.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Dirty Veggies?
3 days
by sky
in Local Food
This is great support for what most people who grow and eat wholesome food already know.
You don’t have to pay £400 to grow your own –even if it is in tubs on your front/back porch – or find vegetables grown in healthy soil. Healthy animals eat healthy grass and that means weed infested variety.
The Surprising Healing Qualities … of Dirt
A doctor discovers exposure to healthy farm soil holds keys to healthy bodies.
by Daphne Miller
Is Being an Earthling Valuable to You?
6 days
by sky
in Planetary Rights
People from the United States are called Americans just as people from Spain are called Spaniards. The word Spaniard is descriptive. Within it are connotations that tell us generally a lot about the language they probably speak, where they live geographically, the variety of foods and wines locally available and, providing we were informed, a lot about their past experiences as a group. Huge numbers of residents would admit that they love their country and would gladly serve in a military capacity to save their families and country from destruction.
Similarly, humans are Earthlings. Knowing that a person is an Earthling also reveals a lot about how they live and think. Unfortunately, however, being a human does not carry the same associative value as being a Spaniard or American. The Spanish, for instance, share an organised and regulated social cohesion. Most citizens accept the rule of law and benefits and limitations on the rights of citizenship. Spanish interests fall within the guidelines enforced by national and international law. Even a corporation has been given the legal standing of a person.
Being an Earthling however carries none of the above. A country is free to not only assume the right to destroy, for instance a huge rainforest or heavily pollute the air on its way around the globe, but does so and has been doing so for many years with impunity. The many examples of these atrocities are so extremely well known by a great number of people all around the globe that there is no need to list them or explain them here. Although we know and do our measure of tsk, tsk whilst our relatives are killed in a gigantic twister or a whopping typhoon or the American Southwest is doomed to experience devastating desertification because the transpiration of millions of trees that at one time turned into moisture that was carried on high by global wind currents and dropped in the Southwest now carry “hot air”.
Maybe we should each ask ourselves – What is the planet worth to us?
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi – Keep Glyphosate away from it
17 days
by sky
in Soil Health and Safety
ISIS Report 28/10/13
Plants Warn One Another of Pest Attack through Mycorrhizal Fungal Network
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mycorrhizae_and_plant_communication.php
Underground intercom between plants
A network of the soil microorganism – arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi – act as an underground intercommunications system between plants to warn off aphid attacks, a recent study from the University of Aberdeen in the UK reveals [1].
The living Earth
20 days
by sky
in Living Universe
The living Earth – Life is a Property of Planets
“No individual organism can exist in isolation…..According to the Gaia theory of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, the evolution of the first living organisms went hand in hand with the transformation of the planetary surface from an inorganic environment to a self-regulating biosphere. ‘In that sense,’ writes Harold Morowitz, ‘life is a property of planets rather than of individual organisms.’” Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections, 2002
Sky: I believe this statement of Morowitz is more in line with systems theory than the mainstream view of life ON the planet. My view is that there wouldn’t be “life” on the planet if the planet was not itself alive.
Harold J. Morowitz (born December 4, 1927, in Poughkeepsie, New York) is an American biophysicist who studies the application of thermodynamics to living systems. Author of numerous books and articles, his work includes technical monographs as well as essays. The origin of life has been his primary research interest for more than fifty years. He is currently the Robinson Professor of Biology and Natural Philosophy at George Mason University after a long career at Yale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_J._Morowitz
Is the Atlantic Current slowing down?
22 days
by sky
in Atlantic Current
Study to focus on Arctic after Greenland Sea found to have warmed 10 times faster than global ocean
By Phoebe McDonald
Updated Sat 2 Nov 2013, 4:57pm AEDT
“Scientists have revealed plans to examine temperature changes in the Arctic Ocean after a long-term study found the Greenland Sea is warming 10 times faster than the global ocean.”
Sky: There are some troublesome by the by statements here that deserve special attention. Some 10 years or so ago, there was a report that the flow of the Atlantic Current at its northern edge was decreasing: Let me see if I can find the reference. Here we are:
Ref: 05/204
http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2005/nov/05_204.shtml
01 December 2005
“The Atlantic Ocean overturning current that maintains Europe’s moderate climate has slowed by 30 per cent according to scientists from the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton in research published today in Nature (Thursday, 1 December 2005).”
Then there was a retraction that not enough data had been collected. Then there was an article about how many monitors had been strung along a horizontal line across the Atlantic to measure the flow. Then nothing. No reports. Nothing. Now, in this article I read:
“Until the early 1980s, the central Greenland Sea has been mixed from the top to the bottom by winter cooling at the surface making waters dense enough to reach to sea floor,” she said.
“This transfer of cold water from the top to the bottom has not occurred in the last 30 years.
“After the ’80s it seems that winter heat losses – how much heat is lost from the ocean to the atmosphere – has decreased.
“The waters at the surface are lighter during the wintertime than before. They don’t reach the necessary density to reach the bottom of the Greenland Sea.”
In the past, the Thermohaline Circulation Conveyor [Atlantic Current] was driven by the sinking of the cooled down, saltier [heavier] water having been mixed with the cooler water from the higher latitudes. This drove the circulation current as we all know keeping winter temperatures several degrees warmer in Europe, especially the British Isles. It has always seemed common sense to me that as the arctic ice melts, a greater and greater volume of cold water will push this overturning further and further south.
“She says if current trends continue the density, temperature and salinity levels of deep water in the Greenland Sea will reach the same levels of those in the Arctic Ocean.
“The Greenland Sea is getting lighter … It will reach the same density of the waters that are coming in,” she said.
“When they reach the same density we don’t know what will happen.”
Well, I think she has a good idea. This means the end of the conveyor effect at that latitude. Remember, It is only in recent times that the vast accumulation of ice of the Arctic Ocean has melted. Before that time, there was not nearly the volume of colder water mixing with southern currents at that latitude.
I would like to see a report from all the meters strung out to measure current flow across the northern Atlantic. If the Greenland see continues to warm and the warm saltier waters from the south are not cooled sufficiently to make them sink, then the conveyor will end. Period. How fast is unknown.
Something special from Johanna Macy
25 days
by sky
in Earthenspirituality
From the Greenspirit eNewsletter 14 November, 2013
“To be alive in this beautiful, Self-Organizing Universe – to participate in the Dance of Life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it – is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Furthermore, it is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.”
~ Joanna Macy ~
With Wealth comes Power
37 days
by sky
in Obscene Wealth
With wealth comes power
“When I started to look at what we are doing—the numbers were so boggling. I did some long division to make it more understandable. It came down to every four to four-and-a-half days, there’s a million more of us on the planet. That just doesn’t seem like a sustainable figure, and that’s pretty much where we are unless we start to do something about it.”
A CONVERSATION WITH ALAN WEISMAN http://littlebrown.com/countdown.html
John Kerry: “The future… will be defined by the combination of stability and economic growth”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24793814
(Sky:) Economic growth for whom? Every four-and-a-half days, there’s 990,000 more of us who will see poverty in their lifetimes.
“The remaining 91.6 percent of humanity splits around 17 percent of the wealth.”
“The planet overall minted around 2 million new millionaires last year.”
http://www.alternet.org/economy/point-seveners-new-name-millionaires-club
“Taken together, the bottom half of the global population own less than 1 percent of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent hold 86 percent of the world’s wealth, and the top 1 percent alone account for 46 percent of global assets.”
Climate scientists: Don’t stop speaking out!
38 days
by sky
in Global Warming
Naomi Klein: Why Science Is Telling All of Us to Revolt and Change Our Lives Before We Destroy the Planet
“But there are many people who are well aware of the revolutionary nature of climate science. It’s why some of the governments that decided to chuck their climate commitments in favour of digging up more carbon have had to find ever more thuggish ways to silence and intimidate their nations’ scientists. In Britain, this strategy is becoming more overt, with Ian Boyd, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, writing recently that scientists should avoid “’suggesting that policies are either right or wrong” and should express their views “by working with embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena’”.
Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine” and “No Logo”, is working on a book and a film about the revolutionary power of climate change.
(Sky:)
I was shocked by the quote above taken from a statement by Ian Boyd at DEFRA concerning his advice that scientists should not criticise (“’suggesting that policies are either right or wrong”) government policy. When I Googled “UK government criticism”, I found dozens of people and organisations from all walks of life offering criticism. Why not scientists? They are specialists and I suggest that many if not most are extremely well qualified. Are all climate scientists working for the government now?
“by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.“
Thesaurus.com reveals that the word reason is a noun meaning mental analysis or explanation for an action. Therefore when a scientist comments on a climate event, it may well be an explanation for an action and thus perfectly reasonable. Without reference to a dictionary or the Thesaurus, I submit that dissent means to disagree. Quite obviously, disagreeing with an explanation and using reasonable arguments are neither synonyms nor antonyms. During a discussion, one can always offer reasonable dissenting opinions.
Deadly floods hit central US with Missouri worst affected
124 days
by sky
in Global Warming
9 August 2013
Deadly floods hit central US with Missouri worst affected
“A family declined evacuation orders as a creek overtopped its banks in downtown Newburg, Missouri, on 7 August 2013”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23626750
Please, can we learn? We just cannot afford unlimited energy growth. This is one of the results. And it can only get worse as the CO2 climbs. We are looking at major, disastrous desertification throughout the US southwest. The grass dies, forest fires destroy the forests which means that they cannot expire water into the air, overgrazing is forced as ranchers attempt to maintain their living. The few rainstorms are gushes that carry the topsoil into the rivers and on to the coasts which then become stagnant.
And folks, who pays? Yes, you pay through higher taxes and higher prices whilst businesses attempt to hold on to their profits and the good life. It doesn’t add up and can’t add up.
Five Easy Pieces
124 days
by sky
in Gaia Consciousness
9 August 2013
Hollywood actress Karen Black dies aged 74
Hollywood star Karen Black, who featured in cult films such as Easy Rider, Nashville and Five Easy Pieces, has died aged 74.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23627843
Five Easy Pieces is one of the most warm, funny and yet moving films I ever watched. It is definitely one of my favourites. Priceless are the scenes around the sandwich and the piano in back of the truck. Jack was at his best and funniest – hilarious. If it is available for rent, you won’t be disappointed.