NEW BOOK!! Vegetarian to Vegan

WHEW!!!  It's finally happened.  I have now launched my new Kindle e-book "Vegetarian to Vegan - Making the Switch". (You don't need to own a Kindle to read it).

 

Just went live today on Amazon and you can download a copy at the launch special price of $0.99 …. how cool is that?  It's been awhile in the making, but well worth the wait.

This is the 4th book in the "Good Life" series and the book that I've been heading towards writing ever since I started book #1.

 

"Living Vegan Style" Course  

Along with the book is a course that will be coming to a computer near you very soon.  Well, the goal is the end of August 2015, so I guess, I better get a wriggle on and stop chatting here …. There's videos to record, people to interview, lists to create and heaps of other good stuff for this course.  So, if you're interested please register your interest here:

"Living Vegan Style" Course 

If you do trot over and get the book, I would love you to post up a positive honest review.

Again, here's the link to the new Book:

Click here: "Vegetarian to Vegan"   

A Powerful Bit of Art.

The more I look at this piece of artwork the more moved I become.

Artist Unknown

Today this is reality and how sad is that.  We humans are the most destructive thing on this planet and what is horrifying about that, is that we just can't seem to be able to stop.

Please share this around.

Bees Get Support From the Top Man.

Today I read an article about how, none other than the President of the United States ... Obama, has come out in defense of the honey bee.  Read the article here

Now, don't get me wrong, I think this is amazing, however, just how much "saving" it will actually do is debatable.

Last June (2014) the White House created a task force to find ways to save the bees.  See, even though big corporates run the western world, I will say that Obama at least has enough savvy to realize that if the bees go ... so does life as we know it.  And the extinction of the bees (and other pollinators) is getting all too close. 

So the task force has come out with a 10 year plan.  In a nutshell this is it: 

1. Bump monarch butterfly numbers to 225 million.
2. Reduce winter honey bee colony losses by about half. 
3. Make 7 million acres of land more pollinator-friendly.
4. Research how to minimize bees’ exposure to pesticides.
5. Re-evaluate the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides.

Perhaps they can achieve the increase in monarch butterfly and maybe they can reduce the winter honey bee losses.  They definitely can make 7 million acres of land more pollinator-friendly.  But the last two????  They already know that neonicotinoid insecticides and pesticides are the number one killer of bees - see my bog post here.  

And how many bees will die while they do their research?

Of course we know that the White House is organic and has it's own bees.

Maybe that's one of the reasons the President took this stance.  However, he's not gone far enough and groups are now by-passing the President and asking the First Lady to help as reported by the Washington Examiner.

 

A letter provided by Friends of The Earth asks that Michelle Obama use her influence with the administration and support a ban on these chemicals.

Let's hope she can be a mother for the bees and defend them.  This is a critical situation and a lot more urgency is needed ..... the bees can't wait much longer.

You can help by choosing organic or spray free whenever you can.

Captains of Industry or Destructive Devils?

I made a comment on a post that I read on Mongabay an environmental news site that I read.  The comment and the article I shared on the FaceBook page that I have resurrected - you can "like" the page if you want, see over there on the right - anywho, that's off topic where was I?

So the comment I made came from not only my love of Orangutans (one sits on my bed and travels with me when I go away), but also from a documentary I'd watched last night.

Ollie - my travel companion!

The doco went into the history of corporations and how they began back in America in the 1800's when the captains of industry, you know names like Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller, built billion dollar companies that then went on to dominate, set the rules and basically have politicians in their pockets.

These guys started the greed

So reading about this one Orangutan (read more here), who was rescued from a sea of palm oil trees completely under-nourished and with a bullet in his chest, reminded me how those like Walmart, Monsanto, Bankers, Rio Tinot and BHP Billitons, as well as Johnson & Johnson and other pharmtech companies not to mention the palm oil companies like Sarawak Oil Palms, and TSH Resources who sit in their ivory towers continuing to be greedy, selfish, corrupt and totally ..... ARGHHHHHH ..... can't think of a word, perhaps you can help to describe the modern day "captains of industry"?

We can't wait for these "captains" to ruin our world any more .... each one of us has to do our bit to conserve what we have left and to try and heal if we can.

Pope Francis Rocking the Boat .... Again!

Well blow me over with a feather and tell me it's a sledge hammer.  Now the Pope is being criticized for being concerned about climate change.  

It appears that the Pope, bless his plain white robes, met with the UN Secretary-General and in that meeting they discussed the upcoming United Nations Climate change conference which is going to be held in Paris at the end of this year.  (30 November - 11 December 2015)

But wait, there's more.  Not only did the Pope put his tuppence worth into the climate pot, but the Pontifical Academy of Sciences also met with the UN Secretariat and some other really important non government organizations.

 

 

Vatican & UN team up on climate issues

 

 

Now, the fact that all this climate change discussion was going on by the Vatican powers that be, created a bit of a stir in certain quarters.  Like the Heartland Institute, a right-wing American organization known for its global warming skepticism, got their knickers in a right twist.

 

 

And they weren't the only ones telling the Vatican that they have no business talking about climate change.  Another group, funded by a US climate drive in Chicago went off to Rome to rally against the Vatican's climate commitment.  Interestingly enough, one of these people was Christopher Monckton.

Who the hell is Christopher Monckton I hear you ask.

 

 

His fame is that he's the 3rd Viscount Monkton of Brenchley (to give him his correct title) a journalist right against climate change.  Now young Christopher (well he's not young as the photo above shows) caused an unprecedented step by the House of Lords who published a "cease and desist" letter demanding that Lord Christopher Monckton should stop claiming to be a member of the upper house. reference

If he purports to be someone he's not, then I'm not sure how much credence this man should be given and, I'm please to say, the Vatican thinks the same.

Getting back to the Pope.  He's been outspoken about climate change saying:  "I don’t know if it is the only cause but in great part it is man who has slapped nature in the face. We have in a sense taken over nature.”

 

So, as the Guardian reports   "The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based conservative thinktank that seeks to discredit established science on climate change, said it was sending a team of climate scientists to Rome '...to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science....' ”
Just as an aside …. The Heartland Institute, guess who they are funded by???? Energy companies.  Say no more!!!

 

The Vatican is getting ready to have a Papal encyclical where it will declare it's position on the environment and humanity's relationship with nature.  When that comes out watch out for the flak - will be very interesting to see what sort of confrontation there will be between the Pope and the religious right in the USA.

 

All I can say is ….. stick to your greenness, Francis, the world needs people like you!

 

If you want to read more - BBC