Brazil Doce River – What is Being done?

A dam burst that contained waste water from a Mining company destroying many homes and spilled into the River. It killed everything in the river – fish turtles etc. My question is What is being done about it?  Is fining The Company enough? Who can we prevent this?

It will take decades to reverse the damage Done to that river and the environment .

Solutions for Food waste?

India may be the world’s largest milk producer and grow the second largest quantity of fruits and vegetables (after China), but it is also the world’s biggest waster of food. As a result, fruit and vegetable prices are twice what they would be otherwise, and milk costs 50% more than it should.

What can be a solution for this?

https://livingincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/the-proposal/

French Food Waste Ban Can Go a Step Further:

“Supermarkets in France have been banned from destroying unsold food in a bid to tackle the country's massive £14bn-worth of annual waste.

The French parliament passed a new law obliging the food retail giants to give any excess to charities or for other use.

The national assembly voted unanimously to pass the measure on Thursday which had been proposed by the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot.
Mr Garot said: “It’s scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods."

The legislation prevents supermarkets deliberately spoiling unsold food so it can't be eaten, the Guardian reports.” - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/france-bans-supermarkets-destroying-unsold-5742304

 
My first thought when reading this was why this was not done before? We are now in 2015 with more than half the world living in poverty. A very large amount of Perfectly edible food is thrown away – almost half the food that is produced in this world is thrown away.

It is a fact that the world produces enough food to feed every human being – yet millions die each year because of malnutrition. Making it a law to have supermarkets and big chains not have their leftover food thrown away is a great step forward. Now is it time for every supermarket in the world to follow this trend.

But there is another dark side to this and that is the reason why we have hungry people and food being wasted. And it’s simple – with half the world in poverty they cannot afford to BUY the food. Currently we rely on charities to feed the people. How to solve this?

With a Living Income Guaranteed where the people who before could not afford to buy food no have the money to do so. If we look at it globally with more than half the world unable to afford basic needs and now with the Living Income Guaranteed they are finally able to buy food and afford basic needs – this alone would greatly reduce the food being wasted currently. This would stop the dependency on charities as well by giving people purchasing power and would also be a huge boost in income for supermarkets.

We produce enough food to provide every person on Earth with 2,700 calories per day. Yet 842 million people still go to bed hungry– let’s stop this with LIG.

Day 257: Why it’s time to Redefine Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving – a time of year were people and families come together to spend some quality time and be thankful for the food on the table. Ironically, it’s also the time of year were millions of pounds of food are wasted. Nothing says how thankful we are like wasting over 204 million pounds of turkey…

Let’s look at that figure a little closer: 204 million pounds of turkey is allot. It’s worth over $270 million. Imagine how many hungry families can be fed with all that wasted meat – it’s enough to give every food-insecure household in America 5kg of meat. And what about the water used to produce all that wasted turkey? A staggering 105 billion gallons. And all that meat ends up in landfills.

This is very contradictory .The tradition of thanksgiving when we look at what actually happens it seems what is being celebrated is being ungrateful and gluttony. So much food is simply being wasted. Sure, tiss’ the season of profits. The turkey factories cash it in this time of year – where the meat ends up does not matter as long as it’s being sold.

And then we have Black Friday afterwards. Nothing says thank you like reenacting the Zombie apocalypse every year after thanksgiving. I was very relieved when South Africans did not take part in these traditions, but unfortunately companies here in SA started with the Black Friday tradition as well.

What does it really mean to be thankful for the food on the table? Who is to thanks? To know the answer to that you have really look at what it took for that food to be on your table. From the turkey born to be slaughtered to the workers harvesting the veggies. The packaging and transport and water reuired. Even down to the oil that needed to be drilled to create the packing and fuel the truck and all the people involved in the process. Who at thanksgiving actually give thanks where it’s due? Who thanks the turkey?

What we should actually do is redefine thanksgiving. To stop buying and preparing too much food and only make enough. Or to take the leftovers and use it were it will not be wasted – you won’t have to look hard to find a hungry person to give the food to. And then to thank the turkey and every other part that was involved with getting that food on your plate. That would be an actual thanksgiving Dinner. And then we should do that with every meal we eat – practice real gratefulness through the understanding of how that food got in your plate.

Day 244: Shocking Discovery: The engagement ring is a SCAM created by clever advertising

 

Where did the ring come from?

https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man/transcript?language=en#t-440000

“But, actually, the point of placebo education is interesting. How many problems of life can be solved actually by tinkering with perception, rather than that tedious, hardworking and messy business of actually trying to change reality? Here's a great example from history. I've heard this attributed to several other kings, but doing a bit of historical research, it seems to be Fredrick the Great. Fredrick the Great of Prussia was very, very keen for the Germans to adopt the potato and to eat it, because he realized that if you had two sources of carbohydrate, wheat and potatoes, you get less price volatility in bread. And you get a far lower risk of famine, because you actually had two crops to fall back on, not one.
The only problem is: potatoes, if you think about it, look pretty disgusting. And also, 18th century Prussians ate very, very few vegetables -- rather like contemporary Scottish people. (Laughter) So, actually, he tried making it compulsory. The Prussian peasantry said, "We can't even get the dogs to eat these damn things. They are absolutely disgusting and they're good for nothing." There are even records of people being executed for refusing to grow potatoes. 
So he tried plan B. He tried the marketing solution, which is he declared the potato as a royal vegetable, and none but the royal family could consume it. And he planted it in a royal potato patch, with guards who had instructions to guard over it, night and day, but with secret instructions not to guard it very well. (Laughter) Now, 18th century peasants know that there is one pretty safe rule in life, which is if something is worth guarding, it's worth stealing. Before long, there was a massive underground potato-growing operation in Germany. What he'd effectively done is he'd re-branded the potato. It was an absolute masterpiece. “- Rory Sutherland

That is one example of how easy it is to manipulate us humans. Throughout history people looked for ways to make people like something so that they can get something out of it. I remembered when I was a Kid and watched TV with all the commercials. There were many toy advertisements in there and allot of them were so cool to me. I watched the advert and then afterwards I wanted that toy and liked it. That liking it was not my choice really, it was the clever use of sounds and colors that made the product look awesome. When I had the toy in my hand more often than not it was a disappointment as most things are.

This brings to question all the things I liked that I saw on TV and did not like and most of it was based on clever advertising – just to make me buy the things. Another very god example is the Engagement ring scam. Ever heard of it? Why do you buy a diamond ring to get married? Where did this expensive tradition come from? Advertising.

Before the ring “tradition” ,people did not actually buy rings to get engaged. It was created by the same people who mined the diamonds. They were looking for a way to make more money by creating a demand for it. What followed was an extensive and elaborate, very effective marketing and advertising campaign to convince people that they need to buy a diamond ring to get engaged. The company spent Millions and millions to get this idea in our heads. Just how effective was this? We still believe in it today and made it part of our society as an absolute necessity to get married. It is already so ingrained that even knowing this info – you will still buy a ring to get married. The company made a fortune out of this of course. Edward Jay Epstein notes in his famous investigative article:

"In its 1947 strategy plan, the advertising agency strongly emphasized a psychological approach. "We are dealing with a problem in mass psychology. We seek to ... strengthen the tradition of the diamond engagement ring -- to make it a psychological necessity capable of competing successfully at the retail level with utility goods and services...." It defined as its target audience "some 70 million people 15 years and over whose opinion we hope to influence in support of our objectives." N. W. Ayer outlined a subtle program that included arranging for lecturers to visit high schools across the country. "All of these lectures revolve around the diamond engagement ring, and are reaching thousands of girls in their assemblies, classes and informal meetings in our leading educational institutions," the agency explained in a memorandum to De Beers."

So, the things we buy, do we know why we buy them? Is it all just based on impulses and a play on our emotions and feelings? Is everything we do basically based on how we feel? Yes, that is why it is so easy to get us to like stuff, because we ourselves are unable to make objective choices. How do we stop this manipulation and make choices objectively? Who can we start becoming the directive principle in our lives where we ourselves make the choices? Until we find a way to direct our feelings and emotions we will always be subjected to clever advertising.

Day 126 - The Consequence Of Unawareness

 

We hear the expression ''Shit hits the fan'' and ''shit load'' and ''full of shit''. Today we had both - We had a shit load when a shit truck got stuck in the mud. I should have taken pictures, but i did not, sorry.

Today was a very eventful day were we faced new challenges and stared shit right in the face. every year we get a honey sucker - a truck that sucks out the shit in our septic tanks. Today the truck drove over an flow away which is a trench in the ground where the septic tanks overflows into and the front left wheel sunk almost completely into the ground.

Now we had a really big problem - the truck was already full of shit and now weighed over 5 tons. Eventually after 5 hours and jacking up the truck and placing brick under the wheels and getting the tractor to pull the truck we got it out. Yeay.

Now usually when the shit truck comes i make sure it does not drive over any of the flow away's so that it does not get stuck, but today i did not do that. This forms part of my loosing focus blog where I have become less aware in my world and today it clearly showed itself in full force. That lead to a consequence - an event that could have been avoided.

Another point I realized is that doing something for a while eventually there is a belief that I do not have to be so focused all the time - like getting used to something you do not pay that much attention anymore. Its total bullshit obviously.

I got my ''5 hour lesson'' today where the event showed me something about myself that requires direction. So i directed it.

Thanks for reading - ,more on this tomorrow.