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Merging the Vatican & Climate Change Religions
June 16, 2015 Geopolitics101	2 Comments
Leaked encyclical about the "unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem" has sent alarm bells ringing especially when the Pope is said to have asked for "a new global political authority" as the possible solution.
Interestingly, this papal statement came in just after Putin's visit to the Vatican. Is this part of what's been agreed upon as the next step to the whole global reset event?
To be fair, the Pope has been reported to have narrowly escaped few assassination attempts and that some of his close relatives were instead killed as a result of his reformist stand regarding the Vatican's money laundering scandal. Whether these are just elaborate hoaxes, to which these people are really expert of, we'll never be sure.
"Three members of Pope Francis' family were killed in a car accident in Argentina Tuesday, CNN reports, including his 8-month-old and 2-year-old grand-nephews and their mother.
A Cordoba police spokesperson told news outlets that the pope's nephew, Emanuel Horacio Bergoglio, crashed into a truck on the highway at 12:30 a.m. Bergoglio is currently in the hospital under serious condition."
Pope Francis tells of anguish as relatives die in Argentina car crash
Two great-nephews and their mother killed on Córdoba-Rosario highway, while nephew Emanuel Bergoglio in critical condition
Bloomberg also acknowledged Pope's effort to clean up the Vatican Bank,
"Pope Revamps the Scandal-Wracked Vatican Bank
Pope Francis has brought in outsiders to clean up the Vatican's finances—risking a confrontation with the powerful Curia that governs the Catholic Church. "
So, if indeed he is cooperating with the global alliance against the Khazarian Mafia, was he referring to the BRICS when he said "a new global political authority"?
Or, was he referring to what is being cooked at the Bilderberg Conference right now?
The medieval concept of the New World Order/One World Government Roman Empire has gravely discredited itself and for the Pope to subscribe to such outdated notion, should be bordering in stupidity.
What is very interesting is his non-subscription to the "carbon credits" scam promoted through climate change poster boy, Al "Inconvenient Truth" Gore.
The lunatics at the Bilderberg Conference, however, know not when to stop. They are, in essence, asking for a global revolution.
Here's the Guardian article:
Pope Francis warns of destruction of world's ecosystem in leaked encyclical
Vatican condemns early release of document in which pontiff calls on people to change their lifestyles and energy consumption or face grave consequences
Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the "unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem" before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical. In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have "grave consequences for all of us".
Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with "tackling … the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions". His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world's economic problems and injustices.
According to the lengthy draft, which was obtained and published by L'Espresso magazine, the Argentinean pope will align himself with the environmental movement and its objectives. While accepting that there may be some natural causes of global warming, the pope will also state that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.
"Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it," he wrote in the draft. "Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases … given off above all because of human activity."
The pope will also single out those obstructing solutions. In an apparent reference to climate-change deniers, the draft states: "The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions."
The leak has frustrated the Vatican's elaborate rollout of the encyclical – a papal letter to bishops – on Thursday. Its release had been planned to come before the pope's trip to the US, where he is due to address the United Nations as well as a joint meeting of Congress.
According to the leaked document, the pope will praise the global ecological movement, which has "already travelled a long, rich road and has given rise to numerous groups of ordinary people that have inspired reflection".
In a surprisingly specific and unambiguous passage, the draft rejects outright "carbon credits" as a solution to the problem. It says they "could give rise to a new form of speculation and would not help to reduce the overall emission of polluting gases". On the contrary, the pope wrote, it could help "support the super-consumption of certain countries and sectors".
Unfortunately for us, we do have observed a seeming continuation to the depopulation agenda as can be seen from how one US governor deliberately implemented wrong solutions to the massive drought in California.
Vatican speaker and California Governor in push for massive depopulation… talk of 'Planetary Court' and removal of 6 billion people under new 'Earth Constitution' and 'World Government'
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) The depopulationists are on the move again, pushing hard for the elimination of six billion people on planet Earth in order to bring the planet down to what's being touted as its "sustainable carrying capacity of one billion people."
But this time, the depopulation agenda may be codified by the Vatican. Professor John Schellnhuber has been chosen as a speaker for the Vatican's rolling out of a Papal document on climate change. He's the professor who previously said the planet is overpopulated by at least six billion people. Now, the Vatican is giving him a platform which many expect will result in an official Church declaration in support of radical depopulation in the name of "climate science."
"The teaching document, called an encyclical, is scheduled for release on June 18 at Vatican City," reports Breitbart.com. "Perhaps with the exception of the 1968 encyclical on contraception, no Vatican document has been greeted with such anticipation."
A new Planetary Court to hold power over all nations… one ring to rule them all
Schellnhuber daydreams about a "Planetary Court" guided by a new "Earth Constitution" which would hold power over every nation and government on the planet. As he explains himself in this document on HumansAndNature.org, he's a proponent of an all-powerful, climate-focused world government that would rule over the planet… a literal "science dictatorship" based on whatever "science" the climate change proponents can fudge together each year.
As Schellnhuber says:
Let me conclude this short contribution with a daydream about those key institutions that could bring about a sophisticated — and therefore more appropriate — version of the conventional "world government" notion. Global democracy might be organized around three core activities, namely (i) an Earth Constitution; (ii) a Global Council; and (iii) a Planetary Court. I cannot discuss these institutions in any detail here, but I would like to indicate at least that:
– the Earth Constitution would transcend the UN Charter and identify those first principles guiding humanity in its quest for freedom, dignity, security and sustainability;
– the Global Council would be an assembly of individuals elected directly by all people on Earth, where eligibility should be not constrained by geographical, religious, or cultural quotas; and
– the Planetary Court would be a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution.
Schellnhunber, in other words, believes a new world government can create "freedom" for humanity by dictating to it with a new Planetary Court guided by an Earth Constitution which will no doubt begin by declaring the planet can only sustain one billion people. The other six billion or so simply have to go. So instead of a Bill of Rights, this new Earth Constitution will be founded on a Bill of Deaths and a global government that might order the extermination of billions of human beings in order to "save the climate."
"In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity's exploitation of the planet's resources has crossed the Earth's natural boundaries," reports The Guardian. "…[T]he world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds."
The Guardian goes on to report:
The pope is "aiming at a change of heart. What will save us is not technology or science. What will save us is the ethical transformation of our society," said Carmelite Father Eduardo Agosta Scarel, a climate scientist who teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires.
California Governor worried that too many people exist
Interestingly, California Governor Jerry Brown might welcome such a depopulation agenda organized under a new world government. He recently tweeted about California having too many people, saying, "At some point, how many people can we accommodate?" Gov. Brown goes on to say that climate change is the reason the current drought is so much more worse than anything they've seen in the past.
Apparently, California has too many people, Gov. Brown says, and that means California needs to be deliberately depopulated.
With this, the Vatican and Jerry Brown join the efforts of other depopulation advocates like Bill Gates, who once said that vaccines can help reduce the world population by 10 to 15 percent.
True to that claim, vaccines given to young women have now been discovered to be intentionally laced with sterilization chemicals, according to the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, a pro-vaccine organization funded in part by UNICEF.
Similarly, a shocking 75% of children given vaccines in a small town in Mexico ended up hospitalized or dead after a recent round of vaccine shots that many have speculated might be part of a depopulation test run.
Fast depopulation vs slow depopulation
Since YOU are one of the targets of global depopulation, you may want to increase your awareness of how it might be accomplished. When it comes to depopulation, there are two approaches considered by the globalists:
SLOW DEPOPULATION: This method focuses on covert sterilization via vaccines, free birth control pills, and "social services" education efforts that try to convince women to have fewer children. The idea is to slowly let the current population of 7 billion die off while the birth rate plummets, causing the total population to shrink over time. You might call this the "non-violent" way to gradually reduce the population over time. Nobody has to prematurely die for this to be pulled off, in other words.
FAST DEPOPULATION: This method involves fast-kill strategies to essentially murder billions of people while blaming it on something else. The most likely candidates include the release of an aerosolized bioweapon (Ebola 2.0?), the insertion of aggressive cancer viruses in vaccines (see the confession of former Merck vaccine scientist Maurice Hilleman for background), global nuclear war, the intentional release of EMP weapons that destroy the power grid, and so on. These are obviously the more nefarious, dastardly depopulation pursuits, and they would obviously consist of global murder on a massive scale.
"Slow depopulation" methods have been tried since the 1970's. They haven't worked. As world population continues to rise, the global power brokers now seem to be experimenting with "fast depopulation" approaches to achieve their goal of eliminating six billion people from the planet.
NaturalNews
Thanks, John, for the heads up.
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2 thoughts on "Merging the Vatican & Climate Change Religions"
Rick2012 says:
The vatican coming too late again(as far as the issue of global climate change is concerned)unless they play double-talk once again.
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On April 5, 1983 Gordon K. Brumels, Chairman of the Northwestern College math department wrote all "physical science" alums to tell them that Professor Ralph Mouw was retiring after 36 years of service to "God and Northwestern College". Brumels wrote the students asking them to send Ralph best wishes. The result was a several inch thick book containing many, many letters from students telling how Ralph had influenced their lives. The book was presented to Ralph in early May of 1983. The reason the letter was sent to physical science majors was because Northwestern College's computer files were not set up at that time to sort out math majors alone.


National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports at a rally at Nimtola in Phulbari upazila under the district yesterday warned of tough programmes if their demands were not met within January 31 of the year ahead.
The demands include arrest of Gary Lye, chief executive of Asia Energy Corporation of Bangladesh, withdrawal of a case filed against the local committee members by Asia Energy, government's assurance to avoid open pit mining in Phulbari and implementation of the six-point agreement signed in August 2006.
The local chapter of the committee organised the rally yesterday afternoon protesting Gary Lye's visit to Phulbari from November 24 to 26.
Addressing the rally, Anu Mohammad, member secretary of the central committee, highlighted the bad impact of open pit mining in Phulbari, if implemented.
The speakers urged the government to meet their demands or face blockade programme in northern districts on February 7 next year.
Protesters from different areas of Dinajpur district joined the rally with processions.
More images and footages can be accessed on request.


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La Computació cognitiva (de l'anglès Cognitive Coputing) es defineix com una nova classe de problemes de forta ambigüitat i incertesa. Per resoldre els problemes utilitzen grans quantitats de dades (hora, localització, històric de tasques, informació en línia...) i processos d'intel·ligència artificial que doten als ordinadors amb una capacitat d'autoaprenentatge, de síntesi i de raonament equivalent al raonament humà.
 Adaptatius: Aquests sistemes tenen l'habilitat d'adaptar-se a les fonts d'informació desestructurades i en constant canvi. S'ha de treballar amb fonts ambigües. La informació que reben l'han de processar en temps real o bé en una petita fracció de temps.

 Interactius: S'ha de poder comunicar amb l'usuari de manera natural, per tant, cal que aquestes màquines estiguin dotades de la capacitat de traducció del llenguatge natural al llenguatge intel·ligible per les màquines. De la mateixa manera, han de donar la solució en llenguatge natural. Aquest sistemes també han de poder comunicar-se amb altres màquines: serveis al cloud, emmagatzemament de dades...
 Iteratius i amb estat: En cas que les respostes trobades a una qüestió siguin massa ambigües, el sistema ha de seguir buscant informació per minimitzar possibles errors. El sistema també ha de tenir capacitat de memòria, és a dir, els resultats d'una execució poden ser vàlids per futures qüestions.
 Contextuals: Han de tenir la capacitat d'identificar el context en el qual es realitza una pregunta, ja que la solució pot dependre de qui fa la pregunta (perfil de l'usuari), data, hora, localització.
La primera aparició al gran públic d'un ordinador cognitiu va ser al concurs nord-americà Jeopardy!, el qual és un concurs de preguntes i respostes, a l'estil Trivial, amb un ventall molt ampli de temàtiques, des de preguntes d'enginyeria fins a preguntes de cultura popular. El 14 de febrer de l'any 2011, el concurs va comptar amb un convidat especial: un dels concursants Watson, el supercomputador cognitiu d'IBM, mentre que els altres concursants eren els jugadors amb més premis acumulats al concurs.

Durant el programa, el presentador formulava una sèrie de preguntes i, gràcies a la capacitat de processament del llenguatge natural, el supercomputador era capaç de processar cada pregunta, analitzar possibles respostes i, d'entre totes aquestes, escollir una de vàlida. Durant la realització del concurs, el supercomputador no tenia connexió a Internet i va operar de manera autònoma. Prèviament es va enregistrar a la memòria de l'ordinador un total de 15 TB d'informació: enciclopèdies, obres literàries, llibres d'informació general, etc. Finalment, l'ordinador va ésser el guanyador de la nit recaptant un milió de dòlars que van ser donats a projectes de caritat.

El supercomputador WATSON, utilitza la metodologia DeepQA. Aquesta metodologia genera diferents hipòtesis a partir de la pregunta o tòpic introduït per l'usuari. Durant el procés s'utilitza un seguit de tècniques de processament de llenguatge natural i aprenentatge automàtic que permeten decidir una resposta com a vàlida utilitzant perfils d'evidència.

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a fan palm, Sabal palmetto, of the southeastern U.S.: the state tree of Florida and South Carolina.
Here the cabbage-palmetto and hard-wood trees rear their tops high in the air—a characteristic of the rich hummock soil.
The cypress, ash, and cabbage-palmetto grow on the banks above Pilatka.


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The World's End Edgar Wright
I think it's safe to say that we all have something we regret never committing to in our youth. If you're one of those "I live without regrets" kind of people and truly look back on a lost opportunity without a shred of melancholy, then you're either A) so immensely sad and ignorant that believing in your own bullshit is the only way to cope with your day-to-day lack of vivacity or B) an entirely flawless specimen of living sentience whose very existence demands substantial scientific study. You are not human, go back to your banal existence on some paradisiacal star far away from dirty ol' Earth. With that said, many of us terrestrial dwellers usually lament something of varying importance -- not learning an instrument, not pursuing a childhood crush, missing out on a day out with a relative long gone -- but how many people sour themselves over an unfinished pub crawl? Unfortunately, I can think of a few...
In any case, this is the precise catalyst that drives The World's End, Edgar Wright's third and final installment in the loosely framed Cornetto Trilogy. Gary King (Simon Pegg) is a a drunken, middle-aged miscreant infatuated with the memory of one magical night in 1990 when he and four of his teenage friends attempted the "Golden Mile" -- a 12 pub booze-a-thon taking place over the course of a single night. Unfortunately, the buxom lads never finish the full mile, leaving an unsightly scuff in what is otherwise a luminous recollection in the mind of Mr. King. Twenty-three years on, Gary's buddies have all moved on with their lives, settling down in London with stable careers and loving families.
However, it seems Gary's life stalled out somewhere around the age of 17 -- he wears the same clothes, drives the same car, and even listens to the same mixtapes from back in the day. Unable to let the pub crawl go, King sets out to reunite his childhood mates -- Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine), and Andy (Nick Frost) -- and finally finish the illustrious mile-long binge once and for all. But things are not what they seem back in their hometown of Newton Haven, and Gary King and the boys soon find themselves in the midst of a full-scale alien invasion.
Even before the Sci-Fi bombast sets in, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about the quaint little town of Newton Haven. Right off the bat, Edgar Wright builds an ominous atmosphere akin to that of The Omen or even The Wicker Man, which seems an odd fit for a comedy, but Wright makes it all work spectacularly. Slow moving wide angles, characters that stare off aimlessly without explanation, strange ambiguous lines of dialogue -- we've seen these elements before in the previous Cornetto entries, but they're particularly potent here. But these little Wright-isms are more than stylish puck marks sprinkled in for filler, they genuinely build a feeling of tension and discomfort that, when interrupted by the bittersweet back and forth of Pegg and Frost, can only be met with immense laughter.
While the horror-tinged goofiness of The World's End stays fresh for a good number of chuckles, it's actually the underlying social satire that makes this film hilarious. There's a brilliant moment when the characters realize that their favorite local stomping grounds have been effectively "Starbucksed" -- a reference to the gradual sterilization of quirky small town affects by the uninspired influence of corporate formality. Each pub seems to have been duplicated over and over: the same beverage selection, the same chalkboard menus, even the same coffee-shop-cool furnishing. Of course, as Pegg and company press on along their beer-y excursion, we realize that it's not just the pubs that have been cleaned, conditioned, and cloned, but the townspeople too.
As ludicrously Sci-Fi as The World's End is, this rejection of a Starbucksed world -- of a coldly calculated smile masking any microcosmic sense of humanity and the gradual cheapening our ideas of sincere emotional connectivity -- is what truly allows the film to hit home. It's an aspect of modern society that has literally seeped into every facet of our culture -- especially the film industry. Think about how many paint-by-numbers blockbuster films that were thrown into theaters this summer, how many times we saw the exact same movie reframed, repackaged, and regurgitated onto the mass public, and how many times we saw cinema-goers lap that bile up. And it hasn't just been this summer that we've been subjected to this mundane routine, but every summer for at least the last 10 years of movie-making. It's truly nauseating, isn't it?
But alas, the utter brilliance of The World's End, and Edgar Wright for that matter, is that it acknowledges these trends and makes a conscious effort to politely break away from them. Sure, the alien invasion trope has been tossed about time and time again, but it's not the premise that makes a movie original, it's the execution. What Wright has done with the Cornetto Trilogy is not just an exercise in stylistic filming or a keen sense of wit, but a perpetually playful evaluation of the current pop culture landscape. It's brainy without being pretentious, heartfelt without being sappy, and action-packed without being a masturbatory spectacle of special effects. What more can I say? Go see it!
29 August, 2013 - 23:12 — Andrew Ciraulo
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Those beautiful Hudson Valley Seed Co. art packets are on sale right now
The package for HVSC's Senate House Marigolds was designed by Albany artist Cara Hanley.
We've mentioned before that we're fans of the Hudson Valley Seed Co.* -- the seeds it sells are selected to grow in this part of the country, and they often in come in beautiful packages designed by regional artists.
So it caught our eye that HVSC currently has a half-price sale on more than 60 of its art pack seed varieties. From Coral Fountain Amaranth to Hank's Xtra Special Baking Bean to Long Island Cheese Pumpkin to Senate House Marigold to Stone Ridge Tomatoes.
This might seem like a weird time for buying seeds**, but you can often score deals -- like, you know, the one mentioned above. And the Hudson Valley Seed Co. art packs can be a unique, inexpensive gift. A bundle of 5-10 would be a nice surprise for someone who's a gardener -- or maybe wants to try gardening -- and it won't cost much. Think of it like a lottery ticket with a better expected payout.
Also: If you buy online, you can sign up for the Hudson Valley Seed Company catalog. And as we've mentioned before, seed catalogs are a simple joy in late winter.
Grow something
This is our semi-regular pitch to grow something, even just some flowers or herbs in a pot on the porch or windowsill. It might make you feel a little bit better about the world.
* It was originally called the Hudson Valley Seed Library.
** Don't worry about buying seeds at the end of a growing season. They'll often keep for multiple seasons with no problems. In fact, some garden stores -- such as Faddegon's in Latham -- keep a box of last year's seed packs and sell 'em at a discount in the spring. Just ask.
How a strawberry grown from a "wasteland" in Albany helped spread a national strawberry craze
posted Jul 3, 2018
By Justin Devendorf
At the corner of Morris and Knox next to a small neighborhood park stands a two-story brick building, its front bearing a worn coat of paint. Built in 1838 in the Federal Style, it's the oldest still-standing building in Albany's Park South neighborhood.
But maybe more notable than its age is the fact that home and the land around it played a vital role in the growth of the strawberry trade in the United States, helping to set off a "strawberry fever."
This is the story of 74 Morris Street and The Wilson's Albany strawberry.
(there's more)
tags: Albany, featured, food, gardening, history, Justin Devendorf
The seed for so many backyard gardens
From an 1888 Shaker Seed Co. wholesale catalog from Mount Lebanon, New York. / via Archive.org (U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library)
Some ideas seem so obvious that the might has well have just sprouted from ground, everywhere, after a rain and people just happened upon them. But at the beginning they're not so obvious and someone has to be the first person to recognize the idea and grow it.
So it was with some delight that we recently learned more about how the Shaker communities in this region were probably the first people in the United States to start businesses selling seeds for backyard or "kitchen" gardens. And putting the seeds in the ubiquitous paper envelopes? Yep, Shakers. And store displays, kind of like the racks that stand in hardware stores and supermarkets today? Shakers did that, too.
Here are a handful of facts about the Shaker seed business and its roots here.
tags: featured, gardening, history
Washington Park tulip dig and sale 2018
The annual Washington Park tulip dig and sale is usually the weekend after Mother's Day -- but that depends on the tulips.
And this year, because of the cool spring, the tulips are still doing their thing. So this year's dig and sale is May 26 and 27. Blurbage:
The event kicks off on Saturday at the Park's iconic Moses Fountain at 9am. Volunteers will join City of Albany Gardener Jess Morgan, City of Albany Department of General Services staff and members of the Washington Park Conservancy for the annual ritual of digging up the city's iconic tulip bulbs. Participation in the event provides volunteers with the opportunity to purchase 30 bulbs for $5 in exchange for assistance in preparing the park's beds for the summer season. The remaining bulbs will be sold first-come-first serve to the general public on Sunday at the Park's Lakehouse beginning at 9am for the same price and quantity.
Those bulbs go fast on Sunday, so if you'd like to buy some it's a good idea to be there right at the start.
Proceeds from the sale go to support the Washington Park Conservancy.
tags: gardening, Washington Park
Spring plant sales 2018
The garden education day/plant sale at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Voorheesville is always popular.
It's May! And it's finally warmed up! And it will soon be time to start planting tomatoes, peppers, and other warm-weather plants in the garden.
There are a bunch of plants sales around the Capital Region coming up over the next few weeks to help you fill out your garden -- or container on a deck, or window box, or wherever.
Here's a quick list of some upcoming plant sales...
tags: featured, gardening, spring, stuff around the house, stuff to do, yard stuff
Senate House Marigolds
We're fans of the Hudson Valley Seed Co. -- both for the seeds themselves, and their beautiful packaging.
So we were happy to see that one of the HVSC's newest "art packs" -- for the Senate House Marigold -- was illustrated by Albany artist Cara Hanley. Seed packaging blurbage:
In the 1950s, Herbert Cutler bred the Senate House Marigold to complement the [1676 Senate House in Kingston's] historic plantings. Ever since, the Garden Club has been saving seeds from the tallest plants with the palest yellow flowers to grace the gardens of uptown Kingston. ...
Talking of her Senate House Marigold artwork, Cara told us she wanted to incorporate architecture from Kingston's historic downtown area. "I also chose to play with scale by placing Kingston's urbanscape in a bouquet of marigolds. If you look closely, you will notice flower boxes filled with marigolds in the windows of some of the buildings! It was tricky and rewarding to create a design that hid secrets of the concept in the flaps of the pack, so the gardener must unfold the packaging to fully understand the piece."
You might already know some of Cara Hanley's work -- she created one of the murals on the Green-Hudson parking garage in downtown Albany.
By the way: Marigolds are very easy to grow. You don't have to start them indoors, they can be grown in a container, and they don't require much more than sun and some water.
Earlier: The simple joy of seed catalogs
tags: art, gardening, people
The simple joy of seed catalogs
By Greg
If it wasn't already clear, I'm going to out myself now as a huge dork.
During this cold, wet, gray upstate transition between winter and spring one of my favorite activities is to... page through seed catalogs.
Yep, I like to read about vegetables. And fruit. And flowers. But it's mostly about the vegetables.
And it helps. Maybe it would help you, too.
tags: featured, food, gardening, stuff around the house, yard stuff
The Lifestyle Farming Conference is back at SUNY Cobleskill this spring
posted Mar 7, 2018
The Lifestyle Farming Conference is back at SUNY Cobleskill April 7. The event is a full day of classes on all sorts of topics related to farming, gardening, and cooking.
A quick sampling of some of the sessions:
+ Maple Syrup 101
+ Cultivating cider and heirloom apples
+ BBQ and smoking meat for beginners
+ Summer strawberry patch
+ Garden planning and seed staring
+ Advanced brewing: beyond the kit
Here's the full list of sessions with descriptions. The classes are led by SUNY Cobleskill faculty and other experts.
Registration is $70 for all day ($80 with lunch), $45 for the morning only, and $55 all day for veterans. The registration process also involving signing up for the session, so the earlier you register the better your chance of getting into the classes you want.
By the way: In case you haven't been out that way, SUNY Cobleskill is in Schoharie County, about an hour's drive from Albany.
tags: classes, food, gardening, stuff to do, SUNY Cobleskill
There's still time to sign up for a community garden plot
March starts this week, and that means a change of seasons -- and it's time to be thinking about gardens.
One of the great local gardening resources in Capital Roots, which administers 52 (organic) community gardens around the area. And there's still time to sign up for a garden plot. Application blurbage:
- Call 518-274-8685 NOW! [also gardens1@capitalroots.org] Orientations are held throughout March and into April for new participants at various locations throughout the Capital Region. In order to register for a garden plot, attendance at orientation is required.
- New gardeners must call to reserve a seat at orientation once the schedule is released. Plots are assigned on a first-reserved seat, first-served basis.
- There is a $30 minimum donation to sign up for a plot. Larger donations are greatly appreciated and help support this program.
Capital Roots has a helpful map of its various community garden locations that indicates which gardens have open plots.
tags: Capital Roots, food, gardening
Row 7 Seed Co.
From the Row 7 catalog.
Each year in the backyard garden we like to try growing something new, a little bit different, or maybe even a little weird. So this caught our eye...
Blue Hill chef Dan Barber and Cornell plant breeder Michael Mazourek have started a seed company -- Row 7 -- aimed at developing new varieties of vegetables with a focus on taste, and then selling the seeds so anyone can grow them.
The company's website is offering seven varieties, ranging from beets to a (heatless) habanero-style pepper to an experimental cucumber. And there's info about the background of each vegetable, along with growing instructions and recipes. From the page for the "Upstate Abundance" potato:
tags: food, gardening, yard stuff
Five reasons to not rake those leaves
It is near the end of fall. The leaves have mostly fallen from the trees. So time to rake them from the yard, right? PROBABLY NOT! (* Though see comments below about maple tar spots.)
Here are five reasons:
1. Leaves are basically fertilizer waiting to happen, and you can speed along the process by running them over with a mower. You could use a mulching blade for a very fine chop, but just the regular mower will do fine. [Washington Post]
tags: gardening, stuff around the house, yard stuff
A good place to buy plants for a late-start vegetable garden?
Ask AOA
Vexed in Voorheesville emails:
Due to the weather and a busy schedule, I still haven't planted my vegetable garden. Does anyone have a good suggestion for a nursery with a healthy and reliable stock of plants?
The plant sales held by orgs such as Capital Roots and the Cornell Cooperative Extension are good places to score these sorts of places. Unfortunately, those sales have already happened.
So, have a suggestion for Vexed's late-start vegetable garden? Please share!
tags: featured, gardening, yard stuff
The very popular Cornell Cooperative Extension garden education day and plant sale in Voorheesville.
May is here and it's time for garden planning and planting. There are a bunch of plants sales around the Capital Region coming up over the next few weeks to help you fill out your garden (or container on a deck, or window box, or wherever).
tags: featured, gardening, spring, stuff to do, yard stuff
Gardening classes that are popping up soon
It's spring! It's happening!
Now is a good time to get started on garden plans for the spring and summer -- whether it's just a few flowers, tomatoes in containers on the porch, or raised beds in the backyard. Toward that end there are a whole bunch of garden classes / info sessions / talks coming up around the area, on topics ranging from vegetable gardening to composting to garden planning to street trees.
Here's a quick scan of some upcoming classes...
tags: classes, featured, gardening, stuff around the house, yard stuff
Lifestyle Farming Conference at SUNY Cobleskill
posted Mar 28, 2017
This looks like some quality fuel for stoking those backyard gardening / DIY / I've-had-enough-I'm-moving-to-a-farm dreams.
SUNY Cobleskill is hosting its first Lifestyle Farming Conference Saturday, April 8. Blurbage:
In our classrooms and labs, SUNY Cobleskill faculty will teach organic gardening, home brewing, composting, mushroom growing, yogurt making, apiary management, and more. With three levels -- 1.5-hour Introductory Courses, 3-hour Skill Builders, and a 6-hour Intensive -- everyone from novice to experienced homesteaders will find a course to suit their interests and skill levels.
The conference will be accompanied by a specialized vendor fair featuring goods and supplies that complement the workshops, such as brewing equipment, apiary supplies, animal feed, and orchard necessities.
Among the workshop topics: square foot gardening for maximizing production in small spaces, home brewing, backyard poultry, family livestock herds, composting, making sausage, fruit and berry orcharding 101, wild edibles, homemade ice cream, and homemade yogurt.
Conference registration is $60 / $72 with lunch and available online. And the website notes that space is limited in each workshop.
tags: classes, gardening, stuff around the house, stuff to do
Albany Hidden City House & Garden Tour 2016
The annual Hidden City House & Garden Tour in Albany is June 23 this year. Tickets are $15 and available online.
The tour is jointly hosted by the Center Square Association, Hudson/Park Neighborhood Association. and Historic Albany Foundation. Blurbage:
Every year, this tour brings the neighborhood to life as homeowners open their doors and gardens to the public. Guests are able to tour, at their leisure, the beautiful and historic homes and hidden gardens that make up the Center Square & Hudson/Park neighborhoods. Residents of these neighborhoods open their homes & gardens for one night only.
This year, the Lark Street BID is also putting together a list of discounts for area restaurants and businesses that you can enjoy on the night of the tour.
The self-guided tour is Thursday, June 23 from 5-8 pm. Map pickup for ticket holders/buyers is at Trinity Church (235 Lark Street) or Capital Wine & Liquor.
tags: gardening, Lark Street, stuff to do
Finding opportunities for growth in urban spaces
By Lauren Hittinger Hodgson
Living in a city often means that you have to make the best of extremely limited outdoor space. If you're lucky enough to have a yard, stoop, or fire escape, it can be a challenge to flex your green thumb in any significant way.
Emily Menn, a Troy real estate developer and landlord, has been working on green space in Troy for the last eight years. And she's transformed a neglected double lot into a budding downtown oasis.
I chatted with Emily about how gardens in cities can build community, as well as the challenges and opportunities of urban gardening.
tags: featured, gardening, Lauren Hittinger, people, real estate, Troy
Troy Hidden Garden Tour 2016
The popular Troy Hidden Garden Tour returns Thursday, May 26 from 4-7:30 pm. Tickets are currently available online -- they're $10.
This is the 17th year for the event. The tour is a fundraiser for The Friends of Prospect Park. (There's also a dinner benefit for the org at Carmen's that night with a prix fixe menu for $35.) Tour blurbage:
The self-guided walking tour features approx. 30 private backyard gardens in the Historic Sage College, Washington Park and adjoining neighborhoods of downtown Troy.
While most of the gardens are approximately the same size, about 20 feet by 30 feet, they vary greatly in style. Some of the gardens feature charming pathways, fountains and pools. Some are filled with flowers, while others have more plants and vegetables -- all lovingly tended by gardeners of all skill levels.
The tour is a very pleasant time. And it's a fun way to get to know that part of Troy.
Albany House and Garden Tour
Just a heads-up that this year's Historic Albany House and Garden Tour is Thursday, June 23. Tickets are $15 and available online.
tags: architecture, gardening, stuff to do, Troy
The garden education day/plant sale at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Vorheesville is always popular. And, like a lot of plant sales, it's worth it to get there at the start in order to have your pick of plants.
May has arrived and that means it's prime time for garden planning and planting. And there are a bunch of plants sales around the Capital Region coming up over the next few weeks to help you fill out your garden (or container on a deck, or window box, or wherever).
tags: featured, gardening, stuff to do
A row of upcoming gardening classes
The sun is shining. Birds are singing. Buds are on the trees. Spring has returned (again).
So now is a good time to be giving some thought to garden plans for the spring and summer -- whether it's just a few flowers, tomatoes in containers on the porch, or raised beds in the backyard. Toward that end there are a whole bunch of garden classes / info sessions coming up around the area, on topics ranging from vegetable gardening to composting to garden planning to mushrooms.
tags: classes, cooking, featured, gardening, yard stuff
Drawing: Hidden City House & Garden Tour + Lark Street goodies
One of the gardens on this year's tour was frequented by FDR while he was Governor.
Drawing's closed! Winner's been emailed!
The Historic Albany Foundation's annual Hidden City House & Garden Tour is coming up in and around the Center Square neighborhood. Beautiful, historic homes and gardens will open as people go on a self-guided tour through the streets around Lark Street.
AOA has a pair of tickets for the tour -- and a basket of Lark Street goodies -- to give away. The prize package includes:
+ A pair of tickets to the Hidden City House & Garden Tour
+ Three $20 gift certificates to The Wine Bar and Bistro on Lark (gift certificates must be used separately)
+ Two $5 gift cards to The Brakes Coffee House on Lark Street.
+ A bottle of Perrier Jouet Grand Brut champagne from Capital Wine at the corner of State and Lark.
To enter the drawing, please answer this question in the comments:
Hidden gardens are lovely. What else is lovely?
We pass by things that are lovely everyday. If we're used to them, we may not notice, but sometimes they stop us in our tracks. Tell us about something you find lovely. Bonus points
if you tell us what makes it lovely in your eyes.
We'll draw one winner at random.
The Hidden City House & Garden Tour is Thursday, June 25 from 5-8 pm. The tour includes historic homes, backyard gardens, and some community gardens that are part of Capital Roots. Advance tickets are $15 and available online. After June 20, tickets are $20.
Important: All comments must be submitted by 11:59 pm on Thursday, June 11, 2015 to be entered in the drawing. You must answer the question to be part of the drawing. (Normal commenting guidelines apply.) One entry per person, please. You must enter a valid email address (that you check regularly) with your comment. The winner will be notified via email by noon on Friday and must respond by noon on Monday, June 15.
tags: Albany, gardening, history, Lark Street, stuff to do
Growing seasons in Albany
The lettuce likes it cool, anyway.
With the, um, rather brisk weather this week (56 on Wednesday) -- and frost advisories around some parts of the Capital Region -- we were curious about growing seasons here in Albany over the years.
Thankfully, the National Weather Service Albany office publishes that info dating back to 1874. And because we have an easier time scanning this sort of stuff when it's in graphical form, we flipped into an interactive chart...
tags: Capital Region, featured, gardening, weather
The annual Hidden Garden Tour in Troy returns Thursday, May 21 from 4-7:30 pm. Tickets are currently available online -- they're $10.
This is the 16th year for the event, which is self-guided walking tour of backyard gardens in the districts around the Sage and Washington Park in downtown Troy. The tour is rain or shine.
Proceeds from the tour benefit the Friends of Prospect Park. There will also be a dinner benefit for the org at Carmen's that evening from 6-8:30 pm. It's $33 for a prix fixe menu.
Albany tour
The annual Hidden City House and Garden Tour in/near Albany's Center Square neighborhood is set for Thursday, June 25 from 5-8 pm. Tickets are currently $15 and will be available online soon.
photo via Friends of Prospect Park
tags: gardening, stuff to do, Troy
The garden education day/plant sale at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Vorheesville is always popular.
As the April rain falls and the grass regains its green, we're thinking about all the things that will be growing soon. And maybe some of those things will be growing in your garden.
Where to get quality local compost?
Ginny asks via the Twitter:
Your favorite place for quality local finished compost? Building a few new beds. I need way more than I make.
As Ginny noted in a follow up, "Sadly not all compost is equal." It's not a bad idea to know where the compost is from, and what's (generally) gone into it.
So, got a suggestion for Ginny and other gardeners? Please share.
The art of gardening
There are a handful of interesting things about the Hudson Valley Seed Library. A few of them:
+ It started at the Gardiner Public Library in Gardiner as a "lending" program for seeds -- people could check out seeds, grow the plants, and then return saved seeds.
+ It's dedicated to "growing, harvesting, and celebrating" heirloom varieties of vegetable, herbs, and flowers -- including many varieties with connections to New York.
But the first interesting thing you'll probably notice about the Hudson Valley Seed Library is that it has beautiful seed packets. The company commissions artists to design the seed packets in a range of media -- here's the page that collects all the designs (there are many) -- and the work really make the packets feel special.
Here are a few examples that caught our eye...
tags: design, gardening, shopping
Hidden City House & Garden Tour 2014
The annual Hidden City House & Garden Tour in Albany's Center Square neighborhood is returning June 26. Tickets are $15 if purchased between now and June 19 -- $20 after that.
The self-guided tour, organized by the Center Square Association and the Historic Albany Foundation, allows people to get a peek at some of the historic homes and gardens in Center Square (you probably couldn't have guessed that from the name). This year's tour also has a new angle: birds. Event blurbage:
In addition to the traditional house and garden tour, some host houses will pledge to maintain native plants, eliminate artificial fertilizers, and provide food and cover for wild birds. Demonstration sites along the tour route, run by Audubon Society Fellow, Laura McCarthy, will showcase the joy of urban birding and backyard birds.
Other highlights of the tours include a charming garden on Jay Street that features a specimen tree peony, climbing roses, a pergola with a heritage hops vine, and many other plants. A mature garden on Lancaster Street boasts a fountain, climbing roses, and old magnolia trees bearing scars of a former wisteria vine.
The tour is Thursday, June 26 from 5-8 pm. Tickets are available online via the link above.
Saratoga Secret Garden Tour
The annual Secret Garden Tour in Saratoga Springs is July 13 this year. Organized by Soroptimist International of Saratoga County, the tour offers a peek at "creative urban spaces, lush suburban gardens, fabulous water features, and more."
The tour is Sunday, July 13 from 11 am-5 pm. Tickets are $20 and available at the link above. If tickets still remain on the day of the tour, they'll be $25.
HAF advertises on AOA.
photo: Center Square Assocation
tags: gardening, real estate, stuff to do
A landscape designer for a backyard makeover?
ChuckD emails:
It's time we did something about the backyard. But we're not interested in some HGTV thing with all parts sourced from a Big Box DIY store. We're looking for a creative designer/contractor who will design and build a natural backyard space to include replacement of a ratty deck, a rattier wood fence, inclusion of an existing inground pool, two existing happy doggies, and most importantly, an awareness and interest in those gray areas between indoors and out and work it into our passive solar house. Can anyone recommend someone who will think outside The Box and help us realize our ideas? Cuz we're clueless.
Even on a small project there can be a big difference between what the typical person can scratch out on the back of an envelope and what a professional designer can put together. And a landscape designer might be able to lend some helpful expertise on the sort of plants and other features that will make the new backyard easier to maintain over the long run.
So, got a suggestion for Chuck? Please share!
tags: contractors, design, gardening, home owning
Botanical gardens in the region?
Katie asks via Twitter:
I'm looking for botanical floral gardens both public and private in the capital region area. any leads?
The one that sprang to our mind immediately was the Berkshire Botanical Garden just over the border in Western Massachusetts.
Got other ideas? Maybe even places that aren't botanical gardens exactly, but do have excellent floral gardens? Please share!
tags: gardening, outside
A few spring plant sales coming up
The scene at last year's cooperative extension plant sale
Now that we're into May, plant sale season will soon be here. Here are a few good ones coming up, if you're in the process of garden planning:
The Cornell Cooperative Extension Albany County's annual Garden Education Day is Saturday, May 17 from 9 am-1 pm at the cooperative extension facility in Voorheesville. Master gardeners will be there for tours and advice, but the big draw is the plant sale.
We went to the sale last year and it was bananas. People were lined up waiting to get in before the sale started. Inside there were a bunch of plants -- like heirloom tomato seedlings and other garden favorites -- at good prices. And many of the tables were staffed by gardeners who could answer questions.
Based on our experience last year, it's a good idea show up at (or before) the start and to have in mind what you're looking for -- because if you browse too long, you'll miss out.
Capital District Community Gardens
That same day is the Capital District Community Gardens' spring plant sale in Troy from 9 am to 1 pm. It will have "unique varieties of perennials, heirloom tomatoes, a wide selection of veggies." We've also shopped this sale in the past and we were able to score good plants. (It's also wasn't quite the scene of the of the cooperative extension sale.)
The sale is at CDCG's Produce Project farm on 8th Street, between Eagle and Hutton. Proceeds benefit CDCG programs.
tags: gardening, stuff to do
Plant sales this weekend
It's plant sale season. A few coming up this weekend that might be worth a stop:
The annual CDCG spring plant sale is Saturday from 9 am-1 pm at the Produce Project farm in Troy (8th Street between Eagle and Hutton). The plants are donated from local nurseries, and the proceeds benefit CDCG's programs. We've scored vegetable and landscaping plants at this sale in the past.
Cornell Cooperative Extension Albany County
Saturday is "Garden Education Day" at the cooperative extension in Vorheesville from 9 am-1 pm -- but it's also a plant sale: annuals, perennials, herbs, vegetables. Master gardeners will be there to answer questions. And there will be soil pH testing (first sample free, additional samples $3).
We've never been to this sale -- we hear the prices are good, but it gets packed, so show up early for the best selection.
Washington Park tulip bulbs
The annual Washington Park tulip dig and sale is this Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday is the dig-your-own sale in specific beds near the Moses statue starting at 9 am. As the announcement notes: "This allows people first crack at the tulips they want. We ask that for every bag they fill for themselves, they fill a bag for the sale on Sunday."
Bagged bulbs will be on sale Sunday at the lakehouse starting at 9 am. Bulbs are 25 to a bag for $5, limit 5 per person. And they go fast. Some will be labeled, some won't (surprise tulips).
Funds go to support the Washington Park Conservancy.
tags: gardening, stuff to do, yard stuff
How to get a garden plot tilled?
Laura emails with a timely question:
Can anyone recommend a reliable, reasonable service for rototilling a vegetable garden plot?
If you know of a service, great. But even if you don't, maybe you have some alternate ideas that could help Laura get her garden plot in shape.
Got a suggestion? Please share!
tags: gardening, home owning, yard stuff
Grow on
The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County has a morning of spring gardening workshops lined up for April 6 (a Saturday). It looks like it could be a good way to get up to speed on starting a garden.
There are three classes in the lineup:
9-9:45 am: plant propagation ($10)
10-10:45 am: preparing your garden for spring ($5)
11-11:45 am: tool maintenance (including "weed whacker care") ($5)
Easy scan descriptions are after the jump. If you sign up for all three, the fee is $15.
The classes are at the Sustainable Living Center in Schenectady's Central Park (the greenhouses). Call 372-1622 for more info and registration.
tags: gardening, stuff around the house, stuff to do, yard stuff
What the early spring means for your garden
Oh, hello there. (By the way: we posted a photo of a crocus from this same spot last year -- on April 11.)
It feels so much like May we keep having to remind ourselves that it's still only March.
And we're not the only ones who are confused. Outside the downtown office the tulips are already starting to sprout and trees are beginning to bud.
We're happy to have ditched our winter coats and we'll take any excuse to break out the flip-flops, but we're wondering what all this unseasonably warm weather will mean for Albany's tulips -- and other the flowers and plants.
So, just bonus springtime for gardeners -- or (cue ominous music)... cause for crocus concern?
Where to go for gardening classes?
Looking to green her thumb, Julie emails:
Do you guys know where I can get the scoop on some vegetable gardening classes?
A few ideas that occurred to us: Capital District Community Gardens has offered classes in the past. And we've also seen classes listed from the local branches of the Cornell Cooperative Extension. But we haven't seen specific classes listed for this year, yet.
Got a suggestion for Julie? Please share!
Wild edibles in urban Albany
Roasted chicken with Purslane and Lamb's Quarters. Only two of those things grow free in the city of Albany.
By Noah Sheetz
Ever wonder exactly "what" you are taking out of your garden when you set your mind to the mundane task of weed pulling?
Over the years I've befriended several master gardeners, farmers and herbalists, and it turns out that most of the weeds growing around us are in some way edible or medicinal in nature.
There are hundreds if not thousands of wild edibles in our region, including morel mushrooms, ramps, and fiddlehead ferns, all of which are foraged in the wild and fetch premium prices. In the Albany area there are several edible weeds that sprout up indiscriminately year after year in gardens, lawns, the concrete medians of 787, the cracks of sidewalks, and even on the soil-absent roof tops of buildings.
Here are a few of them -- and recipes on how to prepare them...
tags: Albany, food, gardening, Noah Sheetz, outside


At Eye Care Centre Uganda we provide individualized eye care and vision services to meet our patient's needs. We are dedicated to keeping our patients informed, listening to and addressing any concerns they may have, and connecting our patients to specialists if necessary. New patients are always welcome. Call us today at 041 4257759 / 039 3264400.
New patients are always welcome. Schedule an appointment today!
We strive to provide complete care for our patients. Learn more about all the services we provide below.
A comprehensive eye exam includes a prescription for glasses and an in-depth eye health evaluation (includes dilated retinal examination). We provide customized eye exams and recommendations based on age, medical and ocular history, and personal risk factors. We will connect you to eye care specialists if necessary.
Contact lens prescriptions are different than eyeglass prescriptions as contact lenses rests directly on the eye. The fitting will include corneal health assessment, contact lens insertion/removal and contact lens hygiene education (if new wearer). As everyone has different eye sizes and curvatures, the eyes will be measured and fitted and we will ensure the contact lens are giving enough oxygen, movement, and minimal rotation.
Laser eye surgery consultation is an evaluation of the patient's candidacy for laser eye surgery. We provide an overview of the various procedures, risks and benefits, and address any questions or concerns the patient may have. We also provide post-operative examinations.
We offer retinal photography with FAF imaging in which we can capture high resolution images of the back of your eye to study them carefully for early signs of disease and compare your images to future visits to monitor change. Our doctors strongly believe this is an essential part of the comprehensive eye exam and recommend the photograph once a year.
We offer direct billing for eye exams and contact lens purchases for the following insurance companies: Jubilee Insurance, IAA Healthcare, AON, ICEA, and IAA Resolution. Please bring your insurance information and ensure that your account is set up for direct payment prior to your appointment.


Conversion of the famous map from the Novalogiy game "Black Hawk Down". Comes with 4 gametypes. Zone is a hangar in the middle of a desert town. You will know it when you see it. Keept it original with some minor updates regarding objects,effects, some ladders and hidden stuff.Enjoy.
Wow GenElec*** i cant say how much I love your maps. I personally play BHD a lot and have played the stock maps many many times. Panic attack was always my favorite. But this version is even better! I love the tiles you put in, better than the ones from BHD. And i like the trees u put in to, seems more realistic. May I ask are you going to continue making replicas of the stock maps?(like Rampage, Double Barrel, Culture Clash.) Great work -- 9/10 from me!
Thank you for giving me a feedback. I used to play BHD and still do from time to time. The layouts are perfect for man to man fight without big armours. Jumping, leaning and skill is what it takes. Though these maps are quite small they take a lot of time. I run BHD make screenshots then copy the spots. Then I review the many matches I have played in these maps and change what I think annoyed many players back then. I add tiles, decorations, sometimes a ladder, sound, some hidden goodies and spots and a few effects. That way I hope to give the map a touch of being upgraded. I always ay: "this is the last one" but once I visit servers that run the maps I give myself a go because seeing that players still enjoy them makes it worthwhile. Will do the others that style too, but dont want to rush and better have feedback on what could be done better before releasing the next one. Btw. all my maps get updated. If you find glitches or other issues dont get disappointed but try to redownload and check for the update notice if there is one.


Now CFLs are included on the list of items to be phased out by 2020 due to mercury content!
Wow! Isn't that rather remarkable for a lamp which all the world has heralded as greener than green? What does Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Project Porchlight and all the other pro-CFL-activists have to say about this?
He also describes the 50 million US$ UN-en.lighten Project that I've mentioned earlier, in which Philips & Osram will get paid to flood developing countries with toxic CFLs for another 7 years! (As I hardly think they're going to hand out free LEDs…) How about some PET solar or LED gravity lamps to replace kerosene, which is one of the stated objectives of the Project? As long as it's with something truly green and not with toxic CFLs, I'm all for it. But I'm not for replacing safe incandescent lamps with toxic CFLs.
Don't buy any more CFLs!
Buy halogen lamps instead and wait for LEDs get better (the LEDs sold now are mostly a ripoff, for which you get very little light of very mediocre quality and untested life span).
CFLs for private use should be banned with no delay.
If incandescent lamps could be banned much quicker than that for no good reason at all, why not make a more decisive effort to get the toxic lamps off the market a s a p?
And the incandescent ban should be lifted immediately, as the incandescent bulb is by far the safest & most environmentally friendly lamp ever made!
The wording is not final yet however the draft of the convention recently signed by 140 UN countries proposes a complete ban on manufacture, import and export lamps containing more than 5mg of Mercury from 2020.
CFL Mercury – Watch Your Feet!
I just stumbled on this link with the story of a man who dropped a too hot CFL globe lamp and could not avoid stepping on the mercury-contaminated glass as he stepped off the chair.
This "smaller than a ball point pen" amont of mercury, which CFL proponents try to dismiss as negligible and totally harmless, rotted away the man's foot down to the bare bone!
This could happen to you or your children or pets if a CFL was knocked over or dropped and accidentally stepped on.
Update 2014: It may have been the phosphor powder from the inside of the CFL tube which caused the foot to rot, as phosphor stops the blood from coagualting and the would from healing, in combination with the toxic mercury.
I wanted to know more about the previously reported recycling problems where people throw CFLs in glass recycling containers in Sweden (same as reported in Denmark a few years ago).
So I called Svensk Glasåtervinning and asked. They said this is still a big problem for them. They had found elevated mercury values in several locations of their recycling facility. I asked about the health of their workers and they said they had been tested for Hg but were OK. The person I spoke with pointed out however, that by the time the glass arrives at the factory, much will already have evaporated and possibly affected the trucking entrepreneurs who collect the containers. I suspect also those using the local recycling facility – some of which are indoors (in residential buildings).
I asked if they had tested the containers (in Sweden called "glass-igloos" due to their round shape). He said that doing such a test had not occurred to them, but that it was a good idea to test at least a few of the thousands of igloos used around Sweden. (I'm thinking that if containers are contaminated by Hg that they may keep contaminating ever new batches of glass, at least in the cold season when it does not evaporate?) Some of that glass is turned into new food grade glass, some into what we call "glass wool" (not sure of the English word) for house insulation.
He said that they do not get reimbursed for all the extra risk, cost and trouble that Hg contamination causes to their glass recycling, and that they were rather frustrated with those who have the producer responsibility not having done enough to inform the general public and supply enough easily accessible recycling opportunities for CFLs.
When it comes to outdoor recycling stations, they are prohibited from doing so by the fact that Hg is classed as hazardous waste, and we can't have hazardous waste containers sitting unattended on the sidewalk. And so many of those who are not fortunate enough to have a separate bulb recycling bin in their residential building, or a 'red box' collected by the local municipality for home owners, throw their CFLs in the glass container instead as many don't have time, knowledge, opportunity or transportation to take them to an out-of-the-way recycling plant or to one of the often equally out-of-the-way retail chains who collect bulbs for proper recycling (after which the Hg is stored indefinitely).
So I called El-Kretsen, the organisation that has been appointed in Sweden to handle the so-called producer responsibility (according to the WEEE directive). The representative said they are working hard to remedy the situation (and have a PR webpage bragging about this). I suggested they mail all residential building owners in Sweden with information on the importance of adding (and paying a little extra for) a hazardous waste bin in their recycling rooms, information on how to handle mercury contamination, and signs to put up to inform residents. He seemed to think this right-to-the-source approach was way too much work and referred to their their own information- and annual electronic waste collection campaign.
After hearing from an aquaintance spotting someone drop a CFL in a supermarket, I thought I'd find out how the leading food chains in Sweden handle such accidents.
Ica's website has a CFL info page (complete with the usual propaganda lies) that includes info on both recycling and what to do in case of accidents. I called their HQ to ask if it happens that lamps break in their stores and she said "Yes". I asked if their staff was informed on what to do and she said they were actually planning an information campaign in a few weeks.
Coop's website only refers to a recycling site for what to do with CFLs after they burn out, nothing about how to handle mercury spills. I called and asked. They said information has been sent out to stores, but when I called one of the biggest Coop supermarkets in Stockholm, the manager could not recall having seen any such information. He said there were no breakages that he was aware of. I asked what they would do if there were and he said "Just sweep up the pieces and throw in the garbage, I guess"- and also confessed to just tossing burned-out CFLs in the bin at home. I informed him of the mercury content and that mercury is hazardous waste. This jolted a memory that perhaps he'd heard something to that effect… I asked if he could make sure to inform his staff from now on, but he said such an incentive needs to come from HQ. So I tipped HQ off that their biggest competitor is having a campaign soon.
When you think about it, isn't it rather stunning and alarming that a fairly easily breakable product containing mercury is sold together with food?
Every year 200 000 CFLs are wrongly thrown into glass recycling bins, according to an analysis by Swedish Glassrecycling (SGÅ). This means a health risk for those who work with recycling and a risk that the environmental toxin is spreads in the natural environment, according to Svenska Dagbladet.
The motive for replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs was to save electricity and thereby save the environment, but environmental expert Minna Gillberg condemns the drive for CFLs as "absurd".
This means a risk not just to recycling workers but actually to everyone. Especially when the recycling bins are indoors, since mercury vaporises at room temperature and contaminates the surrounding area pretty much permanently.
And note: This is happening in SWEDEN – where we have extremely well organised recycling practices and pride ourselves on being informed, consciensious and spearheading environmental awareness! If even we can't do it, then again I shudder to imagine what happens to CFLs in poorer countries where many may not even be literate, much less care what happens to their burned-out lamps, or know what to do if they did.
The CFL is a toxic product that should never have been allowed on the market!
It now appears that a broken CFL at home is actually more cause for worry than previously thought.
"'Mercury concentration in the study room air often exceeds the Maine Ambient Air Guideline (MAAG) of 300 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3) for some period of time, with short excursions over 25,000 ng/m3, sometimes over 50,000 ng/m3, and possibly over 100,000 ng/m3 from the breakage of a single compact fluorescent lamp,' the report confirms.
'Sensitive populations are of particular concern with mercury exposures for a number of reasons.' 'Elderly and unhealthy individuals may already be at comprised health and be more susceptible to mercury effects than a healthy individual. For example, mercury does kidney damage which could exacerbate an already existing kidney disease'.
'Infants and toddlers have much more vulnerable brains.' 'Mercury exposures have serious impacts on fetal and infant brain development. Elemental mercury can cross the placenta from a mother to fetus.' 'It is well established that the developing organism may be much more sensitive than the adult to neurotoxic agents,' reports Maine's DEP study. 'For example, methylmercury exposure can produce devastating effects in the fetus, including cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, and even death, while producing no or minimal effects in the mother'.
"The report also noted that following official clean-up guidelines was still not good enough to eliminate the pollution.
'Although following the pre-study cleanup guidance produces visibly clean flooring surfaces for both wood and carpets (shag and short nap), all types of flooring surfaces tested can retain mercury sources even when visibly clean. Flooring surfaces, once visibly clean, can emit mercury immediately at the source that can be greater than 50,000 ng/m3. Flooring surfaces that still contain mercury sources emit more mercury when agitated than when not agitated. This mercury source in the carpeting has particular significance for children rolling around on a floor, babies crawling, or non mobile infants placed on the floor'.
'If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away,' warns the US EPA.
"Perhaps the most dangerous aspect to the CFL mercury issue, however, is not the instant 'spike' exposure caused by a breakage, but the effect of a string of breakages over the years on the toxicity of suburban homes. Picture a low income family (…) forced to use CFLs because of the light bulb ban and because they cannot afford even more expensive halogens. Picture a breakage, then try and estimate the odds of a stressed out (or drugged up) householder following proper clean-up and disposal procedures.
"Then picture a few more breakages over the years, none of them dealt with properly. Then try and figure out how much mercury might accumulate in the carpets, floorboards and walls of such a house over a 20 year span. Then try and figure out the impact such poisoning might have on every family that moves through that house, and how many taxpayer dollars might be wasted dealing with the health or crime problems that erupt downstream because of mercury exposure.
"When you buy a house or move into a rental, you won't know whether the home you're moving into is contaminated by mercury, unless you go to the extreme expense of getting it tested. Your safety, and your family's safety, will rely on the ability and willingness of other ordinary [citizens] to properly dispose of mercury laden light bulbs, and you'll never really know. The real cost is not one light bulb breakage, but how badly affected homes will be after 20 years of amateur attempts to clean up one of the deadliest neurotoxins on the planet. A generation of children crawling on mercury-infested carpets would give new meaning to the phrase, "dumbed-down".
I couldn't agree more. And I don't see how any responsible politician or environmental organisation could either, after getting this new information.
How should I deal with a broken CFL?
In the event of an accidental breakage of a CFL, normal good housekeeping is required.
1. Take care to prevent injury from broken glass.
2. Vacate the room and keep children and pets out of the affected area. Shut off central air conditioning system, if you have one.
3. Ventilate the room by opening the windows for at least 15 minutes before clean up.
4. Do not use a vacuum cleaner, but clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid creating and inhaling airborne dust as much as possible.
5. On hard surfaces sweep up all particles and glass fragments with stiff cardboard and place everything, including the cardboard, in a plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp cloth and then add that to the bag. Household cleaning products should be avoided during clean up despite the very small amount of mercury involved. See the next section for cleaning carpeted surfaces.
6. Use sticky tape to pick up small residual CFL pieces or powder from soft furnishings and then add that to the bag.
Update: Unfortunately, the Maine DEP found when testing that plastic bags are not enough to contain the mercury, not even air tight plastic containers. See my newer post Mercury Problem Worse Than Suspected.
That the anti-lightbulb campaign in early 1990s came up with the idea to blame powerplant emissions on the lightbulb in order to get around the uncomfortable fact that FL and CFL contain mercury, is not as surprising as the fact that so many keep regurgitating this argument without ever stopping to consider the blatant flaws in it!
"1. What comes out of ever decreasing coal power stations chimneys can be dealt with: we know where the problem sources are and we can treat them with ever increasing efficiency at lower costs.
Also note that there are both automated and non-automated factories in China. In the small, non-automated factories, workers distribute the mercury and phosphors into each CFL by hand! Besides the risk of easily exceeding the specified limits, mercury vapourises at room temperature  and Chinese factories are not exactly known for issuing protective gear to factory workers. How 'green' is it to poison Chinese labourers and create more toxic waste?
I also warned that this manual dripping will poison workers, as mercury vapourises at room temperature (+20 degrees Celsius). Now this is exactly what has happened!
Also, mercury mines in China are being reopened to meet the increased Western demand for CFLs!
Hundreds of factory staff are being made ill by mercury used in bulbs destined for the West.
When British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of "green" lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.
Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.
Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China – which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain – are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.
Making the bulbs requires workers to handle mercury in either solid or liquid form because a small amount of the metal is put into each bulb to start the chemical reaction that creates light.
Mercury is recognised as a health hazard by authorities worldwide because its accumulation in the body can damage the nervous system, lungs and kidneys, posing a particular threat to babies in the womb and young children.
The risks are illustrated by guidance from the British government, which says that if a compact fluorescent lightbulb is broken in the home, the room should be cleared for 15 minutes because of the danger of inhaling mercury vapour.
Documents issued by the Chinese health ministry, instructions to doctors and occu-pational health propaganda all describe mercury poisoning in lighting factories as a growing public health concern.
"Pregnant women and mothers who are breastfeeding must not be allowed to work in a unit where mercury is present," states one official rulebook.
In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers are being made in factories that range from high-tech multina-tional operations to sweat-shops, with widely varying standards of health and safety.
Dozens of workers who were interviewed on condition of anonymity described living with the fear of mercury poisoning. They gave detailed accounts of medical tests that found numerous workers had dangerous levels of the toxin in their urine.
"In tests, the mercury content in my blood and urine exceeded the standard but I was not sent to hospital because the managers said I was strong and the mercury would be decontaminated by my immune system," said one young female employee, who provided her identity card.
"Two of my friends were sent to hospital for one month," she added, giving their names also.
"If they asked me to work inside the mercury workshop I wouldn't do it, no matter how much they paid," said another young male worker.
Doctors at two regional health centres said they had received patients in the past from the Foshan factory of Osram, a big manufacturer serving the British market.
However, the company said in a statement that the latest tests on its staff had found nobody with elevated mercury levels. It added that local authorities had provided documents in 2007 and 2008 to certify the factory met the required environmental standards.
Osram said it used the latest technology employing solid mercury to maintain high standards of industrial hygiene equivalent to those in Germany. Labour lawyers said Osram, as a responsible multi-national company, was probably the best employer in a hazardous sector and conditions at Chinese-owned factories were often far worse.
A survey of published specialist literature and reports by state media shows hundreds of workers at Chinese-owned factories have been poisoned by mercury over the past decade.
In one case, Foshan city officials intervened to order medical tests on workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory after receiving a petition alleging dangerous conditions, according to a report in the Nanfang Daily newspaper. The tests found 68 out of 72 workers were so badly poisoned they required hospitalisation.
A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man's level was 150 times the accepted standard.
The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.
It also reported a survey of 18 lightbulb factories near Shanghai, which found that exposure levels to mercury were higher for workers making the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs than for other lights containing the metal.
In China, people have been aware of the element's toxic properties for more than 2,000 years because legend has it that the first emperor, Qin, died in 210BC after eating a pill of mercury and jade he thought would grant him eternal life.
However, the scale of the public health problems in recent times caused by mercury mining and by the metal's role in industrial pollution is beginning to emerge only with the growth of a civil society in China and the appearance of lawyers prepared to take on powerful local governments and companies.
A court in Beijing has just broken new ground in industrial injuries law by agreeing to hear a case unrelated to lightbulbs but filed by a plaintiff who is seeking £375,000 in compensation for acute mercury poisoning that he claims destroyed his digestive system.
The potential for litigation may be greatest in the ruined mountain landscape of Guizhou province in the southwest, where mercury has been mined for centuries. The land is scarred and many of the people have left.
Until recently, the conditions were medieval. Miners hewed chunks of rock veined with cinnabar, the main commercial source of mercury. They inhaled toxic dust and vapours as the material seethed in primitive cauldrons to extract the mercury. Nobody wore a mask or protective clothing.
"Our forefathers had been mining for mercury since the Ming Dynasty [1368-1644] and in olden days there was no pollution from such small mines," said a 72-year-old farmer, named Shen.
The government shut all the big mercury mining operations in the region in recent years in response to a fall in global mercury prices and concern over dead rivers, poisoned fields and ailing inhabitants.
But The Sunday Times found that in this remote corner of a poverty-stricken province, the European demand for mercury had brought the miners back.
A Chinese entrepreneur, Zhao Yingquan, has paid £1.5m for the rights to an old state-run mine. The Luo Xi mining company used thousands of prisoners to carve out its first shaft and tunnels in the 1950s.
"We're in the last stages of preparing the mine to start operations again in the second half of this year," said a manager at the site, named Su.
At Tongren, a town where mercury was processed for sale, an old worker spoke of the days when locals slaved day and night to extract the precious trickles of silvery metal.
"I worked for 40 years in a mine and now my body is full of sickness and my lungs are finished," he said.
This is truly alarming, considering the fact that one teaspoon of mercury is enough to poison a medium-sized lake!
Once you've opened Pandora's box and let the mercury out, there is no way of putting it back in again; it will just keep circulating and climb its way up the food chain. Thus, focus should be on the direct sources of mercury: fluorescent light and fossil fuels.
Stop mercury emissions it at the source before its too late!
In my opinion, only FL tubes, CFLs and HID lights used professionally should be exempt from the EU mercury ban, as most factories, offices and shops already have well established routines for recycling tubes and lamps correctly and especially linear fluorescent tubes tend to be returned as they don't fit in standard trash cans.
To put such a burden on private individuals, especially in developing countries who usually already have enough to worry about without needing the extra hassle of safely deposing burned-out bulbs, can certainly not be called a wise and responsible decision.
Due to the high risk of adding to mercury pollution if thrown away with housholed garbage and ending up in landfills, everyone naturally agrees that CFLs should be safely recycled.
* Poland 2007: total 10% ("lighting equipment", not just lamps), domestic ?
* In Sweden September 2009 , 20% of CFLs do not get recycled, according to a rough – and probably optimistic – estimate by lighting industry representative Magnus Franzell, despite being one of the leading countries in recycling awareness and routines.
The EU WEEE directive regarding Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment mandates retailers to take back old electrical equipment when a new similar item is bought. This is of course excellent, providing one really wants to buy a new similar product. You can't take back your old stereo and buy a coffee maker instead, or a CFL and buy a halogen or LED lamp. But it's of course better than nothing and some larger chains like IKEA have volunteered to take back CFLs without strings attached.
* IKEA is one of the companies that accept burned-out CFLs from customers without strings attached. I asked if this is done by collecting them safely in small boxes or if people just throw them in a recycling container where they can break. They said the latter may occur at some places. I informed them that mercury vapourises at +20C and can be inhaled by staff and customers alike. This information was new to them! Alarmed, they promised to look into this immediately and change recycling routines a s a p. In Sweden.
* IKEA Denmark seems to be well aware of the mercury risk and claim to recycle theirs carefully in small boxes where bulbs don't break.
* IKEA U.K. couldn't say how recycling was done but promised to forward the information about the necessity of not breaking them to other stores.
* A Home Depot store in Seattle, U.S.A, seemed at least to know about the risk of mercury vaporising at room temperature and assured me returned CFLs were being handled properly, but couldn't say exactly how.
* A randomly picked U.S. Wal-Mart store had no clue what I was talking about and referred to the fluffy sustainability page on their website.


Simi Garewal (born 17 October 1947) is an Indian actress and a talk show hostess. She is the recipient of two Filmfare awards. She is known for her work in the films Do Badan , Saathi , Mera Naam Joker , Siddhartha , Karz and Udeekaan (Punjabi film). She is also known for her celebrity talk show, Rendezvous with Simi Garewal.


text:
Shadow Pilgrim
Santiago de Compostela, Spain
An accidental trick of light casts the perfect shadow of a pilgrim of the Camino de Santiago against the cathedral wall.
The shadow pilgrim Amio Cajander/CC BY 2.0
Look for the pilgrim between the Royal Doors and the edge of the clock tower
culturecult (Atlas Obscura User)
7 Places That Throw the Best Shade
In the most literal sense.
Kerry Wolfe August 1, 2017
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Botafumeiro
Every night in a corner under the baroque clock tower in the Plaza de la Quintana, a hunched pilgrim appears. He stands life sized, and wears the traditional garb of the religious pilgrim: cloak, broad-brimmed hat, and a staff top-heavy with a gourd for water and the traditional scallop shell, which is the symbol of the pilgrim.
Upon closer inspection, the pilgrim is a trick of the light - and an unintentional one. His body is the shadow cast by the lightning rod pillar in the corner, and his staff is the shadow of the support column of the Berenguela clock tower. There are dozens of these lighting rods and hundreds of vertical supports in the cathedral exterior, but only one pilgrim.
According to local legend, the pilgrim is a local priest, who had fallen in love with a nun of the convent of San Paio, across the plaza. They met every night secretly, traveling through a secret passage under the Quintana stairs that join the convent to the cathedral. The two lovers planned to elope, and he promised to meet her in the plaza dressed as a pilgrim to conceal his identity. On the appointed evening, he waited in the shadows, but she never came. Since then, every night he returns, hoping to see her.
Dressing as a pilgrim is a good disguise in a city that has historically been flooded with them. Pilgrims have been coming to Santiago de Compostela for more than a thousand years, walking the miles from France through the well worn route of the Camino de Santiago. They came to receive the blessings and forgiveness of sins from the body of the Apostle James, purportedly buried in the cathedral. The story of the discovery of the bones of St. James (Sant-Iago) has the flavor of medieval fervor: In the year 813, when most of Spain was under Islamic rule, a hermit, guided by heavenly light (the Campus Stellae, or field of stars in the city name), discovered the previously unknown tomb of the apostle, somewhat improbably in far Northern Spain. The bishop at the time determined that the bones had arrived in 44 AD by an unmanned, rudderless boat following the decapitation of James in Palestine. A shrine, and then a church, and finally a cathedral were built over the site of the discovery, and the pilgrimages began.
Walking from the north-east corner of the cathedral complex through the Plaza de la Quintana, towards the front of the cathedral, walk down the first set of stairs into the large plaza area. Look for the deep corner between the base of the clock tower and the Royal Door. The pilgrim is next to the lightning pillar.
Atlas Obscura Trips
Barcelona & Catalonia: A Feast for the Senses
Discover the unique tastes and traditions of Catalonia, explore history and architecture in Barcelona, taste unusual wines of Spain's smallest wine-growing regions, and enjoy fresh farm-to-table dining.
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culturecult, lisahs100, mbison, MikeInSanFrancisco, davidlawrence58
Interview: Turismo de Santiago, Departamento de Informaci
www.santiagoturismo.com
Guide to Santiago de Compostela , Escudo de Oro
Plaza de la Quintana
Santiago de Compostela, 15704
The Shrine of Santa Minia
This enormous censer uses a pulley system installed over 400 years ago.
Thanks to an acoustic anomaly, this unassuming stone bench has heard one hundred years of secrets.
Brión, Spain
The mysterious remains of a martyred teenage saint are venerated inside a small country chapel.
Porto do Son, Spain
Castros de Baroña
Seaside example of a settlement dating from the first century BC.
Meudon, France
The Grande Lunette
The largest refracting telescope in Europe is housed on the grounds of a former French castle.
This unique sculptural clock transforms into a periscope every hour.
Trompe-l'œil Murals of Hanoi
Life-sized painted illusions let pedestrians blend in with the street art.
León, Mexico
Colina Gravitacional (Gravity Hill)
Things roll uphill on this Mexican street that seems to defy gravity.