Last night I watched a great documentary; “Surviving Progress“. It was inspired by a best-selling book by Ronald Wright and includes Martic Scorsese as one of the executive directors.
The message is amazing and very true to my own beliefs. It really tries to address the current issue with our global over consumption. Continue reading
Life is an extremely complex subject, like a river delta there are many tributaries that feed and lead off into many different directions. Some are calm, some are violent rapids, some pass through beautiful views and others contain dangers lurking beneath. There are also many tools that people use to filter or make sense of the pictures, sounds, images, feelings and experiences they encounter whilst travelling these many paths through life.
I am in no way planning to explore the many facets of these intriguing routes Continue reading
Wild salmon are the life blood of Clayoquot Sound’s ecology, culture, and economy. But wild salmon in the region are in serious trouble. Despite the abundance of pristine salmon habitat, Clayoquot’s salmon runs (especially the Chinook) are in dramatic decline, with some runs now being counted in the tens, rather than in the tens of thousands. No wild salmon population anywhere in the world has thrived in close proximity to open net-cage salmon farms.
In May, Mainstream reported an outbreak of Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis virus (IHN) on one of their open net-cage salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound. The farm was subsequently culled of 560,000 diseased fish.
I urge you to read the full details on the change.org website and do what you can to help stop the introduction of yet another fish farm.
Some fantastic news for all those renewable energy lovers! I’m so excited for this to be adopted, I assure some oil companies might be quaking in their boots, but maybe they could start to turn their attention some more ethical forms of production.
An experimental solar-powered airplane completed its first successful journey on June 5th: a 20-hour transcontinental flight from Madrid to Rabat, Morocco’s capital city.
Morocco was the chosen destination of this soon-to-be-famous flight because of the country’s demonstrated interest in solar energy. Morocco recently launched a next-level solar energy program which will radically decrease their reliance on fossil fuels. The country aims to produce 2,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020.
Read the full story here Flying without Fuel | Reality Sandwich.
Last year I watched a documentary called “Garbage Warrior”, it is about this fantastic man who designed a zero carbon emission home and has been fighting the long process of obtaining permits for building these very necessary homes.
It is possible to volunteer on Earthship projects to learn the skills necessary to build these amazing homes. The only problem is, you need to build it in what Mr Reynolds terms as a ‘pocket of freedom’. In other words an area where old laws no longer constrict the building of carbon zero houses. These are usually in developing countries. You can find out more about Earthships at their site http://earthship.com/
This video highlights the challenges the team faces.
Today is Earth Day, which should, in my opinion be everyday! Our Earth provides for us, without fail despite the abuse we give her. Like any mother would, she will provide unfalteringly to her children, no matter what it takes, until she is drained of all her energy and collapses.
Today, is a day designed to acknowledge all the Earth provides and to recognize this by giving back. Continue reading
Each month in Tofino, a group of people meet for a ‘Green Breakfast’. During the breakfast a discussion takes place concerning environmental issues and how to address them, whilst laying out a plan to better the communities green initiatives.
Being new to the community I have only just discovered this group and upon finding out that today’s meeting would cover composting, I decided to attend.
I am a very keen recycler and following my discovery of the clean bin project, have been very keen to reduce waste in all areas. Composting in Tofino has its challenges, the main one being, at least for me, the potential attraction of bears.
The meeting was extremely beneficial and it was inspiring to see so many important community figures in attendance, such as Chris Bird from Sonbird Recycling, council members, sustainability gurus and team leaders in the field of composting.
With limited landfill for Tofino, the aim of the meeting was to discuss the potential for a community composting procedure. We covered logistics such as individual composting, street pick up, voluntary drop off, types of composting and use and demand of the end soil product.
A local resident Louise Rodgers has been running a composting test over on Industrial Way since November, using food scraps from local restaurant Shelter and Tofino Brew Co. with success. She wants to push this project a little further and extend it to a potential twenty families and is in need of volunteers, support and funding.
Tofino isnt as good at recycling as we might think, with Uclulet being a stronger candidate for recycling prowess, at least according to Sonbirds pick-up statistics. Therefore I feel the same could be true for composting. This is why we need to make it as easy as possible for the community to compost.
I would be very interested to hear from people in the community, in the below comments section, as to their composting practices, or lack thereof. Also if you have any thoughts on what could work here in Tofino then let me know, let’s start a discussion ball rolling.
Next month Elizabeth May, Green Party leader will be in attendance at the green breakfast, which will be taking place at Darwin’s Cafe at the Botanical Gardens. I am very excited about this and encourage anyone that is interested to attend.
Awaking before sunrise, to join a field of outdoor dancers moving to the sound of Kamananda, was to be how my Sunday began.
Watching the sunrise whilst dancing to Random Rab, was how it slowly developed.
At 9am, the filmmakers workshop began, one of the few workshops I had originally intended to attend.
As I learned that it was a group involvement and was to begin with an introduction of oneself, I instantly became nervous, but realized that as I mentioned before, to put yourself in a position that makes you uncomfortable whilst it is related to something you love, will yield instantaneous results.
So now I was excited.
I have often had ideas of filming someone or asking someone a question on film and making mini documentaries, but fear always strikes me down. Too concerned on how it may turn out. Well this was to be the answer. The facilitators from selva rica were firm believers in just going for it. So we did.
The group split out into two, one half was to film a narrative and the other half, the one I chose to be in, was to ask questions documentary style.
We went out there and I got involved asking people questions and realized how simple and easy it was. People want to talk to you!
This lesson has taught me to just go and do it. Don’t be too concerned about the results, just do it. It builds confidence and skills.
One half of the video can be found below. The documentary part will be following sometime soon.
Thirst - the narrative video – filmed in 30 minutes, with no preparation – Enjoy!
Each morning and night I travel up or down these stairs, they are steep and tiring. Whilst traveling down them I was reminded of a time when I was much younger.
When you are young and going down stairs like these, you handle them quickly and wonder why your parents are taking so long to come down? Well now I am older I was questioning why I was taking them so slowly? Its not because of my joints or pain or anything physical, I realized it was more to do with fear.
As we grow older we tend to take more care in the things we do as we understand the consequences of a mistake. In the case of these stairs, the fear holds us back and this can be likened to anything we do in life. If we hold fear about the result, we may not take a risk. Sure, we may still get down the stairs, but when I decided to move more quickly and let go of fear, I had way more fun and felt more alive.
Let go of fear and realize your potential to achieve.