The Art and Science of Change

Changing the course of history sounds difficult and a bit scary. Not only does it sound like a mamouth task, but with the level of powerlessness that many of us live with day in and day out, it can sound naive and if we ponder it, even for a moment, it seems like far too much work. Many of us seem to be on the same page about a range of issues. From the science of global climate change and ways to mitigate the process, to the hazards of nuclear power generation; from the woefully expensive costs of insurance/lawyer driven health care and the dangers of profiteering from the sickness and pain of others to the failures of our educational system and the long term impact this will have on our children and theirs, for generations, many "issues" need immediate attention. In the current climate of budget cutting and corporate welfare, nonsense is pedaled like a designer drug and ignorance is often held up as the golden fleece of righteousness. It is my opinion that all of these are really one issue and that taking care of our fellow beings on planet Earth is really about one and only one issue. Love. Now, before you let your ire grow or your ridicule flow, don't get me wrong. Don't lump me in with the cadre of folks who you have discounted for generations. It is my firm belief that the hippies were really on to something. Not the tie-dyed hordes who were all about The "freedom", the quick bucks, uncommitted sex or the drug induced reverie, but those who educated themselves about the hows and whys of the military industrial complex, those who stood for ultimate freedom based on a firm foundation of responsibility and the ones who ushered the unwise or unwitting through the portals needed to see the light in spite of the very dark times that engulfed our nation, indeed the world.

We need those shamen and sha-women again, to take a firm hold of our youth and grasp the fact that many coming up today are handicapped in many overt and subtle ways. Many young people are coming out of an age in which they were pretty much left alone to "develop" until adulthood and were only expected to become line workers in the machinery dictated by the uber-wealthy. The conspiracy theorists have pushed through the veil of reason on so many confounding issues, that do not deserve a moment of attention, that often, even experienced elders have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. young people today need a clear-eyed respect for reality that exists beyond the LED screen. I will not begin to enumerate the conspiracy theories here, but frankly, whatever your favorite conspiracy theory is, ask "Who benefits?" Chances are, it is always the same group. Those who desire our population to be ruled by fear and hate have spent decades researching what motivates us and how to tailor our fear to keep us from rebellion.

Not unlike the un-televised revolution of forty years ago, today, very little is making it past the censors. The tiny hints that we get about teach-ins, sit-ins, #occupy events, protests and the uprisings within native populations worldwide are contaminated with vile prejudice and pejorative points of view because the media outlets are owned by the very people who oppress and abuse our current system for financial gain and political power. Rest assured there are ways of hearing the truth, but most of the folks doing the real work of protesting the way we treat one another and the planet are too busy fighting what used to be called the good fight, to continuously update the rest of us through their social media accounts and other regular posts. The difficulty of changing the world is that not one of us has the power to do it all, but a billion tiny steps in the right direction can surely make all the difference in the world. Each of us only has to do one tiny thing, but multiplied by billions it can have a dramatic effect.

My own work has often been either ignored completely by the media or twisted in such a way as to make me out to be something I am definitely not. Even my many letters to the editor are often rife with misspellings and grammatical errors that skew the reader to a perspective that is completely unwarranted. It may be hard to understand how, or why a person could or would want to plant millions of tree seeds, tens of thousands of seedlings or hundreds of larger ones, but that is what we have done through a local group of committed friends who care, about everyone. The not-for-profit group that a group of us in Green Bay, Wisconsin started, ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. was denied Federal NPO status because we had no paid staff, no major donors and virtually nothing of value to "shelter" from taxation. Funny, but sad, how wanting to make a difference badly enough puts you at odds with the govie. Because our funds are limited and our work is important, one would think that finding donors would be easy, but when no one has heard of your group and all of your effort is spent planting trees in denuded areas, usually far from the public eye, there are few who notice. I do not mention this to advertise. I do not mention it to command respect. It is just the way that I found that the media ignores as much good news as possible in favor of scaring and instilling fear, hate and frustration amidst the populace. Additionally, if they do need a cute "human-interest" filler, there are plenty of folks doing frivolous things that keep the citizenry from confronting head on the process of enriching the well-to-do at the expense of the rest of us. I pay over twelve hundred dollars each year for flood insurance and about the same amount on trees to plant in the headwaters above my home. These two costs alone are over 10% of my annual income, but if it benefits a single organism, I feel that it is worth it. I love lying in the shade of trees that I planted just a few years ago, watching birds perch upon the branches of trees that we planted moments earlier and knowing that long after I am dead, the love with which I planted those trees will be alive somewhere on the face of the Earth.

With regard to the rape of mother earth, the exploitation of her people for the profit of a select few and the complicity of our governing bodies, we can expect more of the same as long as we all keep struggling to make ends meet. Working at jobs that we hate, filling in time for the corporate elites and waiting for crumbs to fall from their opulently appointed tables just keeps spinning the same web of lies, deceit and abuse. Breaking the chain of events that our forefathers established for us will require some serious work on all of our parts. First, we will need to break the shackles of fear and hate, the best way to do this is to kill your television. Recognize that whatever you are told through that device is fiction, especially when the purveyors swear that it is "true", "fair", or a "balanced perspective". Secondly, we need to reach out to our neighbors, find out what they need and want. Let them know what gets your juices flowing or what struggles you are dealing with daily. Talking over the back fence with my neighbor has led him to start a garden and from time to time we share produce that the other has not put in that particular year. We often share tools anbd techniques that make both of our gardens more productive. All of us need to recognize that we are at least as important as those who profit from our poisoning, our pain and our suffering. We also need to train ourselves and help educate one another in how to secure the things that we truly need at a more reasonable cost, to the environment, to our lifestyles and to put a more reasonable price on our labors. All of our activities need to consider three important and equal facts. We must act as if the planet, her people and our profit matter. Defining those relationships may take a lifetime, but the rewards for our species are incalculable. Enriching all three is the primary goal of permaculture, the art and science of living lightly on the Earth, sometimes called sustainability.

Many people over the years questioned why I, and the group of "do-gooders" that do the work at our plant-ins, wanted to plant trees for them at no cost. "Because it is the right thing to do." didn't seem to make sense to them. "We all live downstream." seemed to be too abstract, although it was true. "We like planting trees." just didn't say what we meant fully or deeply enough. Now that we have seen some of the rampaging floods, the mass inundation of whole communities and the smashing of shorelines in epic proportion, record setting dust storms and the worst fire season on record, some of those people are learning to ask a different question. "Why didn't we ask you to plant more trees?" I don't care what your thing is, but the time has come to pursue it. Justifying inaction by telling people "I'm just too tired after a full day of work" is the best way to assure that the corporate elite will continue to play us for fools. Telling the corporate welfare recipients that we will no longer be played like a fiddle begins by setting our own limits, acting according to our inner truth and taking back control of our own lives. This summer, we (my wife Nancy and I) produced hundreds of pounds of food for a few dollars worth of seeds and have been able to share our harvest with dozens of family, neighbors, friends and acquaintances. Healthy organic food is not only our right, but our duty. When the abundance of nature is supported, encouraged and respected, one quickly finds that equitable distribution of the abundance is a far greater problem than words can say. Supplant your feelings of never having enough, or being afraid that someone will try to steal whatever you have by giving it all away, then you open up chanels that allow more to come to you than you might possibly imagine. Love, in action looks quite different and the more you practice, the more finely tuned your perceptual apparatus will become. If, after trying to do things differently, you do not feel better, look better, and think more clearly about the issues that we all confront daily, you can always go back to chasing money at the exclusion of all else, but I am sure that once you start to taste the freedom that comes from taking responsibility, you may never wish to go back.

Self-destruction and the Biosphere

Many times, we find that there are those who love themselves less than others love them. When people are comfortable in a healthy and relatively happy place, they often try to reach out to others, accommodating them, helping to enrich their lives and easing the pain that seems to be inevitable in the process of living. Those who have a relationship with pure abundance often exude a level of compassion that the self-destructive cannot fathom. Such is the way of the world, is seems, and no matter what we might wish to do to solve difficulties created by those with unhealthy relationships with themselves, with others and with society, there seems to be little we can do for them if they do not realize that they need help.

In the news this week, we heard of a person or persons who lopped off over six thousand cherry trees recently planted in a local orchard. anyone who has used a lopper knows that although the tool is relatively silent and unobtrusive, cutting your way through thousands of broomstick sized tree trunks is no easy task. Cultivating enough hatred to sustain such a destructive act must require a substantial amount of self-loathing.

What many do not understand is that the way we treat one another is often a direct result of how we are treating the planet. The rapist mentality that allows us to take whatever we want, no matter the cost easily translates to abusing the planet, but her creatures and people. As long as we buy into the concept of abuse being acceptable, any action can be defended. Here at our office, we have planted over a dozen trees. If one were to include the property across the street that is a living Permaculture demonstration facility, perhaps a dozen or more trees have been planted to demonstrate long-term management goals as well as our commitment to sustainability. Several of these trees have been attacked over the years. It is completely senseless and wasteful, but those who perpetrate violence against, of all things, trees are exhibiting a certain kind of loathing, one that makes no sense and leaves everyone a little worse off.

Unlike the psychopath(s), who destroyed thousands of trees that would eventually bear fruit, the trees that came under attack on our property were simply meant to provide shelter, food and nesting areas for our native neighbors. In addition, they screened our yard from passing pedestrians, kept the noise down a bit and allowed us to define the "edge" of our facility. The latest tree to come under attack was a serviceberry. It is no more or less important than any of the other trees that we have planted over the years, but this one in a million was put in just such a place as to screen the view of our back porch, creating a fragrant perfume in the spring as well as providing highly nutrient dense berries in the fall. After ten years, it was coming into it's own and was a wonderfully shaped specimen capable of providing fruits and viable seed for decades. Now, it is only good for kindling wood.

Perhaps we cannot stop the hurt from happening, but if we are to change our almost certain course toward self-destruction, what we need to do is find out why so many are bent on bringing their anger to bear on innocent life. When we hear of millions of acres being lost to climate change, perhaps a single tree seems not to matter, but I am here to tell you that each of us and every tree have the power to make a difference, not just in one life but in the entire biosphere. Before we utilize the hatchet, fire or the loppers, perhaps we should ask our selves, "Are we just trying to mask our own pain?" Taking our self-loathing out on others is never a good idea and just because the trees cannot scream out in a language that most of us understand, should not mean that we are deaf to their plight. Nor should we turn our backs on those who are hurting around us.

How Do We Create Our Desired Future?

The short answer is by living it today. The real and complex tasks associated with that short answer deserve a bit of elaboration, exploration, refinement and concerted effort to achieve. I do not know what part of your journey each of my readers are on, but by setting some realistic ground rules and accepting certain things to be self-evident, I would hope that we could develop a level of affinity and relationship that the basic boring bullshit can be dispensed with forthwith. First, we must all recognize that in the natural world, the insects have a great deal to teach us. The butterfly never regrets having gone through the chrysalis form, the frog never longs to be a tadpole. Even the giant oak tree wastes no time pining for the days when it was just a whip. I am sure that some of my readers have noticed that I do speak about the past quite a bit, but it is not to waste time, wish to rewrite the past, or to give voice to regrets and pain that cripples me, or us today, but rather, to bring into perspective some of the conditions that exist today, how they came about and give some light to the question of what we can do about it, both collectively and as individuals.

The first ECO-Tour we need to take then is into our own psyche, our own sense of self and the metrics that we use to define who we are. I understands that we do not have an accurately calibrated device to prove that we have a soul, or that we are more than a collection of atoms and compounds that constitute our living tissue, but anyone who has taken life knows that there is a being that comes and goes from the flesh as surely as we are living, the soul is alive within us as well. The tragedy is that we forget that the things about our souls that matter most do not have words to describe them. Misuse of language, or assuming that whatever tongue we speakt has words to deal with matters of the spirit can be as dangerous to our development of a relationship with our soul as trying to go fishing but using a boot as our bait. We each have a soul family, a group of relations that will guide and nourish that part of us that cannot be seen. Not because it does not exist, but because we will forever be unable to create a device or measuring stick to gauge it against. The agape love, that we feel for our brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers, as well as our grands and great grands, within the soul family is almost always recognized in an instant whether we like it or not, whether we have heard of soul family or not, whether they are with us for only minutes of our lifetimes or are there for the whole of them. how we get on with these timeless relations is up to us, not the result of chance, luck or karma.

Taking the tour of our own psychic state of affairs can be scary, yes, but the rewards, as I have written before, are immeasurable. Again, realize that the stages that we go through as humans are not unlike the stages of a bee, wasp or cicada, we just don't change physically as much as a larva or grub that sprouts wings and flies off. That is not to say that we cannot change greatly, or live through other forms, but the sense we have of our "selves" is indeed limited by our perceptions as much as our physical form. Lest you are still tempted to live the life dictated by the child, or adolescent within you, let me say straight away that we are each expressions of infinite love of creator for all of creation. If you refuse to acknowledge that or do not want to let the reality of that in, it is your choice, but the rest of the tour will seem awkward without first taking the step intro ultimate responsibility ans ultimate freedom that comes with this understanding.

Some sculptors refer to the fact that the piece of art is within the stone, or wood even before they begin to carve. Their job is to take away only what does not represent the art. Others, who work through additive process allow the empty spaces between pieces and parts to speak to them, informing the creator as to where they "want" to be. These processes may seem at first to be at odds with one another, but in reality they are one. The desired future state exists before any work is done, therefore it existed all along, with or without the acts that bring them into view for others. In essence, I am trying to make the point that we already have the desired future within us, we just have not yet done the work to let the art out of the stone, or let the materials speak to us deeply enough to know how to organize the parts and pieces yet.

We are not who we think we are. Our sensual apparatus is incapable of perceiving the true nature of what and who we are. In fact, if we let our eyes, ears, noses, mouths and skin define us, we will always miss the most important point. We are far more than any of these senses, nor even the combination of all of them can help us to understand. we must first get in touch with our spirit so that it can begin to lead us forward. Inform us about the true reality in which we make our way and allow us to make at first tentative steps and eventually to run, open armed into the future. Like learning to make sweet love to another, we may start out a little clumsy or ill-informed, that is only natural. Getting hung up on process, however, is not. Same here, in the creation of a new world, a new perspective and a new way of valuing our efforts to create a more sound and sustainable approach to life.

Our home is turned upside down right now. It seems topsy-turvey and things are out of place because the harvest is coming in and we are using many tools and techniques that, by November will be put away and forgotten for another year. The tomatoes and sunflowers, the apples and grapes are all calling in their own way to be brought in, prepared, dried, stored or frozen lest they go to "waste" in the yard. This is the nature of living by the seasons. I, personally, would not have it any other way. Once I visited a friend during acorn season and he had built little bumpers around every flat surface of his house, even using box tops and old cardboard to make a trail of bare floor for walking around his apartment, so that every flat surface could be covered with a single layer of acorns while he let them dry for winter use. The house smelled so beautiful that after getting the smell in my nose, I wanted fall to come again and again. I still have not put that level of energy into my own acorn collecting, but I have to sat that one day, I will take the time and put in the effort to do it myself. with all of the acorns I have planted over the years, I'm sure that the trees I planted would be willing to share them.

Oddly enough, although I have said this in future tense, I am going to stop writing now, so I can go collect some acorns.

Nearly One Thousand Views

This month we should break through our first thousand views. This means that we will have finally had more online guests than people on the ground planting trees. The "seeds" of ideas that we pass along have the power to grow, just as surely as the tree seeds and seedlings that we continue to plant. Instead of sequestering carbon and offsetting the fluctuations of our changing climate, the ideas we plant have at least as much power to change the future as the trees do.

As much as we all hate to be hustled, or hounded for cash, ECO-Tours is not unlike any other organization. What we can do is constrained only by the amount of time we are able to spend doing it and the cash flow to buy more trees, take more days off from our regular work to do the all important job of planting trees, training our guests to live a higher quality of life for less money and resource use. We assist in creating the future leaders of our world with insight and sensitivity toward the natural world and the ecological relationships between the Earth and her people.

If you think I am anthropomorphizing, you have not taken enough tours with us. The planet really is alive and human beings seem to be the only species that can dissociate from the planet. What we enjoy most about providing ECO-Tours and our unique guide service, is the one-on-one interaction between forces of nature and our ability to nurture a more harmonious way forward. Instead of focusing on the gloom and doom, we hold out very real solutions to issues that confront the world, and her people today, in real time. We share real tips for reigning in our energy use, not as an end in itself but as a stepping stone or helping stone to get us one step closer to renewable energy sources. When we learn about, or begin to feel the ebb and flow of the seasons, live closer to our foodshed and integrate natural processes into our lives, many collateral issues take care of themselves.

When we post something that helps you, inspires you or entices you to think a little more carefully about things you had previously considered foregone conclusions, please, open up your heart and wallet to the idea of giving what you can to keep our organization growing. It has been a few years since we have had a major donor, but that has not stopped the tree planting, the ECO-Tours or the educational components of our work. We have just had to get more lean, put our backs into the work a little harder and explore ways to have even greater impact with the smaller contributions that keep coming in. Your help, even if it is only what you can make in an hour or two will help us to continue reclaiming areas that have been denuded and which are necessary to control floods, generate oxygen, fix carbon and ameliorate climate change. Stay tuned to this site and continue to use the ideas that we share, but please give back in the way that you can.

If you cannot afford to donate financially, consider sharing our site with those you think might be interested. The next thousand views will take far less time to occur. Since we started to write this blog in January last year (2012), we have built a following of concerned and committed individuals and your ideas and responses are always welcome, but to thrive in any environment it takes a bit of creative energy and consistent work to make a go of it. We have passed the two million tree seed goal and are hoping that 2014 will be the first time ever that we will plant over four million tree seeds in a single year! Additionally, we are working on a plan to create a wild area/labyrinth in the City of Green Bay that will at once be a refuge and meditative space for connecting to nature 66,000 square feet (6131.6 square meters) on a site that was sacred to the ancestors. Donations to that fund should be earmarked for sacred space.

All other donations go to purchase tree seedlings or soil to plant them in.
Send money via snail mail to ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier street Green Bay, WI 54301 USA or use our link to Paypal an the account number tnsaladino42@hotrmail.com.

Talk vs. Action

I used to wonder why so many people treated one another with contempt. As I have written before, when I was young I imagined that when I became old enough to vote, people would finally take me seriously, or at least listen to what I had to say. Later, when I realized that this was not going to happen, I thought, maybe when I go to college, have children, own property, turn forty. Each time I upped the ante I was disappointed. What I failed to understand is that ideas hold virtually no water amongst those who have got us by the balls. Change does not serve their interests, so whatever good ideas come along are simply quashed through painting the do-gooders with the broad strokes of "Communists", Socialists", "Queer" or whatever the fashionable term for those we do not want to listen to is at the moment. Failing that, the buy out, stealing of patents and/or police or military "crack-down" can be used to shut down any opposition to business as usual.

There have been sentient beings for centuries that could see through the sham perpetrated by our leaders. There have been teachers, artists, scholars and philosophers that have had great ideas and valid ideas about how to improve the lives of the most people at relatively low cost and over long periods of time. It is not a true reckoning of the value of these ideas that has led us to turn our heads away or to demean the idea generators, call them idealistic or dismiss the solutions as impractical or unworkable. Talk is cheap. The powerful elites can tolerate us talking about what needs to be done. Talk never changed a flat tire, nor has it ever collected fire wood, created anything useful, nor has it carried any weight with those who decide what is good by how much they can make off the backs of the rest of us.

This sort of talk sounds radical until you start to look critically at history, economics and social conditions worldwide over the span of time. Talk is cheap and because of this, the ideas behind the talk are considered even cheaper. This is why there is more impact when a Hippie places a flower in the muzzle of a gun than there is when the same Hippie holds a sign that reads CORPORATE WELFARE IS CLASS WARFARE. It matters little how well an idea is expressed. It matters not at all that it may be the best course of action. Even the most important ideas of our time can be smashed to smithereens by a few well chosen words from our overseers, or a single lash of their whip. We have all seen the course of good ideas, many have just not paid very much attention. The radical part of my statements is that they hint at actions that have been taking place for at least one lifetime, my own. I am sure that millions of others are motivated by the same good ideas that I have had, the same love for humanity, the same selfless concern that we leave the planet a little better than we have found it. Action speaks far louder than words and since childhood I have been an activist.

The pace of change has seemed infernally slow, things we protested for and against are still haunting us if we wanted them to stop and still elusive if we wanted to create them. We were able to stop the war in Indo-china, but war continues. We were able to secure better education for millions, but that has been under assault ever since. We called for the clean-up of the environment, but more people die each year from environmental catastrophes, some which date back to before the first Earth Day. The idea generators are necessary and the teach-in can be a great way of getting large numbers of people on the same page, or the right track so to speak, but if we do not move forward, we will still be steamrolled by the social and political inertia which is dead set on keeping things exactly the same as they are now.

I have planted many thousands of trees, enough to reforest a couple dozen acres (9ha), but the multiplication of my own efforts through direct action has caused millions of trees to be planted and these rapidly growing forests are reclaiming larger acreage than I could ever hope to plant alone. Many of us learn by doing, not just talking about things. When we act, we create muscle memory, we experience a dance of doing, not just an electrical storm in our heads by thinking. Our ECO-Tours are designed to talk a little and act a lot. When we started planting trees thirty years ago, we would shape balls of clay into delivery packets for tree seeds and either drop them in denuded areas or shoot them in with sling shots. Remarkably, the hours we put in to make this happen was always a time to laugh, talk and enjoy one another in a relaxed environment. Sometimes hours of effort would get distributed across the landscape in just a few minutes, but it was good to know that we were accomplishing things in spite of the constant din of the media telling us gloom and doom stories about how bad things were getting. Even when you take action, there will be detractors and naysayers who seek to negate you or try to steal the wind from your sails, but just knowing that you are part of a solution to our environmental crisis can overcome any and all assaults.

The rich and powerful may question our sanity. They may fear our ideas and they may strive to vanquish any power that our words may hold, but they cannot change our deeds. Take action today and tomorrow will never be the same. Just make sure that your actions reflect the deepest beliefs, the most sacred commitments and the deepest feelings that you wish to express. If we do not take a stand for what is important in our lives, no one will do it for us.

Peeling back the rotten layers of onion.

Our culture has made great haste in covering up that would reflect badly upon us, that which would require effort to fix properly and what has allowed us great power and wealth amassed off the backs of both future generations and faraway people. The essential quality in dominion, it to dehumanize those you trade with, your colonies, your slaves, your enemies and those you foist the shackles of environmental assault upon. Once the oppressor dehumanizes or de-sanctifies whatever being or creature stands between "just business" and the true aim of their pursuits. There have always been those who sought to dominate others. This is not new to the human condition, but the great power of the oligarchs, technologically advanced warfare and behemoth industrial production capabilities has placed exponentially more power in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals whose "investments" and "policies" reach into the lives of nearly every citizen on the surface of the planet.

Indeed, the recent and continuing tragedy at Fukushima, reaches across the Pacific ocean and touches North America's West Coast in just a little over a week. We can, if we are so inclined, go to the most remote islands completely cut off from the Great Lakes by their being perched on islands well above the surface of Lake Superior. We can test the fish that swim amongst this relatively pristine environment and find Aldrin and Dieldrin, carcinogenic compunds that have been banned for thirty or more years, chemicals only used to kill pests on cotton crops in the tropics, thousands of miles away. Remember the food web that we all learned in school? We exist within the fibrous and filamentous reality of a giant web of association that spans the biosphere. We are one organism, one being, only as healthy as the world around us, only as capable of making a living as the creatures which we share our planet with.

This week, I have been peeling up three layers of flooring. Each one in it's time was billed as "modern, high tech and the best you can get" for running a sanitary kitchen and bathroom, each in succession covering up dirt and dust, and encapsulating the moisture of a thousand spills. First, probably after the original builders were forced to sell during the 1938 crash, the asphaltum-based linoleum was installed. With waxy, built up edges, to keep the moisture where you could sop it up. Thirty years of dirt later, the whole mess was put under a primitive vinyl flooring that had asbestos backing, ready to absorb any water that made it either around the edges or through the seam running down the length of the kitchen, but also, through any holes that inevitably occurred through use and eventual coverup. Finally, a very cheap luan plywood was laid down, crown stapled to the old floor with a vengance and a more "modern" version of vinyl was laid atop that. In addition to making it virtually impossible to remove the nearly hundred years of dirt and encapsulating whatever moisture got through the leaks this time, the ultimate failure only exacerbated the problems with all the earlier floors. Peeling back all the rotten layers of onion revealed a nice wood floor which has no problems other than that air can make it both under and over the boards, drying them out and allowing a conscientious home economist to actually keep them clean. With responsibility come freedom (don' cha know?) The only real problem with the old floor now is the thousands of staple holes in the hardwood. they have done more to wreck the floor than any amount of sweeping and mopping ever could have done.

People frequently forget the most powerful option when they engage in decision-making. The decision to do nothing is still a choice. We do not have to solve every crisis by doing something. Often taking a broader view requires us to do nothing. This course of action may make sense at times and not others, but by not looking deeply into the possibility of making this all important choice can yield many benefits. The media that formerly made up the floor in this neglected house harbored so much dirt and nasty biological activity, that it certainly could not have been healthy to live amongst. At least dirt floors can have beneficial bacteria and fungi. I wish that the people who have owned this building over the years would have just chosen to do nothing, the cover-up truly stinks. Just the top layers of luan and vinyl was two hundred pounds of stink.

If we look into our current state of affairs, globally, much dirt has been swept under the collective rugs of our nations. Nowhere can we truthfully say are we isolated from a raft of bad decisions, cover-ups and festering nastiness that really should be taken out. We are often sold false promises of a better life and have to watch as all that we have invested our lives in is cast into the trash bin of history. The great mass of humanity that has fallen victim in the recent global depression must find the strength to face yup to the ugly messes that have been plastered over for decades. In some cases, the better part of a century. The oppressors didn't do this by themselves, we all helped, through our silence, to build the cage that we need to break out of. Perhaps it is too late to break out, but imagine if it isn't. If we all stop feeding the oligarchs, they will have to eat either their young, or their dollars.

Deniability Is No Longer Plausible

Back as far as the Nixon Era, although, to be true, that is just when I began paying attention, plausible deniability was crucial if one were to survive politically. What who knew and when take up the lion's share of political discourse. Many forget that while we waste time fighting about the minutia of interpersonal drama and risque tripe, the bigger issues are left unaddressed. I don't really care what candidate "X" has to say, We have come into an age where I wish I could find out who is paying him or her to espouse such drivel. This week, a representative from Wisconsin made a statement about how climate change is made up by those who want to wage an "environmental jihad". Now, we have to understand that in the world that we all share, jihad means a specific thing. It is a holy war based on beliefs, not truth, not justice, not harmony or tolerance. The things we share as human beings, rely on humanity first, exploitation, never. The art of preserving plausible deniability requires "proof" of something not existing, which anyone who studies science knows is patently impossible. We have to want it to be true so hard, that it overcomes any and all doubt.

Let us deconstruct. Mr. Johnson must believe that the "holy war" that science, environmentalists and ecologists are waging is a threat, or he would not use such inflammatory rhetoric. Normally, when something poses no threat to you, it is easily ignored and often passes attention-free across our visual cortex, nothing more. The linking of jihad with ecology is ironic, because in the environment, it can be said that Spring and Fall are the result of a war between Winter and Summer, but you would be wrong, the seasons facilitate one another as a result of their mutual existence. It would be hard to find a war, declared or otherwise within the realm of interdependent species. Is there a was between the salmon and the bear? No, the salmon goes willingly up into the hills and dales of the watershed, carried in spirit by the great healer, the most human, here in North America, of our animal cousins. Is there a war between bat and mosquito? Of between anteaters and the ants? No, each is simply attending to what needs to be done for survival.

We have come to a distinct phase of existence, wherein we are faced with conditions far beyond the realm of "normal"

This diagram cataloging CO2 trends in the atmosphere show with astounding accuracy the ages that have come and gone over more than four hundred thousand years. I try to think of fossil fuel as a gift, laid down over half a million or so years, almost like a giant solar battery, getting "charged" by layers of topsoil, plants or critters that efficiently absorbed carbon and eventually died, and were incorporated into the planet, insulating us from the core as well as slowing the absorption and dissipation of energy from space. Now, we have done our best to burn through that storehouse of captured solar energy and there are those who claim that we have "four hundred more years of coal", "a hundred more years of natural gas" or "fifty more years of oil", before the wells and mines play out.

What they do not tell you is that every single gallon of oil, every cubic foot of gas and every ton of coal will be more expensive than any we have ever produced before. The sheer cost of extraction, as the resources are depleted further, as we need to expend more and more energy to extract less and less viable store, as we put more and more technology into recovery efforts for harder to reach deposits, the price will continue to escalate. In addition the costs of pushing the graph further into new territory is becoming more and more frightening with each study and report. There is no way our leaders cannot know. Albert Einstein was pretty smart. In his wisdom he said that he didn't know what World War III would be like, or what weapons it would be fought with, but World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. It seems that the ultra-wealthy and their lap dog politicians, which by the way came extremely cheaply, have waged the ultimate class war against both the vast majority of the human population, but wreaked havoc on the biosphere as well. Remember Mr. Johnson, mother nature always bats last.