dicot

I'm curious as to the people who work at and run Gitmo's reaction to left-wing protestors like Medea Benjamin (Code Pink/Global Exchange) or other civilians who have been trying to shut Gitmo for many years? Did they take their hunger strike seriously? Do they just mock anyone who is left of center and has concerns? That is my take here in L.A., that we're utterly disenfranchised on the Left from ever having a meaningful say on any aspect of the US military.

I'm also interested in your take on kratom legaliztion, as the Asian nursery my wife and I work for often gets requests for young Mitragyna speciosa trees, which we don't sell as the owners are unclear on how legal it is, plus other wholesalers don't have them. What would kratom/Mitragyna legalization look like for us horticultural professionals? More like cannabis legalization, where restrictions still exist, or will it be the same as a plum tree, where little oversight is needed or given.

Your granddad is a major influence on why I studied ecology and why I went to work for Greenpeace. Growing up swimming off Redondo beach as a kid and watching the ocean ecology change rapidly in just a few decades helped too. Here in south LA, the ocean is our wilderness and it shaped almost everything about me. So a few questions if you don't mind:

1) With so much going wrong in the world's oceans right now, what is it that gives you hope and gives you the energy to continue your activism, rather than fall into despair?

2) I still think if the world had listened to your grandfather and others in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we could have saved a much of the world's marine creatures and habitats, wheras now we seem to be playing triage. Do you think the world's oceans can ever recover from the damage we've done in the past few generations?

3) How do you view confrontational but non violent activism, such as Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and how effective do you see these NGOs being, vs ones such as Oceana or the Oceanic Preservation Society?

4) Jacques-Yves Cousteau remains the most impressive man of my lifetime and I admire the hell out of everything he accomplished. What stands out most to you -- his military heroism, his world-changing inventions, his impassioned activism, his beautiful writings and films, or something more personal?

Thank you for any responses

How significant do you think soil restoration work is globally to sequestering carbon? During my time with Greenpeace in the 90s I focused on preserving large chunks of ancient forests as a way of keeping carbon stored, as well as protecting biodiversity, yet after watching all the failed COPs and seeing how hard it is to keep forests "saved," I now spend my time wondering about mitigating hypercarbonization of the atmosphere by nurturing mycorrhizal fungi, increasing soils' glomalin and humic acid levels, and the role of urban and suburban landscapes in this effort. Here in the US, it's hard to believe a political process will save us from climate change's multitude of effects, gonvernmental or NGO, so I tend to look for avenues individuals can take for themselves.

I guess I'm wondering how effective you think mobilizing the US nursery workers, farmers, landscapers, homeowners and other horticulturalists to increase soil fertility through organic measures can be vs the other political and personal efforts being made across the globe?