There Is No Planet B

We should quit looking for planets to move to, and fix the one we've got.

Quit something. Start something. DO Something! Anything. Please. There is no Planet B.

Make every day Earth Day. Your children will thank you.

We Are Destroying Earth

Sure is hard, difficult and uncomfortable to be paying attention these days. You can ignore all the bad news if you wish, but the only way to make it go away permanently is to pay attention, then do something about it.

Thankfully, there are many good people that ARE doing something about it, including many of the readers of this blog and blogs like it. But we need more people. Way more. A critical mass of people that are pissed off and that won't take this crap any more.

The following is from Annarky's Blog, a place I visit daily.

"It is now obvious that the corporate world, is destroying the planet. Ground water is contaminated, rivers are polluted, oceans and seas are poisoned, glaciers are melting, forests are stripped bare. Natural habitats disappear under a carpet of tarmac and industrial constructions, more and more species become extinct. All this is done for profit to benefit the few. If we continue as we are doing, it is only a matter of time before the species responsible for this insane destruction of our planet will join the ever growing list of extinct species. 

Where does the state stand in all this? Take a glance around and it becomes obvious. Where resistance to this killing of the planet grows and gets in the way of corporate profit, the state apparatus, as the corporate world's hit squad, moves in and attempts to crush that resistance to the corporate greed and insanity."

Read more at: http://radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.ca, and thank you for paying attention and taking action. While no one can do everything, everyone can do something.

Are You An Activist?

Mother Nature can't speak for herself. For that we need activists.

"An activist is someone who cannot help but fight for something. That person is usually not motivated by a need for power, or money, or fame, but in fact is driven slightly mad by some injustice, some cruelty, some unfairness - so much so that he or she is compelled by some internal moral engine to act to make it better." 

- Eve Ensler

Be Brave Monday

Image: Roger Peet, Just Seeds Artists' Cooperative

"But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go out and meet it."

- Thucydides

Soul Of The Earth

In nature one can tap into the Soul of The Earth - Anima Mundi.

Anima mundi means "Soul of The World" in Greek. According to several systems of thought, this world spirit or mind refers to an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet.

The idea originated with Plato:

"Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related."

The Stoics believed it to be the only vital force in the universe, and similar concepts also hold in systems of eastern philosophy such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism.

Other resemblances can be found in the thoughts of philosophers across the ages, and as recently as the 1960s by Gaia theorists such as James Lovelock:

"We still find alien the concept that we and the rest of life, from bacteria to whales, are parts of the much larger and diverse entity, the living Earth."

For psychologist Carl Jung, contact with Nature was a powerful way to get in contact with the universal spirit, soul or intelligence.

He felt that Earth Keeping, or the conscious tending of the ecological balances that make up the web of life, was a practice every bit as spiritual as meditation, prayer or attendance at religious services.

"Nature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her," he advised.

Life, Universal Soul and the Earth are an inseparable living entity  - anima mundi. We will either succeed together, or we will fail together.

It is up to us.

Earth Day Action

If you are celebrating Earth Day, and looking for doable changes you can adopt to make a difference, this list is for you. It comes from the Attainable Sustainable website, and has a pledge for action for everyone.


Kitchen:

• Stop buying fruits and vegetables that have been imported from another country, for so many reasons.
• Buy real food. If you can’t trace its origin, it shouldn’t go into your body (ahem, IMHO) and it’s surely not doing our environment any good.
• Quit relying on takeout food. If you succumb, find a restaurant that uses compostable packaging and say no to plastic straws.
• Learn to cook some really simple, really fast meals so you won’t be tempted by fast food.
• Find a local butcher that uses butcher paper instead of buying your meat cuts on Styrofoam.
• Find a source for local meat and eggs.
• Turn up the temperature on your refrigerator, just a touch.
• In the wintertime, put fire bricks in the oven to hold heat and keep the room warm.
• Switch to glass storage containers instead of plastic.
• Get rid of your Teflon coated pots and pans.
• Use a dish cloth instead of a sponge.
• Bring fewer containers into your home. Be sure to recycle those that you can’t reuse.
• Compost your food waste.
• Make your own salad dressing, mustard, mayonnaise, and other condiments. It’s not that hard. 
• Cook double batches. Eat one lasagna tonight, freeze one for the crazy busy day that’s tempting you to turn to fast food.
• Switch to bulk teas that can be made with a tea strainer. No bags, no packaging, and no risk of ingesting plastic.

Bathroom:

• Nix the chemical cleaners.
• Take shorter showers. Less hot water used, less energy used.
• Switch to less chemically laden soaps and shampoos, or try your hand at making your own.
• Still using disposable razors? (Stores are still stocking them; somebody must be using them!) Switch to one with a replaceable blade.
• Use your bath towel more than once.
• Try a fabric shower curtain instead of a plastic one.

Home office or at the office:

• Switch to padded envelopes that don’t have a plastic bubble liner.
• Stop junk mail before it gets to your house.
• Consider online banking. You’ll eliminate the envelope as well as the use of much fuel to get your payment where it needs to go.
• Opt to receive your monthly statements via email. Again, you’ll eliminate paper waste as well as fuel usage.
• Use public transportation. Not an option? Find someone to carpool with.
• Transform the water cooler at work: request paper rather than plastic cups. Better yet, encourage fellow employees to bring a cup from home.
• Refill your ink cartridges instead of buying a new one when you’re out.
• Not using your computer? Turn it off or put it to sleep.

Laundry room:

• Wash only full loads of clothes.
• Switch to a more eco-friendly laundry detergent. Or make your own.
• Get clothes out of the dryer as soon as they’re dry, so you’re not tempted to “give them a little fluff.”
• Better yet, set up a clothesline and hang your clothes to dry some of the time.
• Install a timer on your hot water heater.

The rest of the house:

• Find out where your power comes from. Is it generated by diesel? Coal? Wind? Knowing that your energy usage is tied directly to environmentally unfriendly sources might make it easier to cut your energy use (good for the planet and your bank account).
• Say no to products that come in plastic clamshells.
• Keep a blanket on the sofa.
• Turn down the thermostat on your heater, just a touch (with that blanket, you won’t notice).
• Next time you need to buy linens and blankets, skip the man-made materials.
• Turn off the TV if you’re not watching it.
• Install window blinds to help keep the house cool in the summertime and warm in winter.
• Shop second hand.
• Wash your windows with newspaper instead of paper towels.

Outside:

• If you have an arbor, plant a deciduous vine that will shade you in the summertime and allow sunlight and warmth in during the cold winter.
• Grow your own food. If you’ve never done so, start small. Plant radishes. Or lettuce.
• If you’re a gardening veteran, consider sharing your knowledge with amateurs.
• Plant an extra row for the food bank.
• Collect some of your rainwater and use it to water the garden during dry spells.
• Stop using chemicals on your lawn.
• If you regularly forget to turn off your porch or garage light, set it up on a timer.
• Deal with pests and weeds without chemicals.
• Mulch. It will help hold moisture in, and mean less water used. It will also help keep the weeds in check.
• Compost your kitchen waste. No space? Get worms to do the dirty work with a worm composter. (You can make your own for less than $5.)

Around town:

• Stop accepting the bags that stores offer (plastic OR paper) and bring your own.
• Switch from plastic to glass bottles when buying goods at the grocery store. If it’s only available in plastic, skip it (bonus points for writing to the manufacturer to complain).
• Choose fruits and vegetables that are sold loose. There’s absolutely no reason for peas, peppers, or tomatoes to be wrapped in plastic or strapped to Styrofoam.
• Seek out local produce at the supermarket or (better yet) farmers market.
• Eliminate excess baggage in your car. If you don’t need to carry it around, don’t. You’ll use less gas.
• Take your own insulated mug for your coffee stops.
• Combine errands so that you use less fuel.
• Live near town? Walk, sometimes!
• Seek out one wild food source in your area. Maybe it’s dandelion greens. Or maybe you’ve got a source for wild asparagus or blackberries.
• Go meet your neighbors. Having a friendly community means a chance to share equipment rather than everyone owning the same snow blower or tractor.
• Those same neighbors? May share their garden surplus or help you tackle all of those excess zucchini.
• Think about needs versus wants. We’ve become a society of shoppers. Do you really need that new pair of shoes?
• Choose to live with less stuff.

Who Cares?

Apathy must be routed out wherever it exists. Or not.

A widespread and insidious problem that humanity is currently experiencing is apathy. People throw their hands in the air and ask, "What can I do about it?" Many have fallen even farther to, "whatever" and "who cares?"

Albert Einstein, for one, cared deeply. He thought that it would be the opposite of caring, or apathy, that would eventually be humanities undoing.

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."

Sophie Scholl was a brave, non-violent activist in Munich, Germany at the time of Hitler. After risking her life daily on the streets while handing out anti-Nazi leaflets, she had no problem calling out those who mutely stood by while their world was being destroyed around them.

"The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive'. The honest people who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who don't like to make waves - or enemies."

Again, apathy, or a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern, is the problem.

But there is a solution.

According to author Dan Millman, the answer is willpower. Tapping in to our life source and overcoming by sheer will alone.

We are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for, as Millman points out.

"Willpower is the key. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt, or fear."

And after our will has been revived and our apathy diffused by that jolt of life? What when the zest has returned?

Activist Arundhati Roy has some good ideas of how we can direct our will to stop the current round of destruction from continuing.

"The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them."

We don't have much to lose, unlike Sophie Scholl who was executed for standing up to evil and being unafraid to point it out, scabs and all, to others. At this point we have a lot to gain by refusing to remain on the sidelines as passive, non-participatory blobs.

Our silence and inactivity is being taken for consent.

Do we really agree with the way things are going right now? Do enough of us care to stop the destruction of all that we love and cherish?

Can we rise above the collective apathy and change the world? Or shall we say, save the world?

The Traveler's Dilemma

I have yet to see significant changes in the amount N. Americans travel

What do you do when you want to see friends, but they live 1500 km away? It is a simple living dilemma. Stay and we don't get to see valued co-conspirators, go and increase our carbon footprint.


The Offer

Recently our beautiful, generous mates in the next province over invited us to come and see them. Problem is, we live 1500 km away from each other.

How generous are they? They offered to pay for our air fare, our room and board for as long as we want to stay, and a car for our own personal use while we are there.

The Dilemma

In seven years we have only left Vancouver Island once, for my brothers wedding. Even then, the event was only two ferry sails from home. Other than that trip, we have kept to within about a 50 km radius of our home since moving here.

Our no-travel living is quite a change from our previous life of near-constant car travel. We enjoyed a life of adventure and discovery out on the open road during our leisure time, and daily commuting was a part of having full time jobs in the city.

But then we asked ourselves what our lives might look like in a post-oil world. We asked, "Where do we want to be when we make the change to a low-carbon lifestyle, and can't travel as easily any more?

Our answer was the west coast of Canada, a place we have long loved for its natural, semi-wild setting.  We moved, and stopped traveling. We didn't really plan it that way, it just kind of happened as we were  slowly entranced by our locality, and felt less of a need to be somewhere else.

Then there is the expense, and the amount of carbon produced while using fossil fuel dependent modes of transportation.

One of the big problems facing humanity right now is climate change caused by the intense use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution.

A great deal of those emissions were produced in the transportation sector.

"The combustion of fossil fuels. such as gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods is the second largest source of CO2 emissions, accounting for about 31% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 26% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. This category includes transportation sources such as highway vehicles, air travel, marine transportation, and rail." - source

The Solutions?

As carbon is part of the problem, reducing carbon-intensive activity is part of the solution. So does this mean we can't travel to see friends any more? Visiting friends and family is the number one reason most people give for the purpose of their travel.

We would really like to see people, but they are all far away, and we can't easily walk, bike, or ride horses to traverse the distances between us, as much fun as that might be.

But the current offer on the table is so very generous and enticing.

We have the time, and they have the money. But can the planet handle our recreational, non-critical travel?

Do we miss our friends, or increase our carbon footprint? Should we stay, or should we go?

It's The Traveler's Dilemma. 

Feeling Hopey-Changey

Why wait? You can create personal change NOW.

So how is that "hopey - changey" stuff working out for you? Pretty good actually. Just ask an activist.

Rebecca Solnit is one of my favourite activist/writers, so it was with delight that I discovered how involved she is in the global change movement. Her recent words, written to the individual agents of action (you and me) are hopeful and encouraging. They increase my level of ambition for working toward a brighter future despite the darkness that sometimes threatens to overwhelm.

"To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart. 

There are really only two questions for activists: What do you want to achieve? And who do you want to be? And those two questions are deeply entwined. Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style. 

That is the small ongoing victory on which great victories can be built, and you do want victories, don’t you? Make sure you’re clear on the answer to that, and think about what they would look like." 

- Rebecca Solnit 

More and more people are not waiting for their elected officials to instigate change - they are doing it for themselves. Why?

Because it is the right thing to do. It is in accepting personal responsibility for the planet's ills, and then changing them, that provide the best route towards hope, and a better world.

Our little personal victories add up and create monumental victories for all.

So, in spite of the obfuscassion and misdirection I hear coming from the mouths of politicians and bureaucrats, I remain feeling hopey-changey.

How about you?

Live Simply - Lower Your Carbon Footprint

Complexity and consumption increase the size of your carbon footprint

Want to do your part for climate change? Living a more simple, less energy-intensive lifestyle can be a good way to contribute. Taking responsibility for your own carbon footprint is a step you can take whether world leaders can agree on a Kyoto replacement or not. 

Climate change denial has been harder to spin since Sandy struck. Hopefully that catastrophic event, and other weird weather globally, will have an impact on the UN Climate Change Conference negotiations taking place in Qatar over the next few days.

Qatar, an oil-producing nation, has the highest CO2 emissions per capita in the world. But I can't say much about my country, either. Canada is the largest consumer of energy in the world per capita, and the second largest producer of greenhouse gases (after the United States). We have just over 30 million people, but we use as much energy as the entire continent of Africa, home to 700 million.

The good news is that there is a lot of room for improvement.

Lower Your Carbon Footprint

Living more simply offers many ways to reduce your personal contribution to climate change. It could be as easy as walking more often. As Steven Wright said, "everywhere is within walking distance if you give yourself enough time". 

Here are a few other actions you can take, ranging from run of the mill responses to more outrageous ideas.

Transportation

• live close to work, or to a pubic transportation network. Or work from home. Or, if practical, quit work.
• walk, bike, skip, hop, run, jog, roll - all are low carbon footprint activities.
• consider vacationing at home, or close to home. 
• quit vacationing altogether after you quit working and no longer  need to "get away".
• bus, train, and ships are the among the most efficient methods for long distance travel. Sailboats and horses are pretty good too.

Food

• grow/raise as much of your own food as you can
• if you don't have access to soil join a community garden
• support local organic farmers
• eat low on the food chain
• stay away from convenience foods of dubious nutritional value with a lot of packaging
• keep to the outside of the grocery store where all the fresh food can be found
• eat less - the average North American could eat a few hundred calories less per day and be healthier
• raise back yard chickens
• guerilla garden in empty or abandoned lots

Housing

• live in a smaller home and cut energy use, utility bills, and CO2 emissions. 
• replace lawn with a veggie garden and fruit trees
• make your home as energy efficient as possible
• install solar panels and/or a solar hot water system
• compost organics and recycle everything else
• stop buying unnecessary stuff - high consumption lifestyles are high carbon footprint lifestyles
• say no to single use/disposable products
• lower your thermostat in winter, raise it in summer

The Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of this year. Hopefully, political interest in lowering carbon emissions doesn't also expire. Either way, tackling your carbon emissions through your very own low-carbon, simple living protocol is a way to contribute now.

Action vs Acceptance

Action/Acceptance

I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to change the world. On the other hand there is something to be said about accepting things the way they are, and trusting that everything is unfolding the way it needs to unfold.

I am constantly working on finding the proper balance between learning as much as I can about world events, and wanting to run far, far away from them. I envision a tiny cabin in the woods, off-grid, with water access only, and knowing about only what is happening in the immediate area.

Then I consider the Zen saying that advises that we should never be bound by daily events, but neither should we withdraw from them. Balance is required.

We are not passive actors - simply thinking about something helps to make it happen. Therefore, we have to stay engaged, but remember to balance that with going with the  flow and living life pure and passionate, untainted by worry, regret, frustration or anger.

There are undoubtedly larger cycles of which our current civilization is unaware. Unlike our ancestors who seem to have had a more far-reaching vision than the next election cycle, the Mayan calenders for example, one of which operates on a 5000 year cycle.

What is currently happening in the world is part of the cycle that must play out before we reach the turning point and balance is restored.

A tree must lose its leaves in the fall and go dormant for weeks - during this time it seems dead. But in the bigger picture, last year's leaves mold and decay eventually entering the soil, then the tree. In the spring what once seemed dead reaches a point where it can't do anything but burst forth with new and glorious life. The cycle is complete, to begin again.

We must fight the desire to flee, turn to violence, or throw ourselves from a bridge. With a balance between allowing things to happen with acceptance, and taking action to change what we can within our own sphere of influence, we can create a better world while enjoying this one at the same time.

“After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results.”--I Ching

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

 50 Translations: "I'm scared."

Oh, the excuses I have heard. My teaching career started when 'the dog ate my homework' was still the most-used excuse going. By the time I retired from teaching dogs everywhere had been liberated from blame and slept comfortably. The most used excuse for late work had progressed to 'my printer/computer/disk ate my homework'.

By now I am sure the grade school excuse has progressed again and is something like 'I dropped my FlashStick in the toilet/sink/puddle'. It is not just the informal research gleaned as a teacher of young children, but my observations of people in general that made me aware that one thing humans do really, really well is make excuses.

There are all kinds of excuses being used to justify why 20% of the planet's inhabitants pig out on 80% of its resources. My favorite is "we work hard - we deserve it". If that were true, African grandmothers raising their AIDS-orphaned grand kids would be among the highest paid people in the world.

I heard nothing but excuses during, and since, the climate change talks in Durban, South Africa. Embarrassingly, my own country was among the most vocal examples of using excuses to avoid and delay urgently needed changes.

It does not matter if it is uncompleted grade six homework, or inaction on global inequality, making excuses only makes things worse. This is a lesson we should have solidly in place by the time we are about 10 years old. No one feels good inside when they resort to excuses - it only increases and extends the pain.

The pain suffered by humanity and the environment has gone on long enough. It's 2012 - NO MORE EXCUSES. It is time to shine the antiseptic spotlights of honesty, integrity, and responsibility upon our problems, both personal and global. Only this will treat the infection of denial.

When our denial ends, and we face our problems head on, we take action. When we finally do, it feels good, and we wonder why we hesitated with our excuses in the first place.

Time To Break Our Rusty Cages And Run

Charlie Veitch and Danny Shine (The Love Police), are more commonly known as the "Everything is OK Guys". Armed with a megaphone, sarcasm, and alarming truths, they use street theater to try and wake people up.

As hurried, worried workers march through their lives, and as the police (or rent-a-uniform security personnel) look on, The Love Police go to work on sleep-walking citizens.

"Everything is OK", they announce, "Go back to your jobs. Keep shopping."

Usually when we hear that we should not worry and that everything is alright, we become suspicious, and for a good reason. Deep down we know better.

We can feel how civilization and capitalism has caged us. Once gilded, these cages are now tarnished and beginning to rust. Our homes are fancy cages as we 'cocoon' with our families, then we commute in wheeled cages to our cubical cages at work.

We are caged birds that don't see that the bars are weak, and the door is open - why don't we try to escape? Why don't we fly away?

It's no wonder Chris Cornell was compelled to write the song, "Break This Rusty Cage". It is one of my favourites, and it is no wonder Johnny Cash, artist of the people, covered this powerful Soundgarden tune. Johnny was all about breaking cages during his career.

A cage is a cage, whether it is gilded, or rusty. It is time to break out, regain our freedom, and RUN. The choice is ours, and people like the Love Police are here to remind us that we can, and should, break free.

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Everything Is Fine

Ever since reading The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, I have been interested in people that subvert damaging mainstream messages. The characters in Abbey's book were blowing up and cutting down billboards, but today's activist is more likely to adbust billboards, and 'liberate' them for their own messages.

Adbusting anti-consumer groups have sprung up in recent years to fight the corrosive effects of ever-present corporate advertising. Adbusters is one such group based out of Vancouver, BC. Anti-advertisements hit back with the same weapons being used against us in the war on our minds, wallets and planet.

Madrid Street Advertising Takeover (MSAT) is a civil disobedience project intent on changing expectations of public behavior in our shared environments. Even more than challenging advertisers and the keep shopping gang, groups like this are putting the 'public' back into 'public spaces'.

MSAT says of its displays,

"The result is a variety of unique visions of public dialogue and a glimpse at the possibilities available when we open up our public environment in a truly public way." See more here.

Advertisers and the corporate world have taken control of our shared spaces with ubiquitous messages to "buy, buy, buy". Combined with for-profit media conglomerates, the official message is "Everything is fine. Keep shopping".

But is it, really? Should we continue mindlessly trying to buy our way to the promised better life?

I don't think so.

Liberated billboard by Shoreditch Department of Advertising Correction, UK

A Leap Backward

Maybe not that far back...

If we are going to save ourselves we are going to have to take a leap backward. We are going to have to turn the tide and adopt the simpler, more compassionate ways from whence we all came.

As the Chinese proverb teaches, it is better to take small steps in the right direction, than to take a huge leap forward, only to stumble backwards to regain your balance. Sometimes it is right to move forward, at other times a few steps back is the right move.

Right now we are stumbling, and once we regain our balance, we are going to have to take a few steps back. Steps back to a time when we did not take our good fortune for granted, knew our neighbours, and were satisfied with the small things in life.

A time when life was slower, more personal, and more local. When food came from the backyard garden, or your friend's farm down the road. When a vacation meant camping at a lake on the outskirts of town for a couple of days. When entertainment was something people created, not purchased.

When houses were small, and yards were big. When you had to harangue the kids to come in from outside, instead of trying to coax them into the great outdoors and away from a screen-lit dark room. A time when we could take a moment to share our lives with each other.

The answer to our limitless demands for more is not in finding new resources, and increasing complexity and competitiveness. It is in limiting desires, simplifying the way we live, and establishing communities where we can support each other.

If we are looking for a leap forward to save us, perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction.

Inspired By A Way Of Life

Do it yourself pot scrubber

How do we change the world? I choose to tap into personal inspiration through simple living to affect small changes within my limited sphere of influence. Some say, though, that our small individual efforts toward environmental healing will make little to no difference overall. These naysayers propose that only top down government directives will create the meaningful changes that are sorely needed.

I don't think I am going to solve the world's problems by fashioning my own pot scrubbers out of plastic mesh produce bags. And if I never used toilet paper again I'm not going to save more than a tree or two. But this does not deter me from following the ways of thinking and living that have lead to these personal actions.

In my mind, there is no question as to whether such minute, individual actions make a difference when up against our biggest global challenges. They do.

Conducting the minutia of my life as if my decisions made a difference causes me to think about and look at the world in a different way. It leads me to question the way things are done, and whether I can improve them. It causes me to ask, "What can I do right here, right now, with what I have at hand?", even if that means making a pot scrubber from reused resources readily at hand rather than purchase a pot scrubber from the dollar store.

Thousands of years of history will reveal the dismal environmental track record of governments of all types since the beginning of civilization up to the present day. If we wait for governments to take action it will be too late. They work on an election cycle, and what we need is more like a 10,000 year plan.

Even when governments eventually come on board and legislate environmental behaviours that recognize the finite nature of our planet, it will still come down to each of us choosing to comply. It will take a blend of top down, and bottom up environmental action to address our challenges. Both individuals and governments have a responsibility to create needed changes. However, I am not waiting for government.

I am doing what I can now, and it is making a difference. How else does anything get done, except by each of us individually trying to do the right thing at the right time? That is what we are naturally inspired to do, and that is how we will collectively achieve our goal of saving the planet and ourselves. If government decides to join us, so much the better, but we are moving ahead, regardless, and it feels great.

"If you do anything with a narrow mindset, it makes you think according to a calculus of success and failure. Obviously when you are up against powerful interests, there are greater chances of failure than success. But when your work is inspired by a way of life and thinking, that process becomes a reward unto itself." - Vandana Shiva, Indian environmental activist, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, defender of farmers

Greed Is Curable

"My life philosophy is simple: 

If I can afford it,

I consume it."

Greed is a highly destructive, highly contagious disease. It is spread by viral marketing campaigns, television, glossy magazines, and by coveting your neighbour's stuff. It is difficult to get rid of, and gets worse when you throw more money at it. It is spreading fast because we have been told it is good. But it is not.

Just because we can consume several times our fair share of the world's resources, doesn't mean we should. A study titled Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away: the dual effect of wealth on happiness, found that having access to the best things in life may actually undercut people's ability to reap enjoyment from life's small pleasures.

Greed is counterproductive. We think it will bring us more, but what we get is less.

We have no long term plan for maintaining our current level of consumption. If we did, we would have to involve procuring resources from off-Earth. One planet will not be enough. As Gandhi said, "There is enough for everyone's need, but not everyone's greed."

Greed can be cured by its opposite - generosity. When we think and act with generosity, we can control our desires in order to secure our children's future. When our actions are guided by unselfishness, we can share so everyone has enough. We make sacrifices so that our environment does not suffer, for we know that without a healthy environment none of us will make it.

Just because we can afford to consume, doesn't mean we should. Don't let greed infect your life - keep it at bay with acts and thoughts of enormous generosity. Everything, including your own life, will benefit.

The Power of Small

Sequoia seeds - small things can yield large results

While pausing a while in the shade of a tall, red-barked conifer, I stooped to pick up a small cone from the grass. The tree was a Giant sequoia, largest tree species in the world. There was nothing very giant about the cone, considering the tree it comes from. I brought it home and put it on my desk.

A few days later I noticed that the cone had began to open in the dry warmth of my home, and tiny, tiny seeds were falling out. I marveled at how one of the largest, and oldest living things on the planet could begin as a teeny speck that you would need a microscope to view thoroughly.

If such a simple speck of matter can create something as incredibly massive as the General Sherman, then surely our small, individual actions are capable of wondrous, far reaching things.

General Sherman, Giant sequoia,
largest tree on earth

Our small actions and efforts to live simply may seem insignificant, but their results grow and multiply, and eventually move mountains. We must not get discouraged and let what we can't do stop us from doing what we can, however small that may be.

Remember the little sequoia seeds that are bold enough to think that they can become the largest plant on earth. Just as they can grow into a tree the size of an office tower,  our small individual efforts can grow into the better world that we envision.

Love Your Mothers

Love your birth mother...

...and your Earth Mother.

Do something nice for your moms today, and every day.

No Apathy Monday

Come on Canadians - exercise your right to vote. 

Today we make a difference. 

Vote for change, not business as usual.

Your vote matters.