Comments City Hippy has made

Better to light a candle...

than curse the darkness - Gandhi

Amen and Namaste

AlOn Drop that apocalyptic vision and start imagining a positive future posted 3 years, 4 months ago 56 Responses

Starbucks Challenge

Hey Claudia & Umbra

The issue of FT is certainly a tricky one as I have since discovered but there are plenty of FT coffee suppliers out there. Including Starbucks believe it or not.

Starbucks promise that you can get a cup of FT coffee in any of their stores in 23 countries. And if it is not being brewed then they should press it for you. This is all company policy. However the reality is not that simple.

I (www.cityhippy.net) am based in London and along with an LA based blogger (greenlagirl.blogspot.com) have set up the Starbucks Challenge which aims to test the Starbucks FT Coffee promise. More info about the challenge is here and here

RESULTS SO FAR
We set up the challenge on Oct 4th and so far 130+ blogs have spotlighted the challenge (including some biggies) leading to 140+ challenges in over 11 countries around the world and 24 US states plus DC.

Starbucks got in touch after just 3 days and are watching the results.

Turns out getting a FT coffee in a Starbucks is not as simple as Starbucks had hoped. But at least they are listening and learning.

Good luck on your FT coffee hunt.

Namaste

CHOn Umbra on coffee posted 4 years ago 7 Responses

Stand corrected...

You are of course correct accel2...

Many assumptions are made...I think it is fair to assume however that in general children tend to follow similar paths to their parents more often that not...hence the cliche saying...the apple does not fall far from the tree.

For me the assumptions stand but you are right to highlight them as assumptions.

Namaste

CH

City Hippy http://cityhippy.blogspot.com

To breed or not to breed!

This is something I have been thinking about for ages.

I have been aware of overpopulation as an issue for a decade but the logic of the debate seems absurd to me in the long-term.

So here is my take...feel free to correct or clarify. I am sure you will ;)

Premise 1:
There are too many people on this planet for any realistic green and fair sustainability.

Premise 2:
By breeding I can only contribute to overpopulation.

Premise 3:
The only people who will not breed are those with enough of a conscience about overpopulation to act responsibly.

Conclusion 1:
If people who appreciate the reality of overpopulation don't breed then they are selectively breeding themselves out, the part of humanity that understands the problem will become weakened and lesser in numbers.

Conclusion 2:
Without those people those souls who would not act selflessly to prevent overpopulation will become more numerous and stronger.

So the logic of saying 'we are overpopulated so don't breed' leads to a world devoid of caring green people and a world full of materialist selfish people.

Genius!

To me...it therefore makes sense to breed! Responsibly! For me after 1 (or 2 kids max)....I plan to adopt! And bring up all my kids as green and as fair inhabitants of the planet as possible.

Thoughts?

Namaste

CH

a href="http://cityhippy.blogspot.com[/a]

City Hippy (http://cityhippy.blogspot.com)

Endgame

Namaste jdhlax

VIOLENCE
You are right! I am a moral absolutist...thanks! I believe in immovable boundaries of right and wrong and am proud of it. Regardless of the circumstances. That does not mean I do no wrong ever...life is not that black and white. But right is still right and wrong is still wrong. And that guides my action as far as possible. Violence is never right in my book...and if I use violence I pay a heady price via my soul and conscience.

I believe you are saying (correct me if I am wrong of course) that because the owner of the SUV is committing an act of violence against the planet that therefore gives us the right to use violence to stop them. Are you therefore saying that in some situations two wrongs DO make a right?

PLUS...if you burn someone's SUV...they will just go and buy another one...it is gonna be insured for sure. So you are actually helping to sell more of the damned things!

Better to use your energies to get the car companies to make greener cars and to get people to buy them.

And guess what...whilst violence against SUV's only hardens the resolve of SUV drivers and turns people away from joining us by making us look like extremists...more and more green cars are being built and bought and driven because of the moderate, not extremist, influences exerted by moderates and ultimately by consumers themselves.

It seems to me that you believe that punishing and preventing bad behaviour after the fact is important.

I believe that my energy is more efficiently spent trying to affect behaviour before the act rather than after.

You say: There are instances where property destruction might be very good for the Earth.

Can you please name at least one?

If to save the world we have to wage war...then what kind of world will we inherit even if we win!? Will it be worth it? I think not! There is always a more positive alternative. Always!

As John Lennon beautifully said: Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity!

SMACKING KIDS
Re smacking kids...for me, speaking personally, smacking my child would not be a good response by a parent in a stressful situation.

You said:  To a certain extent, might DOES make right, regardless of the fact that people like us don't like it.

I say: not in my world.

Might does not MAKE right.

Might is totally NOT about right or wrong.

Might forces me to accept it AS right.

Right and wrong is about choice, about free will.

Might is about imposition and control.

Might may move the goalposts but it does not redefine right and wrong.

The First Nations peoples (or Native American's as you call them) were not wrong because they lost and the settlers were not right because they won. My point entirely. Right is not the issue. The settlers simply had more effective weapons. The settlers exerted control. What has right and wrong got to do with it?

Might does not make right. Might tells you to shut up and do as you are told or die!

The imposition of one's will over anothers' (ie parent over child) can never be a positive moral act in my mind. It teaches nothing other than 'the need for blind obedience' and the 'might makes right' mentality. Both of which are bad lessons for kids to learn in my view. It always strikes me as odd when parents catch their kid being violent and punish them using violence...irony or what eh?

I <SMACK> TOLD <SMACK> YOU <SMACK> NOT <SMACK> TO <SMACK> HIT <SMACK> YOUR <SMACK> SISTER <SMACK>!

Genius! How could that fail!

All my friends who have kids talk to their kids and explain to the kids what they have done when they do wrong. They do not punish negative behaviour...they want the kid to understand it.

They explain to the kid why it was wrong and why it must not be repeated and then invite their kid to take time out to think about it. And one of them has a two year old! AND IT WORKS!

No smacking required. No lessons that sometimes violence is justified.

Look forward to your reply

Namaste

CH

ps have you read livingstone's 'rogue primate'...I think you would enjoy it.On Conflating environmentalists and terrorists is all the rage posted 4 years, 4 months ago 21 Responses

Violence

To jdhlax

I agree we are in 'a desperate ecological and environmental state that calls for desperate actions where they'll be effective'.

I just do not believe the violence used IS effective or beneficial to the overall movement towards a greener and fairer world in either the short or long term.

In fact I do not believe any form of violence could be effective...sure slapping a kid stops the kid from biting his friend...but down the line...the violence has other impacts that need to be taken into account when assesssing the impact of the slap.

It is the same with regard to the environment. Sure destroying SUVs may remove those SUVs from the road...but there are other short and long term issues to consider here before we conclude that is the right way to go. Ultimately in my mind when we consider those issues we find that the result is in a net step back not forward.

Surely a better solution would be to get the car manufacturers into producing more and more ethical and green cars? Now that is a positive action and would compel people towards supporting the cause as opposed to violence that would repel people from the cause.

AND it is much more achievable AND the economy will suffer less AND people will suffer less AND people will not feel their lifestyle is being affected too much...which rightly or wrongly is the key to getting them to act AND it is peaceful not violent.

Love breeds love. Hate breeds hate!

Namaste

CH

City Hippy (http://cityhippy.blogspot.com)

OK now I understand...

I completely agree with what you are saying about the state of the world.

But I refuse to accept that the way to make the world a better place is to contribute to negativity and destruction.

Namaste

CH

City Hippy (http://cityhippy.blogspot.com)

Extremists, Environmentalists, Violence and Power.

I HATE EXTREMISTS:
Every cause thus far has needed extremists...when they push further than most will go, the non-extremists can then fill in behind and offer a more 'reasonable' compromise which society is often more open to accepting. It is the good cop/bad cop routine on an ideological scale.

But is that approach working? Not in the environmental arena. It is polarising us into a war on many fronts and what good will that do?

Lets keep our objectives in focus here: to protect people and planet. More war is the last thing we need.

WHO ARE WE?
As for the word environmentalist...it does not matter what we call ourselves the dark side will still condemn us.

If we try to outsmart them by not having a name that would be even worse...they will just give us a name and it will not be flattering I am sure.

IT'S THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM:
Einstein tells us that you cannot solve a problem using the same mindset that created it...and yet some people still believe that anger and destruction is the way to solve...anger and destruction.

The sad fact is the law should be on our side when we are acting in the public interest. We should not even have to act in the public interest in the first place...isn't that the very purpose of the law? Sadly the law and policy mechanisms of most democracies (ahem) have corporate interests nearer to its ear and so the public interest is not generally served. Certainly corporate interests are served much more often than public interests.

All too often to defend the public interest when the law (so called) fails to do so results in criminalisation by the essentially corporate system.

Yet acting in corporate interest to the demonstrable detriment of the public interest is encouraged and rewarded.

That is the real issue that needs addressing: the re-balancing of corporate VERSUS public interest.

LET'S SMASH THE PLACE UP:
Does smashing up SUV's achieve anything? Does anyone suddenly wake up and make a change in their life for the better? What are the numbers on this? Anyone?

For me it seems to result in a net loss to the cause of affecting positive change and plays right into the dark sides hands.

What are the results of years of luddite destruction? Do we live in a more connected, greener and fairer world? No...we live in a consumer corporate hell! Yeah sure we win the occasional skirmish but we seem to be losing the war!

The destructive path even ultimately leads to the justification of the destruction of human life in the interest of the majority.

RESPECT MY AUTHORITY:
As WB Yeats says in the second coming:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

For me the center is the law...and if it does not hold OR act in the public interest then the public tend to act in their own interest...that to me is extremely chaotic and dangerous and spells the downfall of society - which for me is a bad thing.

I believe that it is therefore our job to support and encourage a more public interest oriented legal system. We simply need to address the imbalance, to tilt it back in favour of the people. It can be done. History proves that.

Giving up, getting angry and smashing the place up simply results in criminal records, loss of credibility and a net loss to the cause we strive for...protection of people and planet.

We need a new approach. We must 'kill them with fairness'! It worked for Rosa Parkes, Ghandi and MLK...we just need to use the anger we feel...and we all feel it...more constructively...only then can we be free of the chains which bind us.

If you made it this far thanks for reading!

Namaste

CH

City Hippy (http://cityhippy.blogspot.com)

Kill them with fairness

Third Reich...hahaha! Yeah they were ALL treehuggers! In between the executions and baby-stampings! Enough of that fool!

I agree with the previous comments that the only way is through non-violence...violence just plays into their hands.

Calling someone a terrorist is as many of you will know, a classic fallacy of logic known as the 'ad hominem' fallacy - where you attack the man INSTEAD OF the issue.

To call anyone a terrorist is to distract from the issue. Ultimately anyone even using the word 'terrorist' to describe a person or act is probably not really interested in a serious debate about reality.

We can all affect bottom-up change by making positive changes around us. In terms of top-down change we need to get the right people into power in the first place.

PLUS we can all make sure that less and less of our money goes to those supporting anything remotely negative to people and planet.

No one can legislate how we consume as far as I know. That remains our most powerful weapon and the dark side's major 'death star' weakness!

As Grist previously said: 'The proper reaction to Bush's mind-bendingly disheartening victory is not to fight with more violence but to fight with more savvy.'

As Ghandi said: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

To me it sounds like we are winning and are in Ghandi's stage three - the Dark Side are attacking and already getting desperate...hang in there folks...change is afoot!

Thoughts?

http://cityhippy.blogspot.com