Earthweek and Beyond!

The garden beds are finally thawed, but here the frost is not out of the areas that were heavily mulched or in deep shade yet. In many places, the heavy clay soil is still too wet to work up, but Spring activities have ramped up and nearing full swing.

This particular Spring has seen us restart our ECO-Tours website. Since we cannot afford a special person to be our wed guru, we have faced several challenges regarding our web presence. Originally, we had a computer in our basement that hosted the site. We had a bang up website that included our history, structure, bios of our board and reports on our work, but whenever we would have cars running into power poles or thunderstorms that would take out our power, we would have to reestablish the site and it would fall off the grip so to speak several times each year. My tech prowess is limited and if we were not home when the lights would go out, or if we were asleep when it happened, I wouldn't realize or notice. Needless to say, it was not the ideal situation. More recently, it was hosted elsewhere, but there too we had problems keeping it updated with our limited all-volunteer staff. Several of our members have computer savvy, but everyone seems so busy that we can go weeks or months without getting the site updated.

A recent search found that the site had been highjacked to a server between Madison and Milwaukee and I'm not sure how that can even happen. So this week we began development on the third incarnation of our website. ecotoursofwisconsin.org should be up and running again! It will need lots of hours of development and our current tech helper says that the dream I have about the design of the site will take a lot of work...As usual nothing worthwhile is easy, but we are back on the right track toward global recognition!

This week, we have also begun to develop an even larger nursery site. Our annual tree order is out and the days are getting longer by the day, so we foresee plant-ins starting up again in the very near future. We have one or two requests for major plantings. We are also excited about a long-term supporter who has pledged thousands of dollars for our programs over the next few years. It has been a few years since a major donor has stepped up, but as they say, Times they are a changin'!

There was a wonderful water walk here in Green Bay, bringing together those who honor the Earth, a display and presentation of the Beehive Collective that continued to speak in very plain terms of our reliance on Mother Earth and that is just part of the build up to Earthweek. The trash collection after the long cold winter had also begun in earnest. Whenever we walk the trails or take forays into possible planting sites, we keep an eye out for trash that needs to be picked up. Plenty of opportunities exist to make positive change, don't let a single one pass you by! There has never been a better time to change the world in a positive way.

Last evening, we had a visit from a Solidarity Singer who shared with us a few of his recent works and we made arrangements for our website to have some of his powerful and moving music on our website. The Earth is waking up and the time for us to move beyond the confines of our old ways is upon us. Reach out, touch the Earth, make connections and you will find, that nature's abundance will provide. It always has and always will, we just need to learn how not to poison or strangle the flow of energy and resources that abound in nature.

Calling All Pagans: Your Mother Earth Needs You | Common Dreams

Calling All Pagans: Your Mother Earth Needs You | Common Dreams

Policy

We have got to understand how policy has been set if we are to change it. We must also understand that the great wealth that has been amassed by the top 1%brings with it both power and prestige amongst decision-makers. Many of us realize that this should not be the case, but it is and has been for generations. Now, at least in the U.S. of A., we have a situation where over half of the Congress are millionaires. They may still be out of the class that are 1%ers, but they certainly emulate them, apologize for them and hold them up as living proof that our capitalistic system "works".  What we need is citizen representation that is less biased toward wealth and power and more intimately connected to real world problems, the results fo crushing wealth and the insidiousness of decisions based solely on capital.

In the current American (U.S.) political system, we often distill every idea down to a conflict between two parties. Not necessarily political parties, but two factions or sides of the argument. This has been the case for many, many years, but recently, the intensity has been turned up immensely. In the case of nuclear energy, for example, scientists, who were at the table trying to decide what, if any health, effects should be allowed so that the nuclear industry could reap the benefits and cash flow that would be generated by the new technology. Science and health officials knew and stated explicitly that no exposure to radioactive material should ever be considered "safe". Military officials who were also part of the decision making were adamant that we "needed" the bomb, and whatever it took to develop it, including the creation of nuclear energy production facilities would "have" to be done. As one can plainly see, this is the root of a very deep conflict.

Policy, in the end was set to allow commerce and burden the public with an unknown cost, the health effects created by nuclear fallout, nuclear waste sites and nuclear by-products that have found their way around the planet. Remember that the truth of the matter is that there is no "safe" or "acceptable" level of exposure to this radiation. Our policy has been set based on not having the guts to stand up for what is right, what makes sense or even what would be the safest thing for our planet, her people, or the future. We almost always have set policy with an eye to how much money stands to be made. This never shakes down to the lowest echelons of our culture, but is based on what the uberwealthy have decided is expedient for them.

In rare cases, an issue will rise to the level of a "Vietnam", or the public outcry will be so great that some changes can be affected, but the vast majority of these fights take place under cover of massive disinterest by the media (who are also owned and controlled by billionaires). The outright lies and deceptive tactics that are used to get our policies to be skewed in favor of the wealthy are as plain as the nose on my face, yet the decisions are made the same way they have always been, as a compromise between what is best and what is expedient for the richest interests and in the name of profitability.

We are seeing this play out in so many aspects of our modern life that it calls into question the very tenets of "democracy". When I was growing up they used to frequently say, "One man, one vote", now, with the advent of the Citizens United case that recently went through the Supreme Court, "one dollar one vote" if wealth is speech, then the dollars will always talk the loudest in favor of what the 1% want. Sadly, many do not understand how or why ecological issues are tied up with economic ones. The irony is that when you look closely, they are often the same issue. Policy is informed, set and made by the very people who stand to lose a tiny bit of their wealth if the right thing were to be done. As we can all plainly see, this is certainly not the best way to make policy, yet we continue to do it in spite of the inherent flaws.

Ready To Dig In The Dirt

This winter, in my part of the world was noteworthy because four separate times, the Polar Vortex was broken up and arctic air didn't just blast through in a day or three like it normally does, the arctic air stayed for more than a week at a time. We had many weeks where the temperatures here were lower than those in Barrow, Alaska. The first time we experienced it, the sun was not to rise in Barrow for nearly two weeks, but we were colder. We had the awesome Al Roker went after the climate change deniers who claimed that the Polar Vortex was part of a left-wing conspiracy with his discussion about it on Good Morning America. The length and depth of our winter was the worst I have experienced in fifty years, but on the whole, the planet was warmer than ever. For some, this just will not make sense, but the fact remains. Just because the whole planet is warmer, it may have areas that are experiencing record cold, record snow and record rainfall simultaneously. Climate change is as real. more records will be broken and they will be more and more disruptive, we will need to get used to it. Extreme conditions in every measurable parameter are the new normal.

I have a cool tool that allows me to make paper pots for potting soil. It has been out and being used for days now, creating little containers for soil.  It is designed to use newspaper for the container so that it can decompose easily when put into the earth (soil). The brand name on the product is PotMaker. I think it dates back to the nineteen seventies or earlier.

I have used this system before and the only drawback that I can find is if the pots are anything less than full, they are a bit too broad for their depth. This could be less of a problem if the form was a bit narrowerAnother tip, drill (bore) an air channel through the center of the cylinder that the paper wraps around. This will relieve air pressure behind the paper planting cell as you pull it off the form. For trees, let the paper run taller. Another tip, pre-fold the paper that wraps around past the bottom of the form with tight creases before placing on jig for bottom. The cells that this is designed to make are 2.25" (5.7 cm) diameter. It would be interesting to try 1.75" (4.45 cm) or even 1.25" (3.8 cm). especially for deeply rooted seedlings.

That's enough, I'm going to get the wheelbarrow, the thawed earth and sand that I have been saving, biochar,and some potting mix. I'm getting my hands in soil whether the ground is thawed or not! This technology is proven. No one stands to make a million dollars making these widgets, but our future may depend on things like this. Sustainability requires infinite imagination and elegance of design. Having only two pieces that will virtually never wear out holds infinite possibility. Think outside the box is a way of life. It makes future generations possible, but not only that, it enhances them. Live to create positive change for seven generations. If that doesn't make you humble, nothing will. Namaste'

Penokee Hills

When we begin to define the world around us, it is well to consider what we really need for survival versus what we need to thrive. The way many westerners approach information is to use a technique  that is akin to dissection. We see this process at work in what are called the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances) for the variety of identified essential nutrients. We try to tease out the magic bullets within the foods we eat and the herbal medicines of native people, seeking the magic bullet that we call the active ingredient. The scientific method is excellent at refining the "most important" part of organic compounds, but in that process we diminish the importance of the host of other ingredients that are not appreciated for their nutritional value, their healing qualities or the benefits that they provide. The same can be said for ecosystems and the planetary relationships between all beings as well. It seems that when our analysis teases out a specific thread, we forget what was sifted and winnowed away and that which lent strength to the web of life, the stability that supported the abundant life cycles withing which a living could be made.

Trying to place a value on one part of the system without understanding the relationships between all aspects of the world around us is like poking around in the dark with a laser beam. The intensity of the light can wash out the detail, texture and true nature of whatever it falls upon and the surrounding dark only seems to intensify our ignorance of the fabric of life that surrounds the object of our interest. We need to begin to understand the true nature of Sacred Space. Trying to change the way we think about the world around us will not be possible if we continue to look at the world around us the way we have up until now. Each part of the whole is essential, once dissected, the organism cannot be brought back to life.

I was raised completely within a tradition, some call white, others call it that of the oppressor, the colonizers, the culture of extraction. I cannot tell you why I never bought into the basic assumptions of that culture, but perhaps I just understood deeper truths than those around me. Perhaps, when my grandfather told me, "Kid, shut yo' mouth. One day you gonna be trouble." My immediate response was to ask myself how this man, who was supposed to be the strong one in the family, could knuckle under to powerful interests who concerned themselves not with his life, but only about their own? How could I be expected to respect his teaching now that I understood that standing up for what was right would always take a back seat to trying to eke out survival under rules that even he did not believe in? I understand now that he was trying to save me from years of pain and hardship that would inevitably be caused by my raising my head or hand and being the one who would nearly always stick out as different, ask the wrong questions or point out the fallacies upon which the lies were founded, but in my young mind I knew that there were better ways, more complete understandings of the world that could only come if we asked the right kinds of questions.

How might we survive? How might we respect the life of all organisms upon which ours rest? How might we leave the planet whole and intact for future generations? How might we show our respect for our grandchildren without throwing them into the maw of capitalism and the war/ industrial machine? How might we show our respect for all beings?

This is certainly the case, and the series of questions that we need to be asking ourselves about the Penokee Hills of Northern Wisconsin. What has brought them to the fore in recent times is low grade iron ore that lies within the crystalline structure of the hills themselves. The sulfide bearing rock that holds the iron in a matrix, along with asbestos and other minerals, has sustained atop its great protuberance, a myriad of organisms that have no other place to call home. Even the people who reside in and around the Penokee Hills rely on the water holding capacity of the organisms, the millions of life forms, the complex food webs for their health and survival. There is no magic bullet in nature, all must thrive, or repercussions shake the very footings upon which life sustains itself. We cannot take away the water, we cannot poison it, we cannot dam it or pump it out without affecting the entire region negatively. We cannot remove the deer or the fish, or the mosquitoes without drastically crippling the entire food web that creates the abundance of nature that lives there now.

The destruction has begun already. Test holes have been drilled. Topsoil that took thousands of years to build up have been excavated and tossed aside, left to flow into pristine river systems. The greed of far off interests has begun to tear at the fabric of life in the Penokeees. All of this life is sacred. The humans, who have been embittered and set one against the other in the "fight" over the "resources" (sacred gifts) don't even matter to those who would despoil the land. Those who continue to squander our planet for their own enrichment have never cared about jobs, the people or the land they rape. They do not only want the magic bullet of copper or diamonds or iron ore, they seem to be interested only in their power over people and the planet control of other people's lives and changing the environment. This is what we, the people, must learn and stand against.

A friend who has spoken eloquently about these and other issues has said that he still considers himself pro-life. It is the one thing that he learned as a Catholic that he feels on the soul level. What he points out is that to be truly pro-life, you need to support life which you do not understand or have dominion over. You cannot be pro-life if you do not extend your compassion to babies that are out of the womb. You cannot be truly pro-life if you are willing to practice genocide against people that you deem "primitive". You cannot be pro-life while purveying nothing but death in your wake. Life is a sacred gift, these hills are completely covered with abundant, sacred, life and living organisms that are gifts of the gods. Throwing the entire region into the hopper for some buggers bottom line is, in fact, raping the entire Mother Earth that we are beginning to see holds the key to our survival. Without a moment's hesitation, our Governor and State Legislature have caved in to interests that would destroy the entire region for a few millions in their pockets and the destitution, the death and poisoning of the land would remain for centuries, long after the last few pennies left behind were spent.

There is hardly an area of the planet which is not facing a similar plight, but I know that I could not live with myself if I did not stand up and raise awareness about how backward this approach is. Lying across the northern tier of counties that surround the Penokee Hills are the giant machines that crushed ore over century ago, the several generations of cars and farm implements made of iron that are now rusting in the fields of the region. In total, there are many times more iron available to be picked off the landscape than could be wrested from the proposed giant hole that the mining interests want to blast to powder and leave behind, forever tainting the largest freshwater ecosystem on the North American continent. If they truly want the magic bullet we call iron, plans need to be made to recycle what our forefathers took out of the ground rather than ruining the last bit of what they left undisturbed for the profit of men who will never step foot in Wisconsin.

This Past Moon

We have had both round one and round two with the Polar Vortex. The Jet stream has gone haywire and routinely, temperatures in Anchorage and even Barrow, above the arctic circle, have been warmer than Green Bay, Wisconsin. I remember one day reading that it would still be two weeks before sunrise in Barrow and they were twenty degrees warmer than us.

PEOPLE! Please try to understand that the radiation from Fukushima seems minute when imagined relative to the entire Pacific Ocean, but wafting ribbons of fallout are vast and dilute, that certainly can't eliminate their energy footprint. That will literally take forever. With the huge amount of radiation that has been released, it is hard to convey the worldwide effects. The particular isotopes that are from the immediate area around the disaster, especially the heaviest, settle onto plant life and are consumed, putting them on their way to the top of the food chain. The vast dust bowl, or dry lake bed (playa) that is Burning Man, black Rock City, NV. is slightly radioactive from nuclear testing during early days of the cold war. Some of this stuff never goes away. Imagine half a million years to cut the hazard in half and you have an idea of what we are up against.

Background radiation has climbed ever since Madam Curie made her discoveries and they were put to "use" through the E=mc2 enlightenment. The only reason that nuclear energy was ever made to sound appealing to the public was because they needed enriched material for bomb making. Even today, we are spreading the risk. Depleted uranium is used to make the projectile tips of armor piercing bullets and anti-tank weapons. They begin this pernicious concentration through the food chain as well, leaving a legacy of radioactive contamination wherever they fall. For peace or destructive ends, splitting the atom has grave consequences that are only beginning to be understood. If you think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific, the next few years we are going to see a continuing release of long-lived radiation whose impacts will be felt for millennea.

In spite of the immense sadness and hopelessness that has been engendered by this fiasco, we must go on and making plans for the coming growing season has commanded the lion's share of our time. We are still actively fund raising for some important projects, presentations and tools. First and foremost, we are working to raise money for our school/retreat center. We are ready to begin introductory bio-char classes and are working toward having a traveling show that can showcase the material and bring the knowledge about it to a wider audience. finally, we are seeking funds for a broad fork or three so that when we do get into areas that need to be reforested, we can jump start the recreation of soils that will ultimately support the trees we bring to them.

Beyond trying to stay warm and alive, there was little forward progress, although I have been working on designs for pedal power devices to help with making char powder quickly and easily, our designs for a sustainable resort/retreat center that operates as a living laboratory of sustainability continue. Whatever green energy you can share is greatly appreciated.

Population

As with many movements, those of us who are ecologically aware find that our cadre of Earth aware individuals has grown into a very real force across the face of the planet. The groups that we have formed have been poked and prodded, provoked and infiltrated by agents provocateur,  perhaps understood better from outside the movement by those who are threatened by our success than we could ever do to others whitin our various groups and movements. Wedge issues have been created by think tanks, injected into our ranks and files have been amassed on those who sympathize or empathize with every group imaginable. Part of the ruse that has been foisted upon us is the "fact" that all environmentalists are part of a vast and shadowy sub-culture that believes in Zero Population Growth (ZPG). Again, if you are at all astute, the ZPG crowd feels that the growing population equates to or accounts for the biggest threat to our survival as a species or the continued balance of the ecosystem. In my own exploration of an eco-friendly life-style, I have only met a few individuals who were of this persuasion. Having only two children over the lifetime of any woman would, in fact, reduct our need for many resources, but that alone cannot heal the damage that has already been caused to climate, our natural resources or the bio-sphere.

It is not hard to understand why these events take place. The wealtihiest and most powerful agents want things to stay pretty much the same, without threat of change. Pitting one "extreme" group against another is the oldest trick in the book of exploiting the largest number of people for the benefit of the fewest. I want to remind my readers of just a couple examples of this sort of demonization. I first heard of MOVE because the Yippies wanted everyone to know about the police brutality and arbitrary prosecution of people who were living the revolution that will not be televised. MOVE, if you are not familiar, were folks who were attacked for being members of a group that had successfully created an inner-city, ecologically sustainable compound of sorts. They tore out their yards, and planted organic produce and grew rooftop gardens in a neighborhood of Philly (Philadelphia, PA) where even police had written off. Instead of knowing their place and being subservient to the powers that be, they stood proud in their self-sufficiency, living in ways that later became known as "off the grid". Ironically, there is a current fascination within the "Prepper"/survivalist groups that believe in end-times scenarios and apocalyptic events that will require us to be completely responsible for ourselves. The MOVE was doing that a generation or more ago.

The police showed up to "assist" the health department in presenting the MOVE members a letter about code violations. Monday, May 13th 1985, surrounded by heavy weapons, riot gear and the thin blue line of secrecy that was present within the Philadelphia police at the time, the residents of the MOVE compound were surrounded and barricaded themselves inside. It seemed to me at the time that any reasonable person would have taped the letter to their door and withdrawn. Instead, the police called in a helicopter which dropped a bomb, which the police asserted was just teargas canisters onto the fuel depot that the MOVE had for emergency fuel needs like lighting, heat and generators. During the conflagration that took out more than an entire city block, guns drawn, the police rushed the building and several MOVE folks were gunned down in cold blood by over-ambitious cops. The police that were killed had .38 cal. holes in them, but my understanding is that the MOVE folks had small caliber weapons, mostly for shooting pigeons and ill critters. As the circle of fire was drawn like a noose around the compound, some were caught in their own crossfire.

MOVE made it back in the news this week because one of their members who stood trial for murder and who was incarcerated for his "crimes" got his sentence reduced from execution down to life in prison by a recent appointee to high office. The Rethuglicans, urged on by "conservative" voices in Philadelphia have used the fake news of mayhem perpetrated by peaceful loving people as grounds for keeping a well respected person from serving the public.

Similarly, The American Indian Movement was called out for their "radicalism" in a similar series of events. With only what can be called an utter paucity of evidence, Leonard Peltier was convicted and sentenced to life imprison as part of the FBI smear campaign against native peoples who were also demanding their rights to live peacefully and without molestation in a manner that can be in harmony with nature. I seemed to many at the time that the ecological crisis identified in the mid sixties would force much needed change into the political and social spotlight, but instead we had trotted out for us a series of "radical" groups that grew ever more harsh in their rhetoric and ever more violent in their orientation. The Earth First people came under fire as did deep ecology movements across the nation. Greenpeace was demonized and the many local groups which were spawned in the wake of people moving with conscience away from total annihilation of the ecosphere for profit were also described as radical.

Earth's population has continued to rise. As "environmentalists", we have become much more savvy to the methods of our oppressors and the exploitation that they seek to wreak upon us. This whole population issue has always been a tough nut to crack because it represents a double edged sword on many different levels. First, the corporate outlaws, let us call them corporados, took the moral high ground right away. They wanted us to look at them as saviors of those less fortunate. Where was the highest concentration of  needy folks? Africa and Asia, so they concocted what was once called the green revolution. In the name of feeding the world, these mega corporations, which by today's standards were rather small, sent expensive hybrid seed to nations that faced starvation. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund spread the debt to pay for said seed. Then the agricultural chemical and fertilizer companies which the seed producers were mere subsidiaries of lined up, taking their share of the money. finally, the implement manufacturers lined up for their subsidies. Two thing then happened. First, there was no infrastructure to get food to markets and therefore no infrastructure was available to bring in fuel or spare parts for the expensive machinery. Second, the seeds could not be saved season to season which had always facilitated long-term stability amongst the native farmers. Mass starvation ensued.

The quandary we have faced since then is that for economic security, many "underprivileged" people the world 'round produce far more children than they can afford to care for in the hopes that one day, they will each help the parents to live a better life by caring for them. Many "liberals" who are far more likely to be branded as "environmentalists", are now without any respectable base on which to build a movement. If they claim that Zero Population Growth is important to save the planet, they can be said to be culturally insensitive, racist or worse anti-humanitarian. If they say to the undeveloped regions of the world, "Don't do what we did. Learn from our mistakes." they can be told that they are being capricious and not letting other parts of the world enjoy the freedoms and privilege that we enjoyed during our industrialization. The table was set with falsehood before environmentalists ever got invited into dinner. The exploitation of third world countries continues today. Child slavery is rampant in every country that looks for it, human trafficking is now the largest source of illicit income on the planet, yet we cannot figure out why. People have been dehumanized by watching the other folks who sacrificed their humanity for economic security not only become disgustingly rich, but insulated from responsibility as well. Crimes against humanity are rarely prosecuted and as I believe Joseph Stalin said, "A thousand deaths are a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." The scale of deaths attributable to Nestle', are unimaginable, but as they always claim, it is either just business or they were actually trying to help. The level of deceit is just as incomprehensible as the actions that have been taken to derail any viable political or cultural campaign for change.

The biochar science is proving to those who learn of it that twice as much food can come out of the arable land that exists on the planet. Our concern need never have been how to limit population, but how to live a better quality of life using less energy, less resources and less waste. all of these things threaten the wealthiest individuals on the planet because as we get more efficient and live better life styles, they have less and less wealth, which they equate with power and control over the rest of us. Even their claims that we want to depose them as our rulers is a bit disingenuous because the real goal is to find a way to have more people capable of getting their needs met with less effort and expense. Asking the ultra wealthy to actually do some sort of meaningful work other than exploiting their fellow humans and abusing the planet is more about their actions than themselves as people. The 1% as they have come to be known, the oligarchs and their minions seek to derail any meaningful change out of hand because they are comfortable with the current state of affairs. We must learn to see through the smoke screens that they throw up every time their authority is challenged.