Oct 05 2007
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By Tom Nielsen
10/6/07
I had an “aha” moment the other day. I was reading an interview of a couple with an organic farm who use draft horses instead of tractors. They were asked what other alternative energy sources they use. Their initial response was that they’ve been waiting for that question. Their real answer was: gasoline. When I read that I realized how I have been looking at energy in terms of what is most abundant and most readily available for use instead of looking at natural energy like solar and wind as resources that are even more readily usable and available.
I hope I can offer you a similar “aha” moment by telling you about my journey into sustainability, and through the telling, help you see how to start becoming more sustainable yourself. This journey is not one I took alone. My partner, Phil, was with me for the ride, so it’s really our journey, and it began around 1997. Both of us have always been environmentally conscious, but in no way were we activists. We didn’t belong to Greenpeace or the Green Party. We aren’t hikers (despite the large forested park directly behind our apartment building), nor are we tree huggers, or vegetarians. In fact, at that time we were somewhat oblivious to environmental concerns. We shopped at the local super-giant grocery store: bought their well-traveled, mass- produced and minimally- flavored tomatoes and strawberries, and satisfied our various food cravings: Mine was Pop-Tarts, and Phil’s was chocolate-stripe cookies. We would leave, like everyone else, with everything double-bagged.
Even at home we were clueless about some of our major purchases. When we remodeled our kitchen we bought a new refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher. They were all Energy Star appliances, but we weren’t impressed by that. We bought them because their black and steel design matched the counter tops and cabinets we’d chosen (we also were more stereotypically gay, then too). So the point I’m making is that we didn’t always live sustainably. However, we did make an effort. Phil has always been a stickler for recycling, going so far as to keep a special 9 x 12 inch box handy for letter-size waste paper, which will be bound neatly with twine and set out with the rest of the recycling.
Click HERE to read the article in its entirety….
Sep 13 2007
Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to
The End of the World
By William M. H. Kötke, 10 July 2007
We are all looking at the end of the world as we know it. Our attention is focused on the holes in the ozone layer, planet warming, peak oil, the spread of DU weapons, the collapse of the house of credit cards, and the prospect of the planetary financial elite quickly establishing fascist control of the planet. Below this threshold of conscious awareness our biological survival systems are rapidly eroding. At this point some twenty percent of the planet’s soils erode each twenty-five year period. Each year at least two hundred thousand acres of irrigated crop-lands go out of production because of salinization or water-logging and experts say that sixty to eighty percent of all irrigated acreage is due to follow the eight to ten million acres that have historically gone into ruination from irrigation. The total drylands of the planet are 7.9 billion acres of which 61% are desertified, that is, driven by human abuse toward uselessness. Globally, 23% of all arable crop lands have been lost since 1945 through human use and experts say that all arable land on the planet will be ruined in 200 years.
It is estimated that prior to the human culture that we term civilization, one third of the planet was covered with closed canopy forest. Now forests cover 10% of the earth. In the oceans the collapse of major fish stocks is increasing. At least eight stocks have collapsed beginning with the Antarctic Blue Whale in 1935 to the Peruvian Anchovy stock collapse in the late twentieth century. Since 1984 the world fish catch has been shrinking even with greater investment and the taking of what in former times were considered “trash” fish. Of the 32 ocean fisheries, 30 are in decline and some of those are collapsing. At the same time coral reefs and mangrove swamps which are considered the “incubators” of sea life are dwindling precipitously.
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Sep 09 2007
Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to
By Abdul Basit
9/8/07
Despite the vast research and debates about solutions to global warming and climate change, most of these solutions are confined to science and scientific research. The recent developments in the field of bio-fuels, solar energy, wind energy, Geo Engineering and other fields have indeed provided solutions in reducing the carbon emission. But we have to go beyond the greenhouse carbon emissions and address the environmental issues in totality. Over the past few years, we have come across many new vocabularies due to climate change like Ozone hole depletion, Global warming, CO 2 Emission, acid rain, tsunamis, bush fires, soil erosion and others, most of which were unheard of to the generations prior to that of ours.
Science only deals with the immediate issues and does not see the whole picture. Here we have to take into account the possible natural and man made tipping points and the chain reactions that will follow. So only addressing greenhouse gas emissions without taking into account the total environmental crisis will complicate problems further and will only add new terms to the ever increasing vocabulary of environmental problems.
So the important question is whether the search for solutions should be confined only to science or is a concern beyond the realm of science alone.
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Aug 30 2007
Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to
By Vi Ransel
8/30/07
The Earth
is neither our enabler
nor our bitch
with which
we can do as we please
with impunity.
It may appear to us
that she doesn’t mind
or is unable to resist
our abusive advances.
But her conception of time
is infinite
and the brief minute
of our existence
is just that,
an infinitesimal blip
on her millennial radar screen.
And should we cross the line
we are unaware she has drawn
… gone …
like dinosaurs
stumbling over the tripwire
of evolution’s Claymore mine.
And our Mother
will merely turn the page
and write an alternate story line.