The evidence is clear: if we don’t factor land use considerations into near-term planning the land may well be of no use to anyone in the long term. With pressure building on politicians to make good on the largely unimplemented land reform process linked to the increasingly urgent need to address inequality and unemployment, the debate on expropriation without compensation … [Read more...]
The new gift of Christmas
Every year I write a Green Christmas story. About green shopping, green tree decorations and greener holidays. Poor planet. Up goes resource extraction, up goes the mounds of waste, up goes water consumption, up goes everyone’s footprint – people driving and flying all over the place. Over-spending, over-eating, over-drinking. It’s this über mentality that got us into … [Read more...]
Award-winning soil documentary to have gala screening at Labia
An exclusive gala screening of award-winning documentary Symphony of the Soil is being hosted by the Labia Theatre, Cape Town at 6.30 pm on Sunday 14 August to raise funds for Soil for Life. Join dedicated eco-warrior and MC Nik Rabinowitz for an entertaining ‘green’ evening and help change the world one garden at a time. US based film-maker Deborah Koons Garcia has … [Read more...]
Moving the world from sustainability to regenerative design
Communication is the tool we use to navigate change in this perishable, impermanent world. We talk about what’s happening and what’s coming. We use words to rally and activate citizens; to inform and educate people; to alleviate or aggravate fears, depending on our intentions. Humans use language to make sense of things — even those things that are happening at a scale beyond … [Read more...]
Rekindling our sacred connection with the soil
We are at the cusp of empires falling and worlds colliding. While this may be a bold statement. In the seeming chaos of collapsing economies, unprecedented and endless wars, unpredictable weather patterns and huge animal die-offs, our most appropriate response appears to be some sort of foundational re-structuring. We find ourselves at the foundations of a new reality, a New … [Read more...]
New study confirms Earth’s sixth mass extinction has begun
We are currently witnessing the start of a mass extinction event the likes of which have not been seen on Earth for at least 65 million years. This is the alarming finding of a new study published in the journal Science Advances. The research was designed to determine how human actions over the past 500 years have affected the extinction rates of vertebrates: mammals, fish, … [Read more...]
Al Gore’s climate observing spacecraft gears up for launch
After nearly 14 years in limbo, an Earth-monitoring spacecraft built by NASA is finally set to fly. The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), scheduled to launch as soon as January 29, will constantly observe Earth’s sunlit side from a distance of 1.5 million kilometres. It will track daily weather patterns and seasonal vegetation changes, monitor atmospheric pollution … [Read more...]
Natural Building part 2: Understanding & testing different earths
One of the challenges of working with earth is that no two sites are the same. The recipes one learns on one site may not work on another, because the earths found there are composed differently. Most earth building relies on a mix of sand and clay, which may be present in a single earth or need to be blended together. Sand has many faces Sand has a particular particle … [Read more...]
Order Mother Earth Book
Here is a loving tribute to Mother Earth and a call to action for children, their parents and grandparents. "What if our religion was each other If our practice was our life If prayer, our words What if the temple was the Earth If forests were our church If holy water--the rivers, lakes, and ocean What if meditation was our relationships If the teacher was life If … [Read more...]
Earth Overshoot Day: we are now in ecological deficit
Last week we reached Earth Overshoot day, and in a blog post for LiveScience.com, World Wildlife Fund chief scientist John Hoekstra explains just how big we're really living: "August 20, 2013 marked Earth Overshoot day - the estimated date when the people on Earth have used up the planet's annual supply of renewable natural resources and reached its carbon-absorbing … [Read more...]
Earth: What will it look like after climate change?
Dry, barren landscapes stretched out for miles. Animal skeletons scattered everywhere. Not a tree or plant to be seen. Damaged and dilapidated houses and buildings. Extreme weather conditions exacerbating these scenes. Is this a melodramatic view shared by the paranoid of what might happen after climate change? Or is this the reality of what awaits our children and … [Read more...]
Scientists predict humans will be extinct within 100 years
The late eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner (pictured), who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicted humans would probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. If past is prologue, 70,000 years ago the human population was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, … [Read more...]
Russian meteorite followed by sightings in Cuba & US
Hours after a meteor exploded over Russia and injured more than 1,000 people and an asteroid passed relatively close to Earth, residents in California reported seeing an unusual flash of light over the San Francisco Bay area that left many startled and thrilled. Cuba likewise apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to but smaller than the meteorite that detonated over … [Read more...]
