Why eating organic when pregnant, I feel is essential for your baby

I’ve spent years researching organic food and its production, and I’ve heard a lot of people complain that it’s too expensive to eat this way. But the truth is, it’s not as expensive as you think when you realise that it’s an investment in the health of our planet as well as in our own good health.

There’s a great article I read back in 2008 which talks about two English families who swapped diets for a week – one junk-food-eating family swapped with another family who only ate organic, and the feedback after the week was very enlightening. One of the mothers said:

By the middle of the week, I felt really energetic…And I noticed that I didn’t feel headachy the morning after organic wine…I also realised the girls had been exceptionally well behaved…there were none of the usual tantrums. They also asked for far fewer snacks between meals. Interestingly, Amelia suffers with eczema on her legs, and by the end of the week, even that was much better than it normally is, much less red and raw…I spent £115 during the week, including several very drinkable bottles of organic wine. That’s less than my normal weekly shop, which comes in at £140 without alcohol. So it’s not true that organic has to mean expensive.

Obviously, apart from the financial surprise, there were health, mood and behavioural improvements as well.

Making the move to an organic diet is a great thing to do for your family. But if you’re considering having a baby, it’s actually very important to be aware of the level of toxins we eat when we don’t eat organic food.

In a recent New York Times article published by the Organic Consumers Association, it was stated:

A mother exchanges with her child in the womb chemicals that have remained constant for much of human evolution. They dictate which genes will be turned on and off in the child, which proteins the child will make in his body and how much of them. New research, in a field called epigenetics, now suggests that these changes, made during the earliest part of gestation, could spell out the child’s longer-term medical record. It could determine his propensity for mood swings, his tendency to gain weight into the realms of obesity, his risk of developing cardiovascular disease or cancer when he hits 50, and his propensity of passing on his genes to his children.

So the risks of the effects of these toxins is present regardless of how great you and your partners genes are. You can help reduce exposure to these toxins by eating organic foods.

When I was pregnant I was very particular about eating very clean food and I drank no alcohol. I listened to what my body wanted me to eat for the growing baby yet I still have had some small issues to handle in my children – issues which were unavoidably caused by environmental pollution. However, compared to many, my issues are indeed minor and I believe my diet whilst pregnant has helped my kids immensely. For the first seven years, as their immune systems developed, I did my best to keep my children well away from microwaves, mobile phone signals and any toxins I could avoid. I live in the inner city and worked long hours when they were little so it was a deal to organize – especially breastfeeding – so I am not saying it was easy. But I was committed, having read statements like this:

EPA risk assessors, who are federal scientists that study chemicals for toxic effects in populations, got together in Washington, D.C., last month at a workshop by the National Academies to hear the latest research. The field, still in its initial stages, buzzed with proof of late-life effects in mice, rats with genetic dispositions similar to humans. The researchers talked of chemicals that may be triggering the rise in obesity in the country; agents that promote cancer; and the need to quickly go through a list of about 200,000 chemicals in a European library…to determine their toxicity.

Click here to read the full article.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, the environmental toxins in our waterways and therefore the plants and animals that we eat are out of control. When I first began this research, the oft touted number of toxins in our bodies was 500 more than our grandmothers had in their systems. With the above estimate of 200,000 chemicals, it’s no wonder there is no knowing how anyone will react to any given toxin when it’s mixed with an infinite variety of chemical combinations.

This same article states that the Bush administration were investigating 2 toxins a year… mmm leaves you thinking doesn’t it. And the Obama Administration have that up to a whopping 8 per year so it may take a few more years than your baby can wait to find out that something you are innocently doing could lead to long term health issues.

Most of us know that plants breathe in the same air we do – but theybreathe out the oxygen we need and breathe in the carbon. Then they take that carbon and bond it into the soil with the help of microbes in the soil. The use of chemicals and imbalanced fertilizers unbinds the carbon, releasing it back into the air faster than the plant can put it in.

So the more there are of the right microbes helping the plant, the more carbon goes into the soil and out of the atmosphere.

Pretty simple eh?

So when we eat organic food, we feel better – and the planet can breathe easier too.

The best any one of us can do for our own health is to keep it clean from paddock to plate. Buy and eat organically grown foods, free from pesticides and chemical fertilizers. The more happy microbes there are in our soil, the more carbon is absorbed.

It would appear, therefore, that nature is serendipitous about its desire for us to grow and eat healthy food.

World leaders on sustainable buildings

Hilary Clinton is in town (Melbourne, Australia) this week speaking on many issues and had the opportunity to visit the award winning example of zero carbon emissions in the pixel building built by the Grocon group.

Although it has a roof garden it is only newly installed so the growth is less than lush but it is good to see the use of plants suitable to our very dry and almost dessert like conditions we can be exposed to in our drought years.

Most of the the roofs I have shown as examples in my eBook, Elegant Solutions for Addressing Climate Change are primarily for decoration like this beautiful wall green wall by French artist Patrick Blanc and examples of beauty as the enormous costs involved are still hugely prohibitive in them being adopted as the common place roofing we must all eventually have if we are to revert and indeed offset our burgeoning global populations.

So it is at least heartening to see these being highlighted by our world leaders and bringing them in to the media light that we may see the gradual filtering and cost reductions that can come about to make them affordable for all of us with large enough numbers.

In Germany, for instance, where it has been legislated, it is common place for the city to have green roofs and it is widely known it can reduce the temperature of a city in full summer by tremendous amounts thus not only making life more pleasant but cost effective too.

little girls as young as 5-6 starting puberty called precocious puberty

It was a beautiful spring weekend and I finally got a break from my city commitments to take a bunch of people out to my property and potter and spring clean while trying to sneak moments with friends for talks.

One of these proved particularly difficult as her child of 7 clung unnecessarily close to her overly emotional for a young girl with a strong out going personality and performance experience.

Finally sneaking off from her to a quiet place so her mother could talk to me about how she might afford to go totally organic on the sporadic income of a practicing actress, I was startled to find the health reason was due to this most alarming of conditions I had thought was predominately in the states.

In Australia we have had no hormones in chickens since the 60's, a main culprit of early onset hormone disruption widely held to be the cause behind many childhood early development issues due to the enormous amount of cheap, battery fed chickens being eaten. Seeing as I had two boys and for some reason an enormous extended family who also all had boys I had not been personally exposed to any instances till now of this occuring in Australia. Other health issues certainly but not this!

As a researcher of organic agriculture and all the streams of connections that link to this I am regularly asked for help on health issues as my personal journey and those of people I know has led me to a wealth of healers and streams of alternate healing methods for those dissatisfied with the traditional allopathic (conventional medicine) paradigm that often issues a diagnosis less than appealing to someone facing a lifetime of following it.

But my feeling is that unlike the medical viewpoint we are all unique and our interaction with any substance will differ from a little to a lot and it is the finding of which healing system or healer that best suit you that is the art of it. Frankly some people really suit using conventional medicine as they rarely get sick so it works for them. But as our environment, our land, our air and therefore our food sickens (hence my website title sickclimate.com) so are we. Therefore it only took a moment for me to recover from this realisation my friend had announced, to see that it had only been a matter of time before we too would be affected in Australia.

She told me how she had taken the opportunity of watching her little girl's dancing friends change costume for a performance in order to see how uncommon it was. She had been startled to see it looked as though there were more in her little girl's situation than what she had expected. She wondered if parents would even notice as many of the little girls were overweight ( another food nutrient issue) and might conceivably not realise their child was developing breasts as the age made the possibility seem ludicrous. She investigated further and asked the school teacher who said yes it was becoming common even as early as grade one or age 5.

So I am writing this blog and will keep you informed as to how I go helping my friend revert and avert this issue given that her means are limited and alternative measures are not subsidized and therefore very expensive.

I realise I am quite privileged in this world of extreme poverty and work hard to give back where I can within my ability but everyone's journey is unique and I do not vouch for any system working if the individual is not the driving force behind the recovery. This is why I give a range of suggestions in the knowledge that it has to resonate with the individual and they have to feel they are the power behind it.

I have a healer who works with a Mora machine that says he has vials that he can test a new person for their ability to be healed when they first sit in the chair! He says he can pick them mostly before they sit down and when he tests them it gives a ratio of likelhood for success.

If it is a strong 'no' he tells them he cannot help them and does not proceed with the session.

the vaccine debate

The vaccine debate is one that raises many hackles and I am not about to particularily take a stand here as I feel the emotion a mother feels towards the welfare of her child and whether she has or has not created a potentially life altering effect on her and her child through one set of advice posited by many experts is indeed a point of high contention.

I will state that I spent some time researching the isssue for my own choices and read a most informative book by a homeopathic doctor of many years research, Dr. Golden Isaac, and I contributed to his research as best I could. I did not use the conventional vaccines; not due to the preservatives as mentioned in this link but rather the very basic fact that the body learns to 'decode' the world as a baby by introduction through the more gross areas of the nose and mouth, rather than pricked directly into the skin or blood stream, and therefore the alimentary canal where the body throws out all its first defenses. When it gets to the liver it decodes and learns in the battle how to survive an attack.

Of course the fact is many 'hosts' don't survive the attack and there in lies the rub. No one wants their child or indeed themselves to be part of the racial learning statistics of dying for the cause! We opt for what ever is going to give us the best one up on the constantly mutating viruses we know and love around us. ( I say love for we actually cannot do with out them and they are also what enables nature to evolve if you are interested, read one of many articles on this connection between our evolution and the vital part the virus plays in this called paleovirology.)

One might argue I took a big risk but then I have dedicated my life and my childrens' to the pursuit of health through the body of the mind and the spirit. I have had the luxury of having researched organic food for a living in its relation to health and the climate and have developed a broad stroke understanding even when the seemingly inexplicable occurs.

My father died of multiple myeloma cancer - a blood cancer. He had the means to try every known alternative cure and doctor and in the end it was a minor blood transfusion with a slight wrong blood type at a time when he was totally clear of cancer cells that killed him, but his weakend body could not endure. I watched him and his choices over five years for it is inevitibly an individual choice how one addresses life and death, and I respect the individual to make those choices no matter how wrong they are for me. I would always argue that there was a stone yet to be turned over maybe in the body but maybe more likely in the mind or the very essence of the path of the spirit. I beleive we spend too much time keeping a body alive when the spirit has another path...but that is for another place than here.

My point is that as a collective species, in studies I have read, every known vaccine was created or discovered essentially when the host (that is us) had already begun to 'learn' how to combate it and the stats where already altering. Often the vaccine just came in on the coat tails of natures' way and took the credit. So that it is proven or not, that there is a doubt as to what is occurring or not I beleive it is an imperative that one looks to ones own counsel and does what one intuits is right for you. And to opt for a path such as mine does require a lot more effort to eat healthy, to find the money to eat organically if moving to the country and growing ones own food is not an option and to find what treatment the child(ren) or oneself needs and spend the time to heal it rather than give it a pill or a salve is a big ask in these days of time poverty.

Samoa

Samoa

Our trip to Samoa was a big eye opener, like each country we have been into with the book, the most striking thing to adapt to is the cultural differences and values.

But through it all the language of smiling seems to best communicate and our main man, Richie Vargas is just the person to achieve this with his big smile and open heart he strikes through all the peoples we have encountered with a few fumbling words often ill pronounced and in the completely wrong context!

This country has a tradition that each family owns farming land, so it is the perfect site for the book to trigger the grass roots movement we all need to happen globally if we are to reclaim our atmosphere and curb the catastrophes of weather we are witnessing develop.

Working with the NGO's (non government organizations) we were able to present the book and have it warmly received as just the tool they need to help their trainers teach the people why they need to revert to their ancestors ways and grow food organically.

Being a poor country it is only logical that they buy the cheapest food and the cheapest food happens to be reject chicken from the states. Huge hormonally enhanced birds whose hormones seem to now affect the Samoan people with may transexual men walking the street evidently so part of the culture no one even notices how odd this is or many there are. In fat the culture just accepts the changes and has these half men half women look after the children as samoans are by nature a gentle people anyway and very religious.

With funding possibly from unesco the book looks set to be translated into languages for the 25 nations this group Women in Business is presiding over. How wonderful if this tool finally begins to be used as it was intended and perhaps help some of these families and nations re empower themselves.

If funding provides perhaps Richie and I will travel into the largest 'village' in need of these agricultural practices, 'China', where the great peoples of the globe are quickly striving to join the first world who have stripped bare the nutrients in their soil and follow blindly the push for faster yields that sicken and weaken the animals and insects that gorge on them trying vainly to prevent the on flow we are seeing in our weather... as if we are not all connected!

So far we have seen the faces of Vietnam

And in China

At the bioFach stand we took out.

On the Bund with the monks

At the world expo

You ate what??

http://blog.usfoodsafety.com/ This sick egg is a sign of an even sicker sick chicken as nature puts the best the mother has at the time of creation into it's offspring The argument for blasting nuclear waste at food to prevent someone dying from a sick egg begs the question why are our animals sick? Irradiation is the new 'solution' to sickness in our food system but as the explosion of people choosing alternate medicine indicates, cutting burning and poisoning the sickness is just not the solution. Nature always had "one up" on these methods and patiently eats to kill off sickness in favour of strength. So when you choose to feed yourself animal protein take a moment to consider that the health of the animal will be feeding the state of your health. "You are what you eat..."

medicines and the affect on all of us

The issue of medications and the affect on all of us is one rarely discussed openly most probably due to the rights we all feel we have to be "healthy' through our doctors.

So I am going to be bold and talk not of the more subtle psychological issues of drugs that affect mental acuity and therefore what we all deal with on a day to day basis, like driving on the road with someone tweaked out on some substance, but rather the more mundane aspects that many drugs, and in particular hormonal medications and drugs with metal bases have in them.

These are entering our waterways and food systems in high levels due to our prolific taking of medications to handle issues, as the included link indicates from a doctor, that would be avoided if we just ate healthier.

jamie_oliver

"There's not a day that goes by that I dont C a patient who could potentially stop 1 of their medications if they wld just eat healthier"

The reason these substances are entering the eco system and therefore our food chain is there is still little technology to actually filter them out due to their nature and our current sewage cleaning systems.

articles like this one:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100712/NEWS01/7120304/Ohio-River-study-finds-drugs-chemicals-that-slip-through-waste-treatment

and this:

http://www.infowars.com/pharmaceutical-drug-contamination-of-waterways-threatens-life-on-our-planet/

are just some of many that I have read over the past 12 years of study related to these pollutants in our eco system just adding more and more pressure on our already challenged eco systems to cope with us.

These are also contaminants that make it difficult for microbes suitable to carbon sequestration (bonding with the soil) to occur adding to our climate issues.

So although it does appear as though I am harping at the issue really even a stick of organic broccoli is going to help.

Make the change for your health, mine and those you love.

You will be amazed how much better you feel and how many pills you may be able to discard!

This is an awareness I not only believe we all have the ability to embrace, but is essential if we are all to enjoy the very real global connections we are actually in the grips of.

Take facebook for instance, it now has about 8% of the world population reaching out and connecting on it (and www.renren.com if you are in China though I dont know the percentage that follow it in that 1 billion sector of the planet but it has gotta be big too!)

But we obviously want to connect. We reach to do it on the cyber universe why not try and feel it in the physical universe.

Reach for a stick of celery or a flower of Broccoli and see what happens! :)

Conventional farmers versus Organic farmers

The following is straight from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255/NSECTIONGROUP=2

Conventional farmers versus Organic farmers What do they do differently?

Conventional

Apply chemical fertilizers to promote plant growth. Spray insecticides to reduce pests and disease. Use chemical herbicides to manage weeds. Give animals antibiotics, growth hormones and medications to prevent disease and spur growth.

Organic

Apply natural fertilizers, such as manure or compost, to feed soil and plants.

Use beneficial insects and birds, mating disruption or traps to reduce pests and disease.

Rotate crops, till, hand weed or mulch to manage weeds.

Give animals organic feed and allow them access to the outdoors. Use preventive measures — such as rotational grazing, a balanced diet and clean housing — to help minimize disease.

Now, the article is based in the US and standards and influences are very different there to other countries and so there is perhaps a truer slant to the further part of the article that sites lack of scientific evidence to back claims of nutritional differences. A point now heavily disputed as slowly scientists have gathered data to the contrary over time

(see following links from the international forum for organic agricultural movements:

http://www.ifoam.org/growing_organic/2_policy/criticisms_misconceptions_main_page.php

http://www.ifoam.org/growing_organic/1_arguments_for_oa/criticisms_misconceptions/misconceptions_no2.html

http://www.soilassociation.org/Whyorganic/Health/tabid/59/Default.aspx

http://www.soilassociation.org/News/NewsItem/tabid/91/smid/463/ArticleID/97/reftab/57/t/Soil-Association-response-to-the-Food-Standards-Agency-s-Organic-Review/Default.aspx

http://www.organic-center.org/science.nutri.php?action=view&report_id=157

http://www.organic-center.org/science.nutri.php?action=view&report_id=126 )

But there are some pretty passionate organic farming families in the US who probably find this the most frustrating of all, as it is unlikely that their farms were part of the testing grounds.

I mean really, when you think about it, if there are all these differences and they were really being done as well as they can be done, it seems illogical that there would not be nutritional differences and benefits in organic food, just based on the fact that microbes provide minerals to plants as part of their waste process. That the diversity of microbes is in direct relation to what is in the decomposing matter they are feeding on (usually in the form of fertiliser) and that, therefore, there will be more presence of at least mineral diversity from the microbes in the plant's uptake from the soil.

There are, however a few points to consider.

I would think the main, obvious one, is the differences in what is being used as fertiliser.

Fertiliser is the big money spinning item in the farming world. You see a plant must have phosphate in order to photosynthesize (breath) and it can get it from microbes in the soil but we like to put it in the soil in the form of a mined substance we call various things like rock phosphate which is turned industrially into a thing called superphosphate so the plants really get pumping out of that soil!

Now the issue with this is that this can mean there is little else the plant is getting to eat. A little like taking a steroid to build big muscles and not having a balanced diet. You get the appearance of big muscles but the person could be very sick or get sick later as the lack of a certain nutrient, that may take longer to become apparent, exacts its effect.

So too, the plant can look big and green and healthy but actually be an empty hull. For more on this download my eBook elegant solutions for addressing climate change via the website www.sickclimate.com and read what the insects think of all this in the chapter on the electricity of life.

To finish off, these issues vary so much just in the different soil quality, water, environmental issues, plus the weather conditions of the area the food is being grown in, it is truly difficult to make a sweeping statement like this about nutritional content. The fact that, further in the article it studies people perception of organic as healthy and interchanges this with calorie count and weight loss is in itself worrying. Health and weight are related but not inclusive. I found it disturbing that a person thought an organic cookie would be less fattening than its conventional counterpart. It is these sort of furfies (Australian slang for a distracting stories) or 'look over here' factors that take away form the issue at hand of nutrition and health. Perhaps we should look at saying mental health and well being as opposed to health which appears to have been taken over by the weight loss industry?

For to eat organic is to begin to find connection with the food, where it came from, the people that grew it and how it was grown as more and more farming families try to put information out there about themselves and how their produce is made. They are often totally passionate about it and you the end user and your health! They are community people who care. Perhaps this is a better slant 'mental well being' through connecting with the health of the food you eat?

After all, we are what we eat!

solar projects and hidden knowledge

This article on the saharan desert is a cool project, or perhaps one should say a hot one.

It is an eye opening experience to have a house on solar. I bought a bush property several years back, wonderfully happy with myself and the fact that it was operating as a family home on a 12 volt battery's worth of solar electricity - that is about the same as your car battery!

Well, that would have to have been the biggest learning expense I have had yet to date. To start with, a 12 volt battery barely keeps a 60 watt light bulb going overnight. So all the lights were so low I had difficulty seeing anything at night. None of ones normal appliances, like a toaster, could run off it as they require too much energy to start up, same for a vacuum cleaner or anything with a motor...

Which meant one had to turn on... the back up generator! Which, in this case, was a huge old submarine engine from the 30's that guzzled diesel fuel like it was going our of style. Looked cool though, lots of ooohs and ah's from visiting guys!

In the end I found I was spending $450 worth of Diesel fuel a MONTH that had to be ordered ahead of time and delivered in great big drums. It made my 'huge' electricity bill of $350 a quarter in the city for the whole family look really cheap!

Especially in winter, if you do not have gas heating and have to use radiant electricity. Anyway, I am now very efficient, all my equipment has been altered and turning lights off has a whole new meaning.

I did eventually get a government grant to up grade my 12 volt to 48 volts and improve the solar panels but even with a $16,000 rebate there was an out of pocket of about $26,000 as the grant only paid for solar panels not the batteries - which are really expensive and like normal batteries run out no matter how well you care for them. And then, it did not cover what is called 'distribution' which means the wires and light fittings etc that had to all be changed to accommodate the larger quantity of power now surging through them. I had to do it as, guess what, my 12 volt battery eventually gave up on me and then... no power, no matter how many solar panels you have on the roof!

My point to all this seeming whinging, is actually to share the hidden costs of this new and wonderful technology that will be great in the future. So dont be lulled into a sense of fuzzy ease by solar, it is, like wind energy, full of costs the average electricity user has no idea about but which, I am pleased to say I am now very aware of and thrilled to have a totally sustainable power supply - even if I am aware I will have to pay more upgrading for it down the road again.

I am also pleased to say I rarely have to turn on the generator, which also had to be upgraded to reduce the fuel consumption and I can almost get through the winter months totally on solar now.

I am now very appreciate of my subsidized city energy and I continue to rail at my family to turn off the lights... but I am still working on that one.

the gene, the spirit, the mind and you

I love this link. The ever expanding science that comes closer and closer to explaining the inexplicable. Why one child with a genetic trait expresses it in the same family and another does not? It is wonderful really that we get there... eventually but really it is not so hard to step beyond these boundaries and realise that if you can imagine it it is possible and it will merely take time to find the reason why it is so.

For surely by now we have some inkling that our bodies, our environment and our very existence is but a reflection of the inner world that is us. If you can imagine the world as a single sentient entity with us, the plants and animals and everything I have failed to mention, like the very same world that inhabits or rather co-habits in and on us as the microbe world does, it begins to look more likely that the climate is merely a sickness or an imbalance of one of these factors expressing itself.

This scientific animation that explains the genetic code and its expression in an elegant and simple manner, somehow triggers in me the memory of how elegantly everything ties into one another and that there really is no separation from thought and expression on and in the physical universe.

That I might think a thought and it manifests around me seems only dependant on the convening factors that stand its way of expression or behove it to be expressed. Almost as if it taps into the "twitter theme" of the day and goes yeah lets have it! We all want that today!

It harkens back time and again to the very real power we all possess within us to create change with our thoughts and provides me with a surety that it will be so simply because I believe so totally in the human spirit.

So think a thought to day and express a gene, as yet unrealised within you, tomorrow... it just may be there waiting for you to release it.

Food matters:sickness, in humans and the earth.

Food matters a video about how food in the US is manipulated and causing sickness, in humans and the earth.

Another shocking tale... I am almost loath to post this is hesitation one might get the idea I am a fear monger where, in fact, I believe in the exact opposite so I thought to also post some comments on why I am averse to too much on the atrocities that are in play.

For instance the reality in America is that the FDA ( the US Federal Drug Administration) has become involved in the certification process for organic agriculture. So, as there is some controversy over its independence and possible conflict of interest, it stands to reason that there may some skepticism develop in an already chagrined and bitter public that there is any point in paying more for an organic item when there is potentially no way of proving it is any better than its conventional counterpart.

Now I have done research in this field for over 12 years now and attended forums, expos, conventions etc all over the world and I gotta say the organic industry as a whole is the most passionate group of people you are about to meet. And nobody cares more about their image being abused by such an event they do. After all, many have devoted not only their lives but those of their children and extended families to a lifestyle of dedication to a cause that sees them with a great deal less money and doing without than their counterparts.

In order to get around these dilemmas I recommend a little time taken to develop a relationship with whom you buy from. If you are able to be a regular you will see many retailers go out of their way to inform you if you keep asking questions. Like, "do you know the farm where this is from?" , is there any literature from the farmer and his family - many organic farmers produce a small flier or have some info on what they believe in. But mainly it comes down to taste.

Even a passionate farmer can be lacking in expertise and awareness of what it takes to make their land yield nutritious food.

Healthy food should taste better.

The plant will produce more sugars if there are abundant appropriate microbes in the soil to provide the minerals that the plant turns into sugars.

To read all about this please down load my eBook from www.sickclimate.com

from Food inc:"You can change the world with every bite"

This movie, Food Inc. which has become a huge internet, a must watch is much like the anti Macdonald's documentary Super Size Me http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1432315846377280008#, and the vegetarian maker Earthlings http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6361872964130308142#

All three are powerful visual stories of the atrocities at play with our food, the animals we eat and plants that supply them. Now, before you watch them know this they are not for the faint hearted and they are intended to hit you where it hurts to galvanize you to action.

If, however, you are at all like me, although you may want to be aware of the information contained therein it is more important to know what small action you can do and are willing to do with in your time and means that will affect change because it is very easy with these things to become overwhelmed with the enormity of the task and just feel hopeless and totally pointless about doing anything. And that is simply counter productive!

I was passionate and moved to do something without ever seeing these movies and although I have seen them, I had already come across most of the content in some form. I watch these shows and yes, I do feel incensed, but I also feel a little hopeless and that is just not going to get any one anywhere. So if you are a bit more of a gentle character, just stick to the fact that there is some dark stuff going on and it is a good idea to try and take even one small step towards a greener future. It may mean just one stick of organic broccoli a week for you, your family or friends for dinner.

But, as the saying goes in this issue:

"If you eat you are involved."

Greening the planet and still being human?

There is a lot of talk about greening the rooftops to cool the earth and in countries like Germany there has been quite a lot of progress in this but it is still a long way from being common due to the nature of various countries' weather conditions and housing regulations, not to mention tremendous prohibitive costs. So for most of us it is still in the dream basket but well worth taking a look at. In Australia, for instance it does not snow in any of the major capitals so the need for a roof to be any stronger than that needed to support the weight of a grown man for repairs and maintenance is just not required. Green roofs are about as heavy as a good snowfall so they need to be at least 3-4 times as strong as this to support the weight of wet earth and plants to have any of the real benefits that greening a roof can provide. Still, it is slowly becoming the pleasure and aesthetic of the wealthy to think about this when creating an environmental house. So a roof garden, that they may never even visit, may now be thought of and included in the budget that can reduce heating and cooling costs while absorbing water run off that might otherwise run uselessly back to sea together with all the muck of the streets.

In some ways this is a little like the aesthetic creation of the Asian pleasure garden that may only be visited by a select few in its lifetime. I believe these gardens added a realm of beauty to the dreams and consciousness of many as they became part of the historical fabric of a culture that reminds us of the beauty and possibility we have within us. This link, from a canadian group, provides a series of simple points to think of if you are considering this for your home. Or for more detailed links and broader knowledge why not download the eBook Elegant Solutions for Addressing Climate Change from our website: wwwsickclimate.com