Give the gift of Half-Earth | EO Wilson

The dream of EO Wilson can only be realized through the participation of humans. He strives to protect the most biodiverse places on the earth and seas, to circumvent mass extinction – which is already taking place – by safeguarding the habitats of half of the earth.

See how you can become involved!

Be a guardian of the natural world. Our earth is paradise, if we nurture life and save habitats.

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Good For All Challenge | Roots & Shoots – Jane Goodall

https://www.rootsandshoots.org/challenges/good-for-all-challenge/

I’m in. Hope you join in also!

Thank you Jane Goodall for a lifetime of risk and effort to help the living creatures of the world and to save their habitats. Thank you for continually reaching out to people of the world to educate and encourage other humans to recognize the beauty and intelligence of other creatures; to respect them and see that our habits and actions can indeed make their world a better place. 

We’re F**ked | Sept. 20 Global Climate Strike | UN Climate Summit Sept. 21st-23rd nYc

A short and sweet version of what’s been happening over the last decades of inaction.

We are fucked Global Climate Strike Sept 20 2019_presenter

Global Climate Strike 20-27 Sept

 

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish girl who strikes school for climate awareness and responsibility of governments to TELL THE TRUTH, just sailed across the Atlantic to attend the UN Climate Action Summit, to be present for the Global Climate Strike September 20th to 27th and to attend another Climate Action Summit in South America.

She crossed the ocean in a non-emission, solar powered sail boat.

Greta Thunberg arrives to New York city on solar-powered, emission free sail boat across Atlantic

“We Are Striking to Disrupt the System”: An Hour hour interview with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg

United Nations greeted Greta Thunberg’s arrival in NY with 17 boats – sustainability goals

UN Climate Action Summit Sept. 2019

It’s up to us to read, have conversations with one another and to recognize that government leaders in a democracy, need to be lead by the people. If the people do not elect leaders who are accountable to the health of the earth and all of its creatures, then jobs and profits for the 1%, account for nothing. Humans learn habits, and they can learn to break them.

 

Recently,  article after article from independent real media who do tell the truth, talk about how the corrupt right-wing leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro and other continue to allow industries to spoil the planet and manufacture weapons, while the earth, all its creatures and 99% of the global human population suffer the consequences.

global climate strike sept 20-27 worldwide rebellion oct 7-18

DoTheMath Gobal Climate Crisis Kumi Naidoo Greenpeace website

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Carol Keiter New York city

UN Report Millions Species Extinct | Anti-Idling Fines | 10 Things We Can Do | Strike for Climate September 20

I talk with people ‘strangers’ all the time – at the grocery store, post office, art events, walking by – about plastic, the climate crisis (el cambio climático), idling engines, etc. I learn things in the process.  There was a massive heat dome sweeping the United States this past weekend. A few days ago I was informed of this report about the level of emergency of the climate crisis we are in, written by people in the Australian Navy, divulging the truth that they have learned.

Shocking UN Report Warns Millions Species are at Risk of Extinction due to Human Activity Democracy Now

Frankly, what does it take to get people’s attention and leaders to have the strength to go against the status quo of thinking about their coffers, and actually taking unprecedented action by enforcing sweeping informational campaigns and establishing regulations to change peoples’ habits – and particularly industry practices? As in Burningman, when people are facing the extremes together (as opposed to the wealthier ones remaining insulated from the elements), when we are all participating together to make the changes that we need to, then brilliant minds will continue to have great ideas to help out in different communities. I think the only way we can do it, is when ALL PEOPLE PARTICIPATE.

Australian Military Report High Liklihood human Civilization Ending 2050 Independent

As long as the truth is not out to the public, we can keep shopping and acting as if we are clueless about how our actions affect this. Thing is, it appears that many people are. News feeds are lined with sleek automobile ads, seducing you to believe that you’ll suddenly have that exceptional strength and fire to finally do what you want. As if.  We can not let government inaction, choosing to ignore the truth as they bow and cater to the oil oligarchy, to steam roll ahead. There are the few politicians who are principled and brave enough to speak the truth; i.e. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, the Squad of newly elected women of color democrats – each one ferociously eloquent, each one could cause DUMPH (CHUMP/TRUMP) to just melt or start screaming like a toddler and covering his ears. Yet we really sort of have to help to steer this, and do something, rather than waiting for ‘the next election’; ad infinitum.

BUSINESS AS USUAL, NEEDS TO COMPLETELY STOP.

 

The Climate Reality Project the Climate Crisis and Your Health

Here are 10 examples I thought of, that we can do [with money earned through idling fines] to better our environment and build a nature friendly infrastructure. At the post office, mentioning idling cars, one of the postal workers responded that the state of New Jersey imposes a $75 dollar fine for a car parked with an engine on (idling). New York city, $150 for idling buses. There could be bicycle cops in cities who are only hired to enforce this, to gather tens of thousands of dollars a week, just here in the small city of Providence, to contribute to:

 

1. bicycling lanes to invite more ease, comfort and safety bicycling
2. bus transportation system that is electric or solar powered
3. fines to homes that are using too extreme of a power usage to air condition their homes (unless the inhabitants are elderly, disabled or ill)
4. paying people to plant trees in their yards, streets and parks
5. create community gardens where people can grow their own food and enjoy community participation in the process
6. putting money towards transportation and building architecture that is renewable
7. creating more parks and pathways for animals such as: animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways
8. encouraging people to bicycle, rather than drive in a car
9. creating local transport that is not gasoline based, but bicycle powered, solar or electric trollies that are fun
10. stop buying water in plastic!!! please
…etcetera

Why Are You Striking for the Climate

“Millions of people across the world are going to be striking for climate on September 20, all with different experiences of the climate crisis. We’re all a part of this movement for a better world, and all our stories and reasons matter.
Are you joining in? If so, tell us why. We want you to take a selfie or record a quick video explaining why you’re going to take part and show your support for the incredible mobilizing already happening from our youth.
We also need you to do more than just take a selfie though, don’t forget to sign up at globalclimatestrike.net. We need you on the streets in September.”

I just wrote to a local educational institution and then to the Congressman in the state where I reside presently, about making legislation to enforce anti-idling laws.

Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island

subject: Establish Anti-Idling Laws for RI > Funds from Fines to Create Jobs Transportation Infrastructure

Back of the Envelope: Establish Anti-Idling Laws for RI > Funds from Fines to Create Jobs to Build Community Greenways & Renewable Energy Transportation & Building Infrastructure.

The state of NJ has anti-idling fines of $75./automobile. New York city fines idling buses, $150. Nova Scotia, Canada just passed laws against idling vehicles waiting in fast food take-out lines. There are plenty of state, county and city anti-idling laws. It is a no-brainer that in Europe, where many vehicles are diesel, turn off the ignition when they aren’t moving. Many countries have excellent train transportation. Train transport could be subsidized, to invite people to use public transportation because it is cheaper and more efficient than driving.

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

When Federal government leaders in large countries such as the USA and Brazil are in climate change denial, and more in the pocket of the Oil Oligarchy, they tend to ignore the present extinction and climate crisis. That is when individual State, County and City leaders need to set precedents and show their accountability and ‘best practices’, as leaders for others to follow.

How about a ‘Have you Heard’ educational campaign, to inform the public about the consequences of idling (among other habits)? We are currently in an unprecedented climate crisis. It is not 10 years away, it is happening now, around the globe.

The habits of individuals, collectively, quickly add up.

My encounters as a bicyclist residing in Providence and having visited Block Island, RI, after living in multiple US cities, states as well as abroad, has lead me to being completely astounded at the apparent total lack of awareness of individuals. I see dozens of idling cars and trucks, daily. Most individuals simply are not aware of the impacts of their idling cars and trucks; of the toxic fumes released in the immediate vicinity of their vehicle nor awareness of how the heat and exhaust affect global warming. Because of this general lack of knowledge, nothing will raise their attention or raise your budget faster, than establishing legislation and fines, to set the precedent for others to follow.

I have contacted the RI Governor, Mayor of Providence, RI DEM, Brown University and am finally contacting the most appropriate recipient, the one who can establish state-wide laws to prohibit idling, and fine people.

Allison Archambault, Supervising Air Quality Specialist
Climate Change & Mobile Sources Programs – RI DEM –
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, retorted to my letter, that “Motor vehicles may not idle unnecessarily for longer than five consecutive minutes during any 60-minute period.”, siting https://rules.sos.ri.gov/regulations/part/250-120-05-45 a law on paper.

However, there is absolutely no enforcement nor awareness of this law. Various police officers know nothing of anti-idling laws. A woman officer in Providence mid July, 2019, told me she knows of no anti-idling laws and ‘what people do in their cars is their own business’.

She is unequivocally incorrect in her response. It is not up to the individual, when collectively, each contribute to poor air quality that affects others directly in their vicinity and long term effects of CO2 emissions leading to the potential extinction of humans, along with the human induced 6th mass extinction of life on earth. it is everyone’s business when the quality of the air, water, the temperature and fumes emitted in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle and temperature of the global environment is warming due to ever increasing CO2 levels.

I implore you to take a stand and impose legislation and fines. You could accumulate tens of thousands of dollars a week, hundreds of thousands a month, if you’re interested in deterring peoples actions and at the same time utilizing the money towards creating jobs to build green infrastructure.

Please impose laws and fines. $75/car, $150/truck, $300/diesel engined vehicles. Double the fines if they are caught a second time. Create a task force for this issue, police on bicycles, to regulate and enforce it. $300/dirty institutional air conditioning systems. Enact a statewide campaign.

I can not emphasize the huge number of vehicles i come across daily, on every block. It is so excessive, that it is blowing my mind. I have resided in several states and abroad, and have never come across such an excess of idling vehicles and complete lack of awareness as well as blatant hostility in response. I’ve encountered parents sitting in their idling SUV’s while waiting to pick up their kids from school.

Students test ozone levels where cars idle at schools

Students test ozone levels where cars idle at schools

There is no age, ethnic, or socio economic divide, there is a tremendous lack of awareness.

I just sent a letter to Brown University to implore them to educate their Facilities’ staff about the implications of idling vehicles, to encourage them to enforce anti-idling rules and be leaders with ‘best practices’ for other organizations to follow.

I’ve blogged about the IPCC report and the need for particularly the developed wealthier nations and the US in particular, as the leader in emissions from the transportation sector and a major player in habitat destruction and industrial pollutions, to be accountable to the world community and be leaders in creating jobs, rebuilding renewable energy infrastructure.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that we have ten years to avoid outright disaster and extinction of the human race, while human activity has already triggered the six mass extinction of all other creatures, mostly due to the human energy demands tied to the Petroleum industries, along with excessive building, global warming from CO2 emissions with the transportation sector responsible for most.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/ipcc-climate-change-report-highest-recorded-co2-levels-arctic-temperatures-bill-mckibben-discussing-significance-of-rising-co2-greta-thunberg-ted-talk-enforcing-legislation/

I routinely encounter people sitting in their idling vehicles talking on their phone, saying that ‘they’re just about to leave’. I encounter people who are working in houses, in construction, in moving businesses, who leave their trucks idling while they are working outside of the vehicle, yards removed from their vehicle. I can not ignore this issue, because it is scorching my nostrils and heating my skin, literally every day, every block. I do not have the time to approach people – as i do frequently to gently communicate this – nor do I wish to risk my life with some hostile reactions, because people become defensive when approached. The public needs to be informed and educated through campaigns, the media and most effectively, by laws that spell it financially, since that appears to be the main driver, not just running the world but ruining the world.

Please contact me if you want to hear what I encounter on the streets, in dirty detail.

Sincerely,

I’m doing this on my own time. This blog is not for profit, no advertising.

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

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Carol Keiter on Block Island
lens through convex lens

 

Greta Thunberg Swedish SchoolStrike Climate Activist Demands | Informing the Public & Declaring an Emergency

Greta Thunberg speech Austrian World summit

A year ago the Swedish 15 year old student, Greta Thunberg, began striking her school and sitting before the Swedish Parliament. Her demand was for her government and the press to be honest about the issue of climate change and to inform the public. She was initially prompted to strike after wondering why there had been silence on the issue? Why had it not been foremost on everyone’s agenda and in every news story?

In her present speech at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Greta Thunberg has yet another powerful delivery. She mentions that millions of students were inspired around the world to strike school for the climate. Yet students can’t do what all of you adults can. This needs to be declared an emergency and made top priority.

Greta Thunberg captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

 

She reprimands the audience that they haven’t been living up to their responsibility. Reminding them in her straightforward tone that, ‘humans are capable of so much, yet, still, hardly anyone is aware of the gravity of the situation. Most of the world is uninformed that it is even an issue at all.’ She admonishes them, ‘we need to know’.

Greta Thunberg’s captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

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

carol_may25_selfie_smile

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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.

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Carol sitting under the trees

“I Am” documentary | What is Wrong with the World? What can we do about it?

After facing his own death, film producer Tom Shadyac suddenly had an instant sense of clarity and purpose. He went around the world with a film crew of four, to talk with significant minds, authors, journalists, academics, leaders, historians, religious leaders who had been extremely influential and inspirational in his own life, to ask two questions: What is Wrong with the World? What can we do about it?

He created this documentary film in three parts. This is it. Tom Shadyac director of I Am. Part one.

Asking whether there is a fundamental, endemic problem, that causes all the other problems?

I Am, Albert Einstein quote

I Am Part Two introduces HeartMath, the concept that the heart is smart and in many indigenous cultures, the heart is the center of consciousness, not the brain. It also ventures into quantum entanglement.

Desmond Tutu God says I dont have anybody else except you

I Am Howard Zinn No evidence that war comes out of some innate human need

“I Am” Part Three introduces the fact that mass mind – many individual actions together – really does affect the fabric of reality. The evolutionary biologist, Elisabet Sahtouris, states
this is a participatory universe. Interconnectivity. Everything that we do in it, changes it. We have an interior role in co-creating with all the other species.

Everything on our planet is alive.
 

I Am Part Three Howard Zinn talks about how change happens in increments by individual actions together. Desmond Tutu states that change happens, when each person feels concern.

I Am quote Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Power of One person.

I Am video on Vimeo Dr David Suzuki

I Am We should be grateful and celebrate our relatives

Dr. David Suzuki, scientist, author “The Sacred Balance”, mentions Wade Davis’s term the ethnosphere: the sum total of all of the ways that humans beings have imagines the world into existence. Suzuki talks about the separation of humanity from the natural world, and the fact that the economy is the most important thing in our lives.

Among the people interviewed:

Lynne McTaggart – Author, “the Field” talks of the stories that fashion our worldview, in a competition, scarcity, in which a person needs to be significant, at someone else’s expense

Dean Radin – Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences,

Howard Zinn – Historian, Author “A People’s History of the United States”

John Francis – Environmentalist, Author “Planetwalker”

Noam Chomsky- Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, MIT

Desmond Tutu – Archbishop, Cape Town, South Africa

Thom Hartmann – Author “Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”
There’s a fundamental difference between machines and life, and we are running our society as if we are a machine and as if the world is a machine
Thom mentions Jack Davis Professor of Native American studies at UCA Davis, talks of the Native American term “Wetico” = cannibal – one who eats the life of another. It is considered an illness.

Daniel Quinn – Author, “Ishmael”

Ray Anderson – CEO Interface

Chris Jordan – Photographer

Coleman Barks – Poet, Author “The Essential Rumi”

Marc Ian Barasch – Author, “Field Notes on the Compassionate Life”

Dacher Keltner – Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley

Rollin McCraty – Senior Researcher, Heartmath Institute

Elisabet Sahtouris – Evolutionary Biologist

Marilyn Schlitz – President, CEO Institute of Noetic Sciences

 

eco_revolution

Carol holding the plastic globe

XR Extinction Rebellion ‘Die-In’ staged by Climate Activists simultaneously Around the World

The Extinction Rebellion worldwide coordinated Die=In’s are just the beginning. This is to get everyone’s attention.

What could be more essential than living in a beautiful environment in harmony with one another, working together to ensure that we help one another to get our values clear – that we live on a beautiful planet, with which we are inextricably connected. It is up to each one of us to learn about what we can do, to be aware of the damages that human industries and lifestyles have done to impact the natural world. Each one of us has the capability and responsibility to learn about and share what each of us can do to act in ways that will ensure a more equitable world for all living creatures.

You can read about the actions and join the extinction rebellion. It is up to each one of us to value what is essential in quality of life: health, clean air, water and soil that is not poisoned by chemicals, pesticides and pharmaceuticals and the protection of habitats for all life on this planet.

Extinction Rebellion Worldwide Die-In

Extinction Rebellion climate change activists stage mass ‘die-in’ protests across the globe to put spotlight on risk to human life

XR Extinction Rebellion Mass Die-In at the Natural History Museum Museum photo Terry Matthews

XR Extinction Rebellion Pakistan

Extinction Rebellion Die-In Chili Photo by Belen Morales Ferrer

Protesters lie down in the streets in France, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK.

and Germany, Chili, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, the USA….

“The actions were part of worldwide celebration at 12.05pm called by Extinction Rebellion Berlin following the protests that began in London in November 2018, which have since spawned a mass movement.”

Banksy Extinction Rebellion artwork appears at protest site at London

‘Banksy’ Extinction Rebellion artwork appears at protest site at London’s Marble Arch

California signs up for China’s Belt and Road Forum to help in fight against climate change

“Although the US federal government has snubbed the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, representatives from America’s most populous state are attending to drum up support for international efforts to tackle climate change.”

Zayne Cowie – Goodbye Earth | Yuval Harari – Master Storytellers are Bankers | Andreas Weber – Economy of the Commons | E. O. Wilson – Half-Earth Project

Zayne Cowie wrote this book which he presents in video. ‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups by Zayne Cowie

Goodbye, Earth written by 9 year old Zayne Cowie on the travesties of grown-ups mis-management leading to climate catastrophe

It appears that an answer to the dilemma of our economic and political system that has been thriving in the past century due to the power of its agreed upon valuation of money over natural resources and the natural world, is the need to use our hearts and minds to create a new system. A system which recognizes and values all life forms and the resources upon which they all depend. Integrally connected and interdependent, requiring clean water, air, soil and the right to life and to wander on the planet. I don’t think that humans have the right to choke the planet with plastic, deplete the spoil and spoil the water and air. This and warming the planet are ecocide. George Monbiot says, Heating the Planet is an Ecocrime.

In my digesthis.wordpress blog Israeli historian, Yuval Harari talks about the power of human stories. Beyond our objective reality, humans have contrived fictional realities and entities, which dictate actions upon which all life depend.

Harari states in his Tedtalk on the rise of humans that “the master storytellers are the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers. They tell us a very convincing story and if everyone believes this story, it actually works.”

“Money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans; it is the only story everybody believes.”

Species all over the planet are critically endangered due to human population increase, territory intrusion, human industrial policies regarding food, housing, energy and transportation demands as well as their tendency to continuously promote war and military might. These activities have damaging repercussions on the health of both humans and the habitats they encroach upon and destroy.

All of creation is dependent upon the decisions made by fictional entities, the storytellers (banks, corporations, governments, religions) and their fictional content (money, shares, development, GDP).

Harari eloquently reveals that “The most important actors in the global economy presently are companies which are legal fictions. Corporations mostly want to make money. And our capitalist system is one built on growth as measured by the Gross Domestic Product. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the healthiest manner of cooperation with the ecosystem of the earth.

George Monbiot published ‘Common Wealth‘ in the Guardian 27th September 2017, subsequently in his blog. “Hope lies with a great, neglected sector of the economy, through which we can create a system that is neither capitalist nor state communist.”

Andreas Weber The Biology of Wonder cover

The German biologist, philosopher and nature writer Andreas Weber recognizes the interconnectedness of humans to nature. In his talk at the conference on “Economics and the Common(s): From Seed Form to Core Paradigm” Weber mentions that though we can maintain aspects of our modus operandi of the age of enlightenment, we need to make a paradigm shift to enlivenment; seeing all life in continuous interrelationship.

“In our question of “what is life?”, we need to look beneath the ‘operating system’ engendered by the enlightenment in which things, life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

This is where Andreas Weber draws the distinction between the repercussions of the enlightenment, in which nature and species have been commodified. “life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

We need to create a paradigm shift, Weber states “we need a new bios, enlivenment; stressing the expressive and experiential qualities of being alive. Instead of looking at nature and life in a causal way, when we see things as they are, they are constantly changing, in an unfolding process of freedom, autonomy and value. Every commons is a material and knowledge commons.”

Enlivenement – we are feeling beings who wish to feel meaningful experiences within a community of other beings.

He recognizes that the wealth and extent of human experience and awe and wonder contributes to the emotional and spiritual health of humans beings. We need the richness of diversity for the wealth of experience in feeling.

Andreas Weber’s book describes how he wishes the world to see natural living systems.

He claims, “Nothing is more open-source than DNA.“

The economy of the commons is naturally anti-capitalist. From within a cell to a whole organism, all life is in compartments with its own boundary. However it’s not a wall, but a permeable boundary, in which the inhabitants are continuously interrelating and crystalizing into a whole, a unity. Quantum physics demonstrates that we affect the outcome of the experiment by observing. When we’re talking about the biosphere, ecology, economy, we are always talking about ourselves.

E.O. Wilson extends this recognition of the importance of the commons, to half of the entire planet devoted to other species. To provide half of the earth for the species whose habitats have been rapidly depleted by the human community and their development, military exercises and energy extraction policies.

“Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.” – E.O. Wilson

Edward O Wilson proposes the Half-Earth project
Devote Half the Surface of the Earth to Nature

Designing an interactive means for all of us around the planet to participate in protecting the flora and fauna of our globe. https://www.half-earthproject.org/pledge-support/

Let’s help him! We can all do this together! Half-Earth is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity

Edward O Wilson Devote Half Surface of Earth to Nature

 

Half-Earth Project Maps

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Dr. Vandana Shiva | S O I L Not O I L | Warrior for the 99% & All Life On the Planet

Dr. Vandana Shiva identifies herself on her website http://www.vandanashiva.com as an Author, Scientist, Warrior and Mother. I first learned of her two years ago in Paris during the COP21. I dashed across the Atlantic on an 11th hour decision based on synchronicities, intuition and a leap of faith. This was to attend and participate among a hubbub of journalists, activists, entrepreneurs and victims of global warming from all over the world – to share information at the Place To B. This took place at a Hotel in Paris as well as in venues all over the city during the duration of the Paris Climate talks. It just so happened that I knew one of the presenters, whom I had just looked up on Facebook several days before I booked the flight. I had been going through boxes of my possessions (for weeks), after leaving my parent’s home where all my stuff had been stored. The house was going up for sale. I came across these letters. And suddenly my attention was turned to this place, to b. In my mind’s eye I knew that these climate talks were about to take place, and already had a longing to be near this. I had no idea how remarkable this community and organized information sharing turned out to be.

Place to B its time to talk differently about the climate COP21 Paris

I had a hunch and followed it. It was the most wonderful group of people and the most powerful learning experience – with talks, workshops and living among a community of passionate people there to share their knowledge and learn from one another. Mind-blowing really.

I was starting to cook soup yesterday and turned on ‘Democracy Now’ while chopping vegetables, to discover this interview of Vandana Shiva by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the Sixth Mass Extinction

As a very intelligent and brave scientist and humanist, she is a powerhouse of information and insight. You have to listen very intently because she packs in so much information in each sentence. Too bad she is not featured in mainstream news channels to educate the public.

Democracy Now feat Dr. Vandana Shiva

She states exactly what i intuited, that by merging with Bayer, Monsanto could conveniently hide its unpopular name – due to all the lawsuits.

The Transcript is included in the link.

Soil Not OIl Vandana Shiva Soil Association

I was pretty happy to see this other interview as well of the author of the Uninhabitable Earth, since I had already discovered this and blogged about it a year and a half ago, though I hadn’t read the book nor heard the author previously talk.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Unflinching New Book Lays Out Dire Consequences of Climate Chaos
This also features a speech by the Swedish 15 year old Greta Thunberg who has lead the youth of the world in her unprecedented decision to strike against going to school and sit before the Swedish Parliament. Her demands – that the government acknowledge and act on climate change, rather than ignoring it – as has been the Western world’s tendency – more concerned with maintaining the GDP and the leverage of corporate money by the industries who pay them.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/the-uninhabitable-earth-david-wallace-wells-how-to-reduce-your-contribution-to-climate-change/

The Uninhabitable Earth Book by David Wallace-Wells

The interview of David Wallace-Wells by Amy Goodman is excellent, regarding his book “The Uninhabitable Earth: Unflinching New Book Lays Out Dire Consequences of Climate Chaos”

The broadcast begins with the information, which is yet another startling picture.”New research finds at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world’s most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. A report released earlier this month by the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans from Afghanistan to Burma. More than a billion-and-a-half people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva about climate change, seed sovereignty and her new book, “Oneness vs. the 1%.” Shiva is an Indian scholar, physicist, and food sovereignty and seed freedom advocate. She was was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills.”

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