Rick Dubrow's Blog (25)

"I tried, damn it! When my efforts to prevent coal trains from passing through Bellingham failed, the wind in my sails went still. My activism went… inactive. Although we secured twice the necessary signatures to get it on the ballot, our very own progressive Bellingham City Council crushed Coal Free Bellingham’s ‘Community Bill of Rights’, [...]…

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Our economy and environment appear to be rumbling down the same train tracks these days. Poised, hopefully, to prove the adage that one must usually break down before you can break through. It would surely be easier and less painful to break through by simply using logic, science or the wisdom of one’s elders to achieve necessary change, but reality appears to require pain in order to achieve gain. And the greater the urgency for change, the more intense must be the pain in order to climb the… Continue

A computer can only do what it’s programmed to do and is only as good as the instructions it’s given, right? You’ve seen this truth time and again. If there’s a logical error in software the result will probably be either a wrong answer or a system crash.



What about you and me? Do we function like a computer? Given that culture is the dominant software downloaded into our incredible cerebrum, how aligned are the programmed, cultural instructions with the health of our natural… Continue

All too often it can prove edgy to speak one’s mind. Your values surface to the tip of your tongue but you hold tight for fear that you’ll expose a part of yourself at odds with your coworkers; at odds with your spouse, church or employer.



Let’s focus on an unintended consequence of our complex industrial system: the steady loss of life. Be it the loss of bio-diversity, the creation of toxic waste, aggravating global warming…… each of us contributes to this tragic drama. Many of us… Continue

Our laundry list of environmental concerns is staggering, driving an aware mind to spin ‘round and ’round. Said spinning feels like two separate wheels……..the menu of concerns drives one wheel while the menu of solutions drives the other.



Stuck in the middle between two wheels, like a bicyclist.



The wheel out front has spokes named global warming; bio-accumulative toxins; peak oil; nuclear waste; over-population….. I won’t depress you by naming the same number of problems… Continue