Grist.org reports new legal rights for Nature in Ecuador

from grist.org. What's next, legal rights for trees? *grin*

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We Hold Its Value to Be Self-Evident
Ecuador approves new constitution granting inalienable rights to nature

Ecuador approved a new constitution this weekend that, among other things, grants inalienable rights to nature, the first such inclusion in a nation's constitution, according to Ecuadorian officials. "Nature ... where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community, or nationality will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before the public bodies," the document says. The specific mention of evolution isn't accidental; besides being an activity nature arguably likes to do anyway, evolution as we know it has close ties to Ecuador's territory of the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin formed his famous theory. Ecuador's constitution grants nature the right to "integral restoration" and says that the state "will promote respect toward all the elements that form an ecosystem" and that the state "will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems, or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles."


sources: Nature, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Quilt Labels and clipart

I want to first off apologize for not blogging for so long. I have a good reason - I've been recovering from a kidney infection and haven't been up to much more than watching an excessive number of DVDs of television shows (Bones, StarGate, Nero Wolfe). I seem to be better now, so I'm back...

I'm almost a month late in shipping Quantum Lake off for its exhibit. The holdup was getting the label done and printed. I got the label(s) done today so I'm sharing my process as I've always gotten good comments about how nice my labels are. If you want to see a picture of Quantum Lake, I posted one on June 9 here on my blog.

I do my labels in Word using ClickArt from Broderbund to create the art around the label. Here's the 2 different labels I came up with for Quantum Lake so you can see what the end product is before I start talking about the details of the process. The backing fabric is various blue stars, so one version of the label is done on light blue fabric with stars around the text.





Quantum Lake itself has a combination of nature photos printed on fabric and a batik fabric that has spirals on it. So the second label echoes those design elements.



How did I create them? It's actually quite easy if you have some clipart borders available. The key thing to remember is that I create the text first in a Word document. Then I add the art that goes around it. I've never been able to edit the text once I add the art, so it's important to get the text done first. I often use a sans serif font because that's easier to read once it's been printed on fabric. I center the text, have the top line down about 2 inches from the top of the document so as to leave room for the surrounding border, and I generally size it at 18 or 20 for the font size. Once I've typed in the label text, I save the document so I can delete any art I add and get back to the basic text.

Next, I browse my clipart disk. Once I select a border or other art that I want to use, I insert the art by clicking on Insert on the top menu bar. I select Picture, and From File, then click on the image I want. (Side note: I got ClickArt 125,000 as a Christmas present years ago and have never felt the need to upgrade. There are several versions reviewed on Amazon and available for quite reasonable prices. ) Once I've inserted the art, I click on it and select Format, then select Picture. The options I always use are Behind Text, and Center because I center my text. Invariably, the art is the wrong size, so at this point I click on the lower right corner and drag it the right size. Then I reposition it if needed. If I like the result, I save the file and I'm done. Otherwise, I delete the added art and go look for something I like better.

This time, I did 2 versions and I'm still deciding which will actually go out on the quilt. Total time today to create the 2 label files, fuse the fabric to wonderunder and print, then blog about it: 2 hours 45 minutes.

Yes! magazine for Fall 2008

I'm back from a two week vacation, out from under the accumulated pile of mail, chores, and souvenirs, and I ended up taking a week to recover from a kidney infection. Not fun. The last couple of days I've felt good enough to get caught up on reading the magazines that have been patiently waiting for me and I wanted to recommend this issue of Yes! magazine. From the many articles dealing with Purple America and where we can agree on many things to the final tidbit about how to pick an electric bike, it's packed with interesting and informative and upbeat, even optimistic, good stuff. Check it out online if you haven't looked at it yet. Go to http://www.yesmagazine.org/

Wind power in Colorado

Having just returned from a 2 week vacation in Colorado, I was pleased to see this article about renewable energy, specifically wind power, becoming mainstream there. That the power company not only met the 10% renewable energy goal but urged the governor to double it for them says a lot to me. I think this quote sums it up:

"We've reached this critical point where we're seeing the deployment of these technologies accelerate," said John Nielsen, an energy analyst with the nonprofit environmental group Western Resource Advocates. "There was slow progress over the last decade, and you're now seeing this tipping point."

To read the full article, go here.

Do-it-yourself Electric Cars

Today's email had a report from EVWorld about the Plug-In 2008 conference and, as usual, there were little articles mentioned along the side. One caught my eye - the DIY Electric Car options. Turns out these are pay someone to do it for you options to convert your gas car to electric, but hey, it's a start. If you're interested, read the article here.

YouTube ad on going green

I get a weekly email from TerraPass (among many, many others) and today's had a story about an ad on YouTube from wecansolveit.org, a national organization that's pushing for all of us to unite in getting clean energy as soon as possible. I liked the ad so I'm making the link available here.

Slow Food Nation coming up

I'm digging myself out from under all the mail, email and chores that accumulated while I was on vacation (why does it take several days to recover from a vacation? but I digress...) when today brought a link to a SF Chronicle article about the Slow Food Nation expo coming up. We already get almost all of our produce from a local CSA, and most of our meat from a local ranch so we're way ahead of most Americans in eating locally. And given that a huge amount of the fossil fuels used in the US are used in producing or transporting food, I can only hope more people make the transition to locally produced food (simultaneously eating healthier, reducing climate impact and reducing our reliance on foreign oil. Serious multitasking!). The article has a short list of things to do and links to lots more internet information on this issue. I'll just note that while prices have gone up at our CSA ($1 per box of produce), the price increases I'm seeing at the supermarket are higher.

Denvention3 - The World Science Fiction Convention

If you read science fiction, you've probably heard of the Hugo Awards. They're given out by The World Science Fiction Convention, henceforth called WorldCon, and this year, my husband Jeff and I were 2/3rds of the subcommittee that administered the awards. We were part of the Hugo subcommittee this year with Mary Kay Kare being the head of the committee. Yes, this meant she had minions.

As Jeff is fond of saying, the Hugo Awards are one of the 3 officially required things done at a WorldCon. (The other two are holding the business meeting and the site selection balloting for the convention to be held in 2 years.) So there's a big ceremony on Saturday night for presenting the awards. And a practice run through for the volunteers doing the work on Saturday afternoon. And a large group of volunteers carrying the awards from Mary Kay's room through the convention center to the theatre somewhere in there. Basically, it took all of Saturday for us but the people attending the con got a nice show on Saturday night.

Here’s a picture of the artist who designed the base for this year, Lee Kuruganti, and Mary Kay (to her right facing the camera) in the Green Room at the reception before the ceremony. The other people in the picture are some of the nominees, socializing and sharing their nervousness.

I worked backstage with Mary Kay, handing out awards and escorting nominees on and off stage, so I missed the speeches mostly but got to see the workings of the process. This was interesting to me as the first time we administered the Hugos, for the Atlanta WorldCon in 1986, the process was less elaborate.

Here’s a link to a close-up photo of this year’s Hugo award along with the list of awards.

http://www.denvention3.org/hugos/08hugowinnerlist.php

Vacation day #8 - green legislation in Boulder

While I was catching up on my online reading during a rainstorm here in Boulder, I ran across an article on worldchanging.com about legislation in California that will help homeowners finance energy efficient improvements such as solar panels, new furnaces or insulation, etc. The next day, there was an article about similar legislation being put on the ballot in Boulder county this fall. Since this is one of those ideas that seems obvious to me, I was delighted to see that some places are moving forward on this. You can read about it here.

Today we head to Denver and the World Science Fiction Convention, Denvention 3. Jeff, my husband, and I are 2/3rds of the Hugo Subcommittee responsible for running the Hugo awards. This makes the convention partly business for us, but the rest will be socializing with friends and enjoying a weekend without children. I hope your weekend is also fun!

Vacation day #3 - today's bird is a red-tailed hawk

Today was a relaxed and quiet day with 2 walks to see birds. The early morning walk went down the block, past the big vegetable garden of the neighbor who has a daughter at Bastyr in Seattle, and across a field and an irrigation ditch into an area that claims it's a park but doesn't seem to have a name. This was where my husband took pictures of hot air balloons and I took pictures of a red-tailed hawk sitting in a tree. I'm thinking I'll use the bird photos I take in future quilts, but then I always think that...



Later in the day, Mary (my sister-in-law) and I went for a walk on the Bobolink Trail. It goes along a creek that's pretty full right now so there's lots of cover. We were there just before lunch time so the only birds visible were swallows and flickers. I'm thinking I'll go back tomorrow morning and see what else is around because it's a wonderful bird habitat.

When the rain rolled in (while the sun was still shining, welcome to Colorado...) we headed home and after lunch, a group of us went to Barnes and Noble, and my teenage niece Amy and I hit JoAnne's for some fabric and other sewing needs. She's really into making purses and bags right now and I have promised her some help with a sewing problem she's experienced. I also worked out a quick pattern for her to use a leftover quilt block as the center of a triangle shaped pillow. It was fun to be the family expert on this stuff and I'm looking forward to spending tomorrow doing sewing stuff with her.

Vacation day #2 - Visiting with lifelong friends

We had brunch today with Chris and Barb who've been friends of ours for close on 30 years. We've always stayed in touch no matter where we lived, but we were in frequent contact when we lived in the same spot. Now, we're in Seattle, and they're in Boulder, so it's been mostly email, some phone calls, and annual newsletters. It was great to see them in person and have a chance to catch up on what they've been doing.

It made me think of how many friends I have kept over the years, and how much I value the people who have known me so long. It's easy to forget how much change there's been over a lifetime. These friends help me get the perspective I need to see the change and the continuity.

We're going to be visiting with other long time friends later in the week. Not to mention the number of people we'll see at the WorldCon. It's going to be an interesting trip down memory lane in some ways.

When we work out the cable connection to my husband's phone, I'll have a photo of the 4 of us outside the cafe we ate brunch at.

And we fixed the sending email problem. Turns out that connecting through the household comcast connection required a different port number... Technology, you gotta love it.

Colorado vacation - read only email (day #1)

So we're here in Boulder, Colorado visiting relatives before going to the Denver WorldCon next weekend, and I can read my email but haven't been able to send any mail to anyone. This is frustrating, as I have several people I chat with every day and I was counting on being able to do this even while traveling. That's the point of lugging the laptop and accessories along, at least as far as I'm concerned. Tomorrow, I'll try and debug the problem - whether it's the house network not staying up long enough, or my mail server being down with some sort of problem, or some other possibility I haven't thought of yet.

As for Colorado, things have changed a lot in the 10 years since we lived here. There are more houses, more roads, and more people. Other things I noticed: people riding motorcycles without helmets. That was a shocker, at least the first one I saw. Then I realized he wasn't wearing leathers either, and on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit. But, given that it was about 90 F at the airport when we landed, I can understand why someone would rather not.

Here's a view from the second story deck at my sister-in-law's house. They live near Baseline Reservoir so there's water nearby and mountains in the distance. Seems ideal to me at this point, but then I live in the PNW, with ocean and lakes nearby and mountains to the east.

I am in Love with Sailing!!!

I'm back from a week out of town taking a sailing class with my son James and our friend aspen. I have always loved the water and being near it or on it whether a river, lake or ocean. So spending several hours a day learning to sail and actually in a boat was bliss. And we all got our light wind certification out of it. We leave on vacation the end of the month so I probably won't get to schedule more sailing time until mid to late August which is disappointing but I'll survive by thinking of how great it will be to spend a whole day out on the lake.

Here's a couple of pictures of the small boats we learned to sail in. The model is called a Clancy and it was designed to be a boat someone could build in their garage over the winter then use to teach their child to sail. A great size to learn the basics in. These boats were built at an alternative school in Seattle and then donated to the organization that teaches the classes.


Here's a closeup view of the boats which are really only about 8 feet long.



The people in the class were all newbies, except for aspen, and I was pleased that we all focused on learning things well enough to be certified on Thursday. This meant we went out just as a group of friends on the instructors' boats on Friday. We spent time just sailing around, changing crew from boat to boat while out on the water (a fun but tricky experience) and had a glorious end to a wonderful week.

Setting up the studio cutting table

Kim L. on the quiltart list asked for suggestions/recommendations for a cutting table. For quilters, this is a big deal. We need a space to cut the fabric into little pieces, and then a space to sew all the little pieces together again in a different way. Also a space to iron the resulting fabric. And of course, a place to store the fabric that we're going to cut up someday. I'm a fan of Alton Brown (on the foodnetwork, if you're not familiar with him) so I thought I'd share a picture of my new multitasking solution for these things.


I have 3 wire basket holders (17" wide, 22" deep and 7 runners high which is about 30", I think). This makes a nice size desk surface on which I've put The Big Board ironing board. It's meant to be put on a regular ironing board but I found that a tad unstable and awkward for my left handedness. Not to mention I had to have a separate bit of floor space for it. I had a flash of brilliance and realized it fit perfectly on top of the wire basket ensemble so I moved it there. Then I noticed that my big cutting board could go on top of the wire baskets too, if I didn't mind a bit of overhang at the back. Since I rarely cut the full width of fabric, I generally don't need the full cutting surface so that worked too. So my cutting board can slide under the Big Board and I pull it out when it's needed. Then I realized I was just one step away from having a giant flippable board with a cutting surface on one side, and an ironing surface on the other. I've always liked the smaller version of that and used it when taking classes so I've asked my son James to cut some plywood for me and we'll be fixing that up after we finish our sailing class this next week. I have this setup at right angles to my sewing table so I just pivot and depending on what I'm doing I can iron, cut, fuse or try various layouts, all on the same work surface. So far, it's also had the excellent side benefit of forcing me to keep the surface cleared off so I can get other work done. Since I have a problem with not putting things away when I'm in a creative flow, this has been a benefit.

Solar power & relocalizing

I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a week of sailing, so I wanted to leave you all with a nice meaty link about solar power. I had left the newsletter from relocalize.net in my mailbox the last week of June, intending to blog about it then but of course, I forgot. READ IT HERE

Relocalize.net is working to be a central info and networking center for people working to build sustainability in their communities. This newsletter focuses on solar power, where we are with it, what needs to happen to make it grow, and there's even a link to a solar oven. I personally think we need to switch to decentralized solar, wind or wave power as those are completely renewable resources and decentralizing means we don't have companies like Enron deciding to manipulate prices by squeezing the production of energy. But that would be my hippy roots showing again...

Have a great week. I know I plan to!

More about alternative energy & Germany

I've spent a lot of time sailing the last week, so I have a new appreciation of wind power. It was a nice coincidence to go to worldchanging.com and find THIS ARTICLE reporting on a Wind Power Conference that just happened in Ontario. I found this paragraph in the article particularly encouraging:

Germany shattered the theory that renewable energy is a niche player by achieving a 14% share of renewables in its electricity market in 2007. Germany’s vision for renewable energy reinvigorated rural communities throughout the country through the creation of 249,000 jobs and generated $38.8 billion USD in associated economic activity in 2007 alone. After achieving its target 12.5% renewable share of total electricity three years early, the country revised its future targets to 27% renewables by 2020 and 45% renewables by 2030, according to its Federal Ministry for the Environment.

To read the article, go to this webpage.

I hope you're having some summer fun too...

Germany drops oil use 18% in 10 years

While resting my knee from the mild overuse I got sailing yesterday, I've been catching up on some online reading. A pointer to an article about Germany switching to sustainable energy sources caught my eye. They've been doing a concerted push from both private and government areas to convert to renewable energy and improve fuel efficiency. I found THIS ARTICLE heartening for several reasons. First, they've made significant strides in 10 years without going on a crash program. Second, Germany gets about as much sunlight as we do here in Seattle. Yes, I know, we have those grey clouds but we still get sun through them. So, it's a good comparison for my geographic area, at least when it comes to solar power.

I'll list here the part of the article giving the sustainable factors the author thinks are important. If they can do it, so can we, so this might be a good list to work from for those interested in doing so. I'll only point out that several of these require government action.

Sustainable Factors (some more sustainable than others)
- People using mass transit and high speed rail
- People buying more fuel-efficient cars and driving slower on the Autobahn
- Government incentives for using renewables, insulating homes, subsidies for commuting reduced, road pricing for trucks introduced.
- High take rate up for wind and solar due to feed in tariffs
- Heating fuel switching to solar & wood/pellets
- Heating technology switching to CHP (Combined Heat & Power or cogeneration) and heat pumps
- Stable and aging population, less consumption growth and less growth in commuting
- Mindset to save costs, people heating and lighting their homes less and desire to help environment
- Sadly, warmer than average winters due to global warming
- Expertise in producing energy efficient technologies and bringing them available to market

And yes, the sailing was wonderful. We're finally into summer weather here in the Pacific NorthWest and being out on the water, with sun and warmth was fabulous.

Electric Vehicles display at Seattle car show

We're getting our house ready to sell so I've been busy decluttering, painting and giving away stuff on freecycle. I've not kept up with the blogs I normally read so I didn't see this article in the Electric Vehicle blog I follow until last night. The car show in Seattle today will have a special display of all kinds of currently available Electric Vehicles both commercial and personally done conversions and creations. Including scooters. If you're going to be in Seattle, and you're interested in transportation that's not gasoline powered, this would be something to check out.

Unfortunately for my interest in these things, I already have plans to go sailing. *smile*

Three graduations this last week... busy, busy, busy

Last weekend was graduation weekend for all our kids: my son James in high school, my daughter Allie's second university degree, and our "adopted" son aspen's long-time coming university degree. In addition to driving to Bellingham for the university graduation ceremony, we had relatives in town for the high school graduation. So, there was time spent cleaning up before and after the relatives arrived and left. I did get some work done. I did the piece below for aspen's graduation. (And yes, aspen has shown up before as he's the owner of the three wheeler that I've posted about.)



He's been getting his degree while working full-time so this is a long awaited achievement and I wanted to celebrate it with him. The trees on the sides are aspens, as are the golden leaves. He wrote the words printed in the middle so this is a very personal piece of art. I hand dyed the fabric the words are printed on as well as the green and yellow that I used for the leaves above and below it. I'm pleased with how well those fabrics coordinated with the aspen pictures I got from wikipedia.

In addition to all the running around to get everyone ready for graduation, and get the house ready, James and I went into Seattle and bought his graduation present, an electric bicycle. We got him a folding bike version which has much smaller wheels than a regular bike. And it's lower powered than the other electric bikes available from the dealer. The advantage is that he can fold it up and take it on a bus with him. (We overheard talk about the bike racks filling up on the buses in Seattle. ) He's enjoying riding it around, and having his own wheels rather than having to negotiate with us for the use of the car. Not to mention no money spent for gas. :-) Here's a picture of James with his new bike.



We bought it at Electric Bikes NW. They also do a whole selection of folding bikes in addition to the electric bikes. Part of why we got the folding one is that it's the only one they had in stock. Everything else is on order, and there are waiting lists for the bikes they've ordered. So, if you're thinking about doing this, I'd do it soon if I were you...

Quantum Lake: newest completed fiber art

Having mentioned this piece, Quantum Lake, in another post, I now feel obligated to post about it. Even though I'm not thrilled with the photo I've got, I'm posting it because I've been busy with other stuff for the last month and haven't gotten to taking a new one. I took the photos I used in this piece and pushed some artistic limits for myself in improvisational cutting when it came time to put the pieces together. It's a new direction for me and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.



Part of the motivation for posting this piece is that I wanted to talk about another personal victory that I experienced on Saturday. During my morning walk at the greenbelt referred to by Quantum Lake, I met a nature photographer who does mostly birds. In order to continue in the new direction, I need more detailed shots of birds to use. So, I got my nerve up and asked him if he was interested in collaborating. I gave him my webpage address and went home to await his response. Not only did he agree to let me use his photos, but he was very complimentary about my work.