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Renovus Solar offers affordable solar solutions for everyone who pays an electric bill in upstate New York, including residential and commercial clients.

Credit: Stephen Yang / The Solutions Project

My brother is with is for a few months which requires a conversion of office to office/bedroom space. I think this is a happy compromise.

Yes, that is a beer drinking helmet. That kid.

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Solutions business, le 6 mars 2008. Charleroi - Belgique

 

Solutions business, le 6 mars 2008. Charleroi - Belgique

business team working around the word solutions

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Continuing with my green theme. I took a prettier shot of the plastic bag on the ground, and was going to write about how to solve the problem of excess plastic bags. However, I couldn't leave the bag there. I wanted to be part of the solution, part of the battle against littering. I felt it would be ironic and hypocritical if I left the bag there.

 

For great photographs and the low down on the G20 Summit, Protests and Demonstrations visit www.ravishlondon.com/g20

 

The world faces a problem: recession and a spiraling fall in trade. The Economist puts it like this, “Trade is contracting again, at a rate unmatched in the post-war period. This week the World Trade Organisation (WTO) predicted that the volume of global merchandise trade would shrink by 9% this year. This will be the first fall in trade flows since 1982. Between 1990 and 2006 trade volumes grew by more than 6% a year, easily outstripping the growth rate of world output, which was about 3% (see chart 1). Now the global economic machine has gone into reverse: output is declining and trade is tumbling at a faster pace. The turmoil has shaken commerce in goods of all sorts, bought and sold by rich and poor countries alike.” According to the Economist, “The immediate cause of shrinking trade is plain: global recession means a collapse in demand. The credit crunch adds an additional squeeze, thanks to an estimated shortfall of $100 billion in trade finance, which lubricates 90% of world trade.”

According to the Guardian, “On Thursday 2 April Gordon Brown is going to host the G20 summit in London. Leaders from 22 countries will be at the summit. The G20 is an organisation for finance ministers and central bankers, who in the past met once a year to discuss international cooperation in finance. There are 19 countries who are members: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The 20th member is the European Union, which is represented by whichever country holds the EU presidency (currently, it's the Czech Republic). These countries represent 90% of global GDP, 80% of world trade and two thirds of the world's population. The IMF and the World Bank also attend G20 meetings, although technically the London event isn't a normal G20 meeting.”

This G20 meeting will be for the leaders of all G20 countries. According to the Guardian the policy agenda developed by the last G20 meeting “did not in fact go much beyond pre-existing international initiatives that had recently been developed in more technocratic international bodies.” According to the Guardian, “On the London summit website, the British government has explained what it hopes to achieve. At the summit, countries need to come together to enhance global coordination in order to help restore global economic growth. World leaders must make three commitments:

• First, to take whatever action is necessary to stabilise financial markets and enable families and businesses to get through the recession.

• Second, to reform and strengthen the global financial and economic system to restore confidence and trust.

• Third, to put the global economy on track for sustainable growth.

Gordon Brown has argued that the world must avoid protectionism. According to the Economist, “The World Bank says that, since the G20 leaders last met in November in Washington, DC, 17 of their countries have restricted trade. Some have raised tariffs, as Russia did on second-hand cars and India did on steel. Citing safety, China has banned imports of Irish pork and Italian brandy. Across the world, there has been a surge in actions against “dumping”—the sale of exports, supposedly at a loss, in order to undermine the competition. Governments everywhere are favouring locally made goods.” The Economist also says, “Kei-Mu Yi, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, argues that trade has fallen so fast and so uniformly around the world largely because of the rise of “vertical specialisation”, or global supply chains. This contributed to trade’s rapid expansion in recent decades. Now it is adding to the rate of shrinkage. When David Ricardo argued in the early 19th century that comparative advantage was the basis of trade, he conceived of countries specialising in products, like wine or cloth. But Mr Yi points out that countries now specialise not so much in final products as in steps in the process of production.”

Protectionism in itself sounds bad – but it is a policy option available and used in all political economies – including the most liberal. Protectionism can also lead to a more self-sustainable economy, and can lead to the internal development of an economy, which means the economy is less reliant and dependent on external sources of finance. Development will be slower, but it can be more secure and sustainable. It is likely that if countries do operate protectionist policies it will be a short-term opportunist and populist response to workers and unions, but it could be seen as an alternative economic model of development. It worked in Brazil and Argentina during the 1960s and 1970s for a while, until a more neo-liberal and external finance model was preferred.

The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was reported on Channel 4 News to have told Mr Brown the crisis was caused by "white blue eyed people". This overtly racist remark has been noted, but there has been no visible backlash. It is interesting how the whole agenda about racism never applies to the dominant one, i.e. you can racially slur white people, and white people with blue eyes without anyone batting an eye lid, whereas if you racially slur other ethnic groups you can find yourself battered. I find this state of affairs deeply offensive to the human race in general, and very patronizing to those groups who don’t come from the dominant ethnic group (i.e. its almost to say the whole anti-racist thing is a way of patting you on the head and saying there, there – because when it comes to racism we don’t really give a shit – see the way we couldn’t give a f*** if you slur our own dominant white ethnic group).

The reality is that the summit will represent a reshuffling of position, support and dependencies between the world’s twenty richest countries. Spectators are expecting China to come out feeling puffed up and proud, given that China has faired relatively in recent years, or so we are led to believe. Meanwhile national demonstrations seem to be focusing our attention to the fact that a different way of working is needed. In fact it will be work as usual – the question is who will come out on top.

In anticipation of the G20 summit a demonstration was held in London. 10,000 were predicted to attend the demonstrations. The police reported 35,000. I was there at the demonstration and I don’t believe I saw 35,000 people walk past Big Ben – and I saw it from start to finish. As one commentator, on the Guardian observed, “Apart from the small contingent of student SWP calling 'One solution, Revolution' and about 20 anarchists making noise the spirit was generally depressed and lacking any anger or sense of direction.” Cognitator joked, “Perhaps the police were adding their number to the protesters. As opposed to taking them away as per usual.”

According to the Guardian, “The Put People First march yesterday was organised by a collaboration of more than 100 trade unions, church groups and charities including ActionAid, Save the Children and Friends of the Earth. The theme was "jobs, justice and climate" and the message was aimed at the world leaders who will be gathering for the G20 summit here this week.”

The march started on the Embankment. When I arrived there I walked around desperately finding somewhere where I could have a piss for free. I tried Starbucks and Costa Cofee, but they seemed to have no toilets, I even tried the stamp collectors fayre a subterranean culture of badly dressed old people, with poor eyesight and even worse posture, which was momentary distraction from my full bladder, but which did not provide the answer to my pressing problem as the toilet door was locked and for staff only. Stephen Moss writing for the Guardian said, “Westminster is not a great place for someone like me, who has a weak bladder, to go on a march. The public loos there cost an outrageous 50p a go. The Socialist Worker magazine-seller next to Embankment tube station is on to this in a flash. "50p to have a piss – a lesson in capitalism," he is soon shouting. Later, I'm pleased to see someone has punched a hole in the wooden sign advertising the price.” In the end I walked all the way to the National Portrait Gallery where you can always be assured a good quality toilet seat.

The Guardian continued, “The marchers, estimated at 35,000 by police, accompanied by brass bands and drummers and a colourful assortment of banners and flags, walked the four miles from Embankment to Hyde Park, where speeches from comedian Mark Thomas and environmental campaigner Tony Juniper, and music from the Kooks, made for a party-like atmosphere.”

The Guardian reported, “A group of fewer than 200 anarchists joined the march and were kept isolated and surrounded by police. Chants of "Burn the bankers!" were the closest anyone came to any show of aggression.’ Yes I witnessed this, it was clear that the anarchists, dressed in black, some of them with scarves covering their faces, generally looked cool as fuck, like some post-nuclear vigilante gang, their black signifying the dark depressing reality from which humanity starts, and the point from which they wish to depart. Whether the police presence was heavy is debatable but they certainly had a line of police accompanying them, whereas no other group were honored with such a presence. Of the anarchists Stephen Moss says, “I fall in with some anarchists halfway through the march – a delightful young Greek called Alex and an Italian, who is happy to talk about Bakunin, but is, I sense, a little suspicious of me. The anarchists march together – with the police flanking them in a way they don't with the rest of the march – and I am intrigued that they never shout slogans or bang drums. Their mission is a serious one.” Moss goes on, “Alex tells me a reporter from the Sunday Times has already approached him to ask why anarchists wear masks. "Work it out for yourself – you're a journalist," he'd told him. "People always ask why we wear masks; they never ask about our ideology," he complains. In essence, that ideology is: power corrupts; all elites will be corrupt; so government should be by the people, for the people – a mass movement of the type they claim is emerging in South America. Hezbollah is also mentioned favourably, a movement they see as developing organically. "Organic" is a key word for anarchists, and it would save a lot of aggro and bad press if they were called organicists rather than anarchists.” Good point. But who wants to be called an organicist? And in any case everything is organic really – its just that some organisms develop in a way we or anarchists done like and some do. To call anarchists, organic is to miss the point, anarachists are like Christian, they dream of a reality which transcends human nature as it is and known. Structure, corruption, self-interest and greed underpin all human activity – the question is not how we can do away with it, but how can we manage it in a fair way.

Stephen Moss wrote about the variety of organizations on the march. He said, “Socialist Worker has a three-point strategy: "Seize their wealth," "Stamp out poverty," "End all wars." Sounds good, but I can't work out exactly who "their" refers to. The Socialist party is hot on slogans, colder on the mechanism by which they are put into practice. The likely outcome to the current crisis still appears to be government by Etonians.” Most of these movements are nothing to do with instituting political change. The people involved in them do not want to genuinely change things. Instead what these groups function as is self-help groups for people, for whatever reason, feel that they have been wronged in life, probably at a personal level, and feeling quite hopeless about their personal wrongs, they want to transpose their personal woe on to a faceless, unintelligible other – the government, the state, the capitalist, the rich and the greedy. Its not so much that socialist workers and anarchists want to change things, they know they are completely ineffectual, and too screwed up and traumatized, too aggressive, unintelligent and incapable of engaging people into a different way of organizing; they just want to shout out to people ‘we hurt’. Fair enough.

The TUC don’t seem to be turning up to do anything more than saying ‘there there’ to threatened workers, and stating the downright bloody obvious to the government. Their message is “The importance of this summit cannot be underestimated. Unemployment and deprivation will grow massively over the next two years unless governments work together. People need to know that there is an international solution to this crisis. If the summit suggests that there is not, many will turn to nationalist and protectionist politics with all that implies for the global economy and world peace.” Mind you they do go on to say that, “But while the immediate response to the crisis will be at the forefront of the leaders' minds, the unprecedented Put People First coalition shows there is a huge appetite for a new economic direction. Thirty years of the increasing dominance of the neo-liberal agenda has got us into this mess. The summit must show that the next 30 years need to be about a renewed era of economic growth based on a much fairer share of the proceeds. One that is environmentally sustainable and one that does not end in the burst of yet another financial bubble.” But what are they really saying? Nothing much.

There is of course something about how all of this is just about having a laugh, getting a kick, getting an emotional fix. There’s something very similar to the way that some of the more violent groups get ready for a rumble with the police and football hooliganism. Football hooligans are much more honest about the emotional kick they get from fighting. The protestors pretend that they are doing it for the people. Whatever the so called reasons, it is clear that a lot of protestors enjoy confrontation. They are much more focused on the enemy and combating the enemy than they are on creating peaceful societies. So Stephen Moss makes the interesting observation, “When the march eventually gets to Hyde Park, the anarchists refuse to join the "TUC bureaucrats" for the official rally and hold their own open-platform meeting at Speakers' Corner, dominated by elderly men in hats who talk less about Bakunin than about beating up the BNP and confronting the police on the streets of Whitechapel. It's all a bit depressing (and expletive-filled – I take serious exception to the denunciation of "Oxbridge cunts"), though I like the fact that the elderly men refuse even to use a megaphone – only the ordinary human voice is organic enough.” The media and police have both hyped the April 2009 marches as like the possible end of the British way of life, of democracy, of capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth, but its like we all want to will it to happen – we all are looking for excitement – war may be bad but peace is fucking boring – I once read.

The Guardian also reported, “Thomas told the Observer he believed the protest marked "the start of a grassroots movement". He added: "This is a moment. This is the first time people have had a chance to come out on to the streets in a big way." But this is nonsense. This was just an opportunity for a plethora of groups, amongst whom there are more differences, and the only thing that can unite them is a general concern for jobs, justice and climate, which incidentally are three themes that unite most of the country, and all the main political parties, to catch the government at a weak moment, and hope to build up support for whatever cause they have, on the back of the anger and desperation amongst people at this time.

The protest ended up in Hyde Park. I didn’t go, it was too cold and rainy, and although I did aim to walk there via a short-cut through Victoria, I ended up taking refuge in Westminster Cathedral, where I saw another procession, of Catholic priests and altar boys, who were holding a service for the Union of Catholic Mothers. I listened to the Catholic priests, they sounded much more happy and at peace with themselves and their surroundings, than the rankerous socialist bile spitting leaders.

People are blaming the bankers, but there is in actual fact no-one to blame for this. The this needs to be qualified too. The ‘this’ is the fact that people are loosing their jobs, consumption will have to be reduced. It is ironic that it is precisely that people are facing the prospect of lower consumption that they are out on the streets protesting against greedy bankers, it is not so much the greed of the bankers that people resent, so much as the increased consuming power of the bankers that they are envious of. The bankers are not to blame for working within a system, which promoted risky investments, a system which was encouraged and deregulated by politicians who realized that whilst the bubble was growing there were huge financial gains to be made from encouraging bankers to reap the rewards both for themselves but through the state through taxation, and politicians who were encouraged by the people who voted them in, who probably formed the majority of people marching in demonstration and protest today, who voted in the governments believing the deregulation of banks not to be a serious enough issue to vote against a government for, and realizing that even if it was a risk, whilst the bubble was growing, they were happy enough to see their elected government ensuring that the country got a share of the pie. We all contributed to this fucking mess – if you can call it a mess – its only a mess for those who no longer have jobs and cannot consume so much – by voting in the government, who deregulated the banks and encouraged the lending of our money several times over to riskier and riskier ventures which in actual fact were not producing anything of material benefit, but were instead relying on house prices going up and up, as more people poured their money into it. Now we are in deep shit, because Gordon Brown has poured what little remaining money we have, and we have on credit into the black hole – it has simply disappeared.

There are some people who are saying the bankers should pay for the crisis they created. It doesn’t work like that – it works by people putting their money into a bank – and entrusting the bank to invest it wisely. Where the bank looses the money – the original investor looses the money. This creates a motivation on behalf of the investor to invest wisely, e.g. on the basis of what we know right now investing in Barclays rather than Lloyds TSB or the Royal Bank of Scotland. However reality begins to change once one’s livelihood is threatened – now it is solely the banker’s responsibility to have invested the money wisely, the public who invest their money into the banks are seen to be helpless, powerless twits, whose securities should have been looked after by a paternalistic and caring banking sector. So for example, according to Fox New, “Berlin police estimated that around 10,000 people gathered in front of the capital's city hall and more than 1,000 in Frankfurt, Germany's banking capital, for similar demonstrations under the slogan: "We won't pay for your crisis." Its not a crisis – its just that there are now lots of personal crises – the public didn’t bother to check whether their banks were investing their money properly or wisely and now they are paying for it. But the banks aren’t responsible for this – they really aren’t.

We have two problems. The first was created by the fact that banks lent out our money several times over – so we thought the country was several times as wealthy as it actually was. This led to inflationary pressures especially in the housing market – where the same money was lent to several different people – all investing in housing leading to unrealistic housing prices. We now realize we have a fraction of the wealth we thought we had. This creates deflationary pressures – i.e. where everyone has less money prices are reduced. This problem can be solved by creating a soft deflationary landing to a level where the price of labor and goods reflects the value of the money we have not the value of the money we have and we loaned. This means everyone has to accept lower wages – we can either do this peacefully based around a consensus and agreement between corporations, banks, trade unions or governments – or we can do it aggressively – letting perfectly good companies whose workers refuse to take pay cuts go to the wall – and then watch as millions of unemployed people try to reform and reorganize new companies and enterprises.

 

The second problem is that banks are no longer making such risky investments – so they are not looking to lend their money on to others – which means there is less money to be lent to people – which means less activity and less economy. We have to get used to less activity – but at least the activity will be invested in activities which are genuinely producing material benefit for people – not leading to an apparent generation of wealth – which is the artificial effect of lending x amount of money to people ten times, making it seem that we are ten times as rich as previously – when actual fact we are equally as wealthy – but with prices ten times as high. We should have also let the banks go to the wall – and started again with a heavily regulated banking sector – which was not allowed to lend out peoples’ money irresponsibly. No-one wants to have to feel the pain from this – i.e. the rich bankers who keep their pensions and bonuses, the people who have banked with them who want to keep their savings, and the businesses who are funded by the banks who want to hang on to their business and jobs. So what Gordon Brown is doing, is in the name of the people, funneling money into the banking system, paying for the debts, and thus, keeping the bankers sweet, keeping the investors sweet, keeping the businesses sweet. Who looses out? All of us – the poor! They never really had anything to loose in the first place, however whilst Gordon Brown borrows money to give to the banks so they can lend to businesses and pay bankers bonuses and salaries, we move a step closer to becoming bankrupt – i.e. not being able to borrow any more money because no-one believes we can pay it back. Once we become bankrupt, social services and welfare will be cut.

According to Gaby Hinsliff, “Many economists believe a recovery now requires bursting that artificial bubble and rebalancing the economy so that Chinese consumers are encouraged spend a little more - reducing America's trade deficit - and Americans a little less. Malloch Brown suggests Britons, too, will need to relearn the art of saving.”

According to the Guardian, “But Scotland Yard is expecting a greater challenge on Wednesday 1 April, dubbed "Financial Fools Day", with a series of protests aiming to cause disruption in the Square Mile and elsewhere.” The Guardian says, “On 1 April an alliance of anti-capitalist groups called G20 Meltdown is organising a carnival headed by "Four Horsefolk of the Apocalypse", which will converge in front of the Bank of England. Anarchists are planning to target the second day of the summit at ExCel. Other groups mounting demonstrations include Climate Camp, the Stop the War Coalition, and Government of the Dead. An alternative summit will be held a few hundred yards from the ExCel centre at the University of East London.”

The alternative G20 summit website provides the following manifesto: Can we oust the bankers from power? Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay? Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future? Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people? Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet? Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos? Can we make capitalism history? YES WE CAN!

According to the Daily Telegraph, “The G20 conference will lead to a London "lockdown" next week, with parks, roads and businesses closed to keep world leaders safe, Government officials are warning.” The media are really building this up, as an attempt to build readership and sell advertising. Its interesting how a force created by the desire to advertise and promote consumption causes papers to distort and promote a threat and confrontation to the very system upon which it is built. The Daily Telegraph article continues, “Protesters with armed with buckets and spades are among several thousand people who are planning to bring chaos to the heart of central London.Last night it emerged that City workers were being advised to "dress down" next week to avoid drawing attention to themselves.”

To anyone really wanting revolution bear in mind these words from Stephen Moss, “Changing society is hard, and usually starts with a split in the elite. The English civil war and the French revolution both began with a fissure in the governing classes; their falling-out created the space for populist movements to develop. For a grassroots movement to effect change is enormously difficult. It was only possible in Russia in 1917 because of the devastation wrought by war.”

The reality of the demo was perhaps best summer up by ‘one789’ who said, “My experience of the demo, in talking to people and observing, is that no one had any real clue of why they were there. They recognise 'blame the bankers' to be futile and a distraction, think capitalism 'is rubbish' and 'want change', but say nothing beyond that.I at least expected a high degree of frustration and anger, but more than anything what came across was disillusionment and confusion. But then, that's what you get I suppose from such a middle-class yummy-mummy bleeding-heart rally.”

As rabbit95 said, “Be glad we live in a society free enough to protest and where, apart from the police possibly taping your presence at such a demo, there will be no comeback.”

www.g20.org/

www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/summit-aims/summit-progress/

www.altg20.org.uk/

www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13362...

www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13362027

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-protests-london

www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/mar/28/g20-protest-...

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2009/mar/28/g20-su...

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/28/g20-protest

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-summit-globalisa...

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/25/g20-q-a

news.google.co.uk/news?q=G20+summit+London+2009&oe=ut...

www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5050...

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-summit

www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/global-update/cp-china/active-...

www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/summit-aims/summit-progress/qu...

www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics...

www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_pol...

  

For great photographs and the low down on the G20 Summit, Protests and Demonstrations visit www.ravishlondon.com/g20

  

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Earth Hour at the 3 Finger Club LOHHAS Lifestyle Lounge

 

Lights were out between 8:30 and 9:30 while we told stories and discussed our Lifestyle Of Health, Happiness And Sustainability (LOHHAS) using the 3 Finger "Peace Plus One" Sustainability Salute to remind us about Peace, Harmony and Balance between Society, Environment and Economy

  

People were the best jugglers of "Society, Environment, Economy" balls won "EARTH HOUR 60" T-Shirts WOW \!/O\!/

  

Photo Courtesy of the McMaster Institute for Sustainable Development in Commerce

 

www.SustainabilitySymbol.com

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all participants in the Earth Hour Discussion got a copy of "Letter to Maddie" featured below:

 

We Screwed Up

A Letter of Apology to My Granddaughter

By Chip Ward

 

[Note: I became politically active and committed on the day 20 years ago when I realized I could stand on the front porch of my house and point to three homes where children were in wheelchairs, to a home where a child had just died of leukemia, to another where a child was born missing a kidney, and yet another where a child suffered from spina bifida. All my parental alarms went off at once and I asked the obvious question: What’s going on here? Did I inadvertently move my three children into harm’s way when we settled in this high desert valley in Utah? A quest to find answers in Utah’s nuclear history and then seek solutions followed. Politics for me was never motivated by ideology. It was always about parenting.

 

Today my three kids are, thankfully, healthy adults. But now that grandchildren are being added to our family, my blood runs cold whenever I project out 50 years and imagine what their world will be like at middle age -- assuming they get that far and that there is still a recognizable “world” to be part of. I wrote the following letter to my granddaughter, Madeline, who is almost four years old. Although she cannot read it today, I hope she will read it in a future that proves so much better than the one that is probable, and so terribly unfair. I’m sharing this letter with other parents and grandparents in the hope that it may move them to embrace their roles as citizens and commit to the hard work of making the planet viable, the economy equitable, and our culture democratic for the many Madelines to come.]

 

March 20, 2012

 

Dear Maddie,

 

I address this letter to you, but please share it with Jack, Tasiah, and other grandchildren who are yet unborn. Also, with your children and theirs. My unconditional love for my children and grandchildren convinces me that, if I could live long enough to embrace my great-grandchildren, I would love them as deeply as I love you.

 

On behalf of my generation of grandparents to all of you, I want to apologize.

 

I am sorry we used up all the oil. It took a million years for those layers of carbon goo to form under the Earth’s crust and we used up most of it in a geological instant. No doubt there will be some left and perhaps you can get around the fact that what remains is already distant, dirty, and dangerous, but the low-hanging fruit will be long-gone by the time you are my age. We took it all.

 

There’s no excuse, really. We are gas-hogs, plain and simple. We got hooked on faster-bigger-more and charged right over the carrying capacity of the planet. Oil made it possible.

 

Machines are our slaves and coal, oil, and gas are their food. They helped us grow so much of our own food that we could overpopulate the Earth. We could ship stuff and travel all over the globe, and still have enough fuel left to drive home alone in trucks in time to watch Monday Night Football.

 

Rocket fuel, fertilizer, baby bottles, lawn chairs: we made everything and anything out of oil and could never get enough of it. We could have conserved more for you to use in your lifetime. Instead, we demonstrated the self-restraint of crack addicts. It’s been great having all that oil to play with and we built our entire world around that. Living without it will be tough. Sorry.

 

I hope we develop clean, renewable energy sources soon, or that you and your generation figure out how to do that quickly. In the meantime, sorry about the climate. We just didn’t realize our addiction to carbon would come with monster storms, epic droughts, Biblical floods, wildfire infernos, rising seas, migration, starvation, pestilence, civil war, failed states, police states, and resource wars.

 

I’m sure Henry Ford didn’t see that coming when he figured out how to mass-produce automobiles and sell them to Everyman. I know my parents didn’t see the downside of using so much gas and coal. The all-electric house and a car in the driveway was their American Dream. For my generation, owning a car became a birthright. Today, it would be hard for most of us to live without a car. I have no idea what you’ll do to get around or how you will heat your home. Oops!

 

We also pigged out on most of the fertile soil, the forests and their timber, and the oceans that teemed with fish before we scraped the seabed raw, dumped our poisonous wastes in the water, and turned it acid and barren. Hey, that ocean was an awesome place and it’s too bad you can’t know it like we did. There were bright coral reefs, vibrant runs of red salmon, ribbons of birds embroidering the shores, graceful shells, the solace and majesty of the wild sea…

 

…But then I never saw the vast herds of bison that roamed the American heartland, so I know it is hard to miss something you only saw in pictures. We took lots of photos.

 

We thought we were pretty smart because we walked a man on the moon. Our technology is indeed amazing. I was raised without computers, smart phones, and the World Wide Web, so I appreciate how our engineering prowess has enhanced our lives, but I also know it has a downside.

 

When I was a kid we worried that the Cold War would go nuclear. And it wasn’t until a river caught fire near Cleveland that we realized fouling your own nest isn’t so smart after all. Well, you know about the rest -- the coal-fired power plants, acid rain, the hole in the ozone...

 

www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/fear2.gifThere were plenty of signs we took a wrong turn but we kept on going. Dumb, stubborn, blind: Who knows why we couldn’t stop? Greed maybe -- powerful corporations we couldn’t overcome. It won’t matter much to you who is to blame. You’ll be too busy coping in the diminished world we bequeath you.

 

One set of problems we pass on to you is not altogether our fault. It was handed down to us by our parents’ generation so hammered by cataclysmic world wars and economic hardship that they armed themselves to the teeth and saw enemies everywhere. Their paranoia was understandable, but they passed their fears on to us and we should have seen through them. I have lived through four major American wars in my 62 years, and by now defense and homeland security are powerful industries with a stranglehold on Congress and the economy. We knew that was a lousy deal, but trauma and terror darkened our imaginations and distorted our priorities. And, like you, we needed jobs.

 

Sorry we spent your inheritance on all that cheap bling and, especially, all those weapons of mass destruction. That was crazy and wasteful. I can’t explain it. I guess we’ve been confused for a long time now.

 

Oh, and sorry about the confusion. We called it advertising and it seemed like it would be easy enough to control. When I was a kid, commercials merely interrupted entertainment. Don’t know when the lines all blurred and the buy, buy, buy message became so ubiquitous and all-consuming. It just got outta hand and we couldn’t stop it, even when we realized we hated it and that it was taking us over. We turned away from one another, tuned in, and got lost.

 

I’m betting you can still download this note, copy it, share it, bust it up and remake it, and that you do so while plugged into some sort of electrical device you can’t live without -- so maybe you don’t think that an apology for technology is needed and, if that’s the case, an apology is especially relevant. The tools we gave you are fine, but the apps are mostly bogus. We made an industry of silly distraction. When our spirits hungered, we fed them clay that filled but did not nourish them. If you still don’t know the difference, blame us because we started it.

 

And sorry about the chemicals. I mean the ones you were born with in your blood and bones that stay there -- even though we don’t know what they’ll do to you). Who thought that the fire retardant that kept smokers from igniting their pillows and children’s clothes from bursting into flames would end up in umbilical cords and infants?

 

It just seemed like better living through chemistry at the time. Same with all the other chemicals you carry. We learned to accept cancer and I guess you will, too. I’m sure there will be better treatments for that in your lifetime than we have today. If you can afford them, that is. Turning healthcare over to predatory corporations was another bad move.

 

All in all, our chemical obsession was pretty reckless and we got into that same old pattern: just couldn’t give up all the neat stuff. Oh, we tried. We took the lead out of gasoline and banned DDT, but mostly we did too little, too late. I hope you’ve done better. Maybe it will help your generation to run out of oil, since so many of the toxic chemicals came from that. Anyway, we didn’t see it coming and we could have, should have. Our bad.

 

There are so many other things I wish I could change for you. We leave behind a noisy world. Silence is rare today, and unless some future catastrophe has left your numbers greatly diminished, your machines stilled, and your streets ghostly empty, it is likely that the last remnants of tranquility will be gone by the time you are my age.

 

And how about all those species, the abundant and wondrous creatures that are fading away forever as I write these words? I never saw a polar bear and I guess you can live without that, too, but when I think of the peep and chirp of frogs at night, the hum of bees busy on a flower bed, the trill of birds at dawn, and so many other splendorous pleasures that you may no longer have, I ache with regret. We should have done more to keep the planet whole and well, but we couldn’t get clear of the old ways of seeing, the ingrained habits, the way we hobble one another’s choices so that the best intentions never get realized.

 

Mostly I’m sorry about taking all the good water. When I was a child I could kneel down and drink from a brook or spring wherever we camped and played. We could still hike up to glaciers and ski down snow-capped mountains.

 

Clean, crisp, cold, fresh water is life’s most precious taste. A life-giving gift, all water is holy. I repeat: holy. We treated it, instead, as if it were merely useful. We wasted and tainted it and, again in a geological moment, sucked up aquifers that had taken 10,000 years to gather below ground. In my lifetime, glaciers are melting away, wells are running dry, dust storms are blowing, and rivers like the mighty Colorado are running dry before they reach the sea. I hate to think of what will be left for you. Sorry. So very, very sorry.

 

I’m sure there’s a boatload of other trouble we’re leaving you that I haven’t covered here. My purpose is not to offer a complete catalog of our follies and atrocities, but to do what we taught your parents to do when they were as little as you are today.

 

When you make a mistake, we told them, admit it, and then do better. If you do something wrong, own up and say you are sorry. After that, you can work on making amends.

 

I am trying to see a way out of the hardship and turmoil we are making for you. As I work to stop the madness, I will be mindful of how much harder your struggles will be as you deal with the challenges we leave you to face.

 

The best I can do to help you through the overheated future we are making is to love you now. I cannot change the past and my struggle to make a healthier future for you is uncertain, but today I can teach you, encourage you, and help you be as strong and smart and confident as you can be, so that whatever the future holds, whatever crises you face, you are as ready as possible. We will learn to laugh together, too, because love and laughter can pull you through the toughest times.

 

I know a better world is possible. We create that better world by reaching out to one another, listening, learning, and speaking from our hearts, face to face, neighbor to neighbor, one community after another, openly, inclusively, bravely. Democracy is not a gift to be practiced only when permitted. We empower ourselves. Our salvation is found in each other, together.

 

Across America this morning and all around the world, our better angels call to us, imploring us to rise up and be as resilient as our beloved, beautiful children and grandchildren, whose future we make today. We can do better. I promise.

 

Your grandfather,

 

Chip Ward

JLF Moving Solutions Take Delivery of New Scania R320

 

… while their first Scania hits the 1½ million kilometres landmark

 

Keltruck, the largest independent Scania Distributor in Europe, has supplied a new Scania R320 to JLF Moving Solutions of Burntwood, Staffordshire. The truck is the fifth Scania truck to join their fleet, while the first – bought in 2001 – is still going strong and has recently surpassed 1½ million kilometres.

 

JLF Moving Solutions was started by brothers, John & Steve Lomas in 2009, with 35 years’ experience. The first vehicle they owned was a Ford Transit van. They now have 31 vehicles, including five Scania trucks, to help them with removals, homepack services, office removals, European removals, containerised storage, document storage and specialist services to the fire & flood industry.

 

Steve and John first bought a Scania truck in 2001 as they needed larger vehicles than the 7.5 tonne HGVs they were using. That truck, a P220 day cab fitted with ARZ sleeper pod for two people, has been serviced by Keltruck Willenhall for nearly 20 years and is still going strong with more than one and half million kilometres on the clock.

 

John Lomas, Company Director commented, “The first Scania truck we bought has been, and continues to be, a great truck for us. All our drivers like driving the Scanias – and this one in particular. Even Steve and I drive it from time to time.”

 

Their new Scania R320 high roof is the company’s first new generation Scania with the newly developed interior. JLF was able to customise their truck by adding a third seat to accommodate a full team of moving staff.

 

Keltruck has now been working with Steve and John for 18 years and has developed a great working relationship. All of JLF Moving Solutions’ Scania vehicles are serviced on long term repair and maintenance contracts, starting at 60 months and extending beyond that.

 

John Lomas continued, “The Scania trucks are excellent – a great drive and very robust – while the support we get from Keltruck is outstanding, both in terms of the buying process and the aftersales services.”

 

Keltruck Account Manager Tony Biddlestone commented, “We have a great relationship with JLF Moving Solutions. It is a pleasure to deal with John and Steve. The new R320 vehicle they have purchased is something different to your everyday Scania, with the new interior focused on driver comfort, which is perfect for JLF as the company’s operation has more than one occupant, so we focused on cab size and driver comfort.”

 

keltruckscania.com/about-keltruck/news-centre/press-relea...

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So, the theme was solution this time for Mission 24. I was thinking what I could do when a light bulb came to me... and gave me the solution.

 

I got an idea... hence the lightbulb, crazy look, and finger pointed.

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You can download or view Macroscopic Solutions’ images in more detail by selecting any image and clicking the downward facing arrow in the lower-right corner of the image display screen.

 

Three individuals of Macroscopic Solutions, LLC captured the images in this database collaboratively.

 

Contact information:

 

Mark Smith M.S. Geoscientist

mark@macroscopicsolutions.com

 

Daniel Saftner B.S. Geoscientist and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

daniel@macroscopicsolutions.com

 

Annette Evans Ph.D. Student at the University of Connecticut

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Solutions business, le 6 mars 2008. Charleroi - Belgique

 

Solutions business, le 6 mars 2008. Charleroi - Belgique

Because his previous book "Guns, Germs and Steel" was so long winded, I wasn't going to read "Collapse", but it's the topic of a discussion group next week, with local environmental leaders, so slog through it I did. His message is that since we have the advantage, that no primitive society did, of knowing how societies have collapsed in the past, this means that we have the power to yank ourselves from the vortex of collapse, if we just choose to do so.

 

What was illuminating were his chapters on societies that did avert eco-disaster like the Tokugawa shoguns of Japan who reversed deforestation and this dictator chap in the Dominican Republic who enforced environmental regulations that saved the forest from further logging. These examples do rather contradict his premise that we have an advantage over early societies because we know so much about how they collapsed. What we do need to know is how close we are to using up our resources. The Japanese had every tree catalogued and a schedule drawn up for when each could be logged and for what purpose. We could barcode every tree from sea to shining sea with our technology, but that would just reveal that the government was giving away the store.

 

These early examples of reforestation also imply that democracy is too damned slow and ineffective, but Diamond is not going to be the man who points this out. He shines the way on a path through bottom up, grassroots change and this is exactly why he's so popular with environmental movements.

 

What I did find useful in reading this 500 page tome, was gleaned from his criticism of Joseph Tainter's book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies". (I've been trying to get this book for over a year now, but it's not in any public library, just at Stanford University to which I have no direct access and it's not cheap to buy.) Tainter's book informs the peak-oil community and is the basis of their discussions, thus I can now make a distinction between the environmental movement and the peak oil movement.

 

Diamond thinks that Tainter didn't get it about environmental degradation, but Diamond refuses to get Tainter's point about the economic forces of complex societies, which is, if I might simplify, that the solutions necessary to make our complex society sustainable, will require even more complexity and use of resources. Readers of both authors can decide which leads to sustainability—Diamonds path to regulate and restrict industry or Tainter's path to work towards dismantling and simplifying our complex society. One is politically plausible; the other may be politically impossible.

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Many violets share numerous attributes and are difficult to differentiate from one another. Botanists estimate that there are between 500 and 600 species worldwide, approximately 85 of which can be found in North America. Luckily for the casual wildflower enthusiast, only about half of these are common in New York. There's tremendous variation among the community, with many varieties garnering oxymoronic names, such as round-leaved yellow violet and sweet white violet. While a majority live up to their names in appearance, more than a few are anything but violet, being completely white, pink and even the brightest shade of yellow, with numerous combinations and levels of mixing. All of these attributes aid in their identification.

 

Yellow violets appear to be the most primitive, with their flowers being the first shift away from the ancestral green. Purple, in contrast, is thought to be one of the most advanced colors. Evolution in progress can be witnessed in the tall, white, Canada violet (Viola canadensis), a native to Canada and the eastern U.S.. Many botanists speculate that the mostly white flower, often dabbed with minor purplish tingeing on the back of the petals, is transitioning from entirely white to "violet." The Canada violet grows throughout the Mohawk Valley in association with the large white trillium.

  

Violets can be separated into two general categories: those with stems from which leaves and flowers protrude, and those that are stemless, having appendages emanating directly from the roots, with flowers being supported on a thin and usually low, leafless stalk.

 

In addition to having showy blossoms, certain species possess a trait known as cleistogamy, meaning they are capable of self-pollination by means of tiny, barely noticeable flowers that resemble unopened buds. The term "cleistogamy" combines the Greek 'kleistos' meaning 'closed' with 'gamy' meaning 'marriage.' Once fertilization has occurred by means of insects or self-pollination, the seeds are ready for explosive dispersal. After the seeds are fully developed, the pods they're stored in slowly dry out, with the pod gradually tightening around the seeds, building up tension in the process, similar to the action of a spring. Later, when the pods are disturbed, or sometimes just randomly, the pressure becomes too great and the seeds are shot out like miniature cannonballs. Amazingly, seeds are capable of flying up to 15 feet away from the parent plant. Pretty impressive for such a tiny plant!

  

Once on the ground, the seeds are further dispersed by ants. Attached to each tiny seed is a fleshy appendage called an elaiosome that's rich in protein and lipids, but serves no direct impact to the seed's survival. Like the sweet nectar of a flower, these elaiosomes are tempting treats to insects, and ants in particular are readily enticed to collect them. Once dragged back to the colony, the energy-laden accessory is removed for consumption, and the hard seed body is dumped in a waste pit where it may ultimately sprout. This dual dispersal technique, using both physiological and biological mechanisms for seed movement, proves to be an effective evolutionary strategy, ensuring rapid colonization of available habitat.

  

Insects aren't the only ones that appreciate violets' tasty nature. In fact, humans find nearly all parts of the plants edible. The leafy greens can be collected to create a salad high in vitamins A and C, superseding that of an equivalent amount of oranges. Beginning in the nineteenth century, candied violets gained favor as a dessert garnishment and were widely served. Though their popularity has decreased over the years, in some circles they're still a favorite for topping sweet dishes of cake or ice cream. Traditionally, a syrup was also made by boiling the flowers in a concoction of sugar. Apart from sweetening the lips, the syrup is useful as a substitute for litmus paper. The solution turns red in the presence of an acid, green for a base.

 

To the Haudenosaunee and other eastern Native Americans, the flower is revered as a symbol of love. An Iroquoian myth, akin to the tragic Shakespearian Romeo and Juliet, tells of how two lovers of warring tribes were slain while trying to elope, and where each drop of blood hit the ground, a violet sprouted to commemorate their boundless passion.

  

While on the topic of romance, it's also interesting to note that violets used to be the traditional flower of Valentine's Day. Almost all bouquets given to loved ones sported purple rather than red. It wasn't until the 1930's that violets began to be supplanted by the thorny rose.

  

Violets were substantial money makers during the early part of the twentieth century. Like other popular flowers that are added to bouquets or home gardens today, violets were prodigiously cultivated in greenhouses by the millions. Rhinebeck, a quaint, pastoral town located along the shores of the Hudson River in southeastern New York, cornered this unusual market. Growers made sizable profits by shipping flowers to New York City, where there was an especially high demand. Rhinebeck's proximity to the city market, and its easy access to the railroad paralleling the Hudson helped make it the "Violet Capital of the World." At its peak, hundreds of greenhouses routinely cranked out thousands of violets per day in the spring-a fast worker could pick as many as 5,000 during a single shift. Eleanor Roosevelt herself often purchased copious amounts of various exotic cultivar varieties from nearby nurseries to line the gardens at her riverfront estate in Hyde Park, just south of the violet hotbed. She was frequently seen wearing intricate violet arrangements, making it a habit to do so at her husband's numerous inaugurations.

  

Small white violets are sweet-scented.

Next time you're outside in spring, keep your eyes open for the cosmopolitan violets, which can be found growing just about anywhere-from open and sunny backyards to rich, sheltered woodlands, and even in the dampest wetlands. Though small and unassuming, they nevertheless provide a cheerful reminder of the fecundity and diversity of the spring season. As English philosopher Bernard Williams succinctly said, "We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory."

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