Friday, 25 June 2010
Watch this video
Although this video is about pain, healing and compassion - and you may ask what that has to do with the climate issue - healing is exactly what I feel the planet and the tumultuous climate is saying to us.
It must surely be time to heal our disconnect, our rift with nature in our flat out thrust to experience the wondrous potential that is our creative ability?
Perhaps now that technology is here, this is where our greatest creative thinkers have gone? No longer in the visual arts? Where are our greatest leaders and thinkers? Are they in the marble yards or painting studios? Where is the next audience for the artist? Is it not here on the internet?
I watch the children and see their discovery, their wonder at what is created and it is a far cry from the wonder of nature which moves too slowly and organically for them.
But surely there are parallels to be found and beauty to be embraced and incorporated that even these speed addicted minds might embrace and find fascinating?
For it is from nature that our scientists have their greatest discoveries in medicine, exploration, and so many inventions.
So take the time to review this beautiful video and pause to reflect on the possibilities before an around us.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand
This article raises many issues for farmers the world over as the issue of carbon sequestration and gathering climate problems affects us all. The farmer is of the most connected and caring of individuals whose constant contact with nature makes it impossible for them not to be sensitive tot he future needs of the environment if they are to provide a world worth toiling for for their children. That the most pressing need is food today for their families is priority but also that they need to grow food for us to survive also is a balancing act the isolated farmer would find difficult, at best, to resolve.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
A Tuna Escape Raises Hackles -
In this article about tuna one should be aware of the complex issues of culture and health it raises. As seafood is still one of the purest forms of brain food. The deep sea fat of these grand creatures is a prized source of such food so it is a dilemma for us as a species to be farming it out of existence with our voracious appetite. For the alternative is the farmed fish.
On my travels to global organic conferences it was eye opening to learn of the amount of study being done on the habits and behaviours of the sea creatures we eat and the effects of growing them in enclosures that alter their health just as penning a hen does.
Currently it is becoming the norm to find farmed salmon and trout in the shops but do you know the amount of disturbing colours added to the fish food to give them their appealing redness year round? The red in a fish is a seasonal colour and alters in accord with the breeding. The colour is a textile dye and, to all intense purposes, apparently carcinogenic - though given that just about everything these days is considered that I would not be taking too much store by this factor...
that said what should we do about it? I eat a deep sea fish wild once a week. I try to eat only organic meat and poultry that I know to be handled from paddock to plate in the most respectful and considerate way of the animals habits and needs. But the argument put forward is that we cannot survive meat eating as a global population.
Given that I have tried vegetarianism for many years and found it altogether difficult I can imagine that is going to be untenable for most first world inhabitants used to copious quantities of meat. And given that I recently lost 14 kilos by eating exclusively meat and no starch, the predominant dietary ingredient of the vegetarian diet, it is even harder to consider going back to it when it sits so well with my health and my hormones. It is the luxury of the wealthy to afford organic meat, so I see that I am indeed wealthy by third world standards and not an example to follow in this manner.
So I see all the issues and wonder at the outcome. Maybe I, like many, will have to become vegetarian by famine rather than choice?
But the tuna and the deep sea creatures that we feed on must be cared for if we are to be able to have any left for our brains to gain their precious nutrition. It seems it is the quantity we eat that is the greatest issue of the day to consider first before the entire issue is addressed? What do you think?
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Monday, 21 June 2010
carbon trading for farmers
It has been a long road for these carbon pioneers in Australia.
They set out to make a difference and continued despite drought and hardship to put what meagre money they had where their mouths were and keep spreading the message all over country Australia to inform farmers of the possibilities soil carbon trading offers through changing their farming practices and improving their soils and human health in the bargain.
Michael and Loiusa Keily are champions of message spreading. Whilst passionate scientists and quiet farmers have been trying to get people to hear what these guys have been saying these two really pushed out into the world with thier message and have made a difference.
Take a look at eth link to read more about them.
I met these two when I sponsored them down to Melbourne to talk to the quietest of the passion driven farming community, the biodynamic farmers of Victoria. Ironically the information they had at the time was mainly the basics of soil health which is what the biodynamic farmers have been practicing for over 40 years. These pioneers of soil health, the farmers that is, have soils that are rich in carbon some extending great distances down in the soil. Given the state of our climate and the possibilities for handling the carbon issue it is uplifting to see these results.
The Keilys however have come a long way since these talks in moving government and industry towards creating a voluntary market that will encourage private investors to put money into in the farmers that could well be our saviours for not only the climate but our very health.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
light thought and your own power
If you light a match in a black room, you will see just how much light it sheds. So never forget how much light you can give off when everything is dark around you. That is my feeling anyway...
I hear a lot of negative in the world; the news, politics etc. And whenever possible, I observe people like to find fault with even tiny points in what I have to say.
Whether it is totally accurate or scientifically proven is for me at times, somewhat irrelevant as I believe in the power of the human spirit.
I believe in me.
I believe in us.
I believe in us both as an extraordinary species with not only the biological ability to adapt but the most wonderful ability to create and survive and create again in the most dire, most black and bleak of experiences.
Sometimes I feel as though we put forth the darkest paths simply to see what else we can out create of the problems presented.
I agree it is perhaps not the most uplifting or enlightened of paths we seem to continue to walk. And I see more and more degradation of the human spirit; the expression and desires of the peoples of the planet appear darker and darker, more and more hopeless. Yet still I come back to my first analogy. Where we create no hope we are always potential 'matches' to self strike and remember what we are and the power of our ability to think, to create futures and to realise them step by step.
I see the climate as the single most unifying human experience in my lifetime and an opportunity too good to miss to ignite 'spirit matches' all over the world that have remained dormant without hope for too long to remember themselves. No matter the economc situation, we all have the power of thought.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
chemicals to be reduced
It is always good news when one reads tat a certain pesticide or chemical fertilizer is to be discontinued. The worrying part is what they will replace it with rather than improving the plant health so it can resist the creatures that aim to clean it out of the environment for us mammals so we only eat the healthy stuff.
From all my research in Biodynamic agriculture and organic ag it still appears that health in general its determined by the listening ability of the farmer to the needs of their land and the health of the plants and animals they nurture. If they are good at it the things they grow are healthy ad they do not need to cut burn or poison as is the way of conventional a medicine both on the land and in humans.
Just as the naturopath and homeopath seek to find out why the patient is ailing and address that, the farmer does the same with their crop and creatures.
Monday, 14 June 2010
China revitalises ancient land
Take a look at this great article on land restoration in China. Ancient farming land that, like the lands around the dead sea in Jordan, were was once extremely fertile. Soil that supported life for many people until stripped of the nutrients that supported them through poor, ignorant farming methods. This we have done with our modern agricultural methods of the past 200 years on such a grand scale, to feed our expanding population, that the earth is positively burping out the carbon!
The really big issues in the world will soon be the supply of fertilisers needed to grow food the way we have been doing it. The known supply f mined fertiliser being estimated to run out by 2050. So current farming ways are simply not sustainable. Food security will become the biggest global issue unless we embrace listening to the soil and using our amazing capacity to innovate and adapt with nature instead of in spite of her.
The great news is that now governments and the peoples of the earth are starting to listen to those individuals who are great at the ways of the soil because they know how to listen and observe.
The big difference is that we are gradually comng up with the science to 'prove' what they intuit and there is some signs that governments are starting to listen to the information.
Maybe there is hope for us after all?
Available through Stock and Land at
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Shanghai
After an amazing time in Saigon exploring the city on the back of a moped with my partner in crime, Richard Vargas, we moved on to China early as communication over the internet was proving difficult and I was becoming nervous that the set ups and printing for the trade show would not occur.
We went a week early and spent the time meeting people, orienting around the national expo and yes doing set ups that were not going as they should.
By the time of the actual trade show set up day we discovered through the interpreter that nothing I had paid for was there, there was no internet as had been indicated, to show them my receipts and, to top it off, my iphone got stolen in those first few minutes of chaos!
Well, it was a learning curve, just as I had been warned and they kept saying Shanghai was the New York of China... meaning the rest was far more difficult.
The biggest thing that struck us was how perfectly content the chinese were to never travel? Even in a 5 star hotel where you might think you would talk to staff with the wanderlust they all unanimously said they had no desire to travel aboard and loved China. That was interesting and a first for an Australian who love to travel!
The trade show was a huge hit.
Richard was tricked up in a Tarzan outfit I had made in Shanghai in the days leading up to the show. We had explored the national expo and could see no way they would let us promote to the 300,000+ people standing in lines for hours without being arrested. We had come early on the hope we could use the time to do this as there already was a big misunderstanding that the event was not in the expo but many miles away. Actually even getting in through security would have been impossible as everything was scanned and detected like at an airport.
Still we made the best of it. We had bought a boom box and Richard had lots of dance music to attract attention as our booth was out of the way. I had drawn leaves and vines all over him and had the interpreter wrote in Chinese all over his back and tummy to indicate what we were doing.
Take a look at the shots on our facebook page to see what it looked like.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/sick-climatecom-elegant-solultions-for-addressing-climate-change/126224910732678?ref=ts
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
launching sick climate wesbsite whilst in China
Hi this is my first blog so I will probably ramble.
We launched the website www.sickclimate.com while we were in Shanghai doing a completely wild idea as only artists and passionate people tend to do.
Richard and I went to Shanghai having spent a great week in Vietnam, a first for both of us exploring the culture and getting a feel for whether there would be any interest in the issues we were bringing to them on food and how it related to the climate and global warming.
The people in Vietnam were warm and happy, riding mopeds with every part of life seemingly upon the bike with them. We were struck by how clean the air was despite the huge volume of people. We were told that for the 9 million people in Saigon their were 2 million mopeds and that to get work one must own a moped! The cost of one was about a full years salary for the average vietnamese so they are a central part of their lives.
Check out the facebook page to see videos of them it is quite an eye opener:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/sick-climatecom-elegant-solultions-for-addressing-climate-change/126224910732678?ref=ts
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