Global Warming

This has to be one of the best YouTubes ever and it only takes a minute to watch:



A powerful message.

Bali and the Forty Thieves

I've missed posting and reading posts. Briefly, power outage, telephone downed lines due to storm, followed quickly by personal flu downtime. Wobbly but vertical today. Catching some news.

Bali is a small beacon in the wilderness but it is shadowed by much evil:

This environmental criminal activity absolutely enraged me and causes me shame as a Canadian. We are tinkering dangerously to begin with on the Kyoto Protocol, Harper being the new Bush poodle.

BP is the usual corporate sleazebag, bleating green whilst destroying vast swathes of pristine forest and diverting more and more water in a world running out of it.

On the upside I was heartened to read of the fresh new Blairless England of Brown
and this wonderful news

And the strong commitment to the Kyoto of the new Rudd government in Australia is also cheering.

I'd better start printing some new placards and marching again on Ottawa.

What a relief!

It was all just a huge scam!

We can all bask happily ever after!

Distractions

I was appalled to read The Guardian on line today and catch Climate Wars Threaten Billions when prior to that, over breakfast, I was reading Cold Rush, the Coming Fight for the Melting North in hard copy Harper's. As you have to subscribe to read Harper's on line, I'll sum the very long article up : There is a battle going on for access to the magnificent new trade route opened up by, yep, the Big Melt. Canada is trying to defend her rights to three coastlines now, rather than the two we've had. But when confronted by the neighbour down south has backed away with the plea (I'm again summing up here):

"OK.OK., alright, you can borrow it, but you're going to have to tell us about it before you use it, eh? When you remember, if it's not too much trouble, eh?"

Meanwhile Canada is patrolling the waters and trying to stay out of the way of the new warrior tourists who are busy venturing on to the lands that were formerly frozen tundra and icepacks.

My head hurts so bad after all this, that I go back to sit in front of the fire and work on my niece's Christmas gift.

I say to her a month ago: Would you like me to knit you something?
Yes, she says, knit me an afghan (lap blanket, couch throw, to those uninitiated to the finer arts of knitting stuff).
And how would you like it? I say.
Like all the colours of the waves on the ocean of Newfoundland, she says, every single one.
Righto, I say.
And here it is.

Past the tipping point? {LINK}

This blog started out, way back, as a commentary on the changing environment of the world I live in, mainly the impact of global warming. I slid into other musings and meanderings over the years but today I was brought up short with the above. I also get the feeling that most of us are not being kept abreast of the truly astounding changes in the North. A friend who goes to Greenland on work assignments every couple of months tells me that the ice is just about gone in that fair land and that now the country is being massively mined for diamonds and gold now that these minerals are accessible for the first time, and all the big corporations have moved in.

We are all the Neros, fiddling away while the planet burns up. I remember reading Sci-Fi years and years ago and all of this was foretold, not the warming per se but the complete and utter disregard for the disintegration around us by the planet's governments and citizens. All fiddling away at Walmart and tooling down the great highways in our SUVS while the airconditioning in our homes creaks out its last gasp of energy.

I know we are all saturated with reports, I know we all feel helpless though doing our best to combat it on a minescule individual level. Where are the protests on the streets?

The results of this great meltdown will be horrific and panic will ensue very rapidly when none of our services will be able to keep up with the health needs (new diseases), water depletion, flooding, massive food shortages, etc.

Now what have I done to combat this personally ( share yours and make me feel better!)

I've signed enough protests (Stop Big Corp running our governments!)
and recycling, reducing, reusing goes without saying.
I turn out lights,
I have a tiny car and drive it hardly ever,
I stopped flying (in a plane!),
I am converting my current home to off the grid,
I don't use plastic grocery bags,
I don't buy plastic containers anymore
I stopped using paper towels,
I bought organic seeds for planting a vegetable garden next year
I dug a well
I started a wood lot and harvest trees for winter heating
I try and shop for stuff grown within 100 miles of where I live (a bit of a challenge in a small outport in Newfoundland!) but this quest found me yesterday buying from a bakery that makes scrumptious pies out of local apples, Yay!
I use rechargeable batteries
I do not buy Big Box ever
I buy second hand just about everything
I bought a hand-cranked washing machine (yes, they can be found and yes it is fun!)
I make all my own gifts, all my own celebratory cards

And there's more but they don't come to mind at the moment.

Maybe there's nothing any of us can do to stop this rapid descent into End of Days.

Maybe all we can do is live in the moment and do our own little bit.