Day 42 Message to fasters

After the Disaster

"The possibility for a rapid regeneration of human culture is predicated
on a great awakening happening quickly -- before ecological meltdown
leads to systemic breakdown.."

After the Disaster, by Daniel Pinchbeck (read the article here)

This is the kind of thinking that attracts me to the 2012 meme. It's what helps me to keep an optimistic outlook! Much gratitude to Daniel for sharing these words!

we will save this mountain

Last Monday I had the privilege to join a protest to save one mountain from the destructive onslaught of mountaintop removal coal mining. Coal River Mountain is the tallest standing mountain in West Virginia (almost 500 mountains have been destroyed across Appalachia), and its ridges provide some of the most viable locations for wind power generation. But the coal companies began blasting away at the mountain several weeks ago. This single mountain serves as a potent symbol of the greater struggle for energy justice in the coal fields of Appalachia. (more details here and here).




The protest was intense and bordered on surreal. About 500 people (at most, by my estimate) assembled into two pretty even groups in the parking lot of the DEP in Charleston, separated by two temporary fences and a detail of police. There was a strong counter-protest to this anti-mountaintop removal protest, composing largely of miners (in striped uniforms: they likely got the day off to attend). They had nice printed or vinyl signs with words like "Loud and Proud, Miners of WV" and "Environmentalists: Endless Bitching." They certainly were loud; boisterous shouting, insults, cheers ("whose coal?") and especially the massive coal trucks; a dozen or so of which circled the block, tirelessly airing their booming horns, in an attempt to drown out the speakers at our protest.

You can hear the horns in the background of this video.

Judy Bonds began to shout "Honk if you love mountains" every time a truck went by, blaring its horns. The cheers of our crowd would then join with the shouts and jeers of the miners and other counter-protesters, much to their dismay. (photo cred. Scott E., via facebook)

I had the honor of assuming a "Peacekeeper" role for this action. Dozens of angry miners, shouting, blaring horns, blinded by ignorance and hate. This volatile setting provided a trial-by-fire, as it were, for my peacekeeping skills. Our charge, as Peacekeepers, was to diffuse any conflicts between protesters and counter-protesters, to pull our people aside and remind them of our purpose there, and if necessary, to intercept any insults, glares or violent gestures. ("Sure... no problem... just breathe..." I told myself...)

I found it to be an incredible exercise in non-attachment, in mindfulness, in non-violent thought. Not only did I have to keep my own emotions in check, I had to monitor the emotional state of others around me, and to step in when energetic interactions approached violence.

And I realized:
The whole "us vs. them" polarity is becoming obsolete.
We only believe that we are in competition with each other.
But we all need clean air and clean water, a live-able climate.
Mountaintop removal mining is ecological suicide for Appalachia.
And our continued burning of coal is a fatal mistake for the planet.
Coal extraction is poisoning the same families that are fed by it.
They depend on coal to live, yet it kills them slowly.
What a profound microcosm...
Our collective our addiction to fossil fuels!

If we're going to solve this problem, then we need to dismantle false polarities.
In the end, we're all in the same boat! (except the exploitative corporations... we should vote them off the boat...)

Mining coal is currently the only option for so many fathers that need to feed their children. And of course, the coal companies want to keep it that way! So I was so delighted to hear the words shared by Mountainkeeper Larry Gibson, which included an opening line to the effect of: "Before we shut down the coal companies, we have to create jobs for all of these miners back there!"

The coal fields of Appalachia have provided the cheap and abundant fuel source that has propelled our nation's industrial progress and amassed great wealth for Wall Street bankers. But ironically the top coal-producing regions are also the most impoverished in the country. Imagine if the rest of the country were to pay its dues and respect to the coal regions, and help it to develop more sustainable and just economies? Ideas for restorative justice have been proposed by green jobs champion Van Jones; give the older miners an early retirement and retrain younger miners to perform green and sustainable jobs. What if we helped them create an alternative economy to coal? They could then walk away from the jobs that are killing them!

We all need to respect those who've been sacrificed to get us here (wherever we are...) I guess it comes down to "hating the sin, and not the sinner..." or maybe "the game, not the player?" We need to end mountaintop removal. And we need to end exploitation of all kinds. The miners, as much as they have been conditioned to hate environmentalists, are themselves being exploited by coal companies. The only viable answers to this conundrum will be to work together, to realize that we're on the same side (as humans). The only "them" is the disembodied corporate structures, the machine of exploitation (which, by the way, is in its final death throes), and perhaps the few sad and sleep-walking souls who think they're on top.

time to stop tip-toe-ing around the tulips

We can't just substitute one power source for another.
The energy crisis and climate change are only symptoms of a much larger disease.

New PCI Study Concludes No Combination of Alternative Energy Systems Can Replace Fossil Fuels

From the press release:

"An alarming new study jointly released by two prominent California-based environmental/economic think tanks, concludes that unrelenting energy limits, even among alternative energy systems, will make it impossible for the industrial system to continue operating at its present scale, beyond the next few decades. The report finds that the current race by industries and governments to develop new sustainable energy technologies that can replace ecologically harmful and rapidly depleting fossil fuel and nuclear technologies, will not prove sufficient, and that this will require substantial adjustments in many operating assumptions of modern society."

One particularly powerful conclusion from the study includes:

"...It is necessary to prepare societies for dramatic shifts in consumption and lifestyle expectations. It will also be necessary to promote a new ethic of conservation throughout the industrial world. A sharp reversal of today’s globalization of commercial activity—inherently wasteful for its transport energy needs—must be anticipated and facilitated, and government leaders must encourage a rapid evolution toward economies based on localism especially for essential needs such as food and energy. The study remarks that this is not necessarily a negative prospect, as some research shows that, once basic human needs are met, high material consumption levels do not correlate with high quality of life."

Harnessing Coal River Wind in Appalachia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwO9Z3IlRo&fmt=22

Today, the confluence between mountaintop removal coal mining and climate change is front and center on the streets of Charleston, West Virginia and on stage at the "COP15" United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

In Charleston, activists from around the region are gathering in front of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection headquarters to demand an end to blasting at Coal River Mountain -- ground zero in the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining.

And in Copenhagen, Google is unveiling a new layer in Google Earth that dramatically illustrates the choice to be made at Coal River Mountain -- a choice between a clean energy future and the increased threat of climate change.

As Lorelei Scarbro, who lives in Rock Creek, West Virginia, at the foot of Coal River Mountain, says in the video, Coal River Mountain represents a crossroads in our future.

Massey Energy plans to mine more than 6000 acres of mountaintop at Coal River Mountain, which would destroy the opportunity to build a 320 megawatt wind farm on the ridges of Coal River Mountain.

Instead of 320 megawatts of clean energy that would power more than 70,000 homes indefinitely, Massey's plans would release 134 million tons of C02 -- the equivalent of putting 1.5 million more cars on the road for 17 years.

That's what makes Coal River Mountain a "cauldron of Climate Change," in Lorelei's words. That's why Google is showing millions of Google Earth users and the delegates in Copenhagen what's at stake at Coal River Mountain, and why people from around the region are gathering today in Charleston.

Can you stand with the activists in Charleston and the delegates in Copenhagen today by taking two simple actions?

1. Watch the Coal River Mountain Video and forward it to your friends and family. Ask them to join you in stopping mountaintop removal coal mining by signing up at iLoveMountains.org.

2. Email your Senators and tell them to pass the Appalachian Restoration Act. If Congress is serious about addressing climate change, we need this bill to dramatically reduce mountaintop removal coal mining, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you for taking a moment today to help secure a clean energy future for all of us.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

it works both ways

A public address delivered to those gathered at the 350 International Day of Action in New Bedford, Massachusetts on October 24th, 2009

picture from 350.org, New Zealand

Last night, on the other side of the planet, a conscious group of individuals gathered in the mountains of New Zealand to greet the first rays of sunlight to hit the earth on this arbitrary calendar day, October 24th, 2009. They gathered with a very specific intent: to be the first ripple in a wave of heightened awareness to spread across the globe on this day.

Today, people 181 countries are coming together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people are gathering to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

Thank you for being part of this amazing event!

Science tells us that we must immediately begin to reduce global atmospheric CO2 to below 350 ppm in order "to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted. " Currently, we’re at 390, and climbing by 2 ppm each year. Most of the economically and politically “feasible” action proposals put forth by world governments consider 450 or even 550 ppm to be acceptable.

The last time the Earth was at 450 ppm, the oceans were 75 meters higher. A coastal city, like New Bedford, would be completely under water. Is that acceptable?

Our global greenhouse gas emissions have been on an exponential curve for decades. Science tells us that our yearly emissions must not only decrease, but they must peak by 2014, and then drop rapidly in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.

It is clearly an amazing, and daunting challenge, and there’s no simple answer. The only thing I know for sure, is that we’re all in this together. And that the only way past this global challenge is to come together as a global family.

Because climate change is about more than just carbon in the atmosphere. It is perhaps the most visible and immediately threatening symptom of a much larger disease. And yet this crisis may be exactly what we need to wake up to this fact. Perhaps we’re ready to realize that at the root of all our problems is a defective and fatal world view.

This idea of kill-or-be-killed,
Of competition over cooperation,
Of systematic oppression and exploitation of people and planet,
the mechanistic worldview of Empire is finally being exposed as the short-sighted failure that it is.

Many of us have heard about the maxim represented by Chinese character for Crisis and Opportunity. The climate crisis gives us an incredible opportunity: an opportunity to reweave the very fabric of our culture, to lay the framework for a truly just and sustainable global society, to redefine the way we relate to each other and the planet.

But the opportunity also works both ways.

Those in power want to remain in power, and are using this crisis towards their own advantage,
They are breeding a new form of colonialism, where rights to pollute our common atmosphere are bought and sold. They’ve fabricated a variety of thinly-veiled programs to maintain the status quo:
Carbon capture and sequestration,
agro-fuels,
bogus carbon-offsets and carbon markets,
and of course “clean coal”

But as Einstein put it: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

So quite simply, how can we entrust our very survival as a civilization to the same “free market” forces that brought us to this precipice? (we can’t)

We know that Empire is unsustainable, but they can see nothing beyond their own world view, and seem to be ready to go down with the ship.

But we won’t let them take us with them.

We are here today to demand meaningful action from our so-called “world leaders.” This December in Copenhagen, they must reach an international climate agreement that is Ambitious, fair and binding, that is in line with what Science is telling us, and that prioritizes the interests of people over the interests of the corporations.

But we clearly can’t put all our eggs in this one basket.

We must realize that our future is ultimately in our own hands. And we are writing our future story right now.

In our own communities, we must each cultivate climate solutions which are
decentralized, locally-controlled, bioregionally appropriate and socially just.

We must work to build community resilience, both to mitigate the causes and to adapt to the changing face of our feverish Mother Earth.

And we must work intimately with each other, and within ourselves to heal the initial trauma, the disconnection that brought us here in the first place.

I have an incredible sense of excitement and anticipation for this time which we have entered. We are here for the birthing of new society, the next step in our collective evolution. Don’t get me wrong: things are going to get MUCH worse before they get better. But we are carefully planting many seeds around the world. And like a forest fire, which disturbs the established system of hierarchy and order, our seeds are being activated and given space to grow.

Thank you for being here, for being part of this, and for being ready to brave the coming storm with clarity of purpose, and positive intent.

We’re all on the same boat! - 350 Day of Action in New Bedford

New Bedford, a coastal city with a strong nautical heritage, is home to a growing and creative movement for social equality, green jobs, and environmental justice. On Saturday, hundreds of concerned individuals surrounded a sailboat placed curiously in the middle of an intersection of downtown New Bedford, with a sail that boldly read: “350.org”. The people there were joining thousands of others across the globe as part of the largest environmental action in history. The message: The world is ready for an international climate treaty that is ambitious, fair, and binding, and that follows what science is telling us.

350 may be the most important number in the world. Science tells us that it’s the highest level of atmospheric CO2 that we can maintain if we wish to “maintain a planet like that on which civilization developed.” (We’re currently at 390 and climbing.) I found the sailboat to be an incredibly powerful way to accent the nautical heritage of New Bedford and to highlight its vulnerability to sea level rise. Perhaps most importantly, it symbolizes the importance of community resilience and adaptation in the face of this emerging climate crisis.

When I first heard that Bioneers by the Bay: Connecting for Change was happening the same weekend as the 350 event, I was excited at the possibilities of how these unique and powerful initiatives would combine forces in the city of New Bedford. Bioneers is an inspirational gathering of individuals sharing “visionary and practical solutions for restoring the Earth and its inhabitants.” What a perfect context in which to punctuate the global message of 350.org! We have the solutions to avert climate disaster and sustainable communities. We must simply realize that we’re all in the same boat, and make up our minds to act as one.