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On the 1st of February 2007, Participate in the biggest mobilization of Citizens Against Global Warming! The Alliance for the Planet [a group of environmental associations] is calling on all citizens to create 5 minutes of electrical rest for the planet. People all over the world should turn off their lights and electrical appliances on the first of February 2007, between 1.55 pm and 2.00 pm in New York, 18.55 for London, and 19.55 for Paris, Bruxelles, and Italy. 1.55 pm in Ottawa, 10.55 am on the Pacific Coast of North America. This is not just about saving 5 minutes worth of electricity; this is about getting the attention of the media, politicians, and ourselves. Five minutes of electrical down time for the planet: this does not take long, and costs nothing, and will show all political leaders that global warming is an issue that needs to come first and foremost in political debate. Why February 1? This is the day when the new UN report on global climate change will come out in Paris. This event affects us all, involves us all, and provides an occasion to show how important an issue global warming is to us. If we all participate, this action can have real media and political weight.(This should be dead simple for us Island folk, eh!)

Kiva is an organization which enables you to easily loan small amounts of money (microloans) using the internet to individuals in the developing world who are trying to start or improve their own businesses.

According to Kiva’s website….”Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.”

So far I have loaned money to Oktay Akhmadov from Azerbaijan to buy more computers for his computer business and to Miriama Leota of Samoa for her banana chip business. 

Kiva claims to deliver 100% of your loans to the recipients and also to have a a 100% repayment rate so far. (They suggest you make small loans to several or many different people.) After you get your money back you have the choice of reinvesting it in someone else or taking it back. In the meantime you get to watch your business choices, progress through email and Kiva’s interactive website.

This seems like a really good use of the internet to help people and really you are just loaning the money so people can help themselves. So cool!

http://www.kiva.org

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. First we walked to the beach since it was the first ‘nice’ day we have had in awhile. This is what is left of a huge old douglas fir blown down by the big storm event. Standing are Glen, Landa and her boyfriend, Josh.

 Then they made me dinner which included my favourate Kalua chocolate cheese cake for desert. It was so good. Sorry all the rest of you could not be here to share some! 

We are back! The power just came on 30 minutes ago this snowy Saturday morning. We have been in the dark since last monday when the worst storm winds I have ever experienced hit Hornby and Denman Islands. The image above was a headline from a local paper. Evidently water spouts were spotted by a pilot in a plane and by a fisherman. It certainly looked and sounded like a tornado. The air was so full of debris and water that you really couldn’t see very far. I saw trees whipping around wildly accompanied by an unearthly roar. As the trees flew towards the house we had to retreat inside to relative safety. We did not get hit but trees came down on all sides and the piles of debris are huge. 

 

The storm was on Sunday night and on Monday morning Glen was in terrible pain from something in his eye. He had to chainsaw 5 trees off the driveway before I could get out to take him to the clinic. The roads were a nightmare, 7 k of trees, broken power poles and twisted wire. Some brave and thoughtful locals chainsawed a path through the debris so emergency vehicles could make it through. The road was green with the tree depris and so were the snow covered ditches along side so you couldn’t tell were the road actually was. We drove under many trees leaning on powerlines. Denman lost 70 power poles all together. The Doctor at the clinic took a piece of metal out of Glen’s eye using his petzel for light and his finger and then sent us to town to make sure Glen was OK which he was.

Glen’s niece, Jennifer was visiting us at the time. She was an enormous help, first helping to move debris of the driveway and then watching out for the dogs while we were in town. She is off to India soon. It will be a nice change from here I am sure.

BC hydro says this is the worst  series of storm events they have ever seen here on the South Coast. Pair that with the replacement of our three aging underwater lines which bring hydro to the Islands and we had November pretty much without power. We are still snowed in but I can compute again so it is not so bad.  The last of the ‘planned’ power outages is over and it is starting to rain.

We have lost our usual ferry which is in drydock for repairs till April. Now we have a tiny ferry and getting to town is going to be a pain. We tried one day this week and ended up waiting 1.5 hours each way to get across to Vancouver Island and back. I am just not going to worry about shopping and Christmas this year  because it is all becoming too much! Sorry to friends and family but I am sure you understand. My heart is there but not my energy.

We woke up to thunder and lightening. Then I heard a tsunami warning on the radio. “What an exciting day this is going to be”, we said and it was. Rarely have I seen wind gusts so violent. We could hear and sometimes see trees crashing all around us. Fortunately none hit the house. There was no tsunami but the wind and rising water were quite enough.

There was a new river flowing through the apple orchard and the Hazel orchard was a lake. The ditches were over flowing everywhere. The power was off for 3 days. We got another heavy windstorm yesterday which brought a large Hemlock down on the driveway. Glen is sawing it up as I type this. At least we will have lots of firewood next winter. 

It is pouring rain again but no wind so I have been able to write this. Hopefully we will get a calmer week and I can get some work done!

Glen has just finished these  four baskets. They are the first he made in a year and they are the first he has woven in the new (still unfinished but usable) studio. He is very stoked. He had the tall one with the orange and black stripes sold even before he finished it.

Here are some rather suspicious trick or treaters to watch out for. Tonight is the time of year when the veil between the world of the dead and that of the living becomes very thin. I will be talking to dogs and people, now gone, who I loved and miss on this lovely crystaline All Hallows eve.

Wow, it is almost Halloween! There is frost in the pumpkin patch and a northwind stripped the maple trees naked this weekend. I could see the stars in the Southern sky from my bed last night.  Glen is in his studio weaving baskets. This is the first time the studio has been finished enough for him to do that.

I have been struggling with technology this month, sigh…… If you are tempted to be a beta tester for Vista, I would advise against it unless you enjoy frustration. Vista does not play nice with some of my older favourite programs and Google Earth doesn’t seem to like it at all.

This week end the New York Times Magazine published An Elephant Crackup?, an aticle about elephant and human interactions. In the last 20 years there has been a marked increase in violent encounters between wild elephants and humans. There have also been many more murderous attacks on elephant herds in an effort to obtain ivory. These attacks have destroyed the family systems of the herds and left the surviving young elephants very damaged physiologically. They have become very dangerous like many elephants do in captivity.

According to the Times article…”The elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans: abnormal startle response, unpredictable asocial behavior, inattentive mothering and hyperaggression…..As a result of such social upheaval, calves are now being born to and raised by ever younger and inexperienced mothers. Young orphaned elephants, meanwhile, that have witnessed the death of a parent at the hands of poachers are coming of age in the absence of the support system that defines traditional elephant life. “The loss of elephants elders,” Bradshaw told me, “and the traumatic experience of witnessing the massacres of their family, impairs normal brain and behavior development in young elephants.”

The article goes on to say that “Elephants, when left to their own devices, are profoundly social creatures. A herd of them is, in essence, one incomprehensibly massive elephant: a somewhat loosely bound and yet intricately interconnected, tensile organism. Young elephants are raised within an extended, multitiered network of doting female caregivers that includes the birth mother, grandmothers, aunts and friends. These relations are maintained over a life span as long as 70 years.”

“When an elephant dies, its family members engage in intense mourning and burial rituals, conducting week long vigils over the body, carefully covering it with earth and brush, revisiting the bones for years afterward, caressing the bones with their trunks, often taking turns rubbing their trunks along the teeth of a skull’s lower jaw, the way living elephants do in greeting. If harm comes to a member of an elephant group, all the other elephants are aware of it.”

The Times magazine article tells of a young Ugandan researcher named Eve Abe who fled the country with her family in 1986. She noticed the similarity between what happened to the Acholi people of Uganda and the elephants. She also noticed a definite similarity in the effect this trauma had on the surviving victims’ psyches. Ms Abe’s observations have led to an increased interest in effects of war and genocide on humans and elephants. There is also an increase in interest on the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee where traumatized elephants can be studied and where methods of dealing with these wounded souls are being developed.

This is a fascinating, informative and heartbreaking article and I encourage you to read it.

An Elephant Crackup?