It is easy to see that the world continues to find reasons for fighting – whether between countries, or within countries, or between individuals. Since every single human being is aging and since precious time passes, the obsession with difference and conflict is in reality an illness that afflicts humanity.
A cartoon from a Facebook post I read this morning reminded me of the foolishness of conflict, and it made me laugh. It also reminded me of the Christmas truces of World War 1, well-known to historians. The Christmas truces were an outbreak of peace in the middle of what was supposed to be a war.
The need to see others as different has led to conflict as far back as we can trace in human history. It leads to racism. It leads to hatred between rival political parties. It leads to civil wars and to wars between countries. And, in contrast, the more fundamental need to see others as being like ourselves, has always led back to peace and to mutual acceptance and appreciation,... See entire blog item
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.
There's been a lot of emphasis in recent years on sustainable, green living. People swap out their appliances for those with the Energy Star seal of approval, they move to homes with better insulation and more efficient heating, or they gut their old homes and renovate them until they're suitably "green" and bear almost no resemblance to the homes they once were. Any of these options are perfectly acceptable, but when it came time for Lloyd Alter to downsize, he chose a different route. Being a proponent of living small and green design, it might come as a surprise to some people that this former architect has lived for most of his life in a 3-story, six bedroom, one bathroom house. It's an ancient monolith of a house, dating back to the early 20th century for... See entire news item
Author: Mike, RemodelingExpense.com
In this post you'll discover some incredible insights that will help you navigate the overwhelming process many face when remodeling their home with "GREEN" on their minds. Last month I published a similar post on home buying where I asked real estate agents to share their best tip for buying fixer-uppers as a first-time home buyer. The tips shared were absolutely priceless (you can find the post here)! This got me thinking – what about remodeling in a sustainable way that will help save us money and reduce our Carbon-footprint? And not those same boring tips from 10 years ago. But fresh and unique advice from real green experts. So I contacted some of the most popular and successful green professionals in the business. The result was simply... See entire tip
We stand now where two roads diverge... The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road... offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
By Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute
In a New York Times op-ed published September 18 titled "Errors and Emissions," economist-columnist Paul Krugman took a swipe at my organization, Post Carbon Institute, lumping us together with the Koch brothers as purveyors of "climate despair." No, the Koch brothers are not in despair about the climate; apparently our shared error is that we say fighting climate change and growing the economy are incompatible. And, according to Krugman, a new report from the New Climate Economy Project (NCEP) and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the falling cost of renewable energy means this is happily not the case.
But in our view Krugman himself is guilty of five critical errors, and three equally serious omissions.... See entire blog item
By Ricken Patel, Exec. Director of Avaaz, co-organizers of People's Climate March
Alberta artist, Peter von Tiesenhausen, has effectively stopped oil corporations from putting a pipeline through his 800 acre property by covering it with artwork and copyrighting the top six inches of his land as an artwork.
Realizing that mining companies can legitimately lay claim to any land underneath private property to a depth of six inches, van Tiesenhausen contacted a lawyer who drew up an intellectual property/copyright claim that said that if the oil company disturbed the top six inches in any way, it would be a copyright violation. ... See entire news item