DO VISIONSHARE AND ECOWORLD
SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY?

Ed Ring at EcoWorld and I seem to have a major difference of view regarding GM's recent media blitz.

and please comment.

It seems to have gotten triggered by yesterday's post about LiveGreenGoYellow.com

Here is my response to Ed:

Hi Ed,

It looks like we are going to have a good discussion. I welcome the opportunity for us to learn from each other and I invite others to chime in. That's why I am going to cross-post this comment at my own blog, VISIONSHARE.

I want to thank you Ed for the really fine post about terra preta. It was a gem and that's why I chose to make a lengthy and totally supportive comment. Perhaps, you can imagine my surprise at discovering, a few days later, that the terra preta post and my comments are by surrounded four large General Motors "LiveGreenGoYellow" advertisements?

I objected. Your follow-up response was "I'm more worried about tropical rainforest destruction than whether or not Americans subsidize their own midwestern farmers instead of sending the money to OPEC". This sounds nice but, sorry, it simply doesn't hold up.

The current subsidies of US corn ethanol have triggered massive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. When US farmers, pulled by the new subsidies, shifted from planting soybeans to corn the economic slump that has limited soybean expansion in places like Matto Grosso, Brazil took off -- and so did the fires and deforestation which have now returned to record levels. I posted about it under the title, "US Ethanol Subsidies Help Fuel Range Wars and Fires in the Amazon" here.

The fact is that we are living in a globalized world where just about everything impacts everything else. We no longer can afford the old assumptions of separation. Nowadays we are all connected.

My specific concerns about the GM advertising campaign are:

1) it promotes one of the most inefficient and highly subsidized form of biofuel -- corn ethanol --
which competes with much more efficient forms such as sugarcane ethanol;

2) it places some of the largest and most fuel guzzling vehicles (Chevy Suburbans and GMC trucks) in the class of new green-ness;

3) it targets and promotes the "American dream" of big materialism and big agri-business in developing countries such as Brazil; see my in-depth report here.

4) the alliance of auto manufacturers and agri-business and oil companies has been a powerful lobby in the US Congress against sensible vehicle emissions standards and they are now green-washing through ad campaigns like this;

One might respond with, "what's wrong with incremental involvement from the BIG GUYS? Aren't they necessary in the task of changing the world?" Yes, of course they are. But the emphasis of this group is energy and not earth. They are not promoting earth-restoring technologies like terra preta and agri-char which includes a reciprocity of giving some back to the earth. At this point they are focused still on maximizing the flow of fuel in support of out-of-control energy consumption. The Chinese saying points out that crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. For GM the danger is the end of cheap fossil fuels and the opportunity is biofuel. It's all an energy trip.

That's the bad news. And, YES, I'm saddened that EcoWorld is serving as a vehicle to advertise it. Perhaps you might reconsider it?

But there really is good news -- we can can save rainforests and save the world through the emerging carbon market and a few intelligent decisions as we revise the Kyoto Protocols. To protect the rainforests we must have carbon credits for avoided or reduced deforestion. To renew the earth and draw massive amounts CO2 down from the sky we need carbon credits for carbon sequestration in the soil.

And, yes, biofuels are part of the equation. My take on the issue is here.

All best,

lou

livegreengoyellow.com

Click on the title above to see the latest GM ad campaign promoting E85 and its corn ethanol guzzling flexfuel vehicles.

There's a targeted Internet media blitz placing this ad on many eco websites like EcoWorld where it appears (can you believe it) FOUR times on the page of the terra preta post. Does this mean that EcoWorld isn't aware that corn ethanol is an incredibly inefficient and controversial approach based primarily on huge subsidies and protective tariffs?

(Yes, there's more)

The corn ethanol emphasis in the GM ad was obviously chosen for the US market. And so is the clever "live green go yellow" slogan.

But the colors are also a great pitch for Brazil. Green and yellow are the dominant Brazilian national colors. The 4-door GM model shown is pick-up style most favored across across Brazil.



GM wants to compete with the likes of this non-flexfuel Mitsubishi pickup (a "candidate wagon" from the last election).



The overwhelming emphasis so far is agri-business as usual, but with cleaner and greener energy and fuel. Almost nothing is mentioned in the mainstream media about the new agrichar technologies which would also renew soils and grow more food. There's hope in the form of Ken Salazar's bill that was recently introduced in the US Senate.

We really need to spread the word about terra preta and biochar.

Here's a clever little start from GREENJACKS...

THE SECRET OF EL DORADO


(click play button to view)


Somehow, I lost the valid embed link for this video. That's
why I've never posted it. But today my friend Jose Murilo
found it for me, so here it is. If you've got the time and
a decent Internet connection, I assure you that it's worth
viewing every second of its 49 minutes.


NO>>>

LESSONS FROM THE ANCIENT FOREST:
Earth Wisdom and Political Activism


(click the play button to view)


This video is from 1991 when I was traveling the US
as an advocate for protecting the Ancient Forests. Sadly, it
is still relevant -- old trees are still being cut in the
world and in my favorite Oregon forest.



In the video, I am speaking in Minneapolis, Minnesota to a congress of beauty salon people organized by the AVEDA corporation. They were a very responsive audience and the salons subsequently offered material on the issue and helped build a forest protection network across the country. They really demonstrated that environmentalism is not just for the experts. Everyone needs to get involved. That's what makes a difference.

Today, the United States has less than 10% of its original forests left. Its economic development was based in part on deforestation. Indeed, that's been the pattern in the whole industrial world where "progress" has always destroyed forests. How fortunate is Brazil to have more than 80% of the Amazon forest still standing! But Brazilians will need help to avoid the destructive path that was taken everywhere else. The industrialized nations will have to offer financial support for avoiding deforestation and building a sustainable economy that serves both people and the forest.

Deforestation is a major source of greenhouse gases and global warming. Saving forests is no longer just about bears and owls. Now, it's about everyones' way of life.

BIOFUELS ARE ONLY A
PART OF THE SOLUTION.

WE ALSO NEED TO
PROTECT FORESTS
AND RENEW SOIL.





The current craze for using trees and plants for energy misses the target. The fundamental question that we now face is not about energy. It is about how we USE energy. It's about feedback loops. There can be much much good — what we view as progress. And there can be problems — terrible ones. Global warming means there will be more food grown in Canada and its thawing permafrost also will release even more greenhouse gases. And as Brazilian agri-business revves up a biofuel boom, ranchers are driven toward claiming more primary forest.

In the past we used cheap and available fossil fuels for a binge of consuming that left the atmosphere polluted and the earth depleted. Now, as oil prices soar, we must ask, "are we going to focus on energy or earth, on fuel or fruitfulness?" The question is not really about having development or technology or profits or progress — or not — but whether a particular techno-economic approach gives us new and larger problems or new and larger solutions?

The basic problem with the biofuel approach is that it gives over-emphasis to supplying energy, albeit in more "sustainable" and "cleaner" forms. I don't believe that biofuel production from sugarcane and other crops is wrong as much as it can get way out of balance. There is a lot of political spin involved -- spin to hide or rationalize enormous (and wasteful) agricultural subsidies that continue to damage the earth. The critics of biofuels are already pointing to lost food production and more deforestation as immediate problems.

Some are now offering counter proposals of tree-planting to draw CO2 out of the air and to supply fuel. I'm a tree hugger with years of experience trying to save ancient forests. Let me say, unequivocally, the whole tree-planting commericial forestry schema is about monocultural "cropping" for short-term profits and not about restoring our out-of-whack ecological balance. As I write this, the labs are genetically manipulating trees for better ethanol production and fast growing ecalyptus plantations are being planted massively in Brazil for "green charcoal" to fire the steel mills.

Yes, tree-farming holds the promise of being more "carbon neutral" than coal and petrol but it's neither "carbon negative" in the atmosphere nor healing on the earth. It is a greener way to mitigate some of the really bad habits that have polluted the skies and depleted the earth in the past. But this mitigation -- this greening of fuel -- should not divert us from the more fundamental challenge of preserving what we have and repairing what we have done.

We can address this challenge. How? I believe that the answer lies now in Bali where the Kyoto protocols will soon be revised to include new definitions of carbon sequestration. This will trigger a multi-billion dollar exchange of carbon credits -- a system whereby those who cannot stop polluting can pay others to capture and store carbon.

First and foremost, there needs to be carbon credit given for reduced or avoided deforestation of EXISTING natural forests. We must protect what we have. Today, due to burning and deforestation, Brazil is the #4 greenhouse gas polluter in the world. The government is well-intentioned but there is NO reward or payment for efforts to protect forests that can offset soaring demand. Illegal logging is the predictable response to the market because all the economic incentives push for deforestation. Carbon credits can change this by channeling billions of bucks into rainforest presevation and by generating local economies invested in conservation. Forests are local, and so are the people who protect or destroy them. But the economic incentives for preservation are global!

Second, even more critical but far less understood, is the need to offer credits for carbon sequestration in the earth -- NOT as CO2 pumped into deep underground caverns but as agrichar amendments to the soil. YES, agrichar put into the soil increases its fertility, stores more nutrients (think less fertilizer), holds more water and filters what is released, pulls more CO2 out of the atmosphere and provides greater production of both fuel and food -- and the char can be made out of agricultural waste. How's that for a win/win/win/etc?

But there's a hitch -- the energy market is demanding charcoal as fuel not as a soil amendment. What will cause farmers to make the longer-term investment in soil restoration rather than reap immediate profits from selling agrichar as charcoal?

THE CARBON EXCHANGE CAN PRODUCE THE NEEDED ECONOMIC TIPPING POINT.

Bali is critical for creating a new tipping point that can lead us from disaster toward healing and abundance. Those who have no immediate choice about polluting ways -- airline companies for example -- can fund those who have a choice but incur lost opportunities for short-term profits if they do the right thing. It all has to do what is recognized as true carbon sequestration.

The first right thing is to reward reduced or avoided deforestation. The other right thing is to repair the soil so that it can sustainably provide an abundance for all. These are the ways we can leave the blame-game and help each other. We can jump-start a new no-fault relationship between ecology and economy — a healing one — by focusing attention on existing forests and on the soil.

It's all based on recent discoveries of an ancient Amazon Indian technique called terra preta de indio that was able to create a living soil -- up to 800% more productive than nearby nutrient-poor tropical soil. It was so successful that it is thought that prior to the Conquest there may have been millions of people living in great cities in the central Amazon without deforesting ALL the forests around them. There actually might have been an El Dorado of people living in harmony with nature. But its history is lost to us. It was devastated when the European explorers carried in diseases for which there was no immunity. The only hints that we have are buried in the soils.

A 2002 BBC documentary put the first media spotlight on terra preta and concluded with these words: "So there is a true irony to the story of the hunt for El Dorado. There was once a great civilisation in the Amazon, one the Europeans destroyed even as they discovered it, but the Amazonians may have left us a legacy far more precious than the gold the Conquistadors were seeking. That black earth, the terra preta, may mean a better future for us all."

Recently there has been research and development aimed at creating a modern version of terra preta called called Agrichar. But funding is nowhere near the amount of research monies going into genetic modification of trees and cellulostic ethanol production. We desperately need a crash program of R&D. Again, this will be likely if the carbon market provides the serious incentives for carbon sequestration in the soil.

Here are some links about what we should be thinking about "on the way to Bali".

The ABC 11 minute video about "Agrichar".

A lay person's introduction to terra preta.

Research confirms that char added to soil boosts crop productivity.

The BBC documentary, "The Secret of El Dorado"tells the story of rediscovering terra preta soils.

Ken Salazar has introduced a bill in the US Senate that would fund research on agrichar.

"GOD IS BRAZILIAN", Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Tuesday in response to his
government's announcement earlier this month that massive
new oil reserves had been discovered offshore.

And, the discovery of TERRA PRETA
may prove that She is Black.




This image is of the much-revered Black Madonna of Brazil, Nossa Senhora de Conceição Aparecida -- Our Lady of Conception Who Appeared.

The story is that a statue of the Virgin made around 1650 was somehow lost. Then, in 1717, some government people were traveling north to the gold mining region of Minas Gerais where the precious metal was called Ouro Preto due to a dark coating on the nuggets. Along the way fishermen cast their nets in a river hoping to catch fish for a big banquet. Instead of fish, they found the statue -- all darkened by years in the river bed. The travelers went on but the statue was kept in a little family shrine.

Soon the statue appeared to have healing and wish-granting powers -- at least for some faithful ones -- and a cult began to grow around it. As time passed, it had to be housed in larger and larger quarters and came to be venerated throughout Brazil. In 1929, the Virgin was proclaimed Queen of Brazil and its official Patron Saint. Today its Basilica, in the city of Aparecida near São Paulo, receives about 7 million visitors yearly and is the largest Marian shrine in the world.

From the first time I saw this great Black Madonna, the symbol appeared as an icon of the power of the earth. And, nowadays, there is a possible parallel with the story of 200 hundred years ago. As the Brazilian state oil firm Petrobras looks for and discovers another kind of Ouro Preto in the form of oil extracted from the ocean depths, Terra Preta soil from deep in Amazônia may be emerging as the healing force of the earth.

It would be Brazil's great good fortune to receive both.

AND TODAY IS....






Andrew Revkin has a great post over at DOT EARTH.
It's full of links to cool anti-affluenza links including the
trailer to the new documentary, "What Would Jesus Buy?"



And here's Jerry Mander's classic about buying green.



Be sure to check out Andrew's "oldie but goodie"
report from Bhutan where the tiny Kingdom is
switching from the standard growth measurement
of Gross National Product (GNP) to a new measure
of Gross National Happiness (GNH).

The King could have a pretty good idea.

So maybe on this one special day we might just
hang out with a loved one and ...

STOP

BIRTH CONTROL ?



In Brazil (click)

and

In United States (click)

NO>>>

SAD NEWS:

Minke whale dies in Amazon forest.

Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:05pm GMT

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A 12-ton whale was found dead in the heart of the Amazon region, after swimming aimlessly along numerous tributaries, local media reported on Tuesday.


The minke whale measuring 5.5 meters (18 feet) was first seen last week on the Tapajos river, a tributary of the Amazon. It swam 1,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, was stranded on sandbanks several times, and freed once by biologists and volunteer rescue workers.

Environmentalists and volunteers had been hoping to transport the whale back to sea by ship but local residents spotted its carcass early on Tuesday and alerted authorities.

Images of the dead whale washed up on a river bank near the city of Santarem were shown by TV Liberal in Belem, the Amazon's largest city.

Experts said the whale probably became disoriented among the many river branches that form the broader Amazon.

TERRA PRETA STORY-TELLING LAUNCHED
ON BLACK AWARENESS DAY IN BRAZIL

São Paulo
Brazil
Black Awareness Day
20 November 2007

Hi Folks,

OK -- I'm still crazy after all these years -- and loving it. I'm well and thriving with the help of many wonderful friends. Brazil has to be the most cordial place in the world. It seems that this is the time and place for me to come out of retirement.

Here's a current pic:



Here is what I used to look like:













I used to tell a story called
Lessons From the Ancient Forest: Earth Wisdom and Political Action (click to view).

Now, I've got the best story ever to tell. Terra preta de indio (Indian Black Earth) can save the world.

The story needs to go viral, spreading through the Internet. To do this we need storytellers and and song writers and networkers and a lot more conversation.

Maybe you can put it out to your email list(s).

Maybe get the kids (young and old) who are in the internet social networks to talk it up.

We can all do it just by spreading the news - by being a storyteller spreading a healing conversation around the globe.

We need to spread not just an awareness of a terra preta techinique but, even more importantly, we need to inspire folks with the knowledge that a lost Amazonian wisdom showed that large numbers of people could live in balance without destroying the earth.

PLEASE do what you can do.

hugs, lou

*******

I shared the story here.

Kelpie Wilson's easy-to-read and inspiring Terra Preta primer is here.

The BBC transcript of "TheSecret of El Dorado" is here .

The ABC video about the the modern version of terra preta called "Agrichar" is here.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT OUR LITTLE BIG BROTHER

Minke Miguel, the small baleen whale who traveled deep into the Amazon, has been located and examined. He is healthy and doing fine, suffering only from a few scratches and bruises. I wasn't sure how to describe a small whale ("little big brother") and I hazarded a gender guess a few days ago in naming him Minke Miguel (would I have to change it to Minke Maria?). And so, crazy guy that I am, I'll continue to speculate (in an incredibly anthropomorphic fashion) that he is on a quest to bring world attention to terra preta.

For the most current media update

Whale in good condition but still far from ocean in Brazil Amazon

The Associated Press
Monday, November 19, 2007

SAO PAULO, Brazil: A whale that swam some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) up the Amazon may get a ship ride back to the ocean, environmentalists said Monday.

The 5.5-meter (18-foot) minke whale was stranded on sandbars at least twice since first spotted in the Tapajos River, a tributary of the Amazon, on Wednesday.

A group of biologists and veterinarians managed to examine the animal on Sunday along the river near Santarem in the rain forest.

The group was trying to contain the whale in a small area of river while it tries to arrange for a ship to carry it back to the sea, said Milton Marcondes, a veterinarian with the Brazilian Humpback Whale Institute, which is taking part in the efforts to save the whale.

"It is in good condition," he said. "We couldn't do a blood exam, so we don't know how it is doing internally, but we gave it antibiotics as a precaution."

Marcondes said the whale, a male, has a superficial injury and small bruises on its skin, but none of the wounds are serious.

Rescuers, including local residents, trapped the whale on Sunday, but had to let it go before a net was secured around the animal because it became agitated and was at risk of injuring itself.

"We can't forget this animal has been away from its natural habitat for a long time," Marcondes told The Associated Press by telephone from Santarem. "It is stressed and can easily get sick."

The whale has been in the river for at least 15 days, he said, adding that there have been cases of whales surviving more than two months away from the ocean. He said feeding is not a problem because whales can go about six months without food.

The whale was not likely to find its way back to the ocean by itself because the river has "too many tributaries that could confuse" the animal, Marcondes said.

The whale ran aground for the first time on Wednesday and was briefly grounded again a few kilometers (miles) away on Saturday.

The minke whale is the second smallest of the baleen whales after the pygmy right whale. The International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee estimates there are about 184,000 minke whales in the central and northeast Atlantic Ocean.

Read more about terra preta here and here and see the video here.

Minke Miguel
the Baleia Brasileira Baleen
is spotted again near Santarem


Minke Whale: unaccredited photo from web

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 5 1/2-metre whale that entered the Amazon River and swam about 1,600 kilometres upstream has been trapped for a second time on a sandbar, Brazilian news media reported Sunday.

Local residents spotted the minke whale just a few kilometres from where it was freed on Friday near Santarem, a city in the Amazon rain forest, the Jornal do Brasil reported.

Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency had called off its search for the whale late Friday after losing track of the mammal in the Tapajos River. Calls to agency officials were not answered on Sunday.

The whale ran aground for the first time on Wednesday. The Globo television network broadcast images of dozens of people gathered along the river splashing water on the animal, whose back and dorsal fin were out of water and exposed to the hot Amazon sun.

The minke whale is the second smallest of the baleen whales after the pygmy right whale. The International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee estimates there are about 184,000 minke whales in the central and northeast Atlantic Ocean. source: The Canadian Press.

“What we do in the next two to three
years will determine our future. This
is the defining moment.”

-- Rajendra Pachauri,
director of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change

The story that defines what we might do has been
emerging from Brazil.

It's a golden opportunity.

First, the story...

Once upon a time, way back in the sixteenth century, the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellanawas the first European explorer to travel down length of the Amazon River. Starting in Peru and into the Rio Negro, a huge tributary, upriver from present-day Manaus, the exploration traversed the continent to the Atlantic Ocean. For Orellana and his unfortunate companions it was a terrible trip plagued with every kind of adversity which, in the end, left him as the sole survivor to return to the Court of the King of Spain to tell the story.

But what a story it was. We might even speculate that Orellana survived the ordeal in order to complete his mission of telling of having found Eldorado -- fantastic golden cities in the heart of the forest of the New World. Orellana reported something even more unbelievable than gold -- there was an advanced indigenous civilization with many high density human settlements. Huge Indian populations were living along the waterways of Amazônia and, according to Orellana, at one place there was a city of continuous side-by-side houses stretching for twenty miles. His tale was both fantasic and fabulous. I doubt that the Spanish Court could really embrace the thought of a civilization more advanced than their own but they sure could imagine the gold.

Gold lust inspired many later adventures across the New World but none could find the fabled Eldorado. It was nearly a century later that missionaries came to the region explored by Orellana, but they reported finding only small nomadic bands of hunter-gathers roaming the forest. The obvious conclusion was that Orellana had fabricated a great tale to mask his own failed expedition. And, much later, a whole generation of modern scientists confirmed the implausibility of an Eldorado in the forest by noting that the nutrient poor Amazon soils could not have supported a large-scale agriculture which is the prerequisite of civilization.

But this "well etablished view" that the Amazon basin could not have contained large human populations has started to crumble. First with new research in Bolivia and, more recently, in central Amazõnia, scientists are discovering tell-tale signs of ancient large-scale populations. The indians appear to have figured out how to transform the nutrient-poor yellowish soils into deep deposits of an extremely fertile dark earth called terra preta de indio. What are these tell-tale signs? Terra preta soils are loaded with pottery sherds and charcoal. The pieces of ceramic are in the contour of large pots and vessels that could have been used only by stationary populations. And the charcoal -- apparently char from cleared forest -- has been ground into small pieces indicating that these soils were "made" by the local residents.

The resulting soils are amazingly fertile -- sometimes producing nearly 800% more plant growth compared with nearby untreated soil -- and clearly capable of supporting a large-scale agriculture. Also anthropologists have found at least one small tribe with an hierarchical cultural structure suggesting a distant past of living among large sedentary populations and not always as nomadic hunter-gathers.

Recent efforts to map the areas of terra preta soils along the Tapajos River have unearthed esquisite 2000 year-old pottery. Carbon dating of soils in some other areas suggest that they may be 2500-4000 years old -- and still fully fertile which is extraordinary in the Amazon where heavy rainfall typically leaches the nutrients out of the soils rather quickly. Interestingly, the mapping efforts are revealing a close correspondence with the Eldorado areas talked about by Orellana.

So what happened to these lost civilizations? No one knows for certain. There's little hard evidence because there is no stone in the area and the wooden structures were quickly reclaimed by the tropical forest. But the best speculation is that the first European expeditions carried in diseases -- smallpox, measels, flu, even the common cold -- to a population that had so harmoniously co-evolved with its niche that it had no disease ... and no need for immunity. After a catastrophic die-off there were only a few survivors who had devolved back into hunter-gathers. The sole legacy of the civilization remained hidden in the soil.

Today, in some areas, terra preta is harvested and sold as potting soils. If a limited amount (about 20 cm deep) is retained and the area then left fallow it will grow back to full depth in about 20 years. Apparently -- get this! -- terra preta soils develop into organic communities that are capable of growing like a biotic culture as in sourdough bread or yogurt, truly a living earth.

Five years ago, England's BBC did a special TV documentary called The Secret of Eldorado that concluded with these words: "So there is a true irony to the story of the hunt for El Dorado. There was once a great civilisation in the Amazon, one the Europeans destroyed even as they discovered it, but the Amazonians may have left us a legacy far more precious than the gold the Conquistadors were seeking. That black earth, the terra preta, may mean a better future for us all."

A golden opportunity.

At the time of the 2002 BBC documentary, a better future was understood as gaining the ability to BOTH save the rainforest and feed more people. But, now, global warming has added an incredibibly important new dimension -- the need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it somewhere. This is exactly what terra preta does because 1) plants that grow faster, also remove CO2 from the atmosphere faster and 2) if the agricultural waste (unused portions of the plants) are made into charcoal, it can be used to renew the soil and sequester carbon.

The result of such a system would mean better soil, more food, cleaner fuel, less deforestation and, if Kyoto is revised to include payment for carbon negative sequestration in the soil, developing countries like Brazil and poor farmers everywhere will be paid to save the earth, while growing both food and fuel. This is why terra preta is being called the "new black gold".

Everyone, who thinks of Brazil, knows of its gifts of samba and soccer which are world renown. But Brazil is also the place where the gift of light emerges out of darkness. When gold was discovered in the state of Minas Gerais, it was given the name ouro preto (black gold) because the nuggets had a dark coating. Later, when a statue of the Virgin with dark skin was discovered in a river bed, it was named, Nossa Senhora Conceição de Aparecida (Our Lady of Conception who Appeared) because it appeared to have wish-granting and healing powers. And, for me, this image is one of the great symbols of the fertility and abundance of Mother Earth.



This Black Madonna became the patroness of Brazil and the center of the largest healing shrine in the world. Perhaps She is also a powerful symbol for the possibility of healing the earth.

Nowadays, we have the rediscovery of an empowering dark earth brew called terra preta, along with speculation of an ancient and highly advanced Indian civilization. Perhaps terra preta will be Brazil's greatest gift yet to the world. Perhaps we can all spread the story about how there once was a time when large numbers of people lived in a bountiful harmony with the earth in a place called Eldorado and that, with love and care and attention, we can repeat the performance.

Here are links to more information:

Australian Broadcasting Company video (11 min) about the global terra preta movement.

GREAT BBC Documentary "The Secret of El Dorado" (49 min video)

Full transcript of BBC El Dorado documentary.

Easy to read primer on Terra Preta.

Expandable Google map of Terra Preta sites.

Pdfs of the best magazine articles.

Continuous updates of all relevant links.

How biofuels can become carbon-negative and save the planet.

US Senator introduces bio-char legislation.

Research confirms bio-char in soil increases yields.

Biopact on the IPCC bio-fuel recommendations.

UPDATE: This post has been linked in a roundup by Global Voices Online, and translated to Portuguese here.

WHALE FOUND 1000 MILES INSIDE AMAZON


Residents of Brazil's Amazon basin try to help a minke whale reach deeper water.
Photograph: Reuters

By Tom Phillips reporting in the Guardian.

Biologists and villagers in a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest were searching for a 12-tonne whale yesterday that had reportedly lost its way and become stranded 1,000 miles from the ocean.
The five-metre long (16ft) creature, which biologists said was probably a minke whale, became stranded on a beach on the Tapajos river, 39 miles from the city of Santarem. Environmental experts said the whale had probably become separated from its group in the Atlantic Ocean, off northern Brazil, after falling ill or being hit by a boat.

The whale appeared to have entered the Amazon near the city of Belem before reaching the Tapajos, a tributary of the Amazon. Efforts to rescue the animal began on Tuesday, after local fishermen contacted environmental officials in Santarem by radio. On Thursday biologists arrived at the scene by boat and isolated the sandbank.

Residents of Piquiatuba, an isolated settlement of about 70 families in the Amazon state of Para, also helped to try and free their unexpected visitor, splashing water onto its skin to protect it from the scorching sun. Images broadcast on Brazilian television showed dozens of fishermen and curious locals crowded together in the river around the whale's large grey fin.

On Thursday night after rescuers managed to free the whale it disappeared into the waters. Environmentalists used helicopters and boats to try and find the whale, without success.

"What we can definitely say is that it lost its way," Fabia Luna, a government biologist involved in the rescue, told Globo television. "It entered the river, which on its own is unusual. But then to have travelled around 1,500km is both strange and adverse."

"It is very atypical [to find] a whale in Amazonia," Katia Groch, a whale expert from the Instituto Baleia Jubarte (humpback whale institute), told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. "It may have lost its way, perhaps because of illness. We will only know when we can examine it."

Although the whale's presence was only confirmed this week, Daniel Cohenca, the regional head of Ibama, Brazil's environmental agency, said it may have been in the region for up to two months.

In recent weeks residents near the Tapajos river are said to have become alarmed at the presence of an unidentified animal. Some locals had ordered their children not to swim in the river after rumours spread that a "big cobra" had been spotted.

"There are people who just don't understand how this kind of animal survived in fresh water," said Cohenca.

Rescuers fear that, alone, the whale will have difficulty returning to the Atlantic.

"It is outside of its normal habitat, in a strange situation, under stress and far from the ocean," said Groch. "The probability of survival is low."

SEND PRAYERS

IT'S NICE TO FEEL SMILED UPON



A friend (thanks Al) sent this unattributed photo to me and I just had to pass it on.
It put a smile on my face. Maybe it will do the same for you.

NO>>>