“The last person to trust with power is someone who is dying to have it. The best person to wield power is someone who is reluctant to do so, but who will do it for a while as a civic Read more…
“We must be careful not to believe things simply because we want them to be true. No one can fool you as easily as you can fool yourself.” Richard Feynman. A question I have asked often of my readers is, Read more…
The problem with industrial farming is that it is a one size fits all kind of situation, but different areas with different ecosystems and microecosystems do not really lend themselves to that mentality. In the last post, I mentioned that Read more…
Most people do not associate food with their sovereignty, but it is one of the most crucial freedoms we have. For most people it is a simple process of going to the grocery store, but stop and think about the Read more…
So, what is personal sovereignty? Plain and simple, just being you, or more the you would want to be if you were not busy running in the proverbial rat race. Being you is being part of something beyond yourself without Read more…
“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Janis Joplin – You got nothing left to lose…you can leave it all behind for its the anchor that holds you down…from being free. For many decades the consumer dream, driven Read more…
If this past year of 2020 (and continuing in 2021) has taught us anything, it should be that we need to become more self-sufficient as individuals and as communities that live in the same area. What does seem to have Read more…
“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people” Henry Kisinger. I fully intended to just do a localized food growing post, but I watched a short news interview with noted Indian sustainability scholar-activist Vandana Shiva, and Read more…
The title of this post, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics, has been attribute to Mark Twain when he was commenting on the role of politicians in our lives, whose job it seems is now to cover up, white wash, or Read more…
“The Great Reset is an attempt to create a plausible impression that the huge winners in this system are on the verge of voluntarily setting greed aside to get serious about solving the raging crises that are radically destabilizing our Read more…
I have spent many posts recently emphasizing connectedness. The only people I have ever met who say they do not want to be connected are people who are angry and hateful at the negative aspects of the world as it Read more…
“Grapes must be crushed to make wine. Diamonds form under pressure. Olives are pressed to release oil. Seeds grow in darkness. Whenever you feel crushed, under pressure, pressed, or in darkness, you’re in a powerful place of transformation and transmutation. Read more…
I have been reading a lot these past few months, on all kinds of media (Left, Right, Mass, and Alternate), about something called the ‘Great Reset.’ This ‘Great Reset’ agenda sounds OK on the surface until one looks more closely Read more…
As most of you will realize in reading my blog, I spend more time talking about our collective cognition as the problem and not just the technological problems we create through our lifestyle choices. Environmental Educator David Orr talks about Read more…
Only through illumination of the past does a new future become visible. Here is where I take an incredibly complex idea and distill it down to an essential 100 words. I have been sat at my computer this past first Read more…
When people are afraid of losing something they need either physically or psychologically, they can be controlled. People with nothing left to lose can be dangerous to those in charge. The controllers placate them with enough things in their lives Read more…
There is no shortage of great thinkers and researchers who have illuminated the risks being imposed up on us with consumerist worldview. Michael Pollan has clearly expressed the problems with our industrial food systems (see earlier post Relocalization and Community Read more…
In May 2020 I talked a bit about vaccines (posts Vaccines: part 1-5). With the push to release the Covid-19 (C-19) vaccine, in keeping with my current risk theme, here is a long update summary from what I have studying Read more…
(I have been asked to list the dates {month, day, year} for previous posts I refer to in my blog to help readers find them without having to scroll the now lengthy list of blog posts on this site.) First, Read more…
In the last post I emphasized how despite all the technological advances (and actually because of), we do not live in a risk-free world, and never will. I love hearing people quote anecdotal stories of gramps who smoked 40 cigarettes Read more…
Quoted material without a citation is from my Environmental Communication textbook. In general, we accept risks we choose to accept (or do not know about), complain about risks that are we know are imposed up on us, and bemoan when Read more…
In my last post I outlined how experts and everyone else view risk differently. Risk experts like to talk about numbers that reflect mortality and morbidity, while non-experts view risk on a set of personal heuristics (outrage factors) to decide Read more…
“To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while “ John-Paul Sartre It has been fascinating to observe how government officials have been drafting up all manner of draconian laws to ‘protect’ us all Read more…
I am not a doomsayer, but we are on the cusp of an economic crisis unprecedented in human history. We’ve had major depressions like the one precipitated by the 1929 stock market collapse, and several major recessions during the last Read more…
“Progress is impossible without change, and those that cannot change their minds cannot change anything” George Bernard Shaw. For many years, in my Sustainable Living textbook and when I was at conferences talking about my positive views of a sustainable Read more…
“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Read more…
A bit of a later post this weekend – we have a firestorm blazing in the forests just 8 miles northwest of us, raining ash and pouring smoke in red-orange hues over our homes. More like a scene from Lord Read more…
“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” William Plomer. I am always surprised when I would introduce an innovative idea to a group I was working with and receive the reply, “it won’t work” because we don’t do Read more…
Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not. Oscar Wilde. How we look at the world is central to how we allow ourselves to think beyond the limiting mental boxes Read more…
I am going to get a tad esoteric in this blog post but I do so to point out just how our thinking has become so dogmatic and inflexible. I am going to talk about incredible new energy research technology Read more…