Archive | Seven Principles RSS feed for this section

How gas drilling contaminates your food – Sustainable food – Salon.com

18 May

Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined 28 cattle belonging to Don and Carol Johnson, who farm about 175 miles southwest of Jaffe. The animals had come into wastewater that leaked from a nearby well that showed concentrations of chlorine, barium, magnesium, potassium, and radioactive strontium. In Louisiana, 16 cows that drank fluid from a fracked well began bellowing, foaming and bleeding at the mouth, then dropped dead. Homeowners near fracked sites complain about a host of frightening consequences, from poisoned wells to sickened pets to debilitating illnesses.

via How gas drilling contaminates your food – Sustainable food – Salon.com.

Tags: ,

Wet Iris Bent Over

15 May

IMGP9724rd

Does this iris have enough resilience to recover from the rain?

Japan’s distinctly un-American brand of heroism – Japan Earthquake – Salon.com

15 May

In speaking with young people in various parts of Japan, I was struck by the fact that no one said they trusted their government. They did, however, trust each other. Thirty-year-old Tomoko, who lives in Iwaki City, which is 25 miles away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor, put it best. “I am not afraid, because the workers at the nuclear power plant, the fire department and the defense department are working around the clock.” There is an invisible web of community support, and it is in this that most Japanese place their faith.

via Japan’s distinctly un-American brand of heroism – Japan Earthquake – Salon.com.

Tags: ,

Rare Species Of Frog May Hold Cure To…Ah, Never Mind, It’s Extinct | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

15 May

Rare Species Of Frog May Hold Cure To…Ah, Never Mind, It’s Extinct | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

That title says it all. The lives of our children and their children depend on biodiversity. We need all the species, alive and well.

Truth and Traditions Defined

12 May

What do we mean by Truth with a capital T?

The Republican Party is based on a growing cluster of denials, distortions and outright lies that some of us will not forgive or forget. Dennis Kucinich put together a list of 35 impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors that included the particulars of lies that pushed us into very costly (in innocents killed and a trillion borrowed dollars) and unwinnable wars. Both the admitted and the unconfessed spying activities which invaded the privacy of millions of Americans, plus the manipulation of intelligence and intelligence gathering agents — go read the list of 35 articles and weep for the shredded Constitution and Bill of Rights, the lost 9th Amendment rights to privacy and to a clean conscience as a citizen. The Declaration of Independence was trashed too. In 8 years of Bush/Cheyny building up their personal wealth with war operations, we lost everything of quality, every virtue, that America ever stood for: morality, integrity, honesty, humility, rule of law., freedom, justice — all out the window.

That’s one inconvenient truth: our loss of everything good we ever stood for.

The inconvenient truth of climate change is another. The inconvenient truths of peak oil now, peak drinkable water now, peak everything on the horizon, as far as the eye can see. The many, many ugly truths of war and waste have been systematically unexamined by our corporate owned mass media who stand to profit by ignoring news unfit for them to print or speak.

Continue reading →

Fukushima #4 leaning to the right

10 May

Starting at roughly 3:20 in this video you can see reactor #4 leaning to the right:

Tags:

Iris

10 May

IMGP9238rd2

Tags:

Green Branding: Authenticity Matters

10 May

Green marketing expert Jacquelyn Ottman remarks on a recent NYTimes piece reporting

… that green brands launched in recent years by mainstream marketers such as Clorox (Green Works) and S.C. Johnson (Nature’s Source), had experienced sharp sales declines during 2009 and that introductions of green brands were off during that period, too. And then I perked up. The article went on to report that, in stark contrast —even during the recession—brands like Seventh Generation and Method experienced double-digit growth and market share gains, too.

She goes on to observe: “It’s easy for consumers to tell that Green Works and Nature’s Source are made by the same companies that produce the ‘brown’ products consumers are trying to shift away from.” Perhaps the green community actually cares about deep company values and  genuine commitment to sustainability.

Tags:

Encyclopedia of Earth

10 May

“The Encyclopedia is a free, expert-reviewed collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other’s work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public.”

Check it out. For, example, here’s the article on US Nuclear Policy Issues; the next big earthquake in Northern California: overgrazing: and Energy Transitions, Past and Future.

“Omnivorous Energy” – A Strategy for Local Resilience

9 May

John Robb at Global Guerrillas has a provocative pair of posts. First, on energy omnivores vs. specialists:

  1. The generalist (aka The Omnivore).   Able to consume a wide variety of energy although at an efficiency penalty.
  2. The specialist.   Able to access and consume a very narrow type of energy in a highly efficient way.

We’re in an era of change, so the specialist is vulnerable, as the specialist’s favored resources may disappear. But the omnivore can take whatever’s available and so has an advantage. Thus “we need to adopt more of an omnivore strategy in regards to nearly everything we do.” So, broaden your skill set, diversify investments, really diversify: “An omnivorous investment strategy puts resources into communities and technologies that will be there even when most financial assets are imploding.”

A second post talks more directly about energy:

One of the methods I recommend to reduce that vulnerability is to use microgrids. Microgrids are essentially a local controlled electricity network that makes it possible for communities to create dynamic local markets for electricity production and consumption that can zoom innovation and investment.   When we first began to talk about microgrids, the technologies involved were merely plans on paper.  Now, a mere three years later, we see offerings from many major technology companies (with the potential of open source projects that can open up this tech for everyone).

Moving along:

A truly resilient strategy for the local production of energy (both heat and power) should be able to consume nearly any type of fuel.  In essence, our energy consumption strategy needs to be omnivorous — it can eat anything.  Currently, the vast majority of the energy we consume is produced through purchasing and running dedicated systems — i.e. furnaces that burn natural gas, oil, or wood.  Also, these systems must be able to produce a range of outputs, from heat to electrical power as needed.

Tags:

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →