I can’t say enough about this video on http://www.storyofstuff.com/ …. If you have about 20 minutes, its time well spent.   This is probably the first time I’ve seen a concise video that captures so well our society’s addition to “stuff.” The one thing that I feel this video lacks is a mention of what we as humans should think as we chance our awareness and our actions and that is to bring greater compassion and awareness to our acts.  Its not just about technical solutions to the global climate crisis, its also about bringing into our awareness the needs of people around the world…. I know I need to add that to my list of top 10 things to consider for the new year in 2008.

Here is a link to the full story:

If you are not familiar with the benfits of Raw milk, I encourage you to explore it for yourself. I’ve included a few links that go into further detail the benefits of raw milk.

Also check out this video from Mark McAfee, the CEO and founder of Organic Pastures Dairy and an MD explaining why he switched his dairy to all Raw.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6AyznQDOfM[/youtube]

(image courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle)

If you didn’t catch this story, as reported on the San Francisco Chronicle article the fender that protected the bay bridge from the tanker Cosco Busan last November has now been repaired. When this incident first happened, it made me think of society’s true cost in maintaining the petroleum diet. For those of us who don’t keep up with the ins and outs of fuel usages by such vessels, it was our first introduction to the fact that they burn the lowest form of oil, mainly the byproduct of the refining of crude oil. Not only did we understand the cost to marine life during the spill, but we were also awakened to the pollution cause by such vessels in burning the fuel… This was a wake up call for us to look at how much unnecessary products we consume, ones manufactured overseas which inevitably have to be shipped over here on these very container ships.

Now to the fun part of this post. The new fenders used to replace the old ones are made of recycled plastic, a pertrolum based product, but unlike their original wood counterparts that were waterproofed using a toxic compound, most likely a crude oil based product, it “should” be less toxic and last as long if not longer..(p.s. I say “should” only because the plastic that is being used is not food grade plastic, even these we know leach out toxic compounds such as bisphenol A or phthalates… in the beautiful vast ocean, I’d like to believe that amount and impact of the chemicals leaching from the plastic are minor compared to what is currently there)

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