SF Green Festival: Brian Weller on Sustainability and the Vedic Sciences

Last Saturday I attended the San Francisco Spring Green Festival. Brian Weller spoke on the relationship, or link, between sustainablility and the inner consciousness. Brian studied as a monk in his early years and learned to transcend reality and the mind--the essence of Vedic Science. The following is a collection of my notes from Brian's talk as well as some of my own commentary and interjections. It may seem a bit disjointed (because the talk itself was a bit scattered) but please just take it for what it is and hopefully you receive as much wisdom from these notes as did I.

In our bipolar world, there are cycles of mania and depression due to an incredible increase in the rate of change and the complexity of information. The need of our time is to shift into sustainable consciousness. We cannot create a sustainable world from fear- and survival-based thinking. And, as you know, everything manifested in the world is originally created by thoughts. If our personal lives are overloaded and out of balance, then this state of consciousness will drive our actions and subvert our good intentions. Brian gave an example of city planning in India in which the wind patterns were known to be a certain way, so herbs were strategically planted which created an herb-scented breeze throughout the city, allowing a peaceful experience for the population. I'm not sure how well this example shows how sustainable thinking can lead to sustainable practices, but I liked the idea overall and thought it was an interesting concept. Ayurved, he said, is the science of optimal health--the biology is based on a deeper subtle level and goes to the gross level. As this science ackowledges, to make changes on the gross level you must start at the subtle.

Sat-absolute-chit-awareness-ananda-bliss. The subtlest value of thought leads to samhita, bliss, which IS a sustainable state of consciousness. The difference between the vedas, eastern science and western science lies in the knower.

Eastern science:
1. Knower (who)
2. Process of knowing (how)
3. Objects of knowledge (what)

Western science:
1. Process of knowing (how)
2. Objects of knowledge (what)

Brian then gave a few anecdotes and details from the Bhavagad Gita, Krishna's message and teachings for man on the battlefield of life. It's the story of everyone of us everyday. He then went on to detail that the vedas are a science of vibrations, sounds, and mantras. The mantras came from states of ecstacy, deep ecstatic bliss. This idea makes sense and is definitely something that stuck with me and I had never thought of before. It aligns with what Pratichi once told us at class--that she worships the mantras.

After the background details, Brian's main message is: Taking the big time out. Which means, taking one small time out at a time. Start with just 10 minutes a day. Take a break from action before you act. Before you attempt to solve a problem, go within. Dive deep within the ocean, where it's completely still. Then go out and act.

At first when you meditate, when you take the time out, the self (subject) experiences the process of seeing the object (other). The seer sees the scenery. Then, gradually, as you go within, the self becomes a thinker (state of action). The process becomes the thinker thinks the thought. As the self and other become closer...eventually a state of being is reached which is a union of self and other. Yoga=union. Satchitananda. In this state there exists a field of timelessness and there is no change. What we do we do for the pursuit of happiness.

The philosophy of bringing together green sustainability and the inner consciousness is this: The practical approaches to sustainability in the world for our environment are necessary, but these sustainable changes begin with sustainable thoughts (i.e. a sattvic mind). This link is something I had been pondering for years, but hadn't been able to identify. Thank you Brian for enlightening me!

A fresh start

The Oldest Trees on the Planet. Love ancient wisdom.

What do modern philosophers, people who think for a living, believe? via IntelligentLife.com

Sherwood Design Engineers: I really like some of the projects they've worked on, especially Catalina Island and the Santa Lucia Preserve.

Wikipedia of the day: Information Architecture

The Copenhagen Diagnosis

The Copenhagen Diagnosis - updating the world on the latest climate science. An update to the IPCC's most recent work, stating that climate change is actually much worse than previously reported.

Climate Science from Climate Scientists

Real Climate I came across this link in a "Letter to the Editor" in the Post this morning from a scientist whose emails were misconstrued in the recent climate change severity talks. Click the link for information from climate scientists.

Oneness is achieved by recognizing yourself

Image: Ganesha at Chidambaram, Sri Gurudev's Mahasamadhi shrine at Yogaville, which is open for prayer and meditation.

Interesting articles I've read recently:

Jung at Heart The Red Book is a volume Jung composed during a state of "active imagination" --that is, of reverie or waking dream. As he said, he wanted to see what would happen when he "switched off consciousness." The result recalls an allegorical-mythological amalgam of Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Blake's illuminated poems, Renaissance Neoplatonic dialogue, Eastern scriptre, Dante's "Inferno,", Yeats's "A Vision", and even the biblical book of Revelation. According to the editor, Sonu Shamdasani, "The overall theme of the book is how Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. This is ultimately achieved through enabling the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and developing a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmogony."
When Jung emerged from this period of midlife crisis, he brought with him the first inklings of his most important contribution to psychology -- positing the existence of a collective unconsciousness common to all human beings. This primordial ocean within us affects our lives through various universal "archetypes." In Jung's view a successful life was all about balance, wholeness. If our lives erred too much in one direction, our unconscious would compensate for the inequality.
The now famous mythic pattern Jung introduced was later elaborated by such Jung-inspired scholars as Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, and Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces). (paraphrased from the article linked above)

Protests at Sidwell Friends

Potomac Conservancy blames chemical runoff for intersex fish in the Potomac

When I was drinking coffee with my good friend Seungwon a few months ago he told me that this year was the 10th anniversary of when he started studying with his Zen master. I asked him what he had learned after 10 years, and, after a thoughtful silence he responded, "I have learned to have more confidence in my own decisions and trust my own self." I thought this was a great answer. With divine listening, you develop intuition and your connection to the source is strengthened. One has more self confidence in one's decisions. That you are making the decision the divine intended for you, becoming a transmitter of the divine light with confidence.

our basic heart nature yearns to relax into love

Will's awesome chairs made from unexpected objects! So cool :) What a genius!

Google earth launches climate layer

2009 Solar Decathlon on the National Mall! The model homes will be assembled right on the Mall and will be open to the public on Oct. 9-13 and Oct. 15-18.

A fun site :)

The practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward kindness. Seeing, again and again, the infinite variety of traps we create for seducing the mind into struggle, seeing the endless rounds of meaningless suffering over lusts and aversions (which, although seemingly urgent, are essentially empty), we feel compassion for ourselves. And then, quite naturally, we feel compassion for everyone else. We know as we have never known before that we are stuck, all of us, with bodies and minds and instincts and impulses, all in a tug-of-war with our basic heart nature that yearns to relax into love. Then we surrender. We love. We laugh. We appreciate.

– Sylvia Boorstein, from “On the Cushion,” Tricycle, Summer 2002

Don't worry

SKoss Digital Paintings - amazing art work, highly recommended to check out this link

I love all of these foods! I love superfoods

The White House Farmer's Market <3

The international economic recession has led to the steepest drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 40 years, according to a new study by the International Energy Agency.

Cowpooling, check out localharvest.org to find more info for your area

Mastery Conference in LA: Science, Consciousness and Healing

Earth Cinema Circle

Spiritual Cinema Circle

Wholphin DVD Magazine

Now is the time to speak out, take action, and bring about real change. Climate change is an immediate, severe, and serious crisis.

via Democracy Now:
World leaders gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday for a one-day global summit on climate change. The conference drew nearly 100 heads of state and came 70 days before the major climate summit in Copenhagen in December to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the talks saying the failure to reach a new treaty this year on fighting global warming would be “morally inexcusable.”

President Barack Obama, in his first speech at the United Nations, said the United States was “determined” to act on global warming but offered no specific proposals to jumpstart talks on a UN climate pact: "It is true that for too many years mankind has been slow to respond or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well, we recognize that...I am proud to say that the U.S. has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last 8 months than at any other time in our history."

All eyes were also on China’s president, Hu Jintao. China and the United States account for more than 40 percent of the worlds carbon emissions. In his address, Hu Jintao spoke of reducing emissions by a “notable” margin but did not give a specific target.

Hu Jintao and Obama are scheduled to meet for one-on-one talks after the summit. Both leaders will then head to Pittsburgh for the G20 summit where climate change is a top agenda item.

Scientists and activists are warning that the international community is at a crossroads and must take decisive steps to tackle global warming. Earlier this week, Nobel peace laureate Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that current emissions trajectories were speeding the world toward the panel’s worst-case possibilities, including heatwaves, droughts, melting glaciers, loss of the Greenland ice sheet and other dangers.

Continuing the discussion on Democracy Now: For more we are joined by three guests, Andrew Revkin is an award-winning science reporter with the New York Times and writes the “Dot Earth” blog for the Times website. He was at the UN covering the climate summit yesterday and he joins us in our firehouse studio. Joining us from Washington DC is Ted Glick, policy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. And joining us from Pittsburgh is Anna Pinto, she is an indigenous rights activist from India who is there as part of the New Voices on Climate Change program. She represents the Meitei from northeastern India and is the co-founder of CORE.

Here are some of the highlights from the conversation:

AR: India could triple their emissions in the next 30 years, so they are offering a more specific position than the vague positions taken by the US and China. India almost matters more than China in the future because China's population will stabalize.

China and the US are basically equal on gross carbon emissions, with China having 3 times the population of us. Basically we've had a fossil fuel party the past century, and now nations that have done this are rich. Some are saying the established powers owe a climate debt to the developing nations if the developing nations are expected to cut emissions as well. Obama must get 2/3 senate approval before signing any treaty, therefore he must be realistic and sober about what he can and can't do. Environmental groups are unhappy about the lack of specifics caused by this real world stance taken by Obama. The Maldives are one of the countries very threatened by climate changed already.

AP: Tells the story of the sub Himalayan region in India where climate change has already directly affected the population, by causing melting of the Himalayan glaciers which causes flooding. Also erratic monsoon season rains due to climate change cause drought as well as flash flooding. When your land has dried out years in succession due to droughts, or your land is flooded, you don't have anything in terms of options but to move away. These severe weather effects are driving massive migrations and these people end up in slums and vunerable to human trafficking, among other dangers. Very often development is posited against climate change action and that is a fallacy.

TG: One of the underreported presentations at the UN was made by the president of the Maldives, "We come to these conferences , we rail against the injustices, we go back home and cool off, and the world continues as it is." Given the seriousness and the severity of this crisis, and the fact that it is here, its not in the future, the response is just not sufficient. This statement includes people who see themselves as progressive activists, as people who care about justice, as people who believe that we need to organize and mobilize to bring about change.

Fortunately there are opportunities this fall for those of us who get it, on the severity, the seriousness, and the immediacy, to take action. Most immediately, on October 24th, an international day of action is being organized by 350.org, and 115 countries are participating in this day. A very important way to keep building momentum leading up to Copenhagen. Non-violence/civil disobedience happening on November 30th around the world organized by Mobilization for Climate Justice. During Copenhagen, on December 12th, a global day of action is being organized by the Global Climate Campaign. Major opportunities at the grassroots level can, from below, bring the kind of pressure that absolutely needs to be brought. There has been movement on this issue but its absolutely time to step it up and intensify it.

The Obama administration certainly gets the issue in a way that the Bush administration did not. The problem is that Coal and Oil interests still have a major stranglehold on Capitol Hill. We need to break this stranglehold to get the kind of legislation we need to get on a clean energy path, and that wont happen without significant mobilization on a global scale.

The National Parks :)

The National Parks: Our American Landscape, a breathtaking new coffee table book. Click here for an interview with the photographer, Ian Shive, about his work over the past 4 years. The photos are absolutely breathtaking! Click here for the direct link to his website.

Great Inns only open to those with good hiking shoes :) also via Mother Nature Network

NASA Photos: Cities at night

Learn to tap the source, dive deep within!

I'm so excited that fall, my favorite season, is almost officially here. I am looking forward to the warm days, cool night breezes, harvest moons, and changing colors of the leaves. And the overall sense of a time of change...

A link to a great article on the Six Elements meditation, from Tricycle magazine.

Even more reason to help fight global warming and love our Mother Earth, a study shows that the outlook is poor for the Great Barrier Reef. :(

Olive Leaf, traditional to ancient Egypt and hailed by Hippocrates.
Seasonal foods: winter squash, apples, pears
A recipe I want to try: Vegan Spinach Artichoke Dip

Water Filter: Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Engineer Michael Pritchard did something about it -- inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can make the most revolting water drinkable in seconds. An amazing demo from TEDGlobal 2009.

The Virginia Wine Festival is this weekend in Centerville! Also, the Fall Festival Guide from the Washingtonian.

Quote of the day:

In meditation we seem to be sitting by ourselves, but we do not sit just for ourselves. By focusing our attention on the breath, the body, thoughts, feelings, and sensations, or any other facet of our experience in meditation, we become more mindful—not mindless—through the transformative power of moment-to-moment alertness and presence of mind. Instead of absentmindedly stumbling through life like sleepwalkers, we can use contemplative practice to achieve extraordinary insight into ourselves and the world in which we live; to inhabit and appreciate more fully the here and now; to free our minds and open our hearts, and to relax into our natural state. The cultivation of mindfulness helps us wake up to things as they are rather than as we would like them to be. And as we wake up to truth, to reality, we become a force for universal awakening, working with what actually is, not delusive fictions.

–Lama Surya Das

The September clouds are the best

After living here for 2 years now, as an avid cloudspotter I can say that the September clouds are the best in the DC area. :)

Tomorrow night, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries: the Asia after Dark event!

Understanding the consumer side of sustainability

RIP DJ AM
click here for some 2002 mixes

At the Sacred Circle Bookstore in Old Town Alexandria:

Friday, September 18 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Meet 2012 Expert Thia Belden

Thia Belden, M.S. spiritual life coach, teacher and intuitive, has spent 20 years studying spirituality and alternative healing with indigenous, vibrational medicine and new age masters including Drunvalo Melchizedeck. Synthesizing these combined studies, she has developed her own 2012 teaching and coaching practice in vibrational alchemy of ascension into the 5TH dimension. She will be presenting 2 workshops on Sept.20 and 27. FREE

A breathing exercise:
First, find a comfortable seated position, either on the floor or in a chair. Close your eyes and start to tune in to your breath. Notice the breath pace and pattern, temperament, and flow. As you begin to relate to your breath, notice where it gets stuck, then breathe into those areas to encourage a consistent flow of prana.

Once you've established a comfortable breath pace, inhale deeply through your nose to a count of 4. Retain the breath for 4 counts, and then exhale for 8 counts. Hold the breath out for 4 counts. Repeat for 10 cycles.

This breath pattern is called visamavrtti pranayama as the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation. You can also try samavrtti pranayama, where you hold the inhalation, exhalation, and retention for equal amounts of time.

Give it a go, and see what works for you. Every body is as different as every day, so tune in to what you need and cultivate your sadhana (personal practice) with ease.

Don't worry

I hope this blog post gives you a moment of clarity and peace, along with some insightful knowledge. Breathe easy!

http://www.350.org/ : An international day of climate action, a global movement to solve the climate crisis, on my birthday this year! :)

CarbonFreeDC Extreme Green Neighborhood Makeover: Home Improvement Volunteer Form Click the link if you're interested in helping volunteer in either Shaw or Deanwood for a weekend in September working with deserving families by installing energy efficient and planet-friendly products! You can indicate your availability to volunteer to install equipment at the homes.

Deep Green Autunm Retreat: The Journey Inward: Accessing Inner Wisdom through Yoga and Plant Medicines. I am planning to attend this retreat October 16-18, which looks to be in an absolutely lovely setting and promises to be transformative. Click on the link to visit the Deep Green Wellness page for a link to their retreats.

Idealist.org grad fair in DC, September 21st, at the Washington Convention Center 801 Mount Vernon Place NW DC

Currently listening to: Issamu's new mix. Legit. Also check out the link to his blog on my favorite links, Third Eye Buisness.

The summer night sky is filled with a multitude of the Milky Way's stars, hundreds of billions of stars making up its flowing river of soft light.

Seasonal recipe: Garden fresh pasta salad, I'd probably add some summer squash too, or maybe tofu.

Listen with your heart. Heart-centered listening, including how the heart communicates with the body and brain, can be used to create greater peace and love not just in your life, but in the world. You can help to gather the information to listen to in your heart by doing an anahata (heart chakra) kundalini meditation. Sitting comfortably on the floor in your meditation posture, place your left hand in front of your heart chakra face down and hold your right arm up, extended in the air at a 60 degree angle from the floor. The right had is collecting the information from the universe, while the left collects information from you lower chakras, and brings it all to the heart.

Thoughts on meditation via the Tricycle weekly newsletter:

Everything changes and all will wither away. There is no permanent and abiding "self." And to top it all off, life is suffering.

Wow, Buddhism can be a real buzz-kill. Sometimes, anyway. But there are many doors to joy. According to Vipassana teacher James Baraz, it's just a question of opening them:

Methods for opening the mind to joy and happiness are found throughout the Buddha’s teachings. One sure way is through skillful practice of meditation. Through seeing clearly, we can free the mind of grasping, aversion, and ignorance, allowing our natural joy to manifest. In fact, research has amply demonstrated that meditation increases activity in areas of the brain associated with positive emotions.

Quotes of the day: "There is great power in patience because it cuts through arrogance and ingratitude. It is the path that lets us move from resistance to acceptance and spontaneous presence. Holding on to our judgments about others and ourselves is a major cause of impatience. Repeating softly to ourselves, “May I be happy just as I am” and “May I be peaceful with whatever is happening” helps us accept our vulnerabilities, imperfections, and losses: everything from chronic physical and emotional pain, to the death of loved ones, the end of a job or relationship—even nightmare traffic jams."

"Life is really generous to those who pursue their destiny." Paulo Coelho
my thoughts: I believe this is true, as long as you have realized your destiny through divine listening.

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. Once you have determined the spiritual principles you wish to exemplify, abide by these rules as if they were laws, as if it were indeed sinful to compromise them. Don't mind if others don't share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.

Epictetus (c. 50-120)


We don’t open our heart and mind because we haven’t experienced the benefit of doing that. Once we have experienced the truth, there isn’t even an issue. There is no worry. The whole question of whether we are ready to open our heart and mind to the truth isn’t even a concern.

40 farmers under 40 via MNN - Mother Nature Network

Wyndmere Naturals, essential oils. "Aromatherapy is a holistic therapy that uses pure essential oils to positively influence the mind and body and to enhance emotional and physical well-being. Essential oils are highly concentrated extracts from the aromatic part of the plant. They are wholly natural molecular substances, which when inhaled are transmitted to the part of the brain that controls memory and emotional response. When used topically, they are highly effective due to their ability to penetrate the skin and stimulate the body’s ability to heal."

Generally, the Maharishi Effect may be defined as the influence of coherence and positivity in the social and natural environment generated by the practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi programs.

Lumenhaus

LUMENHAUS is Virginia Tech’s 2009 entry to the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition. www.lumenhaus.com for more info!

Green Power for a Sustainable Future

via the Carbon Solutions Group, a short article on Renewable Energy Credits

A few low impact development (LID) techniques applied in New England

(Boston, Mass. – June 9, 2009) – A series of low-impact development or green infrastructure projects are demonstrating techniques that show promise of improving water quality and stream flow in the Ipswich River Watershed.

Today, local communities and state and federal officials toured four of the innovative low-impact development techniques. Several examples of low impact development and green infrastructure projects funded by EPA in the Ipswich River Watershed include:

- A vegetated or “green” roof, atop a refurbished building that provides affordable apartments for seniors, in Ipswich at Whipple Riverview Place. The green roof is absorbing and retaining rainwater, helping to reduce erosion and pollutants from entering the river.

- At Partridgeberry Place in Ipswich, a 20-lot subdivision is designed as a low-impact development by preserving open space, with the 20 homes clustered on ten acres and leaving 38 acres of undisturbed land. The development also uses narrower roads, “rain gardens” and specially designed grass swales. These features help absorb more of the rainfall that falls on the ground, filtering out pollutants from the paved surfaces and replenishing underground aquifers that flow to the Ipswich River.

- In a neighborhood next to Silver Lake in Wilmington, rain gardens and special permeable paving stones with underlying infiltration beds were installed along the road edge, in the public right-of-way. These colorful pocket gardens and permeable areas hold stormwater and let it soak into the ground, recharging the water tables, rather than running directly into the lake.

- At the Silver Lake town beach parking lot, a variety of low-impact development features help prevent polluted stormwater from reaching the lake. These include four types of permeable paving that allow stormwater to filter through the pavement instead of flowing across it; “bioretention” cells – planted areas that filter stormwater through soils and plantings – and two vegetated swales that replace piped outfalls that previously dumped untreated stormwater directly into the lake.

New report details effects of climate change on U.S. health, economy

		Click here for the Executive Summary Click here for the Full Report [13 MB] Here's what others are saying: Climate change: From bad to worse U.S. study projects how 'unequivocal warming' will change Americans' lives From sewage to salmon, climate change hitting here and now

“Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal,” the executive summary from the U.S. Global Change Research Program report begins. The 196-page study, released Tuesday by the White House, offers one of the most comprehensive analyses of the effects of climate change and its effects on the health and economy of the United States.

“I really believe this report is a game-changer,” Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. One of the scientists from 13 federal agencies that collaborated on the report offered this chilling prospect: “The world is in for some very serious problems.”

The report synthesizes information from a wide variety of scientific assessments and recently published research to summarize what is known about the observed and projected consequences of climate change on the United States. It combines analysis of impacts on various sectors such as energy, water and transportation at the national level with an assessment of key impacts on specific regions of the country.

Key findings from the report include:

• Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
• Climate changes are under way in the United States and are projected to grow.
• Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
• Climate change will stress water resources.
• Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
• Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
• Risks to human health will increase.
• Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
• Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
• Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one step, certainly, but the report emphasizes that it’s not the only solution. We must learn to adapt.

“It's not a document for scientists. It's not even a document for policymakers,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a geosciences professor at Texas Tech University and one of the report’s co-authors told The Daily Climate. “It's a document for every individual citizen who wants to know why they should care about climate change.”

Read it and decide for yourself.

via Brown and Caldwell's Water News

This link was forwarded to me again today. Its been over a year since I first watched it, so I may refresh my memory: the Story of Stuff

Home

HOME, produced by Luc Besson and narrated by Glenn Close, aims to change the way people see the planet and their impact on it. It offers constructive insights into the major environmental and social challenges facing our world. It was shot in 54 countries and 120 locations. It's also a unique all-aerial film that highlights the Earth's wonders as well as its wounds.

Yann believes that films, a universal media, can change the world. He helped Al Gore promote his 'An Inconvenient Truth' in France and organized a screening of the documentary for members of the French National Assembly and Senate. Al Gore's documentary did have an impact in the way French people consider climate change. Yann and his team were happy to work with Lester Brown, their special adviser, and benefited from Al Gore's friendly participation.

The producers of 'Home' hope that it will shift people's perceptions and inspire action. The 120-minute film will be released in every format, in movie theaters, on television, DVDs and the Internet, on the same day--June 5th--in over 100 countries to reach the widest audience possible. The aim of this simultaneous worldwide broadcasting is to enable as many people as possible to watch the movie together.

For the first time ever, with the help of Google, the long-feature film 'Home' can be seen on YouTube at no cost in high definition (streaming) in many languages during ten days starting June 5th: http://www.youtube.com/homeproject?hl=en

In the United States, it will also be broadcasted on the National Geographic Channel at 9 PM and shown in Central Park in New York, a big event where people can come and watch it for free on a big screen (http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article2553).

Financed by a special grant (10 million euros) from the PPR Group, the film has no copyright and so will not make any profits. If there are any, they will go to GoodPlanet, the NGO founded by Yann in 2005 whose purpose is to educate and inform on environmental issues. http://www.goodplanet.info/goodplanet/index.php/eng/

To learn more about the project 'Home', you can check out the film's website in English:

http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html

A little late, but you can probably catch a rerun or watch on the pbs website:

FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

- This Week: "Poisoned Waters" (120 minutes),
April 21st at 9pm on PBS (Check local listings)

For years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith has reported from the corridors of power in Washington, on Wall Street, and overseas. But these days, he's worried about something that he's found much closer to home -- something mysterious that's appeared in waters that he knows well: frogs with six legs, male amphibians with ovaries, "dead zones" where nothing can live or grow.

What's causing the trouble? Smith suspects the answers might lie close to home as well.

This Tuesday night, in a special two-hour FRONTLINE broadcast --"Poisoned Waters"-- Smith takes a hard look at a new wave of pollution that's imperiling the nation's waterways, focusing on two of our most iconic: the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound. He also examines three decades of environmental regulation that are failing to meet this new threat, and have yet to clean up the ongoing mess of PCBs, the staggering waste from factory farms, and the fall-out from unchecked
suburban sprawl.

"The environment has slipped off our radar screen because it's not a hot crisis like the financial meltdown, war, or terrorism," Smith says. "But pollution is a ticking time bomb. It's a chronic cancer that is slowly eating away the natural resources that are vital to our very lives."

Among the most worrisome of the new contaminants are "endocrine disruptors," chemical compounds found in common household products that mimic hormones in the human body and cause freakish mutations in frogs and amphibians.

"There are five million people being exposed to endocrine disruptors just in the Mid-Atlantic region," a doctor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health tells Smith. "And yet we don't know precisely how many of them are going to develop premature breast cancer, going to have
problems with reproduction, going to have all kinds of congenital anomalies of the male genitalia that are happening at a broad low level so that they don't raise the alarm in the general public."

Can new models of "smart growth" and regulation reverse decades of damage? Are the most real and lasting changes likely to come from the top down, given an already overstretched Obama administration? Or will the greatest reasons for hope come from the bottom up, through the
action of a growing number of grassroots groups trying to effect environmental change?

Join us for the broadcast this Tuesday night. Online, you can watch "Poisoned Waters" again, find out how safe your drinking water is, and learn how you can get involved.