Who Will Fill This World?

Who Will Fill This World?

I sit in the grey rainlight wondering,
Amidst clouds of pillowed steel,
Reading my peers and feeling,
I breathe in the angst like burned steel in this air,
Feeling a tentative green ghost waiting to be born,
A future we might yet bear to fruition,
A whiff of hope drifting up from my cup,
Of ginger-peach iced tea.

When you remember everything good in life,
Isn't it the moment someone you cherished cradled you,
Stroked your hair or hummed gently holding your hand?

What I know is that using anger like a tool burns you,
From the inside out it eats you alive,
It doesn't matter if you're an entire culture or a lonely heart,
It will make you its breakfast lunch and dinner,
As surely as this world spins 'round the sun -
I've seen it happen with my own two eyes.

We were great as a nation and as a people,
At those moments we were most filled with these things -
Dreams, hope, inspiration, compassion, vision.

What I know is that love fills you,
Feeds you and nourishes you and gently guides you,
And if you want to revere the past and those who went before,
Let their angers subside and yours as well,
Get closer to your ghosts in the memory of those moments that glow,
When they dreamed and loved and accomplished,
Give your ghosts a real future -
By dreaming and loving and accomplishing.

Tearing down takes moments,
Building up is always the real work.
What is it you birth?
Who will fill this world?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/18/2007

Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to all the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.

---

UW-Madison News Release--Organic field day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/30/07

CONTACT: Erin Silva, (608) 890-1503, emsilva@wisc.edu; Bill Stangel, (608) 846-3761, wstangel@wisc.edu

UW ORGANIC FIELD DAY SLATED FOR AUG. 30 AT ARLINGTON STATION

MADISON - The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Arlington Agricultural Research Station will hold its first field day devoted to organic agricultural production on Aug. 30 from 3 - 7 p.m.

Field crops, processing vegetables and market vegetables will all get some attention at the event, which will include information on organic weed management, cover and companion crops, soil quality, variety selection, vegetable crop trials, and no-till organic production.

The event will begin with field tours featuring ongoing research on fertility management strategies, organic soybean variety trials, organic corn seed treatments, cover crop options, and no-till organic production using crimped rye.  Following the tours, there will be additional presentations on research projects involving organic processing vegetables, organic vegetable variety selection, cover crops for organic vegetable production, and weed management strategies.

A highlight of the tour will be a discussion of research using a roller-crimper for no-till production of soybeans with a rye cover crop.

"The idea is to lodge the rye severely enough so it doesn't stand back up," explains Bill Stangel, assistant superintendent of the Arlington station, who has been working with UW-Madison agronomists Josh Posner and Dave Stoltenberg to evaluate the effectiveness of various crimping strategies.

"We use it as a weed control tool," explains Stangel. "The rye serves as a mulch. It also has an alleopathic affect - the cover crop releases a compound that reduces the vigor of germinating weeds. Rye works especially well on small seeded weeds like foxtail, pigweed and lambsquarter. It also provides crop residue to protect the soil."

The presentations won't be limited to research being conducted at Arlington. Organic production specialist Erin Silva will talk about organic vegetable variety trials that she is conducting in conjunction with cooperating farmers at several locations around the state. Those trials include varieties of organic green beans, carrots, beets, edamame, cucumbers and cantaloupes.

The Arlington Research Station is located on Hwy. 51, about 5 miles south of Arlington and 15 miles north of Madison. Dinner will be available for a moderate charge at 6 p.m. Watch for Field Day signs.  For more information, contact Erin Silva at (608) 890-1503 or emsilva@wisc.edu.  In the event of rain, presentations will be held inside.
###



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Live Earth Replay...

Concert Replay!
http://liveearth.msn.com/artists
If you missed the Live Earth Concert, or would like to relive your favorite moment, pick the artist you want to watch.

Premiering on the Sundance Channel TONIGHT (07/10/2007) at 9:30pm local - Five Disasters Waiting To Happen:

Have you ever wondered what the face of Global Warming-induced sea level rise will look like? What the human costs could be, or who would be affected?

Well tune in to Five Disasters Waiting To Happen on the Sundance Channel tonight at 9:30pm your time and you'll get a very good look at where it's likely to start.

Who will be swimming, and who will cook? Who will be the largest group of nation-less people in Earth's recent history? Maybe ever? Could YOU be on the list?

Find out where Paradise will soon be lost in Five Disasters Waiting To Happen TONIGHT.

Dan Stafford

Electric Bill Pain Reliever

Two Simple, Easy Ways To Save On Your Electric Bill And Help Save The Planet

Learn about and use Compact florescent lighting. This is good sense and a relatively easy conservation method.

There are even a new type of such bulbs mentioned in the current issue of Popular Science magazine that have a softer yellow glow more like incandescent bulbs instead of the harsh blue light of common CF bulbs, for about $4.00 - one of the main objections of most people to using CF bulbs.

There is another very simple means of conservation of electricity that is also relatively painless. Install surge strips on all TV, stereo, and computer equipment and turn the surge strip off after shutting down these devices.

All such devices nowadays go into a "stand by" mode so that they come back up quickly when a person pushes the "on" button. They never truly shut off when people think they've been turned off - and so still draw power whether in use or not. This is why modern TV's no longer need to "warm up" before displaying a picture when you turn them on - they never really turn off.

The same is true of any device using those small black transformers to convert wall outlet AC power into low voltage DC power. As long as they are plugged into the wall they use the same amount of power regardless of whether or not the device they operate is in use.

Putting a surge strip between such devices and the wall outlet allows you to truly disconnect them from the electrical supply.

Regards,

Rev. Dan Stafford
Publisher
The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal
http://www.whizzyrds.com/Windblog.html

"Dead In The Water" on the Sundance Channel

Dead In The Water - airs June 19th at 9:30pm local time on The Sundance Channel:

This documentary shows the long and clearly devastating history of the privatization of public waters systems around the world at the urgings of large corporations and the IMF.

Obviously and clearly a gross failure to the people of the affected regions, many countries following down this dead end trail have suffered from massive disease outbreaks as those too poor to pay for water are able to find it only in questionable sources or die of thirst. In many cases, riots and massive public uprisings result after many deaths, and the water companies are booted out in abject failure, leaving the water supplies again under municipal control.

What's not discussed here is the stealth privatization of municipal water supplies happening in various areas of the US, which has not had first hand experience with this disaster-in-waiting with some notable exceptions in California. Needless to say, those exceptions are quite enlightening, but not of the burden people will bear, literally, having to carry water home in plastic jugs right here in the USA regardless of income level.

Dead In The Water features many common-sense arguments, and direct interviews with people "served" by first public, then private water systems. You'd love to think this can't happen in first world countries, but guess what...it STARTED with a first world country of major proportions. Beyond that, there are decades of historic examples clearly exposed here.

In what I think is the most eloquently simple paraphrase of the best line in this movie, "Markets are driven to serve those with money, not those without. It's a failure of reason and logic to expect market driven systems to honestly and effectively serve the disenfranchised and destitute at the expense of their bottom line, which the obvious reason why services that peoples very lives depend on are best left in the public sector." ( In my mind, this also speaks volumes as to what is the missing chapter in classic Libertarian theory, which utterly fails to account for people in this position. Heads up, you Libertarian think-tankers, get on it if you want to get relevant. This issue gives a glaring example of what market forces will do to life-essential services. )

Watch Dead In The Water June 19th at 9:30pm local time on The Sundance Channel to learn the birthplace of the Water Barons - and what water privatization could do to, uhhhm, I mean FOR you and your family!

This film is an essential education for anyone who requires daily water to survive or thrive.





Look for my review of "Five Disasters Waiting To Happen" next week to appear at The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy and Hydrogen Journal, and at The First Church of Healing The Earth.

Meanwhile, take a good solid look at this must-see presentation of what we all need to work together on at 9:30pm June 19th on The Sundance Channel.

All the best,

Dan Stafford
Co-Chair, Progressive Democrats of Illinois
http://www.illinoisprogressives.org

Owner and Publisher
The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy and Hydrogen Journal

Founder
The First Church of Healing The Earth

Trouble In Paradise - Hawaii

Trouble in Hawaiian Islands Marine Monument on World Ocean Day
By Sunny Lewis

HONOLULU, Hawaii, June 8, 2007 (ENS) -

Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, environmentalists say all is not well in America's first national marine monument on World Ocean Day, observed each year on June 8.
They are outraged at the recent decision of the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources, BLNR, to allow bio-prospecting in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.

Conservationists and native Hawaiians are attending the BLNR meeting today in Honolulu to demand a moratorium on all research permits in this far-flung island chain that stretches for 1,400 square miles north and west of the main Hawaiian islands.

"The BLNR's decision is unacceptable," said Vicky Holt-Takamine, president of the 'Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition and a member of the Congressional commission developing a bio-prospecting policy for the state.

Bio-prospecting is the theft of natural resources from native peoples. It should not happen in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or anywhere in Hawaii," she said.

The conservationists argue that the BLNR should not grant rights to bio-prospectors when a law on the issue is being drafted.

On the BLNR agenda today are several permits for a University of Hawaii research mission through the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. These researchers are seeking to collect thousands of samples of living organisms with the possibility of patenting the biological material they find.

The Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology received $2.3 million in federal funding for this research project last summer, but the permit applications were made public only last week.

The ship for this research mission, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hi'ialakai, is requesting permission to dump human waste in the monument waters. According to the permit application, the ship's waste system is broken and unable to separate grey water from black water, so the institute says it must dump both types of waste into the ocean on a daily basis.

But dumping waste is prohibited in both the state and federal waters of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. "This is not the way to treat a fragile and unique marine environment," said Marti Townsend of KAHEA: The awaiian-Environmental Alliance. "Dumping waste water onto ancient, pristine coral reefs is inexcusable, especially when it is the federal government doing...

Full Story: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2007/2007-06-08-04.asp

The Refugees Of The Blue Planet

The Refugees Of The Blue Planet - airs June 12th @ 9:30pm on The Sundance Channel:

The Refugees Of The Blue Planet is a beautifully shot environmental documentary that lays bare the fate that has already befallen tens of millions of people around the globe, and stands poised to overwhelm hundreds of millions of people as global warming and environmental degradation takes off with a vengeance.

This film does a wonderful job of laying bare the results of sacrificing environment and community for the sake of convenience and profit, without the usual requests for funding and projection of the producers' favored solutions that accompany so many documentary films focused on specific issues. In the end, the reader is left with a clear understanding of the nature of the beast, yet left to draw their own conclusions as to what actions to take - or not take, as they might believe best.

Shot on location around the globe, The Refugees Of The Blue Planet shows the direct human results of environmental catastrophes and exploitation in no uncertain terms. Whether the tragedies are engendered by run-amok weather or rampant environmental degradation as a result of industrial activities, the point is clearly driven home.

In some cases, the victims or refugees are who you would expect, but in many cases they are not. The viewer is left without the artificial sense of insulation from potential disaster that our disconnected-from-nature industrialized society is so good at fostering. There is a clear impression that anyone could be the next Refugees Of The Blue Planet.

The Refugees Of The Blue Planet is the lead of a series of environmental documentaries scheduled to air on The Sundance Channel this June and July. The next feature will be titled "Dead In The Water" and will air on June 19th at 9:30pm. This will be followed by "Five Disasters Waiting To Happen" at 9:30pm on July 10th.

Look for my review of "Dead In The Water" to be published early next week, followed by a review of "Five Disasters Waiting To Happen" the following week to appear at The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy and Hydrogen Journal, and at The First Church of Healing The Earth.

Meanwhile, take a good solid look at this must-see presentation of what we all need to work together on at 9:30pm June 12th on The Sundance Channel.

All the best,

Dan Stafford
Co-Chair, Progressive Democrats of Illinois
http://www.illinoisprogressives.org

Owner and Publisher
The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy and Hydrogen Journal

Founder
The First Church of Healing The Earth

Urban Farming - Turning Our Cities Into Organic Farms?

I recently ran across the idea of Urban Farming - see http://www.urbanfarming.org - and here is what I wrote for their newsletter:

I am mainly concerned with Gary, Indiana here. Chicago is already doing many rooftop gardens and urban farming would be a natural there. Mayor daley is pushing to make Chicago the greenest city anywhere if he can.

Gary, however, has been devastated with the loss of the steel mills and heavy industry and still hasn't recovered at all. Property prices are depressed in the area and have remained so even through the recent real estate pressure cooker in the rest of the nation. Gary's youth are facing extreme difficulty finding decent jobs close to home, and so are working age adults in Gary.

Urban farming could actually transform Gary's whole economy if it really caught on there. It would be operating in a near-vacuum with a lot of out of work people with nothing better to do having time on their hands and probably a lot of unused urban/suburban space to work with.
I think if your organization could make a successful visionary pitch to the city government in Gary, it could be a real win-win-win situation for the local politicos, the urban farming movement as a whole, and most of all, for the residents of Gary.

I was reading about urban farming in E - The Environmental Magazine, and reading about Gary in the Chicago Tribune. Suddenly a picture of a revitalized post-industrial city with a flourishing URBAN & SUBURBAN agrarian economy struck me as quite possible. Especially considering that Gary is in close proximity to Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Madison, WI. (Madison is extremely progressive with lots of farmers' markets and community garden plots, this would hit there very well also.)

This has real possibilities - I am going to post it on my blog. the Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal at http://www.whizzyrds.com/Windblog.html -

I really hope your organization can take this idea and give it a little bit of push some how.

Rev. Dan Stafford

"Know your garden"

"Know your garden" - -- one of ten statements from the traditional Hopi Elders as told to Cho Qosh Auh Ho Oh, a Chumash/Yaqui/Maya Indian

When the whole Earth is your garden, there is a lot to learn and know - but when your garden is in your back yard, all those back yards add up.

Many, many indigenous people's prophesies speak of needing to care for the Earth in order to avoid disaster in the End Times. They also speak of needing to find peace in the world and end divisions between races and cultures, saying that we must all work together in order to avoid terrible consequences before the next world begins.

These instructions in prophesy are similar to the end times prophesies in the Bible in many respects as well - all come back to how Mankind is behaving, how we treat each other and the world we live in.

Know your garden indeed. Know every plant that you can eat when the time comes that things do not work as you'd think they do now. As the boyscout motto says, "be prepared."

Compost. Give everything back to the Earth that we do not need. Leave vile substances buried where they belong. Keep the world we were set here to care for clean and pure and filled with life and love.

These are the simple things in our hearts we all KNOW we should really be doing.

Somehow, we must break the insane cycles created by rampant capitalism and find a way to temper the capitalist system and it's technologies so that they are in perfect harmony with nature rather than trying to defeat nature.

It is time for us to join hands and become the Rainbow Warriors - the men and women of all races who work together to heal this world, whose weapons are peace and love, who finally bring technology, nature, and spirituality together into a unified existence that creates a free, loving, just world for all mankind.

We, the "ordinary people" must come together in order to achieve the extraordinary and bring this world into the Creator's plan in a fashion that shows we have accepted our responsibilities as the Creator's children and are finally growing up.

It is the only way to end the viscious cycles of greed imposed by the so-called "elite class" - who have proven themselves to be nothing but the ultimate in selfishness and soulless non-compassionates. In the end, if we do, perhaps even these people may regain their souls.

If we fail and let things go down the path of destruction, there may be very few of us left to pick up any pieces that might remain.

Time is short - time is now - now needs to be love.

Rev. Daniel

World Science Panel Report on Global Warming

Global warming: the final verdict

A study by the world's leading experts says global warming will happen faster and be more devastating than previously thought

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday January 21, 2007
The Observer

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.

The impact will be catastrophic, forcing hundreds of millions of people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants whose movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent countries.

'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert.

Climate concerns are likely to dominate international politics next month. President Bush is to make the issue a part of his state of the union address on Wednesday while the IPCC report's final version is set for release on 2 February in a set of global news conferences.

Although the final wording of the report is still being worked on, the draft indicates that scientists now have their clearest idea so far about future climate changes, as well as about recent events. It points out that:

· 12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;

· ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath the surface;

· glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres;

· sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year;

· cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.

And the cause is clear, say the authors: 'It is very likely that [man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average temperature increases since the mid-20th century,' says the report.

To date, these changes have caused global temperatures to rise by 0.6C. The most likely outcome of continuing rises in greenhouses gases will be to make the planet a further 3C hotter by 2100, although the report acknowledges that rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Ice-cap melting, rises in sea levels, flooding, cyclones and storms will be an inevitable consequence.

Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are 'likely' to occur this century. Its latest report, based on sophisticated computer models and more detailed observations of snow cover loss, sea level rises and the spread of deserts, is far more robust and confident. Now the panel writes of changes as 'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'.

And in a specific rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural variation in the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change, the panel says mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the climate than any fluctuations in solar radiation. We are the masters of our own destruction, in short.

There is some comfort, however. The panel believes the Gulf Stream will go on bathing Britain with its warm waters for the next 100 years. Some researchers have said it could be disrupted by cold waters pouring off Greenland's melting ice sheets, plunging western Europe into a mini Ice Age, as depicted in the disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.

The report reflects climate scientists' growing fears that Earth is nearing the stage when carbon dioxide rises will bring irreversible change to the planet. 'We are seeing vast sections of Antarctic ice disappearing at an alarming rate,' said climate expert Chris Rapley, in a phone call to The Observer from the Antarctic Peninsula last week. 'That means we can expect to see sea levels rise at about a metre a century from now on - and that will have devastating consequences.'

However, there is still hope, said Peter Cox of Exeter University. 'We are like alcoholics who have got as far as admitting there is a problem. It is a start. Now we have got to start drying out - which means reducing our carbon output.'

Useful links
IPCC
UN framework convention on climate change

New Warnings on Climate Change

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/world/20climate.html?em&ex=1169614800&en=8d1b5ef00f2da641&ei=5087%0A

"The language is far from final," said Kevin E. Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who is a lead author of one section. "You can't say what the I.P.C.C. says until it actually says it."

"Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the same center who was a reviewer of the report's single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said that most of the leaks were from people eager to find elements that were the scariest or most reassuring."

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Notes rom Rev. Dan:

• Is it really wise for any of us to wish to rush the hand of God toward Armaggeddon? Does He not work in his own time, as He sees fit? Who are we to try to rush Him along?
• Is it right and proper of us to chance damaging the gift God gave us, our home the Earth?