Unstuffed: Tck Tck Tck!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Tck Tck Tck!

I left the Unstuffed Homestead on Saturday and headed to the Hill for the 350 International Day of Climate Action.
Here are some pics I took.

The rain didn't stop tons of people from filling the hill.

The Power Shift youth performed a really fun choreographed chant. "Oooh, it's getting hot in here. There's too much carbon in the atmosphere! Take action, take action and get some satisfaction!"

Hearing Paul Hogarth speaking about cycling across Canada with his family to raise awareness for climate change was really inspirational.

There's lots more pics here.

5 comments:

Rachel said...: Yay! I've been looking online since Sat for a good video of the Tck, Tck, Tck. I love that you can see us getting more coordinated the more we do it. :)

Fun day! So great to see so many folks out despite the rain.; October 28, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Melody said...: Thanks for the pics and vid. It is great to see what happened in other cities.; October 28, 2009 at 12:01 PM
Oolon Culluphid said...: Great pictures. I just wish the Hill had been actually filled. If we only had one ten thousand of those youth who went to see the Jonas Brothers...; October 28, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Amber said...: I was pretty impressed with the turnout and the enthusiasm of the people. I wish there was a video of the Samba Ottawa drummers. That was really cool!; October 28, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Amber said...: Ha! arbor del h. we posted our comments at the exact same time. We are like so..ahem 'N Sync.

Yes, it would have been really awesome if we had indeed filled the hill, but looking at pics from other events in different locations, I think Ottawa might come out ahead in the numbers game.

But oh, if we could harness the the numbers and hormones of boy band fans we could probably change the political system and find an alternative energy source!
Hmm...Somebody should be working on this!; October 28, 2009 at 2:20 PM

Raison d'etre

In 2008 I didn't buy anything new for the whole year. Food and basic toiletries (but not toilet paper) were the obvious exceptions (twice I broke my own rule). Used items were allowed, but I tried really hard to reduce consumption as much as possible.

I finished my year successfully, and along the way learned a lot about how much the world consumes, the waste we produce, sustainability, voluntary simplicity, climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, the water crisis, the food crisis, voting with your dollar, voting with your fork....

Now, I've transformed into a slightly nutty, very passionate, gardening, preserving, DIYing, simple living, nature loving, weed eating, backyard medicine making, urban homesteader, and I still don't use toilet paper!

With the help of the Awesomedudeguy (ADG), I'm continuing my exploration of living lightly and frugally, while increasing my self-sufficiency and resiliency, staying debt free, and preparing for a climate changed, resource depleted world, in uncertain economic times.

My nothing new restriction is lifted, but I continue to be a gentle, local consumer as much as possible.

My hope is that some of the information and resources I post about here will be helpful to others. Thanks so much for stopping by !

Yours in unstuffing,
Amber

"Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with dandelion, make a sorry figure for the drawing room" ~Emily Dickinson

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that.... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature." ~Abraham Cowley

"The laws of nature are under no obligation to cater to our culture’s emotionally charged fantasies of perpetual progress and limitless growth." ~John Michael Greer

"Sometimes we think we are too small to make a difference in this big world. Our actions seem insignificant in comparison to global issues such as climate change and population growth. However, the reality is that action on an individual level is exactly how big changes are made. Without individual and family sustainability, there’s no community sustainability. And without community sustainability, there’s no global sustainability. In fact, earth-wide change is absolutely impossible without individual change.
It really does come down to you and me."
~From Living Sustainably: It's Your Choice

"The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop." ~Mark Twain

"It is not enough simply to abstain from theft...We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers. It is our duty, therefore, to borrow no more from the world than we absolutely need, and to make full and proper use of it. Taking more than we need, and wasting it, is a form of stealing from the rest of humankind."
~Commentary on Sutra 30 The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali