendell Berry told a packed-in crowd at the University of Virginia on Thursday evening.

"Simple solutions will always lead to complex problems, surprising simple minds," he said.
n a lecture in the full auditorium of the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature and Culture/Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, Berry outlined the need for small-scale landholders engaging in forestry and farming, as opposed to the industrial-scale operations now in place.

The talk was so popular that seats in the auditorium ran out long before the 5:30 speech began. Eventually, a pair of university police officers shooed away the overflow crowd waiting outside.

Even some of those who made it inside were left without seats, and Berry invited them to sit on the stage near him.

Large-scale and corporate operations cause long-term damage to the environment and to rural cultures, he told the crowd.

Farm and timber economies that simply export raw materials for processing elsewhere kill towns because they also export jobs, he said.

"And then you will be exporting your young people to take those jobs," he said.

He added, "Our tendency has been to fasten upon one product and allow that one to determine the local land economy."

Berry, a poet, novelist and essayist, is part of a movement that is trying to spark high-level discussion by proposing a 50-year farm bill that calls for, among other things, a switch to majority perennial crops.

"It would take cattle, hogs and poultry out of the animal factory and put them back on farms, where they belong," he said.

He also advocated a more integrated approach to forestry and agriculture as part of what he called a vision for the future.

"Like you all, I hope, I am skeptical of visions," he said. "So I hasten to point out that it is a modest vision."

And he said it's not in high-level political discussion that most of his hope lies.

Instead, he cited "leadership from the bottom" as a trend that could take his ideas forward.

He praised moves such as farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture programs, wherein residents buy "shares" in local farms and reap regular installments of produce in return.

He said the movement's not about nostalgia, but learning lessons from the past.

"I think we have to go back to our old agrarian ideals," he said.

To do that, he said, will require a cultural shift.

Cultural shift - easier said than dome, but very important and definitely needed.

Holiday Wish List Part 1

Keep Warmer With the TURN Rotating Fireplace:

Image via Conmoto

The TURN Fireplace, designed Schweiger & Viererbl, is a beautiful solution to effective room heating. It can be rotated 360 degrees, then locked in a position at set increments. Rather than having the warmth on one side of a room never reaching the far wall before, this design puts the fireplace back where it's supposed to be - smack dab in the middle of the room.

Are you listening Santa?

Put away the birdfeeder?

Birdfeeders Found to Cause Evolution of New Species:

Up until now, most people have likely regarded bird-feeders as merely a pleasant addition to their gardens. But scientists have recently discovered that bird-feeders in the UK are actually having a serious long term impact on the birds that eat from them--so large an impact that researchers believe the feeders have brought about the first evolutionary step in a brand new species.

According to the BBC, scientists have found that bird-feeders have had a major impact on European birds called blackcaps. The blackcaps' natural instinct has historically been to migrate to Spain to spend their winters, where they feed on fruits and berries. But the rise of bird-feeders in the UK have changed that. Scientists discovered that blackcaps "follow a different "evolutionary path" if they spend the winter eating food put out for them in UK gardens."

Those blackcaps that have opted instead to head north to the UK begun to form a brand new species of bird...The new blackcaps sport different plumage, beaks, and wings. They have rounder wings thanks to the shorter trip they now make, and longer narrower beaks--the better to eat from bird feeders, of course. These evolutionary changes took place in a mere 50 years...So what's the end impact of all of this--has man intruded on nature and disrupted yet another fragile ecosystem by sticking bird feeders all over the place for his own amusement? Or created a Frankenstein bird never meant for life in this world?

Thankfully, no--the scientists actually seem to think that the Brits have done the birds a favor: Dr. Schaeffer says, "[The birds have] found a better overwintering area that is closer to the breeding ground, where they can obtain food easily. And I also think its positive news for us, because it means not all the changes we produce are necessarily bad, and that some species have the potential to adapt quickly to the changes." Well, that's good to know--we humans are capable of doing a little good on this planet after all.

So in theory, no damage. But it really makes you wonder, in 50 years a new species has evolved because of man. And evolved simply because of a birdfeeder.

So, get rid of the feeders? Guess we don't have to worry about that. But what about other things we use and make? What damage are we doing with our other practices?

Sarah Palin Junior

Alaska Governor Fights Against Proposed Protected Space for Endangered Beluga Whales:

Photo via iwona_kellie

The beluga whales of Cook Inlet have dwindled in population from around 1,300 in the early 1980s to around 300 today. They're genetically and behaviorally unique based on where they live, but their people-populated living space is part of what keeps them in harm's way. And the governor of Alaska Sean Parnell is doing nothing to assist them in gaining a proposed 3,000 mile area of protected space.

Parnell is arguing that the protected area will only harm commerce while doing nothing to boost beluga numbers.

Of course, the dollar is much more important than some stupid whale! Looks like wolf-killing Sarah trained this guy pretty good.

The Story of Cap & Trade

A great use for that incandescent bulb

Creative Re-use: Turn a Light Bulb into a Terrarium:

Incandescent light bulbs will be collectors items soon, no matter what Michele Bachmann thinks. Instead of just throwing the old ones out, perhaps something creative can be done with them. Coincidentally, both Lifehacker and BoingBoing address this problem today; Boingboing with Professor Alexander's Botanical Vasculum - Steamed ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Love this idea. Replace your incandescent bulb with a CFL and then convert that bulb into a terrarium.

I created one - doesn't look as great as the picture above. It was an easy process to open the bulb and clean it out. Packed some moss and small stones in, propped it up on a copper wire stand... Now if the moss grows - I may make some more.

Celestial Seasonings and Kombucha

Hain Celestial Group Acquires Infinitea Kombucha

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: HAIN), a leading natural and organic products company, today announced the acquisition of Infinitea Kombucha in Boulder, CO. Infinitea Kombucha is a producer of organic kombucha, a fermented probiotic tea, that is sold through natural food retailers.

The Infinitea Kombucha product line will no longer be manufactured. Celestial Seasonings® is expected to launch Celestial Seasonings® kombucha in Spring of 2010. Nicole Gervace, owner of Infinitea Kombucha, has joined the Company as Product Manager to manage the Celestial Seasonings kombucha product line.

I have been using Celestial seasoning teas in my home brewing. Red Zinger Kombucha is now my fave. Love the idea that they are venturing in this direction, but it is still cheaper for me to make my own. Wonder if I could patent Red Zinger Kombucha before them?

Tofu, Tree Farms...

Tofu, Tree Farms and Electric Tractors:

Image credit: Bountiful Backyards

As the wonderful BBC documentary A Farm for the Future has shown us all too clearly, modern agriculture is woefully dependent on fossil fuels, and oil in particular. And with International Energy Agency (IEA) whistleblowers suggesting peak oil may be nearer than we think, and even the IEA chief saying time is not on our side, we'd do well to start designing our way out of an oil-based food system. So what might that transition look like?

Many activists are putting time into community nut and fruit tree plantings as a source of food security. (The image above comes from an orchard planted in my town last week.) And those cutting back on meat consumption, and especially grain fed meats, are undoubtedly doing their part to move away from oil-intensive food.

Hard to break the fossil habit on large farm factories but in our own yards - it is all your muscle power.

Giving Thanks for America's Good Food Movement

Jim Hightower :

What better day than Thanksgiving to celebrate our country's food rebels!

I'm talking about the growing movement of small farmers, food artisans, local retailers, co-ops, community organizers, restaurateurs, environmentalists, consumers and others -- perhaps including you. This movement has spread the rich ideas of sustainability, organic, local control and the Common Good from the fringes of our food economy into the mainstream.

Couldn't agree more!

Forget it Rush

Dangerous, Potentially-Irreversible Climate Change Happening Faster Than Scientists Thought:

photo: Loco085 via flickr.

A lot's happened with climate change science since the last IPCC report. With the general consensus (hacked CRU email non-revelation brouhaha aside) being that things are happening much faster than we expected and that the uncertainty regarding human causes being over whether it 90% certainty or 99% certainty more than anything else. With the COP15 conference just two weeks away a group of UK scientists has taken the time to distill the current state of climate change for us. The picture is clear and stark:
First of all, the scientific evidence for "dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change has strengthened significantly" since the last IPCC report two years ago:

CO2 concentrations continue to rise and after a decade of stability, methane concentrations (more potent, though shorter lived than CO2...) have begun increasing again.

The years 2000-2009 have been warmer on average than any other decade in the past 150 years.

Precipitation changes have been at the upper limits of what climate models predicted, characterized by decreases in the subtropics and increases in high latitudes.

Arctic summer sea ice cover declined suddenly in 2007 and 2008, melting 40% more than the average prediction from the IPCC report.

Evidence for continued and accelerating sea-level rise increases around the world -- by 2100 we're on track for double the amount of sea level rise projected back in 2007 -- that's more than a meter, with continued rises seen in subsequent centuries.

Rush, Sean and Alex Jones are making a huge deal about the "leaked" emails and how global warming is all a hoax to promote a One World Order. Wonder what they'll make of this?

Reading from Limbaugh's Playbook

Global Warming Meltdown: Climategate!:

"

Alan Caruba

Warning Signs

November 22, 2009

For those of us “skeptics” and “deniers” who have been jumping up and down, pointing at the Sun, and saying, “See, it’s the Sun that determines how warm or cool the Earth is. See it? Up there in the sky?” The truth about some of the scientists behind the global warming hoax has finally arrived.

The hoax has its roots in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an instrument of the United Nations Environmental Program, for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use of energy, the means of producing it, and require vast billions to be sent to less developed nations in exchange for “emitting” greenhouse gases.

Energy is called “the master resource” because, if you have lots of it, you can call your own shots. If you don’t, you are condemned to live in the dark and keeping people in the dark about the global warming hoax was essential.

For years the IPCC has been controlled by a handful of the worst liars in the world, utterly devoted to taking actual climate data and twisting it to confirm the assertion that the Earth was not only warming dramatically, but that humanity was in peril of rising oceans, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, more hurricanes, the die-off of countless animal species, and every other calamity that could possibly be attributed to “global warming”, including acne.

So, around November 20, when some enterprising individual hacked into the computers of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), making off with thousands of emails and documents that demonstrate the level of collusion and deception being practiced by its scientists.

It’s a climate hoax expose that some are calling the revelations a “little blue dress” while others are comparing it to the Pentagon Papers. It has also been dubbed “climategate.”

As James Delingpole wrote in the Telegraph, one of England’s leading newspapers, “Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more” was revealed in the 61 megabites of confidential files released on the Internet for anyone to read.

The conspirators had a visceral hatred for scientists who challenged their phony statistics and climate data, but they also agonized over the difficulties of hiding a long established climate cycle such as the Medieval Warm Period. At one point it was left out of a graph that famously became known as “the hockey stick” because it depicted a ludicrous sudden rise in warming, ignoring the previous natural cycle.

At the heart of the revelations were the intense efforts to ensure that no legitimate scientist, particularly those dissenting from the various IPCC reports, would be allowed to participate in the peer review process. Peer review is an essential element in science as it permits other scientists to examine and test the data being put forth to substantiate a new interpretation or discovery.

The IPCC reports were the basis by which popular media such as National Geographic, Time and Newsweek magazines could spread the lies about a dramatic “global warming”, passing them off to an unsuspecting and scientifically illiterate general public. At the same time, the lies were integrated them into school curriculums and maintained by Hollywood celebrities, politicians and others, duped or deliberately ignorant.

To this day, otherwise legitimate news media outlets continue to trumpet and repeat absolute nonsense about “global warming” like brain-dead parrots.

Now that Hadley CRU and its conspirators have been exposed, there truly is no need to hold a December UN climate change conference in Copenhagen; one in which nations would be required to put limits on “greenhouse gas emissions” even though such gases, primarily carbon dioxide, have nothing to do with altering the Earth’s climate.

And that is why you are going to hear more about “climate change” and far less about “global warming.” Hidden in such discussions, intended to justify legislation and regulation, is that the Earth’s climate has always and will always change.

It is, for example, shameful and deceitful for the EPA to claim carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” that should be regulated. The same applies to “cap-and-trade” legislation with the same purpose.

Billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on studies of global warming and poured into agencies such as NASA that have lent credence to the global warming hoax.

“The U.S. taxpayer has much exposure here in the joint projects and collaborations which operated in reliance upon what the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit was doing,” says Christopher C. Horner, a longtime global warming skeptic. “There are U.S. taxpayer-funded offices and individuals involved in the machinations addressed in the emails, and in the emails themselves.”

Horner, the author of “Red Hot Lies”, said that the initial revelations “give the appearance of a conspiracy to defraud, by parties working in taxpayer funded agencies collaborating on ways to misrepresent material on which an awful lot of taxpayer money rides.”

The climate, defined as long term trends, and the weather has nothing whatever to do with human activity and suggesting it does reveals the depth of contempt that people like Al Gore and his ilk have for humanity and those fleeced by purchasing “carbon credits” or paying more for electricity when their utility does.

The East Anglia CRU charlatans have been exposed. Most certainly, the United Nations IPCC should be disbanded in disgrace. It belongs in a museum of hoaxes right beside the Piltdown Man and the Loch Ness Monster.

"

Sounds like it is coming from Rush and Sean's playbooks. So the warmer weather and glacial melting has no bearing on the discussion? It is all a plot to run the world with one government? Do nothing and we'll all be happy? Or is it do nothing and we won't have anything to worry about since Mother Earth will get rid of the disease hurting her - that would be us!

Don't bomb the turbines

U.S. Military Wary About Offshore Wind Power Off Coast of Maryland:

"
Photo: Wikipedia, CC

Maryland Offshore Wind Development
Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland, would like to see offshore wind power developed off the cost of his state, but the U.S. military has expressed fears that the turbines could 'disrupt flight and weapon test ranges, as well as erroneously appear on radar as unidentifiable aircraft.' Three military bases in the region are using that area in the Atlantic for training missions and flight tests....Read the full story on TreeHugger"

Reading further, some are concerned since the military spends mucho bucks in the area - can't let that go away.

There has got to be a way to make everyone happy. The turbines will bring money to the area. The climate will love it. Just have to get the military to take those turbines off the "shoot to kill" list.

Adding to my wish list

Vertical Farm + Fish Tank + Solar Power = Balanced Diet:

"
Inka Biospheric systems

It has been a science fiction dream: the completely integrated, closed loop system 'micro-farm.' And we get it with the Inka Curve, a vertical minifarm that provides herbs, grasses, fruits or vegetables grown on a vertical 'bio-quilt.'
But these need nutrients, which come from fish poop. But fish tanks need cleaning and aerating, and the vertical farm needs pumped water which requires power; that comes from wind turbines and solar panels, stored in a battery bank.

So the fish poop provides nutrients for the garden, all powered by the sun, using 10% of the water of conventional farming. The bacteria in the bioquilt of the vertical farm break down the nutrients and purify the water so that it can be returned to the fish tank, providing a balanced diet of protein and green vegetables on an incredibly small footprint. It is a dream kitchen addition that means we will never have to go out food shopping again.

I have the veggie garden already but adding a small fish farm makes this a great gift - hint...hint!

We are all connected

Viewing the world as a system will help us establish sustainability:

Paul Hawken was the keynote speaker at the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum in San Francisco on Thursday. He had some inspiring talking points (the forum’s goal was to ‘reinspire the inspired’), but one of the key takeaways was in how we should be viewing sustainability.  He started by saying that sustainability should be viewed as a easily defineable.  Sustainability means we survive.  Living unsustainably means we don’t.  But it was how he suggested we view this that was really interesting. 
He wanted to suggest that sustainability is about seeing the world as a system.

This concept is not really a new one. The inter-connectedness of all has been talked about for centuries. It was the way our forefathers lived. It is just "modern" man has forgotten that. It is time we start remembering.

Battle lines drawn

GOP Ramps Up Attacks on Dems Who Support Clean Energy Reform for 2010 Elections:

Republicans on the Anti-Energy Reform Warpath for 2010
This unfortunate headline caught my eye in today's GreenWire: Political Fallout of Vote for Climate Bill Tested in House Race in N.M. Turns out a well known Republican politician is preparing to try to take his seat back in the House of Reps--by focusing squarely on the fact that his opponent, Democratic incumbent Harry Teague voted for the climate bill. As per usual, he's falsely casting the bill as nothing but a giant tax. The worrisome thing is that this tactic appears to be spreading across the country.

Listening to Rush and Hannity and other talking heads, the talk is the same: cap and tax; it's cold out so forget about global warming?; it's just nature's cycle, man has nothing to do with it; drill, drill, drill - the supply of oil is endless.

Funny thing is, what if they are wrong? Mother Earth cleans us out. Nothing to risk in reducing, reusing, recycling, going green... Only thing to risk is less bucks in the wallets of several large companies - which in turn means less money in the pockets of many politicos.

Yeast People - Bread, beer or...

The Fate of the Yeast People by James Howard Kunstler.

It's certainly true that the planet is suffering from human population overshoot. We're way beyond "carrying capacity." Only the remaining supplies of fossil fuels allow us to continue this process, and not for long, anyway. In the meantime, human reproduction rates are also greatly increasing the supply of idiots relative to resources, and that is especially problematic in the USA, where idiots rule the culture and polity.
The cocoon of normality prevents us from appreciating how peculiar and special recent times have been in this country. We suppose, tautologically, that because things have always seemed the way they are, that they always have been the way they seem. The collective human imagination is a treacherous place.
I'm fascinated by the dominion of moron culture in the USA, in everything from the way we inhabit the landscape - the fiasco of suburbia - to the way we feed ourselves - an endless megatonnage of microwaved Velveeta and corn byproducts - along with the popular entertainment offerings of Reality TV, the Nascar ovals, and the gigantic evangelical church shows beloved in the Heartland. To evangelize a bit myself, if such a concept as "an offense in the sight of God" has any meaning, then the way we conduct ourselves in this land is surely the epitome of it - though this is hardly an advertisement for competing religions, who are well-supplied with morons, too.
Moron culture in the USA really got full traction after the Second World War. Our victory over the other industrial powers in that struggle was so total and stupendous that the laboring orders here were raised up to economic levels unknown by any peasantry in human history. People who had been virtual serfs trailing cotton sacks in the sunstroke belt a generation back were suddenly living better than Renaissance dukes, laved in air-conditioning, banqueting on "TV dinners," motoring on a whim to places that would have taken a three-day mule trek in their grandaddy's day. Soon, they were buying Buick dealerships and fried chicken franchises and opening banks and building leisure kingdoms of thrill rides and football. It's hard to overstate the fantastic wealth that a not-very-bright cohort of human beings was able to accumulate in post-war America.
And they were able to express themselves - as the great chronicler of these things, Tom Wolfe, has described so often and well - in exuberant "taste cultures" of material life, of which Las Vegas is probably the final summing-up, and every highway strip, of twenty-thousand strips from Maine to Oregon, is the democratic example. These days, I travel the road up the west shore of Lake George, in Warren County, New York, and see the sad, decomposing relics of that culture and that time in all the "playful" motels and leisure-time attractions, with their cracked plastic signs advertising the very things that they exterminated in the quest for adequate parking - the woodand vistas, the paddling Mohicans, the wolf, the moose, the catamount - and I take a certain serene comfort in the knowledge that it is all over now for this stuff and the class of morons that produced it.
A very close friend of mine calls them "the yeast people." They were the democratic masses who thrived in the great fermentation vat of the post World War Two economy. They are now meeting the fate that any yeast population faces when the fermentation process is complete. For the moment, they are only ceasing to thrive. They are suffering and worrying horribly from the threat that there might be no further fermentation. The brewers running the vat try to assure them that there's more sugar left in the mix, and more beer can be made from it, and more yeasts can be brought into this world to enjoy the life of the sweet, moist mash. In fact, one of the brewers did happen to dump about a trillion-and-a-half teaspoons of sugar into the vat during 2009, and that has produced an illusion of further fermentation. But we know all too well that this artificial stimulus has limits.
What will happen to the yeast people of the USA? You can be sure that the outcome will not yield to "policies" and "protocols." The economy that produced all that amazing wealth is contracting, and pretty rapidly, too, and the numbers among the yeast will naturally follow the downward arc of the story. Entropy is a harsh mistress. In the immediate offing: a contest for the table scraps of the 20th century. We've barely seen the beginning of this, just a little peevishness embodied by yeast shaman figures such as Sarah Palin and Glen Beck. As hardships mount and hardened emotions rise, we'll see "the usual suspects" come into play: starvation, disease, violence. We may still be driving around in Ford F-150s, but the Pale Rider is just over the horizon beating a path to our parking-lot-of-the-soul.
It's a sad and tragic process and, all lame metaphors aside, there are real human feelings at stake in our prospects for loss of every kind, but especially in the fate of people we love. The human race has known catastrophe before and come through it. There's some credible opinion that "this time it's different" but who really knows? We have our 2012 apocalypse movies. The people of the 14th century, savaged by the Black Death, had their woodcuts of dancing skeletons. Feudalism was wiped out in that earlier calamity but, whaddaya know, less than a century after that the Renaissance emerged in a wholly new culture of cities. Maybe we will emerge from our culture of free parking to a new society of living, by necessity, much more lightly on the planet and for a long time, perhaps long enough to allow the terrain to recover from all the free parking.

Living simply out of necessity. Too bad we need a disaster to push us to living simply and ecologically-sound.

Are you a yeast people?

Bring back the root cellar

Eco Etiquette: How To Eat Local This Winter

Say what you will about the smog and traffic in Los Angeles, but it's pretty darn fantastic to be able to pedal on over to my local farmer's market year-round. That's one of the advantages of living in sun-soaked California, the nation's breadbasket. San Joaquin Valley, to the north, produces nearly half of all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables sold in the United States (though that number has declined in the past three years due to drought); San Diego County, to the south, has more farms than any other county in the country.

These agricultural tidbits went largely unnoticed by me until a trip to Boston in the dead of winter a few years back, after I had already moved out West, when I realized that it was only in LA that grocery stores offered almost entirely local produce; even the Beantown Whole Foods I visited featured -- you guessed it -- California's finest fruitage.

Believe it or not, you don't have to live in the Golden State to enjoy farm-fresh food 365 days a year; there are winters farmers markets, even in some darn-cold areas of the country...

Want to know how to procure farm-fresh, local food even in a four-foot snowstorm? The answer is as simple as C-S-A...

I did a survey of CSAs around the country and found that surprisingly, winter offerings can be quite diverse: Garden of Eve's farm share on the East End of Long Island includes stored vegetables like beets, rutabagas, and winter squash, as well as organic eggs; Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Maine, offers fresh salad greens and baby carrots from its greenhouse (which is heated with a renewable fuel, of course)...

Of course you can also grow your own and store your turnips, rutabagas, carrots, squash. Freeze some turnip and beet greens. Leave the kale in the garden, mulch your beets...

A perfect way to enjoy your vegetables? A great soup that includes potatoes, rutabagas, squash, parsnips, carrots, kale and turnip greens. That's my dinner for two or three nights this week.

Climate Rage

Climate Rage:

One last chance to save the world -
for months, that's how the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen, which starts in early December, was being hyped. Officials from 192 countries were finally going to make a deal to keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels. The summit called for "that old comic-book sensibility of uniting in the face of a common danger threatening the Earth," said Todd Stern, President Obama's chief envoy on climate issues.

"It's not a meteor or a space invader, but the damage to our planet, to our community, to our children and their children will be just as great."

That was back in March. Since then, the endless battle over health care reform has robbed much of the president's momentum on climate change. With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not "the be-all and end-all."

As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals - ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

Among the smartest and most promising - not to mention controversial - proposals is "climate debt," the idea that rich countries should pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis.

Ring in a new year

Church bells to ring out warning on climate change:

The World Council of Churches on Thursday called on churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times during the Copenhagen climate change summit on December 13 as a call to action on global warming.

The leading council of Christian and Orthodox churches also invited places of worship for other faiths to join a symbolic “chain of chimes and prayers” stretching around the world from the international date line in the South Pacific.

“On that Sunday, midway through the UN summit, the WCC invites churches around the world to use their bells, drums, gongs or whatever their tradition offers to call people to prayer and action in the face of climate change,” the council said in a statement.

A step in the right direction. This, along with the Green Bible, gives me some hope that religion and science can work together.

Get ready...

Whistleblower: World Running Out of Oil Faster Than IEA Says: <

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According to two unnamed sources as reported in the Guardian—one current International Energy Agency (IEA) employee and one former—the IEA has been purposely painting an overly rosy picture of the remaining available world oil supplies to avoid panicking the public. Apparently this obfuscation has been a result of heavy pressure from the United States.

As one whistleblower put it, “Many inside the [IEA] believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources.

Get ready. Things are going to get very interesting.

Ditch the fizz!

Soda Helps Make Americans Unhealthy and Fat -- Will Soda Tax Prevail Despite Pushback by Beverage Industry?:

Soft drink makers, supermarket companies, agriculture and the fast-food business have poured millions into campaigning against taxes on sweetened beverages.



Soft drink makers, supermarket companies, agriculture and the fast-food business have poured millions into campaigning against what they fear could be a burgeoning national movement to raise money for health care reform by taxing sweetened beverages.

Do we really need the sugar?

Solution - drink kombucha and kefir. Or just the old standby - beer!

Seeing the light

Five Hundred Oil-Industry Geologists Vote on Peak Oil:

Guess What the Results Were
The theory of peak oil itself is fairly non-controversial. But saying that we're close to this absolutely peak in oil and gas production is still debated by very knowledgeable people on both sides. A few years ago, it seemed like the balance was tipped in the direction of the 'peak oil is not a problem for the near future' side, but lately, it seems like things might be going the other way. At the Petroleum Geology Conference in London, 500 geologists took a vote on wether "Peak oil is no longer a concern" (something that was argued by some of the speakers). The results were interesting.
Only about 1/3 of the votes supported that claim!

A new art medium?

Manure Sculpture "Nick Smith in the Shit" Sold at Auction:

Image: TradeMe

Bullshit Bust Pokes Kiwi Minister
A manure sculpture of New Zealand agricultural minister Nick Smith has sold on the Kiwi auction site TradeMe. The sculpture by artist Sam Mahon, who traditionally works in bronze, immortalizes Mahon's opinion that Nick Smith has not taken sufficient action to protect New Zealand waters from pollution by agricultural run-off. Read the full story on TreeHugger

Makes a statement and uses a readily available medium. Likey-likey.

Is Liz Hurley the World's Most Glamorous Farmer?

Is Liz Hurley the World's Most Glamorous Farmer?:

Image from Elizabeth Hurley

You've come a long way baby... Liz Hurley, of the Versace safety pin dress (after the fold for that one) and former girlfriend of Hugh Grant, sigh, (after the fold for him too....) has abandoned the London celebrity scene for the countryside. Not life on just any 400 acre farm, but one that is working and organic, complete with sheep and cattle.

But being a farmer doesn't mean that she is letting herself go.

Sure she looks great, but you never saw me in my boots, coveralls and muddy hands!

If it is needed

Civil Unrest Has a Role in Stopping Climate Change, Says Gore:

by Oliver Burkeman in Los Angeles

Al Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.

Pee target practice

Negawatts From the Men's Room:

See the bee? Aim the pee. Photo Sfegette via flickr.
Chasing negawatts, the energy that you don't use, is a popular pursuit these days for cash-strapped states, and California is turning out to be excellent at it. Negawatts (a term Amory Lovins came up with) can offer a lot more bang for the buck, so to speak, then building new power.

Waterless urinals are nothing new, but they are starting to get more attention in the mainstream as a way to save lots of water (20 to 45,000 gallons per year) and in California's case, perhaps indirectly save energy, too. In Los Angeles, waterless urinals have just been approved for all buildings. Naval Base San Diego saved 14 million gallons of water, in part by installing waterless urinals.

Waterless urinals have evolved beyond early complaints that they were smelly. They won't win over some men who seem to be fond both of aiming their pee stream into water and hearing the satisfying flush at the end. Waterless Inc., one of the biggest waterless urinal companies, now includes a fly decal above the drain holes, perhaps giving the guys something to aim at -- and thus helping to avoid errant drips and drops. The flies (or bees) can purportedly help keep public restrooms a lot cleaner.

Always thought that each home should also have a urinal. Very convenient. And with the fly decal - fun too!

Shame

US Pulls the Plug On Copenhagen:

Todd Stern and Hillary Clinton (Photo: EPA)

The head US climate negotiator, Todd Stern, and Sen. John Kerry have announced that they are giving up hope of reaching a deal for a new climate change pact at next month's meeting in Copenhagen. The move comes as world leaders are meeting in Barcelona to finalize negotiating text in advance of the December meeting in Copenhagen. Without the US's participation, there is no hope for a treaty that will result in capping emissions any time soon.