Quality Works By Example

As my regular readers know, I do not write for today, tomorrow or for yesterday. I only write for this moment, upon which all life, past, present and future, hinges. Life, achieves balance, or dies out, we can force it to become neither "sustainable" or "permanent", trouble-free or enduring no matter how hard we might try. This moment, is always a moving target, now and now, and now are seemingly sequential, but all writers know that time is malleable. Just as Heisenberg expressed that at any moment you can say where, exactly, electrons might turn up in their orbits, but you could not, also, reliably say when, or if you isolated one in time, you could never say where it might be. this also holds true for exploiting being in the moment. By the time I would tell you how to do it, there would be a series of instructions that masquerades as sequential. Those who use the relaxation response, (explained at length in the book of the same name)find that on a moment, they can call up the deep peace and sense of utter relaxation and harmony, allowing them to deal with otherwise stressful events in day to day life.

During my growing up, from the early sixties through about 1984, I learned Zen Koans, was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, developed my own path to shamanism and I spent time at half a dozen yoga ashrams and institutes. By the time I heard of the relaxation response, I had years of informal and formal training in mind body unity, exercise and balance. I theorized that this terminology was as good as any for what can take place when we take time to consciously relax our brains and bodies. Stillness on our inner levels creates harmonious waves in the outer ones. This is why some people seem to be constantly "on edge", randomly careening about caught, destroying things rather than creating them. It is not so much karma, it is just a need for tweaking their world view. The more they strive to get out of their "fate", chasing the cheese of a distant future, they become immediately caught in the trap of self destruction or suffering. The stillness within us echoes out through our relationships, our ways of making a living and our ability to help others in ways that get very difficult to measure.

I have heard that a smile can heal a thousand wounds. I believe that. This week I meticulously described the process for making char and charging it with local resources, to double agricultural production. I would normally cover the same material during the three hour class that I offer, but I wanted to help someone who may not have had the money to pay. for class schedules, or to schedule a group of twelve or more at your location, please contact me. My rig for making char is able to travel. At the class site, all we need is five to ten gallons (about 20 to 40 liters) of dry sawdust, about a quart of rain water, some local compost, a fire pit and enough firewood to have a bonfire for several hours. The classes work best if there is a potluck at the end. This gives participants time to make some of their own to make sure they get to own the process. This material gives you the ability to love soil back to optimal performance, it sequesters carbon and stabilizes soil moisture.

I am pledging to send char to the headwaters above Austin, Texas. they are ground zero this week for the effects of climate change. If we utilize char on a large scale, we could stem the tide of climate catastrophe. What we seem to lack is the will. There is no reason that char did not make it into the current farm bill. In my experience, quality works by example and invites reciprocation. Taking steps to heal the rift between humankind and nature needs to be out focus for at least a few dozen generations, just to find out if we can tame the carbon footprint that we blew out of scale over the past hundred years. In the now, we have the power to change course, in a huge way. Doubling agricultural production allows so many changes to come about. We can reduce acres under cultivation and yet still raise more food. We can begin to produce larger amounts of food closer to population centers, to increase health, reduce costs and kick the habit of petroleum. since char can hold up to six times its own weight in water, it would reduce negative effects of both drought and flood. Once char gets colonized by microbes, the water holding capacity is increased again, to more than double that amount.

I am available for classes in making char and although I need to make a living, teachers never get rich. I can work as a biochar consultant for far less than anyone who might want to, or claim to do with fertilizers and hazardous chemicals. Char facilitates healthy plants which are naturally resistant to pests. If you are at all unsure, run your own test plot, treating half with char and leave half alone. I guarantee you will want more for future growing seasons!
I am always willing to help. Contact me through my e-mail. tnsaladino(number fourty-two)@hotmail.com or send payments for char to that as my account number through Paypal. ECO-Tours of Wisconsin is also raising funds to send char to the headwaters above where the terrible flooding was this week. Send money if you can! This is a teachable moment.

Pagan Sanctuary Update

We are earnestly beginning the fund-raising cycle for purchasing a Pagan Sanctuary. ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. has begun collecting monies for a single location that will be central to Northeast Wisconsin and visible to the larger community. A place where nature is encouraged to recover and pagans are welcome to perform their rites. We are limiting this area to only non-invasive activities and there will be no permanent structures allowed, other than perhaps a trail, circle or perhaps a few cairns to signify solar and lunar events.

donations can be made directly for this purpose at ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier Street Green Bay, WI 54301-3334 any donations made should also include Pagan Sanctuary on either the letter or check. You can still use our paypal account, tnsaladino42Ahotmail.com or you can make arrangements for a direct transfer to our account by e mail. contacting our director and guide, Tony C. Saladino would also be a way to make sure that your donations go to the right account.

There had been some talk about locating another gas station on the site, but the public support for some other use of the property was overw3helming, located, as it is about half a mile (in each direction) from two other gas stations. This particular location is especially beneficial because it sits between two banks atop one of the highest hills in our town. This property was also the site of the former Catholic diocese headquarters. as such it was built on an ancient pagan sacred space and is highly appropriate for continued use as a sacred space. ECO-Tours is also looking for people who want to help with fund-raising for this project in and around their own communities. Not every church has walls and this one will be for like-minded individuals and groups that just need a place to gather.

For privacy, we will be encircling the area in native plantings and to encourage others to take a moment to just sit in nature and relax, we will have a few benches.

Just For This Moment

Imagine that we all wake up to the fact that our will is being subverted. The desires of the majority for peace, true security, ecological responsibility and an end to the concentration of wealth, yet the masses walk in lock step toward a cliff as surely as they have been told to. Herd mentality can morph into revolution only when people know the score and what "team" they are on. Class warfare has raged for so long that we no longer recognize it. Our state houses are mostly bought and paid for by the same .002% who dip into their coffers to finance campaigns, as is Congress. Taking back our birthright to free flowing clear and clean rivers, exacting real penalties to those who desecrate the Earth, those are things we all agree on. Imagine the transformations that are about to occur. The revolution that is not being televised is born from dreams, funded by action and sustained through organization. Blessings to the committed participants and may we all find the courage to get active and organize, not just resistance, but positive action toward soul-utions.

Biochar Class!

Our most recent class was for a not-for-profit group of about twenty freinds who have committed to restoring 100 acres to health. If you would like to assist in the building of healthy soil, please don't hesitate to contact us at: ECO-Tours of Wisconsin, Inc. Outdoor schools are definitely able to blend knowledge with a novel way of learning that enhances our uptake of information, and a sense of being part of, rather than estranged from nature.

4-4 Electric Bike

This is such an awesome concept. I have not tried one yet myself, but this is the year for me, I'm about to buy an electric scooter. The scooter, from an Indian company, Mahindra will have a thirty mile range (getting me nearly all the way to work on a single charge) and the removable battery pack charges in just a few hours. I have friends who have electrified their own bikes, but the ground up design of the Mahindra scooter makes it ideal for my needs. Combining the most efficient motive force generator, the electric motor, with the bicycle, the most efficient means of transport available, slashes carbon emissions but still moves our bodies from place to place. Remember, not long ago, the Segway scooter seemed poised to revolutionize the personal transportation market. That would have required both charging stations and parking for the devices, neither of which seem to be forthcoming. With electric bikes, the infrastructure for parking exists most places already and remote charging of smaller batteries, that can be removed from the vehicles get us back into existing infrastructure support.

Worldwide, air pollution kills three million people per year. Three times the number who die in car accidents. Air pollution can create or complicate, asbestosis, chronic bronchitis, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), asthma, sinusitis, mesothelioma and other forms of lung cancer. It has been calculated that fly ash alone, a waste product from coal-fired electric generating facilities in the U.S. alone accounts for as many deaths as adding 100,000 new smokers to our population every year. Think about that the next time you have a choice between an efficient electric product and an inefficient one. any steps we can take to reign in our use of fossil energy is good and reducing the demand side of the equation will always be cheaper and more effective than trying to clean up the mess we have to make increasing supply.

I have always been a bike fanatic. When I got my first tricycle, the front wheel was tiny and my feet had to spin wildly to go slowly, which was not much fun. But the day I got my large wheel tricycle, I felt my first taste of freedom. That bike allowed me to go up and down the sidewalk like the wind. Bikes can actually move us through town and traffic faster than large vehicles can. I have actually rode circles around giant semis just for fun when I was a young punk. The drivers are trapped, like giant beetles on their backs, unable to get up much speed. They may have significant power to weight ratios, but because of their mass, have to start out slow. A bike can get up to speed in just a few turns of the crank. The aesthetic design, the beauty of the bicycle is that form has followed function so elegantly that it "works". On short trips especially, it is far less hassle than a car and with a motor assist, your legs are spared for part or all of the trip.

4-3 Tiny Acts Reflect Big Picture

Context is everything. We may set a hundred, or even three-hundred and sixty-five small challenges to make the Earth a better place, from conserving water during showers or in brushing ones teeth, only running the dishwasher when it is full, or combining trips to save petrol. Now with LED technology, if every household replaced a single incandescent bulb, it would reduce emissions as much as taking one million vehicles off our roads. The avoided costs for coal alone, used to produce the majority of our power, would be 25,500 rail cars full! That would represent about two hundred million dollars worth of coal. Avoided costs only take us so far, investing in solutions that make sense longer term is the only way to build a sustainable culture. Mass transit and efficient, walking and bike friendly cities initiatives are beginning to break out everywhere. As commutes get shorter, all electric commuting becomes viable as well and that slashes emissions by over half, even when charged with dirty coal, simply because electric motors are so much more efficient than gasoline powered vehicles. We are in a position where great strides can be made with a few simple decisions and the only way to get what we want is to vote for candidates who make ecological awareness part of the decision-making process. Driving hybrids is a start, being able to rent or borrow one occasionally would be much better! I looked at my driving habits and compared them to the national average...they say that I have about .314 car. That means the average car drives over three times as much as I do! That is the power of walking and riding bike, ride sharing and carpooling.My small acts will now be to whittle that down even further, from less than 200 gallons of fuel per year to maybe one hundred, or less! Every drop counts. This is the whole reason that I teach about bio-car, how to make it and how to use it. If we develop the will to use it, and learn what we are actually doing to our soils, it would cut by half the amount of diesel used to plow the fields of the planet. Every acre would double production and there is no way to patent or trademark the material. Using what is in the public domain to solve issues of hunger and distribution of food would heal many of the worst problems across the planet.Increased production would alleviate local hunger issues greatly if we significantly reduce mega-scale farms. Another benefit that would accrue to even large farms is that char reduces the need for fertilizers by half as well, meaning less costly inputs. also, as the soil is built, rather than destroyed, it holds water and the very inputs that cost so much. These expensive inputs can easily run off the land and end up downstream choking local and distant waterways with oxygen depleting algae. Ultimately, we always face a choice. We must decide between giving back to nature, reflecting the laws of nature creating zero waste, or to blow through resources like there is no tomorrow. We must also realize that there are no dollars to be made by telling you not to buy a bigger truck than you need, or that extra boat, however, we will all be better off if you learn to borrow those things when you really need them and plant some trees along your path to work with the money you save. If you would like us to plant them for you, I looked up how many trees I would have to plant to sequester as much carbon as I burn up in gasoline every year. It turns out, that I need to plant 460 just for that. If I planted 46 trees, it would take 10 years to sequester that much carbon. Rest assured, ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. will be planting far more than that, so if you want to plant trees, but don't have the time, send us a donation and we will plant some for you! We can't officially be in the carbon sequestration market, but it costs about $10 per tree with prepping, planting, protecting and weeding, but our survival rate is extremely high. so, thumbnail math here, if you drive like I do and use about two hundred gallons of fuel per year, that would be 460 trees or 4600 dollars. If you drive the average amount, it would cost about 14K to offset your emissions by having ECO-tours plant trees. Give what you can, we'll understand. somethnig si always better than nothing and don't forget to drive less and walk more!

4-2 Illegal Dumping

This is a very pervasive issue and one that comes with a bit of wry humor attached. There are millions of tons of waste discharged legally, so the illegal dumping seems to be a bit less dangerous, however, when illegal dumping is allowed, it can lead folks to think that any dumping is acceptable. There have been almost as many recovery operations for illegally dumped materials as trips to the woods for me. It seems that every time i go to the wilds, I return with illegally dumped waste. In fact, much of my life, people never thought twice about driving up as close as possible to a ravine or breach hole and throwing all manner of trash out into the environment. Many modern landfills are able to sequester waste much more effectively than in the past, but the unsightliness of refuse continues to be a problem in almost every place people settle or pass through. In addition, there are legal ways to "dispose" of waste that defy logic and even though some are allowed to pump toxic wastes into our drinking water supplies and even though surface waters are also allowed to be used as sewers in many areas, does not mean that we should grow complacent. This is something we all need to be aware of, document and demand clean up. As the cost of disposing of waste increases, the lure for people to dump illegally increases as well and for some the temptation is too great or they think that "just this little bit" won't make a difference. However, in my considerable experience, trash breeds trash and once a single item is placed in an improper resting place, other objectionable things follow. Many a trail has become strewn with rubbish because someone tried to throw a single item beyond their view, down the cliff, only to have it snag on the precipice, before long, you have empty bottles and cigarette butts all around the area. Without exception, pack it out! Whatever waste you leave behind degrades the place forever. a friend, just yesterday, told me the story of having found a beer can in the woods. It was a Bicentennial commemorative can, manufactured in 1976. When I asked him if he disposed of it properly, he laughed and said, "No, I took a picture of it, posted it to my social network, and put it back down, where I found it." Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what he did. Trash, can last for decades at least. One of the things manufacturers say is "It's recyclable." Well, if that is so, then take your waste back and recycle it! Many a trail head gets strewn with disgusting waste only because people are unprepared, lazy, inept, or just plain rude to fellow travelers. In the military, they have a word for cleaning up all trace of human beings, they call it policing. It is well to remember that someone else will pass by this same place and they do not need to see our mess. Only by being ever-vigilant can we hope to reign in illegal dumping, but more so, we need to cultivate in other human beings, the idea that the planet as a whole is a sacred space, deserving of our compassion. After all, our well-being, or lack of it depends on an intact ecosystem able to support our lives. It turns out that the forests really are the lungs of the planet, along with phytoplankton that float in the oceans. The habitat for many of these microscopic creatures who figure so heavily into the atmospheric oxygen equation are having to compete in the worlds gyrae for space with the plastic that is choking the oceans.