Twilight Earth

Dirt – The Movie – DVD Giveaway

Adam Shake — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:51:42 PDT

DIRT! THE MOVIE is an astonishing, humorous and substantial look at the glorious and unappreciated ground beneath our feet.

Twilight Earth is giving you two chances to win a copy of Dirt – The Movie. Read about the movie, watch the trailer and learn how to win at the bottom of the article!

Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth’s climate. Why do we humans ignore, abuse, and destroy our most precious living natural resource? Consider the results of such behavior: Mass starvation, drought, floods and global warming.

Narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, DIRT! THE MOVIE tells the story of humans trying to re-connect to dirt—the living skin of the earth. Traveling from the vineyards of California to the plains of Kenya, DIRT! reveals how repairing our relationship with dirt can create new possibilities for all life on earth.

An Official Sundance Film Festival Selection, DIRT! THE MOVIE hits DVD shelves—in Eco-friendly packaging!—on April 6, 2010 from Docurama Films (www.docurama.com). The film will have a broadcast premiere on PBS’ Independent Lens on April 20th (Earth Day) at 10pm nationwide. *check local listings.

TWO HOURS OF DVD BONUS MATERIAL:

Extended Animations, Bonus Scenes, Interviews, Theatrical Trailer, Filmmaker Biography

How to win!

1. Leave a comment below, telling us why you think that dirt is important and why it should be protected.

and / or

2. If you are on Twitter, Tweet this article to your followers using the hashtag #DirtTheMovie

Contest ends April 5th.

Good Luck!

International World Water Day 2010- March 22nd

Adam Shake — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:24:49 PDT

Billions of people live in the kind of squalor that was eradicated long ago in the rich world. It is a global water and sanitation crisis that deserves our undivided attention NOW (well, yesterday, to be exact)… especially since there is a lack of political will to push through changes that could benefit the poorest and most vulnerable people. Here are just two shocking statistics:

Guest Article by Lynn Hasselberger

1 in 8 people don’t have access to clean water.
40% of the world’s population suffer without a safe toilet, that’s 2.5 billion people!

Fortunately, there are organizations dedicated to providing sanitation and clean water to the world’s poorest people. End Water Poverty is one of them and I am committed to helping them raise awareness about the critical issues and motivating people around the globe to take action.

Here’s one easy way to take action and it will just take a minute or less! Oppose the global injustice that causes millions to live without access to clean water and sanitation by pledging your support to End Water Poverty. What happens when something as basic as a toilet is unavailable?

Girls’ educations are ruined due to open, unsafe or no toilets at schools
4,000 young children die each day due to unsanitary conditions
Communities become locked into circles of ill-health, poverty and despair

Want to do more to help? Mark your calendar for March 22, first deemed International World Water Day in 1993 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) as an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in our world and lives. It’s a crucial moment in the fight against the global sanitation and water crisis that’s killing 4,000 children every single day.

Just one month later, politicians from across the globe will gather in Washington DC. to discuss what they need to do to fulfill some of the most basic rights of the world’s citizens – access to a safe toilet and clean water.

8 ways to take action before, on and after the date:

Watch the movies FLOW and Blue Gold –two award-winning documentaries about the global water crisis. My son was 8 when we shared FLOW with him and it really made an impact. Have a screening at your home!
Join the World’s Longest Toilet Queue. A mass mobilization event and Guinness World Record attempt bringing together thousands of campaigners from across the world to demand real change at the meeting. Organize a queue of your own. (I’m organizing one where I live). Or simply find one near you on the queue map.
Participate in World Water Day lobbying activities: Sign up to meet with Congressional offices on March 23rd in Washington DC and let them know that we need greater U.S. leadership on access to drinking water and sanitation for the world’s poor.
Email your member of congress and ask that they step up their efforts to address the water and sanitation crisis, as well as other issues that threaten children’s survival in poor countries.
Use your social network to spread the word. If you’re on facebook, join The World’s Longest Toilet Queue and End Water Poverty and invite your friends. If you’re on twitter, follow @EndWaterPoverty, @ToiletQueue and @IC4ME (I Count for myEARTH). Join us every Wednesday to tweet about world water crisis issues–be sure to use the hashmark #waterwednesday to help earn us Trending Topic status and to make @ tweets viral. Simply re-tweet our tweets or come up with some of your own. Here are some sample tweets to tweet any day of the week:
- 3000+ in the online #ToiletQueue! http://bit.ly/6AWhLU AMAZING! And an awesome 56 countries in the real ToiletQueue!
- In 20 years more than half the world’s population could face water shortages. ~via @IC4ME
- Urge politicians to stop 4000 child deaths/day @EndWaterPoverty @WorldToiletDay action http://bit.ly/3X6wT7 #waterwednesday
- Did you know the @ToiletQueue is #22Mar? Why should you give a crap? http://bit.ly/PslHg
Purchase Linda Loudermilk’s limited edition Water is a Human Right Mission Wear –a generous portion of sales will be donated to organizations that support the global water crisis.
Purchase eco-friendly products from my website, myEARTH360.com, and enter THIRSTAID20 at checkout. We’ll give $5 to Thirst Aid Live for every $25 you spend… enough to give one person water for a lifetime!
Participate in myEARTH360.com’s Giving Giveaway–help spread the word about World Water Day and other important global issues for a chance to win some eco prizes.

More facts about the world water crisis:

More than half of hospital beds in Sub Saharan Africa are occupied by patients suffering from sanitation and water related diseases
These diseases are the biggest killer of young children, killing over five times more than HIV/AIDS and twice as many as malaria.
Young girls simply don’t attend as there aren’t toilets at school, or they aren’t safe or private.
Other girls spend hours of their day walking to fetch water or caring for ill siblings and have no time for an education at all
In Africa, an estimated 5% of GDP is lost to illnesses and deaths caused by dirty water and the absence of sanitation
Climate change is making things worse, increasing pressure on water resources.

End Water Poverty is calling for:

One global action plan for sanitation and water monitored by one global task force
70% of aid money for sanitation and water to be targeted at the poorest countries
Water resources to be protected and shared equitably

Success depends on rich governments protecting good water and sanitation plans from failure due to inadequate financing; and developing countries must commit to implementing these plans. Please sign the petition now and learn about other ways you can take action by visiting EndWaterPoverty.org. If you’re part of an organization, consider joining The End Water Poverty coalition.

4,000 children do not deserve to die each day because they are lacking clean water and sanitation. Together, we can help make a difference.

About Lynn: As a mom and advocate of environmental awareness and education, Lynne likes to help you stay current on environmental issues—and solutions. Specifically, environmental issues that may impact our health and, more importantly, the long-term health of our children—at home and at school.

The Oath – Protect Defend and Preserve – The Environment

Adam Shake — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:38:46 PST

Click below to listen to Adam Shake discuss the protection, defense and preservation of the environment.

Editors Note: 100% of fish tested in American streams contain Mercury, not Lead, as stated in the Audio-Cast. Why I said Lead instead of Mercury, I have no idea.

Whose Future is It?

Adam Shake — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:29:07 PST

Guest Article by June Birch, author of “Everyone Can be a herO.”

If someone had told me, as I clung tightly to the stair rail and made my way down to the basement of the London Science Museum, which in those days was the children’s domain, that one day a book of mine would be in the bookshop, upstairs, would I have believed them?

If someone had told me that it would be endorsed by a campaigner, who was described as “one of the most influential woman of the twentieth century,” by no less than the Smithsonian Institution,… and whom I deeply respect, I don’t think so.

Much later, going round to the local stationers and begging for samples of their used cardboard boxes to make recycled covers for books, or watching a hand held drill being used to make the holes to put the string through, it didn’t seem very likely either!

But it did happen.

This is a school library book from the future…. people expect to be inventive in how they reuse things. Anyway, its fun and it doesn’t usually cost anything.

There has already been a nuclear accident and resources are low. The surprising thing is that, people are pretty much the same. Teenagers still want to hang out together and parents are still trying to look after them. The difference is that no one wants to think too hard about the future. It hurts too much.

Meanwhile, they grow food on every spare piece of uncontaminated land they can find, and it’s organic. Streets overflow with earth bags and balconies brim with blueberries and strawberries. The kids go to school three days a week. Windows can be made of transparent solar voltaic panels which open to the optimal angle to absorb the light from the sun. All wavelengths are used to maximum advantage. It’s a highly productive system.

There’s a lot of stuff around from today.. solar, wind and water. What is still around is the nuclear waste…and people still don’t know what to do with it. They have been left a legacy they didn’t want and now four teenagers need to find out where the nuclear waste trains are going and why.

It is their future, and they want to protect it…even though it isn’t as good as it could have been… Who will get sick first? These things don’t usually happen overnight. Just far too soon.

Will they be able to have children themselves? Will they have mutations? Will they be ill?

Their today is our tomorrow and perhaps we have to protect it for them too. Certainly their parents are sure that there was renewable energy to spare, if there had only been the will to use it. The programme was just getting under way when the accident happened..…Accidents don’t usually happen because someone wants them to! They just do.

Meantime, the kids want to have fun:-

‘He took her hand and they raced towards the gap.

“Now!” he shouted.

They both leapt across the broken concrete and landed clumsily but safely on the other side.

They skated on for a while…’ (ãJ.R.Birch 2007)

If life was just that simple….but…they know otherwise:-

‘A red admiral flew overhead and Kirk looked around him. It could all be so beautiful, he thought. You had to battle on. The world seemed to be divided into two sorts of people: the ones who cared and the ones who just wanted to have everything, but were prepared to destroy everything to get it.’ (ã J.R.Birch 2007)

June Birch wrote “Everyone Can be a herO” and Dr.Helen Caldicott very kindly endorsed the book. You can read a chapter at www.insideoutsider.co.uk, the home of Inside Outsider Publications, a primitive, but solar powered website.

Photo Sunday – Water – Wild and Wonderful

Adam Shake — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:20:24 PST

photo credit: paul (dex) busy @ work

Water, the giver of all life. Wild, wonderful.

photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

photo credit: FreeWine

photo credit: pfala

photo credit: longhorndave

photo credit: Paulo Brandão

photo credit: SergioTudela

photo credit: paul (dex) busy @ work

photo credit: Garry – www.visionandimagination.com

photo credit: Flowery *L*u*z*a*

Podcast Spotlight – Green Talk Radio

Adam Shake — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:04:01 PST

GreenTalk Radio is a play-on-demand audiocast (podcast) that helps listeners in their efforts to lead more eco-friendly lifestyles.

One of the questions that I am often asked is, “How did Simple Earth Media get started?”

Well, it all started with Sean Daily and I, and an interview on Green Talk Radio. That’s how our friendship was formed, and our eventual partnership. But enough about us, you came here to find out about Green Talk Radio.

By tuning in to Green Talk Radio, you can navigate the explosion of green and ecology-oriented products and services with host Sean Daily, CEO and co-founder of GreenLivingIdeas.com. Support the environment by changing your preferences and behaviors, not by simply increasing consumerism. Sean entertains and educates you with smart choices on products and services in the green world through interviews with innovative and caring companies, authors and experts from around the world.

Discover the critical issues facing the global environment today, as well as the technologies, products and practices you can employ to go green in every area of your life including alternative energy and fuels, green building and remodeling materials and practices, organic and natural foods, natural medicine and health, hybrid and electric cars and motorcycles, eco-tourism and green hospitality, forestry management and green printing, green real estate, co-housing communities, natural body care, recyclable carpet and clothing, eco-friendly diapers, wind-powered appliances, solar water heating, fair trade consumables, organic wine and viticulture, bio-dynamic farming, recyclable shopping bags, green office practices, green banking and all of the freshest ideas in green living!

Sean has interviewed an amazing array of guests, including:

Fabien Cousteau, grandson of world famed explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, about his efforts to preserve our ocean ecosystems. The discussion covered rising sea levels, seas of floating plastic garbage, ocean pollution and disappearing marine life species and the resultant effects on the ecosystem and his new initiative Plant a Fish.

TV actress, author, and natural living advocate Mariel Hemingway about her new book and website Mariel’s Kitchen. She created Mariel’s Kitchen™ in hopes of defining a new awareness for better health choices. The concept is the culmination of years studying diet, nutrition and medicine – both traditional and integrated methods. By utilizing a network of experts in their fields, she can now offer choices, a breadth of products and lifestyle suggestions from an important centerpiece in her life — her “kitchen.”

Environmental Authors, CEO’s of sustainable companies, Green Bloggers, Green Talk Radio’s guest list is a “Who’s Who” of everything Green, Eco and Sustainable.

So pop in, listen to a few, and click here to Subscribe to iTunes.

Oh, and stand by for an outstanding interview with Actor and Activist Ed Begely Jr. It’s coming soon!

Natural Parenting Website Spotlight – Natural Papa

Adam Shake — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:25:42 PST

Natural Papa focuses on natural parenting and fatherhood, home remedies for common children’s ailments, homeschooling, green and simple living for families, and natural foods.

You may have heard about this guy. His name is Derek Markham and he has become a household name in the “Green” world. In addition to running Natural Papa, he is a freelance writer who contributes to at least half a dozen other websites.

Here’s the thing about Natural Papa. It mixes the spiritual harmony of man an nature with the same type of harmony of parent and child. Derek talks a lot about “Fathering” and “Fatherhood” in a world to often dominated by “Mothering” and “Motherhood.” He talks about a Fathers responsibility to develop and maintain strong relationships with children, to act as a Mentor and Coach, to teach through example and to place worth on the things that really matter.

His own Bio says it better than I can, check it out.

Personal, Parenting and Natural Living Bio:

I’m a husband, a father, and a carrier of things.

I think peanut butter on anything is great.

I love big mountains and little kids, ’cause they make me smile, and I drink a double americano almost every day.

I’m a nature boy, a tree-hugging dirt-worshiper. I try to live with reverence for our web of life.

I like big trees and large boulders, cold mountain streams and redrock desert, the smell of pinyon and sage. I’d rather be sitting in a canoe in the wilderness than the backseat of a Rolls Royce.

(As long as the canoe had an espresso machine and a wireless connection…)

Things I dig include: simple living, natural fatherhood, attachment parenting, natural building, unassisted childbirth (homebirth), bicycles, composting (sawdust) toilets, organic and biodynamic gardening, vegan peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, bouldering, and the blues.

In my life I’ve been a factory worker, a farmer, a grocery clerk, a handyman and jack of all trades. I’ve worked at fast food joints and car washes, for temp agencies and day labor hire, for moving companies and landscapers. I’ve driven forklifts and bobcats, and I’ve installed solar panels and sold fruit at the farmers market. I spent 10 years in the natural foods industry, most recently as the general manager of a natural foods co-op.

I support local food production and am a regular at the farmers market and our local food co-op. The dream of a sustainable homestead is still alive for us, and our self-sufficient zero-energy input green home is being planned. Our permaculture oasis is a sustainable small-scale village. Single-speed bicycles, drumming, and DIY anything can really make me grin.

So drop on by Natural Papa and check it out. Scroll through the Archives. You wont be sorry. I guarantee it.

You can follow @DerekMarkham and @NaturalPapa on Twitter. You can also find us there, @Twilightearth.

It is Not Enough to Question Authority – You Must Speak With it

Adam Shake — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:19:05 PST

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you, I challenge you: To speak with conviction.

Click below to listen to Adam Shake read Taylor Mali’s Poem Totally like whatever, you know?

In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences – so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

Thanks to Robin Shreeves with A Little Greener Every Day for originally posting this poem. Great find, Robin!

You can Follow @TwilightEarth and @RShreeves on Twitter.

Photo Sunday – Vancouver Canada

Adam Shake — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:56:27 PST

photo credit: jmv

Home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver Canada seems to harmoniously balance City, Coastline and Wilderness. Enjoy the Photos.

photo credit: Brandon Godfrey

photo credit: andy_c

photo credit: eyesplash Mikul

photo credit: kennymatic

photo credit: Aschaf

photo credit: eyesplash Mikul

photo credit: Brandon Godfrey

Fluoride – Better Living Through Dentistry?

Wendy Gabriel — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:55:03 PST

The difficulty is navigating the ever-growing list of environmental toxins your children are exposed to every day. I have another one to add. Fluoride.

Guest Article by Wendy Gabriel

Being a Mom is the most difficult and at the same time most rewarding “career” I’ve ever had. You work 24/7 to ensure your family is healthy, happy and has a least one pair of clean underwear. And the most difficult part has nothing to do with the inevitable tantrums or the never-ending pile of laundry. The difficulty is navigating the ever-growing list of environmental toxins your children are exposed to every day. If you’re keeping track, I have another one to add. Fluoride.

Now that I have children with teeth the issue has my full attention. Have you looked at a tube of fluoride toothpaste lately?

WARNING: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.

Did you know there is enough fluoride in a tube of toothpaste to kill a 2 year old? So why are companies making yummy flavored toothpaste that we expect kids not to swallow? Why are we putting fluoride in our drinking water? Why are we giving extra doses of fluoride to our children at the dentist’s office?

A detailed (and disturbing) chart at Fluoride Action Network’s website shows most “Colgate for Kids” toothpastes – with flavors ranging from bubble gum to watermelon – contain 143 milligrams (mg) of fluoride in each tube. This dose of fluoride is more than double the dose (60 mg) that could kill the average-weighing 2-year-old child. It is also greater than the dose capable of killing all average-weighing children under the age of 9.

A little background: We recently moved to a new state and we’ve had to find new doctors, dentists, grocery stores (nearest food co-op is 80 miles away), schools, church and so on for our family. I was discussing my children’s teeth with our new dentist last week. Between finding out our area is adding fluoride to my drinking, cooking and bathing water, there are actually dental fillings that release fluoride to “strengthen” teeth and the dentist recommends some kind of plastic sealant (BPA?) for children’s molars; I’m starting to get a little overwhelmed.

How can I protect my children from all the potential problems of fluoride like gastric problems, dental fluorosis, bone fractures, bone cancer, neurotoxicity when the prevailing thought is that fluoride is a good idea?

Here are some quotes that should give you some food for thought:

“Did you know that the chemicals used to fluoridate drinking water (fluorosilicic acid, sodium silicofluoride and sodium fluoride) are industrial waste products from the phosphate fertilizer industry?” wrote Jacqueline Carroll, a nurse practitioner from Newburyport concerned about the toxic properties of the mineral on the human body.

“The level of fluoride the government allows the public is based on scientifically fraudulent information and altered reports. People can be harmed simply by drinking water.” Robert Carton, former EPA Scientist

Fluoride is believed to have contributed to the decline of tooth decay (cavities, also called dental caries) in many developed countries (CDC 2008; Kumar 2008). On the other hand, early exposure to fluoride poses undeniable health risks to children (NRC 2006; Sohn 2008). In the U.S. and worldwide, about 30 percent of children who drink fluoridated water experience dental fluorosis (Brunelle 1987; Heller 1997; Khan 2005). Strong concerns have been also raised about fluoride exposure and the risk of bone cancer (osteosarcoma), adverse effects on the thyroid function, and lowered IQ in children (NRC 2006). The Environmental Working Group

What are your thoughts about fluoride?

Editors Note by Adam Shake:

In the 1970’s, the chemical industry ran an ad campaign called “Better Living Through Chemistry.” Chemicals, though useful when used properly, have become a toxicological nightmare.

Wendy Gabriel is the founder of My Green Side.org, a columnist for Examiner.com and a weekly on-air contributor to The Christopher Gabriel Program. You can listen to her Wednesdays at 1020am (central) on AM970 WDAY where she talks about Simple Tips for Green Living.

You can follow Wendy on Twitter @MyGreenSide and Adam @TwilightEarth

photo credit: Shermeee