One Nation under G U N S | Land of the Free, Home of the Bewildered | United States of Apathy

What could be the change? Which do you choose? Amassing stuff & money, or interacting with nature, in body and spirit, for free?

I don’t know about you, I have only my experiences from my own family life where i was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania among cats, dogs, trees and lots of exposure to arts, education and appreciation and love of nature. And every subsequent contact and influence through people i met throughout my life as well as what information I’ve been put into touch with. I know that I don’t need diamonds, gold, jewelry, shiny objects, ivory, animal heads that I’ve conquered to mount on my wall, remedies from exotic animals for this or that dysfunction…nor do i need to keep gathering objects and amass things. I don’t need a car. I love bicycling. I also continually appreciate very little things, and find amusement and delight in the natural world. I prefer to be outdoors, and fortunately, am not currently homeless > I do enjoy a stable, calm, peaceful place to prepare my two meals of the day and sleep.  

I don’t need to continually purchase, clothing. I have been wearing the same sneakers for walking, bicycling, in rain or snow. And just got a second hand pair of shoes for free, for dressy occasions, when I can wear one of my 6 dresses that I brought with me in my luggage which are classics, that don’t change with fashion circuits seasonally. I brought my cleats with me as well, which I use wherever I live, when I find the local ultimate frisbee pickup games. blah, blah, blah

I looked outside of my window from the high rise room in Berlin (extremely tight and difficult shared housing situation) last evening, and noticed how many red glowing lights were in the sky. They are all cranes, except for two smoke stacks. I counted about 16 cranes that I could see from the day, from stretching to look right and left, except for the large square office building blocking my view straight ahead. 

WTF is the need for continued building? What the fuck is the need for supporting guns? What is the need for victimizing people who are fleeing dangerous situations (political turmoil or warming climate destroying their ability to survive and eat) when in fact it is predominantly the western developed world who are energy hogs and who have intermittently and with regularity destabilized regions politically, destabilized the climate, and recklessly and relentlessly invested in oil (and coal) when they know for a fact, if they have any kind of a clue and read anything, that our climate and entire ecological environment is endangered. 

I don’t want cranes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-24/what-i-learned-counting-cranes-in-san-francisco

I want live cranes in our beautiful world. Nothing is more precious than clean air, water and the beauty and exhilaration of interacting with the nature of our beautiful world.

What is it not to get (understand/realize), that our lifestyles and demands and insistence on endless upgrading and getting immediate satisfaction, and lack of active statements and protests and going up against the powers that be, who want nothing more than for everything to stay the same, and the consuming public to continue to consume – and subsequently their power and control and amount of money in their bank accounts forever increase? 

Endless building, endless construction, endless buying, consuming without end. Putting more and more satellites into the atmosphere to create yet more junk, thanks a lot, not, Elon.

We need a radically different economic system that is not leveraged on the artificially crafted value of money, and our complete dependency on it. 

Instead of being radically separate, we could be joining together in person, in communities; research & development, idea sharing, creating gardens, building things, crafting, talking, laughing, dancing. We really don’t need to collect and amass all this stuff. 

This blog was unplanned, a spontaneous result of reading headlines about another mass shooting in the USA and of hospitals filling up by youth harming themselves.

Did anyone of my FB friends bother to read the transcript i posted of Gabor Mate’s talk about healing through ayahuasca? Because he is clearly talking about the TRAUMA INDUCED BY THE ENVIRONMENT (FAMILY, SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC) and the fact that many people i the western DEVELOPED nations, and particularly the LAND OF THE FREE, are enmeshed in a web of trauma. 

Gabor Mate transcript Gabor Mate speaks the truth, eloquently. 10 years ago!!!

It is essential for the emotionally, psychologically and spiritually sick population of the Wealthy western world (derivative and export of our fine hypocritical social and economic system of Capitalism) because healing and awareness is available. 

https://theincubator.live/2016/11/15/dr-gabor-mate-on-the-healing-power-of-ayuhuasca/

this is outrageous! Let’s just keep doing the same routines and not thinking about what is wrong with a system that bails out bankers and cuts education and healthcare to the people, who have huge stresses with high housing costs…

“The portion of American hospital beds occupied by children with suicidal or self-harming behavior has soared over the course of a decade, a large study of admissions to acute care hospitals shows.”

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Above statue at the grave of Frederick Chopin at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. We need less stuff, less occupation with work, and more play, laughter, togetherness, song, dance and psychedelics. Less is more. 

UN World Environment Day June 5th | Ethical Footprint | Ethical vs. Unethical Construction

I hadn’t known, had I not gone on the internet, that the United Nations declared a World Environment Day of June 5th. Fabulous that there is a designated day to be aware of the environment.

On World Environment Day, and every day, we should all be thinking creatively about how to accommodate wildlife in our own lives. Trees, bushes, waterways, clean air and water, highway animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways with plants attracting pollinators, with a consciousness Promoting Smarter Wildlife Management.

World Environment Day June 5th

I’d like to point out what I learned, walking around in neighborhoods that I love, because of their fabulous properties of trees and beautiful adornment of living plants, that naturally attract and welcome living animals.

To me, nothing, nothing is more spectacular than the natural world. And the properties with old money on this hill adjacent to where i live demonstrate their wisdom, in adorning and conserving as much nature as possible. You hear birds, see rabbits and other life hopping about.

This property with the yellow circle around it, is a disgrace. They wiped out thickly forested lot, to build a sprawling mansion, with not one tree left behind. I’d spray paint my feelings, except that it won’t bring the trees or life back that the owners destroyed, in order to build their outrageous sprawl, a desolate prison, with no life to regard.

It is an example of unethical behavior.

An ethical consumer looks for products which are both friendly to the environment and for the people who produce them.

The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.

“An ‘ethical consumer’ looks for products which, above all, are both friendly to the environment and also the people who produce them. An ethical consumer is therefore aware of the consequences of production, consumption and disposal.”

Let the pictures do the talking. I avoid going down this street because i feel annoyance at the nouveau riche lack of heart and insight and sadness, knowing  that all of these lovely trees were wiped out, affecting so many different creatures. An elderly man whom I chatted with one evening 5 months or so ago, told me when I mentioned this reckless building, that the property had several hundred year old trees on it, in fact, from the looks of googlemaps before it was updated, dozens of trees.

I discovered recently with delight this property within a frisbee throw, catecornered across the street. As one approaches from several angles, all you see is a mini forest.

thickly forested green plot, before picture

 

And what they did to the once forested property. This home could have been a third the size, and maintained a profoundly beautiful plot that their children could play in an that invites wonder and habitation by many species.

unethical_building_trees gone

 

 

This builder, knocked down, gutted, every single tree, every single one of them, to make this sprawling property with a tiny bit of lawn and a lot of asphalt to accommodate their cars. It is revolting. And the property across the street with the green ring, as you approach you only see, feel and hear the silence of a forest with birds. It is breathtakingly beautiful. So that the actual construction is engulfed, ringed by trees, except in the front. And the new building in the yellow, is what the builders created, destroying all life that was there, and making sure none of it will come back. They did not even plant bushes – very necessary for cover and a humane yard – and other plants with the intention to accommodate birds and animals – a Humane Backyard.

ethical_vs_unethical_building

All life that had been there or could walk or fly by, has no place to go, no life, no green, no water source, no tree for life, no butterfly or pollinator by-way, nothing. Just me, me, me and my big property that is hollow of life and nature’s delight.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

 

IPCC Climate Change Report | Highest Recorded CO2 Levels & Arctic Temperatures | Bill Mckibben Discussing Significance of Rising CO2 | Greta Thunberg TED Talk | Enforcing Legislation

In November of 2018, an (IPCC) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report by internationally collaborating scientists, spoke of the nefarious consequences of global warming of 1.5º C.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Articles sprouted this last week regarding a report released by researchers at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, who recorded record-setting temperatures this last Saturday, May 11th.
atmospheric research facility

Carbon Dioxide Levels In The Atmosphere Hit Highest Mark In Human History, written by Nina Golgowski

“Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere have soared to a new high, one never before been seen in human history, researchers announced as temperatures near the Arctic circle rose into the 80s.”

These alarmingly warm temperatures came as a daily CO2 reading by atmospheric researchers on Saturday recorded a 415.26 parts per million (ppm) baseline.”

Rebecca Lindsey wrote in August 2018 Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide regarding the 2017 rate of carbon dioxide atmospheric levels as 405.0 ppm parts per million. She wrote this US government report from the (NOAA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Science and Information for a Climate-Smart Nation.

Carbon Dioxide Rising Levels Climate NOAA

Here is the Annual 2018 Global Climate Report by the NOAA. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201813

A person passionately familiar with what this reading means, he started 350.org in 2008, stressing to educate the public about the need to cap CO2 atmospheric levels at 350. Well his target limit was exceeded in 2017 at 405.26 ppm, and the last week carbon concentrations surpassed 415 parts per million. Bill McKibben discusses the significance of the rising CO2 levels in this audio interview.

Bill McKibben discusses the significance of the rising CO2 levels

My post was originally going to be another tally of my encounters with people sitting in or standing by their stationary vehicles with the engine left running. I will let this linger at the end, just to point out that despite the dramatic need to absolutely change the world’s reliance on fossil fuels and large industrial practices in general that disrupt ecological balances, it is absolutely up to all of us to find alternative ways of viewing what we take for granted and assume is a typical and natural behavior.

As Greta Thunberg mentioned in one of her first speeches, that to the Swedish public before the Parliament to explain her reasoning behind striking school as a 15 year old. She stated that most people are more fearful of having to adjust their behavior that relies on fossil fuels out of habit and convenience, than they are fearful of climate change itself. The problem is that it just isn’t quite grasped, it feels like a remote problem, like a remote-control war that you see short sound bites of that is happening across the globe. Well, the other major factor in peoples’ lack of concern, is the complete absence of reporting about it by the media or governments undertaking it as a major issue. Therefore the public is not only not informed, but often due to huge amounts of money poured into disinformation by petroleum industry lobbying groups, they are way misinformed.

Here is the now 16 year old audacious and articulate Swedish girl Greta Thunberg giving a TED talk about the dire need to act now to avert the most dramatic repercussions of climate change.

Greta Thunberg TED talk on climate change

Yesterday, I came upon a couple nicely dressed, obvious professionals, involved in a conversation on the sidewalk, standing several meters from the large SUV parked there with the engine running. I cycled back around to direct my voice to them saying in the most gentle way possible, do you realize that we’re in a climate crisis, and CO2 is going from your vehicle into the atmosphere? Several minutes later I bicycled by a backhoe that was stationary, but the engine on, as two men worked by it, no person in the cab. As I cycled by their work van, I saw and felt that the engine was on, no one nearby. I circled back to the men to say -as gently as I could – why do you have your engines on? The guy at first looked at me, then when he realized I was making a ‘critical observation’, he ignored me. Finally he said coarsely, “Does anyone tell you how to ride your bike?”

I looked up the Department of Environmental Management of Rhode Island, the State where I’m living. Located it, went there, walking in with a back pack on a Friday afternoon, I already looked suspicious. My question, “WHY IS THIS NOT A LAW? You can generate income by fining people. When I first arrived to this town and realized as a bicyclist that consistently, in every socio economic neighborhood, people have a tendency to sit in their cars with the engine idling. In fact, plenty are not even in their cars, but near them, as they leave the engines running.

Fortunately the woman officer with whom I spoke understood the concerns, stated that there had been at one point anti-idling laws and that in fact in the more old money town of Newport, there is anti-idling legislation.

From the time that I was beginning to drive, before their was a threat of accelerating temperatures due to human activities; heat and transportation demands, I naturally knew that there was no reason to leave an engine running. It wastes fuel, it spews out exhaust.

Obviously what impacts the environment on a much larger scale, are the industries that mine for coal and oil and transport it, and use this energy on a large scale for industrial operations and large, institutional constructions.

Nevertheless, as populations continue to increase and more and more people come to demand having their own automobile or truck, the collective use affects the CO2 levels. There are plenty of reports that reveal that idling engines are contributing to the higher levels of Carbon Dioxide, a green house gas that is warming the earth as it concentrates heat.

Since there appears to be, even in this college town with an ivy league school, an uncanny disassociation among the population and workers for the University of the consequences of their actions. Since I’ve already written numerous letters to the Mayor, Governor and State Legislature, it seemed the next move, to bring this to their attention. The officer with whom I spoke really warmed up to me after her initial skeptical looking expression, I said that if you employ me, I could make the government a thousand dollars an hour. She laughed. She told me that rather than telling people about the climate consequences, tell them that there are fines for idling.

Let’s educate ourselves as much as possible and talk with one another about the best things we can do to change our behaviors, while the new politicians on the block like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do their best to confront the established powers and force the government to stop their silence, and begin orchestrating the Green New Deal.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Carol sitting under the trees

Have you Heard of Global Warming? | Apparently 60% of Providence Hasn’t | Simple Solutions | Turn off Your Idling Engines

Make America Cool Again

You know that Facebook post in which the kid in the car seat is sobbing about the fact that people are killing animals and causing harm, well I’m feeling that way, except that the emotional devastation is being channelled into anger.

Although I had already heard that various oil companies had known of the dangers of extracting and burning petroleum…it wasn’t until I read this article two days ago
“Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” By Nathaniel Rich
Photographs and Videos by George Steinmetz
….that laid it all out so clearly, that I feel fully incensed.

As I bicycle by idling cars continually and witness the complete disconnect – lack of awareness among the people, I realize that they are completely unaware.

My feeling of exasperation is not going away.

In fact, after talking to a German woman I overhead speaking German today on the sidewalk, walking with her three kids produced clearly through marriage of mixed race, that of course, Germans do not leave their engines idling, they are aware of how their individual and thus collective actions affect the environment.

It occurred to me today that the reason I came here was to encounter this. Coming from the outside and looking in, after having lived in several European cultures in which walking and gathering in public outside of their cars, is extremely more common. Americans are isolationists. They are spoiled. They feel entitled. They seem to be clueless. The technologies (which I use for contact) are pulling them away from an awareness of their connectedness to their immediate present environment. I see students passing by in the neighborhood housing the Ivy League Brown university walking around with heads buried in their cell phones. Incapable of walking without it being in their hand to perpetually be connected to FB or whatever.

This blog is born however from witnessing the exorbitant number of people I pass by sitting in their cars with their engines idling. I’ve asked individuals, have you heard of global warming? 1% respond with recognition. I don’t think that I’m exaggerating.

United States of Addiction, United States of Avoidance

How many times do people reach for their cell phone to avoid eye contact? Inconclusive at this point, but clearly apparent. What about rates of food, drug and alcohol addiction?

With reference to the media or governments’ lack of response, talk about betrayal. The article is long, yet methodically lays out the facts of recognition and then a series of doing nothing, if anything, exacerbating the problem by denying that it exists, discovered over one hundred and fifty years ago.

It was fully understood and undeniably something to act on through diligent awareness, but put aside for business as usual.

US Government administrationss Misleading Public over 50 years regarding the connection between petroleum extraction and burning and subsequent climate catastrophe

in addition to polluting the immediate environment, idling cars and indiscriminate use of plastics are collectively suffocating the planet

This is the letter that I am still attempting to send within the ‘form within the RI governor’s office website’, which doesn’t allow specific characters – like email addresses – to be incorporated in the body of the automated system.

Climate change is real, enforce laws against idling engines to generate income.

This article should be required reading for someone running a US State government office. I have been riding bicycle every day and night for the last 13 weeks throughout the city of Providence, RI. I have discovered that no matter where I go – regardless of age, gender, race, socio economic class (in fact it seems to be more pronounced among middle class professionals), 60% to 80% or more of the population are habitually sitting in their cars with their engines idling. This is not for a quick pickup, but for sustained periods, leaving their engines running. I encounter, regardless of district or neighborhood, a startling number of cars, per block, per minute, with people sitting in their cars, or on top of their cars, or walking away from their vehicles, with their engine left idling. Perpetually running engines. I feel the heat as I cycle by and smell the fumes.

There appears to be a complete unawareness among the population of the fact

1) That global warming exists at all, and is happening all over the planet, today, every minute.
2) And that people in Providence (collectively), indeed affect the air quality of not only other people and animals (if they still exist) in the immediate vicinity of their vehicle as well as what is happening ecologically on other parts of the globe, where warming has already been apparent for the last decade.

What is going on?

• 31 other US states have anti-idling legislation; either statewide or in a particular municipality or county
• The NYC metropolitan area have $2,000 fines per bus if caught idling.
• Citizens in Germany and Scandinavian countries turn off their engines, ALWAYS, some even during red lights. They are completely cognizant of the ecological emergency and climate crisis, with which the United States is perpetually not dealing with, regardless of the fact that we are the primary perpetrators of this crime to humanity and to all other life forms and systems that also inherited the planet.

What are you going to do about it?

It is unconscionable that this is happening and no one is doing anything (except for the scientists and individuals aware who are perhaps silently suffering in the understanding of continued political deadlocks and misinformation due to participating in an economic system based on perpetual growth and profit that has already killed 87% of the other species and will have large swaths of the US turned into a dustbowl and submerge most coastal cities under water.

This is not an economic issue, this is above economics or the Gross Domestic Product.

This is about whether we want to take steps ourselves, together, to do what our federal government has not been able to achieve, and in fact submerges, suppresses and turns a blind eye.

Human actions are creating an inhospitable planet for most other life forms through blind, headlong consumption and a complete disconnection with the natural world and blind faith in advertising and manipulation.

We are destroying the habitats of most life forms on the planet, and simply turning a blind eye. It is your responsibility as a leader, to take measures to impose legislations that will raise the awareness of idling and censure the actions of your populace.

https://sustainableamerica.org/blog/anti-idling-laws-around-the-nation/

https://www.edf.org/attention-drivers-turn-your-idling-engines

http://ksltv.com/394228/students-test-ozone-levels-cars-idle-schools/?

Officially the population of Providence is 179,300. 60 to 70 percent of the people who are in their vehicles, leave their engine on. Let’s say 60% of the inhabitants regularly sit in their vehicles with their engines idling = that’s about 107,500 people.

A fine to cars for idling of $50 x 107,500 residents = $5,375,000. That’s 5 million. Fines to diesel engines – city, state and independent contractors caught idling could be $200 + per vehicle. Fines for cutting down trees, $1,000, for endangering other creatures’ habitats through negligence or pollutants, ranging from $300 per individual to $10,000’s per business.

If nothing else, imposing fines would be a deterrent, and would immediately alert and inform people of their participation in increasing global temperatures and carbon monoxide levels, contributing to the continued increase CO2 levels and global temperatures rising to levels that in 30 years could prohibit human life. If citizens are not informed of this through education or the media outlets, it is your responsibility as a leader to recognize the crisis, and to enforce education and implementation of penalties as deterrents. Ecocide and homicide continues to take place, by ignoring the issue. Fines to coal and petroleum companies, could be in the $100, millions.

India planted 1.5 Million trees in 12 hours, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-plant-66-million-trees-12-hours-environment-campaign-madhya-pradesh-global-warming-climate-a7820416.html by creating the possibility and enforcing it, certainly in a manner that brought people together to do something that will benefit each.

We could have many simple solutions through seemingly small actions, in steps that could make an enormous difference. Such as;

asking people to turn off their air conditioning units (except for hospitals and care facilities) – 3 days of the week – as a starter.
To attempt car pooling, public transportation, bicycling or walking several days of the week
To authorize penalties to the use of plastics
Create jobs for people to educate people about plastics
To inform people about how their participation in using plastics and idling cars are collectively suffocating the planet in addition to polluting the immediate environment

Measures could be taken globally to do this together as the human race, instead of being in competition with one another in terms of a race to increase the GDP.

With the fines, you could use the money to pay a fleet of bicycle cops to enforce the law and establish a safe bicycle infrastructure in various municipalities and between them as well as money to invest in public transportation.

After approaching people individually, talking to the mayor, sending a letter to the mayor’s office, talking to someone in a state legislative office to convey the message about the need to enact legislation to raise peoples awareness, I find it necessary to contact the governor.

Let’s do this together and make America a global leader in dealing with a crisis that we have alone caused, instead of turning a blind eye.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/peoples-climate-march-in-nyc-ww-september-21st-2014-flood-wall-street/

Rising Tide of Awareness blogger talking about Great Pacific Garbage Patch at NYC Climate March 2014

Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea | Stand for Trees | Severn Suzuki | Anjali Appadurai

I just came across these messages which echo in their empathy for the inhabitants of the earth affected by their environment and for the habitat loss of species; it’s about what we can and must do to actively engage in changes.

Dear Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea

Prince Ea describes what a future generation may come across, when the Amazon Rain Forest becomes the Amazon desert…or when a tree is a thing of the past, yet stops himself to beckon the audience that it is not too late.

He urges to “look at the root, not at the branches of government…..we must globally warm our hearts….If we don’t all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.”

Dear Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea. If we do nothing, regardless of racism, sexism, inequality… we will be Equally Extinct

Prince Ea says he was inspired to write this piece after visiting Africa and witnessing the destruction of the rain forest, where animals are losing their habitat at enormous rates.

And with reference to sorry doesn’t cut it, because we still have a chance to act; he brings up Stand For Trees, what he has chosen as an action to offset carbon.

Every time you buy a Stand For Trees Certificate, you help local forest communities around the world keep a specific forest standing and prevent a tonne of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere.

Stand for Trees certificate

Stand for Trees How it Works You Buy a Stand for Trees Certificate – offsetting a ‘tonne’ of CO2 – allowing forest to stand

This will naturally help communities living within these local forests to protect and honor their trees and want to maintain the forest as well as maintaining the corridor of land for all the species whose habitat is within these forests.

I came across the speeches of two young girls who had the courage to extend their voice to adults meeting in two separate climate summit events.

One features the Words of Wisdom of the 12 year old girl at the time of here speech in 1992, uploaded April, 2008 onto youtube.

Severn Suzuki in Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit 1992

Severn Suzuki was the ‘girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes‘.

I am only a child, and yet I know, that if all of the money that is spent on war, was instead spent on environmental policies, Severne Suzuki girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes. She claimed that her father informed her, “You are not what you say, you are what you do.” She was speaking at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992 – United Nation’s Conference on Environment and Development (1992)

Severn said that her father informed her, “You are not what you say, you are what you do.” Investigating, I found that her father is certainly saying and doing things to inspire us. https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/sustainability-david-suzuki-creative-consciousness-same-name-but-different/

At that time, Severn Suzuki was speaking for (ECO) The Environmental Children’s Organization – which she and several 12 and 13 year old friends started to engage with the world to make a difference. She came 5,000 miles from British Columbia to Rio to tell adults how their actions were causing her to lose her future. “I am only a child, and yet I know, that if all of the money that is spent on war, was instead spent on environmental policies.”

Severn Suzuki speaking at Earth Summit Rio 1992 if all the money spend on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental solutions.

Severn Suzuki grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In her speech she said, “In my country we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share…

If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

Here is the full text of Severn Suzuki’s speech at the Earth Summit Conference in Rio, 1992.

She is since married with two children, intent still in making a difference through her education and activism. Think Global Green, listing Facts and Solutions about the environment.

19 years later, another young articulate and bold young woman spoke to a different climate conference, this time the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2011. As a representative of the College of the Atlantic representing the Youth Delegation, Anjali Appadurai urged the dignitaries attending the UN summit for climate justice, demanding them to “Get It Done”!

Anjali Appadurai, representing the Youth Delegation of the College of the Atlantic speaking to United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa 2011, covered by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

Carol Keiter the blogger with Tibetan prayer flags, Native American dream catchers and green plants

Two sides to the (TPP) Trans-Pacific Partnership | Diplomatic Outreach or Corporate Steal

On the 21st of January, in the Southwestern corner of Berlin, Germany, I attended a lecture at the American Academy, an organization created to augment cultural and intellectual relations between the United States and Germany.

The American Academy in Berlin, Germany

It was founded in 1994 by the U.S. Diplomat and Ambassador to Germany at the time Richard C. Holbrook, to encourage a transatlantic dialogue between the U.S. and German corporate, political, academic and cultural communities. This particular talk featured the American diplomat Richard N. Haass, who is the current President of the Council on Foreign Relations for the United States. Haass was formerly Special Assistant to President George H.W. Bush (Sr.).

Haass spoke to a cozy room of diplomats, academics, journalists and students. His talk specifically aligned to foreign policy, outlining some of the points of his recently published book “Foreign Policy Begins at Home”. He stressed that the United States has had an over-reach abroad and under-performance at home. Perhaps suffering, In his opinion, from ‘intervention fatigue’.

Besides emphasizing the need to put diplomacy over military, he also stressed that our current biggest challenge is to come up with a political and intellectual consensus. He mentioned that quality of education is the most important investment. A proponent of ‘investment partnerships’, he prefaced his discussion of global trade agreements by saying that the United States has had a growth of isolationism. He talked of the need to develop partnerships, saying that Asia is the fastest growing region with which the U.S. should specifically concern themselves. With this in mind, he spoke favorably of the TPP as an obvious strategic tool, essential for strengthening ties. The (TPP) Trans-Pacific Partnership is an extension of the 2005 (TPSEP) Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement. As of August 2013, the countries included are: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam – listed in alphabetical order, not by measure of the implicit hierarchical power structure.

His words ‘made perfect sense’ in light of his persuasive argument. Following his talk, the Executive Director of the American Academy, Dr. Gary Smith closed with the profound words that “Ideas Matter” and “Ideas Migrate”. It was the following day that I noticed that quite a different perception of the TPP had migrated into my inbox. 350.org, an environmental action movement, was on ‘high alert’, corresponding with the onset of the 2014 World Economic Forum, fortressed within the mountains of Davos, Switzerland.

World Economic Forum 2014 Davos

Mentioning that though they don’t typically speak out about political affairs, 350.org nevertheless could not disregard the need to send out their timely message ‘the TPP is shaping up to be the worst kind of corporate power grab’ imaginable, with grim repercussions for the earth’s environment. Wikileaks had just leaked documents confirming that the United States TPP negotiating team is walking away from supporting strong environmental safeguards; protections from land use, logging and climate pollution. According to 350.org – an environmental organization and international grassroots movement founded by Bill McKibben aimed to reduce the CO2 emissions to 350 ppm – “the TPP would empower corporations to directly sue governments over laws and policies that they claim would reduce their profits. Legislation designed to address climate change, curb fossil fuel expansion and reduce air pollution, could all be subject to attack as a result of the TPP, cloaked as a free-trade agreement. In response, 350.org assembled an online activist form enabling people to contact their representatives, encouraging them not to support this highly secretive and expansive free-trade agreement between the United States and eleven Pacific Rim countries.

Davos, Switzerland location of 2014 World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum taking place in the secluded mountains of Switzerland, even drew criticism from one of their speakers, referring to the forum’s inherent elitist exclusivity. Kavita Ramdas, stating the ‘Tiny Elite’ Shouldn’t Run an Inequality Discussion’. It was the butt of jokes, by Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “the Daily Show”; referring to ‘Mountain Few’ and the ‘Money Oscars’, since Davos is not only elusive (to get to physically) but also exclusive, fabulously expensive.

And an even more scathing and hard-hitting idea migrated into my inbox from the Tomdispatch blog. With respect to the corporate grab, read the Tomgram by Greg Grandin about the “Terror of our Age” and “The Two Faces of Empire”. This view pretty much 180 degrees, diametrically opposed from the U.S. diplomat’s words that first alerted my ears to the TPP.

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Carol Keiter the blogger

TED talk James Hansen | Tax on Fossil Fuel Companies < reduce CO2 to 350 ppm | WWF The 3% Solution

The scientist James Hansen gives an informed TED Talk presentation about ‘Climate Change’, pointing out a way that our government(s) could reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, enough, to avoid the catastrophe that we are headed for. Knowing that it’s essential that we diminish the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in (ppm) part per million, to 350, Hansen has a plan; a tax on fossil fuel companies. And yet, our government(s) (the USA is up there on the guilty list) not only appear to ignore this fact, but are encouraging corporations to do all sorts of activities that will accelerate the rise in temperatures even more.

http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html

During the former Bush administration, Hansen was informed that he could no longer give talks without first having NASA censor them. At that time, the NASA Mission Statement, which Hansen had used previously to introduce his presentations, was suddenly no longer allowed. “To Understand and Protect the Home Planet”, was now omitted.

Hansen’s idea, is to diminish the level of CO2, by the government putting a tax on fossil fuel companies. This carbon fee on fossil fuel companies, would then be distributed equally to all (legal) residents, 100% of which could be used to stimulate the economy and innovations, to move us rapidly towards a clean energy future, with the government not keeping one dime.

Jim Dipeso Republicans for Environmental Protection, is quoted saying that this idea sounds, sound! In his words, it’s “Transparent. Market-based. Does not enlarge the government. Leaves energy decision to individual choices.. Sounds like a conservative climate plan.”

Yet, instead of placing a rising fee on carbon emissions to discourage the process, our government is forcing the public to subsidize it (400 – 500 B dollars per year, world-wide) and in fact, encouraging the extraction of every fossil fuels through: mountain top removal, longwall mining, fracking, tar sands, tar shale, deep ocean arctic drilling…A path which if continued, will not only ensure more environmental destruction, but also lead the world to the tipping point of ice-sheet disintegration, which will accelerate the warming process. This warming will inevitably commit a large fraction of the world’s species to distinction, besides the massive extremes in weather which are already occurring, resulting in massive famines…

And the longer we wait in taking action to divert this process, the more difficult it will become; until it will be irreversible.

A new report from WWF and CDP speak of “The 3% Solution: Driving Profits Through Carbon Reduction” as an initiative to move companies forward towards profitable and practical ways to reduce emissions to help curb climate change. The CEO’s of WWF and CDP were joined by Steven Swartz, a partner of McKinsey & Company, in a webcast unveiling their groundbreaking analysis. World Wildlife Fund reveal that climate change poses a fundamental threat to the places, people and species that WWF works to protect. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an independent, non-profit organization working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing a global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information. Working together, the two of them have chartered a means to instigate companies to substantially reduce carbon emissions, while increasing resiliency, ROI and profits, in “The 3% Solution“. The report launch can be viewed in a webcast recording which took place on June 18th, 2013.

http://www.350.org/

Incidentally, there have been recent detections by scientists of methane bubbling up from cracks in the permafrost in the continental shelf of the Arctic, which is 30 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Read more about this in this Times article.