Perception // Current TV

Peru investigates deaths of more than 500 pelicans

A virus or seismic oil exploration are being examined as possible causes The... more

JanforGore
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28 days ago
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16 comments

Words of wisdom for Earth Day and everyday

Through all of the Earth Days I have seen, I have discovered that the environment is... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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43 comments

Is sustainable agriculture possible in the Sahel?

With drought conditions chronic in the Sahel, many farmers give up trying to grow crops and head to towns and cities to find work. In Chad many go to the south or to Lake Chad where irrigation from the fast-shrinking lake is used to farm. But some agro-ecologists say governments, donors and farmers should not abandon agriculture in the Sahel, and despite being “very difficult”, with the right approaches, there is “huge potential” in natural regeneration, traditional irrigation methods, and simple alternatives such as crop diversification.

“The Sahel has enormous potential – this is a very marginal food-growing environment, so we are forced to learn how this natural system works. All we’re doing is looking for the clues in nature,” said Tony Rinauld, a research and development adviser on natural resources to World Vision Australia who worked in the Sahel for’ years, practicing agro-forestry, a traditional land-use system that combines trees or other woody perennials with crop and animal production.

The Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal regions in western Chad are chronically food insecure, and periodically experience acute malnutrition rates above the emergency threshold. According to NGOs, rates reached’ percent in Kanem earlier in 2012 and many families have already run out of food and are down to one or two goats.

Both regions are dotted with fertile oases, known as ‘wadis’, that have for years been left by their traditional ‘owners’ – the aristocrats, or ‘Sultanate’, and village chiefs – to grow little more than date palms, lemon and mango trees. Vegetables are systematically grown in just 100 of Kanem’s 500 wadis, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which runs a project with the European Union (EU) humanitarian funder, ECHO, to help the poorest families grow vegetables in 120 oases across Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal.

“Here [in Kanem] one crisis just flows into the next one… but we are trying to keep people here and to see how we can enlarge the wadis further,” said Abdul Karim, FAO’s food security head in Mao, the capital of Kanem.

Sultanates and village chiefs lend the oases to separate producer committees of men and women for 5 to 10 years, while FAO helps build a water point and provides the pump, gives farmers seeds and tools and trains them in market gardening.

Minder Mohamed Ali was guarding fields of lettuces, carrots, aubergines and onions in Aloum 2 wadi, 8 kilometers from Mao. “We eat some, we sell some of the vegetables – many farmers weren’t able to do much before this, as they have had no production this year,” he told IRIN.

“Now we see vegetables in the market every day,” the representative of the Sultanate in Mao, ni Alifeh Mahadi Alifey Mahlabtra, told IRIN. “It is also a motivation for people to do something… we will [probably] renew the contract in five years – we want people to get enough food,” he said. “Before, people here grew rice, now we are completely dependent on our wadis.”

With the right level of investment and the right approach, anything is possible, said Augustin Ilunga, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Mao, which has for decades been helping to keep severely malnourished children alive. “In a desert landscape like this, with climate change, it will take a lot of work to change… but with the right attitude it’s possible. Otherwise we’ll be here giving Plumpy’Nut [a highly nutritious foodstuff given to malnourished people] forever,” he told IRIN.

Ultimately, this project has worked only because land was made available to the very poorest groups, who ordinarily would not have had access to it, said Remy Courcier, Emergency coordinator at the FAO in the capital, N’djamena. “Land ownership and land rights are central to improving prospects in the Sahel.”

Courcier told IRIN that investors in Chad should follow other Sahelian examples. “Here in Chad not much has been done over the past 30 years, but in Niger there is lots of research into improved seed varieties, traditional irrigation, environmental protection such as controlling sandy dunes – we could use more of this.”

more at the linkWith drought conditions chronic in the Sahel, many farmers give up trying to grow... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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14 comments

Biorhythms: World Water Day 2012: Water and food-saving our lifelines

Every year since 1993 the world has observed March 22 as World Water Day. It is a day set aside to raise awareness of the importance of water to our lives and to the ecosystems of our planet that give us life. This year the theme is water and food security. This is an important theme especially now as the effects of climate change are now hitting the developing world where much of our food is grown and where the majority of our world's poor live. For many making the connection between water and food security is something they just do not think about. In the developed world we are so used to going into a store and buying what we want without thinking about where it came from, how it was grown or what went into it. We do not consider that when we waste food we also waste water.

The price we are and will pay regarding water scarcity and food insecurity in the future will only increase as we continue to not take this seriously. For the past decade I have reported on water scarcity in every part of the world and the effects that scarcity is having on this most precious resource and the food and people that depend on it. There are many factors involved in this crisis worldwide such as lack of political will; lack of moral will; privatization; population; pollution (resulting in physical and non physical scarcity); overconsumption (overpumping and waste) and climate change (sea level rise causing salt water intrusion, drought, flood, water evaporation, glacier melt.)

I also want to add war to this list, because as we are seeing currently in Syria and in places in the Middle East drought is already affecting agriculture which is now resulting in people rising up to demand better care of their resources because of livelihoods/lives lost and higher food prices. This is definitely an urgent factor that we need to consider regarding the future of global water resources in line with militarization of such resources which will result in more conflict.

More than 40% of our planet is now in water scarce zones. This is predicted to increase with more people moving to urban areas by 2050. Our world population has doubled since 1950 and we are on track to see 9 billion within the next twenty. Yet, we are not adequately preparing as a species regarding preserving the very resources that will sustain us. More people on this planet have a mobile phone than have a toilet. What does that tell us of our priorities?

In assessing the factors involved in the connection between water and food security all of these factors then come into play and connect with something that to me is the most important factor: Perception. As I mentioned just above more people on this planet have access to mobile phones than to toilets. And more people are becoming unattached to the world around them which I believe is contributing to the lack of caring for what is actually most important. Our zeal for progress is ironically in many ways leading us backwards.

For me progressing means moving forward technologically and evolving while also improving on and preserving those life systems that support us in a sustainable way. Polluting the water we use to grow food or wasting it in order to have it to make tarsands is not sustainable. Overpumping aquifers to put water in fossil fuel plastic bottles to make a profit for a private company while people go thirsty and hungry is not progress. Profit at the expense of life is not progress. And once again, it all comes back to our perceptions as a species: To our understanding the true value of water and finding ways to use it in preserving a progressive and sustainable society.

The good news is that this is achievable. We can feed our people while preserving our ecosystems. It requires us all to look inside ourselves and to ask how important water really is to us and to make the commitment to changing our perceptions of this world and our place in it. There are so many organizations working on doing just that and on this World Water Day and every day they deserve our gratitude and support.

In the end however, we shouldn't need one day to remind people of something that should be part of their lives everyday. And to those living in parts of this world where they know where their food comes from and just how precious the water that births the seed is, they already have this perception. Perhaps we need a World Water Day theme based on that to start.

My hope and faith lie with those who know the land and who work it. Those who are truly committed to preserving this beautiful planet for our children. Sustainable agriculture, water conservation, agroforestry, agroecology, stewardship, equality and most importantly, advocacy. 2012 can be the year when we finally begin to understand that what is important is that which brings progress and life and doing all in our power to see beyond the material, political and societal walls that now impede our evolution. Water can be the catalyst to that awakening. Make it yours today and save a life.
More at the linkEvery year since 1993 the world has observed March 22 as World Water Day. It is a day... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago
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24 comments

Tarsands wolf cull ripped apart by naturalist on TODAY Show

A prominent American naturalist used an appearance on NBC’s popular Today show to salvage the image of the misunderstood grey wolf, and savage Canada’s reputation over its plan to poison and shoot the predator in Alberta’s oil sands region.

As host Natalie Morales joked about Little Red Riding Hood, David Mizejewski showed off two wolves and made a plea for their protection. He highlighted a Canadian plan to kill wolves as part of an effort to protect the boreal caribou herd, which is threatened by loss of habitat in the oil sands region and elsewhere.

The National Wildlife Federation conservationist said the wolf cull was one more reason that Americans should oppose their country’s growing consumption from the oil sands.

“These beautiful animals – their wild kin – are going to be poisoned with strychnine, they’re going to be shot out of helicopters, all to feed our addiction to dirty oil,” he said.

The federal and Alberta governments say the wolf program is just one possible tool to be used in a national effort to protect the boreal caribou that, they say, is threatened not only by industrial encroachment on their habitat but by increased predation.

Environment Minister Peter Kent has acknowledged that wolves may have to be killed in northeastern Alberta and said that is “regrettable” but an accepted scientific approach. A spokesman said Friday it will be up to the province to implement and manage the plan once it has been finalized this spring.

David Ealey, a spokesman for Alberta’s Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development, said the government is working with industry across the province to protect caribou habitat and protect the herds. For the past several years, there has been a wolf cull in one region of western Alberta that has succeeded in stabilizing the caribou population, he said, but it is not certain it will be replicated in the oil sands region.

Wolves have seen their Alberta numbers rise, in part because warmer winters are driving growing white-tailed deer numbers. But scientists say culling wolves is simply ineffective. Alberta’s wolf population has rebounded from 1,500 in the late 1960s to an estimated 7,000 today.

More at the linkA prominent American naturalist used an appearance on NBC’s popular Today show... more

JanforGore
added this
2 months ago
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29 comments

Mistic Road at the Heart of the Andes

Cumbia Road from ARTURO ALMANZA on Vimeo. Cumbia Road from ARTURO ALMANZA on Vimeo.... more

VOLCAN
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3 months ago
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0 comments

NY Times gets blunt: Climate action requires a fundamental remaking of the sinews of modern life

John Broder had this remarkable sentence in his Sunday New York Times dispatch from Durban:

Effectively addressing climate change will require over the coming decades a fundamental remaking of energy production, transportation and agriculture around the world — the sinews of modern life.

This is uncharacteristically blunt for the Times. It reflects a worldview that is generally not reflected in their overall coverage, as I discussed in “The New York Times Abandons the Story of the Century and Joins the Energy and Climate Ignorati.”

Broder’s point is that the UN process is simply not up to the task of addressing the climate problem:

It is simply too big a job for those who have gathered for these talks under the 1992 United Nations treaty that began this grinding process.

“There is a fundamental disconnect in having environment ministers negotiating geopolitics and macroeconomics,” said Nick Robins, an energy and climate change analyst at HSBC, the London-based global bank.

Unfortunately, most economics ministers are pretty clueless about the subject. That said, I’ve never been a big fan of the current process, which requires near-unanimous consent by nearly 200 countries.

What’s most blocking action, from my perspective, isn’t the process so much as the failure of the media and policymakers here and around the globe to realize that failing to address climate change will lead to an even bigger remaking of what’s left of modern life in a world of 10°F warming (see An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

Inaction will create the almost impossible task of feeding 9+ billion in “the face of a rapidly worsening climate.” And avoiding mass starvation and general chaos will certainly require a fundamental remaking of the world. The NYT‘s science reporter Justin Gillis gets this, as you see in articles like “Food Supply Under Strain on a Warming Planet” and “Global Warming Hinders Crop Yields, Study Finds.”

We cannot escape fundamentally remaking the sinews of modern life over the coming decades — in a sustainable way if we act on climate and in a catastrophic way if we don’t. Now is the time for major media outlets like the New York Times to remake their coverage to inform the public of this far more clearly and unambiguously.

More at the linkJohn Broder had this remarkable sentence in his Sunday New York Times dispatch from... more

JanforGore
added this
6 months ago
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20 comments

EPA displays erectile dysfunction regarding delays on carbon limits on oil refineries as CO2 emissions climb

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, struggling with an ambitious agenda on clean... more

JanforGore
added this
6 months ago
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32 comments

Perception, Reality, and Tyranny.

It has been said that "reality" is based in perception... just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder... so is "reality". The difficulty, the devil, is in the details.

While digging through history books, congressional records, and the writings of wise people who have come before us... it becomes blatantly clear that our modern version of history; its events, condition of life, principles of human interaction, and governance are widely misunderstood. Of course there are grains of truth in what we are force fed that works to give it all some validity... and each person will view this "information" and form their idea of "reality", often around what fits their expectations and desires, but we must realize... in the end there can't actually be a multitude of realities... only perceptions, and much of what is factual is often left behind.

There is a factual reality... it is however obscured by misinformation, half truths, the spin of agendas, and the individual perception of those who digest it... belief once realized becomes a prison of the mind... and is unfortunately the catalyst for the perpetuation of obfuscation and spreads like a plague through the minds of individuals with similar perception.

Once... that was me, and few spoke louder and spread a twisted perception more than I. Yet... somehow I continued to become more and more unsettled as things just didn't add up. It is a mind wrenching and heart breaking experience to challenge ones own beliefs... yet I was compelled by my desire for knowledge, and to understand why things "are the way they are" when nearly everything I had been taught didn't "jive" with our current condition.

It is a journey many people are not willing to take and that is understandable... picking the lock on ones mind and getting past the comfort in denial are hard enough but the difficulty and pain associated with such an undertaking can be so great as to turn one from that path once the journey has begun... and attempt to rest again in the comfort of previously held belief. I know... because that is exactly what happened to me, yet that respite was brief because once the door of the mind is opened... there isn't any intellectually honest way to turn back. The "tickle" in my mind ate away at me as I attempted to live with my preconceived ideas while holding knowledge that more than challenged that belief... it shattered it... I had to move forward.

There is so much misinformation and literal "crap" out there that it is difficult to sift through it all, I had to find a way to separate the chaff from the grain; finally I decided that the "details" were the problem as so much of it is impossible to verify... thus I began at the beginning... and found a solid foundation to start from in the principles of Natural Law as that was the POWER behind the Declaration of Independence and IS the reason, if we realize it or not, that we recognize our Individual Natural Rights. Once I had that firm understanding I began to look at what currently conflicted with it as those issues are easier to verify, I looked for the actions that precipitated those conflicts to find the "grain of truth" as it is easy for words to lie... actions are much more apt to lead in the direction of facts but in instances when that doesn't hold true... I have found looking for motivating factors to be important, but in the end, I often let those questions go as simply "mysteries" I cannot solve.

To eyes willing to see... it is glaringly obvious that our country and indeed the world we live in is not congruent with Natural Law or with what we have been led to believe. To be honest... in my opinion the first is much more important; how we find ourselves in this position and the falsehoods we have been led to believe are not nearly as important as the condition of respect for our Natural Rights, a perception rooted in Natural Law, and a burning desire to correct the condition of how we experience and enjoy our inherent Natural Rights to Life and Liberty. All other issues simply tend to get in the way and work with great effectiveness to keep us at each others throats and divided when it is vitally important for us to be united... to hell with our differences and beliefs rooted in perception... let us recognize that those are "personal" and thus should not be forced upon another... instead we should be united for ourselves and the good of mankind, just as those who came before and sacrificed so much, and demand that once again Natural Law be recognized and that our Individual Natural Rights be respected as "untouchable"; inherent and unalienable. Declare our Independence from Tyranny once again and as many times as we must.

We need not live with the idea that we must choose between governments, countries, or varying degrees of tyranny... no... instead let us understand that our Individual Natural Rights are already ours... inherent... unalienable... and that no country... no government... no man or group of them... has the RIGHT to infringe upon them. When they do... it is a crime, not against some arbitrary "man-made" law, but against Natural Law, the God of nature, and an act of war against humanity.It has been said that "reality" is based in perception... just as beauty is... more

Rob_Work
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11 months ago
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Jeana: A Hollywood Tragedy - Baseline Intelligence

Veteran Television Executive Jim Romanovich shares a sad story of the dark side of... more

jamesluk
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1 year ago
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Brain Mechanisms of Self-Consciousness. « Ramanan50's Blog

Beyond Human Understanding.... more

ramanan50
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1 year ago
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The One

I'm often being told that there is only one God and that God is typically the God... more

trickyrelativity
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1 year ago
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The End of Existential Angst or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Liberal Conservative in Me

Those who descended from the beings that populated what we know today as Africa may... more

trickyrelativity
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1 year ago
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Does Integration Equal Disintegration?

We all may hate each other, but for some crazy reason we cannot stop having sex with... more

trickyrelativity
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1 year ago
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8 comments

I'm White, I'm Male, So The @#$% What!!!

"I don't have a job, a home or a car! I don't have anything and you want me to apologize to you because you don't have anything either!? Spare me! Why don't you go cry to Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Tyler Perry, Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant or Will Smith!!!"

You can lob epithets like racist, bigot, homophobe, misogynist and the like at the infamous White Man and no one will say much. It's expected. He is The Man after all. He's not even human. Just an oppressive automaton who is responsible for all the world's ills and he even has the audacity to not apologize for simply being? How dare he!? Good thing there are liberal white men out there. At least they express their tacit guilt. But really, what is inherently wrong about him taking pride in his European heritage? Is it because you view your existence as inauspicious due to this heritage? He exploited and oppressed you and because of this there should be no celebration of European virtues. You supported his whims through your labor. He killed you. He took your land. He deceived you. He raped your women. But what is it about him that makes him behave this way and if he thinks himself superior is he truly superior or do you give him power by thinking him evil? What if he is just like you?

What if he feels powerless even though you say he controls "everything?" What if he feels like nothing? Why must you treat him as if he is some comic book-esque supervillian? Why do you laugh in his face when he expresses his frustration? What does this say about you? Are you envious of the access his skin color affords him? Do you see his lack of melanin as a blessing? Do you not feel your abundance of melanin is a curse? Do you have to overcompensate in order to battle against a deep-seated inferiority complex? Is your black or brown pride a by-product of the acknowledgement of his existence? Who were you before you found out about him? How did you see yourself then? Probably not as brown or black. Perhaps you were just you.

That's it! That's why the white man is evil! He made me acknowledge the fact that I was 'some thing.' I'm not 'some thing,' I am some ONE!

Is this all his fault? What if it is all OUR fault? And by 'our' I mean us, not them...and by 'not them' I mean them.

Hey, I clicked those hyperlinks and I'm lost. Us? Not them? What?

We're all lost. Click the link below and let's see if we can build a compass...together.
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/im-white-im-male-so-the-what/"I don't have a job, a home or a car! I don't have anything and you... more

trickyrelativity
added this
1 year ago
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33 comments

What exactly IS fashion?

1. In what ways can fashion and beauty (in the sense of the term limited by the topic... more

AwakenedAesthetic
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1 year ago
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0 comments

How Perception of Time Relates to Decision-Making (VIDEO) - The Daily Blender

Professor Philip Zimbardo Conveys How Our Individual Perspectives Of Time Affect Our... more

dryeraser
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1 year ago
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You just realized...ducks are actually wearing little dog masks.

Your perception is about to change.

cheshiresleeves
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1 year ago
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0 comments

How Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer got her name & see what Conservative Christian thinks about this

Sawyer's mother, Maggie Johnson, picked her name. Her father objected but lost... more

worrg
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1 year ago
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2 comments

Some insight regarding: percieved truths versus facts.

"Actions, that individuals take, based on perceived truths, are based in theory.... more

Fading_Chaos
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2 years ago
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0 comments

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