This is a very important election year for many reasons. If you are trying to make heads or tails out of the candidates positions on energy… Solar Nation has done a very good job of putting it all together in one easy to search website. The have posted the official literature from the candidates websites as well as independent third party sources.
No matter what side of the political fence you are on we are all citizens of America and part of the human family of the World.
America can be a solar power that sets the example for the world.
Let’s all focus on what we can do together rather than the negative political hype and spin of what divides us. We all want a better world for ourselves and our children. How we define that includes vision, compromise, understanding and leadership.
In this three part series: Death by Medicine, The Healthcare Monopoly, much is revealed about how special interest groups have been manipulating the healthcare industry. This is not new to many people, but the factual information in this movie is an eye opener.
These independent videos by the “globalonessprogect.org” are truly inspirational.
The Global Oneness Project is a web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.
Their film subjects live and work with many of the following values, attitudes, and beliefs:
• We are responsible to each other, the earth, and future generations.
• There are enough resources for us all, if we share.
• Free exchanges of information allow for greater, collective creative potential.
• Love, care and compassion have the power to transform the fabric of society.
The Universe as a Living System
Duane Elgin, media activist and pioneer of the “Voluntary Simplicity” movement, describes the perception that the universe is dead as the root cause of the exploitative mindset. Duane asks, how can we shift cultural perception in order to see the universe as a living system?
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Dean Radin
Dean Radin, Ph.D., is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. His professional career has focused on experimentally exploring far reaches of human consciousness, primarily phenomena like intuition, gut feelings and psi phenomena. He is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Petaluma, California, and on the Adjunct Faculty at Sonoma State University. Dean’s research has been featured in numerous magazines and he has appeared on several radio and television programs. He is the author of Entangled Minds and The Conscious Universe.
An Electronic Membrane
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Knowing How to Nurture Ourselves
Stephan Fayon, director of an international seed bank in Auroville, India, explains how preserving the diversity of seeds insures against the breakdown of large-scale industrial agriculture. Today the supermarkets in the developed world are full; but if unsustainable systems of agriculture collapse, will we know how to nourish ourselves?
Controversial environmental author Paul Ehrlich talks biofuels, offshore drilling, peak oil… video
Forty years ago, author Paul Ehrlich stirred up controversy by predicting that the world’s steady population growth would cause hundreds of millions of people to starve within a decade of publication of “The Population Bomb.” Though his predictions were wrong, he is often credited with having had a major influence on the environmental movement in the ’60s and ’70s. During today’s OnPoint, Paul Ehrlich, author of the new book “The Dominant Animal” and Bing professor of population studies and professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, gives his take on today’s top energy and environment issues. He also responds to critics who have accused him of using scare tactics.
If you prefer to read, here is the transcript.
Controversial, yes. But on point. This interview should get more of your little grey cells activated.
Luft calls for open fuel standard to break oil dependency, promote competition in fuel sector… video
Is an open fuel standard the answer to ending the United State’s dependency on foreign oil? Should the market be given the opportunity to choose which fuel to use? During today’s OnPoint, Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-founder of the Set America Free Coalition, explains why he believes an open fuel standard is the most viable option for our future transportation fuel policy. He discusses OPEC’s influence on current energy prices and analyzes the energy plan recently proposed by oilman T. Boone Pickens. Luft explains why he believes relying on natural gas to fuel our vehicles, as Pickens has suggested, would essentially create a new dependency issue for the U.S..
If you prefer to read, here is the transcript
For more info: http://www.kabbalah.info Highlights from Düsseldorf 2006 international scientists conference “Wisdom and Science in Dialogue: The new Planetary Consciousness.”
What Is Kabbalah?
Kabbalah has been clouded in confusion, legend, myth, and misrepresentation because authentic Kabbalah has been hidden for thousands of years… until today
Although its origins are rooted in deep antiquity, from the time of ancient Babylon, the wisdom of Kabbalah has remained virtually hidden from humanity since it appeared more than four thousand years ago. To this very day, only a few know what Kabbalah really is.
For millennia, humanity was offered a wide variety of things under the name “Kabbalah”: spells, curses, and even miracles - all except for the method of Kabbalah itself. For over four thousand years, common understanding of Kabbalah has been cluttered with misconceptions and misinterpretations.
Therefore, first and foremost, the wisdom of Kabbalah needs to be made clear. Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) provides the following definition in his article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”:
This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and effect, in fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as, “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”
In simpler words, there is an upper, all-inclusive force, or “the Creator,” governing everything in reality. All the world’s forces descend from this comprehensive force. Some of these forces are familiar to us, such as gravity or electricity, while there are forces of a higher order that act while remaining hidden to us.
Kabbalah holds the map or the knowledge of how these hidden forces are structured, and the laws by which they influence us. It teaches us how to develop a sense of these forces, and finally, discover their only purpose – to bring us to the revelation of the Creator, while living in this world.
When looking at the looming price of oil, topping $142 a barrel today (7/8/08) and forcasts of $12 - $15 per gallon by 2010 you can’t help but look for alternative and renewable sources of energy. What if it turned out that energy efficiency and conservation was the single biggest solution? Could the campaign for “Drill more, Pay less” be too little, too late for solving our energy crisis and peak oil?
This article by Amory B. Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute answers these questions with a litany of facts to clear the air and confusion about how to look at solving our energy needs and keep the environment from further going south.
Peace,
Bruce
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Using smarter technologies, more brains and less money to wring more work from less delivered energy–what energy experts call “end-use efficiency”–is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, fastest, most diverse, least visible, least understood and most neglected way to provide energy services.
How big is it? The 46% drop in U.S. energy intensity, a measure of energy consumption per dollar of real gross domestic product, during 1975-2005 represented, by 2005, the equivalent of a new energy “source.” This source was slightly larger than annual total European energy use, 2.1 times the size of U.S. oil consumption, 3.4 times bigger than U.S. net oil imports, six times domestic oil output or net oil imports from OPEC countries and 13 times net imports from Persian Gulf countries.
Three-fourths of U.S. electricity–69% of which is used in buildings, nearly all the rest in industry–can be saved for less than the price of just running a coal or nuclear plant. This “negawatt” potential is not just in smarter motors, lights, appliances, etc., but even more in their larger systems. For example, three-fifths of the world’s electricity runs motors, and half their shaft power runs pumps and fans. Designing friction out of pipes and ducts can save 10 times as much fuel at the power plant.” -Armory Lovins
“We can save our bottom lines, and maybe our butts, by taking economics–and efficiency–seriously.” -Armory Lovins
Physicist Amory B. Lovins has been a leading practitioner of advanced energy efficiency in buildings, vehicles and industry for over three decades. He is co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank that implements transformational energy and resource efficiency, chiefly in the private sector.
The excerpt below is just another confirmation of the move toward renewable and sustainable energy. It also speaks volumes to the shift in the attractive investment market in green technologies… specifically solar!
“Solar power grew most rapidly, attracting US $28.6 billion of new capital and growing at an average annual rate of 254% since 2004″
Photo Credit: Warren Gretz
The link to the full article is below.
Peace,
Bruce
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London, UK [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] July 3, 2008
Worries about climate change, support from world governments, rising oil prices and ever present energy security concerns combined to fuel another record-setting year of investment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in 2007, according to an analysis issued by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Globally, more than US $148 billion in new funding entered the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors last year, up 60% from 2006, even as a credit crunch began to roil financial markets toward the end of the year. This is the finding of the report, Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008, prepared by UK-based New Energy Finance for UNEP’s Paris-based Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative.
“The clean energy industry is maturing and its backers remain bullish. These findings should empower governments-both North and South-to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement by the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009,” said Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP.
Dan Rather Slams Corporate News at National Conference for Media Reform
Saturday 07 June 2008
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by: Dan Rather, Free Press
“But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, “The buck stops here.” The more likely motto now is: “The news stops… with making bucks.”
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate news on Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press. Here is the full Article.
2008 Big Media “Hall of Shame:” Worst Corporation
These Big Media behemoths, cronies and sell-outs make us sick — from 2008’s “Worst Corporation,” to the “Worst Shill or Astroturf,” to the coveted “Worst of the Worst” prize! Watch to find out who takes this year’s top spot!
This is such a welcome trend to see educated, environmntally concious consumers, making their choices based upon their concern for our planet and each other. A recent rmarketing eport from Unity Marketing has clearly indentified the luxury market is responding to the green market and it is not a fad or trendy short lived part of the economy. With gas prices exploding and climate change being a real concern not just the treehuggers and fashion challenged granola-heads are voting with their consuming choices and pocket books. Here is an excerpt from the article:
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The Luxury Market Is Going Green — Luxury Brands Can’t Afford to Ignore It
Unity Marketing’s latest trend report uncovers strategies for targeting the affluent “Green” consumer
Stevens, PA June 6, 2008 — The typical ‘green’ consumer is no longer certain to be a fashion-challenged, granola-crunching wearer of Birkenstocks. Today, the consumer looking to go green is increasingly likely to be an affluent professional woman wearing an eco-friendly and animal-free Stella McCartney suit and satin shoes. And if you want her dollars and her loyalty, you need to pay attention to the priorities she finds important when making her selection of luxury goods and services.
Green luxury consumers look for social responsibility before making a purchase
According to Unity Marketing’s latest trend report on luxury, Green Marketing and the Luxury Consumer, luxury consumers are concerned about the environmental issues that hit closest to home, citing fuel and energy shortages and the use of renewable energy sources as top concerns. “With gas prices at $4 a gallon — and this might be the summer low — even the affluent find it hard to ignore the impact of filling your tank a couple of times a week,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience.
However, luxury consumers are also looking beyond themir pocketbooks to larger issues, like protecting the environment, global warming and avoiding water and air pollution. And the leaders on these issues are affluent women.
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There is a $230 billion marketplace that exists for products and services that meet the needs of consumers who buy based on their personal, social and environmental values. This marketplace is predicted to grow to $845 billion by 2015! Here is Colette Chandler, Green Marketing expert, talking about the effects of Green Marketing and how consumer trends are driving profit… GO GREEN!
So going green and having some green now go together. It is great to see how the power of one person making green choices with their consuming can in deed change the world. I think another major shift is happening in the choices for the quality of the foods we eat. Qrganic, non-irradiated, Monsanto-free foods should be the norm. If the corporate strangle hold of our FDA drives their decisions… we can undernine the corporations by what we are willing to purchase…. one person… one purchase at a time… :~)
Peace,
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. — E. E. Cummings
SolarEnurgy.net is powered completely by solar, wind and renewable energy to the tune of 130% of the data center power consumption, so we're not only neutralizing our carbon footprint, but also pumping an extra 30% of green energy back into the power grid! A light footprint.
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