The Sacred Chamber of Ruby Falls.

Deep in the bowels of Lookout Mountain, in Tennessee, hides an ancient cave system named, Ruby Falls caverns. The dank, and musty air within its serpentine passages whisper secrets of eons gone by that remind you that you are a guest in this otherworldly realm. You are at the mercy of nature, sitting deep below a mountain such as this one. The low ceilings require you to humbly bow your head, in respect, for the spirit of the cave. Upon showing this submission, the seeker may enter the inner sanctum of the cave; a vaulted chamber carved out of solid rock by the spirit of the cave--the goddess waterfall.

The roaring of the falls humble you with the overwhelming power of her archaic magic, while the delicate and lacy dance of the water rejuvenates you with her sensual femininity. As I stood at her feet, I raised my arms and head into the spray of her aquatic magic, to honor her energy and be cleansed by it. I left that cave deeply grateful to exist on a planet with natural temples such as the one safe-guarded 1,120 feet below, Lookout mountain.

~The Green Man has Spoken~

The Mystical Waterfall.

The mystical magic of the waterfall has long been revered in nature. The dominating size, mesmerizing beauty and roaring growls of it's crashing power below demand some well-earned respect. Water will not be denied it's own way, and will carve up the hardest rock that tries to block it's path. It is understood by those close to nature that water is to be respected or surely peril awaits.

One of the reasons I am transfixed by waterfalls is because is because they are so stunning in appearance and seem, (to this artist) to be something of art in motion, which is interactive. This makes it one of nature's greatest expressions and well-deserving of the awe they inspire. It is easy to fall under their magical charm when gazing upon it with dedication and time because it transports you into a deep meditative world of bliss and peace. A reality when all time seems to slow down and the world outside the sacred bowl of the waterfall seems so distant and almost hidden by the fog of the magic that has overtaken your spirit.Yet Mother Nature has other secrets to conceal from the unworthy--the inner sanctums. These are the otherworldly cave sanctuaries that often lie hidden behind the veil of pounding water. I have always been lured by the secret chambers that lie just beyond the wall of water. They seem like special hide-outs that hermits and outcasts like me are led toward. Ancient man must have seen them as doorways to a spiritual realm unlike any found above Earth. A dream of mine is to find a cave behind a waterfall way off in some far away land--perhaps on Borneo where I can build a little hide-away. Every time I gaze upon a new waterfall I am over-whelmed by its energy and always feel recharged and invigorated after sitting a spell within it's cleansing mist.

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Chemicals Changing the Sex of Fish in Potomac River.

More than 80% of the male bass fish in Washington's major river are now exhibiting female traits such as egg production because of a "toxic stew" of pollutants, scientists and campaigners reported yesterday. Intersex fish probably result from drugs, such as the contraceptive pill, and other chemicals being flushed into the water and have been found right across the US.

Green Man: Oh, great. We already know about mercury being common in fish but now they're packed full of hormones!! Our girls are going to be maturing at five years old pretty soon and our boys will have no testicles. At least that seems like a possible conclusion from ingesting a soup of mixed random chemicals. Other chemicals found in our water? Antibiotics: Ever wonder why antibiotics don't work as well lately? Because they're found in many of the substances we ingest like inorganic milk, which can cause us to build up an immunity to them.

Nearly 40% of all U.S. antibiotics are injected into livestock as artificial growth enhancers. Next, heavy duty psychiatric medications: I'm not sure what effects they'd have in the water table but I do know from having to take them that they can cause diabetes and hypertension. Ahhh, nothing like a fresh glass of diabetes for our growing kids, eh?!! Other shit in the water? Nicotine, pain pills and even veterinarian medications!!! And we wonder why cancer rates are on the rise? The other area of concern is with our farms because high amounts of fertilizers and pesticides are showing up in run-off water.

I did a recent post on my Buddhist Blog about saving Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha) from environmental degradation. One of the problems is that a pillar that dates back to 200 BCE is being warn down by pollution from a row of new concrete and steel plants. Now, if it that pollution can erode a stone pill--what do you think it's doing to the much more vulnerable human body? Global warming/climate change is just the tip of the iceberg if you'll excuse the pun of the overall environmental problem.

The next big problem is going to be a global water crisis. Rising temperatures are evaporating clean drinking water and the rest is often too polluted to safely use. Water will be the new conflict commodity in this new century replacing oil if we don't promote better water policies world wide, which includes tackling the overall warming trend. But we have to crack down on these factories dumping shit into our water systems and educate people to dispose of their medications in an environmentally sound manner. Visit, "Dispose My Meds" website to find locations that will take your unused pills and learn other information.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mutant fishes from the t.v. animated comedy, "The Simpsons".

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Common Weed Killer Causes Male Frogs to Become Female.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Atrazine, one of the most commonly used and controversial weedkillers, can turn male frogs into females, researchers reported on Monday. The experiment is the first to show such complete effects of atrazine, which had been known to disrupt hormones and which is one of the chief suspects in the decline of amphibians such as frogs around the world.

The European Union banned atrazine in 2004. The finding may add pressure to the United States to more closely regulate the chemical, used widely in agriculture."Approximately 80 million pounds (36,287 tonnes) are applied annually in the United States alone, and atrazine is the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water," the researchers wrote.

Green Man: And we wonder why Autism and other mental illnesses are on the rise? I know some studies have shown that chemicals have no effect on Autism but how can it not have some influence when these chemicals are shown to reverse the sexual traits of other animals??? Atrazine is also implicated as a causal factor in breast cancer. I know people who will say, "Oh it's just a damn frog." Yeah? Well, ever hear of something called, "the food chain?" These frogs are acting as our "canary in the coal mine." For those who don't know, miners use to take canaries into the mines to warn them of toxic gases being released. The birds would always be effected first and more easily so if the canaries were acting weird or died then they knew it was time to get the hell out of the mine. If the frogs are getting messed up then it doesn't take a scientist to tell you that sooner or latter--humans are next. If not already being effected.

Green lawns all over the country are in general bad for the environment in my view. They require ridiculous amounts of water and toxic chemicals to fertilize and kill weeds. We have been in continuous droughts out here in the West and green lawns are partly to blame. They are not native to Colorado, nor many other places around the country. I would love to see a law passed that requires all home-owners to xeriscape their properties, (click here to read more about xeriscaping) with native grasses, plants and flowers. I have seen some really beautiful xeriscaped landscapes around the state and country, so I don't buy the argument that such landscapes aren't as "attractive."

There is this house (unfortunately I don't have a picture) in near by Boulder, Colorado near my former psychologists house that has a xeriscaped yard full of Colorado wildflowers, Aspen trees and a lot of other native species in their landscape. It is a really gorgeous set-up that looks like they have a mountain meadow as a front and back yard. The best part though for me is that they have a front walk way that's just a little wandering dirt path and snakes its way through the wild flowers, wild grasses and Aspen trees all the way up to their front door. It's just like up in the mountains and they hardly use any water at all, and it hides their front door and window a bit for some nice privacy.

~The Green Man has spoken~

Obama's Nuclear Nightmare.

Yesterday President Obama announced the building of the first nuclear reactor in decades. I'm shocked that this is happening under a democratic president but further more I'm aghast that Obama is buying into this propaganda that nuclear energy is "green" and "safe." Sure it reduces green house gases but it more than makes up for that in waste. No one has solved how to properly and safely dispose of nuclear waste, so call me a "environmental nut" all you want but I personally I don't want uranium leaking into the ground and water table. The president and others say that they want to be like France who gets like 90% of their energy from nuclear energy but for one France is a smaller country but more importantly they haven't figured out how to deal with nuclear waste:

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

Green Man: So before they dot the countryside with nuclear reactors and turn out mountains like Yucca Mountain into hallowed out trash bins for nuclear waste perhaps we should first learn how to solve the storage problem. Otherwise it's like prescribing medications to people whose side-effect is possible cancer and/or death. This is somewhat similar to what happened with the silver and gold mining in the 19th and 20th centuries where they didn't know what to do with the toxic byproducts of mining so they just flushed it down mountain streams. Now a century or so later we are having to invest millions if not billions of dollars to "clean" them up but nuclear waste is a lot harder to "clean up" than arsenic in water. You can't just bury nuclear waste, "away"--there is no away. Geology is a very intricate science and the make up for the ground below mountains and even valleys is full of aquifers where nuclear waste could easily leach into. Sure, sounds safe to me!!

And finally, did you know that Utah is looking to import nuclear waste from other countries? I'm sure glad I don't live in Utah anymore!! Yeah, Utah is considering importation of waste from Italy. I don't want to be reliant on Middle-Eastern oil either but nuclear energy isn't the way to do it. That's like getting off heroin (oil) and switching to crack (nuclear energy). So, now America exports jobs to other countries and imports other countries radioactive waste. What a great new slogan for American tourism. "America: The World's Nuclear Waste Dump." I have an idea of where to put the waste--in the backyard of the houses of all the politicians who support nuclear energy. Oh, and interestingly President Obama took hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the nuclear energy industry. Oops.

2010 Environmental Performance Index Released.

Green Man: Happy Imbolc!! I am posting this in honor of early shoots of Spring:

Environmental experts at Yale and Columbia universities released their biannual Environmental Performance Index at the World Economic Forum. The index ranks 163 nations according to their performance on 25 indicators that fall into ten policy categories, which are as follow: environmental burden of disease, air pollution (effects on humans), air pollution (effects on ecosystem), water (effects on humans), water (effects on ecosystem), biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland came in first: Iceland snatched the top spot with its performance on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. According to the Iceland Review, the decision ultimately came down to the fact that nearly all the country's energy comes from renewable resources, such as this geothermal plant:

Green Man: In earning my minor degree in Geography at university I took a class on natural energy and did a research paper on Iceland's use of geothermal energy. It may evoke white winter weather but it is one of the "greenest" countries in the world. In the winter the geothermal energy is so abundant that it actually warms up the asphalt roads near these plants, which helps keep them clear of ice. A quarter of Iceland's energy comes from geothermal and it meets the heating and hot water demands of 87% of Icelanders. However, Iceland's green energy doesn't stop there--75.4% of their energy comes from hydroelectric sources and only 0.1% from fossil fuels. It is one of the youngest places on Earth and also one of the most pristine natural environments in the world. So, it's easy to see why this small but technologically advanced country tops the list. Next, is meticulously clean and beautiful Switzerland:They have done much to invest in and build up environmental infrastructure as well as strong and aggressive policies to increase their green energy use and reliance. It is a mountainous country, which gives them a very clean and clear water source and the recreational options in those mountains and hills offer a great quality of life for the Swiss. As of 2007, Switzerland's overall electric production comes primarily from hydropower at 96.5%. In addition, the European alpine country have laid out an aggressive framework for rapidly increasing and investing in green energy:

In a surprising move, Switzerland has adopted one of the world's most aggressive systems of Advanced Renewable Tariffs. The Swiss, famed for conservative traditions, stodgy bankers and trains that run on time, have joined a growing list of countries using feed-in tariffs to promote the rapid development of renewable energy. Not content to start with a timid program incrementally raising the bar year by year, the Swiss federal government this spring launched a full-system of feed-in tariffs differentiated by technology, size and application. There are tariffs, or payments per kilowatt-hour (kWh), for solar photovoltaics, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass.

Green Man: The final one that I'll mention in this post is the only non-European country in the top three--Costa Rica. It is one of the most bio-diverse environments in the world. Costa Rica has invested aggressively in its environmental tourism, which demands protection of their rain forests:

Costa Rica is looking to capitalize on its forests in ways other than eco-tourism. In 2005, Costa Rica joined a coalition of tropical developing countries that proposed a "rainforest conservation for emissions" deal at the December United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal. The plan, which was accepted by the UN, called for wealthy nations to compensate poor nations for rainforest conservation. Costa Rica already had a similar program in place which protected rainforest by selling allowances to emit greenhouses gases. In 1999, the program generated some $20 million.

Green Man: That's a very smart and understandable way to leverage their assets (nature) to gain business from it while protecting it at the same time. They have become leaders in the eco-tourism business and is part of the reason why my wife and I will be going there for our 10th wedding anniversary in April of this year. We're excited to explore the dense, green, old growth, primal cloud forests and rain forests especially.

It isn't any wonder then why Costa Rica is so proud of its environment and why so many flock to experience it from all over the world. If you go, please do your best to stay with reputable eco-lodges who are actually devoted to protecting the environment rather than cashing in on the "eco-tourism" label. Please leave it the way you found it so that humans can experience this special place for generations to come. It is a jewel in an environmentally devastated world and serves as an example of how to preserve nature while still keeping a vibrant economy.