Yoga Journal - May Digital Edition Is Free!

In honor of Earth Day, Yoga Journal is offering a free electronic version of the May issue. No paper used or natural resources consumed!  http://www.yogajournal.com/digitaledition

Earth Day Message - "The Art of Mindful Living"

Instead of composing another rambling rant, like last year's Earth Day message (http://vern-running-green.blogspot.com/2010/04/earth-day-2010-40th-anniversary-april.html), I'd like to publish this passage from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh's amazing book, Peace Is Every Step.  He says it so much better than I can. This is the entire short chapter titled The Art of Mindful Living.

"Nature is our mother. Because we live cut off from her, we get sick. Some of us live in boxes called apartments, very high above the ground. Around us are only cement, metal, and hard things like that. Our fingers do not have a chance to touch the soil; we don’t grow lettuce anymore. Because we are so distant from our Mother Earth, we become sick. That is why we need to go out from time to time and be in nature. It is very important. We and our children should be in touch again with Mother Earth. In many cities, we cannot see trees—the color green is entirely absent from our view.


One day, I imagined a city where there was only one tree left. The tree was still beautiful, but very much alone, surrounded by buildings, in the middle of the city. Many people were getting sick, and most doctors did not know how to deal with the illness. But one very good doctor knew the causes of the sickness and gave this prescription to each patient. “Every day, take the bus to the center of the city to look at the tree. As you approach it, practice breathing in and out, and when you get there, hug the tree, breathing in and out for fifteen minutes, while you look at the tree, so green, and smell its bark, so fragrant. If you do that, in a few weeks, you will feel much better.”

The people began to feel better, but very soon there were so many people rushing to the tree that they stood in line for miles and miles. You know that people of our time do not have much patience, so standing three or four hours to wait to hug the tree was too much and they rebelled. They organized demonstrations in order to make a new law that each person could only hug the tree for five minutes, but of course that reduced the time for healing. And soon, the time was reduced to one minute, and the chance to be healed by our mother was lost. We could be in that situation very soon if we are not mindful. We must practice awareness of each thing we do if we want to save our Mother Earth, and ourselves and our children as well. For example, when we look into our garbage, we can see lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and flowers. When we throw a banana peel into the garbage, we are aware that it is a banana peel that we are throwing out and that it will be transformed into a flower or a vegetable very soon. That is exactly the practice of meditation.


When we throw a plastic bag into the garbage, we know that it is different than a banana peel. It will take a long time to become a flower… That awareness alone helps us protect the Earth, make peace, and take care of life in the present moment and in the future. This is an act of peace, a basic kind of peace action.

When we throw a plastic disposable diaper into the garbage, we know that it takes even longer for it to become a flower, four hundred years or longer. Knowing that using these kinds of diapers is not in the direction of peace, we look for other ways to take care of our baby. Practicing breathing and contemplating our body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind, we practice peace in the present moment. This is living mindfully.

Nuclear waste is the worst kind of garbage.  It takes about 250,000 years to become flowers.  Forty of the fifty of the United States is already polluted by nuclear waste.  We are making the Earth an impossible place to live for ourselves and for many generations of children.  If we live in our present moment mindfully, we will know what to do and what not to do, and we will try to do things in the direction of peace."

Eat Local - Make Every Day Earth Day!

The Thanks to Meatless Monday for passing on this information!

The Eat Well Guide released this cool widget to help people eat local on Earth Day and everyday thereafter throughout the year. Eat Well Guide is a free online directory for anyone in search of fresh, locally grown and sustainably produced food in the United States and Canada. Include the food-finder widget (get the code below) on your website and/or blog, to provide your visitors with valuable sustainable food recommendations. Just type a zip code into the widget to find nearby sustainable restaurants, stores, farms and other producers from a growing list of over 23,000 vendors. Supporting sustainable agriculture is a delicious way to show your commitment to the earth 365 days a year.


Follow this link to copy the code for this or two other widget designs for your blog! http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?pd=Widgets

Earth Day 2010: 40th Anniversary - April 22, 2010

I have mixed feelings on this 40th anniversary Earth Day.  I look back 40 years today.  I was a young college freshman participating in an Earth Day campus demonstration, one of many demonstrations organized on campuses all over the U.S. on that first Earth Day.  It was inspiring to witness the birth of an environmental movement that has steadily grown over the years.  Many considered environmentalism to be a fringe movement, a collection of "hippies and radicals."  Over the years, environmental concern has expanded, and the movement is becoming more mainstream.  Earth Day has become a worldwide phenomenon.  At the same time, "greenwashing" has become a phenomenon; many businesses are paying lip service to green ideals in order to cash in on the growing awareness.  It is also disturbing that maybe half of the population is either apathetic about the need to care for the environment, or in total denial that human activities are changing the Earth for the worse.

Progess has been made, but so much more is needed.  Fourty years ago we saw news reports of rivers on fire, lakes where no marine life lived, and cities where the smog was thick enough to obscure the sun.  Since then, many of the most polluted waterways have been cleaned up, some wildlife populations have rebounded, and vehicles and industrial facilities have emission controls limiting the most toxic pollutants.  Environmental laws have been enacted and an Environmental Protection Agency exists in the U.S. to enforce the requirements. However, we are facing the threat of worldwide climate change, a concept that was virtually unknown fourty years ago.  World leaders seem to lack the political courage to take meaningful decisive action.

We need a transformation to clean energy sources.  It will happen eventually anyway, because reserves of fossil fuels are limited, and as reserves are depleted, supplies will decrease and prices will soar.  Better to devote strong efforts to it now, rather than wait for the crisis of supply and demand.

We need a better infrastructure for collecting and recycling reusable resources.  Items that are made from recycled material require much less energy use and cause less pollution than items made from new resources. 

Ideally, production systems should be endless loops of production, use, recyling, re-production, and reuse.  Here's an example:  there are enough aluminum cans in circulation that if every can was recycled, cans would no longer have to be made from new ore!  This could be a closed loop system, resulting in great reductions of use of energy and resources, and the resulting pollution.  Yet we see discarded aluminum cans everywhere.  Instead of circular, production systems are linear:  Production, use, landfill.  What a waste! 

   I hate disposable products. They are everywhere. Most disposable products can easily be replaced by reusable products. Food and yard waste can be composted. I envision a future where everything we use is recyled. Paper, plastics glass and metal can be recycled now. Unfortunately, the infrastructure for collection is not available everywhere, making it inconvenient for many people. And many are apathetic and can't be bothered to make an additonal effort for the Earth.

Here's how I look at disposable products or throwing away recyclable material.  How hard is it to wash an extra plate or cup instead of using paper, or even worse, foam?  How hard is it to filter tap water and put it in a refillable bottle, instead of contributing to massive plastic bottle waste?  All products are made of resources.  In that sense, every product is a piece of the Earth.  So every time we throw something away, we have turned a piece of the Earth into a piece of garbage.  The Earth's resources are finite.  So, as we continue to turn pieces of the Earth into pieces of garbage, over enough time, the entire Earth is turned into a giant heap of garbage!

Think about it. 

Happy Earth Day, and please try to make every day Earth Day!