The perpetuity of the new conservative ideas lay in the weakening of our democracy.  They thrive on the “dumbing of the masses” with the consolidated media outlets and when our school systems don’t teach our students to think critically in our complex society.  Twenty years ago there were 500 major outlets of media and now there are only at most five!  Cooperate entities own our radio stations and shows, local news channels, and our news papers.  Most outlets don’t lie as much as omit important information, FOX on the other hand is a master at both.  Preaching a Faux type of conservatism during their news hours and their entertainment “opinion shows” where they are free to say whatever they wish in protection of “free speech”.  This irresponsible behavior of Glen Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter …..etc. has created false ideas and has driven fear into our countrymen and women.  These people as well as Rush Limbaugh are the leaders of faux conservatism, poising the minds of people who listen and want to believe.  They’re getting rich and famous from demonizing the Obama Administration and dangerously placing fear and hate in Americans. 

I have been contemplating if the Republicans are behind the tea party movement.  It sure does not look like it and if they are, they may have made a big mistake.  The Tea Party movement is one of the most disgusting phenomena I have ever seen.  It is great to see people get involved and act however to act on what you really have no clue about is dangerous to our democracy.  These people believe that there is a liberal agenda of “government takeover” and some believe it is even to form a single world power.  Many believe that Obama was not born in America, and that he is a Socialist Nazi.  Militias are forming for the “battle coming ahead to fight the Anti-Christ” and politicians from both parties are marked and threatened to leave office.  What really got me infuriated was in a healthcare protest the Tea Partiers degraded a chronically ill man by saying “I pay for your healthcare myself” and tossing dollar bills at him while screaming in his face.  This is a complete disgrace and is making Americans look like greedy bastards who care solely about how much money they have and not about the health of neighbors. 

As long as our fellow Americans are confused about the terminology of democracy, freedom, equality, liberalism and conservatism, the GOP and Tea Party is able to use the same manipulations to fulfill their agenda of trickledown economics (having a few dirty rich people and lots of poor people)

Another reason that the GOP has been able to thrive is because of their ideas on the limited role of government.  It is in a corporation’s selfish interest not to have Uncle Sam breathing down their backs; less regulation the more money they can make.  This means less regulation the fewer dollars need to spend to pay their workforce or the less they need to tend and care for natural resources or the less they have to pay for wastes and emissions.  If we want a free market we need to have regulations to fix and do things that are not done when there is no incentive for profit.

They latch onto single issue voters such as people who vote on abortion and who vote for lower taxes.  I’m not going to touch the abortion issue but… taxes! Lowering taxes and limiting spending is a key strategy for the Republicans.  However, in reality taxes are good; our free economy needs a way to run services that are not profitable.  The debate for small government is taking away vital local government positions such as social workers and city planners.   These are the jobs in our communities who are on the front line to solve the problems of climate disruption.  These positions and EDUCATION are vital to the survival of our society. I know it’s hard to open the pocket book but if we can pay a fraction more of our income to taxes we would all be better off, happier, and our children would be able to have their own children in a tolerable planet.  Would we rather sacrifice all that just for a few extra toys, our inferior diets and or vacations?  The GOP feeds off the greedy nature of our current modernist paradigm…  They often believe the victims of a broken society are at their own fault.  They believe “it is the criminals fault” and on a more extreme stance is that they may believe the victim of a rape would be at fault too.  They often lack the concept that these are social problems and these people are often victims of a broken society.  This is another reason why they don’t understand that taxes are good.

I often wonder what will happen to the GOP if we no longer had to worry about our dependence on fossil fuels.  There would be no wars over seas to protect the oil reserves demolishing the industrial war complex.  We would limit our funding to Israel until they stop murdering Palestinians and not giving as many reasons for radical Islamist to attack us at home(an example of a topic hidden by media –watch for a future posts).  National security (apparently the GOP’s “expertise”) would be more focused on saving us in this long emergency of climate disruption.  O boy, what a different world it would be if Mr. Bush never won…    

My favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt who was a conservative as well as Abraham Lincoln, probably two of the best presidents in history who were both conservative but these presidents were traditional conservatives.  Their beliefs laid in the protection of law, customs, nature, culture and religion.  The traditional conservatives (mostly pre Reagan) could take ideas and there real world implications seriously.  I realize that we can’t just have one party.  I hope that someday the conservatives would be born again or look back to their more traditional rational views and policies.  Until then, the new “faux” conservatives will do whatever possible to make Obama’s Presidency a failure in the eyes of Americans and breaking down what is left of our democracy.  Don’t get me wrong, there is corruption in the DNC but not nearly at the scale of the GOP.

Is the answer to all this election reform..?   YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, some other things too but I’ll get into that in a later post… Keep reading!!

The Enlightenment came out of the dark ages 400 years ago and now a new way of Integral thinking can be brought out in these times of social and environmental despair.  Much like the scientific revolution new tools and ideas allow us to change our picture of what life is really about.  Today computer models and advanced physics give us precise data that we are able fine tune our text books.  Now instead using the scientific modal we need to move more to way of effective learning bringing us an understanding that the world does not work in separate parts but actually works as a whole or a web.  Integral science shows how this new dream of sustainability really makes practical sense in the real world.  The Gaia Hypothesis, Dynamic Evolution, Environmental Economics and Chaos Theory is great new web views soon to shape the word, check them out!!!

As we take our way of thinking to the new level we will change everything such the ways we look at health, education, politics, and spirituality since this new age assumption will rework every aspect of your thoughts.  As the conventional wisdoms fall out of place new ideas will emerge and the unsolvable will bring solutions.  Sustainability receives a whole new meaning, it is not just about environmental degradation but receding from the complex mesh of sociological problems we see today. 

The philosophies of genetic determinism and profit-maximizing economies will dissolve with the selfish feral ways of survivalism.  As these grow more and more disenchanting our society’s power structures become subject to change.  The more corruption and dysfunction is presented the old ideas will break down and our new way of looking at things becomes more fashionable.  Sustainability is becoming sexy and hip while the conservative ideas are old and saggy like skin ready to fall of the bones…  We see this in the destruction of the Republican party in America.  After Obama was elected and the supermajority was elected in the Senate the Republicans were in grave danger of being a party of the past.  Since then they have bought out all their cards on the table and have gone about as crazy as you can get.  Washington D.C. is now full of lies and deception in order to distort the truth.  No real talking points are brought up and only thing that have going for them is the fight for small government “ at they lost that in 2008”- I will talk further on how the Republicans mirror modernist thinking soon in a new post…

I don’t blame people for having their points of view, we are all machine age thinkers and it seems to be common sense that we live in a clockwork universe and everything works together but being independent parts.  People who think that everything is connected and that we live in a web world are deemed as hippies, communist, traitors, and nut-cases.  We need to suck up the name calling and try to explain out reasoning, especially when you believe that their mind is impossible to change.

“The past 25 years seemed to have brought a new period of enlightenment in which humans in increasing numbers have become aware of their ones as a species and their place, not as dominators or controllers of nature, but as an integral part of the whole web of life.  Many cultures have held the view of Earth as a living being in which each species plays a vital role as a “global brain,” the Earth’s center pf self awareness.  This changing identity is beginning to have profound effects upon the way we live our world in which war and abuse is only dimly remembered, in which there is no starvation, in which harmony among the species prevails and the rape of the Earth is ceased.” Thomas Greco, New Money for Healthy Communities, 1994

Piggy Principle: instead of saving the energy conserved though efficiency; we find new ways to spend it, leading to greater consumption than before while raising the carrying capacity of the human population. 

(The more we can the more we do.)

We live on a crowded planet thanks to one thing, oil.  The historical jump in population initiated by easy containing and easy to burn fuel allowing us to spend lots of energy.  The more energy we spend the more we allow our uncontrolled population to grow.  But there other is limiting factors such as water and disease from overcrowding.  Science is continually suppresses these limiting factors so the rising populations continue to flourish and expedite resource consumption eating away at our natural life supporting systems.  Instead of learning how to use energy more wisely we need to focus more on using less energy.  I am an advocate for energy efficiency but it needs to be seen as a tool to transform society and not make the Earths poison cheaper. 

The Four System Conditions for Sustainability (review)

1. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentration of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust.
2. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. 
3. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing degradation by physical means.
4.  In the sustainable society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

Anything that does not meet these demands is not sustainable.  Energy efficiency is great, although we are still users, consumers and destroyers.  This planet is more complex and intricate then we can imagine.  The mysterious natural cycles and systems create life and let it thrive.  We forget how delicate it is, how the simplest organisms and the simplest molecules are what give us everything we know and breathe.  We need to break out of the “clockwork” way of thinking(that everything functions in separate parts) and understand that we need to ponder the interwoven nature of all things. 

Until humanity reaches a new level of enlightenment where we care for others more than ourselves (“greed is good”), the more we think it is ok to burn energy the more we will buy. 

What it will take for everyone to realize this is a massive grass-roots movement. Either a revolution or our civilization has ever seen.  We need to stop thinking the problem is too big for us to handle and get off your ass and act.  Seek the knowledge and teach – Go door to door and talk to the people next to you on the bus on the street at school, work – everywhere and everyone.  There is no time to be shy anymore!

Everyone does not need and fully understand the science… They just need to comprehend that this planet is the one and only; that it is possible to burn down the temple that we reside in.  New theology or faiths can be transformed to influence people to do what needs to be done.  Whatever it takes is fine with me but just relying on energy efficiency may make things worse.  We need that paradigm shift now more than ever and we need our firesouls to be easily accessible and easy to use create the new historical jump of population of people who understand the need to live sustainably.

“…the climate is a problem that can just be fixed or quickly solved by technological fixes without addressing the larger structure of ideas, philosophies, assumptions, and paradigms that have brought us to the brink of irreversible disaster… There are certainly better technologies to be deployed, and far better ones soon to come.  But the climate is not likely to be reestablished by any known technological fix quickly, easy, or painlessly.”  (Orr, David  Down to the Wire, 2009)

 I just hit one of the key words that you will be hearing in the debate this summer.   We will not be hearing about the beneficial results of the bill to our environment, instead the messages for the bill is to protecting our national security and economy by reducing our dependencies on foreign oil (by increasing American produced power – clean and dirty) as well as job creation.  I have a feeling cap and trade will be tossed aside just as universal healthcare not making a significant enough change again (the House passed a bill last June that relies on a carbon emissions trade system, however the legislation doesn’t have enough support to pass in the Senate).  Unfortunately It looks like the bill introduced last December by Maria Cantwell (D) and Susan Collins (R) using a model in which the government would auction off pollution permits and funnel three-quarters of the money back to every American in monthly payments will take the place of cap and trade.  If you remember Obama’s State of the Union Address he stated that he will work on increasing off shore drilling and nuclear power production.  These are some of the compromises weakening the bill for bipartisan support.  The good news is I this bill WILL pass and it should not take nearly as long as the healthcare bill. 

The writers of the bill Kerry (D), Lieberman (I), and Graham (R) will be introducing a draft next month and will be up for floor debate hopefully in May but maybe in June.  

Issues on Job Creation and Clarification

In my last post I gave you a few numbers on the impact of moving towards a green economy.   It looked as we would have a net job loss but it is not that simple.  The consequences of climate change and peak oil demand a shifting economy.  If we stay dependent on oil we will see a collapse in the food industry, skyrocketing transportation cost, and energy.  Also, the shift is essential to stay a leader in the global economy.  China, India and Europe have already showed that they are moving ahead with green technology.   If we do not hurry we will be buying our batteries from China just like we are sending our money to the Middle East for oil.  However, I lied…  There will be a net loss in jobs, but soon that would be the least of our worries if we keep on burning fossil fuels. 

One more factor this bill is having on our jobs is that green energy firms are holding off on projects until this bill passes – so give your legislators a call and tell them to get the wheels going on the bill…

Problems with Off Shore Drilling

Increasing off shore drilling will not be beneficial to America.  Yea, it would reduce oil cost but according to the Energy Information Administration it will not affect prices until 2030.  Ten democrats have recently written a letter to Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham that they would not vote for the bill if it includes expanding off shore oil and natural gas drilling.  They fear it would put their states at risk for oil spills, degradation of the fisheries as well as tourism.  They also noted that it perpetuates the global warming and putting their states at further risk for sea level rise.  I fear that order for climate legislation to pass these Democrats will be will be negotiated with to vote yes so the states would receive some of the revenue from the drill sites to assist in offsetting the consequences. 

Should we Move to Nuclear?

Keep reading – I’ll have a post in this soon…

All and all, my hope is that were are not going to lose the passage of a price on carbon policy.  They say cap-and-trade is dead but my hopes are that it will rise again with a new name and with the support of the nuclear and off shore drilling our senate can take a step in the right direction.  All though I do believe that putting a price on carbon or on natural capital  is a usufficant response to climate disruption, I do believe it is a step in the right direction.  Until there is election reform this is our best bet.

Looking back at human’s anthropological history environmental degradation has diminished arguably every society.  Only when we look at indigenous people who live off the land we see might find tribes who are good stewards of the land.  As soon as a society breaks away from the tribal living the connection from to what matters most is lost; our life support system.  Why is that??? Well, I would say the reasoning is that the indigenous people do not have corrupted and dysfunctional hierarchs of power perpetuated by the teachings of power and success.  Expansion and conquest is encouraged ultimately depleting the natural resources. It is time for us to think at a whole new level, away with self-absorption and disregard and what is around us collectively as a whole. 

At a global level, two trends are converging.  One the one hand, natural systems of the earth is deteriorating, and of the rate of this deterioration is increasing.  Many citizens and local officials still are not aware of the seriousness of what is happening at the global level or do not understand how this is directly related to the well-being of their own communities.  Those who are aware often feel paralyzed and helpless in the face of seeming overwhelming trends.  Solution; read TNS!

Now we can look back and try to dig our self out of the hole of humanity.  Top down institutions have corrupted our societies for too long.  It is time to rise from the bottom up and take our lives back.  It is time to reassemble our broken communities and work together to better our life and seven generations ahead. 

Karl-Henrik Robert started the framework.  As a doctor treating cancer in Sweden he recognized communities coming together for cancer stricken children.  He thought why can’t they come together and work to prevent cancer by reducing cancer causing agents that we see in our everyday life such as reducing VOC’s and other air pollutants.  He wanted to create a framework that people can use to assist us in living a healthy just life while we take care of our environment.  He created a list of guidelines we need to follow and send them around numerous times to scientist to create a framework that can be applied anywhere and everywhere…  Eventually he got the King of Sweden on board as well as actors to create a movie for the public and distributed it throughout the country…  This is the birth of the Natural Step Framework.

Now, this framework is used all around the world in local governments as well as businesses.  Now it’s time for your household, community, city, state to join in -   Hell, let’s get Obama on board, I would not be surprised if he has read the book already…  But remember, this will only work starting at the grass roots level. 

The Four System Conditions for Sustainability

1. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentration of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust.
2. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. 
3. In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing degradation by physical means.
4.  In the sustainable society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

Chapter 1        Introducing and Using the Natural Step Framework

Chapter 2        Sustainability:  The Trouble We Have Talking About It

Chapter 3        The Natural Step Approach: Why is it Useful?

Chapter 4        The Eco-municipalities of Sweden: A Little Background

Chapter 5        Changing to Renewable Energy Sources

Chapter 6        Getting Away from Fossil Fueled Vehicles: Transportation and Mobility

Chapter 7        Ecological Housing

Chapter 8        Green Businesses; Green Buildings

Chapter 9        Journeys to Self-sufficiency; Community Eco-economic Development       

Chapter 10      Ecological Schools; Ecological Education

Chapter 11      Sustainable Agriculture: Growing Healthy; Growing Locally

Chapter 12      Dealing with Waste

Chapter 13      Natural Resources: Protecting Biodiversity

Chapter 14      Sustainable Land Use Planning

Chapter 15      What Gets in the Way of Change?

Chapter 16      Three Change Processes that Work

Chapter 17      Steps to Change

Chapter 18      Inside the Head of a Process Leader

I constantly ponder on what is needed to be done for the survival of our society.  I realize how important it is to know how our civilization functions as nations of the world interact.  Here in our western culture (especially Americans) we value individualism and freedoms of the individual and this was formed by free market; Capitalism.  Corporations run the world as we know it; Well, the people with all the money do – money, money and more money takes president over human and environmental health.  When the motive is increasing revenue, corporations function only for their good.  This grows into a “tragedy of the commons” effect were unsustainable actions are just a norm.  Consumption equals profit and in order for this to take place there needs to be natural resources.  I’ll let you put the rest together for now…

The utopian solution to this is dismantling Capitalism and forming a steady state economy. 

Here is an example of one problem of switching to a steady state economy:

In America there is talk about shifting our economy to a green economy.  An underestimated number of 3.5 million jobs are connected to the fossil fuel sector(according to the American Petroleum Institute its 9.2 Million).  These are the jobs that will be affected the most in the switch to a green economy.  Obama has been using green energy projects to “stimulate” or economy, such as weatherization of homes, earmarks to districts with green projects, transportation too.  The climate bill that is sitting in the back seat of the Senate right now creates 1.5 million green jobs…  Also, keep in mind these jobs are generally lower paying.  I’m not good at math but that’s less than half of the jobs that will be negatively affected.  Yes, there will be money provided to the industries negatively affected but never enough can be provided.  Don’t hear me wrong- Our planet is not giving us the option of keeping or fossil fuel economy and we do need To Go “Green”.

Ultimately this means fewer jobs.  Ok, what is happening with the global population? Duh, it is sky rocketing.  Let’s put two and two together….  As I see it a sustainable future is NOT possible with our rising populations.  I’m not even going to touch that problem today… 

Ok – so what all needs to happen for us to survive–???–

In general it is a simple solution, we need to consume less.  We need to stop raping the resources on the planet and turning it into trash.  Basically, we need not to waste at all!  As we consume less, it will be difficult for most businesses to stay afloat.  Wages and insurance are the biggest cost for industries and they are the first to be cut and that’s not the only the “fat” that would be trimmed – jobs.  Vanities, comfort items (things that are for leisure like electronics) are not affordable as jobs diminish.  A smaller economy will create fewer taxes, thus fewer jobs in the public sector and governance my fail.  

My fear is that as we attempt to transition to a degrowth society our institutions will fail creating human suffering.  It may be best to just rip the band and off at once and we are better off doing it ourselves then if our planet does it for us.  Summing this all up, a simple lifestyle for all is what’s needed. 

So is it our freedom to do as we please that is causing us to destroy ourselves???    I’m scared to touch that question now!!  Maybe I shall have more courage in the near future – keep on reading!!

(Commonwealth of Australia/AP)

Just recently of the cost of East Antarctica a 985 sq mile (Size of Luxembourg) block of ice was knocked off the Mertz Glacier Tongue by the crashing of B9B iceberg (nearly the same size).
These icebergs moved into an area called a polynya which are areas that are responsible for producing super cold, dense, salt rich water (bottom water) that sinks to the ocean floor causing vertical circulation or “overturning circulation”. The Antarctic ice freezes expelling salt then creating a dense brine that sinks down the continental shelf. This displacement drives the oceanic currents or “conveyor belt” that distributes heat, nutrients and gases around the world.

There are few polynyas around the world. In fact the polynya near the Mertz Glacier accounts for 20% of the worlds bottom water. If the icebergs stay put they my retard or stop the creation of bottom water disrupting the oceanic currents. This may lead to cooler winters in the North Atlantic. It could also cause a significant loss of phytoplankton blooms disrupting the oceans food chain, and creating dead zones throughout the ocean without the proper distribution of oxygen. Also if the Antarctic belt gets disrupted warmer water could quicken the melting of Antartic Ice. With the melting ice the Earths energy budget would heighten creating a feedback that would melt sea ice faster and faster

Other benefits of polynyas that would be affected by the blocking icebergs :

The sinking brine assist in lowering atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by distributing it from the surface to the deep ocean.

The open water areas within polynyas are important for marine mammals such as killer whales giving them places where they can surface and breathe.

Other important things to note:

Changes in polynya productivity from year to year affects the numbers of penguins in nearby colonies since it assists in the growth of phytoplankton. A reduction in open water may mean the large colony of emperor penguins based near by have to travel farther afield to find food.

The iceberg could block the production of cold, salty water, known as “bottom water”, which could lead eventually to cooler winters in the North Atlantic.

________________________________

We can see numerous anthropological downfalls of civilizations as we look in the past. Most of these isolated societies collapsed consequently from growing populations while the consumption of natural resources increased. As civilizations grew beyond a sustainable carrying capacity nature brought everything back to balance. Now, we have a true global community for the first time thanks to new age communications and transit. Today, Information, invasive species, disease, and refugees and move across the world freely. People rely on others across Earth to be fed, nations rely on others for financial support. Now, instead of an isolated civilization burning down by themselves, they will drag everyone else with them.

I believe, along with many scientist, we have raped this planet on a global scale so long it will take more years then you can dream of  years to get back to were we started from. It’s too late to avoid the dangerous affects of the C02 we’ve put in the atmosphere, and it’s now a question of how well we can limit the impact of climate change on future generations. We have already initiated numerous feedback loops were there will be unimaginable consequences will be brought upon us.

I am not trying to prove global climate change, scientifically that task has been conquered. The fact now needs to be accepted by society. As we look at other scientific paradigms they take at least a generation for the society to accept. Unfortunately we don’t have the time to wait.

My goal, is to “assist slowing down the runaway train before it hits the wall to reduce casualties*.” Yes, truth that truly hurts and it’s hard to swallow… I have been sitting back for too long, not wanting to share the painful truth because of the suffering it has caused me. I have asked myself, is it worth doing something about…… What can I do that even matters…. Should I just have fun now knowing I wont be able to in the future…. Now I supplement the pain with activism while I prepare for our grim future.

It is now or never, every decision we make is important. I hope that this blog will assist you in developing reasons why we need to live sustainable. We need to see that our current status quo is damaging society as well as our planet. Please take part and do everything possible to minimize the destruction of the natural systems on this “spaceship earth” hurtling through the universe.

*1 stated by Randy Udall

*2 thanks to Brian Czech founder of Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy for the metaphor.