michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jul 5, 2006 16:10:21 GMT 4
You know, over the last couple of days, watching bottle rockets and assorted fireworks go off, I couldn't help but think of the terror and death wildlife must be experiencing as fireworks ripped through the trees; all for our amusement and excitement in staring at bright shiny lights. Apparently this author was having a "Rachel Carson Moment" at the very same time I was.....Michelle Forget the Fourth!by Michael A. Lewis July 4, 2006 On this great national holiday, Howard Zinn has called for an end to flags. I'll go him several further; I'll extend that to all trappings of centralized government, including borders, countries and international relationships. It's all of a piece; we can't get rid of one without getting rid of all the rest. Here on the 4th of July, in the United States, on the Pacific Plate, temporarily attached to the North American continent, we gird ourselves for the coming mayhem, the celebration of the 230th anniversary of this country, so the myth goes at least. Since we are a "destination" (Santa Cruz, California) we are yearly invaded by thousands of myth-seekers, jingoists and the just plain thoughtless, who leave their, apparently boring, homes and go somewhere else, apparently less boring, to blow up our neighborhood, not to mention the neighbors, human and non. Each year, we watch helplessly in dismay as our native cormorants, coots, ducks and geese, red-tailed hawks, crows, great blue herons, night herons, finches, mourning doves, scrub jays and all the rest fly in panic at the onset of the incessant barrage of illegal fireworks on our beaches and throughout our neighborhoods. They have no place to go, as each flight from booming fireworks takes them in the direction of even more fireworks. This is nesting season for many birds; untold numbers of nests are abandoned in the panicked flight. Many birds are undoubtedly injured flying in the dark, blinded by flashes and sparkles from every direction. Captive human domestic animals suffer as well, unable to escape the barrage, running away in panic, into the traffic, which mercifully is mostly standing still. Our community becomes a war zone, as roads to all the beaches are clogged with cars from elsewhere, boom-blasting their way to the beach, thwarted at every turn by road closures attempting to gain some control over the mayhem. There's no place to park, so they circulate around until they either go back over the hill or evaporate in place. Have they no roads of their own to clog, no homes to burn down, no wildlife to panic in their own bioregions? Let them celebrate in place and leave us to as much peace as we can defend in our own place. Better yet, let's call the whole damned thing off, nationally. Who needs reminders of official government terrorism and wars when the daily news does it for us for free, every day? The mayhem we suffer through here echoes the mayhem the United States government and its hired thugs visit on innocent people and animals throughout the world in the name of freedom and democracy. The United States has made a graveyard of the globe making the world safe for hypocrisy. Let's celebrate June 21st instead, the solstice, something real, global, meaningful, tied to the Earth, expressed everywhere in the places where we live together with all the web of life. We'll throw the old flags on the bonfires, celebrate Life instead of death. We'll invite our friends, two-legged, four-legged, winged, crawling and swimming, and we'll share the bounty of the Earth with our friends and neighbors. All of them. We just might start a revolution! Michael A. Lewis lives in Leona Gulch on the Pacific Plate.Source: www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Lewis04.htm
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Oct 1, 2006 16:17:46 GMT 4
Introducing The Natural Capital InstituteI have been a long time reader of Mr. Hawken and am pleased to present his site and work:The NCI is a direct offshoot of Paul Hawken's work and writings, in particular his books, The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, co-authored with Amory Lovins. Both these books take the environmental and social degradation caused by industry head on.
An industrial economic system that causes global climate change, despoliation of rivers, and loss of topsoil is the same system that is causing poverty, suffering, and deracination of communities worldwide.
We believe that with education and connectivity, the current downward spiral of environmental and social conditions can be arrested, and that a just and restorative economy is possible.
We believe that the present economic system, one that marginalizes people and the environment, is the most costly system possible, and that moving towards restorative, sustainable practices is the least cost alternative.Visit NCI for an introduction at: www.naturalcapital.orgYou can also view their current projects at: www.naturalcapital.org/Projects.htmlHere is one of their projects for those of you who I have chided in the past here for owning stocks and creating portfolios which add to the world's misery. This is a public database containing complete equity holdings and screening categories of SRI mutual funds in the US and Canada so you can make informed investment decisions:THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENTSCorporations are increasingly confusing potential investors with phrases like "corporate social responsibility," "sustainability," "green business" and "socially responsible investing." But rarely do these terms accurately reflect the corporation's true business ethics. Greenwashing has become one of the most successful modern-day marketing arts, whereby corporations tout themselves as practitioners of sustainability while actually practicing business-as-usual. Although incredibly popular among green consumers seeking to make ethical investments, the international SRI (socially responsible investing) mutual fund industry has fallen prey to a variety of greenwashing tactics, leaving the SRI market littered with corrupt corporations dressed up in earth-friendly costumes. Paul Hawken's Natural Capital Institute provides an in-depth analysis of the problems in the SRI market and has begun to publish an online database to help consumers identify which SRIs and mutual funds truly promote health, justice, and sustainability. Learn more: www.responsibleinvesting.org/database/WEB-INF/php/reportMain.php
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Oct 27, 2006 15:35:17 GMT 4
A few things today: Info on political candidates who are willing to get behind legislation that promotes health, justice, peace, and sustainability; check the link below to learn more about your local and Congressional candidates.
E. Coli bacteria has been in the news much lately. Inaccurate media reports are linking the outbreaks to organic products. Get the FACTS below.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DEBATE OVER RAW MILK.
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD NEWS OF THE WEEK: *MEXICO BANS GE CORN *MORE GE FOOD CONTAMINATION IN US AND EUVOTING ORGANIC IN NOVEMBERThe long-awaited Nov. 7 elections are quickly approaching. Can we elect a new crop of politicians to deal with our nation's current crisis and move us in a positive direction? How well do you know the candidates running for office from your area? OCA's allied lobbying organization, the Organic Consumers Fund (OCF), has put together a detailed nonpartisan Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey to identify candidates who support organic agriculture, and are willing to get behind legislation that promotes health, justice, peace, and sustainability. Learn more about your local and Congressional candidates and spread the word about the Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey by visiting the OCF website: organicconsumersfund.org___________________________________ 80,000-MEMBER PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICAHelping to Put Organic on the Table in the 2006 Elections Progressive Democrats of America has joined the Organic Consumers Fund to get Congressional, state, and local candidates to support organic agriculture and to take a progressive stand on related issues of health, peace, justice, sustainability, and democracy. Learn more about PDA: pdamerica.org/articles/alliances/2006-10-18-13-36-27-alliances.php -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUICK FACTS OF THE WEEK: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT E.COLI AND ORGANICSDespite a number of inaccurate media reports, the recent spinach E.Coli outbreak has not been linked to any organic products. As expected,the outbreak has now been directly linked to a factory farm feedlot located adjacent to conventional spinach fields in California. This was the 25th E.coli outbreak in the California Salinas Valley in 11 years, demonstrating, once again, that industrial farms and feedlots and their toxic runoff are inherently dangerous. Studies show that factory-farmed cattle have 300 times more pathogenic bacteria in their digestive tracts than cattle that are allowed to openly graze in pastures. If you are concerned about E.coli, organic food is the way to go. The USDA national organic standards require organic farmers to carefully compost their fertilizer--made up of animal manure and plant matter--up to 160 degrees, so as to kill any harmful bacteria. Organic farmers can only apply this composted manure four months prior to planting. Conventional farms have no regulations specifying when they can and can't apply manure and are not required to destroy the harmful bacteria in the manure prior to spreading. In addition, it is perfectly legal to spread highly toxic sewage sludge on conventional farms, while this practice in banned on organic farms. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3140.cfm-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEKS LESSON: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DEBATE OVER RAW MILKMost Americans are only familiar with milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized. That's because, in most states, it's illegal to sell raw milk, based upon government concerns about food safety. But there's a growing and vocal segment of health-minded consumers who passionately believe that raw bovine milk is practically the perfect food. In fact, one common question we get from our supporters is, "Why do the national organic standards allow organic milk to be pasteurized?" In a nutshell, laws banning raw milk were passed in the early 1900s, when shipping and handling of dairy was problematic, leading to mass spoilage and food poisoning. But today's raw-milk advocates note that modern day production and shipping alleviates these problems. Advocates note that pasteurizing milk kills beneficial enzymes while reducing nutritional value, leaving conventional milk difficult to digest and less healthy. But the FDA literally equates drinking raw milk to playing Russian roulette. Because raw milk is still illegal in most states and frowned on by the FDA, the writers of the USDA national organic standards realized that if they didn't allow certified organic milk to be pasteurized, there simply wouldn't be any such thing as "organic" milk available on the market. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3134.cfm------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD NEWS OF THE WEEK: MEXICO BANS GE CORN: Mexico has, once again, passed a law banning genetically engineered corn from being planted in the country. The law is designed to protect native varieties of corn from being contaminated by biotech varieties. The Monsanto corporation, the biggest global seller of genetically engineered corn vows it will reverse this law when president-elect Felipe Calderon takes office. Monsanto claims Mexico's 59 varieties of corn, many of which have been grown for thousands of years, will not be at risk of contamination if genetically engineered varieties are approved. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3178.cfm MORE GE FOOD CONTAMINATION IN US AND EU: Yet another strain of experimental genetically engineered (GE) rice has been detected in U.S. food shipments to Europe. This is the third GE rice contamination scandal in less than two months. The rice (LL62) was designed by Bayer but is not approved for human consumption in the EU. US rice farmers have suffered millions of dollars of losses from GE contamination just in the last few months. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3179.cfm
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Dec 11, 2006 7:49:51 GMT 4
For Québécois and Canadians: On Stéphane Dion the new head of the Liberal Party of Canada This is about the victory of Stéphane Dion this past Saturday as the new head of the Liberal Party of Canada, a man who is most likely to win the next federal election and thus become Prime Minister of Canada. Stéphane Dion, the underdog in this race, succeeded in clinching victory despite all odds against him.
He has often taken a very clear stand in support of sustainable development and for the Kyoto Accord (on which Canada reneged under Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper!) and appears to be sincerely concerned about Canada's national and global environmental future and dedicated to steer Canada's policies to make a significant contribution towards helping humanity reconciles itself with nature, as he puts it.
You can to his website to find out more about his ideas and policies. There is a segment of his site with a good number of short video clips in which he talks about himself, how he came to politics (very reluctantly!) and what his ideas and goals are. He is much more fluent in French than in English.French version: stephanedion.ca/?q=fr/ConversationEnglish version: stephanedion.ca/?q=en/ConversationDespite the pro-war, pro-Bush policies and dismal environmental record of the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper currently governing Canada, there is now some real "sustainable" hope for the future of Canada with Stéphane Dion. If you want to discover for yourself more about Dion, visit his site at stephanedion.ca and perhaps you'll decide to recommend others to do likewise and support him whichever way you can.
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Feb 19, 2007 18:17:04 GMT 4
Buena Vista? Microsoft's Vista boasts energy-saving features, but does that mean it's eco-friendly?People, please be mindful of the consequences of your decisions before you go running out to purchase upgrades. Think where your perfectly fine and functioning computer will go once you throw it away. Our planet has become a garbage heap in the never ending quest for bigger, better, and faster technology. You don't see it as much in your own backyard, but have you seen on TV the mountains of rejected equipment from the United States in China? Poor individuals are climbing these heaps to salvage pieces and are becoming sick from the chemicals within our thoughtless throwing away in order to obtain better [so they say] stuff. I'm not up on what you pollute the planet with when you throw out a computer, but did you know that when you dump a TV you are adding 2000 chemicals to the environment? Also, look at the polluting energy consumption..... why don't you shut your computers down when not in use?!!!!
Microsoft is talking up the energy-saving aspects of its new, oh-so-long-in-the-making Vista operating system -- namely, that it's good at putting computers to sleep. On the other hand, Vista's fancy-schmancy 3-D interface sucks up a fair bit of juice. Also, most existing computers aren't powerful enough to run the system, which has some enviros worried that Vista could prompt a big new wave of electronic waste as people dump their old machines and buy spiffy new ones. Has Microsoft really earned its green bragging rights? Kate Galbraith investigates.....MichelleBuena Vista? Microsoft's Vista boasts energy-saving features, but does that mean it's eco-friendly?By Kate Galbraith 07 Feb 2007 Most of the chatter about Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, centers on whether the techies in Redmond have outsmarted the hackers this time around. But might the system also slow destruction of the environmental variety? Microsoft is touting Vista's new energy-saving features, even as critics are pointing out that the system has some eco-downsides as well. The efficiency advances involve sleep mode, a computer's ability to power down after an idle spell. With Vista, says Microsoft, sleep will be as energy efficient as shutdown. "We've worked very hard to make the sleep experience a much easier and more elegant one for users," says Michael Rawding, Microsoft's vice president for special projects. In the past, Microsoft has fielded complaints from users about sleep. Sometimes an application or driver interfered with a computer's ability to doze off; a laptop that one thought was asleep might be surprisingly hot when pulled from a bag hours later, or even have a drained battery. Vista will make it harder for applications to impede sleep. And sleep and other power-saving options will now be the default on machines running Vista -- they will start snoozing after an hour of non-use -- whereas before users had to change the default settings to ensure sleep. Vista's sleep-mode improvements will make the biggest difference at large companies. Corporate IT departments regularly do mass updates on thousands of desktop computers in the middle of the night. Often, however, it is hard for IT engineers to order them all back to sleep without going from machine to machine. Vista's new set-up will fix this, forcing the computers back to sleep after two minutes. "What you've seen in the last couple of years, both among hardware manufacturers and among users, particularly in a productivity scenario, is a recognition of the cost of power," says Rawding. "Overall efficiency of power is just becoming a major design criterion across the board for systems." But Vista has efficiency shortcomings too. According to early reports, its much ballyhooed 3-D interface will require slightly more energy to run than XP, Microsoft's previous operating system. On balance, though, the improvement in the sleep process will probably outweigh the energy costs of the new features, according to Tom Bolioli, an energy-efficiency consultant with the firm Terra Novum. Look Before You Sleep Computer energy use is no trivial matter. Microsoft reckons that a PC using an old-style cathode-ray tube monitor, if left awake around the clock, results in the emission of over half a ton of carbon dioxide a year just during the time when it's not in use. At a typical electricity cost of roughly nine cents per kilowatt hour, that translates to over $70 wasted per year per machine. Computers with flat-screen LCD monitors, which are more energy efficient, still drain almost $56 a year for sleepless idleness. The Foreign Policy blog, building on the conservative estimate that 100 million computers using a Microsoft operating system are running nonstop and aren't currently optimized for sleep, speculates that $5 billion to $7 billion is wasted each year powering the machines when they don't need to be powered, and that 45 million tons of CO2 is emitted in the process. This means Vista has the potential to save an enormous amount of energy. Then again, as Hank Green points out in Treehugger, if Microsoft had gotten these features right when it released its XP operating system in late 2001, roughly $25 billion and 225 million tons of CO2 might have been saved over the past five years. But the bugs in its sleep functionality have gone unaddressed until now. Apple, it's worth noting, mastered the sleep mode years ago. Consider also that most of the hundreds of millions of computers in use around the world aren't powerful enough to run Vista, no matter how much electricity they suck from the nearest outlet; they lack the memory and graphics cards needed to power the 3-D interface. Disabling Vista's flashiest features will help on some machines, but still won't solve the problem for many others. Critics like the U.K. Green Party are warning that Vista could trigger a huge new wave of electronic waste as companies and individuals ditch their old computers for more powerful new ones that can meet the operating system's demands. The Foreign Policy blog argues that Microsoft should offer a software upgrade for its older operating systems that would adjust energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency. Because the vast majority of the world's computers run on Microsoft software, the move could result in huge energy savings. "[N]o other company has an opportunity like Microsoft to make such a direct impact -- and practically overnight," the blog writes. "Microsoft could seize this chance to lead the pack, and come out on top as the greenest software company in the world." No word yet on whether Microsoft might take up the challenge -- but don't lose any sleep waiting for it. - - - - - - - - - - Kate Galbraith is an Austin-based journalist. Source: www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/02/07/vista/index.html
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Mar 7, 2007 14:41:08 GMT 4
FOOD ALERT! Mad scientists are messing with our crops. Rice with human genesI have had it with suspect edibles in the united States which they call food. It's becoming nearly impossible to find wholesome food in our grocery stores. Thanks again, U.S. Department of Agriculture, facilitator for biotech [pharmaceutical] industries. They're palming this off on us as a way to help save many of the two million children a year who die from diarrhoea. And for Western parents stuipd enough to believe it will help their children get over unpleasant stomach bugs more quickly, they see it as a cash cow.
Let's look at the claim that it will save many children who die from diarrhoea each year. Wouldn't installing sanitary water systems in poor countries be the humane and logical thing to do? I guess not when your bottom line is profits, and, maybe, setting up all kinds of health problems by ingesting this so called food, which then opens new markets for drug companies.
There's another thing that really bothers me about the mingling of human-origin genes in our food supply, and I'm just wonderin' here.....If Mad Cow Disease is a virus formed by bovine cannabalism, and humans can develop a similar infection through cannabalism, couldn't this apply to foods spliced with human genes? Frankenstein Foods indeed!
Since I mentioned Mad Cow Disease, if you haven't done so, please refer to the previous page of this thread for information on just how it's getting into our food supply, aside from ingesting the meat. It'll make you pause to wonder, "What's in your milk?" when you see advertisments for, "Got Milk?": Re: Sustainable Development « Reply #2 on Mar 30, 2006, 1:37pm » WHAT'S IN YOUR FOOD?THIS IS ONE OF THE COOLEST SITES I'VE FOUND. THEY'VE COME OUT WITH A SECOND FILM, "THE MEATRIX 2: REVOLTING." NOT ONLY DO THESE FILMS SHOW THE FILTH AND MISTREATMENT THE ANIMALS SUFFER FROM, BUT THERE IS MUCH ON WHAT THEY ARE INJECTED WITH; WHICH MEANS YOU THROUGH CONSUMPTION. Personally, I never eat cow products from the US, no cow's milk. Drink almond milk.
Read on folks, arm yourself with knowledge.....Michelle The rice with human genesBy SEAN POULTER Last updated at 08:57am on 6th March 2007 The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production. The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva. Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhoea, a major killer in the Third World. The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation. The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars. The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic. GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this." Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development. "If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers' plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating. "The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain. "The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause." In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors. "There would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins." The American Consumers Union and the Washingtonbased Centre for Food Safety also oppose Ventria's plans. As well as the contamination fears there are serious ethical concerns about such a fundamental interference with the building blocks of life. Yet there is no legal means for Britain and Europe to ban such products on ethical grounds. Imports would have to be accepted once they had gone through a scientific safety assessment. The development is what may people feared when, ten years ago, food scientists showed what was possible by inserting copies of fish genes from the flounder into tomatoes, to help them withstand frost. Ventria has produced three varieties of the rice, each with a different human-origin gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins. Two - lactoferrin and lysozyme - are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. The genes, cultivated and copied in a laboratory to produce a synthetic version, are carried into embryonic rice plants inside bacteria. Until now, plants with human-origin genes have been restricted to small test plots. Ventria originally planned to grow the rice in southern Missouri but the brewer Anheuser-Busch, a huge buyer of rice, threatened to boycott the state amid concern over contamination and consumer reaction. Now the USDA, saying the rice poses "virtually no risk". has given preliminary approval for it to be grown in Kansas, which has no commercial rice farms. Ventria will also use dedicated equipment, storage and processing facilities supposed to prevent seeds from mixing with other crops. The company says food products using the rice proteins could help save many of the two million children a year who die from diarrhoea and the resulting dehydration and complications. A recent study in Peru, sponsored by Ventria, showed that children with severe diarrhoea recovered a day and a half faster if the salty fluids they were prescribed included the proteins. The rice could also be a huge money-spinner in the Western world, with parents being told it will help their children get over unpleasant stomach bugs more quickly. Ventria chief executive Scott Deeter said last night: "We have a product here that can help children get better faster." He said any concerns about safety and contamination were "based on perception, not reality" given all the precautions the company was taking. Mr Deeter said production in plants was far cheaper than other methods, which should help make the therapy affordable in the developing world. He said: "Plants are phenomenal factories. Our raw materials are the sun, soil and water." Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440302------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jun 1, 2007 7:47:07 GMT 4
The hazards of GM crops and products to biodiversity and human and animal health Part 1 of 2Statement from world scientists and detailed info on the dangers of GMOs further down....MALERT OF THE WEEK: MONSANTO & BIG FOOD ATTACK LOCAL RIGHTS TO REGULATE FOOD AND CROPSSince 1998, the biotech industry and industrial food corporations have unsuccessfully tried to take away local and states' rights to ban or regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other controversial foods and crops. For example, OCA and other public interest groups successfully generated a mass outcry in 2006 that blocked the passage of the National Uniformity for Food Act. This highly unpopular bill would have nullified 200 food safety and food labeling laws across the U.S. Failing to suppress grassroots control over food safety laws and labels in the last session of Congress, industry has now called on their friends in the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry to slip a similar poison pill into an obscure section of the voluminous 2007-2012 Farm Bill. The provision would give the White House appointed Secretary of Agriculture the power to eliminate local or state food and farming laws, such as those in four California counties banning genetically engineered crops, and set an an ominous precedent undermining states' rights. Tell Congress to repeal this provision before it becomes law: www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5424.cfm------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GOOD NEWS OF THE WEEK: VENEZUELA MOVES TO BAN FRANKENCROPS[Another big plus in my book for Chavez...Michelle]Monsanto's plans to grow 500,000 acres of genetically engineered crops in Venezuela have been thwarted by the nation's popular President, Hugo Chavez. According to Chavez, when he learned about Monsanto's Plans, "I ordered an end to the project. This project is terminated." Chavez is now encouraging Venezuela's national legislature to pass some of the most sweeping restrictions on genetically modified organisms in the entire Western Hemisphere. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5353.cfm------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's some info I pulled from my files so you can begin to understand the dangers that GMOs pose to humanity....MOpen Letter from World Scientists to All Governments2 Jan 2000 Summary We, the undersigned scientists, call for the immediate suspension of all environmental releases of GM crops and products; for patents on life-forms and living processes to be revoked and banned; and for a comprehensive public enquiry into the future of agriculture and food security for all. Patents on life-forms and living processes threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources, violate basic human rights and dignity, compromise healthcare, impede medical and scientific research and are against the welfare of animals. Life-forms such as organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes are discoveries and hence not patentable. Current GM techniques which exploit living processes are unreliable, uncontrollable and unpredictable, and do not qualify as inventions. Furthermore, those techniques are inherently hazardous, as are many GM organisms and products. The latest largescale surveys of GM crops showed they offered no benefits. On the contrary, they yield significantly less and require more herbicides. GM crops intensify corporate monopoly on food which is driving family farmers to destitution, and preventing the essential shift to sustainable agriculture that can guarantee food security and health around the world The hazards of GM crops and products to biodiversity and human and animal health are now becoming apparent, and some even acknowledged by sources within the UK and US Governments. In particular, the horizontal spread of antibiotic resistance marker genes from GM crops will compromise the treatment of life-threatening infectious diseases which have come back worldwide. New findings show that the horizontal spread of transgenic DNA can occur, not only by ingestion but via breathing in pollen and dust. The cauliflower mosaic viral promoter, widely used in GM crops, may enhance horizontal gene transfer and has the potential to generate new viruses that cause diseases. We urge all Governments to take account of the scientific evidence in accordance with the precautionary principle, to negotiate a strong and effective International Biosafety Protocol under the CBD, and to ensure that biosafety legislations at the national and international levels take precedence over trade and financial agreements at the WTO. Research into sustainable agricultural methods that do not require GM crops should be widely supported. Many sustainable agricultural systems have already resulted in increased yields and diminished environmental impacts around the world. * * * We, the undersigned scientists, call for the immediate suspension of all environmental releases of GM crops and products, both commercially and in open field trials, for at least 5 years; for patents on living processes, organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes to be revoked and banned; and for a comprehensive public enquiry into the future of agriculture and food security for all. 1 Patents on life-forms and living processes threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources, violate basic human rights and dignity, compromise healthcare, impede medical and scientific research and are against the welfare of animals. Life-forms such as organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes are discoveries and hence not patentable. Current GM techniques which exploit living processes are unreliable, uncontrollable and unpredictable, and do not qualify as inventions. Furthermore, those techniques are inherently hazardous, as are many GM organisms and products. 2. It is becoming increasingly clear that current GM crops are neither needed nor beneficial. They are a dangerous diversion from the real task of providing food and health around the world. 3. The promises to genetic engineer crops to fix nitrogen, resist drought, improve yield and to 'feed the world' have been around for at least 30 years. Such promises have built up a multibillion-dollar industry now controlled by a mere handful of corporate giants. 4. The miracle crops have not materialised. Instead, two simple characteristics account for all the GM crops in the world. More than 70% are tolerant to broad-spectrum herbicides, with companies engineering plants to be tolerant to their own brand of herbicide, while the rest are engineered with bt-toxins to kill insect pests. A total of 65 million acres were planted in 1998 within the US, Argentina and Canada. The latest surveys on GM crops in the US, the largest grower by far, showed no significant benefit. On the contrary, the most widely grown GM crops - herbicide-tolerant soya beans - yielded on average 6.7% less and required two to five times more herbicides than non-GM varieties. 5. According to the UN food programme, there is enough food to feed the world one and a half times over. World cereal yields have consistently outstripped population growth since 1980, but one billion are hungry. It is on account of corporate monopoly operating under the globalised economy that the poor are getting poorer and hungrier. Family farmers all over the world have been driven to destitution and suicide, and for the same reasons. Between 1993 and 1997 the number of mid-sized farms in the US dropped by 74,440, and farmers are now receiving below the average cost of production for their produce. Four corporations currently control 85% of the world trade in cereals. 6. The new patents on seeds will intensify corporate monopoly by preventing farmers from saving and replanting seeds, which is what most farmers still do in the Third World. Christian Aid, a major charity working with the Third World, concludes that GM crops will cause unemployment, exacerbate Third World debt, threaten sustainable farming systems and damage the environment. It predicts famine for the poorest countries. 7. A coalition of family farming groups in the US have issued a comprehensive list of demands, including a ban on ownership of all life-forms; a suspension of sales, environmental releases and further approvals of all GM crops and products pending an independent, comprehensive assessment of the social, environmental, health and economic impacts; and for corporations to be made liable for all damages arising from GM crops and products to livestock, human beings and the environment. They are also demanding a moratorium on all corporate mergers and acquisitions, a moratorium on farm closures, and an end to policies that serve big agribusiness interests at the expense of family farmers, taxpayers and the environment. 8. The hazards of GM crops are now becoming apparent, and some of them are even acknowledged by sources within the UK and US Governments. For example, the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) has admitted that the transfer of GM crops and pollen beyond the planted fields is unavoidable, and this has already resulted in herbicide-tolerant weeds. Bt-resistant insect pests have evolved in response to the continuous presence of the toxins in GM plants throughout the growing season, and the US Environment Protection Agency is recommending farmers to plant up to 40% non-GM crops in order to create refugia for non-resistant insect pests. The broad-spectrum herbicides used with herbicide-tolerant GM crops not only decimate wild species indiscriminately, but are toxic to animals. One of them, glufosinate, causes birth defects in mammals, A Swedish study now links the top-selling herbicide, glyphosate, to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. GM crops with bt-toxins kill beneficial insects such as bees and lacewings, and pollen from bt-maize is lethal to monarch butterflies. GM potatoes with snowdrop lectin, previously found to harm ladybirds, are now confirmed to be toxic to young rats. 9. Products resulting from genetically modified organisms have also been found to be hazardous. For example, a batch of tryptophan produced by GM microorganisms was associated with at least 37 deaths and 1500 serious illnesses. Genetically modified Bovine Growth Hormone, injected into cows in order to increase milk yield, not only causes excessive suffering and illnesses for the cows but increases IGF-1 in the milk, which is linked to breast and prostate cancers in humans. It is vital for the public to be protected from all GM products, and not only those containing transgenic DNA or protein. 10. A potential source of health hazards from GM crops is from the secondary horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA to unrelated species; in principle, to all species interacting with the transgenic plants. The spread of antibiotic resistance marker genes to pathogens is the most immediate danger as this will further compromise treatment of life-threatening drug and antibiotic resistance diseases which have come back worldwide. However, the random insertion of foreign DNA into genomes associated with horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA can also result in many harmful effects, including cancer in mammalian cells. The potential for horizontal gene transfer is now also acknowledged by sources within the US and UK Governments. 11. The possibility for naked or free DNA to be taken up by mammalian cells is explicitly mentioned in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) draft guidance to industry on antibiotic resistance marker genes. In commenting on the FDA's document, the UK MAFF pointed out that transgenic DNA may be transferred not just by ingestion, but by contact with plant dust and air-borne pollen during farm work and food processing, and cited several significant new findings bearing on the issue. 12. Thus, plant DNA is not readily degraded during most commercial food processing. Procedures such as grinding and milling left grain DNA largely intact, as did heat-treatment at 90oC. Plants placed in silage showed little degradation of DNA, and the special UK MAFF report advises against using GM plants or plant waste in animal feed. 13. The letter from UK MAFF to US FDA also mentions new findings that the human mouth contains bacteria capable of taking up and expressing naked DNA containing antibiotic resistance marker genes, and similar transformable bacteria are also present in the respiratory tracts. 14. What both regulatory authorities have failed to consider is that transgenic pollens, which may have increased allergenicity and toxicity besides, will almost certainly spread far afield to the general public. Similarly, the current unregulated practice of feeding farm animals transgenic grain and plant remains, and transgenic wastes, both ensilaged and otherwise, is endangering the health of farm animals and of human beings in spreading antibiotic resistance marker genes and other transgenic DNA. 15. Serious health concerns are also raised by the cauliflower mosaic viral (CaMV) promoter in transgenic DNA. The CaMV promoter, widely used to boost expression of transgenes, is known to contain a 'recombination hotspot'. One common mechanism of recombination involves the double-stranded DNA breaking and joining with other double-stranded DNA. This has been identified as the mechanism generating many different lines of transgenic rice during a routine experiment. Extensive recombination at the hotspot has taken place in the absence of the viral recombinase enzyme, indicating that the host plant cell can catalyse such recombinations. Thus, the CaMV promoter has an enhanced capability to transfer horizontally, with potentially dangerous consequences. 16. CaMV is closely related to human hepatitis B virus, and also has a reverse transcriptase gene related to that in retroviruses such as the AIDS-associated HIV. Moreover, at least one regulatory sequence for viral replication in CaMV may be interchangeable with that in HIV. Thus, the CaMV promoter not only enhances horizontal gene transfer, but has the potential to reactivate dormant viruses (which are in all genomes) and to generate new viruses by recombination. 17. The British Medical Association, in their interim report (published May, 1999), called for an indefinite moratorium on the releases of GMOs pending further research on new allergies, the spread of antibiotic resistance genes and the effects of transgenic DNA. This position is fully in accord with the precautionary principle. 18. Contrary to the claims of the UK Government, no useful results can be obtained in the current massive 'farm-scale' trials of transgenic herbicide-tolerant oil-seed rape and maize where the spread of transgenic pollens cannot be controlled, and which make no attempts to monitor for horizontal gene transfer or for impacts on health. 19. We urge all Governments to take proper account of the now substantial scientific evidence of hazards arising from GM technology and many of its products, and to impose an immediate moratorium on further releases in accordance with the precautionary principle. In particular, Governments should negotiate a strong and effective International Biosafety Protocol under the Convention of Biological Diversity, and to insist that biosafety legislations at the national and international levels take precedence over trade and financial agreements of the WTO. 20. Research into sustainable, non-corporate agricultural systems which do not involve GM crops should be widely supported. Many of those systems have already resulted in increased yield and income for family farmers, diminished environmental impacts, and improvements in nutrition and health for all. Continued....
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jun 1, 2007 7:50:57 GMT 4
....continued: The hazards of GM crops and products to biodiversity and human and animal health Part 2 of 2
Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments 2 Jan 2000 [...continued:]
World Scientists' Statement
World Scientists' Statement launched in Cartegena, Columbia, (Feb. 1999) during the UN Convention of Biological Diversity Conference on the International Biosafety Protocol, calling on all governments to:
* Impose an immediate moratorium on further environmental releases of transgenic crops, food and animal-feed products for at least 5 years. * Ban patents on living organisms, cell lines and genes. * Support a comprehensive, independent public enquiry into the future of agriculture and food security for all, taking account of the full range of scientific findings as well as socioeconomic and ethical implications.
Signed (240 scientists from 32 countries):
Prof. Adolfo E. Boy, Horticulture and Sustainable Agri. Univ. Moron, Chair of Inst. of Sustainble Agriculture, Argentina Dr. Graeme E. Browne, General Practitioner, Melbourne, PSRAST, Australia Dr. Horst W. Doelle, Prof. Micobiology, Univ. Queensland retired, Chair of International Organisation for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Director, MIRCEN-Biotechnology, Brisbance and Pacific Regional Networ, Australia Dr. Lynette J. Dumble, Medical Scientist, Women’s Health & Environment, University of Melbourne, Australia Angela Fehringer, Anthropology Student, Sydney, Australia Stephen Glanville PDC, ECOS Design, Australia Dr. Richard Hindmarsh, Envinronmental Social Scientist, University of Queensland, Australia Margaret Jackson, B.Sc.Genetics, National Genetics Awareness Alliance, Australia Lisa McDonald, Agronomist, CRC for Sustainable Sugar Production, James Cook University, Australia Dr. Peter J. McMachon, Plant Physiologist, Genethics, Australia Conservation Foundation, Australia Dr. Paul Nelson, CSIRO Land and Water, PMB, Australia Dr. Ted Steele, Molecular Immunologist, U. Wollengong, Australia DI Gertrude Kaffenbock. Ph.D. candidate, Agricultural Economist, St. Polton, Austria Dr. Maria G. Neunteufel, Economist, Vienna, Austria Dr Farhad Mazhar, Ecologist, New Agricultural Movement, Bangladesh Paulo Roberto Martins, Research Institute of Technology, Brazil Renata Menasche, Anthropologist, Federal Un. of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Dr Thomas R. Preston, Un. of Tropical Agriculture, Cambodia Prof. Emeritus Braxton, M. Alfred, Anthropologist, Univ. British Columbia, Canada Dr Warren Bell, MD, Canad. Assoc. of Physicians for the Environ., Canada Denis Cauchon, M.Sc. Ph.D. candidate, Toxicology, Ecole HEC, Montreal, Canada Yoon C. Chen, B.Sc., DPM Podiatrist, Foot Clinic, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada Prof. Alain Cuerrier, Taxonomy/Botany, Quebec, Univ. of Montreal, Canada Prof. Joe Cummins, Geneticist, University of Western Ontario, Canada Prof. Emeritus Edwin E. Daniel, FRSC, Health Science, McMaster Univ. Ontario, Canada Virginia F. Flamarique, AMD, Consultant Agrologist, Edmonton, Canada Aaron Jette, Anthrolopogy student, McGill Univ., Montreal, Canada Dr. Gavin A. Kemp, ret. Researcher, Vegetable Crop Breeding, Lethbridge, Canada Prof. Ronald Labonte, Population Health Research Director, Ontario, Canada Prof. Abby Lippman, Epidemologist & Geneticist, McGill Un. Canada Prof. Ralph C. Martin, Plant Science, Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Truro, Canada Laura Mitchell, Earth Scientist, APEGBG, Canada Dr. James A. Nero, D.C., General Practitioner, neuromusculoskeletal medicine, Coquitlam, Canada Anna D. Noikov, B.A.B.Ed., Wholistic Practitioner, Edmonton, Canada Dr. Ingrid C. Northwood, Biochemist, Simon Fraser Univ., Canada Steve Robak, Canadian Department of National Defence, Canada Dr. Carolyn A. Simmerman, ND.DC, Docotr., Whole Health Centre, Edmonton, Canada Prof. David Suzuki, David Suzuki Foundation, Geneticist, U.B.C., Canada John B. Van Loon, M.Sc., Storage Entomologist, retired, Canadian Grain Commission, Winnipeg, PSRAST, Canada Prof. R.M. Wolfson, Physicist, Maharishi Vedic College, Ottawa, Canada Dr. John C. Worketin, Retired computer scientist, Ontario, Canada Damjan Bogdanovic, PhD candidate, Un Zagreb, Croatia Damir Magdic, M.Sc. Food Scientist, Osijek Un, Croatia Prof. Marijan Jost, Plant Geneticist, Agricultural College, Krizevci, Croatia Dr. Zora Matrovic, MD, MS, Vice-President, Croatia Natural Law Party, Croatia Vesna Samobor, M.Sc. Agricultural College, Krizevci, Croatia Prof. Drasko Seman, Ecologist, Univ. Zagreb Medical School, Croatian Man and Biosphere Committee, UNESCO South Eastern Mediterranean Sea Project, UNESCO Comm. Ed. & Communication, INCN, European Committee on Environmental Ed., IUCN, Croatia Prof Anton Svajger, Un Zagreb Medical School, Croatia Dr. Gennadi Kobzar, Senior Scientist, Biomedicine, Institute of Chemistry, Tallinn Technical Univ. PSRAST, Estonia. Dr. Tewolde Egziabher, Agronomist, Min. of the Environment, Spokesperson for African Region, Ethiopia Sylvain Allombert, M.Sc., Ph.D. Student, Ecology, Centre National de la Recherche Scientificque, Monpellier, PSRAST, France Dr. Jean-Pierre Berlan, Directeur de Recherches INR/CTESI, France Dr. Luc G. Bulot, Researcher, ESA CNRS 6019- Centre de Sedimentologie- Paleontologie, Marseille, PSRAST, France Dr. George Capouthier, Biologist, Univ. Paris, France Dr. Marie Christine Dictor, Unité Biotechnologie, BRGM Environment & Procédés, France Dr. Jean Estrangin, MK, General Practice, Grenoble, France Alain Fardif, Certificat of therapist, Paris, France Dr. Herve Le Meur, Biomathematician, Univ. Paris, France Dr. Vic Norris, IFR Systems Integres, Univ. Rouen, France Dr. Jean-Michel Panoff, Microbiologist, Univ. of Caen, Caen, France Thieerry Raffin, Sociologue, President de ‘Inf’OGM, France Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini, Laboratoire de Biochimie& Moleculaire, Univ. Caen, France Dr. Reinald Doebel, Institute of Sociology, Rural and Development Soc., Westfaelische Wilhelms Univ., Germany Dr. Beatrix Tappeser, Head of Dept., Risk analysis of genetic engineering, Institute for Applied Ecology, Freiburg, Germany Dr. Christine von Weisaeker, Ecoropa, Germany Dr. Rebecca C. Wade, Molecular Biology, Heidelberg, Germany Dr Christiane Boecker, MCommH, Community Health, Haiti Kevin Li, B.Sc., Hong Kong, Hong Kong Prof. Ervin Laszlo, President, The Club of Budapest, Hungary Dr. Muhua Achary, Environmentalist, St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, India Dr. Thomas S. Cox, Research Geneticist, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Manhattan, KS (retired) - present address Hyderabad, India C. Nanjunda Murthy, M.Sc. Plant Scientist, Karnataka, India Dr. N. Raghauram, Plant Molecular Biology, Univ. Mumbai, India Devinder Sharma, Geneticist, Plant Breeder and Writer, Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, New Delhi, India Dr. Vandana Shiva, Research Institute for Science and Ecology, India Dr. Ernawati, Gender and Rural Development, Institute of Rural Development, Indonesia Dr Giorgio Cingolani, Agricultural Economist, Italy Dr. Bruno D'Udine, Behaviour Ecologist, University of Udine, Italy Prof. Adriano Decarli, Cancer Epidermiology, INST, Univ. Milan, Italy Prof. Leopoldo Silvestroni, Endocrinologist, Univ. of Rome, Italy Professor. Em. Shingo Shibata, Hiroshima University; Environmental Sociology and Biosafety, Tokyo, Japan Prof. Atuhiro Sibatani, Molecular Biologist, Osaka, Japan Dr Shiron Sugita, Plant Geneticist, Nagoya U. Japan Dr Noeoru Tagishita, Plant Geneticist, Jap. Assoc. Agro-Nature, Tokyo, Japan Dr Machiko Yasukohchi, PLAN - International Japan Public Relations Team, Japan Jaroen Compeerapap, Environmental Law and Development Center, The Netherlands Robert Anderson, PSRG, New Zealand Sigrid D. Houlette, B.Sc. Solid Waste Manager, Environemtal Engineering, Local Government, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Dr. Shona L. Lamoureaux, Plant Ecology, Christchurch, New Zealand Dr Robert Mann, Ecologist, Auckland, New Zealand Dr Peter R Wills, Theoretical Biology, Uni. Auckland, New Zealand Dr Ingrid Olesen, Senior Research Scientist, Institute of Aquaculture Res. Ltd, Norway Dr. Lars Rasmussen, MD, General Practitioner, Univ. Oslo, Mesnali, Norway Prof. Terje Traavik, Virologist, University of Tromso, Norway Dr. Pamela G. Fernadez, Agronomist, U. Philippines, Los Banos, Philippines Charles T. Olsen, D.C., Chiropractic Clinic, Davao Clinic, PSRAST, Philippines Dr. Romeo F. Quijano, Pesticide Action Network, Pharmacologist/Toxiologist, Philippines Prof. Oscar B. Zamora, Agronomist, U. Philippines, Los Banos, Philippines Dr. Margarida Silva, Molecular Biologist, Portuguese Catholic Univ., Portugal Dr. Franciso J.C. M. Teixeira, Researcher, Geophysics, Geological and Mining Institute, Lisbon, Portugal Dr. Clara E. Carrasco Genetics and Molecular Biology, UPR Ponce, Puerto Rico Glenn Ashton, Director, Ekogaia Foundation, and Green Party, South Africa Dr Gregorio Alvar, Biotechnologist,. Computense U. Madrid, Spain Javier Blasco, Aragonese Ctr for Rural European Information, Spain Prof. Ernest Garcia, Ph. D., Sociology, Univ. Valencia, Dept. Sociologia I Antropologia Social, Valencia, Spain Prof. F. Pura Duart Soler, Sociology, Univ. Valencia, PSRAST, Spain Prof. Every N. Gummesson, Management, Stockholm Univ. PSRAST, Sweden Said O. Holmin, Lic. Technology, Rector, Computer Science, College of Creative Computer Science, Stockholm, Sweden Dr. Katarina Leppanen, History of Ideas, Gothenburg Uni, Sweden, Dr. Jaan Suurkula, Physician, Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Assessment of Science and Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Dr. Daniel Amman, Cell Biologist, Tech. Switzerland Dr. Ruth Goseth, Dermatologist, ISDE, Switzerland Florianne Koechlin, Biologist, World Wildlife Fund, Switzerland Yvan Maillard, dipl. Sc. Nat. ETH, Environementalist, Ecology, Fribourg, PSRAST, Switzerland Yves Schatzle, Agronomist and Economist, Switzerland Verena Soldati, Biotechnologist, Basler Appell, Switzerland. Prof. Omboom Luanratana, Pharmacologist, Univ. of Mahedol, Bangkok, Thailand Dr. Michael L. Abrahams, (retired) Aeronautics, Bristol, PSRAST, UK Dr. Michael Antoniou, Molecular Geneticist, Guy's Hospital, UK Dr. Susan Bardocz, Geneticist, Aberdeen, UK Manoel Bascoi, Geneticist, PhD Candidate, JII, UK Dr. David Bellamy, Biologist and Broadcaster, London, UK Lynda Birke , Biologist, Liverpool Uni. Veterinary School, UK Dr. David A.H. Birley, General Medical Practitioner, Swindon, UK Gerard C. Bodeker, Ed. D., Senior Clinical Lecturer in Public Health, Univ. Oxford Medical School, UK Sophie H. Bown, B.Sc. Ph.D. Candidate, Zoology, Manchester Univ., UK Dr. M.E. Caparis, Nea Ecologia, Marine Biology, London Univ., UK Dr. Alan Currier, Taxonomist, IRBV, UK Gordon Daly Ph. D. student, Gene Therapist, Kennedy Inst. London, UK Stuart Daly Ph. D. student, Transgenic group, Charing Cross Hosp. UK Joseph A. Gari, Marie Curie Research Fellow, Political Ecology, University of Oxford, UK Dr. Alassandro Gimona, Research Scientist, Ecology, MLURI, Aberdeen, UK Prof. Brian Goodwin, Biologist, Schumacher College, UK Edward Goldsmith, Editor, The Ecologist, London, UK Zac Goldsmith, Editor, The Ecologist, London, UK Lale Gurel, Bec., Manager, Nature – Macmillan Publishers, London, UK Dr. Keith H. Halfacree, Univ. Lecturer, Geography, Univ. of Wales Swansea, UK Dr. John E. Hammond, Engineer, Highfield, UK Dr. David J Heaf, Biochemist, Wales, UK Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Geneticist and Biophysicist, Open University, UK Patrick Holden, Director, Soil Association, UK Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Toxipathologist, U. Liverpool, UK Dr. Brian Hursey, ex FAO Senior Officer for Vector Borne Diseases, Neath , UK. Prof. Tim Ingold, Anthropologist, University of Aberdeen, UK Peter Preston Jones, MSc, Environomental Campaigner, UK Dani Kaye M.Sc. Scientists for Global Responsibility London, UK David Kaye M.Sc. Scientists for Global Responsibility, London, UK Dr J. M. Kerr, Bioethics, Winchester College: Oxford U. UK Dr. Philip Kilner, Cardiac Imaging Specialist, Royal Brompton Hospital, UK Prof. Richard Lacey, Microbiologist, Leeds, UK Dr. Colin L.A. Leakey, Plant Geneticist, Cambridge, UK Darl N. Middleton, Ph. D. Candidate, Environ. Science, Drpt. Civil Engineering, Univ. Manchester, UK Patrick Mulvany, C Biol Food Security Policy Adviser, specialising in Agricultural Biodiversity Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) UK Dr. Harash Narang, Pathologist, BSE expert, UK Dr. Eva Novotny, Astrophysicist, Univ. Cambridge (retired), UK Dr. David Packham, Material Scientist, U. Bath, UK Fatima Pelica, Biochemist, PhD Candidate, JII, UK Dr. Michel Pimbert, Agricultural Ecologist, International Institute for Environment and Develoment, London,UK Dr. Robert C. Poller, Organic Chemist, U. London, UK Prof. Arpad Pusztai, Biochemist, Formerly from Rowett Institute, UK Dr. Jerry Ravetz, Philosopher of Science, London, UK Angela Ryan, Molecular biologist, Open Univ. UK Dr. Jean A.D. Saunders, BDS, LDS RCS, Dental Surgeon (retired) Faringdon, UK Prof. Peter Saunders, Biomathematician, U. London, UK Dr. Gesa Staats de Yanes, Veterinarian Toxicologists, U. Liverpool, UK Prof. Ian Stewart, Biomathematics, U. Warwick, UK Dr. Gene S. Thomas, Agriculturist, UK Dr. Margaret J. Tyson, Glossop, PSRAST, UK Dr Tom Wakeford, Biologist, U. of East London, UK Barbara Wood-Kaczmar, M.Sc., Science writer, UK Dr. Karen Wren, University teacher, Geography, St. Andrews Univ., St. Andrews, Fife, UK Dr. Catherine Badley, Biologist, University of Michigan USA Dr. Britt Bailey, Senior Researcher, CETOS, Ca, USA Prof. Phil Bereano, Council for Responsible Genetics, U. Washington USA Dr Walter Bortz, Physician, Palo Alto, USA Dr. Douglas H Boucher, Ecologist, Hood College USA Prof. Liebe F. Cavalieri, Mathematical Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour, Univ. Minnesota, St. Paul, USA Vijaykumar V.C. Chalasani, MS, Consultant East Brunswick USA Dr. Ignacio Chapela, Microbiologist & Ecologist, U.C. Berkeley, USA Kristin Cobelius M.Sc. Student, U. Michigan USA Dr. Martha Crouch, Biologist, Indiana University, USA Dr. Carolyn F.A. Dean, MD ND, Consultant, Integrative Medicine, Holeopathic Pharmakeia, NY, USA Board of Women for a Safe Future Dr. David Ehrenfeld, Biologist/Ecologist, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA Dr. Samuel Epstein, School of Public Health, Univ. Illinois, Chicago, USA Juiet S Erazo PhD student U. of Michigan USA Professor John B. .Fagan, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA Dr. Ty Fitzmorris, Ecologist, Hampshire College USA Dr Michael W Fox, Veterinarian & Bioethicist, Washington DC, USA Cynthia A. Frye, FS/MS Student, Biology, Univ. Texas Medical Branch, USA Prof. John Garderineer, Biologist, U. Michigan USA Dr. Barbara K. Given, Faculty Researcher, George Mason Univ. Fairfax, USA Dr. Jay L. Glaser, MK, Medical Director, Maharishi Ayurveda Medical Center, Lancaster, USA Dr Herve Grenier, Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change, Univ. Washington,USA Dr. Gayle Robin Hamilton, Assoc. Prof. Centre for the Advancement of Public Health, Fairfax, VA, USA Rev. Dorothy A. Harper, Biotethics, Washington, USA Paul C. Helgeson, BSME Senior Engineer, Middleton, WI, USA Prof. Martha Herbert , Pediatric Neurologist, Mass. Gen. Hosp. USA Philip H Howard, Ph.D candidate, Rural Sociology, Uni. of Missouri, USA Prof. Ruth Hubbard, Biologist, Harvard University, USA Alex Jack, Planetary Medicine, Jushi Institute, Becket, Mass, USA Dr. Gary P. Kaplan, Assoc. Prof. Neurology, North Shore Univ. Hosp., NYU School of Medicine, Mass, USA Dr. Arlene M. Kellman, D.O., Physician, Tucson, USA Prof. Jonathan King, Molecular Biology, MIT, Cambridge, Council for Responsible Genetics, USA Dr Jack Kloppenburg, Un. Wisconsin, Rural Sociologist, USA Heidei A. Kratsch, R.D./Graduate Student, Plant Physiology, Univ. Wisconsin, USA Dr. Louis H. Krut, MK, CHB.:MD, St. Louis Univ. Medical School, Missouri, USA U.V. Kutzli Ph.D. Candidate, U of Michigan USA Dr. Marc Lappe, Geneticist and Director CETOS, Ca, USA Sean Lyman Student Gettysbury College USA Dr. Timothy Mann, Geographer, Hampshire College Anne-Marie Mayer, Ph. D. candidate, Nutrition, Cornell Univ., USA Lynn V. McIndoo, Student, Environmental Resources Engineering, Humboldt State Univ., Arcata, USA Vuejuin McKersen M.Sc, Natural Resource Manager U. Michigan, USA Dr. Stephen L. Mikesell, Anthropology and Political Ecology, Univ. Wisconsin, Madison, USA Dr. Usha Mukhtyar, M.D. Consultant, Gynecology & Obstetrics, Bronx, New York USA Prof. Stuart A. Newman, Developmental Biology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York USA Lena S Nicolai PhD Student University of Michigan USA Dr. Ingrid C. Northwood, Biochemist, Simon Fraser University, USA Dr. Ronald E. Openshaw, Adjunct Faculty, Geology, Physics, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, USA Marial Peelle, Biol./Anthropologist Undergrad. Swarthmors College USA Dr. Juette Peufecto, Biologist, U of Michigan USA Chris Picone M.Sc. Soil Microbiologist, U. Michigan USA Dr. Caros R Ramirez, Biologist, St Lawrance University USA Prof. Philip J. Regal, Dept. Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Univ. Minnesota, St. Paul, USA Professor R.H.Richardson,Ph.D. Professor of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, USA Dr. Peter M. Rosset, Ins. for Food and Development Policy, USA Prof. Philip B. Rudnick, Emeritus, Chemistry, West Chester Univ., Pennsylvania, PSRAST, USA Dr. Arthur Rybeck Jr D.D.S. Dentistry and Organic Farmer, Wheeling, USA Thomas J. Saunders, Student, Environmental Science, Humboldt State Univ., Arcata, USA Dr. Nancy A Schult, Entomologist, U of Wisconsin-Madison USA Dr. Brian Schultz, Ecologist, Hampshire College USA Prof. David Schwartzman, Geochemist, Howard Uni. Washington DC USA Dr Linda Jean Sheperd, Biochemist, Gaia Blessings, USA Dr. Gerald Smith, Zoologist, U. Michigan, USA Dr. John Soluri, Historian of Science, Carnegie Mellon U USA Doreen Stabinsky Geneticist International Environmental Politics and Policy, California State University at Sacrament, United States Rosa Vazquez Student in Biology, Ohio State University USA Ryan White Student St Lawrence University USA Dr, Suzanne M. Wuerthele, Toxicologist, Toxicology & Risk Assessment, federal regulatory agency, Denver, USA Dr. John Zamarra, M.D., Cardiology, Fullerton, USA
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Aug 17, 2007 8:08:19 GMT 4
Shop Fair Trade: Economic action to create a just global economy for farmers and artisans
Come on, folks, get behind the Fair Trade Movement! Buying Fair Trade Products does much good for humans and the planet. Ask your local supermarkets to stock Fair Trade Products too. If you were to reflect on the saying, "You are what you eat," why would you want to ingest/wear/use products infected with the negative energy of bottom line greed, oppression, adverse health effects, and environmental destruction associated with many brand name corporate products?
Live and Eat Mindfully, MichelleWhat to Know 12 Ways to Shop Fair Trade
Good news! The Fair Trade marketplace is broader and more vibrant than ever before. That's the lesson our editors learned while putting together our latest Guide to Fair Trade which makes its debut as a 24-page online PDF (at right). FREE Fair Trade Guide Download our Fair Trade guide to find out the latest on the expanding universe of Fair Trade products. Download now (PDF) » www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages/ In our latest guide, you'll learn how Fair Trade provides a fair wage for farmers in crisis, invests in community infrastructure, preserves our environment, and more. You'll read interviews with producers and distributors across the Fair Trade supply chain, and most importanly, you'll get tips on how to take action to build demand for Fair Trade. To whet your appetite, below we present 12 ways you can shop Fair Trade today, and we link you into our National Green Pages™ online which is filled with companies selling hundreds of Fair Trade products. (When you download our PDF, you'll also find a handy four-page directory section listing Fair Trade companies that are part of our green business network.) When we published our first Fair Trade guide four years ago, coffee was the most visible Fair Trade product, with chocolate and tea just beginning to make waves in the US marketplace. We're so pleased to report the amazing growth of the Fair Trade marketplace, and to link you to all the great Fair Trade products you see below. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Tea — One of the fastest-growing segments of the Fair Trade market, US imports of Fair Trade tea increased an impressive 187 percent in 2005. Since then, herbal tea products like chamomile, hibiscus, peppermint, and spearmint have gained Fair Trade status. Tea lovers can find teas bagged, loose, and bottled. Look for black tea, oolong, chai, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 2. Chocolate — The average American eats 12 pounds of chocolate a year, supporting an industry that saw retail sales of more than $16 billion in 2007. If you're among the 46 percent of Amreicans who say they can't live without chocolate, you can avoid the well-documented problem of child slave labor in the cocoa industry, and direct your share of that $16 billion toward chocolate that helps communities and the environment. Look for candy bars, baking cocoa, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 3. Fresh Fruit — In Europe, where Fair Trade fruit has been available since the mid-1990s, Fair Trade bananas have reached a market share as high as 24 percent. In the US, Fair Trade tropical fruits like bananas, mangoes, and pineapples became available in 2004, and their availaibility is growing, especially in natural foods stores and food co-operatives. Find a store near you selling Fair Trade fruit by using TransFair USA's store locator. Sign our letter to supermarkets asking them to stock Fair Trade bananas » 4. Sugar — Phosphorus run-offs from the conventional sugar industry in Florida have devastaed the ecosystem of the Everglades, and the sugar lobby has worked aggressively to avoid responsibility. Sustainable alternatives to sugar like locally grown, organic maple syrup or honey can help you avoid the problems in the sugar industry, as can Fair Trade Certified™ sugar, introduced to the US in 2005. Look for Turbinado, cane sugar, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 5. Rice — While most of the white and brown rice consumed in the US was grown on US farms, most aromatic long-grain rice comes to our tables from small-scale farms in Asia where it was harvested by hand. Workers on these farms often find themselves squeezed by middle merchants and sickened by pesticides; Fair Trade rice—most of which is also organic—protects both workers and the environment. Look for Jasimine, coral, Basmati, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 6. Vanilla — Working with a labor-intensive crop that yields a relatively low harvest, vanilla farmers are hard-hit when their market fluctuates, as it has since environmental disasters at key procuction centers in 2000. TransFair USA began certifying vanilla in 2006, and new Fair Trade Certified™ vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry's arrived in supermarkets in January 2007, joining their previous Fair Trade coffee and chocolate flavors. Look for whole beans and vanilla extracts in the National Green Pages™ » 7. Spices — The European Fair Trade certifying body (FLO) approved standards for Fair Trade spices in 2005. In Europe, products like ginger cookies and lemongrass soap have begun to appear with Fair Trade spices among their ingedients, as hopeful sign for the future of Fair Trade spices in the US. Look for ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 8. Wine — Introduced to the US market in 2007, Fair Trade wine has been produced in South Africa since 2003, and in Chile and Argentina since 2004. The South African certification process requires vineyard workers to maintain a legally protected minimum 25 percent interest in the winery, in support of the South African government's policies romoting equal land ownerships following Apartheid. Look for Merlot, Grenache, and more in the National Green Pages™ » 9. Olive oil — The Canaan Fair Trade Association uses the Fair Trade concept to empower marginalized Palestinian rural communities caught in conflict so they can sustain their livelihoods and culture. Farmers are guaranteed a minimum price, and receive a 10 percent Fair Trade premium above market price, plus a 10 percent organic premium above market price. Look for olive oil in the National Green Pages™ » 10. Sports balls — When the European Fair Trade certification body (FLO) created standards for soccer ball production in 2002, it was the first time a non-agricultural commodity had received certification. Since then, four Pakistani and one Thai producer have achieived certification, ensuring that no child lavor is involved, and that workers receive a living wage in a healthy work environment. Look for soccer balls, volley balls, and more, in the National Green Pages™ » 11. Arts and crafts — Producers of unique, handmade, artisanal Fair Trade products like jewelry, baskets, textiles, and other handicrafts belong to trade associations that screen for internationally recognized Fair Trade standards. For example, our ally the Fair Trade Federation links low-income producers with consumer marketers that pledge to: pay fair wages in the local context, support participatory workplaces, ensure environmental sustainability and public accountability, and suppply financial and technical support. Look for Fair Trade craft products in the National Green Pages™ » 12. Coffee — Available since the late 1990s, Fair Trade coffee is the most widespread and recognizable Fair Trade commodity. Currently, it is the fastest growing segment of the $11 billion US specialty coffee maket, and about 85 percent of Fair Trade coffee is also organic. Look for Fair Trade coffee in the National Green Pages™ » To learn more and to order products Go to: www.coopamerica.org/programs/fairtrade/whattoknow/12waystoshopfairtrade.cfm
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Sept 20, 2007 16:23:09 GMT 4
Rachel Carson's Legacy Bill Moyers Journal t r u t h o u t | Programming Note PBS Airtime: Friday, September 21, 2007, at 9 p.m. EDT on PBS (check local listings at www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html). Bill Moyers Journal looks at the life and legacy of Rachel Carson and her book, "Silent Spring," which launched the modern environmental movement. Forty-five years after the publication of Rachel Carson's landmark book, "Silent Spring," which launched the modern environmental movement, her disturbing story of how toxic chemicals were poisoning the earth still resonates. But who was Rachel Carson? And what can the ferocious debate she started and the vicious attacks she endured tell us about environmentalism in the 21st century? Bill Moyers Journal looks at the life and legacy of Rachel Carson through an extraordinary portrayal of her in a one-woman play performed by veteran stage actress Kaiulani Lee, whose play, "A Sense of Wonder," has been the centerpiece of regional and national conferences on conservation, education, journalism and the environment for more than ten years. The broadcast combines excerpts from the play, an interview with Lee and documentary reporting on Carson's life and work in a powerful look at this scientist, writer and seeker of the truth. Source:www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091907U.shtmlNote from Michelle:
"I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially." E.B. White
Rachel Carson's message has been a motivating force throughout my entire life. My higher education was in Environmental Science and Technology and I held many jobs within large and small corporations because of this education. Back then, companies, or at least the facilities I worked at, were responsive to their environmental responsibilities; I worked to monitor and to prevent mishaps.
Rachel Carson's birthplace is but a couple of miles from my home. My son and I have been long time volunteering members at the Rachel Carson Homestead. I am continually amazed at the fact that many persons, children included, in my area do not know who Rachel Carson is! I understand that schools in Ohio have moved toward including studies of Ms. Carson in eighth grade curriculums. I do not believe that this has been done in Ms. Carson's home state of Pennsylvania. Her life and work should be mandatory in all schools along with the kind of education that prepares people for livelihoods suited to our planetary ills. Resolution of the great ecological challenges of the next century will require us to reconsider the substance and purpose of education.
Those now being educated will have to do what we, the present generation, have been unable or unwilling to do: stabilize world population; stabilize and then reduce the emission of greenhouse gases; protect biological diversity; reverse the destruction of forests everywhere; and conserve soils. They must learn how to use energy and materials with great efficiency. They must learn how to utilize solar energy in all of its forms. They must build an economy which eliminates waste and pollution. They must learn how to manage renewable resources for the long run. They must begin the work of repairing, as much as possible, the damage done to our home, Earth, in the past 200 years of industrialization. AND they must do all of this WHILE they reduce worsening social and racial inequalities.
No generation has ever had to face a more daunting agenda. And for the most part, our young are still being educated as if there were no planetary emergency. The skills, aptitudes, and attitudes necessary to industrialize the planet are not those that will be needed to heal Earth or to build durable economies and good communities. Are your children being educated this way? Have you checked the substance of their studies lately?....You should. My son is being prepared for this type of future because I have made it my life's work to do so. When he was born, I promised the Universe that I would put the best human I could raise out into the world. His education centers on ecological soundness; even his math problems are designed with this in mind. Everything we do and how we live is done with our eyes on what will be the results of our actions and decisions. Nothing is bought by us without consideration of the waste it will produce or the damage that may have been inflicted during its manufacture. We live simply and are mindful of where we tread and what we leave behind.
When Rachel Carson was 10 years old, she had short story published in a children's magazine. Upon seeing that story for the first time in print, she decided she would become a writer. At the Rachel Carson Homestead Association, that piece of Carson's past became the impetus for an annual poster and poetry contest in which children use art to interpret quotes from Carson's most famous book, "Silent Spring." My son, Addam, whose poem won 1st place, said he wanted people to hear the message, "Wake up and look around you. Pesticides threaten nature and people need to take that threat more seriously." Here is his poem; I may have posted this one somewhere at the FH Forum in the past, but feel that it fits perfectly into this posting. And hey, I'm a rather proud mum, so let me have my day.....MichelleWHERE ARE WE GOING?
I like to be up in a tree Where I watch the birds And the river glittering under the sun. This beautiful earth has many secrets And much to tell; Like on a page of lovely meadow flowers. But the page is seldom read. The beauty of the earth is fading, And people don't read its messages. Most care keepers of the earth, Have failed, For this is our job to protect all. You can't harm the lowest soil creature Without harming all. When the bird's and the bees go, The plants and the animals will follow. Human where do you think, You are going? We must love and protect all creatures Like family. We must love the earth, For she is our mother, Who supports us all.
By: Addam 05/11/05
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Sept 24, 2007 16:17:26 GMT 4
If you care about the future of our planet and we, the inhabitants, clearly, Dennis Kucinich is the only presidential candidate to consider...MichelleKucinich on the RecordAn interview with Dennis Kucinich about his presidential platform on energy and the environmentBy Amanda Griscom Little 01 Aug 2007 This is part of a series of interviews with presidential candidates produced jointly by Grist and Outside.He may be eating the front-runners' dust in the polls, but among deep-green voters, Dennis Kucinich is considered a trailblazer. A Democratic U.S. rep from Cleveland, Ohio, Kucinich is calling for a radical overhaul of the U.S. government and economy -- one that infuses every agency in the executive branch with a sustainability agenda, phases out coal and nuclear power entirely, and calls on every American to ratchet down their resource consumption and participate in a national conservation program.
A vegan who counts Ralph Nader among his heroes, Kucinich doesn't exactly embody the sensibility of the average American. He says his commitment to sustainability "extends to everything I am and do" -- from the food he eats and clothes he wears to the policies he espouses. It's the same progressive platform that made him a darling of the far left when he ran for president in 2004. Will it take him any further this time around?
I reached Kucinich by phone at his home in Ohio.
For more info on his platform and record, check out Grist's Kucinich fact sheet.
Listen to a clip of this interview: Why should voters consider you the strongest green candidate? Because mostly our candidates aren't going to be able to do anything about the underlying issues that threaten our environment. Many of the candidates -- Edwards, Obama, and Clinton -- are heavily funded by hedge funds on Wall Street, which are driven by a psychology of short-term profits and investments. And with candidates taking that kind of money from those interests, it defies belief that they're going to be in a position to take this country in the direction it needs to be taken. What sets your green platform apart from the rest? As president of the United States, I'm going to shift the entire direction of America. We need to see the connection between global warring and global warming, and it's oil. Sustainability is the path to peace. And I'm the only true peace candidate in this election. So peace means being in harmony with nature. If you're in harmony with nature, you don't exploit nature. You don't ruin the land, you don't extract the oil, you don't take the coal out of the earth. My underlying philosophy is a green philosophy. It means that I'm looking at a total reorganization of the federal government to create a cooperative and synergistic relationship between all departments and administrations for the purpose of greening America. You propose, for instance, the Works Green Administration. The Works Green Administration harkens back to the days of Franklin Roosevelt and the Works Progress Administration, where he put millions of people back to work rebuilding America's infrastructure. I too have an infrastructure-rebuilding program which will put millions of people back to work. Picture this: You take every area of involvement in the federal government -- whether it's the Small Business Administration, or the Housing and Urban Development Department, or the Department of Agriculture, or the Department of Labor. Each would incorporate green goals. We'd have billions of dollars loaned to the states at zero interest for green development programs, we'd have programs furthering green housing, agricultural policies would relate to green. Do you think Americans are ready to answer the call to conserve? Of course they are, they're just waiting for leadership, and it has to come from somebody who's not tied to any of these interest groups, or is worried about whether he's going to offend a contributor. And so, yes, I think people know that their future's at stake. What I intend to do as president is to call forth that instinct which is within every person for not just survival but to be able to thrive. We need to make the connection between prosperity and sustainability. It also means we have to turn toward peace, we have to stop warring, because war is ecocide, war destroys the environment. And so I'm going to call forth the people of this country for a whole new direction. I think America's not just ready for it, it's overdue and people know that. I will also ask the American people to participate in a grand and great conservation effort. Imagine if tens of millions of homes suddenly had an awareness that when you don't need the electricity, don't flip the switch. That you use only the water that you need and you don't use any more, you don't let the faucet run. Do you believe that we need a carbon tax in addition to a cap-and-trade program, or neither, or both? We need to do whatever we can do to create disincentives for the use of carbon-based energy. But that's not enough. Carbon-based taxes alone won't cut it, because some people may be willing to pay an extra tax to use something that's bad for the environment. Inevitably we need a requirement to move away from all carbon-based technologies, and to fund fully all alternative-energy research that is in harmony with the environment. So you would propose a strict cap on carbon emissions, a carbon tax, and a massive government-supported plan to promote renewable technologies? Yes, but I'd want to put the emphasis first on the government supporting renewable technologies. A tax could reflect the full cost to society of certain types of energy. But the answer is not simply punishing those people who are using carbons. You have to do everything you can to move people toward renewable energy. You've been calling for years for a renewable portfolio standard that would have the U.S. get 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2010. Now that 2010 is around the corner, what sort of RPS plan would you implement as president? Well, obviously we've lost the advantage of that particular time frame. For the next time frame, I think we could set something by 2020 and look to 30 or 40 percent. But that means we're talking about a very sharp turnaround here. How would you shift the utility industry toward renewables, toward this whole new paradigm? One of my proposals is to have millions of homes with wind and solar technologies, and people can sell energy back to the grid. The role of utilities will change dramatically because it's not going to be a centralized approach toward energy production. They'll have to figure out different ways that they might be able to provide support for green alternatives. I want to see, eventually, all the homes in this country have the option of that technology. In turn, you can create millions of jobs building alternative technologies. Would nuclear power play any role in your energy policy as president? Nuclear has to be phased out. The hidden costs of nuclear are enormous -- of building these plants and storing the waste forever. It's not financially or environmentally sustainable. Nuclear makes up 20 percent of America's electricity supply. What would you replace this with? You don't want to leave a gap in our energy needs, but at the same time, with a program of conservation and movement toward alternative energy, we can begin phasing out nuclear. What about coal, the source of more than half of our electricity supply? Would you phase that out, or do you believe in the promise of advanced coal technologies? No, coal has to be phased out. In the same way that the Department of Agriculture for years was paying some farmers not to grow, I think we can get to the point of paying coal miners not to mine. Why should the miners have to suffer from the lack of foresight of our energy policies? That's something that I intend to address in my Works Green Administration. The electric utility industry would argue that such a massive shift would pass along huge rate hikes to consumers. How would you protect Americans from these expenses? We do not need to be held hostage by the utility industry. I'm not someone who's going to roll over when these utility industries issue their threats. We're going to break up the monopolies in utilities, that's No. 1. No. 2, these utilities are going to be closely regulated for their activities. No. 3, they're going to be required to go green as license conditions. No. 4, they're going to be closely monitored and shut down if they violate the Clean Air Act. We're going to have a very aggressive EPA, and utilities are not going to be dictating energy costs. I don't mind working with them, I don't mind moving toward areas where they can be cooperative in protecting the environment, but they're not going to run energy policy. But such a transition would create huge costs. How would you pay for them? It pays for itself. See, the whole idea about sustainability is that you conserve, you save, and then you use the savings for other things. However, where we need financial incentives, this is where the government can play a major role in putting money into circulation for the production of these [green] products, and to put people to work. Roosevelt understood in the '30s that there were things he had to do to move the economy. And I understand what we need to do to move the economy in a green direction. Do you support subsidies for ethanol or other gasoline alternatives, like biodiesel? I don't know about subsidies. I think those technologies are transitional to fuel-cell technology. I wouldn't want to create incentives to lock us into usages that are not where we ultimately want to go. And there is a serious issue with ethanol and its impact on food supplies. Many argue that the U.S. shouldn't commit to a global greenhouse-gas reduction target that doesn't involve China and India. Do you agree, and how would you bring them to the table? First of all, as president, I'm going to let the rest of the world know that the days of America trying to be a nation above nations is over. We have to quit trying to dominate other countries, and we have to step out of our isolation and into the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people. I think the world is ready for an American president who puts the sword down, so that nations won't have to spend a tremendous amount of their resources trying to prepare for war. We have to be ready to take the lead, but we need to have harmony with other nations. As president, I intend to work with the leaders of China and India and other nations to promote an environmental consciousness and sustainable economies. I will use trade as a vehicle to try to raise the level of living for all people, and environmental sustainability must be the watchword. All of our trade agreements must have within them requirements for protecting the air and the water and the land of all the countries we do business with. After climate and energy, what do you think is the most important environmental issue facing the nation? Agriculture -- the way we grow our food -- and we really need to make sure that we protect our water supply. These issues are closely tied to each other. Who is your environmental hero? Oh, I have many. Thomas Berry, whose book The Great Work talked about how our great work in life is to achieve a real harmony with the environment. I think Lester Brown has done some incredible work on raising the consciousness of people. Amory Lovins has done some excellent work, and I think Ralph Nader has pointed to a lot of the environmental implications of corporate conduct and trade laws. And John Robbins has been so incredible in his awareness of the impact of the food we eat on our environment. What was your most memorable wilderness or outdoor adventure? As a child, we lived in the city, we moved around a lot. But there was one place we lived, above railroad tracks, and on the other side of the tracks was this vast acreage called "the gulley" that was created with the blasting of the railroad. It had these huge rock piles and vegetation everywhere and it almost looked prehistoric. It was a place that I would go to often and find solitude and be able to just think. So much of my own life has been connected with a desire to be close to nature, to be close to the water, to be close to green. If you could spend a week in one natural area of the U.S., where would it be? I would say somewhere in northern Maine. The whole state is beautiful, but northern Maine is just extraordinary, and I've seen all 50 states. I also love Maui. What do you do to lighten your environmental footprint? My philosophy of life extends to everything I am and do. If I say I'm for peace, I'm for peace in the kind of products that I use, in the kind of shoes that I wear, and in terms of the clothes that I wear, in terms of my eating habits. I'm always thinking in terms of sustainability. That's the way I live. I live in a small house and we're very conscious of our energy usage. I drive an American car, a Ford Focus, but it's one of the highest fuel-economy cars. I've been living an essentially vegan lifestyle since 1995, and that has led me to a condition of extraordinary health and clarity. Now, I'm not, as president, going to tell everyone what they have to eat, but I will share my own story about how the choices that I've made have meant, for myself, a better life, and a happier life. I'm 60 years old, but I'll bet that I'm in better physical shape than a lot of people a lot younger. If George Bush were a plant or an animal, what kind of plant or an animal would he be? I don't want to go there. Fair enough. Would you spin it around on yourself? If you were a plant or animal, what kind would you be? An eagle. How so? Truly American? No. Keenness of vision. Amanda Griscom Little writes about environmental politics and interviews green luminaries for Grist. She is a contributing editor for Outside magazine, and her articles on energy and the environment have also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times Magazine.Source:www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/08/01/kucinich/Please visit Dennis' thread here at the FH Forum: Kucinich for President!airdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=1166019736&page=4
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Oct 5, 2007 13:03:44 GMT 4
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
INNER CITY YOUTH WORKING TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY"I agree with you that there aren't any throw-away species or resources, but you agree with me there aren't any throw-away children or neighborhoods, right? So we need to get these movements working together."Van Jones speaking to Julia Butterfly Hill about a new bill he helped pass that trains inner city kids in the solar, wind, and other sustainability-related industries. _________________________________ WEB VIDEOS OF THE WEEK:
TURNING FROM OIL TO ORGANICS: Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous elected leader since the Spanish conquest 470 years ago, has nationalized his nation's oil and gas revenues to fund a radical shift towards sustainable agriculture and programs to assist the impoverished. And he's accomplished all of this in eight short months in office. Of course the White House and multinational corporations vehemently oppose Morales' populist platform, but, for the rest of us, nationalizing oil and cutting military spending to fund a country's shift towards sustainability is truly inspiring. Watch this interview with the Daily Show's Jon Stewart: www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7437.cfmTRUE LIES: How are organics, health, justice and sustainability tied to the "War on Terror", global warming, and U.S. foreign and domestic policies? Let Taalam Acey show you in this three minute inspiring spoken word piece: www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7435.cfm
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jan 3, 2008 14:42:31 GMT 4
PERIL AND PROMISE:
DUANE ELGIN ON SIMPLICITY AND HUMANITY'S FUTUREPart 1 of 2[/b] WOW! What a great interview the following is! How much our planet needs voices such as Duane Elgin's to be heard over the clamor of lip serving politicians and the corporate backed media! Elgin's thinking is so much in line with mine that I would ask you to read [or reread] my ending comments at an earlier post here:Re: Sustainable Development « Reply #24 on Sept 20, 2007, 4:23pm » Rachel Carson's Legacy Here's to good reading, MichellePERIL AND PROMISE:
DUANE ELGIN ON SIMPLICITY AND HUMANITY'S FUTUREPart 1 of 2[/b] An interview with Duane Elgin by Arnie Cooper, The Sun Magazine “Simplify, simplify.” When Henry David Thoreau made this plea 150 years ago, he was reacting to the increasing complexity of life around him. Today we find ourselves in a far more complex world, one in which increasing numbers of us are beginning to see the wisdom in Thoreau’s appeal. Duane Elgin helped define this trend back in 1981 with his first book, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (Morrow). In that now-classic text, updated and reprinted in 1993, Elgin encouraged us not just to cut back on consumption and ease our busy schedules but to live a life with purpose, in which every action is the result of a conscious choice. Since bringing voluntary simplicity to the attention of the larger culture, Elgin has focused on how humanity can survive on a planet whose natural resources are stretched to their limits. The ultimate test, he believes, will be in how we respond to the challenges of the coming years, when he predicts that environmental problems will reach a breaking point. His latest book, Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future (Morrow), paints a chilling picture of the cultural and ecological dangers we will face, yet offers an optimistic view of the possibility for humankind’s survival and evolution into a more mature species. Elgin was born near a small town in Idaho in 1943 and worked on the family farm until he was twenty-three. Growing up in a small farming community, he witnessed a strategy for living that relied on a mixture of independence and mutual support. In college he took pre-med courses, but the social turmoil of the sixties led him to drop out of school and eventually move to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. While in France, Elgin met Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, who was a seminal influence on his thinking. “Many an evening,” Elgin says, “Father Berrigan would slip a scarf around his clerical collar, and we’d sit at a local bistro, drinking a glass or two of cheap wine and talking about politics, justice, and love.” Berrigan would later become internationally recognized for his nonviolent resistance to the Vietnam War and the nuclear-arms race. [Father Berrigan was a deep influence on me in my formative years...M] After returning to the States, Elgin completed his education with an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in economic history. His first job out of graduate school was on a presidential commission exploring population growth and its impact over the next thirty years. It was his introduction to “futures research.” In 1972, Elgin became a senior social scientist at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in California. His first major project was co-authoring a book titled, Changing Images of Man, with Joseph Campbell and others. At the same time, Elgin began an intensive practice in Buddhist meditation. At SRI, Elgin investigated the long-range future for government agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency. He saw enormous problems on the horizon, not just for the U.S. but for the whole planet. Yet as his understanding of the world grew, so too did his disillusionment with the political establishment; the reports he wrote did little more than gather dust. He left SRI in 1977 to spend six months in a self-directed meditation retreat. An awakening experience at the conclusion of this retreat led directly to his book on simplicity, and later to his 1993 book, Awakening Earth (Morrow), a sweeping study of the evolution of human culture and consciousness. In it, Elgin proposes that human civilization is approaching a moment of awakening similar to that experienced by some individuals. Because he believes that the process of “civilizational awakening” will involve the mass media, Elgin has co-founded a national campaign for media accountability: www.OurMediaVoice.org. He works primarily from home and lives with his partner and collaborator, Colleen LeDrew, in a comfortable and, yes, simple two-bedroom apartment in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. In person, he is soft-spoken and displays a serenity one would not expect from someone so in tune with the impending crises facing the planet. Cooper: How has your upbringing influenced the work you’ve done on simplicity and human evolution? Elgin: Because I grew up on a farm in Idaho with very few distractions, it became clear to me early on that the universe is alive. I could see it and feel it around me. That sensibility has guided my life, including my work on simplicity. Simplicity is central to engaging the aliveness of the universe, because it helps to clear away the distractions that separate us from direct connection with life. Growing up on the land also gave me a clearer sense of humanity’s place in the universe: I saw that people were small creatures compared to the vastness of the sky and the land. I was constantly reminded of our vulnerability to nature’s forces: wind, rain, frost, insects. Of necessity, people in our farming community were self-reliant and had to be their own plumbers, carpenters, accountants, weather forecasters, mechanics, and so on. At the same time, I saw constant support among neighbors for example, exchanging different food crops: several bushels of apples one week for corn or potatoes the next. I grew up in a community of self-reliant individuals who were continually pulling together for the well-being of all. My experience of farming changed as my father became more successful. He began with a small farm and a few horses, which left plenty of free time during the winter months for the woodworking he loved. He built everything from furniture to boats. Over the years, he acquired additional farms, tractors, a crew of laborers, and more. When he finally retired, he was busy year-round overseeing the operation and maintenance of a half dozen farms. There was no time left for woodworking. He was no longer living in the cyclical world of the seasons, but in the linear world of industrialization and material progress. Cooper: You’re probably best known for your book on voluntary simplicity. What were the origins of that book? Elgin: The idea of voluntary simplicity came from my mentor on the subject, Richard Gregg. He was a student of Gandhi’s and wrote about voluntary simplicity in 1936, describing it as “a partial restraint in some direction in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions.” In other words, once we know what our life’s purpose is, then we can organize our material circumstances to support it. Simplicity begins inside ourselves as we decide what really matters to each of us. Voluntary simplicity means choosing our path through life consciously, deliberately, and of our own accord. It’s not so much about living with less as it is about living with purpose and balance. Cooper: Yet many people equate “simplicity” with a frugal lifestyle. Elgin: Perhaps the biggest misconception about voluntary simplicity is that it’s about frugal living and nothing more. The media portray it as a life of material sacrifice, which makes it easy to caricature and dismiss as irrelevant to mainstream Americans. This portrayal also misses much of the joy and purpose of simple living. The simple life becomes equated with a plain and dull life, when it’s anything but dull. A long daily commute to a job that has little meaning: that’s dull. The simple life is about freeing up time for what matters most to us. Another misconception is that simplicity is about moving back to the land. Simpler living is certainly about getting back in touch with nature, but rather than moving to the country, most people who choose a simple life are trying to make the most of where they are, planting urban gardens or working to restore polluted and damaged suburban ecologies. Thoreau’s cabin by Walden Pond is the classic example of simple living, but few people realize that Thoreau was no isolated hermit. His famous cabin was roughly a mile from the town of Concord, and every day or two he would walk into town. In fact, his cabin was so close to a nearby highway that he could smell the pipe smoke of passing travelers. He also had more visitors while living in the woods than at any other period of his life. People who choose simpler ways of living are often incorrectly portrayed as being opposed to technology. In truth, these are some of the most tech-savvy people I’ve run across. Whether it’s the Internet or solar power or new gardening tools, they are supportive of any technologies appropriate to sustaining a simpler way of life. Cooper: The simplicity movement has grown quite a bit since your book first came out in 1981. Elgin: Back then, simple living was hardly a blip on the cultural radar screen. Now glossy magazines tout the simple life from the newsstands, and it’s become a popular theme on television talk shows. Most people attracted to the simple life are not looking for a life of sacrifice; rather, they are seeking deeper sources of satisfaction than are offered by our high-stress consumer society. Surveys show a distinct subpopulation conservatively estimated at 10 percent of the U.S. adult population, or 20 million people is pioneering a way of life that is outwardly more sustainable and inwardly more spiritual. While U.S. incomes have gone up in the past thirty years, the percentage of people reporting that they are “very happy” has remained unchanged. Meanwhile, divorce rates have doubled, and teen-suicide rates have tripled. A whole generation has tasted the fruits of an affluent society and discovered that money does not buy happiness. In the search for true satisfaction, millions of people are not only “downshifting,” or pulling back from the rat race, but also “upshifting,” or moving ahead into a life that, though materially more modest, is rich with family, friends, community, creative work, and connection with the universe. Besides being drawn to what the simple life offers, many people adopt it to help counter such powerful negative trends as global climate change, the rapid extinction of species, the depletion of key resources, a burgeoning population, and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. These trends are converging into a whole-systems crisis, creating the possibility of a crash within a generation if we do not find new ways of living. Cooper: Doesn’t rejecting affluence mean performing more time-consuming tasks ourselves: cooking, cleaning, home repairs? What if these are not the things that really matter to us? Elgin: Simplicity doesn’t mean eliminating the basic tasks of living, but it does mean taking charge of a life that is too busy, too stressed, and too fragmented. Simplicity means cutting back on trivial distractions, both material and nonmaterial, and focusing on the essentials, whatever those may be for each of us. As Thoreau said, “Our life is frittered away by detail.” Or, as Plato wrote, “In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.” Cooper: You mentioned “nonmaterial” distractions. Does that include involvement with other people? How do relationships and community fit into a simple life? Elgin: Relationships and community are at the heart of a simple life. For many, happiness is not measured in dollars earned but in the rewards of authentic relationships. Not surprisingly, many who choose a simpler life tend to prefer smaller-scale living and working environments that foster face-to-face contact and mutual caring. They also tend to participate in new forms of community, such as cohousing. Cooper: What does the ideal simple life look like? Elgin: Because simplicity has as much to do with each person’s unique purpose in life as it does with their standard of living, it follows that there is no single “right” way to live more simply. Different people in different life circumstances find varying paths to integrity and wholeness. Richard Gregg wrote, “Simplicity is a relative matter depending on climate, customs, culture, and the character of the individual.” Thoreau said: “I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on my account…. I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way.” Cooper: You’ve obviously read a lot of Thoreau. Are there any other writers who’ve been an influence on you? Elgin: This is where the simple life breaks down for me books. [Laughter] I can’t get enough. I have been a voracious reader throughout my life, consuming anthropology, metaphysics, history, physics, economics, philosophy, and spirituality. Existentialist writers were important early in my awakening, as were Zen Buddhists and Quakers. Cooper: How important is spirituality to the simple life? Elgin: I view the simplicity movement as more than just a lifestyle change. It’s not just about moderating our consumption, recycling, and eating lower on the food chain. It’s about integrating our inner and outer worlds. Simplicity lies at the intersection of spirituality and sustainability. If you put spirituality, or the inner life, together with sustainability, or the outer life of maintaining things, what you come up with is the simple life. For the first time in human history, thanks to various information technologies, all the world’s great religions are available for our inspection and practice. We are discovering the deep, common Truths at the core of all spiritual traditions: the golden rule, the power of compassion, the importance of looking beyond materialism. One essential Truth is to use this world as a place for learning, not as a place for distraction. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves, but rather that the universe has put us here for higher purposes than watching television reruns. We also have an opportunity to bring the different aspects of East and West together. Eastern spirituality says this world is a place of suffering, so let’s get off the wheel of worldly existence. Contemporary Western culture says this is a place to seek gratification, so let’s dive into worldly existence. If we honor both realms, the result is a paradigm of learning. Together, East and West form a mind-set that goes far beyond either one in isolation creating a new paradigm that values the co-evolution of culture and consciousness. Cooper: I have the feeling that the West is getting the better side of that bargain. Look at Japan, for example, where the younger generation seems more interested in collecting vintage American sneakers than in any spiritual vision. Elgin: Well, it’s a good idea for them to buy used sneakers. [Laughter] But I am not at all suggesting that the East adopt a materialistic lifestyle. I am suggesting that putting the two wisdom traditions together gives us more of a systems view of the universe as a living and learning system. In systems terms, we’re coming to “self-referencing awareness” as a human family. In Eastern terms, we’re at the point of “awakening,” a preliminary form of enlightenment. We are awakening to the reality that we are nested within larger living systems, including the earth and the universe as a whole. One of the great virtues of the West is that we have looked deeply into material reality, and what we have discovered there is truly extraordinary. As Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics, said, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum physics does not understand it.” The universe is again being considered as Plato once described it: “A single living creature that embraces all living creatures within it.” At the frontiers of science, we are rediscovering the universe as a living system, and this is changing our relationship with the universe, with the earth, and with one another. Consumerism makes sense only in a dead universe. If the universe is dead at its foundations, then it is rational to turn to material pleasures to protect us from life’s pains. On the other hand, if the universe is a living system, then it makes sense to get rid of undue complexity, live more simply, and focus on coming into a conscious relationship with the world around us. Continued...url for this post, the 1st of a 2 part series: tinyurl.com/2f6o68
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jan 3, 2008 14:43:31 GMT 4
...continued from previous post:PERIL AND PROMISE:
DUANE ELGIN ON SIMPLICITY AND HUMANITY'S FUTUREPart 2 of 2[/b] Cooper: What do you think about the self-help movement’s version of simplifying: for example, a book like Elaine St. James’s, Simplify Your Life, which offers a collection of quick fixes, such as how to reduce clutter around your house? Elgin: I’m all for it. [Laughter] I try to do that on a regular basis. One aspect of simplicity is reducing clutter. It helps bring clarity and lets me focus on what matters most in my life. More power to any author who can inspire us to reduce needless complexity and thereby get down to what matters most. Cooper: One advantage to material wealth is the ability to surround oneself with beautiful objects. How does aesthetics fit into the life of voluntary simplicity? Elgin: There is a simplicity aesthetic, one aspect of which is an appreciation for older things. The Japanese have a wonderful phrase for this: wabi-sabi, a feeling of appreciation for things whose wear and aging reveal life’s impermanence. For example, if you have had a cup, table, or chair in your family for several generations, each chip or scratch is not an imperfection, but a memory, inviting you to reflect on all the others before you who held that cup or touched that table. So, in my home, if I happen to scratch the dining-room table, I say I’ve just “wabi’d” the table, meaning I gave it a little more patina and age, a little more value. Cooper: How does the notion of voluntary simplicity connect with those who are poor by Western standards? Elgin: If you live a life of involuntary simplicity, then the concept of voluntary simplicity doesn’t mean much to you, because you have not yet achieved enough material well-being for there to be a meaningful degree of choice. Cooper: But is it important for the world’s poor to understand these concepts, or is it just we in the West who need to think about these things? Elgin: Rich or poor, the whole world needs to be thinking about and exploring new ways of living. We need something akin to the Marshall Plan, which restored Europe after World War II only global in scale. We need to create a future of mutually assured development, where progress leaves no one behind and doesn’t destroy the ecosystems on which our lives depend. Given intelligent designs for living lightly and simply, our manner of living would vary depending on local customs, ecology, resources, and climate. People who are poor need to ask not for access to the traditional American lifestyle, which is destroying cultures and the biosphere, but for a helping hand toward sustainability over the long haul. The problem is that we’ve not yet developed a literacy of sustainability that tells us what to ask for. Instead of a global plan that would do just that, we’re being sold a consumerist culture by the mass media. The average person in the U.S. watches about four hours of television each day. Over the course of a year, we see roughly twenty-five thousand commercials, many of them produced by the world’s highest-paid cognitive psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to grab our attention and make us feel deficient if we don’t own their clients’ products. And these heavily produced advertisements are not merely for products, but for a lifestyle based on a consumer mind-set. What they’re doing, day in and day out, twenty-five thousand times a year, is hypnotizing us into seeing ourselves as consumers who want to be entertained rather than as citizens who want to be informed and engaged. We need to take back the airwaves as a sphere of mature conversation and dialogue about our common future. Cooper: So the media can be a positive influence? Elgin: Yes. We’ve already seen evidence of this. The mass media have played a pivotal role in bringing the civil-rights movement, the environmental movement, and the women’s movement into our collective consciousness. Broadcast television is not only the primary window onto the world for most Americans, but also the mirror in which we see ourselves as a society. For the past thirty years, I’ve been exploring the process of “awakening” at a civilizational scale, and I have concluded that the mass media are the primary carriers of our collective “thought stream,” which can foster either ignorance and fear, or awakening. For the individual, awakening involves developing a capacity for reflective consciousness or simply paying attention to our thoughts. In a similar way, our collective awakening will involve paying attention to our thoughts at a civilizational scale: not just consuming media, but purposefully directing our attention as a society to cultivate mindfulness, equanimity, and so on. So the media can have a positive influence, if we will reflect on how we use this immensely powerful technology. The basic problem is that the mass media are not being held accountable for their programming. Although, by law, television broadcasters have a strict obligation to serve the public interest, they are serving their pocketbooks instead. It is time for us as citizens to come together and hold them accountable for their legal responsibilities. The media have long given lip service to serving the public interest, but there has never been a means for measuring their failure to do so, because there’s no mechanism in place to register the public’s views. Polls show a majority of Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the media but feel powerless to bring about changes. Our Media Voice is a nonpartisan national campaign I co-founded in the Bay Area. We have devised a practical strategy for holding broadcasters accountable for serving the public interest. We want to develop prime-time “citizen feedback forums” in cities across the nation. The forums will be like electronic town meetings, at which citizens can raise concerns about pervasive violence, stereotyping, lack of diverse perspectives, and limited coverage of critical issues. The idea is to give citizens a new “civic voice” and feedback system for media accountability. Cooper: What about the government? Doesn’t it exert any control over the media? Elgin: Government deregulation of the media has led to a rapid coalescing of ownership. As a result, a half dozen enormous media conglomerates now own a majority of media outlets in the U.S. It is these corporations, which value profits above all else, that are controlling the media, not the government. On the contrary, the media set an agenda that, in many ways, controls the scope of governmental concerns. Cooper: In your latest book, Promise Ahead, you liken the human species, though 135,000 years old, to a teenager on the brink of adulthood. Elgin: Over the past decade, I’ve given talks around the world, and I have asked people to consider the human family as one individual and then, looking at the behavior of that individual, to determine our stage in life. Specifically, do they think the human family is behaving like a toddler, a teenager, an adult, or an elder? I’ve asked this question in India, Europe, Japan, Brazil, and the United States, and without hesitation three-quarters of the people say that we’re in our teenage years. Another 20 percent say we’re in our toddler phase. On my personal website, more than two thousand people have voted on this question, with the same results. So I’ve looked into adolescent psychology and found interesting parallels. Teenagers are rebellious, and we are rebelling against nature. Teenagers don’t tend to think about the long-term future; nor do we as nations. Teenagers are often concerned with how they look; we’re a materialistic society consumed with appearances. But there’s also an upside to this life stage. Teenagers have a huge amount of untapped energy and idealism, a sense of hidden greatness that is about to burst forth. As a species, I think we also have untapped idealism and a sense of our hidden greatness. We just need a chance to develop these potentials as a human family. We are already beginning to move from our adolescent, reactive mode into our early adulthood, in which we start learning to live together. For example, the nations of the world are cooperating in ways that are seldom recognized. Every day we cooperate in running the world’s weather-forecasting systems and air-traffic control. Cooperation among world health organizations has eradicated polio and smallpox. We are beginning to cooperate in the realm of international justice, for example, arresting dictators for abuse of power and genocide. And around the world, reconciliation movements are emerging and trying to take root. Some are making dramatic progress, like the peaceful transition to democratic rule in South Africa and the growing peace process in Northern Ireland. Cooper: In the final pages of Promise Ahead, you say that, within twenty years, humanity will undergo an “initiation.” Elgin: Most teenagers do not become adults without moving through a time of testing and challenge – a rite of passage. I believe the human family is about to go through a time of profound initiation and challenge as we move from our adolescence to our adulthood. This initiation will take the form of a worldwide systems crisis as we hit an “ecological wall” the physical limits to growth. For example, right now, CO2 levels are higher than they have been in 20 million years. We’ve already overshot the boundaries and thresholds of climate stability, and it’s just a matter of time before we start experiencing severe fluctuations in the climate. Add to this equation the fact that by the 2020s we’re going to have roughly 8 billion people on the planet. As the climate warms, however, food production is going to decline, because many seeds are up against the limits of their thermal resistance and will have difficulty germinating. Compounding the situation further is the fact that, within a generation, we’ll be running out of the cheap oil that has propped up our high-production agricultural system with its petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers. In this same time frame, it is also estimated that 40 percent of the earth’s population won’t have access to enough water to be self-sufficient in growing our own food. Now, if you start putting all of these factors together, it’s clear that within twenty years we could have a crisis that is completely outside anything in our collective experience. Nonetheless, I think this is a very organic and predictable occurrence. We’re moving from our adolescence into our adulthood as a human family, and you don’t make that transition without going through life-changing events. Cooper: Is it possible that, through genetics and other new technologies, we’ll be able to avoid the chaos and the tumultuous times that you write about? Elgin: In my opinion, no. Just look at the global dynamics at work. Climate change and species extinction represent massive disruptions to the biosphere. Population growth is creating enormous, unsustainable megalopolises around the world. I think genetics and new approaches to food production will be important, but I don’t see anything deep enough, broad enough, and transformative enough to make a difference anytime soon. Cooper: Could you describe what you think life is going to be like in the United States in, say, 2030? Elgin: My guess is that, around the world, the various forces of climate change, population growth, species extinction, resource depletion, and human misery will have converged into an unstoppable force heading for either breakdown or breakthrough, where the human family either pulls together in cooperation or pulls apart in conflict. I find it harder to predict what life will be like in the U.S., specifically. We are one of the more resource-rich nations in the world. What I can imagine is even larger numbers of people pushing across our borders saying, “We want a part of your affluence.” We could experience the breakdown of civil society and the need to start rebuilding from a more decentralized base. One way to picture this is to look at what life is like already for people in parts of the world where ecosystems are overstressed, economies are in ruins, and lives are being pulled apart by poverty. Another dramatic transformation that will take place by 2030 is the growth of global communications. It’s estimated that by 2010 roughly a billion people will be connected continuously on the Internet, and that’s still twenty years shy of the time frame you’re asking about. So, give ourselves twenty years of this new world of communication, add to that the stresses of climate change, species extinction, water shortages, civil unrest, and so on, and what we get is a world that will be intensely in dialogue with itself. And the effects of that dialogue will cascade down into our personal lives into the food we eat, the clothes we buy, the transportation we use, and the homes in which we live. Cooper: In your book Awakening Earth, you try to look even farther into the future. What might happen after we’ve cleared the hurdle of our birth as a global civilization? Elgin: If we go back to the metaphor of the human life span, it’s when people move into their early adulthood that they start thinking about the future, doing meaningful work in the world, and building lasting relationships with their peers. So the next stage will be one of collective reflection on a global scale, seeing who we are as a human family and how we can live and work together in a way that is sustainable. If we can successfully meet the challenge of living sustainably on the earth, I think we will then have the opportunity to learn to live more compassionately, in harmonious and caring relationships with one another, other species, and the cosmos. A culture of kindness could infuse the planet. This could be an era of renewal, as the earth is restored to health. My sense is that we have a long and interesting future ahead of us, if we can get through this critical period of transition. Cooper: Our politicians don’t seem particularly concerned with any of this. For example, Dick Cheney commented that “conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” Are there any politicians who are thinking along the lines of sustainability? Elgin: Certainly Al Gore had an appreciation for living sustainably when he wrote Earth in the Balance. A more immediate example is Oregon governor John Kitzhaber, who signed an executive order in 2000 directing the state to “develop and promote policies and programs that will assist Oregon in meeting a goal of sustainability within one generation by 2025.” The Oregon Solutions website, www.oregonsolutions.net, is dedicated to that purpose and is full of strategies, examples, and resources. And the Bush administration, though it’s no friend to the environment, is pushing for a new generation of cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Cooper: Do you think we should continue to develop faster, smarter, more independent machines? Elgin: We have to look at what the machines might be used for. If the human family is to create some form of sustainable species civilization, we need a capacity for collective conversation and mutual understanding. So we need the Internet and the global transparency it’s bringing. We also need sustainable forms of energy, which means retrofitting and rebuilding a huge amount of infrastructure – homes, office buildings, and the like for solar and other renewable sources of energy. Cooper: In Promise Ahead, you say that “we are the leaders we have been waiting for.” But to keep the movement going, doesn’t there need to be someone leading the way? Elgin: If it is going to be voluntary simplicity, then it needs to be deliberate and intentional. If you have to be talked into it, it isn’t voluntary. [Laughter] I find it heartening that this is a self-organizing, leaderless movement. People are recognizing that no one else is going to do this for them. They must take responsibility for pioneering changes in their own lives. When economic, environmental, and social systems begin breaking down in the next decade or two, I think it will motivate nearly everyone to make changes. Some feel that large-scale change requires government involvement. My sense is that we are moving into a situation that is so dynamic and so complex that no government agency will be able to figure it out. It’s going to require inventive, savvy people at the grass-roots level adapting quickly to radically changing circumstances, making small changes that accumulate into a major societal change. Cooper: Elsewhere in Promise Ahead, you quote T.S. Eliot: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” What does that quote mean for you? Elgin: Let me approach it through the name that we’ve given ourselves as a species: Many people do not realize that our technical designation is not just Homo sapiens, or “wise beings,” but Homo sapiens sapiens, which means that we are “doubly wise beings” with the ability to “know that we know.” When we use this precious capacity for reflective consciousness, we are enabling a living universe to look back and reflect upon itself. A gardener appreciating a flower or a child appreciating the stars in a night sky is each a knowing witness to creation, closing a loop that began with the birth of our universe billions of years ago. We are beings who can knowingly appreciate and celebrate the great mystery of our own existence. Source:theoracleinstitute.org/joomla/content/view/36/33/Note: For complimentary reading see today's post at: Re: Money Masters and Enslaved Taxpayers « Reply #70 on 01/03/08 at 3:20pm »
Interview: Economic 9/11 - WHAT CONDITIONS SET UP THIS ECONOMIC BOMB? Trends in 2008 by Linda Moulton Howe
“In 2008, we’re going to see some major, giant financial firms fall as they get hit by an economic 9/11.” - Gerald Celente, The Trends Journal Go to: tinyurl.com/38hmvc
|
|
michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
|
Post by michelle on Jan 21, 2008 7:13:55 GMT 4
Beyond Post-Apocalyptic Eco-AnarchismViewing the amount of reads here at our environmental section compared to the more political sections, I get the feeling that most can't be bothered to understand what's happening to our world. I would also guess that deep down all know our planet is in serious crisis but, if they avoid facing the truth, it will somehow go away...or somebody else is taking care of our planet's environmental ills.
As a student of Environmental Science and Technology, I remember thinking that we needed more public dialogue on these subjects....that the media should have been running programs back to back in order to alert people about the problems we face. That was back in the late 70's...how naive I was! Here we are 30 years later and people are still bickering about global warming and whether the science surrounding it is sound enough to take critical action.
The article below is for the bravehearted only. The author calls for use of the Precautionary Principle. I agree; we've used up our remaining time to reverse the effects of the last 100 years of industrialization, crazy scientist crop and stock raising, and the insane chemical saturation of our world [humans included].
The precautionary principle is simply a statement that we should not go ahead with a new technology, or persist with an old one, unless we are convinced it is safe. This sounds such an obviously sensible idea that we might expect it to be accepted by almost everyone and without question. Yet many objections have been raised against it.
We are told it is nothing more than a statement that we should be careful, and so says nothing that’s not already accepted, while at the same time others argue precisely the opposite: that is so powerful that applying it would stop progress dead in its tracks. We are told that the precautionary principle sanctifies unscientific prejudice when in fact it requires scientific evidence before it is applied and demands that good science be used in place of sweeping and unjustified assurances of safety. We are even told these matters should be left to the courts as if that were an alternative, whereas it is the courts themselves that should be applying the precautionary principle.
Statement of the precautionary principle
Most of those who support the precautionary principle would accept that it is well expressed by the Wingspread statement:
"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof."
This immediately deals with two of the common objections raised. First, the principle does not support unscientific prejudice. To say that the potential hazards do not have to be fully established scientifically makes it clear that the principle is about cases where there is scientific evidence. The European Commission states this explicitly in its Communication on the Precautionary Principle, writing that it applies "where preliminary objective scientific evaluation indicates that there are reasonable grounds for concern …"
Second, the principle is about the burden of proof . It is not an algorithm for making decisions that dispenses with judgment any more than the legal principle that the burden of proof in a criminal trial lies with the prosecution makes it unnecessary to have a jury to consider the evidence and come to a decision. It is a part of decision-making, not a substitute for it.
Moreover, like the legal principle, the precautionary principle does not demand absolute proof. A jury is not supposed to convict only on the balance of probabilities - the standard used in civil actions - but it does not need absolute proof that the defendant is guilty. It must only be convinced "beyond reasonable doubt". And what constitutes reasonable doubt in any given situation is also a matter for the jury to decide. The precautionary principle would no more stop all technological progress than the principle of the burden of proof makes it impossible to obtain convictions in the criminal courts.
The precautionary principle is neither so weak that it is empty nor so strong that it would halt all progress in technology. Far from being unscientific, it is based on science and it generally requires that more good science, not less, be undertaken so that sweeping assurances of safety can be replaced by solid evidence. The principle does, however, place more of the responsibility for safety on those who stand to profit if the technology goes ahead, rather than on those who will have to bear the costs if things go wrong. Information on the precautionary principle gathered from: ISIS Report 4apr03
The second article attempts to explain the bewilderment I have concerning society's censorship of resource depletion, global climate change, mass extinction, and related ills. I post these articles knowing that they will not get many reads. I don't post information with a thought for making the FH Forum widely popular. I do, however, hope that like souls with similar concerns find their way here and leave with a bit more information which will help guide them on their path of working for a better world through their own personal endeavors.
To my serious minded friends here, thank you for your time and attention, MichelleBeyond Post-Apocalyptic Eco-Anarchism01/09/08 PEJ News - Dani Rubin, Earth Editor - I love life, nature and wild unspoiled places. I hope that you share my appreciation for our magnificent natural heritage. Like many people, I worry about where our global civilization is headed, the direction that human history is taking. Often the company of fellow pessimists affords little comfort and I find myself discouraged, impatient with humanity’s cheap follies. We are all acquainted with visions of the Apocalypse and media fantasies of the period afterwards. Since Hiroshima in 1945 the notion of irreversible mass destruction has flourished. In reality, we have had the option of choosing a global nuclear holocaust since about 1960. What is new today is that our visions of the apocalypse have become more appealing to the discouraged public than ever before. This trend worries me and, I suggest, it should worry you too.
dlrubin@telus.net www.PEJ.org Unlike twenty-five years ago, people are now publicly, saying that our global civilization is a disease and that mankind is a plague, a planetary scourge. I admit that I find these sorts of metaphors alluring. There is finality, a sense of epistemological certainty in the notion that our species is cancerous due to its avaricious proclivities. It does seem that we are busily destroying the Garden of Eden. But this metaphor is incomplete, as are many metaphors. “What are we? Monsters, machines, animals, angels, humans...?” Of course, these are all possible answers, varied and complex patterns lurk in our self-definition. For me the best answer is, “We are the part of Nature that has forgotten that we are a part of nature.” (Some might say that we are in ‘complete denial’.) We fool ourselves. No matter how man-made our immediate environs, we are still a part of nature – deeply and richly so. We are a part of the pageant of life, and as I said at the start, I love life. We are part of an extraordinary flowering in the universe. Unlike twenty-five years ago, increasingly, people are adopting the anarcho-apocalyptic, civilization-must-fall-to-save-the-world attitude. It is a fairly clean and tight worldview, zealously bulletproof, and it scares me. I want the natural world, the greater community of life beyond our species, with all its beautiful and terrifying manifestations, and its vibrant landscapes to survive intact – I think about this a lot. A quick collapse of global civilization, will almost certainly lead to greater explosive damage to the biosphere, than a mediated slower meltdown. When one envisions the collapse of global society, one is not discussing the demise of an ancient Greek city-state, or even the abandonment of an empire like the Mayans. The end of our global civilization would not only result in the death of six billion humans, just wiping nature’s slate clean. We also have something like 5,000 nuclear facilities spread across the planet’s surface. And this is just one obvious and straightforward fact cutting across new radical arguments in favor of a quick fall. We have inserted ourselves into the web of life on planet Earth, into its interstitial fibers, over the last 500 years. We are now a big part of the world’s dynamic biological equation set – its checks and balances. If we get a “fever” and fall into social chaos, even just considering our non-nuclear toys laying about, the damage will be profound. It will be much more devastating than our new visionaries of post-apocalyptic paradise have prophesized. If one expands upon current examples of social chaos that we already see, like Afghanistan or Darfur, extrapolating them across the globe, encompassing Europe, Asia, North and South America, and elsewhere, then one can easily imagine desperate outcomes where nature is sacrificed wholesale in vain attempts to rescue human life. The outcomes would be beyond “ugly”; they would be horrific and enduring. That is why I cannot accept this new wave of puritanical anarcho-apocalyptic theology. The end-point of a quick collapse is quite likely to resemble the landscape of Mars, or even perhaps the Moon. I love life. I do not want the Earth turned barren. I think that those who are dreaming of a world returned to its wilderness state are lovely, naive romantics – dangerous ones. Imagine 100 Chernobyl’s spewing indelible death. Imagine a landscape over-run with desperate and starving humans, wiping out one ecosystem after another. Imagine endless tribal wars where there are no restraints on the use of chemical and biological weapons. Imagine a failing industrial infrastructure seeping massive quantities of deadly toxins into the air, water and soil. This is not a picture of primitive liberation, of happy post-civilized life working the organic farm on Salt Spring Island. I agree that we must change our ways. We desperately need to change our ways. Our global society is exploitative, unsustainable, and abuses the biosphere. We are in big trouble. However, coping out by calling for a hastened end to civilization is suicidal, and like all suicides, it does not fully consider what comes after – it is marked by a surplus of self-absorbed willfulness and a short-fall of thoughtful consideration. There is, however, a more reasonable sub-strain of eco-apocalyptic anarchism that makes a truly heartfelt argument: “The End is coming anyway. If we hasten it, we may save species ’x’ that is currently on the verge of extinction. We should accept that our species is doomed. Must we take everything down with us in a long, slow death?” I find this rhetoric particularly appealing because it awakens deep personal notions of romantic heroism in me. These are noble, caring thoughts. Unfortunately, life just isn’t quite so simple. Sure a quick crash might save a couple of emblematic species from extinction, for a while, but the near certain trade-off would be the desertification of whole continental areas of the planet, wiping out thousands of complete ecosystems. So, what are we to do? I think our best shot at stopping the destruction of our biosphere and retaining a maximum number of intact eco-systems is powerful, irresistible gradualism. Nature herself operates gradually. It is Mankind that has been impetuous. If we work diligently and intelligently then we just might save civilization through massive cultural transformation. And if we fail then we might at least succeed in preserving enough of the life-world that those species that follow us will be able to continue the flowering of life on our planet. Those who hold Hollywood images of deer and wolves happily roaming the derelict and abandoned streets of New York City in 50 years are hopelessly optimistic. If civilization crashes quickly then the whole of the Eastern Seaboard, an area the size of the Sahara desert, will be a dead zone for 10,000 years, minimum. We need cultural transformation and we need it now. We must adopt the Precautionary Principle, making it a cornerstone of our relationships with each other and the natural world. "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998We have the keys to paradise. We know the whereabouts of the door to a beautiful future. We need only the courage and the resolve to unlock this door, enter and claim our natural place in the wondrous scheme of life on Earth, to remember our ourselves and our home. Prometheus Institute does not endorse any article or comment that is published on PEJ.org. The opinions expressed in all articles and comments are those of the authors and not of Prometheus Institute or the Peace, Earth & Justice News.Source: tinyurl.com/2ksvr7------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Neurobiology of Mass Delusion JASON BRADFORD / Energy Bulletin 11jan05 History is replete with examples of social organizations, whether a business or a nation, that failed to perceive the realities of a changing environment and didn't adapt in time to prevent calamity. Hubris and a self-reinforced dynamic of mass delusion characterize the waning phases of these once powerful groups. In hindsight we ask, "What were they thinking? Wasn't the situation obvious to everyone? The evidence is so clear!" Here's the question we should ask next: "Is history now repeating itself?" Anyone familiar with the concepts of overshoot, resource depletion, global climate change, mass extinction, and related ills, wonders why the media, church groups and political leaders do not vigorously discuss these topics. By contrast, those unfamiliar with these issues assume that because they are not covered closely, the problems must not be too worrisome. My view is that science and history are correct, and that we are headed for a major planetary disaster as far as humans are concerned. I've tried to understand why the human brain, on a collective level at least, is apparently incapable of dealing with obvious problems. Here's what I've learned. For a clue to how the mind works, imagine getting startled in your own home. A shadowy figure lurking in a doorway elicits a powerful jolt to your system. It is only your spouse, of course, but it takes about half a second to realize that. This reveals what neurobiologists can now see with modern imaging techniques: visual signals get processed in more than one brain region, and the signal first arrives at the primitive hindbrain where it can respond before we are conscious of the threat. Playing runner up is the neocortex, our lumbering master of rational thought. A false alarm is inconvenient, yes, but a necessary burden. Without that startle response, a lion may have eaten us. Emotions motivate and guide us. Fear of the lion prepares the body for fight or flight. Love binds individuals into cohesive units greater than the sum of their parts. When we succeed or fail at a task, or are praised or scorned for a particular behavior, emotional reactions are our rewards (feels good) or punishments (feels bad) and become the guideposts for our future thoughts and actions. The neocortex works with our emotions to solidify our plans. We dream about a goal and anticipate the emotional rewards of realizing it. Our self-esteem can be wrapped up in these goals and plans. They become our "mental models," setting what is important in life and largely defining who we think we are. This is how we become determined to "stick with the program." Mental models may range from the very short term and mundane, such as a plan to jog 12 laps, to lifetime goals and worldviews, such as a career path and religious beliefs. Another clue about how the mind works comes from a famous experiment on the nature of the brain duality. Two films were made; both included a basketball team passing a ball among them. In one film a woman with an umbrella walks through the scene, in the other film it's a gorilla. People were randomly shown one of the films and randomly told either to count the number of ball passes made or just watch. Now consider the mindset of the counters. They have a goal, they bind this goal to an emotional reward, and they anticipate getting the "right answer" and "feeling good." All of those told to just watch and report anything interesting about the film recall either the woman with an umbrella or the gorilla. Over a third of those counting missed the woman and over a half missed the gorilla. When mental models are tied to rewards, we fear and rebel against their disruption, aiming to avoid disappointment or disillusionment. Because it receives and processes sensory input faster, our emotional mind can censor from conscious awareness information that may interfere with the task required to make the goal. If a gorilla isn't involved in actually passing the ball, then don't pay attention to the gorilla. Depending upon circumstances, this focus can be advantageous or dangerous. If a mathematician is working on the proof of a theorem in the safety of his office that is fine, but doing so on a busy street can be deadly. A changing environment, such as a busy street, requires us to be open to new sensory inputs and to be willing to modify or even dismiss outmoded mental models. Rigidity of mental models in the face of countervailing information is called denial. Given what we now know about the structure and function of different brain regions, we can understand the physiological roots of denial. The data nullifying a cherished mental model are systematically filtered out before the conscious brain is even aware of them. The expression, "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil," exemplifies this censoring process. The conscious brain is not a simple dupe however. It can actively participate in the act of denial. This is termed "rationalization," and involves complex neocortical functions. People can erect fancier houses of cards and hold on to their cherished beliefs even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. Many will admit that is what they are doing by resorting to the expression, "Well, I just have faith," even when the subject is not overtly religious. This point in a discussion signals that the mental model being challenged is very important for the person, and to remove it would cause a serious and painful identity crisis. Who wants that kind of grief? You can witness this brain duality in operation while watching debates between some of the dominant personalities of our culture, mainly those representing large financial and business interests, and the concerned watchers and interpreters of physical reality, mainly scientists in the realms of ecology, geology and climatology. Because the scientists are challenging fundamental assumptions of our culture, such as the basis for "progress" and the consequences of "economic growth," many cannot agree with the scientists without losing their identity. This threat to the mental model is simply too great to accept. Hence you encounter two modes of response from those accepting of the prevailing paradigm: (1) the scientific data are not reliable, and (2) faith in technological progress and/or human ingenuity. So when wondering why so many people just "don't get it," (oil depletion, overshoot etc.) whether they are your local politician or great aunt, realize there is a physiological mechanism that may preclude having a rational discussion on certain topics. The truth can only be pushed so far before rebellion occurs, hence the phrase, "To kill the messenger." Before many folks can learn and incorporate the lessons of ecology, most could use the services of a good shrink. Someone to call them on their bull and get them to face their faulty, contradictory, and destructive thought patterns. I fear that the world has neither enough shrinks nor enough time to wait for the long process of psychotherapy to work. Furthermore, enshrined institutions embody dangerous mental models within their various charters, goals and mission statements. If anyone happens to have a crisis of confidence, these institutions work to re-assimilate the disenchanted, quietly dismiss them, or destroy their reputations. Of course these are the worst possible responses. As Jared Diamond explains in his book "Collapse," history is replete with societies that failed to question their own assumptions and create new paradigms. Instead of making life possible in a changed environment, they are part of archeology's trash heap. Those who know about "Peak Oil," monetary debts, climate change, militarism, overpopulation, corporatism, soil loss, aquifer depletion, persistent organic pollutants, deforestation, etc., realize we are at a major historical juncture now. Since we know it is past time to change our culture, the question we have is whether most people will bother to listen and create the necessary transition in a rational, non-violent manner. For those who find the terms in the previous paragraph somewhat mysterious, try this. Research the "laws of thermodynamics" and compare them to the cultural imperative for "economic growth." See if you can recognize and then resolve the tension between the two in your mind. If you can't resolve the tension, decide which one of these has to go. Look back at the terms in the previous paragraph and ask how they relate to what you've just learned. Caution: afterwards you may need a good shrink.
|
|