today children may be assaulted, diseased, or killed by pervasive corporate drugs, junk-foods and beverages, perverted by mindless violence in multiple modes, deployed as dead-end labour with no benefits, and then dumped into a corporate future of debt enslavement and meaningless work. How could this increasing systematic abuse be publicly licensed at every level? What kind of society could turn a blind eye to its dominant institutions laying waste the lives of the young and humanity’s future itself?
Bakan’s classic film and book,The Corporation has revealed step by step the “corporation as psychopath”.
Bakan reports copious findings on Big Pharma buying doctors with favours, planting articles in name journals, inventing child illnesses to prescribe medications to, and drugging the young from infancy on with the unsafe substances they push (pp. 65-114). Along with the corporate invasion of children’s healthcare goes the invasion of public education (pp. 139-71, 245-56). Administrators with now corporate executive salaries for no educational function collaborate with the agenda, and mechanical testing devices closed to independent academic examination are the Trojan horse for a mass lock-step of miseducation (pp. 140-62). Bakan is aware that the whole trend of corporatization of the classroom and educational institutions “undermines the role of education in promoting critical thought and intelligent reflection” (p. 47). Indeed it wars against them in principle. For reasoning and critical research require learners to address problems independently of corporate profits and to penetrate behind market-conditioned beliefs. Big-business demands the opposite. It maximizes money returns as its first and final principle of thought and judgement, and selects against any truth or knowledge conflicting with this goal.
Corporate child abuse, in short, far surpasses all other forms of child abuse put together. But in a world where both parents are at work to survive and big money always wins elections, the life interests of children are bullied out of view. “Corporations [are] large, powerful and dominating institutions”, Bakan summarizes, “deliberately programmed to exploit and neglect others in pursuit of wealth for themselves” (p. 175).
So what is the resolution? Bakan emphasizes the pre-cautionary principle and laws against clear harms to the young. He emphasizes “values” and “teaching what is good for them and what is not” (pp. 49-50). Yet we have no principled criterion of either. They are self-evident once seen. The good for children is whatever enables life capacities to coherently grow, and the bad is whatever disables them. Corporate dominion goes the opposite direction. Thus unfitness, obesity, depression, egoic fantasies, aggressive violence, and aimlessness increase the more its profitable child abuse runs out of control. This is the heart of our disorder. Public regulation of corporations by tested life-capacity standards is the solution.
A landmark study on the topic by Donald Davis and his team of researchers from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.
Recent studies of historical nutrient content data for fruits and vegetables spanning 50 to 70 years show apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in minerals, vitamins, and protein in groups of foods, especially in vegetables
Acknowledging assessment difficulties, since the 1850s, wheats have declined in Mg concentration 7–29 %; USA and English vegetables’ Mg declined 15–23 %, 1930s to 1980s. The nadir of USA food Mg supply in 1968 coincides with the USA peak in CVD mortality. As humans transition from “traditional” to modern processed food diets, Mg intake declines.
More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, but many people are residing in a state of limbo, leading a precarious existence on the margins, excluded from the promises of urban life. The world’s population is on the move more than ever before, driven by conflict and persecution, by the threat of environmental catastrophe and the lure of a better life, but cities simply aren’t prepared to receive their new arrivals.
Over the last two decades, Guardian photographer David Levene has documented the ways that people are living and working in cities around the world, how they make do with the bare minimum of resources to carve out space for themselves and their families in the most precarious of circumstances, and how cities are being polarised into places of haves and have-nots, with the right to the city relentlessly eroded.
From the yurt encampments on the peripheries of Ulaanbaatar built by herders following the disastrous loss of livestock during extreme winters, to the self-built city of the Calais Jungle refugee camp, the growing homeless population of San Francisco forced on to the streets by the tech boom, and the dislocated town of Abu Dis, now cut off from Jerusalem by a huge concrete wall, Levene’s photographs reveal a shared experience: of human ingenuity against the odds.
Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge is a collaborative research and design project that brings together local residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative solutions to the issues brought on by climate change that the Bay Area region faces today.
Design Teams have spent the last two months touring communities around San Francisco Bay, learning about challenges the communities are facing related to severe storms, flooding and sea level rise, layered on the broader challenges around infrastructure, affordability and inequity throughout the Bay Area. On November 15th, the Design Teams publicly presented 3-5 Design Opportunities, and following the event these design opportunities were posted for public input and review until December 1st on their website.
Design Opportunities are Live and We Want Your Feedback!
Now we want to know which ideas capture your imagination, hopes, ideas and thoughts for how to increase resilience in your community.
This valuable feedback will be relayed to our jury as they select which design opportunities rise to the top as the ideas that Design Teams will work alongside community leaders to develop into real-world solutions addressing many of our region’s most pressing concerns.
C40: Rather than end at a case study or report, C40 Networks create conversations, which enable cities to tailor their own actions to their unique situations, and band together to use their collective power to access partnership resources, including technical and financial support
About City Diplomacy
In the lead up to a series of important international events culminating in COP 21 (Paris, December 2015), C40 developed a City Diplomacy Strategy as a mechanism to further accelerate city action and support efforts to better link these to national ambitions.
The key goals of C40’s city diplomacy strategy are to:
Demonstrate How Cities Are Leading the Way
Catalyze Action and Secure Resources for C40 Cities
Have a Positive Impact on an Inter-Governmental Agreement to Tackle Climate Change
The Compact of Mayors is the world’s largest cooperative effort among mayors and city officials to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks in cities.
By establishing a common platform to capture the impact of cities’ collective actions through standardized measurement of emissions and climate risk, and consistent, public reporting of their efforts, it provides hard evidence that cities are true climate leaders, and that local action can have a significant global impact.
On 22 June 2016, the Compact of Mayors and the Covenant of Mayors announced the new Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, a newly merged initiative to bring these two efforts together. See C40 blog for more details of the announcement.
To be fully compliant with the Compact of Mayors, cities commit to taking action in three phases, with requirements covering both climate mitigation and adaptation. The status of each committed C40 city can be explored in the dashboard below, along with all city-reported data. More details on the requirements can be found here.
Partners to the Compact of Mayors include C40, ICLEI, UCLG and UN Habitat. CDP is the reporting partner for C40 cities.
Requirements
The requirements of the Compact of Mayors are summarised in thetable below. Full details of the requirements can be found on theCompact of Mayors website.
Cities use a single standard for developing greenhouse gas inventories; the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories (GPC). CURB is an official decision support tool of the Compact of Mayors designed to support the setting of emission reduction targets and the development of climate action plans.
Several other Florida plants are commonly called "olive," so be sure you're purchasing a European olive tree if you intend to grow an edible fruit.
While olives have been grown in Florida for years on a small scale, they are a relatively new commercial crop here, so there is still much to be learned about the cultural requirements for keeping healthy and productive trees. Researchers have been testing olive trees as far south as Orlando. Growers further south will have to decide whether it's worth the chance or wait for more research to be done to see just how far south these trees will grow and thrive.
Floral development (and thus, fruit production) in the olive can be quite complex. Planting more than one cultivar close together may increase fruit set. If you want to jump in and give it a try, the cultivar 'Arbequina' from Spain has been the most popular in Florida. It is a self-pollinator, meaning it can use its own pollin to fertilize and produce fruit, but having other cultivars nearby seems to help. 'Koroneiki' and 'Arbosona' are often planted to support pollination of 'Arbequina'. 'Mission', the common black "table olive" (for eating as opposed to those better for oil), is another cultivar that is self-fertile and may do well in a Florida landscape.
Like, Suzanne said how the PTSD was so apparent, with the Irma Hurricane passing by so close!
So I graduated again and so my Son said how I've done this before. He told me how I've written a journal since high school, so each degree/transition was written up. Discussions on what was attempted, and what was completed, and what was next. . . . Like My first Handyman business in NJ, lasted two months before my Dad hired me to clean out his Garage so he could move to Tampa!
Funny, last week my Dad hired me as a Handyman, again!
I wonder if I'll be cleaning out the garage again! Course back then, he offered me "room and board" but then included a vacation to Tampa where he had moved dellem associate inc. . . wanting me to go to college. . . hum, http://www.dellem.com/ . . . lol. . . wow scobey still has it up there. .
YES JOURNALS, lol, since 1980 when . . . dellem started, and i died. . . what a trip is that! And back then, I journalled a ton before my first degree. . . as I came to Tampa for College because I wanted KIDS, and could not raise a child the WAY I wanted as a Handyman. I needed a professional degree, so I could work from home like at dellem, and spend all my time with my kids.
Obviously, I wrote a lot after that first degree. . . Finished it and got married ASAP! But what about all the others? Heck my last degree was 5 months ago now, . . . And again I learned a TON from my kids, as I wrote up for my teaching portfolio. Like my Son's first question to me was about E=mc2. . . Explain that!
c) The mathematical and physical conception of the integration of Einstein's Equation is considered, whereby the uniform distribution of matter and energy transformations are recognized as universal and continuous throughout space and time is envisioned.
i. This may or may not include the specific mathematical understandings of integration including:
1. The continuous dynamics of energy and matter transferring from particles to waves representing the first integral (Fig.2, 40) capturing the energy changing zero to infinity. . .
2. The continuous dynamics exhibited at different vibrations and intensities for each type of energy as particles and waves. . . in transition and equilibrium which constitutes matter shown in the secondintegral (Fig.2, 60) of matter changing zero to infinity. .
3. The continuous dynamics exhibited at different densities and speeds for each type of matter. . . place and time with the thirdintegral (Fig.2, 80) showing time changing zero to infinity. . . .
4. Thus, this evolution represent the continuous dynamics exhibited at every possible time frame. Time and space are both elastic and relative so allowing the conceptions to leap beyond time into future, past, and present enhance this method. . . we don't need to go or do anything, but the "conception" and understanding of energy (Fig.2, 40) as both particle and wave, gives us control over changing matter (Fig.2, 60) throughout our time (Fig.2, 80) . . . Shifting the Vibration of NOW, by changing the Vibration of Energy. . . which moves and exists at all levels and times at once. . .
Agilists from across the state of Florida and beyond for Agile Open Florida 2017 in Orlando, Florida in October. Our theme this year is … Beyond Agile
Agile Open Florida will be facilitated using the Open Space Technology (OST) format, with the ultimate goal being to connect, learn, and share. Using the Open Space Technology (OST) approach, the Agile Open Florida encourages agile practitioners from around the state of Florida to self-organize around topics that are most important to them. In this framework, participants with common issues and interests share their experiences and learn from others. There is no preset agenda for the event, rather, sessions are created “live” by the participants at the start of the day. In order to get the most out of this event, please come prepared with topics that are of interest to you, either to learn more about or to share your experiences
An excellent article on Bioteams by Doug Kirkpatrick, US Partner at NuFocus Strategic Group concludes: "The power and elegance of bioteaming is indisputable. Whether organizational leaders will detach themselves from the perceived security blanket of traditional, artificial hierarchy in order to fully experience that power is another question entirely?"
A new movement that includes aquaponics, shipping container farming and cellular agriculture is eating into the global dominance of Big Ag. The next generation is feeding itself on local, sustainable foods – grown at home, at school and in the lab. Kimbal Musk, the tech millionaire turned restauranteur, is leading the fray, through theKitchen Communitynonprofit and hisLearning Gardensinitiative.
PROTECTING THE EARTH IS GOOD BUSINESS
Sustainable Development Goal 2015: Life on Land Gunter Pauli'sBlue Economymodel promotes enterprises that make the world a better place for all, one reimagined product at a time. On a macro scale, it also proposes entirely new closed-loop approaches – such as the zero-emissions brewery concept visualized here. And change is happening: the platform has identified dozens of successful businesses that have built social capital while treading lightly on the Earth. One such company is Germany'sBonaverdewhich makes a raw bean coffee machine that ensures coffee growers receive fair payment – they make a minimum of 25 percent over the production price – and creates a direct connection between the cultivator and end user.
DECORATIVE FRUIT
A Local Solution to Hunger
In collaboration withSecond Harvestand Toronto's Gladstone Hotel, Robert Cram creates an installation that serves as a functioning fruit and vegetable market, a sculpture gallery and a visual representation of one quarter of the food rescued and delivered daily by Second Harvest. In North America, over 30 percent of fruits and vegetables are rejected by supermarkets because they aren't attractive enough for consumers, while one in eight Canadian families struggle to put food on the table. It is estimated that a billion pounds of food is wasted annually in the GTA.
The sculptural work embraces the weird, extraordinary and discarded through its juxtaposition with the familiar, uniform and standardized. Three-dimensional printed bronze-cast sculptures – a pepper, an eggplant and an orange – have been embedded within the market: perfect for arrangements with flowers and greenery or use alone as a tabletop décor. If sold, 50 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of the sculptures will be donated to Second Harvest.
NO LOT IS VACANT
By Victoria Taylor, Bowery Project and Jonas Spring
No Lot is Vacant is a response to EDIT's partnership with the UNDP and its Global Goals of Zero Hunger. The team has transformed a vacant rooftop of the abandoned Unilever soap factory; breathing life into a new story of a former industrial site at an important time in its transition. Envisioned by Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect, urban farmers Bowery Project and plantsman/garden builder Jonas Spring/Ecoman, No Lot Is Vacant encourages a new way of thinking about how we nourish urban lands. The rooftop features Helianthus annuus (sunflower) a food source for birds; foraged plants spontaneously growing on site; and a mobile urban farm constructed from re-purposed milk crates (inspired by Ore Design) relocated from a vacant lot nearby. The rooftop is also pollinated by the abstracted steel petals of designer Andrew Jones' The Battery Chair for Maglin. The rooftop border is a 20M long viewing bar of site-salvaged rail timbers and at grade, in collaboration with site maintenance, a patch of commercial lawn left unmown and unirrigated through the summer, reveals the latent beauty and diversity of a vibrant urban-hardy meadow.
TINY KITCHEN (formerly Mod Garden)
By Amar Khwaja
Once a Wall Street banker, now an entrepreneur, single dad, and a passionate believer in the power of home-grown organic food to change your health and the world around you,Amar Khwaja'sown health crisis led him to start a project to provide himself with a daily dose of homegrown organic food – even though home is an urban high-rise apartment. ThisTiny Kitchenmodel is his fourth prototype, and he's learned through user testing that consumers want beauty and elegance, not just functionality.
MASSIVE CHANGE NETWORK
1316 Sherman Avenue, Suite 200, Evanston, Illinois 60201 USA - (888) 976-2668
We are seeking a quantitative understanding of the organizational and dynamical aspects of human social organization and urbanization.
SFI's Cities, scaling, and sustainability research is creating an interdisciplinary approach and quantitative synthesis of organizational and dynamical aspects of human social organizations, with an emphasis on cities.
Different disciplinary perspectives are being integrated in terms of the search for similar dependences of urban indicators on population size - scaling analysis - and other variables that characterize the system as a whole.
An important focus of this research area is to develop theoretical insights about cities that can inform quantitative analyses of their long-term sustainability in terms of the interplay between innovation, resource appropriation, and consumption and the make up of their social and economic activity.
This focus area brings together urban planners, economists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and complex system theorists with the aim of generating an integrated and quantitative understanding of cities. Outstanding areas of research include the identification of general scaling patterns in urban infrastructure and dynamics around the world, the quantification of resource distribution networks in cities and their interplay with the city's socioeconomic fabric, issues of temporal acceleration and spatial density, and the long-term dynamics of urban systems.
Lead Investigators
Geoffrey West, Distinguished Professor and Past President, Science Board, Science Steering Committee
Luis Bettencourt, Professor
His research interests also include the modeling of innovation and sustainability in developing human societies, the dynamics of infectious diseases and aspects of general information processing in complex systems. He is particularly interested in the interplay between information, structure and scale in setting the properties of diverse complex systems.
What are the Methods of Extracting Essential Oils?
There are many different ways to extract essential oils and a complete listing and description is provided here. This section will mainly deal with the details and methods of steam distillation.
What is Steam Distillation?
Distilling essential oils by steam distillation can be accomplished three different ways. They are:
Water Distillation;
Water/Steam Distillation; and
Straight Steam.
The Methods of Extracting Essential Oils are Still Being Proven!
Some methods of extracting essential oils have been around for thousands of years while others are still being proven. The section will give you an understanding of the different methods!
What are the Methods of Extracting Essential Oils?
There are many different ways to extract essential oils and they are listed below:
Enfleurage
Expressed Oils
Steam Distillation
Solvent Extraction
Fractional Distillation and Percolation
Carbon Dioxide Extraction
Phytonic Process
What is Enfleurage?
Enfleurage is one of the oldest methods of extracting essential oils and is rarely used these days because of its high cost. It involves placing the flower petals on a layer of glass that is first spread with a thin layer of fat called "chassis". The volatile oil diffuses into the fat, then the fat is collected and the oil is extracted from the fat using alcohol.
Once the alcohol evaporates what is left behind is called the absolute. As you can imagine, this is a very time consuming process, but it was the only way to extract delicate flowers like Jasmine for a very long time!
What is Expression of Oils?
When oils are taken from the rind of fruits they are called "expressed oils". This method is cold and does not involve any solvents or heat of any kind. Most of the citrus oils are extracted in this manner including grapefruit, lime, orange and lemon essential oils.
These are not technically considered essential oils for this reason, but they are still definitely therapeutic oils. The most important thing to consider with cold pressed oils is the source of the crop since citrus fruits are constantly sprayed with pesticides and it can be very concentrated in the oil!
What is Involved in Steam Distilling Essential Oils?
Steam distillation has been used for hundreds of years and today remains one of the most favorably methods of extracting essential oils. Technically speaking if it not extracted using steam distillation or cold expression it is not a therapeutic grade essential oil.
There are actually three different steam processes that are described further in the distilling section. But in all of the methods, steam is used to rupture the oil membranes in the plant and release the essential oil.
The steam carries the essential oil to a condenser and then as it re-liquefies the lighter essential oil floats on top. The water and oil is then separated and the water portion is referred to as the hydrosol, hydrolat, or flower or floral water. And the oil portion, of course, is the essential oil!
The essential oil distilling equipment including the condenser, separator and cooking chambers can all have an enormous impact on the quality of the oil. As well as, the distillation temperature and pressure! And even if everything appears correct, the process can still produce oils that don't meet the AFNOR Standards. So essential oil distillers must have the knowledge and expertise to know how to produce therapeutic grade essential oils.
Are you interested in learning more about steam distillation?Then click here!
What is Solvent Extraction?
Solvent extraction is a method of extracting essential oils that is dominated by the perfume industry. And technically does not produce therapeutic grade oils because chemicals such as hexane, acetone, di-methylene-chloride and others are used in the process!
Did you know that the plant material is actually immersed into the solvents to become a thick substance called "concrete"?
The oil particles are released when the concrete substance is then mixed with alcohol. Once it is separated out, the chemicals remain in the oil and the oil is used by the perfume industry. These are perfume or aromatherapy grade oils and are not therapeutic grade!
As you can see this is process requires far less time and expense because the oil is cut with solvents and can increase the oil production volume significantly.
Are these the oils that are used in bath oils and gels, candles, shampoos, toothpaste, fly spray, and air fresheners?
Yup, you got it! These are also the 98% of the oils sold in health food stores, retail outlets and aromatherapy suppliers!
What is Percolation and Fractional Distillation?
Fractional distillation separates the volatile oil in different fractions or portions at various boiling points. This is used in oil refineries for distillation of petroleum products and is not suited for therapeutic grade essential oils.
Percolation is one of the newer methods of extraction essential oils. It is similar to normal distillation but the equipment is literally upside down! It has been used successfully in France; however sometimes an emulsion is produced that can not be separated out, so until it can be further developed you will not see it on a large scale.
What is Super Critical Fluid Extraction? (Carbon Dioxide Extraction)
Super critical fluid extraction or carbon dioxide extraction is also a fairly new solvent extraction process that uses carbon dioxide at very high pressure. The carbon dioxide is injected into the tank where the plant material is contained and acts as a solvent to extract the oil.
The carbon dioxide is colorless and odorless liquid and can be completely removed which is a good thing; however, there is no research at this point to verify if there are any effects of using this procedure.
Additionally, the distilling equipment is extremely expensive. So until more is known about this process, it is advised to use only steam distilled and expressed oils!
What is the Phytonic Process?
The Phytonic process is a one of the newest methods of extracting essential oils using non-CFCs (non-chlorofluorocarbons). It is also called Florasol Extraction and the oils are referred to as phytols.
What Else is There to Know about Methods of Extracting Essential Oils?
Well, if this section spurred your interest definitely read the section on steam distillation. I will give you some examples of ideal pressures and temperatures for distilling several oils, and tell you other ways that distillers adulterate their oils! So check it out!
I hope this section on methods of extracting essential oils, gave you an understanding on why using therapeutic grade essential oils are so important.
The perfume grade oils still contain a portion of the solvent and are only for fragrance so please do be careful.
Essential oils can be extracted via two key methods: Distillation (includes hydrodistillation) and Expression.
Absolutes, other the other hand, can be extracted via Solvent extraction or Enfleurage, although enfleurage is rarely performed in the modern day.
Another type of aromatic product available on the market are CO2 extracts, referred to simply as that, CO2 extracts. They differ in chemistry from their related distilled essential oils but are becoming increasing available on the market.
The Practice of Distillation
Distillation appears to have been practiced throughout ancient times. Based upon the current interpretation Paolo Rovesti’s discovery of an earthenware distillation apparatus, the production or extraction of aromatic oils by means of steam distillation, has been known for 5000 years.1 During the fifth century AD, the famed writer, Zosimus of Panopolis, refers to the distilling of a divine water and panacea. Throughout the early Middle Ages and beyond, a crude form of distillation was known and was used primarily to prepare floral waters or distilled aromatic waters. These appear to have been used in perfumery, as digestive tonics, in cooking, and for trading.
Although an extensive trade of odoriferous material has been shown to have occurred in the ancient Orient and ancient Greece and Rome, the oils used were not essential oils per se, “rather they were obtained by placing flowers, roots, and other plant material into a fatty oil of best quality, submitting the glass bottles containing these mixtures to the warming influence of the sun and finally separating odoriferous oil from the solid constituents”.2
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Distillation appears to have been practiced throughout ancient times. Based upon the current interpretation Paolo Rovesti’s discovery of an earthenware distillation apparatus, the production or extraction of aromatic oils by means of steam distillation, has been known for 5000 years.1 During the fifth century AD, the famed writer, Zosimus of Panopolis, refers to the distilling of a divine water and panacea. Throughout the early Middle Ages and beyond, a crude form of distillation was known and was used primarily to prepare floral waters or distilled aromatic waters. These appear to have been used in perfumery, as digestive tonics, in cooking, and for trading.
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