Evaluating Media

We need some rain………., originally uploaded by *Gracie.

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

Fresh Mind

There is a lot of information available to us at this time in history, more than ever before, and it travels fast. We are able to learn in the blink of an eye about something that happened halfway around the world, and it’s natural for us to want to know what’s going on. However, it’s also fair to say that we don’t want to become so caught up in one way of looking at events that we lose perspective. Often, the news comes to us in a very fear-oriented format, and when too many of us get caught up in fear, the balance of the whole is disrupted. It helps to remember that we have a much greater and more positive impact on the world when we maintain our inner sense of peace and joy.

We are aware enough to know when we are eating something that is not good for us, because we don’t feel well after we’ve eaten it. In the same way, we can determine for ourselves whether the sources in which our information comes are ultimately healthful. News can be presented in a way that inspires us to take positive action to help the world, or it can be presented in a way that leaves us feeling powerless and sad. It is up to us to seek out and support media that empowers and informs us, and to say no to media that drains our energy and our hope.

For a time, it may even be of benefit to commit to a media fast, in which we stop taking information in for a time to give ourselves a rest. When we return to the task of taking in and processing the information all around us, we will come to it with a fresh mind. This will enable us to really notice how we are affected by what we hear and see, and to make conscious choices about the sources of information that we allow into our lives.

Daily OM

NASA warming scientist: ‘This is the last chance’

Hmm…. make me famous!, originally uploaded by *Gracie.

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world’s only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the “dangerous level” for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth’s atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

“We’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path,” Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. “This is the last chance.”

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don’t capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn’t be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth’s atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he’ll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

“The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants,” Hansen told the luncheon. “I’m not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this.”

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his “stop them all approach is very simplistic” and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen’s original testimony was the world’s hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it’s too late to do anything about it. His answer: There’s still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

“We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes,” Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. “The Arctic is the first tipping point and it’s occurring exactly the way we said it would.”

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, “Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it.”

But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, “Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet.”
AP

Ending The Cycle

……… for B. ………, originally uploaded by *Gracie

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

Start Today

One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change. We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, and we may even have given up. However, each day offers us an opportunity to renew our resolve and to declare to the universe that we are ready for change. We may even say out loud that we have tried and struggled and have not found a way, but that we are open to help, and that we intend to keep working to create change for ourselves. Making this declaration to the universe, and to ourselves, may be just the remedy for the stagnation we are experiencing. And, it can be done today, right now.

It is difficult to understand, even with hindsight, how the choices we have made have added up to our current situation, but it is a good idea to examine the story we tell ourselves. If we tend to regard ourselves as having failed, this will block our ability to allow ourselves to succeed. We have the power to change the story we tell ourselves by acknowledging that in the past, we did our best, and we exhibited many positive qualities, and had many fine moments on our path to the present moment. We can also recognize that we have learned from our experiences, and that this will help us with our current choices.

When we do this kind of work on how we view our past self, we make it possible for the future to be based on a positive self-assessment. This inner shift may allow us to get out of the cycle we’ve been in that’s been keeping us stuck. Now we can declare our intentions to the universe, knowing that we have done the inner work necessary to allow our lives to change. Allow today to be the day to end cycles and enter into a new way of being.

Daily OM

Replacing background – easy steps – photoshop

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

Different poses and background colors.

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

Here are the steps to replace background:

1 – Open original picture – minimize

2 – Hit control N or (Click File – then new)

3 – Use the magnetic lasso tool by highlighting which areas you want to move. It does have to be continuous on each subject. It doesn’t work well on detailed edges – the subject is key. People are easy with the exception of hair strands, )

3 – Click enter – click edit – click cut

4 – Minimize – determine color of your new file (background) and use the paint bucket tool or leave white. (you can do this in step 2 as well.

5 – Click paste – check opacity levels under layers and play around if needed. I didn’t use it in my picture.

6- Use clone tool for touch ups.

I’ve also used the paint bucket tool alone for changing backgrounds but it depends on original photo.

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved Original

Bush proposes end to offshore drilling ban in US

Finding peace, originally uploaded by *Gracie

Photography by Gracie – © All rights reserved

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday June 18 2008

President George Bush, responding to US public alarm over soaring petrol prices, today proposed overturning decades-old bans on drilling for oil off the US coast and in the pristine Alaskan wilderness.

Bush told a press conference at the White House: “There’s no excuse for delay.”

He said the US was too dependent on countries abroad, many of them in unstable regions. “Congress must face a hard reality: unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today’s painful levels – or even higher – our nation must produce more oil. And we must start now.”

Expanding oil extraction off the US coast would provide 18bn barrels, enough to supply the country for more than two years.

As for Alaska, he said advances in technology meant that oil could be extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with “virtually no impact” to the land or wildlife.

His other proposals included extraction of oil from shale in the Green River basin that lies in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, a move opposed by environmentalists.

The final part of his plan is for more oil refineries in the US to reduce imported refined oil.

The plan has almost no chance of being adopted. Congress, which is Democrat-controlled, has consistently blocked exploration for environmental reasons.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, accused Bush of cynicism, saying the US could not drill its way out of the problem. “The math is simple: America has just 3% of the world’s oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil,” Reid said.

The Bush proposals are primarily political during a presidential election year in which petrol prices are one of the top issues.

Bush was echoing a call by the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, who told oil executives in Houston yesterday he favoured lifting the ban on oil drilling in coastal waters.

This is the first major example of McCain and the White House working in tandem.

more here