Many groups have been included, or at least mentioned, in the quest for restoration of our world.  I know of one that may prove to be the most resistant to change, and that is the inner-city "hip-hop" culture. 

As far as my experience with the culture and its music goes, their prime directive is to acquire wealth and status at all costs.  The symbolism is pervasive, as is the evidence of excess.  The massive jewelry, the massive customized vehicles and the massive arsenals of each neighborhood kingpin show a complete disregard for the outside world, because to them their neighborhood is all the world.  Nearly every rap song is a treatise on money, power, and neighborhood respect.  They live and die by their colors, by the law of the streets.  Global warming would be regarded with not much more than a "What you say?" and a derisive snort. 

There is absolutely no connection to nature and its message.  Why would they care?  How would it threaten their respect and their 'hood?  Hollywood has made numerous attempts at informing the popular culture with movies about ecological disaster and climate shift, but the gangbangers, the dope slingers, and the pimps could care less.  They are a tough nut to crack, but crack that nut we must, or we will not see the massive grassroots effort that must surely take place reach all corners of society.

One could begin with the music.  Inject responsibility into their lyrics and one may see the beginnings of a shift toward stewardship.  Another approach would be to send in awareness groups to educate in the schools and encourage participation at young ages.  Proverbs says "Train a child when he is young, and when he is a man he will not stray from it."  Some have grown up in the gangs, so to reach them would take a herculean effort at appealing to their culture. 

But no matter the approach, today the greatest challenge at the grassroots level is the inner-city culture.  One must encourage them to participate, or else see the same stagnation at all levels.

Man. He walks, he runs, he eats, he sleeps. He thinks. He thinks he has a greater right to this very Earth than anything he sees, even if that thing also walks, runs, eats, sleeps. But, what does it think, that thing that Man looks down on? Does Man know, or does he care to know?

What if we could see into the minds of animals, would it make a difference to how we treat them? If we could accept that they feel fear and loathing, those strongest of human emotions, just as trully as we do, would we feel more connected to them? We know our dogs love us, but we still throw them a bone, and tell them to sit and stay. Our overrated sense of self, and naive assumption that our capacity to see future possibilities somehow makes us better than our fellow walkers, eaters and sleepers, is both arrogant and ignorant. Who or what are we that our actions decide their future, without due consideration for their survival?

We've lost our sense of what walks around us. A butterfly flies, but do we see it, or is it just there, and would we as a species miss it if it were gone? Would we put the necessary two and two together to make the four that opens our eyes to the butterfly effect of the extinction of even the smallest of creatures?

The scary thing is this. The death of the butterfly would probably be swept under the vinyl carpet by the ones who don't care to be connected to nature. They are connected to money, and as long as they keep us that way, in their eyes, their survival is guaranteed and that's what matters to them.

They keep telling us it's time for change, the most important change we can make right now is how we live on our planet.

 We have have over 1000 Environmental based Experiments, labs and lesson plans 

for Teachers/Home Schoolers and their students. Search topics like Global Warming (of course), climate change, air pollution, science, ocean etc..

*The site is fun and easy to use

*You do not have to hassle with any login procedure

*Grade ranges are from K-12

*The site is 110% kid safe 

www.greenplanetsearch.com is also: 

*An environmental search engine with over 3000 sites indexed and adding more green sites daily (we are an actual search engine, this is not another Google custom search)

* Original Environment related News Aricles

*Green Website Awards for sites that deliver great content in a unique qnd captivating way

*Submit your Green Website feature

Below is a screenshot of our home page showing  the ECO LESSON PLAN ENGINE on the top of the page.

Directions for LESSON PLANS, go to www.greenplanetsearch.com on the top of the page it will say ECO SEARCH ENGINE.

On the right of that you will see the black which states "switch to eco lesson plans" Click It, then you will see it change to the ECO LESSON PLANS, type in your search and learn!!! 

The first Flash Search Engine is an Environmental Search Engine!! http://www.greenplanetsearch.com is now live!

 When Mike Haney first presented the idea behind the technology behind

www.greenplanetsearch.com, he was laughed down. Virtually, of course. “Everyone can

dream,: scoffed one, erroneously.

A few people were intrigued. The combination of Haney’s vision of a Flash-driven search

engine, and the plan to create a dazzling environmental education resource, eventually

attracted a loose-knit corps of collaborators, most of whom have never met in person first

among them Andre Roussille, a French computer programmer, and now part owner of the

company.

The upshot from this collaboration, apart from the stunningly beautiful homepage, is the

only people involved in the creation of the search engine, is that the only people involved

in the development devoted environmentalists, who genuinely wish to disseminate good

information to students and educators.

Later, through a similar serendipity, Mr. Haney teamed up with a veteran journalist who

agreed to lend his services to the site, building from scratch a source of environmental

news and policy analysis.

Advertisers will be strictly vetted by the companies shareholders, limited to companies

that are making a meaningful contribution the planet’s health.

The final result, which was launched this week, is the culminating of thousands of

hours of work, and more than a few false starts.

It boasts easily navigable information, experiments, lesson plans, presented in an interactive and graphically enhanced format,

and has an exclusive global climate change resource section for teachers and kids.

If you would like more information about greenplanetsearch.com, or to schedule an

interview with Mike Haney, please call Mike Haney at 305.531.3746   or e-mail info@greenplanetsearch.com. 

Srácok, barátok, haverok, ismer?sök, magyarok és mindenki!

Csapjunk bele mindjárt a közepén, egyszer el kell kezdeni!

Nézzétek meg a filmet, aztán csináljunk valamit.

Mindenki csak azt és annyit amit akar.

Kezdésnek egy szociális kapcsolatokat ápoló kocsmázás is megfelel? :)

Ne hagyjuk az életünket tönkrecseszni (és most csak a lokális szintre gondolok).

Merjetek szabadok és boldogok lenni :D

Na ennyi a szentbeszédb?l, csatlakozzatok, együtt megoldunk mindent.

Base philosophy,

If you imagine for a moment that the earth and everything on it was on a laboratory slide and that through a microscope you were conducting a study in the same way a biologist or other scientist might view microscopic organisms. Your objective was to understand the Symbiotic relationships of the organisms that you could see going about their complex interactions and life cycles.

It would become rapidly clear to you that the relationship between the dominant organisms (Humankind) and everything else was PARASITIC in nature, in other words :

A type of symbiosis where two (or more) organisms from different species live in close proximity to one another, in which one member depends on another for its nutrients, protection, and/or other life functions.

The dependent member (HUMANKIND, the parasite) benefits from the relationship while the other one (EARTH, the host) is harmed by it.

You would determine that at a finite point in time, the HOST would not be in a position to satisfy the needs of the PARASITE and the PARASITE would become extinct. We know this to be true, we extinguish tens of thousands of species every year, through soil erosion, deforestisation, global warming, pollution of Air, Sea, Earth and water.

We have to move to a more sympathetic Symbiotic relationship with our host organism.

A type of symbiosis where two (or more) organisms from different species live in close proximity to one another and rely on one another for nutrients, protection, or other life functions. Both (or all) of the organisms involved benefit from the relationship.

There are many, many ways to achieve this future state, BUT THE COMMON KEY IS THAT WE HAVE TO CHANGE OUR THINKING. WHAT WE THINK, DETERMINES OUR ACTIONS, OUR ACTIONS DETERMINE THE OUTCOME.

With our current actions the outcome is inevitable - EXTINCTION

Join the 11THHOURACTION movement and CHANGE YOUR THINKING

• Print
• Email
 
• DoubleClick Any Word

• Page 1 of 1

BirdLife International, a global alliance of non-governmental conservation agencies, has prepared a dossier of information, maps, and photographs which explains possible environmental threats from any military action. The dossier was sent to the governments of Iraq and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, as well as to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the UN committee with responsibility for environmental issues around the globe.

The dossier was based on what evidence exists from the Persian Gulf War of 1990 to 1991, and also utilized data from the more recent conflicts in the Balkans and in Afghanistan.

Dr. Michael Rands, the director of BirdLife International, told BBC News that "until recently the impact of war on nature has often been ignored or obscured by the conflict itself.

"As the 1990 to 1991 Gulf War showed, such conflicts have devastating effects on the environment, biodiversity and the quality of life of local people long after the cessation of hostilities."

Analysis of the environment and wildlife in Iraq by BirdLife has shown that the country is home to one endemic species, the Basra reed warbler, as well as five other endemic or near-endemic marshland subspecies.

Mike Evans visited the Gulf for BirdLife in 1991, and told BBC that "Iraq is at the northern end of the Gulf, one of the top five sites in the world for wintering wader birds and a key refueling area for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterbirds during the spring and autumn."

Any military conflict could very realistically lead to the mass extinction of these species. Additionally, the eradication of these key areas could leave the animals without homes or grounds to stay on during their migratory movements.

BirdLife told BBC News that the 1991 war saw "by far the largest marine oil spills in history, with six to eight million barrels of crude oil spilled, severely polluting 560 kilometers (350 miles) of coast, and totally obliterating intertidal ecosystems."

BirdLife has also reported drastic reductions of the marshlands between 1991 and the present, from approximately 15,000 sq. km. to about 50 sq. km. The extinction of the bandicoot rat and a sub-species of otter have been identified as a direct result of this and other environmental catastrophes.

Some of the major risks to both wildlife and humans that the dossier which BirdLife prepared include toxic pollution from oil spills or oil well fires; radiological, chemical or toxic contamination from the use of weapons of mass destruction; and physical destruction of habitats caused by refugee movement through those areas.

Medact, an organization of health professionals that has a number of functions, including the consideration of the environmental degradations related to war, has produced a report that corroborates the findings of BirdLife, as well as providing other information related to the environmental consequences in Iraq.

The report highlighted the immediate environmental consequences of the 1991 Gulf War, citing figures from a UN mission conducted in March of 1991. The damage to oil wells was especially significant, with approximately 650 of the 1,330 active oil wells ablaze. These led to heavy smoke being spread for many hundreds of miles, having respiratory and carcinogenic effects.

Many other wells had been gushing oil. Figures estimated that between 4 and 8 million barrels of oil entered the sea. Between 35 and 150 million barrels were spread across about 60 percent of the surface of Kuwait, causing toxins to be evaporated into the air and groundwater to be heavily contaminated.

Bombing by the United States and her allies destroyed hundreds of square miles of unusual desert ecology; the use of landmines also contributed to this effect.

However, the effects of the war were not limited to Iraq and her surrounding areas, the Medact report shows, but were felt as far away as Hawaii and the Himalayas. Clean-up costs ranged anywhere between $150 and $200 billion.

The report also considers what effects a war would have. Most of the consequences of a conflict would be very similar to those seen in the previous war; however, as the environment of Iraq and the surrounding nations has not had a chance to fully recover from the previous damage, the effect of the same weaponry may very likely be much worse.

As more than a decade has passed since the initial Gulf War, other dangers have arisen. Especially worrisome are the new threats of non-conventional weaponry. There has been a great deal of conjecture surrounding the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein posses biological and chemical weapon capability. In the case that he does, they may be used as a last ditch effort in order to prolong the war, and make it as cumbersome as possible for the invading countries.

Biological and chemical weapons are much different from conventional weapons in that their effects do not immediately disappear after an initial blast. The effects of these weapons can persist for a great deal of time after they are used, affecting people for long after they were used. Thus, the consequences of the use of weapons of these types cannot be enumerated with complete certainty.

If war were to occur, Iraq would very likely not be the only one to cause consequences as drastic as these. The United States has kept nuclear weapons an open option, if the right conditions were to occur during a war with Iraq. However, radiological contamination of the land, rivers and seas would remain long after the weapons were used, affecting both wildlife and the human populations.

The Medact report closes by urging those concerned with the issue to try to search for a peaceful method of resolving the issue with Iraq, as the consequences of any war would be so drastic.

Taken from: http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2003/02/28/Science/War-In.Iraq.Will.Impact.Environment-2246836.shtml 

While I admire Al Gore's efforts to raise consciousness about Global Warming, not walking your talk does little when it comes to actually reducing your carbon footprint: 

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=nation_w...