Impacts of the industrial revolution

What other impacts do you think the industrial revolution had? On:

• The social aspect of human life and the environment

One positive impact of the industrial revolution was that people had more leisure time because the wok week was reduced to 40 hours. However with technology like TV, IT and game boxes as well as the need to spend time commuting there is an increase in social disenfranchisement and social dis-functionality. What I mean is that people spending time in "leisure pursuits" have less time to socialise. This would explain the sudden growth in "social networking" (i.e.  Facebook, Myspace, twitter) because human beings have an innate need for social interaction. So one social impact of the industrial revolution is that people are less competent at social interaction.
Other negative social impacts industrial revolution include:

• Increased income disparity (USA, Russia, India all have hugely disproportionate wealth distribution)
• Time Scarcity
• Social fragmentation and breakdown
• Increased Crime (perhaps)

Environmental impacts of the industrial revolution are numerous. Most obvious is the increased exploitation of resources. With the industrial revolution has also come the rise of capitalism as the dominant paradigm/hegemony. Unfortunately capitalism has inefficiencies, such an not, or undervaluing natural resources. Capitalism from the perspective of an individual business operates primarily in its own financial self interest little or no costing or consideration of the social or environmental impacts.

Negative impacts of the industrial revolution include:

• resource depletion
• species loss and loss of diversity
• air/ water/ noise/ light/ land/DNA pollution

That's all I can think of at the moment.....

PEACE

Free Energy and Solar Lighting

I don't usually promote big corporations or their products. However in this case I'll make an exception. My wife made he trip out to Ikea looking for some kind of stuff to spend the dollars on. I was pleasantly surprised when she came home with a bunch of solar powered outdoor lights. You can check them out at the link below.
Ikea SOLIG solar lights
They are not super bright because they only have 3 LED lamps but they do provide ambient lighting for eating outside at night and three of them also provide enough light to walk around the house at night without falling over the kids toys.

The best thing is that I'll never have to pay for electricity to charge them as long as the sun continues to shine.
PEACE

Earth Hour-Lights Out for Climate Change

On Saturday the 27th of March 2010 at 8:30pm you can help play a small part in reducing the negative effects of Climate Change by participating in 60 Earth Hour.

All you need to do is go to the Earth Hour website and register to turn off your lights and appliances for 60 minutes.



Now in its fourth year in Australia, you can make it bigger and better. It is already the single largest mass participation event on the planet. So lets all try to make it huge.

What can you do in the dark? Here is a short list:

• Go to bed and get a good nights sleep.
• Go for a walk through you neighbourhood and observe just how much electricity is being wasted even during Earth Hour.
• Play a game of hide and go seek or a game of spotlight.
• Turn off the TV and read a book by torchlight.
• Play monopoly or solitaire by candlelight.
• Start or write a journal.

One last thing. I recently bought a wind-up torch which has a dynamo inside and is lit by 3 LEDs so I never have to use another dry cell battery. Nor will I ever get my torch out of the drawer to find the battery has gone flat. It was on special for $9.90 but even at the full price of $19.80 the savings made by never using batteries is worth buying  one. 

Peace, energy efficiency, help stop climate change and support Earth Hour

A Sustainable Australian Community

Austalia originally had only indigenous people inhabiting the continent, living in the most sustainable way possible. In the 222 years since the first fleet we have managed to remove more than 85% of the original forest as well as cause the extinction of numerous species.

Now the tide is begining to turn. We have farmers planting farm forestry, insulation and solar rebates, sustainability audits for new homes, recycling, hybrid vehicles and many more positive examples of people and govenments begining to take responsability for making sure we live in a sustainable community.

One particularly positive step towards ensuring sustainable communities is the increasingly multicultural population. Where would we be without pizza, pasta, fried rice, kebabs, dim sims, baklava and curries. We would still be eating sausages, mashed potato and frozen peas with a roast for Sunday lunch. BORING.

I have never met a newly arrived immingrant or refugee who didn't want to get a job as soon as possible but have met 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc generation Australians who don't believe they have a responsability to contribute to society. I'm not talking about the mums here because they do the most important job, mothering. I mean the people who are available to work. These newly arrived Australians won't take jobs away from current Aussies they will do the jobs that most Aussies don;t want to do, for example cleaning, aged care and driving taxis. Then their children will be the electricians, builders, engineers, teachers, child carers and health workers, all the jobs where we have skills shortages. Without new young families Australia would stagnate like Japan with 0% growth.

Multiculturalism is a form of cultural sustainability. It brings in new ideas and ways of thinking and Australia is know for its innovation. It ultimately makes all Australians more tolerant and accepting of our differences which leads to better understanding and HARMONY.

Please watch to following video, there are more than 100 different ethnic groups represented and this is the new face of Australia. Harmonious, tolerant, hard-working, free from fear or violence and making a positive contribution.

Help stop climate change by eating your domestic pet.

I stumbled onto a book recently by a couple of New Zealand scientists named Robert and Brenda Vale, The book is called Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living.

An interesting concept, I thought. According to their book the annual impact of a medium sized family dog is the same as driving a large four wheel drive 10,000km.

Yes, this will upset a lot of people especially if they have to eat faithful 11 year old Fido, Rover or Spot.

So I thought I would list a few other sacrifices people should make and the associated solution.

• The delegated who attended the recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2009 should have held their conference online using modern communication technologies instead of taking jet airplanes to Copenhagen.

• We all need to stop eating meat and become vegetarian. You will contribute less to methane and carbon emissions and have a healthier and better quality life.

• Stop using cars and gas guzzling SUV's and ride a bicycle or take public transport. This will reduce greenhouse emissions and help you get healthy.

• Replant your lovely green grass lawn that you rarely use with a food garden. You will not have to cut the lawn and you will be rewarded with healthy produce.

• Change you incandescent lights for compact fluorescent lights. This one will save you money and reduce your contribution to global warming.

• Recycle everything you can.

• Use a reusable shopping bag more than 100 times. This will negate the effects of using plastic bags.

• Don't eat frozen food and eat fresh food. Fresh food uses 10% of the energy to produce than frozen food.

• Have fewer children. The population of the world is expected to reach 7 billion on the 10th of April this year (2010). That is an extra 3 billion people since the 17th of July 1971 when the population reached 4 billion people. If you really want to be responsible for raising children you can adopt an orphan. There are plenty to go around.

• Outlaw war and weapons which not only contributes to climate change but also unquantifiable human suffering.

• You can visit the following website for 50 more ideas http://globalwarming-facts.info/50-tips.html

Ok. I know these are all drastic measures but so too is global warming, the melting of the polar ice-caps, the abnormally high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the large numbers of wars.

Peace, Love, Sustainability, Happiness and Health.

Really Healthy Eating Tip

There are many benefits to eating raw food.

But, have you ever eaten raw food, freshly picked straight from an organic garden. It will not only give you the boost you need but it can also have a more beneficial healing effect if it was planted by you.

One of my favourite raw foods is fresh orange juice or FOJ.

I like go out to my orange tree in the morning and pick 4 oranges, take them straight inside and sqeeze the juice out. The problemis it takes me about 10 seconds to drimk it and them it is gone. The great thing is the taste and the effecton my body. It tastes so good that I can't help drinking it down in one go and as it goes down my throat it feels like I am getting AN EXPLOSION OF SUNSHINE INSIDE MY TUMMY. The energy hit is instant and you can't get the same feeling with anything produced in a factory.

Freshly squeezed orange juice can't be compared with any bottled orange juice anywhere. 

Some benefits of OJ are:

• It contains Vitamin C, helpful in boosting your immune system.
• It contains Potassium, an esential nutrient.
• It contains Folate which helps the body's reprodution of new cells.
• 3 glasses per day can reduce the amount of bad fats such as Low Density Lipoproteins (LDLs)and increase High Density Lipoproteins (HDL's) this is great news for people with cholesterol problems.(Kurowska EM, Spence JD, Jordan J, et al. HDL-cholesterol raising effect of orange juice in subjects with hypurcholesferolemia. Am J Clin Ntur. 2000;72:1095-1100. source http://www.elliottsamazing.com/orangejuice.html )
• It is high in antioxidants which may help in the prevention of various kinds of cancer.

Caution: Due to the high acidity of OJ people with a stomach condition may feel uncomfortable after drinking it. Second the high acidity of OJ can also damage your teeth so make sure you care for them too.

Finally, oranges aren't the only fruit or vegetable that can be eaten raw. If you begin your organinc garden today make sure you plant an orange tree and next year you too could be drinking your first glass of truely Fresh OJ.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch- "No bag please."

YUK

This photo from wikipedia is of an albatross that starved becuse its stomach was full of garbage. Why? Read on to find out more.

The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is an area bigger than the size of Texas in the USA consisting of 3.5 million tons of rubbish, mainly plastic and cigarette butts. It was formed by the North Pacific Gyre and 80% of it comes from sources on land, the remaining 20% is believed to come from boats. It was discovered in 1988 and has only taken 50 years to form since the mass use of plastic became popular.

When plastic breaks down it forms minute shards which are then eaten and ingested by all kinds of marine animals. The parts that don't break down quickly are often eaten by birds and fish which eventually starve to death because their stomachs are full of plastic.

What can you do?

• Take individual responsibility for your plastic use and disposal.


• Take part in Clean Up Australia Day or get out and clean up your neighbourhood before the next big rain washes any rubbish into the storm water drains and into the ocean.


• Buy "green bags" and put them back in your car when you've finished with them so you don;t forget to take them shopping next time.


• Refuse plastic bags, especially if you are buying only a couple of things, it takes no effort to say " No bag please"


• Shop for fruit and vegetables at a farmer's market and get it in a box.


• Don't throw your cigarette buts out the window of your car. I know many smokers are reluctant to use the ashtray in their car because they don't want the car to smell like an ashtray. You can use a TicTac container or and old film canister for this and with an airtight seal the cigarette is extinguished by lack of oxygen.


• Finally, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, never throw out any rubbish.

It is only by working together that we can stop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch from becoming ENORMOUS.

Dachniks in Australia

"Thinking Globally and Acting Locally"

One of the best ways to do this is to make your own little organinc food garden.

Dachniks are Russian cituizens who are given a plot of land approximately 600m2 where they grow their own food. Surprisingly these plots account for about 30% of food produced in Russia. That is not only a lot of food miles saved but also healthy for the dachniks and the planet.



If you live in and appartment with a terrace or balcony you can plant herbs in pots so you can have freshly picked herbs to cook with. A home with a garden is even better and you can plant all kinds of things there. My small suburban garden in inner Brisbane has over 40 different kinds of useful plants; Herbs, Fruit and Vegetables. I use something from my garden every day and often 2 or 3 things per day. Last night for dinner I made a delicious basil pesto to have with my pasta.



People think that it must take a lot of time to have a good vegetable garden, but it doesn't. Once the garden is established, usually 1 to 3 days work, you only need to spend a little time watering ita few times per week and cutting back any weeds once a fortnight. After that your garden can usually be replanted with just a couple of hours work.



An organinc garden will supply you with the most healthy and tasty food available. There is nothing like just picked sweet corn, eaten uncooked. But even when you cook it it tastes much sweeter than anything you will ever buy from the store or in a can. You see the moment corn is picked it starts to convert the natural sugars to starch. After a week the starches begin to beakdown and the corn begins to taste bad. If you consider that commercially farmed corn takes approximately 2 to 3 days from the time it is harvested to get to your kitchen, it is not surorising that home grown corn tastes delicious.

Don't delay doing your part to help save the planet. If you live in the northern hemisphere now is the ideal time to start planning as the worst of Winter is over and the Autumn is about to begin. If you live in Australia, now is the ideal time to start planning and planting your winter crops.

Peace Love and Blessings
James