HOPE

Seeds of hope for the world's rainforests

  
by Nick St Clair for earthtimes.org

      Horror stories about the deforestation that is destroying the world's rainforests on a massive scale are sadly old news. Every year enormous tracts of land the size of Cuba are lost, and at the current rate it is estimated that the world's rainforests will have completely disappeared by the end of this century.

      The madness is that this 'ecocide' not only poses a direct threat to millions of species of plants, animals and insects that inhabit the forests, but also the earth's fundamental ability to regulate rainfall and temperatures.


      But despite this bleak outlook, there is a glimmer of hope...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.earthtimes.org/conservation/seeds-hope-worlds-rainforests/385/

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

      Had another earthquake a few days ago.

      It was fairly mild and lasted less than ten seconds. It's not the first earthquake we have experienced and it wouldn't normally have much of an effect, as the epicentre was about 200 kms away and we are on top of a mountain, so by the time it reached us it had already lost most of its power.

      Except the strangest thing happened.

      Our cabina is perched on thin, wooden stilts about 5 metres above the ground and the force of the quake must have matched the natural frequency of the cabina's supports. As a result the physics of resonance made it rock from side-to-side quite violently and for some time after the quake has subsided.

I said, "I think we'll sleep outside tonight...

      I nearly spilled my beer.

      Coincidentally, at the exact same moment, a workman was cementing the foundations, primarily in preparation for the monsoon that is coming. (When the rains come, and we're talking serious rain of between 3-5 metres per year, they unleash a torrent that creates a river that flows directly under our home.)

      He looked a bit shaken himself, as he was directly underneath when the earthquake hit.

Like that's going to hold 
when the big one hits.

     Earthquakes should come as no surprise, as Costa Rica sits on one of the most dynamic fault lines on the earth.

       It lies at a point where the Carribean tectonic plate is being forced under the Pacific's Cocus plate. As a result some ocean trench quakes just off the coast of Costa Rica have been recorded at 9.0 on the Richter scale and are among the most awesome on the planet, lifting the sea floor by tens of metres in one single, dramatic movement and raising the high probability of a massive tsunami.

      Mind you, if the earth shifts with enough force to create a tsunami powerful enough to travel 300kms inland and knock the supports out from underneath a cabina, in a cloudforest, a mile up a mountain in Costa Rica...

     ... then there's gonna be a lot of spilt beer.

SWEDISH MOSQUITOS

 

The children that saved a rainforest

  By Nick St Clair for the earthtimes.org

'If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.'' 

The Dalai Lama

 

      It was just over a year ago the Copenhagen climate talks opened to fervent hopes that the world would finally come together and address the planet's most pressing environmental problems. After a great deal of posturing and rhetoric, it sadly failed to deliver even a fraction of its promises.
      Our collective shame is deepened, when you see small groups of people taking direct action, sometimes with astonishing and long lasting results. None more so than the example of the Swedish school children who were so moved by the plight of an endangered rainforest, that without further debate they made the decision to save it.
      This small group of children cut through the arguments, ignored any negativity and instead reached directly into their (and their parents' pockets) in order to raise the money necessary to keep the loggers at bay and preserve the forest...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.earthtimes.org/conservation/school-children-saved-rainforest/457/

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

SKUNK?

You don't have to smell to save the planet

By Nick St Clair for tree.com

http://www.tree.com/health/blog-blog/archive-2011-04-05-shower-less-and-save-the-planet.aspx 

     Wake up, kill the alarm, slide out of bed and hit the shower. For millions of people across the country showering is a daily ritual that is almost as important to our early morning preparations as getting dressed itself.

     But is it really necessary? After all, do we really get that dirty when all we've done is sleep for 8 hours tucked up in a presumably clean bed? The truth is for most people it’s more of a ritual than a cleansing exercise, but as a direct result every day millions of gallons of fresh, clean water is flushed away. Water that billions of people across the world would happily drink. Or rather they would, if it wasn’t for the staggering amount of chemical pollutants that we unleash on ourselves every time we shower and bathe. Wash hair, condition hair, lather up with shower gel, then wash it all off using even greater quantities of water.

     To add to this chemical arsenal, we then spray on deodorants, perfumes and aftershaves before walking out onto the street surrounded by our own personal cosmetic cloud. It will come as no surprise to learn that the international market for soaps and toiletries is worth billions of dollars every year. The industry spends a small fortune fueling our belief that if we don’t invest huge amounts of our hard earned money on its products - we are ugly and we smell...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.tree.com/health/blog-blog/archive-2011-04-05-shower-less-and-save-the-planet.aspx

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

"GRRRR"

      Just waved goodbye to kids as they climbed onto the school bus and was heading up the path, when I saw a cat cross the road into the undergrowth and head up the hill toward my cabina.

      This wasn't your average moggy. It was brown and about two metres long from nose to end of tail, unmistakably a Mountain Lion or Puma*. I wasn't the only one who saw it, one of the local taxi drivers had stopped in the middle of the road and was pointing it out to his two passengers who both wearing a look which I can only describe as being a mixture of shock and awe. The taxi driver talked as if he saw them every day, while one of the passengers was cursing the fact that her camera was in the boot of the taxi (not that she would have had time to get a shot as the Puma shot across the road at speed.

      I fully admit to walking the rest of the way back home with a degree of trepidation, not that a Puma would be interested in chewing on human flesh, it's more likely that it was after my neighbour's chickens - especially as one of the chickens has just delivered a clutch of cute, yellow, fluffy chicks - crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch...

*There six species of big cats in Costa Rica: Jaguar, Puma, Ocelot (Manigordo), Margay Cat (Caucel), Jaguarundi (León Breñero) and the Tigrillo (Oncilla). For more information - http://www.nicoyapeninsula.com/wildlife/wildcats.php

REVENGE

"Don't seek revenge, let kaama have the bastards."

     
      This is a quote from Ajahn Brahm, a buddhist monk for the 21st Century

      Originally from the UK, he spent over 20 years training in Thailand and is now abbott of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. Every Friday he gives a talk in Perth and it is downloaded onto Youtube and watched by thousands of people. Truly insightful, inspirational and an amazing example of an enlightened being, he is also very, very, very  funny.

      So sit back and relax (you don't need to be cross-legged), light some incense or natural oils to create a little ambience and enjoy...

      This is one of my favourites, a talk on tolerance. (check out the joke at 25mins 50 secs,  "A Jewish Rabbi, Catholic priest, Anglican vicar and a Buddhist monk discuss their personal problems...")

 for a full list of all the talks go to: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/BuddhistSocietyWA