Issue 06 | Face the Current

International Earth Day Edition

Issue 06

April 2017

fAce the current TRAVEL & LEISURE

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CULTURE

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MUSIC

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SPORTS & FITNESS

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HEALTH & WELLBEING

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BUSINESS

Nassim Haramein The Connected Universe

Founder of Earth Day, Denis Hayes Talks Evolution of the Environmental Movement

Sustainable Lifestyle Apparel Bringing Hemp to the Masses

Kari Schibevaag

7x World Champion Kitesurfer 12x World Snow Kitemaster

Climate TrusT, Paul Stamets & Jerry Angelini, Dr. Vaughn Bowman, and more Share Insight on Climate Change, Pollution, & Eco-Sustainable Living Solutions

...inspiring positive change in the world

www.facethecurrent.com

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EDITORIAL

editorial

FtC

fAce the current issue 06 · April 2017

Let’s Get Social... facethecurrent @facethecurrent

In the Beginning Face the Current was created with the intention to inspire positive change in the world and enhance lives by encouraging one another to relentlessly discover, explore, question and learn from current and emerging information and perspectives. Driven by a deeprooted love of learning, creative minds and a great appreciation for connection with other individuals who are passionate about what they do, Face the Current has quickly developed into a growing team and global community of incredible people who believe in living life to the fullest and discovering their true potential.

“I find it inspiring to connect with others who are following their flow, pursuing and exploring their passions. Their energy is vibrant & contagious and there is often a lot of incredible things to learn from their life experience and the perspectives they have gained.”

Sasha Frate Founder

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sashafrate sasha@facethecurrent.com

FACE the CURRENT MAGAZINE

@facethecurrent www.facethecurrent.com For advertisement and sponsor inquiries, or to request our media kit: info@facethecurrent.com For writer and collaborator inquiries please contact: Founder & Co-Editor in Chief: sasha@facethecurrent.com All Rights Reserved DISCLAIMER The information provided on this magazine is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider.

Opinions and other statements expressed by the kind souls sharing their viewpoint, users and third parties are theirs alone, not opinions of Face the Current. Content created by third parties is the sole responsibility of the third parties and its accuracy and completeness are not endorsed or guaranteed. Face the Current Website and third parties may provide links to web pages, web sites, and various resources or locations on the web. Face the Current has no control over the information you access via such links, does not endorse that information, and shall not be responsible for it or for the consequences of your use of that information.

FTC OVERVIEW Face the Current Magazine is a life, thought, goal and experience - enhancing resource of stimulating inspiration and empowerment.

We provide access to expert advice, stories, experiences and knowledge from the world’s leading experts on Health & Wellbeing, Travel & Leisure, Sports & Fitness, Culture & the Arts and Business.

We are developing an enriching community for perspective seekers who desire a fit, healthy and positive lifestyle.

FtC is packed with inspiring & motivating features on outstanding people, places and products. It’s a springboard to attaining greater focus, fulfilment & potential – connecting people to what matters!

FtC Magazine links individuals and businesses alike with pro-active networks, associations, platforms, information, opportunities and ideas; to facilitate and encourage development and success from personal goals to business tactics. FtC makes multi-faceted learning and development accessible, engaging and beneficial.

We provide a valuable platform for the exponential interest and movement towards a healthier lifestyle. We provide truth, exploration, solutions and higher perspectives for positive change seekers who desire a fulfilling and optimized lifestyle. We champion those who are making positive change and seek sponsorship for upcoming athletes, life-changing projects etc.

FtC - Fuel for an inspired life. BE your potential.

www.facethecurrent.com

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issue 06 · April 2017

fAce the current

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FACE the CURRENT MAGAZINE

Sasha Frate

Founder and Editor in Chief

Eric “Aspen” Marley

Assistant to the Editor in Chief

is a perspective seeker, adventurer, and explorer. She received her Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts and continues to study a variety of subjects within and outside of the academic setting. Frate brings her personal moonshot approach to life to FtC, aiming to provide an experience for our global community where we inspire one another to stay curious, never stop exploring, and to live on-purpose and to potential.

is a writer, teacher and shamanic practitioner living in Central Oregon in a tipi near the Deschutes River. His passion is creating community through indigenous spirituality, namely through the Lakota and Laika/Earth Keeper ways.

Sema Garay

Kathleen Johnson Antoñana

Sema is the graphic designer behind the development of the image and magazine of Face the Current. He has developed a multitude of projects, including his previous job leading the Creative Department of BG Life Magazine. Sema is passionate about all kinds of artistic expressions, especially music and architecture.

is a dual Master of Spanish Linguistics, Literature, and Culture as well as of Bilingual Special Education. A voracious student, teacher, writer, and paralegal, Ms. Johnson has dedicated her career to immigration law, translation, non-profit grant writing, and special education in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Johnson is an avid traveler and linguist with a deep love of books, travel, and people.

Executive Designer

Editor

letter from the editor

Weren’t we supposed to be jet-setting around the Universe by now? Wearing spotless white suits

colonizing other planets and powering our locomotion by warp drives, or at least solar power? More poignantly, I suppose, weren’t we supposed to feel more connected? To everything? It turns out we aren’t far from that, if you ask Nassim Haramein, Chief Physicist and Founder of The Resonance Project. His work with protons, wormholes, gravity and quantum particles has implications for powering the planet. If you ask him, we are connected to everything, and he can prove it. Speaking of connection, we were honored this month to speak with the Founder of Earth Day, Denis Hayes. He shares how Earth Day came to be, and how it took some serious political gamesmanship to get anyone to take notice.

Discover music from around the globe with titles alone that lead you to ponder concepts of time,

reality, and emotions- just wait until you hear the music! Don’t miss LA pop duo Man Made Time… Are You Anywhere –who, while from Romania, reflect on how “our minds aren’t localized - we’re free to roam anywhere.”

Belgian DJ, Robert Falcon inspires success at age 21 with his motto to Dream It- Do it! Finally, Jack Belcher, Host of popular podcast From Dubai With Love shares his top tracks of the season.

Kari Schibevaag tells us about her life of adventure, which includes 7 World Kite Surfing and 12

World Snow Kiting titles. Her smile alone – about as joyous as you’ll ever see - is contagious as you read about her life of adventure. And speaking of adventure- Film Producer Rafael Pease talks about his Connections Movement film project that explores athletes and local natives’ connection with nature.

Living joyfully is much easier when we are healthy. Dr. James Bentz explores the Mind-Body

Connection in our pursuit of just that, and Dr.Vaughn Bowman shares the calamities of bottled water both on body and Earth. In our Sustainable Business section, we hear from the Climate Trust Organization and Paul Stamets’ team, while prAna shows us their groundbreaking line of hemp clothing, made with the health of both body and earth in mind.

Connection… we’re all about it. Looking around, it seems that you are too. May we all feel a part of

something bigger, more vibrant, beautiful and joyful this colorful Spring month. No spacesuits necessary!

Eric Marley

Assistant to the Editor in Chief

www.facethecurrent.com

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,

APRIL s

CREW

We are a growing team of Up-standers whose intention is to create positive change in the world, through networking, connecting, supporting and developing at an individual and global community level. We are passionate about building our network of experts and industry leaders to deliver cutting edge information to our global community. This month’s Team and Crew are based in the U.S. and Europe.

Chris Assaad

is a singer-songwriter from Toronto who left a promising career in law several years ago to follow his heART and his passion for music.

Since then, Chris has been sharing his eclectic blend of soulful roots music across the globe and actively using his voice to enCOURAGE others to live a life they love. Chris is also a writer, storyteller, creativity coach and inspirational force and is known by some as the author of a written quote that was recently shared, liked, and reposted over a million times on social media. www.chrisassaad.com

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Jesse Weinberg

Dr. James Bentz

is Founder of Global Yodel Media Group, a content, influencer and social marketing agency, Global Yodel a digital community that explores the globe from a local perspective and Kindness & Co dedicated to starting a movement of kindness.

You can visit Jesse at: www.globalyodelmediagroup.com T: @stuffJWsays

D.PSc. is a Chiropractor, Speaker, Health Coach & Educator, Trainer & Leading Practitioner in Neurological Integration System (NIS), which is a method of restoring communication between the brain and body based on the principle that the brain monitors every cell in the body. www.fidalgoislandhealthcenter.com

Dr. Vaughn Bowman is a board certified Naturopathic Physician licensed in the state of Connecticut. For nearly two decades he has treated patients of all ages with a myriad of different conditions from the common cold to debilitating autoimmune conditions. The goal is to always locate the underlying cause for any one illness rather than treat superficial symptoms and by doing so Dr. Bowman has led many patients back to health. drvbowman.com

Guillermo Machado

Lisa Skube

Former Math and Science teacher at THINK Global School, Guillermo Machado is a modern nomad, philosopher and student of life. He has a background in physics and renewable energy research for Utileco, he has travelled the length and breadth of the globe more than a few times and is usually seen polishing up his rhythms on his djembe with the locals, whenever opportunity beckons. You can contact him at: machado.guillermo@ gmail.com

is a former US NorAM skier turned information advocate, carving up digital experience design & scaling press sustainability, a social change architect. She is the founder of JournalismAccelerator.com a trainer, coach and consultant unifying public good plus revenue @journaccel @lskube & beyond instagram @skube2U2

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Mik McKee

got his start working as a Forestry Technician for the US Forest Service. Later, he worked on the frontlines of many large wildfires as part of the Chena Interagency Hotshots. This experience led Mik to become part of at team seeking innovative ways to increase biomass utilization in the northern Sierra. In his current role, Mik seeks to demonstrate how carbon offset projects can lead to improved forest management in a financially viable manner. He has a Master of Forestry from the Yale School of Forestry. www.climatetrust.org

David Ryan

David is a celebrity trainer in Los Angeles, California and creator of LIFTSTRONG Max Intensity Interval Training. You can get your own personalized HIIT program at www.

DavidRyanFitness.com Instagram: @DavidRyanFitness

Michael Malone

Dave Aiello

Tom Archer

is an American Comedian, Actor, Director, & Podcaster. His popular comedy podcast “Punched Up” explores the stories behind the comedians you love. Michael writes on “Great Comedians. Great Stories.

Told Differently.” www.malonecomedy.com Social: @malonecomedy

is an author, musician and photographer based in Portland, Oregon. He has worked with Fortune 50 companies to build their global brands but now applies his natural curiosity to exploring and documenting the world around him. www.aiellobuzz.com dave@aiellobuzz.com

is a freelance photographer with a passion for travel. He shoots a variety of work from weddings to advertising, he is completely self-taught and his work has taken him all over the world. He is in the process of building workshops, which will see him teaching landscape and adventure photography in some of the most beautiful destinations on the planet. www.facebook.com/ tomarcherphotography www.instagram.com/tomarcherphoto

Allyson Weinhold

is a Los Angeles based writer and actress. She has written and performed in various web series and comedy sketches and recently finished her first novel. She loves the outdoors and can be found running or rock climbing in her free time. She is passionate about mental health and wellness and plans to use her passion for acting and writing to give a voice to those affected.

Instagram: @allypat3

Clair Marie

who also goes by “BASEgirl” is a BASE jumper, Skydiver, Mountain bike racer, Rock climber, Motivational Speaker, Keynote, and Model. She is a passionate vegan and a world traveler. She has made it her life goal to inspire others and help them accomplish or find their dreams and passions. After defying the odds and becoming one of the worlds youngest BASE jumpers at 16 years old she realized how important it is to always follow your dreams! And now she helps others find theirs. https://basegirl.com

Dr. Jeremy Princi

is an expert in health and wellness and registered Chiropractor. Jeremy has undertaken post-graduate studies in Sports Chiropractic, International Sports Chiropractic and Holistic Lifestyle Coaching (CHEK Institute). Jeremy has an inspired passion for organic and biodynamic farming. His vision is to re-connect food, farming, fitness and healing into one holistic model of health, which supports, honors, and respects Mother Earth. http://www.holisticlifestyler.com Instagram: @holistic_lifestyler

Danny McGee

is an adventure photographer / filmmaker based out of Colorado. For the past 3 years he has traveled all around the world taking photos and making films. His goal is to not only share his vision of the world, but to inspire people to get out and explore it for themselves. http://dannyemcgee.com Instagram: @dannyemcgee

Jack Belcher

has taken the internet by storm since 2013 with his fast paced forward thinking approach to trance music.

His weekly podcast, From Dubai With Love, is listened to in over 40 countries around the world and regularly features guests such as Ferry Corsten, Lange, Solarstone, Andy Moor and Neelix.

Facebook.com/itsJackBelcher Instagram: @itsJackBelcher

Jerry Angelini MS, is the Education Director and part of the formulation team for Host Defense Organic Mushrooms. In these roles, he has brought information to professionals as well as the general public in the United States and Canada regarding the traditional use as well as the most recent research associated with mushrooms and herbs. He has also been instrumental in formulating a supplement line that combines mushrooms and herbs for the mass market to support people’s wellbeing. www.hostdefense.com

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CONTENT issue 06 · april 2017

COVER stories NASSIM HARAMEIN 32

The Connected Universe

prAna SUSTAINABLE

LIFESTYLE APPAREL 110

Bringing Hemp to the Masses

CLIMATE TRUST, 120

PAUL STAMETS & JERRY ANGELINI, 114

DR. VAUGHN BOWMAN 102 and more Share Insight on Climate Change, Pollution, & Eco-Sustainable Living Solutions

FOUNDER OF EARTH DAY, DENIS HAYES 54 Talks Evolution of the Environmental Movement

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FACE the CURRENT MAGAZINE

KARI SCHIBEVAAG 80

7x World Champion Kitesurfer & 12x World Snow Kitemaster

APRIL CONTENT L VE RE A TR ISU E &L

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IC US

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s rt s o sp nes it &f & th g l n a he lbei l we

12.

6 Stunning Places You Don’t Want to Miss That Still Have Their Essence

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Sustainable Tree House Retreats

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Eco Travel: 10 Ideas To Consider Next Time You Go

26.

Chasing Winter in Lapland, Finland

32.

Nassim Haramein: The Connected Universe

46.

Becoming A Citizen Of The Earth

50.

A Higher Calling

52.

April’s Word Play

54.

Founder of Earth Day Denis Hayes: Global Evolution of The Environmental Movement

66.

Robert Falcon: Dream It, Do It!

70.

From Dubai with Love

72.

Man Made Time: Lightning Strikes Twice

76.

Are You Anywhere

80.

Kari Schibevaag: Always Pushing Forward

86.

Connections Movement

90.

Win The Morning Win The Day

92.

When What We See Will Not Last

96.

Grow Your Own Food: Benefits of Connecting with the Soil

100. You’re Only as Healthy as You Think 102. The Calamities of Bottled Water 106. Healing the Planet One Heart at a Time 110. Premium Apparel and Hemp: prAna Sets the Stage

s bu

ine

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114. Mushrooms Eliminate Toxic Waste 118. The Secrets to Influencer Marketing Success 120. Opportunities For Business In Fighting Climate Change 124. 2017 Earth Day Partner Directory

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FtC fAce the current

TRAVEL

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18.

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6 Stunning Places You Don’t Want to Miss That Still Have Their Essence Sustainable Tree House Retreats Eco Travel. 10 Ideas To Consider Next Time You Go Chasing Winter in Lapland, Finland

FACE the CURRENT MAGAZINE

THE WORLD’S VESSELS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Vercoe has been in business since 1989 serving the needs of boaters worldwide from our offices in Portland, Oregon and Maui, Hawaii. www.vercoeyachtsales.com

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FtC travel

6 Stunning Places You Don’t Want to Miss

That Still Have

Their Essence

By Adventure Photographer Danny McGee

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Pristine white sand beaches, the soft sound of waves crashing on the beach, and no boat motors to disturb the silence. No loud music blasting out from any beach bars. Still, all is undisturbed.

Flash forward 20 years and that pristine beach you’re sitting on right now is nothing like the one you remember. There are resorts crowding surrounding beaches and the true essence of what that place once was has been lost. This is what is happening all around the world. Authentic cultures and customs are being replaced by upscale resorts and paved highways. Pure experiences are becoming harder and harder to find in this ever changing world.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Danny Mcgee and I am an adventure photographer / filmmaker based out of Colorado. For the past 3 years I’ve traveled all around the world taking photos and making films. My goal is to not only share my vision of the world, but to inspire people to get out and explore it for themselves.

Most people follow the traditional path: get a job, work until you’re 60, and once you save enough, then go travel and see the world. I chose a different path. I realized that this world we live in is changing. With globalization moving at an ever-increasing rate, the world is changing faster than ever. The time to go out and see the world isn’t in 20 or 30 years, it is right now.

The places on this list are all places that I think are subject for change within the next few years. If you wait too long to see to them, you might never be able to experience the true essence of the place.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO

Glenwood Springs is a quintessential old west town. Most of the mountain towns in Colorado are all moving towards becoming typical ski villages, condos, heated sidewalks, and high-end shops, but Glenwood has still clung on to the old western charm and feel. It is located right in the heart of the Rocky Mountains just a few hours drive from Denver. In town it has hot springs, caves, and numerous historic buildings. Another big reason why I chose Glenwood is its proximity to some of Colorado’s most incredible sights like the Maroon Bells, Hanging Lake and the Crystal Mill.The Crystal Mill for example has exploded with popularity recently and regulations to visit the Mill are already in the works. www.facethecurrent.com

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HAVASUPAI, AZ

Havasupai is located deep into the heart of the Grand Canyon. It is only reachable by either a 10-mile hike, or helicopter.The thing that makes it so special is the remoteness of it. An Eden found right in the heart of one of the most unforgiving landscapes on the planet.To call this place magical would be an understatement.

The feeling when you first peek over the ledge at Havasu falls is truly indescribable.The area is fed by a natural spring, which gives the water its signature blue look. It is one of those places that photos can’t give it justice; it just has to be experienced.The whole time I was there I frequently found myself thinking, “Am I dreaming right now?” Just about 10 years ago this place was still somewhat unknown. Since then it has absolutely exploded with popularity.

Getting permits to make the trek requires some serious perseverance. It took me almost 2 weeks and over 500 calls to get through. It is getting harder and harder to obtain permits and only will get more difficult as time goes on.

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TODO SANTOS, MEXICO

Todo Santos is a town on the pacific side of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. It is a little over an hour away from the famous resort town of Cabo San Lucas.

It is a place where you can find a true taste of Mexico. Unlike its resort-studded brother Cabo, the town feels undeniably pure.

Small art galleries and cafes line the Main Street. If you’re a fan of Mexican food, (and let’s be honest who doesn’t love tacos) endless restaurants and stalls can be found all throughout the town. When I was there we ate at least 5 meals a day just because the food was so good. Most of the roads leading to its countless stunning beaches are still unpaved which keeps the beaches relatively uncrowded and I think that is a big reason it has avoided a huge influx of tourists.

It is a place that provides a small taste of the simple life and gives you a glimpse into what Mexico is all about.

JACKSON HOLE, WY

Jackson Hole is another old west mountain town. It has become more and more popular recently, and a lot of that has to do with its close proximity to two incredible national parks; Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. Huge quantities of the national park land are undeveloped and are left in their original natural state.This has allowed the area to become a haven for huge herds of elk, bison, moose, wolves, bears, and over 500 other species. It is the definition of pure, untamed wilderness. Jackson Hole is surrounded by epic scenery and offers some great downtown spots. Make sure to check out the Million Dollar Saloon. Over the past few decades it has gotten ever more popular and resorts and condos are slowly creeping in. But for now it still has a firm grip on its old-west charm.

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KOH TAO, THAILAND

Koh Tao is my favorite place in all of Thailand. I traveled the country for two months north to south and wouldn’t recommend any place more. It is a small island but the amount of stuff to do there is unreal. It is a diving hub, because it is one of the cheapest places to get certified on the planet.The diving around the island is the best in Thailand. Above ground the scenery is equally as stunning.The island is made up of huge granite boulders, which makes for an extremely unique island experience.

It feels like something out of a fairytale. All around the island there are spots to snorkel, rock climb, free dive, and anything else you would want to do. My favorite thing about Koh Tao is that it is a big-small town in a sense. When you spend some time there you start to recognize people around town, but there’s also always a huge influx of tourists arriving and departing. Koh Tao does have its fair share of upscale resorts as it is a major tourist destination, but somehow it hasn’t lost the feeling of a small town. Who knows what will happen in the next few years, but for now this little paradise on earth is sitting somewhere out there in the gulf of Thailand just waiting for you.

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PORSMORK, ICELAND

And now for my favorite place of them all: the small village of Porsmork in Iceland. It is nothing more than a lodge with a few volcano huts and a grassy area to set up tents.The untouched wilderness that surrounds the camp is what makes this place so special. It sits in the shadow of looming volcanoes, glaciers, epic waterfalls, hills blanketed in stunning green moss, and enough fresh air to last 100 lifetimes.The only way to access it is via a 20-mile hike (which in my opinion is one of the coolest hikes on the planet), or by a brutal 4x4 road that requires what is essentially a small monster truck to bypass. Although this place is relatively remote, I believe that in coming years it will explode as a huge hub for trekking, mountain biking and 4x4ing. Until then, this small slice of paradise is still tucked away in a remote valley in Iceland, surrounded by a panorama of unbroken beauty.

yMore info: http://dannyemcgee.com Instagram @dannyemcgee

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FtC travel

Sustainable

Tree House Retreats

These eco-friendly havens will get your vacation off the ground!

By David Aiello As kids we all schemed to build that perfect hideout. For many of us this ‘accident waiting to happen’ was twenty feet off the ground, nestled within vibrant foliage, and patched together using scraps of wood and used nails.

Today, the notion of a refuge among the trees remains appealing to both young and old. Luckily if you are now more interested in room-service than building your own tree house, there are numerous tree house retreats around the globe that offer luxurious amenities in an ecologically friendly manner. These retreats work to compliment the environments they occupy while offering you a one-of-a-kind forest hideaway experience. Here are just a few.

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Treehouse Lodge, Iquitos, Peru

Located in Northeast Peru at the convergence of the Yarapa and Cumaceba rivers, is Treehouse Lodg e.

If you want remote, this is the place. Accessible only by boat, this all-inclusive, luxur y tree house retreat allows you to experience the rainforest from a point of view most visitors never see—at the treetop canopy. Featuring 10 tree houses between 30-70 feet above the jungle floor, you’ll wake to a safari of animal life before you even get out of bed!

Treehouse Lodge is dedicated to protecting the flora and fauna of the Amazon. They’ve eliminated the use of one-time plastics and are currently using about 80% solar energy with a goal to become 100% solar powered in the next year. Jared Snow, Direc tor of Marketing for the Lodge, is quick to add, “We’re proud to be located in the most biologically diver se section of the Amazon and hope to protect and preserve this area for generations to come.” www.facethecurrent.com

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TreeHouse Point Issaquah, Washington photos: www.adamcrowley.com TreeHouse Point is one of the Pacific Northwest’s most unique bed & breakfasts. Although located only 22 miles from Seattle in the dense forests of Snoqualmie Valley, it feels worlds away from the chaos of the city.

Pete Nelson, host of Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters, and his wife, Judy, created TreeHouse Point, as a destination for people to commemorate special times with family and friends while reaffirming their appreciation and respect for nature. Their stewardship for the land and the trees that are growing on it is reflected in the eco-friendly designs of the six tree house cottages that blend seamlessly with the surrounding environment.

And if that is not enough to satisfy your inner tree house child, visit Nelson Treehouse and Supply for plans, parts and knowhow to build the tree house you’ve always known you wanted!

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Kanopi House, Blue Lagoon, Jamaica photos: Bill Curry If you had more of a tropical tree house destination in mind, consider the Kanopi House, near Port Antonio, in Jamaica. Located in one of Jamaica’s most beautiful parishes, Kanopi House offers four, luxurious, peak roof tree houses built in the classic island style.

Caring for the environment as well as the community, Kanopi House uses sustainable materials and eco-friendly designs in

their tree houses to compliment the surrounding crystal waters, white sandy beaches, lagoons and lush greenery. For example, all furnishings were designed and handcrafted by area artisans and produced from renewable Jamaican materials. In addition, no trees were cut to build Kanopi House. Accommodations were made to incorporate the natural landscape and in some cases this means trees growing through the roof of the cottages! One story tells of a Guango tree a neighbor had chopped down and was poised to burn. Kanopi House intervened and retrieved the tree to create a series of organic, rough-hewn dining and coffee tables for the resort—reinforcing their reputation for sustainability and comfort!

yMore info: Animal Planet Treehouse Masters http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/treehouse-masters Kanopi House http://www.kanopihouse.com Nelson Treehouse & Supply https://store.beinatree.com Treehouse Lodge https://treehouselodge.com TreeHouse Point Event Center & Overnight Retreat http://www.treehousepoint.com www.facethecurrent.com

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FtC travel

r a t v o e c l : e

10 Ideas To Consider Next Time You Go

By Eric Marley Most people love to travel.

There’s something about new sights and sounds that can bring us together, inspire our creativity and leave us wanting more.

Maybe we’re simply wired that way.

Our early hunter-gatherer ancestors couldn’t afford to be homebodies; not within most eco-systems, anyway. When the herds moved, our ancestors moved. Even those living on abundant tropical islands went hopping as necessary.

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After all, variety has been the spice of life long before we came along. Let’s face it, mangoes grown “over there” were simply sweeter, then as now.

Let’s not kid ourselves, however. Most of us travel because we love it for myriad reasons that generally do not include “chasing dinner”. The question is how do we travel in a way that honors not only the culture we’re visiting, but the environment we all share?

I’ve come up with ten travel tips that can make us sleep a little better once we’re “there”.

3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

You do it at home (we hope). So, do it where you travel! Everyone knows you’re not going to go looking for a recycle bin for your beer bottle while vacationing in Mongolia. If you do, extra points. If you don’t, then “reduce-reuserecycle” what you can. It cuts down on trash - and helps to trash that “ugly American” stereotype we from The Colonies keep running into. And often deserve.

No one’s suggesting that you have to take what amounts to a “remote staycation”; one where you travel half way around the world, check into a motel and stay the entire time in one place. But there may be some wisdom in going deep into a culture rather than using it solely as a jumping off point. People have likely been living where you’re visiting for centuries. What keeps them there? What’s beautiful to them? Aside from this way of traveling, all-inclusive resorts are a great way of getting Western comforts – if that’s what you’re after – without driving all over the place chasing them.

2. BYOC (Bring Your Own Container)

In the Health section of this issue of Face the Current, we’ve published an article outlining the mind-blowing environmental consequences of consuming bottled water (“The Calamities of Bottled Water”, Dr. Vaughn Bowman). On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to justify bottled water when the alternative may be Montezuma’s revenge. Our advice: don’t risk it if you’re traveling in a third-world country. However, even in a developing nations there are ways to purify local water using filters and tablets. When traveling in more developed nations it’s a no-brainer: bring that container!

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1: Hit and Stick

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4. Don’t Leave The Oven On! (Or much else)

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Interestingly, one of the best things we can do to have a lower impact on the environment when we travel can take place before we even start traveling. As I look around my home, I see a coffee grinder, coffee pot, DVD player, salt lamp and printer… all whirring happily away while my electric meter spins like a slow hurricane. This is not smart, but at least I can go shut them off. This is harder to do from Myanmar.

5. Use Your Feet

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I’m amazed at how many people go camping at a State Park and bring an RV, complete with satellite and stereo. Why even leave the house? And then I look at myself with my rental car, zipping by sight after sight with stereo blasting and wonder if there’s a difference. I agree that sometimes a car is necessary, especially for point-to-point travel. But one of my most memorable vacations was the result of a rental car falling through at the airport. After getting a shuttle to my destination, I was forced to walk all over rural Baja. At first I was disappointed, but when I allowed myself to fall into the rhythm of the place… it was pure magic.

If I go back, I’ll do the same thing.

6. Travel Green

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Green travel is booming.

There are green resorts and hotels, in addition to trekking or adventure vacations that are naturally less conducive to energy use. Aside from that, some car rental companies are now keeping a small fleet of hybrids. No matter what, a little research and care can yield a lighter footprint – whatever form it takes.

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7. Travel With Your Tribe

Group travel uses less resources than individual travel. Think of it as environmental economies of scale.

After all, there’s a reason you won’t be flying from Portland to Japan on a jet that’s not full to the hilt. Big groups simply consume resources more efficiently. Aside from that, travel can bring people closer together. Most of the time. Either way, it’s an experience that can generate lasting memories and connections with your crew that last a lifetime.

8. Pack Light

10. Staycation

Every ounce you carry, especially on a flight, contributes to the thrust it takes to get that ship to cruising speed. So, while space in the suitcase is the limiting factor for many of us, it may be time to change that mode of thinking. Did I really need that oversized novel?

Can I rent my snorkeling gear?

Sometimes it’s worth it to haul your favorite stuff with you… sometimes it’s not.

Of course, the way to keep that carbon foot print the size of a cat rather than a mastodon is to simply stay home. In my home state of Oregon, I’m appalled at how many people haven’t been to Joseph, Hells Canyon or the Steens Mountain range. Sure, they’re remote, but they’re less remote than, say, the Gulf Coast. As it is when we visit another country or culture, there can be great benefit to “boots on the ground” vacationing.

Sometimes, there really is no place like home.

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The question is how do we travel in a way that honors not only the culture we’re visiting, but the environment we all share?

9. Eat Local

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It makes no sense to go to Australia and drink California wine. Learn the local customs – including the food. No one’s saying you have to eat Taiwanese chicken feet (your loss), but locally grown produce is generally going to be tastier, healthier and in better condition than a similar item brought from across the country… or the world.

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FtC travel

CHASING WINTER IN

LAPLAND Finland

By Tom Archer Lapland: a name that conjures up images of Santa, Christmas, freezing weather and warm cozy lodges.

But it is so much more than that.

Admittedly I visited in March and Santa was long gone, hibernating away next to the fire in a cozy cabin somewhere.

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When we landed we were treated to a balmy -1 degree centigrade (I say this because temperatures over the winter can get down to -40!) Everything was coated in a smooth white blanket of snow and the magic of this place, especially for children, was immediately apparent. We only had a weekend here and my girlfriend Julie and I packed it full of activities.

First up was Cross Country Skiing. I can snowboard but I have never gone near a set of skis. I was surprised at how easy it was to pick up. I can’t

imagine its downhill counterpart would be anywhere near so forgiving.

We spent a couple of hours sliding through snow covered pine forests, not a person in sight. Things went quite differently that night.

We decided to venture out on the skis at 9pm to go hunting for the elusive Northern Lights. I have been fortunate enough to witness the Aurora in the past but for Julie it would be her first experience and she was tingling with excitement. We headed out alone back into the forest.

After an hour or so we stopped when a faint green glow started to slowly snake across the sky. I took my skis off and set up my camera gear. By now it was down to -20 and it doesn’t take long for that cold to seep through your layers of clothing when you stop moving. The Aurora gradually got brighter, in a giant arc to the North glowing a luminescent green. We spent the next hour watching and photographing this incredible natural phenomenon. The cold started to become too much and we decided to ski back. www.facethecurrent.com

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It was here that we ran into problems.

We realized our skis had frozen up and we were unable to clip our boots back in. We tried for ages to warm

them up and to free them but to no avail. We ended up walking back through deep snow for an hour with numb feet. We learned our lesson!

The next day we were up at 5:30 to watch the sun rise. The temperature had dipped to -26 and our rental car took over half an hour to defrost! It made me wonder how people live day-to-day in these conditions. We made our way down to a partly frozen

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river. It was like a scene from a Disney movie. Rays of golden sun splintered through steam rising off the river.

Every inch of tree was covered in a glittering white; our breath froze as it left our mouths.

Later was another “bucket list” activity: riding a husky sled. We were briefed and outfitted. It was a visceral experience, the dogs were loud and feisty and I was surprised by their

pulling power. They seemed to love every minute of it. We managed to get ourselves stuck in a snow drift for a short while, but the rest of the 20km trek went without incident although I was pleased to get back into the warmth of our cabin at the end.

We spent that night in an Aurora Dome at the Harriniva Resort. The dome is a insulated geodesic tent with a large window overlooking a frozen lake. It is heated by a log fire and is kitted out stylishly with a huge cozy

bed. We built a fire out front at dusk so we could sit outside and watch the night sky. We sat there, toasting marshmallows until the northern lights came out to play. This was my favorite part of the whole trip and an experience I won’t forget.

I feel we didn’t even scratch the surface of Lapland. With many beautiful national parks, loads of extra activities such as ice fishing, snowmobiles, downhill skiing and

wilderness experiences, there is plenty to keep an adventurer busy.

The locals are very friendly, the food was good and the landscape is simply breath-taking. It is a destination we will definitely return to soon.

ymore info: http://www.harriniva.fi/en/ Instagram: @tomarcherphoto

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FtC fAce the current

culture 32.

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NASSIM HARAMEIN. the connected universe Becoming A Citizen of the Earth A HIGHER CALLING April’s Word Play Founder of Earth Day Denis Hayes: Global Evolution of the Environmental Movement

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FtC culture

HARAMEIN the connected universe Interview by Sasha Frate, Eric Marley, and Guillermo Machado Space travel and the manipulation of gravity.

Education and economics. Consciousness and reality. What do these things have in common?

You’re about to find this out and more.

Nassim Haramein has spent the past several decades working on esoteric concepts once reserved for the greatest minds that the world of physics and mathematics has ever produced.

Concepts that occupied the minds of Einstein and Tesla and that spawned quantum physics, along with the incredible world that came to our awareness with it.

Haramein has written peer-reviewed papers on these concepts that are currently being debated – and celebrated by academics the world over.

For those of us not as steeped in the ideas that rule the subatomic world, he has recently created and released a beautiful and informing film called, “The Connected Universe” which puts everything into perspective. The breadth of implication that Haramein’s findings have produced is mindblowing. In this Earth Day edition of Face the Current, he reveals how we are capable of powering the planet with almost no ecological impact and actually quantifies our connection to the earth, and to each other. What if this were the accepted reality, rather than one reserved for idealists alone?

Find a quiet place and journey with us into the mind of Nassim Haramein. You will discover a world, a life, an existence that is both bigger and smaller, further out and deeper within… and more inter-connected than you’ve ever known before.

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“

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the mass energy of all the rest of the universe was present in one proton, like a holographic structure. So it’s saying that at every point, every atom is in contact through these micro-wormholes, entangled with everything else in the Universe.

physics Face the Current: Dr. Michio Kaku explains what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” in his book “Einstein’s Cosmos,” which describes how “atoms in our body may be connected with an invisible web to atoms on the other side of the universe, such that motions in our body can instantly affect the state of atoms billions of light-years away.” How does this theory place in your current research?

Nassim Haramein: That is a very interesting question, because we’re talking about entanglement at the quantum level. For people that are not familiar, it was first demonstrated theoretically at the quantum level and then measured multiple times in modern laboratories that a particle can be entangled. Actually, at this point they have even been able to entangle macro objects like diamonds.

If you modify the polarization of a particle with another particle at a distance (and it doesn’t matter the distance- the particle can be on the other side of the Universe) – if these two particles are entangled, when you modify one, the other one on the other side of the Universe is modified

instantaneously, as if they were connected by some invisible network that is faster than the speed of light. It’s instantaneous. We know that it’s true because we’ve been able to measure it in laboratories.

What happened in those tests is the following: Imagine hitting a carbon particle with a laser and emitting two photons that are going away from each other, and imagine that they hit at the very end of a long, long tube that can be miles long… (and it’s been done, where on one end of the tube there’s a polarizer that changes the angle of one of the particles).

Then there’s a detector a very, very short distance from the polarizer that detects the angle, right? Well, when you do that, if the distance between the polarizer and the detector is very, very short, you can calculate how long it would take the information to get to the other particle at the speed of light. If that distance is larger than it would take at the speed of light for the information to get there, and if the two particles arrive at their detectors at the same angle, then you know that they communicated instantaneously.

So, you know that these particles are entangled, or are in a state of

coherency. Then parallel to that, in relativistic physics- the physics of large things like galaxies, black holes, stars, and in the physics of gravity- it was discovered that there can be things that form in the structure of spacetime that are called “wormholes.” Two places in the Universe that are very far apart from each other can be connected instantaneously through a wormhole, when space-time is very curved.

Early on in my research, I concluded that particles were little black holes, and when they got entangled it was because there was a wormhole that connected them. That sounded very, very strange at the time. It still sounds strange to some physicists but now some of the top physicists in the world like Leonard Susskind, have come up with similar theories.

One is called ER=EPR where “ER” is “Einstein-Rosen bridge,” which is the wormhole equation and “EPR” is “Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen,” which is entanglement. It’s basically saying that particles are entangled because there’s micro wormholes that form in the structure of space that connect them. This has a large impact on the equations I wrote, which showed that all particles are entangled. www.facethecurrent.com

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My theory to this day is actually the most precise theoretical prediction of the radius of the proton in the nucleus of the atom, which is really important in physics.

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So, they might not be entangled directly, right? Now, for instance, we can entangle two diamonds so that a laser hits one diamond on one side of the lab, and the diamond on the other side of the lab acts like it’s being hit by the laser. You can imagine that the application of something like that would be amazing, but what is important here is that when I wrote the equation to describe the source of mass – and we call that the “holographic mass solution” – there was something strange that happened: When I calculated the amount of energy information that’s inside the nucleus of an atom, inside the proton in the center of an atom, it said that all the information of all the other protons, or the mass energy of all the rest of the universe was present in one proton, like a holographic structure. So it’s saying that at every point, every atom is in contact through these micro-wormholes, entangled with everything else in the Universe.

Of course, if we all came out at one point, which is the current big bang solution (and I don’t necessarily agree

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with the big bang, but something along those lines), then everything would be entangled.

Now, why can’t we see every atom being entangled with every other one? Well, because they might not be directly measured in our awareness.

For instance, we might move a particle here (and this is what Dr. Michio Kaku explained in his book), but it might be entangled with a particle that is on the other side of the Universe. We don’t measure that it is affecting anything, because when you’re modifying “this” particle we are not measuring the other one on the other side of the Universe, right? The whole thing could be entangled and we wouldn’t know because we only see the entanglement of particles in which we have direct access to both ends of the wormhole.

FTC: So, not all particles are necessarily entangled, then?

Nassim: What the equations that I wrote show is that yes, they are.

That is, they’re all entangled, but it’s not necessarily available to our measurement because the other particle that the one particle is

entangled with could be on the other side of the Universe and we can’t measure it.

It leads to the concept that the whole Universe is connected. What’s really exciting is that when I wrote the math to calculate this connection – basically, I wrote the math to answer “what is the influence of all the protons in the Universe on one proton?” to try to figure out how they’re talking to each other. When I made those calculations it gave me the exact mass of the proton that we’re measuring, very precisely. So imagine an equation then, that has the mass or the information of all the things in the Universe – which is a very large number. By the time you finish the equation it outputs exactly the mass of one of the protons, which is a very small number, and it outputs it with a high level of accuracy (like, a lot of significant digits after the period).

Using that equation I predicted exactly what the radius of the proton should be, because I basically calculated how many little wormholes are connected to that one proton. I predicted what it should, but the standard model

said it should be four percent larger than my answer. So, I said that the standard model was wrong by four percent. Then they measured it in the laboratory more precisely than ever before and it came out four percent smaller than the standard model predicted! My theory to this day is actually the most precise theoretical prediction of the radius of the proton in the nucleus of the atom, which is really important in physics.

FtC: Historically it has been very hard over the past 100 years to unite the quantum and the gravity world; the small and the large. Could you explain what it was about your theory that was able to approach this problem in such a way that these two previously disjointed realms are now part of a continuum within your theory?

Nassim: Early on I was looking for a unification of those theories and I thought that particles, when you study them in detail, act a lot like mini black holes, which are objects that are predicted by Einstein’s field equations.

So, I used Einstein’s gravitational field

equations and I applied it to subatomic particles like the nucleus of an atom, and it kinda worked. For instance, if I made a little proton a black hole and then I calculated, if I had another one, the strength of the attraction between those two black holes, it outputted exactly the strength of the attraction– and not approximately, but exactly. It outputted what we call the “strong force” that holds the proton in the nucleus of an atom. In the standard model there’s no explanation where that force came from.

the protons away from each other- I explained that, by showing that they were spinning at nearly the speed of light. Therefore, they had mass dilation.

When you move them away from each other they slow down. That makes the mass go down, and that is why the force drops exponentially (instead of the square of the distance).

Then I realized that the protons had to be far more massive than what we had measured. I tried to understand how that could be, and then I realized

I published a paper that got a lot of criticism where I described this little proton as a mini black hole and just pointed out that the force between them would be exactly what we measured.

The range would be different though,- gravity drops at the square of the distance, while the strong force drops exponentially as you get www.facethecurrent.com

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time is a concept of man. Meaning, if we didn’t have memory, we wouldn’t have time,

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out to be holographic. It’s called “the holographic principle” in physics.

it was a holographic solution: that the mass of the proton that we have been measuring is holographic mass, meaning it is only the amount of information that is able to escape its surface, which is much less than the amount of information that’s inside it.

FTC:You spent some time on that in “The Connected Universe” film.

Nassim: That’s right. That was my later paper called, “Quantum Gravity and the Holographic Mass.” That started the “holographic mass solution”, which now I’ve now applied to the electron, and I’m able to get the electron mass, and the mass of all the electrons in all of the table of elements. So, I am now able to explain all of matter in the Universe using this holographic solution, and it’s really exciting and extremely precise.

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How it connects the macro and micro thought? With the holographic mass solution, I applied this concept to black holes in the universe. When Einstein wrote his equation of gravity he didn’t solve them- they were solved by another physicist-mathematician named Carl Schwarzschild. When Schwarzschild solved Einstein’s equation it basically said that there can be points in space that have such a large mass that light could not escape them and a singularity could form (it actually solved for a singularity).

Einstein wasn’t excited about that, and he actually thought “maybe that makes my equation incorrect.” Eventually John Archibald Wheeler called those things “black holes,” and the solution to black holes described a surface called, “the event horizon,” which is a point of no return where light can not escape from that point on. That surface turns

I described it a little differently than the standard model described it: I described the information that’s inside the black hole in terms of little spherical Planck oscillators.

Planck oscillators are the smallest electromagnetic fluctuation that can happen. You can think of it as a photon going through itself at the speed of light, and so it’s very, very, very small- it is billions and billions of times smaller than an atom. So each little Planck can be thought of as a little bit of information you can think of. I thought of all the information that is inside the black hole, and I then all the information that’s on the surface, and I thought, “Oh, the information that’s on the surface restricts what can come out.” There are fewer bits of information on the surface (or fewer points where the little microwormholes can connect than there would be on the inside). I did a ratio between the two (the bits on the inside and the bits on the outside) to see what kind of energy ratio there would be, like a pressure, and it gave me the exact solution to Einstein’s field equation: It gave me the exact solution to the gravitational mass of the black hole.

All of a sudden I had a solution to gravity, but it wasn’t like Einstein described, like a smooth curvature of space-time. It was more like granular, very fine grains of information in the structure of space-time, all orbiting together to make a mass, and to make a gravitational effect. The best

That’s how I unified gravity – what Einstein had described at the cosmological level, with quantum physics. It modifies Einstein’s equations, and it modifies quantum physics and actually brings them together using Planck bits of information. Basically, it says that space is not empty. It’s full of these little bits of information, and when these little bits orbit together coherently, they make something that we measure as mass, or gravity.

FtC: Could you explain the nonmanifest VACUUM (or plenum), where energy is stored?

Nassim: Basically, space is not empty.

Meaning the space between you and I, the space between atoms, and the space inside the atom… it’s important for readers to understand that the material world we’re looking at and everything we call “reality” is made out of 99.9999% space. Then the thing that we think is solid in that space- the material stuff- when we look really closely, all we see is electrostatic charges. We see a little electrostatic charge that binds the space: a little boundary condition. The boundary condition of the electron around the nucleus has 99.99999% space, so all of reality that we see is basically space with little electrostatic charges. And because the electrostatic charges bounce against each other, it appears that the space becomes solid, and we call it “matter.”

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time is actually information recorded on the structure of space, on the hard drive of the universe.

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analogy for this is to think about a plug in a bathtub. When you pull the plug you get a little vortex right above the drain. If you have a rubber ducky, the ducky is going to start orbiting near the drain, right? That looks like gravity.

What Einstein said is that gravity is like the surface of the water going down the drain, and he described the curve of the surface of the water going down the drain. But what I found is that the water is made of little particles, and when they’re all moving together (comoving together making that vortex), that’s what makes the curvature. So the curvature is secondary to the spin of the information in that region of space. It was like quantum gravity because it was made out of little bits of information of the quantum size. Then I applied that to a proton, the same surface to volume ratio approach of bits of information, and I got the exact mass and radius of the proton, and the forces and everything just came out beautifully.

FtC: Which for us it kind of seems backwards, because our reality seems like it’s 99.9999% solid.

Nassim: Yes, but that’s a deception.

That’s an illusion because it’s mostly space. But then it turns out when you look at the space, we know that the space is full of electromagnetic fields.

For instance, the space between you and I is full of radio waves, infrared, microwave, even background radiation from the Big Bang… I mean, there’s all sorts of stuff in the space, and because our senses are fairly slow, they only pick up a very small band of what is there. We don’t experience it directly.

It’s actually very recent that we know that there are other spectrums of the electromagnetic field and we started to use them. In our human history, it’s fairly recent that we discovered, for instance, that there’s x-ray and microwave and infrared and all this stuff. It turns out that, if you look deeper and deeper and deeper, you keep finding smaller and smaller and smaller wavelengths, all the way down to the quantum level. You find that actually, at the quantum level, the space that appears empty is fluctuating with intense amounts of energy- intense amounts of electromagnetic fluctuation. But it’s happening at such a high frequency, not only do our senses fail to pick them up, but even our instruments don’t pick it up! It’s only very recently that we can actually measure it directly, and we’ve been able to now.

FtC: So, our reality is really defined by our ability to perceive?

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defines our reality. Is that a correct statement?

Nassim: No. What I’m saying is that our reality is composed of something that we’re not necessarily perceiving.

It’s the other way around. We’re kind of blind to this whole world of electromagnetic fluctuation of information in the structure of space this field of information is where matter emerges from and where it returns to.

That includes the matter that makes up our bodies and our existence.

We are participating in this field of information. When you write physics that way, it might sound really esoteric, but it turns out to produce really precise information about matter, mass and forces, unify the fields of physics; it even starts to talk about biology. It tells us something very profound about biology, about consciousness, about spirituality, about many, many different things you wouldn’t think are related to physics.

But when you start to think that all the material world is connected through this field of information, then all of a sudden it’s not clear that consciousness is something produced in your brain.

Maybe your brain is like an antenna, interacting with this field of information, and maybe you can influence that field of information at a distance, which maybe would explain things like psychic abilities, or remote viewing capabilities.

All these things start to maybe make sense if these physics are true. They so far appear to be very, very precise, and very true.

FtC: Space itself, what appears to be a physical manifestation that is intrinsically linked to time and which is subject to gravity, seems to have an elasticity to it as well.

Could you talk a little about the relationship between space and the vacuum?

Nassim: “Vacuum fluctuation” is a technical term in quantum physics that describes this intense energy that was discovered to be at the

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very fundamental quantum scale of the structure of space. But time is a concept of man. Meaning, if we didn’t have memory, we wouldn’t have time, right? If we didn’t remember the instant before, we wouldn’t know that there was an instant after. So, evolution is a concept of man, but if evolution is really happening in the universe for real, then that means that information in the universe must be recorded in some sort of memory structure in the universe, just like a hard drive, right? Just like active memory on your computer.

It turns out that this information structure of space on a quantum level might be the universal hard drive that’s recording everything that’s going on as matter is moving through space that produces the feedback of information that engenders evolution, or what we call “time.” To make it precise then, time is actually information recorded on the structure of space, on the hard drive of the universe.

science and education FtC: Could you talk to us of how you envision scientific research in the future? In particular, the relationship between the different sciences and the relationship between academic research vs. industry research.

Nassim: In general I think there should be a much closer relationship between industry research and academic research, because the two can inform each other much better.

It would require that the structure of our industrial world and financial world be better integrated with the academic world in such a way that it benefits humanity instead of the special interests of the corporate world.

It is a very much required evolutionary step that our social structure imposes restrictions on the industrial, and military-industrial complex as well, to benefit humanity as a fundamental axiom of their activities, instead of acting only in the interest of the bottom line. This is a very big difficulty that has infiltrated our governmental structures through lobbying and through special favors that are done as a result of financial

support given to various candidates, and so on. This needs to be rectified because it’s currently driving humanity into a very dramatic, unfortunate end.

There are ways to recover from it.

There is amazing technology, and there is amazing capacity to make a huge difference and transform the way we do things, but there needs to be the political and financial will to make that happen.

FtC: In “The Connected Universe” you mention your intention to avoid some of what is taught in formal education in order to enable you to think more broadly and be more open to new ideas. How do you think high school education and higher education should adapt to better prepare us for or propel us towards this future?

Nassim: I think that there should be a complete revamping of the concepts of education. My father was a very well respected Professor of Psychology and Education. He worked under Jean Piaget for a good part of his earlier studies - Piaget was the Father of Childhood Education in Switzerland.

My father was very much involved

there, and eventually he realized that with the way that children learn, it is best to allow them to learn using project-based learning. I’m hoping this is becoming more and more popular.

There are schools everywhere around the world, charter schools and others, where children are taught by their involvement in projects.

This is important because the assumption that children don’t know anything and need to be taught everything is not necessarily correct.

Or that children that are not able to be taught science or children that are not interested in the arts should still attempt to do art, and so on. I think people are born with gifts. There is a concept in child psychology called “tabula rasa,” a concept that my father as well as Piaget didn’t agree with.

The idea is that children are born with nothing, and all they know is the result of interactions during their early life. If you ask any woman that has had more than one child, she’ll tell you that children are born with their own character and their own set of information. I have two children and they’re very different from each otherand they were different from each other at birth! www.facethecurrent.com

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The educational system should be a place in which children go and are given the resources to fulfill their interests. If they’re interested in something, then they (should) have to build a project around it. So, if they’re interested in computing for example, maybe their project could be to make a new game. They have to figure out a little budget for their game and write about it- so they have to learn to write, and they have to learn to count.

They have to learn all the skills they need to learn, but they learn them while doing something that interests them. Because, how many of us have been taught so many things at school

that didn’t interest us? And did we remember them? Most likely not. Like, the people that were not interested in mathematics or physics probably don’t quite remember how to solve a differential equation. But we were taught these things anyway. And our early lives are so precious!

There is so little time in a lifetime, so why not use every moment and just give the children everything they need to accomplish their interests?

And their interests may shift over time but eventually they’ll find what turns their crank, what gives them joy to work on. If we support them in that,

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I think we could have thousands, or even millions of geniuses! Everyone is a genius in their own way and has something incredible to contribute. I think our educational system should encourage contributions that are outside what is known. While currently our educational system discourages, in large part, any creative thinking that makes large changes in what is known.

Small change is acceptable- little, incremental change. But somebody that says ‘this is completely wrong’ is usually very much discouraged. In most cases, they are actually blocked from being able to bring their gifts into the world.

Everyone is a genius in their own way and has something incredible to contribute. I think our educational system should encourage contributions that are outside what is known

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Current Projects, Economics, Politics, and Business FtC: Could you tell us about the current status of your research, the technology being developed and the interdisciplinary developments that have been taking place?

Nassim: Yes, I have many parallel paths that I have going on at the same time. Of course I’m continuing my theoretical work with other physicists.

For instance, I wrote a paper with Dr. Val Baker and William Brown on the space-memory network.

Remember, I changed the word “space-time” to “space memory” to be more precise about where time comes from.

We’re writing papers on astrophysics with Dr. Val Baker and other physicists, and the paper on the electrons. So there’s a lot of theoretical work that’s being done. There’s educational work being done at the Resonance Science Foundation and the Resonance Academy, which has courses that people can take that are continually being updated. The Delegate Course is one of them.

I have private laboratories as well that are for-profit corporations that are attempting to apply the

theoretical work to technological development in the fields of energy production, gravitational control, and health benefits for humanity. These things are very much moving forward and are around the corner - not just for my laboratories, but for many other laboratories that are developing similar concepts. For instance, the laboratories of Sonny White at NASA are working on a warp drive. They are testing a drive called the EM drive, or electromagnetic drive, that is showing that they’re able to produce thrust by pushing against the structure of the vacuum, pushing against that energy that’s in the vacuum by manipulating it.

In my laboratory, we are doing similar work that will be able to control gravity to extract massive amounts of energy and run the world in a very, very ecological way. There would be almost zero negative impact on the environment. I mean, there is amazing technology emerging and our laboratories are working diligently to move forward in that direction. So many things are going on in parallel.

FtC: As noted in the film, humans have been leading an unsustainable course towards

depletion of our energy resources. A large part of your focus is renewable or abundant energy systems. How do you see the relationship between economics and these new ways of tapping into the well of energy stored in space itself?

Nassim: There will be a large impact on the economy when these new sources of energy emerge, which are right around the corner because much success has been achieved in the last twenty to thirty years. These technologies are going to change the way we do commerce. There is going to be a difficult adjustment.

Imagine a technology that is able to extract energy from the vacuum… the vacuum density is 1093 grams per centimeter cubed- this is more energy in a centimeter cubed, by thirty-nine orders of magnitude, than all the mass or energy in the Universe. So even if we extract one billionth of a billionth of a percent of what is in a centimeter cubed of space in terms of energy we would be able to run the world for thousands of years. You can imagine that leads to gravitational drives, space travel, etc… It births our society into a www.facethecurrent.com

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The oil industry and energy production industry will have to readjust, but it is a transition that must occur because in order for humanity to become sustainable, we have to start producing energy in a way that has zero, or very little negative impact on our environment.

We have as well to eventually learn to control gravity. We’ve built a whole society based on controlling electromagnetic fields. You know, all of our modern society is the result of learning to control magnetic or electric fields to make all of our devices work, our cars and everything else, and this was a great advancement in human society.

The next step is to learn to control gravity, and we’re getting close now that we are understanding gravity at a deeper level. Just like when we

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understood the electromagnetic field with Maxwell’s equations at a deeper level, we learned to control them.

Now we’re understanding gravity at a deeper level and we’re learning to control it. We will be able to birth our society into a space community.

Maybe we live in space, and maybe we only come to the earth to enjoy the garden that it is without putting cement all over it and destroying it.

These possibilities are right around

the corner. We’re about to birth our society into a space community because we’re about to learn how to control gravitational fields.

“

We’re about to birth our society into a space community because we’re about to learn how to control gravitational fields.

“

completely different way of interacting with the Universe, with each other, and in doing commerce. There will be an adjustment, just like there was an adjustment when we discovered the automobile. You know, when cars were starting to be manufactured, people that were in the horse industry making shoes for the horse for example had to readjust. There were changes when we started to be able to fly. When the Wright brothers were successful putting a couple hundred pounds of material into the air and getting it to move along, this changed a lot of things.

So economically there is going to be an impact, and it’s probably going to be a little bit difficult.

FtC: What is your opinion on what a company like Tesla is doing at the moment, and their way of understanding future trends and innovation? Do you think the company’s name does justice or is in anyway honestly related to the great genius who left us wireless technology, generators, alternating current, the radar, telephone, etc.?

Nassim: To be honest, I think if Tesla were alive that he would be a little bit disappointed, because Tesla was very much shut down by the industrial complex for trying to extract energy directly out of the vacuum. Tesla was working on this transmission of energy through the structure of space itself and he was very successful at doing that, and then he was right on his way to extracting the energy from the vacuum. Some say that he succeeded in it. But for sure it displeased his financiers, who wanted to put a meter on every house and charge for the power.

They had also invested large amounts of funds into the mining of copper to make the wires that would connect all the houses to the power stations.

So the last thing they wanted was electricity that could be transmitted through the air, and certainly not electricity that could be tapped into by every individual directly without a meter in the way!

What Elon Musk and the Tesla Corporation are trying to do is very valuable though, in terms of taking steps towards a more sustainable world, and I think the intent is

wonderful and it’s opening up the door for many people. A few years ago people couldn’t imagine buying an electric car. Now you have to get on a list and wait for a year or two before you can get a Tesla. It’s exciting to see that people are catching on to the possibility. Now we have to produce the electricity in a better way so that when we charge our electric cars, the car charger is not attached to a nuclear power plant, or a coal plant, or an oil-burning generator.

The other thing is what the Tesla Corporation and Elon Musk are doing in space exploration, as well as Virgin Galactic, is very commendable.

They are wanting to go to Mars, and they are wanting to colonize Mars.

This is all great, there is great intent,

“

and I think it’s very visionary work. I just think that they are being led down the wrong road of the engineering path. Since the 1940’s and the Second World War, this has been the time of the most advancement in space technology, but rocketry hasn’t really evolved since then. We are not going to be able to colonize Mars with rocketry. The calculations are very much counter-indicative. The number of rockets that would be required even for a small population on Mars would be tremendous. Thousands of rockets would have to leave every month, and then the accessibility is only very sporadic. Mars is close enough for us to be able to go there, but it would be extremely difficult to add a colony there with rocketry.

However, with gravity control, this all

becomes very much possible. If we can control gravity- if we can levitate things and move them through space by using the same forces that nature uses to produce gravitational fields, then it is a whole other story. It becomes very much accessible. Going to Mars would only take a few hours and it could be done at any time. We wouldn’t have to wait for a certain relationship between Mars’ and Earth’s orbits to be able to go there. We could go to Jupiter… we could literally live in space. If you can control gravity, you can have ships the size of moons if you want to. So it really is the next step of evolution, and I wish that corporations like Tesla and Virgin Galactic invested more resources in research in gravity control and less in fossil fuel burning rocketry.

Going to Mars would only take a few hours and it could be done at any time. We wouldn’t have to wait for a certain relationship between Mars’ and Earth’s orbits to be able to go there. We could go to Jupiter… we could literally live in space. If you can control gravity, you can have ships the size of moons if you want to.

“

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MANIFESTATION AND INTENTION

Nassim: This is exactly what I was talking about on the technological side, when I was speaking about learning to engineer the vacuum, or what I call “vacuum engineering.” If this is all correct, then you are doing that right now with your body. You are made of a hundred trillion cells that are completely coherent and very much able to maintain a very high level of energy. There are billions of chemical changes that are occurring every second for you to stay alive. It is a non-trivial, carnal generator. It really is

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an amazing thing. And yet every one of those cells is made of a hundred trillion atoms that are highly coherent as well. This is an amazing, amazing thing. You can think of yourself as this link between the micro-world of the vacuum structure and the quantum level, and the macro world of the environment we see around us. We’re basically absorbing information from the local environment and feeding it to the fundamental field; the vacuuminformation network that connects the whole thing, and then the reaction of the field is what we see as our reality.

Then we absorb that and feed it back,

“

We’re basically absorbing information from the local environment and feeding it to the fundamental field; the vacuum-information network that connects the whole thing, and then the reaction of the field is what we see as our reality

“

FtC: Often in your talks and seminars you have led meditations intended to help the participants tap into their own creativity and internal connection to relevant knowledge. An important part of your theory is that humans can be thought of as bio-spiritual systems that act as a bridge between the microscopic world of the planck and the quanta, and the macroscopic world of gravity-dependent objects.

Could you elaborate on this and speak a little on the relation that the future human operator will have to have with the technology your team is developing?

and it’s in a constant state of feedback/ feed-forward flux.

I believe that is what we call “consciousness.” It is feedback within the structure of space-time. Because consciousness is self-awareness. In order to have self-awareness you have to have feedback. It’s very remarkable.

So now you can imagine, if you’re aware of this, if you’re conscious of this, you can use certain techniques to increase the amount of information crunched through to your feedback.

You can increase how much you can influence the vacuum field, and become a conscious “vacuum engineer.” I think this has a lot of power in terms of its philosophy and in terms of its understanding of biology and consciousness. We just wrote a paper on this with Biophysicist William Brown called, “The Unified Spacememory Network,” which was just published in NeuroQuantology, a journal of neuroscience and quantum physics. It is really starting to gain some traction. People are starting to get on the idea that consciousness is not produced by the brain, but that the brain is interacting with the field of information. Consciousness then, is not necessarily localized inside your body.

FtC: Regarding the direction of your efforts and research, do you know where you are “meant to go” already, or do you connect regularly and check in with your internal sources of intention and inspiration to modify your trajectory accordingly? And if so, what have been the major changes of direction you have had to apply in your journey so far?

Nassim: That’s a very good question.

I think I set the course when I was very young, around the age of ten.

I think everything else around that course has changed along the line, but I kept the course pretty straightkeeping my eye on the eight-ball. But, you know how you imagine you’re going to get somewhere, and then it doesn’t necessarily happen that way?

Many, many things along those thirty or forty years of investigation and development have happened that have shaped and refined my understanding, my personality, and my growth. There have been a lot of micro-course adjustments to stay on the major line. That major course has been to understand the nature of reality, and to apply technology to transform our civilization and overcome some of the largest difficulties that humanity faces.

I think we’re getting there globally, and I hope I am contributing my little piece into that.

FtC: “The Connected Universe” touches on the ability for people to feel resonance. How do you describe this feeling, and how do you suggest tapping into it?

Nassim: It’s a hard feeling to describe, but if I were to try to put words to it, I would say that it’s a feeling of unity.

You might feel it in many different ways. I think that one of the ways we feel it the most is with our partners, our families, or maybe with our pets.

When we feel an overwhelming sense of love and unity for something or somebody, I think that is a fundamental resonance connection.

It’s a sympathetic resonance field.

Everything falls into place and it’s like everything is oscillating in a copacetic relationship. Being in nature helped me a lot to feel this early on. Being by myself, quiet, in nature within beautiful settings, and paying attention to my breathing and my movements whether I were climbing, skiing, or just sitting there… feeling that sense of empathy, that sense of connection, and a feeling of resonance with nature- with the fundamental forces of creation.

Meditation techniques can help us get there. Anything that actually brings our senses inward towards the center of our being will help, because our being is connected. Our being is in resonance and in coherence.

Otherwise, if our being were out of coherence, we would have a very bad day, very quickly. (Laughs) Within a few minutes, if the hundred trillion cells that make up our bodies went into decoherence, it would be a really bad day.

So, I think it’s there, it’s inside of us. It’s already happening. This coherency is amazing. This miracle of life that we’re taking for granted every second- if we actually stop to experience it- I think that is what connects us with the universal forces.

ymore info: Resonance Science Foundation http://resonance.is/ The Resonance Academy https://academy.resonance.is/ Nassim Haramein http://haramein.resonance.is/ The Connected Universe Film http://getconnected.resonance.is/ The Annual Delegate Gathering 2017 https://resonance.is/delegategathering-2017/ Facebook: facebook.com/TheResonanceProject Twitter: @ResonanceSci Instagram: @resonancescience YouTube: youtube.com/user/ResonanceIS NH Facebook: facebook.com/Nassim.

Haramein.official/ NH Twitter: @NassimHaramein nal-156450609/ www.facethecurrent.com

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FtC culture

Becoming A Citizen of the Earth

By Eric “Aspen” Marley

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What does this have to do with the title of this piece?

It’s not the lodge, although the ceremony itself is an enactment of a concept that’s central to becoming a Citizen of the Earth. This concept is found within the word, Mitakuye Oyasin. (With some variation, this is generally pronounced, mi-TAWK-WEAW-sin). In Lakota, this means, “all my relations.”

“

True wilderness is in limited, disappearing places, the result of a philosophy of “nature as commodity” or “NOT my relation.”

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“Aho, Mitakuye oyasin!”

A dozen mud coated people yell from the inside of a sweat lodge at the ceremony’s completion. The door is thrown open and steam escapes like a child dashes from their room early on Christmas morning: joyful and made of light. We climb out, one by one. A man stands just outside, taking each of us by the hand, welcoming us back into the world, steadying us, smiling.

“Welcome, brother.”

I stand in a line and await each person, who are in various states of dishevelment. In turn, we shake hands and hug and smile. Our bodies thrum. Our heads are light and clear.

Somehow, as dirty as we are, we feel clean.

I just emerged from a Lakota sweat lodge, or Inipi ceremony. I’ve attended hundreds of them; night ceremonies are my favorites. The moon is full and illumes the landscape with otherworldly and understated tones that seem to be made more of shadow than of light. I feel connected… to everything.

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What does that mean?

The word is an acknowledgement of the relationship of ourselves to all things; not only the things we consider “living.” To the Lakota, the rocks are alive and the trees speak. Rivers, oceans, and mountains all have a voice. The grasses, seasons, directions, sky, and earth are as alive as you and I; animals, too. It’s just that life itself has taken a different form in each instance. The octopus is as alive as the reef, the bison as alive as the man, the clouds as alive as the sun.

Somehow, emerging from a good Inipi ceremony, covered in mud and created

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from my own perspiration, my relationship to All is evident. Respect is, therefore, without question. I feel of the earth.

Connected to Her and all that lives in, on, under, and over her.

I am one with all I can see, and I know it from experience.

The tricky part is taking this lesson into the world. Of course, it’s easy to feel warm and cozy when you’re surrounded by your friends, or even nature. However, what happens when someone is rude to you, sees life differently, or is simply otherwise obnoxious? How about when your community woods are turned into

a subdivision or your waterways are threatened? Are you related to those people, too?

Yes, you are. As importantly, they are related to you. By the way, they also see you as crazy.

The question is, can you experience kinship with them as well? How do you treat a family member that’s not quite all there? You cut him some slack in some areas, don’t you? At least ask some questions about his behavior? Show some compassion? You have your boundaries, certainly, but he’s a relative. More mercy is shown to relatives. It just is. Applied

holistically, this empathy automatically makes the world a better place.

Moreover, what would happen if we felt, truly felt, related to clean water? To mountains and farm animals? I mean, most of us are probably still going to eat bacon, but maybe we’re more grateful for the animal who gave up his life for us to enjoy it? How would we feel, after experiencing such deep connection, about pledging allegiance to anything less than all of life, to all our relations? Wouldn’t it feel like we’re missing the point? The question is, what is the physical embodiment of all of life?

I think it’s the one thing I can see that was

“

created by a higher power. Nature. Where can we find Nature?

Everywhere.

True wilderness is in limited, disappearing places, the result of a philosophy of “nature as commodity” or, “NOT my relation.” Nature, however, is found in a flower pushing up through a sidewalk, a cat rubbing against your legs, a stand of trees in a park, or even in our shared humanity.

It is found in meditation and experienced deeply in indigenous ceremonies similar to the Inipi.

Becoming a Citizen of the Earth, then, is an experiential journey into the genesis of

All That Is. It’s the process of rediscovering what it means to be deeply human, a citizen primarily of the Great Play and Interplay between…

All My Relations.

ymore info: www.marleysoulworks.com

Mitakuye Oyasin is an acknowledgement of the relationship of ourselves to all things; not only the things we consider “living.”

“

Credit: Irving Arturo Angulo Chi. Cueva Río Secreto, Quintana Roo, (México)

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FtC culture

A HIGHER CALLING

By Michael Malone “I wish I had a cool ‘coming out’ story,’ ” comedian Leah Mansfield sheepishly confided.“I don’t,” she laughed.

During a commercial break of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Leah casually turned to her family and told them the news.

“Ya know that girl that’s coming to visit me this weekend? Well… She’s more than a friend. I’m gay.”

After a brief pause, her mom broke the silence with, “Yeah, we know.”

And that was that.

Comedian Leah Mansfield’s family has always been progressive.

She was raised in a litter of six sisters and one brother by two self-proclaimed hippies who work as environmental physicists in northern Seattle.

Leah was a long distance runner and an above average student, but always felt a little different.

Like when her sisters would be gossiping about kissing boys and rounding the bases, Leah remembers thinking, “Maybe I’ll wait wait ‘til I’m married to have sex.”

This is a normal feeling in the gay community. In fact, forty eight percent of teenagers have no idea they are gay until they are in their in their mid twenties. They all grew 50

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up feeling how Leah felt. Just a little, “different.”

Leah wasn’t sure what to do, or who to talk to. She felt like she was suffocating in the secrecy of her inner, uncertain feelings. So, she did what most young, anxious teenagers do. She rebelled.

“I became a born-again Christian.

I joined Campus Crusades for Christ,” she said. “I felt something was wrong with me, and I thought maybe religion could fix it.”

One summer, at “Jesus Camp”, she met a girl, and all those feelings about being “different” suddenly went away. Things clicked. Leah and her new friend kept their

relationship a secret for several months, meeting in the woods to sneak kisses and hold hands. It had all the trappings of a real-life romance novel.

One day they decided to open up and share their relationship with their inner circle of friends. But the new relationship status didn’t get them any “Likes.” In fact, their friends saw thie relationship as a rebellion against God and lectured them on how wrong their actions and feelings were. The inner circle

forbid the two girls to see each other, and everything came to a crashing halt. So, they split up. Peer pressure, it appears, is a helluva drug.

A year went by with no contact until Leah heard through the grapevine that her “summer fling” had attempted suicide four times since their split. She reached out, but only received more silence until, one afternoon weeks later, a letter showed up.

“Please don’t contact me. I can’t be friends with you. I can’t see you.

I can’t support your lifestyle. I can never see you, ever again.”

They never spoke again.

I’d like to tell you that what happened with Leah and her girlfriend from “Jesus Camp” was an isolated incident. But, It’s not. Studies show that suicide is the leading cause of death among Gay and Lesbian youth. Some studies show that nearly thirty percent of gay youth attempt suicide near the age of fifteen.

When religion didn’t fix her, Leah went searching for answers in a place most of us would least expect: she joined the United States military. And it changed her love life.

Leah had always liked the idea of joining the Air Force, and when she

applied, she was accepted. Once she was there, Leah found comfort in a small group of ladies who were all gay. More importantly, they were openly so. It was the first time that she had hung out with a social group of people who were gay, and didn’t care. This was also the first time Leah’s life that anyone had made it feel okay.

Even though none of them talked about their lifestyle choice at work, this was still a huge leap in life for Leah. She finally felt like she fit in.

After Leah spent a few years in the military, she spent significant time soul searching. She found herself battling for many years with

religious guilt and accepted mores about “right” and “wrong.” Leah remembers thinking that even her worth in the world was somehow affected by the fact that she was gay. That because she was ‘different,’ God wouldn’t love her anymore.

I asked Leah if she was still religious after all her soul searching, and her response ended up sounding like something her hippie physicist parents would say.

“If God is truly everywhere, it implies and infiniteness. Right?

There is no way I could ever comprehend (God) in this particular dimension, with my brain, in this life. Like, I dunno if there is

even a God or not… And I don’t think it’s my calling to figure it out, either. I tried for about ten years, and I got to a point where I thought, maybe I’m just supposed to make people laugh.”

ymore info: Comedian Leah Mansfield’s full story can be heard on our debut episode of Punched Up, “Unblock My Love” which can be found on iTunes or at www.PunchedUpPodcast.com Make sure you give it a listen and don’t forget to subscribe! www.facethecurrent.com

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FtC culture

April’s

Conversation

Enhancers

April’s Word Play

Words to Enhance Vocabulary & Enrich Life nce

Warwick Fox in prefere Ecocentric: term coined byent -centered). Both contrast with the

to biocentric (environm nt in industrialized more human-focused perspective prevale nations ething occurs or Milieu: the physical or social setting in which som develops Allogenic: originating outside a system ritory. plant communities that alternately occupy a ter

Alterne: Fluvial: pertaining to streams

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Let’s try it out!

“Prior to Earth Day, many people felt that they lived ALLOGENIC to our natural environment, a more egocentric than ECOCENTRIC thought process, almost as if humans were ALTERNE to plant life; but now thanks to the work of Denis Hayes there is a more holistic MILIEU, almost as if a FLUVIAL consciousness has reshaped the perspective of the masses.”

-Jon Petrich, United States

How to play

n

o h’s vocabulary list

ont Watch for next m

t @facethfirsetcwuererkeofnMay.

social media rase pression or phrd in Create your ex cabulary wo espost using 5 of the vo d write it in th one sentence,aanchance for your entry comment for in next month’s edition. to be featuredsure to include Be john/janedoe your name or @

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FtC culture

Founder of Earth Day

Denis Hayes:

Global Evolution of the Environmental Movement ow far would you go save

by Sasha Frate the planet? For the father of

H

Earth Day, Denis Hayes, this is a question that is woven within the fabric of his day-to-day.

This mindfulness is not new for Hayes who has been fighting to turn back the clock on climate change since 1971 as he witnessed the landscapes that nourished him change at the hands of mankind. For many, preservation is the name of the game. Hayes reminds us that preservation however, is not enough; innovation is now at the core of the current movement, if not the race, to save and preserve our planet.

As Hayes himself points out:“Somehow if the world is going to enjoy a future that lasts for a long time, we have to come together as a species and pursue it in concert with one another.”

Denis Hayes has spent a lifetime showing us that we must band together to be better versions of ourselves collectively. As we struggle to grasp the ramifications of something as abstract as climate change, our mindfulness and reflection must move beyond how these changes affect our daily lives to how they will affect our very survival and that of generations to come.

Despite the doom and gloom typically associated with climate change, Denis Hayes has showed us what it means to name something, create something, and foster change through the creation of green innovations, green economies, and green communities. Thus, this narrative harkens the urgency of the past and highlights the optimistic changes that must continue to be preserved, sustained, and cultivated.

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Denis Hayes: I grew up in a paper mill community on the Colombia River back before there were any kinds of pollution controls. It gave off hydrogen sulfite and sulfur dioxide, which filled the air with acid whenever it rained and in the Pacific Northwest it rained every day so it was pretty miserable.

Junk was just tossed into the river, and we had fish-kills of thousands of fish.

While just ten miles away from that is the Colombia River Gorge, which is one of the most spectacularly beautiful pieces of real estate on the face of the earth. So all of the time growing up, on the one side we had massive clear cuts, acid rain, and fish-kills, while on the other side, there were wonderful camping and hiking experiences. I would take my bike up into the Gorge frequently and think ‘it must be reasonable to make paper without destroying the planet.’

After my junior year in high school, in 1971, I was at the Ecology Center sponsored by the National Ecology Center- nobody had ever heard of ecology. I read the book, “Fundamentals of Ecology,” and it really hit home and stuck in my mind for a period of time. Much of what I had read about how the world was supposed to operate from conventional political theorists, to radical theorists, to Marxists, to Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and so on, just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

So I went out. I hitchhiked around the world for three years, basically looking for a meaning and found it, oddly enough, one night in Namibia.

I had just hitchhiked from Luderitz, down on the coast and across from the mid-desert to a little town called Aus. I was looking back towards the coast and for whatever reason– and the epiphany that I had was commonplace now, but was kind of radical then in my mind. It was that fundamentally, humans are animals bound by the same principals of ecology that I read about in Eugene Odom’s book. I started wondering,

“

The environmental revolution has basically come from the grassroots up under the Presidency of a not-particularlyenvironmental President.

“

Sasha Frate: Creating an official Earth Day is said to have been initiated by your recognition of the eco disasters and accumulation of waste. Were there any other factors from your personal life experience that motivated you to pursue this and make it happen?

what if we thought of ourselves in biological terms? There was no vocabulary then for urban ecology, industrial ecology, or human ecology, but that was the great insight. I basically stayed up all night trying to think through what that was, and then got up the following morning knowing what I wanted to do with my life.

In 1979 I was at an interview with a New York Times reporter where he called for National Environmental

Teachers at colleges and universities. I was at Harvard at graduate school at the time and audaciously flew down to Washington DC for a 15 minute courtesy conversation with Senator Nelson, which rapidly turned into two and a half hours. I had been very politically active at Stanford in previous years and discussed the kinds of things that would make sense for him to do.

I went back home to try to organize Boston, and I got a call two days later asking whether I would consider dropping out of college to try to organize the United States. It seemed a whole lot more promising than macroeconomics theory, so I did it.

SF: What are some of the most impactful changes of the environmental movement that you find most meaningful - perhaps as a direct result associated with Earth Day? DH: While I like to think of it as having a massive impact, I do believe it very clearly was an inflection point.

Things that were impossible in 1969 became unstoppable in 1970 and 1971, and I think Earth Day was the principal thing to pull that off. This coincided with a campaign that we ran called the “Dirty Dozen.” In it we went after 12 members of Congress with very bad environmental records, who were in districts that had strong Earth Day organizations where we could tilt the election using environmental causes. The combination of an election and a spectacularly successful “Dirty Dozen” campaign was the key. We spent under $15,000 on the entire nation and took out 7 of the 12 members of Congress.

Between the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Superfund Toxic Substances Control Act, the Fungicide/Insecticide Act, and the Environmental Education Act and the establishment of the EPA- you throw all of those things together in www.facethecurrent.com

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just a handful of years and I think that the change in the way America does business is probably better than any change with the exception of the New Deal. The environmental revolution has basically come from the grassroots up under the Presidency of a notparticularly-environmental President. It was determined that the net benefits through 2014 were considered to be about 30 trillion dollars. No matter where you are, $30 trillion is an awesome impact.

SF:Then, like you said, it’s tricky to measure the impact from there because it’s just so webbed-out once you’ve had so many layers building.

DH: One of the things that I think did come out of Earth Day was a sense of people thinking about how this particular issue affected themselves, their children, their neighborhoods, communities. As we have dealt more with global issues, we’ve been less effective. With the exception of CFCs

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and the ozone, most of the efforts globally are climate change, ocean acidification, migratory endangered species, and global population, and they were not very successful. What has resonated has been those things that were close to people that they could influence, and that they were affected by. We now have millions of people with jobs that have ‘environment’ in their title, which didn’t exist in 1970. It has become a set of values that all trace back directly and indirectly to that first Earth Day.

SF:There are a lot of celebrities who are utilizing their influence to have a more far-reaching voice and enact positive change. Some examples include Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Climate Action Plan’, Pearl Jam’s ‘Carbon Mitigation’, and Woody Harrelson, who received an Honorary Doctorate for his work with environmental issues and helped found Prairie & Paper. What is your take on these kinds of efforts? How would you suggest we bring this legacy forward and keep the message authentic?

DH: The role of celebrity in American and global culture have been somewhat helpful with Earth Day. Tom Cruise was the host of the Earth Day event in 1990, and Leonardo DiCaprio played a similar role as Honorary Chair and host for Earth Day in 2000. People who have a genuine commitment to the issues have been real assets. The early pioneer on this was Robert Redford, who worked with incredible authenticity on a wide-range of environmental issues and has received various awards.

Somebody like Matt Damon working on safe drinking water for the world, is just an enormous asset, bringing great credibility and visibility to that issue that those of us working in the trenches, just never would be able to reach.

SF:The hashtag “#naturelovers” has been used over 21 million times on Instagram alone. There is an abundance of outdoor sports and recreational activities that expand upon this number, displaying both an appreciation for and a connection with nature. The immense love for this planet paints a pretty picture, both in what the Earth has to offer and in the potential for us to connect with and experience it. What do you see as the best route to promote this experience, strengthening policy through proactive strategies fueled by a new generation, keeping the passion alive?

DH: The idea of biophilia, was basically pioneered by Steve Kellert and Ed Wilson and means that we get a great degree of satisfaction from interactions

with nature, and this is an important part of being human. A problem that many people face in economically dire situations is that it often creates difficulty to get out of the inner city and experience nature. Then we have middle class who could easily do it but are wrapped up in electronic devices. In New Zealand you’ll find communities of 5,000-7,000 people, and they have arboretums with acres and acres to roam. I wish we could do more of that in American cities.

SF:You have witnessed and contributed significantly to the Pacific Northwest’s becoming educated and environmentally aware in one of the most progressive regions in America.

How do you envision this “global model for sustainable development,” and where are some other hot spots around the world that could be looked upon as a model?

DH: Developments in different places

are going to be an outgrowth of the culture of the people that are there and the physical circumstances of the land that they’re in. Other parts of the world that we’ve looked to commonly points to Copenhagen, Malmo, Friedberg, in some respects Singapore, and New Zealand has an interesting collection of cities.

What we’re trying to do is develop a few basic principles where you achieve as high a degree of selfsufficiency as you can within neighborhoods and even within buildings. We are in what is known as a “living building” here at the Bullitt Center, where it generates more electricity with roof top solar panels than the six-story structure itself uses. It captures all of the rain that falls on its roof and uses it for everything, including potable drinking water. It doesn’t generate any waste. It treats its sewage right on site and turns it into compost. It would all be much easier if we could do it with a neighborhood, but we couldn’t afford to do a whole neighborhood, so we did it all in one building.

Most of this has to do with learning how- in a world with ten billion people, and most of them inside cities- we can live with a light enough footprint that we’re not going to crash the planet in the process.

That means that our buildings have to be enormously different than they are now. What we’re trying to do with these cities is replicate that on a large scale, to make them super efficient in their use of energy and water, move people down the food pyramid a little so we’re not having climate destroying diets, etc. In a sense, it’s moving away www.facethecurrent.com

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from conspicuous consumption to conspicuous frugality and to be simple in our approach to life. Transportation will be a huge part of that, organizing our cities so that people don’t have to travel as much as they do now, and the travel that has to be done can be accomplished on bicycles, with foot traffic, and public transportation.

the building is nestled. Sensors inside the building tell you the temperature inside my office and how much carbon dioxide is built up- is it stuffy? We have venetian blinds on the outside of the building that go down following the sun across the sky to keep it from penetrating the glass and overheating the structure.

SF: As President of the Bullitt Foundation, you have helped design and build the world’s greenest office building. What all went into this building to make it the greenest in the world, and what are some unique features that has set it apart from others?

As of this moment, we are the only commercial office building that has met the living building challenge- the toughest challenge in the world. The requirements as of right now are that you generate as much energy as you use, you capture all of your rainwater, you treat all of your sewage, you use only materials that are non-toxic, non-carcinogenic, non endocrinedisrupting… Those are all tough standards to meet both technically and sometimes legally when you have to figure out how to work around regulations that make it illegal to build a really green building (which is kind of crazy).

DH: This is a living building so it functions pretty much like an organism.

It’s brain is a computer down in the basement. The nervous system includes a weather station outside telling you how and if the wind is blowing and from what direction; whether the sun is shining and if so, how intensely or if it’s covered with clouds. It tells you the external temperature in the shade. Then it gives you all of that data about the particular microclimate within which

One of my contributions that everyone misunderstands is that I asked them to come up with an “irresistible stairway.” You walk into a typical office building and you’re

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faced with a bank of elevators, and if you want to walk up the stairs you often have to look really hard to find them. If you find them, it’s dark, there’s nobody else on it, and if you’re a woman you might even be a little bit concerned going up some of these stairways by yourself, even in fairly modern, nice buildings. With ours you walk through the door and you can see this light filled stairway, and if you want to go to the elevator you actually have to go through the door to get to the elevator. If you’re disabled or you’re carrying a heavy load then you just push a button and it opens the door automatically for you.

But virtually everybody uses the stairs and it turns out that it saves a great amount of energy. We have a super efficient elevator- it’s regenerative. But because something like 85% of interfloor trips in the building are on the stairway, it’s good for people’s health!

SF: Having already achieved the name “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine, what would be your all time goal to reach by the 50th Earth Day approaching in 2020? Whether personally or as a global community?

The difficulty with climate change is that it’s vague and abstract, it affects the entire planet. The name “Earth Day” really resonates with people, but it’s hard to make people care about the whole Earth

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One of the elements is to get people to cherish what they now think of as an inconvenience.

The next step is the leap: I would love to have this somehow cause people to start caring about things that are more distant from themselves, their families, their neighborhoods. The difficulty with climate change is that

it’s vague and abstract, it affects the entire planet. The name “Earth Day” really resonates with people, but it’s hard to make people care about the whole Earth in the sense of causing them to pay more for their fuel and what have you to do it. Again, our success in dealing with global issues is dramatically less than it is in dealing with immediate issues.

We have now a lot of people in the world who have built relationships with folks that are a thousand miles away that they’ve never met, and they’ve built relationships that sort of transcend the things that divide us. Even among quite progressive people there is still this deep popular prejudice of patriotism. The thought if you are born one inch on one side of a line that was drawn on an arbitrary location on a map by somebody 150 years ago, you are worth infinitely more than someone born one inch on

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DH: Well, if I could will the future I would have Earth Day be near the beginning of a protracted period of global environmental concern where we’re using digital media, movies, television, print magazines, web blogs, etc. We have issue after issue after issue from the bleaching of the coral reefs, to migratory bird species, to what ‘s happening to the children of Flint, Michigan, to what’s going on with black lung disease. There’s this wealth of environmental things, and I would love for people try to come up with a coherent set of values that causes them to think of them in a holistic fashion; a framework of biophilia and a framework of human ecology.

the other side of that line. Somehow, if the world is going to enjoy a future that lasts for a long time, we have to come together as a species and pursue it in concert with one another.

So, if you’re saying what is the best that can come out of Earth Day? That’s kind of a stretch for a civic holiday, but I’d like it to be much as that first Earth Day was with bringing environmental values and vocabulary into the popular culture, I would love for this next one to do that globally.

SF: Many people are confused by muddled and “mixed messages” on climate change as reports have claimed that it’s not related or resulting from human activity. While the pro side argues that rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities and are causing severe climate changes including global www.facethecurrent.com

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warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. Can you clear the air?

Hmm, pun intended.

DH: There are not two sides on this. The science is now clear. If we went back to 1970, climate change really wasn’t much of an issue. In the early 1970s there was actually a period when there was a degree of popularity about what they called “snowball Earth” in the sense that we were moving into a cooler regime, but before 1980 the people that were devoting their lives and careers to studying climate change reached a unanimous view that we were warming at an accelerating rate as a consequence of human activity in the form of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

I’ll confess climate wasn’t on my radar screen in 1970, and I didn’t become convinced until 1979.

During the last part of the Carter

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Administration I was running the Federal Government Solar Energy Research Institute, which was right down the road from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Steve Schneider was running the global climate modeling program for them. We became close friends and over the course of that he completely convinced me of the truth- so much so that in 1980 I gave a keynote address on solar energy that was to the American Association to the Advancement of Science. With each passing year the volume of evidence has grown more and more.

The reason people think there is a debate is principally because the fossil fuel industry, under the agents of the Global Climate Coalition, ran a campaign that was explicitly modeled upon the cigarette campaign that was convincing people that cigarettes didn’t cause lung cancer.

The automobile companies in the 1960s said there was absolutely no

connection between automobile exhaust and smog. It was up to a scientist at Cal-Tech to prove beyond a doubt that smog was almost entirely due to automobile exhaust. There are these kinds of things and disputes and if somebody’s ox is being gored, tragically they are not beyond even lying to try to save it.

As part of the confirmation process for bringing in the CEO of Exxon as our Secretary of State, they found some internal Exxon documents that showed that when they were deciding what new oil fields they were going to explore, they were putting in a shadow price of between $40 a ton and $80 a ton for the price of carbon emissions that would be emitted and then be taxed under a carbon tax. They knew enough that global warming was there, that they believed that the world was going to be putting a price on carbon emissions. If you’re doing that in your internal calculations and you’re

not going to develop an oil field that isn’t economical – at a price that is dramatically higher than the price of simply the oil that is pulled out of the ground - then you’re pretty well committed to this issue. At the same time the advertisements, public statements, the grants to so called “think tanks” that crank out idiotic pieces of propaganda have created confusion in the US. This is actually quite rare in the rest of the world.

We are in the ironic position now of being less committed to climate change than China, India… not even in the same league as Europe. We will almost certainly be tearing apart the Paris Climate Accord -by far the most important step that the planet has made with regard to climate. They now look like the gold standard as a really important step in the right direction and getting the entire global community behind them in consensus is just a triumph.

SF: When the impacts have reached such incredible global scale and the sources of many of these major problems are deeply embedded in grandiose political and corporate operations as well as daily routines of convenience and habit, what do we do? Can it be reversed, slowed, improved?

Woody Harrelson says stop buying the products and the companies will stop making them. Paul Stamets’ research has shown mycoremediation to be effective in removing heavy metals and toxic waste – reversal?? Solutions do in fact seem to abound. How do you suggest implementing them most efficiently?

DH: The difficulty is that we’ve now waited so long to move on the climate issue, that to get the price right is going to be staggering. A recent Stanford study trying to figure out what the costs of carbon are now,

said it should be somewhere between $300 and $500 a ton. We can’t pass a tax of $15 a ton, so we are going to be doing what everybody hatesregulating power plants, fuel standards of automobiles, even behavior…

There’s the political values part of your mind, and then there’s the consumer part of your mind. People may say all the right things and genuinely believe them. As hundreds of millions of consumers, we tend to relate to items largely based upon their price and how efficacious they are- meaning “is it cheap enough, and does it actually do what I want to have done?” Once it passed those two standards then you take a look at style, value, endurance, recyclability, and environmental components start to come in and people say they are looking for sustainability. But for the most part green and sustainable come after you get past price and efficacy, and so without having something that influences price or regulates efficacy you have a rough time getting it done just by people who want to do the right thing. There is a segment of the population that one of these segmenting studies coined the “true blue greens” for whom the environmental impact is more important than the price. They will happily pay a significant premium and they will even be willing to go for something that doesn’t do the job as well but is really better for the world, but that’s a pretty small number of

people- 15-18% of the population.

With the rest, you’ve got to figure out a way to address this.

SF: How do you feel about the factors of convenience and habit? People often have to go out of their way to get some of the items that are more sustainable and reusable, the upcycled items… they’re not in the majority of stores, and for some people they may not even be within local reach. There is also the factor of habit, speaking of bottled water for examplepeople are thirsty so they pick up plastic bottled water…

DH: And because your cities have gotten rid of all of the drinking fountains! One of the elements is to get people to cherish what they now think of as an inconvenience.

My “commute” to my office involves a mile walk and a bus ride, which for many could be regarded as pretty inconvenient. It could also be considered really healthy exercise, and it gives me time when I’m not looking at a phone or computer screen to think about what I want to get done that day. One of the things of our digital era where there’s always something convenient to read, is that people don’t take time to think. We’re constantly ingesting information, and we don’t have time to process it and come up with our own unique thoughts. So is that inconvenient, or is that something a positive contributor to my mental and physical health?

SF: Can you share some insight from your book “COWED:The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America’s Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment” that you coauthored with your wife Gail Boyer Hayes? Perhaps you can reveal just some of that “hidden impact”? www.facethecurrent.com

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DH: Gail and I were on a trip in the United Kingdom, and as were driving around we kept encountering cows. You don’t encounter cows when you’re driving around the United States, because they are all off on confined animal feed lot operations- places that stink and that the producers don’t want the public to see. In England we kept seeing these little herds, and they were all different.

Gail had almost no exposure to cows before in her life, but when we came back home she was just intrigued by the experience and started doing research.

We found ourselves recognizing how important cows have been to the United States. Cows are human creations that were once animals called ‘aurochs’ that we bred into cows.

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An auroch was fast, really smart, and pretty vicious, and we’ve turned them into these docile, fat, stupid creatures because some of the things that we bred them for were related to genetics that reduced their intelligence. They didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but we had cows that came over on the second ship to the US. Then they were not only coming into New England but also the Spaniards coming into Latin America with their long horned Iberian cattle that they bred with the English cattle and produced the Texas longhorns. The Jesuits going up through Mexico and then into Southern California took herds of cows with them as part of the way that they were angelizing and getting the Native Americans to become part of their mission, offering them milk and meat.

Now, if you were to put all of the cows in America on one side of the scale and all the people on the other, the cows would outweigh us about 2.5 to 1. For the most part they don’t eat grass, which they evolved to do and their stomachs process really well. The great value of cows is that they take cellulose, which we can’t do anything with and they turn it into high value protein. Instead, we put them into these confined animal feeding operations fairly early in their lives and stuff them with grain (which is the functional equivalent of stuffing your kids with Halloween candy)- it’s bad for their stomachs.

They begin to develop ulcers, diseases, and infections, and so we then we fill them with antibiotics. The antibiotics for cows as for people cause weight

gain, and cattle ranchers are trying to get the cattle to weigh more so they can sell for more, so they use the antibiotics for this. It became illegal just a few years ago, so now they use it prophylactically. They don’t have any diseases, but they’re giving it to the cows anyhow so that they don’t come down with diseases, and a bi-product of that is that they gain weight. We use vastly more antibiotics in our livestock than we do for people, so that’s creating a wave of antibiotic resistance diseases that is beginning to permeate the planet and could ultimately lead to pandemics.

If we’re going to continue to have cows, we think they should be dramatically limited in numbers. They should be fed entirely on grasslands, be antibiotic free, and cruelty-free.

That will only happen as Woody

Harrelson apparently said- if people demand it. If people being to demand those changes and reduce the amount consumed down to a trivial fraction of what we currently do. If we were to stop eating beef, cows would disappear within two generations.

Regarding the impact on the environment- the waste from the feedlots is taken to what they call “goons” that are filled with terribly smelly cow waste. They’re often unlined or thinly lined and tend to rip, and the waste sinks down into the water table and creates nitrogen poisoning. Cows also fart and belch a lot. Their belches are principally methane, which is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is.

The largest use of corn in the United States is for ethanol, and the second largest use of corn is to feed cows on

feedlots. A really distant third use is for human direct consumption, and it’s a different kind of corn. All of this in “corn country” we have enormous amounts of erosion, incredible amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to increase growth, use of herbicides- and all of this runs down into the rivers like the Mississippi. The ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico is a direct result of the cattle industry and the corn that’s been grown to feed them. It all ties together in ways that are alarming and not in the best interest of the people and the planet. Instead of 93 million cows, it probably ought to be something closer to 20 million. The impact would be dramatically less.

ymore info: Donate to 2017 Earth Day March for Science www.crowdrise.com/EarthDay-MarchForScience/fundraiser/denishayes www.earthday.org www.bullitt.org

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MUSIC 66.

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Robert Falcon: Dream It, Do It! From Dubai with Love MAN MADE TIME: Lightning Strikes Twice Are You Anywhere

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Robert Falcon: Dream It Do It! Falcon Proves Success Can Be Achieved at Any Age if You Dream It and Pursue It!

By Eric Marley Robert Cools aka Robert Falcon is a young DJ out of Belgium making an impact. Pursuing his passion since the age of 14, he has recently turned the heads of some of the most respected names in the dance music industry, such as Armin Van Buuren and Tom Swoon. He describes his first big break as his official release in collaboration with Quintino and reveals his up and coming collab with D-Wayne. We caught up with the stylish, handsome Belgian as he landed for a gig in Miami.

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Tell us about how you got into music at such a young age.

I’ve always been a big fan of dance music and DJ’s, and one day I bought myself DJ material to dream about doing the same as all the big guys in the scene. A few years later I also got myself into the world of producing music, and now I’ve managed myself to play in festivals all over the world and to release my music on big dance labels.

You are said to have started taking your DJ-ing pretty seriously from about age 14. That’s pretty young! What inspired you to start DJ-ing at that point in your life, and who were your early supporters?

When I started at the

age of 14 it was more like being a DJ at home with my laptop and making my first mixes with “Virtual DJ.” I was all the time working on some mixes and showing them to my friends when they were done! After a few years when I started going out I directly felt a big interest in the music and I wanted to be there myself.

You’ve come a long way already at age 21. When will you feel like you’ve “made it”?

I’m far from done. The thing is I always want to get to another level and bring more and more unique fresh music and that will never stop!

When did it hit you that #musicislife and you wanted to pursue this as your career?

What was your first big break?

A few years ago, I felt like I wanted to take the step to make this my life and live from and for my music. The only crucial point is that you can bring your own music and be, besides a DJ, also a producer. My first big break was, of course, my first official release with Quintino on Spinnin Records.

When people describe your work as “unpredictable” what’s your take on it?

I feel the same. It’s unpredictable because I just www.facethecurrent.com

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make what I like and I don’t have a specific style or plan in mind when I start working on something new. I’m working with so many different people and cultures that some records are going sometimes a total different way than I was expecting them to go.

From meeting legends like Armin Van Buuren to playing amazing festivals around the world… what are some favorite perks of your job?

It’s really nice to meet all the guys who you always looked up to from the start. But I do this because my biggest passion is to make and play music around the world.

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What’s the most useful advice you’ve ever received?

Rule number 1 is to respect everybody that is sending you questions and music. I know back in the days when I started doing this, I had a lot of questions like: “How can I sign my first record? Is my record sounding good? How do I mix a record? Is this vocal in the right key with my track?”

I did that same thing a few years ago and it’s something I’ll never forget.

Giving guys who are on the start of their dream some tips to move on is just an amazing feeling.

What are your favorite collaborations so far, and what do you look for in an artist that you’re going to work with?

That’s a very hard question because I don’t have a favorite one at the moment. Every collaboration was special in a different way or style. It was just special to work with guys like Quintino or Tom Swoon, and I never expected that this could happen to me.

You’ve said “Dream it. Do it.”

What’s been your approach to realizing your dreams and what’s the next big dream look like for you now?

If you have a dream, you just have to go for it. You can’t achieve something without doing anything for it and it will not just happen to you all out of nothing.

If someone had been living under a rock and hadn’t heard of you, what track would you suggest starting with?

It all depends on the style of music you like the most! I really don’t have a record that is my all time favorite at the moment, but if I were asked to tell you my biggest and most famous record, it would be “Raptor” w/ Quintino on Spinnin Records!

What are you looking forward to the most this upcoming festival season?

The number one thing is for sure to play all my new records on the festivals. I have so many big things coming up that I can’t even wait to tell and show them to everybody!

Any exciting up and coming projects or releases in the works?

At the moment, my new record together w/ D-Wayne on Afrojack’s Wall Records will be the next release. It has always been a dream to me to release on his label! I also signed two new records on Spinnin Records that I hope to release very soon. I can’t tell anything yet but it’s all freaking exciting for me!

ymore info: www.robertfalcon.be www.facebook.com/robertfalconofficial www.soundcloud.com/robertfalconofficial www.instagram.com/robertfalcon_ www.twitter.com/robertfalcon_ www.facethecurrent.com

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Host Jack Belcher’s Top 5 Tracks 2017 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for trance music. I’ve selected a handful of my favourite tracks from the last few weeks and I’m really excited to see what talented upcoming artists like Chris Van Winder and Second Sine have in store for us!

Cheers, Jack

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rnet by storm with his fast

Since 2013, Jack Belcher has taken the Inte

Gareth Emery & Standerwick feat. Halliene - “Saving

Light” [Monstercat Recordings]

dy and possibly An incredible introduction, a fantastic melo ever heard. I one of the best vocals the trance scene has over a year well first spoke with Gareth about this track product it was ago and when I finally heard the finished moment for the definitely worth the wait. This was a huge speak to, it was you trance community as, depending who Beatport #1 spot the first trance track to reach the overall in over 5 years

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James Dymond & Chris Schweizer “Spectrum” [Future Sound of Egypt Recordings] When I first heard James and Chris were it making a track together I instantly knew like was going to be a hit. With a melody t that there’s really no wonder why it wen port Beat the straight to the #1 spot on trance chart.

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3

Second Sine - “Immoral” [Skullduggery]

nd Sine is Released on Skullduggery, “Immoral” by Seco for a number absolutely ridiculous. It’s featured in my sets you can’t quite of weeks and is one of those tracks that so nasty you and believe it when you hear it. It’s so tough just have to play it again and again!

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Chris Van Winder “Cairo” [Subatomic Recordings]

every week from I get a lot of promos sent to my mailbox ld. Subatomic many incredible labels from all over the wor ases but rele few Recordings are fairly new with only a ing. every single one of them has been outstand based UK by iro” “Ca was The most recent release traditional astic fant a producer Chris Van Winder. It has hooked! you Arabic breakdown and a drop that will get

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Craig Connelly feat. Jessica Lawrence - “How Can

I” [Higher Forces]

Closer” on his Taken from his debut album “One Second Craig Connelly ngs, brand new label Higher Forces Recordi an album you is back with yet another anthem. If there’s won’t regret it. check out this month, make it this one.You

ymore info: facebook.com/itsJackBelcher instagram.com/itsJackBelcher www.facethecurrent.com

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MAN MADE TIME: Lightning Strikes Twice

By Allyson Weinhold

Los Angeles couple Hillary Grace and Albert James Babanian started their Indie Pop band, Man Made Time, in 2015. They have since released multiple EPs, gone on tour and recently signed with new management.

I sat down with Hillary and Albert to talk about their sound, creative process, and what’s in store for the future.

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AW: Thanks for meeting me. Tell me about how you guys got started musically?

AJB: I started playing music when I was 13 and eventually realizing I could write my own. From then on, I knew I was going to be in a band. From ages 19-26 I was in six different bands, and I was a writer for all of them.

HG: My whole family is musical, so it’s in my blood. I grew up around it and was naturally drawn to it. I played trumpet and piano growing up and went to college for music. I was never in a band before though. I was on the technique and classical side of things, but I always knew I wanted to do some type of Pop.

AW: And how did you start working together?

AJB: I had this idea of Man Made Time.

I knew it was going to be small and intimate. I didn’t want there to be too many cooks in the kitchen. Then Hillary and I started dating and I found out she could sing. It was perfect. We were at the Coffee Fix and I was like “I have a guitar in my car, why don’t I take it out and write something with you?” She had this melody she sang, and I was like “We could totally do this.”

So we just started, we were taking photos together, we made three songs and before we knew it we were full force in duo mode and started playing shows.

HG: Our first performance was six

months after we started writing.

AW: It sounds like it happened pretty naturally?

AJB: Yes. It’s very easy to write with her, there’s definitely a connection in that way. We are individually good at certain things and we complement each other’s weaknesses. We noticed that from the beginning which was very liberating.

HG: It just fit. His strengths filled in my weaknesses.

AW: What is the writing process like for you guys?

HG: It’s different every time. When we’re working on something like an EP, www.facethecurrent.com

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I didn’t want there to be too many cooks in the kitchen.

Then Hillary and I started dating and I found out she could sing. It was perfect.

we schedule time to work on it. We make weekly goals and deadlines for ourselves, even if we’re struggling with inspiration.

And sometimes he’ll just play guitar, or I’ll play piano, and I’ll sing a melody. Maybe I’ll have a melody and he’ll add to it.

AJB: Sometimes something will come to me and I’ll be recording a melody in my car as I’m driving and I’ll show it to her later. We build from there together.

AW: Do you usually agree on what you want to write?

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AJB: When we first started writing songs we didn’t know what our sound was like. We were still trying to figure each other out.

If you listen to our old stuff it’s very different than now.

HG: Our first EP was kind of a trial. We had to learn each other’s styles. He’s very minor and I’m more major. We try to combine those and I think we have a good balance. We’ve found our sound through the second EP and I’m sure it will continue to morph as we progress.

AW: How would you describe your sound now?

HG: It’s Indie Pop. Some might say Dream Pop. I describe it as World meets 80s meets today.

AJB: It has world instrumentation. We use old instruments on top of modern day synths or groove beats. There’s a movie, Time Machine, that gives me an emotion that’s the same vibe as our songs. The characters are living in the future and mankind has destroyed everything. Society has started all over again, so they’re living a tribal lifestyle but in the midst of all this rubble of technology. It’s like progressing with regressing. That’s how I feel about Man Made Time.

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AW: Who are your musical influences?

HG: Madonna, Ellie Goulding, Phantogram and Max Martin.

AJB: System of a Down, Skrillex and Michael Jackson as artists changed my life. But I like song writers a lot, so Stevie Wonder, Max Martin, the Beatles.

AW: You guys just got back from a tour, tell me about that.

growing and the end goal is to have musicians on stage with us when we have a show.

AJB: And to keep an open mind. A year ago I may have said no to a bass player, but it happened organically.

HG: Yeah, we’re just kind of letting things happen. I’m always skeptical to add new people, but I want to give new things a chance because it really did add to our sound.

AW: What’s next for you guys?

HG: We went to three different locations: Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. We had a show in each city.

AJB: We came to the conclusion that we like a drummer and bass player with us live, which completely changes the vibe and energy.

HG: We liked it a lot, we want to keep

AJB: We just signed a management deal with Arrow Music Agency, so we’re in transition right now. We are singing on a couple songs we haven’t released yet, along with footage from the tour we want to release.

HG: We also have a music video. We’re

figuring out how we want to release these things.

AJB: We hope for the upcoming year to be full of lots of shows and new releases.

HG: And festivals!

AW: Is there anything else you would like for people to know about Man Made Time?

AJB/HG: We’re just getting started! And we’d like to give a shout out/thank you to Mr. Margos. He’s been our friend, director, manager and all around supportive entity.

We really love him.

ymore info: www.manmadetime.com Social Media: @manmadetime www.facethecurrent.com

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Are You Anywhere Romanian EDM Duo

Interview By Eric Marley Are You Anywhere is a band that’s starting to make waves anywhere people gather to hear smart and eclectic electronic dance music. Their beautiful video, “Piece by Piece” initially got my attention, so I caught up with them for a few minutes to see what else I could learn.

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our minds aren’t localized.

We’re free to roam anywhere

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Maybe everything connected to what we do can be translated as love, whether it’s producing the music, mixing, rehearsing or performing it live

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Your music is eclectic. Who are your most important influences?

We both have very different approaches to music. While Silviu constantly searches for new music and incorporates it into his worldview, Vladimir lives under a rock and is obsessed with drawing inspiration from within.

The best part is when these two approaches come together, so that’s probably what makes it special.

Maybe everything connected to what we do can be translated as love, whether it’s producing the music, mixing, rehearsing or performing it live. Each instance has it’s perks, and the one mentioned in the question, comes along with picking up the crowd’s vibe, and playing it accordingly, making everything more intense.

In “Stay True”, the lyrics say, “So follow me, I’ll follow you / Hold on, we can make it through / Hard times we outgrew / Stay true to the real you.” What is it about relationships that can be so inspiring for you as a musician?

Who said anything about this song’s subject being relationships? It might be, though, if the relationship is with yourself.

One thing we very much like to do is to write lyrics about everything from social cover piece by piece black cmyk issues to personal identity and work them around in a way so that they can also be interpreted as being about relationships.

Your new record, “Recollections” After all, everything is a relationship. is due to be out soon. What can we expect? Do you have a favorite What do you love about performing track? live? Where will you be in the next You can expect some really personal year? stuff to come out of the woodwork.

Every single song is deeply and intimately connected to at least one of us, so maybe instead of favorite songs, you could say we the question is do we have favorite parts of our psyche? How can you choose your favorite part of your mind? What do you recollect?

How has growing up in Romania influenced your music and your worldview?

Romania is a good place to connect to the rest of the world from. Really fast internet speeds. Top 10 in the world or something.

Otherwise, our minds aren’t localized.

We’re free to roam anywhere.

Your video, “Piece By Piece” is beautiful. If you could sum it up in a few sentences, what would you say about it?

We like it very much, but it’s actually a byproduct of the process of making our upcoming video, for the song “Center Of Gravity”. Hong Kong is too spectacular to be portrayed in only one video.

ymore info: http://areyouanywhereonline.com Instagram: @areyouanywhere www.facethecurrent.com

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sports & FITNESS 80.

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Kari Schibevaag. Always Pushing Forward Connections Movement WIN THE MORNING WIN THE DAY When What We See Will Not Last

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FtC sports

Always Pushing

Forward

19 Time World Champion Kari Schibevaag On Life, Goals and Never Giving Up Interview By Clair Marie

Kari Schibevaag truly encapsulates what it means to be a woman! Her motivation and drive to push herself is inspiring to the core. This blonde bombshell routinely crushes stereotypes and breaks down barriers surrounding what it looks like and means to be a professional adventure sports athlete.

The 38-year-old Norwegian Native was born and raised in Stavanger, Madla, a borough of the beautiful waterfront city that has access to some of the worlds most stunning fjords and adventure

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landscape on earth. As the second eldest in a family of three children and the only girl, we can only imagine she kept her brothers on their toes when it came to outdoor adventure sports.

It’s not enough that this athlete extraordinaire has claimed 7 World Champion Kite Surfing titles and an impressive 12 World Snow Kite titles; her brains also make her a force to be reckoned with.

Schibevaag has an impressive 5 years under her belt studying sports Education at University, and is now studying Digital Media Design.

Clair Marie:You began skiing at a very young age. When and what got you hooked on snow kiting and kite surfing?

Now with 7 world champion titles as a kite surfer and 12 world snow kitemaster credits to your name, you’ve become a very accomplished athlete.

What are you currently pursuing in your career and do you have an ultimate “must accomplish” goal?

my list. I think I’m a person that needs to have goals in order to work. I just finished traveling up the Norwegian Coast with a sailboat and swam, did SUP (stand up paddle boarding) and kite surfing with orcas. Now it’s time for my expedition on Svalbard. After this I also have some projects coming up.

You mentioned Svalbard. In April, you and four others are attempting to cross the great Norwegian archipelago from North to South via snow kite. What have you done in preparation for this and what do you foresee as the biggest challenges that you might face?

I love to do and experience new things. I always have a goal and when I finish one there is another one on

I’ve been training a lot for this trip… kiting and preparing my mind. I think it’s really important to prepare

Kari Schibevaag: I started to compete as a skier as 4 years old. I grew up with parents that love to be outside and do sports. I was working as a ski instructor and it was a normal transition from just skiing to trying to ride with a kite. It looked fun and I didn’t need the ski resort. That was 14 years ago.

mentally for something like this. I’m ready for a happy trip together with good people. It will be hard, but I know it will be a nice trip.

It’s dangerous with the polar bears and the glacier, but we’re prepared for it!

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Within my own chosen sports of professional BASE-jumping, skydiving, and mountain biking, the male to female ratio is very skewed. What has been your experience and view of this within kitesurfing and snow kiting?

For sure there are many more guys doing it, but I have to say I think that girls will take over. I see more and more girls coming to the sport. The guys have to be careful!

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As a female who plays at a very high level, do you feel like your peers (male and female) are accepting and supportive? Or do you feel like the competitive nature ever goes further than friendly rivalry and competition?

For sure, when you are in a competitive world it’s always these things that you find in all the sports. I am happy to go my way and do things that are not so normal in my sport.

Different is good. I love it.

I hear people say I am crazy, but I also see people following in my footsteps and suddenly are around doing nearly the same… First they are smiling at me and then they want to try, so it’s good.

The outside perspective of many extreme sports often identify the athletes as ‘crazy,’ ‘intense’ and/or ‘adrenaline driven,’ but for the athlete it can actually be the exact the opposite- peaceful and introspective. How would you describe the feelings you

When I am out on the water or in the mountains this makes me relax and forget about everything. If I feel bad, sad, or upset, the only thing that works is to go out there and do my things. If someone takes this away from me I would not be the person I am today. I know myself, and if you put me doing things I hate, I will not be a happy person.

I need time to be out there to get my energy out and running. I am also getting new ideas when I am out there.

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I hear people say I am crazy, but I also see people following in my footsteps and suddenly are around doing nearly the same…

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experience when you are participating in your sports?

Being in nature really has this awesome way of fueling passion and creating a sense of awe for the places we live and play. You’ve trekked to remote locations, swam with whales, camped and rode under Northern Lights… truly been amongst some of nature’s most beautiful gems.

How has being immersed in nature for kite surfing and snow kiting shaped who you are as a person and your outlook on life?

The sport has made me into the person I am, but I have to say I have been like this since I came into this world. I have my ways of doing things and know what I want and what I like. And I hate when people tell me what to do. My brother just got a girlfriend now and my mother says... sorry Torolav (my brother), she is just the same as Kari. Good luck with that! I love this little super girl. We have to decide and pursue what we want to do in life, and I love what I do. To be different is the best.

Sailing is typically considered a summer sport, but you’ve set out in winter months to www.facethecurrent.com

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It’s dangerous with the polar bears and the glacier, but we’re prepared for it!

I love to do the kind of trips that not everyone is right there doing as well.

That’s when you get these magic moments that you’d never get if there were 100 other people around. It’s also cool to have more things that make you think and have to prepare and face mentally - like the cold on this trip. It makes it into an unforgettable adventure.

Has there ever

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been ‘that one thing’ you forgot to pack when you’re out in the middle of nowhere? What are your top 3 must-haves when embarking on any expedition?

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live aboard for action filled trips “over and under the water!” Tell us about these trips and what has been special about them for you.

Yes! When I was in training for glacier I forgot my climbing gear. I had no idea where it was and everyone was waiting for me! But we managed to come up with something.

What advice do you have for other females who want to follow in your footsteps and pursue a career in outdoor adventure sports?

For those interested in trying out your sports, would you say one is easier to start out with over the other (snow kiting vs. kite surfing)?

You need to have the desire to start, and then it’s easy from there.

You do a lot of things

in life that are beyond the ‘ordinary,’ but on your website you are described as “quite normal.” What are some of the “normal” things that you enjoy in life?

I enjoy coffee with friends, lounging on the sofa on stormy days, and a good movie when it’s raining outside. I also love to make good food.

Her constant quest to push herself, experience more and learn as much as she can has resulted in an impressive resume. We can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next.

y more info: www.kariland.com Facebook: @Kari-Schibevaag Instagram: @karischibevaag www.facethecurrent.com

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FtC sports

Connections

Movement: Athletes and Local Natives On

Their Connection To Nature Filmmaker Rafael Pease shares how his film is much more than a concept of connection with nature- it’s a movement.

By Clair Marie When we see beautiful photos of snow covered peaks and majestic videos of winter landscapes, we are filled with an undeniable sense of awe and an excitement for the unknown. Some of us experience a yearning to be standing atop the mountains gazing down at Mother Nature in her finest.

But should we instead be having thoughts of conservation? Should we be more concerned with how we can protect these beautiful landscapes? The answer is simple for Rafael Pease.

Although he was born in France, Rafael has spent the majority of his life between the United States and Chile. He truly is a mixing pot of cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities coming from an American/Chilean/ Cuban family. His introduction to the mountains began when he was 17 years old and only grew as time passed. In order to pursue the

Credit: Greg Hansen

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adventure he so deeply desired and to make a positive impact on the environment he loved, he decided to move to the diverse state of Colorado. There he would attend the University of Colorado where he would take on an impressive course load that included a double major and a minor in Environmental and Geographical Science.

But his passion didn’t end there.

In order to make an impact far beyond his personal abilities, he decided to add the titles of “filmmaker” and “director” to the list of titles associated with his name.

With these, he can help contribute more effectively and efficiently to the places about which he cares so deeply.

Clair Marie: What role did the way you were raised play in your love for the outdoors?

Rafael Pease: I believe that the way I was taught to respect animals and the environment is the reason I live my life committed to loving the outdoors.

When did you really become captivated by, or maybe even ‘addicted’ to the outdoors, complete with mountaineering, backcountry snowboarding, and splitboarding?

I truly became captivated when I first decided to go further than the recommended boundaries at ski areas and begin to explore the Andes and Patagonia in Chile. When I began using the tools from mountaineering and split-boarding as a transportation

method to explore the wilderness, I was hooked.

You’re a new producer creating your amazing passion project with your company, Connections Movement.Tell us about your

documentary of, hopefully, a long list of them that I plan to create to help spread the message of positive choice making when it comes to living in harmony with the world. I want to show the connections that we as humans have with everything.

project and what prompted you to not only live it, but to showcase your passion by producing your film?

The “Connections” film is the first

You’ve stated that one of your goals for the film is for it to be “an exploration of cultural and ecological conservation topics”. Does your film have an emphasis on how athletes, explorers, and humanity as a whole impact our environment?

Or are you more focused on protecting what little of true nature we have left?

There will be a balance between protecting what little true nature we have left and how we can live in www.facethecurrent.com

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harmony with it. The film does this by looking at people who dedicate their lives to mountain environments.

A huge part of Connections Movement is the emphasis placed on living the Connections philosophy. Athletes, including yourself, live in some of the most remote and rugged places on Earth in order to explore this connection. But you also look at indigenous cultures in all these places. Can you share one of your most touching perspectives that you’ve gained from local indigenous culture?

Losing the rights to one’s land and having it destroyed by unjust governmental law has been a common theme throughout all First Nations around the world. This is tragic on

many levels, including the fact that the rest of the world could potentially learn a lot from all First Nations about how to live in harmony with the land.

What do you hope people will take away from your film?

I hope people get a better understanding that everything is connected and that every act, positive or negative, has an outcome. It’s the people’s choice to create positive change for a healthier world.

You are a very busy guy- from going to school to following your passion by producing this film and spending copious amounts of time outdoors. How do you manage your time - and what keeps you going?

It does get hectic, especially now

that I am the producer/director, snowboarder and guide for the documentary as well having to finish my degrees at the University. But I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. The time is always now to act and create something, no matter how much hard work it might be.

Who is the most inspiring and influential person in your life and from where do you draw your inspiration?

I draw my inspiration from the people I meet around the world that have devoted their lives to protecting the environment and living at one with nature. That’s why I’m so drawn to indigenous tribes as they live as one with their surroundings.

Your photos and videos on social

Credit: Nathan Starzynski

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media are very impressive and do an awesome job of capturing the serene, yet incredible power and beauty of Mother Nature.

What does it feel like when you are strapped in, about to drop in from a mountaintop after the effort and work you put into getting to the top?

The feeling of summiting is like no other. Not because you have conquered the mountains, which is impossible, but because the single point on which you’re standing gives you the best views in the valley. Most of the time, anyway. Making it up to your objective is only half the job, and is mostly work. Getting down is the other half, and it’s usually all fun!

Can you share one of your close calls or scary situations in which

you’ve found yourself? What was your biggest takeaway from the experience?

There have been a good number of close calls, mainly involving rapid weather changes in very Northern and Southern parts of the world as the climate is increasingly hard to predict. Besides that, I mitigate each situation as much as I can to achieve my objective, always pushing what I can do. All this said, the scariest part is usually the drive up. I always have to be careful of other drivers on mountainous roads!

If you could summarize your film or personal life philosophy into a motto, what would it be?

When we’re dedicating significant time and effort to help protect a way of life, it’s good to enjoy it as well. Living with

and learning from the land is crucial.

When and where is your film due for release? Is there any place we can follow for updates?

Fall 2018. All updates can be followed on Connections Movement social media. It will be on my personal media social media sites as well.

yMore info: www.connectionsmovement.com www.facebook.com/connectionsmovement @ConnectionsMovement www.rafaelpease.com www.facebook.com/rafapease @RafaelPease

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FtC fitness

WIN THE MORNING

WIN THE DAYBY David Ryan Fitness Instead of checking your email or Facebook as soon as you wake up, try pumping your body full of oxygen, gratitude, and blood flow. Studies show that how you start your day has a direct impact on how the rest of your day will go. This 10-minute routine hits the three most important things you need to rapidly prime your mind and body for success.

1) BREATHE STRONG.

2) THINK STRONG.

3) LIFTSTRONG.

Rapidly inhaling O2 and exhaling CO2 creates an alkaline environment in the body. Most of us are stressed and breathe shallow like we are dying. This pumps the body full of O2 and holding your breath resets the nervous system and creates a calming effect.

You can choose to start your day with worry, creating a cascade of stress hormones, or think of 3 things you are grateful for and creating a positive pattern recognition for your brain.

The final step to getting your body primed for the day is to get moving.

Jumping jacks will get your heart pumping, legs working, and body loosened up. Push-ups are the perfect home exercise for body weight strength training. The combination will increase neurotransmitters in the brain responsible for feeling happy and alert.

yTraining programs & Resistance bands: www.DavidRyanFitness.com Instagram: DavidRyanFitness YouTube: LIFTSTRONG 90

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Once you begin this routine, you may not want to stop. Feel free to repeat each section as many times as you want and feel the power of priming your physiology.

Need a Trainer?

Get in the best shape of your life this year with David Ryan Fitness.

FtC sports

When What We See Will Not Last

by Clair Marie

There’s no disputing the fact that the United States has some spectacular landscape; scenery that not only leaves us speechless, but that evokes overwhelming emotion that cannot be easily explained. To me, they are a reminder of what once was - and a stark example of what is almost gone. This instills a sense of urgency to protect what little we have left of the beauty that once abundantly surrounded us and to always remember, in everything we do, our true impact on our environment.

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At times, I can also feel prompted to look within, to explore my true motivation for venturing out into the wilderness. Is it to gain a better sense of self? A better understanding and appreciation of the environment? Or to try and replicate stunning images I see and to put them on social media?

As an adventure sports athlete, I find myself in nature more often than not - and I love it! (Most of the time.) We would do well to remember that when we sign up to participate in outdoor activities, especially adventure sports in the backcountry, we are also signing up to help protect and preserve the land around which we so desperately crave to be surrounded.

For me, visiting National Parks is an emotional and eye opening experience.

Many others apparently feel this way as well, because tourism just keeps growing.

A good thing? Maybe, although the increased traffic to the sites and the irresponsible behavior of some visitors is appalling. People carving their names in natural landscapes is a common problem.

Litter is another, or having no sense of preservation as some venture out just to try and get the same photo that had 100K likes on Instagram. It can be deeply discouraging to see someone so blatantly disregard the preservation of natural landscapes without blinking an eye. To me, this comes from a lack of respect, often from people who are used to functioning in an urban environment, who are used to litter and graffiti and who have accepted this as a normal part of life. I think it stems from a complete and tragic disconnection from nature; truly stunning evidence of our lack of education about our impact on the world. This isn’t to say that every urban adventurer is like this, or that every seasoned adventurer is not like this. Just an observation of mine over the last 19 years.

It’s ironic to me that with all the destruction that goes on in national parks, with littering, destruction of landscapes and mass population access that more people aren’t held accountable for their actions.

If you are a person and you make your way to a natural landscape, National Park or not, please help to preserve the beauty.

Help protect it so that future generations can enjoy it just as you are now. Do your part and you’ll feel good about it.

ymore info: basegirl.com Instagram: @thebasegirl www.facethecurrent.com

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HEALTH & WELLBEING 96. Grow Your Own Food:

Benefits of Connecting with the Soil 100. You’re Only as Healthy as You Think 102. The Calamities of BOTTLED WATER 106. healing the planet one heart at a time

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Fidalgo Island Health Center Experience the Future of Health Care Now with Dr. James Bentz Brain Based Treatment with NIS (Neurological Integration System) Health Coaching Programs Initial Consultation at no Cost

www.f idalgoislandhealthcenter.com 316 O Ave., Anacortes, WA 98221 360-588-9108

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FtC health

Grow Your

Own Food: Benefits of Connecting with the Soil

By Dr. Jeremy Princi

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Growing your own vegetables is one of the most rewarding processes. It’s such a magical experience to witness the process from seed to vegetable and the invaluable lessons that are learnt along the way. There’s something to be said about the energetic attachment from eating food from your own backyard that you put love and energy into. It’s a fantastic way to teach children (and yourself) the importance of fresh, seasonal food especially in today’s society where we have been conditioned in such a way that we have access to fruit and vegetables year round since

improvements with refrigerated transport. If you can’t grow something locally, from an innate/ universal intelligence/holistic point of view it doesn’t make sense to have it picked unripe from another country where it is in season and sent over via cold refrigeration for our convenience. The energy expenditure and ‘food miles’ that is associated with this model of feeding the planet is not sustainable.

I like mangoes as much as the person next to me, but they have a finite season, thus I’ll enjoy them for this short period then move onto the next amazing produce when it’s in season, and the process repeats

itself. Of course if something in the garden is in abundance and there is excess you can always share with your neighbours and friends, and it is a great way to stimulate a community of home growers around you. With this, one’s cooking and food preparation skills are forced to expand to make use of all the diverse amazing produce out there seasonally and locally, not just sticking to the same old recipes and favourite foods, and thus makes sure we consume a range of vitamins, nutrients and minerals for vibrant health year round.

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Alternatively, you can lactoferment the excess. The benefit of this is it not only preserves the excess food but the nutrient profile is increased.

For instance sauerkraut will have increased B-vitamins, vitamin C as well as compounds such as Isothiocyanates and Indoles (which are not present in the raw cabbage) and have anti-carcinogen properties. In fact the concept of fermentation is amazing as it’s essentially a continuation of the

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It is said that 1 teaspoon of organic soil has around 50 billion microorganisms in it, incredible! In fact the state of human health, which is dictated largely by the trillions of microorganisms on and in us is more likely a reflection of the health of the microorganisms in soil producing the food we eat.

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microorganism actions. If you consider the process of how a cabbage is grown from seed to the point of full vibrant vegetable it’s a process that is dictated by the incredible amount of microorganisms in the soil. Once it’s ready to be pulled from its earth connections and turned into sauerkraut it’s the action of these microorganisms again at play that naturally ferment the cabbage transforming it into this preserved superfood.

If I could give one piece of important information it would be spend time nurturing the microbial activity of the soil!!

Any good organic farmer will tell you, the soil is key. Good quality soil is rich in microorganisms, which for the most part are invisible to the naked eye and are the powerhouses and the magic behind how a seed ends up morphing into a vibrant, nutrient filled vegetable.

It is said that 1 teaspoon of organic soil has around 50 billion

modern medicine, but rather we need to be very selective in their use.

If all that wasn’t enough to convince you to start growing some of your own produce, what if I were to tell you that getting your hands dirty in the soil could potentially have a positive effect on your mood and quality of life??

Turns out research conducted in 2007 found a microbe in the soil Mycobacterium vaccae seems

to activate a subset of serotonin neurons in the brainstem which in turn may have positive effects on coping responses, behavioural responses to uncontrollable stress & depression. Hence may explain why most avid gardeners report simply feeling good when they garden!

ymore info: http://www.holisticlifestyler.com Instagram: @holistic_lifestyler

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research conducted in 2007 found a microbe in the soil Mycobacterium vaccae seems to activate a subset of serotonin neurons in the brainstem which in turn may have positive effects on coping responses, behavioural responses to uncontrollable stress & depression.

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microorganisms in it, incredible!

In fact the state of human health, which is dictated largely by the trillions of microorganisms on and in us is more likely a reflection of the health of the microorganisms in soil producing the food we eat.

Pesticides, glyphosate (Round up) etc are equivalent to anti-biotics in humans. They wipe out the pathogenic bugs and weeds, but in turn cause collateral damage killing off a large portion of these good beneficial microbes. I’m not saying antibiotics don’t have a place in

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FtC health

You’re Only as Healthy as You Think

By DR. JAMES BENTZ (D.PSc)

What exactly does mind-body medicine mean? Rather than some esoteric philosophy, I hope to give you some practical ideas about how you can change the interaction between your mind and body.

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We’ve all heard a lot about mind-body medicine. When I hear that term, it sounds as if it is a one way street from mind to body. I’d like to expand on that a bit as we now know it is a two way street, and could be called bodymind medicine as well. In the simplest of terms, there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that what we think, believe, and feel emotionally, has a direct and profound effect on our body and physiology. It is also true that our body and physiology impact our thoughts and emotions. This includes things like posture, body language, diet, and activity levels. I believe it is impor tant to understand both sides of that equation. I am, personally, witnessing this through Foundation Training and would like to share that experience with you. One outcome includes increased awareness of my posture. Not only have I noted that my posture is better, but that I just feel better, and have more energy.

Another area of interest to me over the past several years has been in the process of thinking itself. It is becoming more and more apparent to me just how powerful my thoughts are and how much they affect not just my emotional state, but also my physical well-being. How many of us are really aware of our thoughts? Are they negative or positive, constructive or destructive, inclusive or exclusive,

all about me or about others? For me this is an ongoing work, and I see that I have some very habitual thoughts that do not serve me well, or help me to stay well. Becoming aware of those thoughts does allow me to change them. This requires a lot of attention and vigilance, or what the Buddhists would call mindfulness. I am finding this is ongoing work, but well wor th the effor t. I don’t get stuck in negative thought patterns nearly as often as I used to. A friend of mine calls these habitual thought patterns our “prime dysfunction,” and I agree with him.

The whole point is that we do have the ability to choose what we think and that makes a huge difference in our physiology. There is an exciting new field emerging called “Positive Psychology” based on these ideas. The leaders in this field have found that there are some simple steps we can implement that can actually change our thoughts and our brain.

So our thoughts affect our body, and we can learn to change our habitual thought patterns. Our body also affects our brain, and being more physically active, and adding simple movements like Foundation Training can increase our levels of stress reducing hormones. The bottom line is that you are in control and not the victim of your thinking. I know I used to think “that’s just the way I am,” or that all

my thoughts were really true. I now see that just isn’t so. Much of what passes for thought is just habitual chatter that we think is who we really are. I remember a saying from the 70’s: Question Everything! This is especially true of our thoughts. Try watching your habitual thoughts. Star t a “Happiness Journal” using the steps recommended by Shawn Achor for 21 days: Write down 3 things you are grateful for each day, journal about one positive experience each day (a paragraph will do), exercise daily (even a 15 minute walk, or better yet 10 minutes of Foundation!), meditate (sit quietly for a few minutes daily to begin with- it’s a great time to pay attention to your thoughts), and perform a random act of kindness daily like emailing someone to tell them how much you appreciate them, or better yet, do it in person. I star ted this and have kept going for two months now.

It’s something I look forward to daily.

ymore info:

For those who would like to pursue this further, I recommend reading the following books: Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, Molecules of Emotion

by Candace Pert, and The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge. www.fidalgoislandhealthcenter.com www.facethecurrent.com

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FtC health

The Calamities of BOTTLED WATER

By Dr. Vaughn Bowman

Bottled water has often been referred to as the ‘grandfather of wasteful industries.’

Consider for a moment that Americans throw out 67 million plastic water bottles per day. This equates to over 700 bottles per minute! Now, you may be thinking you can offset this by recycling your bottle. However, in truth only a small number of bottles are actually recycled.

Feasibility studies suggest the actual number of recycled bottles may be as low as 10%. The remaining 90% or roughly 60 million bottles end up in our landfills, oceans, streets, and waterways every day.

Each bottle will require over 1000 years to fully biodegrade. Landfills in the U.S. are estimated to contain over 2 million tons of plastic bottles. Every square mile of ocean contains over 46,000 pieces of plastic, the majority of which are plastic bottles. Thus, we are creating a huge environmental problem with each bottle we buy.

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most of us live in a chronic state of mild to moderate dehydration.

However, you must always question the source. Plastic bottles begin to release phthalates, Bisphenol A (BPA) and other hormonedisrupting chemicals within only a few weeks of manufacturin

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Depending on the source and process involved, it can require 3 to 6 times the amount of water a bottle can hold - just to manufacture it. The amount of oil required per year to manufacture these bottles averages over 17 million barrels. This is enough oil to fuel a million cars for an entire year! To make matters worse, another 50 million barrels of oil are required to pump, transport, and refrigerate our bottled water each year.

Transportation is currently the fasting growing source of greenhouse gasses.

While the production of each ton of plastic produces 3 tons of CO2, the transportation costs in terms of carbon production can far exceed this number.

“So, why does bottled water remain so popular,” you ask?

In a word, the simple answer is “convenience”. Many of us fail to plan ahead or simply lack the foresight to consider hydration in our daily routines. Carrying a container of water around all day can sound

ridiculous, particularly when we know we can easily purchase a bottle just about anywhere. Thus, we continue to pay up to 1000 times more for something that may very well be the same thing coming from our own tap. This should be making you a little angry at the bottling industry by now.

“But wait, don’t I need water?”

Absolutely. In fact, most of us live in a chronic state of mild to moderate dehydration. However, you must always question the source. Plastic bottles begin to release phthalates, Bisphenol A (BPA) and other www.facethecurrent.com

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hormone-disrupting chemicals within only a few weeks of manufacturing.

Such chemicals have been associated with ADD and ADHD in children, diabetes, obesity, prostate, breast, and liver cancer, and a host of developmental problems.

Of course, you’ve experienced this first hand after leaving your water bottle in your car during the summer.

“What on earth is that taste? Oh yeah, I’m drinking plastic.” Both heat and ultraviolet light (sunlight) speed up

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Consider a family of four that consumes the recommended average of 64oz per day at $0.40 per bottle will spend $3,114.67 per year on bottled water alone.

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the photodegradation of the bottle— the rate at which plastic leaches into the water.

The purpose of this article certainly isn’t to deter you from drinking water, but rather to choose a more responsible source. Tap water today varies in ‘cleanliness’ by municipality… something you can easily and thankfully look up these days.

Surprisingly, New York City has some of the cleanest tap water around.

Other cities, like San Francisco, use

water from nearby Yosemite National park that is so clean it doesn’t even require filtering. At the very least, it is both easy and economical to put a simple charcoal based filter on your tap to ensure you are removing the majority of contaminants. Such simple filters have been proven to not only outperform bottled water in terms of chemicals and pollutants, but be far less costly as well. Consider a family of four that consumes the recommended average of 64oz per day at $0.40 per bottle will spend $3,114.67 per year

We should then address just how you’re going to lug this water around.

While reusing a plastic bottle certainly helps mother earth, it may not be helping your body at all. Not only does the plastic increase its leaching potential over time, small hair-line cracks develop on the inside of the bottle which can harbor nasty bacteria and make you quite ill. Clearly, (pun

intended) the best option is glass. Yes, glass is heavy and yes, there is risk of dropping it - with the resultant big mess. However, glass is rather inert and easily cleansed. Not only are you good to go after a little warm water and soap, glass won’t leach harmful chemicals into your water. There is also the huge environmental impact to consider. Carrying a glass bottle removes much of the waste, cost, and health hazards imparted by plastic water bottles.

Thankfully, many manufacturers are now making stronger glass bottles with a silicon or rubber sleeve to better protect them from accidental spills and drops. Now you can smile at your glass toting brethren, knowing you’re doing your part not only for your body but the Earth beneath your feet.

ymore info:

http://drvbowman.com www.facebook.com/originfitnessct

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glass is rather inert and easily cleansed. Not only are you good to go after a little warm water and soap, glass won’t leach harmful chemicals into your water. There is also the huge environmental impact to consider. Carrying a glass bottle removes much of the waste, cost, and health hazards imparted by plastic water bottles

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on bottled water alone. Keep in mind, most water at the convenience store costs well over 40 cents per bottle.

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FtC health

healing the planet one heart at a time

By Chris Assaad

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We are living in a powerful time in human history. It’s undeniable that the world is radically changing, that massive shifts are happening globally and that the well-being of our beloved planet is in our hands, as a collective, now more than ever.

As we look out and continue to see stories of tragedy fill our newsfeeds; as the political landscape and international relations become increasingly unstable and as our deeply entrenched ways of life begin to threaten the sustainability of our natural resources and the environment, these trends are becoming harder to ignore.

While some may deny them, and would prefer to go about their lives as usual, there are many who are asking themselves the important question of how they, being just one person, a lone individual, can make a real difference.

I, too, have been asking myself this question and in recent months. The answer has become clearer to me as I’ve been experiencing a more direct connection between WHAT I do and WHY I do it and the ripples it creates in my closest relationships, in my immediate circles and in my wider reality as a whole.

I’ve also become increasingly aware of a clear and undeniable connection between the unhealed pain that lives in me and the resulting expressions of that in my life. Similarly, I’ve begun to recognize how this occurs at a collective level, in the direct connection between the unexamined pain that hides in the untended gardens of our individual hearts and the pain, conflicts, tragedies, and atrocities that are becoming more visible in our outer world.

What has emerged for me from this clarity is a renewed, deepening commitment to my own personal healing and to doing all that I can in service to seeing others experience FREEDOM

and for their lives to be the ultimate expression of that.

FREEDOM from what?

From pain and suffering, first and foremost. The fact is that we live in a world that is full of pain and nothing affects me more deeply than seeing people suffering, people being paralyzed by fear and being held captive by their unhealed wounds. Sometimes, no matter how good we have it, even just being alive can be a challenging and painful experience.

As many of us do, I feel the world’s pain and what others around me are feeling so deeply. Through my own journey of healing and discovering all the ways I can transmute whatever it is that burdens and impinges on the natural, free flow of Love, Goodness and Creativity from

my own HEART, I’ve been learning what to do with that pain and how to be empowered in relation to it.

The best word I can use to describe it is: ALCHEMY. To me the process of alchemy goes like this: FEEL --> HEAL --> CREATE In other words, we take the pain or whatever it is we’re FEELING and we FEEL IT FULLY. We get present with it, we breathe into it, we learn to accept it until eventually we can even say we Love it and are One with it. This is a major part of the healing process and by doing it, the nature of the feeling changes. You might say it dissolves or it transforms but regardless of what we call it, what is left is definitely something different than what we started with. The final step is

to use that new “stuff ”, that transmuted pain and the energy that results to create something that seals in the experience of being FREE from that pain and that also has the power to initiate that process for others by inspiring them or moving them to FEEL. The beauty of that is that it can create the most amazing ripple effect such that one person’s healing and expression can literally help HEAL THE PLANET. And that, dear friends, is what each and every one of us has the opportunity to do, here and now, to make a difference.

In my case, whether it’s making music, making art, writing, speaking, working with people one-on-one, leading workshops, sharing things on social media, giving a hug, or just BEING and offering someone my full presence, I am committed to being an instrument of that Love and alchemy, and an ally, servant, tour guide and brother to any and all who wish to be free.

It’s now clearer to me than ever that the most effective way to reduce the amount of pain on the planet is for as many people as possible to become FREE from and to ALCHEMIZE their own pain, and to use it as fuel to create and express the GOLD and goodness that lives in their hearts that will then do the same for others.

And so… it starts with each of us, tending to the piece of human real estate that we preside over, and tending to the garden of our hearts to ensure that who we are being, what we are creating and putting out into our surrounding world is like a flower emanating a beautiful fragrance and fostering more of the Goodness that we desire to see.

ymore info:

You can connect with Chris and hear music from his latest album, I Won’t Die, at www.chrisassaad.com. www.facethecurrent.com

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t r o p p u S p l e H

7 1 0 2 y a D h t r a E For Science y l l a R d n a h c r Ma

Donate Here:

www.crowdrise.com/EarthDay-MarchForScience/fundraiser/denishayes

FtC fAce the current

BUSINESS 110. Premium Apparel and Hemp:

prAna Sets the Stage 114. Mushrooms Eliminate Toxic Waste 118. The Secrets to Influencer

Marketing Success 120. OPPORTUNITIES FOR BUSINESS

IN FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE 124. 2017 Earth Day Partner Directory 108

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From Benjamin Franklin’s kite to Einstein’s famous formula, America has honored and celebrated science.

A 2015 Harris poll found scientists to be the second-most-respected profession in America (after medical doctors), with engineers close behind in fifth place. Politicians ranked 26th. More than half of all economic growth since WWII grew out of scientific innovations.

Yet President Trump’s proposed budget is the most anti-science budget since before Herbert Hoover. He is not merely shredding efforts to combat climate change, but also slashing innovation on renewable energy, infectious diseases, cancer, agriculture . . . . The Administration has ordered climate materials off of government web sites, ordered researchers to have their results politically vetted before submission to peer-reviewed scientific journals, and ordered political changes to environmental impact statements.

Good science isn’t Democratic or Republican dogma. Good science is a replicable peer-reviewed, search for truth. The March for Science will arouse a broad cross-section of America to demand continued support for scientific excellence, transparency, and truth.

Learn More: www.earthday.org/marchforscience/ www.facethecurrent.com

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Premium Apparel and Hemp:

Sets the Stage

By Sasha Frate In yogic traditions, the word “prana” is a Sanskrit word meaning, “life force.” At least that was the case before 1992, when the word also came to mean “an environmentally-responsible company from Carlsbad, California making beautiful, sustainably-created active wear.” Since its inception, prAna has operated by principles that not only honor the earth, but also the farmers and processors of the fibers who make the clothing that is worn by active and adventurous people the world over. We caught up with prAna to talk to them about one aspect of the company’s own life force: their beautiful, functional and sustainable hemp clothing line.

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The comfort, breathability, and anti-microbial properties you get from hemp clothing are unlike any other natural fiber you’ve ever worn before.

The performance features you get from hemp become even more evident when you realize that they are inherent to the fiber, whereas most Natural and synthetic fibers have to add chemical finishes just to achieve these attributes.

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Sasha Frate: Sustainability has been one of prAna’s core values as a company since its humble beginnings starting out of a garage in 1992, but prAna didn’t start out with hemp clothing as part of its collection. How has sustainability played a role in prAna’s products and business ethics from the start?

Andre Walker: Sustainability is one of our core values. It touches everything we do both from a production standpoint to the way we live our lives in and out of the office.

In the beginning, clothing was cut and sewed in a garage and shipped to customers in surplus fruit boxes gathered from a local grocery store.

For hangtags, we ground up old

newspapers, added essential oils and cut out the handmade paper with a pizza cutter. Our first employee slept on a hinged bed that turned into a shipping table by day. A lot has changed, but our “reuse – recycle” ethos still remains strong.

What was the primary factor for deciding to pursue a premium hemp clothing apparel line?

Unlike many other companies in apparel, sustainability doesn’t just live in one department at prAna. It is a pervasive goal that every one of us strives for every day in every decision we make. With that mentality and the amazing sustainable properties hemp brings, it was an easy decision for us to make.

Hemp is considered a “miracle fiber,” as the clothing produced with hemp is lightweight yet 3x the strength of cotton, plus it’s weather resistant. But for prAna: Why hemp? What would you say are some of the top benefits people can expect from purchasing and wearing hemp clothing over common alternatives such as cotton and polyester?

1. Anti-Microbial Properties: hemp fabric is resistant to bacteria, which means you’ll be cleaner after wearing hemp than another fabric.

2. Hemp does not need pesticides or herbicides to grow, making it one of the most sustainable natural fibers we can use in clothing. www.facethecurrent.com

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By using hemp, we and other brands are greatly reducing the amount of harmful chemicals being used in the apparel industry.

Increasing the amount of sustainable materials we use year after year ensures that the people who grow and work these fibers as well as the people living in their communities are not being exposed to harmful chemicals.

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3. Water usage is significantly lower than with crops like cotton.

4. Other performance properties: hemp is thermosconductive, meaning it’s naturally cool to the touch; extremely breathable; and naturally UV resistant.

Some say you won’t really understand the benefits that are provided by the fabric unless you’ve owned hemp clothing. Why do you feel it might be perceived as ‘unbelievable’ until tried and tested?

The comfort, breathability, and anti-microbial properties you get from hemp clothing are unlike any other natural fiber you’ve ever worn before. The performance features you get from hemp become even more evident when you realize that they are inherent to the fiber, whereas most Natural and synthetic fibers have to add chemical finishes just to achieve these attributes.

prAna has perhaps been best known for amazing yoga apparel and gear, but your hemp collection includes more than this right?

Yes, hemp extends across multiple categories for us including lifestyle tops, bottoms, dresses, fitness tops, shorts, and accessories. Some of our favorites are the Juniper Pant and the Liana Sweater for women as well as the Sutra Short and Vaha Pant for the guys.

As the leading producer of hemp clothing in the United States, what has been your total impact – locally and globally?

By using hemp, we and other brands are greatly reducing the amount of harmful chemicals being used in the apparel industry. Increasing the amount of sustainable materials we use year after year ensures that the people who grow and work these fibers as well as the people living in their communities are not being exposed to harmful chemicals. We are excited to introduce more and more people to hemp as an apparel and we hope that this increase in awareness leads to many more domestic & international opportunities that are not currently available to us.

Industrial use of hemp isn’t new by any means. It has been used to make a vast number of products from military uniforms

to sail ropes and parachute webbing, and it is touted as one of the most useful and environmentally friendly materials found. However, some people still hesitate when they hear the word “hemp.” Has prAna encountered any bad rap with your hemp collection due to association with illicit drugs, or do you feel that people are really getting it by now?

There is definitely some historical confusion around hemp and cannabis overall. That said, it is our responsibility to help (re)educate our customers on the multifaceted benefits of this “wonder crop.” Once people see and feel our hemp garments, we often see an immediate change in their perceptions. For example, prAna was invited to Washington DC last year

to be a part of the Hemp on the Hill event, showing members of Congress the variety of products that can be made from hemp. It was very cool to see everyone’s faces in amazement when they saw and felt our hemp products.

Industrially, hemp is classified as an Eco-textile. Many others exist and new ones are constantly being developed. Some are even quite strange, like fabric made from fermented wine, and biotechnology growing textiles like “ethical fur” from living cells. How do you feel about other types of eco-textiles, and why do you believe that hemp will stand the test of time?

If research, innovation, and passion for progress can transform the apparel

industry to become more sustainable, then we are excited. Hemp is just such an easy and natural way to make sustainable textiles and hundreds of other products, it really should be a no-brainer to use it.

Ok, the list is extensive on the positive impact of hemp... Is there anything not to love about it?

Some people say that hemp is scratchy and compare it to a burlap sack; however, that rumor is far from true. When hemp is blended correctly and the fabric structure is done right, we achieve some super soft, vibrant, luxurious fabrics as an end result. All you have to do is look at our Spring Collection at prAna.com.

ymore info: www.prAna.com www.facethecurrent.com

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Mushrooms Toxic Waste

by Jerry Angelini , Education Director & Formulation Team for Host Defense Organic Mushrooms

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Preliminary research indicates that digestive enzymes produced by oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) can break down petroleum products such as oil, diesel, and gasoline

such as the those at Chernobyl or Fukushima. Ice core samples suggest that we have polluted even the most isolated places on the planet.

Humans continue to create a variety of synthetic and toxic compounds and disperse them far and wide. Pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, xenoestrogens and persistent organic pollutants (POP’s) are now widespread in soil and water. While many make efforts to re-use and recycle, too often our trash still ends up causing problems in the environment. Plastics and other garbage have accumulated over time to form the “great Pacific garbage patch”, which is so large and growing so fast that it is becoming visible from outer space. And while these events may not happen regularly, we can’t forget devastating nuclear accidents

All of this is, of course bad news, since we rely on healthy ecosystems for our own survival. Humans are credited with bringing about the “Sixth Great Extinction”. As alarming numbers of species vanish from the planet, many wonder if we humans are also endangering ourselves.

Across society, enormous amounts of money and work hours are spent maintaining many of the behaviors that lead to humanity’s very messy presence on Planet Earth. Rather than perpetuate the problem, we need to redirect more of our funds and effort toward cleaning up. And to really

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Humans can be messy. As our overall impact on the ecosystem grows, our tendency to be messy results in serious problems for the planet.

change course, we need to invest in new ways of living that keep us from making such a mess in the first place.

Luckily, solutions are within our reach.

In fact, some sources of hope may be literally underfoot: mushrooms!

You may already enjoy delicious mushrooms with dinner, and you may have learned about the many health benefits of including mushrooms in your diet. However, some of their real power lies not in the “mushroom” itself, but in an earlier part of the organism’s life cycle: the mycelium, or the root structure of the mushroom.

The mushroom fruitbodies emerge from underground networks known as mycelium. Mushroom mycelium grows through soil, wood and other materials, breaking down these materials and absorbing the nutrients. www.facethecurrent.com

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For years, Paul Stamets, DSc., Hon, has been working with other mycologists at Fungi Perfecti, LLC to develop new ecosystem interventions, harnessing the power of mushroom mycelium.

Much of their work has focused on mycoremediation, the practice of using mushroom mycelium to break down toxic compounds.

Mycofiltration is the use of mushroom mycelium to filter contaminants out of water. Established “mats” of mushroom mycelium can be deployed downstream from farms to prevent E. coli and other bacteria from spreading into bays, rivers or other bodies of water. Oyster mushrooms are also helpful here, as well as the Garden Giant (Stropharia rugoso-annulata), and Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor).

These and other mushroom species have been shown to capture microorganisms within the cobweblike layers of their mycelium and then eat the pathogens to destroy them.

And while caution is encouraged, mushrooms grown from mycofiltration projects are generally perfectly edible!

In addition to filtering out bacteria and breaking down petroleum products, mushroom mycelium can also help us clean up by gathering and concentrating heavy metals. Toxic heavy metals like lead and cadmium may accumulate in the environment

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Established “mats” of mushroom mycelium can be deployed downstream from farms to prevent E. coli and other bacteria from spreading into bays, rivers or other bodies of water

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Preliminary research indicates that digestive enzymes produced by oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) can break down petroleum products such as oil, diesel, and gasoline. While wood or straw is a more typical diet, Oyster mushroom mycelium is also able to use hydrocarbon compounds from petroleum products as a source of food and energy. The oyster mushroom is effective at degrading some of the toxic oil compounds, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, into smaller, less toxic molecules. There is still much to learn, but mushrooms like the Oyster may prove vital to cleaning up humanity’s oily messes.

due to industrial processes such as mining and smelting or the dumping of industrial waste. Many mushroom species are known to hyper-concentrate heavy metals from the soil. The underground mycelium network can soak up heavy metals from its surroundings like a sponge, then concentrate them into its aboveground fruitbodies. Mushrooms like Agaricus bitorquis, Boletus badius and some species of Lepiota appear to do this best, accumulating lead, cadmium and mercury at levels 10 - 250 times what is found in the soil. Using these species around known contaminated areas could be one part of a comprehensive soil remediation plan.

Over time, the mushroom fruitbodies would be harvested and removed for

safe disposal as hazardous waste. If practiced consistently over time, this technique could be a cost-effective alternative to removing layers of topsoil for transport to ‘safe’ zones.

Incredibly, this technique could also be applied to radioactive waste. At least two species of mushrooms are known to hyper-concentrate radioactive cesium into their fruitbodies: Cortinarius caperatus and Gomphidius glutinosus. Gomphidius may be the best candidate, with research suggesting that it can concentrate radioactive cesium at up to 10,000 times the background levels.

If able to be grown successfully in contaminated areas, both species could theoretically be used to clean up radioactive cesium. To be clear - there

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Many mushroom species are known to hyper-concentrate heavy metals from the soil. The underground mycelium network can soak up heavy metals from its surroundings like a sponge, then concentrate them into its above-ground fruitbodies

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REMEDIATION PROCESS are many challenges associated with the process of growing mushrooms as radioactive sponges for the environment. Some mushrooms are not easy to cultivate, and it may still be dangerous for humans to venture back into contaminated sites to harvest radioactive mushroom fruitbodies.

However, with concentrated problem solving and proper funding, we could realistically develop the technology and safety protocols needed to make mycoremediation techniques viable parts of our clean-up toolkit for radioactive sites.

As we come to terms with the Sixth Great Extinction, we need to mobilize our intellectual and financial resources NOW to save our habitats, our fellow plants, animals, fungi and organisms,

and indeed ourselves! Let’s work together to develop the solutions that may already be underfoot – one step at a time.

References: ‘Great Pacific garbage patch’ far bigger than imagined, aerial survey shows https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2016/oct/04/great-pacificgarbage-patch-ocean-plastic-trash International Pollution Issues: Antarctic Pollution Issues https://intlpollution. commons.gc.cuny.edu/antarctic-pollutionissues/ Will Humans Survive the Sixth Great Extinction? http://news.nationalgeographic.

Credit: Susan Thomas com/2015/06/150623-sixth-extinctionkolbert-animals-conservation-scienceworld/ Paul Stamets. (2005). Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. Berkley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Kalac, P., Burda, J., & Staskova, I. (1991).

Concentrations of lead, cadmium, mercury and copper in mushrooms in the vicinity of a lead smelter. Sci. Total Environ. June

yFor further information regarding mycoremediation, please see Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets or visit Paul Stamets’ YouTube channel. www.facethecurrent.com

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The Secrets to Influencer Marketing Success Volume 1

By Jesse Weinberg As the founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Global Yodel Media Group I’ve produced innovative campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and small businesses since 2011. Our agency produces programs that drive huge results for our clients and generate ROI that most traditional marketing can’t come even close to replicating.

Over the years, we’ve learned many lessons through experience, some through hard fought battles and some through costly mistakes. To save you time, effort and heartache, I’ve compiled a list of secrets for success that we use every day in our agency’s fine-tuned Influencer Marketing formula.

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1. Understand Influence Marketing 101:

2. Understand your goals:

3. Work with the right influencers:

In marketing, there is always a new trendy buzz word and Influencer Marketing is the choice du jour. Popular for a reason, if done right, Influencer Marketing can have unparalleled sales, growth, and equity results for brands and generate unmatched ROI for marketing budgets.

Vague goals generate vague results.

Therefore, create a crystal-clear outline of what you want to gain from your influencer marketing campaign or program. Do you want to book more hotel rooms? Build brand equity?

Generate millions of organic social impressions? Generate hundreds of thousands of articles of engagement?

Expand sales into a new country?

Create inspiring content? Sell to a new audience?

No, just any influencer won’t do.

You need to source and work with influencers who match your brand’s target demographic, voice, style, and category space. You wouldn’t partner with a hip-hop influencer to promote a new indie rock album, would you? You wouldn’t partner with an influencer who has never traveled to help an airline book more flights would you? Of course, not!

This may sound obvious, but I’ve seen countless brands and agencies completely miss the mark on this and waste countless dollars.

To better understand the term as a whole, let’s look at the definitions of both influence and marketing separately.

Influence: The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Marketing: The action or business of promoting and selling products or services.

Influencer Marketing is simply the action of promoting and selling products or services through people (influencers) who have the capacity to have an effect on the character of a brand.

Before designing and producing any campaign, or spending a dollar on marketing, it is extremely important (yet often overlooked) to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from it and the audience to whom you need to market your product or service to achieve those goals. I’ve agonizingly watched millions of dollars and tremendous amounts of time wasted because brands and their agencies weren’t clear on their marketing goals and to whom they were trying to engage.

Before you engage with an influencer, do your research. Who are they? What do they like? What do they post about?

Make sure they are a direct demographic match to your customer.

ymore info: These are just a few of the important aspects to consider when executing successful influencer marketing campaigns. To learn more about digital, social media, influencer and content marketing or to download a free whitepaper that outlines the 18 Secrets of Influencer Marketing Success visit GlobalYodelMediaGroup.com

www.facethecurrent.com

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR BUSINESS IN FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE

By Mik McKee, Land Asset Manager for The Climate Trust and Kasey Krifka, Marketing and Communications Manager for

The Climate Trust

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Any uncertainty that may have remained surrounding President Trump’s stance on climate change has now officially evaporated.

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Just when the world coalesced around taking immediate action to limit global temperature increase to 2.0 degrees Celsius, the political winds shifted in America, and our new President, a man who once suggested climate change is a Chinese hoax, released his proposed federal budget slashing climate change diplomatic efforts and ending critical programs aimed at lowering domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Any uncertainty that may have remained surrounding President Trump’s stance on climate change has now officially evaporated.

As Commander in Chief, the President has the authority to appoint whomever he chooses to his Cabinet, and with a Republican-controlled Senate, his choices have been flying

through the approvals process. The newly appointed leaders of the State Department (Rex Tillerson) and the Environmental Protection Agency (Scott Pruitt) are seemingly, and inconceivably, gleeful at the proposed hacking down of their own budgets, with effects including the elimination of the Global Climate Change Initiative and funding for the international Green Climate Fund, as well as discontinuing funding for the Clean Power Plan.

These actions are a distinct problem for those who understand that truth is not relative, scientific facts are not debatable, and that climate change is real and human caused. In fact, to continue to dismiss the science endangers the survival of most of earth’s species, including our

own. Although the President may not believe that climate change from greenhouse gases is a real problem, his actions will have the effect of diminishing U.S. influence as a clean energy leader in the eyes of the rest of the world who do view climate change as a major threat.

Despite the fact that 125 parties have already ratified the Paris Agreement, including the United States, it appears we are about to have a minimum of 4 years of backsliding on federal climate policy. That is why it is critically important that U.S. businesses pick up the slack and fill the vacuum created by President Trump, Rex Tillerson, and Scott Pruitt.

Luckily, there is some reason to be optimistic that active engagement from businesses just might happen. www.facethecurrent.com

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These actions are a distinct problem for those who understand that truth is not relative, scientific facts are not debatable, and that climate change is real and human caused. In fact, to continue to dismiss the science endangers the survival of most of earth’s species, including our own

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Shortly after Trump won the Electoral College, a group or more than 360 businesses and investors released a statement to Trump and Congress calling for the U.S. to continue working to mitigate climate change and move towards a low-carbon economy.

This group, called 360+, and made up of many well known companies including Hewlett Packard, Nike, and Starbucks among others, urged for continued U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, stating that: “Failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk. But the right action now will create jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

The 360+ statement served as a perfect precursor to the newest report from the Risky Business Project, an initiative launched

by Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson, and Tom Steyer, that seeks to publicize the risk climate change poses to the U.S. economy.

This new report quantifies the economic costs and opportunities of switching to a low-carbon economy and achieving an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emission by 2050, while still providing the current level of energy to U.S. businesses and consumers.

The numbers are staggering—$10.1 trillion in new investments in renewables, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage is needed between 2020 and 2050. However, the report concludes that a successful transition is not only possible, it is also not too far out of line from other major infrastructure investments made over the last

half-century. The report points to an average of $350 billion per year invested in computers and software over the past decade as one example.

Furthermore, while $10.1 trillion is a massive investment, according to the report, the savings from avoided fuel costs are even greater at $11.5 trillion over the same time period.

the dialogue centered either on the moral imperative to take action, or the regulatory burden associated with federal climate policy. Now it appears a third perspective is entering the mix—one where taking action against climate change is considered an economic opportunity that is worth seizing.

On April 22nd, U.S. advocates and our global partners are uniting to march for science—fighting the mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue and supporting evidence-based policies. Now is the time for individuals to act—knock on doors, march and make their voices heard.

Accordingly, it is possible that a lack of forward-looking climate policy in the U.S. will not stop businesses from considering the risks that climate change poses to their bottom line.

In fact, a report produced by the CDP surveyed over 1,000 business and found that reduced energy consumption does not lead to reduced profitability. Rather, a number of businesses successfully decoupled profits from emissions and significantly outperformed businesses that did not change their energy output.

Perhaps because of the opportunities investing in a low-carbon economy presents, a network of 120 institutional investors with more than $15 trillion in assets have recently committed to addressing climate change and investing in low-carbon opportunities. If those assets are directed towards opportunities in the U.S., we could be on our way to hitting the agreed upon 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

And businesses? They must seize this low-carbon leadership opportunity, ensuring their own economic prosperity, and because it’s still the right thing to do.

The conversation about why businesses and investors are starting to factor climate change into the bottom line is changing. For years

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A legitimate concern, however, is that as other nations move forward with energy and climate policy, these businesses, and all the associated jobs and increased GDP, will relocate elsewhere leaving U.S. businesses behind.

However, the stakes are too big to leave anything to chance. While businesses are expected to step up to some degree, the critical nature of climate change demands that we approach the issue from multiple angles. The President’s budget plan is currently just a proposal, with Congress ultimately deciding federal spending, however, it is imperative that we proactively work together to prevent these massive and unconscionable cuts from going into effect.

“

Now it appears a third perspective is entering the mix—one where taking action against climate change is considered an economic opportunity that is worth seizing. ymore info: www.climatetrust.org www.facethecurrent.com

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