Uncommon Thought Journal: Environment Archives

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Lagos Dissents Under IMF Hegemony Nigeria: The Next Front for AFRICOM

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By Nile Bowie. Republished from Information Clearing House.

AFRICOMLogo.jpgOn a recent trip to West Africa, the newly appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde ordered the governments of Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad to relinquish vital fuel subsidies. Much to the dismay of the population of these nations, the prices of fuel and transport have near tripled over night without notice, causing widespread violence on the streets of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and its economic center, Lagos. Much like the IMF induced riots in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, public discontent in Nigeria is channeled towards an incompetent and self-serving domestic elite, compliant to the interests of fraudulent foreign institutions.

Einstein Dingoes

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The following from The Telegraph "Dingoes display 'unbelievable intelligence'" (12/16/11). Unbelievable? Humans had better waatch out.

Thanks for the link Stratofrog.

Fiddling on Climate

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By Laura Carlsen. Republished from Foreign Policy In Focus.

GlobalWarmingIceBear1.jpgThe image of Nero fiddling as Rome burned--albeit apocryphal-- has stuck as the metaphor for willfully irresponsible government.  Government representatives, gathered at climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, have been fiddling for the past week. Of the hundreds of closed-door sessions, official meetings and informational seminars, all that's come out so far is cacophony. By the looks of it, they plan to fiddle right through to the end, wasting one of the last opportunities to respond in time to a threat that affects not only their societies, but the entire planet.

Going, going, gone

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By Rowan Wolf

Rhino.jpg How does it feel to be the man (and yes we can be 99.99% sure it was a man) to kill the last of a species rhinoceros? Never again will the West African Black Rhino step upon the earth.

How does it feel to be the man (and yes we can be 99.99% sure that it is a man) to ingest the powdered horn of that last rhino so that he may have a (purported) heightened sexual encounter? Does it have a special kick because he knows that never again will there be powdered black rhino horn?

Contamination: The totalitarian strategy of the GMO crop industry

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By Kurt Cobb. Republished from Intelligence Daily.

MonsantoLand.jpgCertainly, many of us know people who say (wrongly) that nowadays everything causes cancer. This view becomes a justification for making no effort to avoid carcinogens, especially in food. It is a case of learned helplessness that becomes a major public relations weapon for creating and maintaining docile populations. Make people feel powerless. Then, even if they disagree with you, they won't oppose you.

By Rady Ananda. Republished from Center for Globalization Research.

US stores spent nuclear fuel rods at 4 times pool capacity

SpentFuelRods.jpgIn a recent interview with The Real News Network, Robert Alvarez, a nuclear policy specialist since 1975, reports that spent nuclear fuel in the United States comprises the largest concentration of radioactivity on the planet: 71,000 metric tons. Worse, since the Yucca Mountain waste repository has been scrapped due to its proximity to active faults (see last image), the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactor operators to store four times more waste in the spent fuel pools than they're designed to handle.

By Phil Rockstroh

"Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure. But we're in a stage of denial: we want to re-establish things as they used to be, to put the country back where it was." -- James Hillman

MountaintopRemoval1.jpgMost of the men I grew up with in Alabama and Georgia deny the veracity of climate change. They are unwilling to make the connection between their ownership (actually the bank's) of SUVs and oversized pickup trucks and the super storms and massive floods that, now with alarming regularity, ravish the region.

Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Reconfirmed

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By Stephen Lendman

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for JapanNuclearReactorExplosion1.jpgVisual evidence now confirms what earlier was known: namely, that Tokyo Electric's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station experienced at least one core nuclear meltdown, perhaps much worse than now admitted.  An earlier article on April 8th discussed the first reports of a possible meltdown.

Let Us, Now, Step Back Toward Evolution

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By B. Kester

MountainGorillaMom.jpgIn the novel Ishmael, Daniel Quinn takes his readers on a journey to de-construct the notion of civilization. Our culture is examined over the course of a lengthy dialogue between a teacher and a student. Through this discourse, it is established that our current methodology of living has set us on a path toward destroying not only our own civilization but much of the life on the planet. As products of the very construct from which this dilemma has arisen we, as individuals and society as a whole, find it nearly impossible to see the way out. The answer, according to Quinn, lies in observing nature and uncovering the laws which govern all other systems on the planet. The decision to ignore these laws has landed 'civilized man' in dire straits and, if we are to survive, we must learn to play by the rules on peril of extinction. In essence, we must commit to participating in the competition of the natural world while abstaining from destroying our competitors- either through outright attack or by interfering with their food source. This, the peace-keeping law, is at the core of the evolutionary process and is responsible for the longevity of our world, as well as it's diversity and in turn it's resilience. When we make the commitment to return to living in accordance with this law we will begin the next phase of humanity. Quinn's vision is that humans will realize their place in evolution as being the first to evolve a higher consciousness and that, in a revised climate of supportive coexistence, others will follow- evolution will continue and humans will lead by example. Working toward this inspiring vision will replace our ongoing enactment of a faulty viewpoint which has brought us to the current situation. Ultimately, the all-important question arises: "What do I do?" This question is the crux of the message, yet receives little enough attention by Quinn in the novel. It is this question that baffles individuals on a daily basis as we are presented with a laundry list of problems and enemies that seem so much greater than ourselves. The answer? Teach others, change minds.

Abusing Asylum Seekers in the Sinai

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By Stephen Lendman

EtheipianImmigrants.jpgA new Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I) report discusses atrocities committed against sub-Saharan Africans seeking refugee status in Israel. Titled "Hostages, Torture, and Rape," it explains the ordeal experienced by 284 victims

Emotional Resilience In Traumatic Times, By Carolyn Baker

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

ResilientDaVinci.jpgWhile mainstream media has been encouraging collective dithering over a possible U.S. government shutdown, the chilling realities of off-the-chart levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, escalating upheavals throughout the Middle East, and surging oil prices have been simmering in the background, remaining the lethal environmental, geopolitical, and economic time bombs that they are. Weeks ago, I was well aware that a government shutdown was highly unlikely but would be used to distract our attention from more urgent matters, and thus, I reported only one story about it in my Daily News Digest.

Increasing Fukushima Radiation Dangers

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By Stephen Lendman

FukushimaPlantTEPCO.jpgDaily reports on efforts to contain Fukushima's disaster remain worrisome. On April 5, New York Times writers Andrew Pollack and Kevin Drew headlined, "Plant Operator Measures Higher Radiation in Sea," saying:


"(C)ompany officials said that seawater collected near the facility contained radiation several million times the legal limit."

Japan's Apocalypse

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By Stephen Lendman

chernobyl.jpgDespite a disaster multiples worse than Chernobyl, major media reports all along downplayed it. Now they largely ignore it, moving on to more important things like celebrity features and baseball's opening day, besides pretending American-led Libya bombing is well-intended when, in fact, it's another brazen power grab - an imperial war of conquest, explained in numerous previous articles.

Japan's Leaking Water Radiation 100,000 Times Above Normal

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By Stephen Lendman

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for JapanNuclearReactorExplosion1.jpgInitial March 27 Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) reports detected Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 radioactive water readings at ten million times normal levels, including:

-- 2.9 billion becquerels of iodine-134;

-- 13 million becquerels of iodine-131; and

-- 2.3 million becquerels (each) of cesium-134 and 137 per cubic centimeter of water in the turbine building's basement.

Social Reaction to Crises & Cultural Norms

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By Samantha Johnson

JapanTsunami.jpgWe all watched in horror when Northeastern Japan experienced a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, and the devastating tsunami that followed. Social problems are rooted in the organization of a given culture, and I'm going to analyze the social impact, response, and overall damage that took place in Japan. (Intersections, 2009). I'd like to analyze this in order to contrast it with the impending threat of a crisis in the US, and how our cultural response would differ tremendously. There is no conclusive, scientific proof that an increase in seismic activity is the direct result of climate change, or even the greenhouse effect. However, I find it coincidental that a large number of high magnitude earthquakes have plagued the planet for the last 2 years. So far, there are no connections made in the scientific community. I believe there must be a connection with the greenhouse effect, climate change, the change in sea patterns and eco systems, and deep water oil drilling in regards to the obvious increase in shifting tectonic plates. I find the situation in Japan directly related to the way we use energy resources.

Updating Japan's Nuclear Disaster

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By Stephen Lendman

JapanRadiationPoisoningTests.jpgJapan's March 11 earthquake/tsunami-caused nuclear disaster affects millions of people regionally and throughout the Northern Hemisphere. But you'd never know it from most major media reports, downplaying an unfolding catastrophe.

Multiples Worse than Chernobyl

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By Stephen Lendman

Thumbnail image for JapanNuclearReactorExplosion1.jpgIn Japan, coverup and denial persist. In a March 18 press conference, Tokyo Electric's (TEPCO) spokesman claimed water-dousing lowered radiation levels from 312 microsieverts per hour to 289. However, 48 hours earlier, chief cabinet secretary Yukido Edano said radioactivity levels were misreported in microsieverts instead of millisieverts - 1,000 times stronger.

Environmental Racism

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By Nicholas Scott


GoshuteAtomicRadiation.jpg[Image: High-Level Atomic Waste Dump Targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah]

Even with the vast improvements to environmental protection over the past few decades, there are still more than 1.3 billion people worldwide that live in hazardous and unhealthy physical environments. The generation and transportation of unsafe waste has been known to cause significant health, environmental, legal, political, and ethical dilemmas.

A Hard Rain's A-Gunna Fall

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By Nicholas Simpson

MountintopRemovalMining.jpgPerhaps the most troubling of all issues that we face today is our collective disregard for the value and the importance of natural resources. Whether the resources are fossil fuels, clean air, or drinkable water, the citizens of the world do a terrible job of management and conservation. This problem is the responsibility of individuals, corporations, and governments the world around. Only when our collective attitudes change will we begin to address the problems, take preventative measures, and facilitate a future where generations can experience a clean Earth. Unless this enlightenment happens relatively soon we may be doomed to conserve a planet that resembles the one we live upon today.

Red Alert in Japan: An Unfolding Nuclear Catastrophe

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By Stephen Lendman

JapanNuclearPlantAfterExplosion.jpgSince March 12, a potentially unprecedented catastrophe has been unfolding in Japan, despite official denials and corroborating media reports - managed, not real news.

Walking on the Sun

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By Kathryn Maloney

Thumbnail image for GlobeFolk.jpgThere are a variety of problems that plague society. There are homeless minorities who can't afford housing because of suburbanization, starving families in underdeveloped countries without water and there are resources being consumed so quickly they'll be gone before an alternative fuel source can be provided. All of these realities are bad ones and each one has to be dealt with accordingly. Among all these problems is one vital thing that connects us all; the Earth.

By Greg Palast. Republished from GregPalast.coml

Thumbnail image for JapanNuclearReactorExplosion1.jpgI need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

Coverup and Denial in Japan

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By Stephen Lendman

JapanNuclearReactorExplosion1.jpgDiscount all official government statements and major media reports repeating them instead of demanding expert, unbiased views.

Officially, Japan's nuclear emergency is under control and contained. In fact, lies substitute for truths, denial for reality, and managed news for honest reporting.

Radioactive Fallout from Japanese Steam Release

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By Rowan Wolf

The following is a Canadian Broadcast Company Report. It is originally from you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEsHbN-75e8. I am placing a copy here because of concerns it might be removed. If I am hearing this correctly, the fallout should start hitting the West Coast of the US on Saturday 3/19. The recommendation is to get potassium iodide.

Or here
CBCALERTJapaneseNuclearJetStreamFalloutMap.flv

Nuclear Meltdown in Japan

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By Stephen Lendman, Simulposted with Cyrano's Journal Today.

JapanNuclearPlantExplosion1.jpgFor years, Helen Caldicott warned it's coming. In her 1978 book, "Nuclear Madness," she said:

"As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced."

Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling

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Abraham Lustgarten, Published at ProPublica, 2/25/11



WyomingWater.jpgThis story was published as part of Amazon's Kindle Singles program, and is available for reading [1] on that device. ProPublica's first Kindle Single,"Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story," is also available [2].

There are few things a family needs to survive more than fresh drinking water. And Louis Meeks, a burly, jowled Vietnam War hero who had long ago planted his roots on these sparse eastern Wyoming grasslands, was drilling a new well in search of it.


Climate Change: Implications and Solutions from a Societal Perspective

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By Samantha Johnson

GreenlandIceMelt.jpgClimate change and global warming are terms used intermittently but there is a distinction. Global warming occurs when the average temperature of the earth increases over a period of time. Global warming is a result of greenhouse gases that become trapped in the earth's biosphere. Climate change is the result of global warming. Climate change refers to a change in the ecosystem, long term weather patterns, oceanic activity, and animals. Climate change and its impacts have an array of societal implications; I am going to address these implications along with possible solutions within this analysis.

Beyond Affluenza And Into The "New Normal": Carolyn Baker Interviews David Wann

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

TheNewNormalCover.jpg In our efforts to include voices that offer options for our current human predicament, we often overlook those in our own local communities. I'm fortunate to live within an hour's drive of sustainability expert and futurist, David Wann. He recently spoke here in Boulder, Colorado, promoting his new book, The New Normal: An Agenda For Responsible Living, along with Simple Prosperity, and Affluenza (three of ten books penned by Wann), and after hearing his comments, I felt compelled to interview him in order to focus in-depth on some of his innovative and exciting proposals.

Paradox: Linchpin Of The Long Emergency

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth To Power.

Paradox.jpgWhen people ask me, "Will the Long Emergency happen quickly or slowly?" I answer, "Yes." When they ask, "Will it be like rolling down a bumpy hill or falling off a cliff?" my answer is "Yes." My response usually draws laughter or a knowing smile, and then I proceed to explain what I mean as I intend to do in this article. Answering "yes" to such questions underscores the paradox that is at the core of both the questions--and the answers, and without which it will be absolutely, unequivocally impossible to navigate the Long Emergency.


Dirty Work in the Balkans: NATO's KLA Frankenstein

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By Tom Burghardt of Antifascist Calling.

KosovoNatoGoHome.jpg The U.S. and German-installed leadership of Kosovo finds itself under siege after the Council of Europe voted Tuesday to endorse a report charging senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) of controlling a brisk trade in human organs, sex slaves and narcotics.

The Ultimate Oxymoron: Industrial Civilization And Mental Health

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

[Industrial] civilization does not occur among healthy people.  ~Ken Carey, Return of The Bird People~

Depression1.jpg  In the days following the tragic Tucson massacre where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded and several other individuals shot and killed by suspect Jared Loughner, mainstream media has simmered with interviews and sound bytes regarding the status of mental health treatment in the United States. It is now apparent that Loughner was a troubled young man whose emotional issues intensified in recent years and that as a result of his bizarre behavior, he was dismissed from Pima Community College and prohibited from returning without passing a psychological evaluation.

What Lies At The Core of Pattern Language, and Why Should We Care?

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

PatternLanguage.jpgMany individuals involved with Transition, including Rob Hopkins, have become fascinated with the work of Christopher Alexander and his development of pattern language. Long before there was a Transition model, Alexander was studying patterns and noticing that any built environment is like a language in that the patterns communicate problems we confront in our environments but also contain within them the solutions. The genius of pattern language is that it can be applied in myriad situations and models, the Transition model being one of millions.

A Zoo Of Our Own Making

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By Phil Rockstroh

A beautiful and sad visual commentary

Poem in extend section

Hanford

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By Elisa Binger

Hanford.jpg As part of a World War II response to Germany's nuclear weapons research, US interest in plutonium reached a high. The Office of Scientific Research and Development, a governmental agency created for scientific research on behalf of the military, responded with The Manhattan Project, created in 1942, which made way for the first full scale plutonium plant for the production of nuclear weapons known as the Hanford Site. Situated on the eastern side of Washington, spanning 560 square miles including fifty-one miles along the Columbia River, the Hanford site was chosen for many other reasons than just big, open space and abundant fresh water. The existing low proximity of people and towns, ground stability, and abundant power supply also lent to its desirable features. (Porter, 2004) The isolated 500,000-acre Hanford Site offered security for sensitive operations; a mild climate allowed year-round work. Construction began in 1943 and by 1945 the plutonium created at Hanford gave way to the US's first nuclear bomb. From 1943 to 1987, Hanford steadily produced plutonium for nuclear weapons and power for local Washington residents as well as creating large amounts of radioactive pollution and waste. Since being decommissioned completely in 1987, cleanup is the main goal of Hanford at this present time. An agreement was made between the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Washington, known as the Tri-Party Agreement, mandating cleanup up the Hanford Site, the most contaminated nuclear side in the western hemisphere. The agreement defines cleanup commitments, establishes responsibilities, sets budgets and sets aggressive milestones to monitor the process. Estimated at 50 years and hundreds of billions of dollars, the cleanup process is behind schedule and several controversial issues have surfaced such as a permanent place to store Hanford's used materials. Not only does Hanford create environmental threats, it also threatens the physical well-being of US citizens. The US's acceptance of and reliance on this dangerous and highly vulnerable energy source are created by problems that are significantly social in origin. (Tiemann, McNeal Jr., Lucal, & Ender, 2009) Structural sources and cultural ideologies propagate the nuclear industry that is Hanford and hide many of the threats posed by such a giant force which we believe we can control.

Hunger

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By Jane Yang - an excellent paper from my student

hunger.jpg According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, an estimated 925 million people are undernourished today. Hunger is more widely seen amongst the poor and the more underdeveloped countries. The tragic impacts of hunger are most strongly seen amongst the most helpless, which are the women and children. Hunger is a serious social problem. To illustrate the seriousness of it, today, a child dies from hunger every six seconds. This is unacceptable, we need to make changes that will protect our children, keep stomachs full and save lives (Mas, 2010).

The Evolution of Transition In The U.S.

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By Michale Brownlee. Republished from Speaking Truth to Power.

Handbook250.jpg THE BACKSTORY


The emergence of the Transition movement in the last four years or so is one of the most hopeful signs in the early 21st century, and Transition may yet turn out to be one of the fastest-growing, most inspiring, and most significant social change movements we have ever seen.

Patent Grab Threatens Biodiversity and Food Sovereignty in Africa

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By Hope Shand published in Pambazuka News

GMCrops.jpg[Image from GM Guide

Under the guise of developing "climate-ready" crops, the world's largest seed and agrochemical corporations are pressuring governments to allow what could become the broadest and most dangerous patent claims in intellectual property history.' Hope Shand unpacks the findings of ETC Group's new report into patent claims on 'genes, plants and technologies that will supposedly allow biotech crops to tolerate drought and other environmental stresses'.

God on the Table: attempting a useful discussion of mankind's spiritual future

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Book review by Mike Rupert. Republished from Speaking Truth to Power.

  medicinewheel.jpg Mankind is essentially expecting (or demanding) that technology overturn the laws of physics, chemistry and especially thermodynamics/energy. By definition, anything that can overturn natural laws is God. Under this construct, technology is, in fact, a religion.

Everyday is Halloween in Empire: The Zombie Apocalypse Of Duopoly

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By Phil Rockstroh

Skeletons.jpg Because, at this time of the year, we take pleasure in being frightened, let's shuffle through the US Empire's House of Horrors. On our tour, we cringe before: Brain-eating zombies of exponential destruction; soul-sucking vampires of eternal self-justification; right-wing, talk show demons whose wrathful voices rage into empty air; road-rage werewolves; hungry ghosts shuffling the aisles of supermarkets, convenience stores, corporate restaurant franchises and the food courts of shopping malls; and, running on a continuous video loop, The Fat, Mindless Blob That Ate the Planet.

The Witch of Hebron and the Myth of Post-Peak Uniformity

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

WitchofHebron.jpg I am an avid fan of James Howard Kunstler's work. Whether I read his non-fiction The Long Emergency of 2005 or his recent novels A World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron, I remain in awe of his capacity for discerning a world eviscerated by unprecedented energy depletion and economic cataclysm.

Food and Farming: the Hub of Planetary Transformation

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Carolyn Baker interviews Michael Brownlee. Originally published at Speaking Truth to Power.

LocalFood.jpg For several years, Michael Brownlee and Lynnette-Marie Hanthorn have pioneered relocalization in Boulder County, Colorado. Their latest project is the Boulder County Eat Local Campaign beginning August 28 through September 4. Last week I caught up with Michael who generously gave an hour out of his packed schedule to talk about the desperate need for promoting local food and farming in our communities.

BP Making it Right?

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By Rowan Wolf

marswalmart.jpg BP is sprinkling the air waves with its assurances that it accepts full responsibility for the well blowout and the damages done. We are told repeatedly that BP will be there until everything is repaired. As the blowout continues spewing oil, and the oil spreads further and further, one has to wonder what BP's platitudes actually mean.

A Heap Of Broken Images: Social media and the architecture of anomie

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By Phil Rockstroh


USTentCity.jpg In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self. Whether urban, suburban, or rural dwelling, the sense of alienation, for an individual, is profound ... as discernible to the eye as the constellations of foreclosure signs stippling overgrown front lawns across the land ... as hidden as the abandoned dreams within.

From Despair to Impassioned Inspiration

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

joyWhen despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.

~Wendell Berry~

An Italian proverb states that a person who lives by hope will die by despair. Americans for nearly three centuries have lived by hope, and as we know, our current president centered his campaign around it. It is as if since our inception as a nation we have, by whatever means necessary, warded off despair in favor of hope, and I believe that if we as a people were to abandon the shallow sense of hope we insist on maintaining, we would be driven to the depths of our despair regarding the current state of our planet.

Understanding the BP Oil Tragedy: Time Blindness

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By Joel S. Hirschhorn

MonkeysSeeNoEvil.jpg A loss expected to happen next year looks smaller than that same loss happening next week. Worse yet, a loss or catastrophe that may happen (indeed, is highly likely to happen) decades away is essentially invisible, unthinkable or unworthy of attention now. In other words, humans suffer from an intrinsic thinking defect best described as time blindness. It is the inability to correctly foresee and take seriously long term consequences of current actions.

Overwhelmed by Oil and Toxic Pollutants: The Destruction of an Entire Coastline

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By Felicity Arbuthnot. Republished from The Centre for Globalization Research.

LoggerheadSeaTurtle.jpg "The sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours ...
For this, for everything, we are out of tune." (William Wordsworth, 1770-1850.)

For the people of the Gulf and the region - watching some of the most toxic pollutants known to man, being sprayed to disperse one of the most toxic pollutants known to man, unleashed as a result of man's fallibility, in a near-global addiction to consumerism - it must be an environmental apocalypse now. One dispersant Corexit 9500, is four times as toxic as oil, and also disrupts the reproductive systems of organisms.

A Day In A Dying Empire: An intimate fable on current events

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by Phil Rockstroh

tv_set.jpg "Now, from America, empty indifferent things are pouring across, sham things, dummy life. . . . A house, in the American sense, an American apple or a grapevine over there, has nothing in common with the house, the fruit, the grape into which went the hopes and reflections of our forefathers ... Live things, things that lived -- that are conscious of us -- are running out and can no longer be replaced. We are perhaps the last to have known such things." --Rainer Maria Rilke


This morning, as with so many mornings, as of late, I had to undertake an agonizing, intricate procedure to pull myself together, simply to extract myself from bed to face another day.

The Journey from Anger to Anguish: Responding to Eco-cide

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

Messenger 

sorrow.jpgMy work is loving the world. 
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - 
equal seekers of sweetness. 
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. 
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? 
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me 
keep my mind on what matters, 
which is my work,

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be 
astonished. 
The phoebe, the delphinium. 
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. 
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

 

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart 
and these body-clothes, 
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy 
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, 
telling them all, over and over, how it is 
that we live forever. 
 
~ Mary Oliver ~

 

What do BP and the Banks Have In Common? The Era of Corporate Anarchy

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By Gonalo Lira. Republished from Centre for Research on Globalization.

CorporateMapper.jpg (Click Corporate Nexus of Power to access interactive map for image.)

On the occasion of the BP oil spill disaster, President Obama's delivered an Oval Office speech last night--a masterpiece of milquetoast faux-outrage. The speech was all about "clean energy" and "ending our dependence on fossil fuels". Faced with the BP oil spill--likely the most severe environmental disaster ever--this was President Obama's response: Polite outrage, and vague plans to "get tough", "set aside just compensation" and "do something".

Loose Oil Is a Way of Life in West Africa

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By Ethelbert Miller. Republished from Foreign Policy in Focus

NigerDeltaOilSpill.jpgI believe it was Amiri Baraka who once said, "one man's fast is another man's slow." The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has destroyed a way of life for many American fishermen. This should be accepted as fact not fiction. The landscape of our nation is going to change soon and not for the better. The recent oil spill is not an aberration. Just look at the story in The New York Times (June 16, 2010) about the awful conditions in the Niger Delta. It's obvious we need the media to expand its coverage of oil spills. How soon will toxic wastelands become a normal sight for Americans, the way it is for some Nigerians? It's unfortunate that Africa is still a "dark continent" when it comes to shedding light on the operations of the oil industry. When I read the following in the newspaper, I wanted to weep:

But the Devil Sends the Cooks

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By Anwaar Hussain. Republished from Truthspring. This is the third part of a series that includes: Whom the gods would destroy and God of the Killers

treasure-chest-300x296.jpg Despite incessant interludes of chaos, Afghanistan was not always this rough, blood splattered land of wild hordes charging their steeds in its desolate stretches. When Europe was backwards, impoverished and irrelevant territory, the region today called Central Asia, with Afghanistan at its southern tip and ancient trade routes interweaving it, was a land of much wealth, culture, scholarly attainment and prized international trade.

Energy Outlook Offers Grim Fossil Fuel Forecast

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By Melinda Burns. Republished from Miller-McCune

CrudeOilPlatform.jpg

The status quo guarantees future dominance of fossil fuels, according to an authoritative government projection.

As the U.S. Senate today debates whether to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, it's worth considering what would happen if every country in the world failed to pass laws and policies curbing the use of fossil fuels.

Behind the Gulf oil crisis: Big Oil extends its political influence

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By Dan Brennan. Originally published at World Socialist Web Site

A month and a half into the worst oil spill in US history, frustration and anger directed towards both the oil giant BP and the US government are soaring.

Confused and Dazed

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By Jim Miles

This week's news leaves me dazed and confused

There are times when I must admit that to belong to the great group of uninformed people, or perhaps uncaring people, or unthinking people, would be a much easier way to get through life. The developed countries of the world have the wealth to create systems of distraction for the populace, systems generally called the media ranging from the old standard television through to the modern mind-trivia pursuits of Twitter and Facebook, controlled by the corporations that require a non-critical unthinking participation in the diversions that are there to keep the populace amused, distracted, entertained, pseudo-informed, patriotically biased, and generally blasé about the world around them. This cocoon of media hype provides a few glimpses of various man made and natural disasters around the world to provide conversational talking points, but seldom if ever with any context or depth of research, and always isolated one from another as if each incident exists entirely in its own sphere to be 'ooh'ed and 'ahh'ed at and then forgotten in the daily drive to be the richest sexiest best-looking most consumptive pawn on the block.

The New Dead Sea

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By Rowan Wolf

I am waiting for someone to turn the bad news of the Gulf into a money making opportunity. In the characteristic mumbles of our time, I can see a future where state tourism departments are hawking "Welcome to the new Dead Sea!"

Oily Obama: Lousy Response to BP Oil Invasion

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By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Thirty days into the BP oil spill one mile down into the Gulf of Mexico it should be clear to every objective person that President Obama has failed miserably. This oil spill is more than a disaster or crisis; it is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. This environmental catastrophe will quickly morph into a national economic catastrophe as economic doomsday facing the fishing and tourism industries generates countless negative economic ripples throughout the US economy. Unemployment and economic growth will suffer.

Water crisis in Boston area hits poor and working people hardest

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By: Emily Mack of PSLweb.org.

On May 1, a pipe rupture prevented 2 million people in the Greater Boston Area from drinking tap water for two-and-a-half days. Residents of 30 towns and cities were under one of the biggest boil-water orders in the United States in recent history. There was a rush on bottled water in stores as well.

Is There Rehab for this Oil Overdose? Black Tar has Just Taken on a Whole New Meaning

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

It's been almost a month since the sirens of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico lacerated the night with tortured warnings of impending doom. Chief electronic technician Mike Williams, who nearly perished in the catastrophe, recounted in excruciating detail on CBS's 60 Minutes on May 16 the horror of that night and the appalling negligence that contributed to the worst human-made disaster in recorded history.

Peak Relationships: The End of Suburbia Up Close and Personal

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

For most individuals who are aware of and preparing for the collapse of industrial civilization, the notion of a convergence of crises in the current milieu-Peak Oil, climate change, economic meltdown, species extinction, and overpopulation, is not new information. They know that never before in recorded history has the human race been confronted with the web of crises it is now facing. What they didn't anticipate, however, is that when sharing their bursts of enlightenment with spouses, friends, children, or parents they would increasingly be perceived by their loved ones as something akin to psychotic alien life forms. What they had hoped for instead is that their dear ones would be willing to investigate the same topics they had so carefully researched and would join them in preparing to navigate a daunting future.

The Making and Unmaking of a Suicide Bomber

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By Anwaar Hussain of Truth Spring

The Making

The high priests of Taliban follow a rigid curriculum in brainwashing young men to become suicide bombers. After all, replacing an individual's intrinsic love of life with death worship, propelling him on a path that ultimately ends up with him in a suicide jacket ready to become a bloody statistic, is not really an easy task.

Chemicals Meant To Break Up BP Oil Spill Present New Environmental Concerns

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By Adam Lustgarten of ProPublica. Originally published 4/30/10.

The chemicals BP is now relying on to break up the steady flow of leaking oil from deep below the Gulf of Mexico could create a new set of environmental problems.

The victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion

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By Andre Damon. Republished with permission from World Socialist Web Site.

The Times of London published Friday the first complete list of the oil workers killed in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana.

Leak and Consequences?

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By Rowan Wolf

Obama approved expanding oil exploration and drilling off the coasts of the United States - drill baby drill! Then the 40th anniversary of Earth Day dawns with a burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven are missing - presumed dead. The platform topples and sinks to the sea bed. One thousand barrels of oil a day (roughly 42,000 gallons) escape from the broken well head with estimates that it could take three months to plug the leak.

Dispatch from China: Number 15 Has Left the Building

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By Ramzy Baroud

Li Changchun is often referred to as one of the most powerful men in China, in Asia and, increasingly, in the world. He is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee. On April 8, he awaited our arrival at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Between him and I stood a group of newspaper editors from throughout Asia, along with giant pillars, thick walls and a strict protocol that had to be followed to the letter, or to the number.

Water - driving Israel's need for more land and more power.

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By Jim Miles of the Palestinian Chronicle

There is a global crisis emerging concerning the allocation, uses, and abuses of fresh water. This is a combination of misuse by humans and the increasing violence and changing frequency of various weather conditions as the global climate heats up. Along with the heating are other factors such as the acidification of the oceans as they uptake more carbon than the life forms living there can deal with it in such a short time span. Agriculture becomes threatened, potable water for domestic use becomes scarcer, and although fresh water should be a right enshrined in the UN Charter, it is increasingly becoming both a military and corporate target.

People Power Trumps Corporate Power: R.I.P. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant

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Carolyn Baker interviews a tireless Vermont activist. Originally posted at Speaking Truth to Power

Last week I had the honor of speaking with Kathleen Krevetski of Rutland, Vermont who has worked hard to publicize the adverse effects of radiation from nuclear power plants on people's health, especially on women and children who are the most vulnerable. When I lived in Vermont, I personally witnessed Kathleen's struggle along with other Vermonters to organize for the closing of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, and I stand in awe of her and their accomplishment. Thanks to these dedicated activists, the Vermont Senate voted to close Yankee on February 24.

The Life of A Pack

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By Rowan Wolf

I want to write about the life of a pack. I don't think most folks understand how a pack is something more than a couple of dogs that live together.

"The Book of Eli" and the Sacred Journey of Collapse

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

I've always been fascinated by questions of faith and spirituality and the idea is that there is something greater than yourselves. The idea of the movie was the belief in something greater than yourself, the most powerful force in the universe, and that's a force that can be turned either for good or evil depending on what we do with it.

~Gary Whitta, Author of "Book of Eli" screenplay

Your Disappointment in Obama is You Teaching Moment

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

It's the end of the affair, and the stale taste of limerence stays on your tongue. You were promised the sun, moon, and stars, and you desperately wanted to believe it was real, especially after the betrayal of your former relationship of eight years. You had considered escaping-riding off into the sunset to another country where he couldn't find you, or so you hoped. You feared for your children and what he was setting them up for. You feared for yourself in the face of his brutality and intrusiveness into your life. Though you wouldn't admit it, you secretly prayed for assassination or some elaborate exposure that would take him down.

The Horror of Haiti: what the press coverage tells us

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By John Chuckman

It is relentless, the pictures of terror-stricken people, broken limbs, and bloated dead, and many of us cannot stand to see or hear more.

One has to ask: what are we to do with such information?

Climate Change Conspiracy Theorists are Today's Flat Earthers

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By Dave Lindorff. Republished from Cyrano's Journal Online

Deniers the unwitting tools of megacorporations

When I was back in eighth grade, my science teacher, Mr. Malone, a brittle old man with a shock of white hair and a stern classroom demeanor, but a sharp sense of humor, had made a banner that ran across the top of the blackboard. It read: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist."

Carolyn Baker abd Keith Farnish Dialog about the Great Transition

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

A few months ago, I struck up an online friendship with the acclaimed author and academic Carolyn Baker. It was clear that we were both writing about similar things, but I didn't realise quite how similar until I had the fortunate opportunity to review her latest book, Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. This fine text, and her generous appreciation of my work, was the catalyst for the ongoing dialogue that this article presents.

Retired? No; Refired? Yes: "On call" for collapse.

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By Carolyn Baker and Kathleen Byrne of Speaking Truth to Power

It's time to act with great intention. There's work aplenty to do in this weary world and people engaged in that work. Find those people.

Tim Bennett, "What A Way To Go: Life At The End of Empire"

To everything there is a season, the biblical bard says. There is a time to sit and be, and there is a time to act. Personally, I could not live without the balance of sitting and listening alongside doing what I feel most called to do, and I encourage everyone in my world to incorporate a meditation or mindfulness practice to complement the conscious work that fulfills their purpose.

Winter Solstice: Working and Waiting in Humanity's Back Ward

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark. The vacant interstellar spaces...... I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

East Coker from "The Four Quartets", by T.S. Eliot

This afternoon I sit near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, reveling in the brilliant sunshine which pierces the dry, nippy air, knowing that in less than three hours, it will be dark. I count the hours until the shortest day and the longest night of the year signal that magnificent turning point of light and time when the days slowly become longer and the nights shorter. I can think about spring as much as I like, but it will be a long time before I see any definitive signs of it, and even if I do, those could be deluged with a late season snow storm that reminds me that winter has not breathed its last breath and warns me not to become deliriously wistful for warmer days and nights.

Peak Therapy: Do we need a shrink as the world ends?

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power (First posted on ENERGY BULLETIN)

This past week I read with fascination the posts by Sally Erickson on "Culture of Pretend: How Psychotherapy Keeps our Communities Sick" and Kathy McMahon's response "Bozos On The Couch: What Is 'Good Therapy' In A Time of Collapse?" As I've pondered these posts, I'm compelled to respond to several incongruities and offer missing pieces that I believe must be added to the discourse.

From the Wilderness to the End of Civilization

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Carolyn Baker of Speak Truth to Power reviews "Collapse"

Why would someone go to a movie that is essentially an interview of someone else? Don't we go to movies to be entertained or watch documentaries in order to be inundated with voluminous information and breath-taking cinematography? What would compel anyone to sit for 82 minutes watching some guy chain smoking while he's being interviewed about the collapse of industrial civilization in a room that looks like a bunker?

Sacred Activism: An Unprecedented Marriage


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A review of "The Hope" by Carolyn Baker of Expand |

It Is Not A Good Idea To Drill In Arctic Waters

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By Rowan Wolf

Drilling in Arctic waters is just not a good idea. It is one of the harshest and most extreme environments on the planet. Even with global warming melting the Arctic Ocean, and the possibility it will be ice free in the summer in the near future, it will remain extreme.

It's Too Late Baby, Times Up

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A book review by Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power.

Reprinted from Transition Times

"In short, we are prepared to die in order to live a life that is killing us." -Keith Farnish from Time's Up: An Uncivilized Solution to A Global Crisis

I live in Boulder, Colorado where the buzz among eco-activists who attended a recent lecture by Vandana Shiva is her chilling statement that if the human species continues on its present destructive trajectory, it has no more than 100 years of life on this planet. At about the same time this bomb was dropped on Shiva's audience, Keith Farnish's amazing book Time's Up: An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis arrived in my mailbox for review which was about the same time that Keith reviewed my book, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. I visit my local movie theater and see trailers for the next series of post-apocalyptic movies such as "2012" and "The Road". Five years ago the notion of "endings" was not reverberating in the collective unconscious with the fever pitch we're witnessing today. What's up? Quite simply: Time is up.

Natural Gas - Not All It's Frakked Up To Be

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By Rowan Wolf

The craze of late has been that natural gas will be a primary solution to the energy problem in the United States. This news has come as supposedly vast natural gas reserves have been found, and the natural gas industry has found that its interests conflict with the coal and oil industries. The environmental community has also been thrown this bone that natural gas is an attractive alternative because of lower CO2 emissions, and is less destructive than the devastation of mountain top mining. This "alternative" falls in the category of "too good to be true," just like the vaporware of Obama's support of "clean coal."

Duane Elgin's "The Living Universe"

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Carolyn Baker reviews Duane Elgin's "The Living Universe."

A critical step in this supercharged setting is to imagine together the world of our vision. All current signs point to a future of catastrophe and ruin, and it is easy to envision many such scenarios but much harder to visualize a future of opportunity and renewal. The latter is still a vague and unformed possibility in our collective imagination. The bigger the challenges, Elgin implies, the larger the vision required to transform conflict into cooperation and thereby facilitate a more promising future. Not only must we hold an expansive vision, but that vision must be informed by a commitment to a larger story of humanity than civilization has provided.

Article Reprinted from TRANSITION TIMES (COLORADO EDITION)

Humanity's Rite of Passage: A World Tended By Adults

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

For one who has perception, A mere sign is enough. For one who does not heed, A thousand explanations Are not enough Hajji Bektash Wali ~13th Century Persian Mystic

During the past twelve months, it has been reassuring to see vast numbers of individuals in the United States awaken to the reality that life on this planet has profoundly shifted and will never be the same. Many have radically altered their career goals, spending and saving patterns, and their long-term priorities. When I witness such changes in human behavior, I am encouraged, and I become cautiously optimistic about our ability to read the signals and respond wisely.

Beyond Statecraft, Navigating the Collapse of Civilization

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Frank Joseph Smecker of CounterCurrents interviews Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power


Former psychotherapist, Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of history and psychology while managing her website, Speaking Truth To Power. She is the author of five books, including her latest, Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse . Carolyn has also authored several articles and essays on issues of environmental and social justice, psychology of the consciousness, as well as emotional and spiritual wellbeing. She is currently on her way to Colorado to work with one of their Transition Towns, organizing around the issues of peak-oil, climate change, and the social repercussions of the former and latter.

Real People, Real Preparation - Part 5

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By Carolyn Baker interviews Robin Rucker. Republished from Speaking Truth to Power

CB: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, your family, and the work you've been doing in recent years. I know that question is really a three-part question, so take plenty of time to answer those parts.

We've become our own predators....

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By Jason Miller. Republished from Thomas Paine's Corner

"As we devour them to satiate our appetite for power and wealth, we devour ourselves, making for a bizarre act of self-cannibalization."

Our dominant culture, in which I fully admit to participating (despite my significant efforts to minimize my involvement) is wreaking havoc on this "pale blue dot" we call Earth. Climate change, scarce and tainted water, devastating levels of toxins in the environment, rampant consumerism that generates truckloads of fetid refuse per second, massive deforestation, and the Sixth Extinction[1] implicate humanity, and our socioeconomic/cultural construct we euphemistically call "civilization," as nothing short of the living embodiment of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Our species, by virtue of our chosen ways of interfacing with the world, personifies Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence. Despite our numerous worthwhile attributes and accomplishments, humanity specializes in slaughter, mayhem, abject cruelty, genocide, ecocide, and all manner of destruction.

Why Are We Hunting Wolves?

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By Rowan Wolf

wolfkill.jpg Robert Milage of Idaho gets the bragging rights for killing the first wolf in Idaho as OUR EPA continues to fight in court to de-list the wolves as an endangered species.


Picture from the The Idaho Statesman - 9/02/2009

Real People, Real Preparation - Part 4

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By Carolyn Baker and Sarah Edwards. Originally published at Speaking Truth to Power.


Sarah Edwards is an eco-psychologist, a Transition U.S. Trainer, and manages the ECO ANXIETY blogspot. She is also author of the foreword of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse

CB: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, your family, and the work you've been doing in recent years. I know that question is really a three-part question, so take plenty of time to answer those parts.

SE: I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. We lived in town in a residential neighborhood with large lots and lots of families who also had young children. If it was daylight and we weren't in school or under the weather, we were all outdoors. 

Things Falling Off the Table - Economy

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By Rowan Wolf

In the heat of healthcare reform and the mobilization of radical shock troops, the economy has drifted with little public discussion. When it comes up, it is frequently within the context that "the worst is behind us;" "we're leveling off;" or "recovery is just around the corner." While I wish all of this was true, I am concerned that it is not. While I wish that the Obama administration were being more honest, I believe they are engaging in the same type of spin we became accustomed to under the Bush administration.

Confronting the Challenges of Community: Part I

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By Martha Ireland. Republished from Speaking Truth to Power.

There exists today, a trinity of situations that confronts those of us who live in Western culture: global climate change, the peak and eventual end of non-renewable sources of fossil fuels (oil and gas), and economic meltdown. These issues are old news for much of the world. We in the wealthier nations are going to join the global community in attempting to find ways to survive and live amidst enormously trying circumstances.

Real People, Real Preparation, Part Three

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

In Part 3 of this series, we spotlight Freeacre and Murph, two "anarchist farmers" living in rural Oregon. They share with us their journey of collapse preparation from a working class perspective.

Please visit their blog TROUTCLAN CAMPFIRE

Things Falling Off the Table - Global Warming

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By Rowan Wolf

The U.S. and the world have major crises to address. There is the economy, resources, environment, and global warming. Each of these intersect in complex ways to create other massive problems: loss of jobs, failed crops, and war. And these in turn create other crises: mass migration and xenophobic responses, power grabs, destabilization of governments. Big problems all. This series of articles will focus on critical issues that fall off the table.

The Psychology Of Change: Cultivating Resilience At The Point Of No Return

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

~Theodore Roethke~

Real People, Real Preparation, Part Two

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Not all people preparing for collapse by relocating, choose to do so in the U.S. Some, like Dr. John and Nancy Andre, have relocated in other countries. The Andres have retired in Chile and spend a great deal of time working on their organic farm

John practiced at the cutting edge of Chiropractic and Naturopathy for 35 years. Nancy was a state of the art DDS with a focus on toxin free dental care. In their clinic in Kansas City they shared patients with a focus on the Whole Body Dental function. Now they live in the mountains of Chile with Los Tres Gatos (the three cats).

I conducted the following interview with John by email a few weeks ago.

Collapse Stage One: The screams of despair from a Guardian reporter

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Hallelujah! One British reporter is waking up and smelling the coffee. That would be Charlie Brooker in his July 13 Guardian piece "The Very Fabric of Society Is Breaking Down Around Us. What The Hell Is There Left to Believe In?" This man, sounding as if his hair were on fire, rants:

It's all gone wrong. Our belief in everything has been shattered by a series of shock revelations that have shaken our core to its core. You can't move for toppling institutions. Television, the economy, the police, the House of Commons, and, most recently, the press ... all revealed to be jam-packed with liars and bastards and graspers and bullies and turds.

Real People, Real Preparation, Part One

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Some people choose to relocate, others remain in place. Some are no longer working in traditional jobs; others are. Truth to Power subscriber, Susan Bedwell, who happens to work outside her home, graciously shares her transition story in this exclusive interview.

What the Amish Have to Teach Us About Transition

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By Caroline Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Individuals concerned with the unprecedented changes the earth community is undergoing tend to venerate America's Amish for their simple, earth-based lifestyle of frugality and solid commitment to caring for the other members of their community. There is much we have to learn from them, but more recently, there is yet another lesson they offer, and perhaps, not one we expected.

Collapse Conundrum: Confrontation or Descent by Degrees?

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Recently, Transition Town founder, Rob Hopkins, and Peak Oil researcher and writer, Richard Heinberg, debated the pros and cons of planning for emergencies in transition communities as individuals organize to powerdown and localize to the fullest extent possible. The conversation was rich and thought-provoking, and both Hopkins and Heinberg offered incredibly important, diverse perspectives that widened my vision of the topic and reiterated for me the complexity of the issues involved. As with any conversation that is intended to be evocative and not combative, the Hopkins-Heinberg debate opened up a universe of stimulating and fascinating questions for collapse navigators to ponder and act upon.

Life and Death Battle in Peru

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By Rowan Wolf

There is a battle in Peru and people are dying. The indigenous people of Peru have been trying to peacefully block the opening of a massive tract of their territory to natural gas exploration and exploitation. The peace has been broken. Police have died, and many of the demonstrators have been shot, with 40 or more killed - including several children. This article discusses these issues and asks that you take action. This is not just some Peruvian conflict that has nothing to do with the United States (or South Korea, or Britain, or the Netherlands). It has everything to do with all of us. I believe we must speak out. I hope that after reading this you will agree.

Heresy of the First Order: We are the "Third Chimpanzees"

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By Jason Miller of Thomas Paine's Corner

"On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded."

-Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) from "Dreams and Facts"

Russell's nihilistic characterization of Homo sapiens injects some much-needed perspective into a world in which our species of intellectually evolved primates suffers a collective delusion of grandeur. In "Dreams and Facts," Russell further savages our God-complex with the powerfully humbling reminder that our solar system is but "an infinitesimal speck" and the Earth a mere "microscopic dot." He does apply some soothing salve to our wounded egos with the observation that, "No man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness," but his decimation of our grossly-overinflated sense of importance remains intact.

Carolyn Baker Reviews Mike Ruppert's "A Presidential Energy Policy"

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

This is probably the most important book review I've ever written because A Presidential Energy Policy is unquestionably the most crucial book for anyone aware of the collapse of civilization, which is well underway, to read and understand. It is second only to Mike's first masterpiece, Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at The End of The Age of Oil (2004).

American culture and consumption has become Public Enemy Number One in the global growth paradigm. People are realizing that the American Dream is murder....Unless a fundamental change is made-and quickly-the only available option is collapse and implosion; the bursting of the human population bubble; or, as people in the Peak Oil movement call it-the Dieoff. The sole purpose of this book (and my life) is to prevent that, or as much of that death and misery, as is humanly possible. ~Michael C. Ruppert~

Floating Nuclear Plants?

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By Rowan Wolf

I must say that my jaw dropped when I came across John Vidal's Guardian article "Russia to build floating Arctic nuclear stations." I mean give me a break. Even it its current condition of ongoing melting, the Arctic is one of the most extreme environments on the planet - and one of the most sensitive.

Economic Recovery? No Thank You!

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By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

Some economists and a president declare that there's a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel, and that sometime in 2010, we'll begin to see a return to normal. The stock market bounces up and down, and pundits opine that the worst is behind us. The market has remained in the 7 or 8 thousands for a couple of weeks, so perhaps they're onto something. Maybe it was all a bad dream, and the worst recession in the history of the United States is waning, and the Second Great Depression that I and so many other astute observers were forecasting will never actually manifest.