Gwynne Dyer Speaks About Climate Wars on Democracy Now
A new book by geopolitical analyst and columnist Gwynne Dyer imagines what the politics and demographics of the world might look like if temperatures continue to rise. Dyer writes ‘In this world our worries are not just hotter summers, bigger hurricanes, rising sea levels, and polar bears swimming for their lives. We’re trying to avoid megadeaths from mass starvation and quite possibly from nuclear wars and the odds aren’t good,” he writes.The June 1, 2010 edition of his book is called “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats.”
Video: UBC Professor William Rees on Humanity’s Need to Reduce Consumption
An eight part video of Dr. William Rees, professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, talking of humanity’s survival depending on an 80% reduction in energy use.
Limits to Growth for Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Fish Farms and Our Big Economy Crucial
Our individual and collective human effort seems to have a momentum, a predictable trajectory that tracks a compulsive course from less to more and from little to bigger. In the progression from deep to deeper and from some to many, our technology increases in sophistication, our problems rise in complexity and our risks multiply in tandem. So far we have been able to race just ahead of catastrophe. But this basic strategy is an invitation to eventual calamity, as the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico attests, as our mining pollution proves and as our fish farm problems confirm.
In the great scheme of things – should anyone feel confused about all that’s happening these days – we are presently engaged in the search for a fundamental sense of proportion and balance. This arduous process begins with global awareness. But it’s really about our inner growth and maturation, about our discovery of limits.
My final words – Margery Moore’s Tar Sands Journey – May 16th, 2010
Margery Moore writes, “The bottom line is that I reoriented my life so that I could be 100% prepared to follow every opportunity if it might help raise awareness and even slightly change people’s minds and behaviours for the better.
Now, good people, I call on you to do the same. Look hard at your life and where your passion lives in your heart. How can you slightly re-orient your work or daily priorities, hobbies or volunteer work, to help stop climate change?”
World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
The Summit on Climate Change currently underway in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba is a ray of light and hope for those concerned with the environmental situation on the planet. It is also an alternative to the meeting that took place in Copenhagen, where rich countries conspired to come up with an agreement that exempts them of any responsibility regarding the climate world situation.
This meeting showed the world the true face of industrialized countries when it comes to issues related to the environment. In Cochabamba, civil society sectors are meeting to design a strategy to fight for the survival of mother Earth.
Iceland Volcano’s Eruption Sends Quick Wake-up Call on “Peak Oil”
What does an erupting volcano in Iceland have to do with our future oil supply running out?
A lot, if you consider only the effect the recent grounding of planes all over the world has had on food supply. When oil runs out, as it will, food delivery will be drastically curtailed, and the disruption caused by the April 15 eruption of the Iceland volcano demonstrates just what this might mean. Airline won’t be back to normal until volcanic activity subsides, and in the meantime vegetables grown in Kenya are rotting; undelivered roses are being ground up for compost. Kenyan flower growers are losing $2 million a day. Food producers have in Southern Spain have also been effected, as well as the electronics and pharmaceutical industries, who rely on overnight delivery for many of their products.
Bill Gates Sees Climate Change as Important Global Problem
Here are two opposing articles on the Bill Gates TED Talk on “Innovating to Zero.” Our opinion, if Gates thinks climate change is important, we should all feel a little more hopeful. His take on this issue may not be all we could wish for, but as he learns more about how very serious is the global treat we face and how extraordinarily complex an adequate solution must necessarily be, he may stop thinking in terms of simplistic formulas and quick technological fixes. He’ll see that like with climatic systems, many positive feedback loops are inherent in the development of economic, technological and social solutions, and these must not be ignored. The big industry in bio-fuels that has sprung up in response to the need for energy efficiency is a case in point.
Has a “Convergance of Catastrophes” Already Begun?
James Howard Kunstler examines the critical importance of oil in our global economy and then anticipates the cascade of catastrophic consequences when – not if – supply fails to meet demand. After a century of profligate use of this energy-dense resource, he contends that we are within a decade of experiencing an oil shortage: for transportation, industry, heating, plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and all the countless products essential to our modern lives. In other words, our energy-devouring civilization has been accelerating entropy.
Mobilizing for Climate Justice
The Mobilization for Climate Justice was founded to link the climate struggle in the U.S. to the growing international climate justice movement, with an eye toward building for actions around the Copenhagen climate summit and beyond. Its objective is to provide a justice-based framework for organizing around climate change that opens space for leadership by representatives of communities in the U.S. that are most impacted by climate change and the fossil fuel industry.
The increasing urgency of the climate crisis has clearly hit a nerve among people of many walks of life, all around the world. While the outcome of this fall’s events remains highly uncertain, it is clear that such a flowering of creative and determined popular responses is precisely what is needed to reverse decades of willful inaction by the world’s elites and reach beyond the limits of politics-as-usual.
Will Climate Refugees Be Allowed Safe Haven on James Lovelock’s “Lifeboats?”
Can we create for ourselves in enough time societies governed by a new set of “rules,” a new way of organizing ourselves, a new way of living with the earth and with one another? Can we create a new way that we live as individuals, day-to-day, that builds upon the life examples and teachings of history’s great spiritual leaders, or the life examples of the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, who have come before us who gave their lives struggling and sacrificing for a better world for their descendants?
There are many of us all around the world who believe, unlike Lovelock, that we have it in us not just to try but to have a chance of succeeding. But it’s a race against time.
