One Planet Living

A lot of people want to know what they can do personally to address the many threats to our environment. I do, too. 

A lot is said about how we have mistreated our life support system, but not much in the way of what can be done to reverse the decline. 

Some think that the system that created the problems can be trusted to solve them. But isn't green capitalism an oxymoron? Capitalism only works with infinite growth, and planet destroying infinite growth is not green. 

Anyone calling for system change, though, is seen as a radical on the fringe and summarily denounced.

What is needed now is a broad perspective that allows us to address our entire system, especially population, lifestyle and consumption.

Sooner rather than later, we will have to discuss strategies for One Planet Living.  It is not a radical notion. Rather, it is the only way to live on one planet.

The following is from "Why We Must Talk About Population" by Erik Assadourian.

One-Planet Living 

In Is Sustainability Still Possible?, Jennie Moore and William Rees explored what a one-planet lifestyle would look like (in a world with 7 billion not 9.5 billion) and their analysis shows that if we lived within Earth’s limits, gone would be the days of driving personal vehicles, flying, eating meat, living in large homes, and essentially the entire consumer society that we know today. 

Frankly, that’s fine with me, considering the ecological, social and health costs of modern society—but most will not accept that. And considering that—and that policymakers and economists and even most environmentalists still believe further economic growth is possible and even beneficial—it’s increasingly hard to imagine any scenario other than a horrifying ecological collapse in our future.

System change, not climate change. 

While we are working that, it would be helpful to start living like we only had one planet to depend on. 

That is something we can all do now.

What Consumers Want vs. What Earth Can Provide

This is what consumers want.

Terrafugia flying car (not yet available).

Cost: $300,000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what consumers can get. 

Tesla model S electric car. 

Cost: $80,000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what the planet can sustainably provide.

Hammacher Schlemmer solar powered golf cart.

Cost: $9000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what will allow the planet to replenish its overdrawn resources and return to health. 

Pedego Electric Assist Tandem Bicycle.

Cost: $4000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B. 

 Using these will heal the Earth more quickly.

Zamberlan Hiking Boots (leg power)

Cost: $400.00

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

Wanted: Alien Abduction

Finally! Abduction. Good-bye Earthlings.

When I read the news these days I find myself dreaming of being abducted by aliens. I would love it if a flying saucer would go all X-Files on me. 

I would be drawn up into their craft in a beam of light, then transported to a far away planet inhabited by a race of beings that lived lives that actually made sense. 

My new friends would be dedicated to reason, logic, and scientific inquiry. 

They would honour the planet they rely on for their sustenance, and treat her with full respect. The alien system would be non-hierarchical, and the accumulation of wealth by single individuals would be seen as the insanity that it is wherever it exists. 

Being intelligent beings, they would have a system based on the abundance of the Universe, as opposed to the scarcity that causes so much grief on our own dismal planet. 

There would be no money.

These aliens would be dedicated to the improvement of their species, and they would build on the knowledge that was hard gained by their ancestors to develop advancements for the good of all. 

No Dark Ages or neo-feudalism here.

All the alien beings would be equals, and they would not discount and denigrate the skills and abilities of 50% of their population based on what kind of genitals they possess.

Their newspapers would be full of news, not weaponized propaganda and outright lies.

Planet Alien would have clean air, land, and water, and anyone that fouled either one would be exiled to Earth where such activities are actively encouraged by eco-cidal maniacs.

They would be loving and compassionate, and they would cherish all little alien children enough to put aside individual greed and selfishness so as to ensure a livable planet in perpetuity.

So, I say to the aliens, wherever they may be, "Abduct me! Please. I won't try to run away, or hide under my bed. I am not afraid."

I would even allow some gentle probing, which would be an major upgrade from taking it up the rear from a bunch of billionaires and their bought and paid for politicians here on my birth planet.

Remember, The Truth is Out There. 

Insectageddon Calls For Lifestyle Changes

“Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals — the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.  

Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day.”
  

Source: The Extinction Crisis, Center for Biological Diversity, biologicaldiversity.org

Without insects and other land-based arthropods, EO Wilson, the renowned Harvard entomologist, estimates that humanity would last all of a few months.

Even if this were the only problem facing us (it isn't), it would be enough to prompt some serious questions about where civilization is headed, and then consider some serious solutions, like radically changing the way we do everything.

You can't separate the way we live from the challenges we face, like Insectageddon. There are better ways of doing things that respect all life on Earth, and if we are to save ourselves, we will need to adopt them, and soon.

First insecticide, then ecocide, then humanicide. As they go, so go we.

World Environment Day 2019: Eco-Weenies Unite!

Yesterday was United Nations World Environment Day. Did anybody notice? Did the Anti-Environmentalists take a break for the day?

This UN designated day was started in1974, a sign of the growing environmental movement that had been building since the 1960s. Its purpose is to promote "worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment."

One way they could achieve their stated goal would be to make people more aware of the "movement started to end a movement", because shortly after the Environmental Movement began, the Anti-Environmental Movement came into being.

The green revolution was still in its infancy, and already the backlash had begun. Soon, the Merchants of Doubt would go into high gear.

Now, 50 years later, it appears that the anti-protection factions are winning the struggle to decide whether we help Mother Earth, or continue the mistreatment that Jim Morrison noted in the 1967 song, "When The Music Is Over".

In it, he asks:


"What have they done to the Earth?

What have they done to our fair sister?

Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her.

Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn,

And tied her with fences and dragged her down."


Have things improved for the environment globally over the past 50 years of World Environment Days? Maybe it is time for a different approach.

Currently, many gains the enviro movement has made over the decades are being repealed by misguided anti-environmentalists in the Corporate/Government Complex. Morrison would be horrified, but probably not surprised.

After decades of astro-turfing, lobbying, shady science, outright lies, and buying off politicians, a large part of the public blindly approves of the anti-environmentalist's mangled messaging.

"The Greenies are destroying everything. They hate humanity, and must be stopped. Nothing is wrong - don't worry, keep shopping."

Before/After photos in a recent British Columbia clear cut. This is the real Eco-Terrorism.

And don't forget one of their favourite tactics - the demeaning, belittling, and discrediting name calling.

Until recently, I thought I was an environmentalist, but now I realize that we have been effectively rebranded by the Denial Industry. Now we are something quite different from the concerned citizens that we thought we were when we first started to speak up for a natural world that can't speak for itself.

I thought I was a good guy, but apparently, no.

Now, because I am a defender of Mother Nature (which includes humans, who are part of nature), I am labelled an alarmist, eco-fascist, enviro-Nazi, eco-weenie, and my favourite, eco-terrorist. That is only a small selection of the slurs used to shift pubic views against the self-preservation through a healthy, functioning ecosystem, that is the goal of environmentalism.

This year the United Nations World Environment Day was centred around plastic reduction, specifically, single use plastic products. This is a very important topic that demands action from individual citizens, government, and industry. But after 5 decades, I can't help but feeling that it is too little, too late.

I suggest that next year they do something focused around environmental literacy, and shine a solar powered light on the dirty deeds of the anti-environmental movement, and their false choice of economy OR environment.

Without a functioning environment, there will be no economy, no jobs, no environmentalists, no anti-environmentalists, no nothing.

Maybe the United Nations World Environment Day next year could sport the following motivating motto:

"Eco-Weenies Unite To Save The Environment AND the Economy... AND The Anti-Environmentalists, Too"

The accompanying theme would be: "How the Corporate/Governmental Anti-Environmentalist Establishment Sold Us All Out And Are Destroying the Earth In The Process".

Something like that would really promote "worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment." Lets call out the Anti-Eco-Weenies (where the enviro-terrorist label really fits), and lay bare their lies and rhetoric.

Mother Earth will be dragged down no more. We have to be prepared to draw the line, and defend it.

I'm off to New York to make my proposal. I wonder how long it will take to ride my bike to the U.N. headquarters?

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

We are sorry your mission has been hijacked by rank consumerism. You used to stand for something wholesome, giving the needy some of the things they would need throughout the new year. Now you are a symbol and excuse for conspicuous consumption. Your name has been sullied, and it saddens us.

In order to lighten your load, and ease you guilt for reinforcing the idea that material possessions are a real substitute for happiness, we are asking that you do not visit our homes this year. This includes future years also, unless we actually need something essential for sustaining and improving life.

And how many gifts fit that bill?

That is why you started giving in the first place - to help people with things they need. Today we confuse want with need, and your mental health hangs in the balance, as you are now complicit in environmental destruction and potential global collapse.

How can you Ho Ho Ho with a straight face when you are experiencing an existential crisis?

Worry not.

Many of us are working to see the day when your simple mission has been restored, gift-giving has returned from the stratosphere, your good name has been restored, and your elves can get that holiday you've been promising them since you kicked up your sweatshop assembly lines to 24/7/365.

You can still drop by for cookies and milk if you need a break.

Happy Solstice,

Your Friends at NBA

Motor Vehicles - Ecocidal Agents of Destruction

Road kill. We say it without really thinking about it. Trillions of deaths annually are seen as unavoidable collateral damage, simply so we can go places faster and more conveniently.

I have been around cars for my entire life. During that time I have often thought about all the wildlife killed by cars every year.  The windshield alone is a speeding zone of death, evidenced by the ample bug stuff splattered everywhere after a road trip. What a way to go.

Like most North Americans, I have a motor vehicle (a wheelchair accessible van). Unlike most, for the past few years it has been driven an average of about 1600 km (1000 miles). When I drive to the grocers, which is about the only time I drive lately, I am usually not driving fast enough to kill any bugs.

Going slow means there is lots of time to stop or manoeuvre around anything on the road, although ants are impossible to see from the driver's seat. Now I mostly kill things with the noxious fumes emanating from my tailpipe. That doesn't make me feel any better.

The forecast is for more cars in the future. Lots more. Perhaps up to a billion more, and enough new roads for all of them, that would circle the Earth 600 times. These vehicular ecocidal agents of destruction will have serious repercussions for wildlife globally.

“A recent paper by Canadian scientists suggests the upsurge in traffic could itself be responsible for the fall in insect numbers. After extrapolating data from a mile of highway in Ontario, researcher from Laurentian University calculated that hundreds of billions of pollinating insects were probably being killed by vehicles each year in North America.” - Source 

What would our transportation look like if we had reverence, compassion and care for all the other life that shares the planet with us? We can move toward this by staying closer to home, avoiding unnecessary trips, and when traveling, choosing less deadly forms of getting about, like cycling, walking, bus and train.

You can read more about the "highway holocaust" here. It might make you feel like leaving your car in the garage or driveway more often. We can help to radically reduce road kill.

Are You Lost In The World Like Me?

"Are you lost in the world like me?
If the systems have failed?
Are you free?
All the things, all the loss
Can you see?
Are you lost in the world like me?
Like me?"

Moby from "These Systems Are Failing"

Animation - Steve Cutts

See more Steve Cutts here.

Consumerism Breeds Violence

People of the world, unite. Today we recognize May Day.

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles."

- Gandhi

Consumerism is a violent way of life. From the violence of tearing raw materials from the earth, to the violence perpetrated against workers in extraction, transportation, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, everywhere is violence.

Consumers, who may truly believe that life is better surrounded by things they don't need, and act as cogs in the machine, are wracked with the violence of being part of the relentless War on Everything.

Together we can tackle the real weapon of mass destruction - greed. It is this missile that spreads the cluster bombs of poverty, inequality, misogyny, and ecocide.

Today we can begin to take back our lives, and stop the violence. But to do it, we will have to unite under the banner of living with nature and each other, and through that work save our planet for the benefit of all her children.

"That’s the only thing that will prompt a new consensus to form around some alternate, more plausible future, and the emergence of a generation willing to fight for it, even if it requires some real creative destruction of the things that are killing us anyway." 

- James Howard Kunstler

Seven Generations of Sorry

"Huge stone monsters will tear open the face of the earth."

"The prophecy of the Seventh Generation is common to many American Indian nations. Young native people, especially young Mohawk people, should pay attention to and consider.  

According to the prophecy, after seven generations of living in close contact with the Europeans, the Onkwehonwe would see the day when the elm trees would die. The prophecy said that animals would be born strange and deformed, their limbs twisted out of shape. 

Huge stone monsters would tear open the face of the earth. The rivers would burn aflame. The air would burn the eyes of man. 

According to the prophecy of the Seventh Generation the Onkwehonwe would see the day when birds would fall from the sky, the fish would die in the water, and man would grow ashamed of the way that he had treated his mother and provider, the Earth.  

Finally, according to this prophecy, after seven generations of living in close contact with the Europeans, the Onkwehonwe would rise up and demand that their rights and stewardship over the Earth be respected and restored. 

The children of the Kanien'kehake are the seventh generation." - From: IndianLegend.com

Mental Madness Monday

Anyone who would claim rampant consumerism is good for the environment has a serious struggle with reality. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are committing ecocide, a tragically stupid thing to do that borders on mass mental illness.

Ecocide is the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.

Since we are dependent on healthy and functioning ecosystems, committing ecocide is one step removed from committing suicide.

We are choosing self-harm, which indicates this madness runs rampant.

Many that are leading the destruction, not only suffer from delusions of grandeur, but also suicidal tendencies. They should be identified and be involuntarily committed, long term, until they can demonstrate they no longer desire to destroy themselves and everyone and everything around them.

What Do We All Have In Common?

Boreal forest in northern Alberta, Canada is sustainable indefinitely if cared for properly

"The Earth is what we all have in common." 
- Wendell Berry

Canadian tar sands where Boreal forest used to be - not sustainable
 Garth Lenz photo

We should take better care of it.