Playing with Frackin’ Fire

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Read an interesting post on Running ‘Cause I Can’t Fly

Change the World Wednesday – 30th Jan

The previous week’s challenge got extended. I attacked my kitchen shelves as well.

You’ll notice on the second top shelf all my herbs, etc are in recycled olive jars; and on the next shelf down, stocks are in a used margarine container. On the top shelf there are chillies in olive oil in a recycled olive oil bottle, not easily recognisable but they are there, and boy are they hot (they’ve been in the oil for two years).

The list is no further ahead (last week’s challenge). I can’t think of anything to add.

My new fridge was supposed to arrive today after two more aborted attempts, but arrangements failed… again. The gods don’t like me!

My neighbour had to work late, so the pick-up wasn’t available. We have set Thursday as the day.

I hate depending on other people, it’s no wonder I need so much coffee.

On with this week’s CTWW challenge.

Hmmm, this week’s challenge is a guest post from Kristina Ross.

Your mission is this: digitize your correspondence. So much of what we would have put in the mail ten years ago is now more than doable with our bevy of technological advancements. Of course, you’re probably well aware and already taking full advantage of the ability to get in touch with a text, an e-mail or tweet. But think about where else you could avoid using paper; scanning and sending documents is easier than ever now that e-sign is a veritable resource for signatures, and interactive notes can actually be more effective over the Web with easy access to streaming videos, music and images.

Click the CTWW image for the full challenge.

Well, this one is easy for me. I simply don’t.

I don’t receive mail, I don’t send mail, I don’t scan, I don’t print.

The only time I receive stuff is when my bank in New Zealand send me a new debit card (I don’t use a credit card, credit cards are for fools), and then they send it by courier. That happens once every two years.

Mozilla Thunderbird

All my correspondence is by email. It has been since 1994, the early days of the net when I had my own travel business I made a decision, if a company is not innovative enough to use the internet, they’re not innovative enough to be of service to me. In fact, my refusal to trade with travel product suppliers unless they used the internet led to several switching on to the net. Travel product suppliers have a thing called a ‘wholesale tariff’ which is often a weighty document of up to 100 pages which could take three weeks in the post, or overnight via ftp, and sometimes I wanted that document ‘now’! Faxing docs like this was simply too expensive.

So my endeavours to reduce the postal clutter have been in place, not necessarily for environmental reasons, for many years; and similarly my use of the net for all correspondence.

I used to use Thunderbird as my email client, but lately I have fallen by the way of using cloud-based such as gmail and yahoo. I know from experience that this is bad, because my gmail account was lost when my Google account disappeared, along with all my correspondence, email addresses, etc. I now use gmail only for collecting emails that will be deleted shortly, like notifications of comments and new posts. I should have learned my lesson.

Let that be a lesson for all. The cloud-based systems are all too convenient, until something goes wrong. The fiasco over Mega-Uploads is a fine example where thousands of legitimate businesses lost their documents when the American authorities bullishly closed the site. With cloud-based systems you are not in control.

Off on a tangent a bit, but I think the warning is pertinent if you use them for all your correspondence.

Challenge met.

Get the Sack

Here’s a simple green idea.

Thinking of recovering something?

You want to see ‘How to’ then visit Pepperbox Couture, step by step with photos.

So Simple, it’s Stupid

Not these ‘pot’ plants, not recommended

Browsing, surfing, whatever you call it; I do it often.

Bloggers come to my blogs and ‘Like’ or comment, I always return the favour.

During my perambulations on Sunday I found the most stupendously simple idea for pot plants.

A pot plant wall.

Now, think about it. What could be simpler for the garden or apartment terrace than this?

Yup, concrete (cinder) blocks.

You want to know how? Check out, The World’s Top 10 Best Cinder Block Planters. There are more ideas, and a link to the ‘How to.’

Monday Moaning

Milk Scare Hits Dairy Power New Zealand

Low levels of dicyandiamide-also called DCD-have been found in New Zealand milk. The chemical, which farmers apply to pastures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, is toxic to humans in high doses

WELLINGTON—A toxic substance has been found in New Zealand milk, in a potential blow to the nation’s dairy exports, which are valued at 11.5 billion New Zealand dollars (US$9.7 billion) annually.

The country’s two biggest fertilizer companies, Ravensdown Ltd. and Ballance Agri-Nutrients Ltd., have suspended sales of dicyandiamide, or DCD, after low levels were found in dairy products. Farmers apply DCD to pastures to prevent nitrate, a fertilizer byproduct that can also cause health problems, from getting into rivers and lakes.

Though there are no international standards for the acceptable level of DCD in food products, in high doses the substance is toxic to humans.

Government officials Thursday expressed concern about the potential damage to the image of an industry that accounts for nearly a third of the nation’s exports.

“New Zealand’s reputation is based on the high quality of food we produce,” said Carol Barnao, deputy director of general standards at New Zealand’s primary industries ministry, which is responsible for exports and protecting the nation from biological risks. A government study of DCD use is now under way.

Wall Street Journal

and this…

Fonterra CEO plays down milk worries

The CEO of dairy giant Fonterra has described reaction to trace findings of nitrate inhibitor in milk as “way out of proportion”.

Co-op chief Theo Spierings said he could assure consumers worldwide that Fonterra products were safe to consume.

“We know some of our customers and regulators have questions. We need to answer them, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” he said.

“We have strong science and we are providing assurances about the safety of our products. Our testing has found only minute traces of DCD in samples of some of our products. It is important to remember that the minute traces detected were around 100 times lower than acceptable levels under European food safety limits. ”

On Friday Fonterra issued a press release saying it supported moves by New Zealand’s two main fertiliser suppliers to voluntarily suspend sales and use of Dicyandiamide (DCD) treatment on farm land until further notice.

DCD is used to inhibit nitrate leaching into waterways from fertiliser treatments and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The decision followed a finding in September that traces of DCD had appeared in milk tested by Fonterra. Spierings said talks with fertiliser companies Ravensdown and Ballnce agri-nutrients about withdrawing DCD from the market had begun at that time.

Todd Muller, managing director of co-operative affairs at Fonterra, said the problem with DCD use was that although Europe had standards for DCD traces, most countries didn’t, which meant the issue could create barriers to Fonterra’s exports.

“Because farmers were looking to DCD as a tool to mitigate farm environmental impacts,” he said, “we could see a potential problem in future.”

The press conference followed media headlines in the United States and China drawing attention to the DCD finding and questioning the safety of New Zealand milk.

Spierings said his concern was not about milk safety but about consumers being concerned by rumours rather than facts. “The whole industry is affected, based on rumours,” he said.

The potential impact was enough to make sure the government was kept fully informed, said Spierings.

“We have a 100 per cent open line [to the government] every day, because it’s a New Zealand issue,” he said.

Source: Stuff.co.nz

Opinion:

Point 1 :: I would trust nothing any CEO says.

Point 2 :: Ditto for governments.

Question, why has Dicyandiamide (DCD) been immediately withdrawn from the market?

I suspect because there IS a problem!

Is this another case of companies, corporations and governments pulling the wool over our eyes?

Profits and GDP are more important than people!

Further reading:

Don’t blame me, I just eat grass – image: 3news

Now, look where it’s made

But Ministry for Primary Industries director-general Wayne McNee said in a statement the amount of small DCD residues found posed no food safety risk.

“DCD is not melamine. It is a different chemical and has none of the toxicity that melamine has.” – 3news Read more:

DCD is also used in the production of melamine, the compound which left Chinese babies sick and some dead, after they drank milk powder contaminated with melamine. – RadioNZNews Read more:

Nature Ramble

This week, we’re back in Britain.

A sweet story.

We’re looking at otters, fascinating animals. We have them in Brazil too, I have often seen them during treks in the Pantanal. To me they are like a cat who likes water, playful.

Sad to see the tide turn against the otter

Although some claim the otter population is getting out of hand, I will always love them

European otters: three-month-old male and female cubs. Photograph: Nicole Duplaix/guardian.co.uk

I love otters. I recall my father’s excitement at seeing one glistening on a rock beside the sea on the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1982. When I lived in a cottage beside the river Usk in my 30s, I used to rise before dawn in the hope of glimpsing the resident otter bitch teaching her pups to fish. Even now, I still get a thrill stumbling across a fish carcass, the debris of an otter’s dinner, rotting on a riverbank.

I was surprised to learn recently that otters are now so numerous our waterways cannot sustain them. At least, this is what Brian Dodson of Waen Wen Fishery in North Wales believes. His legal case made the news last week. Dodson claims the Environment Agency reintroduced otters to a nearby river without informing him and that the otters ate all the stocked fish in his ponds.

This is not an isolated incident: the impact of otter predation on the multimillion-pound inland fisheries business is a serious ecological issue across Britain. The call for an otter cull is increasing by day.

From the middle ages until the middle of the 20th century, the otter was akin to vermin, detested by fishermen and hunted with hounds, but it was the widespread use of the agricultural insecticide DDT that made extinction a real prospect 35 years ago. In 1978, the otter was added to the list of protected species and a PR makeover followed. Henry Williamson’s novel Tarka the Otter was made into a film in 1979, while the Otter Trust initiated a captive breeding programme. Since then, numbers have burgeoned.

 

(I have taken the liberty of replacing the Guardian video clip, because they never seem to ’embed’. If you want to see their clip, use The Guardian link below – AV)

Some would say we should have let nature takes its course, but that has not been an option for a long time. A very long time. Since about 4,000BC, man has effected the greatest changes in the “personality” of Britain and a perfectly functioning ecosystem is a thing of the distant past. We have felled forests, drained fens, dammed rivers and ploughed fields, modelling the landscape to our needs. We have introduced and eradicated the fauna to suit our desires.

Managing nature is, though, extremely hazardous. The red kite was hunted by gamekeepers down to a handful of breeding pairs in the rural fastness of mid-Wales by the early 1900s. Fast-forward a century and red kites are common again, following an effective conservation campaign. They have even become a motorway hazard: a cloud of red kites circling in a great vortex above the M40, like a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds, is a common distraction to drivers.

My pet hate is the North American grey squirrel, introduced in 1876 to brighten up the parklands of Victorian gentlemen. We now spend a fortune annually trying to control grey squirrels.

The European beaver, the first native extinct mammal to be officially returned to the wild in Scotland, has recently caused huge controversy. The beaver is spreading south, where people are emphatic it will have to be shot.

In the complexity of our dominant relationship with nature, we have created a quagmire for ourselves. Thus, one generation’s vermin is another generation’s protected species, and vice versa.

I shall continue to treasure every rare encounter with an otter. I certainly won’t be laying any traps to snare otters along the Usk, but I appreciate that my son might.

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Make you Fink on Friday

Quinoa plants

For thousands, of years the Inca, and now the Aymara and Qechua have eaten one of the few grains that grow at high altitude.

It can stand extremely hot temperatures during the day and below freezing at night in the Andean deserts above 3,600 (10,000ft +/-).

It is one of the Earth’s most nutrition laden foodstuffs…

Kinwa (Quinoa)

2013 has been declared International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations.

Once scorned by the Spanish conquerors as ‘Inca food’ and because of its sacred value in religious ceremonies, the Spanish forbade its cultivation.

But what is happening to this seed, now that the western world has discovered it?

Quinoa brings riches to the Andes

Bolivian and Peruvian farmers sell entire crop to meet rising western demand, sparking fears of malnutrition

A woman carries quinoa in Bolivia. The ‘pseudo-grain’ may be the most nutritious foodstuff in the world. Photograph: Laurent Giraudou/Corbis

A burst of colour on a monochromatic panorama, a field of flowering quinoa plants in the Bolivian desert is a thing of beauty. A plant ready for harvest can stand higher than a human, covered with knotty blossoms, from violet to crimson and ochre-orange to yellow.

Quinua real, or royal quinoa, flourishes in the most hostile conditions, surviving nightly frosts and daytime temperatures upwards of 40C (104F). It is a high-altitude plant, growing at 3,600 metres above sea level and higher, where oxygen is thin, water is scarce and the soil is so saline that virtually nothing else grows.

The tiny seeds of the quinoa plant are the stuff of nutritionists’ dreams, sending demand soaring in the developed world. Gram-for-gram, quinoa is one of the planet’s most nutritious foodstuffs. Once a sacred crop for some pre-hispanic Andean cultures, it has become a five-star health food for the middle classes in Europe, the US and increasingly China and Japan.

That global demand means less quinoa is being eaten in Bolivia and Peru, the countries of origin, as the price has tripled. There are concerns this could cause malnutrition as producers, who have long relied on the superfood to supplement their meagre diets, would rather sell their entire crop than eat it. The rocketing international price is also creating land disputes.

“Royal quinoa has given hope to people living in Bolivia’s most destitute and forgotten region,” says Paola Mejia, general manager of Bolivia’s Chamber of Quinoa Real and Organic Products Exporters.

Royal quinoa, which only grows in this arid region of southern Bolivia, is to the grain what beluga is to caviar; packed with even more protein, vitamins and minerals than the common variety.

Averaging $3,115 (£1,930) per tonne in 2011, quinoa has tripled in price since 2006. Coloured varieties fetch even more. Red royal quinoa sells at about $4,500 a tonne and the black variety can reach $8,000 per tonne. The crop has become a lifeline for the people of Bolivia’s Oruro and Potosi regions, among the poorest in what is one of South America’s poorest nations.

It is quinoa’s moment on the world stage. This year is the UN’s International Year of Quinoa as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recognises the crop’s resilience, adaptability and its “potential contribution in the fight against hunger and malnutrition”.

Evo Morales, the Bolivian leader whose government suggested the special recognition for the grain, said: “For years [quinoa] was looked down on just like the indigenous movement To remember that past is to remember discrimination against quinoa and now after so many years it is reclaiming its rightful recognition as the most important food for life.”

However, there are concerns the 5,000 year-old ancestral crop is being eaten less by its traditional consumers: quinoa farmers. “They have westernised their diets because they have more profits and more income,” says Mejia, an agronomist. “Ten years ago they had only an Andean diet in front of them. They had no choice. But now they do and they want rice, noodles, candies, coke, they want everything!”

Daysi Munoz, who runs a La Paz-based quinoa farming collective, agrees. “As the price has risen quinoa is consumed less and less in Bolivia. It’s worth more to them [the producers] to sell it or trade it for pasta and rice. As a result, they’re not eating it any more.”

Bitter battles are being fought over prime quinoa-growing land. Last February dozens of people were hurt when farmers fought with slings and sticks of dynamite over what was once abandoned land.

Many people who migrated to cities in search of a better life are now returning to their arid homeland to grow royal quinoa, says Mejia. Most land is communally owned, she adds, so “the government needs to set out the boundaries or there will be more conflicts”.

In the village of Lacaya, near Lake Titicaca, the farmers have recently sown quinoa. It grows faster in the wetter conditions but the variety quinua dulce is less sought after than royal quinoa.

…

What is quinoa?

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa willd) is actually a “pseudo-grain”, not belonging to the true grass family but a member of the goosefoot plant family, which includes spinach and sugarbeet.

Its exceptional nutritional qualities led NASA to include it as part of its astronauts’ diet on long space missions. A 1993 NASA technical paper says: “While no single food can supply all the essential life sustaining nutrients, quinoa comes as close as any other in the plant or animal kingdom.”

Quinoa is the only plant food that contains all 10 essential amino acids for the human diet. Its protein content (between 14%-18%) surpasses that of wheat, rice, maize and oats, and can be a substitute to animal protein. Its calorific value is greater than that of eggs and milk and comparable only to that of meat.

It is a source of vitamin E, vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and contains more minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium and phosphorus than other grains.

Recent research found quinoa contains phytoestrogens, which are said to prevent or reduce osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, breast cancer and other conditions that can be caused by lack of oestrogen after the menopause.

 

Read more

NB: Qechua is spelt correctly in Qechua which does not use the ‘u’ after ‘q’. However ‘quinoa’ is a Spanish word coming from ‘kinwa’ (Qechua) and absorbed into English.

Opinion:

And what of the Altiplano Indians?

They may be getting richer, but will they suffer because of the westernised diet in favour of their traditions?

Just Wash the Damn Dishes!

Change the World Wednesday – 23rd Jan

Last week’s CTWW was about picking an area of the house and organise it.

I chose my junk drawer…

Before

After

Medications, etc to the right; soaps and extras to the left, tooly bits and things in the middle.

I’m afraid I didn’t throw away much, in fact my discards amounted to a perished rubberband. But I did find the remains of a packet of parsley seeds that I will have another shot at propagating as a house plant/s.

On with this week’s challenge without further ado.

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This week start an “Action” journal. List the Eco-tasks you’d like to accomplish this year. This can be done in an actual journal, a blog … or even on a piece of paper. Get the whole family involved since we’re often more inclined to follow through on a task if it was our idea in the first place. Put the list of actions somewhere accessible so that it can be referenced often. As actions are completed, mark them off (ah the sense of accomplishment).

And then she asks, “Are you game for this activity?”

Lixo cooling off on the slate floor of the shower, it’s the coolest place in the house on a 40 degree day.

I’m game for most things, but I hate making lists.

I’ll have to think about that. If I do it it will be on this blog with updates. Getting the whole family involved, I checked with Lixo, he’s on, not happily but he’s on board. He’s all the family I’ve got and has been warned that he will eat all his cat food before he gets more.

Let’s face it, Lixo is a cat, he views the world differently from us hummins.

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He knows if the cat dish is full or empty.

#1 :: A new fridge to reduce the electricity gobbling monster I have currently. – √

#2 :: Change the element in the shower head. The current one only works on Low and Off, which is good for saving energy, but the with winter only a few months away, when the water is intolerably cold, I do like a Hot shower in the winter. I have the element, it’s in the little white plastic bag in the ‘tooly’ section of my junk drawer. It’s been there for a few months now… procrastination.

#3 :: I haven’t got a three yet.

I live from day to day and don’t make many big plans. But here is the story on the fridge (reprinted from Life is a Labyrinth, my personal blog).

“Last night one of my students told me of his plans, to finish his project at work, get involved in Carnaval, take his holidays and get married to his long term girlfriend. But to do three of these things he needs a lot of money, he then informed me that English teachers are on the expendable list. Two more lessons until Carnaval and that’s it.

But the sun shines.

Having polar bears in the kitchen is not recommended

He wanted to know if I could use a fridge. Now the fridge I have works, but has to be defrosted manually every couple of weeks. If I don’t preform this ritual, I have polar bears roaming the kitchen at night. But it has kept my beer cold for the last year. The fridge I have been offered is like a limousine compared to the truck that graces my kitchen at present. And the price is unbeatable, the last two lessons free and R$100. It is almost new, It still has the warranty adhesive.”

I collect the fridge tomorrow night. So, challenge accepted and unlocked. You’ll note the little green tick √ (check for our American cousins) beside it on the list.

Now I need more coffee, it helps me do stupid things faster.