Losing The Amazon

The Independent - 20 may 2005

400,000 The number of landless peasants in Brazil.

750 The number of tree species in a 16 sq mile slice of Amazon forest. In the same area there are also 125 species of mammals, 400 species of birds and 100 species of reptiles.

4 billion The tonnage of wood the paper industry will be consuming annually by 2020 if it keeps up its current rate of production.

5,600 The acreage of rainforest destroyed to establish one pulpwood plant, which then consumes 2,000 tons of wood every day producing the electricity needed to run the factory.

22 The percentage of Brazil's population that lives below the poverty line.

10 million The number of unemployed Brazilians, out of a labour market of 89 million.

40-50 The estimated number of years that the rainforest will survive if deforestation continues at its current rate.

2.7 million Acres of rainforest are destroyed in Brazil every year.

33 The percentage of the world's remaining rainforests that are found in Brazil.

17.3 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed.

137 Plant and animal species become extinct every day as a result of rainforest depletion.

1 A single Amazonian tree harbours as many species of ants as the entire British Isles.

40 The percentage of its annual income Brazil spends repaying its loans.

20 million people call the Amazon basin home, including 400 indigenous groups.

70 per cent of all logged timber ends up as unusable fragments or sawdust.

50 per cent of all the world's forests have disappeared.

1 million tons of wood are needed to produce enough charcoal to power a single Brazilian steel mill.

100 million hectares of land, or 20 per cent of the entire Amazon region, is held illegally according to the Brazilian government.

The Amazon Rainforest 2005

The Rape Of The Rainforest...

It is stark. It is scarcely believable. But the ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest continues at a headlong rate new figures reveal - and today we reveal the man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen.

He is Blairo Maggi, the millionaire farmer and uncompromising politician presiding over the Brazilian boom in soya bean production. He is known in Brazil as O Rei da Soja - the King of Soy.

Brazilian environmentalists are calling him something else - the King of Deforestation. For the soya boom, feeding a seemingly insatiable world market for soya beans as cattle feed, is now the main driver of rainforest destruction.

Figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon was the second highest on record as the soy boom completed its third year. An area of more than 10,000 square miles - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down, with half the destruction in the state of Mato Grosso, where Mr Maggi, whose Maggi Group farming business is the world's biggest soya bean producer, also happens to be the state governor.

Mr Maggi sheds no tears over lost trees. In 2003, his first year as governor, the rate of deforestation in Mato Grosso more than doubled.

In an interview last year he said: "To me, a 40 per cent increase in deforestation doesn't mean anything at all, and I don't feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We are talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about."

Many people violently disagree. The survival of the Amazon forest, which sprawls over 4.1 million sq km (1.6 million sq miles) and covers more than half of Brazil's land area, may be the key to the survival of the planet. The jungle is sometimes called the world's "lung" because its trees produce much of the world's oxygen. It is thought nearly 20 per cent of it has already been destroyed by legal and illegal logging, and clearance for cattle ranching. But the soya boom has dramatically stepped up the pace of destruction.

It began on the back of the BSE crisis in Britain, when the feed given to cattle suddenly became a matter of intense public concern. Cattle feed producers around the world switched to soya as an untainted source.

The boom was intensified by the fact that Brazil - in contrast to the US and Argentina - did not go down the GM route in its agriculture, so when most European countries went GM-free, it was from Brazil that they sought their soya bean supplies. Europe now imports 65 per cent of its soya from Brazil. A further impetus to the boom is coming from China, whose emerging middle class wants to eat more and more meat - so the demand for animal feed is soaring.

The soya boom is bitterly criticised by environmentalists. "It is turning the rainforest into cattle feed. It is gross," said John Sauven, head of the rainforest campaign for Greenpeace UK.

It first showed up in the deforestation figures in 2003, when after falling or staying steady for eight years, the rate of destruction leapt by 40 per cent in a single year, from 18,170 sq km to 25,500 sq km.

Since then the rate has stayed at its new high level, with 24,597 sq km cut down the next year, and, as the figures released yesterday by the Brazilian environment ministry showed, from satellite photos and other data, no less than 26,130 sq km of rainforest was cut down in the 12 months to August 2004. This was a further leap of 6 per cent on the year before and caused immense dismay, not least because President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government adopted an action plan last year to protect the Amazon. The Environment Minister, Marina Silva, who is from the Amazon state of Acre, said the figure was high, but promised the country would "work to fight this in a structured way, with lasting and effective action, involving all sectors".

Greenpeace's Amazon co-ordinator Paulo Adario said the scale of the destruction was a tragedy, and showed that deforestation was "not a priority for the Lula government".

Mr Maggi, whose company grossed $600m last year, does not see the future as one of restricted soya plantings. He has called for a tripling of the amount of land planted with soybeans during the next decade in Mato Grosso, and his company announced last year that it intended to double the area it has in production.

How demand for soya drives the destruction

The production of soya beans is now a vital industry for Brazil. Agribusiness is the country's number one export earner, and soya is the principal commodity. The current government under President Lula actively promotes soya export as a means to earn foreign exchange for debt payments.

From the 1960s, the Brazilian government promoted soya cultivation so Brazil could become self sufficient in vegetable oils. Soya was increasingly planted on large-scale, fully mechanised farms in the south and the states on the Atlantic coast.

In the past, some agro-engineers believed soya would never threaten the rainforest, because of climatic limitations and soil conditions. Soya was thought to be "as adaptable to conditions of the tropical climate as a panda bear to the African savannah".

However, the development of new varieties has enabled the rapid expansion of soya plantations north, into the tropical states where the rainforest is situated.

Between 1995 and 2004, the area cultivated with soya increased by 77 per cent in the centre-west, with Mato Grosso becoming the single biggest producer. Now soya is rapidly advancing from all sides toward the heartland of the Amazon, fuelling massive deforestation.

Two companies dominate Brazil's soya business. Gruppo Maggi, owned by Blairo Maggi, Mato Grosso's governor, is considered to be the world's largest individual soya producer. The number one soy-exporter is the giant US grains business, Cargill. Michael McCarthy

Destruction Of The Amazon

STOP THE MEATRIX

Antarctica - The Last Refuge

Antarctica
A place of wonder and infinite possibilities.
Home to nearly 70% of the worlds freshwater.
A place that nobody owns.
It comprises 10 percent of the worlds area and has never known war.

The one place in the world that we have the opportunity to keep pristine, an entire continent that can still be protected from the negative effects of human use. Mission Antarctica

Antarctica Melting Fast

The worst fears of environmentalists are coming true:
Scientists have issued a new warning about the effects of climate change on Antarctica, saying that more than 200 glaciers are melting because of unusually high temperatures. Using aerial photos dating back to the 1940s and more recent satellite images, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered just how much these ice shelves have melted over the last 50 years, as temperatures have risen by around 3½ degrees F.

In a study published in the respected journal Science, these researchers explain that until the mid-1950s, most of the glaciers got bigger. During the decade after that, most of them were stable, but since then, they've been shrinking. During the past five years, the pace of this shrinkage has accelerated. But climate change may not be the only cause of this mass meltdown, which healted during the 1980s, despite continuing warming. Other important reasons for the melt could include warming ocean temperatures, which may also be caused by global warming, but scientists haven't yet figured out exactly how this works. Unknown Country

NOVA: Warnings From The Ice
Originally broadcast on April 21, 1998. Over the last half-century, the coastal ice on the Antarctic Peninsula has been gradually disappearing. Scientists are beginning to wonder if we are on the verge of a great flood that may consume the world's coastlines. In the program, a group of scientists heads south to Antarctica in the race to answer questions and heed the warnings from the ice.

Mission Antartica

Florida USA
If West sheet melted (17 foot rise)

Warnings From The Ice: Water World What would happen to the world's coastlines if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, raising global sea levels by as much as 20 feet? Some scientists say a collapse is inevitable, possibly even imminent.

While you're at it, check out the same stretch of coast 20,000 years ago. It was the height of the Ice Age, when sea levels were 400 feet lower than today, and there was a lot more land to go around.

Finally, have a look at what would be lost if the East Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. No one believes this monstrous dome will disintegrate anytime soon. But if it did, it would raise seas around the world by as much as 200 feet. (To play it safe, these images depict a conservative rise of 170 feet.)

Intelligent Earthquakes

The frequency and the spread of earthquakes on the West coast of America are increasing rapidly. Back and forward the signals go, as though the earth has all the time in the universe. Slowly, with each passing - from one side of the earth to the other - stronger patterns emerge. For example, how the South American quakes mirror (at an angle) the Indonesian quakes on the other side of the planet.

I have watched this phenomenon for many months, and the build-up is agonisingly slow in human terms. Patterns are dotted across Alaska and California, then they seem to recede. The next time they come back the magnitudes are slightly larger. Now and then a much larger quake bounces off inland, or in the above case, South of Panama. Then the build-up of small beaded patterns resumes, and the whole cycle repeates itself.

The Indonesian waters seem to be the trigger point for the whole planet, but they are not the only areas to be effected by larger than usual earthquakes. Northern Sumatera, may be the lever, but the whole earth is being effected. Larger quakes will not confine themselves to Indonesia alone.

For The Swallows

It is now the 2nd of May 2005, and I can suggest that you observe carefully how the weather "feels" in your body and not simply how you feel about the weather. Because, the same thing is happening in 2005 as of today. The sky was clear in Southern Germany, the sun was incredibly hot. As the sun was setting the same "heat trap" effect began as in 2003. The heat increases and the body begins to sweat. As the sun moves below the horizon the heat density increases. It is bizzare!

Once more the number of Swallows seems to have decreased. By May there was always a good flock of Swallows in the sky. This year I have two Swallows who have appeared. These small signs signal big changes in our climate. Today the Swallows, tomorrow mankind!


A First-Hand Glimpse of Hell in Europe -- 13-Aug-2003

Let me share with you my observations of what is happening here in Europe, at least in middle Germany. The media reports lower temperatures than we have here every day, so you can add 5 degrees to anything you read. I think they have their official weather stations underground or inside caves. There is a very dry hot wind blowing, similar to what one would experience in the Sahara. Late at night and in the early hours of the morning the air remains incredibly warm. The walls of our houses are like ovens at night, and in the morning, the sun is burning hot. There is hardly any temperature change over a 24 hour period. It is simply hot all the time.

The leaves on trees and plants are dark brown. The wheat was half its usual height. The parks are empty. There are swallows that I watch each year, and when they arrived this spring, their numbers were half of what they were in previous years. Every year I've watched them flying in circles until late evening, but for many days there hasn't been a single swallow in the sky. I hope they haven't died. It just occurred to me that in England there was a large "swallow" crop circle recently. These are all small changes that seem like nothing to most people, but I know they are bad signs.

It's almost as though something is talking to us—the Sun? the Planet? Nature? I'm not sure. But people are very quiet. We are all behaving in the same way, as if whatever we need to survive this has been denied us. We're sitting right in the middle of the battlefield without protection.
In the past, we enjoyed a long period of stable weather that allowed excessive abundance and growth. In the background, there is a strange feeling that we haven't used this abundance well. In mid-June, when I already thought it was hot here, I went for a walk in the evening. For the first time in my life I became aware that all the trees were radiating sound. In fact everything in nature was creating this sound, which felt like a harmonic. I felt utterly ashamed of who we are as a species. Behind this harmonic I could feel an intense love, and also a sadness, because somehow we have failed.

If we don't get rain soon, how will animals make it through the coming winter? All types of grass are completely dried out, even in the surrounding woodlands. It must be incredibly hard for the deer. I read yesterday that the French Government deny this is a serious crisis, and yet they are allowing the nuclear power stations to pour water into rivers at higher temperatures than is usually allowed, which will kill all the fish. The Swiss have decided it's better to cut the output of the power plants than put hotter water into their rivers.

Where I live, they spray a lot of what look like chemtrails across the sky. In past years, it did seem to get cooler when the sky was filled with these spreading thin white clouds, but this is no longer the case. The sun seems to sit up there as the rightful ruler of the skies and those trails are not spreading the way they used to, as if there’s a total lack of moisture or water vapor. From here, it looks like the long trails are drying up as soon as they are sprayed.

Today the unrelenting, burning sun still beats down, almost as if there is a hole in the sky and some vital protection has vanished. The strangest thing of all happens late at night, when the sun goes down and the night becomes dark. The air almost begins to cool, but then the intense heat reappears. This heat is just as intense as the hottest part of the day, but it's in the middle of the night. This has become worse since the beginning of August.

I think if humans want to play a game of tennis against nature they are about to lose.

Weather Wars

Chemtrails -- The Genesis of Project Cloverleaf

Scott Stevens -- I received the following email on the 18th of April as it was forwarded to me from someone who may have answered several questions I have had about the incorporation of the civilian air fleet into a portion of this atmospheric project.

My questions have been: The weight and volume of the chemical mixture delivered while in flight including the delivery mechanism? How much of a financial burden is it to carry this extra weight aloft with each flight? How is the plumbing kept 'hidden' from the many mechanics. Who does and how are the tanks refilled? Read on: Did An Airline Mechanic Stumble Upon The Truth?

SIPL April 17 2005

For reasons you will understand as you read this I can not divulge my identity.

I am an aircraft mechanic for a major airline. I work at one of our maintenance bases located at a large airport. I have discovered some information that I think you will find important.

First, I should tell you something about the "pecking order" among mechanics. It is important to my story and to the cause to which you have dedicated yourself.

Mechanics want to work on three things. The avionics, the engines, or the flight controls. The mechanics that work on these systems are considered at the top of the "pecking order".

Next come the mechanics that work on the hydraulics and air conditioning systems.

Then come the ones who work on the galley and other non-essential systems. But at the very bottom of the list are the mechanics that work on the waste disposal systems.

No mechanic wants to work on the pumps, tanks, and pipes that are used to store the waste from the lavatories. But at every airport where I have worked there are always 2 or 3 mechanics that volunteer to work on the lavatory systems.

The other mechanics are happy to let them do it. Because of this you will have only 2 or 3 mechanics that work on these systems at any one airport. No one pays much attention to these guys and no mechanic socializes with another mechanic who only works on the waste systems. Fact is, I had never even thought much about this situation until last month. Like most airlines we have reciprocal agreements with the other airlines that fly into this airport. If they have a problem with a plane one of our mechanics will take care of it.

Likewise, if one of our planes has a problem at an airport where the other airline has a maintenance base, they will fix our plane.

One day last month I was called out from our base to work on a plane for another airline. When I got the call the dispatcher did not know what the problem was. When I got to the plane I found out that the problem was in waste disposal system. There was nothing for me to do but to crawl in and fix the problem.

When I got into the bay I realized that something was not right. There were more tanks, pumps, and pipes then should have been there. At first I assumed that the waste disposal system had been changed. It had been about 10 years since I had worked on this particular model of aircraft.

As I tried to find the problem I quickly realized the extra piping and tanks were not connected to the waste disposal system, at all. I had just discovered this when another mechanic from my company showed up. It was one of the mechanics who usually works on this particular type of plane, and I happily turned the job over to him.

As I was leaving I asked him about the extra equipment. He told me to "worry about my end of the plane and let him worry about his end!"

The next day I was on the company computer to look up a wiring schematic. While I was there I decided to look up the extra equipment I had found. To my amazement the manuals did not show any of the extra equipment I had seen with my own eyes the day before. I even tied in to the manufacturer files and still found nothing. Now I was really determined to find out what that equipment did.

The next week we had three of our planes in our main hanger for periodic inspection. There are mechanics crawling all over a plane during these inspections. I had just finished my shift and I decided to have a look at the waste system on one of our planes. With all the mechanics around I figured that no one would notice an extra one on the plane.

Sure enough, the plane I choose had the extra equipment! I began to trace the system of pipes, pumps, and tanks. I found what appeared to be the control unit for the system. It was a standard looking avionics control box but it had no markings of any kind.

I could trace the control wires from the box to the pumps and valves but there were no control circuits coming into the unit. The only wires coming into the unit was a power connection to the aircraft's main power bus.

The system had 1 large tank and 2 smaller tanks. It was hard to tell in the cramped compartment, but it looked like the large tank could hold about 50 gallons. The tanks were connected to a fill and drain valve that passed through the fuselage just behind the drain valve for the waste system.

When I had a chance to look for this connection under the plane I found it cunningly hidden behind a panel under the panel used to access the waste drain. I began to trace the piping from the pumps. These pipes lead to a network of small pipes that ended in the trailing edges of the wings and horizontal stabilizers.

If you look closely at the wings of a large airplane you will see a set of wires, about the size of your finger, extending from the trailing edge of the wing surfaces. These are the static discharge wicks. They are used to dissipate the static electric charge that builds up on a plane in flight.

I discovered that the pipes from this mystery system lead to every 1 out of 3 of these static discharge wicks. These wicks had been "hollowed out" to allow whatever flows through these pipes to be discharged through the fake wicks.

It was while I was on the wing that one of the managers spotted me. He ordered me out of the hanger telling me that my shift was over and I had not been authorized any overtime.

The next couple of days were very busy and I had no time to continue my investigation. Late one afternoon, two days after my discovery, I was called to replace an engine temperature sensor on a plane due to take off in two hours. I finished the job and turned in the paperwork.

About 30 minutes later I was paged to see the General Manager. When I went in his office I found that our union rep and two others who I did not know were waiting on me. He told me that a serious problem had been discovered. He said that I was being written up and suspended for turning in false paperwork.

He handed me a disciplinary form stating that I had turned in false paperwork on the engine temperature sensor I had installed a few hours before. I was floored and began to protest. I told them that this was ridiculous and that I had done this work.

The union rep spoke up at this point and recommended that we take a look at the plane to see if we could straighten it all out. I then asked who the other two men were. The GM told me that they were airline safety inspectors but would not give me their names.

We proceeded to the plane, which should have been in the air but was parked on our maintenance ramp. We opened the engine cowling and the union rep pulled the sensor. He checked the serial number and told everyone that it was the old instrument. We then went to the parts bay and went back into the racks.

The union rep checked my report and pulled from the rack a sealed box. He opened the box and pulled out the engine temperature sensor with the serial number of the one I had installed. I was told that I was suspended for a week without pay and to leave immediately.

I sat at home the first day of my suspension wondering what the hell had happened to me. That evening I received a phone call. The voice told me "Now you know what happens to mechanics who poke around in things they shouldn't. The next time you start working on systems that are no concern of yours you will lose your job! As it is, I'm feeling generous, I believe that you'll be able to go back to work soon." CLICK.

Again, I had to pick myself from off the floor. As my mind raced, it was at this moment that I made the connection that what had happened to me must have been directly connected to my tracing the "mysterious" piping.

The next morning the General Manager called me. He said that due to my past excellent employment record that the suspension had been reduced to one day and that I should report back to work immediately. The only thing I could think of was "what are they trying to hide" and "who are 'THEY'"!

That day at work went by as if nothing had happened. None of the other mechanics mentioned the suspension and my union rep told me not to talk about it. That night I logged onto the Internet to try to find some answers.

I don't remember now how I got there but I came across a site that talked about chemically-laced contrails.

That's when it all came together. But the next morning at work I found a note inside my locked locker. It said, "Curiosity killed the cat. Don't be looking at Internet sites that are no concern of yours."

Well that's it. Now I know 'THEY' are watching me.

While I don't know what THEY are spraying, I can tell you how they are doing it. I figure they are using the "honey trucks". These are the trucks that empty the waste from the lavatory waste tanks.

The airports usually contract out this job and nobody goes near these trucks. Who wants to stand next a truck full of sh--. While these guys are emptying the waste tanks, it makes sense that they could easily be filling the tanks of the spray system.

They know the planes flight path so they probably program the control unit to start spraying some amount of time after the plane reaches a certain altitude. The spray nozzles in the fake static wicks are so small that no one in the plane would see a thing.

God help us all.

-- A concerned citizen

Copyright © Scott Stevens and WeatherWars.info

Weather Wars

Guardians Of The Earth

My ancestors came from the Highlands of Scotland. Driven from the land they loved, these people either had to sail to America (and kill the Native Americans), or remain in lowland areas of Scotland. I was born in a coastal town on the West coast of Scotland with an ability to see the ancient world. The world I was born into never seemed real to me, more like a bad nightmare out of which I was waiting to waken up.

People once lived close to the land and close to the earth, and it was good for them because the land gave them power. All across the world a new force drove the native people from the land and into towns and cities. Disconnected from the land people began to lose sight of the value of life. Society now lives out its life through drug prescriptions, alcoholism and television (among other addictions).

Today the human being seems only to exist for "more" and "greater", all of it based on materialism and the desire to have as much as one can get in this life. Petrolium seems to have been a curse that has destroyed most of the planet within the last 100 years or less. People can travel further and easier, farm greater areas of land, fish larger areas of the ocean, fish greater amounts and faster ... Without petrolium this unrestrained growth could not have taken place.

Children have become a commodity. What are you going to have and how successful will it be? Genetically engineered geniuses are on their way, together with the genetically modified grains and seeds. It never seems to end!

Now the Albatrosses are dying out, and the fishing vessels are depleting the fish, dolphins and whales in the great oceans. Petrolium driven fishing tankers allow many more fish to be killed, destroying dolphins, whales, porpoises and birds along the way. This is no longer a way of life, it is an industry. People are no longer thankful, or stop to be grateful for what they have. People have no sense to thank the earth for any of the resources they receive. These riches are taken for granted and more is not enough.

Personally I am thankful to nature, even as this stinking death of petrolium fires the engines of our destruction. Humans take every resource and use it to fire their greed, their insensitivity, their dissatisfaction and their loneliness. Killing is a thoughless act and the more we kill the better. What is a 60 year old Albatross to the men pulling in the catch? What good will the money be when the food runs out?

I see this same insanity on the Internet. The worldwide web used to be a place for exploration and discussion, searching for answers and communicating something of value. In the beginning it was unsophisticated, plaster and paint, do it yourself and hope it works kind of experimentation. I could type a search into Google Search Engine and come up with a number of sites discussing anything from UFO's to Gardening.

Now the search engines are full of long strings of hooks, fishing for money. High powered firms float along, trailing their hooks behind them, looking to catch more Dollars, Euro's or Yen. You are bombarded with Ads, commercial sites, special offers, magnetic attractions and more. If I had money I would create a special "non commercial" Server, where people could surf and learn in Utopian seas with dolphins and whales untouched, and the Albatrosses flying without pain.

Around the world the Native People took what they needed, said thank you to the earth, and left the rest with a blessing. The hunters were not renound for the largest number of kills. The hunters learned to maintain a balance, and to honour their guardianship of the earth. The creatures who fed the communities were to be respected, as was the earth itself. The sun gives light and warmth, and the earth gives abundance of life.

I watch the same insanity driven by the ego and loss of soul spreading across the world wide web. Who has the most billion hits on their web pages? How do you optimise for more? Who is the biggest and the best, the richest? It is no different than the fishing practices killing the dolphins in pair trawling, or the mile long lines dragging the Albatross under to its death. It is the same mentality, the same disease, the same psyche.

We are a world community sitting around one fire. We share the same resources and we live one life. The quality of the light spreading from the fire is the psyche, the thoughts men have and how they act on those thoughts. It is a question of whether the collective mind of man is quiet, attentive and observing, learning ... or is the mind restless, divided, talking to itself and inwardly disturbed? If the mind is noisy it cannot learn. If the collective mind is constantly in pursuit of something it cannot respond to life in a balanced way.

I attended the Krishnamurti talks at Brockwood Park for many years until his death. Jiddu Krishnamurti was a charasmatic man. He could easily have attracted millions of people; but he did not want it. He insisted that the talks not be advertised. He was not a guru and he did not want followers. I watched how he moved between the worlds, and how he worked throughout his life from another level.

In all the noise and demands to get more, to be number one, to find as much as you can, as fast as you can ... something essential gets lost. One of my favorite websites: The Wingmakers, does not have this mega ranking ideology behind them. They don't want it either. As this obsession for more is mainly going in the wrong direction. We humans need quality and sharing. We need intimacy and friendship. Love and respect. We need to find a bond of basic human values and cherish that gift.

The Scottish word "tryst" meant: A meeting place. That is a place where people can allow themselves to come together without any sense of harm. Once you pass through that doorway there has to be something beyond trust. That something is love. Only when there is love will the tryst be honoured. If there is no love within the heart then all kinds of betrayal, conflict and petty division will surface. This is the state we live in today - wars without end.

We have forgotten to be grateful for the small things, and to know grace and humility for that which we receive in this earth journey. The human race does not need volume, it needs character, intelligent cooperation and deeper values. Small communities will be able to create this sense of oneness and cooperation, from which all mankind will benefit. We do not need larger institutions, we need smaller ones. We do not need central control, we need to be answerable ourselves, to be able to respond to problems and to create our own solutions.

If you catch one fish and that fish feeds you then what more do you need? If you have 10 visitors who share enlightenment ... and those ten each have ten to share ... and the numbers remain small but the effect is shared for the benefit of all mankind... What more do we need?

When we observe nature. Do millions of birds gather or flock in one area? Of course not! If they did they would starve as there is not enough food in a small space to feed them all. Do millions of fish gather in one small part of the sea? Why then do humans do it? The larger the number and the smaller the space, the less there is for you!

Who Will Save The Albatross?

Massacred by commercial fishing, our most magical and magnificent birds now face extinction. As Ellen McArthur launches a campaign to save them, Michael McCarthy explains what makes the glorious albatross the king of the skies.

Ed Caesar - 28 April 2005 - It stirs the imagination more than any other bird. Eagles may be majestic, falcons may be dashing and kingfishers may be exquisite, but nothing quite sparks our sense of wonder like the albatross.

Even for those of us who have never seen one, and that's most of us, the great long-winged ocean wanderer floats through our subconscious as an icon of wildness and freedom. There is more: an air of deep mystery about it, as it emerges from nowhere, in the remotest corner of the sea, effortlessly follows your ship for hour upon hour, and disappears once again like a phantom. Where's it gone, when there isn't anywhere to go to?

Sailors used to think albatrosses were the souls of drowned men. Samuel Taylor Coleridge chiselled that superstitious awe into literary stone two hundred years ago in The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, the poem which fixed forever the mysterious, semi-magical nature of the bird in the British mind. Shoot an albatross like the mariner did, you read, and there will be terrible consequences.

No doubt about it, albatrosses are wondrous, albatrosses are utterly charismatic, albatrosses are very special creatures indeed. And they are being slaughtered. In a massacre of immense proportions, the birds are being killed in tens of thousands all across the Southern Ocean where most of them make their home. In less than 20 years, 19 of the 21 albatross species have gone from healthy populations to facing extinction.

The cause is a fishing method which has been used for centuries by native peoples, such as the Inuit of Greenland, without wrecking the environment, but which is suddenly being employed on a vast industrial scale, with catastrophic results.

Long-lining involves trailing out a line behind the fishing boat, set with many baited hooks. The lines can be eighty miles long, and on some lines the hooks can number ten thousand; and thousands of boats are doing it. It is now believed that across the oceans of the world, no less than a billion long-line hooks are baited every year. One billion tempting traps for seabirds, which swoop down to the pieces of squid or other bait still showing on or near the surface, are caught by the hook in the beak or throat, dragged under, and drowned.

There are simple and inexpensive measures that can be taken, with remarkably successful results. They include streamers attached to the long-line to scare the birds away, weighting the lines to make them sink faster, and setting the baits at night when the birds will not see them. The conservationists think such a task force is necessary because although an international treaty to protect the albatross was signed last year (ACAP - the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels), and some countries such as Britain have already ratified it, many other fishing nations have not. And action is needed now.

"If we fail to save the albatross, it means that we will have failed to manage the oceans, and these are our greatest global commons," Euan Dunn said.

"They are now becoming an increasing source of food security around the world - people are more and more turning to the oceans to find the protein they need. Unless we can manage them and steward them in a sustainable way, our own worth as a species is greatly diminished."

The albatross: a lesson from literature?

Coleridge, as everyone knows, was one of the great Romantic poets; but what they may not know is that he was also an environmental visionary. In his best known work, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, published in its present form in 1817, we are told the story of an albatross, which follows a ship sent off course in bad weather, only to be shot by the ancient mariner of the title with a crossbow.

It becomes clear that the mariner's random act has brought a terrible evil upon the ship. The vessel is stuck in the doldrums, and the men start to thirst. When a ship is seen, sailing towards them even though there is not a breath of wind, it turns out to be a ghost ship. Death silently takes every sailor on the ancient mariner's ship, except the mariner himself. He alone will live on, to expiate his sin against Mother Nature.

Now consider the plight of the albatross in 2005.
More than 100,000 of these massive birds are killed every year by long-line fishing in the Southern Ocean, and environmentalists fear that some of the 21 types of albatross will become extinct soon if this practice continues unabated. The long-lines, up to 80 miles of hooks, are designed to catch swordfish and tuna, but the albatross, swooping to catch fish near the ocean surface, has become their unintended victim.

Consider, too, the simultaneous discovery that Swedish fishermen in the Baltic are suffering from low sperm counts and sperm motility, due to anxiety, depression, and the large numbers of fatty fish they eat. It would be foolish to directly attribute a decline in fishermen's ability to reproduce with the concurrent decline in albatross numbers, but there are some unnerving parallels between the plight of Coleridge's doomed ship and the plight of today's Swedish sailors.

Just as the ancient mariner's ship languishes, it is, pointedly, a lack of motility which is affecting our Baltic seafarers. The mariner's encounter with the female figure of 'Life in Death', too, carries heavily sexual Gothic overtones. His wish, in particular, that 'I too could die' carries the Shakespearian resonances of 'death' as 'orgasm' with it. And the less said about the Freudian resonances of the mariner killing the virginal white bird with his crossbow the better.

Spurious? Possibly. But, environmental visionary or not, Coleridge understood the balance that must be struck with the world around us. And the Ancient Mariner warns us - meddle with nature, and pretty soon it will meddle with you. The Independent

A Great Storm

Inqua?: What if a giant storm suddenly appeared in the area and most of them got cut off?

Observer: They have the best technology watching for sudden weather changes.

Inqua?: But it may appear out of Hyperspace, right above their heads and give no warning.

Observer: And then what?

Inqua?: A bigger force drops on their heads and does to them what they are doing to the baby seals.

Observer: And what would this achieve?

Inqua?: They would learn.

Observer: By dying?

Inqua?: Aren't the seals dying?

Observer: Are they not supposed to learn in the here and now?

Inqua?: Clubbing baby seals to death? Perhaps death would teach them, a life for a life.

Observer: You mean the great dying?

Inqua?: I mean right now.

Observer: They are learning right now. The seals are teaching them.

Inqua?: What do you mean?

Observer: Have you not seen how the seals look up at the men as they get ready to strike?

Inqua?: Yes, it's complete innocence. Complete vulnerability. They radiate a powerful aura of love. I have seen that.

Observer: And the men kill them regardless, without mercy.

Inqua?: Yes! That's what I mean. They still don't stop.

Observer: So, you are saying something should stop them?

Inqua?: If I had the power I would certainly stop them.

Observer: But, you do have the power!

Inqua?: What do you mean?

Observer: What will you do about all the people who pay for the furs? Will you teach them a lesson too?

Inqua?: They are are as guilty as the killers! Yes, it all goes together.

Observer: Will you drop a great storm on their heads too?

Inqua?: I don't have to. It's coming. But I still don't understand.

Observer: Who do you think they are clubbing to death?

Inqua?: Themselves! each spike driven into the seals is the pain and hurt of an individual who is killing themselves.

Observer: So, They are at war with themselves.

Inqua?: I still don't get what you are saying?

Observer: Why are they doing it?

Inqua?: For money, for greed. They are the slaves of materialism.

Observer: And that is all they see and know.

Inqua?: Yes!

Observer: And what will they do when the skies clear?

Inqua?: Oh! Now I understand. It is not a big storm that presents the answer, it is the clearing of the situation. Yes, I understand.

Observer: Use your mind to clear the skies, and leave the other to take care of the surroundings.

Inqua?: Thank you!

- EarthStar -

Mystery Of The Silver Rings

The young dolphin gives a quick flip of her head, and an undulating silver ring appears--as if by magic--in front of her. The ring is a solid, toroidal bubble two feet across--and yet it does not rise to the surface! It stands erect in the water like the rim of a magic mirror, or the doorway to an unseen dimension. For long seconds the dolphin regards its creation, from varying aspects and angles, with its vision and sonar. Seemingly making a judgement, the dolphin then quickly pulls a small silver donut from the larger structure, which collapses into small bubbles. She then "pushes" the donut, which stays just inches ahead of her rostrum, perhaps 20 feet over a period of up to 10 seconds. Then, stopping again, she regards the twisting ring for a last time and bites it--causing it to collapse into a thousand tiny bubbles which head--as they should--for the water's surface. After a few moments of reflection, she creates another.

This isn't fantasy, it's real. And it isn't magic, just marvelous. It is a rare dolphin behavior, and we first saw it in the play of two baby dolphins. It gives us a little more insight into the superb level of control dolphins can exercise on their water environment, and underscores the fact that we can still discover things about dolphins by simply watching them.

I first saw this behavior on one of my relatively rare trips out to the Delphis lab; the project's principle scientist Ken Marten said that "the two babies, Tinkerbell and Maui" had been doing it for a little while. My reaction: "Wow, neato. How the heck do they DO that? Try to get some photo and video shots of it. It sure is cool". Ken, along with Suchi Psarakos, Research Assistant and computer programmer, did indeed document the silver rings (although video and photos don't do the rings justice), and this has made it possible to both analyze the physics behind the phenomenon and to watch the dolphins do this trick in slow-motion.

As it turned out, small silver rings weren't the only toys the dolphins were making for themselves: some of the creations were as large as a basketball rim. And Tinkerbell proved able to create a silver helix, spiraling perhaps 20 feet long, that would spring into life in a fraction of a second and remain stable in the water as she swam past, observing it with sonar and vision. then--presto! she would grab a small silver ring from the helix to play with, while the rest of the helix degraded into bubbles which would belatedly "remember" to rise to the surface.

Creation of these rings by dolphins isn't new. (far from it--dolphins were probably blowing magnificent silver rings while our anscestors were hanging off tree limbs). It does seem to be a relatively rare behavior, though: it has been seen before only in a specific group of dolphins documented by Diana Reiss and Jan Ostman at Marine World. "The fact that ring-blowing is rare and that we have two babies doing it suggests that one baby learned it from the other", comments Ken Marten. "Whether it was a case of observational learning, or one "taught" the other, we don't know... but it'd sure be interesting to know."

The social situation also seems to affect ring-blowing: " The babies made them most intensely when they were the only two dolphins in the tank and when there was only one adult. The behavior stopped entirely when they were outnumbered by adults, " observed Suchi. "During one intense session with Tinkerbell there were often two or three rings visible in the tank at one time. She frequently swam over to me in an excited state, then went and made some more."

The reaction to our documentation of these rings has been universal--people are fascinated by them. Dr. Ken Norris, the world's leading expert on dolphins, had never seen it before. Robert Wolff of Apple Computer's Advanced Design Group made a "quicktime" movie of ring-blowing for display on Mac computers. Arthur C. Clarke, Earthtrust Advisory Board member, thought they were wonderful--but debated my offered contention that they might be the first "extraterrestrial art", pointing to interesting "artistic" achievements by other nonhuman animals.

For myself, I do consider these rings to be "art": the creation and observation of artifacts by a nonhuman mind, with no use other than entertainment and aesthetics. One must be constantly wary not to anthropomorphize the actions of other species--to treat them as though they were human. But after watching a dolphin create one of these kinetic sculptures--observe it from many angles--and then destroy it with a bite--it seems a long leap of logic to ascribe any other motive.

This can, and will, be debated... but the beauty of the rings is beyond debate. As evidence mounts for "self awareness" and other "intelligent" qualities in dolphins, I think that it must cause us again to ask the question: what are these creatures, that they spin silver lariats for the sheer joy of creation? And what sort of creatures are we, if we cannot appreciate and protect them?

This Magic Moment

It was like many Maui mornings, the sun rising over Haleakala as we greeted our divers for the day's charter. As my captain and I explained the dive procedures, I noticed the wind line moving into Molokini, a small, crescent-shaped island that harbors a large reef. I slid through the briefing, then prompted my divers to gear up, careful to do everything right so the divers would feel confident with me, the dive leader.

The dive went pretty close to how I had described it: The garden eels performed their underwater ballet, the parrot fish grazed on the coral, and the ever-elusive male flame wrasse flared their colors to defend their territory. Near the last level of the dive, two couples in my group signaled they were going to ascend. As luck would have it, the remaining divers were two European brothers, who were obviously troubled by the idea of a "woman" dive master and had ignored me for the entire dive.

The three of us caught the current and drifted along the outside of the reef, slowly beginning our ascent until, far below, something caught my eye. After a few moments, I made out the white shoulder patches of a manta ray in about one hundred and twenty feet of water.

Manta rays are one of my greatest loves, but very little is known about them. They feed on plankton, which makes them more delicate than an aquarium can handle. They travel the oceans and are therefore a mystery.

Mantas can be identified by the distinctive pattern on their belly, with no two rays alike. In 1992, I had been identifying the manta rays that were seen at Molokini and found that some were known, but many more were sighted only once, and then gone.

So there I was... a beautiful, very large ray beneath me and my skeptical divers behind. I reminded myself that I was still trying to win their confidence, and a bounce to see this manta wouldn't help my case. So I started calling through my regulator, "Hey, come up and see me!" I had tried this before to attract the attention of whales and dolphins, who are very chatty underwater and will come sometimes just to see what the noise is about. My divers were just as puzzled by my actions, but continued to try to ignore me.

There was another dive group ahead of us. The leader, who was a friend of mine and knew me to be fairly sane, stopped to see what I was doing. I kept calling to the ray, and when she shifted in the water column, I took that as a sign that she was curious. So I started waving my arms, calling her up to me.

After a minute, she lifted away from where she had been riding the current and began to make a wide circular glide until she was closer to me. I kept watching as she slowly moved back and forth, rising higher, until she was directly beneath the two Europeans and me. I looked at them and was pleased to see them smiling. Now they liked me. After all, I could call up a manta ray!

Looking back to the ray, I realized she was much bigger than what we were used to around Molokini - a good fifteen feet from wing tip to wing tip, and not a familiar-looking ray. I had not seen this animal before. There was something else odd about her. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Once my brain clicked in and I was able to concentrate, I saw deep V-shaped marks of her flesh missing from her backside. Other marks ran up and down her body. At first I thought a boat had hit her. As she came closer, now with only ten feet separating us, I realized what was wrong.

She had fishing hooks embedded in her head by her eye, with very thick fishing line running to her tail. She had rolled with the line and was wrapped head to tail about five or six times. The line had torn into her body at the back, and those were the V-shaped chunks that were missing.

I felt sick and, for a moment, paralyzed. I knew wild animals in pain would never tolerate a human to inflict more pain. But I had to do something.

Forgetting about my air, my divers and where I was, I went to the manta. I moved very slowly and talked to her the whole time, like she was one of the horses I had grown up with. When I touched her, her whole body quivered, like my horse would. I put both of my hands on her, then my entire body, talking to her the whole time. I knew that she could knock me off at any time with one flick of her great wing.

When she had steadied, I took out the knife that I carry on my inflator hose and lifted one of the lines. It was tight and difficult to get my finger under, almost like a guitar string. She shook, which told me to be gentle. It was obvious that the slightest pressure was painful.

As I cut through the first line, it pulled into her wounds. With one beat of her mighty wings, she dumped me and bolted away. I figured that she was gone and was amazed when she turned and came right back to me, gliding under my body. I went to work. She seemed to know it would hurt, and somehow, she also knew that I could help. Imagine the intelligence of that creature, to come for help and to trust!

I cut through one line and into the next until she had all she could take of me and would move away, only to return in a moment or two. I never chased her. I would never chase any animal. I never grabbed her. I allowed her to be in charge, and she always came back.

When all the lines were cut on top, on her next pass, I went under her to pull the lines through the wounds at the back of her body. The tissue had started to grow around them, and they were difficult to get loose. I held myself against her body, with my hand on her lower jaw. She held as motionless as she could. When it was all-loose, I let her go and watched her swim in a circle. She could have gone then, and it would have all fallen away. She came back, and I went back on top of her.

The fishing hooks were still in her. One was barely hanging on, which I removed easily. The other was buried by her eye at least two inches past the barb. Carefully, I began to take it out, hoping I wasn't damaging anything. She did open and close her eye while I worked on her, and finally, it was out. I held the hooks in one hand, while I gathered the fishing line in the other hand, my weight on the manta.

I could have stayed there forever! I was totally oblivious to everything but that moment. I loved this manta. I was so moved that she would allow me to do this to her. But reality came screaming down on me. With my air running out, I reluctantly came to my senses and pushed myself away.

At first, she stayed below me. And then, when she realized that she was free, she came to life like I never would have imagined she could. I thought she was sick and weak, since her mouth had been tied closed, and she hadn't been able to feed for however long the lines had been on her. I thought wrong! With two beats of those powerful wings, she rocketed along the wall of Molokini and then directly out to sea!

I lost view of her and, remembering my divers, turned to look for them. Remarkably, we hadn't traveled very far. My divers were right above me and had witnessed the whole event, thankfully! No one would have believed me alone. It seemed too amazing to have really happened. But as I looked at the hooks and line in my hands and felt the torn calluses from her rough skin, I knew that, yes, it really had happened.

I kicked in the direction of my divers, whose eyes were still wide from the encounter, only to have them signal me to stop and turn around. Until this moment, the whole experience had been phenomenal, but I could explain it. Now, the moment turned magical. I turned and saw her slowly gliding toward me. With barely an effort, she approached me and stopped, her wing just touching my head. I looked into her round, dark eye, and she looked deeply into me. I felt a rush of something that so overpowered me; I have yet to find the words to describe it, except a warm and loving flow of energy from her into me.

She stayed with me for a moment. I don't know if it was a second or an hour. Then, as sweetly as she came back, she lifted her wing over my head and was gone. A manta thank-you.

I hung in midwater, using the safety-stop excuse, and tried to make sense of what I had experienced. Eventually, collecting myself, I surfaced and was greeted by an ecstatic group of divers and a curious captain. They all gave me time to get my heart started and to begin to breathe.

Sadly, I have not seen her since that day, and I am still looking. For the longest time, though my wetsuit was tattered and torn, I would not change it because I thought she wouldn't recognize me. I call to every manta I see, and they almost always acknowledge me in some way. One day, though, it will be her. She'll hear me and pause, remembering the giant cleaner that she trusted to relieve her pain, and she'll come.

-- At least that is how it happens in my dreams.

This Magic Moment

North Pole Star Chakra

The Mystical Arctic Hyporboreans



Magnitude 6.3 North of Zervenaya Zemlya - March 6, 2005
12:21:43 PM local time at epicenter
World Map long,lat 90,90

"Far north, somewhere near the icy regions of the North Pole, legend speaks of an ancient and mostly forgotten civilisation. Mythical in character, the Hyperborean civilisation is said to have flourished in the northern most region of planet Earth at a time when the area was suitable for human habitation.

"According to certain esoteric systems and spiritual traditions, Hyperborea was the terrestrial and celestial beginning of civilisation. The home of original Man. Some theories postulate Hyperborea was the original Garden of Eden, the point where the earthly and heavenly planes meet. And it is said Man transgressed Divine Law in this Golden Age civilisation, the ultimate price being his banishment to the outside world. Man ventured into other regions of Earth, establishing new civilisations, bringing to an end this great and glorious Golden Age."
The Western Mystery Traditions

"The lineage of the Western Mystery Tradition can be traced back to Atlantis, Eden, ancient Sumeria, and the paradisal arctic Hyperboreans. These teachings are carried forward by many Western world spiritual groups, some of whom you may recognize by name: the Rosicrucian Order, Freemasons, Theosophists, the Alice Bailey teachings, Gnostics, Alchemists, Christian Mystics, Rudolph Steiner's Anthroposophists, and the Hermetic Orders of the Golden Dawn and Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.), the goddess traditions and many of the Native traditions such as shamanism rooted in the Inca, Maya, and Aztec cultures. A re-emergence of this great metaphysical Tradition is occurring now for today's troubled world. So you may be feeling the Call to re-unite with your own inner terrestrial/celestial lineage, pre-coded in your DNA."
The Spiritual Pole

In the myths and traditions of the subterranean world it is often said that the world's surface was yet to suffer a terrible world war (Third World War) which would though be ended by earthquakes, other natural disasters and a switching of the poles and the deaths therefrom of two thirds of humanity. After this "last war" the several races of the inner Earth would reunite with the survivors on the surface and the thousand-year GOLDEN AGE (age of Aquarius) would be rung in.

Those who do not learn by their mistakes, repeat them.