Tag: Earth

Healthy Economies are based on Minimizing Costs, while Maximizing the Social Benefits.   Or at least they should be.

Yet our Corporate-driven Economic system, far too often focuses on Discounting the Costs, while Maximizing their Profits.   Profits for the enlightened owners, NOT for Society at large. Both the long-term and local Costs, generally get swept under the rug, in such a competitive landscape.

And that is a recipe for long-term Planetary Disaster.

Every economic transaction is some sort of trade-off between Cost vs Benefits.   Problems arise however, when most of those Costs (to the Planet and to Society) remain Hidden, just below the surface — completely “External” to any quick-hit P&L calculations and Statements.

The accurate Pricing of such “External” factors — both short-term and long-term — is KEY to whether or not, WE leave the world a better place than we found it.

“Externalities” have a way of creeping up on you, and “extracting payment”, sometimes when you least expect it.  

Last night I watched the documentary on msnbc: “100 Heartbeats,” part of MSNBC’s Future Earth series on the race to save our planet.

In “100 Heartbeats,” the second premiere in MSNBC’s landmark Future Earth series, famed naturalist Jeff Corwin tells the story of the “Sixth Extinction” – caused by people and which can only be stopped by people. Keep checking futureearth.msnbc.com for information about the next premiere, “Future Earth: 2025,” which will air on Dec. 20. You can catch “100 Heartbeats” on MSNBC again on Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. ET.

I was glad to see this show in a Sunday evening slot on msnbc and I really wish to god they’d do more like this … just blanket their whole weekend programming with this instead of the prison porn they usually do. Why not? Perhaps we should think about a write-in campaign to convince them of that!

I’m suffering a ripple-over, a hangover, of thoughts and I’m attempting to share some of these thoughts here.

There is a lot of bloggage currently over the increasing volume on the xtian’s idiocy, see  this essay from gottlieb. I was struck this morning by the juxtaposition.  I am just… so … aghast at the hypocrisy and the indignity of their whining … when this is going on.

This is desecration. This is an unholy war. This is …

Every year tens of millions of sharks die a slow death because of finning. Finning is the inhumane practice of hacking off the shark’s fins and throwing its still living body back into the sea. The sharks either starve to death, are eaten alive by other fish, or drown (if they are not in constant movement their gills cannot extract oxygen from the water). Shark fins are being “harvested” in ever greater numbers to feed the growing demand for shark fin soup, an Asian “delicacy”.

Not only is the finning of sharks barbaric, but their indiscriminate slaughter at an unsustainable rate is pushing many species to the brink of extinction. Since the 1970s the populations of several species have been decimated by over 95%. source

Sometimes, it behooves us to take a moment unto ourselves for quiet reflection and contemplation, where we can behold once again the beauty and wonder of a world teeming with brilliant life in the cold, empty void of space.  Individually and collectively, it is easy to lose oneself in the day-to-day chaos that envelops us as social beings: the demands of one’s life, complicated by the demands of living and participating in a community of social beings who each have their own individual desires and who, together, form organizational structures that run the gamut from basic family, friends and neighborhoods to cities, states and nations — all competing for a varied, yet limited set of resources.

We develop patterns and follow them; if they were set to music, the beat and harmony would shift and change to reflect the ups and downs, ins and outs of life, and we would be the dancers — our lives set to the music, trying to move in sync with it. Sometimes, those harmonies skip and stutter. Other times, they become harsh and repetitive, playing the tune over and over and faster and faster until the dancer, exhausted, can do nothing more than run in place or die, unable to break free.

After having read so many articles on the environment and global warming and as spring was approaching, I kept asking myself, “what more can I do?”   That is, apart from the ordinary efforts, such as  recycling all household garbage, even washing out plastic bags used for vegetables and reusing them again,  going to the farmer’s market for many years, isn’t there something more I could or should be doing?

With the onset of spring, the first thing most of us think about is our lawns, you know, fertilizing, weed killer, etc.  I decided I was going to have a totally organic lawn, free of chemicals.  I never used much other than fertilizer or weed killer.  

For starters, I had heard about and read a little about the benefits of “corn gluten meal” as a weed killer.  I began reading about it on the web at various websites, learning about its properties, how it works and what it actually does.  It is a perfectly natural “pre-emergent” weed killer.  That is to say, that the use of it at the proper time of the year can get the roots of pre-emerging weeds, but cannot kill the already existent weeds.   Most of the organic websites wanted quite a bit of money for this “corn gluten meal.”

I went to a feed store not too far away.  Interesting store, which I had only visited maybe once before a very long time ago. I asked the owner, “Sir, do you have any corn gluten meal?  I am going to go organic with my lawn.”   “No, I don’t have any here, but I can order you some.”  “O.K., how much does it cost and how long will it take, it must be applied at the time the crocuses are blooming.”   He went to look it up, “It will cost you about $22.00 for 36 pounds (that is about $20.00 or more dollars cheaper than organic stores sell it for and it is exactly the same thing), and I can have it here by Monday.”  “O.K., please order it for me.  Now, what about fertilizer – do you have any organic fertilizer?”   “Yes, we have Milorganite – it’s totally organic.”  “What is it?”  “It’s waste, a waste treatment product – I’ve used it on my lawn and my neighbors want to know why my lawn is so green.”  “O.K., I’ll take a bag of it.”  Would you believe that a 40-pound bag costs less than $10.00?  

Of course, I came home and just had to look up Milorganite.   If you’re interested at all, here is more on the product

But, more importantly, it’s what the chemical fertilizers are doing to our earth, our waters, our nature.