GDP | Gross Domestic Problem | Why the measurement of wealth depends on a healthy environment |

why trees matter | mushrooms offer solutions | Handprint | Gross National Happiness

When I walk or ride along streets basically every where, I look at trees as I pass them by. I see trees as elegant beings, that besides providing oxygen and shade and beauty, create a home for insects, birds and other animals. They are an integral part of what has created life as we know it on our planet.

This Op-Ed article in the New York times sparked my interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/opinion/why-trees-matter.html

Walnut tree in a gentleman's yard in Pennsylvania.

As this writer states, “In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes.” Ah, and sunlight is hardly insubstantial – as I write about in my other blog regarding plasma cosmology and the electric universe theory.

“Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain.

Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution.”

I will let you read the rest of the article yourself, instead of copying and pasting it ‘-))

Yet, on the same subject, mushrooms also have the capacity to filter and clean toxicities out of the environment, as this article in UTNE reader demonstrates. “Mushrooms Offer Solutions for Environment and Economy”

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html?quote=294

An image of mycelium below.

“Human beings are more closely related to fungi, than they are to any other kingdom. Within a single cubic inch of soil, there can be 8 miles of these cells. Mycelium are externalized stomachs and lungs, essentially extended neurological membranes.” Paul goes on to say that mycelium form a fabric which is the biological version of earth’s natural internet. The internet, in turn, is man’s tool, or extension, which can be allocated to protect the biosphere”. It’s kind of like the concept that DNA replicates itself, in order for life to ultimately witness and see itself.

We can not measure the worth and wealth of a country or its peoples through qualifiers like the GDP, Gross Domestic Product; the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders, because this becomes a

Gross Domestic Problem

Gross Domestic Problem

Bhutan has a more enlightened way of approaching the subject, with the King’s assertion of a measure of Gross National Happiness!

Recognize that happiness and environmental health play a much larger role in the attributes which contribute to ‘quality of life’, than ‘wealth’, as measured by economic means alone. Bill McKibben who started 350.org contributed this article about the politics of global warming for the Rolling Stone magazine “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math“.

We need to pay attention to our carbon footprint, showing the detrimental results of our actions on the environment as well as to actively become aware of our social handprint, revealing the benefits of our actions on nature; with the concept of balancing out what we take, through what we share and give!! Our handprint measures the positive impacts we can make, simply by changing the way we do things; at home, at work…

You can read more about this
http://challengingbehaviour.marketingmagazine.co.uk/2012/03/05/forget-your-carbon-footprint-whats-your-handprint/

Why does this matter? Because we don’t inhabit this planet alone.

http://www.joelsartore.com/galleries/the-photo-ark/