Globally Green Living

Today’s tune is If a tree falls, by Bruce Cockburn. Too many trees are falling and every minute we lose another 100 acres of Rainforest. This means not only do we lose people and animals but plants used for medicine are disappearing as well. Bulldozing trees down is not profitable long term.
The Rainforest offers many sustainable materials that are valuable. Unfortunately, many companies just think about the short term and go for the lumber.

As a strange aside, Harrison Ford had his chest waxed for the environment. He said: “Few people realise that burning and clearing tropical forests emits at least 20 per cent of total greenhouse gases that cause climate change - more than all the world’s cars, trucks and airplanes combined.” (Harrison Ford had chest waxed for rain forests, Stephen Adams)
If a tree falls lyrics:

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing labotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who’ve lived with this for 100,000 years -
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef -
Grain eaters - methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth -
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning -
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Bruce Cockburn, CockburnProject.net

Solar cookers can be set up just about anywhere and don’t require wood or electricity.

A solar cooker workshop was a success in Nyala, Darfur as you can see on this video. Many women are vulnerable to violence when they leave their camps so this way they can safely cook and stay together.

I was impressed with how they learned to cook everything on it and even managed to bake bread and a cake. My bread sometimes flops with the best of conditions so seeing food people created with a solar cooker was inspiring.

Since people learned how to create the solar cooker to cook on, they didn’t have to search for firewood. There isn’t always a lot of firewood around because of deforestation so this also saves lives, time and trees.

Want to learn how to create your own solar cooker? You never know when you might need one and the instructions are easy to follow with simple supplies. Here’s the instructional video courtesy of Graham F. Knight on YouTube.

You can find more information on this project at BioDesign where you can request free pamphlets available to download.

I also found more great resources at SolarSlowCooker.com. There are recipes for vegetarian meals, steamed clams and chocolate fondue. There’s also detailed information on how the solar cooker works, cookbooks and cookers for sale.

I do wish it were spring because I don’t think I can catch much sun right now and want to try it. All this talk about food is making me hungry though so think I will give this rustic berry tart a go from Farley at Coaching Cooking.

Although Wal-Mart’s stated intention is to sell products that sustain natural resources and the environment, a new report entitled “Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: How Wal-Mart’s Sourcing Practices Encourage Illegal Logging and Threaten Endangered Species“suggest otherwise.

The EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency) worked undercover and met with eight Chinese manufacturers who supply Wal-Mart with wood products. China provides 84% of Wal-Mart’s wood products according to the report. The problem is that China relies on imported timber from illegal logging areas. 35 to 50% of the wood that crosses the Russian Chinese border is estimated to be illegal according to Russian law.

Wal-mart has allegedly failed to question where the wood originated from that they use for much of their furniture. As a consequence to their “no questions asked” policy, protected forests in countries such as Russia are suffering. The tiger is among one of the endangered animals that is affected by illegal logging.

Not all wood was found to be illegally logged but one of the largest wood manufacturers in China producing over 200,000 baby cribs for Wal-Mart were allegedly obtained from illegal sources. Their main wood supplier is in the Russian Far East, which is in the middle of the Siberian tiger breeding area.

Tigers get a bad rap because the more their forests disappear, the more likely they are to intrude and feed on farmers livestock and/or attack people. Tigers also continue to be poached for their body parts and sold on the black market for various Chinese medicines.

Sources: New Evidence From EIA Undercover Investigation Highlights Wal-Mart’s Blind Eye to Illegal Logging WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/,Environmental Investigation Agency

For more on the damage to the environment and the violence that results from illegal logging check out this video of the EIA testifying at Legislative Hearing on
The Legal Timber Protection Act.