Morning Greens Tuesday Open Thread

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Good Morning readers! This is an Open Thread with a twist of Green and yet open for all topics. Fire away!


THIS ZERO-WASTE GROCERY STORE HAS NO PACKAGING, PLASTIC OR BIG-NAME BRANDS


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Forget Whole Foods.
The Germans have created a store with eco-conscious customers in mind. Well, at least in Berlin-the newest home of Original Unverpackt (Original Unpackaged). You won’t find any paper or plastic bags here-or any kind of bags for that matter. This new grocery store creates zero waste by allowing customers to purchase exactly how much they need, reducing waste in their homes.Original Unverpackt doesn’t carry any products under popular brand names; instead, they carry mostly organic products. Original Unverpackt stocks their shelves using a bulk bin system with an assortment of fruits, vegetables and grains. Even shampoo and milk are dispensed from refillable containers according to Salon.

For the anniversary of Katrina, Bobby Jindal wrote President Obama a letter:

Jindal, who’s also running for president on the Republican ticket, sent a letter to Obama Wednesday urging the president not to mention climate change during his trip to Louisiana.
“Although I understand that your emphasis in New Orleans will – rightly – be on economic development, the temptation to stray into climate change politics should be resisted,” Jindal states in the letter. “While you and others may be of the opinion that we can legislate away hurricanes with higher taxes, business regulations and EPA power grabs, that is not a view shared by many Louisianians. I would ask you to respect this important time of remembrance by not inserting the divisive political agenda of liberal environmental activism.”

From DeSmogBlog, one of the best new eco sites:


Obama Barely Touches on Climate Change In New Orleans Speech Marking the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina


In May, the Obama administration opened the Gulf of Mexico to further oil and gas drilling despite the BP oil spill five years ago. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement permitted LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC to drill a new well near BP’s failed Macondo well...

New Orleans where social injustice and environmental injustice meet.

While the USA has military bases around the world to protect its national interests at the same time it is allowing industry to destroy its land one football field per hour. The oil & gas industry dredges the coastline, it slices up the marshes introducing salt water into fresh. It has created 10,000 miles of canals breaking up what were the protective marshes.


Ten Years After Katrina, Here's What's Happening to Louisiana's Coastline


It's been ten years since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, crippling New Orleans and highlighting America's vulnerability to natural disaster. In the aftermath, a central question has been whether New Orleans — and other areas along the coast — can be rebuilt better, stronger, and more equitably. But with coastal development swallowing up wetlands, canal dredging by oil and gas companies ruining coastlines, and global warming pushing up sea levels, Gulf Coast residents are wondering whether the land on which they live will continue to exist at all.
[...]
Activists are using the tenth anniversary of Katrina to highlight the multiple threats along the Gulf Coast and point out how economic inequality and racial injustice mean the poor and people of color are disproportionately impacted.

Over the past year, the group Gulf South Rising has attempted to build a first-of-its-kind coalition linking the region's history of racial injustice, its persistent economic inequality, and the ways in which climate change will impact the coast. The group's motto is: The seas are rising and so are we.

Its leaders say that without addressing those larger issues, the communities most impacted by a disappearing coast in the Gulf will continue to be ignored

Oil and Water

11 minute video
Oil And Water: Louisiana's Coastal Crisis

Mississippi River Outlet-Canal or MRGO

MRGO Must Go

New MRGO Report


THE BIG UNEASY: Gone with the Water

The oil industry has been good to Louisiana, providing low taxes and high-paying jobs. But such largesse hasn't come without a cost, largely exacted from coastal wetlands. The most startling impact has only recently come to light—the effect of oil and gas withdrawal on subsidence rates. For decades geologists believed that the petroleum deposits were too deep and the geology of the coast too complex for drilling to have any impact on the surface. But two years ago former petroleum geologist Bob Morton, now with the U.S. Geological Survey, noticed that the highest rates of wetland loss occurred during or just after the period of peak oil and gas production in the 1970s and early 1980s.
[...]
"When you look at the broadest perspective, short-term advantages can be gained by exploiting the environment. But in the long term you're going to pay for it. Just like you can spend three days drinking in New Orleans and it'll be fun. But sooner or later you're going to pay."

An article in November 2013 Harper's about the contamination of the Louisiana coastline by industry and the legacy lawsuits that followed.

Dirty South
I’d come to Louisiana to report on another major source of worry for the industry: so-called legacy lawsuits, through which landowners have sued companies for contamination of properties leased to produce oil and gas. By the late 1980s, the major oil firms had largely moved their non- refinery operations offshore, selling their remaining active fields to inde- pendent firms. They left behind thousands of sites contaminated by oil, organic pollutants, and other hazardous materials. At particular issue has been a byproduct of the drilling process that the oil compa- nies euphemistically refer to as “pro- duced water” or “brine.”

As its name implies, brine, which is produced in vast quantities by both conventional drilling and hydrofracking, contains a great deal of salt—its salinity is up to ten times that of seawater, mean- ing any storage breaches can greatly alter the chemistry of groundwater and endanger nearby vegetation. Analyses of brine frequently detect traces of benzene, chromium, lead, and other potential carcinogens, as well as radioactive isotopes.

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burnt out's picture

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After a couple of cities here in Missouri banned the use of plastic bags, our teabagger run legislature passed legislation this summer making such city ordinances illegal. Gov. Nixon vetoed the legislation but tomorrow marks the beginning of this years override session and the plastic bag legislation is just one of 18 vetoes they'll be attempting to override. In preparation of calling my congress critters to give them an earful I did a little research on the environmental effects of plastic bags and found some interesting statistics regarding their usage,

Like the fact that the average American family takes home 1,500 plastic bags a year.

And that Americans use and throw away 100 billion plastic bags every year,

which require 12 million barrels of oil per year to manufacture.

And that in good circumstances, high-density polyethylene will take more than 20 years to degrade. In less ideal circumstances (landfills or as general refuse), a bag will take more than 500 years to degrade

Less than 3% of all bags recycled

The extremely slow decomposition rate of plastic bags leaves them to drift on the ocean for years and are consistently in the top 10 pieces of trash collected on beaches all around the world.

But from what I understand while banning plastic bags is a no brainer and something we should have done a long time ago, it's not nearly enough. Doing so would simply shift the use of them to paper bags, which are said to require more raw materials and higher energy requirements for both production and transportation. Some believe that the net result of banning the use of plastic bags would actually have an overall negative effect on the environment. The simple answer of course is to switch to reusable ones. What we really need is a cultural shift but it seems unlikely to me that that will happen anytime soon.

PS, That little red-eared slider in the photo is alive and doing well. The Mo. Conservation Dept has been taking care of him for years and use him as an educational tool. He travels all over the state and has been seen by thousands of folks. The six pack tab was removed long ago of course.

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All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon

hecate's picture

in California, the plastic bags are going, and in many communities are already gone. People can ask for paper bags, but they have to pay for them. So people are getting used to reusable bags. A number of merchants provide(d) reusables free to customers in the months leading up to the plastic going away. There doesn't seem to be a lot of grousing about the change. Except from the plastic manufacturers. Who have placed on the ballot an initiative to overturn the state ban. But it will Fail.

Thanks for the piece, Marilyn. Jindal is such an embarrassment. But when The Hairball is elected president, Jindal will be deported, per The Hairball's hair-brained immigration "plan." And since The Hairball believes Obama was born in Kenya, Obama will be deported, too.

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MarilynW's picture

Thinking of the hair balls. Good sense must return to politics but we can't wait for it. Time is of the essence, we have all got to become activists. Eff the politicians!

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To thine own self be true.

hecate's picture

afraid that good sense and The Hairball do not even occupy the same universe. They are like matter and anti-matter: if ever they were to meet, both would explode.

I find it interesting and extremely telling that Arnold "I'm Bored, So I Think I'll Impregnate The Maid" Schwarzenegger has replaced The Hairball on The Apprentice, that grotesque theater of cruelty where millions of closet sadists tune in to identify, with relish, with an omnipotent bully who gloatingly barks to some haplessly striving powerless person "you're fired!" Schwarzenegger the celebrity turned politician turned celebrity again, replacing on television The Hairball, the celebrity, taking his turn as politician, before returning to celebrity again.

Yesterday I heard a radio ad previewing tomorrow night's GOoPer debate as if it was some sort of eagerly anticipated boxing or wrestling Thanatos match: "who will be left standing?" was the bloodthirsty, shouted refrain. The Hairball clearly represents, among other things, the triumph of Rollerballization of national politics.

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MarilynW's picture

A baseball example. It's supposed to be a polite game. A writer in Globe & Mail talked about 2 young pitchers who didn't do well. They were booed by the crowd. The writer said "You don't need their names because you will never hear from them again"

Reminded me of Saddam Hussein's son who jailed Iraq's soccer players when they lost a game.

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To thine own self be true.

enhydra lutris's picture

Also, intellectually fun, are reuseable bags made from recycled plastic bottles, both regular size and shape ones and "Chico Bags"(tm) which stuff into a guilt in stuff sack and wind up the size of a small person's fist. I keep some in the water bottle pockets of my hiding/walking/birding vest.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

MarilynW's picture

Morning Burnt
I'm on my cell. Tks for your comment. So many good regulations are being reversed by right wingers. As if climate won't effect them.

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To thine own self be true.

janis b's picture

for this highly informative, in-depth look at water (and the impact of drilling, development and storms) in LA. The anniversary of Katrina would have been the perfect time for Obama to strongly address and implement changes that are clearly necessary. My mother, who lives in Florida keeps telling me, as we pass another new construction site, that she thinks the whole state is going to sink one day.

‘unverpackt’ is the inevitable evolution of the long German tradition of conservation. It’s part of the very soul of Germans, I think. And isn’t that shop beautiful; perfect example of form and function.

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MarilynW's picture

I was entranced by the image of that store. We have to start there. I'm getting food delivered to my door and I return to them what little packaging I get from them. Think of the forests that are going into pulp mills for packaging.

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To thine own self be true.

janis b's picture

until it's in shreds, or for starting a fire ... that is if it's a paper product and intended for heating.

Enjoy the ferry ride and Mt. Baker.

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The Leap Manifesto: A Call for Caring for the Earth and One Another 'This our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.'

This is happening in Canada

This text is an abridged version of a declaration launched in Toronto on Tuesday and first published in the Globe and Mail. The writing of The Leap Manifesto was initiated in the spring of 2015 at a two-day meeting in Toronto attended by representatives from Canada’s Indigenous rights, social and food justice, environmental, faith-based and labour movements. To read the statement in full and to become a signatory visit leapmanifesto.org

many groups and efforts come together here

We could live in a country powered entirely by renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the opportunities of this transition are designed to eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher-wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.

time for incremental action is past. Time to LEAP!

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MarilynW's picture

Going to check out Mt Baker now from the ferry bbl

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To thine own self be true.

gulfgal98's picture

I am on a short break from a volunteer day at our local arts council. Today is a clean up/ clean out day of the building and in particular, the storage closet of arts materials used in the children's programs. I am amazed at how much junk had accumulated over the years. I came home to grab a bite to eat and to change from a sweatshirt now the weather has warmed up. I will post more on the substance of Morning Greens later today.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

MarilynW's picture

Can you imagine? I will go to a cafe tomorrow. Tonight I am using data . I'm allowed 500 MB a month.
Saw an exhibition today - photos of a lot of the luxury and excess that Elizabeth Taylor lived with. At Vancouver Art Gallery. If you want to look it up.

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To thine own self be true.

mimi's picture

thank you for some "nice" news from the Berlin's Zero-Waste grocery store...I feel miserably "home"-sick when I read something like it, but then I get miserably offended by other news from the "home"-front in Germany. So, everything is relative.

Thanks for the great OT.

PS, do I really have to read anything about Trump? Or any Republican? Or about any of the neo-liberal Democrats? I think I will pass on most of all of it and keep silent. Makes no sense anymore to me.

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triv33's picture

A good read--h/t cassiodorus
The 6 Grand Illusions That Keep Us Enslaved

5. THE ILLUSION OF TIME
They say that time is money, but this is a lie. Time is your life. Your life is an ever-evolving manifestation of the now. Looking beyond the five sense world, where we have been trained to move in accordance with the clock and the calendar, we find that the spirit is eternal, and that the each individual soul is part of this eternity.

The big deception here is the reinforcement of the idea that the present moment is of little to no value, that the past is something we cannot undo or ever forget, and that the future is intrinsically more important than both the past and the present. This carries our attention away from what it actually happening right now and directs it toward the future. Once completely focused on what is to come rather than what is, we are easy prey to advertisers and fear-pimps who muddy our vision of the future with every possible worry and concern imaginable.

We are happiest when life doesn’t box us in, when spontaneity and randomness gives us the chance to find out more about ourselves. Forfeiting the present moment in order to fantasize about the future is a trap. The immense, timeless moments of spiritual joy that are found in quiet meditation are proof that time is a construct of the mind of humankind, and not necessarily mandatory for the human experience.

If time is money, then life can be measured in dollars. When dollars are worth less, so is life. This is total deception, because life is, in truth, absolutely priceless.

A little something different

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I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~

shaharazade's picture

read. Fits right in with my current state of mind. I fancy myself a non-conformist and yet I find my mind reverting to it's earlier social programming. I look at my little world and most of the people seem contented with the illusions and deceptions. They have no disbelieve and if they do they they say oh well this is reality this is the inevitable world as we find it. Perhaps they are better off I sometimes think not questioning the illusion and fitting and successful in playing the game. I am lucky I live in a neighborhood community which still is populated with the vestiges of a 'counterculture ' old and new.

I just took a walk to the store and was pissing and moaning to myself about the hipster yuppie gentrification of the neighborhood. I started laughing as when I stopped thinking and enjoyed the moment, the scene and the street life I realized that the mix of people out and about on foot this morning was peppered with odder balls then I am. Not everyone buys what being sold but in order to survive on a basic functioning level in this cruel society, people have to on some level accept the illusions as their reality. Is this what the true believers in the illusion call pragmatism?

I have to go plug myself in to the illusions all 6 and work for a few hours marketing for our btb statistical services. I used to work in corporate retail advertising as a graphic artist/designer for Macy's, the Gap and other SF stores. The marketing and advertising departments we're full of what they called 'creatives' who concocted illusions with words and visuals, the desire to buy the costumes, gadgets and accouterments that were essential to peoples self esteem. Now I hock stats and math tables for market research. One of my former clients described these quantitative public opinion studies as the voodoo behind the sales pitch and the money. My husband a musician, call's market research the hand that feeds us, free flowing bullshit or because you'll believe anything.

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MarilynW's picture

You captured the truth. Of course it's more painful to live life with a good measure of awareness and questioning everything and painful to realize most people are blithely unaware. We have no choice, we can't go back in the caves. we can rise above the pain and maybe wake up some people although many don't want a keener awareness and some can't conceive of it. The illusion that O is a great president for example look how people fight to maintain that.

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To thine own self be true.

lotlizard's picture

The illusion that O is a great president for example look how people fight to maintain that.

As if what would heal others' delusions is doubling down on delusions of one's own.

The mind boggles.

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lotlizard's picture

This piece by Alfred McCoy, and reposted by Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch, says Obama has out-Kissingered Kissinger and ranks Obama right up there with Elihu Root, who founded the Council on Foreign Relations:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Tomgram-Alfred-McCoy-Mai-by-Tom-Engel...

This particular argument for ranking Obama as among the greatest presidents is not one we've seen ballyhooed on That Other Forum much — probably because it endorses the TPP and TTIP "trade" treaties as essential to Obama's strategy.

According to McCoy, the TPP and TTIP are the centerpiece of a strategy designed to isolate China from the rest of Eurasia, encircling and undermining it. This, it is said, is necessary in order to guarantee American dominance of the world deep into the 21st century.

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MarilynW's picture

then Obama has done well with TPP and TTIP. If approving treaties that will endanger our regulations and protections is a good thing, then Obama has done well.

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To thine own self be true.

MarilynW's picture

Thank you!

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To thine own self be true.

It has been a busy day. Just taking a break to unwind for a few and thought I would stop by to say hey. The new garden was installed yesterday, and we are busy keeping it watered. Now we are getting quotes to redo the sprinkler system so it will be watered properly without us running the hose around every 15 minutes. Last but not least, we are on a deer watching vigil. The plants are deer resistant, but apparently that only means that these plants are more like vegetables than desert to the deer. Last but not least. The mulch is full of largish brown spiders - lots of them. With fall and winter on the way, they will be looking for warm homes. Have a call into the guy that keeps earwigs and other repulsive creepy crawlers away. The garden is very pretty, but I am beginning to miss the dirt. Had no idea one thing would lead to so many others and get this involved.

Off to take care dinner. Hope everyone is having a great day.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon