We live in a world deluded by the belief that humans are an evolved species. Just scratch under the facade, as nature often does with us, and you will see our grand countries, great philosophies, and “evolved” ways crumble like a sand castle under a small wave.
We are but helpless little creatures. I don’t say this in spite or bitterness. I say it soberly. I say it out of respect for the greater forces of the world, such exploding galaxies, as colliding planets, and relatively minuscule floods that can wipe out half a country in a few hours.
Before you accuse the government of not taking care of its citizens when “acts of god” occur, remember that the government’s statements of solace are empty. The world economy and infrastructure is feeble at best, teetering on the brink of collapse by it’s own weight let alone immune from any gusts of wind from nature.
The debacle in New Orleans a three years or so ago was blamed on Bush and Co., and correctly so since they could have at least cared a little, but would it have been much better under smarter leadership?
I think we have gotten way ahead of ourselves. Our “great technological civilization” was built so incredibly fast and is built on very thin ice. And as any polar bear will tell you the ice is melting fast.
I watched a 20 story building go up in four months here in Brooklyn. It is made of match sticks pasted together with glue. Yet it conforms to all codes….
My mother lives in Spain in a valley without electricity. All the houses in the valley use solar panels.
The other day she told me excitedly that the electric company was putting poles up the valley so everyone could get connected to the grid and get electricity.
I was surprised by her excitement because she is very green and solar is greener than grid electric. But then solar can be a pain in the ass if you don’t spend gobs of money on panels.
“So you are excited to get on the grid.” I said.
“Hell no!” She said. “I’m excited because I plan on buying all my neighbors’ panels at dirt cheap rates! Grid electricity is the past! Solar is the future!”
That’s the spirit. I agree with her. It may have looked like the electric company was bringing the valley into the present but I think the solar powered valley had leapfrogged the technology, going from candles to local solar and skipping the middle stage of grid electricity.
Just because the world around you is moving in one direction does not mean the world as a whole is moving in that direction. One isn’t better than the other but it is important to keep the perspective in mind.
Even though everyone around my mother is moving to the grid I think the world at large is moving towards solar electricity. My mother’s personal vision is in harmony with the world at large.
There are three things to consider in defining perspective:
1. Your personal perspective
2. The perspective of things immediately around you
3. The perspective of things at large
I find that if you have the courage and strength it is good to find the harmonies between points 1 and 3 and then stay true to them. In my mother’s case it is also going to save her a lot of money.
Point 2 is just passing and only worth paying attention to on a practical level. Being in harmony with point 2 at the expense of 1 and 3 can eventually leave you out of touch with yourself and the world. Being in harmony with 1 and 3 at the expense of 2 can make you a little unpopular in the short run but that about it.
Of course harmony between all three is great and the ultimate goal, but sometimes not possible because you are not in control. All this is just about perspective and not really about controlling the process.
Below is some info on how Electro Magnetic fields from computers and cell phones effect people, especially children. A lot needs to be done in this area to put more pressure on corporations to control their use of EMF or at the very least do more studies to learn more about them.
By Paul J. Rosch, MD:
Children are more severely affected by EMF because their brains are
developing and their skulls are thinner. A two-minute call can alter
brain function in a child for an hour, which is why other countries
ban their sale or discourage their use under the age of 18.
It is not generally appreciated that there is a cumulative effect and
that talking on a cell phone for just an hour a day for ten years can
add up to 10,000 watts of radiation. That’s ten times more than from
putting your head in a microwave oven. Pregnant women may also be at
increased risk based on a study showing that children born to mothers
who used a cell phone just two or three times a day during pregnancy
showed a dramatic increase in hyperactivity and other behavioral and
emotional problems.
And for the 30% of children who had also used a
cell phone by age 7, the incidence of behavioral problems was 80%
higher! Whether ontogeny (embryonic development) recapitulates
phylogeny is debatable, but it is clear that lower forms of life are
also much more sensitive. If you put the positive electrode of a 1.5
volt battery in the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco and the negative
one off San Diego, sharks in the in between these cities can detect
the few billionths of a volt electrical field.
EMF fields have also been implicated in the recent massive but
mysterious disappearance of
honeybee colonies essential for pollinating over 90 commercial crops.
As Albert Einstein warned, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of
the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.”
Finally, all life on earth evolved under the influence of solar
radiation and geomagnetic forces that we have learned to adapt to and
in some instances even utilize. The health of all living systems
(ranging upward from a cell, tissue, organ or person, to a family,
organization or nation) depends on good communication – good
communication within, as well as with the external environment.
All communication in the body eventually takes place via very subtle
electromagnetic signaling between cells that is now being disrupted by
artificial electropollution we have not had time to adapt to. As Alvin
Toffler emphasized in Future Shock, too much change in too short a
time produces severe stress due to adaptational failure. The adverse
effects of electrosmog may take decades to be appreciated, although
some, like carcinogenicity, are already starting to surface.
This gigantic experiment on our children and grandchildren could result in
massive damage to mind and body with the potential to produce a
disaster of unprecedented proportions, unless proper precautions are
immediately implemented. At the same time, we must acknowledge that
novel electromagnetic therapies have been shown to benefit stress
related disorders ranging from anxiety, depression and insomnia, to
arthritis, migraine and tension headaches.
As demonstrated in Bioelectromagnetic Medicine, they may also be much safer and more
effective than drugs, so we need to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
From Paul J. Rosch, MD
Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, New York Medical
College; Honorary Vice President International Stress Management
Association; Diplomate, National Board of Medical Examiners; Full
Member, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences; Fellow, The Royal Society
of Medicine; Emeritus Member, The Bioelectromagnetics Society
Scientific and historical Facts about gasoline and alcohol:
1. The original automobiles ran on alcohol because when they were invented gasoline was not available.
2. Rockefeller spent $4 million (that we know of) to promote Prohibition, a ban on alcohol manufacturing in the US that started in 1919 just as the car industry was taking off.
3. When Prohibition was lifted in 1933, gasoline stations were ubiquitous and most engines ran on gasoline only.
4. Alcohol can be manufactured locally and on a community level from renewable plant material for $1 per gallon.
5. The growing of plant material for alcohol would have no effect on the price of food.
6. The growing of plants for fuel would more than neutralize the carbon created by burning alcohol for fuel.
7. In Brazil, over 50% of new cars sold can already run on 100% alcohol.
8. Producing alcohol from plant material is incredibly energy efficient.
9. The oil companies aggressively promote “science facts” to deceive the public into believing that alcohol fuels: a) will cause starvation, b) are uneconomical, and c) are net polluters.
10. Gasoline is a high toxic material.
11. It is entirely unneeded to fuel our cars.
12. Oil companies like Chevron have pressured PBS, commercial TV networks and other news media to keep this basic information from the public for decades - and the censorship continues to this day.
If this massive deception were to be busted, it would:
1. remove the reason that many wars are fought today
2. revitalize the world economy, especially in rural area
3. instantly increase the wealth and health of every
person on earth
It is so cool that Brooklyn has lots of parrots who escaped from captivity and are now thriving in large parrot communities here.
Why there are almost only Quaker parrots I am not sure, probably because they are very hearty and smart - able to survive the winter and avoid predators.
This guy has invented a motor that heats water. It is VERY efficient. Because it is so efficient there are more implications than simple hot water heaters for the house. Very interesting.
LONDON, England (CNN) — Imagine a life where each morning you cycle to work, and come home at night to tend your allotment and eat a dinner of locally produced food.
In order to move to a zero-carbon lifestyle, livestock and produce will need to be locally sourced.
Maybe after your meal you take a walk down the car-free streets to the nearest bar where you buy a round of drinks with locally produced currency and settle down in a corner to watch a troupe of musicians play some local folk music.
It might sound like some kind of fairytale arcadia — a return to the simple lives of our forefathers, before fossil fuels and consumer culture turned everything on its head.
In fact this is how many people are beginning to envision our future — a world where we come to terms with inevitable fuel shortages and work towards a less energy-dependent lifestyle.
This vision has found a voice in the “transition initiative,” a movement that encourages towns, villages and cities across the world to begin the process of preparing themselves for a carbon-free world.
The first so-called transition town was pioneered in the southwest English town of Totnes, by the inventor of the concept Rob Hopkins, 18 months ago.
Since then almost 50 other places in Britain have signed up to the movement, as well as a smattering of towns in New Zealand and Australia.
Hopkins, 38, who lives with his family in Totnes, says people have seized upon the transition initiative because it offers an “empowering, inspiring” vision of the post-oil age.
“It has grown into a vacuum — there is nothing else that looks at ways to respond to peak oil and climate change that feels good,” Hopkins says.
Hopkins’ beliefs about the looming energy crisis are summed up by the title of American environmentalist writer Richard Heinberg’s 2003 book on the subject — “The Party’s Over.”
Heinberg, who provides the foreword to a handbook Hopkins has recently published on the transition initiative, estimates we are very close to reaching a state of peak oil — the point at which half of the world’s oil reserves have been used up and thereafter supply goes into freefall.
A lack of any viable alternative energy sources means human communities will have no choice but to cut back energy use, the book argues.
Since governments and big business seem unable, or else unwilling, to deal with these problems head-on, Hopkins believes the change must come in the first instance from the grassroots.
“We have to be looking to break our oil dependence and get to being a zero carbon society within 20 years. We don’t have any choice in this if we want our children to have any kind of lives.
“Of course, much of this needs to come from government level, but to make cuts of that nature will need a lot of things that don’t tend to make governments very popular, such as carbon rationing.
“The idea with transition is to engage communities in pushing for these things, so as to take the fear out of making these decisions for politicians.”
One way of doing this is through an “energy descent pathway,” a step-by-step plan compiled by residents designed to wean the town away from a reliance on carbon fuels. Some transition towns are already beginning to implement the plan.
Other initiatives trialed in Totnes include planting nut trees to provide emergency food supplies and the setting up of locally-run energy and construction companies to increase self-reliance.
Just over a year ago the town also introduced its own currency — the Totnes pound. Accepted in 18 shops in the town and borrowing its design from an 1810 local banknote, Hopkins believes it is a sign of things to come.
“Historically, when economies run into trouble, local currencies proliferate. In Argentina when the economy collapsed a few years ago, they appeared all over the country.
“They are inevitable because we will need currencies that are locally loyal, that make more things happen before they leave the economy than (pound) sterling does.”
To some this return to localism might sound like a step back.
Although Hopkins acknowledges drawing inspiration from the past — part of the transition process involves consulting with older members of the community to find out what life was like when people were more self-reliant — he insists he’s not being regressive, only realistic.
“The transition approach is not about convincing anyone to give up anything. It is about saying that many of the things we increasingly take for granted will become steadily more expensive and less and less dependable.
“We are entering a world where there will be a lot less energy available, and this will affect all aspects of our lives, and we need to start planning creatively now.”No Sail full movie
I’ve seen the car that runs on water, now here is a car that runs on air pressure. It is the same piston technology as a gas engine where pressure moves the piston but instead of a little gas explosion it is simply air under pressure.
Check out the engine made in Australia - it is the same size as a Frisbee!!
Billion Dollar car companies aren’t inventing this stuff. It is mostly spearheaded by simple people with modest funding. Now don’t tell me there is something strange going on here?!?!