350.org

Watch this. So clean and so clear!



Much love,

J

Set SuperForest as Your Homepage!

"I can haz soop3rforezts?"

Hello Lovelies!

We think it would be really cool if you set SuperForest as your homepage.
That way when you open your browser, you'd instantly be face to face with the days positive sustainable awesomeness, with no delay.

Rest assured, since we have no advertising on the site, this isn't about routing you to advertisers, it's about getting you the hot freshness with the quickness. With no fussin' and mussin'.

Love,

Team SuperForest

(doggy pic via itchmo.com)

SuperForest Projects: Operation West Virginia

What up, West Virginia?

Above is a screengrab from SuperForest's analytics page. SuperForest is read by folks all over the world and in every single state in the Union, with one exception.

West Virginia.

We must share the good news with West Virginia.

Seriously, our readership is 53 times higher in Malaysia than it is is West Virginia.

Our West Virginian cousins are missing out.

So, we hereby announce the beginning of Operation West Virginia!

What do you have to do to participate?

Tell someone, anyone, in West Virginia about SuperForest.

I just did. It went like this:

First, I wanted to insure that my message was received, so I googled "Vegan food West Virginia"

This lead me to the address and phone number of Mountain People's Kitchen in Morgantown, West Virginia. (304) 291-6131.

(Ring. Ring.)

Woman: "Hello, Mountain People's Kitchen?"

Me: "Hi, do you guys have a computer with internet access? Not for customers, but for you working at the store?"

W: "No."

M: "Do you have it at home?"

W: "No."

M: "So you don't have internet access at all?"

W: "Not poor people like me. Some folks have Comcast."

M: "So you don't email?"

W: "I have email, but I don't use it."

M: "So what if someone wanted to get in touch with you and tell you about something amazing?"

W: "They'd have to call me."

M: "Great, well I wanted to tell you about this amazing website. It's called SuperForest.org. Super, like superman, and forest, like trees."

W: "Oh yeah?"

M: "Yeah, it's really great. It's all about positivity and sustainability."

W: "Hmmm."

M: "Yeah, check it out if you get a chance. SuperForest.org."

W: "I will. If I can steal a signal, I will."

M: "Oh wait, you know what the best part is?"

W: "What?"

M: "There's no advertising. No banners or pop-ups."

W: "I'll check it out."

M: "Awesome! What's your name?"

W: "Ashley."

M: "Thanks Ashley. Have a great day."

Ashley: "You too."

(click.)

See! That was easy.

Ashley at the Mountain People's Kitchen was very nice and managed to sound genuinely sort of enthusiastic, which is way more than I was hoping for.

Tell someone in W.V. about SuperForest.

Tell 'em that the Malaysians are getting all the good info first!

Awesome.

Love,

Jackson & Team SuperForest

Oases! (the plural of oasis)

Good Afternoon All,

Jackson here.

I am so excited today! As excited today as I was feeling bummed and confused yesterday...
Yes, it's true. I was a total drag yesterday.

Let me explain. Yesterday, (Monday) I came into work really wanting to write about two things that caught my attention this weekend: the Sewage-to-drinking water piece in the Times, (which SuperForester Niki covered with her usual understanding and aplomb,) and the war Russia started in Georgia.

So I sat down and tried to write, coming from a place of understanding and compassion, a post about poo in water and war, and you know what?

I couldn't do it.

I tried multiple times, but everything I wrote seemed way too reactionary and un-SuperForest.

I always try to see the positives in seemingly negative situations, but in both of those cases, I couldn't connect with positivity, and it dismayed me to the point where I just stopped trying to write and spent the rest of the day drawing.

This morning I woke up and I had the answer to the questions I'd been wrestling with.

Team SuperForest.

Yesterday I felt alone and isolated trying to reconcile the madness of human behavior with my own moral compass. Well, that's always going to be a losing battle.

Wars will be waged, water will be pooped in. I cannot fight that.

Yesterday I was trying to fight. Trying to figure out a counter-offensive against aggression and waste.

This morning, the fight was out of me, and I realized that what I had been thinking the entire time I was trying to write my "War is a waste and sewage in water an even bigger waste" post was:

I'm so very glad I have Team SuperForest!

This morning I realized that if you want Peace, all you can do is be peaceful. You can be an oasis of Peace. (Yes, I'm going to capitalize it. It deserves capitalization.)

I thought about SuperForest as a little oasis of Peace. A garden that fellow travelers have wandered upon, found its waters sweet, cool, and refreshing, and paused in their journeys to give thanks for all the gifts received.

I thought about Team SuperForest. Niki, Taylor, Jaell, Julius, and April. Incredible people all over this wonderful planet, working hard to share the inspiration and excitement they feel.

I thought about this little oasis that we'd all created together, about how words of Peace drew them together in the first place, about the people that will find this site and read these words, and I remembered what Peace is...

That Team SuperForest and this site exist brings me great hope and great pleasure.

For Peace is hopeful, and Peace is a pleasure.

Sharing, inspiring, and communicating are very peaceful acts. Harder to brand than War, but more rewarding in the long run. Better for the well being of the psyche. Better for sweet dreams and deep sleep.

We here at SuperForest pledge to support Peace with all means available. We will use our hearts and minds to share and communicate Peace. In the hopes of a brighter present, and a far more compassionate tomorrow.

Thank you to all the members of Team SuperForest.
To Niki, Taylor, Jaell, Julius, and April. Thank you with all my heart. You are the best and brightest part of every day.

Thank you to all who contribute, comment on, and share with this site. SuperForesters Alex, Andrew, Jon, Chucka Stone, PJ, et al. You know who you are, and your contribution is felt and much appreciated.

And thank you to you at home reading these words.

The only way to find Peace is to be Peace.

With great Love and respect to All.

Be excellent to each other.

-Jackson and Team SuperForest

Fuller Was Right!

"You may want to ask me how we are going to resolve the ever-accelerating dangerous impasse of world-opposed politicians and ideological dogmas...

I answer, it will be resolved by the computer."

-Buckminster Fuller

How right those words have proved to be!

The internet, this wonderful internet of ours, is nothing more than a gigantic digital conversation between billions of humans.

Humans communicating leads to greater and greater levels of inter-human understanding.

Understanding leads to compassion.

Compassion leads one to ask: "How can I, as an aware and compassionate individual, not do something to help my brothers and sisters worldwide?"

To regard the teeming billions of other humans as family, (and they are,) leads one to the idea that to hurt or enslave one another is an outdated concept. You'd never force a family member to live a life of hopeless poverty, let alone kill them.

So inter-human violence becomes a taboo.

For the first time in our history as a species, pacificism has become de rigueur.

The question in the forefront of the zeitgeist shifts from: "How can we kill as many enemies as possible, so as to access their commodities and ensure the safety of our own offspring?"

To: "How can we help our brothers and sisters live long, prosperous, and healthy lives, that we may all benefit as one species."

!

That is an incredible shift.

Furthermore, the internet, as a vast collection of information, has changed the way we feel about the ownership of "things."

We don't want stacks of newspapers, we want the information in those papers. The internet provides the information, so the physical paper becomes unnecessary.

Books, magazines, cd's, dvd's, devices, charge cords, packaging, batteries.
All of the above are going to have to rethink their places in the contemporary World-hood.

So, the shift in consciousness becomes less: How can we sell the most stuff/How much stuff can we acquire?

And becomes more: How can we package and sell amazing experiences/How many incredible experiences can we have before we shuffle off of this mortal coil?

The makers of stuff are in for a hard time, unless that stuff happens to be high-quality, long lasting, and intensely useful. The change from "stuff" to "heirloom-quality items"

Your grandfather's watch, shaving-razor, bowler hat, steamer trunk, handed from father to son, father to son, becoming worn out, being repaired, but never ending up anywhere near a landfill.

This is both the old way, and the new way.

To distill:

More communication, less violence. More quality, long-lasting goods, less stuff.
Experiences over accumulation. Long, full lives. Human exploration of all known areas.
The World-hood.

All of these ideas, this shift in attitude, all owe something to the computer.

Fuller was right!

If we dream it, we can have it.
It seems that many in the world-hood are dreaming together.

Love to all,

Team SuperForest

p.s. this post was inspired greatly by the New Yorker article: "Dymaxion Man" - by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Read it online, save a tree.

G.ho.st

Afternoon All,

The NYtimes has a very interesting article up about a web start-up called G.ho.st.

G.ho.st is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, they are working on a site that you can sign in to and access not only your desktop, but any programs and software you've got, and use it from any PC.

Secondly, half of the team working on G.ho.st is Israeli, and the other half is Palestinian.

“We are doing something across cultures and across two sides of a tough conflict,” Dr. Schreiber said. “I was prepared for the possibility that it might be difficult, but it hasn’t been.”

Communication as a method for growth and understanding.
A thought that's both revolutionary and as old as sand.

Here's the article: NYtimes - Israelis and Palestinians Launch Web Start-Up

An interesting thought just popped into the ol' head:

Few celebrate the building of a wall.
Everybody celebrates when one is torn down.

Thoughts?

Eat your Veggies, Kids (and Adults, too)!

Good Morning!

I just saw this over at swissmiss---


Chomp from rei on Vimeo.


Reina Takahashi, a student at Carnegie Mellon made this video, to encourage kids to eat more vegetables!

The communication is so simple and so clear!

It's making me hungry for more veggies!

Have a wonderful lunch today!

Niki