Creating a Sustainable Future's topics - tribe.net

links

2007-09-17T16:38:05Z

linktv.org
alterNet
moveon.org

are some goodies

and of course
jon stewart

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After a long hiatus

2007-09-15T06:03:00Z

I return to contribute to this space.... lets see what develops. You are also invited to view my page on "myspace" http://www.myspace.com/bilovin. Although the page is currently on a political bend. My hope (in addition to popularizing the page) is to continue to compile videos of political and social importance. So suggestions, comments, video comments, subects for discourse, activism alerts, etc... are GREATLY appreciated.

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Synergy - Approaching Collective Wisdom"

2007-06-19T19:21:38Z

Synergy - Approaching Collective Wisdom"
Summer camp at the Center for Experimental Culture Design /ZEGG, Germany
July 26th - August 5th 2007

Today the word synergy is on every bodies tongue. This is reflected in
the way the internet works, in the cooperation of sports teams or in
functioning group process. What these examples have in common is: The
whole is more than the sum of its parts. If parts work together in a
certain way, a creative consciousness arises which is far beyond the
intelligence and richness of one persons inspiration. This is the topic
of the summer camp.

How does a group open up to the field of intelligence which is naturally
present in all life?
What happens if 300 people stay together for 10 days and deepen their
awareness, their communication and their contact?
What makes the difference for a group to be collectively stupid or
intelligent?

To explore this, the ZEGG Community offers a ten day experiential
setting - our summer camp. We invite those who want to integrate
personal growth and an attentive engagement with the concerns of the
planet. With our creativity, our feelings, our focussed presence, our
capacity for listening and interacting and with our passion for
celebrating we will explore the above questions. Having an experiential
atmosphere we look forward to a variety of people who each contribute
their unique expression of being a human. At the same time the focus
lies on what connects us behind the personal and what can be made
visible by us as a group. If we join this flow we can open up ourselves
to collective wisdom - to what is more than the sum of its parts.

This blossoming of the human potential is what we want to invite and
celebrate .

The central aspects of our work at ZEGG - living together, love and
sexuality, spiritual path, political engagement and ecological
responsibility - will be dealt with under this perspective.

The following guest speakers enrich our weekends:
First weekend:
Thomas Hübl (spiritual teacher, Austria): "We will create a high-energy
group field which can dissolve our limiting filter systems and make us
more awake and more transparent."
http://www.sharingthepresence.com/
Tania Singer (brain research, Switzerland): She presents research on the
factors that influence social behavior and awareness - from the
perspective of brain research, economy, psychology and philosophy.
http://www.socialbehavior.unizh.ch/
Second Weekend:
Peter Russell (consciousness research,U.S.): "Half a millennium ago, the
old model of the cosmos was turned inside-out, placing the sun, not the
earth, at the center of things. Today it is our whole model of reality
that is threatened with a complete inversion. In the new model
consciousness becomes as fundamental to the cosmos as space, time,
energy and matter - in some respects even more fundamental."
http://www.peterussell.com/

We look forward spending a creative and present time with you!
You are warmly welcome!

Janine Müller, Francois Wiesmann and Anjet Eich
Summer Camp Team

"Synergy - Approaching Collective Wisdom"
Summer Camp at ZEGG
Belzig near Berlin
July 26th - August 5th 2007
For more information see http://www.zegg.de/ or call +49-33841-59510

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A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

2007-04-08T10:46:03Z

THE GLOBAL APPEAL

A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

A joint Open Letter addressed to

Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office,
Government Representatives,
The Executive Boards of Agrobusiness Companies

Keep out patents on conventional seeds and animals
For several years, patents on genetically modified seeds and animals have been granted worldwide. The damaging impacts on farmers, who are deprived of their rights to save their seeds, and on breeders who can no longer use the patented seeds freely for further breeding, are well known.

In Canada and the US, for example, the multinational seed company Monsanto has sued many farmers for alleged patent infringements.1 The same company has also filed court cases against importers of Argentinean soy to Europe.2 Furthermore, the possibility of patenting seeds has fostered a highly concentrated market structure with only 10 multinational companies controlling about half of the international seed market. Many farmers organisations and NGOs around the world are fighting against these patents. Because genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still not grown in most countries, or only used in a small number of crops, the negative impacts of these patents are not being felt everywhere.

However, there is an alarming new trend for patents not only to be claimed on GMOs (such as Round-up ready soybeans), but also on conventional plants. For example, patent claims have been made for soy beans with a better oil quality3 covering parts of the plant genome when used in conventional breeding and technologies to improve conventional breeding (such as marker assisted breeding).

Some of the most threatening examples in this context are patent applications from Syngenta which claim huge parts of the rice genome4 and its use in breeding of any food crops that have similar genomic information to rice (such as maize and wheat).

The European Patent Office has also granted a patent on aphid resistant composite plants which are based on marker assisted breeding5. Other recent patent applications by Monsanto on pigs are also related to normal breeding methods6, indicating the increasing danger of agricultural genetic resources becoming monopolised by a few multinationals on a global scale.

Soon the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office will decide on another patent of this kind - for a method of increasing a specific compound in Brassica species7.

This decision will determine the patentability of conventional seeds in Europe.

Whereas patents on conventional plant varieties are normal practice in the US, many other countries, especially developing countries, do not grant patents on plants or animals. But as the recent history shows, the standards defined and used at the European, Japanese and US patent offices influence international regulations (the WTO agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS , and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, WIPO). Patent offices all over the world are pushed to adapt their regulations and practices either through the international regulations or by bilateral agreements. India, for example, has just passed a third patent amendment in order to adapt its law to the TRIPS regulations.

This frightening new trend in patent policy will affect many more farmers and breeders, than has been the case with GMO patents. Any remaining farmers rights and breeders' access to plant varieties and animal breeds for breeding purposes, will disappear everywhere. These patents will destroy a system of farmers' rights and breeders' privileges that has been shown to be crucial for the survival of farmers and breeders, for food sovereignty, and for the preservation of biodiversity in agriculture. The vast majority of farmers in developing countries are small-scale farmers, completely reliant on saving and exchanging their seeds.

In order to secure the continued existence of independent farming, breeding and livestock keeping and hence the food security of future generations, we, the undersigned farmers, researchers, breeders and civil society organisations from all over the world, restate our rejection of any patents on life, and urge policy makers and patent offices to act swiftly to stop any patents being granted on conventionally bred plants and animals and on gene sequences for use with conventional breeding technique, as well as on methods for the conventional breeding of plants and animals. We also urge companies not to apply for any patents of this kind.

http://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=27&lang=en

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The Chinese Are Thinking Outside the Box, Are You?

2005-07-28T17:01:37Z

Here's another innovation portending a more sustainable future:

Chinese researchers say they have invented a cheap and eco-friendly way to keep city-dwellers warm in winter and cool in summer — using untreated sewage.

Their device extracts heat from raw sewage that has been temporarily diverted on its way to the processing plant. It can also make air conditioning units run more efficiently, and absorb the heat they remove from buildings.

The device can reduce the cost of heating and air conditioning systems by 20 per cent, says lead researcher Sun Dexing, a professor in the environmental science department at Harbin Institute of Technology. It is also environmentally friendly as it produces no pollution and uses no chemicals.

Here's the link: http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=printarticle&itemid=2226&language=1

So what do you think: Are the Chinese going to surpass American and European ingenuity?

I'm a Canadian living in Hong Kong, and everyday I see how neccessity is the mother of invention when it comes to sustaining large populations. The Chinese will be the technology leaders of the future becasue they HAVE to be if they want to lead better lives.

posted in Creating a Sustainable Future - 18 replies

Compressed Air Holds Potential for Sustainable Future

2005-07-20T07:01:57Z

Here's an idea: compressed air + a little fuel--and I mean very little. According to a French inventor who spent 12 years perfecting the engine, the incorporation of bi-energy (compressed air + fuel) allows his vehicles to increase their driving range to close to 2000 km with zero pollution in cities and considerably reduced pollution outside urban areas.

Nice. If only they weren't so damn ugly.
http://www.theaircar.com/

I blog more stuff like this everyday at http://www.portension.com

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