One

Today is the longest day of the year!  This day is known by many names; Summer Solstice, Mid-Summers, Litha and the list goes on.  Come tomorrow, the days will start to get shorter as the sun will begin it’s yearly descent.  With the heat index peaking this last week, there is no doubt in my mind that the sun is at the height of its power.

There was a time years ago, when our ancestors weren’t blessed with things such as clocks, calendars or computers to remind them of the dates and the times of the year.  Alarms didn’t ring to let them know that it was a new holiday, they relied on the sun, moon and stars to guide their way through the wheel of the year.

Mid-Summers Day was a time of celebration; a time to rejoice in anticipation of the cooler days ahead and the upcoming harvests.  Those times have long since passed; we have forgotten to honor these changes in the earth.  We as a society celebrate holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Valentines Day, holidays that encompass only ourselves and not the planet that we live upon; the planet that provides us the many resources that we need to survive as a people. As we have forgotten to honor the Mother Earth, she will soon be unable to provide for us.

In honor of the Summer Solstice I have included a poem that was written by author, poet and most importantly, friend, Lori Lake .  It is reminder of our need to re-connect with the planet before its too late…

Unnatural Rhythms

Upon the wings of intellect
Which soar across the left side sky,
So high above the heart of Earth
It does not seek to unify.

 To increase productivity,
Unnatural rhythms we direct.
Its motion churns relentlessly,
Upon its speed we disconnect.

 Forgotten rhythms of the Moon,
And seasons with their solstices.
Nature’s cycles once in tune,
Ignored with no condolences.

 The sound of nature’s wind and sea;
The heartbeat of the Earth denied.
Lost organic rhythms be,
For now we can’t identify.

 Find the time to re-connect
Through open heart & quiet mind.
Organic rhythms re-attune,
A harmony that you may find. ~

Copyright 2007 - Lori Lake

Blessed Mid-Summers to all!

~Wind

Often I have thought about living on my own tropical island away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday constrictions of living within a society. However, the cost of being able to purchase my very own island; far outweighs dream.

Richie Sowa, a carpenter, eco-pioneer and artist from Britain, shared this same dream of mine.  The difference is he followed his dream, and built his very own tropical island paradise!  In 1998, Richie began collecting plastic bottles off the coast of Mexico and built an island structure using the bottles to keep the island afloat!

His completely self-sustaining island consists of a two story home, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet and his own food garden!  Well, here watch this video and see for yourself:

Wow!  I become more and more impressed every time I watch the video.  What a great way to leave your mark on the world…by not leaving a mark on the world…

~Wind

If you haven’t witnessed this display of ninja-like reflexes; I thought I would share!

The fact that this has become big news seems to have Americans up in arms! After reading the comments in the St. Petersburg Times  this morning, it reminded me of how much Americans just like to bitch!

Here’s an example of the verbal diarrhea that was spewed forth as one of the comments that I read this morning. “Was thinking the same thing as John. Economy is in shambles, Iran is on the verge of civil war, North Korea is ready to shoot missiles at us but the paper put a story on the front page about a fly. God save us all.”

Oh for the love of the Gods! Lighten up! Of course this isn’t the biggest story in the news, but I must say that it is quite an impressive feat! Have you every tried to kill a fly with your bare hands? No easy task, I’ll tell ya’! It’s a funny story and with all the sadness and bad news in the world, couldn’t we all use a laugh? Honestly?

According to the PETA website, “Believe it or not, we’ve actually been contacted by multiple media outlets wanting to know PETA’s official response to the executive insect execution.” Oh My God! Are you serious?!?! Even PETA is walking on eggshells on this one! PETA’s response was this… “In a nutshell, our position is this: He isn’t the Buddha, he’s a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.” This response tells me that PETA thinks it is ridiculous as well,  but does not want to upset any of their sensitive followers and has to smooth this one over. In which case, they sent the president a gift:   a Katcha Bug™ Humane Bug Catcher . My guess is that this gift was more to stroke the pettiness of some of their followers than anything else.

Let’s think about this for just second; what exactly was the fly’s reason for landing on our Commander and Chief? hmmm…my guess, is to throw up, eat it’s own vomit and possibly lay eggs for it’s little maggot offspring to hatch on his finely pressed attire!! EWWW!

Anyone who has read my blog, knows that I love all animals, I pride myself in being a speaker for the rights of our fine furry friends, but come on people it was a FLY!!!

~Wind

 
Nothing like a Day at the Beach

Last week Air France flight 447 disappeared near Brazil, pieces of the plane were located in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, according to investigators, but alas what Brazilian officials believed to be pieces of the missing flight turned out to be nothing but…and I quote “run of the mill ocean trash”!

Scientist claim that most of the ocean trash is small plastic items, however if “run of the mill ocean trash” can be mistaken for airplane parts, that leads me to believe that there are some pretty large “run of the mill” garbage floating around!  This garbage tends to collect and gather in patches called gyres, where the current of oceans swirl.

Currently, there are around six major trash-collecting gyres in the oceans!  In honor of the first U.N. sanctioned World Oceans Day, celebrate by becoming an active advocate for our oceans.

Reducing our carbon footprint by lessening our use of fossil fuels will lower the acidity in the oceans which in turn will help save the coral reefs and the entire ecosystem.

Be aware of your use of plastic products, especially the disposal of them.  Plastic is not only the main ingredient in these gyres, but they are killers of ocean life as well.  Plastic is often mistaken as food to sea turtles, ocean birds and other marine mammals, the substance causes problems in their digestive system that can cause the animals to starve or choke.

The problems that are endangering our oceans today, started with the human race, let it end with it!

Spreading the word…

~Wind

While, considering that this could possibly be the last century of our civilization is not something that anyone wants to think about, according to recent scientific research, it is something we really need to put into forethought.

Tonight is a two hour television debut called Earth 2100 showing on ABC at 9:00 p.m., hosted by Bob Woodruff.  It will take us through the worst case scenario of the next century, through population growth, resource depletion and climate change, make no mistake during this crisis the Earth will survive, however people may not!

It is a real possibility that we will be the cause of our very own extinction, by depleting our own resources through population growth we well be forcing our own species to battle itself for survival. If we continue on the road that we are on, eventually we will reach the point of no return.

Earth 2100 will give us an unusual look into the future, while providing ideas on what we can do to stop our own extinction.  Mother Nature has always found a way to thin the masses, why would humans be any different?

Check out Earth 2100 tonight, and get back with me and let me know what you think!

~Wind

The Florida Panther is last subspecies of the Puma that is still surviving in the eastern United States and the only large cat east of the Mississippi. The are a wide ranging, secretive species that requires large areas to meet their needs. However, at this time there is no protected habitat that exists for this magnificent creature.

With a total population of only 100 individual panthers remaining, the Florida Panther has become one of the Nations most endangered species. The largest threat to the Florida Panther is loss of habitat and degradation. Five panthers have already been killed this year on Florida’s roadways, and the total of the two years before peaked at a whopping 24 panthers; that is one panther a month depleting the already minute population.

We cannot afford to lose any more of these incredible creatures! Interior Department Secretary, Ken Salazar has the ability to designate specific habitat for these cats. The Sierra Club is hosting a petition to inform Salazar of the need for a designated habitat for the Florida Panther, public support is critical to their survival.

Spreading the Word,

~Wind

In an effort to aid people in keeping track of their energy use, Google and several utility companies throughout the U.S., India and Canada are getting together to launch a new program that will bring smart meters and the Google PowerMeter gadget into residences and business. For those of you that are unsure of what a smart meter is, it helps identify electricity consumption in more detail than your average run of the mill meter. It can also communicate that information via a network back to the local utility company for billing purposes. Google PowerMeter has made it possible to view your electric consumption with a secure gadget, the product is still being worked on and with fingers crossed it should be on the market later this year.

With the Google PowerMeter Gadget you will be able to determine how much it costs to leave your T.V. on, what uses the most power in your home and keep track of the energy efficiency within your home.  By keeping track of the energy consumption in your home, you will be able to make more informed decisions on how to become more energy efficient.

Keep your eyes peeled; this new tool should be available soon.

~Wind

Nearly everyone has heard of the repercussions from eating certain types of fish due to the mercury contamination.  How pregnant woman and young children should stay away from fish, as mercury is a neurotoxin.  It attacks and attempts to destroy the nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain.  During the first several years of human life, a child’s brain is developing rapidly; exposure to mercury can inhibit development causing possible mental retardation, cerebral palsy and many other complications.

There are two main contributors to mercury pollution; they are chlorine chemical plants and good ol’ fashioned coal-fired power plants!  The process of extracting chlorine from salt uses huge amounts of mercury each year.  Many of the more modern chlorine plants are using a cleaner technology; however, seven of the older plants continue to use mercury.  There is nearly 200 tons of mercury kept at these plants at all times and nearly every year these plants have admitted to ‘losing’ dozens of tons of mercury during the extracting process.  Where this mercury goes still remains a mystery to both the plant and the Environmental protection agency (EPA)!

Coal is naturally contaminated with mercury and during the burning process 50 tons of mercury is released into the air annually. Pollution control devices could be installed, however, during 2004 the Bush Administration proposed a plan that would put an end to the EPA considering emissions that are produced by coal fire plants to be considered hazardous, and would consider the emissions released to be just your basic average pollutants.  Therefore, power plant emissions are unregulated.

Other sources of mercury emissions are gold production, smelting and cement production.  Recently the EPA is proposing to reduce the mercury emissions from Portland cement kilns, which is a big step towards cleaning up the environment and perhaps making it safe to eat fish again. The fact that the EPA is starting with the cement kilns could mean that maybe it will only be a matter of time before they make their way to coal fired plants.

Spreading the word

~Wind

When we speak about becoming self-sustained, we are speaking about relying solely upon ourselves for all of our needs.  This idea doesn’t just revolve around harvesting our own vegetables, getting “off the grid” or learning to bake our own bread and make our own cheese, it means “all of our needs”. This includes ridding ourselves of the waste that we as humans tend to make.  Sure we can reduce, re-use and recycle, we can burn our garbage, and we can even turn our food waste into compost to feed our gardens, but what about a composting toilet?

A composting toilet is like a little tiny ecosystem that will recycle human excrement. It will actually safely contain the excrement while microorganisms turn it into humus for you to return back to the soil. The composting toilet uses very little water, unlike the toilets that we use now.  A “normal” toilet uses almost 5 gallons of drinking water to every ounce or so of waste, which accounts for over 30% of our household water used only for flushing the toilet.

As long as these “humanure toilets” are operated correctly they can be clean, odor-free, environmentally friendly, provide fertilizer for your garden and use less water.  So, what do you think? Would you go this far to become self-sustained?

~Wind

I have always thought that ants were a very cool species!  Every ant in the colony has it’s own special job, whether it’s workers that gather food and work to insure the survival of the colony, the queen who lays back and spits out babies all day or the males that make sure that the queen does her job (wink, wink), each ant is so busy doing their own “thing” that I really enjoy watching these little guys!

The Leaf Cutter Ants are especially cool. They live in the warmer climates in Central America and are named after the precise way that they cut the leaves from the trees. Oddly enough; they don’t use the leaves as a food source, they grind the leaves and use them a fertilizer for the fungus that they eat. The males in the leaf cutter ant colony are called drones, their particular job is to mate with queen, eat and die.

One species of Leaf Cutter Ants, the Mycocepurus Smithii, has been found recently and consists ONLY of females. They are located in the Amazon and have evolved into a species that reproduces through cloning, as their reproductive organs have almost completely disappeared. There are two very unique circumstances that occur because of the lack of males within the colony.  The lack of males provides the females with more energy to create elaborate forms of ant agriculture, however the down side is that since the colony are all clones of the queen ant, if a virus kills one ant it can just as easily wipe out an entire colony.

So, what this means is that, through evolution, this species can survive without males altogether! hmmm…I wonder who’s going to fix their cars?

~Wind