Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Environmentalists urge DeSantis to declare Red Tide emergency
ST. PETERSBURG — More than two dozen environmental organizations joined calls for Gov. Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency for the Tampa Bay area as Red Tide continues to leave dead fish along the coast and disrupt business across the region.
An executive order would help organize and finance Red Tide clean-up efforts, said a letter signed by 29 organizations and organized by the Center for Biological Diversity. The Ocean Conservancy sent a letter saying a statewide effort, rather than local governments scrambling to deal with the disaster, would help mitigate the catastrophe.
Florida is home to the majority of phosphate-mining operations in the United States — and the United States is the world's thirdleading producer of phosphate rock. Making matters worse, Florida also has the majority of the industry’s radioactive waste, phosphogypsum — one billion tons.
More than 1 billion tons of the radioactive waste are stored in 25 stacks scattered throughout Florida, perched precariously atop the Floridan aquifer — which supplies drinking water for 10 million people. There are 70 such stacks across the nation. These stacks are prone to sinkholes, breaches, and spills, and the industry struggles with how to deal with these risky radioactive mountains and the dire problems they cause.
More than half of all domestically sourced phosphate is mined in Florida, by an industry with a record of contaminating the environment through radioactive waste leakage and water pollution that threatens Florida's groundwater resources. Now there are plans to tear up more than 50,000 additional acres of central Florida with harmful strip-mining practices — and no plan to address the radioactive phosphogypsum stacks that have already been created.
Monday, July 19, 2021
Red Tide protesters gather at St. Pete Pier
Protesters had several demands, listed by Suncoast Surf Rider chair Thomas Paterek: declare a state of emergency for Tampa Bay; create a plan for closing Piney Point’s facilities; implement policies recommended by expert groups; stop phosphate mining in Florida; fix Florida’s infrastructure; move to clean energy; and make polluting companies pay for clean up.
The state allowed the release by property owner HRK Holdings because regulators feared a large, leaking reservoir was about to collapse and send a devastating flood into surrounding neighborhoods and businesses. That wastewater was dumped into the bay at Port Manatee and carried a lot of nitrogen with it.
Protesters drew attention to the Piney Point release as they marched Saturday. Neighbors Kathleen Bohrnsen and Aldo Della Sera, both 57, came from the Coquina Key waterfront neighborhood in St. Petersburg to show their support. Bohrnsen held a sign that said “Declare a State of EMERGENCY!!” while Della Sera held a sign that read “Prioritize the Health of Tampa Bay.”
Friday, June 18, 2021
Consistency Builds Trust
According to a 2019 study published by Harvard Business Review, consistency is one of the 3 elements of trust. If you are starting a PACEs initiative and you are wanting people to rally behind you, attend your events, share ideas with you, and meet and set goals together, you will need to demonstrate through your actions that people can trust you. The HBR article said that people trust someone as a leader who "walk the talk, honor commitments and keep promises, and follow through on commitments."
Practically, the way I see this working in a PACEs initiative, or any community coalition you may be starting, is to have:
- Steering or planning committee meetings at regular intervals
- Public-facing events at regular intervals
The steering/planning committee could meet every month, say, the second Tuesday of the month, and plan the course of action. These meetings need to stay regular so people build trust that they're going to happen as planned. The more they happen as planning, the more trust increases, and the more important things your coalition will be able to tackle together.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Mining the Chat Groups for Truths
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Natural Health: A Comprehensive Guide to Living Healthy
- Agocs S. "Chiropractic’s Fight for Survival." Virtual Mentor. 2011;13(6),384-388.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
10 Qualities of A Game-Changer
- You understand that all life is connected. You see the human family, in all its diversity, as an integral component in the whole of the web of creation, and are committed to building a society that reflects and reveres the sacred and interconnected nature of all life.
- You stand for a sustainable, just and fulfilling future. You stand for and act from an informed vision that a sustainable, just and fulfilling future for all beings is urgent, possible and essential.
- You recognize that the universe is friendly. You recognize that the universe is friendly and that the evolutionary force that put the stars in motion is moving through us and is a dynamic, self-organizing process whose grace and guidance we can trust.
- You realize that we are called to be evolutionary activists. You realize that the human role and responsibility now is an evolutionary activist, intentionally engaging with the momentum of evolution to shape the future as it is being brought into being.
- You inquire deeply. You understand that the collective transformation of our society requires a completely new definition of what is possible in being human, and requires that we inquire deeply into questions such as: “Who am I, really?” and, “What is my relationship the the whole?”
- You recognize systems of power and privilege. You recognize that the social injustice and environmental exploitation in our world are not the “natural order of things,” but rather, are the outcome of intentionally-designed systems of power and privilege. These systems and structures resist change, and lead to further injustice, violence and suffering.
- You put forth a new story. You are able to discern the cultural stories that perpetuate inequity and concentrate power and privelege, and you live from and share new stories that create the paradigm for a just and sustainable future.
- You are no longer “food” for the system. Your actions and interactions move in the direction of undoing – rather than being complicit with – systems and structures that perpetuate an unjust, unsustainable, unfulfilled world.
- You take action that strikes at the root. You seek to engage in effective personal and collective actions that strike at the root causes of the global crises, and you involve others in taking those actions.
- You are part of a global movement. You experience being an integral member of a vast and growing evolutionary movement toward reconciliation and wholeness.
Friday, January 26, 2018
A new model for corporate governance
Larry Fink's letter to CEOs | BlackRock