The Conscious EarthThe Conscious EarthEarth-centred news for the health of air, water, habitat and the fight against global warming Articles
Help Stop Harper
2008-10-07 08:25:00 The Canadian Federal election is an admittedly frustrating affair that is puncuated by poor leadership on one side, and leadership in entirely the wrong direction on the other. Despite the chaos, there's one thing we all can readily agree on - a Harper majority would bode poorly for everyone outside of the oil sands. I recommend Avaaz.org. They're the leading online activist organization in the world and over the past number of weeks they have set their sights squarely on mobilizing action against Stephen Harper and the Canadian Conservatives. Their current project is to bring in funds to help fund ads in key ridings throughout the country. Over 10,000 have signed on towards their goal of 25,000 signatures. If you believe strongly in the effort, as I do, give a few dollars to the campaign after you add your name. If you can't right now, tell a few friends. We don't have to be stuck with a Harper majority on October 14th.
Campaigning for Change
2008-10-06 06:05:00 With most of the world's people facing the catastrophic fallout of the worst US presidency in history and the now undeniable threats facing the Earth's environment, there's seems to be an almost universally shared sense of flux, change and uncertainty. As unpleasant as that might feel, it's also a needed and necessary good that can clear the way towards real change and a new way of looking at the shared problems that, together, we desperately need to solve. So, following the themes of responsibility and action that I've outlined over the past several months, I hope you'll follow me on my next path. Vancouver is coming up to a municipal election on November 15th, and I'm happy to announce that I'll be running the online campaign for mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson and the Vision Vancouver party. For those unfamiliar with the local business and political scene, Gregor Robertson is a progressive Vancouver businessman who first rose to prominence by creating an immensely s...
I've Been Hacked! - Authentication Message Problem
2008-09-28 04:27:00 Hi everyone. This is just a quick status update regarding the "Authentication Required" message that is appearing when you load the page. Please simply click "cancel" and continue to visit. I'm consulting some tech friends to figure out how to solve this.
8 Months of Photo Highlights
2008-09-18 09:25:00 Thanks to all my readers for hanging in while I get my feet back on the ground here at home. Many new developments are coming soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy these photo highlights of 8 months of travel.Thanks to everyone for following along.
My Rights, Your Responsibility
2008-09-09 23:41:00 I?m home now in Vancouver, with the daunting task of summing up and integrating a journey that covered four continents and more than eight months of my life. It can leave a person wondering how to bring that much home, or what home even means.That said, there are a few common themes that became clear over the course of the journey. A major one concerns the views and assumptions that tend to guide the actions of our culture with the rest of the world, the damage of which becomes obvious when viewing there effects on some of the most impoverished nations on Earth.In the case of Rwanda, we have been told that there horrific genocide was the culmination of tribal conflicts that stretched back centuries. After a mere days in that country, the truth became quickly and overwhelmingly obvious ? that the division between Hutus and Tutsis was a colonial weapon established by the Belgians, and exploited by the French, in order to gain greater control over the population and later to profit ... More About: Rights
An Accidental Trip to Thailand
2008-07-21 20:49:00 It was meant to be a side trip to the Philippines where a good friend is doing anthropological research in a traditional Kalinga Valley village. Unfortunately, I let myself get bluffed out by the weather and never made it. My arrival date earlier this month in Manila ended up being the day after a second of two typhoons rolled through the country. Conditions on the newsreel looked pretty tenuous and I opted to disembark at our stop-over in Bangkok rather than risk being stranded in Manila for two weeks. As it turns out, the route north to the village was fine, much to my disappointment.Sooooo, I tried to go to the Philippines and all I got were these stunning photos of Thailand .... More About: Trip
Ladakh - The Last of India
2008-06-27 12:31:00 The past few weeks have definitely been a different flavour. Heading steadily to the north of India , the people and country side have both shifted towards mountainous and Buddhist, culminating in Ladakh which is called the closest thing to Tibet on the subcontinent. It was far and away one of my favorite places in the country.The main city of Leh is almost indescribably beautiful. The town is a fertile strip of green nestled between the desert hills of brown and a back drop of Himalayan peaks. Set against crystal clear skies the view is an every changing Crayola box of greens, blues, whites and brown.The culture is also an interesting departure. The area only opened to tourists in 1974 and until then a remarkably self sufficient society had braved the high desert and -50C winters for centuries, key to which was a strong sense of environmental values and strict population control. In addition to a large population of Buddhist monks and nuns, the area is one of a handful of cult...
Canada Sued for Climate Change Failures
2008-06-19 11:20:00 I've been substantially away from the home front news for quite awhile, but this is worth mentioning on both a national and personal note. On June 18, Canada became the first country ever to be brought to court for failing to comply with its legal commitments to combat global warming, specifically its failure to meet (and perhaps more to the point, their failure to do anything about) their mandatory legal obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.The lawsuit itself is being argued by a coalition of groups - most notably my former workplace, Ecojustice Canada - and seeks a declaration from the Court that the government has not complied with the law, and an order requiring it to do so. A decision is likely to occur in the coming months.For readers unfamiliar with Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund), I strongly recommend them as a worthy organization to support (I do so myself). For my American readers, think Earthjustice. More About: Climate Change , Climate , Change , Sued
Non-Cooperation and the Olympic Games
2008-05-31 06:04:00 "The present era is rampant with the five forms of degeneration, in particular the red ideology (....)"In future, this system will certainly be forced either from within or without on this land that cherished the joint spiritual and temporal system. If in such an event we fail to defend our land, the holy lamas, including the "triumphant father and son" will be eliminated without a trace of their names remaining; the properties of the incarnate lamas and of the monasteries along with the endowments for religious services will all be seized. Moreover, our political system will be reduced to an empty name; my officials, deprived of their patrimony and property, will be subjugated like slaves by the enemy; and my people, subjected to fear and miseries, will be unable to endure day or night. Such an era will certainly come!"These were the words of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet, spoken two years before his death in 1931 (pictured above). With the exception of the demis... More About: Games , Cooperation , Olympic , Olympic Games
Generosity, Non-Violence & Non-Cooperation
2008-04-27 11:15:00 Having escaped Bombay I'm now in Rishikesh, where this morning I was listening to an old lecture by Jack Kornfield over a second cup of mediocre coffee.He was discussing the roots of generosity and what that force looks like when turned loose in greater world. Specifically, he talked about how at its root generosity requires an embrace of all hardships in this world as well as all joys, and it is only through that embrace that we can see and change the greatest of the world's ills. To quote,"...abundance means the willingness to open to life as it is, to face injustice and suffering. As Martin Luther King (Jr.) wrote, 'We will soon wear you down with our capacity to suffer in the struggle for the rights of others, and with that suffering we will win our freedom and (yours along with it)."To wear down an oppressor with a capacity to suffer is something worth considering in the context of our current social struggles, be them the ongoing protests over Tibet, to the war in Iraq, ... More About: Cooperation , Violence , Generosity , Non-violence
Beleaguered in Bombay
2008-04-26 09:10:00 I love cities. Though I profoundly love nature, I'll always choose to live within the human dense drama of the urban landscape. The bigger the better, and since first visiting there two years ago, Bombay has been one of my favorite cities in the world.With sixteen million people, water in every direction, and all the chaos that India has to offer, Bombay makes the head spin, the heart hurt and has you running for cover or screaming for more - usually in the same 24 hour day. That said, my most recent visit had me doing far more running for cover than rejoicing. The flu, heat in excess of forty degrees, and an overwhelming dose of human misery and cruelty left me suffering and gladly departing town.On the taxi ride from the airport to my hotel in the southern suburb of Colaba, my busted-up cab rear-ended a brand new Honda. We pulled to the side of to the side of the road and after getting out of the vehicle my nearly destitute and toothless driver was physically assaulted befo...
A Morning at Elephant Junction
2008-04-05 00:49:00 Although my recent elephant safari was entirely unsuccessful, I was able to spend a morning with several Asian Elephant s at the Elephant Junction sanctuary in Kumily.Throughout the three hour visit I vacillated through a range of emotions. A quiet grief for the confinement and captivity of these intelligent and sensitive creatures gave way to both exhilaration at being in such close quarters with them and optimism for the gentleness with which they were treated by their mahouts, all before feeling my heart spin back again towards remorse.By all indications the elephants were well treated and looked after. Verbal commands alone were being used to instruct them, and this even applied to the completely unruly 11 month old infant Kanan, who required all the will his mahout could muster just to stop him from eating the thatched shed within a trunk's reach of his enclosure. The enclosures themselves were immaculately clean. Dung was cleared out regularly, and all of them were layere... More About: Morning
Leech Trekking in Periyar
2008-03-29 05:52:00 Yes, that's a picture of a dead fish floating in a pond, and with the exception of a troop of monkeys, it represented all the wildlife I saw during a full day safari in Periyar National Park, India.The differences between here and Africa couldn't be more striking.While Africa has generally received most of the press about endangered wildlife, I walked away from every park that I visited filled with both awe and optimism for the future of species at risk. Periyar felt dead, and even though it boasts healthy populations elephants and tigers, as well as a few other large mammals, there was little sign of any. Meanwhile, the quality of the wilderness experience was greatly compromised by the carnivorous appetite of the jungles overwhelming leech population.The Lonely Planet guidebook (which now borders on useless thanks to some key format changes. I'm switching to Footprint) kindly advises that "leeches may be present following rain". While it's sporting of them to pass on the t... More About: Trekking , Leech
Shark Alley - South Africa
2008-03-07 22:36:00 Here's one I've been looking forward to, in spirit since witnessing the breathtaking footage of Planet Earth, and in practice since first stepping foot in Africa - cage diving with the Great White Shark s.Before describing the experience there's a need to address the inevitable and already existing concerns about diving with the great white. In particular, some environmentalists take issue with the activity because they allege that diving with these predators conditions them to view human beings as food. After a day of close quarters observation, both in the cage and from the ship's deck, I can tell you with full confidence that this concern is both unwarranted and unfounded.To begin with, conditioning an animal to change its natural response patterns takes time, and a unique aspect about the South Africa n great whites is that they are a completely open population, meaning that any given individual shark is only spending about three or four weeks in the area. That's far to lit...
Tanzania to Cape Town Photo Highlights
2008-03-04 18:13:00 The departure for India is fast approaching, but while I'm still in Africa here are the photo highlights from the past two months. I've included titles and descriptions on the files, so anyone wanting a bit more context for the pics can read those directly on my flickr account here. More About: Photo , Tanzania , Cape Town , Highlights , Town
My Father the Sun, My Mother the Moon
2008-02-22 09:52:00 I've loved solo travel ever since my first trip across Europe more than a decade ago. The sense of freedom and endless possibilities that it offers are the rarest gifts, and I always find it difficult to give them up when traveling with others. Unfortunately, there are also days when trudging alone begins to grind you down. Whether it's the petty annoyances and uncertainties that come from being perpetually uprooted, or not wanting to face a dinner on your own (yet again!), the challenges are always there. There are also the more difficult moments, the emotional events that come without warning and leave you limping and lurching through whatever city you find yourself in at the time. It was on that note, and with a bit of a heavy heart that I started the sunset climb of the Lion's Head yesterday afternoon.The Lion's Head is a jagged 669m guardian of rock overlooking all of Cape Town from a seat directly before Table Mountain. The peak of exposed rock thrusts clear from the b... More About: Moon , Mother , Father , The Moon
Nelson Mandela and District Six
2008-02-21 02:13:00 February 11th marked the 18th anniversary of Nelson Mandela 's long walk to freedom from South Africa's Victor Verster Prison. Though I arrived in Cape Town on the 2nd, I missed the opportunity to make a commemorative post on that event. Hopefully that can be made up for by relaying an equally important though less known story of apartheid - that of District Six.Named in 1867 as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town, District Six was established adjacent to the downtown core as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants. As the next century progressed the area grew into a cosmopolitan melting pot with a rich jazz scene, and as the dark years of apartheid clamped down on the city, it became a haven for musicians, writers and politicians looking for a moment of escape. In the words of legendary South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, District Six was a "fantastic city within a city. Where you felt the fist of aparth... More About: Nelson Mandela
The Themed Toilets of Ngepi
2008-02-16 20:33:00 A raft of new posts are on the way, including photo highlights from the past two months, and full articles on the wrap up of the African overland tour and of life here in Cape Town. In the mean time, here's a short photo set to pass the time. Our campsite in Ngepi, Namibia had some odd ways of dealing with the calls of nature, among other things.... More About: Toilets
Ground Rush in Namibia
2008-02-08 11:31:00 This is the sort of thing you don't tell your mother about until you are safely back on the ground...or perhaps never. Sorry Mom!Skydiving courtesy of Ground Rush .PS - photos in reverse(ish) order because this flash player is retarded. More About: Namibia
Would You Rather Date a Cheetah or a Cougar?
2008-01-24 14:51:00 Anyone from Vancouver, or those who have visited, will have first hand experience of the social disfunction that plagues our fair city's dating scene. Here's a couple of choice responses I've received from friends back home over the past days.The first is the latest article by a dear freind, fellow writer, and a lovely girl who's to good to be single - Vancouver Guys Suck Ass. The second is just a great piss take of your's truly:Wow very fun and nice pictures as well. I could not help but giggle a bitat trying to find parallel opportunities here in the urban wasteland. The wholestory might of read quite differently. Title: Cougars at Sammy J. PeppersFrom: Vancouver Urban Fashionista. Catching a glimpse of one Vancouver?s trickiest land animals.?The bar began in 2005, when the owners faced a huge problem with the number of single available women in Vancouver. In the course of one year, cougars number in the thousands took out 38 men and boys, plus an additional four families of ...
Cheetah Pets & Cheetah Predators
2008-01-22 09:07:00 The past week saw one of the most impressive and unexpected stops on the tour so far - the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park in Namibia.Until then I hadn't caught so much of a glimpse of the world's fastest land animal, and as I said to a travel mate, I might as well pack up and go home if I couldn't see one here.The farm began in 1994, when the Nel family faced a huge problem with the big cats. In the course of one year, cheetahs took out 38 sheep and goats, plus an additional four calves on the family farm. But rather than shooting the cheetahs, as is both sanctioned and encouraged by the Namibian Nature Conservation, they opted instead to capture them - a decision they credit as having changed the course of their lives forever.A pregnant female was among the captured cats, and when three of the five cubs survived birth, the family adopted them as house pets and decided to turn their working ranch into a private reserve for the protection of cheetahs. Today, the fenced reserve spans... More About: Pets , Predators
Safari in South Luangwa
2008-01-06 10:10:00 When you say the word 'safari' most thoughts turn to the endless plains of the Tanzania's Serengeti. But where the Serengeti can be likened to driving a sports car on a four lane superhighway, Zambia's South Luangwa National Park is the safari equivalent of a motorcycle ride through a winding country road. Covering 9,050 square kilometers along the Luangwa River, South Luangwa is a gem. It boasts large herds of giraffe, buffalo, impala, abundant populations of crocodiles and hippos, and of course, elephants. Thousands of them. And unlike traveling with the overpopulated tourists hoards in the Serengeti, the open jeep tours here bring you in direct contact with the environment like few other safari's can. Roadways are narrow and unobtrusive, and in the rainy month of January the sparse forests and grasslands are in full, vividly green bloom. South Luangwe is also a bit of a success for conservation efforts.In the 1970s, poaching decimated the park's elephant population to a mer... More About: Safari
US To Phase Out Inefficient Lights
2007-12-19 20:51:00 Following Canada's lead, the US will now be phasing out inefficient incandescent lights bulbs in favour of compact fluorescents by 2012. Read all the details here. More About: Lights , Phase , Efficient , Hase
Lamu Slideshow
2007-12-19 19:35:00 A few more images of a tropical paradise... More About: Slideshow , Lamu
La Paradise in Lamu
2007-12-18 20:32:00 I likely failed to mention that most of this African experience is taking place on an overland truck tour with a group of other travelers. Though the company is nice, stretching the legs out on your own is always desirable.So taking advantage of a week long break following the end of stage one of the truck journey, I booked airling tickets to Lamu - small island off the coast of Kenya.A recognized World Heritage Site, Lamu is the last undiluted outpost of true Swahili culture remaining. Interestingly, Swahili was never a pure group of people, nor language. It grew over centuries through a mixture of the traditional African coastal tribes with Arab, Persian and Indian influences arriving from sea. I never appreciated this before.My destination was the town of Lamu, the largest town on Lamu Island, which in turn is a part of the Lamu Archipelago. The island population is made up of about 20,000 people and 6,000 donkeys, with the only motorized vehicle traffic being the Island Commissi... More About: Paradise
Al Gore Tells World to Go it Alone
2007-12-15 11:25:00 It turns out Al Gore reads The Conscious Earth. Back in June I wrote that to solve global warming the international community is going to have to leave the United States behind and go it alone. As long US motivation is to derail international talks rather than join them, the world's efforts will only be harmed by granting them a place at the bargaining table. Speaking from the United Nations climate change summit in Bali yesterday, Al Gore echoed my sentiments,The Bush administration is the main obstacle to progress in international efforts to fight global warming, but the rest of the world should move on without it, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said Thursday night during a special appearance at the United Nations climate change summit."I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties," said Gore in an emotional speech to delegates that lasted close to an hour. "So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: My own country, the United States,... More About: World , Tells
Mountain Gorilla Slideshow
2007-12-14 17:41:00 At long last, here is a short photo series of the mountain gorillas....well, except the first shot. Enjoy! More About: Slideshow , Mountain , Gorilla
Rwanda from Genocide to Recovery
2007-12-13 17:13:00 One of the moments I've most looked forward to in the early part of travel is visiting Rwanda . The genocide that the nation survived is a defining event in the modern era and, touching closer to home for myself, it was Canadian General Romeo Dallaire who led the UN effort here and offered a nearly solitary voice calling on the western world to intervene - a call that was patently ignored until the genocide was all but over and nearly 1,000,000 had died.We're told that the genocide was the culmination of tribal conflicts between warring Hutus and Tutsis that stretch back far beyond European colonization. In reality, this is a bald faced lie that designed to protect the tender conscience of the developed world and serves only to stop us from understanding the true nature of the killings, and the integral role of the west bringing them about.The first to colonize Rwanda were the Germans in the late 1800s. At that time they found 18 distinct tribes living in relative peace throughout ... More About: Recovery , Genocide , Wanda
Gorillas of Rwanda
More articles from this author:2007-12-02 18:13:00 Many thanks to all of my readers for bearing with a length delay in new posts since I left for Africa. It's been a few weeks of merciless, ass jarring travel through that ultimately led to the portion of my current travels that had most captured my imagination - Rwanda .After camping overnight in the northwestern town of Ruhengheri, my first full day in the country was the gorilla trek in the Parc du Volcans - first brought to the world's attention by Dian Fossey and her groundbreaking study of the mountain gorilla.A 6am wake up call had us at the trail head at the mediocre hour of 9am, a level of efficiency I affectionately refer to as 'African time'. When we did get rolling it was bliss stretching the legs as we hiked through the the village hugging the volcanic slopes towards the protected parkland. We moved towards the jungle under the escort of a guide plus two armed members of the Rwandan military. The latter being an overcautious assurance of safety due to the ongoing c... More About: Gorillas , Wanda 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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