One of my favorite bloggers, Julian Walker, just posted a music video to youtube, and I wanted to share it. I didn’t know he was a musician, such a multi-talented fellow, and a song that has some substance and makes you think, all with a catchy groove. It’s about religion, war, and the possibility of a humanistic spiritual awakening. He wrote it between 911 and the invasion of Iraq.

You’re not going to hear songs like this on the radio…check it out!

Hearing the words bikes and Obama together in a positive way is great news. Congrats to F.K. Day from SRAM for having the foresight to propose this fundraiser to the Barack Obama campaign over six months ago.

“CHICAGO, IL (BRAIN)—Barack Obama, in a private 20-minute meeting with members of the Bikes Belong board of directors, told them if he were elected president he would increase funding for cycling and pedestrian projects. And the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also said he would support Safe Routes to Schools programs.” For full article from Bikes Belong Website click HERE.

“During a conversational 15-minute speech, Obama poked fun at himself telling the crowd that when he was photographed last weekend riding a bike with his children, he looked like Urkel. For those unfamiliar with Steve Urkel, he was the nerdy, bespectacled semi-hero on the long running sitcom “Family Matters.” The show was centered on an African-American middle class family living in Chicago.”  For full articles, click HERE and HERE.

As seen in Mountain Biking Magazine…

By the time this article goes to print, the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour will have shown the special edit of my segment from Kranked 6, “Trial and Error”, to over 100,000 people. In this film I share my instinctual feelings of concern when seeing or thinking about clear cutting a forest.

I often show this video at my school presentations, and while on tour up in Northern BC where forestry supports a large chunk of the population, I began feeling a little sheepish about showing it, as I certainly am no expert on the topic. In the film I reference the particular zone of forest where my trail is built, “this is one of the last remaining sections of mid elevation old growth on the BC coast, and it’s slated for clear cut.” Then one of the analogies I make in the film is that “it seems to me that clear cutting is exactly like a crash, and they’ve done it time and time again, and perhaps haven’t learned from their mistakes.” I didn’t want to insult those in BC that base their livelihood on the industry and give them a bad reputation from my generalizing statements. Perhaps they have learned, and perhaps there are some ecologically sound logging practices in effect.

I needed to find out some more information, so while up in Northern BC I had the opportunity to chat with Dawn Stronstad R.P.F. who is a Planning Forester in Burns Lake, also an avid mountain biker with the BLMBA. She shared her own personal feelings on the topic of clear cutting. She gave me a brief history of logging in Canada, and acknowledges that there have been many mistakes along the way. But long gone are the days of the cut & run without looking back (this is happening in South America right now), and she believes that BC has learned from their mistakes. British Columbia has some of the most stringent logging laws in the world, and if a logging company hadn’t morally been doing the right thing in the past, they are now contractually and lawfully obligated to.

It is hard to complain about clear cutting when we as the consumer hold so much power. When we’re out at the store and buy something with a big cardboard box, we are really saying “please, please cut down that tree so I can have this nice packaging again”, then we grab a newspaper with a ‘coffee to go’ on the way home and what we are really saying to the logging companies is “oh and while you’re at it, cut down that tree beside the first one”.

Dawn told me that there are some areas that should not have been clear cut in the past, and portions of these areas are slow to recover or have reduced potential for re-growth, she thinks for the most part, these sites have recovered, but some areas not as quickly; but if done properly, clear cutting can be a reasonable forest management system. In fact, many foresters are amazed at the recovery capacity of Nature to bounce back; old growth is of course another story. The ironic thing about our disgust with clear cuts in BC is that it is along the coast where the most incredible old growth occurs, so the act of clear cutting is the most damaging and yet most of  us live on the largest and most permanent clear cut in BC, Vancouver.

I was fortunate enough to hear a speech by the young Simon Jackson, who has lobbied for the protection of the endangered Spirit Bear in BC. Great steps have been taken to secure 2/3 of this creatures habitat as protected, but another 1/3 is still open for potential logging; the government is aware and lobbyists are hopeful for full protection. I also heard Bill Clinton speak recently, and his Clinton Climate Initiative is anxious about the rapid deforestation of rainforests, especially in South America, this is where some unprecedented devastation is happening, far greater than anything we have ever seen in BC (the Amazon loses about 60,000 square kilometers a year), and being global citizens, these acts effect us just as much as if it was our own backyard, so perhaps this is where our lobbying efforts and expertise need to be focused now? It’s a complicated topic with so many different views, opinions, and motivations.

All I know is that the trees we do have deserve some respect, so next time you’re out shredding the trails, make sure you do some tree hugging!

Ryan

Al Gore has also made an announcement to Support Obama. Yes, as a Canadian, I seem to be very interested in this US Election, but I believe it has huge global consequences; and it’s because of this worldcentric vision that I am going to spread the good word that Barack Obama offers. Al Gore is the latest of a string of personalities to declare his support.

A few things to tell you about from my tour through the Canadian Prairies, but I’m busy chasing my nephews around today. Did just see this vid from Obama, and thought I’d share; trying to catch up on my news since I’ve been offline for a number of days…Props to Obama for attempting to bring back a true democracy to the US.

Reminds me of a quote I recently read from adbusters, “…give whatever it takes to ensure four more years of putting profit over people. After all, we know a good president when we buy one.” This describes the corporate ties with politics quite nicely, and fits the Bush administration to a T. Below is the man that can bring us out of this thin democracy model.

My friend Devin Leggett, formerly the Norco web guru, and the fellow who designed my website, passed along a link to a site that his current company, smashLAB, created on the importance of designers to think green in their daily business lives. Whether you design or not, it’s a slick educational presentation on climate change, and worth browsing through.

Also, how cool does Barack Obama look in this photo?! And yah, the link is about the book he is reading, “The Post-American World”, by Fareed Zakaria. Based on reviews, it’s good to see he is reading books that delve in to real world issues. As the link asks, “Anyone know what book John McCain is — or should be — carrying around?”

I just finished reading a book by Frances Moore Lappe called “Getting a Grip - Clarity, creativity, and courage in a world gone mad”. The book talks about the current state of of the US Government right now, which she calls Thin Democracy; she spends much time talking about how as a people we have the power to create ‘living’ democracy. Learn more from her website.

Quotes….

Our ideas about reality determine what we see, what we believe is possible, and therefore what we become.

And when you think about it, how could we ever believe “the world” can change unless we experience ourselves changing?

The four hundred richest americans are all billionaires, with combined wealth of 1.25 trillion, roughly comparable to the total annual income of half the worlds people.

…as well as the need to feel that our lives matter, which for many people means contributing to something grander than our own survival.

Failing to bring meaning. Finally, Thin Democracy is dangerously vulnably because its materialistic premise can’t satisfy our higher selves’ yearning for transcendent meaning….Thin Democracy’s narrow, insulting assumptions about human nature cannot sustain dedication and sacrifice. Many US soldiers now risk their lives in war, believing they’re serving a high calling. But the built in logic of one rule economics mocks their idealism. Since 9/11, thousands of American soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, while executives of US armament corporations have made a killing, doubling their own compensation.

Living Democracy-democracy as a way of life, no longer something done to us or for us but what we ourselves create.

And the most productive hunters share the most.

Worldwide, for example, more than a third of all grain and 90 percent of soy gets fed to livestock. Future generations may well scratch their heads: You mean, in the early twenty first century their feedlot system put 16 pounds of grain and soy in to cattle to produce only one pound of beef on their plates? You mean that with the amount of water they used for that one pound of beef they could bathe for a year?
Similar plenty appears once we drop the scarcity lens surrounding energy. Our sun wind, waves, water, and biomass offer us a “daily dose of energy” 15,000 times greater than in all the planet harming fossil and nuclear power we now use, says German energy expert Hermann Scheer.

We and the butterflies are in this together.

Beneath our awareness, perhaps, we are coming to realize that our acts do matter, all of them, everywhere, all the time.

One Choice We Don’t Have: In fact, we have no choice about whether to be world changers. If we accept ecology’s insight that we exist in densely woven networks, as just noted, then we must also accept that every choice we make sends out ripples, even if we’re not consciously choosing. So the choice we have is not whether, but only how, we change the world.

Monkey See, monkey do, suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me. Since we humans are wired like our close relatives, when we observe someone else, our own brains are simultaneously experiencing at least something of what that person is experiencing.

In private life, when we go to a friend for advice and that friend simply listens, we’re often amazed to discover it is we oursevles who have the answers. We may have had them all along, but formulating our ideas to make ourselves clear to someone else enables us suddenly to “see” those answers for the first time.

Most of us learn to deny that we’re squelching such needs; maybe it is just to painful to acknowledge how much of ourslves we’re giving up. But if these needs aren’t met, most of us don’t just roll over and pretend we don’t have them; we seek their satisfcation in less than ideal ways…unable to safisfy our yearing for connection through common endeavor, we try the next best thing, to feel included because of our outer identities, wearing what’s “in” choosing work we think will please our parents or bring us status…Our yearning for power gets twisted, too. Power, as I’ve said, means our “capacity to act” but if we feel we can’t make a dent positively, we go for control. If we feel put down at work or at home, not heard or seen, we’re temped to try to exert control over something, maybe our child, our spouse. In its extreme form, the response to thwarting our innate need for power is violence.

Sitting deep in the cushioned armchair, his sweet face framed by a stiff white priests collar, Reverend Njoya paused for only a moment. Then he said, “Fear is an energy that comes from insdie us, not outside. It’s neutral. So we can channel it into fear, paranoia, or euphoria, whatever we choose.” He rose out of his chair. “Imagine a lion,” he said, crouching. “When a lion sees prey or predator, it senses fear first. But instead of lunging blindly in defense or in attack, it recoils.” Reverend Njoya moved back, leaning on his left leg and crouching lower. “The lion pauses a moment, targets his energies. Then he springs.”

I’m just a drop in the bucket. My effort might make me feel better, but it can’t do much…..Every time we act, even with fear, we make room for others to do the same. Courage is contagious.

From this premise of lack, we are finished. We end up locked in a belief system that actually creates the very scarcity we fear.

“Seeing is believing” is a charming aphorism, but maybe it’s also wrong. More accurately, when it comes to humans, “believing is seeing.” We must believe another way of living is possible in order to see it actually taking shape around us.

Mare Mead “Big campaign donors aren’t in it for altruism. They don’t consider their money a contribution; they consider it an investment.”

Which head of lettuce you pick up today or where you buy your next T-shirt may not seem like a world-chaning decision. But it is. The Spiral of Powerlessness is generated not only by laws on the books but by norms that our daily acts create. If we buy pesticide sprayed food, we’re saying to the food industry, yes, yes, give me more of that. If we buy organic instead, we are stimulating its production. (Why do you think McDonalds serves organic milk in Sweden but not here?)

I had this open in my browser for two weeks until I finally had time to watch it. PBS is such a fantastic resource, and since I rarely watch TV, having access to programs like the one I link to below is perfect.

Much of what was in this documentary is what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was pointing toward in his speech last week.

I hope you can make some time to watch this documentary, click here then on “Watch the Full Program Online”. Yes it’s US politics, but it is truly a global issue…Go Barack!!