thank you, fellow committed earthlings all
February 22, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Forward on climate, 2/17/13 DC rally
airborne over climateride california
February 17, 2013 § 1 Comment
On occasion of today’s major DC climate change rally
“when you push, sometimes things happen”
February 8, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Bill McKibben: Ahead of Keystone XL Rally, Fossil Fuel
Divestment Expands Across U.S. Campuses
AARON MATÉ: In recent months, college students at over 200 campuses have begun pushing administrators to divest from fossil fuel companies. On Tuesday, Sterling College in Vermont announced it will soon become the third college in the U.S. to divest its endowment from 200 fossil fuel companies identified by the environmental group 350.org [4]. Unity College in Maine and Hampshire College in Massachusetts were the first two schools to divest.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by 350.org’s founder, Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Last June, he wrote an influential article[5] for Rolling Stone called “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” It went viral.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! You’re just coming from Cooper Union last night, where the place was packed, this historic building where President Lincoln spoke—talking about what?
BILL McKIBBEN: Well, talking about this burgeoning divestment movement. It’s been kind of amazing to watch in the last six weeks as the number of campuses has mushroomed to the point—at 234 campuses now. The Nation said last week that this may be the largest student movement in several decades. In one sense, it came very quickly out of nowhere. In another sense, you know, last year was the hottest year we’ve ever seen in America. We watched the drought, we watched Sandy. I think it’s no surprise, really, that young people are starting to say, “We’ve got to spend another 60, 70 years on this planet. We better do something fast.” And that something means standing up to the fossil fuel industry that’s been in the way of rational change for a quarter-century now.
AMY GOODMAN: What do mean by divest from fossil fuel companies? Which companies are you targeting?
BILL McKIBBEN: We have a list of 200 companies with the largest carbon reserves in the world. The argument that was in that Rolling Stone piece, and in a sort of tour that we did around the country all fall about it, was that these companies now have—this industry has five times as much carbon in its reserves as the most conservative scientists on earth says would be safe to burn. Once you know the numbers, there’s no longer any sort of doubt about how this story comes out: Unless we rewrite the script, if we follow their business plan, the planet tanks.
That’s why there is this upsurge, not only around divestment, but around things like the fight against the Keystone pipeline. You know, we’re going back to Washington for the biggest climate rally probably ever in this country a week from Sunday on the Mall in D.C. It’s—it’s coming up fast, and it’s got to come up fast, this movement, because unlike other problems we face, there’s a time limit on this one. If we don’t get it right soon, then we don’t get it right at all.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s Obama going to do around Keystone XL? He put off the decision, said he would put it off ’til after the election. That’s come. He said now spring. What do you believe will happen?
BILL McKIBBEN: I believe what will happen will depend entirely on what kind of movement we build. My sense of Washington is that when you push, sometimes things happen. It took 1,253 people going to jail, the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years, to slow down this northern portion of the Keystone pipeline. It’s going to take a real effort to stop it. But that real effort is being made by people in all 50 states and by our brothers and sisters in Canada. It’s been exciting to watch over these last 15 months. Something’s building. I’m not certain that it’s building fast enough to catch up with the physics of climate change. But watching those campuses, watching those kids, it’s awfully exciting.
AARON MATÉ: So, Obama has now delayed his decision twice. Do you think that’s linked to these protests that you’ve been involved in?
BILL McKIBBEN: I think everyone—as Van Jones said the other day, this was a done deal 18 months ago. We’ve managed to make it come undone for a while and, in the process, kept 400 million barrels of oil in the ground that would otherwise have gone out. So, that’s, you know, worth going to jail for, but it’s not going to stop global warming. We’ve actually got to start leaving carbon permanently in the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have 10 seconds. What’s the plan for February 17th, this rally in Washington?
BILL McKIBBEN: It’s going to be exciting. And if you go to “forward on climate [6],” you’ll find out all the logistical details.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill McKibben, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and director of 350.org [4], author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
Links:
[1] http://www.democracynow.org/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/amy-goodman-0
[3] http://www.alternet.org/authors/aaron-mate
[4] http://www.350.org/
[5] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
[6] http://act.350.org/signup/presidentsday
[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/climate-change
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/keystone-0
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/kxl
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/tar-sands
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bill-mckibben
[12] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
ok, mr president, you did say FORWARD!
February 1, 2013 § 1 Comment
You too, mr blogger. ( do wish i could . . . )
asphalt nation
January 25, 2013 § Leave a Comment
How the auto took over america
and how we can take it back
main difficulty in restoring a viable mode of human presence in the land is that we’ve found ourselves so locked into and dependent on existing industrial systems for food – shelter – clothing – transport – jobs that any thought of an alternative way of living appears more dream than possibility.
thomas berry, THE SACRED UNIVERSE: EARTH, SPIRITUALITY, AND RELIGION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, ipad kindle loc 1918/2110
my first 2013 post; getting behind at this, sorry folks, engaged like most – presidential candidates included – in everything but biggest topic at hand – our very planet’s survival. how on earth can this be ??? truth to tell, been fully absorbed too in this, another monumental work, one more consciousness / action turn-around.
jane holtz kay, nothing less than the rachel carson of the road ( tho ms kay herself ascribes that role to another ). the way she tells it, there’s no end to what fixation on our car is doing to our society. and not from just behind the wheel either – our roads, our architecture, our way of life, our very notion of place, and of course our planet’s declining health.
kay’s writing background as journalistic architecture critic underscores not only well-versed language of building, she verily breathes the high art of cultural design & purpose.
as with CARSON’S SILENT SPRING, as with so much else making its way here at shemovesme.com, it’s taken this long for news of this import to reach this one bumbling reader. doubtless a good number of you are already here; hopefully this post serves at least to re-open a few driver-distracted eyes.
and this time it’s so close to home. i have to say i’m caught squarely in the bullseye of ms kay’s target cultural offenders. who could be more attuned to cars from well before his very own driver’s license? who can readily recall even in his waning years that two-tone of dad’s new ’53 ford country sedan . . . ? polynesian bronze and sandpiper tan. or my own unbridled explosion into that culture with bouncy henry-j ?
and talk about bouncy! kay’s pages are written with as much enticing forward vigor as they are with rewarding detailed backup rich with stats & contributions from all sides of our auto equation. take a look at these catchy contents . . .
part I the car glut: a nation in lifelock
bumper to bumper
geography of inequity
landscape of the exit ramp
road to environmental ruin
harm to health and breath
cost of car culture
part II car tracks: the machine that made the land
model T, model city
from front porch to front seat
driving through the depression
asphalt exodus
braking the juggernaut
three-car culture
part III car free: dead end to exit
none for the road
zoning for life
putting transit on track
centering of america
depaving of america
righting the price
what strikes me is it’s no longer that legendary love of the automobile holding us to our costly affair. we’re now helplessly locked in. how do i get around anywhere off my wheels – they’re part of me now.
like for any book that counts, kay doesn’t leave us there fully wound and locked in the wake of disastrous conclusions. to be sure, we’ve reached the dead end of our all-encompassing car culture. but the road doesn’t stop here: there’s much we can yet do, albeit at costs to our way of life heretofore rarely considered. what, back to the city ?
if you’re the rare reader like me who has yet to catch up to kay, i urge you to waste no more time getting hold of a copy of ASPHALT NATION. i leave you with these two quotes ringing in my ears from the book’s first and last chapters . . .
statistically, most of our expanding hours behind the wheel, nearly eight of every ten vehicle miles we travel, have nothing to do with work. neither are these miles vacation trips or long distance travel, the reasons americans give for buying the first -or second or third- automobile. such holiday trips consume . . . a scant 8 percent of our total mileage.
what sets the odometer reeling . . . is something less than life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. and that is errands. according to the highway administration study, one-third of the miles we travel go to consumption and family chores. p 31
the way to stop the auto age begins with affirming the value of place and the role of transportation in easing our access to it. the mission is to evoke the very root of transportation in the word ‘transport’ ( accent this time on 2nd syllable – me ) that can carry us to a loftier place and state of being. p 355
2012 in review
December 31, 2012 § 1 Comment
WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.
from shattering earth mother warning . . .
December 12, 2012 § 1 Comment
This moving invitation to all the Americas -south, central, north- from the indigenous kogi people of colombia’s sierra nevada de santa marta, on this special calendar date of 12/12/12.
close by mother-in-full
( gift from amparo -my special gang-of-six colombian friend, i pass along this special invitation to you, dear blog reader, as my own pagamento in our mirroring internet firmament )
We Mamos ( shamans ) of the Kogi people invite you to sow Anugwe with us in Mother Earth (Seynekan), and deeply in our very selves too. It is our pagamento ( offering ) to her.
Anugwe cannot be maintained if it is not accompanied by commensurate behavior on our part. The spirituality that reigns in our Mother impregnates us and is tinged in turn by our own actions.
Plants or animals are not the ones that distort that spirituality, because they follow her naturally. We can too through our coherence, our unconditional love, our adherence to the word, our intentions, and our attitudes. When we sow the Anugwe in Mother Earth we harmonize with her, express our inner love -the unconditional one, the one that respects her laws of nature.
We align mind, soul, and inner self. We take an amethyst stone in one hand and an ambar stone in the other. We invoke Arwaviku, Father of Intuition; I’narwa, Father of Food; Sokakurwa, Father of Plants & Animals; and Geinigeka, Father of Energy and Spiritual Strength -present altogether in Kankurwa, our cosmic universal temple.
We ask these spiritual masters to cleanse and harmonize the energies of Mother Earth in the four directions, the four colors, the four elements, and the four essences of being- physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
We invite you to follow this our Mamos ritual with us. Or prepare your own pagamento for Mother Earth using fruits, seeds, flowers, and / or personal belongings of your own choosing. During your meditation, keep that pagamento close. After the ceremony, sow it in the ground -your very own Anugwe- where it can remind you of the presence of Mother Earth- her harmony and her unconditional love.
watch BBC’s 1990 one-&-a-half hour from the heart of the world – the elder brothers warning, a deeply meditative consideration of kogi earth-wisdom.
watch the three-&-a-half minute preview of ALUNA, BBC’s updated 2012 production of the kogi lost civilization and their message to us, their ” younger brothers “.
Now we find ourselves in a period of the greatest disturbance that the Earth has ever known, a period when survival of both the human and natural worlds in their present modes of being is threatened. The identification of our human fate with the destiny of the planet was never more clear. . … Now a new sequence of liturgical celebrations is needed. Even more than moments of seasonal renewal, these moments of cosmic transformation must be considered sacred. … First among these celebrations might be a celebration of the emergent moment of the universe itself. This was the beginning of religion just as it was the beginning of the world. The human mind and all its spiritual capacities began with this moment. ( ipad kindle loc 1477/2110 in thomas berry’s THE SACRED UNIVERSE: EARTH, SPIRITUALITY, AND RELIGION IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY )
transition culture’s top ten films
December 7, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Terrific narrated filmed reviews of where we’re coming from, where we need to be going. check each out in order on TRANSITION CULTURE’S UK SITE: 6 abbrev trailers, 2 5-6 min trailers, a 35-min animated film, and yet one more fine BBC documentary on living with Mother ( 50-min ).
but first, promised word on-topic from favorite commentator THOMAS BERRY
The story of the Western world is the story of how the peoples whose culture took shape through the religious inspiration of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the humanism of the Greek world, the political-legal genius of the Romans, and a brilliant medieval period became so entranced with a secular, scientific, industrial civilization serving limited human needs that it was willing to devastate the entire planet for the immediate benefits received ( by the few ). Their assault upon the Earth has been so violent in modern times, both to its geological structures and its living species, that we ( now ) face a tremendous crisis . . . This new situation is so inherent in cultural structures that it seems to be the inevitable consequence of ( those very ) religious, political, educational, ethical, and economic establishments of Western peoples. ( ipad kindle loc 1686/2110 of thomas berry’s THE SACRED UNIVERSE: EARTH, SPIRITUALITY, AND RELIGION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY )
here’s rob hopkins’ own review of his transition network’s chosen top ten films.
click on embedded trailers & films directly @ TRANSITION CULTURE’S SITE
here is my own favorite, their #2 selection, naturalist filmmaker / farmer rebecca hosking’s deeply honest, probe into her own farm of the future.
