Climate Dots Connected -- thanks to Bill McKibben

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-link-between-tornadoes-and-climate-change-never?utm_source=wkly20110610&utm_medium=yesemail&utm_campaign=titleThomsonMcKibben

In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World

And one giant step back for wilderness protection:


In a memo to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today confirmed that, pursuant to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, the BLM will not designate any lands as "Wild Lands." - US Department of the Interior Press Release, June 1, 2011


http://wilderness.org/


http://www.wildnesswithin.com/2001/01-12/inwildness.html

Peace, Brothers & Sisters -- May 2nd, 2011

REPUBLICANS VOTE THERE'S NO GLOBAL WARMING

from Scientific American: 

Congress has finally acted on global warming—by denying it exists. It’s in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature’s 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi. 

The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change.

In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” just as abundant scientific evidence confirms.

But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee’s Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being. Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, had this to say:

“I rise in opposition to a bill that repeals the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet. However, I won’t rise physically, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating.”

—John Rennie

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=house-repubs-vote-that-earth-is-not-11-03-16

THE DARK SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE....

• From the World Science Festival, 2011: For all we understand about the universe, 96% of what’s out there still has scientists in the dark. Astronomical observations have established that familiar matter—atoms—accounts for only 4% of the weight of the cosmos. The rest—dark matter and dark energy—is invisible to our telescopes. But what really is this dark stuff? How do we know it’s there? And what does it do? From the formation of galaxies to the farthest reaches of space, it appears that darkness rules. Without dark matter and dark energy, the universe today and in the far future would be a completely different place. Join us in a discussion with leading researchers who smash together particles, dive into underground mines, and explore the edges of the known universe in search of clues to nature’s dark side....."

http://worldsciencefestival.com/events/the_dark_side_of_the_universe 


And some Jungians might muse -- dark and matter = the Feminine, as in: 
Lilith-The First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine 
Siegmund Hurwitz   

The Chestnut Tree at Schumacher College, in Devon

schumachercollege.org.uk

Tax breaks to Exxon, Chevron, et al

@judithaspharjude asphar

The time has come! Tell Congress to end the $4 billion a year in handouts to oil companies: http://bit.ly/dURT2s@CREDOMobile

A Wood Anemone --Anemone quinquefolia

A counterfoil. To too many negative reflections of humanity's doings.

An uncommon, iridescent purple anemone -- all of half an inch wide. Not a cinquefoil but septfoil?

Just picked. Only one.

Holy.

Kiltering Our Off Kilter Brains!

For me, the gleanings here reflect how our society -- dominated by the left, generally 'Masculine' (though not exclusive to men) hemisphere of the brain at the cost of the right, generally 'Feminine', (though not exclusive to women) -- is what perpetuates our world out of balance.  And if we keep going this way, we'll end up where we're headed.


Our life-support system -- this planet -- is in peril. Our skewed priorities compound economic, political, social, religious, and environmental instability. So much boils down to a left hemisphere dominance that discounts most anything that cannot be measured. We can't easily measure the elements of the natural world that creates and sustains our existence. Nor have we been able to measure the most worthwhile qualities of human nature that truth be told, we long for the most: kindness; caring; acceptance; affection; generosity; understanding; forgiveness; compassion, companionship. Except now, thanks to neuroscience the impact of Love -- or it's lack -- is pretty much measurable in the neural pathways of the brain.


For more understanding of many of the enormously complex (yet simple) roots of our nature,  see Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. www.iainmcgilchrist.com. And Dan Siegel's Mindsight -- http://drdansiegel.com/ And Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself http://www.normandoidge.com

A time of deceit?

"In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

The rich get richer and the......

Comparisons -- corporate CEO vs lowest paid worker (http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/) 
CEO to minimum wage earner ratio (http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060627/) 


CEO's made 51 times the minimum wage earner in 1965, and 821 times the minimum wage earner in 2006.

BACK TO SLEEP

Going Back to Sleep

January 5th/6th, 2011

last night

BBC World Service

reported how many women and girls are being raped in Haiti

in the camps

in the night I heard

that the inoperable, now flooded, coal mines in Queensland mean that the quarter of the world's

coal supplies customarily mined there has come to a grinding halt so

there’ll likely be a shortage of steel....for washing machines and cars

this morning I heard the Australian military are shipping water into the flooded area because their water plants are under water

last night I heard that Argentina has had a bad yield of corn and its one of the biggest producers of corn on the planet

and because of the US subsidizing ethanol, on top of that

coupled with reduced wheat harvests

mean there is likely a food crisis ahead

and prices are going up 

because oil is now $90+ a gallon

and in Abu Dabi

50% of the population are diabetic

but the country has a small population so it will be manageable

and Ireland and Greece and Portugal and probably Spain

are putting inordinate pressures on the Euro because their debt has not decreased in 6 months

and so that is freaking the Bond Markets who are keeping them afloat

so they’ve increased the interest rates to 3.6% something, from 1% something

or even more which makes the countries debt burden bigger and bigger
and the world increasing interdependence more and more vulnerable

and if the Euro falls apart

because Germany doesn’t want to prop everybody else up....?

it will shake global currency

and two nights ago on Charlie Rose

the blonde British editor of the Economist said the same thing about the US

if the US doesn’t face the pain and make the people pay

it will shake the global currency

because countries, goverments, are not going to want to cut wages of the people

after the people have been screwed by bank bought politicians

‘too unpopular’ -- there is, after all, an election coming up in 2012

it was a question of

domestic economy vs sticking to the gold standard --

voters dont want to pay the price

short term

so what

so when... long term

-- a month? a year? or two?

Because we’re intended to ignore these facts and successfully do

it means

this finite Planet has little more to give

Her penguins and Ring Seals and Killer Whales and Polar bears, and

Narwals who need ice to survive
are not able to cope

because ice is becoming water again

on this litle blue Earth

that is not ours

it is we who are hers.