Tag: ecology

This past week, the people of Ecuador voted to vest new constitutional “Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights” in their natural resources to elevate their legal status from property to “right-bearing entities.”  Now, natural resources have legal rights, just like other nonhumans, such as corporations and ships. Citizens are now authorized to file lawsuits against corporations to prevent the destruction of natural resources and to recover damages.

Ecuador’s new constitution is part of a larger movement in the US.  The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has been assisting local communities with drafting laws to provide legal rights to natural resources, stop corporations from raiding and destroying natural resources and protect the health and well-being of the community.  

Sometimes, it behooves us to take a moment unto ourselves for quiet reflection and contemplation, where we can behold once again the beauty and wonder of a world teeming with brilliant life in the cold, empty void of space.  Individually and collectively, it is easy to lose oneself in the day-to-day chaos that envelops us as social beings: the demands of one’s life, complicated by the demands of living and participating in a community of social beings who each have their own individual desires and who, together, form organizational structures that run the gamut from basic family, friends and neighborhoods to cities, states and nations — all competing for a varied, yet limited set of resources.

We develop patterns and follow them; if they were set to music, the beat and harmony would shift and change to reflect the ups and downs, ins and outs of life, and we would be the dancers — our lives set to the music, trying to move in sync with it. Sometimes, those harmonies skip and stutter. Other times, they become harsh and repetitive, playing the tune over and over and faster and faster until the dancer, exhausted, can do nothing more than run in place or die, unable to break free.

After having read so many articles on the environment and global warming and as spring was approaching, I kept asking myself, “what more can I do?”   That is, apart from the ordinary efforts, such as  recycling all household garbage, even washing out plastic bags used for vegetables and reusing them again,  going to the farmer’s market for many years, isn’t there something more I could or should be doing?

With the onset of spring, the first thing most of us think about is our lawns, you know, fertilizing, weed killer, etc.  I decided I was going to have a totally organic lawn, free of chemicals.  I never used much other than fertilizer or weed killer.  

For starters, I had heard about and read a little about the benefits of “corn gluten meal” as a weed killer.  I began reading about it on the web at various websites, learning about its properties, how it works and what it actually does.  It is a perfectly natural “pre-emergent” weed killer.  That is to say, that the use of it at the proper time of the year can get the roots of pre-emerging weeds, but cannot kill the already existent weeds.   Most of the organic websites wanted quite a bit of money for this “corn gluten meal.”

I went to a feed store not too far away.  Interesting store, which I had only visited maybe once before a very long time ago. I asked the owner, “Sir, do you have any corn gluten meal?  I am going to go organic with my lawn.”   “No, I don’t have any here, but I can order you some.”  “O.K., how much does it cost and how long will it take, it must be applied at the time the crocuses are blooming.”   He went to look it up, “It will cost you about $22.00 for 36 pounds (that is about $20.00 or more dollars cheaper than organic stores sell it for and it is exactly the same thing), and I can have it here by Monday.”  “O.K., please order it for me.  Now, what about fertilizer – do you have any organic fertilizer?”   “Yes, we have Milorganite – it’s totally organic.”  “What is it?”  “It’s waste, a waste treatment product – I’ve used it on my lawn and my neighbors want to know why my lawn is so green.”  “O.K., I’ll take a bag of it.”  Would you believe that a 40-pound bag costs less than $10.00?  

Of course, I came home and just had to look up Milorganite.   If you’re interested at all, here is more on the product

But, more importantly, it’s what the chemical fertilizers are doing to our earth, our waters, our nature.  

cross posted from The Dream Antilles with a special h/t to Mishima for including it in Thursday’s DD Times

Salicornia

Salicornia, believe it or not, is a plant that can grow in inhospitable, desert soils and can be watered with, of all things, ocean salt water.  Never heard of this?  Neither have I.  I’ve sat on the beach and wondered what it would take to remove the salt from sea water to grow things in sand, but I never thought about reversing the process,  leaving the salt in the water and finding something that would grow in it.  In today’s LA Times I found an “ah hah” moment.

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