massive attack's hymn for mother earth.

"hymn of the big wheel" by massive attack

the big wheel keeps on turning
on a simple line day by day
the earth spins on its axis
one man struggle while another relaxes

there's a hole in my soul like a cavity
seems like the world is out to gather just by gravity
the wheel keeps turning the sky's rearranging
look my son the weather is changing

i'd like to feel that you could be free
look up at the blue skies beneath a new tree
sometime again
you'll turn green and the sea turns red
my son I said the power of axis over my head
the big wheel keeps on turning
on a simple line day by day
the earth spins on its axis
one man struggle while another relaxes

we sang about the sun and danced among the trees
and we listened to the whisper of the city on the breeze
will you cry in the most in a lead-free zone
down within the shadows where the factories drone
on the surface of the wheel they build another town
and so the green come tumbling down
yes close your eyes and hold me tight
and i'll show you sunset sometime again

the big wheel keeps on turning
on a simple line day by day
the earth spins on its axis
one man struggle while another relaxes
as a child's silent prayer my hope hides in disguise
while satellites and cameras watch from the skies
an acid drop of rain recycled from the sea
it washed away my shadow burnt a hole in me
and all the king's men cannot put it back again
but the ghetto sun will nurture life
and mend my soul sometime again

the big wheel keeps on turning
on a simple line day by day
the earth spins on its axis
one man struggle while another relaxes
[x2]

earth day 2008: show your love.

happy birthday mother earth.

we love you.

each year, earth day represents a reminder to the modern environmental movement that began april 22, 1970. the decided national day was to focus one whole day out of the year on the environmental problems facing our mother earth.

even 38 years ago, the environmental crisis was sweeping across the nation's campuses. they could see it then. we see it now. but how much progress has been made?

what will you do (or don't do) today, on earth day 2008, to observe this national day?

take action.

al gore believes in a happy ending still even though little has changed since his thought-provoking an inconvenient truth won a pulitzer. he also believes the environmental crisis has become even more urgent. do you believe he's doing his part in the environmental state of emergency? or do you believe the claims made against him for being an energy hog? (the writings contained herein this blog have been both pro and con toward al gore. lately, we're more pro. amazing what education can do to enlighten the mind. be sure to educate yourself.)

michelle kaufmann gives you some ideas how to take all that consumer waste and make it pretty in her do-it-yourself earth day activity kit.

the above graphic was orchestrated for a designboom and da--design association japan international design competition to demonstrate the theme "love your earth."

share more. how do you love your earth?

green-thinking entrepreneurs.

see how today's entrepreneurs are putting their money where their mouth is with carbon-footprint minimizing extreme ideas ranging from 3-wheel spaceship-like vehicles to gypsum-free drywall to a recycling bin equipped with a tracking device (recyclebank) that pays out to its clients based upon their recycling contribution to an idea that blows my own mind: a renewable plastic. really? wow.

if you had the money and time, what kind of innovative idea would you create to further the green cause?

look who's behind it all:
steve fambro of aptera
sungevity
ron gonen of recyclebank
pelamis wave power and enersys
saul griffith of makani power
nau
serious materials
amyris
david rosenberg of hycrete
frederic scheer of cereplast
howard levine and ian bruce of venture vehicles

note: gypsum plays a leading role in producing the global-warming toxin carbon dioxide.

summer vacation hotspot: garbage island.

ok so garbage island may not bequite the summer vacation hotspot of 2008 for clubmed but it's certainly something for the eyes to behold.

what i'm talking of is a mass of questionable size--reports claim it ranges from twice the size of texas to larger than the continental united states and still growing--floating along in the pacific ocean. according to thomas morton, "garbage island" is in such a remote spot it takes a week to get there. (i don't know how much vacation time you've got but that kind of travel will put me in the red.)

who's thomas morton, you ask? my question exactly. he's important enough or is at least participating in an adventure interesting enough for cnn to notice him. of what i could find out he's an associate editor for vice magazine. seems before he came to know of garbage island he wrote about all kinds of stuff for the magazine. (i'm still investigating how he got caught up in that interest.)

read thomas morton's article oh, this is great that explains a little about it and if you're wanting more, watch what's now a 12-part series on the garbage community. eric lanford interviewed him about the mass on cnn.


news on garbage island isn't anything we didn't already know about. greenpeace, an obvious example, has spoken out about it on several occasions, including this one called the trash vortex in an effort to educate people. treehugger, a personal favourite, wrote the great pacific garbage patch: out of sight, out of mind, in february of this year. other not-so-environmentally-geared sites like npr and wikipedia have collected information to share with their followers also. london's independent put this story out in february of this year about the trash pile the world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from hawaii to japan. this is also not the first time i've written about the trash issue. see my stories called caring for our oceans and happy whale.

while there's definitely been a surge in this topic, fact is, this is not a new discovery. it seems the first account came from a sailor named charles moore. moore founded algalita marine research foundation. but the discoveries scientists are finding is what's alarming. it's disgusting to think about the feeding cycle that occurs in the ocean with all the animals feeding off the bits of plastic circling in the trash vortex thinking it's plankton and then we eat the animal and then the trash ends up in our bodies. short story: we're eating our own refuse. that's gross. but this is scary: the impact of all the garbage can have lasting damage to our health including the reproductive systems of women resulting in miscarriages time and again, breast cancer, low sperm count, prostate cancer, and other ailments.

this is not something to be taken lightly. this garbage pile isn't just destroying the natural habit of flipper and shamu--it's affecting each one of us.

what can you do? unfortunately, the situation is so impossible that it will take a major recall of how our society thinks and operates. to quote a favourite tommy lee jones line from men in black: a person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals. that may not totally play to point but here's how i apply it: as one person we can make an effort to change the amount of plastic we use in our daily life--we're individually responsible for ourselves and our footprint. as a whole society...well, when was the last time you can think of society today agreed on one thing? aside from the fact we live in a democracy, most people don't take too well when they're told what to do or how to act. most folks like to act in a way that flatter them into thinking they're the ones that came up with the idea.

now you see my point?

but don't get me wrong. there is much you can do--separate your trash appropriately; when you see litter, pick it up and throw it out (i've started keeping antibacterial gel in my car which comes in handy for times like this.); cut up those plastic rings that hold your 6-pack of beer or soda together (a personal favourite).

by doing your part you'll be recognized as an example and others will follow. it just might take them a little longer.

note: pictured above is a laysan albatross filled to the brim with bottle caps and other plastic objects. likely the bird mistook the plastic pieces for food. the other is of a sea turtle and his unfortunate run-in with a plastic ring.

blog action day.

today is blog action day.

bloggers everywhere are making their voices heard (or the sound of clicking keyboard strokes) on the hot topic of our day--the environment.

we're blogging as a critical mass to raise the awareness and urgency of the situation. if we all participate, we can make a difference.

so what are you doing to lessen your carbon footprint? what are you doing to save your planet? what are you doing to do your part in the fight of our lives--saving our mother earth? what's your action plan?

take a stand. be an activist.

start refusing plastic bags at the grocery store.

limit your use of paper and plastic products.

turn the lights off when nobody's home.

recycle.

compost.

leave your car parked--take public transportation.

all it takes is one person. that person is you.



note: this blog is dedicated 100% to the overwhelming issue of global warming. browse through the other entries for tips on how you can lessen your carbon footprint with simple and easy measures.

don't be an eco-litterbug.

while shoveling my organic walnut oatmeal in my mouth, i filtered through some of my eco-emails that come every morning and came across this one from grist that i like very much. i'm guilty of the occasional eco-littering. read the article and then imagine the effect of spitting your gum out into the bushes has.

Into the Wild: On tossing food waste

question

Dear Umbra,

I am a college student. I eat a lot on the go. Not fast food or boxed meals, but when I leave my dorm I usually grab an apple, banana, or other fruit/veggie to eat as I walk to my destination. I don't compost, instead I just throw the banana peel or apple core into the bushes. I like the thought that maybe one day my apple core will become an apple, or that my banana peel will help nourish that piece of ground/animals in the area over ending up in a landfill. To me this eco-littering is an opportunity for new life. I know that it takes a long time to biodegrade as a piece of fruit tossed in the bushes, but I think that, on a smaller scale (not all of society throwing their food scraps into our green places), it's not a bad thing. But I've heard that this eco-littering isn't terribly good. I don't really know and I kinda like my fantasy world where it is. Is my eco-littering OK? Should I start to properly compost my food?

Brendan
Moscow, Idaho

answer

Dearest Brendan,

Many angles to consider here -- or, there's more than one way to peel this apple. Is that the expression? Am I conflating skinning a cat with peel me a grape?

We'll sort through the peelings, but let's start with the end and say: It would be better to properly compost your food.

Partly this has to do with citizenship. What you are doing is just plain old littering, and from a civic standpoint, it's improper. Mind you, I think most people throw food into the bushes one way or another. My mother threw apple cores out the car window into roadside woodlands, I throw plum pits under the apple trees in my back yard. But one is not meant to do it in either frequented public places or in remote locales; other people who encounter your litter may find it repulsive. It may spoil their pleasant bush-side jaunt, they may feel the need to clean up after you, they may be gardeners maintaining the bushes who find your rotten leavings. We vote, and recycle, and drive less, because we believe that one person has an impact. By this logic, one person's litter makes a difference. Not a good difference. There should be all types of activism in the environmental movement, but I don't think fruit rinds send a clear enough message to count as activism.

At an ecological level, discarded fruit leavings are not the cat's meow either. Almost none of the produce you discard will sprout new life. An apple seed or a plum pit might, because these grow in your area, but due to the unpredictable nature of sexual reproduction in domesticated tree fruit, the resultant tree would likely be a weird, unrecognizable, and less tasty fruit. If you live in a human-dominated landscape, it will be torn up. Any animals that eat the fruit will be scavengers who have other food sources, because no animal could build a life on waiting for banana peels. In a worst-case scenario, an innocent animal would eat your garbage and suffer indigestion or death. (I'm kind of making the death part up, but it doesn't seem utterly out of the question.)

Those are some of the reasons why we should stop throwing our produce bits about. True, one alternative is to throw them in the garbage, where they will be interred for centuries. But the other alternative, composting them, fulfills almost all the aspects of your fantasy world. If you were to compost your pits and peels, they would transform themselves into nourishing plant nutrients. Composted material isn't just more aesthetically pleasing than rotting banana peels, it has a chemical and structural difference that is beneficial to plants. If you then threw this material under the bushes -- oh, happy bushie day.

Luckily for you, basic information about all sorts of composting is just a click away, on this very website. May your fantasy life simply improve as you change your leftover hummus into humus.

Painfully,
Umbra

penguins: suited up for disaster.

it's just really sad. so many creatures are affected negatively by global warming. while the effects are difficult still to see on the mainland they're evidencing themselves clearly in places like antarctica and the arctic.

penguins are running out of space to mate. such a wonderful creature.

don't be silly and think because they're so far away and in an environment very foreign to most of us that our efforts can't help them.

everything we/you can do from changing our lightbulbs to boycotting the plastic bag will have far-reaching effects.

maybe seeing the danger this adorable creature is in will encourage you to try just a little bit harder to minimize your carbon footprint. i hope it will. it wells my eyes with tears.

al gore: another look.

this may surprise many of you but last night i finally watched al gore's an inconvenient truth.

if you haven't watched it, please do. rent it. borrow it from a friend or the library. buy it.

in spite of al gore being an energy hog and trying to justify it by saying he has lots of carbon credits, the man is doing a great thing with this movie he's made. he's a great speaker/presenter, and will have you crying and laughing the entire way through the startling and jaw dropping content.

i've gotta hand it to him. he's taken it upon himself to fight this troubling reality by sharing it with as many people as will hear him. now we have a responsibility to act on it. make a change today.

al gore: energy hog and hypocrite?

apparently the truth is too inconvenient for even al gore, the guy who told us we have 10 years to shape up or our planet will be sent free-falling. you know, the guy at the front of the documentary an inconvenient truth.

according to the article below, actions speak louder than words and he's being called an energy hog.

===

Al Gore's Mansion Described as Energy Hog
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
February 27, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Former Vice President (and global warming aficionado) Al Gore deserves an award for hypocrisy, says the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

The group, which studied Gore's electric and natural gas consumption, says his mansion in Belle Meade area of Nashville "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year."

In his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Gore urges Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home, the group noted.

"The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh-more than 20 times the national average," the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said in a news release.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh -- consuming more than twice as much electricity in one month as the average American family uses in an entire year. Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359, the research group said.

Likewise, the natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 a month last year.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said.

===

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe
updated 12/7/06 @ 5.45p ET

Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin."

Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.

For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.

Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee.

Maybe our very existence isn't threatened.

[...]

The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up [...] one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.

my parents. self-sustainable and going green!

an email from my mother today telling me how she's doing her part to prolong the life of our planet. (i made a few comments and wrapped them in parentheses.)

==

i'm canning green beans and beets today--supporting my local farmer. (my parents have a huge garden. a couple actually. and an orchard.) all the "waste" from the veggies is recycled through the helens. (the helens are our 22 chickens.)

my window are open and the air conditioner is off.

i don't have a clotheslines, yet. am working on that one. (i remember growing up mom would regularly hang laundry on the clothes line at our old house. a matter of where to string up at this house.)

there are no unnecessary lights on right now. (my parents have always been sticklers when it comes to leaving lights on that weren't being used at the time.)

==

way to go mom!

my parents moved to a 95.5 acre farm a couple summers ago. the property has a 2 +/- acre lake loaded with big fishies, a fresh water well, and livestock--chickens, a.k.a. the helens, goats, and cattle. (we rent our grassy hills and valleys to a cattle farmer.)

since my folks moved, they've been planting like crazy. they have a couple large gardens and a wonderfully sprawling orchard.

all produce waste is recycled through the helens which is then recycled through my family from the eggs we collect and intake.

the main living area in the house has skylights and the sun just pours through them. this is particularly great in the summertime but can make for chilly nights in the winter. luckily they picked up a couple wood burning stoves.

my father is constantly clearing out fallen and dead branches from the woods. not only does he chop it for the wood burning stoves but he uses it to build/support fences and miscellaneous properties for the animals.

mtv: thinking green.

music fan?

love your mtv?

i do.

and now i love them even more!

i don't know how long they've had their activism page up (must be very recent) but i just discovered it a little while back.

click on it and browse to learn the ways you can take better control of your life and move it the direction you want. whether it's changing the environment, letting your voice be heard, discovering the job made just for you, figuring out your higher education or even getting details on being tested for HIV, mtv.com is a great one-stop-shop.

a couple of my favourite links from mtv.com.

break the addiction: chock full of environmental links, education, support in changing your life, etc. you can even read what others are doing in their neighbourhoods and lives to change their daily impact. to break their addiction.

they even have a 12-step program (the steps are listed below; go to mtv.com for more details and information relating to each step) to help you along your way to reducing your carbon footprint. if you're an mtv viewer (like me!), you've likely seen the commercials--a bicycle moving slowly across your screen with green letters punching the date in the upper left hand corner asking you to break the addiction. (the program identifies a simple step for each month starting in may and finishing up in april with a celebration on earth day.)

1. examine yourself
2. choose wisely
3. become independent
4. re-energize your space
5. transport better
6. get political
7. go paperless
8. shop smarter
9. go healthy
10. love, protect, and preserve
11. consider an alternative
12. celebrate your impact

grist suggests reading environmental journalism can be as bad as eating your vegetables boiled without butter. while that's a bit of a stretch for me, it's nice having an alternative that will shoot me the gist of the news story with a link to the source. that way if i don't have time or energy to read the entire story, i at least can stay abreast of the issues. their unique technique is based upon the doom and gloom of the planet with a humourous kick in the pants. based out of seattle, they're free and dependent upon contributions, grants, and a sprinkling of advertisements here and there to get their word out.

"grist: it's gloom and doom with a sense of humor. so laugh now--or the planet gets it."

sign up today!

==

click. read. educate yourself.

light's on but is anyone home?

greenpeace has done it again. they've taken a simple step toward changing the environment and made it even easier to relate to--and it's claymation.

if einstein was still around (may he rest in peace), surely this would be his new bright idea.

any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. it takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction. -- albert einstein

do your part. go green.

reduce your carbon footprint:

consume less.
share more.
live simply.
do your part.
learn how.



Ten Things You Can Do to Help Curb Global Warming
presented by the sierra club—10 things you can do to help curb global warming and in the end, save you money and create a safer environment for the future.

Ten Things to Do
10 simple things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. it even tells how much carbon dioxide you can save if you practice any of the suggestions. inspired by "an inconvenient truth."

Top 50 Things to Do to Stop Global Warming
a series of global warming awareness pages listing facts and we can do to help our planet.

The Global Warming Survival Guide
published in a special edition of time magazine it lists 51 things everyone can do—both complex and simple ideas.

Cargo Plant Love
visit their website and learn more about their lipstick that could change the world.

Treehugger
how to green your gifts.

Greenpeace Energy Saving [R]evolution - first 7 steps
sign up and help the revolution with practicing a step a day! together maybe we can change the laws.