HIV Victims Buried Alive

This is one of most perverse and disturbing stories I've seen in awhile.

With an estimated 2% of the population of Papua New Guinea being HIV positive and locals having little education or Government support to care for the victims, people have begun to bury the infected alive when they reach the point that their families can no longer care for them.

I really don't know what to say,
Yikes.. WTF! are two things that come to mind

revisited

I just realized that they quoted 30% increase in diagnosis each year, that would double the numbers in 3 years, triple in 5 years,
double Yikes!!!!

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Deep Economy - hope for our future

I do try my best to keep up on relevant reading to the extent my pocket book and Newmarket's library will let me, so I was glad to find Deep Economy by Bill McKibben on my recent visit.

Deep Economy is an intriguing book that looks at the standard model of endless economic growth and the problems associated with it in the context of climate change, resource depletion and the rampant "Hyper individualism" of the capitalist west. The average house has doubled in size in 30 years while families have shrunk. We work more, travel more, make more money and yet we are increasingly isolated, less happy and unfulfilled for our efforts.
The system he describes is not attainable, sustainable and not even desirable for the entire world and is destined to collapse and likely quite soon.

Scattered throughout the book are examples of how new and in some cases very old economic relationships in communities can establish prosperity with a smaller more sustainable carbon foot print and increased satisfaction. Mckibben's stories, derived from his travels show how communities when measured by GDP would actually show stagnation or decline and yet can improve the environment, increase health, education, and happiness through local initiatives. Other experiments such as local currencies, urban farming, transit that works, local power generation, cooperative stores, and co-housing to mention a few can offer opportunities, increase local wealth all without the corporate mega mall sucking a community dry

While McKibben does not end the book with a definitive fix for the problems he does show us enough to question the real validity of a economic system that believes progress and utility are only measured by GDP. McKibben also gives us hope that small answers can help solve big problems and that acting locally can make a difference and in the end may be our best hope of sustainability.

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Is nothing sacred to China?

I realized I was fixating with 3-4 posts in as many weeks on Chinese business practices so I layed off for a while but in the last several weeks there have been so many new scandals that I can’t hold back any longer.

First there was the Mattel recall and then another Mattel recall,
Then some quarter of a million unsafe tires had to be called back
Today I find two more stories, unsafe baby bids which have excessive lead levels, gee no chance of a bib getting in contact with a babies mouth is there?

In the second story Chinese entrepreneurs think it’s OK to package cheap white wine from concentrate and labeling it as ice-wine. It’s neither VQA as required, it’s not even necessarily Canadian grape juice and it sure as hell is not made from frozen fruit as one manufacturer admits its concentrate and “pure water”. There isn’t any water added to make ice-wine. High end fake booze with names like Chivas Regal are commonly sold to a knowing and accepting public more concerned about prestige than quality, safety or legality

Is nothing sacred to China? I mean its one thing to fake a Prada purse but to mess with a peoples libations is more than criminal.

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Trees vs Biofuels.........Trees Win says UK study

The BBC reports that a UK study proves food crop Biofuels are not the correct direction and are not an effective method of curbing CO2 emission.

The UK study shows that reforestation will suck up 9 time more Co2 than the avoided emissions by using biofuels rather than oil.

Biofuels will encourage deforestation and habitat destruction adding more problems to the mix while reforestation will sequester large amounts of existing carbon from the atmosphere.

The only aspect of the biofuels that was deemed possibly useful in mitigating CO2 emissions was waste or cellulose ethanol but refinery cost is several times higher than the simple corn/cane/palm oil. Hopefully this study will deter the food for fuel momentum, encourage reforestation and cellulose only biofuel technology.

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Even a Kettle can make a difference

I mentioned last week that I had just finished reading the Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook and that it was a good resource for cutting your carbon footprint. One section discussing cookware mentioned a gas kettle called the Simplex Copper Kettle that used coils in the base to trap and transfer heat more efficiently


Since I was in need of a kettle anyways (as mine was sputtering slightly from a growing leak around the spout weld) I figured lets see if I can find one. The book mentioned they were a high quality hand made English kettle so I expected that the $100 mentioned would be a minimum price. When I went looking I was surprised to find a vendor with the model shown in the picture here, the chrome version of the kettle that was discontinued. The discontinued price was only $40 U.S. with $8 dollars shipping from a homesteading, Amish kinda store in Ohio called Lehman's.

Carbon Busters claimed that this design is at least 25% more efficient vs. flat bottom kettles (on gas stoves) and on our trial run with equal quantity and temperature of water, the Simplex took just over 1/2 the time hence 1/2 the energy as the old flat bottom kettle.

This Kettle is only for gas ranges but for those trying to cut back it's a quality product at a discontinued price while they remain available. For a bonus it's not made in China.

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Meet the Candidate

It was my pleasure to attend the Newmarket-Aurora Green Party of Canada BBQ last night!

Over the course of the the evening people got to meet the Candidate Glenn Hubbers and we discussed energy policy, transit, SPP, MMP and solved most of Canada's troubles in the course of a couple of hours.

My Question is why Conservative who have had a year and a half and liberals who had a decade to deal with the issues still don't have it right?

The answers are out there, it only takes an open mind and a bit of your time to see them, contact the Green Party and see how we can save the Canada and the World

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Green, My ASS!!!!!!

The Era Banner is York regions (at least Newmarket Aurora’s) community newspaper which is usually only concerned about trivia of limited news worthiness and rarely deals with the whole issues. Over the years I’ve had a myriad complaints with the Era Banner especially their constant attitude that the suns shines out of Belinda’s ass and her passing gas is more important than local issues. During the last election, every single issue had a Belinda article while Conservative Lois Brown got 50% coverage, NDP, Ed Chudak got maybe 30% coverage and Green, Glenn Hubbers got no more than 15% coverage.

That rant dealt with, I was most upset when I dragged my ass home last night from the Newmarket Aurora Green BBQ to see “Aurora, Newmarket go GREEN Monday “ plastered on the local rag. The Point of the article was we were getting (as the last reluctant holdout in York) Green bins for curb side composting.

It’s not as if I see a problem with recycling or composting, but what I do have a problem with is a policy that claims that consuming just as much as we always have and sending it “AWAY” in a large green bin each week has solved a problem. The real problem is we consume too much, we waste too much and hiding the consequences by developing a plan that only deals with diversion of waste rather than teaching people to waste less really pisses me off. Most of the items minus meat, diapers and a couple of other things should be going into your personal composter, not shipped off to a plant to be dealt with industrially.

This program is an improvement, but by no means does this program take either the region or the citizens off the hook for the waste they create. Once again the Era Banner fails in its job of a media outlet with a responsibility of telling a complete and accurate story.

Being Green means creating less waste or dealing with your own problem not shipping it away by truck! As long as York region focuses more on roads than buses, more on building houses than assuring water to feed them and more on growth than sustainability we will never be GREEN.

Era Banner, BITE ME!!!!!!!

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