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