SlackTide

Got Water?

Leave aside for the moment the specific notion of peak oil, really what we are facing is 'peak resources.'  While the bulk of the conversation now is around oil and energy use, shortly it will be about peak food and peak water.  Climate change models suggest spiking water intensities; more flooding, more droughts, wetter wet periods and drier dry periods.  As more water moves into concentrated weather patterns, it leaves us with growinig desert areas and new management issues.  See the global map highlighting water scarcity areas.

"The amount of water in the world is finite. The number of us is growing fast and our water use is growing even faster.
A third of the world's population lives in water-stressed countries now. By 2025, this is expected to rise to two-thirds.
There is more than enough water available, in total, for everyone's basic needs. The UN recommends that people need a minimum of 50 litres of water a day for drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation.
In 1990, over a billion people did not have even that.
Providing universal access to that basic minimum worldwide by 2015 would take less than 1% of the amount of water we use today. But we're a long way from achieving that.   

Water is life, and water is moving.  Water is very sensitive to our energies.  It is also equanimous and non-discriminitory, it will carry healing or disease equally, and distribute it equally to you or me and everyone.  Being conscious of your water use helps all living things, even if you now believe you live in a water rich area.  Remember, things are changing.  Where do you get your water from?  What is in it, what do you put in it?  How much do you let pour out and waste?  How skillful are you at using it sparingly and only what you need?  Is maintaining a green lawn or washing the car(s) a 'need'?  best, ~sal

Electric Salmon

I haven't got all hopped-up for a raving political rant in awhile now, which is not like me.  But I have also come to realize, at least in part, why that is; it's a two-fold answer. One is that I have all-but zero expectation of BushCo to do anything positive or meaningful these days, especially around environmental, economic, national security, or general human welfare concerns, basically on just about anything.  Second, I have come to a mindset of not really paying much attention to all_things_Politica, mostly leaving them in wait until Nov. 4.  I say this because I know very precisely what I will do come that glorious day, and all the posturing and rolling around in chicken manure between now and then has no influence on how I will act, so what's the point in being all worked up about it in the meantime?  Nonetheless, there is still work to do.

A TIMELINE OF FAILURE:
The Bush Administration's Northwest Salmon Policy

“According to the Bush administration, fish don’t need water."

Wild Snake River Salmon...
An American Treasure at Risk of Extinction

Part of the debate here in Oregon now surrounds the potential removal of the four lower Columbia River dams.  The removal of these dams is crucial to the flourishing of native salmon runs and returning them to something resembling their historic populations and regional heath.  However, this appears to be in conflict with hydroelectric energy production, a valuable resource to local energy supply.  Right now though, we are heading in an opposite direction as state legislatures are considering repealing annual spill-overs in favor of selling electricity to California.  More of the same and a sign of the times, I suppose.  Maybe if we just built another 50 nuclear power generating facilities (@ $1.5B) and shipped all the waste to Hanford (1, 2, 3) or Yucca Mountain everything would be fine and all our problems would go away?  But I'll save real Satire for another day.

One wouldn't normally associate salmon recovery with energy policy, but the truth is they cannot be unlinked, as many other things.  I am no expert, but I do know this: we need to get off our current forms of energy production and onto clean and sustainable forms like wind, which has enormous potential, as well as developing technology in solar applications and just plain old better infrastructure designs.  But this is a whole other topic, not for here today, another rant for another day.  ~sal

Free and Green - A free-market-embracing, green-power-supporting alternative to the Bush energy plan. By Harvey Wasserman

In a classic open market, today's wind power technologies are competitive with coal, but leave it in the dust once ecological externalities are factored in. Price instability is pushing natural gas out of range. Oil hasn't been a significant generator of electricity for a century (except, ironically, in Hawaii, where a conversion to solar power is being pushed hard). Finally, given the realistic life cycle, the threat of terrorist attack, and the cost of waste disposal, atomic power is barely worth mentioning.

By comparison, new satellite mapping techniques have shown that wind resources in the U.S. are far greater and more widespread than originally believed. The Great Plains region between the Mississippi and the Rockies -- the "Saudi Arabia of Wind" -- could generate three times as much electricity as the US consumes.

The Standing People - by Root Walker

We all have a particular issue that is near and dear to our heart ~ the one thing out of the multitude of issues which assault our senses every day; that one thing which pushes us to the point of a true rant. For me that issue is the desecration of trees. Every time I hear about one more forest being opened up for logging, my heart clenches, an age old grief comes welling to the surface. I simply do not understand how it is that we as a species can so blindly abuse and murder one of the most life-giving, life sustaining creatures on this planet.

How is it that we don't see the connection between cutting down the trees and the end of life (human!) on this planet? How is it that G.W.B. is so blinded by greed that he doesn't see the destruction he's imposing? How can he care so little for his children and his children's children? How can he be so callous and self centered to just not care that his actions today will leave an uninhabitable place for his own descendants? On one level, I know the answer to this ~ and I have great compassion for a man who lives in such ignorance. It is painful to watch, knowing he is simply a reflection of some part of me, but also painful for him to be living such a life for himself.

And I think to myself ~ "he just must not know!"
If he knew that:

* One large tree can provide a day's supply of oxygen for up to four people. * A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year and can sequester 1 ton of carbon dioxide by the time it reaches 40 years old. (Certainly Mr. Oil Baron himself can appreciate this one! As we putter through our day breathing out carbon dioxide and flooding the air with it from our motorized vehicles, factories, and stoves; trees and other green plants are "breathing" it these toxins and then "exhaling" oxygen )

* One large tree can lift up to 100 gallons of water out of the ground and discharge it into the air in a day. (Moisture, Mr. "Global Warming's not real")

* Trees trap more of the sun's energy than any other group of organisms on earth -- they are in essence big batteries -- the largest on earth. Only 0.1% of the sun's energy is trapped by organisms -- trees account for 50% of all energy trapped by organism. (this means they transfer this energy to us!)

Certainly he wouldn't be looking for every chance he gets to cut more of them down! Certainly he would make the connection between a lack of these types of resources and the health of life on earth.

Understanding how important trees are to all of life, perhaps he might decide to reject the old adage that a dog is man's best friend. If GWB knew that trees provide oxygen, moderate temperature, enhance rainfall, collect and absorb dust and other atmospheric pollutants, protect the earth from rapid climate change, produce and protect healthy soil, provide food, reduce light intensity from the sun, and protect watersheds for communities, might he not then consider a hug for one instead of a chainsaw? After all, he does have a dog, doesn't he?

Root Walker
A rich man is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least.

On being Vegan and Underemployed

This will be different from previous posts in that it comes from direct personal experience. I have been putting the word out recently in hopes of picking up supplemental work. Yesterday, on a lead from a good friend, I found myself at Willamette Egg Farms. My background is in carpentry, I am not a farmer, and I was there to talk with them about construction and remodeling of some of their buildings and "barns". The talks all went well and I'll start Tuesday for a two week project.

After our talks we took a tour of the operation and I had no idea what I was about to walk into. First we went to the barn which I'll be working on. A retrofit which will allow a new flock of birds to roam free on the floor. This is not free range, just not caged. The company is making this move because there is a market demand for these eggs and if they don't get it going they will lose out this market to a competitor. It won't be any real revenue maker, simply a marketing tool.

Next we went to look at one of the older "barns" that will be another future project. Simple enough from a construction standpoint. I should note here what is meant by 'barn'. These buildings are about 3-400 feet long and 50 feet wide; as wide as your house and as long as a city block (or two). It's a simple building with only walls and a roof, open inside other than structural posts. From here we moved on to the new barns where the birds are actually in production.

We walked around a couple other remodel projects, some already underway, others near completion. Eventually we headed into a live barn with actual birds. There was a small mud room we had to pass through where we stepped our boots in a shallow tub of disinfectant, apparently to clean any possible contaminants from outside which might carry disease, say from others birds, manure, etc. It didn't smell as bad as I may have anticipated and did seem quite clean.

Inside were six rows of cages running the length of this building. Each row was split in half, a cage on each side, and stacked five high. The individual cages were about 30" x 36" and as tall as a chicken, roughly half the size of a typical bathtub but shallower. In each cage were eight birds. Down the center was a water line with nipples and a feed trough toward the outside. The cages are wire, allowing eggs and manure to pass through and be collected by conveyor belts moving in opposite directions; one collecting eggs, one manure.

Keep in mind, and note, that these pictures are only two cages high. I can't say that these birds looked particularly stressed or unhealthy, it was more the simple matter of how they were being kept and the production nature of their very existence. New chicks are cycled in about once a month, enough to fill one of these buildings, one of maybe a dozen. Birds are kept for about two years until they are no longer producing eggs with high quality shells, before they are shipped off to slaughter for mulch, cattle feed, or soup, and a new flock of chicks is brought in to replace them.

I am vegetarian and don't eat eggs much anyway. My partner Sarah is vegan. I need some extra work and wonder if and how this falls within 'right livelihood'? Now the vegetables on my plate are provided by the radical enslavement of a million chickens . . . . I will stay two weeks and help convert this one old barn so maybe 2% of the chicken will be uncaged and live on an open floor. Beyond that, maybe I'll keep putting the word out for other work. In the meantime (and actually unrelated), I am on a whole fruits and vegetables diet, heading toward raw and eventually a juice fast. ~sal

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

He who knows that all things are his mind,
That all with which he meets are friendly,
Is ever joyful.

~ Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

Single Mothers after the Oil Crash

Life After the Oil Crash

The denial is what I don't understand. In talking with any number of folks regarding Peak Oil or global warming or some of the emerging facts around pre-knowledge of 9/11, what is most disturbing is how easily these details get blown off as either "doom and gloom" naysaying or the Big conspiracy theory bs. Alternatively it is mere Denial and a refusal to look at and accept facts; afterall we are a supossedly well educated society, no?

The good news about the environment, specifically in terms of it's relationship to the peak oil crisis, is that there is not enough fossil fuels remaining in the earth to cause catastrophic climate change. This doesn't mean that the Netherlands won't still endure a coming ice-age, but it does mean that our ability to wreak havoc and damage is Limited. Of course the tail side of peak oil shows an imploding global economy via racing cost increases along side growing world demand as China, in particular, continues to emerge. Having a decent roll of cash under the mattress may or may not help. I say this because much more is affected than simple economies, like food production and distribution for example. The looming peak oil crisis is not something hypothetical, but an oncoming reality; if you need some direct evidence, just keep you eye on prices a the pump. ~sal

Co-abode ~ Single Mothers House Sharing

Co-abode is a nationwide non-profit service designed to improve the lives of single moms in every way possible. It was founded by single moms, for single moms and our mission is to give women parenting children alone a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Birth, Death & Leaky Toilets

Again for the first time, the forces of birth and death are at work. A new form of transformation is taking place in many aspects of society, in public matters this has come in the form of Howard Dean and all the people surrounding him and providing him with a message. The flip side is an old and dying form of patriarchal and institutional ways of thinking. The Bush Administraction doesn't even know how hard it's going down, though this may or may not show up with sufficient momentum in time for the Novermber election. This is certainly good news for humanity, though BushCo are getting really stinking rich on the way out which will hurt us all for some time to come. Recovery and Healing is ahead, provided we keep spreading the word, Now is not the time to be quiet.

The US dollar is weak right now. Normally a good way to help this is through exports. However, our trade exports are at an all-time decifit and not just by a little. There are also not so many would be foreign customers as folks around the world are not so happy with us these days. The foreign investors, led by Asia, who are propping up the US economy are about at their fill, they can't take on much more of our exploding debt, especially with interest rates remaining politically low. So now, the bulk US tax-payer wealth is going to war effort and foreign investors. No wonder there are so few jobs available.

But this is only one point of issue for the ABB crowd. From a long list of democratic issues on the table, there is a new force raising its head again, the force of progress. This progress is not of a material nature, it calls us higher. Cultural creatives are making a push and bringing life to life again, carving out new models, new forms of how we will create the unfolding act that is public affairs, a.k.a., politics. In breif, matters of spirit are beginning to infuse and saturate all matters public. These are interesting times, in our own culture and across the globe. Evolution isn't just a biological process, it is also a cultural process and a development of consciousness as well, and here we are.

So, what are you going to do?

Most may not be familiar with what are known as Mandelbrot sets, and no reason to be otherwise. But this falls under the category of 'Things you can only see Online'. Some lighthearted and fascinating graphics to play with. If you want to learn more, there is another link at the very top of the page which takes you to a short overview and simple explanation of what's behind it. ~sal

Rising to the Challenge of Saving our Planet

Shake your head and take a Deep breath.

Rising to the Challenge of Saving our Planet

Morality is heavy in the air these days, no?

A Question of Risk

Plans for a biodefense "hot lab" at Lawrence Livermore.

Just go read and think about what that could mean.

Poverty and Privelege

Poverty and Privelege

"The difficulties of today and tomorrow lie not in reconciling different ideologies, but in the efforts each of us make as individuals of looking deeply into our own nature and the eventual discovery at it's core. Please read on."

Ralph Nader: Bush Administration Ignores the Potential Threat of Bird Flu.