Twitter Democracy = Mobilize.org

I have been thinking for a while about making a project to rewrite the Constitution and Bill of Rights to be relevant to our time together in this country today.

Naturally the heart and spirit of the documents are vital and present, I believe that engaging citizens in the process on a wiki page will invite deep and thoughtful civic engagement.

I posted my thoughts on twitter about 10 days ago: "Rewrite wikipedia style - Constitution 2.0? Bill of Rights 2.0?"

And on Twitter - godemocracy just started following me and on their tweets I found out about a group working along the same lines with people 12-32 years old:

From their website:

"Mobilize.org is an all-partisan network dedicated to educating, empowering, and energizing young people to increase our civic engagement and political participation. We work to show young people how public policy impacts our lives, and more importantly – how we can impact public policy

"Our Theory of Change "

"Our theory of change starts with the individual citizen identifying problems at the local, state and national levels. Once problems are identified, citizens must engage in conversations searching for innovative solutions to the problems they have identified. Mobilize.org seeks to take the individual actor past the deliberation stage, enabling members of the Millennial Generation to implement their solutions. Through the success of citizen-generated initiatives, Mobilize.org's end goal is to institutionalize citizen-generated solutions as a staple of American governance at all levels."


"...With over 220 Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneurs on college and high school campuses and in communities across the country, Entrepreneurs organize around issues that are important to their local community."

"This is what democracy smells like" - students protest and demand SRI - in "1960's version 2.0"

A recent article in cited a student protest where students of "New School" in NYC where students occupied a university building and demanded the school's president quit over a number of issues.

The protest ended this week:

An article states: "Kerrey also agreed to allow students the use of the Fifth Ave. building, 'until a suitable replacement is secured and instituted, which would include the reinstallment of suitable library and study space.' The school president also agreed to provide new library space in The New School’s Arnold Hall and 7,000 square feet of quiet study space in the school’s Sheila Jackson Galleries by the end of the spring semester.

The six-point document also granted student participation in establishing a committee for socially responsible investing; gave the University Student Senate 'the ability to communicate with the student body freely' — something they said they had previously not been allowed — and granted access for a student senate representative to attend meetings of the school’s board of trustees.

'We weren’t being radical, we were being reasonable,' Emmad explained. 'We were simply trying to defend our school.'

As 4 a.m. approached, the ebullient crowd walked to Union Square. After two nights and a day inside the cafeteria, one participant, riffing on a chant from earlier in the day, said, 'This is what democracy smells like.' Then someone turned on a boom box and students began dancing.

After a peaceful climax to 32 hours of occupation, it seemed like the dawn of the 1960s Version 2.0."

How the bailout is supposed to work? Or is working?

Hmmm.... check out this image. click to enlarge

Indian Farmers Using Coke and Pepsi as pesticides

Watch this Video

Schwarzenegger tells U.N.: Green rules help markets

Schwarzenegger tells U.N.: Green rules help markets

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Green regulations will help both the environment and ailing economies, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a 187-nation U.N. climate conference on Monday.

"Of course, there are some people who say that we can't afford the fight against global warming while our economies are down," he said in a video message on the sidelines of the December 1-12 U.N. meeting in Poznan, western Poland.

"But the exact opposite is true," he said.

California, which is the world's fifth biggest economy on its own, has been leading other U.S. states in the fight against climate change.

"The green rules and regulations that will help save our planet will also revive our economies," the governor aid.

The Poznan talks are reviewing progress toward a new global pact to fight climate change meant to be agreed at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. The talks have been overshadowed by the global financial crisis.

Schwarzenegger also said he would attend the Copenhagen talks to support U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

The Poznan talks are a step on the way to agree a new worldwide climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it runs out in 2012. The United States is the only industrialized nation that has not ratified the Kyoto treaty.

President George W. Bush said Kyoto was unfair because it did not set caps on emissions by emerging nations like China and India and he reckoned it would be too costly for the U.S..

Obama has promised much tougher action on fighting climate change and intends for the U.S. to be more involved in environmental efforts when he takes over the presidency in January.

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Matthew Jones)

My Vision For America

Just posted this as my vision for America on change.gov

MY VISION FOR AMERICA
12 / 08 / 2008 12:13 AM

Our country's culture is thriving and well with education, spirituality, healthcare, leisure and commerce in alignment with the natural systems upon which we all depend for life.

Our healthy culture thrives with every person inspired by integrity with each other as we live recognizing interdependence and collaboration as the basis of our success.

Our green economy is a model and blueprint of regenerative economic activity which actually restores healthy ecosystems and natural habitat for plants and animals.

Our reverence for each other and all life is the basis for our system of ethics, our thriving green economy, and our culture's message to the other inhabitants on our Planet Earth.

America has renewed and restored it's Golden Destiny to serve the betterment and evolution of life on the planet."

Please input your own vision for America - www.change.gov

Wealthiest man in the world Bill Gates started out Dumpster Diving...

According to AnneAlexander of www.ecospace.cc:

"Tuesday was the birthday of the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, born in 1955 in Seattle. When Gates was in 8th grade, the Lakeside Mothers Club had a rummage sale and used the money to get computer equipment for the school. Gates and his friend Paul Allen got swept up in the excitement of this new technology. They rummaged through dumpsters at the nearby Computer Center Corporation to find notes written by programmers, and with that information, they wrote a 300-page manual. In 1975, they started Microsoft."

"This is a modern day example of the “diamonds in your backyard” concept, shared by Russell Conwell (1843- 1925), an American minister, lawyer, writer, and outstanding orator, in his book, Acres of Diamonds."

"According to Wikipedia, “The central idea of Acres of Diamonds is that one need not look elsewhere for opportunity, achievement, or fortune — the resources to achieve all good things are present in your own community. This theme is developed by an introductory anecdote, told to Conwell by an Arab guide, about a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went off in futile search for them; the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property.” "

"Gates and Allen got their start dumpster diving in their own neighborhood. They were following their passion."

"They didn’t get distracted by the next “bright, shiny object” and lose their interest in computers. Moving onto the next thing too quickly is a common tendency in entrepreneurs. They get fixated on the next “bright, shiny object” that comes along, sometimes aborting the development of a current project. “Surely,” they say to themselves, “this amazing new (fill in the blank – product, program, guru, etc.) will mean my true success!” And they forget the diamonds in their own backyard."

"Maybe it’s time for you to do a little digging to rediscover the wealth buried in your own “backyard” - your community, your true talents and passions."

"Maybe it’s time to go dumpster diving in your own business, your relationship, your network. Without any doubt, there are many diamonds there, waiting patiently for you to pick them up, dust them off and bring them to a world crying out for them."

"We need your brilliance, and it’s not “out there.” It’s as close as your heartbeat. Let me know what you find."

"Anne Alexander helps small green business owners grow their businesses. Find out how at www.GrowYourGreenBusiness.com"

The Latest from Billionaire George Soros on Financial Crisis

I just finished George Soros’ latest book “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets – The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means”

He just wrote an article on his thoughts for the New York Times Review of Books – which is a great summary of the thinking outlined in his book and update on his ideas.

The article is of interest if you want to learn of Soros’ basic ideas on markets, financial theories, etc. and his views of how regulation should be moderated by a new paradigm of financial thinking which he calls “reflexivity.”

"The misconception is derived from the prevailing theory of financial markets, which, as mentioned earlier, holds that financial markets tend toward equilibrium and that deviations are random and can be attributed to external causes. This theory has been used to justify the belief that the pursuit of self-interest should be given free rein and markets should be deregulated. I call that belief market fundamentalism and claim that it employs false logic. Just because regulations and all other forms of governmental interventions have proven to be faulty, it does not follow that markets are perfect."

The ultimate moment of the breakdown of market fundamentalism was when Greenspan admitted that he was wrong in his pursuit of free market fundamentalism which allowed this bubble to get out of hand. MSNBC Reports, "Badgered by lawmakers, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan denied the nation’s economic crisis was his fault on Thursday but conceded the meltdown had revealed a flaw in a lifetime of economic thinking and left him in a 'state of shocked disbelief.'"

Soros is clear that regulation is necessary - yet in the current situation he is cautious of the pendulum swinging too far the other direction.

Here’s a link - and here are last two paragraphs:
“Since the risk management models used until now ignored the uncertainties inherent in reflexivity, limits on credit and leverage will have to be set substantially lower than those that were tolerated in the recent past. This means that financial institutions in the aggregate will be less profitable than they have been during the super-bubble and some business models that depended on excessive leverage will become uneconomical. The financial industry has already dropped from 25 percent of total market capitalization to 16 percent. This ratio is unlikely to recover to anywhere near its previous high; indeed, it is likely to end lower. This may be considered a healthy adjustment, but not by those who are losing their jobs.”

“In view of the tremendous losses suffered by the general public, there is a real danger that excessive deregulation will be succeeded by punitive reregulation. That would be unfortunate because regulations are liable to be even more deficient than the market mechanism. As I have suggested, regulators are not only human but also bureaucratic and susceptible to lobbying and corruption. It is to be hoped that the reforms outlined here will preempt a regulatory overkill.”

My friend Dan Krimm responded to this and I thought he said it so well - I'll post his comments:

Cool. So, "reflexivity" amounts to a sort of feedback loop between
perceptions and reality (along the lines that some political elites
characterize as "perception *is* reality"...). Sometimes that feedback is
corrective, but sometimes it is self-reinforcing.

In other words, the financial system is rife with highly nonlinear
dynamics, and thus not reliably equilibrium-seeking. (This is what
Nicholas Nassim Taleb was getting at in his 2007 book "The Black Swan".)

Taleb points out at one point in *his* book that fully 50% of the gain in
the market over the last several decades can be isolated to *ten individual
days*. He points out that this violates the assumption that the randomness
of the market is "Brownian random-walk" randomness that tends to fit a
Gaussian bell curve (so-called "normal distribution" underlying
conventional statistical tools used for conventional risk analysis --
outliers are supposed to be unimportant in influencing the mean). On the
contrary, the variability in the market is self-scaling in a much more
extreme manner, like earthquakes, along the lines of Benoit Mandlebrot's
"hyperbolic scaling distributions" more commonly called "power-law
distributions" (where outliers can make a huge difference in the mean).

The fact that all the risk analysts were using an abjectly false assumption
about the distribution of variation in the market was one huge contributor
to the cluelessness in recognizing the potential for and strategically
avoiding this magnitude of disaster.

In short, market analysts have assumed that all the oddities of market
jumps are anomalous and external in origin. (Otherwise, as Soros points
out, the market would be assumed to reach equilibrium.) But in fact, this
nonlinear effect is internal in origin.

As the economists would say, not exogenous, but rather, endogenous.

I really hope that people in the market get this message loud and clear,
and the sooner the better. The orthodoxy is what got us into this mess.

And Alan Greenspan was "shocked, simply shocked"...

The solution: rein-in the nonlinear dynamics with smart regulation. Cap
the degree of risk leverage. Regulate things that look and behave like
insurance (credit default swaps) like other forms of insurance. Require
information transparency (trails of origin) in derivative securities, so
you can actually trace the behavior of the elements that comprise them.

Why do we care if some investor gets hit by the risk they take on, however
unwittingly? Because we are all invested in it, in the end, through
multiplier effects. The stability of the economy is a public good, and the
public deserves to protect itself collectively by regulation that
illuminates and contains risk.

It is patently unfair to society to privatize the upside while socializing
the downside.

Dan

B of A - stops financing Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining.

Yesterday, RAN celebrated a great victory! Bank of America posted a new coal policy on its website announcing that it will phase out financing of mountaintop removal coal mining!

Here's the commitment in their words:

"Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies."

Rainforest Action Network was largely responsible for the action:

They state - "Since we launched our "No Coal" campaign against Bank of America and Citi last October, one of our central demands has been that they stop providing support for mountaintop removal coal mining. We applaud Bank of America for taking this important step to reduce its financing of dirty coal. But we also need to keep the pressure on them -- as well as on Citi and other banks that finance coal -- to ensure that they continue to curtail financing for dirty energy and start funding the future through energy efficiency and renewable energy."

RAN is one of the most effective environmental groups, dollar for dollar and has brought about a tremendous amount of change in corporate America.

RAN ON!

There's a Free Lunch of understanding for us...by embracing new ideas

Friends - to accept that we have deeply damaged, or perhaps destroyed many ecosystems, and our once prevailing economic system, is not pessimistic. To the contrary, it is highly constructive. To embrace the problem is the most positive thing to do, since only then can we identify the remaining solutions that can actually work.

If you want to get a cliff notes version of the current financial crisis I encourage you to read Paul Krugman's column in NY Times. He does a marvelous job of recapping the situation, and how other countries have navigated successfully through similar crisis in the past.

He finished with what I believe were his most important points. Shed light on the reality that we have no scarcity of ideas, ingenuity and creativity. I believe it is absolutely possible that we can derive a period of great well being and prosperity for humanity from the financial meltdown - simply by thinking different.

Here are his words, "As readers may have gathered, I believe not only that we're living in a new era of depression economics, but also that John Maynard Keynes - the economist who made sense of the Great Depression - is now more relevant than ever. Keynes concluded his masterwork, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, with a famous disquisition on the importance of economic ideas: "Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

"We can argue about whether that's always true, but in times like these, it definitely is. The quintessential economic sentence is supposed to be "There is no free lunch"; it says that there are limited resources, that to have more of one thing you must accept less of another, that there is no gain without pain. Depression economics, however, is the study of situations where there is a free lunch, if we can only figure out how to get our hands on it, because there are unemployed resources that could be put to work. The true scarcity in Keynes's world - and ours - was therefore not of resources, or even of virtue, but of understanding."

"We will not achieve the understanding we need, however, unless we are willing to think clearly about our problems and to follow those thoughts wherever they lead. Some people say that our economic problems are structural, with no quick cure available; but I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men."

Paul Krugman - November 20, 2008 - Read entire article here.

Gore - The Internet Could save Society

On SiloBreaker.com -

SAN FRANCISCO, California – Former US vice president Al Gore said an Internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth's climate crisis.

The one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.

"The young people who have been inspired by Barack Obama's campaign and the movement that powered Barack Obama's campaign want a purpose," Gore said.

"One of the reasons we were all thrilled Tuesday night is it was pretty obvious this was a collectively intelligent decision."

The Internet's critical role in Democrat Obama's victory in the presidential race against Republican John McCain was a "great blow for victory" in addressing a "democracy crisis" stifling action against climate change, Gore said.

The Web has "revolutionized" nearly every aspect of running for US president and delivered an "electrifying redemption" of the founding national principle that all people are created equal, according to Gore.

Renewing civilization - we need the caterpillar to create the butterfly!

Think about it - we need the caterpillar to create the butterfly!

I was at a lunch meeting today and we were discussing the current crisis in the financial markets as a much need adjustment to the overstimulated system.

One of us said something to the effect "This system needs to die for us to have a new, better system."

I responded and shared that the system doesn't need to die, it simply needs to evolve, and become better.

Just as a caterpillar does not die to become a butterfly, it simply changes. We all need to hold space for this system to metamorphosis into a new and improved reality for all.

Our economic strategy of endless consumption to measure the growth of our economy must end, simply because we live on a planet with finite resources.

The experience of well being for all can be shared by utilizing all of our planet's resources in a more efficient manner. We must implement evolutionary ideas, values and technologies which can help the system to simply evolve without breakdown.

"If the positive innovations connect exponentially before the massive breakdowns reinforce oneanother, the system can repattern itself to a higher order of consciousness and freedom without the predicted economic, environmental, or social collapse." Barbara Marx Hubbard

Photo from creative commons.

Denmark - grow your economy and reduce energy consumption

Thomas Friedman wrote an excellent Op-Ed piece in New York times - on his visit to Denmark and their energy infrastructure...

Basically Denmark, like California has successfully grown it's economy while at the same time reducing or keeping it's energy consumption steady...while at the same time building a world class wind industry - far ahead of the US, and only rivaled by China.

He writes -

"There is little whining here about Denmark having $10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes. The shaping of the market with high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had 'a positive impact on job creation,' added Hedegaard. 'For example, the wind industry — it was nothing in the 1970s. Today, one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world come from Denmark.' In the last 10 years, Denmark’s exports of energy efficiency products have tripled. Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $10.5 billion in 2006, compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole."

"Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic."

“'I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,' Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me. 'The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy.'"

"Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate, Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America."

"Why should you care?"

“We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

The Wealth of Health - You Are What You Eat!

Often think that the food we eat has a dramatic effect on your health? It does.

The medical industry does a very poor job of educating people about the impact of food and health. When people get sick the first order of business is to offer some form of "cut, burn or poison" as a treatment - rather than a lifestyle change.

The upcoming film "Food Matters" speaks to this. Watch the trailer, and then the movie.

Indian Saint, Amma - hosts permaculture workshop at her ashram

In order to help restore a forest ecosystem in her 150 acre ashram in Northern California - Amma hosted a three day permaculture workshop . The workshop was led by Geoff Lawton - one of the world's leading permaculture experts.

The MA Center writes: "Through the understanding of how ecosystems evolve and a willingness to support nature's processes, human beings can truly be a positive force in the environment. With the collective help of Geoff, Common Vision, the workshop attendees, GreenFriends, and MA Center residents, MA Center has begun its journey of realizing Amma's dream of inspiring people to live in harmony with Nature."

American Human Development Report - we're not #1 anymore in US...

For the first time a report has been compiled on the well being of the United States modeled on the UN Development Program. The first time it has been done on an industrialized nation.

I'm sure that some of these stats are not surprising to many of you, here are some findings from there work:

• More than 14% of the U.S. population (30 million Americans) lack basic literacy and math skills
• Of the 30 richest nations, the U.S. ranks second in the number of children (15%) living in poverty
• The U.S. has 5% of the world’s people - but 24% of the world’s prisoners
• The U.S. ranks 24th in global life expectancy - yet spends more on health care than any nation

"For Americans to live longer, healthier lives, it is obvious from the report that progress
depends in large part on a comprehensive resolution of the problem of health insurance. Today, some 47 million Americans lack health insurance, risking negative
health outcomes and shorter life spans. The nation appears unlikely to make significant strides in health until every American has adequate health coverage.
In addition, Americans are at risk from a wide range of preventable causes of death and disease, including obesity and violence. In a reflection of how complex social problems are linked, researchers have found that poor parents, living in neighborhoods they perceive to be dangerous, are often reluctant to allow their children to play outside. Lack of exercise contributes to childhood obesity, which lowers health scores. Restricted space to play can also have a negative impact on school performance, lowering education scores.
• In order to improve access to knowledge, research suggests that intensive intervention in early childhood is necessary to break the pattern by which parents with limited education raise children with limited education—short-circuiting their ability to command decent opportunities and wages in a high-tech, information-intensive, globalized economy. Superior preschool programs and intensive
elementary schooling can offer students from poor families a chance to fulfill their potential, seize opportunities, and lead lives they value. The ideal of American opportunity, grounded in equal access to public education, is threatened by the lopsided educational realities of American schools. In addition, we are asking our schools to solve society’s most intractable problems—social exclusion, chronic unemployment, dangerous neighborhoods, and more.
• For Americans to sustain, or obtain, a decent standard of living, the wages and opportunities of millions of Americans must improve. Growing inequality in income distribution and wealth raises a profound question for Americans: Can the uniquely middle-class nation that emerged in the twentieth century survive into the twenty-first century? Or is it fracturing into a land of great extremes?"

The report was created by the American Human Development Project

The wealth of Biodiversity - 4,600 species of Potato!

Christian Science Monitor reports that Peru's International Potato Center maintains genetic strains of over 4,600 species of potatoes which are indigenous to the Andes, alone!

"But aren’t potatoes from…? Tay understands the question even before you get it out. “Americans think potatoes are from Idaho,” he says. “Ask a European, and they say the potato is from Ireland.”

Actually, it’s Peruvian. Potatoes date back about 8,000 years, to the shores of Lake Titicaca, 3,800 meters above sea level, in what is today Peru. Incan armies ate potatoes centuries ago, and rural communities eat them today. An estimated 5,000 varieties grow in the Andean region; 80 percent of those sit in the CIP."

In fact, the center has maintained this array of potatoes for over 30 years.

With prices skyrocketing in corn, wheat, soy and other essential crops, the potatoe is seen as an essential resource.

"Just a few months ago, these words might have seemed hyperbolic. But the spud has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight, now that prices for soy, wheat, and corn have skyrocketed. The United Nations has called 2008 the Year of the Potato, as has Peru. Governments around the world are turning to the root to help ease hunger. Peru’s military is eating potato bread instead of regular white. And at this humble center in Lima, the phone is suddenly ringing off the hook, journalists are knocking at the door, and requests for expertise are pouring in from around the world.

'Potatoes are being looked at as one of the pathways out of poverty,' says Pamela Anderson, the center’s director general."

Public Policy - Sustainability First? Not yet for Government...

"Government waste is prevalent throughout our daily lives. From the pointless use of Police ATVs patrolling our completely safe beaches, to the quashing of plans for more efficient everything, our governments seem to be avoiding the imminent truth about our environmental crisis. At very least, sustainability does not seem to be on their checklist of mandatory considerations before making a decision. Everything from the policy decisions to the execution of initiatives are often missing the mark on the dire need to transition our society to one that is in alignment with nature, rather than at odds with it."

Article cites sustainability as imperative for Public Policy in government.

Authors Scott Badenoch and Argam Derhartunian are Co-Founders of Creative Citizen, a green wiki for a sustainable lifestyle.

PROUT - input for the Blueprint for new society?

I experience that we must recreate the systems of organizing ourselves, our economy, and our relationship with Nature. The old system has design flaws and many are saying that signs of its demise are evident.

The question of how long the current economic, political, societal, cultural system will last - or whether or not it is even is in jeopardy, is secondary to the imperative for us to EVOLVE from where we are to optimize the current operating system of our civilization.

PROUT Institute offers some very compelling ideas:

"Mission Statement
The PROUT Institute works to bring new life and a bright future to humanity by applying progressive social theory and concepts - and those of the Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) in particular - that provide deep solutions to social problems and give holistic expression to human potentialities.

PROUT's Fundamental Premise
PROUT is based on the fundamental premise that all people should have equitable scope to develop and express their physical, mental, and spiritual potential, while maintaining balance between individual and collective interests, and while maintaining harmony with the rest of life on the planet.

PROUT Design Principles
PROUT does not seek to promote an ideology but to offer a system of practical design principles that are intended to bring balanced progress and vitality to the human society. Read More

Four Essential Conditions
for Creating a New Society
The PROUT Institute identifies four essential conditions for undertaking a transition to a sustainable and equitable future:

* Hope: a rational and grounded sense of hope for humanity's future
* Vision: a comprehensive vision to guide enduring social transformation
* Empowerment: personal vitalization and empowering ideas
* Solutions: a theory based, solution-oriented approach to social renewal

Future Vision

While recognizing that humanity faces unprecedented problems, and that significant disruptions in social life are now upon us, PROUT holds a positive outlook on humanity's future. It sees the difficulties of the present forcing shifts of consciousness and creating conditions for the rapid emergence of a universal humanity, able to work together to develop the rich potentialities of the human species potentialities long suppressed by a materialist culture.

PROUT seeks to help open a path through the darkness of the present to this new stage of human existence and to provide a socio-economic paradigm in which humanity's emerging new consciousness and unity can take root in fertile soil and flourish. It seeks to open a cleared vista, without dogma-created impediments, to the comprehensive fulfillment of human potentialities."

Read all about PROUT here.

Ecuador is first country to include Nature's rights in constitution!

The recent New Moon update from the Pachamama Alliance announced that just a few weeks ago on July 7th, Ecuador adopted a new constitution which includes the rights of Nature.

Ecuador is the first country to recognize the value of ecosystems officially. It's aim is to foster a new model of develop with humanity in harmony with our natural systems.

"Chapter: Rights for Nature

Art. 1[N2] . Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.

Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms.* The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.

Art. 2[N3] . Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.

In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

Art. 3.[N4] The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.

Art. 4[N5] . The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.

The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited.

Art. 5[N6] . The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.

The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State."

Colony Collapse Disorder connected to Pesticides?

Duh!

LA Times writes an article which implies that there is increasing belief that the massive die off of bee colonies is tied to pesticide use.

Why are we spending billions of dollars to put poison on our food, and endanger our planet's fellow inhabitants?

There's a simpler way - ORGANIC!

Here's some excerpts from the article:

"No independent government testing is required before a pesticide is registered for use. Large gaps in basic scientific knowledge about pesticides remain, including their environmental "fate" (where they end up) and their toxicity to humans and to wildlife. A problem pesticide may be removed from the market only after a long process and full trial -- something that should be done before. The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 improved control of residues in our food. That didn't help the bees.

Rachel Carson was vilified by an industry smear nearly 50 years ago, after the release of her book, "Silent Spring." "If we were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson," said American Cyanamid, the maker of DDT, "we would return to the Dark Ages ... insects, vermin and disease would once again inherit the Earth." But, as Carson so eloquently put it in a CBS documentary in 1964: "Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we now have acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is part of nature, and his war is inevitably a war against himself."

Clean Coal? Bullshit!

This article and slideshow shows some of the mess left in our country from strip mining in regions like West Virginia.

This is the Next American Revolution

A recent article from Common Dreams quoted Dr. Grace Lee Boggs, 93, a long-time Detroit political and labor activist, author, and philosopher.

"We are at a stage in human history that is as monumental as changing from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society and from an agricultural society to and industrial society. Where we're headed now will be different because we have exhausted planetary space and human space for us to continue to look at things through the Cartesian measurement of material things. We need to face the way we used the world for our gains, pleasures, satisfactions. This is the way we evolve to a higher stage of humanity. And unless we want to live in terror for the rest of our lives, we need to change our view about acquiring things. We have the opportunity to take a great leap forward in these very challenging times. We need to change our institutions and ourselves. We need to seize opportunities. We need to launch our imaginations beyond the thinking of the past. We need to discern who we are and expand on our humanness and sacredness. That's how we change the world, which happens because WE will be the change"

Straight talk on capitalism and the environment....

From Orion Magazine - The Ecology of Work

"Capitalism as a system of ever-accelerating production and consumption is, as we environmentalists continually insist, not sustainable. That is, it is a system intent on its own death. Yet the capitalist will stoically look destruction in the face before he will stop what he’s doing, especially if he believes that it is somebody else whose destruction is in question. Unlike most of the people living under him, the capitalist is a great risk-taker largely because he believes that his wealth insulates him from the consequences of risks gone bad. Ever the optimistic gambler with other people’s money, the capitalist is willing to wager that, while there may be costs to pay, he won’t have to pay them. Animals, plants, impoverished people near and far may have to pay, but he bets that he won’t. If called upon to defend his actions, he will of course argue that he has a constitutionally protected right to property and the pursuit of his own happiness. This is his “freedom.” At that point, we have the unfortunate habit of shutting up when we ought to reply, “Yes, but yours is a freedom without conscience.”

"Being willing to say such things about capitalism does not mean that one has a special access to the Truth, but it also doesn’t mean that one is a mere ideologue, or that most dismissible of things, a communist. It merely requires honesty about what looks us right in the face. It requires intellectual conscience.

"For instance, as a matter of conscience we should be willing to say that the so-called greening of corporate America is not as much about the desire to protect nature as it is about the desire to protect capitalism itself. Environmentalists are, on the whole, educated and successful people, many of whom have prospered within corporate capitalism. They’re not against it. They simply seek to establish a balance between the needs of the economy (as they blandly put it) and the needs of the natural world. For both capitalism and environmentalism, there is a hard division between land set aside for nature and land devoted to production. Environmentalists consider the preservation of a forest a victory, but part of the point of that victory is (usually) that humans can’t live in this forest. Private interests have been bought out. The forest is now “set aside.” We could draw a national map that showed those spaces that we imagine conform to a fantasy of natural innocence (wilderness, forests, preserves, parks) and those spaces given over to the principles of extraction, exploitation, and profit. The boundary lines within this map are regularly drawn and redrawn by the government in some of our most bitter political fights. ("Mineral extraction! Why, that’s a national wildlife area!” “Snail darter! Why, that’s economic development!") But regardless of which political party is drawing this map, we humans are left right where we have always been, at the mercy of the boss, behaving like functionaries, and participating in the very economic activities that will continue to eat up the natural world. For all its sense of moral urgency, environmentalism too has abandoned humans to the inequalities, the exploitation, and the boredom of the market, while it tries to maintain the world of nature as a place of innocence where a candy wrapper on the ground is a blasphemy. It’s a place to go for a weekend hike before returning to the unrelenting ugliness, hostility, sterility, and spiritual bankruptcy that is the suburb, the strip mall, the office building, and the freeway (our “national automobile slum,” as James Howard Kunstler puts it). Ideally, the map of natural preservation and the map of economic activity would be one map."

Largest Calif. land conservation deal reached

From MSNBC "LEBEC, Calif. - A group of environmentalists and the owners of a large stretch of wilderness have reached a deal that would set aside the largest parcel of land for conservation in California history.

After years of legal tussles, conservationists including the Sierra Club have agreed not to challenge proposed development on the sprawling Tejon Ranch north of Los Angeles in exchange for close to 240,000 acres, in a deal announced Thursday by officials including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

At 375 square miles, the preserve of desert, woodlands and grasslands would be eight times the size of San Francisco and nearly the size of Los Angeles, said Bill Corcoran, the Sierra Club's senior regional representative.

More here -

Rethinking GNP/GDP and Growth....

GNP and GDP are outmoded measures of economic growth - out of touch with natural resources, upon which our very economy depends for growth - what is referred to as "natural capital". As such they can not be considered sustainable because they do not account for depletion of either human or natural capital.

Consider this message from the late Robert Kennedy (father of leading activist Robert Kennedy, Jr.) :

"The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear out highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and nuclear warheads... and if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend.

"It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. it is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials... GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

GDP is “oblivious to the extinction of local economic systems and knowledge; to disappearing forests, wetlands or farmland; to the depletion of oil, minerals, or groundwater, etc.”

Our economy built on old methods of thinking are increasingly self destructive, as our system moves forward. The current methods of evaluating economic reality, disconnected from the rest of our world, were born in the times of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Such thinking has not evolved to meet twenty first century realities. In the last 200 years global population has grown sixfold, and economic activity has increased roughly 60 times. Meanwhile with massive increase in economic output, we are reaching the limits of the Earth’s ability to support the human species sustainably.

Yet, many people are recognizing the challenges and opport unities in this situation moving toward an economy which takes Nature’s into account.

A group called "Redefining Progress" is addressing these very points. They state: "We believe that if policymakers measure what really matters to people—health care, safety, a clean environment, and other indicators of well-being—economic policy would naturally shift towards sustainability.

Redefining Progress created the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) in 1995 as an alternative to the gross domestic product (GDP). The GPI enables policymakers at the national, state, regional, or local level to measure how well their citizens are doing both economically and socially."

With their Genuine Progress Indicator factors are taken into account which point to the heart of well being for a society. Some of the factors the consider are worthy of note - resource depletion, leisure time, environmental damage, lifespan of consumer durables and public infrastructure - are just some of the factors they consider.

There is much going on in the public zeitgeist that already intuits the need for a move in the right direction. The current State of the World report chimes in – “The emergence of the sustainable economy is visible in a burst of creative experimentation involving design for remanufacture, ‘zero waste’ cities, environmental taxes, cap and trade carbon markets, car-sharing companies, maturing markets for solar and wind power, microfinance, socially responsible investment, land tenure rights for women, product take-back laws, and other innovations… Scaled up and replicated across the world, these and other experiments could form the basis of economies that meet the needs of people at the least cost to the natural environment.”

If we start measuring our economic activity, true costs, benefits it will become much more obvious what needs to be done to steer our system toward well being and sustainability.

The math is simple – if you keep spending your principal, you’re going to run out at some point. We’re seeing signs of life in this new sustainable economy, it is now time for us to get with the program and change the way we operate as a civilization. It all starts with how we measure our progress, and recognizing what is and is not progress.

New Economics - It's all about the collective

We're in a time of collaboration, as opposed to competition.

Partnership model, wikipedia, open source software, youtube, etc. All pointing to a new economic paradigm unfolding.

Yochai Benkler - author of the book "Wealth of Networks" spoke on the matter at the recent TED conference.

The new developments are showing disruptive, and innovative methods of production involving many people are changing fundamental dynamics in the economy.

Cisco's creative green strategy - videoconference and plant a tree...

Cisco just made a deal with CarbonFund.org to creatively show how reducing air travel with their video teleconferencing product is reducing carbon output.

A recent article on the matter states:

"WebEx meetings are a productive alternative to business travel which is a leading contributor to harmful carbon dioxide emissions. A person who flies just 30,000 miles a year puts more than 19,100 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Replacing even a small number of those trips with web meeting can dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For example:

-- Using WebEx instead of one person flying from New York to London for
a team meeting would save 2,690 pounds of carbon dioxide
-- Using WebEx instead of two people traveling from Chicago to San
Francisco for a sales presentation would save 4,696 pounds of carbon
dioxide
-- Using WebEx for a training session with 12 participants flying from
Dallas to San Francisco would save 22,377 pounds of carbon dioxide"

They also have a one month promotion to plant trees for free trials with their service.

It's a good start!

Article - Key to Happiness: Give Away Money

Here's an entire article I found on the joy in giving.

Key to Happiness: Give Away Money

Those incoming federal tax-rebate checks could do more than boost the economy. They might also boost your mood, with one caveat: You must spend the cash on others, not yourself.

New research reveals that when individuals dole out money for gifts for friends or charitable donations, they get a boost in happiness while those who spend on themselves get no such cheery lift.

Scientists have found evidence that income is linked with a person's satisfaction with their life and other measures of happiness, but less is known about the link between how a person spends their money and happiness.

"We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn," said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.

The findings, to be detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Science, come as no surprise to some marketing scientists.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that people find giving money away very rewarding," said Aaron Ahuvia, associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who was not involved in the current study.

The research was funded by a Hampton Research Grant.

Spending habits

Dunn and her colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 630 Americans, about evenly split between males and females. Participants indicated their general happiness, annual income and a breakdown of monthly spending, including bills, purchases for themselves and for others, and donations to charity.

Despite the benefits of "prosocial spending" on others, participants spent more than 10 times as much on personal items as they did on charitable options. The researchers note personal purchases included paying bills.

Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no link with a person's happiness, while spending on others and charity was significantly related to a boost in happiness.

"Regardless of how much income each person made," Dunn said, "those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not."

In a separate study of 13 employees at a Boston-based firm, the researchers found that employees who devoted more of their profit-sharing bonus (which ranged from $3,000 to $8,000) to others reported greater overall happiness than those who spent the windfall on their own needs.

Purchase power

A person apparently doesn't need to drop thousands of dollars on others to reap a gleeful reward.

In another experiment, the researchers gave college students a $5 or $20 bill, asking them to spend the money by that evening. Half the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves, and the remaining students to spend on others.

Participants who spent the windfall on others ‹ which included toys for siblings and meals eaten with friends ‹ reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves.

If as little as $5 spent on others could produce a surge in happiness on a given day, why don't people make these changes? In another study of more than 100 college students, the researchers found that most thought personal spending would make them happier than prosocial spending.

"Often people, at some implicit level, have this idea that 'buying these things is going to make me happier,'" Ahuvia said. "It does make them momentarily happy," he added, but the warm feelings are short-lived.

Buying buzz

Dunn's team puts forth several possible reasons to explain the charity-happiness link.

"I think it's a lot of factors of prosocial spending that are responsible for these happiness boosts," study researcher of UBC Lara Aknin told LiveScience. "I think it could be that people feel good about themselves when they do it; it could be the fact that it strengthens their social relationships; it could just be the act of spending time with other people."

Perhaps the fuzzy feelings associated with giving last longer than selfish buys. "The happiness 'hit' from giving may last a bit longer if the 'warm glow' from donation lasts longer than the hit from own consumption," said Paul Dolan, an economics professor at the Imperial College London in England. Dolan was not involved in Dunn's study.

Another idea is that charitable spending helps a person express a certain identity.

"People spend a lot of money to make their lives feel meaningful, significant and important," Ahuvia said during a telephone interview. "When you give away money you are making that same kind of purchase, only you are doing it in a more effective way."

He added, "What you're really trying to buy is meaning to life ­ Giving away money to a cause you believe in is a more effective purchase than buying a T-shirt that says "Save a Whale.'"

From Oil To Wind - Oil barons going Green!

After looking at oil and gas rigs for decades, Texans are due for an upgrade!

The trend is strong with T. Boone Pickens going green and planning to build a $10 Billion wind farm that can energize a small city to TXU - Texas Utilities, looking to build a 3,000 megawatt farm indicate a very positive trend.

This positive trend is not without challenges, as the case with most new initiatives that are bringing about fundamental change, including getting energy from most wind likely areas to the coastal cities.

All this is outlined in an article recently published in the NY Times.

We're all human beings, and we're asked to think....

I bumped into my my friend John Trudell, poet, musician, Native American Icon, voice of humanity, etc.

He told me about his latest project - "Give Love, Give Life" which is an initiative to make sure that every woman and child in the country has healthcare insurance.

His words on the first page of the website for his project are not only applicable to his cause, they are words to consider for all of us, at all times. They speak for themselves:

"WARNING! EXPLICIT REALITY!

Give Love Give Life is a perception focused on the health of women and children, about what we have in common – women and children. This is not about our differences – political, class, racial or religious. This is not about whether we are from the left or from the right. This is not about whose fault it is. This is not about whose medicine is the best.

This is not about our differences. We all have our differences. Give Love Give Life is about what we have in common. Too often in the chaos of the world we are in, there seems to be a programmed focus on our differences, and this focus on our differences is perpetually being emotionally manipulated to the point that we no longer remember what we have in common. We are human beings. It is time to think together and show responsibility to the women and children.


We are human beings. It is time for us to recognize that we are human beings.

As human beings, we have intelligence and it is through this intelligence that we manifest our power.

As human beings, how we use our intelligence to perceive reality dictates how we will use the power of our intelligence.

As human beings, we have a responsibility to use the power of our intelligence clearly and coherently.

As human beings, we find ourselves in a dimensional reality where we feel powerless to deal with the various situations we find ourselves in.

As human beings, it is time to take responsibility for the power of our intelligence and use the power of our intelligence to think clearly and coherently and create solutions to the problems we are confronted with.

Simply put, as human beings, we are asking the human beings to think."

Photo from John Trudell's website www.johntrudell.com

Clearing land for Biofuel Production Produces more greenhouse gas emissions...

A recent article in Washington Post confirms some of my suspicions of biofuels...which are proving to be less and less a solution to the global climate change crisis...

The article speaks for itself:

"Clearing land to produce biofuels such as ethanol will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels, two scientific studies show."

"The independent analyses, which will be published today in the journal Science, could force policymakers in the United States and Europe to reevaluate incentives they have adopted to spur production of ethanol-based fuels. President Bush and many members of Congress have touted expanding biofuel use as an integral element of the nation's battle against climate change, but these studies suggest that this strategy will damage the planet rather than help protect it."

"One study - written by a group of researchers from Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University along with an agriculture consultant - concluded that over 30 years, use of traditional corn-based ethanol would produce twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline. Another analysis, written by a Nature Conservancy scientist along with University of Minnesota researchers, found that converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas or grasslands in Southeast Asia and Latin America to produce biofuels will increase global warming pollution for decades, if not centuries."

Read the entire article here.

U.S. Not Number One Any More....

Many know that US is not what it used to be, here are some surprising statistics compiled by the Whole Life Times.

The US Ranks worst, or next to worst in all of the following categories:

Overall Child Welfare (UNICEF)
Health Care System Ranking (WHO)
Poverty Rate (OECD)
Income inequality - rich/poor gap (OECD)
Carbon dioxide emissions per capita (UNHDI)
Ecological Footprint (Global Footprint Network)
Personal Savings Rate (OECD)
Income and pension security (OECD)
Balance of payments (OECD)
Municipal waste per capita (UNHDI)
Development Assistance to poor countries per capita
Longevity (OECD)
Infant Mortality (OECD)
Child Abuse (Every Child Matters)
Depression (WHO, AMA)
Anxiety (WHO, AMA)
Obesity (OECD)
Murder Rate (nationmaster.com)
Incarceration Rate (OECD)
Motor vehicle fatalities per capita (OECD)
Vacation Time (CEPR)
Paid Family Leave (GWF)
Paid sick leave (GWF)
The size of the middle class by percent (UNHDI)
Voting Rate (IDEA)
Press freedom (freedomhouse.org)
personal freedom (World Liberty Project)

Sources:
WHO - World Health Organization, OECD - Organization for Ecoconomic Cooperation and Development, UNHDI - United Nations Human Development Index, AMA - American Medical Association, CEPR - Center for Economic and Policy Research, GWF - Global Working Families Study, IDEA - International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

Emerging Leadership - Movement Diplomats for a Sustainable World

"A specific type of leadership is emerging that is developing the authority and resources to convene and maintain the dialogues for developing shared visions and perspectives. Movement diplomats work to complement civil society's paid staff, charismatic visionaries, influential philanthropists, community organizers, and organizational heads. Trained and supported directly by organizations or communities, these diplomats are charged with the task of building systemic coalitions. They translate the rhetoric of different factions, foster communication and find common ground. They provoke learning in their own organizations in addition to reaching out to form alliances. This new evolution in leadership includes core competencies of facilitation, strategic dialogue, systems thinking, and familiarity with future scenarios and the requirements of a sustainable world."

From a paper from the Tellus Institute - www.tellus.org

Building Economies with Heart

The core problem: We have a business relationship with nature and the nurturing qualities in ourselves, rather than a reverence relationship with nature and the nurturing qualities in ourselves.

From business to reverence.

David Korten writes in the latest issue of Yes! Magazine:

"If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balance with one another and the Earth. This requires building economies with Heart."

His entire article is excellent. I recommend it highly!

Illustration by Don Baker for YES! Magazine.www.evidenceofhumanity.org

Amma's Project for Ending Farmer Suicide

Project for Ending Farmer Suicide
Quoted from Amma's website: www.amma.org

"Tens of thousands of beneficiaries have been recently added. Please read on for more details.

Due to economic pressures leading to irresolvable debt associated with continually failing crops, many farmers have been committing suicide by drinking the very pesticides that no longer work on their crops. Especially in South India, with the growing rise of climate changes and other factors, crop failure has become more and more common causing suicide to spread like an epidemic amongst the suffering farmers. For example, in 2006 in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra alone, there were 1,044 reported suicides - one every eight hours.

In the spring of this year, after discussions on the issue with Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Amma found herself pledging 43 million dollars to address this problem. She admitted later the large dollar amount she had pledged surprised her but in the moment she had felt drawn to offering at least that much to help the situation. As part of the pledge, Amma offered that the MA Math would launch a massive project to provide aid and hope for the future for these struggling farmers.

"The problem cannot be solved through economic packages alone," Amma told the Maharashtra CM. "What is needed is social and spiritual interventions so that the farmers realize that suicide is not the way out. In fact, it only further aggravates the problem for the families. Feeling immense compassion for their suffering due to their unfortunate circumstances, Amma felt counseling and education could really help them get through to the other side. .Yet another generation should not become slaves of emotional weakness like suicide," Amma said. "Rather than that, they should understand that they need to develop self confidence. The future generation should have the mental strength to face life's challenges."

On 27 September 2007, the Ashram inaugurated two programs responding to this dire situation: Vidyamritam and Amrita SREE. These projects focus aid on the places with highest farmer-suicide rates - Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. These two initial relief projects are aimed at lessening the financial strain placed upon such agricultural families.

Vidyamritam - Educational Scholarships

Through Vidyamritam, the Ashram is providing full scholarships for free education to 100,000 children (ages 10 to 15) of farmers living below the poverty line. Many of the beneficiaries are in fact children who have lost one or both parents to suicide. The children receive a monthly stipend until they finish their education, subject to their performance in their studies.

Since the announcement of the project, thousands of applications have been received and they continue to pour in daily. Because of the huge response, the number of beneficiaries continues to grow.

As an extension of this project, the MA Math is conducting awareness programs to inculcate life skills for personality development.

A newsletter containing articles, stories and discussion forums to further facilitate the intellectual and mental growth is also being received by all the children. Furthermore, special advanced-education camps and symposiums on environmental preservation are being conducted.

Amrita SREE (Self-Reliance Education & Employment)

Through Amrita SREE, the Ashram is providing free vocational training to 5,000 different groups of women from impoverished agricultural families. Though many of these women have now incurred their husband's debt due to suicide, the MA math has been supporting them in building their own businesses through vocational training in various fields, including tailoring, making snacks for small-scale industries, electrical repair, and making paper products. After completion of their training, the women are given the necessary start-up capital to begin small, home-based businesses.

The use of pesticides and its effect on the life of farmers:

Currently many non-organic, commercial foods are genetically modified. Genetically modified organisms (GMO) present a profound danger to humans as well as the ecosystem. Many species of animals, such as the monarch butterflies are becoming extinct due to the GMOs. For vegetarians, GMOs pose another problem, as they are frequently spliced from animal DNA. It is hypothesized by many experts that the GMO food will eventually even alter human DNA. As GMOs are a recent creation their long term effects are unknown.

In India and other developing nations, western based GMO / pesticide companies are aggressively promoting extremely heavy use of chemicals for farming. This is leading to serious depletion of soil and contamination of the water. Many insects are developing stronger resistance to pesticides and sometimes even huge amounts of chemical are ineffective. For this reason many farmers have little or no yield, year after year. Having gone deeply in debt to these chemical companies, the farmers begin to feel hopeless. Unfortunately, large numbers of Indian farmers are committing suicide by drinking their pesticides. Amma has expressed concern about this issue, and is working to help the farmers and their families. When we choose organic, non-GMO foods, we can also do our part to end this tragic situation."

Dealing with Rising Oceans...

There are significant costs associated with dealing with the simple EFFECTS of global warming.

This article in the Christian Science Monitor is the first one I have seen being written about how costs of the effects of global warming are being dealt with.

This is a necessary step in maintaining the integrity of our civilization.

Dordrecht, Netherlands - The Dutch enjoy a hard-earned reputation for building river dikes and sea barriers. Over centuries, they have transformed a flood-prone river delta into a wealthy nation roughly twice the size of New Jersey.

If scientific projections for global warming are right, however, that success will be sorely tested. Globally, sea levels may rise up to a foot during the early part of this century, and up to nearly three feet by century's end. This would bring higher tidal surges from the more-intense coastal storms that scientists also project, along with the risk of more frequent and more severe river floods from intense rainfall inland.

Nowhere does this aquatic vise squeeze more tightly than on the world's densely populated river deltas.

So why is one of the most famous deltas – the Netherlands – breaching some river dikes and digging up some of the rare land in this part of the country that rises (barely) above sea level?

In the Biesbosch, a small inland delta near the city of Dordrecht, ecologist Alphons van Winden looks out his car window at a lone excavator filling a dump truck with soil. He considers the question and laughs. "We do have a hard time explaining this to foreigners," he says.

The work here represent a keystone in the country's ­climate-adaptation plans, Mr. van Winden says. Indeed, nowhere are adaptation planning efforts to address rising sea levels and flooding more advanced than in the Netherlands.

To be sure, the country's economic wealth and long experience dealing with threats from seas and rivers give it an advantage over other low countries that face rising waters, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the tiny tropical island nation of Tuvalu in the South Pacific. But many of the approaches the Netherlands is taking can and are being slowly adopted even in countries far poorer, specialists say.

The excavation work here is one example of what van Winden calls "soft approaches" to flooding in this small nation where competing interests jostle for every square foot of land. By buying out the few farmers remaining in this region, breaching the dikes they built to protect their land, and digging additional water channels, the Dutch government aims to reduce peak flood flows at Dordrecht and other cities downstream. No longer will tightly constricted river and canal channels hold high water captive. Big floods will overspread the Biesbosch, reducing the threat of water spilling over the top of levees that guard densely populated cities to the west.

The Biesbosch may also be critical to the future of farming on the productive southwest coast. There, most of the area's fresh water sources are close to the coast – and vulnerable to salt-water contamination from a rising North Sea. This could make farming difficult, if not impossible. The Biesbosch, however, hosts three large reservoirs, each surrounded by a 20-foot-high dike. Fresh water piped from these reservoirs, some 50 miles inland, could keep coastal areas supplied.

1.4 billion live near seacoast

Globally, some 21 percent of the world's 6.6 billion people live within 20 miles of a seacoast – and nearly 40 percent within 60 miles, says Robert Nich­­olls, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southampton in England.

Seacoast populations who face the greatest risk from floods, storms, and sea-level rise live on river deltas, says the UN-sponsored Inter­governmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the IPCC's latest set of reports on the impact of global warming, released earlier this year, scientists looked at data from 40 of the globe's river deltas, home to 300 million people. If current trends continue through 2050, flooding in the Nile, Mekong, and Ganges-Brahmaputra river deltas could each displace more than 1 million people. Up to a million more may be forced to head for higher ground in each of another nine deltas, including the Mississippi River delta. Up to 50,000 could be forced to relocate in each of 12 other deltas, including the Rhine River delta – an area known more widely as the Netherlands.

Besides global warming, scientists say the challenges these regions face have other causes as well. Levees, sea walls, drainage canals, dams, and other land-use patterns have taken a toll. Deltas tend to subside (sink) naturally, accentuating the rise in sea level. Past engineering projects can actually limit the ability of natural processes to replenish the land mass of deltas.

Manifesting a rich life - a conference of new thinking!

There is an event this weekend in LA called "Manifesting a Rich Life," which I will not be able to attend...

What is wonderful about the conference is that it is really hitting the heart of materialism and consumerism, some of the greatest challenges of of our civilization.

The speakers and the titles are unlike any other wealth oriented conference I have heard of.

They are addressing the core of happiness and wealth, while recognizing that we need to transform our relationship with money and material abundance to find true contentment and happiness.

Some of the speakers and the titles of their presentations are great thoughts alone:

LYNNE TWIST - Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
GAY HENDRICKS - The Ten Principles and
Practices That Create Love, Abundance and Vibrant Wellbeing
REV. WENDY CRAIG-PURCELL - After You Know That You Can “Have It All", "Now What?
RICK JAROW - The Tantric Alchemy of Abundance:
Coming into Radiant Relationship with Everything & Everyon


It looks like a great event.

New tranportation routes open due to shrinking ice...

The European Space Agency has released reports showing that shrinking ice in the north pole has opened transportation routes between Asia and Europe that have not been open for many thousands of years...

The phenomena has opened up international scrambling to claim trade route oversight and territorial rights. Canada and Russia have claimed authority to monitor the waterways, while Europe and USA call for making the waters international territory.



The BBC posted an article and other data on the matter. What is of great interest to me is that there is a very cool little graphic provided that shows how the Arctic Ice has shrunk over the last 27 years, and how it has accelerated in the last couple of years.... this tells me that warming is accelerating at an increasing rate and that there will be very much change ahead...article.

A caring culture and a caring economy?

The Real Wealth of Nations is the newest book by Riane Eisler - one of the icons of the sustainablity movement.

She writes:

"Our beliefs about what is or is not valuable are largely unconscious. They have been profoundly affected by assumptions we inherited from times when anything associated with the female half of humanity — such as caring and caregiving — was devalued. If we look at our current fiscal priorities, we see that policymakers always seem to find money for stereotypically “masculine” control and violence — for prisons, weapons, wars. But we’re told there’s no money for caring and caregiving — for “feminine” activities, such as caring for children and people’s health, for nonviolence and peace.

I want to say that when I speak of caring and caregiving as “women’s work” I’m only echoing conventional beliefs we inherited from times when gender roles were much more rigid. The goal is an economic and social system that supports caring and cargiving in ways that put food on the table and a roof over people’s heads — one that no longer bars women from areas traditionally reserved for men and no longer views caring and caregiving as fit only for women or effeminate men."

Who is responsible for the markets?

Joel Makower wrote an entry while back which is a reality check for us "greenies."

When all the world is going "green" he shows evidence and view that is not always the case:

He writes "First, the bottom line. 'Given consumer attitudes today, green is best characterized as a niche opportunity in the consumer marketplace,' says Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich. 'It is a strong niche opportunity, but it is not a mainstream interest that is passionately held or strongly felt by the majority of consumers.'

Or, perhaps more to the point: 'The majority of consumers really don't care all that much about the environment. Green simply doesn't has not captured the public imagination.' Ouch."

Read his entire article here.

What is it going to take?

Who really is leading the markets, anyway?

Corporations say "the consumers." Yet if all the corporations adopted environmentally responsible practices and began offering truly green products and services - the consumers would also follow.

If the major corporations really educated the public about the challenges in their industries and appealed to the customers, and fellow corporations to change the markets, I think we would be surprised as to the ease of the transition to a sustainable economy.

I attended the Social Venture Network conference last weekend and we heard from a NIKE executive.

She shared with us some amazing things that Nike is doing - good job. As to the speed and effectiveness of their efforts she said that Nike is subject to the markets and the financial constraints in the quarter to quarter profit system we have created on Wall Street.

Now, I got her point. Yet I stood up and asked a question - "Is Nike really a victim of the markets, and the stock market?"

Who are the players in the market? Aren't the consumers and the corporations?

Is Nike REALLY a victim of the markets? Isn't Nike one of the leaders in the apparel industry?

More fundamentally, who is market comprised of - corporations. Then corporations who make up the market have the power to create the constraints and therefore begin to remove the constraints of the markets....

Anyway - if the consumers are still blase, and the corporations are saying that they are victims of the markets....

Who's left to be responsible?

Sound Healing and Energy? Scientists use sound to burn water as fuel.

Hydrogen has been on my mind for about 4 years now, as I put together a venture capital forum for the National Hydrogen Association in 2003 to help support emerging technologies and companies in the Hydrogen energy space. The conclusion I came to is that Hydrogen is currently another form of fossil fuel, since a large percentage of the current feedstock of hydrogen made by major corporations is fossil fuel in the form of natural gas.

The core idea is to produce sustainable hydrogen. Simply, the process of making hydrogen out of natural gas or other fossil fuel has a carbon byproduct. It can be sequestered, but that is a cost that is sometimes not considered, until now with carbon credits... yet that is another story for another day.

Long story short, you want to produce sustainable hydrogen - ideally by electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen "H2" from water "H2O."

According to the following article, scientists cited below have found a way to send sound waves through salt water and produce energy by literally burning the Hydrogen that is released from the water.

Fascinating!

I'd love to learn the chemistry behind this one! More to follow....


Here's the article:

"Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

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Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

-- Found on Google News - 751 Headlines...

Photo by Birdfarm found on Flickr