The nexus of sustainability and the peace movement

I was asked to be one of the speakers at Tucson's annual Peace Fair and Music Festival on February 27, 2010. Here are my prepared remarks.

Good afternoon. My name is Dave Ewoldt. I'm an ecotherapist, systems scientist, and executive director of Natural Systems Solutions, a non-profit whose tagline is "Facilitating Sustainable Lifestyles, Organizations, and Communities." Our work is based in ecopsychology and involves reconnecting with nature for health, healing, and wisdom. If you've seen the movie Avatar, we help you remember how to deeply connect to our own living planet without sensory fibers coming out of the end of your ponytail. We do personal and group counseling, but since you can't counsel an organization (even though they actually need it), we "consult" with them to institute sustainable changes in all levels of business relationships. We also work with communities on sustainable policy development and economic resiliency without the disempowing and costly dependence on growth. It's all about becoming better instead of bigger. To try to sum all that up, I've started calling it Paradigm Shift Coaching.

Today, since this is Tucson's annual Peace Fair, I'm going to talk about the nexus of sustainability and the peace movement, and connect the dots amongst the greatest set of converging crises facing industrial civilization and perhaps life on earth as we've become comfortable with it, which are global warming, peak oil, and corporatism (which I refer to as the Triumvirate of Collapse), but we can't ignore economic growth, material accumulation outrun only by accumulating waste, empire and hegemony, an ever widening wealth gap, environmental toxicity, biodiversity loss, and the paradigm underlying them all--force-based ranking hierarchies of domination and control that depend on fear and a pathological sense of the other, whether that other is the natural world, a different culture, or a different name for god.

And I'm going to let you know that there is something we, together, can do about it all--a readily available, viable, systemic alternative. One that doesn't make us put on hair shirts, return to the cave, and start carrying water. That would improve people's quality of life and start giving ecosystems the opportunity to begin their own healing.

But, that's quite a bit to cover in five minutes, so you're going to have to listen up.

Our modern times are waiting for the terms and expressions to emerge necessary to describe them. Apocalypse is forecast, but never arrives. Unprecedented systemic changes are taking place, and the blue-light specials are still available at K-Mart. From an ecological perspective, apocalypse may well have occurred already. We really have no fucking idea how to even really begin to measure it. And it's started to take on a feeling of normalcy, as it unfalteringly unwinds itself on a daily basis. We've come to expect it, and that in and of itself is probably the greatest violence that's being done to our sense of self and nullifying our potential as a species.

So, we find ourselves with front-row seats to a planet in steady decline; a catastrophe in slow motion.

Whatever shall we do? Do we really want to institute change, or have we become resigned to an eventuality? Do you find yourself thinking that this is just the natural state of things, the only way it could have happened, it's our human nature and couldn't be changed even if we did want to? Perhaps you're among the group that's silently praying that some genius will invent something to allow us to go on livin' large, while simultaneously hoping that a Predator drone didn't just drop a bomb on his wedding party.

I'll tell you one thing. If we have any hope of pulling our collective ass out of this one, it's going to take more than the cosmetic and superficial changes of swapping out squiggly lightbulbs and buying Priuses. In fact, the latter just has to cease post haste. We have to quit wasting our collective dwindling resources and money on making the world more convenient for, and continuing our dependency on, the automobile. We also can't waste our time hoping for things to return to normal, because normal is what got us into our current sorry state.

But we can change, and do so rather quickly should we decide to. I base this assertion on evidence, research, experience, and historical precedence. There is a viable, pragmatic alternative available. Whether or not we can do it in time is an open question. But, there is no inherent reason, no natural law or principle putting roadblocks in our path, only cultural ones--which means it is nothing more than blind adherence to a story that is holding us back.

When activists get together and talk about creating coalitions or hub organizations of some type, they often come to the conclusion that we must organize around our commonalities. I submit that our core commonality is that we all come from the earth, and in an interconnected and interdependent universe, that is fundamentally friendly to life and its evolution, what we do to the earth we do to ourselves. Thus, the one goal that can support all of our individual passions and life's work as change agents is the goal of creating a sustainable future.

To do this we must first realize that sustainability is not a meaningless buzzphrase. It can be defined in a way that is both legally defensible and objectively measurable. We must quit allowing the other side to define our terms and then tell is that it's not possible.

There are three necessary clauses that make up a viable, comprehensive definition of sustainability. They are:

1) The integration of human social and economic lives into the environment in ways that tend to enhance or maintain rather than degrade or destroy the environment; 2) A moral imperative to pass on our natural inheritance, not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to meet the needs of future generations; 3) Determining, and staying within, the balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation so that bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems maintain their ability to recharge, replenish and regenerate.

Transition Pima, which is a regional hub for Transition US, is an organization based on these principles that can provide the framework for a "big tent" type of effort. Generically speaking, the transition movement looks to create a sustainable future through an on-the-ground process known as relocalization. More than just food and energy security, though, transitioning into a sustainable future--which means one based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy--requires all the puzzle pieces, including the one labeled "fun," to be in place. We don't get partial credit if any of the people who contribute to quality of life are missing--ecstatic dancers, farmers, caregivers, bookkeepers, cops. Relocalization is not slapping band-aids on the wounds of empire; it is both anathema and antidote to corporate globalization. It's not single issue branch clipping; it's pulling the diseased root of domination and empire all the way out and planting and nurturing something completely different.

At a fundamental level, sustainability is a term that connotes any living system's ability to adhere to the natural systems principles that allow an ecosystem to become and remain healthy, vibrant, and resilient. This also means adherence to ecological carrying capacity (the third clause in the definition of sustainability), which is the point at which most Westerners tend to run screaming in the opposite direction. Sustainability spells the end of the culture of narcissism. It sounds the death knell for dominator hierarchies, centralized control, and economic growth. It forces us to face the addictive substitutes we've come to rely on for the natural fulfillments that are withheld, through various means from schooling to advertising, in a paradigm that focuses almost exclusively on consumption, accumulation, aggressive competition, and hyper-individualism.

Sustainability is not a special interest--it is life. It isn't my way, it is our way if we truly wish to leave a habitable planet to future generations; if we want to learn how to holistically co-exist with the other millions of species that make up the web of life and the food chain on which we depend for our basic sustenance--as well as all higher levels of fulfillment.

Sustainability is foundational to the peace movement. A truly sustainable world will be a world at peace, but the reverse is not necessarily true. We could quite peacefully and "greenly" consume ourselves into extinction. Peace on Earth requires peace with Earth. The exploitation of all of nature must cease. This explicitly means that we must quit providing the legitimacy for the stories, religious and otherwise, that exploit, abuse, and stifle our own inner nature.

According to the thousands of scientists who study catastrophic anthropogenic climate destabilization, we're quickly running out of time. According to geophysicists and biologists, we're running out of natural resources and the biodiversity needed to keep the food chain from collapsing. No food chain, no food. It doesn't get much simpler than that. We have to quit being afraid to say this is exactly what's happening just because it might alarm or upset or challenge deeply cherished worldviews.

I mean, since America already ranks next to last out of 150 countries on the UN's happiness scale, when 50% of the American population requires at least one prescription drug per day, when our lifespans, our incomes and our sovereignty are steadily decreasing, what have we got to lose by being honest with people, with forthright truth telling? We actually are capable of handling it. The myth that insists otherwise does nothing but support the status quo, so be very wary of those who repeat it.

The concept of relocalization, as manifested by transition initiatives, is a path toward sustainability. It's a different way of doing things based on the four natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity, and the values we tend to share that emerge from these principles. These values are perhaps best expressed by the four pillars of the Earth Charter--respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and democracy, nonviolence and peace. The Earth Charter is an internationally recognized and widely adopted and endorsed soft-law document for sustainable development that has already undergone a decade long vetting process. We don't have to reinvent any wheels, nor are we alone here. In fact, we're actually the majority.

And the thing is, reconnecting and relocalizing, undertaking this Great Turning, this shift in consciousness, can't do any actual harm to anything except a story. Well, and to bankers and insurance companies. But it doesn't require anyone to sacrifice themselves... or their pet goat. Instead of burning energy, renewable or otherwise, for continuous industrial growth, let's shift our focus and priorities toward the development of our human potential and start measuring wealth by the quality and quantity of the mutually supportive relationships one can develop and maintain. Let's fully engage in the entire transition process. Let's rebuild community through safe and healthy neighborhoods that are energy efficient and ecologically benign. Let's create local steady-state living economies that are vibrant and resilient. Let's start to think and act the way nature works. Let's embody peace.

When one truly understands sustainability and all it entails--the interconnectedness of all beings--it makes one more afraid of hating than of dying. And I can't think of a better foundation for an effective and lasting peace movement than that.

Alternative Energy Ignores the Problem

Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director for 1Sky, recently had the chance for a quick chat with President Obama, which she blogged about here:
http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/02/my-chat-with-president-obama-dont-be-stubborn-or-we-will-be
and to which I replied:

Hi Gillian... I think you and the Prez are both missing another, and much more fundamental, problem. We won't be getting all of our energy from wind and solar, either now or in twenty years, if the assumption is that we need to keep things going along their current trajectory, meaning a continued increase in energy demand.

The arguing over "clean" coal and nukes is a distraction to keep people from waking up to the fact that economic growth, and its role in industrialism, is a failed paradigm. Planned obsolescence, the throw-away society in general, and the substitution of materialism for psychological and spiritual health and well-being is a mistake--and a rather deadly one. The simple fact is that we could kick our coal habit today because all coal is doing is powering our waste and excess.

Plus, the Industrial Growth Society is only possible with the embedded energy of fossil fuels, which are post-peak and what's left of them is so environmentally destructive to obtain that only a society that has completely lost its way would attempt doing so. Even 100% LEED building standards, hybrid vehicles (or any other proposal that thinks we can "green" consumption and continued growth) can't overcome that basic ecological fact.

And since there is a viable alternative that would improve quality of life, that systemically replaces the diseased root of fear-based ranking hierarchies of domination instead of allowing itself to be satisfied with the occasional compromised clipping of branches, why are nationally recognized and rightfully respected organizations such as 1Sky reluctant to advocate fundamental systemic change? 1Sky's masthead states "America wants bold action," so why ask for minor reform on the fringes?

The bold, but thoroughly pragmatic, alternative to the status quo includes powering down, relocalizing, reconnecting to the natural world and each other, and giving ourselves the gift of time for what really matters. This alternative uses steady-state economies that focus on becoming qualitatively better instead of quantitatively bigger; it requires no new technologies and works with who we are right now--not after some shift to a higher state of consciousness or evolutionary adaptation; it can begin restoring all aspects of the natural world, which of course includes ourselves and our communities; it doesn't require mortgaging our future by bailing out industries thought to be too big to fail.

We could move toward true sustainability (which can be both ecologically and legally defined) and become a role model for the rest of the world that our grandchildren would be proud of--instead of our current sorry, disconnected path in which we won't have grandchildren.

We're supposed to be rational creatures. I think it is past time we started demonstrating it, and face the fact that it is not a technological problem that we're dealing with nor one that has a market solution. Thinking that we need more of what got us into this mess is not a rational response.

The Copenhagen Accord: how COP15 became a COPout

The conclusion of the December 2009 Copenhagen climate talks--known as COP15 for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change--is perhaps best summarized by the headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "President Obama salvaged a nonbinding agreement that sets neither a target for cutting emissions nor a deadline for one."

It is quite telling that what emerged as the Copenhagen Accords is seen as a meaningful deal by mainstream environmental organizations such as the League of Conservation Voters. Global warming is seen as little more than an impetus for what is being called clean energy reform, which is the continuation of economic growth powered by just about anything other than fossil fuels. So-called "clean" coal, nukes, and a handful of other techno fantasies that totally ignore the larger system they would have to exist within. Pretty much the entire two weeks in Copenhagen became an ongoing argument over the economics of how to best profit from cap and trade and offsets.

Stella Semino from Grupo de Reflexion Rural (Argentina) stated: "If these new proposals are agreed upon we will see a massive boost for crop and tree plantations alike which, in the name of `climate change mitigation', will speed up the destruction of forests and other vital ecosystems, the spread of industrial agriculture, and land-grabbing against small-farmers, indigenous peoples and forest communities. Industrial monocultures are already a major cause of climate change and their expansion will make it worse."

The Copenhagen Accord (hammered out WTO style in a back room between six countries, the US, Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Japan) stipulates that global warming must not exceed two degrees centigrade, but with no mechanisms or even guidelines as to how this might be achieved, nor does it set any actual CO2 or other GHG targets, goals, or timelines. An early analysis of the non-binding pledges that were offered showed they would lead to about a 3oC temperature rise, which would spell the end of the Amazon rainforests. While the Accord does state that overdeveloped nations should financially help those nations still trying to catch up to the levels of overconsumption, pollution, and general exploitation of life exhibited by the Global North (although not in those exact words), it provides no guidelines as to how this should be accomplished either. So, the COP15 managed to come up with a COPout. Is anyone really surprised?

The rhetoric in Copenhagen was all so phenomenally childish. The major posturing boiled down to, "I'm not going to do it unless so and so does it first. After all, we might lose a percent or two of market share." Never mind that there will be no markets on a dead planet. The final deal in Copenhagen came down to the world's largest polluters agreeing, in the analysis of Naomi Klein, to pretend that the other was doing something about global warming if the favor is reciprocated. But even that is non-binding. And poorer nations are forced to sign on the dotted line if they want any funds to help them adapt to a problem they haven't contributed to but which is affecting them the worst.

It's instructive to look at the recent historical record of global warming mitigation. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions were increasing at 1.5%/yr. After Kyoto the rate of emissions increased to 3%/yr. Some countries, such as Japan, bought off their increases by investing in offsets. Some European countries decreased their national emissions by moving production and pollution to developing countries. Products were then flown back to Europe, because the fuel isn't taxed, and the even greater impact on global warming by aircraft emissions is ignored.

What we should do is leave the remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Barring common sense, climate scientist James Hansen says that fossil fuels should be simply taxed at the point of origin, either at the wellhead or mine, or at the port of entry. No exceptions, no exemptions, no loopholes.

The strategy Hansen and many economists argue for is known as fee and dividend (harder to game and almost immune to speculation) and is being advanced as an alternative to cap and trade (which is basically privatization of the atmosphere). When you take the total amount of coal, oil, and natural gas used in the US, and put a price of $115/ton on carbon, fee and dividend would generate $670 billion dollars, which is about $7,500 to $9,000 dollars per family. This could then be used for energy retrofits, efficiency improvements, and buying locally grown food when it becomes too expensive to fly it half way around the world. This would all help families adjust their lifestyles to a lower carbon footprint.

Most importantly, we must accept that the target of 350 ppm of atmospheric CO2 as the absolute safe upper limit must become the mantra for policy decisions. This is as much a moral position as it is a scientific one. Catastrophic climate destabilization is not an issue that can be compromised on. We can't say we're just going to do a little bit, but we're not going to solve the problem. Our one and only life support system is in a very real danger of passing some tipping points. Whether or not the current cycle of global warming is human caused or not (and there's really very little disagreement among reputable climate scientists that it is) at the very least it is extremely aggravated by human actions.

Perhaps the most difficult realization behind 350 is that the concept of growth in the economic and material realms must be forever cast aside. It's the first step in the realization that for true sustainability to occur we actually need to be heading back toward pre-industrial levels of about 250-275 ppm. And with a sustainable human population size, zero waste clean technologies, and shifting our production focus to quality instead of quantity this is an achievable goal without donning hair shirts and moving back to the cave.

The only real uncertainty is the time frame as we can't know which tipping points will be surpassed due to the carbon loading and ecosystem inertia from the 30 year time lag between greenhouse gas emission and biospheric effect. The climate effects currently occurring (with less than one degree C warming) are a response to the GHG emissions from 30 years ago, and we've done nothing but continuously increase those emissions over the past thirty years. In some cases we've slowed the rate of increase, but in no cases, despite the evidence of the urgency for doing so, have emissions gone negative.

So, there's our current challenge, and how our current crop of leaders are responding to it. In order to meet what is perhaps the greatest ethical, moral, and spiritual challenge of our times (because it's not a question of technology as much as its equitable distribution), I'd suggest that it's time to start making different choices.

A Response to: Ask President Obama to Stop Global Warming

I wrote the following in response to an e-mail alert from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com, but I'm sending it out and posting it on the Natural Systems blog as an open letter to the progressive and environmental movement.

On 15 Aug 2009 at 9:49, Bob Fertik (Democrats.com) wrote:

> Ask President Obama to Stop Global Warming

Hello Bob... if the goal truly is to pass comprehensive legislation that will stand up to the best scientific evidence and analysis, then it should start with being honest with ourselves. After all, life on Earth and the future of Western industrial civilization is at stake. Although the latter must be seen as much less important than the former.

First, the targets. We must reduce all greenhouse gas emissions (not just CO2) from human sources by 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. And continue down to zero from there post haste. And instead of just rolling your eyes in bemusement at naive idealism, realize that this actually is an obtainable goal if we change our tactics. Scientifically, technologically, and psychologically doable. There is a systemic alternative available that is viable and pragmatic; that works with who we are as living organisms instead of being constantly at odds with natural systems principles. Thus its tendency is to deliver on the always withheld promise of industrialism--to improve quality of life.

We must give up the idea that the world will come to an end--or at the very least our lives will lose all meaning--if our efforts toward the first goal should impact the profits of the industries who are at the root of the crises. The beneficiaries of this paradigm is such an infinitesimally small percentage of the population they can safely be ignored. Yes, they own all the big scary weapons, but they have neither the knowledge nor the skill to push the buttons--we do.

Just about the last thing we should do is focus inordinate amounts of time or energy in putting people back to work (in America or anywhere else on the globe) stamping out plastic parts for stuff that will be in a landfill in six months, shuffling papers for an insurance company, or working in a call center.

Let's start by taking a hard look at who we are, or think we are, as a technologically advanced civilization made up of people who exhibit the qualities we tend to refer to as intelligence and rationality. This begins by realizing and deeply admitting that our planet is our life support system and that due to the interconnected nature of reality, what we do to the Earth in the form of pollution, toxins, and resource depletion we do to ourselves which ultimately degrades any possibility of reaching our potential either as individuals or as a society. This vastly overrides any supposed benefits derived from the industrial system and its methodologies as it stands today. Industrialism and economic cannibalism... err, I mean growth, is making things worse, not better.

An interesting and highly relevant factoid is that it only requires one-third of the global population to produce everything the entire global population consumes. This means we should all be working two-thirds less with full global employment. We also make a whole lot of stuff we don't need, and the rest is either so poorly constructed it has to be replaced frequently or it's been built to not be repairable. Properly addressing this and decentralizing the grid would lower our energy requirements to what's available with off-the-shelf renewables. No clean coal. No nukes. No tithing... um, I mean carbon offsets and similar nonsense.

This also supports the conclusion that the last thing we should be worrying about is putting people back to work, but should instead concentrate on ensuring their needs are met and they have the time to do what really matters. You know, more quality leisure time instead of spending one billion working hours per year to buy more leisure wear.

This would all also go a long way in lowering birth rates and help bring global population down to a sustainable level over the next few generations, especially if we coupled it all with education on family planning, and provided pre-natal care and disease prevention as an intimate aspect of foreign aid. Then we could start providing people with a means of right livelihood that would include work on helping the Earth regenerate and replenish all the ecosystems we've been busy destroying and consuming in our ignorance and greed.

The alternative I mentioned above is known as relocalization. This is a process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, economic equity, social justice, and participatory democracy. One framework starting to seep into the social consciousness for implementing this process are the Transition Initiatives being undertaken in cities and regions around the globe.

The underlying paradigm which gives this movement such a high chance of success is its adherence to natural systems principles from which emerges the prime activity of living organisms--the tendency to self-organize into mutually supportive relationships. This process has been occurring quite successfully for billions of years. A question we must ask ourselves as a society is why have we created, and continue to allow to exist, an entire industry (marketing/advertising/PR, i.e. industrial propaganda) whose goal is to fight against it--when not busy denying it even exists or that basic ecological laws such as carrying capacity must be taken into account?

There are numerous studies in the social, psychological, and biological sciences that support the idea that we could raise awareness and change course rather quickly should we choose to. As Charles Darwin pointed out, survival goes not the the strongest or fastest, but to the ones most adaptable to change.

The Cultural Creatives study by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson shows we could count on the support of over one quarter of the populations of Europe and North America. The democracy and justice movement in the Global South indicates an even higher level of support there. It is congruent with quantum physics. The math is supplied by chaos and complexity theory. Ancient wisdom traditions that understood the Earth, in one way or another, is a partner in our lives and evolution provide other necessary aspects of support for our psychological and spiritual health and well-being.

Applied ecopsychology/Natural Attraction Ecology provide a scientifically validated process to intellectually and sensuously reconnect, and experience first hand our nurturing bonds to the natural world, each other, and our communities. Other philosophically aligned hands on models and design tools that are currently being implemented include bioregionalism, permaculture, local currencies, integrative holistic health care, and voluntary simplicity.

There is absolutely no need, except to protect other's profits, to waste our time on compromise or incrementalism. The window of opportunity we have left to us negates either of those questionable strategies anyway.

So, why don't we all start advocating and supporting change we actually can believe in?

Awareness of Reality Seen as Doomsaying

A rational people would look at the title of this short essay and think it's a sci-fi piece describing an alternate bizarro universe.

A rational people would examine the facts--the assembled evidence and the veracity of the people presenting it--and use that as a basis for both determining appropriate action and the timeframe necessary to implement said action.

Because time is running out and things are getting worse. It should be obvious the manner in which we're going about our attempts to institute change isn't working, so we should re-evaluate proposed action plans.

Instead, we have somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that we will cause irreparable damage to tender, fragile psyches by pointing out that someone's actions will either not deliver the intended results, or will actually cause more harm. We have what resembles the attitude of too many modern parents, "Oh, isn't that cute, he's trying so hard" as the toddler destroys instead of saying "No" and taking the hammer away.

It appears that what may be happening is that the possible loss of a few modern "conveniences" as we run up against peak oil, peak soil, peak water, peak money and peak life is being equated with doom and gloom, as we glibly ignore the actual negative consequences of these conveniences. Or we spend inordinate amounts of time and energy attempting to find loopholes to continue the status quo instead of figuring out other ways to meet our needs or even seriously analyze whether those are real or manufactured needs in the first place. We want the economy to return to normal, when "normal" is what has caused the myriad global crises we face. We rationalize and excuse inaction, inappropriate action or compromise as we steadfastly ignore the improvements to quality of life from proposed alternatives that systemically challenge the fundamentals of the status quo such as reconnecting with nature and relocalizing our lifestyles, organizations, and communities. What this all mainly demonstrates to me is a lack of imagination. The main "convenience" we seem to be protecting is not having to think too hard about any of this.

It's like the oil company executives who say we won't actually hit peak oil until we run out of technology. Forget about climate and/or exploitation of people and nature and/or the known laws of physics and/or true human nature when freed from the shackles of dominator hierarchies.

The liberal, NewAge mindset that every view is equally valid is actually a sign of moral decay. It is a sign of a society that has lost its way; that has abandoned its soul because it has disconnected it from its sustaining and nurturing source. Spending a weekend at a grief workshop while pretending to be a nature spirit isn't going to overcome this. In fact, the likelihood of doing so seems to be inversely proportional to the number of books published on the subject.

Now, I fully understand that people who are working hard, for noble purposes, on "change" don't want to hear that cash-for-clunkers, ACES, and the public option for disease care are just reshuffling deck chairs; that sustainability initiatives that enable continued growth on an overdeveloped planet are anything but sustainable; that the natural world imposes real limits on both population and resource extraction that we ignore to our--and all other forms of life--peril.

But, there it is. And until you figure out a way to connect with a parallel universe, you're going to have to deal with it in a manner that is more effective than telling people to shut up when they point out the Emperor (regardless of ethnic background or which wing of the Corporate War Party he or she represents) has no clothes.

Until someone can explain to me the advantages of compromising with evil (that which doesn't support life) I will continue to hold moral actors accountable for their actions based on the way that natural systems principles contribute to healthy, vibrant and resilient--that is, sustainable--ecosystems. Which we are perfectly capable of duplicating. Right now.

Transition Industries Announcement

Hello All... you may have noticed I've been rather quiet on the blog and with other postings recently. The main reason for this is that it was time to put our talk into action.

The concepts of relocalization and steady-state local living economies can be rather abstract, especially without functional examples to draw from. So, Natural Systems Solutions, in conjunction with Transition Pima, has created Transition Industries.



The main purpose of Transition Industries is to serve as an example and demonstration model of ways to create small-scale light manufacturing and other "industrial" type endeavors at the neighborhood level that don't get caught in the trap of continuing support for either Industrialism or growth for the sake of growth. This can become a first step for communities to strengthen local economies, build healthy relationships, provide means of right livelihood, build skills and rekindle pride in craftsmanship, and create some of the necessary resiliency for rapidly changing times. The secondary purpose of Transition Industries is to provide a small revenue stream to support the non-profit Attraction Retreat and its major projects such as Natural Systems Solutions.

The idea is to create items that meet people's needs, adhere to the definition of sustainability, make use of used and/or recycled materials, and either use less energy or contribute to a higher quality of life that doesn't require manufactured energy. It's time to learn new skills (and relearn some that are quickly disappearing) for a new economy -- and door-greeter at a big-box, hamburger flipper for the harried, insurance sales, banker, and Pentagon planner aren't among them.

Our first product is a line of bicycle trailers, and we'll also be building low cost but efficient solar ovens. We'll also provide support for others desiring to explicitly address the need for right livelihood in an energy constrained, increasingly toxic, and warming world. And as you can see, you don't need a big fancy garage or workshop to get started on producing quality items.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Rant on ACES

Most of you have probably seen the video Al Gore is sending around, urging you to urge your congresscritters to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Perhaps you've received a similar appeal from any number of mainstream environmental (a notable exception being the Center for Biological Diversity) or Democratic party affiliated "grassroots" organizations peddling the same basic message.

While watching the clip and reading the pleas, the following came to mind.

Passing this bill will demonstrate leadership? What planet is Gore talking about? The do-nothing compromise ACES bill is a sham and should simply be rejected out of hand. Proposed "strengthening" amendments define putting lipstick on a pig.

Its long-term target of reducing emissions 83% below 2005 levels by 2050 has been known for five years to be inadequate. The reductions demanded by science are 90% below 1990 levels by 2030... and Gore knows it.

Further, if these reductions aren't coupled with demand destruction of one type or another in other resources (fisheries, forests, water, minerals, soil, etc), as well s with serious, coordinated environmental remediation and restoration efforts, all we'll be doing is buying enough time to let our kids deal with it.

Maybe.

One way or the other, alternative energy sources aren't going to power a "green" return to economic growth. Get over it. They will, however, allow us to transition to a sustainable future.

The prevailing mindset that the ACES bill is better than nothing simply must cease. The standard progressive copout "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" should come with a mandatory prison sentence for anyone so enamored with the status quo to have the audacity to utter it in public.

Does anyone really believe we still have the luxury of doing the absolute minimum necessary to perhaps put off the worst of the climate chaos predictions when those are beginning to come to pass decades before they were supposed to from the greenhouse gases we passed out of our tailpipes (cultural as well as automotive) thirty years ago? The major change since then is that things are worse.

Urge your congresscritters to pass stem cell research immediately so they can grow a spine. I suppose a brain would be nice too.

Distractions from Reality

A question posed by David Roberts of Grist in his article "Will health care eclipse climate in Congress this year?" was whether a climate bill has a chance of passing while the left's attention has been diverted to health care. This question has, I think, a rather direct answer.

Of course a realistic carbon reduction bill won't get passed with the focus shifted. The majority of the left isn't even willing to admit the "health care" plan being offered by Obusha doesn't actually change anything from the dysfunctional system we currently have. All it does is provide a few more victims for it at taxpayer expense. The profiteers continue to get their cut.

The Kleptocracy...Monetocracy...whatever term you prefer for the dominator elite who will do everything they can to protect the class hierarchy and their position at the top of it...have thrown the left YetAnotherDistraction which the left, as always, went for because the left is just as afraid of the necessary change as those who continue to profit from not changing.

The controlling mythology is that capitalism, profit, and economic growth in general must be protected at all costs. And we're about to find out what "at all costs" really entails.

Pentagon planners, Wall Street financiers, etc. know exactly where our current rate of collapse from catastrophic climate destabilization, resource depletion, and overall biospheric toxicity from Industrialism is taking us. But they think there's still more profit that can be squeezed out of the system, and refuse to let themselves admit that once collapse occurs all their money won't mean a thing. The sad truth, the one that is too awful to face, is it's the only game plan they have. As has been pointed out by many others, there is no Plan B.

And they've developed such mastery at offering distractions. Health care is such an emotional issue. Our Mad Max future if we don't change direction is still more ephemeral than asthma, cancer and all the other negative by-products of industrialism. We can't see ecosystems collapsing, but we can see hospital emergency rooms filling up. And of course corporate media ensures we all remain as confused as possible. Torture memos. FBI... err, I mean terrorist... plots to blow up America. Which silicon enhanced starlet is carrying who's baby. Etc ad nauseum.

So, I guess the bottom line is we (the Left) really are as stupid as the elites assume us to be. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that the health care issue will be the foot in the door (the red pill) we've been looking for to wake people up to what they really should be concerned about.

Neither energy nor greenhouse gases will be addressed realistically as long as the left continues to allow themselves to be so blatantly manipulated. The so-called partisanship in Congress is just another convenient distraction that helps us not have to face reality. We have Republican obstructionism to blame inaction on.

If, on the other hand, we were to adopt sustainability as our overarching goal, we could simultaneously address health, the environment, and turn democracy around from the fantasy role it currently occupies.

An open letter to liberal/left issue advocates

While the following was written in response to an e-mail from TrueMajority titled "Our plan for 2009" it is not just directed to TrueMajority; I'm not intending to pick on them (they're actually my personal favorite out of the bunch), because the following is also addressed to MoveOn, Codepink, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of America, and the dozens of others who believe that a little "progressive" reform around the edges, taken in slow and easy incremental steps, with heaping helpings of compromise with a system that is anathema to life itself constantly added to the mix, will be sufficient to stave off the collapse and chaos we're heading toward--which is being brought on by clinging to and legitimizing this mindset. Thus, this critique also fully applies to the mainstream environmental groups such as Sierra Club, WWF, NRDC, etc.

Sorry to be so blunt, but until the whole lot of you find the backbone to be honest about the blatant destruction caused by your corporate benefactors, and help dispel the myth that economic growth is necessary for prosperity and progress, your progressive and environmental ideals will remain unfulfilled.

On 29 Dec 2008 at 9:48, Matt Holland, TrueMajority wrote:

> Dear Dave,
>
> What a whirlwind year. In the past twelve months we celebrated
> the election of a new progressive President and witnessed an
> economic collapse brought about by a failed right wing ideology.

Dear Matt,

It would be a whole lot easier for me to support TrueMajority (or any of the other liberal/left issue advocate organizations--please don't feel like I'm singling you out) if it felt like any of you either understood the issues or were willing to support a realistic and viable alternative to their root cause.

Let's take the latest TrueMajority e-mail that triggered my response as a case study. First, Obama is not progressive. He is solidly middle of the road. He wouldn't have been vetted by the DLC for his presidential bid were he otherwise. Second, the economic collapse is the only logical outcome of the Ponzi scheme known as free-market capitalism; right-wing ideology merely hurried the collapse along by exposing its faults to the light of day in a manner that is hard to either ignore or deny. But blaming our current economic situation on the right or thinking that we can "green" economic growth merely shows that stupidity knows no political allegiance.

You almost always take the proper "progressive" stand on issues, but without ever acknowledging that each of these issues is a symptom of a failed cultural paradigm. It is a paradigm of domination; of hierarchies of control that function through power over an other that's assumed inferior. New issues will continue to emerge from this paradigm as long as the inherently faulty analysis of liberalism is being applied. While the left may be more compassionate than the right (speaking only of the political ideology, not the real people who get swept up in it), the fact that compassion continues to be necessary on such a wide-spread scale is proof that a fundamental problem remains--unexamined and thus unresolved.

There is at least one recognized but as yet not well known path to a sustainable future that is based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. As a further incentive in requesting your support to help publicize the alternative I advocate, a sustainable future based on these values will create a culture of peace, something both the political right and left insist they desire.

One core aspect of the process to blaze this path is known as relocalization. It includes the decentralization of vibrant and resilient local steady-state economies that exist in harmony with their bioregional ecosystems. Relocalized communities don't require growth in consumption or energy use to be considered healthy, i.e. they are powered down and prepared for the energy descent the world will be experiencing as the reality of Peak Oil settles in.

The other core aspect of creating a truly sustainable culture is overcoming our separation from the natural world--which includes each other. This entails reconnecting the human spirit and all the rest of our dozens of natural senses to their roots in both the creation and to the creative tendency of life itself to build and nurture relationships of mutual support that are conducive to life in its ever increasing diversity.

While this systemic alternative won't, indeed can't, support infinite economic growth or consolidation of power, it will create the foundation for the quality of life people all over the world say they want. Evidence for this claim can be found in the global acceptance of the values espoused by the Earth Charter. This systemic alternative is also the only rational response to catastrophic climate destabilization and the poisoning of the biosphere by industrialism that I'm aware of. If any of you should know of another, please quit keeping it a secret.

The alternative of reconnecting and relocalizing can create more opportunities to reach the potential the natural bounty a life-affirming planet assures any species that stays within its ecosystem's carrying capacity. This includes the opportunity we have to participate in the creation of sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities based on the natural systems principles from which sustainable ecosystems emerge. It presents a new way of being that is resonate with the natural creatures we actually are, instead of putting us in constant reaction mode to the toxic symptoms the status quo keeps handing us.

Doesn't it make more sense for a national organization such as TrueMajority to live up to its name and champion a different way of being that supports and provides for the majority?

Decision Time: Change or Collapse?

I wrote the following as an Op-ed piece for the NY Times. They declined to print it. Hmm, why am I not surprised? Don't want people thinking that their advertisers don't actually have anything worth buying? Or becoming aware that there might be an alternative to economic cannibalism that will not only improve their lot in life, but act as an effective response to global environmental crises? Or that it points out that our new Emperor has no clothes either? Or am I just not up to the Times' writing standards? Anyway...

Decision Time: Change or Collapse?

A recent editorial in the NY Times
"Save the Economy, and the Planet" rightly points out that the financial crisis is not a sufficient excuse to put off taking the necessary steps to deal with the global warming crisis. Indeed, putting it off will greatly aggravate both the financial and planetary crises, as national-level reports from around the world are showing.

However, President-elect Barack Obama seems content for his proposals to apply little pressure to either of these crises while primarily ensuring the protection of business as usual. His grand proposal to institute change consists of doing, according to the Times, "the minimum necessary to...avoid the worst consequences of global warming."

This is leadership?

Don't put any more effort into what many are calling the greatest crisis to ever face humanity and civilization (sometimes someone will bother mentioning the planet in an off-hand kind of way as well) than we absolutely have to, and let's just suck it up and learn to tolerate all the intermediate negative consequences. That is, only if this "plan" of action even comes close to delivering the expected results.

This isn't even change.

The increasingly common political goal of 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, while well-intentioned and heading in the proper direction, is based on evidence that is at least 5 years out of date. It assumes the planet can handle 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentrations, when the effects of the 385 ppm that we already have today is not only pushing the environment into irreversible tipping points, but these are occurring many times faster than the climate models have been predicting.

This is the difference between modeling and reality. And clearly points out why the denialists should be cautious in using this in the attempt to substantiate their claims about a so-called global warming "agenda" or in their attempts to create an atmosphere of public doubt over the existence of a crisis due to modeling inaccuracy or errors. The only thing that truly matters in the case of global warming is the reality we're actually experiencing.

The actual minimum reduction thought to be required is 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. It's not expected that even this will keep us from all the tipping points -- the uncertainty is over which one will be first. Things are going to change, but these aren't going to be the changes we heard mentioned on the campaign trail by about anyone other than the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. The Obama plan is to get the US back to 1990 levels by 2020, and this after we've experienced a rise of 14 percent since 1990. This simply won't be sufficient. Anthropogenic global warming was well underway before 1990. Do the math; it's elementary school level.

If Obama really wants to pursue a comprehensive approach, which he says he does, he must find the courage to start addressing the root causes of the global warming crisis. These causes are directly tied to the unsustainability of industrial and financial growth; the fetishization of these concepts in the creation of what can most kindly be called shallow social status; and the belief that we can treat our only planet -- our sole life support system -- as if it is both an infinite supply of resources and a bottomless pit for waste.

It can, however, be quite easily shown, from a number of different perspectives, that neither materialism nor growth actually increase quality of life beyond a certain level, and even then only for a segment of the population. These concepts are inherently unsustainable and often unfulfilling even in the short-term. And this is even in spite of Industrial culture spending much time and energy trying to convince people that increasing their material standard of living is an acceptable substitute for the lives they really do want and are so desperately missing.

This brings us directly and inescapably to what must become the fundamental question for our times: Which is more important, profit and power, or people and planet? If after deep soul searching and, just as importantly, rational analysis, you find yourself answering in the affirmative for the latter, it's time to start directing President-elect Obama toward evaluating a systemic alternative to business as usual instead of irrationally trying to protect it.

From a sustainability standpoint, protecting the growth status quo will prove to be a futile attempt anyway. We're way too far into the realm of ecological overshoot. Fisheries depletion, deforestation, top soil loss, diminishing freshwater, dwindling energy supplies, and increasing overall biospheric toxicity and its effects on declining ecosystem and species health are all measurable manifestations of this fact.

One well-researched alternative that is beginning to be put into practice in communities around the world is relocalization, which the popular Transition Towns movement in the UK is based upon. Relocalization is a systemic process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. It seeks to move production of food, energy and goods closer to the point of consumption, and create thriving local economies that exhibit many of the principles of steady-state economics as developed by former World Bank senior economist Herman Daly -- basically, better instead of bigger.

A fundamental aspect of this process entails reconnecting our lives to the natural world, which includes to each other and our communities. This entails developing lifestyles, organizations, and communities from the models and metaphors provided by the natural systems principles which increase diversity and the opportunities for the mutually supportive relationships any sustainable ecosystem requires to be healthy, vibrant and -- most importantly in crafting the urgent response necessary to today's looming crises -- resilient.

It really just depends on making new choices, based on a new understanding of the human role within the web of life. This is the change we need to both see from our elected representatives and participate in ourselves.

Planning the Future

There's been a recent back and forth between the blogs of John Michael Greer, "The Archdruid Report" and Rob Hopkins, "Transition Culture".

One of Greer's critiques of the Transition initiative, based more on a single conference presentation by overly enthusiastic proponents rather than a thorough understanding of the Transition Towns movement, is that deliberate planning for a better future is both "impossible and counterproductive."

This critique of Hopkins' (and company) Transition Initiative might be more about semantics than anything else. Postcarbon cities and transition towns aren't planning the future. As Greer rightly points out, doing so in the literal sense is impossible, although the attempt is not necessarily counterproductive. We are, however, participants in the future and our actions have consequences. We can examine these consequences and make choices. For the moment, let's not argue about the percentage of time Western culture actually spends doing this. Or the percentage of time an elite subclass spends doing pretty much exactly that to the detriment of all other.

We can rationally examine, and sensually experience, that the Industrial Growth Society is causing much harm and is about to collapse through self-cannibalization by clinging to mistakes in foundational assumptions that are adhered to and defended with religious fervor. The clearest indication of this tendency is that industrial civilization is pretty much diametrically opposed to the sustainability of life, living organisms, and the natural world they depend on.

So, since humans tend to do things, let's do things differently. In a manner that not only honors life, but that models the creative and sustainable processes that underlie it. Since we obviously have to start doing things differently due to global warming, peak oil, and the loss of sovereignty to corporatism and the dominator hierarchies which support it let's start by stating what we do want. If we wish to switch from a culture of death to a culture of life, we need to start by picking a new set of values as a base. And the future we all seem to agree on is a sustainable one based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy (which are goals unto themselves as well).

But this isn't planning the future. This is making intelligent choices based on an honest assessment of what the world is currently facing, and what has caused it. This is just common sense based on a different paradigm that rejects the old assumptions. While proponents of post-carbon cities and transition towns may not know exactly how it will look, there's a whole buncha stuff we know we don't want to do again. Certain options, which mainly revolve around selfish greed and exploitation, have been taken off the table.

Relocalization is a dynamic process based on the natural systems principles from which emerge ecosystems that are vibrant, healthy, and resilient, i.e. sustainable. It's based on a model that's been working for billions of years. It's a model we're intimately familiar with, even if it's been repressed and unexpressed under Western civilization.

There are certain things we do know about the proposed process to create a sustainable future. Permaculture and the relocalization process Transition Towns are based on don't contribute to resource depletion, toxicity, waste, or economic growth. Thus, it doesn't contribute to war. Carrying capacity of both the environment and the economy becomes the prime factor in its calculations of success.

Now, no one is saying that the world is going to majically revert back to a pristine state, or even that this will keep collapse entirely at bay considering how far into the ecological overshoot range we are. But it is a way to start effecting the negative feedback loop of restoration and regeneration instead of feeding the positive feedback loop of destruction.

So, I do see reason for being optimistic about taking the initial steps toward a way that works; that is about being more rather than having more; that just plain feels better. A way where we start thinking and acting the way that nature works. Where we shift the priorities from domination, aggression, competition, separation, and destruction to partnership, compassion, cooperation, connection, and creation. New choices based on giving priority to a different set of values.

And, ya know, at the very least, relocalization sure sounds like a whole helluva lot better plan than the current one to grab whatever you can before someone beats you to it. The reason social change from the imperialism of industrial civilization hasn't worked before is that we've never thrown out, or even seriously examined, the underlying assumptions and replaced them with ones perfectly in keeping with human nature. As Greer points out, follow through is necessary (and Transition Towns help inspire that), but we must also make sure the business as usual plan is dismantled and its harms mitigated.

Dealing with petrocollapse can take other forms than the two Greer says are the only options--finding a replacement for fossil fuel to continue powering industrialism, or replacing the energy dependent parts of modern society. Most people who are looking at the bigger picture throw overpopulation into the mix, and overconsumption is a perennial favorite. Greer is correct in pointing out that little would be left of modern society if we rid ourselves of the energy dependent parts.

In spite of Greer's claim to the contrary, however, the parts for a low-energy society are indeed sitting on the shelf, and there are many who are pointing out the quality of life benefits. The changes that are required socially are even pretty much spelled out in detail in the Earth Charter. Nitpicking energy descent seems like a distraction, unless the real goal is to attempt to keep the economic growth necessary for industrialism chugging along.

Currently, we know how to build things to last, and to be easily repairable. We know how to make them more energy efficient, and less toxic. We know we could quit fetishizing shallow status symbols. The only thing any of this threatens is economic growth and financial empires--which are the drivers of peak oil, global warming and inequity, as well as the major hindrance to democracy.

The choices for where we want to go, and what to stay away from, should be pretty clear. And it sounds like a plan to me.

The Financial Market Distraction

In the Weapons of Mass Distraction category, let's look at one area our gaze is being diverted from. US taxpayers are being asked to bail out a failed sub-prime/derivatives/debt insurance Ponzi scheme to the tune of $700 billion, with no actual supporting evidence that it will do any good, or even more good than eventual harm, to a faltering and inherently unsustainable industrial growth economy.

When compared to the grossly inflated value of the entirely ephemeral derivatives market, which is well over $400 trillion worldwide, the bailout is hardly even a drop in the bucket -- but it will fill some golden parachutes even if they're not directly deposited into CEO accounts. It will be interesting, in a very morbid way, to see what sleight-of-hand they use to do this.

In the meantime, catastrophic climate destabilization (global warming) is increasing faster than predicted in even the dire reports. According to the international consortium of scientists, Global Carbon Project, in 2007 carbon released from burning fossil fuels and producing cement increased 2.9 percent over that released in 2006 -- up to 8.47 gigatons. This puts the world on track to see 11 degrees F warming by century's end, when it is pretty well acknowledged that 4 degrees F will put us over the edge of environmental tipping points.

While some industrialized nations have almost levelled out on greenhouse gas emissions (no decrease, though) the developing world has doubled theirs (we gotta get those shiny consumer trinkets from somewhere). Add to this the fact that the world's natural carbon sinks, the oceans and forests, dropped another 3% this decade in the amount of carbon they could absorb, i.e. they're full.

In a September 22, 2008 report, Britain’s Climate Trust suggests companies could drop a total worth of $7 trillion in value if they don't address climate change-related risks. Thats an order of magnitude more financial risk than the current Ponzi crisis.

So, let's see... where should we invest our money? Into doing everything we can to thwart and mitigate sea level rise and species extinction (including our own), or to bailing out the crooks and liars who are propping up the paradigm that's causing the destruction?

Beam me up, Scotty.

Cancer and Industrialism: My Findings and Therapy

Well, I've recently been diagnosed with cancer, to become the latest in a long line of victims of industrialism. I've long known I was psychologically allergic to industrialism and its attendant stressors, and it seems I'm physically allergic to it as well. In fact, my current thinking, based on my long-held belief that cancer is an industrial disease--it is not per se a lifestyle or hereditary disease--is that the increase in cancers and other widely spreading diseases are allergic reactions to industrialism. Modern medicine then focuses on dealing with these symptoms, while doing little to nothing to advocate for the cessation of their root causes.

Before I go any further here, let me clarify what I mean by cancer today being an industrial as opposed to a genetic disease. It's true that cancer has been around far longer than industrialism has. In fact, every person has cancer cells in their body. Well, this is a bit of a misnomer. They're actually pre-cancerous, or have a higher potential to turn cancerous. As part of the normal cell process of producing energy from oxygen, free-radicals are produced which can cause damage to a cell which may then turn cancerous. Other factors are then involved in whether that cell continues to live, infect other cells, and spread. In a healthy organism, processes exist to neutralize free-radicals and kill cancer cells, and remove them as waste.

So, to use the bit of blame-shifting favored by the pharmaceutical industry that says cancer has a hereditary or genetic basis is a bit disingenuous, since merely being human creates the possibility to develop cancer. One's lifestyle can create a situation conducive to cancer cells taking hold and spreading, but in the toxic world industrialism has created, those situations have been magnified by a few orders of magnitude. Let's look at just a few of the industrial and industrial lifestyle factors.

Poor oxygenation can lead normal cells to turn cancerous. When cells can't get enough oxygen, they turn to fermenting sugars for their energy, and this is the prime difference between a healthy cell and a cancerous cell. Factors that cause poor oxygenation are buildup of toxins and lack of exercise. A lack of the essential fatty acids needed in cell walls also blocks oxygen exchange. As cancer cells ferment energy they produce excess lactic acid which is toxic, and tends to prevent the transport of oxygen into neighboring normal cells. So the cancer spreads if not destroyed by the immune system. The treatments of choice today, chemo and radiation therapy, do kill cancer cells. However, they also damage respiratory enzymes in healthy cells and overload them with toxins--increasing the chances they become cancerous.

In light of the above, let's just think for a moment about industrial farming and food processing, which not only don't provide the nutrients necessary for good health, but also puts more toxins into the body, and/or contribute large amounts of what cancer cells love and thrive on most--refined white sugar. Let's think about the foods we eat that aren't even food, like American cheese and Twinkies. Let's think about sedentary industrial lifestyles of affluence. Let's think about the air and water that industrialism has turned toxic, and the toxic materials in the buildings where we live and work. And then there's plastics...

There are tens of thousands of man-made chemicals floating, flowing, and buried within the thin sliver of biosphere that humans and the other species that make up the web of life can exist within. 20,000 of them are known carcinogens. These chemicals can't exist naturally, and living organisms haven't developed defenses against them. These chemicals tend to be bio-accumulative, are environmentally persistent (their half-lives are ten to fifty thousand years), and are lipophilic (they travel rapidly up the food chain). The vast majority of these chemicals are toxins, neurotoxins, mutagens, or carcinogens whose toxicity and effects are studied in isolation, not in the combinations that actually occur in our bodies and the environment.

Properly fed, exercised, and enveloped in a healthy environment of mutually supportive relationships, the human immune system can handle most things nature can throw at it, but not those of man. I hope I also don't have to explain why I'm sticking to using the male gender in this regard.

The details on my own case are that I went to the emergency room on Aug. 10 with severe abdominal pain and an apparent intestinal blockage (the symptoms pretty much just suddenly flared up in an otherwise healthy body), was diagnosed with colon cancer on Aug. 11, and had my descending colon removed on Aug. 13 by the trauma surgery team at University Medical Center here in Tucson. The pathology report on the section of colon and mass of tissue removed with and around the tumor said the margins were clear (no cancer on either end of the section of colon removed), out of the total of 34 nodes removed only three in the tumor vicinity tested positive, and although the tumor had grown through the wall of the colon it hadn't spread to any other tissue or organs. So, overall the prognosis is good. For those of you familiar with cancer stages, I had a Stage III cancerous tumor: t-3, n-1, m-0.

I finally got to meet with the oncologist on Sept. 11, and like all good cancer docs, he explained the situation, added up the scientifically measurable parameters, and said the only recommended treatment is chemotherapy. If adding up the "markers" had produced a smaller number chemo wouldn't have been called for. A larger number, or if other existing tumors had been seen in the CT scans, and radiation therapy would be added. No other variables are considered, nor thought to be warranted for consideration, such as diet changes, other cancer fighting, immune boosting or detoxifying agents that are not manufactured by BigPharma, or doing a Body Burden test to see if there might be a link to industrialism that has bioaccumulated in the body and might need to be dealt with.

There's no accurate test to see if there's actually any cancer left in the body after surgical tumor removal. The theory is that there might be some cancer cells floating through the bloodstream that are just looking for a place to attach and grow into a mass large enough to detect, which could take up to 5 years. But, that's basically the case for everyone, whether they've had a tumor detected or not.

The statistics for my type and severity of colon cancer are that 60% will have another tumor in 3-5 years if no course of treatment is followed, and that drops to 34-40% (depending on which combination of toxic drugs and side-effects you're willing to tolerate) with chemo. There seems to be a remarkable absence of information (from allopathic medicine) on the 40% who don't experience tumor recurrence within 5 years.

Further muddying the waters is the difference allopathic medicine tries to make between "complementary" and "alternative" treatments. In fact, we were warned by a social worker at the UMC Cancer Center to use the former term rather than the latter when we met with the oncologist--if we didn't want a negative reaction from him. Complementary to them seems to means the status quo--chemo--remains the treatment modality of choice, and they're willing to hear about you tacking on a few extras, like vitamins. However, they just can't accept that you just might be looking for something that really is a true alternative--meaning giving yourself an option to heal without making yourself sicker. The healthy immune system that is so necessary to health and healing is taken to the point of not functioning at all by chemo/radiation therapy in the hope that since the cancer cells are weaker, they'll die before the healthy cells do, and that you don't come down with something else fatal while your immune system has been intentionally compromised. Only a disease care model of medicine could come up with this one.

But the fact of the matter is that certain natural substances support the body's natural defense system, and have certain properties that help fight cancer cells, provide support to the immune system, and clear the body of toxins. Pharmaceutical drugs merely attempt to copy these processes, but because they're not natural, they have a number of unpleasant and/or potentially fatal side effects.

Let's take the "nutritional supplement" coenzyme Q10 (a compound that is made naturally in the body known as ubiquinone, which decreases as we age), which is sold as CoQ10, and compare it to the cancer drug fluorouricil, called 5-FU. They both kill cancer cells by triggering apoptosis, or cell death. This natural cell mechanism gets turned off in cancer cells.

However, because CoQ 10 isn't a toxic synthetic, it won't hurt healthy cells or cause major reactions in the body. Also, it's sold over the counter, isn't based on fossil fuels, or subject to corporate patent and profit. This latter point is extremely important to keep in mind. We're getting more and more doctors who have gone to med school on drug company scholarships, and BigPharms's influence, due to their affluence, on medical research is well known. Industrial Pharma has spent and continues to spend billions on lobbyists and legislators to ensure the status quo remains near impossible to change and that no challengers can arise.

The one commonality I keep running across as I research all these things, though, is that whether the treatment regimen decided upon is allopathic or natural, the largest determinant in treatment success is attitude. And, you know, it just seems to make more sense to me that keeping a good attitude is going to be one whole helluva lot easier if I don't put more of industrialism's toxic products into my body while it's busy getting healthy again with natural supplements, supported by the loving energy of so many others and the natural world itself.

So, the cancer treatment I've decided on includes the following.

Killing the cancer cells: Therapeutic doses (200 mg twice daily) of CoQ10 to kill cancer cells and support oxygenation. Starving the cancer cells by eliminating refined sugar from my diet. Regular exercise--the most natural way to oxygenate cells. Selenium (2-3 Brazil nuts daily). Some studies show selenium to be as effective as current chemotherapies, but it can be toxic in very high doses so don't over do it.

Immune system support: Pycnogenol (French Maritime Pine Bark extract) 25 mg twice daily, which is an antioxidant and recycles vitamins C & E in the body. Noni Juice (1 oz twice daily) which is a powerful antioxidant. Essiac tea (burdock root, sheep sorrel, Indian rhubarb, slippery elm bark)--which is also a powerful detoxifier--twice daily. This is the basic Ojibwa recipe, which also seems to be called Medicine Man tea.

Detoxifying and healthy cell support: Alkaline diet (no coffee or alcohol, powdered barley grass juice once a day or so). The Mediterranean Diet is also recommended (switch to olive oil, LOTS of veggies and whole grains, minimal meat). Flaxseed to oxygenate cells (mixed with cottage cheese or added to soy protein drink with green bananas and almond butter). Vitamin D from sunlight (20 minutes/day as naked as you're comfortable being between the hours of 10am-2pm). Primadophilus (5 billion CFU probiotic). Calcium and a B-complex. Whole grains only. And, I'll be adding Oxy-E for oxygenation and cleansing cells of toxins and lactic acid as soon as we can afford a therapeutic dose (2-4 bottles/month).

There are, of course, other things that can be done to naturally support the body which we might be adding (or have started to use occasionally to supplement) as we go along, or that you can look into for your own needs. These include mushrooms (shiitake, reishi, and cordyceps especially if you're undergoing any type of chemotherapy), Fu Zheng, coconut oil, broccoli sprouts, papaya extract, alphalipoic acid (less expensive than pycnogenol), etc.

The main thing you want to do is return to and stay in balance. Industrialism has created an extremely toxic world, and depends on lifestyles that are so stressful that you don't have the time to do what's good for you. You want to kill the cancer cells that are in your body, not create an environment that allows them to grow (refined sugars, simple carbohydrates, overly processed food with unpronounceable ingredients), detoxify your system from the body burden we all carry, and support healthy cells and the immune system so they can resist infection and damage and do their job.

As I mentioned earlier, another extremely important factor in healing (some say the most important factor) is emotional and spiritual health--a healthy and positive attitude. In the same manner as nature has provided the body with means to repair damaged or injured cells, it also provides the means to repair and heal damaged psyches and souls. I'm a big believer in regular reconnecting with nature activities, which is more powerful than meditation alone. Nature can inform you of what you need to know once you remember how to listen.

The above is a description of my approach to keeping the cells that comprise my body healthy and cancer-resistant. I have also been blessed with alternative healers that have so generously shared their gifts we me, including forms of energy healing, massage, reflexology, etc.

The real work, however, begins after the body heals: taking down industrialism. But, that's another article. Actually, it's an excellent two-volume set by Derrick Jensen, "Endgame, Vols. 1 & 2."

A lot of people have also been saying there is a lesson to be learned in my getting sick, and I don't doubt that one bit. I'm not quite sure what it might be, though, but I do have an inkling. I'm sure I'll be writing about it sometime soon.

A Green Status Quo?

One of the common critiques of Al Gore's July, 17 speech at a Washington, DC energy conference that I've heard -- from those few environmentalists who actually understand ecology -- is that Gore's proposals, first and foremost, are directed to ensure the status quo survives. Of course, Gore adroitly sidesteps any mention of how that status quo is going to continue to improve their standard of living without their servants to prepare their food and dress them, or without an atmosphere and topsoil that can even grow their food, or even that global warming is but one factor calling into serious question the sanity of Western lifestyles predicated on infinite economic growth and financial accumulation that can only artificially confer a status that is superficial at best.

But this critique leads us to a bit of a quandary when looking deeper at what Gore said. It is currently thought to be political suicide to directly tell people the truth that Western civilization is generally at odds with life. The Industrial Growth model in particular is completely at odds with life, and actually helps define the concept of sustainability by providing a perfect example of its complete opposite, or negation.

So, when people who have actually taken the red pill (a small subset of those toying with the idea as possibly being a good thing to do) pick out and focus on statements from Gore's speech such as, "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," and, "The future of human civilization is at stake," and use those statements to dismiss his entire message based on their beliefs that these outcomes would be beneficial, they might be shooting themselves in the foot. For if these are the only statements of Gore's that we concentrate on, we loose a perfect opportunity to bring up the viable and realistic alternative of powering down, relocalizing, and reconnecting. When looked at from a broader framework, Gore's speech can actually be a jumping off point for what more and more people are coming to realize needs to happen.

The American way of life and our understanding of Western civilization (which Gore incorrectly equates with human civilization) do need to be consigned to the dustbin of history, I won't argue with that. But I do think using that as a starting point is to risk losing a large segment of the population that we should be compassionately reaching out to with an honest awareness raising campaign of what we're really facing and what we must, and can, do.

There's nothing wrong with rightly pointing out that civilization as we know it is what has to go away; that powering a culture that is inherently destructive to life with renewable energy is neither the brightest nor the most rational thing to do. In fact, considering how far into overshoot we are as a species, powering our current Western lifestyles with renewables won't even buy us all that much time before the Earth's ecosystems tip into collapse.

But I don't intend to go into a complete critique of civilization here. Besides, others such as Derrick Jensen have done a very thorough job of that in works such as "The Culture of Makebelieve" and especially "Endgame, Vols. 1 and 2."

What I picked up on, and think we can constructively build on, were statements Gore made, as reported in the New York Times, regarding the "worse confluence of problems facing the country." Think about this for a second. What Gore is doing here is publicly tying energy depletion and high cost, job loss, high taxes on wage earners, and financial meltdown not only together, but with war. Very few political progressives have yet to make this leap.

Some of Gore's other statements, "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that´s got to change," are great as well -- as far as they go, anyway. He's still shying away from details. He's not being frank with people about what this really means and what must be done. But he is asking people to examine relationships that are normally glossed over at best.

This becomes an opening to talk to people about the fact that our way of life is based on an exploitive power-over structure that confers status and success on accumulation. It is a way of being that is in direct conflict with the principles natural systems use to nurture and sustain healthy, vibrant, and resilient ecosystems. This means it is in direct conflict with who we really are as a species and as individuals. Since it's elementary school math to figure out that on a finite planet, being a "winner" means less for everybody else -- plus the hard upper boundary on material accumulation -- in order to continue this economic game without inequity growing to the point that armed revolution is the only possible outcome requires selling a story of growth in the abstract concept of financial capital in which the commodification of everything, both real and imagined, is necessary.

What is needed, as Herman Daly pointed out decades ago, at the very least is to set limits to inequality in wealth and income. Orthodox growth economists insist that growth is a perfect substitute for income equality, for as long as there's growth, there's hope. Thus, the solution for the poor is to let them feed on the hope of eating growth in the future! This system is, of course, a symptom of a deeper malaise, but let's take it one step at a time.

We can help people make the next logical step -- that a system based entirely on economic growth is not only killing the planet, but is anathema to progress and prosperity when looked at from a perspective that includes the whole.

Because the fact of the matter is that Gore is correct. We could get 100% of the energy we actually need from renewables, not in 10 years, but today. As I keep pointing out, all it basically requires is to quit manufacturing the 99% of the stuff we don't need or want, build the rest of it to last and be repairable, decentralize the grid, and quit looking at efficiency from the narrow perspective of what is necessary to increase profit. This is the perspective we must get people to apply, not the assumption everyone immediately jumps to that alternative energy sources must be ramped up to replace what we're using fossil fuels for today.

And then we can go the next step. Start redesigning and rebuilding our communities to be livable instead of auto-centric, start getting population under control (in part by getting rid of excess), etc.

If we can help people connect the dots, and realize that a systemic alternative is available that stands a better than even chance of improving quality of life, they'll come to their own conclusion that civilization as we know it is a bad idea.

Setting the Agenda

A recent e-mail from On Day One informed me they were co-sponsoring an on-line five-day debate with Grist.org's Gristmill and UN Dispatch to set the agenda for the 44th president. They asked people to send in ideas on energy and climate, with the best ones to be reviewed by their panel of experts. <http://www.ondayone.org/node/add/idea?source=blogad&issue=climate>

Of course, they expect you to do this in 500 characters or less, so that automatically leaves me out -- I couldn't even do it in that few words. But, here's what I wrote to send to them before discovering this limitation.

How can the next President solve our global warming crisis and reduce our dependence on foreign oil? By honestly taking on the special interests behind the growth economy and helping dispel the myth that a continuously rising GDP is necessary for progress and prosperity. By helping people understand that regarding the Earth as both an endless supply of resources and a bottomless pit for wastes is highly irrational to the point of insanity because it defies the laws of physics and the other natural sciences. That addictively increasing consumption of material goods is not an acceptable substitute for psychological and spiritual health and well-being. That despite a rising standard of living (conveniently confused with quality of life) America comes in 149th out of 150 countries on the happiness scale. That despite a doubling of gross domestic spending, people aren't twice as happy as their grandparents.

There are some other basic facts that must be injected into a very necessary national, and global, conversation.

The promise of technology is to provide more leisure time. Instead, Americans spend one billion working hours per year in order to buy more leisure wear.

About half of the electricity we currently produce is lost in long distance transmission. Decentralizing the national grid would greatly reduce the supposed need to find replacement energy sources.

One third of the global population produces everything consumed by the entire world. This means we should have full global employment while working two thirds less.

Further, 99% of all that stuff is in a landfill or gathering dust in a closet within six months. Relearning the benefits and value of sharing would go a long way in both building mutually supportive community relationships and in reducing the energy and resources required to build one each of everything for everyone.

We could start producing stuff to be more efficient, to be built to last, and to be easily repairable instead of expending so much time and energy on making people feel unworthy or that they are a failure as a human being if they don't have the latest model in the current color.

About half of the oil America consumes goes to the military so they can fight wars to secure more oil so they can fight more wars. Maybe if we were to quit stealing other people's resources and exploiting their communities for stuff we don't want and that doesn't make us happy anyway, global terrorism would shrink drastically.

It is finally becoming more widely acknowledged that cancer is an environmental disease. If we quit allowing the chemical companies to turn our water, air, and soil into global Superfund sites simply so they can increase profit margins, not only would less energy be required and expended, but quality of life would improve by an order of magnitude and the medical industry would see its energy needs shrink.

The American standard of living has brought us to the point where infant mortality rates are rising, lifespan is decreasing, and about 50% of the American population requires one prescription drug a day, with 20% requiring 3 or more prescriptions to either make it through their day or to be able to tolerate their day. And this doesn't include alcohol and other self-prescribed recreational drugs. This is not a sign of a healthy society, or a shining example of a society to be emulated by the developing world.

By honestly addressing these inconvenient truths (and dozens of others, such as the shallowness of urban sprawl, our forced addiction to automobiles, and the damage inflicted on the web of life's food chain by paving over massive swaths of it), we would discover that we can meet our actual energy needs with currently available renewable energy technologies. But, none of this protects and supports a growth economy, where profit is taken to be more important than people or planet.

The alternative to this paradigm of destruction and disease, however, does not entail stagnation, nor is it a primitivistic call to return to the cave and start chopping wood and carrying our own water. Just as a healthy ecosystem reaches a point of maturity and then stops growing physically larger, it doesn't stop developing and supporting the natural tendency of each of the organisms within it to self-organize and fully contribute toward the health of the whole.

Relocalization, the process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice and economic equity, provides a systemic alternative to the status quo of domination and exploitation that enriches a very few at the expense of all others. Relocalization addresses food and energy security by embracing steady-state local economies, bioregional governance, and redesign of cities based on permaculture principles, all while adhering to the ecological reality of carrying capacity. It helps us overcome our separation from the natural world, which of course means each other as well. By using the models and metaphors amply supplied by the natural systems principles sustainable ecosystems use to remain healthy, vibrant, and resilient, it also brings out and amplifies those positive aspects of human nature that support the basic life-affirming direction of nature -- compassion, cooperation, creativity, and nurturance.

If the presidential candidates are wanting to be serious about actually doing something to mitigate catastrophic climate destabilization and the steady, and currently inexorable, depletion of polluting fossil fuels, instead of the typical sleight of hand that sounds good while really only ensuring continuing riches to their buddies in industry, then they are most welcome to use the above as a foundation for their campaign platform. Otherwise they should just be honest and admit they're only running for the paycheck and status, ask us to vote for whoever we think is sexiest, and we can all hold hands and watch the world go to hell in a handbasket together.

Perspective...

I was sent a propaganda piece, without attribution but my quess is that it originated in one of the free-market "think tanks" where thinking is anything but de riqueur, by an ecologist/artist friend, who probably received it from a conservative relative who thinks a growth economy is the only thing keeping us from reverting to barbarism.

As seems to be my lot in life, I felt compelled to reply. Also, it never ceases to amaze me how other articles that have come across my desk in the past few days provided important concepts to weave into this.

Anyway, the original piece is included in its entirety with my comments interspersed.

> Think about it...

Yes, think about it indeed. This nationalistic, jingoistic nonsense could only have originated with a libertarian free-marketer.

However, probably unbeknownst to even him (definitely unintentional), he makes a couple of points that people do need to start examining deeply.

> The OPEC minister may look you in the eye and say:
> "We are at war with you infidels and have been since the embargo in the
> 1970s. You are so arrogant you haven't even recognized it. You have more
> missiles, bombs, and technology; so we are fighting with the best weapon
> we have and extracting on a net basis about $700 billion/year out of your
> economy. We will destroy you! Death to the infidels!" "While I am here I

Quite true that our arrogance isn't widely recognized. Our defense budget is being totally wasted on protecting a way of life that is unsustainable and about to push us over the cliff of extinction. The Earth, of course, will survive. It rebirthed life after the Cambrian extinction, it just took 100 million years to do so. So, don't think your Halliburton stock price windfall from gouging and defrauding the American taxpayer is going be worth much by then.

> would like to thank you for the following: Not developing your 250-300 year
> supply of oil shale and tar sands. We know if you did this, it would create
> thousands of jobs for U.S. citizens, expand your engineering capabilities,
> and keep the wealth in the U.S. instead of sending it to us to finance our
> war against you infidels."

Not only is this reserve estimate off by at least an order of magnitude, it totally ignores the fact that it requires more energy to extract those types of reserves than what they can provide, nor can what they hold ever be totally extracted. Then you can throw in the complete environmental devastation that comes with extracting these types of sources. The only reason to even think about tar sands or oil shale is that it continues an industrial paradigm of profligate waste for no other reason than to increase the holdings of central banks. However, we are distracted from this reality by the story that it is necessary to protect the transportation industry and supply the lifeblood for suburbia -- which has been accurately described as the greatest misallocation of resources in human history.

> "Thanks for limiting defense department purchases
> of oil sands from your neighbors to the north.
> We love it when you confuse your allies."

This is an excellent point, but not for the reason this guy thinks so. (And even if it happened to be a woman who wrote this, it is a totally male dominating mindset that wouldn't naturally arise in anyone whose compassion and nurturing instincts were intact.) What it points to is the total disconnect from reality of US foreign policy.

> "Thanks for over regulating every
> segment of your economy and thus delaying, by decades, the development of
> alternate fuel technologies."

Almost a good point. The reality is that the regulatory environment doesn't regulate industry, it regulates people while it hands out licenses for destruction. Regulations serve to simply rein in the worst excesses and appease people's innate sense of equity, in order to keep total runaway greed and power lust from completely subjugating life.

But it isn't regulation that is keeping us from alternative energy technologies. It is massive government subsidies (for which free-marketeers always look the other way) to big energy, and to protect the fundamental concept of centralization in as many aspects of our lifes as they possibly can.

> "Thanks for limiting drilling off your coasts, in
> Alaska, and anywhere there is an insect, bird, fish, or plant that might be
> inconvenienced. Better that your people suffer. Glad to see our lobbying
> efforts have been so effective."

Another complete disconnect from reality. All those other species that are being "inconvenienced" just happen to create and sustain the web of life that human lives and economies are totally dependent upon.

Let's take a quick look at what the system this extremely shallow puff piece is trying to support has given us:

Anthropogenic global warming is not just cause to worry about greenhouse gases that come from burning fossil fuels -- the industrial growth paradigm is giving us deforestation, desertification, soil salination and topsoil loss, acidic oceans, shrinking aquifers, and New Orleans and parts of Alaska are slowly sliding into the sea. Hypoxia -- loss of oxygen -- is affecting large stretches of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans which means these areas are losing the marine life that not only feed millions but which make up the very foundation of the global food chain.

No food chain, no food. You can't get any simpler, or more basic, than that.

> "Corn based Ethanol. Praise Allah for this sham
> program! Perhaps you will destroy yourself from the inside with theses types
> of policies. This is a gift from Allah, praise his name! We never would have
> thought of this one! This is better than when you pay your farmers NOT TO
> GROW FOOD. Have them use more energy to create less energy, and simultaneously
> drive up food prices. Thank you, U.S. Congress!"

This is one of those statements that get thrown into propaganda efforts like this to make people think the rest of the statements also make sense.

> "And finally, we appreciate you
> letting us fleece you without end. You will be glad to know we have been
> accumulating shares in your banks, real estate, and publicly held companies.
> We also finance a good portion of your debt and now manipulate your markets,
> currency, and economies for our benefit." "THANK YOU AMERICA!"

Actually, China and Japan have the most of this, although a few Middle East countries are starting to catch up. The Middle East, however, is much less of a threat in the long run as they have no production capabilities -- all they have are fistfulls of cash which are quickly losing value, and rapidly shrinking supplies of petroleum which we must stop using anyway in order to save at least some aspect of life as we know it. That they are trying to buy into a system where we have all been sold a bill of goods is simply an indication that they have absolutely no idea of what to do either.

One of the things that amazes me about the type of people who write stuff like this is that they also tend to be the people who rant about the UN and the concept of a one-world government that is going to take away everything valuable about democratic principles like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What they fail to realize, or to even acknowledge as the mounting evidence slowly crushes them under its weight, is that we already have a one-world government. This has slowly crept up and overtaken us as multinational corporations became transnational corporations and are now supranational corporations -- those who are above the nations and controlled by an elite managerial group who manipulate global financial networks. They owe no allegiance to any government; they exist everywhere and are specific to nowhere except the industrial world. The institutions they have created like the WTO work to ensure that quant concepts like national sovereignty become a thing of the past, especially if they impose any barriers to maximizing profit. Corporatism has arrived and is on its way to becoming fully entrenched.

Now, we could become the first species to use our intelligence to reverse our direction upon discovering we're going down the wrong path. Instead, we're living out the definition of fanaticism -- doubling our speed after learning we're going the wrong way. This explains the troop surge in Iraq, the push to open up drilling in ANWR, and passing legislation to turn all our productive cropland into agrofuel production.

And, to keep from examining these inconvenient truths, we're wasting our time blaming our problems on the people we're actually forcing to supply our addictions.

Beam me up, Scotty. There's no intelligent life on this planet.