Kickstart Villreal Farm in StL City w/ me!

Hey, this is a cool project as far as i can tell, AND you are on the home run team if you join, with your contribution posted to your card very soon.

On the Way to Copenhagen: UN climate summit on 12-09

President Barack Obama will be travelling to Copenhagen to speak to the UN summit on climate change, appearing on December 9 to speak. As citizens we can individually support his efforts by conceding that our country has been a largely destructive influence to the climate and ecology of the planet.

Early European settlers in the New World cleared forests for farm land, gradually crossing from East to West, and from the South to the North. Up until current times we have engaged in the most profligate growth of industry and habitational developments among all nations. Obama only recently re-approved our agreement to the Kyoto Protocols which were developed decades ago, and deleted by the Bush Administration.

The so-called “Free Trade Agreements,” begun during the Clinton Administration, have further eroded environments by enabling corporatizing of resources on this and other continents. Over the years our own agricultural industries have disturbed the ecology of the oceans with runoff of chemical nonorganic fertilizers and weed control products into the Gulf of Mexico via the Missippi River and into the ocean from there and other sources.

Take a look at a recent NASA developed map of the global climate influence of El Nino in the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. Your cursor will display “El Nino” when you run it over specific red “hot spots” in the Gulf and along the equator in this view of the Western Hemisphere.

How can we as individuals help the effort to turn the dial back on climate change? The truth is, according to the Copenhagen Diagnosis, we will not be able to stop the stampede of the inevitable-- many processes are already irreversible and will continue while we work toward changing our habits. Our enormous consumption of material products and energy used to produce them, as well as energy used to keep us “comfortable,” are way beyond the levels that other nations habitually use.

Spread the word, and cut your own home use of virtually everything. Oh yeah, go ahead and eat, but consider a garden in your back and front yards, plus planting trees in your community. You all have been hearing the environmental message for a long time. At this point we have to get busy and change our “standard of living” to a much simpler one to extend the lives of all creatures and species, least of all us. As stewards of the Earth we have failed thus far, and the changes already in progress are likely to last for at least 1000 years.

Perhaps we can consider our continuing economic woes to be a blessing in its necessity that we get by with less and begin to cut our energy usage individually and as a collective effort. How about a kitchen composter or a slowcooker for a gift this year? Solar power is decreasing in cost—can you afford to install it? Maybe so!

Encourage your friends to be grateful for each day of life we live with Mother Earth. Life ahead is likely to be a challenge.

A Valentine for You

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16944

Senate Stimulus Bill needs a nudge from constituents

Dear Friends and Readers,

In a previous email I informed some of you that the Senate economic stimulus bill appropriates $50 billion to new nuclear power plants. Since then I have learned that Senator Kit Bond is in fact a member of the Appropriations Committee, and also that this will not be introduced to the full Senate until sometime this coming week.

Therefore, I urge you, if you have not already done so to write and/or call him to let him know that the use of nuclear power is a defunct and expensive idea which few people support anymore. You should have time to do this for the next week, but the sooner the better.

Below is my version of a letter with links to further info.

_________________________________________________

Dear Senator Bond:

The news that the Senate Appropriations Committee has added fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000) to it's proposed stimulus package for the building of new nuclear power plants shocked and disappointed me. Perhaps the Committee is not adequately informed about nuclear power. It would take years to get around to doing this even if it were a good idea.

The facts are that even the study done by Congress itself shows that nuclear power is extremely expensive. Given the additional dangers of accidents it only presents us with further environmental and security dilemmas for our own and future generations.

The nuclear industry will, of course, tell a different story. Here in Missouri we are concerned with keeping the "no construction work in progress" (No-CWIP) provision in Missouri law so that Ameren UE does not imagine that it can add another power plant by charging its customers for an advance loan. This would be on top of a recent rate increase. The idea that the Federal Government would subsidize new nuclear plants is essentially the same thing, leaving a burden of debt that can perhaps never be repaid, dragging us down further. You are surely aware that the problem of storing spent nuclear waste remains unsolved. The only permanent storage solution proposed is Yucca Mountain, a venture too dangerous for towns and cities on the route there and for the tribal nations living near the mountain.

Even the newest thinking that existing nuclear waste can possibly be reused is simply conceptual at this point. How much more would it add to cost? In all my reading on the subject the only sources that support more building of nuclear power plants are ones from inside the nuclear industry. And other writers suggest that even the most conservative estimates of total costs could be less that the ultimate reality.

So-called "clean coal" is in essentially the same position-- there really is no such thing yet as "clean coal" and we will need to replace the coal power plants we already have with passive and renewable power sources. In the House Recovery Bill that was just passed 2.4 billion dollars are appropriated to carbon capture technology. From what I have read this is an iffy proposition. Comparing our own to European efforts to reduce carbon based air pollution, which contributes to climate change, we would be better off changing to the available passive sources, e.g. wind and solar. Some success has been achieved with hydro devices as well which are minimally intrusive to the environment.

The realized use of corn as a biofuel has demonstrated that it is also more expensive and polluting than was first predicted. At least it does not leave radioactive waste behind, but farmers who want to plant fields of biofuel are now looking into switch grass and other more efficient plant sources. This is an emerging science, not one that is established with well tested outcomes. Renewable fuels are an improvement over mining which further decimates the environment.

What we need right now are community based manageable alternatives that provide long term and acceptable solutions. This description usually refers to solar and wind power, which are already emerging in Missouri. But additionally using different building specifications including tighter insulation and more efficient use of square footage, with built-in passive energy capture and biologic additions such as roof gardening will be an already proven route to decreasing domestic energy consumption. Also we must retrofit buildings in our existing urban areas, as recommended by Van Jones and some social justice organizations. If such projects were subsidized by the stimulus plan now in Congress they could probably be in place relatively quickly, with ready labor in neighborhoods that were underemployed before the current depressed economy. Retrofitting rental properties that are Section 8 eligible is covered in the House Bill, and I support this proposal.

It is also essential that we increase green spaces and local gardens, something that has already been initiated in urban Missouri as well. Providing support for these sorts of efforts, helping neighbors to help their neighbors by planting vegetable and permaculture gardens, makes infinitely more sense, since it is based on readily initiated and time worn actions. These ideas could be implemented by nonprofit efforts or by local small businesses that would also spring up quickly if loans were available. They would add longer term jobs to the already conceptualized infrastructure repair projects.

One more area of concern is mass and distance transit. Both Kansas City and St. Louis could use funds to complete planned light rail projects. Also backing up passenger and freight rail would make far better sense economically and ecologically than new development of highways. To me it would be worthwhile to add a public information campaign that would promote rail over private automobile for distance travel.

Please discuss these ideas carefully with your fellow Senators of either party. We must address the economic crisis that is continuing, but certainly we have choices about how to do that. Wasting the money, even if it is only freshly printed paper, would be foolish. Most of the ideas I have presented will create jobs as well as reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Nuclear power and coal of any sort belong to the previous century.

Thank you for your attention to these issues, and for your work on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Undoubtedly it is difficult to stay up to date on every issue without a great deal of information input.

Sincerely,

write2bheard

Dream State of Mind

We are driving down a brown country road,

no town in sight, just low earthy mountains,

when we are stopped by the soldiers waiting for us

as though we are expected.

Everyone jumps out-- except me

because I'm not able. Yes, i'm vulnerable.

The officer looks in on me.

All the guns in the world can neither protect

nor threaten me. All that can is my state of mind,

the one thing I pack with me wherever I go, even to this dream.

We cannot mine for love the way we do for diamonds.

We cannot drill for forgiveness in the desert of our souls.

The sins of our forebears since industry revolted

are moving in with us like unwelcome relatives.

What is this monster we have called commerce,

power, or yoke? Aren't garage sales more fun and wondrous?

We have so much stuff here it threatens to choke us.

At least I know I do, but none of it's worthless.

Unless, that is, we add it to landfills, or flush it down drains.

Or continue buying more plastic water bottles

We need to be realistic, together, as we

wage our war against borders, barriers, walls,

tall buildings hemming persons in and others out.

Turn it around one plot of ground after another.

Plant gardens on our roofs, in our neighborhoods,

in our minds and spirits, our expectations, inspirations, artistry and work.

West Coast forests are slowly turning brown & dying--

why is a mystery. What are we doing in Afghanistan?

No one can lead us anywhere, forward or back,

to the right, to the left, up or down, without our consent.

We can never know precisely what will grow well

until it comes up. But we do have some clues.

The question now is where will the rain fall?

How many of us can these rains save from earth on hell?

Or relegate them there? Not just you and me, them over there too.

We have to pull in, downplay the spaces in between,

live a little more snugly, simply, interchangeably,

keeping reason, knowledge and skill among our riches.

Each of us is stronger than all the others in some way.

When we share our unique gifts, well, in unity is strength.

While we do nothing to face the conclusion

others remain in their fateful collusion.