"CLIMATEGATE"

Does anyone else find the timing of this bullshit suspicious?

EXAMS

Listen to Attenborough

Goddamn it.

-> "APEC Leaders Admit Climate deal Unlikely."

GREEN BUSINESS

This is the new book by Ray C. Anderson. As you may or may not know, he owns a carpet company. But more importantly, he is one of the very first industrial leaders to take on his own impact on the environment, in recognition of the unsustainability of our current society. As a manufacturer, he is leading the way for environmentally sustainable industry.

This is one of the most important things that we need. This book is a follow-up to his first book, "Mid-course Correction: towards a sustainable enterprise." Of all the CEOs, how many are thinking like this?

Anderson worked for decades in his industry, which is extremely polluting and petroleum based, without a second thought for the environment. Then an employee sent him a copy of Paul Hawken's "Ecology of Commerce." Since then, he has been a pioneer; and that was in 1994.

He's a pioneer in the idea that while protecting the environment and being ecologically sustainable is incredibly important to the future of the planet, it is also just good business sense. Common sense, you might say. I remember I first heard of him when I saw "The Corporation", which is still a very pertinent documentary in my opinion. Most companies still aren't environmentally conscious or fair to their workers. Most set up overseas (known as 'outsourcing' or 'offshoring') to poor countries with corrupt governments, lax labour and environmental laws, and high fiscal debt. In fact, that's where most of our wealth comes from, and where most of our waste goes.

It's great to see him in at one part in 'The Corporation', when he's calling out a room full of the top CEOs in the States, for their unsustainable and irresponsible practices, calling them "plunderers," and referring to himself as a former plunderer. He makes a great analogy of the early 20th century, when people are trying to design a working flying machine. You know the footage. He describes our society as being like a totally non-working attempted airplane that can't possibly fly, going over a cliff. We're gonna crash.

In transforming his company, it was something that hadn't really been done before, so they had to try something new. Their were lots of surprises and happy accidents, and ultimately true innovations and an inspiring story of pioneering green business.

What's really important is the fact that environmental consciousness and sustainability is actually sound business and makes total financial sense. As John Kerry said, "It's a win-win for the marketplace." Most of Europe has already gone down that road, and they're way ahead of North America in terms of sustainability.

He calls his work "Mission Zero " - zero footprint, by 2020.  Zero footprint is pretty damn ambitious.

Here's a clip of Ray Anderson. In it, when talking about reading "Ecology of Commerce," he mentions E. O. Wilson. Wilson is one of the world's top biologists, particularly entymology and microbiology. Anderson refers to him in reference to the current mass extinction going on in the world.

Spreading the idea of Green Business is important, because it's definitely the future. Otherwise, there will be no future.

Also here's a link to an interview with him: Sustainablog

CLIMATE CHANGE

Last night I was browsing through the Montreal Mirror, when I looked at their 'Angels and Insects' segment. This really got me boiling:

"Insect >> Copenhagen gloom With a new Pew Research Centre poll showing a staggering decline in Americans’ belief in global warming and humanity’s role in it, there’s reason to doubt that December’s climate treaty talks in Denmark will accomplish anything meaningful. The poll revealed that only 57 per cent of respondents believed there is evidence the Earth’s temperature has warmed over the past few decades; and of that, only 36 per cent said it was mostly due to human activity. With the most powerful country in the world populated by people this ignorant, it’s unlikely Stephen Harper is facing any outside pressure to aim higher than his pathetically low target of a 20 per cent reduction of emissions by 2020, using 2006 as a baseline."

WE DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULLSHIT.

In the last few posts, I have reiterated and reiterated how this all works.

Here's a video that explains it very simply, Once Again.

Here's some scientific theories for alternative explanations:

If you youtube Climate Change, you'll find no shortage of unbelievably ridiculous videos all about how Climate Change is a myth or even a lie concocted by global conspiracies.
For some reason, people, or governments, simply won't wake up, and take action! Which is what we need!
If you're reading this and you're a skeptic, please read this blog and take this shit seriously; here's a video for you. If not, here's a link that can help you reduce your footprint: http://www.myfootprint.org/en/

The Bullshit about Climate Change:

PAPER

WHAT TO DO?

In my last post, I highlighted Canada's problem of environmental inaction. Basically we are falling behind the rest of the world. We may think that we are an environmentally friendly country, but in fact we have become one of the worst polluters. Things like the oil sands are making it worse, but really the fact is we are the only country that signed the Kyoto Protocol and has not even made an effort to try and meet our emission reduction obligations.
The biggest problems we face are these: the agenda of the Conservative Government, that of Stephen Harper, which has consistently rejected any sort of environmental concern, and the overall passivity of Canadians today. Most Canadians care about the environment, and know that it's a matter of necessity.
It's a matter of necessity because all of life is interdependent. The oxygen we breathe and the CO2 we emit is then cycled by plants; soils are made fertile by worms, insects, bacteria, and fungi breaking down dead organic material; the food we eat requires sunlight, water, nitrogen, or else food for itself; basically all life in the oceans begins with phytoplankton. The Earth's ecosystems are created by biodiversity, in a giant network of life sustaining life. We used to be able to just throw away our waste, and though we maybe didn't know it 100 years ago, we were counting on the capacity of nature to recycle it.
Now, that cannot happen. Of all the material we put in the recycling, a small fraction of that is actually recycled. Alot of it is now in the Pacific Ocean, and is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's a scientifically proven fact that we all depend on the natural environment, and it's a fact that we are in the greatest environmental crisis we have ever really faced.
So what to do? The vast majority of people are rightly overwhelmed when they take all of this in, but as a result they tune out and resign themselves to trying not to think about it. Really though, they should be doing just the opposite.
There's a huge amount of things everyone can do to help the environment. Because we in North America consume more of the World's resources than anywhere else, the first step is simple lifestyle changes. Try and be fuel/energy efficient. Replace lightbulbs with energy saving lightbulbs; get a water fan instead of an air conditioner; install storm windows to save heat in the winter (some great green home heating tips are here ); try biking instead of driving; try and eat local foods from a farmers market (produce AND meat) - the meat industry has an unbelievable ecological footprint, which is why its greenest to go vegetarian - and if its organic then even better; buy green cleaning products and detergents, and see about washing your clothes in cold water; try and buy fair trade tea and coffee; the best place to get clothes is second hand and vintage stores; grow houseplants, and if possible grow some of your own food in your garden. These are all good options, and if you want you can do even more. These days there's no end to info on going green. And you'll not only save money, you can get rebates for being more efficient. Any of this is available on the internet.
Here's some good sites:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/
http://www.worldwatch.org/resources/go_green_save_green
Greening cars and driving: http://autos.canada.com/green/index.html
http://www.thrall.org/special/goinggreen.html

If you'd like more info on the importance of going green, or the state of the natural environment, here's some good places to check out:
http://earthpulse.nationalgeographic.com/earthpulse/index.html
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/index.php
http://earthtrends.wri.org/
http://www.enn.com/
http://faostat.fao.org/default.aspx
http://www.fao.org/nr/nr-home/en/
http://www.realclimate.org/
For you Americans out there: http://forestcouncil.org/

And there are plenty more out there.

The other thing you can do is write letters and emails to politicians and policy makers to get them to ACT!

So just realize that these things DO make a difference, and the more people who are proactive about it, the bigger a difference we can make, and the better things will get.
Also, educate yourself - don't just believe me, check the facts. But don't just believe crazy theories either. The Earth is not hollow, for example.

(This is a very incorrect theory that holds sway along with a whole plethora of extremely wrong theories about the nature of the Earth, such as the Growing Earth. I'm just using it as an example.
We know the Earth's internal structure. Geologists have been studying it in detail for a long time. The reason we know that the Earth's interior is composed of 5 main layers (the crust, upper mantle, lower mantle, outer core, and inner core) is because of seismic studies, using the time of travel of refracted and reflected seismic waves created by earthquakes. The core does not allow shear waves to pass through it, while the speed of travel (seismic velocity) is different in the other layers. The changes in the seismic velocity between the different layers causes refraction, owing to Snell's law. Reflections are caused by a large increase in seismic velocity and are similar to light reflecting from a mirror.
This was discovered in 1909 by the seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić.
The problem with the internet today is that there's so much information available to everyone, along with all of the misinformation. So if you think I'm full of shit, find out for yourself, but make sure you understand the facts that support the theories.)

STEPHEN HARPER'S GOV'T WANTS ICE TO MELT

I don't know if you knew, but this Saturday was Global Climate Action Day. I spent the day working on a protest song to denounce the Environmental Policies (or lack thereof) of our current neo-conservative government.
Thousands of people throughout Canada and throughout the world attended huge rallies and protests demanding action. While in some places, like Europe, where they've been doing a wonderful job, didn't necessarily need protests, in Canada it's important that some people showed up; our country has become one of the most environmentally unfriendly countries in the world. We are the only country that has completely ignored its Kyoto Protocol obligations and instead gotten worse and worse over the last decade. Harper has made it abundantly clear time and time again that he has little - no concern for or intention of instituting environmental practices that by now should be well established and common place.
These days it seems everyone's sort of tuning out to environmental issues; we're in a recession, so it's understandable everyone's more worried about their savings and whatnot. But also, there're two other huge problems: many many many Canadians seem to be apathetic to their own country's government. For good reason. Harper's government is doing a shit all job except on the financial front. All they talk about anymore is Canada's supposed recovery. And I mean we've had almost yearly elections for the past while; I was SO disappointed when he got another minority government after I got to vote in my first ever federal election. But Canadians today don't seem to really care about the Conservative agenda and why it's important to demand accountability and responsibility from our government; too busy watching youtube and gettin beers when they can find time off of work.
The second huge problem is alot of people seem to have moved on from the climate change issue. This is BAD NEWS. The problem has not been mitigated or improved; Canada is a horribly environmentally unfriendly country; and if we just give up, then we are LOSERS. Many people seem to be tuning out of environmental issues in large part because it just seems so depressing and hopeless. They feel overwhelmed, and they resign themselves to just not thinking about it. In fact they should be doing the opposite. Try and do a little bit of good for people and the natural world; there's oodles of things you can do. If everyone changes their consumption patterns just a little bit, and fires off a few emails to their MP, and the PM, that makes a huge difference.
I really can't exaggerate the unbelievable stain of the Conservatives' environmental record. A couple weeks ago at the UN, a bunch of countries walked out on Canada's representative as he was making a speech about the Climate Change Conference this December. The government has been disputing this, but either way, other countries have been giving Canada serious flak for their lack of environmental initiative.
In the past two years, we've seen police killing people with tasers, a corruption scandal in the RCMP, increased environmental damage and extraction of resources, the extradition/imprisonment overseas of innocent Canadian citizens over bogus terrorist suspicion, and increased force from law enforcement (plus the unjust incarceration of Marc Emery). Harper meanwhile has demonstrated his disdain for justice, accountability, the importance of the environment, and the rights of Canadians.
I'll go so far as to say that he is our George W. Bush. His administration has single-handedly erased Canada's reputation for social justice, environmental responsibility, and global stewardship and leadership. Some way to kick off this century.
This weekend people came out to show that they want action from the government and the people on climate change and a sustainable future. However, Jim Prentice, our lackluster environment minister, has already said that there will be no significant actions taken or changes made. "We'll stay the course." He tried to downplay expectations, and has clearly indicated that Conservative agenda is to continue on as planned without turning any focus on the environment or the future of our world.
It's all right here.
Here's something you may or may not know though. The Conservatives WANT the Arctic to melt. There's too much money in it. The main Arctic nations are already having military showdowns and are trying to assert their dominance and sovereignty over their portion of the Arctic; a Russian submarine even went down to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and planted a Russian flag on the geographic North Pole (I'm not even making that up - it's true). The thing is if the Arctic ice melts, and it will - the latest study says that in the summer the Arctic Ocean will be totally ice free within 10-20 years (which is very optimistic; I'd give it 5-8 years) - then that means we go up there and strip the tundra for diamonds, minerals, and oil, and that we open shipping lanes and fisheries to overfish the Arctic Ocean as well. They hope we'll finally be able to use the Northwest Passage, after hundreds of years.
The problem with this plan is that the permafrost is already melting, some of which has remained frozen underground since the last ice age. Scientists have long known and have been saying that the permafrost has boatloads of methane gas trapped underground with it, which is already being released into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 4 times as strong as CO2, and has a way longer residence time. Not to mention that if the ice melts, then the Arctic ocean will absorb way more heat from incoming solar radiation than it will reflect back into space, as the icecap always did before. Now the ozone layer has holes over each of the poles. This is because the chlorine cycle that takes place and breaks down the ozone layer occurs at low temperatures which are ideally at the poles. So the icecap melting will actually worsen the ozone layer, allow more solar radiation in, AND trap more of that radiation via greenhouse gases.
And if you doubt climate change, just look this past summer. Meteorologists were baffled, saying that North America is locked in a very strange climate pattern. The biggest issue about climate change for me is the injustice that is faced; Canada is a country that offshores its dirtiest industries to the third world, or "developing" countries, as well as exports alot of its waste and pollution there, and profits indirectly from the Structural Adjustment policies that keep them poor and unstable. As the climate changes, there is increased drought throughout these places, burdening them with even more poverty, famine, water scarcity, disease, and subsequent warfare (Sudan/Darfur is already happening, and is really one of the first climate wars). We know that if left unchecked, the people who stand to suffer the most, to take the brunt of the consequences of climate change, are the world's poorest people. We in North America consume and waste more than anyone else on the planet. Canada has a unique position of being water secure, one of the only places not in danger of water shortages. We have about half of our intact Boreal Forest left, which we are still cutting down; we have the oil sands, which are so polluting it makes me sick to my stomach; we have made no concessions to cutting our emissions; and we stand to gain alot, and lose even more from all of this, if we just let this go on.

My head feels like its gonna explode.

AAAAAAAAAHHH!

EXAMS!

The funniest lolcat.



Someday I will have time to blog for real again. I have been so ridiculously swamped though.
I don't know if anyone watched Stephen Harper's unholy desecration of the Beatles the other night. I couldn't watch. I thought it was insincere and he was trying to hook young liberals who don't pay much attention to politics. He pulled off his objective, though. Michael Ignatieff was at the exact same time making speeches trying to stir up the liberals and democrats, and Harper effectively hijacked all the publicity. Fucking Harper. He's one of the most pro-Oil Sands people in Canada outside Alberta, as well as being pro-Arctic Melting so that we can go up there and strip the land for resources.
Here's a good news article from awhile ago:
Put Oil Sands On Hold
It refers to Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rajendra Pauchari, head of the IPCC.
The Montreal Gazette has a really good section online of environmental articles. So do most news sites or magazines for that matter.
I gotta keep studying. Keep fighting for peace.

Footprint

Hello, people.

               I'm just taking a break from writing a little report I have to do for tomorrow. It's on my Ecological Footprint. The quiz we had to take for this class is ok; I have doubts about its real accuracy in its tabulations. It definitely works on the basis of averages and mean calculation, and is relatively non-specific, and is confined in its questions. But it seems to be ok. Here's the link if you'd like to take it.

http://www.myfootprint.org/

Here's some of what I've written so far:

We all have an impact on our environment. We all depend on the environment as well. The natural ecosystems that make up the biosphere are what sustain life and regulate the intricate cycles and systems of the planet. The composition of the atmosphere, the currents and temperatures of the oceans, the residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the biosphere, or the oceans, and the climate are all cumulative results of finely balanced cycles and interactions between the four spheres; the biosphere, the lithosphere, the atmosphere, and the hydrosphere. The biosphere, in particular, supplies us with clean air, clean water, healthy food, shelter, clothing, medicines, and waste absorption. It sustains more life better than anything else we know of in the universe. Yet human activities have disrupted the vast, interconnected and complex balance of the global environment, in a way that is unprecedented.
    Today, everyone has heard about climate change. Some still dispute it, while others try to fight it in the interests of ourselves and the multitudes of species with whom we share our planet and the risks of such global ecological disturbances. Yet still comparatively few understand  what is happening, how it affects us, and why it's important. Climate change is only a tiny issue in the geological time scale of the Earth, and so are we. In a more short-term way, the incredible havoc we are wreaking on our planet threatens many people and even more different species with catastrophes and extinctions.
    The path down which our policy-makers seem to be leading us does not seem to be the most prudent or effective way of solving the issues we face. Throughout the past centuries, resource extraction and the pursuit of revenue have long taken precedence over science or environmental conservation. The conservation efforts of people like Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir were in their time revolutionary and, for many people, questionable restraints on the relentless commerce of their people. Today, in a world that is post Soviet Union, in which overpopulation, poverty, environmental damage and resource extraction are occurring in some of the poorest, most vulnerable, and environmentally fragile parts of the world, where their economies are still Primary or Secondary Economies which produce a few goods for export to be consumed by the wealthiest nations, the environmental agenda and the human welfare/justice agenda are inextricable, yet simultaneously almost irreconcilable. The actions of policy makers today usually amounts to too little, too late, or else measures that do nothing but reinforce the ill-advised status quo.
    A huge amount of environmental destruction has always been due to people's appetite for consumption. As we see today, the rise of new industrial and economic powers such as China and India are demonstrating how people whose standard of living has been so low for so long want what people like Europeans or North Americans have. The great irony is that while we have and continue to overexploit our natural ecosystems and resources, as well as enslaved the economies of many of those poorer, "Less Developed" countries through debt to the International Monetary Fund in order to enable us to have truly astronomical levels of over-consumption, now those people want what we've always had (and who are we to deny them), yet their preferably accelerated economic and social development would do more harm than good to themselves and the local and global environment. In order to truly make progress in the 21st century, we need to raise the standard of living of the majority of the people on the planet, while reducing everyone's (especially our) ecological footprint. To think this is impossible, or fundamentally contradictory, is far from true. However it is certainly true that the current global economic and political system is stacked against these innovations.

So tired

Hello, blogosphere. I haven't blogged in a while; I've been meaning to, but I finally got a job, after months of searching. It's a pretty hard one. This is also going to be a challenging schoolyear for me, and so I am trying to juggle mad school, mad work, and some mad partying times with my friends. We'll see how this goes. But for now, I am just Sooooo tired....

URBAN GREENING II

Seven key elements of a resilient city:

1. Urban areas will be powered by renewable energy technologies from the region to the building level.
2. Every home, neighborhood, and business will be carbon neutral.
3. Cities will shift from large centralized power, water, and waste systems to small-scale and neighborhood-based systems.
4. The potential to harness renewable energy and provide food and fiber locally will become part of urban green infrastructure.
5. Cities and regions will move from linear to circular of closed-loop systems, where substantial amounts of their energy and material need are provided from waste streams.
6. Cities and regions understand renewable energy more generally as a way to build the local economy and nurture a unique special sense of place.
7. Cities, neighborhoods, and regions will be designed to use energy sparingly by offering walkable, transit-oriented options for all supplemented by electric vehicles.

Imagine such a city. Basically a social and physical system of cycling and recycling, just like nature. And man, really, it's all good. Because it's unavoidable; it's the future, man!

URBAN GREENING

Hello, People!

I'm having a good day today, despite how I still don't have a job.
I want to make this the first of a series on Urban Greening. A subject of immense importance, and enormous potential. The urban environment is one of the most unhealthy to live in, even though we all get used to it. For this post, however, I am posting this video on Environmental Justice. This is an issue facing not only the poor and marginalized in cities everywhere, but also the poor, "developing" countries everywhere in the world.
The people who face the greatest risk and the greatest injustice are poor, lower class, minorities. This occurs in cities, but on an even greater scale among countries. The only reason we enjoy such a clean environment here in Canada is that we raised our environmental standards, but have moved all of our dirty industrial processes overseas to poor countries.
For example, Canadian mining companies in Latin America.
I have huge interest and huge hopes for urban greening projects; they're basically the future. So let's kick this off with Majora Carter - this is her story:

WAR IS SENSELESS

Days and days without internet.

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK!

I apologize for my negligence. But I haven't bothered to go out of my way to get online for a while. Not that there is any lack of avalanches of important happenings to try and get our heads around. The unemployment problem is getting ugly, and it's about time I made the sacrificial call to some call center that will hire me for cheap, but other than that I've been watching copious amounts of news, and reading. And Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is no small chestnut. It is totally in the moment, yet it all happened 37 years ago, and for a 22 year old its unbelievably fascinating. It's light years away from the Obama vs McCain election. This book is definitely inspiring me to set my own bars a whole lot higher.
We'll see how the blog turns as a result. I've been following the Health Care Issue in the U.S. for the last while, and its pretty unfortunate for Obama that the public is scared and outraged because of the murderously efficient Republican Partisan propoganda campaigns. There is some seriously loud opposition to Obama's plan, much of which is being stirred by distortion and lies.
It's especially interesting when reading Hunter Thompson's work, and one compares the two eras of Dirty Politics.

BIODIVERSITY!

At the bottom of this post is a link to a youtube video. The embedding was disabled; this video is part 1 of a documentary by my hero, David Attenborough, about biodiversity, evolution, and Charles Darwin. It's on youtube, in 6 parts, and in HD. SWEET. It's a damn good documentary.
However it doesn't talk at all about the biodiversity crisis. Biodiversity is simply the diversity of species, as well as the diversity and variety within species. According to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), there are estimated to be approximately 14 million species. Of that, 1.75 million have been catalogued by western science. New species continue to pour in. Yet a huge amount of those species are endangered, threatened, at risk, or on the brink of extinction. Humanity has caused 6X, the sixth major extinction event, called "The Holocene Extinction Event", which is ongoing right now. The most threatened group of animals today are the amphibians. Long considered an indicator species due to their permeable skins, they are among the most diverse, ecologically essential, and vulnerable of animal groups.
Biodiversity is incredibly important. The overall biodiversity in an ecosystem is an indicator of its health and its balance. We depend on biodiversity and ecosystems for food, air, water (clean water), shelter, waste disposal and absorption, medicine, and many of our other resources such as wood/paper. These are all generated by natural ecosystems. They provide the most vital natural processes to us, and we are dependent on those processes. Among the most undervalued members of our living planet are insects, invertebrates, molds and fungi, and bacteria and viruses. Yet they are all unfathomably important. Invertebrates of all kinds are among the most valuable. The basis of most life is photosynthesis; thanks to plants and algae. The bottom of the food chain. Insects and invertebrates, on land and in the oceans, are fundamental to the food chain. If they were to be seriously threatened, the ecosystems we depend on would collapse. Of the invertebrates, one that is of extreme importance are: earthworms. There are many different species of worms, but what makes them crucial is that they eat decaying plant material, and turn it into nourishment for other plants. Soil fertility is dependent on biodiversity, worms, insects, fungi, and bacteria. The recycling of the natural world.
However, while the disappearance of species is a natural process (no species will last forever), the pace of extermination has been rapidly increasing over the last few hundred years. But like, from 1600-1900 the pace was about 1 species every 4 years. Now, it's 1-3 species EVERY DAY. In the past 100 years, 50% of the Earth's original forests and 50% of its wetlands have disappeared. Tropical species have been reduced by 40%, tropical rainforests being one of the most diverse, finely balanced, essential, and vulnerable ecosystems of all. In Canada, home to about 71,500 known species, we only have much data on 1600 species, and of that, 529 animal and plant species are at risk. 80% of the species decline is related to habitat destruction and degradation. Our government of course is still pursuing its path of inefficiency, resource mismanagement, overharvesting, depletion, pollution, and habitat destruction.
I am also re-posting a second video, which I've put up a couple of times before, of E.O. Wilson, one of the world's top entymologists and microbiologists, giving a speech and receiving the TED Prize. It's a favourite TED talk of mine, and one that is very pertinent to the issue of biodiversity. Biodiversity decline in agriculture is also a huge problem. For more info on the issue, here's the URL for the CBD:

http://www.cbd.int/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfnttoIrMg

Re-cap: THE TORONTO STRIKE AND WASTE MANAGEMENT

The Toronto Strike is wrapping up, so soon the mounds of garbage putrifying the city will be collected and taken to landfills. Yet it seems people still aren't cluing in on a very important lesson: looking at the amount of waste we generate. Most of it does not biodegrade and is potentially toxic to the environment. Landfills are serious zones of contamination for soil, groundwater, and the nearby ecology. And yet, while we know about waste, pollution, plastics and styrofoams that don't break down, we continue with our consumption and callous wastefulness.
Try imagining for a moment every MacDonald's in the world. If you go to one, you will see unbelievable amounts of plastics and syrofoams and cheap uneaten food filling garbage bag after garbage bag, everyday. Now multiply.
I personally know full well how much waste I generate, and while I've been trying over the last few years to find a lifestyle that wastes nothing but compost and a bit of recycling, I am still ashamed of myself every time I acquiesce to throwing stuff into the garbage, which is still too often.
So I just wanted to re-post this video, which I posted before in March in a tremendous rage of anger. I re-posted this earlier because of a comment on my statement that "the ocean's are FUCKED."
I, for one, encourage everybody to try a little experiment, which I have done more than once: don't throw away anything, for at least a month. Watch how much waste you produce. I guarantee it will surprise you. As you build up your pile of garbage, try to find ways to recycle the stuff by yourself, close to home. I don't know the figure, I need to re-check, but I think that the average amount of material we put in the recycling which actually gets recycled is only 30%. The stuff that doesn't get recycled is predominantly plastic and styrofoam.
Watch this:

NEIL - "Light a Candle"

from 'Fork In The Road'

SUPERCAPITALISM

This is a long lecture, but VERY WORTH WATCHING! I really want to get the book.

Re-cap

I just wanted to re-post this video, which I posted before in March in a tremendous rage of anger. I wanted to re-post this because of a comment on yesterday's post on my statement that "the ocean's are FUCKED." I, for one, encourage everybody to try a little experiment: don't throw away anything, for at least a month. Watch how much waste you produce. I guarantee it will surprise you. As you build up your pile of garbage, try to find ways to recycle the stuff by yourself, close to home. I don't know the figure, I need to re-check, but I think that the average amount of material we put in the recycling which actually gets recycled is only 30%. The stuff that doesn't get recycled is predominantly plastic and styrofoam.
Watch this:

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK

If you want to know why our world today is so fucked up, check out this book. Capitalism in action.

HEALTHCARE

You HAVE to watch this! For all you Americans out there.

So, here's the situation....

To those who read or check Peaceful Seeds, thank you so much for your interest, and I'm truly sorry for the lack of activity over the last while. Life has calmed down now for a little while, giving me some actual time to reflect and write for my blog again.
over the past few months it's been nice to mostly have some fun with my posts, especially since the workload as well as the information intake got so enormously heavy. But now I've been able to rest a bit and can get back to business.
First of all, I'd like to just make a few points.

The Earth's climate is changing. This is old news, but a lot of people actually still don't believe in it. Particularly I want to address the Esoteric Agenda/New World Order conspiracy theorists. While we definitely live in an age of plutocracy and imperialism, Climate Change is not a lie dreamt up by the ruling elite. It is due partly to increased activity from the Sun. The sun, and as a result, the rest of the solar system, is getting hotter. However, because the sun has only been increasing in radiation output by 0.05% per decade, it's not nearly enough to account for the changing climate we see today. Now, of course there's always lots of misinformation, hearsay, and conjecture around these issues, and I myself must technically be included among it. Even so, as an environmental student, the actual science is very clear, as are the obvious trends which the climate is undergoing. I actually first noticed it when I was 12. But the point is, the number of cars in the world today is somewhere between 600 and 700 million. Carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere at an astounding and increasing rate, STILL. So much for the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, as are water vapour and methane. The CO2 being emitted by humanity is causing what is called the "Enhanced Greenhouse Effect", as opposed to the Natural Greenhouse Effect. The Natural Greenhouse Effect is part of the balance we used to have on this planet. The CO2 we used to emit was nowhere near the amount we emit today, and so it was absorbed by forests, grasslands, and oceans. Today, at least 20% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions comes from deforestation. The reforestation that is occurring is nothing compared to the amount of deforestation which is still being done, especially today in this economy. Alot of burning is being done. We're all still getting alot of our energy from coal, something i think should've stopped long ago. I was actually shocked when I was 13 when I learned that Canada was still getting energy from coal plants at all.
This is all indicative of anthropogenic climate change. Most of the people in the world are truly unaware of how fucked the environment is. We've lost half of our forests, half of our wetlands, much of our grasslands, our oceans are FUCKED, industries are still plundering resources and producing tons of pollution, nuclear energy is still putting people's health at risk and generating tons and tons of nuclear waste which we have no idea what to do with, and species are going extinct at a phenomenal rate. The other great extinction events throughout the Earth's history all took millions of years to happen; today's, which is called the Holocene Extinction event, is occurring alarmingly fast.
If you're reading this and you don't believe me, as I know some of you don't, please just go and check. But check exhaustively; don't just believe me, but find out for yourself. But if you don't believe me, then please don't just go and believe someone else's theories either. Check their facts and sources. If you go on Google scholar, you can find actual scientific reports based on real, hard data gathered in the field.
To encourage people to conduct their own research, I will not post my sources until tomorrow. See for yourself what's going on. The problem of course with the internet, is that all of the information is there, but so is all of the misinformation. One has to sift through it, and not be satisfied with any answers until they can be proven. If anyone can come up with some solid data that refutes anything I've said, please let me know so I can see it. Thank you all.

man....

Get up this morning. Have moved into the new place. Basement apartment - needs alot of work. Landlord fixing floor on Monday. Needs new light fixtures, new paint job, serious cleaning, and deodorizing before I really unpack. And goodbye sunshine, hello dark clouds and strong winds. Don't know if I should do some work or not. Still weary. No internet; too much going on in the world; no time...

The Canadian Government continues its neglect for Environmental Responsibility

I still can't figure out why this thing won't let me post links, but here's the URL to the Globe and Mail article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-could-waive-thousands-more-environmental-assessments/article1197879/#page

The Harper government has been acting incredibly short-sightedly and ignorantly when it comes to the environment. Ever since he was first elected. Now, while we definitely need economic action and new infrastructure, no environmental assessments means the probability of serious environmental damage. It is a well known fact that infrastructure seriously disrupts wildlife and impacts habitats, but the real issue is this lack of concern in our government and in its policies towards environmental impacts and the fact that our needs and our economy are both dependent on the health of our environment.
In the Globe and Mail's article, they mention that the environment minister was speaking in Alberta. Now, Albertans often seem to have a tremendous pride in their province, and are very attached to their economy and are critical of environmental concerns. Just look at the positive and negative publicity surrounding the Oil Sands. But most people don't realize the current and growing problem of Environmental Refugees. In the Maldives, for example. These little islands in the Pacific are disappearing under the ocean. In the coming years the number of Environmental Refugees is going to swell IMMENSELY. But most Canadians, especially those who are ignorant or dismissive of our country's lack of environmental friendliness, concern, and reponsibility, are not aware that we have citizens in our country who are Envirnmental Refugees in their own land. Particularly due to oil development in Alberta. Alberta farmers are being displaced from their own land due to toxic contaminants. This should be outraging everyone in the country, yet people go on believing that our country has high environmental standards, as it should. We have about 50% of our Boreal Forest left, far too little wetlands left, and it's all still disappearing at an unacceptable rate. And now the Government wants to build sewage treatment plants without environmental assessments.
People just don't seem to realize that this is becoming almost criminally irresponsible, and that we should be conscious of what is going on in our country and actively trying to change things for the better.
Is it really so hard to assess environmental impacts and take some responsible measures to protect the ecosystems we depend on? Because we literally do depend on them.

Moving

This has been a month of being constantly busy. Moving on Tuesday/Wednesday. Have had practically no time to write and blog and stuff. Very tired, but gotta a lot more work to do.

Some Truth

DEAD PREZ AND GRIZZLY BEAR

The Economy

It's almost sounding like the rich and powerful of the world WANT hyperinflation in the near future. They won't have to worry about it because 50% of the world's wealth is now in the hands of 2% of the world's population.

Weariness

I'm currently typing this as I take a break from studying. I have a test in about two hours, that accounts for 20% of my grade. Man, I shouldn't have taken a summer course (despite how interesting it is). I've been marathon studying for the last while, as well as apartment hunting; I need to find a new place in the next few days. And then my paper is due a week from now, and it's worth 17.5% of my grade. I'm starting to bend under the weight of my month of June. Being so busy is the main reason for my lack of blogging. Right now its just nice to clear my head. It's been severely overloaded over the past half a year.
Yet here is a speech that when I first watched it grabbed me right in the heart. once again the TED talks have managed to inspire me tremendously. As I write this, I'm sitting on the 12th floor of the Hall building of my school, and very much engaged and appreciating and loving my education. I tend to spend a lot of time reading, researching, and watching documentaries, so I'm always learning. But right now I'm taking this course on the inner solar system, and learning things I probably wouldn't be able to learn all on my own. During the year I take geography courses where I learn an immense amount about the world; the benefit of geography is that it crosses the boundaries between the other disciplines; sciences, geology, planetary science, social studies, anthropology, sociology, history, etc. It's a great time to be in my line of study, too.
And yet I retain a serious problem with Academia, which I developed in high school. My self-education at the time was way ahead of what I was learning then, and I came to recognize a lot of serious faults with Academia and systematic education. It was and is very boxed in, closed minded, near sighted, and divisive in its disciplinary emphasis. It teaches knowledge, but not wisdom.
So what a thrill to hear and see this lecture, from Liz Coleman, president of Bennington College. For me, this video is an antidote to weariness.





Hell, yeah.

I just signed this petition for Iceland to stop whaling.

Please click on the arrow and sign as well; it may be more important than anyone even really realizes...

FUCK STEPHEN HARPER

How smart are we?

Click on the image to view it bigger.

Documentary on Bob Marley

part 1

A Documentary

Here's a neat documentary (baa hahahaha)

Bob Marley is one of my Heroes

Part 1 of a documentary on the album Catch a Fire. I and I come hear the words of Bob, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and the rest of the original Wailers, Rita Marley, and other great Rasta teachers. Some great interviews, speechifyin, and testifyin.
Another really good documentary is called "Life and Debt". It is all about Jamaica's economic situation, which is the same that has befallen an obscene number of other countries.

Bill C-15

Hunter S. Thompson

This youtube video is part of a full-length biography of Hunter S. Thompson, a favourite of mine among writers. He was way ahead of his time on environmental issues. He was fighting to keep Aspen a quaint little town full of intellectuals and free of conglomerates and time share ski resorts and stripmalls and capitalist development before anyone else could've conceived what was in store for Aspen. At the beginning of this video, they are talking about the riots and police brutality in Chicago during the Democratic Convention in '68. It was this destruction and political upheaval in the sixties and seventies that inspired him to first try to write about the Death of the American Dream. One can now really see what he was talking about when it comes to the Death of the American Dream. Although who knows what he'd think about Barack Obama. If you check out the beginning of the documentary, you'll hear what Hunter wrote on September 11, and his predictions are eerily accurate.
I was disappointed when I heard that Obama wouldn't be holding anyone accountable for torturing, and that they would continue trials of people in Guantanamo.
However what's as alarming and seemingly under-noticed around us right now of some fucked up political times in Canada. God knows what will happen. I for one am not sure about Micheal Ignatieff. I believe he's better than Stephen goddamn Harper. I was always an NDP guy.

John Lennon is one of my Heroes

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday to see the John Lennon and Yoko Ono exhibit. It was incredible.
I took a picture on my cellphone of a letter John Lennon wrote to the world, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to get it onto my computer. Here's what it said, though:

"Dear World.

I think we should have peace. Why don't we have it? I would like it today - so would my wife.
John Lennon, and many others

P.S. you should have seen his face."

Happy World Fair Trade Day

Police Brutality - so who do you trust?

Man, I had noticed that the cops were everywhere. They've definitely increased in presence, and force. But then recently a friend of mine encountered serious police brutality. They actually beat him with their batons and then made up a charge to cover their asses that they charged him with. An actual, real injustice. WHAT THE FUCK?

MUSIC

EARTH DAY

Happy Earth Day!

I have to spend today studying, partly on my computer, but I'm going to save as much energy as possible. I'm studying and celebrating!
So I want to talk today about biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety and diversity of living things on the planet. The biodiversity of the Earth is UNIMAGINABLE. I wrote a bit already today on facebook.
Biodiversity is one of the most important things. We are currently in and for a large part causing one of the great global extinction events of the planet's history. But, if we want to survive, we have to recognize that all life is interdependent. We depend on ecosystems for oxygen, clean water, food, and medicine. The level of biodiversity is indicative of an ecosystem's health. The more species there are, the greater the health of the organisms, the greater the health and resilience of the ecosystem, and also the finer the balance of the ecosystem. Things we now depend on, like the Agri-Business Corporations of the food processing industry, the Pharmaceutical Companies, Bottled Water Companies or just modern water treatment, and especially Land Developers are all contributing to habitat destruction and the destruction of biodiversity while providing chemically altered forms of those things that we could be getting cleanly and for free from life on the planet.








This world blows my mind.

Thank you.

Hi. It's 420, and everything was looking bright this morning when I almost was hit by a car being crashed into by a recycling truck. I'm ok now, but I must say,
Thanks for Life! Glad to be alive (and not injured)!

Wangari Maathai is one of my heroes (I guess that's heroines).

Hello!
I'm taking a break from studying to write here a bit. A few months ago, at my school's alternative documentary night, Cinema Politica, they screened a documentary called "Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai." I had heard of her before this, and had heard her speak very well on the need for healthy environments, for ourselves and the rest of the world.
However, I knew virtually nothing about her until I saw this documentary, which is AMAZING. Wangari Maathai was the first woman Eastern African woman to receive a PHD, in 1971, and then in 2004 she won a Nobel Peace Prize. Her story is absolutely incredible, and her fight for the environment became a fight against injustice and tyranny in Kenya.
Her experiences and accomplishments are far too numerous and gigantic for me to tell here, but here's the basic thread: after getting her education, she was a professor at the University of Nairobi. She was the first woman ever to do so. She was a lecturer, and she was also doing field work. She was faced with deforestation, poverty, malnutrition, diseases, and lack of water. Speaking with these poor people, she asked "Why don't you plant trees?"
So they started the Green Belt Movement, which began as a simple project in reforestation, learning, teaching and sharing knowledge, and sustainability. Then they became entagled with the government. At the time the President of Kenya was Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi. He became president in 1978, a year after the Green Belt Movement had begun. He turned out to be a corrupt dictator, who kept his power not by denying elections, but by cunningly manipulating the other parties and exploiting the tribal tensions between the people. He and Maathai ended up battling til the end. He held onto power for 24 years; he was constitutionally barred from running again for president, but his supporters floated the idea of amending the constitution in order to allow him to run again. He however apparently chose to retire. The movie says though that he was "defeated" in 2002 when he stepped down. It's very possible that he didn't choose to retire but was defeated, and he's only remembered as deciding to retire. Maathai was elected to parliament with the National Rainbow Council. When Moi stepped down, the occasion drew one of the largest crowds ever seen in Nairobi. The people were openly hostile towards him. Maathai became Assistant Minister of Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife. She's since moved to a few different positions in the government, but lost elections in 2007, possibly due to fraud.
This covers very very little of her story.
Yesterday, 'Taking Root' aired on Independent Lens on PBS. I was hoping to find the whole movie available on pbs.org, but unfortunately it's not. Youtube and Google Video seem to only have small snippets of it.
Here's a preview:



Women's rights are actually a very important Environmental issue. I think this documentary kind of illustrates that. I'll write more on that subject tomorrow. Until then, keep believing in changing the world for the better. Because if you do, you will succeed.
Peace!

Home.

I envy those who are already done.

Hello.
I just had a lovely walk through the rain. It's April now, and I'm so glad for the warming temperatures and the rainfall. I'm kind of unusual because I absolutely love the rain! Spring is here, which is awesome after a freezing cold Montreal winter.
Man, there is so much on my plate and on my mind right now, I can barely function. My brain feels like pudding. It's crunch time. One of my buddy's is already done though. That lucky bastard. Exams exams exams.
I want to thank my friend Erin, who left a comment on one of my posts. She brought up a few things that I'm still hoping to address here soon. Right now I just want to write a short little post. Specifically, though, she mentioned the energy consumption of electronic devices, like this computer, our cellphones and all that stuff. This is very true. A huge amount of net energy is being consumed needlessly every day. Personally, I am of the opinion that everyone in the world should be using 100% renewable energy. Which is of course far from realistic, but I don't see why it should stay unrealistic.
Secondly, in response to my ranting about the World Bank and the IMF, she raised the huge question of "but what about Monsanto?" This is a subject I've been saving for later, but she is very right. I'll be talking pretty soon about food, and the myriad issues that currently plague us in that field right now.
I need to leave those for now, though, and rest myself. I'm leaving to visit home in a few days, and I CAN'T WAIT!!! Home equals the countryside north of Peterborough, Ontario.

WE ARE A PART OF NATURE

Man, this blows my mind!

Thank you!

Hello.
Once again, I must apologize for the lack of posts. Thanks so much to everyone who responded to my last post and provided some feedback. It's been very helpful, and I was glad to received it. It was generally very positive, which was a relief!
I'm also sorry about that last post; re-reading it, I guess I came down kind of heavy. I want to try and do that only when necessary from now on. So I apologize if that post came off as angry or accusing or anything like that. Especially for the ANONYMOUS person who left the comment that initiated it. Thank you very much for your opinion, and everyone who added their two cents.
It's getting down to the wire at school now, but I'm gonna try to keep up with the blog. I'm sorry though if I end up posting tons of youtube videos, and other quick things.
One of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog, as well, was to try and empower people. The fact is that one of the main drivers of environmental and social damage is our society. We know that, to a large extent. It stems from Consumerism, Commercialism, and Capitalism. This means our institutions, like the World Bank, the Corporations, the Government, as well as our lifestyles. It's not something that we should be putting to the backs of our minds, but something we need to keep in mind as we make decisions in our day to day lives. I personally believe in slowly changing the ways of our society today (though not TOO slowly). One of the most important changes which has been taking place is people taking responsibility with their dollar, and buying fair-trade and/or eco-friendly products. These people are labelled by market researchers as "Conscience Consumers" because of their ethical habits.
This is a great thing that should be more widespread and pervading in our lives. The fact is that solutions start at home, and everyone should stop feeling so powerless. Especially these days, with the economy and so forth. The thing is that economic, social and environmental solutions go hand in hand; potentially meaning profits for all, in all areas. A win-win.
But seriously, we have the ability to better ourselves and our planet, for our own sake as well as for the sake of Life On Earth. We have the power to seek the truth, and live the lives we want to live, AND solve these problems. We don't need to be afraid, and we don't need to be powerless. In the words of Neil Young: "You can make a difference, if you really try!"
If you want to start off, you can check The Environmental Blog. It's got lots of great green ideas, for now, and for the future, when you've got a house and a job and kids and whatnot. Also, tomorrow night is EARTH HOUR! From 8:30 to 9:30 pm, dedicated people around the world are turning off their lights and their appliances. I'm super excited; back in the summer of 2003 we had that gigantic blackout, which at the time gave me the idea for an annual Blackout Day. This is close enough, so YEAH! LET"S HAVE A BLACKOUT!

Thank you so much to those who like Peaceful Seeds; and anyone who has any ideas or criticism - please share it so that I can try to improve.

Peace be with you all!
☮

Business

Hi!
I apologize to anyone who has been checking here over the last few days and been disappointed with any lack of posts. Thanks for reading!
The thing is along with a seriously busy schedule now and thus having to focus hard on schoolwork, I received a nice dose of feedback which made me need to have a long, hard think about the blog. It was posted by ANONYMOUS, who had some interesting things to say.
So first of all, i have some questions for any readers of Peaceful Seeds.
First, do I seem to be reducing these issues to black and white representations of greedy corporate interests against the individual and collective future interests of the world?
Because that is something that I really, really never wanted to do.
I do have some serious blame to lay on greedy corporate interests, specifically those of the World Bank and the IMF. The whole racket that they have going on is very serious, and I was hoping to gradually present information on them to build the case. However, not all corporations are greedy, destructive, or environmentally unfriendly. Unethical corporations, and their increasing power, manipulation, and control, are truly a huge problem in the world today. The Ascent of Money in general is. However it's a problem that I do seriously think too few people in the world think about, and too many people in the accept.
But the fact is that we are all a part of the problem. And the problem is very complex, and my intention has been to slowly showcase the scope and intricacies of what's going on. And just as we are, corporations are an essential part of the solution.
I know this blog isn't perfect, but it's MAD young. This is only my 14th post, and I'm low on free time, but I am aware that I'm not yet providing the whole picture. I want to help people be aware of how their actions affect the world, and how our collective societies affect the world, as well as how we can change things to solve the problems we face.
And the solutions aren't always hard to figure out. An example of positive action/sustainability is in the video I posted called "How we regrew a rainforest." This video shows these things: working with local people who are eager to make a living, be self-sufficient and learn how to do it, and directly involving them in both environmental protection and sustainable economic practices; working against deforestation, soil destruction, and biodiversity loss - a lot of people need to be aware of the importance of rainforests to the global system, as they remove carbon, regulate the climate, retain water, and foster biodiversity, as well as a whole lot more; and the win-win correlation between helping poor people in poor countries, animals and plants and their habitats, ecosystems in general, and the profits of sustainability.

But seriously, I have really been trying to get this blog off the ground without just posting things about problems and laying blame or grandstanding or being an ideologue. I mean, my first two posts were sort of introductory, and I've tried to include stuff about the IMF and the Global economy, and how it works, as well as the crimes being committed, but also I've been trying to make posts about how incredible nature is, and sustainable solutions, as well as some stuff about myself. So I'm really sorry if I seem to be just posting stuff impugning the problems and reducing things to black and white.

My next question: have I been too angry, or coming off as just someone who's angry and ranting about problems?
I've been trying not to, but I couldn't help my outburst a week ago about the amount of garbage in the ocean. The truth is though that I do get very angry at the senselessness. But what I'm trying to do now in the early stages of this blog is show some of my interests, some of what's going on, some of the problems we face, some of the solutions, but mainly just provide food for thought.
I'm hoping to gradually raise awareness of the complexities of the issue, and why we have these problems today, what we can do, and also what needs to be done on the global scale. I'm trying to do it slowly, though, and preferably focus on one thing at a time. But I don't want to pretend like I'm totally right, or that I know everything or have all the answers, or rant on about problems or things that piss me off, nor be some kind of ideologue.
I've been trying to not reduce these issues to a black and white context, and I've been trying to introduce the problems so that I can examine them as well as introduce the possible solutions. I don't want to completely discount the opinions I night not agree with, but also I want to help inform people about specific problems so that they can think about them. Hopefully they can start coming up with possible solutions that they'll want to discuss and debate with people. But I also don't want to rush the blog because of the information overload I've been receiving weekly. I'm also trying not to be presumptuous about the solutions.

If I may however directly address something which ANONYMOUS asked: Yes, we do need to raise environmental awareness. As we can see today, people are aware of environmental destruction, and the need for change, yet very little is actually being done. But environmental damage isn't all; a lot of people today are still buying Nike, going to the supermarket, and whatnot, without thinking about the impacts that their day-to-day decisions have not only on the environment, but on the world. For example, we here consume the vast majority of the world's resources. That's no news. But the thing is most people who are starving in third world countries live in places with food surpluses, but they have to produce that food for export to rich Western countries because they are trying to pay off their debt to the IMF. The food that's produced throughout the world is then shipped elsewhere to be processed. Industrial food processing actually began as a response to rising incomes in countries like ours, to increase the price of food. However, with industrial food production and processing comes "vertical/horizontal integration", which leads to monopolies. It's called the Agri-food Chain, and each link in the chain is dominated by a handful of multi billion dollar multinational corporations.
But you're right; none of this is news (not to mention the whole picture is a lot more complex). But why do we keep supporting this unjust system? People may be aware of it and think: "oh, but what can one do about it??" The first step is being conscious, informed, aware, and making a decision as to how you are going to live. The solution starts with education, as well as action. I'm hoping to be getting all of my food from local organic fair-trade sources by next month. Raising awareness is crucially important to solving the problems because the majority of people around here go about their lives as consumers without thinking about it, and the majority of the world is living in poverty because of it. And not only are we over-consuming resources, but we're wasting disgusting amounts of it. But this isn't news either!
Yes, solutions need to be focused on, but so do the problems because they stem from us, and our ways. If you want to implement solutions, you cannot stop raising awareness. However, I also kind of want to get people mad, because then they might want to DO something about it.

As far as solutions for the people who have no choice because of their situation: Education is probably the most important key for solving the problems in the 'developing' world. And if we want to help the environment, we have to help those people. I said that in the post right before the angry one about the garbage in the oceans.

So anyway, anyone who's reading this, please let me know what you think of Peaceful Seeds so far. I'm sorry about this long post, but it's been bothering me, and I hope I haven't been coming off as some guy who's pissed off and divorced from reality. Please send me your feedback, so that I can try to be a better blogger.
Thanks; peace be with you.