green mind

There is weird beauty in this world...

2005-09-21T09:07:00.000+02:00

Either that, or the guy is a really fantastic photographer. Or both :)

So check it out: Edward Burtynsky

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I really liked his photographs - not because they're not good (because they are), but because it's sad that one can find beauty in such painful landscapes...

What do you think?

It's been too long...

2005-09-18T14:22:00.000+02:00

...since I've last posted. And I have to disappoint you again - no original content! At the moment I'm working, studying for two exams, and in a few days I'll be working a second job (trial period), so I won't be having time for posting. That's life...

In the meantime, here are a few interesting things I came across in the last few days:

Enthusiast uses Google to reveal Roman ruins - Fascinating!

Apple and the Global Environment - Commendable!

Home is where the silo is - Imaginative!

Wallpapers - of nature (and not) - Beautiful!

Mtv's Trippin' - Finally an Mtv production that is actually interesting! (I really think Cameron Diaz is down-to-Earth :)

Enjoy!

Eco-villages and spiritual renewal :)

2005-09-04T01:28:00.000+02:00

This morning, half an hour after waking up, typing away on the computer, with half of an ear listening to the TV program - I heard something that piqued my interest. There was an woman and a man, speaking in Italian, talking about their organization of eco-villages. As I'm very interested in that subject, I stopped what I was doing and listened for a name.

DAMANHUR. Federation of Damanhur.

I was amazed!! Didn't know anything like this existed, most of all so close to where I live (some 10 hours by car)!

In theory, seems like a very good idea... Although I am wary of anything smelling remotely of fanaticism or sects of any kind, this seems NORMAL (as normal as living off the grid could seem to the majority of the population :).

What do you think?

I'm definitely going to visit it, especially the Temples of Humankind!

Martian landscapes on Earth

2005-09-01T18:44:00.000+02:00

It was the 7th of April, 2002. Some of my friends and I went for a little hiking trip to the nearby mountainous region of Gorski kotar - specifically, we visited a little town by the name of Fuzine, and it's two man-made lakes of Bajer and Lepenica.

The purpose of this visit was to witness something unusual - lake Bayer has been drained of all the water a couple of weeks prior to our coming. This was done, if I remember correctly, so that the hydro-mechanic equipment that made possible the forming of those lakes could be thoroughly examined and renewed. Also, there was a plan to clean the bottom of all the mud and trash that accumulated there in the last 30 or so years. Before doing this, of course, the caught all the fish and transferred it into Lepenica Lake, whose waters were low, but not drained completely.

The landscape that met us was something out of a Ray Bradbury book. The mud had dried and made an intricate pattern of cracks in the soil. Little mounds and planes reminded us of images from Mars - walking across the bottom of the lake felt like exploring some fantastic place from the collective unconscious.

Unfortunately, not all of the lake inhabitants were saved (some were too small to be noticed, I guess):

Fortunately, there was very little trash on the bottom of it (this was a rare sight):

The Lake Lepenica, on the other hand, made me think of landscapes evoked by Lovecraft (the stumps of trees on the shore left behind the receding water seemed sinister and somehow macabre):

All in all, it was a remarkably unique experience. Maybe I'll get to re-live it again in some 30 years' time! :)

Bush is the all-knowing king of the world!

2005-09-01T03:07:00.000+02:00

Did you know that Bush cut the budget for the protection of New Orleans from floods and redirected the money towards financing the war in Iraq? Check this out:

New Orleans: Nature's revenge?

I know, I know - it's not only his fault - he has other idiots to help him...

Well, what goes around, comes around - they will all have such bad karma that in their next life they'll be so low in the food chain that they'll keep the amoebas company. I'm sure of it!

Ride the horse into the ground - the less we have to walk, the better!

2005-08-28T23:08:00.000+02:00

I don't know about this: Pioneering effort aims to tackle global warming.

Never heard of the possibility before, but that only says that I'm not very up-to-date (I promise I'll change :)

Although, it seems to me that every time mankind gets a new idea for cheating time or nature, it's always the same - we actually don't want to be forced to make our lives harder or lose our daily comforts. People in general want to have a lifestyle that exceeds that of their parents, because if they don't, they feel like failures. A lot of people measure success with how much a person earns and owns and spends.

I want to tell you a story a friend once told me.

He's American, but worked for many years in different countries all over the world. He's used to living out of his suitcase, so perhaps that is why he was so amused by this:

One time when he went home (to the USA), he talked with a friend at a party about money and spending. The guy said that he didn't have any more space at home to store all the stuff he and his family bought over the years, so they had to rent some space in a warehouse to store a large part of it. "So we can buy more stuff we never use and have the place for it in the house", said the guy.

One can only hope he was kidding, or being ironic. I wouldn't know...

(BTW, I'm not saying that's how all Americans are! I'm saying that's how most "Westerners" are)

Anyways, I really hope this is not just another example of trying to save money on the expense of our environment - doing the easy thing, not the right one. Because, even if we implement this, in a 10-20-50 years time, we'll have the same problem all over again. We're minimizing the symptoms, not curing the actual disease.

Look at this (excerpt from the article):

"The Bush administration sees the capture and storage of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as essential to tackling climate change. Its most fervent supporters posit the technology as a relatively comfortable way of continuing the world's reliance on fossil fuels while tackling climate change, without the wholesale disruption that would be involved in switching to alternative sources of energy."

'Nuff said.

Past, present and future?

2005-08-27T17:48:00.000+02:00

I guess I am lucky I live in this day and age, and in this country of mine (Croatia).

Usually Americans ask us thing like: "Do you have cars there?" - and it's not the ignorant ones! But, all kidding aside, we do have cars, and TV, and Internet connections, planes, extremely advanced medicine and all of that which represents the modern, civilized world..

Luckily for us, we also have a rather unspoiled nature. I've seen seas and an ocean, and I have yet to see one that is as clean and sparkling as the Adriatic. Our national parks are amazingly beautiful and unique... The mountains, the islands, the rivers and the sea, the planes and hills of my country are simply - wow!

And I've been around, and seen other beautiful countries (Italy, Austria, Iceland, Morocco, Azerbaijan - to name just a few), and yet...

I know I'm partial - but come and see for yourself :) And I suggest the sooner, the better - because who knows for how long it will stay that way... We aren't a rich country, and nature is easily sold and ravaged :(

But I digress - I wanted to say this:

I am lucky!

When I was a little girl, I used to spend a lot of my time at my Grandparents' house, which was then situated on the borders of a beautiful and large oak and chesnut wood...

You could walk for hours and not see a house. My Granmother told me that when they bought the house (some ten years before I was born), there was no path for cars to it - they had to carry all the furniture through a path in the woods!

Nowadays, the wood is still there, but maimed and in patches..Houses are springing up like mushrooms after the rain... Trees are chopped down to make place for dry marinas, and huge, tacky mansions of the nouveau riche....
It is still a beautiful place, but getting too peopled for my taste (and obviously for the taste of the environment).

I was lucky I was there when the forest floor still was completely clean (no plastic bottles, candy bar wrapper, plastic bags...). I was lucky I saw squirrels, deer, the occasional wild cat. I was lucky because at least I'll always remember how things looked like when we lived, and not shopped, when the people weren't spreading like a virus...

I wonder sometimes if some 100 years from now children will be able to smell grass... I want to be optimistic, and I try to do what I can, but sometimes when I feel blue, I can't see that happening...

Poor Earth... Poor us! :(

Excuses, excuses...

2005-08-23T20:32:00.000+02:00

I'm not an environment nazi.

I don't beat myself over the head with a stick and I don't howl in desperation if, by mistake, I fail to recycle a bottle or leave the water running for a minute more than it's necessary... I don't terrorize my friends if they drop a piece of paper on the street - I just stop, pick it up and throw it in the trash myself. I find that this method yields better results than nagging :))

I don't like it when people are insensitive to the environment in which they live. Most of the time it's just laziness - pure and simple. Some people even say that they don't believe that what they're doing is bad for the nature that surrounds them. Other say:''What does it matter if I do something or not? I won't live to see the consequences!''

Sometimes it's really difficult to love people...

Here's a thought: keeping the environment clean is like going to the gym - not the most fun and exciting thing in the world, but GOOD FOR YOUR HEART!

What took me so long?

2005-08-21T19:45:00.000+02:00

Everybody has a blog these days... And I can see why! This is therapy - in a way. Instead of bottling things inside, you can inflict your opinions on the world :)
I mean to write mostly about environmental issues, because I live on this planet and want to say my two cents about it all...
That's about it, folks! Hope to see many of you commenting..