New Vrindaban Bloggers

Click here to read the full article from the "Beyond Fossil Fuels" series in the New York Times

ROCK CREEK, W.Va.

LORELEI SCARBRO’S husband, Kenneth, an underground coal miner for more than 30 years, is buried in a small family cemetery near her property here at the base of Coal River Mountain. The headstone is engraved with two roosters facing off, their feathers ruffled. Kenneth, who loved cockfighting, died in 1999, and, Ms. Scarbro says, he would have hated seeing the tops of mountains lopped off with explosives and heavy machinery by mining companies searching for coal.

Critics say the practice, known as “mountaintop removal mining,” is as devastating to the local environment as it is economically efficient for coal companies, one of which is poised to begin carving up Coal River Mountain. And that has Ms. Scarbro and other residents of western Raleigh County in a face-off of their own.

Their goal is to save the mountain, and they intend to do so with a wind farm. At least one study has shown that a wind project could be a feasible alternative to coal mining here, although the coal industry’s control over the land and the uncertain and often tenuous financial prospects of wind generation appear to make it unlikely to be pursued. That, residents say, would be a mistake.

“If we don’t stop this,” Ms. Scarbro says, adjusting the flowers on her husband’s grave, “one day we’ll be standing on a big pile of rock and debris, and we’ll be asking, ‘What do we do now?’ ”

For many renewable-energy advocates outside the region, the struggle at Coal River Mountain has become emblematic of an effort across the country to find alternatives to fossil fuels. They have lent money, expertise and high-profile celebrities like Daryl Hannah and James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist, to help residents advance their case for wind power and to make it a test case for others pursuing similar projects nationwide.

The mountain, which is privately owned and leased to coal interests, is also one of the last intact mountaintops in a region whose contours have otherwise been irreversibly altered by extreme surface-mining techniques. Preserving its peaks for a wind farm, plan advocates say, could provide needed job diversification for impoverished towns that otherwise live or die by the fortunes of coal.

Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of Massey Energy, the largest coal company in West Virginia and the one planning to cut into Coal River Mountain’s peaks, has repeatedly called assertions of long- and short-term environmental damage exaggerated.

“There are a lot of misstatements out there,” Mr. Blankenship says. “I don’t find the environmental damage to be nearly what people say they find it to be, and we’re struggling with whether the true objective of all these regulations is to protect the environment, or whether it’s simply to stop the mining of coal.”

While the odds remain slim that wind power will replace coal mining here, proponents say that changes in state and federal mining regulations could tilt things in their favor.

“We want to make it economically unfeasible to do mountaintop mining,” Ms. Scarbro says.

by Tom Rooney, SPG Solar
Published: August 31, 2010

Conservatives, let’s talk about energy. And why so many conservatives are so wrong — so liberal, even — on wind and solar energy.

Let’s start with a recent editorial from the home of “free markets and free people,” the Wall Street Journal. Photovoltaic solar energy, quoth the mavens, is a “speculative and immature technology that costs far more than ordinary power.”

So few words, so many misconceptions. It pains me to say that because, like many business leaders, I grew up on the Wall Street Journal and still depend on it.

But I cannot figure out why people who call themselves “conservatives” would say solar or wind power is “speculative.” Conservatives know that word is usually reserved to criticize free-market activity that is not approved by well, you know who.

Today, around the world, more than a million people work in the wind and solar business. Many more receive their power from solar. Solar is not a cause, it is a business with real benefits for its customers.

Just ask anyone who installed their solar systems five years ago. Today, many of their systems are paid off and they are getting free energy. Better still, ask the owners of one of the oldest and most respected companies in America who recently announced plans to build one of the largest solar facilities in the country. That would be Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal.

Now we come to “immature.” Again, the meaning is fuzzy. But in Germany, a country 1/3 our size in area and population, they have more solar than the United States. This year, Germans will build enough solar to equal the output of three nuclear power plants. What they call immaturity our clients call profit-making leadership.

But let’s get to the real boogie man: The one that “costs far more than ordinary power.”

I’ve been working in energy infrastructure for 25 years and I have no idea what the WSJ means by the words “ordinary power.” But, after spending some time with Milton Friedman whom I met on many occasions while studying for an MBA at the University of Chicago, I did learn about costs.

And here is what every freshman at the University of Chicago knows: There is a difference between cost and price.

Solar relies on price supports from the government. Fair enough — though its price is falling even faster than fossil fuels are rising.

But if Friedman were going to compare the costs of competing forms of energy, he also would have wanted to know the cost of “ordinary energy.” Figured on the same basis. This is something the self-proclaimed conservative opponents of solar refuse to do.

But huge companies including Wall Mart, IBM, Target and Los Gatos Tomatoes figured it out. And last year so did the National Academy of Sciences. It produced a report on the Hidden Costs of Energy that documented how coal was making people sick to the tune of $63 billion a year.

And that oil and natural gas had so many tax breaks and subsidies that were so interwoven for so long, it was hard to say exactly how many tens of billions these energy producers received courtesy of the U.S. Taxpayer.

Just a few weeks ago, the International Energy Agency said worldwide, fossil fuels receive $550 billion in subsidies a year — 12 times what alternatives such as wind and solar get.

Neither report factored in Global Warming or the cost of sending our best and bravest into harm’s way to protect our energy supply lines.

Whatever that costs, you know it starts with a T. All this without hockey stick graphs, purloined emails or junk science.

When you compare the real costs of solar with the fully loaded real costs of coal and oil and natural gas and nuclear power, apples to apples, solar is cheaper.

That’s not conservative. Or liberal. That comes from an ideology older and more reliable than both of those put together: Arithmetic.

Filed under: Cows and Environment

On behalf of Srila Prabhupada, Sri Sri Radha Vrindavan Candra and all the devotees and visitors to New Vrindavan, the ISKCON New Vrindavan Board of Directors would like to express our immense appreciation, gratitude and thanks to Gaura Shakti Prabhu!

Last week, Gaura Shakti performed the Herculean devotional service of donating his time, energy and money by renting and jack hammering all the excess concrete “bumps” in the driveways and parking lots around the temple and cabins! These bumps have been an annoyance for over a decade as they gradually surfaced from the settling of the brick pavers.

This effort took several days of strenuous and exhausting work. He very wisely left two official speed bumps on the main entrance driveway and painted them red to slow vehicles down to a safe speed. He was ably assisted by Janardana das, who, being younger and actually built for this kind of work!, was able to carry the project to completion! As Gaura Shakti himself said, “I could not have done it without him!”

http://xkcd.com/774/

Filed under: Jokes

On Wednesday, September 1, millions of people around the world will observe the ancient Vedic festival called Krishna Janmastami.  Technically, Janmastami marks the day on which Lord Krishna descended from the spiritual world to the planet earth 5,000 years ago.  Commonly, however, Janmastami is known as the joyful celebration of Lord Krishna’s birth.

The ritual is to fast the entire day of Janmastami, followed by a midnight celebration with singing, dancing, and a free vegetarian feast commemorating the birth of Lord Krishna.  “Last year, New Vrindaban had approximately 100 different preparations.  The midnight feast is a great opportunity to try out a smorgasbord of eastern and western dishes, all of which are made with love,” said Malati Dasi, one of New Vrindaban’s GBCs.  For those who may feel hunger pangs earlier in the day, Govinda’s Snack Bar and Restaurant will be open all day.

“New Vrindaban is holding four Janmastami celebrations this year, due to the large number of out-of-town we will receive,” explained Malati.  “We hold one celebration on August 28, and we will hold two more during Labor Day on September 4 and 5.  But there is only one midnight celebration – on the actual day of Janmastami.  On the other days, the celebration is earlier in the evening.”

The story of Lord Krishna’s birth, described in the ancient Vedic treatise Srimad-Bhagavatam, is a story full of political intrigue and mystic occurrences.  Just after the marriage of Vasudeva and Devaki, Devaki’s brother, the powerful King Kamsa, heard a celestial voice call to him and say that the eighth child of Devaki would kill him. Immediately after hearing this prophesy from the sky, Kamsa caught hold of Devaki’s hair and was about to kill her with his sword.  Vasudeva, who was shocked by the behavior of his cruel, shameless brother-in-law, immediately tried to pacify Kamsa in order to save Devaki’s life.  Finally, in desperation, Vasudeva offered to bring all of Devaki’s future children to Kamsa as soon as they were born.  At first, Kamsa agreed to this proposal.  Later, however, Kamsa reneged on the agreement and imprisoned Vasudeva and Devaki in a cell in his kingdom of Mathura.    Years later, Lord Krishna was born at midnight in the jail cell in Mathura.  Just after his birth, Krishna unlocked the jail cell and put the guards to sleep by his mystic power.  Vasudeva then carried Krishna across the Yamuna River to Vrindaban, where Krishna was raised by his foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda. “Every year, millions of pilgrims visit the jail cell of Krishna’s birth in Mathura, located in north-central India.  This jail cell really exists and it matches the description in Srimad-Bhagavatam, which dates back over 5,000 years,” said Malati.  “There are also innumerable artifacts in Vrindaban that match descriptions in Srimad-Bhagavatam. This is proof that Krishna is a historical figure, and not simply a mythological figure as propounded by the nineteenth-century British who colonized India.”        Although Janmastami has been celebrated for thousands of years in India, this festival was introduced world-wide in the 1960’s and 1970’s by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).  “The first Janmastami celebration by westerns and for westerners was in 1966 at ISKCON headquarters in New York City,” said Malati.  “Since then, Janmastami has grown into a non-sectarian festival of India’s ancient culture and tradition.”    On Thursday, September 2, the day following Janmastami, Hare Krishna devotees around the world will observe Prabhupada’s birthday.  “Although there will be festivals all over the planet, the celebration in New Vrindaban is special for North Americans.  Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, located in New Vrindaban, is the official memorial site for Prabhupada in North America, and a special evening celebration dedicated to his life and memory will be held at the Palace,” said Malati.           New Vrindaban Community and Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold are located south of Moundsville – Wheeling, off Route 250.  For more information about the Janmastami festival or about Prabhupada’s birthday celebration, contact (304) 845-9591 or mail@NewVrindaban.com.

“Krishna by His practical example taught us to give all protection to the cows and that should be the main business of New Vrindaban. Vrindaban is also known as Gokula. Go means cows, and kula means congregation. Therefore the special feature of New Vrindaban will be cow protection, and by doing so, we shall not be loser.”

Letter to Hayagriva 14 June 1968 (Montreal)

“Yes! Go on acquiring the surrounding lands and in this way we will establish a local self governing village and show all the world a practical example of spiritual life as Krsna Himself exhibited in Vrindavana. Agriculture and protecting cows, this is the main business of the residents of Vrindavan, and above all simply loving Krsna. The cows, the trees, the cowherd men and gopis, their chief engagement was loving Krsna, and in New Vrindavan we want to create this atmosphere and thereby show the whole world how practical and sublime our movement is.”

Letter from Srila Prabhupada to Kirtanananda Swami…27th July 1973

“You say we must have a gosala trust, that is our real purpose. krsi-goraksya-vanijyam vaisya karma svabhava-jam, [Bg 18.44]. Where there is agriculture there must be cows. That is our mission: Cow protection and agriculture and if there is excess, trade. This is a no-profit scheme. For the agriculture we want to produce our own food and we want to keep cows for our own milk. The whole idea is that we are ISKCON, a community to be independent from outside help. This farm project is especially for the devotees to grow their own food. Cotton also, to make their own clothes. And keeping cows for milk and fatty products.”

Letter to: Yasomatinandana — Vrindaban 28 November, 1976

“Prabhupada: Yes. Anyway, just inquire. These are our garden flowers.
Jayatirtha: Oh, very nice.
Prabhupada: This is also?
Bhagavan: Yes.
Prabhupada: Yes. Anything grown in the garden, that is hundred times valuable than it is purchased from the market.”

Room Conversation With French Commander — August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm)

“Without protection of cows, brahminical culture cannot be maintained; and without brahminical culture, the aim of life cannot be fulfilled.”

Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 8: Chapter Twenty-four, Text 5: PURPORT

“One cannot become spiritually advanced without acquiring the brahminical qualifications and giving protection to cows. “

Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 6: Chapter Eighteen, Text 52:PURPORT

“The basic principle of economic development is centered on land and cows.”

SB 1.10.4

“Prabhupada: …They are interested with these bricks and stones, not green vegetables. Such a rascal government. Give them facility. We know how to do it. Annad bhavanti bhutani parjanyad anna-sambhavah, yajnad bhavati parjanyah [Bg. 3.14]. Let them engage in kirtana. There will be more water for gardening, and it will be moist, and then produce fodder for the animals and food for you. And animal gives you milk. That is Vrndavana life. And they are absorbed in this so-called opulence. Krsna has taken birth.

“They are bringing so many nice, pleasant foodstuff, very well-dressed and ornamented. These are description. In the morning we were reading. How they were happy, the inhabitants of Vrndavana with Krsna and living and cows. That I want to introduce. At any cost do it and… Don’t bother about big, big buildings. It is not required. Useless waste of time. Produce. Make the whole field green. See that. Then whole economic question solved. Then you eat sumptuous. Eat sumptuously. The animal is happy. The animal even does not give milk; let them eat and pass stool and urine. That is welcome. After all, eating, they will pass stool. So that is beneficial, not that simple milk is beneficial. Even the stool is beneficial.

“Therefore I am asking so much here and…, “Farm, farm, farm, farm…” That is not my program — Krsna’s program. Annad bhavanti bhutani [Bg. 3.14]. Produce greenness everywhere, everywhere. Vrndavana. It is not this motorcar civilization. If it has taken in his brain, then it is to be understood that he can do this plan. He’ll be able. “

Conversation Pieces — May 27, 1977, Vrndavana

Letter from Tamal Krsna Goswami, Secretary to Srila Prabhupada, to Hari Sauri Das, ISKCON Melbourne, August 10th, 1977 (sent from Krsna Balarama Mandir, Vrndavana):

“Srila Prabhupada always enjoys hearing from you as you have gained an eternal position at His Divine Grace’s lotus feet. Srila Prabhupada appreciated your opening prayers.

“Srila Prabhupada was most enlivened to hear the report of New Govardhana Farm. His Divine Grace in the last month or so has been stressing the importance of these farm projects, and said, “This is the next aspect of Krsna consciousness which I wish to push forward. If I am able to travel again, then I shall visit the farms and make them perfect. On these farms we can demonstrate the full varnasrama system. If these farms become successful then the whole world will be enveloped by Krsna consciousness.

“From your letter I can understand how nice this farm is. I am very happy to see fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, grains, the devotees taking sumptuous prasadam and chanting Hare Krsna. This is the actual meaning of human life. It is a very good farm, from your letter I can understand. Whatever you build, get the building materials locally. If you can manufacture tiles locally, then your house problem is solved. Build up bamboo frame, and on it place tiles. In any event get everything locally. I wish to make a farm tour and then I shall surely visit your farm.”

“I suggested to Srila Prabhupada that he was the Farm Acarya, but Srila Prabhupada said, “Krsna is the Farm Acarya. Baladeva is holding a plow, and Krsna is holding the calf. Krsna advised Nanda Maharaja not to perform Indra puja but to worship the land, Govardhana because it was supplying all foodstuffs for the residents of Vrndavana and the cows as well.” So Srila Prabhupada wants you to develop this farm very nicely as it will be the future program to present to the world as the ideal of Krsna consciousness. In the cities, we are interested for preaching but we cannot present the ideal varnasrama system, this is only possible at the farms, so they are very important.”

(end letter)

“TRANSLATION

“In My last birth I was born in the family of cowherd men, and I gave protection to the calves and cows. because of such pious activities, I have now become the son of a brahmana.

” PURPORT

“The words of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the greatest authority, herein clearly indicate that one becomes pious simply by keeping cows and protecting them. Unfortunately, people have become such rascals that they do not even care about the words of an authority. “

Adi-lila: Chapter Seventeen, Text 111

Filed under: Cows and Environment

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: August 11, 2010 in the New York Times

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Hey Everybody! This is the biggest and best year ever so far at Burning Man! Krishna Camp is partnering with Sacred Spaces Village, Red Lightning and Entheon Village, providing yummy nutritious vegetarian/vegan/raw prasadam delicacies with a healthy dose of Kirtan, sound Krishna philosophy and of course LOVE So if you’re coming to the Playa we’re [...]

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times

Still, aggressive national policies to accelerate renewable energy use are succeeding in Portugal and some other countries, according to a recent report by IHS Emerging Energy Research of Cambridge, Mass., a leading energy consulting firm. By 2025, the report projected, Ireland, Denmark and Britain will also get 40 percent or more of their electricity from renewable sources; if power from large-scale hydroelectric dams, an older type of renewable energy, is included, countries like Canada and Brazil join the list.

The United States, which last year generated less than 5 percent of its power from newer forms of renewable energy, will lag behind at 16 percent (or just over 20 percent, including hydroelectric power), according to IHS.

To force Portugal’s energy transition, Mr. Sócrates’s government restructured and privatized former state energy utilities to create a grid better suited to renewable power sources. To lure private companies into Portugal’s new market, the government gave them contracts locking in a stable price for 15 years — a subsidy that varied by technology and was initially high but decreased with each new contract round.

Compared with the United States, European countries have powerful incentives to pursue renewable energy. Many, like Portugal, have little fossil fuel of their own, and the European Union’s emissions trading system discourages fossil fuel use by requiring industry to essentially pay for excessive carbon dioxide emissions.

Portugal was well poised to be a guinea pig because it has large untapped resources of wind and river power, the two most cost-effective renewable sources. Government officials say the energy transformation required no increase in taxes or public debt, precisely because the new sources of electricity, which require no fuel and produce no emissions, replaced electricity previously produced by buying and burning imported natural gas, coal and oil. By 2014 the renewable energy program will allow Portugal to fully close at least two conventional power plants and reduce the operation of others.

“So far the program has placed no stress on the national budget” and has not created government debt, said Shinji Fujino, head of the International Energy Agency’s country study division.

I have been weeding, harvesting, planting fall crops, dehydrating, freezing, cooking tomatoes into freezable sauce, numerous non food producing projects, recuperating on the couch.

Repeat. I swing from very busy to very tired and not having enough energy to deal with everything.

The blog is suffering.

Filed under: Cows and Environment

Dear  Devotees:

Here is  current information about the New VrindabanArt Seminar with Dhriti &  Ram das that runs from Sept. 13 th through Sept 22  cd.

Costs are as follows:

10 -day course &  materials:

$200 (covers materials  & travel expenses for Dhriti &  Ram)
Lodging (if required):  $150 from Sept. 12 th through 23 rd in Guest Lodge.
(Option is there for  Ashram accommodation: $60 for duration)
Meals (if required): $135  (breakfast, lunch, light dinner for 10  days)
Round trip from Airport  (if required): $75 (Pittsburgh  International)

The following  supplies should be brought by each participant:

*   Sketch book  12×16
*   Easel
*   Brushes :  bristol filberts or flats   #   4, 6, 8,  10,
sable or mongoose rounds  # 6
mongoose hair filberts #  4,6 (optional)

We recommend  purchasing  supplies at ASW.com best prices . Vermeer mongoose  brushes are also available.  Further information as things  develope.

Feel free to  contact me with any questions: 304-845-9591 or
_malatidevi@aol.com_ (mailto:malatidevi@aol.com)

Hare  Krishna!

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times

JHABUA, India — Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight.

Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling through India’s social safety net. They should receive subsidized government food and cooking fuel. They do not. The older children should be enrolled in school and receiving a free daily lunch. They are not. And they are hardly alone: India’s eight poorest states have more people in poverty — an estimated 421 million — than Africa’s 26 poorest nations, one study recently reported.

For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for people like Mr. Bhuria has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?

Hare Krishna:

I am looking for temporary assistance between now through Oct.  5 th or 13th.

Need  basic computer skills, English spoken and written,  ability to communicate with other, and visible sadhana. Main services  will include Janmastami Festival Planning and  execution as well as Radhastami Festival.  Assist with Art  Seminar (can even take the seminar, if inclined) and Vaishnavi Retreat.

Must be  able to relocate to New Vrindaban during this time and be willing to work  outside of the box!

Ability to drive &driver’s license is helpful but  not essential.

For further details, please contact:

malati dasi: 304-845-9591
_malatidevi@aol.com_ (mailto:malatidevi@aol.com)

Also needed: an assistant between April and November, 2011.

Click here to watch a very inspiring video on "The Food And Climate Connection" from WhyHunger.

Click here to visit the WhyHunger Food Security Learning Center