Fearmongering 101

Definition of fearmongering: making money by scaring people. I do not have an educated opinion about the current flu scare, but I do have enough education in microbiology to know that I don't know. I have read over the years claims that a swine flu scare was overblown for industry interests, and claims and opinions that the anthrax scare we had after 9/11 was from U.S. sources.
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Swine Flu?
A Panic Stoked in Order to Posture and Spend:
by Simon Jenkins 4/29/9
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-mexico-uk-media1
informationclearinghouse.info/article22521.htm
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Let's shut down the blame machine.

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flutracker.rhizalabs.com

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globalwarmingsolution.org/learn/index.html

...Why are we using public funds to encourage dirty fuel production from fossil fuels and nuclear power...?

globalwarmingsolution.org/about us/coalition.html hottpac.org/?page_id=1449

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dropthedebt.com

ifiwatchnet.org

actionaid.org.uk

cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid

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We cause some of our own problems.

Re:
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Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_on_he_me/ml_egypt_swine_flu
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It took me decades after the 60's to realize "hippie" critics were right. We really do live in a death culture - where every problem has one "solution": kill. Consider why we're here at this moment in history, going to war at the drop of the hat, exterminating species right and left for "good" reasons and still not able to understand why the problems just keep on getting bigger. The way to prevent disease is to promote health, rather than fighting disease. This targeting of designated enemies is a bottomless pit, just as there is no smallest unit of matter at the bottom of the microscope, or outer limit to the Universe where some type of wall exists. To check disease, encourage microbiodiversity rather than target individual species.

Fear-centered reactionaries like George W. Bush - whose wife jokingly referred to him as "Chainsaw George" because his answer to any problem at the ranch was to cut it down - are making destructive decisions that will not solve the problems. At the very least, the slaughtered animals should be composted to encourage the microbial web of life upon which the rest of us species depend.
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alternet.org/healthwellness/138798/the_swine_flu_crisis_lays_bare_the_meat_industry's_monstrous_power
...corporate livestock producers treat health regulations with the same contempt with which they deal with workers and animals....
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From:
Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
by F. William Engdahl 4/29/9
globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13408
...‘Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'4

Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,' a project initiated with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950's to turn farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to transport distribution to supermarket.

Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world's largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.5 The pigs are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico , a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the border to supermarkets in the USA , under the Smithfields' family of labels...

Manure Lagoons and other playing fields

The Times of London interviewed the mother of 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez... Edgar was the first known sufferer of swine flu, a revelation that has put La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons' at the centre of a global race to find how this new and deadly strain of swine flu emerged.' 6

That's quite interesting. They speak of ‘La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons.'' Presumably the manure lagoons around the LaGloria factory pig farm of Smithfield Foods are the waste dumping place for the feces and urine waste from at least 950,000 pigs a year that pass through the facility. The Smithfield 's Mexico joint venture, Norson, states that alone they slaughter 2,300 pigs daily. That's a lot. It gives an idea of the volumes of pig waste involved in the concentration facility at La Gloria.

Significantly, according to the Times reporters, ‘residents of La Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from Granjas Carroll's pig waste was causing severe respiratory infections. They held a demonstration this month at which they carried signs of pigs crossed with an X and marked with the word peligro (danger).'7 There have been calls to exhume the bodies of the children who died of pneumonia so that they could be tested. The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that Smithfield 's Granjas Carroll release documents about its waste-handling practices. Smithfield Foods reportedly declined to comment on the request, saying that it would ‘not respond to rumours.'8

A research compilation by Ed Harris reported, ‘According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.' However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'9 That would imply that the entire Swine Flu scare might have originated from the PR spin doctors of the world's largest industrial pig factory farm operation, Smithfield Foods.

The Vera Cruz-based newspaper La Marcha blames Smithfield 's Granjos Carroll for the outbreak, highlighting inadequate treatment of massive quantities of animal waste from hog production.10

Understandably the company is perhaps more than a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention. The company, which supplies the McDonald's and Subway fast-food chains, was fined $12.3 million in the United States 1997 for violating the Clean Water Act. Perhaps they are in a remote tiny Mexican rural area enjoying a relatively lax regulatory climate where they need not worry about being cited for violations of any Clean Water Act....
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Things we thunk that weren't really so:

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Unfact 1: "Mushroom manure" ain't really manure. Thinking materialistically makes for mistakes like this. Things change and are converted into other things. Part of what we call "mushroom manure" was at one time manure, which was used to grow mushrooms with limestone and other organic materials. Composting and growing mushrooms in it has changed it. Compost is a living and constantly changing community of life forms.
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Extinction sucks; don't go there.
babelgum.com/extinction-sucks
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nice music video
mtviggy.com/global/music-video-yeasayer-wait-for-the-summer
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Make yer own decisions.

Remember, this is the government that lied us into the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the government that participated in the self-crippling of the American people by bringing both cocaine and heroin into this country, and so many more destructive organized acts...Delete the word "remember"; this is U.S. history most U.S. citizens don't know.
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sunshine-project.org
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"The avian flu scam"
brasschecktv.com/page/609.html
"...August 2006 - The Team inserts plasmids into human kidney cells which then transfers human DNA into the virus making it 'human specific'. The deadly 1918 virus that killed millions, and nature reversed its deadly nature, is now ready for use by conspiring men..."
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Through threats and years or resistance, this woman planted...

6:30pm

"Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai"

WhenMon, April 27, 6:30pm – 7:30pm

WhereKelly Strayhorn Theater, East Liberty (map)

DescriptionFriends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest, as part of the Three Rivers Bioneers Series, will present Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai at the Kelly Strayhorn Theatre in East Liberty on Monday April 27th. The presentation begins with a performance by Vanessa German, and there will be a reception after the film. "Taking Root" tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (and University of Pittsburgh Alumnus!) Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights and defend democracy in Kenya. Suggested Donation $1-$10

We're a stuck on stupid people.

Why do most U.S. citizens, and our so-called educated decision-makers, not know the facts contained in the following article? Because we like to be ignorant; it's so pleasant not knowing...for the moment...
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Who will pay for America's Chernobyl roulette?
by Harvey Wasserman 4/26/9
NukeFree.org
freepress.org/columns/display/7/2009/1742
harveywasserman.com.

As the US attempts to dig out from economic collapse, a little-known nuclear industry liability could seriously derail Obama's attempt to revive our finances.

It is the federal disaster insurance on 104 rickety atomic reactors. Because the industry cannot get its own insurance, we taxpayers are on the hook.

There is no "rainy day" fund to finance the clean-up after a reactor disaster. No one in government or industry can reasonably explain how we would pay for such a catastrophe.

Chernobyl's lethal cloud began pouring into the atmosphere 23 years ago this week. Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, estimates the death toll at 300,000.

It also gutted the regional economy, and accelerated the Soviet collapse. By conservative accounts Chernobyl's explosion has so far cost a half-trillion dollars, with its financial toll continuing to accrue.

A disaster at a US reactor could dwarf that number.

Chernobyl exploded in a remote rural region in an impoverished country. Eighty kilometers away, Kiev was heavily dusted with radiation.

Most American reactors are in what were once considered remote regions. But Indian Point is about half as far from Manhattan as is Chernobyl from Kiev. Likewise San Onofre from Los Angeles, Turkey Point from Miami, Byron from Chicago, Grand Gulf from Baton Rouge, Seabrook and Pilgrim from Boston, Limerick and Peach Bottom from Philadelphia, Calvert Cliffs from Baltimore, Perry from Cleveland, Prairie Island and Monticello from Minneapolis.

All these reactors were designed and built decades ago. Not one has private insurance beyond a tiny percentage of the potential damage.

When the nuke power industry first got going, utility executives refused to invest, citing the insupportable costs of a potential disaster.

Back then, the Sandia Laboratory's WASH-740 Report warned that a melt-down at an American reactor could permanently irradiate a land mass the size of Pennsylvania. The fiscal costs, like the potential death toll, were essentially inestimable.

So reactor backers got Congress to pass the 1957 Price-Anderson Act, which protected utilities from all but a tiny portion of the potential damage. The industry assured the public that "within a few years" atomic technology would have advanced so far that private insurers would clamor for the business.

That was 52 years ago. No private insurer has stepped up to cover that first generation of reactors (check your home-owners policy for the standard exclusion clause). Neither will they do so for future reactors. The entire "new generation" of atomic plants now being so mightily hyped is also to be insured by the federal government, ie you and me.

The potential financial impact is beyond comprehension. The cost of abandoning several thousand square miles of the Hudson Valley down to Manhattan, or the Atlantic shore north of and into Boston, or the coastal regions along and into Los Angeles and the California central Valley, simply cannot be calculated. Mere trillions---2? 5? 20?---become meaningless. The collapse of the currency, the utter chaos of the economic system, the burial of health care, the devastating impact on millions of lives...all defy description.

All will be the responsibility of the federal government. By limiting responsibility of the reactor owners it has forced us to assume liability for the claims of those who survive long enough to sue.

There is no contingency plan for this in the federal budget. No secret reserve. No magic monetary bullet. Should one of these plants melt or explode, American economic life as we have known it could be essentially over.

Thus the re-licensing of rickety old reactors like New Jersey's Oyster Creek, Vermont Yankee and dozens more now exceeding their 40-year design span is a horrifying game of Chernobyl Roulette. Likewise the building of new ones, which also can't get private insurance.

The owners assure us the odds on an accident are "acceptable." But they are not the ones liable. They are betting our everything against their pittance.

Against which the hundreds of billions in Obama's stimulus plan seem a pitiful penny. Our current fiscal mess pales in comparison to what could come from the irresponsible gamble on these perilous machines.

There are 104 of these radioactive roulette wheels in the US alone. Within weeks Congress may vote to spend OUR money to build still more ...

Our money and our lives are being wagered in a game where the house---OUR house---simply cannot win.
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Back to the drawing board

Start with square 1 - everyone equal...each a millionaire...We hereby free, the money system has no hold on us...
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Middle Schooler Solves Obesity Crisis
processedpeople.com
brasschecktv.com/page/607.html

"...don't kid yourself that eating junk is good for you just because the calories are low.

The Creator gave us plenty of foods that are perfect for health. We owe it to our kids to teach them the difference between garbage and real food, don't we?
..."
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processedpeople.com/trailer.htm
...It’s nearly impossible to be liberated when there's so much confusing, conflicting information, and when the “authorities” giving you advice -- be they the government or industry-controlled organizations like the American Dietetic Association -- don't necessarily have your best interests at heart...
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"...So you treat me like a modern slave, Mr. Jailer...I'm in chains; You are in chains too...Stop callin me a prisoner...What you don't know - you're a victim too...Let he who is without sin cast the first stone..."
~Asa
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asa-official.com/?lang=en
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facebook.com/video/video.php?v=21568318343&oid=20944968473
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things we didn't do on Earth Day

I didn't stop using fossil fuels, the Earth didn't stop getting more wroth with us...

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"Definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power."
1future.net
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gratitude

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Scenes from Hazelwood Harvest 2008
From Marian Allen marianallen@mac.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z1gzYQ9JBE
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http://hazelwoodharvestinc.blogspot.com
"...We plan, God laughs..."
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Living in a Great Neighborhood

I can only answer for myself what I want to wake up to in the morning. Birds, for one thing. Water for me and the plants. Strength to work for life. Faith in a future worth living and sacrificing for. Enjoyment of each moment. A colorful variety of plants and animals around me. People coming and going who are as interesting in their differences and new ways of looking at things as any I have ever met.

Hey, I can see a lot of that right here, right now!

Take the people, for instance. I've been to some wild places in this country (wild in more ways than one), and I can tell you - Hazelwood folks are pretty wild. Sometimes they'll seem just as predictable as a clock, going around their daily routines and then starting back at square one the next morning. But start a conversation with somebody, and you can almost guarantee things'll go a different direction than what you expected. Why travel the world when we've got every type of person you can imagine right here?

About 7 baby foxes were found in Duck Hollow. Hazelwood has every type of mammal that lives in Pennsylvania except for bears.
I think many of us humans secretly enjoy our problems with wildlife. There's a wildness in each of us that finds release when our animal and plant neighbors don't act like they're supposed to. What would life be like if it had no surprises?

Hazelwood has people from everywhere. There's no categorizing us as to what a typical resident is like. The fact that we get along (mostly) is testament to the fact that living here is a mind and heart stretching experience. We're always negotiating rough passages. We've every problem imaginable - what could be more interesting? Geese honking, tugboats tugging, trains rumbling through, dogs barking, people hollering...This is like an adult version of Mister Roger's Neighborhood. And buddy, we're colorful. No telling what you're going to see when you look out the window. Step outside and you're bound to meet someone different than you.

Where in the world can you find a river on one side of you, mountains on the other side of the river, high-tech research going on right near, universities up the hill working to apply what they've learned to help create the next step in human progress, rabbits and woodchucks (Don't diss them by calling them groundhogs) on the main drag, and deer poking their noses in people's windows? I say we get some gratitude.

Yes, it's scary living with your eyes wide open in a dangerous world. I wake up from nightmares of what will happen if a truck or train has an accident and leaks some hazardous chemical in this densely populated part of the world. Will we become the heroes we'd all like to think ourselves in the inevitable environmental crises that are coming our way? But there's a fierce power in being unafraid to love, and it'll take us through to the better next that we can't predict.
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Algae photobioreactor at Hazelwood coal powerplant N.S.W.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EpfkkEAAw&feature=related
"...fast-growing algae yields at least 80 times more biofuel than canola crops...
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Revolution is called for.

The word "Earth" needs to be always capitalized, in recognition of the fact that it cannot be divided into parts. It is one functioning whole. Not capitalizing the word implies the philosophical mistake that humans can own things. New science confirms the ancient recognition that all things are unbreakably connected. The machine called Wall Street has never cared one way or the other about humanity or the environment. Unless we wake up to the fact that all life is one, God (or the Universe, or The Force or whatever you want to call It) will cause the economy to collapse - via environmental changes not being considered in most financial analyses - in order to return us to our connectedness. We need a declaration of Jubilee to return the money system to square one - everyone equal. Do ye not hear the very stones cry out?
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"...We're filling up the sky with garbage..."
~from a song by Pete Seeger
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Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth
A Declaration of Independence from Wall Street
by David C. Korten
davidkorten.org/content/neweconomy
...Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating phantom “wealth” without producing anything of real value. Its major players engage in speculative trading, buy into asset bubbles, create debt pyramids, and engage in predatory lending practices. Their seeming success created an economic mirage that led us to believe the economy was expanding exponentially, even as our economic, social, and natural capital eroded and most people struggled ever harder to make ends meet...
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Our hope lies not with Wall Street, Korten argues, but with Main Street, which creates real wealth from real resources to meet real needs. He outlines an agenda to liberate the latent entrepreneurial energies of Main Street from Wall Street’s deadly grip and bring into being a new economy—locally based, community-oriented, and devoted to creating a better life for all, not simply increasing profits. It will require courageous and imaginative changes to how we measure economic success, organize our financial system, even the very way we create money...
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Global Marshall Plan:
The Strategy of Generosity and How to Heal the World
spiritualprogressives.org
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food self-reliance

Re the Hazelwood Harvest garden and Riverside clean-up:
The first bee hive is installed, the below the tracks clean-up day was successful if disorganized, and work was done on the Ladora Way garden. I think the culture may be changing a tiny bit: people are getting a wee bit more self-respectful about this neighborhood. We keep it up we'll make the above the tracks part of Hazelwood jealous. Barbara is to be commended for knowing how to speak with 7 or 8 people at the same time (a skill I learned growing up with 6 brothers and later working at a state mental hospital).
Jim

P.S.: I'm just started reading the following book, which - if my first glance is correct - concludes that our use of pesticides is the main cause behind the decline of the honeybee and other pollinating insects:
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Fruitless Fall
The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis
by Rowan Jacobsen 2008
rowanjacobsen.com/books/fruitless-fall
Rachel Carson famously predicted a silent spring, when the ill effects of chemical pesticides would...silence many of the world's songbirds. She also warned of a fruitless fall, a time when "there was no pollination and there would be no fruit." Last year this nearly became a reality when commercial beekeepers found that one third of the world's bee population - thirty billion bees - had mysteriously died...
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Jim McCue
composter and biotech researcher
bioeverything.blogspot.com

Reward honest productivity; don't bail out the turkeys.

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"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed..."

~Ayn Rand

informationclearinghouse.info

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inertia

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"That you're not supposed to holler fire in a crowded theater refers to -
UNLESS THERE'S A FIRE. In this case, we have a worldwide emergency that involves the entire ecosystem. We have climate and other aspects of the ecosystem that are rapidly becoming destabilized. And we have to think
outside of all of the usual boxes...We have to understand that we're all in this together, and we cannot spend one penny more to do things that are status quo - that have the momentum, the inertia of past ways of thinking. This is like an animal that's dead but still moving. And it's hurting us...I'm reading a book called
The Ravaging Tide:
Strange Weather, Future Katrinas and the Coming Death of
American Coastal Cities
by Mike Tidwell.
I would ask people to look up, do a search for the phrase
"abrupt climate change."
Come to your own conclusions after an honest, open-minded look into the scientific research and points of view. In my opinion, it is possible, and
almost likely, that there are so many interacting changes - many of which are human caused - which are causing a destabilization of our ecosystem. We have to go full force with everything we have into renewable energy, into energy efficiency, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal. These are industries that can put our people to work. We have this massive waste of human, among other, resources..."
James W. McCue, 12/5/6 statement before Allegheny County Council
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We humans are all idiot drivers.

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"Leave the oil in the soil"
~Cynthia McKinney
community.freespeech.org/node/11470/play
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worldchanging.com/archives//004215.html
...We've bought the ticket, and we're going to take the ride...We are impacting every system, every flow, every creature on Earth in some way, already. There used to be a time when

we called
nature humanity had changed - "gardens"
and
nature humanity hadn't touched - "wilderness."

It's all gardening now...Every block of the world's wildlands is already severely impacted. The question is not whether we must manage nature, but rather how shall we manage it - by accident, haphazardly, or with the calculated goal of its survival forever?...we have acquired evolutionary responsibility...vs. the presumption that things are taking care of themselves...
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Coal River Mountain Watch
crmw.net
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Wind for sustainable income vs coal for one-time profit
www.coalriverwind.org
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We took a wrong turn with the invention of the water toilet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(waste)
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Nuclear power business whores and gangsters still in D.C.
dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/10/718594/-Yet-Another-$50-Billion-for-Rust-Bucket-Nukes
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"One Man, One Cow, One Planet" film
7pm Tue, April 21, 7pm – 8pm
Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Avenue
thomasmertoncenter.org/The_New_People
about the work of biodynamic farmer Peter Proctor. Joshua Capy, who lived in India and saw much of the context of Proctors work, will introduce the film.
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"Every environmental victory grows the economy."
~John Hanger
smith156.org/archives/2006_07.php
pennfuture.org
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From
Elise Gatti Remaking Cities Institute
cmu.edu/rci
"...your comments about the ability of “soil to clean” brought to mind a really neat artistic project from Toronto. Artist Noel Harding created...from recycled plastic along the Don River...called “Elevated Wetlands”. Using a special growing medium and solar power...water from the polluted Don River is pumped into...and cleansed by the bacteria living in the roots systems of the plants. It’s token but at the same time, very cool visually and functionally ecological! Wouldn’t something like that be neat along Hazelwood’s riverfront?"
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toronto.ca/archives/acquisitions_fonds1236_noelharding.htm
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canadiandesignresource.ca/officialgallery/?p=1155
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kidsforabetterfuture.org
treehugger.com
kidsforabetterfuture.org/bhopal.lasso
akilaworksongs.com
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver
animalvegetablemiracle.com
kingsolver.com/bookshelf/miracle.asp
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greencommunitiesonline.org/tools/criteria/GreenCriteria.pdf
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Renewing soil while sequestering carbon
renewableecology.com
amazingcarbon.com
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peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Using_green_algae_to_produce_hydrogen_from_sunlight_and_water_via_photosynthesis
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pmb.berkeley.edu/newpmb/faculty/faculty_index.shtml
...product generation directly from photosynthesis, bypassing the need to harvest and process the respective biomass...
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To those who have money to invest, these are some, from my research, I think worthwhile directions. I hope you will try to allow yourselves the time and to be open-minded despite whatever your present mindsets are, including about me. Think about the possibility that one's current situation may - or may not - reflect one's past decisions. The fact that some of you have succeeded in making money in your lives so far - and I have not - should not affect your interest in my recommendations. There are parts of the dynamics of world events outside of the economy, since the world economy is only a subset of the ecosystem and of course the universe. Think of all those things which have not yet been monetized - given a money value. While I think the world economy may collapse and eventually evolve to a world without money - just as we humans no longer have to carry around big round rocks and coins and livestock to use for money now - as long as cash/electronic/whatever money exists, I think my research and time taken to look at aspects of the world you may not have looked at, my point of view should hold just as much weight as those with financial expertise. I saw things coming sometimes which those afraid to look sometimes failed to see. I got called Dr. Doom and Chicken Little for getting emotional at what I saw coming (and you didn't much have time to look into). Now listen to me for once. The changes themselves may be relatively minor in the big picture, but the interactions between the changes is making for the perfect storm. To the extent we can "biosphere" our food and energy production - realizing we can no longer assume ecosystem services such as arable land - these directions can make money while other things are falling apart. I think it's Celunol that's working on an algae harvesting system which harvests the algae's byproducts without even having to harvest the algae themselves. Since I happen to be persuaded that all living creatures have some basic consciousness, that fact is important to me. Not only for moral reasons, but because of the big-picture philosophy of science that cooperation between species (such as humans and algae) rather than conflict is really the determiner of the survival of the fittest...

Some saw before many others that ozone layer thinning threatens the whole planet...saw many years ago that the next (and possibly last) world war was going to be over oil in the Middle East. The Earth IS now in an extinction crisis, not just for humans but for most multicellular life forms. That makes us all endangered. Whether you define the present moment in history as World War 3 is really just a matter of semantics. Knowing this, shouldn't we each feel called to work on saving the world rather than watching that baseball game?
Jim
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Celunol
celunol.com
Arkenol.com
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"fuels from living creatures"

"reengineered the metabolism of yeast to ferment sugar into pure hydrocarbon fuels...industrial chemicals, plastics..."

"Sugarcane is much better than corn at 'fixing' carbon..."

GreatPoint Energy "'hydrocrack' hydrogen
"biomass to methane"
"coal to methane"

headline - Scientific Breakthrough Fixes Problem Caused by Last Scientific Breakthrough

Amyris Biotechnologies - gas and diesel from sugar...straw, wood chips...

Earth, the Sequel
The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming
by Fred Krupp 2008

The Environmental Defense Fund's Fred Krupp on the Best Capitalist Climate Solutions
wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-03/st_krupp
...Wired: How so?

Krupp: In 1992, the EDF worked with Bush Sr. to craft a market system to reduce acid rain. It spurred a revolution in sulfur dioxide scrubbing technologies. The costs were projected at up to $2,000 a ton, but after 10 years they were down to about $100 a ton and emissions were slashed by 50 percent. In 2005, George W. Bush signed off on an additional 70 percent cut. Why? The costs proved so low, the political controversy had disappeared. I suspect the same thing can happen with a cap on global warming emissions once the incentives are right...

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foodfromthehood.com
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federationsoutherncoop.com
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greencommunitiesonline.org
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groundworkprovidence.org
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gridalternatives.org
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Greencorps Chicago
cityofchicago.org/Environment
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greenworker.coop
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growinghomeinc.org
isles.org
laofamilynet.org
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Los Angeles Conservation Corps
lacorps.org
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milwaukeecommunityservicecorps.org
mobetterfood.com
mothersonthemove.org
nativemovement.org
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New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
nyceja.org
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Office of Applied Innovations
oaiinc.org
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Pacific Energy Center
pge.com/pec
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peoplesgrocery.org
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risingsunenergy.org
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secondchanceinc.org
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Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles
see-la.org
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solarrichmond.org
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Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice
sneej.org
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urbanhabitat.org
workplace.org
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St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corps
stnicksnpc.org
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Sustainable South Bronx
ssbx.org
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gpuac.org
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gardenproject.org
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Industrial Hemp Farming Act
brasschecktv.com/page/591.html
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connectgreenfield.com
wiwavshell.org
1sky.org
arc.org
stateinnovation.org/policy.php
cows.org
energyactioncoalition.org
engagenet.org
intertribalcoup.org
civicworks.com/bmghome.html
cityofboston.gov/bra/bostonez/index.html
borderecoweb.sdsu.edu
self-sufficiency.org
livingeconomies.org
======
Center for Environmental Policy and Management
cepm.louisville.edu
======
dcgreenworks.org
======
Center for Integrated Waste Management
ciwm.buffalo.edu
======
cbecal.org
builditgreen.org
======
East Bay Conservation Corps
ebcc-school.org
======
ellabakercenter.org
======
Food From the Hood
foodfromthehood.com
======
American Council on Renewable Energy
acore.org
======

======
"Arthur Hanes" "Hayes Aircraft" "Viola Luizzo" "Gary Thomas Rowe"
Haynes" "Hayes Aircraft" Liuzzo
+
namebase.org/main2/Hayes-Aircraft-Corporation.html

+
======
loe.org
biofertilizer biopesticide
sri
sri farming water seeds
======
Hello Diana

Perhaps a thumbnail sketch of wonderful people driving this growing movement
will best serve all of us. We can see the energy flow.

Pittsburgh has been acknowledged for the number of community gardens. We are
a city of multi-cultural neighborhoods.

We have the most vacant land next to Detroit. We are a city creating a green
transformation with the help of our new administration under the leadership
of Mayor O'Conner and Gov. Rendell.

We have the most LEEDS buildings in the country due to Green Building
Alliance.

There is one 5 ac. farm in Allegheny County, Mildred's Daughters, teaching
families how to farm and do natural building.

Garden Dreams is just outside the city limits where Mindy Schwartz grows
3,000 seedlings in her basement that is licensed as a greenhouse. She has a half
acre plot in the middle of three houses. These two entities have created Grow
Pittsburgh, a non-profit. Distribution happens through e-mail and a working
relationship with Construction Junction, a recycling center. Mindy identifies
products for organic growing and sells them at the center. She also provides
food for a historic site that has an upscale cafe.

Healcrest Farm is growing in Garfield as a community center growing herbs.
This is one of our communities experiencing alot of unrest. For three years I
have been working to identify and put to work two acres of land close to
Healcrest Farm. There is an opportunity to create a working demonstration farming
site on this land.

The Urban Farming Initiative has worked over three years in spinning off
Green Lots helping people identify in their neighborhood's spaces to be
transformed into green areas.
We now have two lots in the East End about to be transformed into growing
areas.

The models I am working with is The Food Project in Boston, and the Food
Trust in Philadelphia. These two ten year old organizations are mentoring groups
around the country by teleconferences and workshops. I would not have as much
hope as I do if it were not for the young people in Boston growing close to
250,000 pounds of food last year
through their CSA in Lincoln on Conservation land and two acres in Roxbury
with food sold there in their own farmers market. In addition they have
purchased a church in Roxbury with a commercial kitchen where the youth learn
catering skills and feed the homeless. The youth are paid through their efforts!

There is not a day that goes by that I do not hold these youth in my mind as
a beautiful example of work that truely transforms lives in our urban centers.

We have one of the finest examples of a social enterprise in the country with
Bidwell Training Center. Growing food in greenhouses is one of the focused
trainings available to the community.

Penn State University and the Extension Center are potential resourses for
the city. Penn State has created high tunnels for growing year round and Bill
Lamont, Horticulture Dept. has held onto a dream of a farm in the city since
the early 80's.

My dream for UFI 2 is to have a 5 ac. space that would no doubt be various
diverse lots in a given area growing demonstration crops for an existing market
that has identified itself through the "Buy Fresh Buy Local" movement
spearheaded by PASA(Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture) Farmers to
Institution movement. I believe this is one of the biggest social movements of
our time.

We have an organization called Sustainable Pittsburgh that is doing a great
job looking at technology but not food. The core business community has not
really taken hold of sustainable agricuture in the city as a viable piece of
development. As gas prices continue to climb and food prices do the same there
will be no choice. Like Cuba we will all be growing food on all our vacant
land and rooftops, as well as parking lots. Our health will improve over time,
our communities will become safer, our air cleaner, the visuals will be
breathetaking. A new ethic for aesthetics and a return of fruit trees and berry
bushes will grace our cities. Wildlife will return.

In order to fill this vacum of the developers not including space to grow in
the city, I have contacted Carniege Mellon University, Indira Nair, Vice
Provost who will help me sponsor a major speaking/experiental series starting in
January of '07, She will be designing a course around the speakers for students
to take the information from people like Dave Jacke, Edible Forest Gardening
right into community plots and work with families in these areas.

We will learn about Permaculture, Gaia University, The Food Project will
bring youth here with their Executive Director.

I would not be thinking along these lines if it were not for people within
the food industry itself pushing for the local food system to be in place:
Jamie Moore of Eat's Park, for ten years this company has sought out local food
for their restaurtant and catering services. Whole Food and Kim Wyneski,
Community Development Coodinator will be creating a childrens market in the parking
lot this summer. Can we deliver plants, food, products grown with the help of
children is the challenge.

There is another entity doing a great job here in Pittsburgh and that is Slow
Food Pittsburgh who will be paying a tribute to Bill Fuller of Big Burritos
Group that have established the finest restaurtants and lead the pack in
purchasing locally grown food. Slow Food keeps their pulse on the Buy Fresh Buy
Local movement and is continually introducing local products to the foodies.

I am hoping Slow Food will sponsor Alice Waters coming to Pittsburgh as she
begins a first food festival in San Francisco in '07 with the hope of moving it
across the country.

UFI's mission is to use horticulture for economic development and education
starting in early development and working our way through the high school
systems providing materials and opportunities to do hands on work in the earth.
Connecting our communities to the soil with hands on technology.

Last but not least is Darrell Frey of Three Sisters Permaculture Farm in
Sandy Lake, Pa.
Darrell built his own Bio-dynamic Greenhouse ten years ago and provides salad
greens and herbs to the finest restaurants in Pittsburgh. A grandfather who
gives to the city and to his local community in endless ways, just received
his BA degree and will be teaching farming to youth in a whole educational
system built around an orphange, adding a permaculture design to over 300 acres
they own. It is Darrell's greenhouse I am waiting to see built in the center of
the Lincoln Larimor area as an educational site connecting the vacant
demonstration sites.

Follow the energy and identify the people with the same passion you feel. We
will be looking to you for our inspiration.

Peace in the garden
Carole Walsh
Urban Farming Initiative 2
412-362-5501
406 So. Fairmount St.
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15232

======

Some people will do anything for money.

======
I grew up with six brothers. We fought over toys. Our mother would say "Fight over it, nobody gets it" either while taking it from us or after we had broken it...
======
Why King was assassinated
brasschecktv.com/page/590.html
======
As the song Sympathy for the Devil goes
"...when after all it was you and me..."
We're all connected by cause and effect, and we're all guilt-free. "No blame" from the I Ching...
======
WTC attack was a demolition job.
I can just hear some guy saying:
-
"We were just doing our job, son."
-
globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13049
======
bodyworkerswithoutborders.org
======
Criminalize war.
angryindian.newsvine.com/_news/2007/06/28/808002-international-911-citizens-war-crimes-tribunal-media-advisory-independent-scientist-leuren-moret-and-international-lawyer-alfred-webre-to-call-for-international-citizens-911-war-crimes-tribunal?groupId=125
...According to Moret and Webre, 9/11 was a False Flag Operation by an international War Crimes Racketeering Organization, to provide a pretext to engage in Genocidal & Ecocidal Depleted Uranium (DU) bombing of Central Asia (Afghanistan and Iraq) in order to secure vast oil and uranium reserves; to roll out a Terror-based National Security state-system world-wide; and to implement the final stages of a world Depopulation policy...
============
"Arthur Hanes" "Hayes Aircraft" "Viola Luizzo" "Gary Thomas Rowe"
namebase.org/main2/Hayes-Aircraft-Corporation.html
...amazon.com/United-States-Biological-Warfare-Secrets/dp/product-description/0253334721
...assertions made by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, that the United States engaged in germ warfare against China and North Korea in the 1950s...
======
loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00014&segmentID=3
...low-cost and low-tech solutions to...tired soil...that can increase fertility and yield without more trips to the moneylender...Throughout the world, farmers have become increasingly dependent on artificial fertilizers and pesticides to boost production. But the costs are high – and many...farmers end up buried in debt...attempts...to break this cycle of chemical dependency...farmers have to buy chemical fertilizers like urea and phosphate. But over the past five years, while the cost of that fertilizer has risen, yields have dropped. Many...believe the low yields are in fact caused by chemical use...from applying the fertilizer for so many years, the soil health is reduced...

======

I used to carry Baba around on my shoulders when he was a kid

Jason Lindner and Baba Israel Live from Rose in Brooklyn
youtube.com/watch?v=vRV9BO-EyRA&feature=related
+
youtube.com/watch?v=Vbudty-Z9TI&feature=related
+
youtube.com/watch?v=jDO84GGQNa8&feature=related
======
Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas
robertgraham.wordpress.com
======
astheteachingdrumturns.blogspot.com/2009/03/good-food-revolution.html
...The west side of this tiny island is home to the U.S. military’s Pacific Missile Range and testing grounds, part of the longstanding military occupation of the Hawaiian islands, and to the headquarters of giant agrochemical corporations Syngenta and Dupont. These corporations test and produce genetically modified crops on former sugar plantation lands here and throughout Hawai‘i, along with toxic herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. It is the very worst of America’s “agrochemical military industrial complex,” imposed on the ancient homelands of a rich traditional farming and fishing culture, in the midst of some of the world’s most precious biodiversity...
======
Pan-African News Wire
panafricannews.blogspot.com
============
Controlling the Human Mind :
The Technologies of Political Control
or
Tools for Peak Performance
earthpulse.com/src/product.asp?productid=212
======

Freedom threatens the status quo

======
Nikola Tesla invented the fluorescent light, radio, alternating current,...
conspiracycafe.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18336
...Tesla at the mercy of his financier, J.P. Morgan, who literally pulled the plug on his vision. Morgan, at the time the prime force behind General Electric Co., may have been unnerved by Tesla's claims that the technology could transmit "unlimited power" by wireless means. The word "free" did not translate well to Morgan. Again, the money flow came to a halt...
======

From Charlie McCollester charles@iup.edu :

Yesterday was Mitchell Day in the coal fields honoring UMWA leader John Mitchell and the winning of the eight hour day by union miners. last night our good friend Jeanne Cecil of the USWA held a very successful fundraiser for the Harmerville Miners statue. As mining and natural gas interests increasingly bring environmental devastation and anti-union attitudes to the stripping of Pennsylvania's environment, the attached story has immediate relevance.
Big Coal Defeat!
Rednecks and Greens Announce Victory

at Blair Mountain
Jeff Biggers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers

After 500 mountains in Appalachia have been blown to
bits by mountaintop removal, one peak was most likely
saved today: Blair Mountain in West Virginia, the site
of the largest armed insurrection in the United States
since the Civil War, was officially approved by the
Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places to
be placed on the National Register.

This is a huge victory, as the tide continues to turn
in the movement to stop mountaintop removal in
Appalachia.

Some consider it the Bunker Hill of the labor movement.
But the great battle in 1921, when thousands of union
coal miners and World War I veterans donned their
uniforms and took up arms to liberate and unionize the
last coal camps in southwestern West Virginia held
hostage to ruthless outside coal companies, has emerged
as one of the great symbols of Appalachia's fate today.
Over the past several years, the Friends of Blair
Mountain--an organization of community and labor
activists, historians and environmentalists--have led
an even more epic battle to save the sacred mountain
site from a plan by coal companies to strip mine and
destroy Blair Mountain through mountaintop removal
operations.

The mountaintop removal war might soon be over. The
Rednecks won.

"Redneck" was the named given to the progressive
miners, as William Blizzard recalled in his wonderful
memoir, When Miners March, as they wore red bandannas
around their necks to distinguish themselves from
others. As the battle raged, and even bombs dropped,
President Warren Harding was forced to intervene with
military troops.

President Barack Obama needs to intervene against
mountaintop removal today. As three million pounds of
ammonium nitrate fuel oil are detonated daily in an
assault on Appalachia today, raining toxic dust on the
inhabitants and devastating watersheds as part of the
brutal mountaintop removal operations, it's time for
the federal government to stop this egregious violation
of human rights in the mountains.

Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers
of America, and a great West Virginia coal mining
native, should take note of the haunting parallels in
history: While over 500 mountains have been destroyed,
the once strong union movement has been gutted by
highly mechanized strip mining operations, and now only
500-700 United Mine Worker members are employed on
mountaintop removal sites in West Virginia.

Let's repeat that: There are roughly 700 UMWA members
employed at mountaintop removal sites in West Virginia
today.

It's time for Cecil Roberts and the United Mine Workers
to stand up for the mountains, the historic Appalachian
communities, and the economy, and demand an end to
mountaintop removal, and a return to more responsible
mining.

Ken Ward at the Coal Tattoo blog recently looked at
Roberts and mountaintop removal:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/03/25/umwa-
to-epa-lets-talk/

To learn about other endangered American mountains,
see: http://www.ilovemountains.org/endangered/

Denise Giardina, the nationally acclaimed novelist from
the coalfields of West Virginia, and author of the epic
novel, Storming Heaven, once wrote:

"In the hundred odd years since the coal industry came
to this part of West Virginia, land has been taken,
miners have been worked to death, streams have been
polluted, piles of waste have accumulated, children
have grown up in poverty. But throughout all the
hardships, the hunger, the black lung disease and other
illness, and the scarring of the land, the mountains
have essentially remained. They were symbols of
permanence, strength, hope. No more. Nothing worse can
be taken from mountain people than mountains. The
resulting loss is destroying the soul of the people.

The destruction of the central Appalachian Mountains
robs the region of topsoil, timber, of indigenous
plants, of streams, and leaves behind floods, toxic
brews of sludge laced with mercury, and flattened
plains of inedible grass. But worst of all is the loss
of the mountain landscape, those rugged crags that lift
the spirits and touch the sky.

If one mountain were to be spared, one peak to bear
mute witness to the devastation that has gone on all
around, it might be thought that Blair Mountain would
be such a summit. Blair Mountain, after all, has been
the most dramatic witness to the struggle of legions of
coal miners to be free."

If only William Blizzard, the author of When Miners
March, were alive today to take part in this
celebration. His father, Bill Blizzard, the hero of
Blair Mountain, was tried and acquitted for treason.
For more information, see:
http://www.whenminersmarch.com/reviews.htm

======
"Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation"
Pennsylvania Interfaith Climate Change Campaign
Energy Foundation

======
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1503-willing-executioners-americas-bipartisan-atrocity-deepens-in-somalia.html

======
Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium
ccamu.ca
======
myspace.com/mmflint
http://www.habitat21.co.uk/greenhouse.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/suttonelms/LINKS.HTML#Energy
alara.co.uk

in case of weather event, civil strife, or economic collapse

Except for our elite, we're a third world country too now...Except for the world's economic elite, the whole world is a third world country...
======
...solar water disinfection, improves the microbiological quality of drinking water, using solar UV-A radiation and temperature to inactivate pathogens...
sodis.ch
electricitybook.com/solar-water-purification
...setting...water out in the sun on a [dark surface] for a couple of hours...The combination of the sun's ultra violet rays and heat kills any pathogenic...may save your life in an emergency situation. After a storm or a flood or some other natural [or unnatural] disaster, you may not have access to clean water...simple solar water purification "technology"...
======
Pennsylvania Interfaith Climate Change Campaign
webofcreation.org/ncc/Regional/Pennsylvania/penn.html
======
Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
coejl.org
=====