Contributed by Christine Binney

One of the most important lessons that parents can teach their children is how to take care of themselves. Children need to learn to be self-sufficient, responsible and confident so that you can let them independently explore their worlds while staying safe. While it is tempting to want to do everything for your children, but you are doing them a disservice if you don’t prepare them to be self-reliant. Here are some great ways that you can help kids learn to take care of themselves.

Let kids help, even if they’re not yet helpful
Let’s face it; sometimes the quickest and easiest way to get something done right is to do it ourselves.  However, it’s important to find the extra time to involve kids in age-appropriate household tasks.  Forget the endless to-do list in your head for a moment, and instead think of the long-term benefits of spending the time to help kids learn how to help out around the house.

The first few times you let kids spread the peanut butter and jelly instead of doing it yourself, it may take them 10 minutes to make a simple sandwich. However, imagine the time you’ll save when they eventually learn to prepare their own bagged lunches. It might be messy the first few times that a child pours his own glass of milk, but soon enough you’ll enjoy not having to pop up every time he wants a drink. Encourage children to follow the motto, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Encourage kids to speak up
If you want to help kids learn to take care of themselves, then they need to be comfortable expressing their wants and needs to others. Communicating effectively is a crucially important life skill that is best learned early. Teach kids the importance of politeness, eye contact, and using their words to convey what they want. To help kids learn to communicate effectively, provide them with plenty of opportunities to interact with others. Don’t allow them to rely on you to do all the talking for them.

At restaurants, help children choose what they are going to eat, and then prepare them for ordering it for themselves. When the waiter arrives, ignore the impulse to say, “She’ll have the chicken fingers,” and instead encourage her to tell the waiter what she’d like directly. At medical appointments, let children communicate directly with nurses and doctors. Don’t answer questions for them without giving them a chance to answer themselves first.

By encouraging communication at a young age, you are teaching kids to be assertive. When children are comfortable speaking up and defending themselves when necessary, they will gain the self-confidence that will allow them to buck peer pressure as they grow up.

Make every moment a teaching moment

There are dozens of moments in everyday life that can be used to help kids learn to take care of themselves. Try to engage in teachable moments whenever possible. When teaching anything new to a child, it’s important to first demonstrate the skill yourself. Then offer encouragement for the child to try it themselves and provide plenty of positive reinforcement when they do. Most importantly, continue to create more opportunities for practice.

Kids are remarkably quick to learn new things, and once you start challenging them to be more self-reliant you’ll be amazed at what they can accomplish on their own. In some households, children as young as eight years old are even acting as caregivers for disabled, injured, ill or aging family members. Clearly, children are capable of much more than we might imagine, so don’t be afraid to provide them with plenty of opportunities to take care of themselves. You’ll not only boost their confidence in themselves, but you’ll be more confident sending them out into the world.

The post How to Help Kids Learn to Take Care of Themselves appeared first on Lotsa Helping Hands Create Community.

The fires first reported in the Chernobyl region on April 26th (the anniversary of the 1986 accident) threaten a major release of radioactivity, warns Greenpeace.

If the fires spread to the heavily contaminated forests and land areas around the plant, the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere is certain. The amount of radioactivity potentially released could be the equivalent of a major nuclear accident.

Since the 1986 accident a massive amount of dangerous radioactive substances has been deposited on the forests including cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. These forests, plants and soil are a major source of radioactivity, some of which was released from the fires of 2010.

Based on specialist satellite data, analysts at Greenpeace estimate that the fire has spread over an area covering 13,300 hectares, of which 4,100 are actually on fire. The fires have not yet reached the highest contaminated zones around the Chernobyl plant but are currently within 15-20 km of the site.

In a major analysis of the risks from fires around Chernobyl, scientists earlier this year concluded that worst case would be the release of radioactivity which could be the equivalent of a Level 6 nuclear accident on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). The 1986 accident at Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi accident were level 7 INES events.

Radioactivity enters the atmosphere via the smoke plumes and is dispersed depending on wind direction, height and other weather factors. During previous forest fires, radioactivity has been dispersed as far as Turkey.

The international community is building a shelter around the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl, but it is impossible to build a sarcophagus over the vast contaminated forests in the region. Even after 29 years, the risks from Chernobyl-area radiation have not been controlled and could result in further dispersion of radioactivity over Europe.

As in Ukraine, vast amounts of radioactivity have been deposited in the forests in Japan around the Fukushima Daiichi NPP. Despite massive efforts by the Japanese authorities to decontaminate villages and farm land, the forest cannot be decontaminated and will remain a massive stock of radioactivity for a very long time. This presents a risk not only in the event of a forest fire, but also it will continue to leak radioactivity to populated areas, especially after winter melting or during heavy rains which can carry the radioactivity to neighbouring lands, rivers and lakes.

Note:
1 - Wildfires in Chernobyl-contaminated forests and risks to the population and the environment: A new nuclear disaster about to happen? Nikolaos Evangeliou, Yves Balkanski, Anne Cozic, Wei Min Hao, Anders Pape Møller, Environment International, 2014.

Since Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu and the Pacific in March, 75,000 people have been left in dire need of emergency shelter and other goods to restore their lives and homes.

There are ongoing tireless efforts from many different organisations, through the National Disaster Management Office, which have been working hard to provide relief to Vanuatu and it's people.

One of the major logistical hurdles the aid agencies are facing is the collection and distribution of goods throughout the islands.

To try to ease this difficulty, this week, the Rainbow Warrior will be heading from Sydney to Vanuatu carrying goods and gifts supplied and collected by numerous organisations.

We will be loading up the ship, ready for departure on Sunday the 3rd of May.

Aid agencies on the ground have reported to us a desperate need for solar torches in the country, due to the sporadic power and electricity outages Vanuatu is experiencing.

These will help provide light and safety to remote areas that have been destroyed by Cyclone Pam.

Here's where you can help.

In alliance with the Aussie Storm Shop, Greenpeace and Action Aid will collect solar lights purchased from their online store by our loving supporters and take them to Vanuatu with us.

From now until Thursday midnight (Australian Eastern Standard Time), you can click below and purchase a solar torch for those who need one most:

http://ift.tt/1AjZoVM

Use the coupon code 'RainbowWarrior' in order to receive a discount and so our friends at Aussie Storm Shop know to bundle your torch up with the rest headed to Vanuatu. To keep it simple, you can just pop in your own address when it asks you to fill in your details. Aussie Storm will know from the RainbowWarrior code where it's going.

We will load them onto the Rainbow Warrior over the weekend and take them directly to those who need a little light right now.

We thank you in advance for your support.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Matisse Walkden-Brown is Head of Pacific Net for Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Shell knows it's losing the fight against Arctic drilling, and here's why.

A few weeks ago, we got an email from an outraged filmmaker saying that he'd been invited to enter a viral video competition sponsored by Shell. The competition was offering $50,000 for short films that "challenge preconceptions that fossil fuels, especially natural gas, have no part in our future lives."

In other words, Shell is using cash to lure creative talent into making videos that promote fossil fuels and convince young people that renewable energy won't work. Meanwhile, it just emerged that Shell lobbied to undermine EU renewables targets.

Understandably, a lot of people were pissed off about this spin competition:

So @Shell are asking film makers to work for free for them, selling fossil fuels as "necessary" to renewable energy. WTF? how low can we go.

— studio donshades (@donshades) April 27, 2015

Why are Shell offering £50k to create spin that "The future is bright, the future is... gas"? http://t.co/qxAiCWKRfq http://pic.twitter.com/LzwmSY6v6u

— Guy Shrubsole (@guyshrubsole) March 23, 2015

So we hatched a plan with our filmmaker friend to enter Shell's competition ourselves, in order to see if we could smoke out more info from Shell about what was really behind this.

The filmmaker submitted a video storyboard about an "energy mix" dance party. And just to see what would happen, one of the energy sources mentioned was Arctic oil.

The response we got back from Shell, through a Zooppa competition representative, was crystal clear: "You should NOT mention on your storyboard Arctic Oil."

WOW.

So let's review: Shell wants cool artists to make internet videos that convince young people to buy fossil fuels, but says "DON'T MENTION ARCTIC OIL."

It's sort of like Marlboro asking artists to convince youth that smoking is sexy, but telling them "don't mention cancer."

And this is all the more significant because right now, Shell is trying to get permission and making plans to drill in the Arctic this summer off the US coast of Alaska.

A couple weeks ago, six brave activists camped on Shell's Arctic oil rig for five days as it crossed the Pacific Ocean. Supported by people all over the world, they helped shine a light on Shell's risky plans to drill for oil in the home of the polar bears, risking a deadly oil spill and frightening impacts on the global climate.

It's pretty clear that Arctic oil is the one thing Shell doesn't want people talking about. If they're trying to silence us on Arctic oil, it means they're worried. So we need to speak up about it louder than ever. Click the image below to share it with all your friends on Facebook to stick it to Shell.

But Shell's attempt to censor debate on Arctic oil isn't the only thing wrong here. The contest itself is meant to target a younger audience, because Shell knows that millennials are the culture creators of the digital age and have enormous power to influence our society. Basically, Shell's trying to persuade young people it has a place in their future. Its profits depend on it.

But unluckily for Shell, the young creatives it targets are the same ones who already see the potential of renewable energy and high tech solutions that could build a future free of fossil fuels. These young people are used to watching entire industries revolutionise in just a few years – for them, the idea that fossil fuels will be around forever is laughable.

Even worse for Shell, many of these creatives are the same artists speaking out against the disturbing trend of large corporations "crowdsourcing" content in ways that don't properly credit or pay the content creators. Shell's competition is tightly controlled, with no public voting or transparency over the choice of winners. Artists lose the rights to their work as soon as they submit it to Shell.

All around the world, people young and old are saying enough is enough. They're joining the movement to Save the Arctic by the millions, and leading the transition into an exciting new era of clean, renewable technology.

Shell has made Arctic oil off-limits in their competition; so let's make the Arctic off-limits to Shell. Click here to sign the petition to save the Arctic now.

Trillia Fidei-Bagwell is the international online campaigns co-ordinator for Greenpeace's Arctic campaign, and works with Greenpeace Argentina.

Contributed by Dawn Allcot

All children love crafts and activities. Autistic children may need extra encouragement to play but once they get started on these creative activities, they will love the sensory stimulation, different colors, and the ability to see how they are affecting the materials. Taking part in these activities with an autistic child will also strengthen the bond between you and the child while encouraging social interaction and interaction with the child’s environment.

A sensory table filled with sand, rice or water is the old standby when it comes to activities for autistic children. These activities for autistic children will stretch the boundaries of their creativity and provide a truly unique experience, an experience as unique as the children who take part.

1. Scented bubbles – As the weather warms up and we want to find more outdoor activities for autistic children, scented bubbles engage multiple senses – sight, smell and touch – while encouraging the development of oral motor skills. Most neurotypical children develop the capacity for joint attention, shared attention between an object and another individual, as early as eight months. Blowing bubbles can help with the development joint attention, a skill autistic children often struggle with. Using scented bubbles, the caregiver of an autistic child can make eye contact with the child, then turn attention toward the bubble, and then back to the child.

2. Play with liquid soap foam – Mix 2 Tbsp. of dish soap with ¼ cup of water plus food coloring or liquid watercolors. The more color you use, the brighter your soap will be! Mix with a hand mixer on high for 1 to 2 minutes until the mixture thickens and peaks begin to form (almost like making a meringue.) Children will love to create art from the colors, as well as play with the soap in their hands.
Keep in mind that just a small amount of dishwashing soap can make a lot of foam. Put foam in a large Rubbermaid bin, a small kiddie pool, on a water table outdoors, or even in the bathtub for tons of sensory fun!

3. Turn your sand table into an archaeological dig – Rather than just filling a sand table with sand, bury small toys of different shapes and textures. Give your child a small rake and shovel, and let your child dig out the toys.

4. Play with ice cream dough – If you spend a lot of time looking for activities for autistic children, you’ve no doubt seen many recipes for homemade play dough. But have you heard of ice cream dough? This dough has a different texture than conventional play dough recipes and looks just like ice cream. Whip up a batch using shampoo, conditioner or body wash (or a combination of all three) plus cornstarch. Add cocoa powder to make chocolate ice cream, if you want. Give your child an ice cream scoop, containers of different shapes and sizes, and several other utensils for engaging, sensory fun.

5. Use paint samples to tell a story. – Here is an activity for older autistic children. If you’ve ever chosen paint for your house, you know paint colors have amazingly creative names. First, go to a home improvement store and pick out a collection of paint chip samples. At home, let your child choose five favorite colors. Write a story using the paint color names. Your child can write the story on paper and glue the selected paint chips to the page. Or you can take photos of the chips and transfer them to your computer as JPGs. If your child is good with a computer, he can type in the story and lay it out with the samples. Your child might prefer to tell you the story out loud, which is a great way to bond. You can even build upon her story, round robin style, with your own choices of colors to encourage interaction.

If you’re helping care for an autistic child or siblings, try some of these activities for autistic children to really make a positive impression on the children and their parents.

The post 5 Creative Activities for Autistic Children appeared first on Lotsa Helping Hands Create Community.

But... what does OSPAR, the Convention for the Protection of the marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic have to do with movies?

During its 23 years of existence, OSPAR and its delegates have played a key role taking bold and progressive decisions aimed at protecting international waters of the North-East Atlantic from environmental harm from human activities. Here are the stories that OSPAR contributed to give a happy ending to. The same happy ending that 7 million Arctic Defenders worldwide are asking for in the Arctic film Save the first slice of the Arctic:

Decision on platform decommissioning: in 1998, as well as adopting highly progressive and ambitious strategies to address hazardous and radioactive substances, and agreeing the legal ban on disposal at sea of oil and gas platforms, OSPAR also granted permission for observers to participate at all technical levels, including civil society organizations such as Greenpeace.

Marine Protected Areas: The Charlie-Gibbs Marine Protected Area, and six additional MPAs, established by OSPAR in 2010 and 2012 to protect the unique natural features associated with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge were the first set of conservation areas ever to be established in international waters in the North Atlantic, and the world's first network of High Seas Marine Protected Areas.

The adoption of the Hazardous Substances Strategy in 1998, which, after 2003, made a vital contribution to the final direction of the REACH regulations now in place across Europe, especially with regards to substances of very high concern and substitution.

Since 2010, OSPAR has developed an increased focus on the trends and impacts with regard to climate change and ocean acidification, producing documents about the effects of climate change on the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.

Next week in London, OSPAR delegates will have the chance to become the real celebrities of the best film for the planet: a commitment for further protection of the Arctic Ocean, the world's least protected ocean, from the threats it's facing. There is of course no reason for them NOT to do this – with the international Convention on Biological Diversity (to which all OSPAR nations are signatories) listing the region as Ecologically and Biologically Significant after exhaustive review by all countries, for OSPAR to fail to protect their part of the Arctic would bring nothing but shame.

An OSPAR Award would mean protection and commitment with the Arctic. Indeed, it would be the best reward for the planet because the Arctic ecosystem is essential for the life on Earth as we know it.

It's time for OSPAR to make history. Again.

Please sign here to ask the OSPAR delegates to take the lead on Arctic protection.

Sara del Río is a Policy Advisor for Greenpeace Spain.

By Lauren Herman

We are excited to announce that Dr. Ernesto Sirolli will speak at the largest TEDxSacramento conference, “THIS Changes EVERYTHING,” on Friday, June 12, 2015. Don’t wait until the last minute – register now!

Dr. Ernesto Sirolli, researcher, author and founder of Sirolli Institute, has worked for decades in the fields of community and economic development. What makes his work TED worthy is his admission and unique approach to failure. Yes, the “f” word.

Dr. Ernesto Sirolli speaking during his previous TED talk in September 2012.

Dr. Sirolli’s lived experiences with the “f” word began while working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout Africa as a young adult. He witnessed the potential of local knowledge that was (and still is) rarely acknowledged by foreign aid workers and volunteers who continually implemented (and still do implement) failed projects.

Rather than walking away in frustration, Dr. Sirolli tackled the sobering truth of aid failure by creating an alternative approach, known as “Enterprise Facilitation,” that harnesses the passion and innovation of community leaders to make the change they want to see in their communities. Over 250 communities worldwide have adopted this “person-centered” approach through the Sirolli Institute that advocates the art of listening to create the foundation for localized sustainable economic development.

Dr. Sirolli inspires the ability to recognize and accept failure as a stepping-stone to reimagine and recreate current systems that are failing us. When was the last time you turned failure – the “f” word - into action?

Want to know more! Watch Ernesto Sirolli on the TED stage, and get ready to hear him and other great thinkers and doers at TEDxSacramento’s “THIS Changes EVERYTHING” on June 12, 2015 at the Sacramento Community Center Theater.

Sacramento is once again the official starting point for the 2015 AMGEN Tour of California. The first of many road closures and parking restrictions in downtown will start on Friday, May 8. Business owners, employees and visitors are encouraged to plan ahead for this year’s AMGEN Tour of California bike race on Sunday, May 10.

The official AMGEN Tour of California 10th anniversary celebration will take place on Friday, May 8 at the west steps of the State Capitol. As part of the celebration, there will be live music, kid’s activities, farm-to-fork concessions, plus much more.

Opening ceremonies will start at 10:35 am on Sunday, May 10 at the State Capitol. The race will officially start at 10:50 am when riders head west on L Street, turn left on 9th Street and then right on the eastbound lanes of Capitol Mall heading across the Tower Bridge and out of city limits. The race will conclude at approximately 3:30 pm when riders return to the State Capitol.

The event will entail multiple rolling road closures surrounding the State Capitol along with extensive parking restrictions.

Downtown circuit street closures

To facilitate the set-up of the downtown circuit for both the AMGEN Tour of California and the Lifestyle Festival, the following streets will be closed to traffic from 9:00 am on Friday, May 8 through midnight on Sunday, May 10: 10th Street from N to L streets.

Beginning on Saturday, May 9, at 7:00 am, L Street will be closed from 9th Street to 12th Street.

Beginning Sunday, May 10, from approximately 7:00 am to 11:00 pm, the following street will be closed for finish line setup: L Street from 9th Street to 15th Street.

The following streets will be closed for the circuit starting at 9:30 am on Sunday, May 10 and will reopen at approximately 4:00 pm:

• 9th Street from L to N
• N Street from 9th to 15th
• 15th Street from N to P
• P Street from 15th to 18th
• 18th Street from L to P
• L Street from 15th to 18th

For a map of the course, click here.

On-street parking will be limited

Before and during the event, on-street parking downtown will be limited as many parking spaces will be posted “no parking” until Sunday evening. Vehicles parked in restricted areas will be towed at the owner’s expense.

Beginning Friday at 6:00 am through Sunday at midnight, parking will be prohibited on L Street, from 10th to 12th; 10th from N to K; L from 10th to 9th; 11th & 12th from N to O; 13th from N to P; 15th from N to L.

Nearby garage parking will be available

Starting on Saturday morning, May 9, until 11:00 pm, Sunday, May 10, 10th Street which is one-way between J and L streets will become a two-way street to facilitate parking at the Capitol Garage. Parking Services highly recommends using the City Hall Garage at 10th and I streets, Memorial Garage at 14th and H streets, Old Sacramento Garage at 3rd and I streets, the Downtown Plaza West Garage at L and 3rd street, the Downtown Plaza East Garage with entrances on J and L streets and the Tower Bridge garage off Capitol.

For more information on the Amgen Tour of California, route and timing of rolling road closures visit: http://ift.tt/vOmhbF.

The post AMGEN Tour of California begins on May 10 appeared first on Downtown Sacramento Partnership.

Contributed by Nathan McVeigh

The most pressing burden all caregivers carry is to meet peoples’ needs, not just by persevering through its demands, but by doing so day in, and day out. Whether it’s caring for the elderly, caring for someone with special needs, or caring for someone who’s experienced major trauma or illness, the physical, emotional, and relational demands of caregiving take their toll over time. While there are several strategies to lighten your burden, some are quicker to apply than others.

Why Inspirational Quotes Can Make a Difference

There always comes a point where caregivers find their patience and determination waring thin. When that happens, it’s best to have a mixture of long term motivators and quickly accessible strategies to help you provide quality human care at every given moment.

Quick motivational strategies aren’t as difficult to come by as some people think. Some caregivers remind themselves why caring for the elderly is so helpful to those who love them. When you remember that what you do helps other people live comfortably the way they want to, there aren’t many feelings that compare to the joy you feel in that moment.

While that’s true, it also doesn’t hurt to have additional motivators in your “caregiver stability kit.” One of the easiest ways to do that is to have quick access to inspirational and motivational phrases and quotes. The best way to make sure these inspirations are close at hand is to put them in writing.

Something as simple as writing inspirational quotes on an index card or post-it note is going to solidify that quote in your mind better than if you don’t take the time to write it down by hand. Another way to put them in writing is to jot them down in some sort of “notes” app on your smartphone or tablet. That way, even if you don’t have them in writing, they’re still easily accessible.

10 Inspirational Quotes for Caregivers

Write down these quotes to get you through your next 10 days of caring for the elderly:

These quotes are meant for a quick “pick me up” during the particularly trying moments. They are not a clinical aid for caregiver depression, so be sure to keep tabs on where you stand emotionally.

While caring for the elderly is one of the most trying experiences you’ll ever have, it’s also one of the most rewarding ones. The only way to get to the rewards is to work through the trials, so always keep the “why” in mind and the motivations to get there close at hand.

The post 10 Inspirational Quotes to Get You Through 10 Days of Caring for the Elderly appeared first on Lotsa Helping Hands Create Community.

Tomorrow is a huge day for my country, the Cook Islands, where people are coming together to stop a type of fishing that catches way too many tuna.

Purse seine fishing uses massive nets which catch everything in their path. They're bad for our marine life and bad for the island communities who depend on fish for food and money. The call to ban this type of net from the Cook Islands is building, and tomorrow my people show their feelings at a rally in Rarotonga. Chants are being practiced, t-shirts have been printed (Tiki Tane was wearing one last weekend) and the word is spreading. We need to make the right choice for our ocean and for our future.

The waters of the Cook Islands have traditionally provided plenty of kai moana for our people, from reef species to pelagic fish like tuna. But those resources are becoming more and more scarce as big fishing companies target the region. Bigeye tuna, one of the Pacific's most valuable tuna species, is already overfished, and other stocks such as albacore are in worrying decline.

I've sailed with Greenpeace for over a decade, and in those years have crossed the Pacific many times, observing and taking action to protect our vital fisheries. I've been proud to be involved in defending our moana from industrial overfishing and pirate vessels. In 2009 we were able to catch a Japanese longliner red-handed stealing fish from the Cook Islands, where it had no permission to fish.

Illegal fishing is an outrage, but legal and licensed fleets, on their own, are big enough and hungry enough to harm the region's fisheries. This makes government decisions on fishing licenses absolutely critical to protect our oceans and natural resources.

I'm worried that gigantic "super super seiners" (also known as monster boats, some of the largest tuna ships in the world) are scooping out entire schools of tuna. They almost always set their nets on fish aggregating devices, floating rafts that lure in ocean life and increase their catches. The downside is that FADs also increase the catch of under-sized bigeye and yellowfin tuna, sharks and even turtles. That's a very bad result.

The Cook Islands government is on the brink of signing away rights to fish in our waters and I'm concerned that they'll be letting some of these greedy vessels in. It's a vast fleet – almost 300 purse seiners are draining tuna stocks across the region, mostly for canning in Thailand and export to Europe, North America and Asia. Some of those vessels are repeat offender fish thieves. The notorious Spanish purse seiner, Albacora Uno, has racked up over $6 million in fines for illegal fishing in Pacific Island waters in the past eight years.

There's no way our local fishers can compete and they shouldn't have to. It makes no sense to allow monster boats cross the world's oceans so they can plunder the fish of the Pacific Islands.

Keeping our oceans healthy is important for everyone. For me it's personal. I'm about to move my family back into the Pacific. My youngest kids have yet to set foot in the Cook Islands. They've yet to swim or eat from the surrounding seas. I owe it to them as a father, and will do everything in my power, so they get to experience our oceans with the same, or more, abundance, beauty and health that I have enjoyed.

The Cook Islands is at a crossroads, and the wrong decision could see our islands follow a path of industrialised foreign fishing and leave us with a legacy that our people will regret for generations to come. For my children, for all our children, we need to say no to purse seine fishing and to devastating FADs, and instead support sustainable local fisheries.

A local petition from residents has been gathering widespread support and, with so many Cook Islanders and friends of the islands living in other parts of the world, an international version has been set up.

I'm asking Cook Islanders, whanau, friends and ocean lovers to sign the petition and make your voice heard for the future of our moana.

The rally in Raratonga tomorrow, Friday 24 April starts at 4pm in Avarua Harbour.

Tereapii is a sailor, ocean lover, artist and father, originally from the Cook Islands and now living with his whanau in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Contributed by Nora Stasio

When you’re a full-time caregiver, vacation days are few and far between. For many of us, weekends are exactly the same as weekdays. It’s easy to become exhausted after days, weeks, and months of the same busy routine. And when that fatigue sets in, it affects your brain. You may begin to find you’re not thinking as clearly as you used to. But that’s understandable – no, you’re not going crazy! You’re just worn out.

Here are 6 tips that should help tired caregivers stay alert and feel more energized in order to competently care for loved ones.

1. Checklists and Schedules

This might seem obvious, but writing checklists and schedules can be extremely helpful. Every night before bed, try to come up with a list of important tasks that need to be tackled the next day. Then, turn that list into a schedule. See if you can plan out the quickest route to complete every task. Write all of this down in a notebook or type it into your smart device. Having a ‘checklist’ or ‘reminder’ app can sometimes be a lifesaver. Having to retain all that info inside your brain, with no point of reference, will only add to your stress. Take care of the planning the night before, because once the day gets going there might not be a moment to think clearly and productively.

2. Healthy Alternative Caffeine Sources 

When most of us are tired, our first instinct is to drink coffee. It makes sense and falls easily into a routine, but you don’t want to overdo it on any one substance. You can get caffeine and natural energy from other sources, like tea and dark chocolate. As an added bonus, both are high in super-healthy antioxidants.

Studies show that green tea in particular is full of beneficial nutrients, including those that support memory and overall brain function. One cup a day will do you a lot of good. Also try some dark chocolate – it typically contains more antioxidants and less added-sugars than milk chocolate. These antioxidants work to detoxify the body by eliminating free radicals. With all that ickiness out of your system, you should feel lighter and more focused.

3. Water and Vitamins

 Dehydration is a leading cause of fatigue. Drinking a full bottle of purified water can enhance mood, increase energy, and improve cognitive performance. Make sure you have plenty of water bottles on hand as you go through your day in order to stay alert. Pack enough for yourself, as well as those you care for.

And while you’re drinking all that water, why not swallow a multivitamin? If your body is lacking in any important nutrients, you may be not feeling as strong or thinking as clearly as you could be. Reduce stress and encourage detoxification by taking a daily multivitamin that suits your particular needs.

4. Eat Small Frequent Meals.

You don’t want to go hungry for too long, because your blood sugar and energy levels begin to drop as a result from a lack of food in the system. Also, eating a meal that’s too large, rich, or heavy has the effect of weighing you down and making you sleepier. Try grazing throughout the day on healthy items to give you frequent bursts of energy. You don’t need to eat more than a paper cup’s worth of food when you plan to eat 4-6 times a day.  Maybe the night before, you can pack yourself 5 small tupperware containers with different snack combos inside, like nuts and fruit, veggies and hummus, rice cakes and cheese, etc. You might also want to fix a salad. Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, and spinach are considered “brain foods,” packed with the kinds of nutrients that can help you stay alert on a long day.

5. Stretch Throughout The Day.

It’s no secret that fatigue can take it’s toll on your joints and muscles. If you’ve been having any aches and pains, do yourself a favor: have a good stretch once, or even several times a day. Shake up your body, get that blood flowing, and your brain will wake up too. This is just one of many reasons people swear by yoga, so you may want to try that!

6. Don’t Multitask.

It may seem like a good idea, but experts argue, multitasking is not all it’s cracked up to be. When your brain is attempting to focus on two tasks at once, neither task can receive your full attention. As a result, performance on both tasks suffers and the outcome is sub-standard. Plus, it actually increases stress on your brain to have to split focus. If you’re already tired as it is, you shouldn’t be making things harder for yourself. Doing too much at once can leave you feeling overwhelmed with frustration. Focus on doing one thing at a time, and doing it right. Then cross that one task off your list, probably quicker than you would have if you were multi-tasking, and move on with your day.

For more healthy tips, check out my previous article, “7 Ways to Reduce Anxiety and Stress While Caring for Others.”

The post 6 Tips to Help the Exhausted Caregiver Stay Alert appeared first on Lotsa Helping Hands Create Community.

Yes, it is not a typo. The OSPAR Award. A long awaited Award that the Arctic well deserves.

But, what is an OSPAR? The OSPAR Convention is an international agreement of 15 European countries (Arctic and non Arctic states) plus the European Union with the power and mandate to protect international waters from environmental harm done by human activities.

The icy waters around the North Pole are international waters. There is an important extension of those international waters that the OSPAR Commision have now the chance to protect: 232.000 square kilometres, as a matter of fact. A well-deserved Award of protection for the Arctic and a big and much needed reward for the planet.

The heroes from the movies are the ones capable to make us dream big and believe that we can change the world. The OSPAR Convention and its countries delegates are the leading actors and actresses of this heroic Arctic film: they have now the real power to declare protection for a 10% of the Arctic Sanctuary that Greenpeace is calling for. Following the mandate of the United Nations of creating a worldwide network of Marine Protected Areas and taking on from political will, the OSPAR Commission delegates have now the historical chance to place a red carpet  in the Arctic, as in the dazzling and sparkling Oscar ceremonies, that draws a clear “no trespassing beyond this point” line to oil companies. While the Arctic is melting, oil and gas companies are playing conqueror of its territory and claiming for its natural resources, like real ‘baddies’ of this Arctic movie.

OSPAR has been a Convention with significant political power but with little public profile, and which has to date been dormant in the the Arctic. In June 2015, the Commission can secure a Commitment to create a future Marine Protected Area. Greenpeace, following the demands of almost 7 million people worldwide calling for an Arctic Sanctuary, is asking the OSPAR Convention to live up to its mandate and protect the Arctic. Next week,  the Heads of Delegation will meet in a Coordination Group in London (UK) and Greenpeace will be there to ask them to be the real heroes of this Arctic film and make history protecting this vital ecosystem for our planet.

Let’s give this Arctic film a happy end!

Raw HTML.. 

Please sign here to ask the OSPAR delegates to take the lead on Arctic protection.

Pilar Marcos is Arctic Team Leader at Greenpeace Spain

from Greenpeace news http://ift.tt/1FqP7NJ

How some of palm oil's biggest players are actively working against reform.

Fairy tales, like the Norwegian story The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body are meant to teach us that no good comes of greed, and that redemption is always possible for bullies who choose to change. The Indonesian palm oil industry's history reads like a scorched-earth rampage by an uncaring fairytale giant, but thanks to global village outrage, some companies have faced a moral (and market) reckoning. They have begun to halt forest destruction and address their conflicts with local communities. Will the rest follow their lead, or stab them in the back?

Peat forests, such as this one cleared and burned this April in Riau despite a moratorium, will remain at risk as long as giant palm oil traders refuse to implement full supply chain traceability.

There's a sharp divide amongst Indonesia's biggest palm oil producers and traders. On the one hand are the companies making strong commitments to clean up their palm oil production. At times they are struggling to deal with their legacy of deforestation and social conflict, but at least they're making a genuine attempt to change their ways. Against them stand a handful of giant companies stuck in the past – and increasingly isolated.

Here are some of the ways in which forward-looking companies are trying to transform the palm oil industry. Agropalma, DAABON and New Britain Palm Oil have joined forces with NGOs and developed a vision of what responsible production looks like with the Palm Oil Innovation Group Charter. Golden Agri Resources helped develop the High Carbon Stock Approach, a ground-breaking methodology to identify and protect forests inside its concessions. Palm oil trader Wilmar was the first to commit to stop buying and selling from companies destroying forest and peatlands. Other commodity traders, including Cargill, Asian Agri and Musim Mas have since followed.

And then there are the companies that could have joined this movement, but have decided to continue their devouring ways. IOI, KLK and Sime Darby are some of the most prominent members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. But while other members are identifying and protecting the forests in their concessions, these three are undermining those positive efforts by trying to weaken forest protection policies and arguing that there are some types of rainforest that they should be allowed to destroy.

When NGOs called them on this, these companies claimed they would put forest destruction on hold. But reports from the field tell a very different story.

Last June, the CEO of IOI told us that his company would stop clearing forests and peatlands in its PT BSS concession in Western Kalimantan. But despite this unambiguous commitment, IOI's bulldozers have carried on regardless. Recently a formal complaint was submitted to the RSPO about IOI, accusing it of violating the RSPO's rules by clearing forests and not resolving its conflict with communities.

Cleared orang-utan habitat ready for palm oil planting inside a concession owned by PT Karya Makmur Abadi Estate II, a subsidiary of KLK group, seen on 25 Feb 2014.

KLK also promised to stop clearing forests – but it has kept its bulldozers on stand-by. The company refuses to give up its claim to land in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea, even though indigenous communities have refused their consent and the development would mean violating its commitment to protect natural forest.

And what of Sime Darby, the world's biggest palm oil producer? Despite its size, this giant has yet to take up a leading role in transforming the industry. Worryingly, Sime Darby just bought New Britain Palm Oil, one of the most progressive palm oil producers. Yet Sime Darby has not vowed to adopt NBPOL's environmental practices, and the fear is it could drag New Britain down to its level.

In life, as in fairytales, justice is never far away. It's time for these giants to change their ways, if they don't want to be punished by the growing market demand for ethical commodities. We challenge them to take up a leadership role and join their peers in transforming this troubled sector. Until these companies commit to ending deforestation and respecting local communities' rights and livelihoods they – and anyone buying palm oil from them – are part of the problem.

Suzanne Kroger is the Global Palm Oil Coordinator at Greenpeace International.

Today, 26 April 2015, marks the 29th anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in world history – the Chernobyl catastrophe. And unfortunately, preventing further major releases of radioactivity into the environment seems to be a race against time. As a new Greenpeace report detailing the efforts at the sight shows, there are no real solutions in sight.

Nearly three decades after the start of the Chernobyl disaster, its atomic legacy is a stark and ominous reminder that nuclear power can never be a safe energy source.

In 1986, two explosions destroyed Chernobyl reactor unit 4, located in the Ukraine. Its graphite core burned for ten days. The radioactive releases heavily contaminated what became a 2600 km² exclusion zone – which included 76 cities, towns, and villages. Due to the power of the explosion, fire, and reactor core meltdown, radioactivity was projected to high enough altitudes that the plume was carried thousands kilometers away, sweeping across the whole of Europe and contaminating vast tracts of land. In terms of radioactive caesium (Cs137), a total of at least 1.3 million km² of land was contaminated to varying degrees – an area roughly twice the size of France. And this contamination will last for many generations, given the 30-year half-life of Cs137.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens and cleanup workers were exposed to significant levels of radiation – at least 300,000 of these workers received radiation doses that were 500 times the limit for the public over one year.

Twenty-nine years later, people continue to suffer from the affects of the accident, with well-founded scientific estimations in the range of many tens of thousands of cancers and deaths.

One of the increasing concerns at the site is the integrity of the building structures. The explosion in 1986 caused serious damage. And, due to the high radiation levels, work on the damaged building after the accident had to be scrapped. Ageing and corrosion have only further deteriorated these structures. In addition, some that were damaged in the accident, for example by cracking, are only now being discovered due to the inaccessibility of the site.

A collapse of the sarcophagus, leading to a release of radioactive substances into the environment around the site, cannot be ruled out. And this could pose serious problems.

There are more than 1.5 million tonnes of radioactive dust inside the ruins. If the sarcophagus were to collapse, a high volume of radioactive material would be released, and could lead to an exposure to radiation as far as 50 kilometers away. There are also nearly 2,000 tonnes of flammable materials inside the sarcophagus. In the event of a fire, even without a collapse, heat from the fire could cause the release of a high level of radioactive dust particles.

In order to help minimize this risk, the Shelter Implementation Plan was agreed to in 1997. The cornerstone of this medium-term proposal is the New Safety Confinement (NSC) – a massive, self-supporting, domed, hall-like steel structure: 257 metres wide, 165 metres long, and 110 metres high. It cannot be assembled directly above the destroyed reactor due to high radiation levels. However, it is currently being assembled in two parts to the side of the damaged reactor. These will be joined together, and then slide over the reactor on a hydraulic lifting system – a process that will take three days to complete.  When it is completed, it will be the largest movable structure on earth.

The total cost of the Shelter Implementation Plan is currently estimated at €2.15 billion. Due to delays and significant cost increases, there is now a shortfall of hundreds of millions of euros. Later this week, an international conference hosted by the German government will focus on the on-going threats from Chernobyl. The nations who have funded this project will discuss how to fill these enormous deficits.

The shelter itself is designed with the exceedingly limited goals of preventing further water leaking into the destroyed reactor and becoming contaminated – as has happened as the current sarcophagus has deteriorated – and to contain radioactive material in the event of the total collapse of the existing reactor sarcophagus.  It is projected to last for only 100 years.

As the author of the new Greenpeace report concludes, “a major drawback of the SIP, however, is that recovering the fuel-containing material is not part of the project, although the greatest threat to the environment and people comes precisely from these fuel-containing, highly radioactive substances. While the protective shell is designed to make it possible for this fuel-containing material to be recovered at a later point in time, the financial means to actually implement fuel containing material recovery are not provided by the SIP. Thus, the long-term threat posed by the destroyed reactor block will not have been averted by the current efforts underway. In short, it must be stated that 29 years after the worst nuclear disaster the world has yet seen, the damaged reactor is still a danger. A real solution to the situation is nowhere in sight.”

 As with the more recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, there is no foreseeable solution for Chernobyl. Despite the continuing decline of the nuclear power industry worldwide, hundreds of ageing nuclear reactors continue to operate, while new reactors are being built – which increases nuclear risks significantly. Almost certainly whenever the next accident happens in the 21^st century, efforts will still be underway to contain and manage the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi sites.

What Chernobyl, Fukushima, and hundreds of smaller nuclear accidents have clearly shown is the inherent risk of the nuclear technology: there will always be an unforeseen combination of human failure, technology error, and natural disaster that could lead to a major reactor accident and massive release of radiation. The lessons are clear – there is by definition no such thing as "nuclear safety." The only way to make sure that the next Chernobyl and Fukushima does not happen is to phase nuclear out.

Kendra Ulrich is a senior global energy campaigner with Greenpeace Japan.

Today, 26 April 2015, marks the 29th anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in world history – the Chernobyl catastrophe. And unfortunately, preventing further major releases of radioactivity into the environment seems to be a race against time. 

Nearly three decades after the start of the Chernobyl disaster, its atomic legacy is a stark and ominous reminder that nuclear power can never be a safe energy source.

In 1986, two explosions destroyed Chernobyl reactor unit 4, located in the Ukraine. Its graphite core burned for ten days. The radioactive releases heavily contaminated what became a 2600 km² exclusion zone – which included 76 cities, towns, and villages. Due to the power of the explosion, fire, and reactor core meltdown, radioactivity was projected to high enough altitudes that the plume was carried thousands kilometers away, sweeping across the whole of Europe and contaminating vast tracts of land. In terms of radioactive caesium (Cs137), a total of at least 1.3 million km² of land was contaminated to varying degrees – an area roughly twice the size of France. And this contamination will last for many generations, given the 30-year half-life of Cs137.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens and cleanup workers were exposed to significant levels of radiation – at least 300,000 of these workers received radiation doses that were 500 times the limit for the public over one year.

Twenty-nine years later, people continue to suffer from the affects of the accident, with well-founded scientific estimations in the range of many tens of thousands of cancers and deaths.

One of the increasing concerns at the site is the integrity of the building structures. The explosion in 1986 caused serious damage. And, due to the high radiation levels, work on the damaged building after the accident had to be scrapped. Ageing and corrosion have only further deteriorated these structures. In addition, some that were damaged in the accident, for example by cracking, are only now being discovered due to the inaccessibility of the site.

A collapse of the sarcophagus, leading to a release of radioactive substances into the environment around the site, cannot be ruled out. And this could pose serious problems.

There are more than 1.5 million tonnes of radioactive dust inside the ruins. If the sarcophagus were to collapse, a high volume of radioactive material would be released, and could lead to an exposure to radiation as far as 50 kilometers away. There are also nearly 2,000 tonnes of flammable materials inside the sarcophagus. In the event of a fire, even without a collapse, heat from the fire could cause the release of a high level of radioactive dust particles.

In order to help minimize this risk, the Shelter Implementation Plan was agreed to in 1997. The cornerstone of this medium-term proposal is the New Safety Confinement (NSC) – a massive, self-supporting, domed, hall-like steel structure: 257 metres wide, 165 metres long, and 110 metres high. It cannot be assembled directly above the destroyed reactor due to high radiation levels. However, it is currently being assembled in two parts to the side of the damaged reactor. These will be joined together, and then slide over the reactor on a hydraulic lifting system – a process that will take three days to complete.  When it is completed, it will be the largest movable structure on earth.

The total cost of the Shelter Implementation Plan is currently estimated at €2.15 billion. Due to delays and significant cost increases, there is now a shortfall of hundreds of millions of euros. Later this week, an international conference hosted by the German government will focus on the on-going threats from Chernobyl. The nations who have funded this project will discuss how to fill these enormous deficits.

The shelter itself is designed with the exceedingly limited goals of preventing further water leaking into the destroyed reactor and becoming contaminated – as has happened as the current sarcophagus has deteriorated – and to contain radioactive material in the event of the total collapse of the existing reactor sarcophagus.  It is projected to last for only 100 years.

As the author of the new Greenpeace report concludes, “a major drawback of the SIP, however, is that recovering the fuel-containing material is not part of the project, although the greatest threat to the environment and people comes precisely from these fuel-containing, highly radioactive substances. While the protective shell is designed to make it possible for this fuel-containing material to be recovered at a later point in time, the financial means to actually implement fuel containing material recovery are not provided by the SIP. Thus, the long-term threat posed by the destroyed reactor block will not have been averted by the current efforts underway. In short, it must be stated that 29 years after the worst nuclear disaster the world has yet seen, the damaged reactor is still a danger. A real solution to the situation is nowhere in sight.”

 As with the more recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, there is no foreseeable solution for Chernobyl. Despite the continuing decline of the nuclear power industry worldwide, hundreds of ageing nuclear reactors continue to operate, while new reactors are being built – which increases nuclear risks significantly. Almost certainly whenever the next accident happens in the 21^st century, efforts will still be underway to contain and manage the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi sites.

What Chernobyl, Fukushima, and hundreds of smaller nuclear accidents have clearly shown is the inherent risk of the nuclear technology: there will always be an unforeseen combination of human failure, technology error, and natural disaster that could lead to a major reactor accident and massive release of radiation. The lessons are clear – there is by definition no such thing as "nuclear safety." The only way to make sure that the next Chernobyl and Fukushima does not happen is to phase nuclear out.

Kendra Ulrich is a senior global energy campaigner with Greenpeace Japan

Let's accept it. Climate change is a reality and current and future generations are up against the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced. Yet some people believe that there is a trade-off between combating climate change and delivering development for the people. Around this year's Earth Day, it is time to explode this harmful myth. It's time to accept that the key to dealing with both poverty and climate change is energy security. And that energy security can be achieved without fossil fuels.

On a global level renewable energy is winning the race against fossil fuels as more clean-power capacity is being installed than coal, oil and gas together. Solar power is growing faster than even we at Greenpeace predicted, and renewables are now the cheapest way to provide more electricity in an ever-growing number of countries.

Dharnai, a solar-powered village in India, shows how we can make the renewables boom deliver for all -- including the rural poor. Dharnai is located in Bihar, one of the poorest provinces in India. It did not have access to electricity for 30 years before a solar mini-grid was installed with the support of Greenpeace India in July last year.

The village faces extreme poverty, deep caste divisions and very high illiteracy rates. But life in Dharnai has been transformed in the last 10 months since an affordable solar-energy grid arrived. Dharnai is the first village in India where all aspects of life are powered by solar. The 100-kilowatt (kW) system powers the 450 homes of the 2,400 residents, 50 commercial operations, two schools, a training center and a health-care facility. A battery backup ensures power is available around the clock.

Solar-powered lighting means children can now go out and play after school and finish their homework after sunset. Women feel safer venturing out after dark and families at home do not have to spend time in darkness. The arrival of solar-powered water pumps has brought new hope to many farmers in improving access to fresh-water resources. With solar energy, more villagers have been able to recharge their mobile phones regularly, and so the solar grid has also opened up Dharnai to the world of the Internet.

This is just the beginning. Improvements in the quality of life of Dharnai's residents have become the talk of neighboring villages that are eager to understand and replicate the Dharnai model. India has 80,000 other villages that also need solar micro-grids.

That is why it is so important that Greenpeace India continues to work for a better life for India's citizens and to help deliver clean, reliable electricity for all. Dharnai shows what real development -- development that doesn't cost the Earth -- looks like. It is this kind of sustainable development that Greenpeace India stands for. And it shows the absurdity of recent suggestions that Greenpeace in India is acting against India's national interest.

Ironically, Greenpeace India's work to bring energy to Dharnai has been rewarded with brickbats rather than bouquets by India's recently elected government. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has suspended Greenpeace India's ability to receive foreign donations and has also frozen the organization's domestic accounts.

Even as my Indian colleagues prepare to answer the MHA's allegations, in court if necessary, the Indian government's actions beg the question -- how does delivering electricity to a village that had none, or advocating for clean air, safe food, protecting forests and legally sanctioned rights equate to undermining economic interests?

But the story of Dharnai goes well beyond India. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live without electricity. For them, the Dharnai solar-powered micro-grid could be a game-changer, a model for bringing clean, reliable energy to all.

Communities without electricity, and their governments, can make a leap forward by setting up their own renewable-power systems. They can avoid the pollution from coal-burning power plants and build a clean-energy system that local communities own and control.

If all of us put our efforts into achieving a renewably powered world, we can conquer climate change and vastly improve the livelihoods of people in even the poorest regions. That is the message of Earth Day in 2015. That is the message of Dharnai.

Kumi Naidoo is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.

To learn more about Dharnai, please visit: dharnailive.org.

This post is part of a Huffington Post What's Working series on the environment. The series is putting a spotlight on initiatives and solutions that are actually making a difference -- whether in the battle against climate change, or tackling pollution or other environmental challenges. To see all the posts in the series, read here.

Contributed by Michelle Hassler

Losing a loved one can feel like drowning. Like being submerged underwater, you experience intense pangs of panic, pain and hopelessness. You manage to break through the surface – gasping for air, disoriented and weak. Whether the loss is sudden or anticipated, seldom are you prepared to deal with the intense flooding of emotions that surge when you lose someone close to you. Everyone copes with grief differently. Some people boldly or loudly express their pain, while others quietly slink through the hours hiding an all-consuming hurt. Knowing how to deal with grief after a loved one passes will help you to find a life raft, get back on your feet, and begin to navigate life again. Here, we’ll try to help you navigate the waters of dealing with grief.

Memorialize and Reflect
Taking the time to memorialize your late loved one could be the emotional release and resolution that you need. Attending a memorial service or ceremony will allow you to find closure and take the time to give appreciation to the life that was lost. Simply writing about your loss in a journal, creating a photo album filled with cherished memories, or writing a letter to the deceased could provide an outlet for closure and peace. Activities such as planting a tree in memoriam or making a donation to a cause in their honor are positive ways to give tribute to their life. If possible, be inclusive. Sharing in this experience with close friends or family members could turn out to be a healing for an entire family or community.

Accept Support
Seeking support may be the last thing you want to do. However, if you are suffering emotionally, you need to accept support to work through your emotions. Accept kind gestures that may be offered to you even if you feel like you do not need them. If a friend offers to cook you dinner or watch the kids for a few hours, take her up on it. You may not even realize that you need to take time to process what happened. Meeting a friend for coffee and engaging in conversation (that may or may not involve your loved one) may be the type of therapy that you need. There are support groups that you can join in your local or online community for more formal support on how to deal with grief from others who understand. If you need someone to talk to or are having trouble balancing your responsibilities, ask for help. Do not let your pride get in the way of seeking assistance that you need and others are often happy to give.

Take Care of Yourself
After experiencing a loss, it is normal to be overwhelmed. Daily tasks may seem arduous and difficult to handle. You may suddenly have extra responsibilities added to your plate. It is important to remember to take care of yourself. To be functional, clear-headed, and avoid burnout, you need to remember to take care of your own health and individual needs. Make sure you taking care of your body: eating healthy meals, getting enough sleep, and moving your body to blow off steam and release tension. Carve out time in your day to do something that is good for your soul such as reading a book, talking to a friend, or taking your dog for a walk.

Find an Outlet
Another coping mechanism for how to deal with grief requires finding an outlet. Engaging in a productive way to focus your energy is essential as you adapt to a new life without your loved one. Adopt a new hobby, sign up for a yoga class, join a book club, or learn how to knit. Taking up golf, starting a running program, or planning and nurturing a garden to fruition are all positive ways to re-engage in your life. Some people benefit from alone time to clear their minds, while others flourish when spending time with friends. If you could benefit from companionship, ask a friend to join you or participate in a group setting. Spending time doing something for enjoyment will not only help the healing process, but will enrich your personal life.

It is important to remember that though it may take time, things will get better. You will always miss your loved one, but life will get easier and things will return to a normal state – or rather, a new normal. You should seek help from a mental health professional if the grief is overwhelming or you are having difficulty functioning in your day-to-day life. Though everyone is on their own timeline when dealing with grief, you will come out the other side renewed, strong and most importantly – okay. Remember, the best testament to honor a life cut short is embracing your life and living the best way you know.

The post How to Deal With Grief After A Loved One Passes appeared first on Lotsa Helping Hands Create Community.

Two years ago today, one of the worst industrial incidents took place in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,000 people died and over 2,500 injured when Rana Plaza, a clothing factory supplying global fashion brands, collapsed.

The tragedy is the result of an industry in a constant race to get products on the racks – and to hell with regulations… to hell with the cost to workers and the environment.

But two years on today, we say enough is enough. We need a Fashion Revolution.

Last year, thousands of people around the world joined Fashion Revolution and turned their clothes inside out as call for transparency to the industry. This year we ask again: who made my clothes?

Image courtesy of Fashion Revolution 2015.

The need for change.

There are many dirty secrets in the fashion industry's wardrobe and the use of toxic chemicals is just one part of a bigger story we at Greenpeace are trying to rewrite with your help.

We believe a responsible company must be accountable for all ethical issues in their supply chain. There have been many groups and NGOs fighting to ensure the victims of the Rana Plaza tragedy are fairly compensated, and sadly nearly two years later, the fund from where this compensation would come from is still falling short.

We do not accept anyone trying to escape from their responsibility from this tragedy and I believe it's long overdue for all companies involved to fully compensate victims.

While supply chains are often incredibly complex, fashion companies have the power to change the way they make and source our clothes – through their choices of suppliers, the design of their products and the control they can exert, for example, over the use of chemicals in the production process and the final product.

I believe there's hope.

Over 30 companies, from Aldi to Zara, have committed to Detox. And just looking at the textile sector alone, 18 major fashion companies representing 10% of the retail fashion industry have begun eliminating toxic chemicals. This is having a ripple effect across the world.

The system can change. I have seen with my own eyes factories in China, for instance, that are cleaning the water discharged into public waterways – this is to the hundreds of thousands of people joining the Detox movement and demanding brands clean up their act.

This is what hundred of thousands of people can do when they are united in the belief that beautiful fashion should not be tainted by an ugly story of death and destruction.

Image courtesy of Fashion Revolution 2015. Photographer: Rachel Manns

Take action

Our freinds at Fashion Revolution are creating a social media storm. Join us and find out who made your clothes.

1. Take a selfie showing your label.
   
   
2. Upload your photo with this message: I want to thank the people who made my clothes @[brands name] #whomademyclothes
   
   
3. Spread the word by tagging three of your friends and ask them to do the same

Find out more here: http://ift.tt/1eDBZcS

Yixiu Wu is the Detox My Fashion campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia.

Human enterprise appears stuck, like an addict, in habitual behaviour. We have plenty of data alerting us to global heating, declining species, disappearing forests, and rising toxins in our ecosystems. Yet, after decades of efforts to reverse these trends and some notable achievements — whaling moratorium, ocean dumping ban, renewable energy projects — the key trends appear evermore troubling. [1]

In December, 2014, I attended a conference hosted by the International Bateson Institute (IBI) and Centro Studi Riabilitzione Neurocognitiva Villa Miari, a clinic for paralysis patients in Schio, Italy. We observed therapeutic methods employed at Centro Studi to help us consider links between these methods and a efforts to address the ecological paralysis apparent in our social systems. 

The Bateson Institute is named after genetics pioneer William Bateson and his son, anthropologist and systems theorist Gregory Bateson. Gregory once famously remarked in Steps to an Ecology of Mind that “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.” He suggests that if we are going to resolve our ecological challenges, we must rethink, not only our social systems, but our habitual ways of thinking. 

At Schio, we asked: Can the healing of paralysis in the body, a healing that requires a full-systemic reformation, provide us with ideas about how to approach the challenge of changing human society?

Clinic founder Dr. Carlo Perfetti has developed paralysis rehabilitation therapies based on systems theory, particularly on the ecological and physiological work of Gregory Bateson [2] and Pyotr Anokhin [3]. Dr. Perfetti devised systemic therapies that treat the whole person, consider the patient’s mental context, memory, physical environment, setting, language, and other factors.

Healing takes place with active patients, fully involved in the process, with mental states and an environment that will influence the outcome.  We now know that the actual actions of organisms follow continuous internal feedback, analysis, comparison to goal, response to environment, and readjustment. Most of this process remains subconscious. 

Living beings appear comprised of co-evolving systems, sub-systems, and super-systems that interact, adjust to conditions, and reach states of dynamic homeostasis that endure over time through internal feedbacks and self-regulation. Biological and social evolution are not linear processes, but rather co-evolving, self-referencing processes. Knowing this may help us understand how to influence social transformation. 

A real, living system — including a society at risk — must coordinate and integrate a range of inputs from interacting components. This feature of systemic change, Integration, matches Gregory Bateson’s first criterion of mind and nature: They are both an aggregate of interacting components. [4] Contrary to the traditional Cartesian assumption that these components could be isolated and analyzed in linear sequence, we understand now that living organisms, ecosystems, or societies, operate as an integrated whole. How can this help us change society?

One characteristic of system integration reveals that no single component can control the system. A ruling dictator can dominate a society, but cannot control the outcome of that dominance, which may be revolution.  Humans can influence global weather with geo-engineering, but cannot control the weather system’s response to that interference. Likewise, an activist may protest against injustice, but cannot control the society’s response to that protest. Smart protesting, then, would take this integration of systems into account. 

This sort of analysis may seem a bit too intellectual for serious activists. Why not simply confront the system and let the chips fall where they may? Well, we’ve tried that. Being right does not guarantee success. We may need to think more deeply about how systems actually change.

Action in a system — as pointed out by Bateson — is triggered by recognizing a significant difference. Furthermore, the message of this difference is sent by code through the system. [5] When Greenpeace boards a Shell Oil ship heading for the Arctic, this is a coded message. Simply reciting global heating data would not be as effective. Speaking in dramatic code, delivering the “mind bomb,” has been the core of Greenpeace strategy from the beginning and dates back to Gandhi and civil rights activism. If the coded message is clever enough, no explanation is necessary. Boarding an oil drilling rig or blocking a whaling ship speaks for itself.

The “significant difference” communicated to the system by these actions might be: Peace vs. War or a sustainable human future vs. an overheated planet. This difference must be clear or the system will not respond. Systems change because the whole system recognizes the “significant difference,” which creates what health science calls a “motivation” for change. However systems experience multiple and often contradictory motivations. I may want to lose weight, but I love almond croissants! We want a sustainable world, but we don’t want to give up private cars. To change, all systems must confront contradictory motivations.

The system has to chose an action, among countless options, that will help it achieve a new dynamic equilibrium. In physical and social systems, many of these choices remain subconscious and the effects will be complex and non-linear. The system undergoes continuous feedback to measure behaviour against a goal, which itself may undergo change during this process.

Memory and expectation also impact this complex process. One of the patients undergoing treatment at Centro Studi had been a former basketball player. While the patient recalled the memory of a sports movement from his youth, the practitioner moved the patient’s arm, connecting memory to current action. The system’s own memory can serve as a model or visualization of action. Components of the system can respond to this visualization at both conscious and subconscious levels. Similarly, we might see that understanding culture is critical in social change, because culture carries the images from these social memories.

The dark side of memory, of course, is that habitual action may hinder change. Habitual memory may keep a society stuck, but deep within our social memory, there may exist experiences that can serve as models of genuine change. We may witness this in modern social change movements that learn from ancient, indigenous, pre-industrial societies.  

Exploratory adaption

In a 2015 study, at McGill University in Canada, M. Szyf and E Abouheif [6] manipulated an environmental factor (DNA methylation) to achieve size variations in ants with identical gene sequences. The study shows that genes may not directly determine a physical characteristic, but rather express tendencies in response to environmental conditions. 

Recent studies in “social genomics” show that gene expression also responds to social environments. According to a review paper by S. W. Cole at the UCLA School of Medicine, the human genome possesses “social programs to adapt molecular physiology to the changing patterns of threat and opportunity ancestrally associated with changing social conditions.” [7] The larger environment of a system  provides a framework for integrating responses to stress.

Change in nature is neither random, nor determined, but remains dynamic and exploratory.  Under environmental stress, a cell explores new ways to shape physiology. A 2014 study by Erez Braun [8] at the Network Biology Research Laboratories, in Haifa, Israel, found that biological cells allow for flexibility of response, redesigning for new environments using “exploratory adaption.”

Braun exposed cell populations to environmental stress that they had not encountered during their evolutionary history. Rather than selecting from random mutations, new cell states emerged, not strictly determined by the genome, but through an exploratory process to discover alternatives. We might want to compare his findings with the case of a successful human species that finds itself in a world so altered by its own success that its survival appears at risk.

We may realize, for example, that the goals of a society, as a semi-bounded system, are not necessarily the goals of any individual. A society, similar to a body, may be compelled to survive, and thrive in ways that remain unconscious to individuals and groups. Under stress, the internal language of the system may explore for alternatives that are not “chosen” by individuals. Different components may experience the stress signals differently, and may have divergent and contradictory goals. Any number of these contradictions could be a source of paralysis in a social system. 

Although we we may not be able to precisely match the functions of cells, organisms, and societies, we may observe patterns that connect intention to outcome, and we may glimpse some explanations for social “stuckness.” The systemic perspective suggests that isolated efforts of piecemeal ecology — segregated sanctuaries, local bans on toxins, carbon taxes, and so forth — may not slow the large-scale overshoot of human activity. 

It is possible that to influence the path of the larger society, an individual or group may find it useful to speak in metaphors, parables, stories, legends, and archetypes that aid the adaptive explorations of that society. This may help explain why reciting data about global warming, or posting millions of social media rants, fails to move society at a deep enough level to inspire genuine change. If we understand how living systems actually change, we may avoid well-intentioned but insufficient and counter-productive actions.

In 2009, for example, the popular Avatar film may have had more impact than environmental groups in helping turn society toward sustainability. Boycotting climate conferences may say more than going and protesting. Agents of change in society could benefit from re-examining their strategies to address the systemic nature of change. 

Change agents have to play a role as teacher or guide, helping the whole system — person or society — play creatively with their potential to reorganize the system to a new state, which may be a return to a remembered state. A body, or a society, is not a machine and cannot be “fixed” as a machine. The “patient” including a society in distress, experiences change as a whole, integrated system.

Relationships

We are attempting to discover new ways of thinking, new language and actions that might help society free itself from habitual behaviour. When the context changes, and a learned trait no longer serves the system, how does the system discover a new context? Can we learn lessons from healing modalities that will inform us about ways to influence modern, industrial societies facing ecological crisis? 

In the spirit of “exploratory adaption,” we may certainly attempt to make these sorts of comparisons. The environmental movement, frustrated by the pace of genuine ecological progress, after a half century of environmental action, may at times appear somewhat like the family of an alcoholic, gazing upon the limits of its habitual strategies. 

Integration of components stands out as an obvious, initial feature of an effective change agent’s method, learning to amalgamate, blend, and employ all potentials of the system. Treat the whole system, not the symptoms. Accept the fact that the system-in-full will have to participate, and that the system’s worldview, sensations, feelings, memory, stories, and expectations will influence the effectiveness of any action. 

In systems, relationships comprise the change, not individuals. Relationships are what endure in nature, not individuals or components. Our language, as Gregory Bateson observed, is biased toward things, against relationships. We say “the table is hard,” conferring “hardness” upon the table, but this “hardness” can only be experienced when the table stops some momentum. Hardness is only one half of a relationship. Likewise, our language and thinking about change, has to be a language of relationships, not things. A river is not a thing. A river is a process. Likewise, a body, a forest, or a society is a process, not a thing.  

Society does not necessarily transform in the course of single human lifetime any more than a body transforms in a single cell’s lifetime. Agents of change must influence the context and then let that context find its new state of dynamic homeostasis. No one controls the outcome of an action. 

In the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the term karma means action. The response to actions are not isolated in time, but reverberate throughout the entire system. Karma does not mean that my ego will be reborn as a new version of me, but rather that every action is a participation in a living, dynamic system, and that action will influence the system in ways not intended by the actor, including feedback on the actor. In modern politics and media theory, we call this “blowback.” This is system feedback, helping the system analyze and redirect its actions.

Feedback means that we are engaged, at every step of transformation, in two-way storytelling, in messages coded  and launched into the system, which then get variously interpreted and fed back as messages that influence actions of other components. Thus, the effective change agent works with metaphor, and we hear this in the parables of sages and poets.  Gandhi didn’t recite poverty-line statistics or the Gini coefficient; he went into the poorest communities and helped, encouraged the poor to help others, and staged public events that exposed injustice.

When a cell encounters a novel change in its environment, it responds with “exploratory adaption.” When an adaption succeeds, it sends it’s new coding into the pool of  information that represents its new culture. Metaphor is the storytelling version of this exploration.

Data won’t change things. Sensations change process. A new story is the context that initiates change. The effective information — by a rehabilitation practitioner or change agent — is coded for a deeper reading by the system.

If the change agent, however, presumes control, he or she becomes a dictator and ultimately fails. Absolute power does not exist. To work, the agent of change must play in the field of possibility, in the larger mystery that represents the complex forces that will result in a successful future state. 

Humility and modesty are the means to show respect for this mystery. Theory or vision without humility, becomes doctrine, and rigid doctrine always collapses under change. We may benefit as change agents if we acknowledge our humble place in the network of co-evolving systems. 

Thus, in healing, with genomes under stress, or with effective activism, one may witness a modest guidance, gentle touch, probing questions, a compassion that respects the entire system. The change agent takes an appropriate role, improvising, seeking a way to help the larger cause. We witness in these circumstances a sort of common decency. 

Sources 

[1]  Johan Rockström, et. al., “Planetary Boundaries,” Nature, v. 461, September 23, 2009.  Anthony D. Barnosky, et. al., “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere,” Nature, v. 486, June 7, 2012. William Rees, “the Way Forward: Survival 2100,” in Solutions, v. 3, #3, June 2012.

[2]  Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature, E.P. Dutton, New York,1979; and Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., New Jersey, London, 1972.

[3] "La Teoria del Sistema Funzionale Nella Psicofisiologia di P. K. Anochin" (The Theory of Functional System in the Psychophysiology of P. K. Anokhin) M.G. Imperiali, et. al., Catterdra di psicologia, Universita di Roma.

[4] Gregory Bateson, “Criteria of Mental Process,” Mind and Nature, Bantam, New York, 1980, p. 102.

[5] Bateson, Mind and Nature, p. 102.

[6] S. Alvarado,R.Rajakumar,E.Abouheif, M. Szyf, “Epigenetic variation in the ​Egfr gene generates quantitative variation in a complex trait in ants,” Nature Communications 6, Article n.6513, March 11, 2015.

[7]  S. W. Cole, “Social Regulation of Human Gene Expression,”Am J Public Health, 103:S84–S92. doi:10.2105/ AJPH.2012.301183; 2013.

[8] Erez Braun, “The unforeseen challenge: from genotype-to-phenotype in cell populations,” Rep. Prog. Phys. 78.