UN World Environment Day June 5th | Ethical Footprint | Ethical vs. Unethical Construction

I hadn’t known, had I not gone on the internet, that the United Nations declared a World Environment Day of June 5th. Fabulous that there is a designated day to be aware of the environment.

World Environment Day June 5th

On World Environment Day, and every day, we should all be thinking creatively about how to accommodate wildlife in our own lives. Trees, bushes, waterways, clean air and water, highway animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways with plants attracting pollinators, with a consciousness Promoting Smarter Wildlife Management.

I’d like to point out what I learned, walking around in neighborhoods that I love, because of their fabulous properties of trees and beautiful adornment of living plants, that naturally attract and welcome living animals.

To me, nothing, nothing is more spectacular than the natural world. And the properties with old money on this hill adjacent to where i live demonstrate their wisdom, in adorning and conserving as much nature as possible. You hear birds, see rabbits and other life hopping about.

This property with the yellow circle around it, is a disgrace. They wiped out thickly forested lot, to build a sprawling mansion, with not one tree left behind. I’d spray paint my feelings, except that it won’t bring the trees or life back that the owners destroyed, in order to build their outrageous sprawl, a desolate prison, with no life to regard.

It is an example of unethical behavior.

An ethical consumer looks for products which are both friendly to the environment and for the people who produce them.

The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.
“An ‘ethical consumer’ looks for products which, above all, are both friendly to the environment and also the people who produce them. An ethical consumer is therefore aware of the consequences of production, consumption and disposal.”
Let the pictures do the talking. I avoid going down this street because i feel annoyance at the nouveau riche lack of heart and insight and sadness, knowing  that all of these lovely trees were wiped out, affecting so many different creatures. An elderly man whom I chatted with one evening 5 months or so ago, told me when I mentioned this reckless building, that the property had several hundred year old trees on it, in fact, from the looks of googlemaps before it was updated, dozens of trees.

I discovered recently with delight this property within a frisbee throw, catecornered across the street. As one approaches from several angles, all you see is a mini forest.

thickly forested green plot, before picture

 

And what they did to the once forested property. This home could have been a third the size, and maintained a profoundly beautiful plot that their children could play in an that invites wonder and habitation by many species.

unethical_building_trees gone

 

 

This builder, knocked down, gutted, every single tree, every single one of them, to make this sprawling property with a tiny bit of lawn and a lot of asphalt to accommodate their cars. It is revolting. And the property across the street with the green ring, as you approach you only see, feel and hear the silence of a forest with birds. It is breathtakingly beautiful. So that the actual construction is engulfed, ringed by trees, except in the front. And the new building in the yellow, is what the builders created, destroying all life that was there, and making sure none of it will come back. They did not even plant bushes – very necessary for cover and a humane yard – and other plants with the intention to accommodate birds and animals – a Humane Backyard.

ethical_vs_unethical_building

All life that had been there or could walk or fly by, has no place to go, no life, no green, no water source, no tree for life, no butterfly or pollinator by-way, nothing. Just me, me, me and my big property that is hollow of life and nature’s delight.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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hawk in Pennsylvania that was taking a bird bath

Jane Goodall Recycle E Devices | Kate Raworth Economy Design – Thrive not Grow

Jane Goodall presently has a campaign:

The Forest is Calling. Answering the Call is Our Only Hope

Jane Goodall Everything is Connected Everyone Can Make a Difference

It was estimated that up to 50 million tons of electronic waste—mainly computers and smartphones—was dumped in 2017 alone (UNEP).

Jane Goodall The Forest is Calling Answering it is our only Hope

Jane Goodall Recycle unwanted Mobile Devices

Jane Goodall Terribly Important Recycle Old Cell Phones

Kate Raworth has an essential concept to consider in her TEDtalk regarding redesigning our economic strategies, away from the dependency on continued growth, in a world with finite resources and space, to one which nourishes the natural world and recognizes the worth of allowing all life to thrive. – an Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Distributed vs. Centralized

Kate Raworth TED talk
Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Ecological Ceiling Social Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Carol sitting under the trees

Caught my Eye…One Year Later | While Looking over Blogs

It wasn’t till a year later, glancing over what blogs were viewed, from what countries, making corrections, just looking….that I noticed this image.

I hadn’t noticed my shadow as I took the picture.

Title, because of the love portrayed between myself, the photographer and the tree I stopped to admire.

and really hadn’t noticed till i looked more closely how the bark’s texture and shadows and form of the tree creates quite a real, perfectly angled and proportioned body melding with the tree.

 

Here, I’ll accentuate it a bit.  Kind of magical no?

outlined shadow of blogger, photographer carol Keiter gold

and again

 

 

photoshop outline of shadow merging with contours of tree green

I changed it from this version with the pointier chin.

Outlining using photoshop the image I see through the shadow and tree bark and lines.

 

Kind of ironic, no, that the blog was about Being Intensely Present, and I missed seeing this!

Be Intensely Present

Donations for Carol Keiter’s writing, eBook, music composition and art, gratefully accepted!

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter contact

blogger, portrait drawer, painter, photographer, musician, composer

India Travel Tips: dress, theft, electronics to pollution

Sharing some India travel tips I gathered in my preparations; from several western women travelers as well as Indian natives who were raised there.

• Don’t leave purses, bags, valuables by open windows – on trains for example -and or behind flimsy walls. I heard the story from a friend whose tent was sliced open as her purse was lifted from where it was perched at the base of a window, while she slept.
• Keep an extra purse in an available pocket, separate from where you keep your money, passport and valuables hidden, so that it appears that you only have this available to be taken.
• VISA’s are in high demand these days, everywhere, no doubt contributing to a black market movement to assist in the massive immigration of people desperate to start a new life. I was informed that western VISAs are targeted – whether you’re in NYC, London or traveling throughout Asia or Africa. Keep it hidden.
• Better to use a credit card than debit card, having heard of stories of people being escorted around to take money out of one, and then another ATM.
• Speaking of ATM machines, an Indian woman informed me not to take money out of ATM’s that are out in the street in India. They are likely to be scam machines. Use ATM’s in banks.
• Women, adjust your fashion to accommodate the tendencies of the country you are visiting. Wear long sleeves, long pants, loose, rather than tight and provocative clothing. Perhaps wear a scarf around your chest to further district attention. No need to stand out for the wrong reasons and attracting the wrong kind of attention.
• Regarding clothing, there’s more forgiveness for casual wear in cities that are modern or when you’re hanging out with a group of friends, than more traditional cities or rural areas. People have a tendency to be less tolerant, no matter where you are, the further you get away from the coasts, which tend to be more liberal.
• Some of the larger cities in India are quite polluted, and not particularly pleasant to walk around in if there’s 12 foot visibility through a screen of smog. Here’s a good indicator to follow, a real-time global pollution index, to perhaps guide you with a more informed decision of where you may wish to head to next. http://aqicn.org/map/india/

Real-time International Air Polllution Index

• As someone who is old school – traveling with a laptop rather than merely a smart Phone – I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t fry my Mac.
– Not only do you need the appropriate ‘adapter’ in order to plug in to the compatible socket in India, – It’s a good idea to have a ‘surge protector’, which I always have no matter where I am.
– However, a surge protector is only compatible with the voltage reflecting the country in which it is produced.
– Surge protectors from France or Germany are compatible with India – both operating within the 220 to 240 V range. Whereas a surge protector produced In the US, where the voltage is 110 to 120 V, will not function in India.
– In addition to a ‘surge protector’, you will benefit from having a device that protects you from voltage fluctuations, called a ‘voltage regulator’. Better to be safe and relaxed, than worried or worse, horrified, as your digitally created baby is sautéed.

What Humans Currently Do | Excerpts from “The Universe Story”

Our Solar System arose 4.5 Billion years ago. The Earth has evolved – through a series of transformations – to even enable life to form.

From the beginning, as our universe continues to evolve in its cosmogenesis, intelligent intent is present – at all levels > towards differentiation, autopoiesis and communion.

NASA image Cygnus Loop Supernova Stellar Explosion 15,000 years ago

 

Excerpts from the authors

Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry of “The Universe Story”

Ecological Buddhism – A Buddhist Response to Global Warming

Presently, the human race enters the The Ecozoic Era.

Brian Swimme is one of the main people with whom to study, to understand the cosmological shift necessary to a new cosmology.

 

 

“As the natural world recedes in its diversity and abundance, so the human finds itself impoverished in its economic resources, its imaginative powers, its human sensitivities and in significant aspects of its intellectual intuitions.”

Davastation of a Rainforest

 

Here’s a link to the footage of Forest Heroes from a drone of the devastation of a rainforest: Astra’s forest destruction in Indonesia.

 

“The pathos is that we are presently deliberately terminating the most awesome splendor that the planet has yet attained. We are extinguishing the rainforests, the most luxuriant life system of the entire planet, at the rate of an acre each second of each day. Each year we are destroying a rainforest area the size of Oklahoma.

Throughout the planet we are not only extinguishing present forms of life, yet also eliminating the very conditions for the renewal of life in some of its more elaborate forms.

We have moved from such evils as suicide, homicide, and genocide, to biocide and geocide, the killing of the life systems of the planet and the severe degradation if not the killing of the planet itself. We have moved from simple physical assault on the planet, to disturbance of the chemical balance of the planet through our petrochemical industries, to questionable manipulation of the genetic constitution of the living being of the planet by our genetic engineering, to the radioactive wasting of the planet through our nuclear industries.”

Bird sanctuary at Gulf Petrochemicals Industries Co.

 

Ironically, this image of a bird sanctuary at Gulf Petrochemicals Industries Co., is courtesy of the president of the Petro company. A public relations blog on how hunky dory everything is, with the company sitting on top of a fragile ecosystem.

 

 

“That human well-being could be achieved by diminishing the well being of the Earth, that a rising Gross Domestic Product could ignore the declining Gross Earth Product, is the basic flaw in the Wonderland Myth.”

momgoesgreen.com:my-thoughts-on-the-gulf-oil-spill

 

 

“These centuries of “progress” are now ending with increasing stress for the human is final evidence that;

what humans do to the outer world they do to their own interior world.

 

! Next Blog ¡ What we humans need to do in our emerging Echoic Era, to allow the paradigm shift in our conscious awareness to emerge.

We are Earth> Occupy the Planet!

“Pity Earth’s Creatures” Edward Hoagland | “No” film by Pablo Larraín

“Pity Earth’s Creatures” By Edward Hoagland was published March 23, 2013
The author, Edward Hoagland is a longtime nature and travel writer, and the author of the forthcoming novel “Children Are Diamonds: An African Apocalypse.”

Here are excerpts highlighted from his article:

Power to the people is a worldwide revolutionary slogan advancing democracy, but presupposes a more ancient meaning: the prehistoric conquest of every other vertebrate on earth.

There are precedents for our imperial decline but not, in written history, for climate alteration on the scale that’s looming or for gargantuan extinctions in forest and ocean — our global skin.

Kindle presents a lapful of world thought and literature on tap at a tap, but will the owners pore over it with wholehearted absorption, as book lovers used to do? And when cars drive themselves, will the operators lavish their leisure on the landscape or on a tablet in their hands?
But love is central to life, now and again overriding selfishness for a spell. Love, mercy, pity are vividly called for with respect to corals, songbirds, sea mammals, lofty trees and other majesties, not to mention endangered pleasures like eating clams and marveling at the starshine in the depthless heavens. Nature is undefended by the powers that be, having no vote or much innate appeal to the sort of “people people” who run for office. They don’t saunter (Thoreau’s favorite term) and gaze, turn off the motor and open the window when passing a pond to hear the spring peepers sing — won’t know if the frogs have all died from toxicities. They’ll jog on a treadmill for their heart’s health while scanning spreadsheets. It’s not just ponds being steamrollered for industry, but gazing itself being lost to Twitter. The attention span involved in formulating a menagerie out of cloud shapes in the sky while lax on one’s back in the grass has been eclipsed by what’s interesting on-screen 20 inches away…

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

In response to his true and tragic view at what we humans have done, a woman commented on his Time’s article mentioning that rather than only honing in to the gloom, we could do a left turn by looking at the example the movie “No”, made in Chile demonstrates. In response to Pinochet’s oppressive regime, Pablo Larraín’s No dramatizes Chile’s Berlin Wall moment in 1988. Under international pressure to legitimize his government, but bathing in the support of a newly prosperous middle and upper-middle class and hugely confident of success, General Pinochet allowed a referendum on whether he would be allowed another eight years in office. This movie dramatizes the “No” campaign devised by young advertising executive René Saavedra, played by Gael García Bernal, who decided to stay away from angry political images and instead emphasize an upbeat, almost apolitical vision of happiness and the future.

http://www.takepart.com/no-movie

Nelson Mandela | “Our Deepest Fear” by Marianne Williamson | movie: Coach Carter

I just saw this film, a very empowering and heartening story Coach Carter, based on a true story about Ken Carter, a Richmond, CA basketball coach.

In it, I was re minded of one of my favorite quotes, which was a core part of the movie. I had been under the impression that it was a quote by Nelson Mandela – as had the people who made the movie and numerous people who have attributed this speech to Mandela. I’ve been corrected. “Our Deepest Fear” is a quote by Marianne Williamson; an American spiritual teacher, author and lecturer.

QUOTE BY MARIANNE WILLIAMSON – NOT – NELSON MANDELA

I am heartbroken to read that Nelson Mandela died yesterday at 95 years old. A leader who fought for what he believed in and exemplified integrity; someone who ‘means what he says and says what he means’.

Nelson Mandela dies at 95 former South African president

As Nelson Mandela said in his extraordinary speech in 2005 on London’s Trafalgar Square, “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his actions against apartheid, to emerge as South Africa’s leader, working to guide Africa’s largest economy through bloodshed and turmoil to democracy. The world mourns Mandela, a Giant for Justice

Mandela smiling
a “Giant for Justice”