Category Archives: climate change

Raising Money for Permaculture

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What would you recommend giving as rewards?

There are two kinds of campaigns. The first is one that is aiming to produce something that may be useful to potential contributors – such as Charlie Jones’ Permaculture Ukulele Musical Project.

These kinds of campaigns are aiming to raise funds from the actual consumers of their products, and I would highly recommend that they give that product as a reward, at or below the retail value. It is these types of campaigns that sometimes achieve hundreds of contributions, and potentially go way over their stated goal!

The second kind of campaign is one that provides or benefits the community, or the person posting the campaign, such as raising money for tuition. The primary motivation for people giving to these campaigns is not to for a reward, but to help make the campaign successful. For these, it makes more sense to give something of symbolic value, as a way of thanking a person for their contribution. (Source)

The Green Ninja : World’s First Climate Action Superhero

A climate scientist and Google Science Communication Fellow who works at San Jose State University (SJSU), Eugene Cordero is passionate about what he calls “science that matters to society.” Cordero’s aim is to reduce annual carbon emissions by 1 million tons using the power of a climate-action superhero called the Green Ninja. The Green Ninja comes to life in a series of videos and social media tools designed to educate and inspire action to reduce our carbon footprint. Cordero is also co-author of the book Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite out of Global Warming.

The Most Polluted City?

I came across this article while reading i09 detailing in photos one of the most polluted sites on the earth, a town in Russia called Karabash (also the name of a breed of dog).

I’m not posting this to depress you, which I’m sure I will accomplish by posting this, but more because it reminds me of all those Star Trek episodes where they land on a planet and fruitlessly scan for signs of life. “This planet is almost completely dead, Captain.”

a la…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBREuGXxz7o[/youtube]

In 1910, the Karabashmed copper smelter opened at the foot of the Ural Mountains. By 1916, it was producing one third of Russia’s copper. Unfortunately for the 15,700 residents of Karabash, copper smelting has gradually destroyed the land and air. The plant has long pumped derivatives from lead, sulfur, arsenic, and copper into the air, with no clean-up processes attempted. Not only is the air toxic — eye-stinging and hard to breathe — it also brings down acid rain, destroying the soil and thinning the once-dense forest with lifeless bald patches. (Source)

For the whole story and a gallery of pictures, check out the article (which is also the source of all quoted text and pics).

Everyday Life as Climate Protest

The front lines of Copenhagen from the artists of The Canary Project via GOOD climate culture/counter culture:

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Three vignettes from Copenhagen show that personal responses to the conference might be the greatest cultural happenings around.

This is part two of a GOOD mini-series by the Canary Project‘s Ed Morris on the cultural happenings surrounding COP15.

I.

I am running through the crowd with the French artist Thierry Geoffroy. He is saying (in a deep French accent): “Zee, it is getting dark. They are closing in. They are going to kill us all. This is the plan. But then we keep going and we move around a corner and Geoffroy is saying. Ah, but you see, now it is more calm. We have come to a different part. All that has past.”

Such was my experience of the mass protest in Copenhagen this past Saturday. Estimates vary widely as to how many marched. Fox News says 25,000; the organizers say 100,000; and the police say 60,000. There were arrests of 968 (this number appears exact).

In the media centers and on the street, more intense interest has been paid to the possibility of violence than any particular detail of the negotiations. This is understandable. In addition to our seemingly innate tendency to be fascinated and compelled by images of violence, there is the fact that the expression of violence is the one real thing happening here.

“Violence, when not in the hands of the law, threatens [the state] not by the ends that [the violence] may pursue but by its mere existence outside the law,” writes Walter Benjamin. “By what function violence can with reason seem so threatening to law and be so feared by it, must be especially evident where its application, even in the present legal system, is still permissible.”

1c

The example that Benjamin gives to illustrate this point in “A Critique of Violence” is the worker’s strike – the state allows it to happen, despite its violent nature, because the power of the massed workers is sufficiently dangerous. The strike, like the protest, is violent regardless of whether it employs overt violence as a particular technique because it opposes order and the interests that constitute the state. Of course, even protests and strikes can go too far in the eyes of the state and claim a level of violence that the state cannot abide without losing authority. Protest, in both its permitted and non-permitted forms (both of which, by Benjamin’s definition, are essentially violent) is the most available and most direct negotiating tool for the 6 billion people not inside the Bella Center.

II.

Four people from different parts of the world arrive at Lykkesholms Alle 7C. They are greeted by a Danish family: husband, wife, and three boys, the youngest a baby. Also in the home are three women from Peru – two dressed in traditional highland clothing, one in jeans?and a camera crew of two people. After some small talk and a little getting to know each other, people take seats around a coffee table, others on the floor, some on chairs and a sofa. The camera crew remains standing. The children come in and out. The older of the Peruvian women asks for a photo from each person. She places the photos (given in the form of IDs) on some yellow flowers in the middle of the table, then gives each person a yellow candle. Each person writes his or her name and also his or her wishes for the next year directly onto the candle. The woman then lights each candle, muttering various incantations. She sprinkles sugar over the flowers and the photos and the candles. And then we sit and wait for each flame to burn down the wax entirely. Where we were rushing before, we are not rushing now. It is just the 14 of us in the room and the early northern darkness that presses against the window becomes a hypnotic abyss.

2c

III.

A dinner of about 25 people in a home near the center of town: home-cooked food, arrangements of dried flowers on the table, and several bottles of wine. Many at the dinner are involved in one form or another with a labor-intensive intervention project that is calculated to have an effect on the media coverage of COP15. The dinner is a break in the preparatory work for this intervention. Again there is a camera crew filming the event. At some point, people start giving speeches. This has been planned, which surprises me, because everything leading up to it has seemed so casual. The first speech is by a scientist, who gives a long hymn to Tycho Brahe and the scientific process (truth above ideology, and so forth). He is followed by an art student talking about the power of images, who in turn is followed by a business professor on the topic of learning not to be frightened by the facts of a new world, who is followed by an artist and activist on the need to avoid the grips of institutions. Then the planned speeches end and one woman stands up and proposes that the fundamental problem with comprehending climate change is our inability to come to terms with death. She then speaks about a friend, Brad Will, who was recently shot dead during a protest. She gathers herself and sings a song the she and Will used to sing together. ??My karma is to good for you to worry ’bout the crazies / I love everybody and there’s nothing that I own??

I almost didn’t stay for the dinner. I said that I needed to go get some work done, that I was writing a blog about cultural response to the conference. The host said, “This is culture.”

9.11.08 a day of many things

peace911.jpg

[image via amivectio.com]
I woke up early this morning to a mandatory evacuation of the county i am staying in here in TX, Jefferson County.  Hurricane Ike is on his way.  Now, intuition would tell you that a mandatory evacutation is just that, mandatory.  Apparently, not so.  After hearing about the evacuation, I went into work, a fairly large construction site, where the construction crews were hard at work securing the site for hurricane conditions.  Many of the folks on site i talked to were planning to evacuate north toward Dallas, or east toward Louisiana, or even west into Houston (where the storm is expected to hit directly), but a lot of the guys i talked to from the area are planning to ‘hunker down’ as they call it and brave the storm.  As it turns out, I am hunkering down as well (at least until I hear further word from my boss).  Needless to say, I have been glued to all the weather websites, my favorite of which is weatherunderground.com.  Just in the past hour Ike has been forecast to downgrade to a Cat 2 when it hits the coast.  Here are some images:

ikeforecast.gif

ike_surge.gif

The above image shows potential maximum storm surges.  For reference, Jefferson County is right there on the TX/LA boarder in the orange 24′ potential storm surge area.  the weather channel is telling me to expect a 10-20′ surge.  i have been told that the sea walls in this area hold until the surge surpasses 14′.  So yeah, I am starting to get nervous.

The red areas, which will see the highest surge, happen to be right in the Baytown area, where Exxon-Mobile has their largest oil refinery which, if you look it up on google maps, is the size of a small city.

ike_sat.jpg

Meanwhile, in happier news, i was shocked this evening to open an email from the ninjas over at amivectio (friends of the revolution) and find my face front & center (ok, bottom left) in the message.  amivectio is the blog-child of Hector Estrada, founder & creative mind behind Triko, a dope street-wear collection for ‘progressive and eclectic individuals’ that embraces environmentally friendly practices [we are big fans & have covered Triko here … I still have my fingers crossed for some ladies threads].

jpamivectio.jpg

Several months ago Triko sent out a quick survey to their mailing list that I responded to, and this is the result:

Name: Jessie P.

What do you currently do for a living?
chemical engineer & part time ninja (green.myninjaplease.com)

Where are you originally from?
new england & tucson AZ, i can never decide which

How would you describe your style?
comfortable but with flavor

What inspires you in your daily pursuit of Life?
good people working for good things. bad people making us work a little harder

How do you feel about the environment?
it teaches us, we waste it away. in the end, it will have the upper hand

Do you prefer shopping online or in person?
in person. i have to be able to feel the textiles & see the colors. besides, fit is always tricky

Do you believe in extraterrestrials?
i believe it is ignorant to think we are the only beings in this massive universe

What books are you currently reading?
GRUB: ideas for an urban organic kitchen, by Anna Lappé & Bryant Terry; Oil!, by Upton Sinclair

What’s your favorite sound of nature?
a horse neighing in recognition

What does success mean to you?
making steps toward something you believe in

Many thanks to amivectio for calling me a friend of the revolution!

A few words on amivectio from the source:

Our new blog: friends.amivectio.com is clean and simple.  We’ll be covering progressive people and lifestyles with features on art, world affairs, music, friends, events, our daily grind, and of course fashion, style, and design.  If you submitted an “Art of Life” entry, these will now be feature at friends.amivectio.com, under the “friends of the revolution” category.  Please stop by our community blog and leave us a comment.  Enjoy!

In summation:
.:: for peace –> stop war

.:: for safety –> track Ike & get the hell out of dodge

.:: for fly earf-friendly street-wear –> check Triko, amivectio & become a friend of the revolution