Rethink
By David Parkinson Now we are laying out the garden, transferring our paper plan to the ground. Once this is complete, we can use the materials that have been donated and collected (seaweed, straw, manure and topsoil) to build up the soil for planting. We’ll also finish the physical infrastructure, such as the compost bins and the prep table and maybe some benches. This season, the garden will be a work in progress, just like every garden! The youth are currently out on work-experience placement in the community, busy entering the “real” work force. Some of us top up our hours by coming back to the garden to finish up the remaining tasks. How can you get involved? We are going to have regular garden work parties every Friday from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.; so you’re invited to come early, bring a lunch and then dig in! We could use some more garden tools, such as garden forks, rakes, pitchforks, trowels, etc. We are also looking for strawberry plants. Any extras you have from your spring gardening can be dropped off at the Community Resource Centre. Thanks to the following people and organisations who have helped us out: Julie Bellian, Diana Wood, David Parkinson, Heinz Becker, Len Menard, Adams Concrete, Rona, Therapeutic Riding, Tanglewood Cedar products, Goat Lake Forest products, Rainbow Valley Feed and Supplies, The Garden Tour committee, Kiwanis Club Of Powell River, Work And Play, and Rachel Hilleran. Get in touch with us by calling 604-414-4868 or email groundworks.project@gmail.com. |
|||
by Corey Matsumoto There’s a storm brewing on the environmental front, and the turbulent topic is climate change. The reality of climate change can not be questioned—the evidence is in the receding glaciers and the extreme weather patterns of late. Indeed, this current winter season seems more like spring here on the coast. This debate, however, is not about evidence of climate change but about its cause. Most of the world seems to have somehow finally agreed on something: Climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed, and that humans are the cause. President Obama, the savior of the world from the dark Bush days, himself said: “The threat of man-made global warming is undisputed….” 
The Global Warming phenomenon has popularised environmentalism, serving as the basis of the greatest consolidated environmental movement in history and placing environmentalism in the mainstream with films like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. That film placed Global Warming in the forefront of our collective psyche. Hopping onboard the environmental movement is now a no-brainer: “Do you want the earth to survive, or to be destroyed?” Hmmm…not a tough decision for most—especially when the science has been all on one-side.
Environmentalism was once relegated to the fringe of our society, and passionate environmentalists were stereotyped as tree-hugging hippies. Now, Saving the world is a comfortable planetary cause for everyone, and those who aren’t on the Global Warming bandwagon may feel uncomfortable when labeled selfish “deniers”.
All was cozy on the Global-Warming front until an inconvenient truth arose from scientists who observed a global-cooling trend this past decade.1
|
|||
Thoughts & Questions on Human Nature I find it really interesting to think about how we as humans have become the way we are. I have never taken a class on evolution, but find the topic fascinating and have read some books, discussed it with educated friends, and made some realizations and theories about it that I’d like to share. I have written some of these theories and ideas down here for you to think about, and I would love to start a discussion with you. Please write in with your take on what I’ve written, or anything you might know about the topic at hand, and I would love to share some of the responses to what I have written in the next edition, along with the next Thought. This can be a forum for all of us to learn things from each other… When children are small, adults seem to love bouncing and tossing them around. And kids seem to enjoy it! Why is it that children find such joy in the feeling of flying through the air? In fact, all ages of children generally are thrilled with being thrown into the air and then caught or landed on a bouncy or soft surface. Even very young babies get flown around “superbaby” style, and all ages of kids want to be tossed and swung. I wonder if it’s the same reason that adults will line up for hours to ride a rollercoaster. Is it the weightlessness? Is it the release of control? Is it biologically in training and practice for situations where you might find yourself in a situation like this and your body feels compelled to prepare itself? Why is adrenalin pleasurable? I suppose those humans who enjoyed and were good at landing safely and feeling comfortable and prepared if they found themselves being thrown around survived long enough to produce more children. So if you enjoy it right from when you learn to hold your head up, your body gets good at it. |
|||
by Corey Matsumoto You may have heard about Masaru Emoto’s research on the effects of thought and emotions on water crystals as presented in the popular film What the Bleep Do We Know? The film left me a little skeptical about Emoto’s research on the effects of emotions on water crystals, especially since a quick search on the web found no other conclusive studies to verify his findings. However, further digging uncovered amazing scientific facts that, taken together, have revolutionary implications that may validate Emoto’s findings. Electro-magnetic energy can hold and transmit information over vast distances. |
|||
Would you like to know what is really going on? Would you like to have some confidence that you could plan for your future? Would you like to be able to test the solutions being offered and know what will work or not? Would you like a map that can take you into the future? I think I can offer you this. We can experience our world right now as if we were living on a Caribbean Island in a Hurricane. All we know and feel is Chaos and confusion as titanic forces beyond our ken and control knock down how we live. Or we can get up high enough to see the pattern and the nature of the hurricane and learn where we are. We can have a map. The map won't stop the storm, but it will enable us to navigate into the future and to avoid the rocks and the lee shore. The map can help us have some control. We know that all turbulence has a pattern. We know that the pattern is always the same. It is Fractal. We know that all development has a pattern. That pattern is also Fractal. In fact it is the same pattern! We also know that the only way we can see this pattern is to find the right perspective. If we look into the night sky, we see only chaos. If we use the Hubble, we can see that the universe is made up of highly ordered structures, galaxies. Which of course look like hurricanes. That are also the same pattern that nature uses to organize all development.
|
|||
by Kevin Abrams It seems many of our most accepted “reference points” may still be left open to re-interpretation. To navigate in life, valid, functional “reference points” are key. In Nourishment Home Grown, Dr. A.F. Beddoe defines matter as energy – “congealed light energy” – “the process of biologic ionization – i.e., the putting together (ionizing) of light into matter.” Dr. Beddoe refers to biologic ionization as “the study of creation” or “how energy becomes matter,” and asks, “How can the gardener and farmer directly benefit from this…?” 
In his 1992 study, Beddoe refers to “the need for a point of reference,” and describes the laws of nature as, “but the `habits’ of the Source.” He asks, “What is twice as hot as zero degrees centigrade?* The problem of no reference point has plagued science from the very beginning…. By rejecting a true or spiritual reference point, science has become `science falsely so called.’” Beddoe refers to the “Big Bang” theory of evolution as having no reference point, and instead offers Biological Ionization and Creation as necessary “benchmarks” for basic understanding and human endeavor. He explains, “Agricultural education, how we work with the challenges of the soil, plant[s] and animals on our farm, what we think of ourselves, what we think of others, (and our treatment of them), our family and social relationships—all are greatly affected by our `reference point[s].’”
|
|||
What if Powell River started thinking like—what it really is—an island? When you go on vacation to one of the beautiful Gulf Islands, you think and act differently because you are on an island that usually has issues concerning things like fresh water, sewage and garbage disposal and, really, we have many of those same issues. There is no landfill here. Every bag of garbage that is picked up at your curb leaves the community on a barge. Consider the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. What if it was banned? Would it make any difference at all? Suppose that every person collects about a bag a day on average. Powell River’s population, city & district, is estimated at 20,000 so that equals more than 7 million shopping bags annually. Depending on its thickness, a plastic bag weighs between 8g and 60g; so banning plastic shopping bags means refusing to import at least 56 metric tonnes of plastic (or 2.8 kilos per person) into our island community, 56 metric tonnes of plastic that, with precious few exceptions, we later pay to barge out as waste. In the last year alone, I have noticed a definite shift: consumers bringing their own cloth bags when shopping. Advertisers have also noticed this shift. Today, I noticed a television commercial featuring two ladies at a supermarket whose check-out carts contained only cloth bags. Plastic bags have, in a very short period, become the exception and not the rule. |
|||
by Corey Matsumoto Cash has been king of Canada’s economic system since the gold standard was abandoned in 1931. However, in the current economic climate we have a problem with cash—a system-wide lack of it. In a depressed economy, cash disappears but the skilled people remain, revealing a growing disparity between the value we hold in our wallets and the value we hold as creative, productive members of our community. The resulting cheapening of human resources can devastate the morale of a community as persons rich in skills and creativity head to the food bank, while shopkeepers slash prices, with disheartening results. Many of our financial difficulties are virtually out of our control. Globalisation has forced us to relinquish control to outside forces. U.S. lobby groups influence our provincial government to the detriment of our wood and paper mills, placing higher value on BC’s raw-log exports than to value-added products that would provide us with desperately needed jobs. Energy bills are going up, but the government seems set on privatising our hydro power for American-backed corporate profit despite the lessons learned from sky-rocketing energy prices in de-regulated California. Fractional-reserve banking allows banks to mint money out of thin air and then charge interest for it, resulting in the proliferation of predatory loans, which in turn result in mass defaults and bankruptcy. Ironically, yet another cause of financial difficulty in our community is an economic system that leads to out-of-town shopping in higher-density markets, resulting in economic hari-kari as local businesses falter. These and many other out-of-control factors that define our faulty economic system are robbing us of prosperity. It is just so easy to throw our hands up in the air in despair (or just throw up!). |
|||
