Planetary Transitioning

by Alternative Voice Staff

In a recent issue of Positive Health (April 2006), it was explained that the poor breathing habits of many people result in various chronic disorders, such as high blood pressure and asthma. Shallow breathing reduces the supply of oxygen for muscles and organs, and therefore gradually undermines a person's overall health. Many people do not breathe deeply enough, and are therefore slowly poisoning themselves, the researchers say, recommending deep nostril breathing for better health and relaxation.

• In the annual auto show in Philadelphia the prize vehicle wasn't the latest Porsche. Five high school students built a soybean-fueled car that accelerates from 0 to 60 miles per hour (mph) in four seconds and gets 47 miles per gallon. The five of them were forced to do an after-school project when they were caught skipping school and getting involved in local gang activities. They finished their project within a year and surprised everyone. "We're not 180 IQ people around here," says their physics teacher, Simon Hauger to Philadelphia Inquirer (Feb. 5, 2006). "If you give kids that have been stereotyped as not being able to do anything an opportunity to do something great, they'll step up."

• In Germany, a creative group has designed a blow-up mobile parliament that can be put together in 90 minutes and accommodates 160 parliamentarians. The building, which was designed to be transparent in order to reflect a fundamental quality of democracy, can be transported in a small container and can even be dropped from an airplane anywhere a new democratic form of government is needed.1
• There is a movement in various cities to provide a day for kids to play in the streets. Last year in the Netherlands, some 250,000 kids took the opportunity to claim the roads for Street Playing Day.2
• In Switzerland, students of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have designed a 68 pound car that gets 85 miles to the gallon.
• In Canada, Adbusters magazine has challenged people to start alternatives to big brands, calling those who do it “anti-preneurs.” These are people who will put ethics above profit, who consider values more important than image, and prefer idealism to hype. Called "brandless" brands, they will promote needed products and services we can support with clean consciences.
• According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the total spending in the USA last year exceeded citizens’ earnings by $41,600,000,000. The last year that spendings exceeded earnings was 1933.
• Fifty percent of African-American children are too poor to qualify for the full U.S. child tax credit.
• In the past decade and a half the number of worldwide civil wars claiming more than a thousand lives has increased 80 percent.4
• Chance that a nation lacking resource wealth will have a civil war in any given five-year span: 1 in 100. Chance that a nation with resource wealth will: 1 in 55.
• A British nonprofit group has turned more than 2,000 weapons into tools for African farmers. A rocket launcer yields five farm implements, according to APT Enterprise Development (Moreton-in-Marsh, England).

 

1 More information: www.g-i-o.com (only in German)
2 More information: www.speelstraten.nl
3 Tax Policy Center (Washington)
4 Human Security Centre (Vancouver)
5 Paul Collier, Centre for the Study of African Economies (Oxford, England)]