QUOTES: tasty inspirational lines from the wise!

Feel free to add any of your own favourites by clicking the comments link, and I'll put them on the main page!

Mindfulness is an awareness that's cultivated by paying attention on purpose, and in the present moment, which is the only moment we are ever alive in.
-John Kabat-Zinn , Transcript from "The Spirit of Things" ABC Radio National, 26th November 2007, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2006/1793842.htm

We are, in terms of what we do to the environment, a fairly disgusting species and although man, as none other, can modify his environment, he will have to fit in with it eventually or sooner or later, if he goes on exterminating his surroundings, he will exterminate himself!
-Lady Eve Balfour in Andre Leu, "Why are we organic?" Hunter Organics Magazine, Winter 2003, p6.

There is more information
of a higher order of sophistication and complexity
stored in afew square yards of forest
than there is in all the libraries of mankind
-Snyder in CA Bowers (1993). Education, Cultural Myths and the Ecological Crisis. State University of New York Press

To the dull mind nature is leaden.
To the illuminated mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.
- Nancy Newhall

..Singing this one works best!...
I'd rather be a forest than a street.
Yes I would.If I could, I surely would.
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet.
Yes I would. If I could, I surely would.
-Paul Simon (1970) "El Condor Pasa"
Side 1 Track 2 on Simon& Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water"

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
-Frank Lloyd Wright

Sustainability will always be re-established, as the unsustainable cannot last.
-"Golden Feelings". Andrew Spannenberg (2005) aspannenberg@iprimus.com.au

Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life.
-A Green Manifesto for the 1990's. Penny Kemp and Derek Wall

HOORAY: for Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery received the Australian of the year Award for 2007.
From what I see and read of him, he is a very passionate and active environmental scientist.
I love his books/ edited compilations, particularly
-The Birth of Sydney(Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, 1999)
-The Life and Adventures of William Buckley (Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, 2002)
and of course
-The Weather Makers, The history and future impact of climate change (Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, 2005)
I recommend them thoroughly.

NEWS: Banner drop creates climate awareness

This news story is from the Aotearoa Independant Media Centre and is well worth the click.
It seems 2 talented climbers from the Save Happy Valley Coalition shimmied up these cranes and hung their banner early this morning.
I like the the wording on the banner "solid energy=govt sponsored climate change". Energy sources which come from solid matter such as coal and biomass are major contributors to CO2 and methane emission buildup, unnaturally heating up the atmosphere, thus contributing to climate change. Non-solid energy sources such as solar, air and tidal energy are such a great alternative.
Is that something significant? Yes.. probably the tying up/ release of carbon! Since black coal is at least 92% carbon, dry brown coal about 70% carbon! And methane is 60 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2! (Figures from Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers, The history and future impact of climate change (Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, 2005)(A great book to read if you haven't already))

NEWS: Research suggests coalmining caused Newcastle Earthquake!

National geographic news reports about a study by Christian D. Klose of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. Christian Klose claims that coalmining caused the Newcastle Earthquake in 1989. After about 200 years of coalmining in the Newcastle area and the use of groundwater pumping in the mining process stressed the geology and caused the earthquake. "All told, he added, the monetary damage done by the earthquake exceeded the total value of the coal extracted in the area."
Time to go renewable Newcastle?