A Review of the book “Elegant Solutions For Addressing Climate Change"

A Review of the book “Elegant Solutions For Addressing Climate Change" by Samantha Jewel

Self Published and launched as an eBook in October, 2009 in Orange NSW at the Carbon Conference and then as hard copy at Trinity Grammar in February 2010.

It is available as a downloadable eBook for $19.95 or by donation from the website

www.sickclimate.com

This review is authored by Rick Tudor, Headmaster of the prestigious Melbourne institution, Trinity Grammar; Rick has championed the book since its inception as a climate academic who wrote his thesis on climate disruption some thirty seven years ago and sees the books as visionary.

“Elegant Solutions” is a thoroughly engaging, highly informative, easily readable book posing achievable solutions for addressing the climate issue through the food we eat and the way we grow it. It canvasses areas of research, details segments of critical information and presents vital ideas in a palatable, understandable style. Text, illustrations, schematic diagrams and internet links are collectively effective in conveying important messages. 

Climate change is one of the most important phenomena of the 21st Century. 

It has the capacity to change millions of lives in an uncontrollable manner and will affect the viability of much of the macroscopic and microscopic fauna and flora that comprise our complex and delicate global ecological matrix. 

The author commences her work with a call to arms in the face of the persistent march of climate change. She follows this with clever explanations of the role of carbon as an important component of the soil. Preserving organic carbon within soil profiles is a key emphasis in her discussion. Theoretical understanding is facilitated by the author’s easy, conversational style of writing, and her clarity and simplicity of explanation. Practical applications of the theory are presented through descriptions which are both readily absorbed and clearly visualised. 

The world of microbes is introduced to the reader through a utilitarian viewpoint. Indeed, the question as to how a healthy biological system could survive and thrive without microbial activity and support is squarely placed as a central focus. The role of minerals and vitamins is also elucidated, and their importance is emphasised. 

The journey into the soil is not only signposted through the roles of micro organisms, minerals, vitamins and most importantly organic carbon, but it also leads to a detailed description of roots, and the microscopic flora that is closely associated with these subterranean plant structures. As with the organisms living above the soil, this micro flora essentially has to live in a state of balance, if it is to perform its life-promoting role. 

The final chapters of the book give emphasis to agricultural techniques which encourage sustainability. The embellishment of building surfaces with extensive plant coverage is examined and its benefits are emphasised. Selective purchasing is also promoted for those who shop for fruit, vegetables, cereals or other organically based materials. Techniques involving community actions which lead to a higher degree of sustainability, are outlined in an attractive, engaging manner. 

“Elegant Solutions” is a ‘must’ for all those who have a concern for and interest in, the sustainable nature of our world. In fact it is a ‘must’ for those who don’t have this interest. This work is highly suitable for both adults and those studying at secondary school level. 

For such students, this work will stimulate understanding, provoke questioning and develop sensitivities in the treatment of a world whose sustainability is severely threatened. 

Zumba event to raise funds for Pacific islands

This is a call to anyone interested in being involved with This proposed Zumba Event!

Seen here is an example of the Zumba poster and provision for sponsors.

These events will be a series of 2 hour Zumbathons to raise funds for the Samoan NGO Women in Business that will use the funds to purchase a series of simple books that will enable them to communicate to the villagers why it is so important for them to return to their traditional organic farming methods.

The book(s) will be translated into the 25 languages they represent over the islands of the Pacific region.

They are educational eBooks currently available in English and Chinese (both simplified and traditional) and are for lay people plus children 5yrs and 10 yrs.

The main Zumba instructor is West End star Laura Hamilton of Cats and Les Miserable fame and currently director and creator of the global educational training program Vocal Alchemy.

Other instructor line up includes Latin party boy Richie Vargas and myself Samantha J Vargas

Dominique Hamilton and Cara Dinley

To see if you are interested in being a sponsor please click on the links provided. The venue and date are soon to be advised.

Books available at:

www.sickclimate.com

sam@sickclimate.com

Organic versus conventional food in the fight against obesity

The following is an article I read in the UK Daily Mail in 2008. The interesting point in the exercise discussed is not so much the fact that it proved that organic was not as expensive as previously perceived, but that the children ate less and were more easily satisfied whilst eating organic food. In a time of growing obesity and programs that are failing to alter the bad eating habits of our children at the school canteen – where even the most vigilant parent cannot control the schoolyard bartering system – it is most noteworthy that the kids were actually happier on the more nutritious, less ‘fun’ food.

The UK's Daily Mail recently ran an experiment involving two families that agreed to swap diets for a full week. One family normally ate nothing but organic food. The other family was in the habit of eating mainly pre-packaged meals and processed goods. To their surprise, the results were that buying organic was cheaper and more popular with the whole family. Gaby Lana who switched to processed food for a week says “We felt unwell, spent more money - £214 compared to our usual £120 - and ended up with two enormous bin bags full of wasteful packaging.” The mother of the Matthiole family that went all organic for a week exclaimed "By the middle of the week, I felt really energetic. The food we were eating was just so crisp, fresh and tasty - even the organic tea tasted better, cleaner than my usual brand. And I noticed that I didn't feel headachy the morning after organic wine. "By the end of the week, I was enjoying cooking again. I also realised the girls had been exceptionally well behaved - eating their meals without complaint and even going to bed when asked - 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, and I like to think the change in diet helped. "I've become much more aware of issues such as pesticides and additives and I feel as though I'm now nurturing my family. 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." This UK experience backs up a 2004 report on the spending by Australians on organic food by BFA nutrition spokesperson Shane Heaton. Heaton believes that the key issue in regard to the affordability of organic fruit and vegetables in Australia is consumer education and how households choose to prioritise their spending. Where exactly the average Australian's spending priorities lie can be seen in Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. Heaton says "the average Australian household spends more on junk food than fruit and vegetables; More on fast-food and take-away than fruit and vegetables; More on alcohol than fruit and vegetables. And the net result of these choices is that we spend nearly twice as much on medical expenses as we do on fruit and veg." Heaton believes that once people become more aware of the issues surrounding food production eg. false assurances given regarding the safety of pesticide residues, the overuse of food additives, rising cancer incidence, etc, they will make more conscious choices of the food they feed themselves and their families. "Who knows? Perhaps, if spending increases on organic fruit and vegetables, people will spend less on junk food, take-aways, alcohol and cigarettes. Perhaps they'll need to spend less on medical and health expenses," he says.

controversy, carbon tax, world domination

You know recently there was an announcement that the climate thing was really a hoax and just an excuse for the world governments to tax the people of the earth for existing!

Well it may be true? And really I can make no comment on these meanderings for there have always been those that rule and those that are ruled. But it does not alter the fact that there are major changes occurring in the world, not least of which is the positive rise of our consciousness.

This can be seen in the unprecedented attendance of speeches by one of our global, still practising prophets, His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Now I must add I am not a follower of His Holiness, but I have had the honour of hearing him speak and he is a truly intelligent speaker of a very clear truth, as I imagine all great prophets are from Jesus to Mohammed and everyone before and, I would posit, into the future.

Now some may say we are actually more stupid and gullible despite the internet, certainly literacy and the basic ability of the common individual to understand one's own language seem to have reduced significantly since the 1950's, but it does not seem to have reduced the fervour for independent thought or answers outside those given by our lords and masters.

There are those of us that are more drugged certainly but perhaps even those that are drugged, even those self administering their drug of choice, say nothing, for like the villagers on the small, Pacific islands going under the water, they feel there is nothing they can actually do about any of it?

Where there is apathy there are lost dreams.

Where there are lost dreams there is hopelessness and a desire to forget the pain of life.

But I feel that no matter the hopelessness being expressed like this or what the collective or individual journey presents, no one can really deny the existence of life around them and to that end what ever the despair it is, it is a lie borne of the wrong focus that only you and I can alter by our combined efforts to rally each other to see things differently.

And while we may continue to be led down the illusory paths of the gods of materialism and watch in despair as that too continues to be tantalised and dangled like a carrot to be eaten by the quick and viscous lords of world economies and the senseless annihilation of individual pride and work ethic, never let it be forgotten that there is life!

And where there is life there is hope.

One must not lose sight of the fact that many individuals are seeking other paths of awakening and awareness. Alternative health measures, for instance, rise exponentially in the face of GMO's, rising usage of prescription, government subsidised drugs, the banning of natural herbal medicines and every other effort of those that would have us succumb - still people realise there are other ways and life must be honoured!

They realise too that conventional, medical pills will not take away the sicknesses that plague them. And so too there is a rise of awareness of the relation of the soil and the earth we stand on to our very existence. Not only is the atmosphere we enjoy inherently tied up in the health of the soil and the plants that feed it but so too our economic structures that really are bound initially in this relationship of that which we grow from the earth and exchange for goods and services to a direct relation to these other economic and seeming unrelated factors.

Now this may sound like a lot of waffle to you and perhaps I wander to get to a point. For as I listen with my ear to the ground and feel the thundering hooves of life's many deaths approaching as we know them, I also pause to wonder if we may indeed learn from our forefathers who have trodden these bleak walks many a time and seek instead to look at other values? We have the power of numbers no matter the military or insane might of guns to grow and exchange with each other.

Carbon taxes may be an insane effort to right one wrong with an unwieldy and ultimately impossible penalty of something that can simply be handled with growing food more consciously rather than the complex taxation of emissions we will continue to make no matter the penalties imposed.

It seems we must be more creative and conscious at this time and use our hard one knowledge while we are still free enough to do so.

http://progress-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/hawthorn-author-tries-to-create-climate-for-protecting-planet/

http://progress-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/hawthorn-author-tries-to-create-climate-for-protecting-planet/

Alzheimer's and dementia

I have been thinking about Alzheimer's and dementia as the world ages...

I read a statistic that says in America every 90 seconds someone is diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's.

What you eat affects every cell in your body in some way... food for thought.

A girl I spoke to today who works in this area says that in Western Australia alone within 20 years they know there will be only 6000 beds and 25000 patients in need of high care... that means the normal hospital beds will flood first and others, younger, may miss out on much needed critical care.

It makes my work promoting climate solutions through organic agriculture and how this also ties in to nutritional needs for the brain to function more and more urgent. Always what you eat effects and connects with something else.

As dementia is apparently plaque around the brain preventing it from working, I think I like this link on natural oral hygiene http://bit.ly/1bz3BB

In these images (visit the site to read in more detail http://bit.ly/iw1DlB) the colours on the right are the amount of reduced brain activity in the Alzheimer patient read here with stuff in the person's blood to show up in the scan when they are asked to see something in more detail.

The impaired electrical activity is basically plaque, like you get on your teeth, built up for various reasons like a certain PH/acid balance in your saliva is a reason some have more build up in their teeth no matter the diet and there are just as many suggested ways to remove it with little conclusive research that any one of them is really universally successful across the board.

I have to say though, that as I have studied the body for just about any illness and the various multitude of suggested solutions, they all seem to point towards clean, as in non toxic, non-pesticide ridden, healthy water, food and air with a reasonable level of exercise with lots of green vegies, lightly cooked and light, meat eating - preferably fish.

Think light and clean and it seems to follow the body will like it and if you are not willing to do that then you can compensate to a degree with lots of cleansing systems to flush the accumulated debris. I figure there are those that naturally keep a meticulous daily clean house and those of us that are just not built that way but will have a good go at it once in a while and if we get good results the good feeling, like a great meal will want to be repeated so find the method you can feel good with that cleans and heals and you may prevent it.

I have some instances of Alzheimer's in the extended family so I am pretty keen on taking a healthy go at the body and I do not like to diet so I eat almost totally organic and I love to eat! I hate to exercise so I find ways to mess it up. Late night dancing with headphones suits me... (who would have thought) and it helps me sleep - well if other sports are not an option!

Keeping happy, keeping busy, not too much screen time I reckon, and lots of fun in your life seem to be a good recipe for prevention plus avoiding as much processed foods as possible.

So keep smiling.

And eat organic!!

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