I was afraid this would be too long to send but it comes out as 71 KB so I will attempt. Jeanne
CLIMATE CHANGE: DESPAIR & EMPOWERMENT Monday, May 7th 7:00 - 9:00 PM. Tompkins County Human Services Building 320 W.State Street Ithaca JOHN SEED, Founder and Director of the Rainforest Information Centre which successfully campaigned to save the sub-tropical rainforests of New South Wales. He is also a prominent figure in the deep ecology movement and co-creator of the Council of All Beings. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au http://centerofthedrum.com/ Some of this info may be repetitious but since my notes were fairly extensive I want to make them available to both people who were and weren’t there for this tremendous evening, including to some listservs that go out of the County. The event was sponsored by BeingChange&Friends www.beingchange.org. Mesa of Eco-Village gave the introduction and first asked that everyone turn and greet each other. BeingChange, she said, is about the great turning from an industrial to s life sustaining world. A shifting of consciousness to a Gaian structure. She introduced the speaker, John Seed. John is a co-author of Thinking Like A Mountain, with Joanna Macy and two others and has been involved in conservation work since 1979. John came to Ithaca from an extensive week long tour in Canada from late April through the first week in May. John stated that he got his start with a Meditation Center in New South Wales, Australia. He then got involved in the first Direct Action For Rainforest in the world. As a result of that, “All my plans changed.” He has done 50 presentations in Australia and is now going to other countries. Our relationship to the forests is being fundamentally altered. The entire Amazon Rainforest will disappear and turn into savannah if the global temperature goes 3 degrees Centigrade (C) above the baseline. We have already gone 3/4 of One degree C. 20 percent of Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) comes from the destruction of forests as carbon sinks become carbon emitters. In the Northern Hemisphere where there have already been above the baseline increases of 3 degrees C, forest areas in Northern Canada and Siberia have died. John’s presentation included clips from major global climate activists. The first was Ross Gelbspan, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of The Heat Is On and Boiling Point. Gelbspan was not an environmentalist but he became intensely involved with global warming 12 years ago when he learned that Exxon/Mobil (the 2 corporations merged in 1999-JF) and others were paying scientists under the table to spread disinformation about global warming although even then “the science was in”. They used the same PR firms as the tobacco industry. These PR efforts were so successful that they cost us 15 years in studying and addressing the climate crisis. John noted the same media studies as cited in Inconvenient Truth: that of over 900 peer reviewed scientific studies, none refuted the existence of global warming, but in the mainstream news media, over half the newspaper accounts felt they had to balance their articles with quotes from climate skeptics. Exxon-Mobil earned $40 billion last quarter, the biggest profit in the history of business. Russ Gelbspan clip: There are 3 dimensions to the Climate Crisis Natural, energy, Economic The U.S. subsidizes coal and oil to the tune of $20 billion annually. Globally, the industrial world’s subsidy is $200 billion. We must “rewire” the entire globe. “There is no way that only 1/2 the boat is going to sink.” Next John spoke about Al Gore and credited him with having done the most to alert the world to the climate crisis. When Gore did a training for people to present his slide show in Australia, 2000 people applied for 85 slots. Polls showed 93 per cent of Australians were concerned about global warming. Some settlements in Australia will have to be abandoned and they will lose major agricultural areas. More people in Australia have seen Inconvenient Truth than anywhere except the U.S. and yet those two governments have refused to ratify the Kyoto Climate Treaty. The only solutions that will work have to be local and global at the same time. Al Gore clip from Australian TV Global warming is the challenge of our lifetimes. Humans will make the decisions that determine the future. People go from Despair to Denial. Both let you off the hook. Despair is completely unjustified. The lesson is that you need to go to the grassroots level—one by one, community by community. Here John stated that while he has tremendous admiration for Al Gore, that he disagrees with the idea that we have no grounds for despair. We are experiencing the 6th great “Extinction Spasm” in the history of Planet earth. There were 30, 000 extinctions last year; there will be another 30,000 extinctions next year! If we go 3 degrees C above the historical level, 40 per cent of species will disappear! Because we have the technical means is no reason to believe we will do what must be done. Here John comes to a major crux of his message. We are afraid to feel our feelings; we are in profound denial of our feelings. We are afraid that if we fully opened ourselves to distress that we will become extremely depressed. But that is not true—these feelings are an important part of our intelligence. We descended from intelligent ancestors who used intuition, instinct and feelings to make the decision not to be destroyed. We need the passion to make the changes to survive—we cannot repress that part of ourselves. The creed to survival is to excavate these feelings. Thinking does not work by itself—look where it has led us. Our feelings are nothing to be afraid of. There’s a tremendous empowerment. Despair goes away IF we dare to face our distress. Normally this presentation is followed by an all day workshop on facing feelings; we attendees must find a way to work on that ourselves. John’s next clip was the Wombat, a cartoon clip. The wombat reminds us to Cherish and Protect our Only Home. Get along with other beings—human and other species—they are your neighbors. If we ignore our interdependence, we are doomed. Global Mind shift -All Is One. http://www.global-mindshift.org/ http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf SOLUTIONS—WHICH WORK AND WHICH WON’T We don’t what the solutions are yet; we know some pieces but not how they fit together. The solutions are going to be so huge that none will work without a huge public groundswell. No tinkering! We are being bombarded by things that are purporting to be solutions, but aren’t. There is still too much deliberate emphasis on Business As Usual. Greenwashing. Examples 1. Geo-sequestration. As with storage and disposal of nuclear waste, sequestering carbon is unreal. We put 70 million tons/day of CO2 into the atmosphere. Sequestration may be theoretically possible but the sheer costs—in energy as well as money—the energy to transport it would render it ineffective, a red herring. If we believe we can just bury CO2 there is no reason to stop pumping it out! You have to stop burning coal. What matters, for example, is not how many windmills there are but how many coal plants there aren’t. They have to be replaced! 2. Biofuels. It’s Biofuels vs. food, biofuels vs. forest! They are clearing the Amazon Rainforest for Biofuels, cutting forests for oil palm and in the process releasing CO2. Millions of acres of Borneo, both the Indonesian and Malaysian portions are being burned. They couldn’t have chosen a worse place. The swamps contain 30 times as much CO2 as the palm oil will replace. Orangutans are now close to extinction. We have to stop tinkering, stop quick fix, BAU solutions. We have to STOP and THINK IT THROUGH. Stop. Think. Feel. Study. Relying primarily on individual solutions—light bulbs, priuses, make us feel like it’s our fault. Individuals are only 20 percent of the solution. Communities can do more. But the bulk of the solution lies with governments—forcing government to act. A recent summit meeting in Australia about global warming did not mention coal. Australia emits one per cent of the world’s GHG but the leaders did not talk about reducing use of coal. Last year, a study showed that if the average 70 mpg of speed in the U,.S. was reduced to 50, the U.S. would save a billion barrels of oil a year—the exact amount that we import from the Middle East. All that money that goes for murder in the Middle East could go towards creating a sustainable society. Another touchy area---meat consumption. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. In Australia the main source of emissions is Methane from the digestive systems of ruminant animals. It’s not the number one source in the U.S. as we have more greenhouse sources but it’s very significant. Changes won’t happen unless everyone here understands that we must explain it to our communities. John had another Al Gore clip. He also noted that 12 months after the release of Inconvenient Truth, Gore has updated the DVD to more fully discuss population and other matters. He attempted to get free or low cost copies of the DVD but no go. Local people had tried also. No go. John had two global warming DVD’S of his own which eh offered for free if they were to be used for educational purposes. One is CLIMATE CHANGE: Despair & Empowerment: An Evening With Ross Gelbspan & John Seed 2006 and the other is Boiling Point The Global Climate Crisis by Ross Gelbspan 2004. Second Al Gore Clip—U.K. television Global Warming could literally end civilization. But as far as attempts to curb it: “None of this is going to work without a groundswell from the grassroots.” If people did not feel a sense of urgency, changes wouldn’t be made. James Madison said “The most important bulwark of democracy is a well-informed citizenry.” People have been given poor information. If they were truly informed, they would demand changes. Global Warming is by far the most serious crisis civilization has ever faced. Normal rules of politics should be set aside. The maximum of what is now politically feasible is short of the minimum needed to solve the crisis. People must give the politicians permission to have the courage to do what must be done. The only way is for people to seize the crisis and demand action. Gore makes the point over and over: “Nothing will change without a groundswell from the grassroots.” SOLUTIONS THAT WORK Food choices: Organic foods have far less CO2 than chemical. The only way to truly sequester CO2 is to allow the topsoil to hold the carbon and turn it into living things. The other Major area: The Miles the Food Travels. It does little good if food is organic if it travels 1500 miles! Does no good to organic if it comes by way of fossil fuels. Have to make it profitable to grow and sell food locally. All the advantages are with the major food corporations—economies of scale and the exclusion of externalities from the cost. John noted that there aren’t yet many climate action groups in the U.S. That must change. Final Clip—Vendana Shiva, water activist of India and author of Water Wars The planet will carry on and regulate itself. But the conditions human beings need for survival are changing. Now is the time for every sane person to join hands with each other and survive. John then opened the session for the people present to speak. The first speaker stated that the single biggest contributor to global warming is the war machine. War is the largest user of fossil fuels and the most incredibly wasteful thing. We have to associate and end of war mentality to a moderation of global warming. (As with the new slogan—No More Warring; No More Warming-JF) Someone asked John about Al Gore for President. John’s response: He has more important things to do. Gore himself keeps emphasizing that it won’t matter who is president unless people rise up. This comment drew much applause. John then gave an example from Australia of how top leadership is not working—Prime Minister John Howard is doing a fancy dance about the Tasmanian Rainforest . He’s all talk and doing nothing to stop old growth logging. Someone else brought up little, inexpensive ways people can cut down on heat bills—old sweaters and Styrofoam boxes make good insulation. More on failed leadership: Forests are dying. Pine beetles which used to be killed off by the cold are now surviving the winter. In British Columbia (and in Siberia), 80 per cent of the pine trees have been killed and the beetles are moving eastward –as in towards us. In Australia, trees are dying from drought. Several people brought up the dying honeybees matter, including that it has been said that 4 years after the honeybees with their plant pollination go, we will go. John said that he is worried about the bees. He said he has seen photos in China before the current epidemic of people pollinating by hand to replace the beehive. It took 7 people to replace one bee. “Let’s hope we figure it out,” he added. We have to learn to communicate with everybody about these matters John or another speaker noted—we can’t just talk to ourselves. In response to a question about electric hybrids, someone noted the organization called Plug-In-America. http://www.pluginamerica.com/ Another group (didn’t get the name) has as its goal to start designing a food forest and get back to being 98 per cent forest. Fay Gougakis brought up population. John responded that the best ways to deal with that were Empower women!—when women are empowered and can share in decision-making, family sizes drop. The main thing is to enable babies in the developing world to survive—end poverty-when people know their children will survive they do not feel the need to have more as an insurance for their old age; they will have 2-3 instead of 8-10. The developing world is rightfully angry about the industrial world’s emphasis on population when it’s our over-consumption that is at least equally a problem. When someone in a wealthier nation can consume 100 times the resources of a Bangladeshi. We need a critical mass of local efforts all over. There is a website called CenteroftheDrum.com where you can go for more info. Next were short presentations by Sustainable Tompkins and the Climate Change Action Group Elan Shapiro Sustainable Tompkins http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ The work is about a fundamental shift of consciousness. Just as John spoke of thinking Like A Mountain, their theme is Thinking Like A Place. Sustainability is not an environmental issue—it’s about a healthy community for all, human and other beings. Sustainable Tompkins has gone through a dramatic paradigm shift in the past 1-2 years. They are making the links between racism and sustainability. Poverty and sustainability. Are local food available?—Everyone needs to have access to local foods. And links to issues like Universal Health Care and Living Wages. These make as much difference as bulbs and priuses. All is failure when society does not provide for everyone. They have put together a slide show about Tompkins County called “The Science of Sustainability” linking it all together. You need a Bottom Up and Top Down approach at the same time. The Chamber of Commerce and the Workers Right center need to talk to each other. We should have monthly programs with local food potlucks. Study circles in neighborhoods—websites, listservs, books. The most fundamental strategies. Living systems—ourselves as living systems. Easy, accessible materials. There are so many new jobs that can happen when we focus on a green dimension. A “Green Collar” economy—jobs that work for everyone. Upcoming July 7 7/7/7 There is to be a Block Party on Court Street co-sponsored by Sustainable Tompkins and GIAC.(Greater Ithaca Activities Center). Reverse racism. Support sustainability. There is to be a Conference on Sustainable Health in the Fall. Date, time and place to be announced. It’s All One Issue Sigrid Kulkowitz Climate Crisis Action Group of Central NY The group was formed in February 2007 and was the coordinator or the Step-It-Up Climate Crisis Action day in Ithaca on April 14th in coordination with the nationwide effort which had such events in 1460 communities in all 50 states. The group participated in Earth Day and also had a booth at the Pyramid Mall the Saturday before. Sigrid asked other members of the group to also stand and be acknowledged. Activities Coordinate speakers: There are a number of them—some are Al Gore trained. Sponsor A Library Aiming to get An Inconvenient Truth and Who Killed The electric Car? Into every library in the Finger Lakes region; have done about half of them. The group has been selling LOW CARBON DIET: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 pounds. (10 were sold at the talk that night.) Global Warming Cafes—a weekend and week night to choose from Sunday June 10th 3 PM-6 PM Wednesday June 13th 6:30 – 9 PM The idea is to discuss and commit to steps we can take and from groups to go out into communities hopefully with the book LOW CARBON DIET. Rob Ross reported briefly on the Climate Summit that was held at the Museum of the earth on Sunday April 29th. It went very well; 25 people attended and a follow up is planned for late June or early July. Sigrid then showed an excellent wonderful slide show, produced by her son, of the April 14th Step-It-Up Climate Day to the background tune of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”. The show featured slides from the Ithaca activity and then from around the country including a shot of the founder of the Climate Day, author and activist Bill McKibben. John Seed then ended the evening by quoting from memory a beautifully inspiring poem song called “Word To The Mother” by Dru (sp?) Dellinger. After each stanza we all joined in singing the refrain “word to the mother.” A moving end to an inspiring evening!! ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. _______________________________________________ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
