What does it take to get web surfers to visit this blog?  At the moment I am averaging one or two visitors a day.  I am hardly as popular as Petite Anglaise or Belle du Jour, but I also lack the clipped English accent and an intriguing life.  Yes, life here in Skagit Valley could be called “placid” and I’m no belle of the ball.

Perhaps, I am unpopular because I wax on about too many seemingly unconnected things.  And today, I am going to do more of the same.  This idea popped in my head about the concept of preserving the earth for future generations.  That concept, which pours out of the mouths of progressives on a regular basis, on one hand sounds like another platitude, and on the other hand, sounds like an advertising campaign for consumers of America.  I am assuming that future generations implies generations of more humans and not the other creatures, unless of course, they’re cuddly and can appear in an animated movie.

So I rolled the concept around in my head because I have spoken the sentiment too many times myself.  I have never heard anyone say “let’s preserve the planet for future generations of all creatures.”  I am pretty certain that the concept relates to humans and human consumption.  So in reality, it goes something like this. 

We need to save water for future generations to fill their swimming pools, hang out in their hot tubs and water their golf courses.

We need to plant trees so that future generations will have paper and wood products.  Have you ever heard of hemp?

We need to tend to our farmland so that we can spray it with even worse chemicals that future generations of humans will invent.

We need to take care of the flora and fauna on the planet so that future generations can view them in museums and zoos.

And so on.  I realize that the concept of protecting and preserving the planet for future generations comes from the Native Americans who had a holistic view when they spoke these words.  But since that time, the sentiment has lost its true meaning.  A marriage between consumer culture and planetary preservation is a bad one that will end in divorce.

How many people actually care about the planet and will do the necessary thing to sustain it? How many people think that they can compromise and bargain, instead of taking the necessary steps and sacrifices to actually preserve the planet? How many companies use this phrase to sell a product, whether that be clothing or food products, but not deal with the problem of overconsumption?  When are any of us going to get real about problems?

I know that a minority of people on the planet have made sacrifices and live their lives in integrity.  I know that living in integrity means making some difficult choices, such as not having 5 children when you can have 2 or driving a car less often, if at all.  But we could build and live in smaller houses and not Mc Mansions, we could consume less food (starving people are exempt) and we could get over this notion that to save the economy, we have to buy more and spend more money on stuff we don’t need.

We have been brainwashed folks.  We have been turned into little robots whose soul purpose is to consume so that those at the top can add more greenery to their bank accounts.  But we don’t need to live like this and we can start thinking for ourselves.  And in fact, if we don’t start thinking for ourselves, we will destroy this planet and future generations of everything will go extinct.  Of course, if the idea of annihilation thrills you, then follow the line of lemmings jumping off the cliff.

Perhaps these dark words won’t be read by any pair of eyes.  That’s okay because I never experienced my 15 minutes of fame, and if I did, it passed by so quickly that I missed it.

About 5 miles off the coast of mainland Singapore, adjacent to two mangrove habitats, a small island is being created out of the country's waste, section by section, at a rate of just under 2000 tons per day.

Semakau Landfill, the world’s first offshore landfill and Singapore’s only waste destination, has been described by Singapore’s government as “Scenic Waste Disposal.”  The site has been open to the public for recreational activities since 2005 and has been envisioned as an eco-park featuring renewable energy generation and educational facilities.  Commissioned in 1999, the landfill was designed to work in harmony with the bio-diverse surrounding areas; it physically connects the islands of Pulau Sakeng and Pulau Semakau.  A perimeter bund includes an impermeable membrane, marine clay and rock layers, which prevent waste and its byproducts from leaching into the sea.

Initially expected to reach full capacity in 2040, the landfill’s lifespan has been extended due to the country’s efforts at waste reduction.  Singapore now has a goal of recycling 60% of its waste by 2012.

(via Sustainable Design Update and Waste Management World)

Afternote:

Love Händel is my band, i created it recently and we have few orignal songs, in most we do covers of U2, Coldplay, Beach Boys, and others. I play piano, guitar, and keyboard in this band, I’ve written that song, intensely influenced by Coldplay’s Life In Technicolor II, we will make a video and post in YouTube soon, then you can watch. This is the poetry that I promised a month ago.

It’s All Dark

Shadows and trees may be switched again

Maybe we will see corporations and money

Where the bees came with honey

Shall I  close my eyes? will I breath again?

Lonely the boy awaits for a future

But if we don’t help maybe the world

Will not survive to the life

Of a premature boy

Some says that world is better

Some says that nothing  matter

Some says that I saying is trash

But It’s all true

How I want to get back every day to home

Love makes we see that we’re not alone

And I will get some

I can’t see anymore

Where love used to be

There is just more

Shadows and trees

of steel

Green Cars-1 – Chinatown, Downtown Los Angeles, CA, USA

view larger image

copyright 2009 O. Bisogno Scotti  All Rights Reserved.

Nikon D3 DSLR, Nikor f1.8 50mm lens, exposure: f8, 1/320 sec., ISO 200, exposure compensation; +0.67, handheld.

I’ll admit to being a fair(merri?)-weather Animal Collective fan, having failed to gain satisfactory entrance into the aesthetic realm of their first 9 years or so of output –  bands like early Mercury Rev, Boards of Canada, and maybe very early Sonic Youth, being about the only relevant stamps on my passport.

However, I’m in with the outcrowd in saying that their Merriweather Post Pavilion album is this year’s best release. Verily, it is a solution to a conundrum I broach quite frequently w/ compañeros who’ve lapsed catholic on the music scene. They say:

It’s crap these days. All these internet, computer-recorded bands (oops), w/ fat indie promotion accounts, clogging up the blogosphere w/ faddy pastiche. Many cite the late 80s / early 90s as a highwater mark of genre-bursting inflorescence that glowers down on today’s indie output, aurora borealis-like. Young bands now naively mine these rich skyveins and there’s nothing new under the sun.

Of course that is bollocks, spiced meagerly w/ truth. Not appetizing. It’s bento boxes  like the A.C. that demolish the premise. Mixing synthetic and acoustic instrumentation; relying on seamless deployment of loops, electronic beats, noise and atmosphere; emoting circular murmurs and shrieks conjoined with  sunny pop vocal hooks, rice, the Animal Collective makes you think its ecological music is the sound of things to come. If so, what a weird place we will be living in…

Now, I wish it were true. An earthquake might open terra firma and take the Disney Culture Industry down into some sequestering saline aquifer, allowing us all to heal. That’s doubtful of course, almost by definition, since what A.C. does is so nigh idiosyncratic. Alas. Now they’ve bookended 2009 with the release of their Fall Be Kind EP, excerpted above. It is just as good as Merriweather and a fantastic embodiment of EPitome.  “What Would I Want, Sky” samples a Grateful Dead song, channels Mad Richard era Verve, and generally chimes along in “Empire State of  Mind”-beating uplift, since I don’t live in NYC, and I still have to face the day. In life, we can’t all be the Yankees.

Se lo dice un nobel per la fisica che stimo come Rubbia qualche motivo in più di perplessità circa il nucleare ci deve essere eccome…
Consiglio a tutti ma soprattutto ai difensori del nucleare a oltranza di leggersi l’articolo e di studiare un po’

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/04/sezioni/ambiente/nucleare3/rubbia-intervista/rubbia-intervista.html

The pantomime season is approaching fast, and seemingly kicked off with this piece on the BBC’s Countryfile programme last Sunday, in which Tom Heap explored the intriguing question of “why burning trees is better for the environment than many think”.

Subsequent media coverage has quoted the support of a number of conservation bodies, including ourselves, for the Forestry Commission’s desire to harvest two million tonnes of woodfuel a year from the UK’s “undermanaged” woods. Our supporters would rightly question why a woodland conservation charity like the Woodland Trust would wish to see trees felled and burned to produce heat.

The Trust believes that woodfuel can be part of the answer to our renewable energy needs, so long as it’s produced in a sustainable way and in particular so long as its production doesn’t damage biodiversity. Sensitively harvested, locally produced woodfuel can help avoid fossil fuel emissions and provide habitat for wildlife.

We also think that demand for woodfuel could be one of the drivers in encouraging new native woodland planting, which would bring with it a whole host of other benefits from improving air and water quality, locking up carbon and helping woodland wildlife adapt to climate change.

The Forestry Commission, in its woodfuel strategy for England, is keen that woodfuel should come from what it describes as currently “unmanaged” woods. We’re happy with that, so long as management is carried out in a sustainable way consistent with wildlife conservation.

In some cases such an approach could actually bring biodiversity improvements, for example when it means restoring ancient woodland or other semi-natural habitats planted with conifers, or restoring coppice management in woods where there are important species dependant on it. That’s why we supported the position statement, drawn up by Wildlife and Countryside Link, that was referred to in the Countryfile programme.

Rest assured, though, that the Woodland Trust will not, as implied in some of the recent media coverage, be seeking to fell two million tonnes of timber from its own woods for woodfuel. In our sites, the conservation needs of the wood are considered first: any timber or firewood produced are merely a consequence of essential conservation management work. Felled trees and branches are often left on site, as deadwood provides invaluable insect habitat as it decays.

So here’s the deal. We are a woodland conservation charity and as such our central aim is the conservation of woodland. We’re not gung-ho about chopping down trees but in these more complex times we fully acknowledge the urgent need to address the drivers of climate change. A big part of the solution is to wean ourselves off fossil fuel and for some woodfuel provides a great alternative. However, management of woods for fuel must sensitively and sustainably carried out and not come at the expense of all the other wonderful things that trees and woods do for us.

In fact, we’d like to go further. We would welcome more emphasis on the creation of new native woodland as part of the development of a domestic woodfuel market. Properly sited and managed native coppice woodland can deliver both sustainable low carbon fuel and wildlife benefits. Meeting the UK Government’s woodland creation “aspirations”, not to mention our own desire to see native woodland cover doubled, will require impetus from a diversity of sources. Low carbon woodfuel has a part to play in both driving woodland creation and moving our society towards a less damaging source of energy.

So on with the pantomime season. If woodfuel is the golden egg, we better look after the goose really well.

Oh baby, get down in Chechnya…What?
REPLACE GREEN WITH BLUE!

Thanks to the incredible response of you, our supporters, the Navy did not conduct active sonar operations within Scotland’s Moray Firth. They had planned to expand the huge military exercise Joint Warrior from the west coast of Scotland to the Moray Firth, home to our adoption dolphins.

With your support we worked hard to persuade them not to do this – and we stopped them.

This is an incredible success! Thank you to all of you who sent your protests and enabled us to achieve this victory.

To read more please click here.

However, while we have achieved a victory for the dolphins of the Moray Firth, Australian whales and dolphins have been facing another grave danger. The WDCS team, together with campaigners across Australia, have been fighting an ecological catastrophe – the Timor Sea oil spill.

Up to 2000 barrels of oil a day leaked from an offshore oil rig for more than 10 weeks. On November 3rd the spill was finally capped but we are extremely concerned that the ecological impact of millions of litres of oil spilled into these tropical waters is likely to persist for years to come, with direct health consequences for whales and dolphins.

Add your voice to our protest to prevent this ever happening again. Send an e-protest to the Australian Government about our fight to prevent this disaster from happening again.

With our very best wishes

Sarah Dolman
WDCS Head of Policy for Scotland.

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

Thanks to the incredible response of you, our supporters, the Navy did not conduct active sonar operations within Scotland’s Moray Firth. They had planned to expand the huge military exercise Joint Warrior from the west coast of Scotland to the Moray Firth, home to our adoption dolphins.

With your support we worked hard to persuade them not to do this – and we stopped them.

This is an incredible success! Thank you to all of you who sent your protests and enabled us to achieve this victory.

To read more please click here.

However, while we have achieved a victory for the dolphins of the Moray Firth, Australian whales and dolphins have been facing another grave danger. The WDCS team, together with campaigners across Australia, have been fighting an ecological catastrophe – the Timor Sea oil spill.

Up to 2000 barrels of oil a day leaked from an offshore oil rig for more than 10 weeks. On November 3rd the spill was finally capped but we are extremely concerned that the ecological impact of millions of litres of oil spilled into these tropical waters is likely to persist for years to come, with direct health consequences for whales and dolphins.

Add your voice to our protest to prevent this ever happening again. Send an e-protest to the Australian Government about our fight to prevent this disaster from happening again.

With our very best wishes

Sarah Dolman
WDCS Head of Policy for Scotland.

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

A world without polar bears by the end of this century: That’s what scientists are predicting unless we take action now. As the planet warms up, the sea ice polar bears depend on for survival is melting. If Ursus maritimus is to survive into the next century, we must do everything we can to protect its sea-ice habitat.

But inste ad of protecting polar bears in their time of need, the Obama administration is pushing Bush-era oil drilling projects in the Arctic. Continuing Bush policies of leasing and selling polar bear habitat for fossil-fuel exploration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is about to approve oil-industry plans to drill in these critical areas next summer.

 

The good news is it’s not too late to save the polar bear — if we join together and take immediate action. In response to the Center for Biological Diversity’s successful lawsuit, the administration has proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles of Arctic coastline and sea ice as critical habitat for the polar bear.

Help save the polar bear by submitting your comments to Secretary Salazar today. Let the federal government know that polar bears cannot survive unless their habitat is protected from industrialization and oil and gas development.

Click here to find out more and take action.

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

A world without polar bears by the end of this century: That’s what scientists are predicting unless we take action now. As the planet warms up, the sea ice polar bears depend on for survival is melting. If Ursus maritimus is to survive into the next century, we must do everything we can to protect its sea-ice habitat.

But inste ad of protecting polar bears in their time of need, the Obama administration is pushing Bush-era oil drilling projects in the Arctic. Continuing Bush policies of leasing and selling polar bear habitat for fossil-fuel exploration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is about to approve oil-industry plans to drill in these critical areas next summer.

 

The good news is it’s not too late to save the polar bear — if we join together and take immediate action. In response to the Center for Biological Diversity’s successful lawsuit, the administration has proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles of Arctic coastline and sea ice as critical habitat for the polar bear.

Help save the polar bear by submitting your comments to Secretary Salazar today. Let the federal government know that polar bears cannot survive unless their habitat is protected from industrialization and oil and gas development.

Click here to find out more and take action.

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

Join the push for a ‘patent pool’ and help 5 million of the world’s poorest people get the life-saving drugs they need.

Current copyright and patent laws keep the price of life-saving Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) too high for millions of people. But you can help to end this scandal. Join the push for a ‘patent pool’. Help millions of people get the HIV treatments they desperately need

What is a patent pool?

Currently, when you develop a drug it is automatically patented for 20 years. A ‘patent pool’ is a system where drug manufacturers agree, for a fair fee, to give up their HIV drug patents.

If ALL pharmaceutical companies join the ‘patent pool’ it will give companies the chance to develop these drugs for sale in the developing world. We need someone in the pharmaceutical industry to show leadership in getting this great idea off the ground.

GlaxoSmithKleine (GSK) is Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company. If they show leadership on this issue by joining the patent pool, others will follow. This is a first but vital step. That’s why we want you to email GSK and help to get them on board.

How will a patent pool help?

1. By pooling all HIV drug patents, competing manufacturers can get permission to produce the badly needed drugs.

2. This competition will bring prices down.

3. It will help the innovation that will create the essential new combinations and child-friendly drugs needed.

How can you help?

Email the Chief Executive Officer of GSK – tell him you want GSK to join the patent pool and help save millions of lives.

Best wishes,

 

Adam Askew
Health and Education For All Campaign Lead

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

Join the push for a ‘patent pool’ and help 5 million of the world’s poorest people get the life-saving drugs they need.

Current copyright and patent laws keep the price of life-saving Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) too high for millions of people. But you can help to end this scandal. Join the push for a ‘patent pool’. Help millions of people get the HIV treatments they desperately need

What is a patent pool?

Currently, when you develop a drug it is automatically patented for 20 years. A ‘patent pool’ is a system where drug manufacturers agree, for a fair fee, to give up their HIV drug patents.

If ALL pharmaceutical companies join the ‘patent pool’ it will give companies the chance to develop these drugs for sale in the developing world. We need someone in the pharmaceutical industry to show leadership in getting this great idea off the ground.

GlaxoSmithKleine (GSK) is Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company. If they show leadership on this issue by joining the patent pool, others will follow. This is a first but vital step. That’s why we want you to email GSK and help to get them on board.

How will a patent pool help?

1. By pooling all HIV drug patents, competing manufacturers can get permission to produce the badly needed drugs.

2. This competition will bring prices down.

3. It will help the innovation that will create the essential new combinations and child-friendly drugs needed.

How can you help?

Email the Chief Executive Officer of GSK – tell him you want GSK to join the patent pool and help save millions of lives.

Best wishes,

 

Adam Askew
Health and Education For All Campaign Lead

.

With Love & Bright Blessings

“Help Save Our Mother Earth”

http://twitter.com/ICareDoYou

http://helpsaveourmotherearth.com

http://myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

http://blogs.myspace.com/helpsave0urmotherearth

Spread The Word

Now that our suspicions have been confirmed by the recently published East Anglia CRU emails, it’s time to seriously think about how science might reorient itself away from a philosophy of sacrifice, privation, and doom toward ideas which might actually be useful. The scientific community could find the return to valid, optimistic and unbiased research as refreshing as it is liberating.
So many issues deserve the positive attention of science that it has truly been sad to see such a large proportion of the world’s intelligence focused on strategies designed to not only restrict human progress, but to reverse it.
Fear is not the source of achievement. It is disabling to achievement. Fear has driven climate science and closed the metaphoric door to the future. Instead of thinking about what can be done, climate science thinks about what can’t be done. Instead of exploring what is possible, climate science has defined what is impossible. In short, climate science has become the last venue within which capitalism, the free market, optimism, and progress are implicitly derogated. Climate science is not science. Climate science is politics. It is a political agenda of opinion and it has been heavily manipulated for the sake of controlling its message; a message camouflaged in “green.” The medium is the message, remember?
Who isn’t in favor of “green?” Green is healthy. Green is as emotionally appealing as it is philosophically irresistible. “Green” is the vanguard of a blatant propaganda campaign. The idea of “green” is brilliantly Orwellian, promising life while leading to stagnation and death.

It is time to replace “green” with “blue.” Blue skies are full of promise. Green is jealous and advocates a primitive life. Blue is poetic and suggests the confidence we find when we trust in our belief that much is yet to be discovered…provided we remain open to discovery.
From space the Earth is blue…would “green” ever have sent us to the Moon?
Does “green” stand for commerce, growth, real energy, peace, health, achievement, enterprise, or hope? No. “Green” stands for collectivism, deprivation, authority, restriction, and control.
“Blue” stands for freedom, future, hope, enterprise, prosperity, progress, peace, and possibility.
THINK BLUE.

This Science lesson is appropriate for grades 3-5.  It teaches the concepts of animal survival skills in different habitats. The lesson structure provides introductory vocabulary students will need, including Continent, Climate, Habitat, Predator, and Prey. I like this lesson because it then applies an abstract concept and directly relates it to students.  It Starts by announcing the discovery of a fascinating new animal— a student (who should remain silent during the following class discussion) to represent this new animal.  The class is then asked to contribute to fill in a chart about the “new animal” by answering a few basic questions about its habitat.  The lesson plan provides guiding questions for this new creature such as:  “What is the weather like in this animal’s habitat? How does this animal find shelter? How does this animal find food? Does this animal have any predators?”  And so on.   I particularly like this segue into discussing traits in real animals and their habitats because it takes a concept which could be viewed as “vague” or abstract and puts it into a student applicable context.  I enjoy the inclusion of multi-media with this lesson, as it incorporates the use of internet, graphs and other resources.  This lesson includes the discovery of animals, their habitats, survival skills and geography.   The lesson clearly states its objectives, purpose, materials and simple, easy to follow along procedural instructions. 

website

This Science lesson focuses on the construction and observation of classroom made terrariums.  It explains an experiment where children use a two liter bottle of soda, cut out certain parts, transplant soil in the bottle and use the procedure explained to create a terrarium.  This home made terrarium will be placed on a window sill and used to discuss, make predictions and essentially teach the concept of terrariums and how the water cycle effects plant life.  I like this lesson because it is very student focused and allows students to think on a higher level.  The questions are ideally created and answered by the students.  The questions will range from having them guess how much they’ll have to water, how tall the plants will grow, what will happen to the container, etc. It allows space to let them come up with the questions to ask also.  It also provides a perfect area to include the usage of Science Notebooks to record predictions, observations, data, etc.

website

Wildfire changes day to night over Lillooet.

Human civilization is entering a period of change, caused by technology among other things, that will fundamentally disrupt the basic assumptions and social patterns we have experienced over the past century. Education too is going to be radically altered over the next few decades. The first tremors of this ground swell can now be discerned.

Our daily lives in the western world are being shaken by the rumblings of financial instability at the very core of our capitalist system. The shock of the recent global economic disaster is a harsh example of this. These are times of change where past assumptions can’t always be counted on.

We are numbed by the range of crises that loom around and before us. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, the radicalization of religious fundamentalism, the disintegration of time honoured social institutions, the inevitability of peak oil, and of course the accelerating collapse of the earth’s ecosystem that sustains us. We live in times of change, times of challenge and, for some, times of despair.

As educators we need to be informed, engaged, and most of all confident that humanity is capable of rising to the challenge, because those students who we teach will look to us for reassurance and direction. And yes things will change, and that transition will be uncomfortable, but we, as a species, have the abilities and resources to create a just and sustainable world, rich in biodiversity. A large part of the solution will be found in the emerging technological capacities that are at the moment seemingly so disruptive.