Mar 23 2012
* This article was written in collaboration with Eduardo Rubio. All pictures by Eduardo Rubio. Posted on the Huffington Post 3-22-12
I know of a Dominican woman who crossed the United States frontier illegally, looking for a better life for her and her family in Puerto Rico. She paid a smuggler a couple thousand dollars to cross the treacherous Mona channel on a small wooden boat, known as a “yola,” with fourteen other souls. After being lost at sea for some time she is unable to quantify, the man in charge threw a sick person overboard to stop his unnerving whining. They almost capsized in waters infested with sharks. When food supplies ran out, a mother offered her breast milk to her fellow travelers and saved them from dehydration. Miraculously, they made it.
She never meant to stay for life in U.S. territory. Her plan was to work as a maid, make some money and go back to her homeland to build a house at the countryside. But somewhere along the way her son was influenced by drug dealers and ended up in jail. She worked hard for two decades and legalized her status. Little by little she built a house back at home, where she would like to retire someday. The problem is she cannot leave because, in a way, she is in jail too, as she would never leave her son behind.
Boundaries and frontiers are an arbitrary thing. Right from the moment you are born, they determine your life expectancy and many other important factors such as health conditions, personal freedoms, the access to water, food and education you will have. We all live in a world defined by frontiers: physical, mental, personal, collective, moral, private, public, inner and outer space frontiers, just to name a few. There are all kinds of frontiers, some necessary and others completely obsolete. But in our interconnected world, where time and space have virtually shrunk in recent years, the matter deserves a fresh look. After all, the concept of a global village is an active process. Today, our frontiers intersect in an unprecedented manner. The new order forces us to shift our focus from action to reaction. At all times we must consider in advance the consequences of our actions, as the results are experienced without delay.
Still, those who trespass frontiers are often judged on a one-dimensional level that doesn’t seem to work anymore. Who truly doesn’t respect frontiers? The person that crosses a border to escape extreme poverty and violence, or those who refuse to help a fellow human in need? Who is ultimately responsible for contaminating the planet? The real person that consumes questionable products, or the abstract “corporate citizen” that creates them in the first place? Is it justified to allow private patents on medicine that can prevent pandemic disease? Is it OK to kill people in the name of peace? Is it justifiable to put profit above life? The answers to these questions will depend on your own intellectual frontiers, of course. Let’s travel around the globe for a quick inventory of boundaries.
The stunning and sparsely inhabited Alaska, contains petroleum reserves of 11,000 million barrels in its subsoil. We consume around 20 million barrels per day, more than one fourth of the world’s total. As a result, we generate 25 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Despite predictions that the U.S. will exhaust it’s supply of oil in as little as forty years, the demand is on the rise, and it is predicted to increase at a rate of about 2 percent yearly. It is estimated that the Earth has roughly 25 years of known petroleum reserves.
The life of African women is very harsh. A hundred and thirty million of them have suffered the ablation of the clitoris, and every year there are two million more. This practice is common in thirty countries on girls from the ages of four to ten. It is not a Muslim tradition or an initiation rite; its sole purpose is to repress their sexuality.
Five decades of embargo have led to Cuba’s biggest economic crisis in history. Many families break the law to make ends meet, for instance by selling cigars or beef in secret. Since the law punishes killing a cow with a 10-year sentence, people leave animals alongside the roads or railway tracks in the hope that a truck or train will kill them. The punishment for merely cutting up a dead animal is much lighter.
Set on the bank of the Ganges river, Varanasi is the great holy city of India. Since ancient times millions of devout Hindus have come to die here, because it guarantees them the end of the cycle of reincarnations and direct ascent to paradise. This frontier — a gateway to heaven — receives over 3,000 human bodies every year. Well-off families cremate their dead and sprinkle their ashes over the waters. But the poor can usually raise only a few rupees for a little fire wood, meaning that the meager flames merely scorch the skin of the body and the corpse is pushed into the river to join thousands of animal carcasses that further contaminate the waste waters arriving from towns and cities upstream. In contrast with the legend that speaks of “pure and uncontaminated water”, the Ganges is intensely polluted and a prime source of infection of disease for one of the most populated countries on Earth.
Poverty is defined as a state of privation and a lack of basic necessities. According to the United States Census Bureau, the nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent (46.2 million) in 2010, almost 5 percent more than in 2000. Roughly 50 million people cannot afford health insurance in the United States of America. If that is the situation in one of the richest nations of the world, what is left for those surviving in the third world?
Extreme poverty drives countries to the over-exploitation of their resources and the degradation of their farmland. Africa has lost over five million hectares of forest every year in the last ten years, and much of its land is now barren or semi-barren. The UN estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa will not be able to reduce its poverty by half until 2147.
According to the New York Times, at least 22 Afghan children under 5 have frozen to death this past month alone. The living conditions of thousands of war refugees in Kabul, Afghanistan, are terribly harsh. Obliged to live among the ruins, often without running water, electricity or heating and medical assistance, everyday they wage a battle simply to find food.
Women represent 43 percent of agricultural labor in the developing countries and produce most of the basic foods in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. In general, they work 13 hours a week more than men. In a year, they transport over 80 tons of fuel, water and agricultural produce while men move barely 10 tons.
More than 34 million people now live with HIV/AIDS and more than two-thirds of the HIV/AIDS infected population live in sub-Saharan Africa, including 91 percent of the world’s HIV-positive children. In 2010, an estimated 1.9 million people in the region became newly infected. An estimated 1.2 million adults and children died of AIDS, accounting for 67 percent of the world’s AIDS deaths in 2010. – amFAR.org
There is medicine to treat the illness, but it just doesn’t reach those who need it most.
The burka, imposed by a traditionally patriarchal society, is designed to annul women’s identity in public, because the only space she is allowed to partially express herself is at home. Women must always leave home, to go to the market or to work in the fields, covered up this way, and only a few men, their closest relatives, ever see their faces. Amnesty International condemns violence against women all around the world: one in three suffer from it. But many countries have no legislation on the matter and establish no punishment for rape. In Rwanda, 39 percent of the women were raped in the nineties alone.
The world’s population is increasing but not its resources, and hunger is becoming a major problem. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculates that over 840 million people (of whom 300 million are kids and 11million of them living in rich countries) suffer from hunger. Of the 12 million children who die in the world every year, malnutrition kills 55 percent.
Only one percent of the water on the Earth is drinkable. Close to one billion people live without clean drinking water and adequate sanitation in three continents. Very soon, in 2025, one in four humans will live in places with no water to grow food.
With all these frontiers around us, it is inevitable to wonder what our plan is. To build a big wall around first world countries and pretend that nothing touches us? After all, we are in part responsible for many of the problems of the globe and we have plenty at home. When are we going to realize that we are all humans and all human issues concern us all? Can we get our act together and just do something? Or have we reached our ultimate frontier? There is no easy answer. There is no easy way. But those who get it have the responsibility to act. Now.
* This article was written in collaboration with Eduardo Rubio. All pictures by Eduardo Rubio.
Follow Monica Gutierrez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/trix3l
Feb 11 2012
I ran into this article about an urban garden in Lima, Peru.
It demonstrates how easy can be to beautify an urban environment, activating spaces for the public and adding a breath of air to concrete and stone surfaces.
More here:
http://mydesignstories.net/profiles/blogs/invasion-verde
Hello folks!
I know, I have been away for a while! But this year I am back and on fire, wanting to share new things with you.
Starting with this beautiful project, by Remi Studios, that I saw in Design Stories Social Network.
Sustainable architecture at its best.
” The project was developed based on the experience of “Architecture of catastrophes” of the International Union of Architects. He was nominated for the World Architecture Festival WAF – 2010 and received his third degree on the results of the First International Festival of innovative technologies in architecture and construction of “Green Project – 2010″ held in November this year in Moscow, in the “conceptual projects.”
http://mydesignstories.net/profiles/blogs/project-ark-by-remi-studio
There is more information on the project on Archdaily. Alison Furuto writes:
“The Ark”, which is designed as a bioclimatic building with independent life-support systems…(that) can be built on land or sea. Remizov envisioned this project as the house for the future which can be constructed quickly and withstand environmental disasters through its structural integrity.”
http://www.archdaily.com/103324/the-ark-remistudio/
I am sure you will love it as much as I did.
Dec 18 2011
Originally commissioned by the Commonwealth Club and presented at a program honoring Richard Alley (and remembering Stephen Schneider),
this video was later included in Ben Santer’s presentation at AGU conference.
Submitted to tgt by the filmmaker, Stephen Thomson. We hope you enjoy it.
Gora
Stephen Schneider: Science and Distortion
Nov 13 2011
As a Permaculturist I am here to support this cause, believing that it is we who are the crafters of our Reality and the designers of our Society. Now, many would contest this statement saying that there are very rich powerful people who are in control of our world and we are trapped in a world of their design. This may seem to be the case, but when you step back and look from far you will see that their “power” comes from our support or indifference, for me this is where the education and application of permaculture come in.
The limits to change our world are based on the limits that we have placed upon our own self. Our self identification is a construct of our mind, it exists is the abstract form of thought and hasn’t any concrete form, meaning it is subject to change. Because we identify with our bodies and thoughts, yet haven’t learned about their inner workings, it seems we are innocent victims of circumstance, being “products of our environment”. This self-defeating mode of the human thought is but a hiccup in our path of evolution, it is a fear of response-ability i.e. our ability to respond in new and unexpected ways to previously set patterns. The mind is a bit like a record it has grooves that we have created through repetition, the more we follow a particular groove the deeper embed this identity or habit-response-belief becomes.
I am speaking about CHANGE. How do we change our society and the world? It is not an easy feat, right? Well, the world and society are changing all the time as you know, so it isn’t about how we can change it, but how to direct its change.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”. This is MUCH easier said than done, without a doubt the grooves of our personal patterns are deep and most of us haven’t been given the tools to know how to skip the needle of our mind onto a new surface to create a totally new groove of our choosing.
Most of us have experienced some kind of dramatic turning point in our lives where we see things new and we feel different, again many times this seems to come about from some outside occurrence or circumstance. From my experience and perception this is not the case, somewhere deep within you there was a yearning for this change, normally this occurs within our subconscious, which we are out of touch with.
Our subconscious is a mysterious piece in this grand puzzle of change, we experience it mostly in our dreams, which are abstract and hard to make any sense of. Many people want a change in their life so badly, yet because they don’t have the tools to change the patterns of their mind, they try to bring it about by forcing change on their outer expression of patterns, i.e. behavior. This is a slippery slope, it can bring about real change if attention is given to changing the patterns of thought as well, but more often than not this approach does more harm than good.
There is no simple solution to this perceived barrier on the path of our evolution, all I know is, it takes a devoted effort to observing your own mind without judgement and an effort to respect others journey on this path of Life. It is an arduous journey that we are all treading every moment, facing the fears of our own responsibility to ourself. I am far from perfect and there are many things I would like to change about my inner and outer patterns, I am only passing on what I have glimpsed in my own experience looking through the lens of the ancient Seers, Rishis teachings.
Where Permaculture comes into all this “meditative talk” is – observation. Before you can decide any component of your design you need to understand “the lay of the land”, how all the systems both unseen and seen are integrated into and interacting with one another. So, lets observe our thoughts to prepare the ground of these new grooves to be seeded with the Love for this world that we all have! When the going seems slow, slow yourself down even more.
I am a Blogger at Vermont For Evolution and for Vermont Commons, as well as an aspiring permaculturist and yogi. I hope to be able to contribute to this think-tank helping to bringing about the shift we are all aiming to achieve.
Blessings on your journey, Simha
Sep 11 2011
I got this from my permaculture email group. Enjoy!
Presented by the Sustainable Commercial Urban Farm Incubator (SCUFI) program
October 8 & 9, 2011, 8am-6pm, The Gardens at Heather Farm. Walnut Creek, CA
Featured Trainers: Curtis Stone of Green City Acres, and James Kalin of the SCUFI program.
Curtis will share how he used SPIN-Farming® to build a multi-lot 1/2 acre urban farm that is on track to gross over $60,000 in his 2011 second season.
James will share how a SCUFI trains farmers and helps them get money and land to set up their own commercial urban farms. He will explain how your farm can make extra profits by integrating farm operations into the grounds, structures and systems of nearby buildings and businesses. He will also describe a new part of the SCUFI program that helps SCUFI participants get a farm home to rent or own as a sustainable commercial urban farmstead.
Saturday: Indoor lectures and demonstrations
Sunday: Outdoor hands-on business and field exercises
For a review of the Feb 19-20 workshop by an attendee visit Lexica’s “Boom-de-yadda” blog at: http://lexica510.livejournal.com/189083.html
Early Bird Registration $199. After September 24th: $249.
Discounts and work trades available for those who need them.
Register: http://www.scufiwalnutcreek.eventbrite.com
Aug 10 2011
OFENSIVA LEGAL EN DEFENSA DEL CORREDOR ECOLÓGICO DEL NORESTE
Demanda busca invalidar nuevo plan que dejó desprotegidas más de 450 cuerdas
martes, 9 de agosto de 2011
San Juan, PR – Organizaciones y ciudadanos pertenecientes a la Coalición Pro Corredor Ecológico del Noreste (CEN) radicaron una demanda en el Tribunal Apelativo para invalidar el nuevo plan aprobado por el Presidente de la Junta de Planificación (JP), Rubén Flores Marzán y el Secretario del Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA), Daniel Galán Kercadó, y en el cual dejaron sin protección más de 450 cuerdas de esta área designadas previamente como reserva natural para permitir su urbanización, incluyendo otros terrenos en la falda de El Yunque.
Lawsuit seeks to void new plan that left more than 450 acres unprotected
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
San Juan, PR - Organizations and citizens belonging to the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor(NEC) filed a lawsuit in the Court of Appeals to invalidate the new plan approved by the Chairman of thePlanning Board (JP), Ruben Flores Marzan and Secretary of natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), Daniel Galán Kercadó, and in which unprotected left more than 450 strings of the area previously designatedas a nature reserve to allow for development, including other land in the foothills of El Yunque.
“Luego de un proceso injusto y atropellante en el que la Junta y el Secretario del DRNA obstaculizaron la participación pública, y tras aprobar un plan sin la preparación de una declaración de impacto ambiental, así como contrario a las recomendaciones de agencias federales, recurrimos a los jueces del Tribunal Apelativo para que hagan valer el interés público invalidando el plan aprobado para el Corredor y otros terrenos en la falda del Yunque”, señaló Carmen Guerrero Pérez, quién es una de las demandantes, así como planificadora ambiental de Iniciativa para un Desarrollo Sustentable (IDS), organización perteneciente a la Coalición.
Guerrero Pérez, quién es también asesora en turismo sostenible, informó que entre los errores o ilegalidades cometidos por la JP y el DRNA se encuentran no haber hecho disponible el borrador del plan en todos los lugares anunciados oficialmente previo a las vistas públicas celebradas en febrero pasado, lo que impidió la participación efectiva de la ciudadanía. Una vez celebrada la vista, no se permitió a todos los ciudadanos deponer por falta de tiempo ante las más de 500 personas que asistieron. A pesar de que la oficial examinadora de la JP a cargo de la vista se comprometió a solicitar la celebración de una segunda vista, esto nunca ocurrió.
“After an unfair and bulldozing trial in which the Board and the Secretary of the DNER hindered public participation, and after approving a plan without preparing an environmental impact statement and contrary to the recommendations of federal agencies, we use Appeals Court judges to enforce the public interestoverriding the approved plan for the Corridor and other areas in the foothills of El Yunque, “said CarmenGuerrero Pérez, who is one of the applicants, as well as environmental planner for Development InitiativeSustentable (IDS), an organization belonging to the Coalition.
Perez Guerrero, who also advises on sustainable tourism, reported that among the mistakes or illegalitiescommitted by the JP and the DNER are not making the draft plan available at all locations officially announcedbefore the public hearings held in February This prevented the effective participation of citizens. Once the hearing is not allowed all citizens to lay down for lack of time to more than 500 people attended. Although the official examiner in charge of the JP committed to the view request to hold a second hearing, this never happened.
En cuanto al plan en si, la Coalición impugnó la eliminación de más de 450 cuerdas en el CEN que habían estado protegidas anteriormente como reserva natural, y que tanto la JP y el DRNA habían reconocido como de gran valor ecológico en el pasado. Tanto el Servicio Forestal Federal (USFS), el Servicio Federal de Pesca y Vida Silvestre (USFWS), y el Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico expresaron su objeción a la eliminación de dichos terrenos ya que ocasionarían la fragmentación del Corredor, sumándose de esta manera a las críticas hechas por la Coalición.
En sus comentarios al plan, el USFS señaló que las colinas en el CEN cerca a la costa y cuya conservación fue eliminada por la JP y el DRNA “son el componente menos protegido del paisaje en todo Puerto Rico, nuestros científicos indican que estas colinas tienen relevancia global. La propuesta no protege estos elementos. Se trata de un grave defecto.” El USFWS indicó por su parte que continúan muy preocupados por los impactos directos, indirectos y cumulativos que los proyectos residenciales permitidos por el plan ocasionarían sobre los recursos de vida silvestre pertenecientes al Corredor y terrenos adyacentes. A pesar de estos y otros impactos significativos, la JP ni el DRNA prepararon una Declaración de Impacto Ambiental.
Las áreas eliminadas ahora del Corredor por la administración Fortuño coinciden con aquellas que han estado amenazadas por la propuesta construcción de los proyectos residenciales-turísticos Dos Mares Resort (llamado ahora, Tinglar Bay Resort & Spa), el San Miguel Resort, Paradise Found Villas y Seven Seas Resort, y el centro comercial Playa Azul Center. El nuevo plan facilitaría al sur del Corredor, en la falda de El Yunque, la construcción del proyecto Costa Verde, con más de 740 residencias y apartamentos, y una de las fases del proyecto Los Paisajes, conocida también como Proyecto Residencial Turístico Pitahaya, con 209 residencias, 100 habitaciones de hotel, y más de 150,000 pies2 de espacio comercial entre ambos. El actual Secretario del DRNA trabajó anteriormente como consultor de este último proyecto.
As for the plan itself, the Coalition challenged the removal of more than 450 acres in the CEN that had previously been protected as a nature reserve, and that both JP and DNER were recognized as of great ecological value in the past. Both the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico expressed their objection to the removal of such land and that would cause fragmentation of the corridor, thus adding to criticism made by the Coalition.
In his comments to the plan, the USFS noted that the CEN hills near the coast and whose preservation was eliminated by JP and DNER “are the least protected landscape in Puerto Rico, our scientists suggest that these hills have global relevance. The proposal does not protect these elements. This is a serious flaw. “The USFWS said in turn that remain very concerned about the direct impacts, indirect and cumulative residential projects that allowed by the plan would cause about the wildlife resources and land belonging to the adjacent corridor. Despite these and other significant impacts, the JP and the DNER prepared an Environmental Impact Statement.
Areas Corridor now removed by the administration Fortuño match those who have been threatened by the proposed construction of residential projects, tourism Two Seas Resort (now, Leatherback Bay Resort & Spa), the San Miguel Resort, Villas and Paradise Found Seven Seas Resort, and Playa Azul Center mall.The new plan would provide the South Corridor in the foothills of El Yunque, the Green Coast project construction, with more than 740 homes and apartments, and one of the phases of the project Landscapes, also known as Pitaya Tourist Residential Development, with 209 residences, 100 hotel rooms and more than 150,000 ft2 of retail space between them. The current Secretary of the DNER previously worked as a consultant for the last one.
El Lcdo. Pedro Saadé Llorens, de la Clínica de Asistencia Legal de la Escuela de Derecho de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, y los licenciados Verónica González y Luis José Torres Asencio, de la Asociación Nacional de Derecho Ambiental (ANDA), son los representantes legales de la Coalición.
La Reserva Natural del CEN fue derogada en un acto sin precedente por el Gobernador Luis Fortuño en octubre de 2009, a pesar que dicha iniciativa ha contado con apoyo tripartita en el pasado. La Coalición, junto a numerosos sectores de la sociedad, han promovido su protección como reserva natural junto a su desarrollo basado en actividades relacionadas al ecoturismo y el turismo de naturaleza por los pasados 10 años, lo que ayudaría a fortalecer la economía del noreste de la Isla.
Atty. Pedro Saade Llorens, the Legal Aid Clinic of the School of Law, University of Puerto Rico, and graduates Veronica Gonzalez and Luis José Torres Asencio, the National Environmental Law Association(ANDA), are the legal representatives of the coalition.
CEN Nature Reserve was repealed in an unprecedented move by Governor Luis Fortuño in October 2009, although this initiative has been supported tripartite in the past. The Coalition, along with many sectors of society have promoted their protection as a nature reserve with its development based on activities related to ecotourism and nature tourism for the past 10 years, helping to strengthen the economy of northeast island
Contactos:
Carmen Guerrero Pérez (IDS): (787) 378-1544
Lcdo. Luis José Torres Asencio: (787) 209-6375
Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera (IDS): (787) 460-8315
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