Green Fakers: Why eco-hypocrisy matters

By Jeff Bercovici

A few weeks ago, I wrote an item about Barbra Streisand, who was on tour in England. Though she's a big backer of environmental causes, and even offers tips for low-carbon living on her personal website, she was busted by the British press for touring in a private jet with a massive entourage that required 13 trucks and vast amounts of laundry—in other words, for sponsoring a traveling CO2 extravaganza.
I e-mailed my item to an editor at Grist, a popular environmental website and blog. The editor promptly sent back a sarcastic reply accusing me of "trolling for links by carrying right wing water." In his view, only conservative blogs would be interested in a snarky item about a liberal totem like Streisand; left-leaning sites protect their own. And here I thought hypocrisy was a non-partisan punch line.

Read the rest at http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming080607.htm

A Hummer on the slopes of Mount Everest- Is nothing sacred anymore?

Dear All,
I recieved this mail below some days ago. I would be extremely grateful if everyone left their comments or mailed me their response to it. I was horrifed that the ministry of tourism is actually permitting this.
Thanks
Madhavi


As you might be aware, we at OutThere Adventurers are venturing out into the unknown. An attempt at a Guinness World Record. A ride to an altitude of more than 23,000 feet on the north slopes of Mt Everest. A successful attempt will beat the current record of 21,942 feet set by two Chilean adventurers on a volcano in the Chile-Argentina border in April this year. The attempt is going to be made on one Hummer H3 and two dirt bikes. In fact this will be the third World Record effort undertaken by Team OutThere and by far the biggest and most ambitious to date. More details on our expedition (which we call The Longest Mile) are available here - http://outthere-adventurers.com/TheLongestMile/thelongestmile.htm.

National Geographic is our television partner and will be telecasting the expedition over six hours through multiple episodes. And then there will be repeats.

A lot of people have approached us wondering how they can support us in our efforts. Well, this is an opportunity for you to share in our dream, support the effort and reap rich benefits out of the association. For just Rs 5 lakh, we will put up your brand logo on the Hummer. The benefits you will get out of this are as follows:

1 Your logo on the Hummer
2 Logo visibility during telecast on National Geographic
3 Credit in the end titles of each episode of the documentary
4 Logo on the backdrop during the press conference(s)
5 Acknowledgement on our web portal with link to your home page

We trust you will find this opportunity of benefit to your brand and moreover, join us celebrating not only the grit, spirit and determination of the Indian adventurer, but also sixty years of Indian independence. It will be a proud day for every Indian when the three adventurers hoist the flag on North Col and become the only people in the whole wide world to have taken their machines to such an incredible altitude.

Do let us know when we could come across and formalise your support towards this humungous effort.

www.OutThere-Adventurers.com

Nulla Dies Sine Linea

"Not a day without a line drawn." I was hoping to adopt this motto a long, long time ago, but somehow... many days passed without a line. Or rather - without a line drawn, a line that I would be conscious of, a line immediately visible.

Now I remembered this Latin phrase and decided to take it as my Conscious Living Blog motto.
So here is my first daily Linea, introducing itself and believing it won't be lonely!

Out of my head

It's not every day you go to a business meeting and end up "out of your head". That's what happened to me just recently.

As a preface to, as well as a foundation for the business at hand, a man by the name of Sanjai Verma showed us how to relate from our "hearts and hips", as well as our minds – the tool of choice for most meetings, for most people, in most offices - the world over.

By going beyond the very personal space between our ears, Sanjai gifted us with tools to help make us more creative, effective and open to the energy of others in the room.

On my way home from what was clearly a meeting more useful than most, and with tools to take away for use in the boardroom and beyond, I wondered what got Sanjai into this line of work. And in later conversation, I discovered that Sanjai was something of a spiritual explorer – going boldly where few dare to go.

"In my mid twenties I became disenchanted with my life as a financial controller and despite being physically fit and healthy, I never really felt happy within myself," confessed Sanjai who began a 4-year journey devouring books on religion, spirituality, yoga and meditation, who'd go to work to fulfil his "normal duties" and in the evenings and at weekends, read even more and attend various courses.

"During my journey I have trained in different types of massage, healing and psychic awareness," Sanjai explained. "Unconsciously, I was exploring energy work and delving into the subtle forces that shape our lives. I also met various gurus and found that despite them being regarded as 'enlightened', they didn't really impart any knowledge or tools that I could use on a daily basis."

"My understanding now is that we are all made of energy, a very vibrant dynamic and creative energy and that all of life's drama is simply a wonderful interplay of energy flowing," reveals Sanjai, after much lonely soul-searching and many ups and downs along his spiritual journey.

"Man is the only being that has been created to be able to 'step' outside of this energy," he reckons, "and in doing creates an ego which supports his uniqueness and individuality."

"Through the ego we have the opportunity to get completely lost in life. The further we go from our true nature, the lonelier we feel, and the more painful it becomes until there is an inner awakening which guides us back," suggests Sanjai who thinks we all have an inner being, soul or spirit to guide us.

The challenge, he adds, is to "listen to another part of us that can actually heal and make things easier, when we have become used to trusting only our rational voices."

"My personal experience with clients in the last eight years is that as much as we say we want to change, initially there is inertia, reluctance and distrust of actually letting go of the old ways of doing things and open to the new," said Sanjai whose combination of all the systems he's studied have given birth to something unique which he calls 'dynamic energy'.

"I am in the ongoing process of creating and manifesting a system that is easy and natural, and offers people tools to use on a daily basis in their personal and professional lives. The challenge is to make the journey back to your spirit - a wonderful and exhilarating experience."

"It is easy because all that it requires is that you become aware of your body, mind and breath. We know so little about ourselves on a subtle level because we are forever caught in our gross physical life. The most important aspect to all this is your breathing, something that you do every day without really being aware of it," claims Sanjai, convinced that Yogic breathing exercises, officially known as Pranayama, allow us to increase our lung capacity and efficiency, giving us access to previously untapped resources of energy.

"In understanding the natural flow of energy, we can find harmony and reap the benefits of better health, creativity and energy, rather than fighting the very forces that shape us. Swimming downstream is far easier than upstream, ask any salmon!"

"Living in connection with nature brings more respect for it and an awareness of your part in the whole dynamic of life," says Sanjai, the originator of "dynamic energy" which teaches us the value of living life directly as spirit, rather than as a human trying to be spirit. He's definitely onto something and - as for me - I'm out of my head much more these days.

Polar bear cub appears in Devon

Exeter, UK: a polar bear cub is spotted in a glass of orange juice.

Copper Beech associate Damian Houston had a endangered species surprise this evening when a polar bear cub appeared to surface in his glass of fresh orange juice.

"Imagine my suprise," said the man formerly known as the Diet Detective (download his e-book Naked Nutrition at www.thedietdetective.co.uk )."It's not every day your night cap is an ice cap."

However, as server Carl Munson pointed out: "Far from this being a polar cola, it's simply a citric coincidence - a slice of lemon, polar bearing witness to man's impact on the natural world".

About Me

It's easy for me to speak in riddles,
it's easy for me to sing,
it's easy for me to excite,
but it's hard for me to be me.

I spoke so much - many of my lunches got cold,
I talked about everything: dance, dungeons and gold,
I wrote endless letters and read Tarot cards,
I whispered in theatres, and shouted in back-yards,

It seems I've done it all, yet I want to yell,
to sob, even scream this something I cannot tell.

I slept under the stars in a desert heat,
I danced in a crowd to the trance beat,
I closed my eyes and found Palaces I seek,
But the vision of my Self remained bleak.

I invited Love, come and flow through me,
I called for Light, to shine on my fears,
I flirted with Foolishness, it was worth a try,
But still I knew less and less - Who Am I…

Spanish farmers modernize water control

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_hi_te/techbit_spain_digital_irrigation



VALENCIA, Spain - The Moorish invaders who once ruled Spain brought with them a clever irrigation system that helped turn arid land into verdant fields. A millennium later it is still largely in use, and Spain remains one of Europe's breadbaskets.
ADVERTISEMENT But after years of chronic drought coupled with vastly increased water use, not to mention worrying climatic change, farm groups have realized it's high time for change.
Spain's federation of irrigators, known as Fenacore, is promoting an initiative to computerize Spain's irrigation system by 2010, connecting some 500,000 farmers to an irrigation network headquartered outside Madrid.
The scheme should allow valuable water to be monitored and controlled by computer, drop by precious drop.
"We're jumping from the 13th century to the 21st century," said Juan Valero, Fenacore's secretary general.
While computer-assisted irrigation is not new, Fenacore believes no other country is organizing it at a national level. So far 200,000 farmers have signed up for the project, Valero said.
"The only way to manage water is to measure how much enters each channel, and computer technology is the best way to do this," he said.
Farmers are being encouraged to move away from outdated, wasteful Moorish-style flood irrigation systems toward drip and dispersion irrigation. They are also asked to lay highly efficient telecommunications cables alongside main water conduits so that the irrigation grid can be monitored from a national computer center.
"In almost half of Spain, the irrigation technique used is flooding, which uses up to three or four times more than the water that is necessary," Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said recently.
Fenacore estimates computerized irrigation will mean up to 20 percent water savings.