Our House is on Fire – Greta Thunberg WEForum | It is Worse Than That – Mark Doll

Greta Thunberg’s Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta Thunberg | Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta’s speech, among each that she has made to the public, is remarkable.

The words of this man, Mark Doll, are equally noteworthy and important.

Each are the reason that I decided to take time from the writing of my book to put out another blog.

Mark Doll posted the following comments today and it was chilling and heart-wrenching. But it deserves to be read in the context of this little girl’s courage at Davos.

I hope that for a change, people who do not have the time or patience to read, read this.

“…I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia I have to get this out of my system.

Please understand that many you reading this won’t live to an old age… and likely will start scrolling after one or 2 more paragraphs… (edit…Ok I was wrong on this point. This is now my 2nd most shared post of all time)

The IPCC report and Paris accord are incredibly overly optimistic and that commits the world to a target that means the death of hundreds of millions if not more.

But it is worse than that.

Even the commitments made by countries in the Paris accord don’t get us to a 2 degree world.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target is now unattainable (unless the entire civilization of the world doesn’t do a 180 today…) target is based on geo-engineering the climate of the earth as well as the sequestering of every molecule of carbon we produced over the last number of years and every molecule we are producing today and every molecule we produce tomorrow…. these technologies that don’t exist wont exist and even if they did would likely cause as many if not more problems than they fix.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target of the IPCC does not factor in the feedback loops that such as the increased albedo effect caused by the 70% loss of ice in the arctic, The release of methane from a thawing arctic. (there is more energy stored in the arctic methane than there is in coal in the world). This is called the methane dragon. If the process of the release of the methane, currently frozen in the soil and ocean beds of the arctic, which has already begun, spins out of control we are looking a an 8 degree rise in temperature. (this ignores the scientists that don’t see this feedback stopping and ends up resulting in the world oceans boiling off and earth becomes Venus…but I digress.

But it is worse than that

The report which give us 12 years to get our head’s out of our arses underestimated the amount of heat stored in the world’s oceans by 40%… so no , we don’t have 12 years.

But it is worse than that.

The IPCC report ignores the effects of humans messing up the Nitrogen cycle through agricultural fertilizers and more… Don’t go down this rabbit hole if you want to sleep at night.

But it is worse than that.

Sea level rise will not be gradual. Even assuming that the billions of tons of water that is currently being dumped down to the ground level of Greenland isn’t creating a lubricant which eventually will allow the ice to free-flow into the northern oceans as it is only the friction to the islands surface that is currently holding the ice back coupled with the same process is happening in Antarctica but is also coupled with the disappearance of the ice shelves which act as buttresses holding the glaciers from free flowing into the southern ocean we are not looking at maintaining the 3.4mm/yr increase in sea level rise (which incidentally is terrifying when you multiply it out over decades and centuries. We will be looking at major calving events that will result in much bigger yearly increases coupled with an exponential increase in glacial melting. FYI Alberta is going to need a pipeline… just not for oil. More likely for desalinated water from tidewater…

But it is worse than that… We can no longer save the society that we live in and many of us are going to be dead long before our life expectancy would suggest.

If your idea of hope is having some slightly modified Standard of living going forward and live to ripe old age… there is no hope. This civilization is over…

… but there is hope.. There is a way for some to come through this and have an enjoyable life on the other side. Every day we delay can be measured in human lives. There will come a day of inaction when that number includes someone you love, yourself or myself.
So we have 2 options. Wake the fuck up. If we do we will only have to experience the end of our society as we know it aka…the inevitable economic collapse which is now unavoidable, but be able to save and rebuild something new on the other side. This would require a deep adaptation. Words like sustainability would need to be seen as toxic and our focus needs be on regeneration. Regeneration of soil, forest ocean etc…. This is all possible.
Option 2 is the path we are on. Think we can slowly adapt to change. This not only ensures we experience collapse but also condemns humanity to not just economic and social collapse but in a 8 degree world… extinction.

I am sick of pipeline discussions. I am sick of any argument that is predicated on the defeatist assumption that we will continue to burn oil at an ever increasing rate. Fact is if we do we are not just fucked, we are dead. I am sick of people who don’t understand how their food is produced, and its effect on the climate.(both carnivores who eat feed lot meat and vegans who eat industrially produced mono cropped veggies as they are equally guilty here as the consumption of either is devastating).

I am sick of the argument that our oil is less poisonous than someone else’s. Firstly, no it isn’t and secondly, It doesn’t fucking matter. I am sick of people that can’t even handle the ridiculously small only the tip of the iceberg of the changes we need to accept; the carbon tax. I am sick of my own hypocrisy that allows me to still use fossil fuels for transportation. I am sick of those who use hypocrisy as an argument against action.

I am sick of the Leadership of my country that argues we can have economic growth and survivable environment… we can’t.

I am sickened by the normalizing of the leadership of our Southern neighbour who as the most polluting nation in the world officially ignores even the tragedy that is the Paris accord. I am sick of the politicians I worked to get elected being impotent on this subject…

I am sick that the next image I put up of my kids, cheese, pets or bread is going to garner immeasurably more attention than a post such as this which actually has meaning… I am sick about the fact that all the information I referenced here is easily discoverable in scientific journals but will be characterized by many as hyperbolic.
I am especially sick that my future and the future of my children is dependent on the dozens of people that saw this post, said there goes Marc off the deep end again and chose to remain ignorant of the basic facts about our near future.

There is a path forward. But every day we delay the path forward includes fewer of us.

Build community, build resilience, work for food security, think regeneration, plant food producing trees, think perennial food production, eat food that does not mine the soil and is locally produced, eat meat that is grass fed that is used to provide nutrients to vegetation, get to know a farmer or become one yourself, park your car, do not vote for anyone who either ignores climate change or says we can have our cake and eat it too, quit your job if it is fossil fuel related, stop buying shit, Stop buying things that are designed to break and be disposed of, let go of this society slowly and by your own volition (its better than being forced to do it quickly), rip up your lawn and plant a garden with veggies, fruit bushes, fruit trees and nut trees, learn to compost your own poop, get a smaller house on a bigger lot and regenerate that land, plant a guerrilla garden on a city road allowance, return to the multi-generational house, realize that growth has only been a thing in human civilization for 250 years and it is about to end and make preparations for this change, teach this to your children, buy only the necessities, don’t buy new clothes-go to the thrift store, don’t use single use plastic or if you do re-purpose it, unplug your garberator and compost everything, don’t let yourself get away with the argument that the plane is going there anyway when you book a holiday, understand that there is no such thing as the new normal because next year will be worse, understand before you make the argument that we need to reduce human population … meaning the population elsewhere… that it is not overpopulation in China or India that is causing the current problem… It is us and our lifestyle.

Understand that those that are currently arguing against refugees and climate change are both increasing the effects of climate change and causing millions on climate refugees… which will be arriving on Canada’s doorstep because Canada will, on the whole, be one of the last countries affected, understand that the densification of cities is condemning those in that density to a food-less future.

Stop tolerating the middle ground on climate change. there is no middle ground on gravity, the earth is round, and we are on the verge of collapse.”

Care for the Natural World – Treat it with Respect and Reverence | The Duke of Cambridge interviews Sir David | WEForum

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William aka the Duke of Cambridge, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos – the 22nd to 25th of January. Prince William has very thoughtful and prescient questions. It’s evident that Princess Diana’s son is very in touch with what is essential, and is bringing these points out in his interview to the esteemed Sir David Attenborough, who has a great deal of wisdom to share (working 70 years bringing the natural world to people’s homes through television and documentaries).

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William, HRH Duke of Cambridge

I think this should be required listening, required in schools and by world leaders, especially the bimbo in the Whitehouse and any Republican climate science deniers. Sir David Attenborough says,”presently we’re living in the paradox, in which there have never been so many people out of touch with the natural world (more than half of the worlds population live in metropolitan areas), and yet every breath of air and every mouthful of food that we take comes from the natural world. if we damage it, we damage ourselves. The essential part of human life is a healthy planet. We are in danger of wrecking that.”

Asking what he wishes to communicate to the audience of global leaders, Sir David Attenborough responded.

“Care for the natural world. Treat it with respect and reverence. The natural world is the source of all wonder. The future of the natural world is in our hands. We have never been more powerful or populated. We can wreck it with ease, and without even realizing that we’re doing it.

We wreck it, we wreck ourselves. DO NOT WASTE THE RICHES OF THE NATURAL WORLD ON WHICH WE DEPEND. Do not throw food away, do not use energy wastefully. THIS DISASTER OVERTAKING THE WORLD STARTED IN BRITAIN IN THE 18TH CENTURY, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. > THE AIM WAS TO CONQUER THE NATURAL WORLD, SHOW OUR MASTERY, WHICH WAS TO DESTROY IT. We know better now. It is time to act.

Calling for EChOACTiVate Partners & Core Team, Refugee Manpower, Best Weapon is Education & Empowerment

I have an idea which continues to evolve. I would like to know if any of you recipients – environmental organizations or individuals – can join with me or bring me under your wing so that we can do this together? I’d like to quickly put together a concise plan as a pitch for next week at the Paris Climate Talks, for people to take home and ponder. I have not yet booked a flight, however am willing to do so within the next 24 hours and will work continuously with others with research and development and writing a proposal sketch to present. By its nature, it involves many; a consensus of scientists, business advocates, governmental support as well as people within the communities where these physical structures would be built. It begins in Europe. The original idea which I had presented in August of this year, has a new twist. Specifically the manpower involving the placement, education and training of refugees, who working together with communities throughout Europe, would aspire to be cooperatively working in the implementation of structures that would be greening the environment and have business models that lead to a democratization of wealth. It would be a win:win situation; helping the climate, replacing petroleum and coal and dirty industries with clean ones, greening the environment, creating jobs for local European communities and for refugees, and would be empowering for any involved. I say yes, the money is there, it simply needs to be redirected; i.e. from weapons and military, to education and the building of a green infrastructure throughout Europe and the world.

In the 1970s, refugees from Vietnam, ‘boat people’ were introduced into various communities in the United States. My mother in central Pennsylvania volunteered to help one particular family which she was assigned to. She would go to their home regularly to tutor the family in English and help the three sons with their home work. Two of the boys became dentists and opened up a joint practice in the town I was raised in which just celebrated their 20th year anniversary. The other son is a doctor. The relationship between the two families has lasted to the present day. Their entire family have remained friends, and I’ve had several dental appointments with them when passing through town. They are genuinely kind people who have remained grateful and loyal to the initial help they received, ever since. In other words, many of the refugees are good people who wish simply to have security, opportunities for education and development for themselves and their children. In many ways their intent and self-determination will enhance the local communities they’ve been introduced into and ‘give back’ the chance they were given to survive and thrive.

Word cloud of involved actions in EChOACTiVate

This was my initial sketch – it’s the same information. I particularly need guidance in finding the right contact people and groups, to help to kindle this idea. I would appreciate any suggestions!

lets mots, les activité
pour EChOACTIvate

Often the biggest obstacle is not knowing exactly what we can do, or how to get started.

Often taking the first step is the hardest! Even finding information of how to accomplish things may involve more time than you feel that you have.

That’s where EChOACTiVate comes in!

This would at the same time deal with the world climate crisis by developing and building renewable energy structures, in areas where these are amenable and relevant to that environment. The systems would require monetary investment, yet ideally I visualize creating operations that are cooperative in nature, so that the builders and owners distribute the wealth among themselves and into the community, a more democratic form of business. Along with scientists and developers, I foresee an operation that would involve education and training, and finding in addition to citizens of that community, a placement of refugees, who would also be trained to be the man power behind the implementation of these renewable energy structures, community gardens, the building of literally green buildings, a planting of gardens and flowers and trees to create bee-highways, etc.

I had already conceived of this as a means of bringing together communities to participate, with the addition of a nature of celebration and gathering, with music together with the education. It has evolved however in the last week, in light of the continued incidents of terror around the globe. I feel that the edge of the sword of terror – if you will – is the reaction of the more radically charged Islamic peoples to the inequities and economic domination of the Western world, a structure that has been filtering throughout the world, which increases economic inequality and rather than delivering messages of cooperation, delivers ones of competition and materialism.

was EChOACTiVate ist

I would like people to join together with me or to invite me to begin delegating this idea into group that can manifest this. I need business minds, system developers, negotiators, lawyers, scientists and people passionate about the environment and animal habitat renewal and the democratization of wealth and power throughout the planet.

lo que tu puedes hacer con EChOACTiVate

Calling for EChOACTiVate Partners & a Core Team: to join and help to create the Non-Profit Mobile Task Force igniting Music, Education and ECOACTiV initiatives in communities around the world. The echo of results will propel others to also EChOACTiVate!

Contact me if you wish to partner, participate or guide me regarding what organizations may wish to act as a financial umbrella. ¡ echoactivate@gmail.com !

A myriad of individuals and environmental organizations have been warning as well as educating us about Climate Change and Global Warming and the continued threat of habitat loss and the destruction of many species. They inform us that we must change, that we need to act. It is clear that industry, particularly the dirty ones such as coal and petroleum, are cause to the more sweeping and devastating injuries to the the health and well-being of humans and species all over the planet. Yet our individual actions, collectively have wrought a lot of destruction, which can be reversed, through our adopting new habits. Certainly Obama’s new hislegislation will effectively persuade these larger monolithic companies to shift their practices, yet our future is also in our own hands. Our actions or non-action will determine our fate.

As we each learn – and share that information – about what we can do to transform our environments positively through action and taking ownership for its protection every where we go, we will produce dramatic results. Our individual actions will not only raise the quality of our own lives and the spaces we inhabit, but will collectively have an enormous impact. Since all of life is entirely interdependent, what we improve in our immediate environments will echo, and spread all over the planet. Through ‘dis-ease’, we will birth the remedies, to the point that they are the trend.

Various groups have been guiding us to have a voice among our legislatures. They offer solutions for what we can do. Climate Change and World Wildlife Fund and What We Can Do. Avaaz has a Avaaz has a Climate ToolKit. Recently Pope Frances expressed the urgent need of the world population to take action and ownership with his Pope Francis’ Encyclical: “Faith Climate Action Kit”. In the last 48 hours, the United States President Barack Obama addressed this urgency, pleading for the American people (and all the World) to take this seriously as a fact, and to ACT, with his “President Barack Obama’s “America’s Clean Power Plan””

Just as a flame or campfire draws peoples’ attention, so is music something that captivates and entrances people. Music can cause people to stop in their tracks. It engages all regardless of their cultural heritage or economic ‘status’. Music attracts the young and the elderly. It is a focal point. Music drives our passions. It is close to our hearts. That’s why EChOACTiVate is environmental action for the climate that is musically driven! Music will be the element that brings people together. The glue for social cohesion. And since we all have subjective musical tastes, EChOACTiVate will have to accommodate all sorts of musical tastes 🙂 EChOACTiVate will provide all sorts of music – from classical to country, rock to jazz, folk to punk – depending on the tastes of the particular community we engage with. Music is a force which inspires and energizes! EChOACTiVate will coordinate ecological action by bringing different members of the community into groups, according to their capabilities and interests.

Presently, we are at a pivotal point of urgency in terms of how our individual and collective actions and habits affect our environment. Our planet is either our hell or our heaven. If we continue along without doing anything and rely on ‘old world’ methods of generating power and fuel, our non-action will wreak more havoc and irreversible devastation.

Yet if we all work together and educate one another to make changes in our individual habits and choices towards investment in clean, renewable energy and fuel sources and divest from dirty energy, we will collectively impact our environment in an extremely positive way.

Our choices, habits and actions will make our own neighborhoods and towns more inviting and healthy for not only the humans who live there, but all the other indigenous creatures.

It is immanently clear that it is not our planet that is in peril, but the lives of most of the species inhabiting it. Our proactive actions must start imminently !-)

That’s where you, the public comes in. Let’s do this together. Let’s EChOACTiVate

EChOACTiVate is a community outreach program in the form of a mobile citizen action campaign. Like a ‘food truck’ that is mobile, EChOACTiVate is a ‘music/information stage’. It is a virtual portal of information to inform and act as a central information exchange point as well as a physical mobile team, which visits communities worldwide, to introduce the ‘How To’s” of the action the community decides to invest in, and catalyzes them to take implement their actions, through education and guidelines from mini DIY Do-It_yourself projects to more robust ones.

Arriving to the community to set up the stage, EChOACTiVate will coordinate the music and information to inspire and set the guidelines for task orientation, from the beginning stages through to its completion. EChOACTiVate will gather people together to initiate discussions on initiatives and help the members of the community to get started.

The projects are anything from education about what types of foods to eat and physical activities that can act as health prevention, to how to create friendly habitats in your own back yards and public spaces to attract pollinators and ensure the survival of many of the creatures that share our immediate environment. EChOACTiVate activities cover a vast breadth of choices. From planting trees, community gardens, to planting flowers and vegetation in your own backyards and on vertical fences and walls to attract biodiversity, creating bee-highways, land bridges over motorways for the safe passage of indigenous animals, DIY (do-it-yourself) installation of solar panels, windmills, wave and biomass energy procedures, trash clean-Up, ocean cleanup, ocean plastic removal, info-workshops on recycling and water conservation. EChOACTiVate will also provide and exchange information on more medium and long-term projects, demonstrating projects that are proven effective that require a team of scientists and engineers to construct.

We are at a tipping point concerning human induced climate change, which negatively impacts the lives of all species on the planet.

This has come about through the actions of the human species, and it can be reversed through the actions of the human species. If we physically and socially join together in our actions, it will make them that much easier to accomplish and more fun.

DoTheMath Gobal Climate Crisis Kumi Naidoo Greenpeace website

We all sometimes need that extra incentive. Coordinated through exchanges between our web-based non-profit and visiting team with a community, EChOACTiVate will deliver the information and the tools for that community of people to get started. The EChOACTiVate team will ‘land’ in a community through coordinated bi-lateral dialogue with a neighborhood or community that elects to take some ECOATIV measures. The mobile EChOACTiVate team will arrive in a town in the form of a one or two-day centralized stage. Where they combine music celebration with an information portal, that will organize that community into implementing action. The community will choose what projects are most relevant and needed in their area. The EChOACTiVate core team and volunteers will facilitate getting the community started; through providing the education, information – in the form of speakers and work-shops – to organize that community in their acquisition of tools (through local businesses) to mobilize them into action.

There are plenty of DIY – Do It Yourself – projects that citizens can implement through working together for a short period of time. EChOACTiVate will work with the consensus and the relevance of what a community needs and help them to get started. The capability and the means will come through people working together.

midsummer hitch nYc Einstein Love

EChOACTiVate

>>>>>introduces ecological and environmental proactive measures to individual communities, with music as the initial community binding glue. Music is often what brings people together. It is the virtual maypole, around which EChO -ReVoLuTioN unfolds >>> as a celebratory means of bringing people together and stepping out of their routine. And as communities and individuals empower themselves through their own works, their efforts and accomplishments will echo to other communities, giving others’ incentive to participate in their own EChO project.

MeaningS of EChO

That’s where you, the public comes in! Together we can do this! Each ECOACTV action will echo and inspire other communities to do the same. Our actions will reverberate. Others will be inspired to demonstrate how their community EChOACTiVated to make wonderful differences.

Echo by Alexandre Cabanel 1874 Mount Kithairon

Reiterating: EChOACTiVate is both a cyber portal providing information about the divers ECOACTV DIY Do-It-Yourself projects available for that community to decide upon, and a mobile stage (built of a the core EChOACTiVate team and volunteers) that arrive to the community to provide workshops, speakers and the strategy of what they will need to do to implement their plans of action.

I am one individual with a vision. I know that I want to participate and I know that it is dramatically more engaging to have some sort of celebration with music, to get my attention and find joy in socializing and participating. I wish to make EChOACTiVate a non-profit formed through a number of people who will partner with me. The more quickly I find people who wish to help me to build this, the more quickly we can use our skills and talents to make this dream into a reality.

Calling for partners and/or remote coworkers who work on a consultant/as needed basis: web developers, web designers, app developers, lawyers, accountants, program directors, educational coordinators, biologists, zoologists, climatologists, engineers, researchers, traveling fact gatherers of environmental adaptation success stories Worlwide, artists, musicians, stage hands, a mobile team of presenters and speakers, fundraisers and funding.

Schools could get involved in ‘Expeditionary Learning’ projects, learning by doing. Environmental projects involving energy conservation and the preservation of animal habitats involve: chemistry, biology, statistics, mathematics, geography, geology, environmental sciences and physics – all sorts of learning. As communities become involved to EChOACTiVate, they will learn not only about the dangers of non-action, with respect to erosion, draught, effects of pollutants, the dangers of industrialized farming and fishing and GMO’s, but they will learn about healthy alternatives and what actions – no matter how small – from preventive health measures to the ‘how-to’s’ of getting started in their project(s)>to make their immediate environments more eco-friendly and pleasant for all species.

Corporate, State or Federal could match funds raised by townspeople, (fragment of the U.S. Political campaign budget 🙂 and Federal andState government subsidies or drives to support projects from the simple to the more technically specialized projects involving higher material and equipment costs.

Putting people to work on a Worldwide level, one community at a time. ecoactivate.org will compile lists of the array of projects that communities opt to engage in and monitor and correlate the exchange in open forums in which the community decides on what they wish to do to be ECOACTV in their area and what they’ve accomplished, in the EChOACTiVate campaign rippling across the planet. ecoactivate.org is the portal to gather and exchange information, to coordinate the mobile EChOACTiVate presenters and musicians to come to your town in a face-to-face hands-on delivery and designation of plans for the community itself to implement.

This is a rough sketch! I need you to help me transform it into a reality.

Contact me if you wish to partner, participate or guide me regarding what organizations may wish to act as a financial umbrella. ¡ echoactivate@gmail.com !

§ a web-based interactive information portal ecoactivate.org (not yet constructed) providing information in categories of work projects and DIY information from simpler to more technically complex projects. The EChOACTiVate website will provide open forums for communities to investigate their options, suggest ECOACTV projects of their own and as well as to ask questions and work out schedules. The website will also project what different communities have accomplished with more success stories.

§ a mobile unit with a core team of organizers and educators visiting communities to catalyze their projects: including special guest musicians, educators, specialists and technicians upon Touch Down in that community. This occurs on a one or two day central area within the town, where information and a plan of action for the community to take for the project(s) they have decided to embark on, is provided.

§ This takes place on the “ECOACTV Opening Day’ – a celebration with music and education, vendors and informational work-shops. The EChOACTiVate core team and volunteers touch down to provide guidance and incentive, and certainly helping hands in the beginning stages.

§ The community has a continual ‘two-way’ information exchange, from offering information before the EChOACTiVate group has arrived in their town, to participating by inviting their own town musicians, bands and dj’s to perform for the Informational Opening day as well as during the days or weeks that the community is working on their project. I haven’t worked out the local noise ordinance rules, but this is an exceptional event during exceptional times requiring awareness and action.

§ The successes of various groups will be shared on the EChOACTiVate website and Facebook page as well as through an EChOACTiVate app for mobile devices, so that neighborhoods and communities can compare and display what they’ve accomplished; as well as to provide their feedback, comments and suggestions.

§ whereas digital technology can often isolate people, it can also bring them together to physically join one another:
• apps to record community progress & success stories
• competitions and challenges between communities

§ music is key; with live entertainment from musicians and bands on the opening day and special guests. The town can contribute their own live entertainment with musicians, bands creating their own acts on the Opening Day. Special guests will participate.

§ The Touch Down Opening Day will be the arena for the local citizens to assemble in a celebratory way with the music and food and/or product vendors. Side by side, they will participate in actively learning and sharing information, prior to being organized into groups to work together on teams, according to their physical size, strength, skills and expertise.

§ At this Opening event a series of workshops and meetings will take place to lay out the plans.

§ If a project thaT has been discusses between community members and the EChOACTiVate team in advance is of a more complex nature, EChOACTiVate will help to find consultants to bridge the information gap and parlay what the community’s options are. Educators, speakers, technical consultants and habitat specialists would contribute information on a variety of conservation and preservation topics as well as on themes specifically relevant to the articular chosen project by the community: to assist in determining the material, hardware and man-power needs to get the project started.
People do best, what they like to do most.

§ The EChOACTiVate website will also host live-streamed interactive telecasts of participating groups in other countries, as info-seminars as well as speeches consulting experts in the fields regarding whatever technology is being researched, developed and implemented.

§ As groups EChOACTiVate, their actions and own stories are shared by word-of-mouth, visitors to their town, twitter, Facebook, through the EChOACTiVate App revealing achievements and and on the echoactivate.org Success Stories section.

Each metamorphoses will echo…and invite others to EChOACTiVate and share their own success stories.

Did you hear what Memphis, or Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Pittsburg, Brooklyn, New Dehli, Sao Paulo, Montpelier, Barcelona or Guangxi did? What are you waiting for? Let’s do this. Let’s EChoACTiVate!

Engaging and coordinating local townspeople, businesses and industries to participate, draw resources and form teams of man-power to join together and take action together. Resulting in improved quality of their own environment and learning about all the ways that we the human species can adopt habits and develop awareness about our connection to our environment and to all other species. An public engagement in an environment of celebration, fun and learning, that delights and empowers the people as they transform their own environment.

This idea resulted from Carol Keiter, the blogger

Carol Keiter informational architect of EChOACTiVate

Carol holding the plastic globe

in her aim to follow her own path.

A tagcloud summing up Carol Keiter’s interests and passions.

Well, why not? > Donations showing your support of the evolution of EChOACTiVate as well as Carol Keiter’s writing, eBook, music composition, photography & illustrations are gratefully accepted!

Propose a “Humanity Without Borders” Commission made of Collaborative countries to Create Jobs & Place Refugees Worldwide into 1. Renewable Energy Production Operations 2. Affordable Elderly Care Positions

Propose a “Humanity Without Borders” Commission made of Collaborative countries to Create Jobs>Place Refugees Worldwide into 1. Renewable Energy Production Operations (Wind, Solar, Wave, Geothermal) 2. Affordable Elderly Care Positions

renewable energy wordcloud

Given: there are as many opinions as there are fingerprints. Some are more molded into particular alignments with a given fraternity, community, language group or identification with a particular religious, political or economic regime. I’ve listened to a number of different opinions in the last 10 days, all pretty educated ones; ranging from the idealistic to the pragmatic. Each provide lessons.

helping hands elderly care

I think that the whole world needs to make some radical, revolutionary changes in response to all of the things happening right now. There is no choice to maintain the status quo of how things are. People need to step out of their comfort zones and into more proactive than reactive stances. Step out of their insular communities and look and act with a larger incentive; that of recapturing a sense that there is more to life than merely the exchange rate and a particular point of view. What is happening now with the climate, the pollution, the higher levels of economic and racial inequality and the dissemination of species and the mass exodus of peoples from lands all over the world due to economic or political crisis, is unprecedented. And that this flow of migration away from the regions with such bleak circumstances is in many ways connected to and because of what is happening or produced and exported – directly or indirectly – from other more powerful nations of the world. This exodus from lower altitude lying countries, along with Carbon Dioxide levels, will only rise, unless we do something about it.

heart wordcloud ederly care

Everyone is going to have to face this challenge. A challenge beyond aeons of fraternal arguing, religious opposition, power mongering and basing everything on the GDP and finance. Man’s energy choices have resulted in the degradation of the earth and all of its creatures, along with more severe extreme weather patterns. And now, amalgamating into a flood of people from their bleak circumstances. The additional challenge is a growing aging population that also deserve the respect and dignity of having their needs met.

I propose “Humanity Without Borders“

I say, create the room and motive to solve several crises with the same goal; to relocate people by establishing a Humanity Without Borders board made up of dozens of different membership countries. Their mission: to relocate refugees with dignity, and placement into work.

The world has been watching a flood of refugees from all over the world; central American towards their Northern neighbors, Syria, North, East and Central Africans into Europe, lured by smugglers, who like drug dealers, are mostly intent on making a profit, by any means possible. We’ve been watching as people have been herded into horrific conditions and treated with anger, fright and contempt.

This is something that is bigger than any one nation can handle, and once again, perhaps created because of these foreign lands that they are fleeing towards, indirectly from the financial model and directly because of the CO2 levels rising, affecting the weather patterns to such an extreme that their resources are depleting as the unrest and political turmoil rises. These small-time smugglers are profiteering on delivering people out of their sordid environments as if they’re fugitives.

Yet we could construct something to solve the tensions, perhaps even slow down the desire to abandon their own countries, by creating a global panel representative of a host of different ethnicities and governments worldwide, to join in this emergent “Humanity Without Borders” mission: to place refugees worldwide into working towards the production of renewable energy plants worldwide, and the service of the elderly in the growing populations of elderly and declining birthrates in several nations of the Western World including the USA and Germany as well as Japan and China in the Eastern Hemisphere, to be trained in healthcare.

This would be creating jobs and placing people into sustainable economic conditions, while helping with the crushing demand of restructuring our infrastucture towards renewable and clean energy to curb the pollution and destructive dirty energy practices of oil and coal, and fulfill the need for human assistance to elderly. Empowerment, a growth in quality of life, a renewal of the environment and a cross-generational reach to honor the dignity of life into old age, would be just some of the positive repercussions of this placement.

Perhaps, a mass transformation of building towards renewable and ecologically sustainable production and practices, would dramatically improve the quality of well, everything.

jobs 2012 renewable energy

There is no shortage of jobs! There is a shortage of the means of funding a complete restructuring of the industries as we know them. But there are examples of great ingenuity and success stories of renewable energy everywhere.

There is no shortage of money! Just look at the amount of campaign money in the United States presidential race. A Choice of Billionaires. There are two categories in demand globally in goods and services: 1. restructuring energy production to put large scale renewable energy systems in place – solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc. and 2. the service of care, particularly for aging populations in the US, Japan, China etc,

My idea to curtail and meet the worldwide refugee challenge: the creation of a non-denominational, non-politically or religiously aligned panel of members of the world community Humanity Without Borders, based at the UN Headquarters for example.

It can be done. China has exemplified achieving massive construction in an astoundingly short period of time. Though clearly not without experiencing the fallout of industrialization, they have also created some quite green enterprises.

This is my proposal, and if you want to read further, here’s how I arrived at this idea, what influenced me.

green planet renewable energy

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I listened to Annie Leonard’s Story of Solutions; her response to our Western consumer driven capitalistic mode. I’ve listened to the historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz talk of the growing trends that point to the systemic failures of the current model of Capitalism. His book discusses decentralizing alternatives, leading to the democratization of wealth and ownership. “If you don’t like capitalism or state socialism, what do you want?” He talks of systemic change nurturing principles of Democracy, Ownership, Community and Ecological Sustainability; a Pluralist Commonwealth.

I’ve listened to the Pope and read Daily Kos : excerpts of The Popes Encyclical. Time magazine September 28, 2015 issue with Bernie Sanders on the cover, has an article about the Pope by Elizabeth Dias, “The New Roman Empire”, http://time.com in which she describes his impact in the world. “The Pope’s activism will be put to the test on his visit to the U.S.…seen by many as a wellspring of some of the global ills he has attacked – corporate greed, colonial exploitation, economic inequality – and his pronouncements on everything from climate change to immigration…His climate encyclical scope was wide: it talked about everything from individuals’ air-conditioning use to how environmental degradation is causing poverty and migration…calling for a bold cultural revolution, for example, Francis said the rich and powerful were pushing a model of development based on fossil-fuel consumption that ended up hurting the poor.”

I’ve also learned of the Band of Sisters, the Universe Story & Ecotheology, a transformative view of Catholic priests which is becoming a movement, identifying the supremacy of nature and our place in it as ecotheology. Wherein the quality of life is based on our spiritual relationship to the Earth, as opposed to being economically based.

I listened to my brother in law, Graeam Cohen, a well learned British businessman and historian with knowledge and understanding of the conflicts occurring presently between different religious groups in Europe and the Middle East as well as an historic understanding of the roots of the world as it is today. His pragmatic understanding of the status quo, is that the hegemonies of the world are run through economics and power/money and military might. He points out that the history of western civilization stems back to the Greeks and Romans, in which the military was an irrevocable part of the larger scheme of rule and control. Today, corporations as any other business enterprises are ultimately protected under the sovereignty of the land in which they are incorporated. Corporations don’t have military to protect themselves, they have lobbyists, as do every other group.

He spoke casually of the fallouts of an occasional polluted stream or earth quake as being perhaps burdensome, but inevitable natural consequences of moving ahead with the production of the economic machine, which must, must keep producing and making a profit. This is measuring the world’s teetering economic balance with the stick of the GDP. Easier said, when you aren’t living directly next to a petroleum or coal based industry that borders your back yard. I can understand his points, and don’t doubt that they are exceedingly accurate in capturing what most businessmen would also be inclined to view as what is of utmost importance: economic strength, military might which protects the hegemony in a world which is heavily dependent on finance. A world of business that mostly responds to the urgency of making a profit and often with short-sighted, short-term goals and not much of an inspiration to think beyond that model.

Yet I believe, as the speakers at the New Economy forum and https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/economist-john-maynard-keynes-vision-of-the-wto/, that there are indeed alternatives.

What if, everyone would grow gardens in their back yards, along with town, community and neighborhood gardens. What if fruit and nut trees were planted everywhere – with plants and crops suitable climatically and geographically to that region – with the surplus going directly back into the community? what if a massive infrastructure for recycling, waste, water run-off and transportation overhauls were created > with the intention to create cleaner, safer, less polluted, ecologically sustainable and more attractive communities. What if there was an overhaul in creating green transportation alternatives; bike lanes, bicycles, hydrogen cell/solar/electric/salt water powered automobiles, maglev high speed train lines, clean and energy efficient interregional train systems.

And that a new expedient United Nations driven unilaterally representative group help to expedite the strategic placement of people all over the world.
What if it actually could be done?

America in Decline: Built Through a Series of “Great Steals” | written by Louie Davis June, 26 1988 for his ElderHostel students |

I was recently introduced to the following paper, written by Louie Davis for his “Elder Hostel” students on June 26th,1988. Elderhostel  – now called “Road Scholars”  http://www.roadscholar.org/ – provides continued ‘travel education’, offering a wide range of subjects and geographical areas. (It could be that these travel educational voyages are a bit similar to the new trend of expeditionary, as opposed to classroom learning https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/hitchabout-san-francisco_expeditionary_learning). My parents participated numerous times through the years with courses on various subjects, which they’ve valued greatly. It was pointed out to me how strikingly relevant the content of Davis’s paper is, considering it was written in 1988, because many of the issues are facing all of us currently. Davis writes about the decline of the U.S., and the ways in which America rose to power through a series of “Great Steals”. He wrote about issues which he’d researched thoroughly, providing accurate and frighteningly prescient details. He describes problematic situations which were recognized then, which ironically affect our contemporary population now in 2012, and the various mechanisms people (still use) to avoid dealing with an issue. I believe it would be worth everyone’s time to read this, particularly as a presidential election hovers before us. I have typed his paper word-for-word, with the addition of a comma here and there.

Due to the fact that our American two-party system is buttressed by corporate interests and lobbying groups, with each continually rivaling each other, this system continually obstructs progress and any chance of moving in ‘healthy’ directions. I propose developing a (non-partisan) international panel, to oversee with ‘checks and balances’, programs and operations taking place globally. This would be instituted to hold all nations, and their citizens, accountable for shifting production towards building renewable energy and facilitating jobs which move the world in the direction delineated by Davis at the conclusion of his paper. Ironically, this idea was already created, it’s called the United Nations. However, it has become clear that the UN is by no means an egalitarian organization, equally representing each of the different member countries. Rather, it tilts towards the weight of those countries with more wealth and power. Is a non-partisan, incorruptible panel – not tainted by the pressure of corporate greed – possible? Please let me know.

Louie Davis’s letter June, 26 1988:

Dear ElderHostlers,

I received so many expressions of regret that I did not get to finish what I had to say in that last class about current events and the “Relative” Decline of the U.S., that I thought that I would take a few moments to outline my thoughts on that subject.

I do indeed believe that the nation is going into (already in) a decline, relative or not. The following remarks will indicate why I think that we are going into a decline and why I am pessimistic about our ability to reverse it.

I have sometimes characterized the wealth of our nation as being derived from a number of “Great Steals”.

The first Great Steal was the taking, with near genocidal action, of the land from the Indians. I have however been happy that I was not born south of the Rio Grande where the killing of the native population was so much greater, at least in the early years of Spanish rule.

The second Great Steal was the way in which farming methods developed that rapidly destroyed the productivity of the land. Almost simultaneously with the destruction of the land in the eastern colonies was the stealing of black labor from their homelands in Africa. Of course as one studies the history of farming in the USA, one finds that it was not until the dawning of this century that any thought at all was given to conservation of land, and certainly not forest lands. The people of South America, and elsewhere, who are now engaged in the rapid destruction of the rain forests, have a good example through the actions of their earlier North American neighbors.

When I was a CCC boy in Kansas (’36 to ’39), we were facing the destruction of the “bread basket of the world” by dust storms. We, the CCC boys, planted millions of trees along roads and field boundaries to slow down that destruction by providing wind breaks. Those wind breaks have now been largely cut down and plowed up to provide ever larger fields for ever heavier machinery, as ever larger corporations acquired the land for giant monoculture farming [According to wikipedia; nonoculture is an ecological environment lacking in biodiversity or foundation species, defined as a bastardization of the word monoculture.]  (P.S. The dust is blowing again).

Right now the great Ogallalah aquifer, in Kansas and Nebraska, is on the way to being pumped dry to provide water to support corn farming, which supports giant beef growing operations. Which incidentally cause massive pollution of the rivers. The game, and point of discussion, in places like the Kansas legislature is how to so control the drilling of additional wells to make sure that those who have already invested large sums in such operations, recover their investment by the time the water runs out and forces the farms back to dryland wheat farming.

This raping of the land was not confined to farmland. The forests were first burned to provide open land to farm between the Great Plains and the Atlantic. With the expanding population, whole states were clear cut and then fires raged uncontrolled, sweeping over vast areas.

As I mentioned, during the Civil war, skills were developed that provided the know how necessary to organize great operations. Those operations were geared to make money by the fastest possible way. The heads of those operations are commonly called “Robber Barons”.

The U.S. became a nation based on the consumption of raw material. During that time, a practice which haunts us even today in the setting of railroad tariffs, came into being. In order to aid the extractive industries, the cost of shipping raw materials, was (and still is) set lower than the cost of shipping finished materials. Today that practice mitigates against the use of recycled materials. The last time I checked, raw sand for bottle factories could be shipped more cheaply than crushed bottles.

The Third Great Steal is being practiced today on a scale too great for most of us to comprehend even if we wanted to do so. The third great steal is very simple: we are stealing the future of our children and grandchildren. In order to pay for the material things for which we have so much desire, and the military buildup that we are told that we must have, we are finding ourselves in the ultimately destructive position of selling the real estate and securities of the U.S.A. to foreign investors. That which we do not sell immediately, is in a great sense mortgaged.

I have read that one securities house in Japan now holds one third of the debt of the US federal government. (At this point let me urge you to read a fiction story called “The Panic of ’89” by Erdman. It will grab you.) One of the reasons that the U.S.A. is hated by the Central Americans is that they were held in commercial fiefdomship by American companies such as United Fruit. In much the same way, we are already beginning to hate Japan, but we owe our souls to the company (Japanese) store.

One has only to look at the sad state of American manufacturing to note the real effects of our decline. Not only are many countries producing goods cheaper than we are, but they are also producing them better. Even if Japanese cars are produced in the U.S.A., they are perceived to be better built than identical ones bearing American names, built in the same factory, which will sell in the U.S. for higher prices than the identical American named models. In a high tech business, American computer chip manufacturing companies complained that Japanese companies were dumping chips in the U.S. at unreasonably low prices. So an anti-dumping order was promulgated. The prices were trebled and the result was that the American companies could not match the import quality, and right now there is a shortage of those chips on the American market awaiting better American quality.

Much of the blame for such troubles can be laid at the door of American CEO’s. For example, GE got out of many engineering and manufacturing businesses because Jack Welch said “that is not the kind of business I want to be in”. In the process, he laid off 132,000 employees and became a giant financial, insurance and leasing operation. (Perhaps I should note: he laid off 131,999 and me.) During that time GE was paying no federal taxes. Reagan believed lowering taxes on giant corporations would give them resources to generate new products and hire more employees.

It is easy for us to look back and note the destruction of the environment by our forebears. The present destruction that is going on is viewed in a number of ways.

Way 1) It is not happening, at least we must do a few years and a few million (or more) dollars of scientific research to prove that it is going on. The damage to our environment due to acid rain is a case in point. The Reagan administration has steadfastly refused to acknowledge that acid rain is harming our environment. Years ago even when I was in high school, I was taught that the man-made acid in the rain was a recognized destroyer of marble art works and of limestone buildings and structures such as bridges.

Way 2) It is just a theory. For years, scientists have been concerned about the so called “greenhouse effect” that quite likely will destroy the climate as we know it. The problem here, is that we all are the problem and we can not bear to blame ourselves. We cannot blame the problem on a set of robber barons, they merely supply us with the things we want, which either burn fossil fuels or were manufactured by the use of fossil fuels. Scientists are getting more positive with every passing month that we are moving into the opening years of the “greenhouse effect”. I have recently read that, yes indeed, the ocean is starting to rise, the glaciers are receding and the world wide data on temperature indicates that 1987 was a record setter for being a warm earth. Indications are that the decade of the 1980’s may well be the hottest decade on record.

The problem is that the green house effect is the result of the dumping of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The varying concentration of carbon dioxide is a much easier thing to measure than the change in temperature of the earth. Of course, there are those who will argue that the case is not yet certain. Perhaps the oceans will suddenly develop a greater capability of absorbing the excess carbon dioxide than it seems to have.

How great a risk do we want to take that our great Midwest will turn into a desert and prime farm land will be pushed north into Canada and the USSR?

Should we be starting NOW to develop sustainable, renewable energy supplies?

Way 3) We think it is happening. A corollary to the green house effect is the loss of the ozone layer. The ozone layer is necessary to absorb the ultra violet light radiated by the sun, before it strikes the surface of the earth. There has been a lot of talk about the danger to humans from skin cancer due to the extra UV in the sun if the ozone layer is badly depleted. There has been little talk of the greater threat to non human forms of life, both plant and animal. How will we screen the UV from the fields of plants that are the primary source of our food? The problem is that we want the things that the CFC’s are used in, such as air conditioners, or to help to make such items as foam food trays at the butcher shop. Since the chlorine in the CFC’s act as catalyst to break down the ozone, the amount of chlorine already in the stratosphere will stay there for many years destroying the ozone. Only time will tell how close to the brink, or how far over the brink we already are.

I hope that the U.S.A. will see the giant problems facing us in the present and near future and once again call upon sufficient organizational skills, finances and engineering genius to stave off the really grim elements of the future and again demonstrate that we are and can be #1.

CONCLUSION:

WE MUST START THE EDUCATIONAL STEPS IN THE SCHOOLS, IN THE UNIVERSITIES AND IN THE MEDIA TO RE-EDUCATE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN THAT WE CAN AND MUST BECOME TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPETITIVE IN MANUFACTURING.

WE MUST ELIMINATE TO A VERY GREAT EXTENT THE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS.

WE MUST START NOW MANUFACTURING AND PUTTING IN PLACE SOLAR, WIND, LOW HEAD HYDRO, PASSIVE HEATING AND COOLING, HIGHER EFFICIENCY IN ALL OF OUR MACHINERY, APPLIANCES, CARS, HOMES, OFFICES, ETC.

Question:

How can a nation burdened with a backbreaking debt, both public and private, hope to turn the situation around? Being by nature a pessimist, unless I see some reason for hope, I doubt that we can avoid a continual decline into disaster. I am not at all convinced that a nation which prides itself on never responding until a full blown crisis has developed, can make the adjustments to move back into the position of leadership which we have enjoyed. I doubt that we will be able to so change our habits and our lives [in order to] avoid the natural disasters which the U.S.A., with it’s unlimited appetite for an easy good life, always taking the quick way to self gratification has/will help to bring on. I see no indication in the attitude of our voters that we will ever vote in a government that can call a spade a spade and get the unified support of the people.

In closing, I would appreciate rebuttals, additions, comments, praises or condemnations from all who have had the patience to read this through.

-.-.-.–.-.- End to Louie Davis’s letter June, 26 1988 -.-.-.-.-.-.-
Green Machine
Those Who Don’t Learn from History are Destined to Repeat It

350.org attempt to educate people presently, about the need to reduce the number of particles per million of CO2 to 350 million.

Here’s an article that I was just alerted to, regarding tapping into offshore wind turbines to power the East coast. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/15/13864179-power-east-coast-via-wind-doable-with-144000-offshore-turbines-study-says “There’s zero fuel costs once they’re in the water,” he said. “Coal and gas are depletable resources, so their cost will inevitably go up over time. The cost of wind energy will remain stable, and the wind resource is infinite.”

United States of Amnesia