№ 675. Zero Waste Cooking

Reddit

 

№ 661. The Man Who Planted Trees

Stuck in a Book

 

“For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake.”

― Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Trees

 

 

№ 562. Terroir

 

Woodberrys

№ 519. TEOTWAWKI

 

The Pandemic has arrived. We are still managing it. Barely.

Winter is coming. 

Not the white walkers, but worse, the irreversible rise in temperature. An accelerating system that could wipe out our civilizations.

Singapore, as always, is leading into that foreseeable future.

"Giant solar-powered air-conditioners, vacuum garbage collection, subterranean roads for electric vehicles, urban farms and green architecture. Put them all together and you have Tengah, Singapore’s most ambitious project yet to build the city of the future.

TEOTWAWKI = The end of the world as we know it.

№ 420. Climate Change

Climate change is not a belief system.

We know that the earth’s climate is changing thanks to observations, facts and data that we can see with our eyes and test with the sound minds that God has given us.

And still more fundamentally, here's why it matters: because real people are being affected today; and as Christians we believe that God’s love has been poured in our hearts to share with our brothers and sisters here and around the world who are suffering.

Caring about this planet and every living thing on it is not somehow antithetical to who we are as Christians, but rather central to it.

Being concerned about climate change is a genuine expression of our faith, bringing our attitudes and actions more closely into line with who we already are and what we most want to be.

And not only that; if we truly believe we’ve been given responsibility for every living thing on this planet (including each other) as it says in Genesis 1, then it isn’t only a matter of caring: we should be at the front of the line demanding action.

№ 289. Solar Freakin Roadways

Ok, this looks promising enough. Thanks for the heads up Upworthy.

 

№ 257. Plastic Grenade

Plastic is a material consisting of any of a wide range ofsynthetic or semi-synthetic organics that are malleable and can be molded into solid objects of diverse shapes. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass, but they often contain other substances. They are usually synthetic, most commonly derived from petrochemicals, but many are partially natural.

Lifecycle of Plastic Water Bottle

№ 218. "There may be flowing water on Mars. But is there intelligent life on Earth?"

"New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars."

Pinterest

Meanwhile, on Earth.... We are still debating, doing very little that is aggressive and significant enough to reverse climate change and continuing blithely with our irresponsibility---daily. I am already old enough so I have only a few more decades left. But I do fear for the next generations. What will they inherit from our shortsighted and selfish mess of a world?

№ 85.Habits of the Mind (2)

Anxious. Here's a balm: "Making Paper Boats with Papa".

Open publication - Free publishing

№ 84. Habits of the Mind

It's the climate change on a planetary scale, for starters. Then there are the rabid monsoons. Did we mention the floods thick with our sewage and rich with our possessions? How about the waste segregation floating on our dead rivers?

It's all the irresponsibility and ineptness in this vast urban sinkhole.

"Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease
about something with an uncertain outcome."---David Mansaray

And talk about another habit of the mind---anxiety. Anxiety because of and amidst all of these.

Thankfully, it's one that can be cured by a simple smack or noogie. Thankfully, the cure is mainly mental not planetary. But if you wish, it could also be physical, a break from an unproductive helplessness that's fast becoming a pattern, or worse, a cycle. It's this loopy possibility that can be self-defeating.

Daniel Smith says, "Anxious thoughts — the what-if’s, the should-have-been’s, the never-will-be’s — are dramatic thoughts. They are compelling thoughts. They are thoughts that have no compunction about seizing you by your lapels and shouting, “Listen to me! Believe me!” So we listen, and believe, without realizing that by doing so we are stepping onto a closed loop, a set of mental tracks that circle endlessly and get us nowhere. This makes the anxious habit very hard to break. Over time those mental tracks deepen and become hardened ruts. Our thoughts slip into grooves of illogic, hypervigilance and catastrophe."

So here's a smack! Figurative, for now.

--------

"One day last year, I called my brother Scott in a state of agitation, self-hatred and incipient despair. Scott was at work and short on time. I got straight to the point. 'I’m in a state of agitation, self-hatred and incipient despair!' I cried.

'Tell me more,' Scott said. 'What is it?'

'I'm anxious — again! I’m anxious day and night. I wake up anxious and I go to bed anxious. I’m a total wreck. And I’m not doing anything to help myself! I know what helps and I’m not doing it! What’s wrong with me? Why am I not doing the things I know full well will make me feel better?'

Vice Grips and Some Such

'Oh,' Scott said. 'That’s an easy one. It’s because you’re an idiot.' Then he said he’d call me after work. (NYT Opinionator)

№ 71. Monday Mind Melds: Green Planet

Mondays can have their perks, too. They can give the week a shot in the arm especially for armchair green revolutionaries.

Earth Day is almost here. What better way to prepare than to inspect current thinking and maybe learn something.

Here's one very engaging article from Utne:

"Today we operate the world with our growth paradigm and our economic imperative and our social imperative as being the supreme goals for our societies. We then add, at best, sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and all the good work we’re doing with clean tech and efforts to be more efficient, all with the explicit goal of minimizing environmental impacts within the overarching growth paradigm. The insights of the Anthropocene and tipping points show this paradigm doesn’t work anymore. We have to reverse the whole order and agree that the biosphere is the basis for everything else. This is quite dramatic, because it means human development has to be subordinate to Earth system boundaries. It changes the whole idea of macroeconomic theory, because macroeconomic theory basically states that as long as you put the right price on the environment, you automatically get the most cost-efficient way of solving environmental problems."

Hiroshima Videos from www.archive.org