Seeds of Influence, part 2
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Jan. 31
Positive Signs from Central Coast Calif.
[This blog supplements the Feb. Episode of The Common Good Podcast.]
When the Paris attacks caused the French government to cancel demonstrations, the planned 200,000 person demonstration for the Climate Change Conference (COP21) became global. Over 2000 local demonstrations occurred around the globe, mostly on Sat. and Sun., Nov. 28-29.
I was involved in the rally and march in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on the Central Coast, half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles, about ten miles inland from the Pacific ocean.
Although possibly less known than beautiful, pricey Santa Barbara, San Luis is has been called 'the happiest place in the world,' after some acclamations from Oprah a few years ago. I grew up in San Luis my first 15 years and now have returned home in retirement with spouse Rita, a native of the San Diego area.
I was truly touched by the rally. Let me tell you about the city and county first. San Luis Obispo County is the second largest county in California geographically. The home of Cal Poly, a Calif. State University, San Luis has a population of about 50,000, and a much acclaimed Farmers Market every Thursday night that stretches ten blocks with music entertainment in almost every side street.
One notable downside is gender equity. My pastor, Amy Beveridge of Bethel ELCA, Templeton, gave some startling stats in a brief sermon 'The Happiest Place in America' recently. Catch it at TheGodJournals.com.
San Luis Obispo County has a split personality. The county seat, San Luis Obispo, is a progressive town. The mayor, Jan Marx, is a heroic person. She and the city council guided the county and then the state to ban styrofoam a couple of years ago. Last year they banned most single-use plastic bags county-wide. This is an exciting place to live!
The City of San Luis Obispo is doing a lot to address the climate crisis.
--We divested the City of any investments in fossil fuel three months ago.
--We unanimously opposed the Phillips 66 rail spur project
--We are upgrading its Water Resource Recovery Facility to save energy, save water and save a million pounds a year of carbon emissions.
--We have signed the Compact of Mayors and pledged to implement our city Climate Action Plan which we adopted with mitigation and adaptation measures in 2012.
1. The Compact of Mayors is a global coalition of mayors and city officials pledging to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and enhance resilience to climate change and track their progress transparently.
2. The city of San Luis Obispo has fulfilled the following pledges to the Compact of Mayors.
* In 2009 we conducted our greenhouse gas emissions inventory. It is consistent with the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) and addresses all categories listed in the Compact.
* We have inventoried the climate hazards faced by our city and county. Working with then supervisor Jim Patterson, I enlisted the expertise of the California Local Government Commission to identify climate hazards and potential adaptation strategies for the entire county.
North county and extreme south county are much more conservative. The county has over 300 vineyards. When I was growing up here, my town of Paso Robles was known as the almond capital of the world. Now it's all about wine, which as been excellent for tourism, not so much for water conservation during a severe drought.
The problem is that the county supervisors are now split. On one side are the 'Lands Rights' folks who feel they can do whatever they want with their land. They fail to realize that the aquifer stretches beyond the borders of the property, so they keep sucking away at the scarce water and resisting any attempt at quotas or water districts. On the other hand we have the towns where citizens live with rigid restrictions in this the most drought prone part of the state. We're in the midst of a vote to accept or reject a Water District plan for north county.
Into this situation comes the Climate Change rally. . . what I prefer to call the Creation Crisis. The organizer and spokesperson was Heidi Harmon, one-time Green Party candidate for state assembly. Mayor Jan Marx spoke. Eight-year-old Lucas gave a brief, stirring appeal to the adults to stop burning fossil fuels and to get behind renewables. Then farmer Bill Ostrander spoke about the perspective of Climate Change from an agricultural view. Read his excellent, brief paper Agriculture and Climate Change. Bill is an outside candidate for US Congress to take the place of retiring excellent representative Lois Capps. Bill has agree to be a guest on The Common Good Podcast in 2016. (Up until a few years ago, Paso Robles unfortunately fell into the same District as Bakersfield in the Central Valley so we suffered under the divisive 'leadership' of Kevin McCarthy. Thanks to redistricting, we have Rep. Capps, one of the most progressive in the nation.)
After the rally we march through the main business district for a dozen blocks to the Bliss Cafe to hear Mr. Eco, a young rapper who educates school children about climate change. Then the stirring songs of the guitar/recorder duo, Ranchers for Peace.
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Making Applesauce
Sat., July 23
When Native Americans would kill a buffalo, they would thank the spirit of the buffalo for giving up its life so that they could continue to live. That was part of their spirituality.
I feel a little like that with my apple tree. I talk to her in the morning light. And when I squeeze past her branches that crowd our small backyard, I thank her for her enormous generosity.
The main way I thank her and her Creator is by making applesauce. It's not a small job. We must have some 500 apples this season! They're cooking apples, tart and crisp.
This isn't the first time I've dedicated hours of time to making applesauce but this year we got serious enough to buy a peeler/slicer/corer. It's scary. It looks like a little torture device. Purely mechanical, no motor, shiny red, only $10 at World Market.
The process is pretty basic. Impale an apple on the three tongs of the peeler, crank the screw till the apple goes through, drop the slices in a bath of orange juice to keep them from turning brown, then into the crock pot with a bit of water, sugar and cinnamon, cook on low for six hours, cool, freeze.
We now have a dozen bags of deep red, delicious applesauce for breakfast, desserts and sharing. I was able to give away four big bowls of the best apples at church. I grieved when I had to put the last dozen rotten apples in the green waste bin.
Toward the end of the crop year the apple skins get a bit tough. Or if they fall off the tree they bruise, or the birds peck on them or they get a worm.
Few of the apples are perfect. With a little extra care, even these 'ugly' ones make great sauce. There has to be an allegory in this story somewhere.
I do a similar thing with the Thanksgiving turkey carcass. Cut every bit of meat off the bones and freeze it. Cook the bones in vinegar water and save the stock. Add some vegetables and seasoning and what magnificent soup! And I thank God, not just for Her bounty, but for this specific bird that gave up its life that we can go on living.
This summer our little congregation, Bethel Lutheran (ELCA), Templeton, CA, is Celebrating Ugly Food with guest speakers and videos, all capped with an Ugly Food Banquet.
We explain it as 'exploring the intersection of water, food and faith in a time of drought.'
Part of the month-long celebration is a focus on gleaning through GleanSLO, the gleaning program of the San Luis Obispo County Food Bank. We plan to help glean surplus produce in fields, backyards, grocery stores, maybe even restaurants.
For me, waste is disrespect for our Creator. Yes, it takes effort, even some planning and determination to utilize fully the resources for which we've taken responsibility. We can't take care of everybody's food but we can care for that which we've taken into our lives. When we buy food--raw or cooked--we accept responsibility for it. It will not go to waste!
I love left-overs. We carry a 'take-home' carton in our trunk to avoid single-use restaurant containers. Just another of those little habits that add up to Caring for Creation.
Peace.
Image: Spirit of Simplicity #9-A1348
TAGGED: APPLES, CONSERVATION, UGLY FOOD, WASTE
Ugly Food Podcast [LINK]
COMMENT
You totally drew me into the process. I was reliving applesauce-making time in my boyhood home. We'd pick up 'drop apples' from our neighbors. A bushel for $1.50. Waste was/is immoral. Disrespectful of the divine, as you say too.
For me, it's the best blog I've ever read by the likes of Gerald Iversen!!
Lee Van Ham
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Supply Shock
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8
Through Saturday (1/11), Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution is available wherever eBooks are sold for only 99 cents
Read more about Supply Shock in my Jubilee-Economics blog.
I urged my public library to buy and catalog a hard copy, which they did. Then I urged my friends and colleagues to read it. I hope you'll do the same.
Participating suppliers include Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and others.
Why promote Supply Shock? Because Jubilee Economics, as a collaborator with the Center for Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE), also promotes a Steady State Economy. CASSE's mission is "to advance the steady state economy, with stabilized population and consumption, as a policy goal with widespread public support." And Supply Shock is all about the mission.
Supply Shock is the culmination of 13 years work by Brian Czech, CASSE's founding president and best-selling author of Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train. Leaving no stone unturned, Czech has covered the environmental, historical, economic, sociological, and political aspects of economic growth and the transition to a steady state economy. Neil Patterson (past president, W.H. Freeman and Company) calls Supply Shock "clear, cogent, honest, stimulating, free of clutter, and often amusing; it's boredom-free."
See what other people are saying about Supply Shock here, or by checking Amazon reviews here.
Brian Czech works for the US Government and is Visiting Professor of Natural Resource Economics in Virginia Tech's National Capitol Region. Czech is listed among the Post-Growth Institute's "Top 100 Inspirational Leaders" Publisher's Weekly has called Czech "as good at popularizing economics as Carl Sagan was science."
"Czech's vision of 'steady statesmanship' is impressive and convincing, and this book easily qualifies as one of the key manuals for those who care about the world and its inhabitants." Lynn Greenwalt, former director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
GERALD IVERSEN SATURDAY, JANUARY 11
Green Fire
Aldo Leopold is the John Muir of the Midwest. Although he didn't start something as influential as the Sierra Club, he has the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.
Hear my two-part interview with Mark Rasmussen, Exec. Dir. of the Leopold Center on TheCommonGoodPodcast.com in Jan. and Feb.
We get into some pretty controversial subjects, such as industrial ag's overuse of soil and water, the use of antibiotics in animal feed and robotics in farm fields. In part 2 we go further -- the detrimental effects of biofuels and GMO's. This guy's worth your time!
The term Green Fire, if I recall correctly, comes from Aldo Leopold's moment of epiphany when he saw something so amazing, so stirring in the forest that he called it Green Fire. He pledged to dedicate his life to preservation of the natural environment.
Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time. This EMMY Award-Winning documentary film about Iowa native and legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold highlights his extraordinary career, tracing how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement, and how his ideas remain relevant today.
Animal Industrial Complex
GERALD IVERSEN MONDAY, JANUARY 20
Coordinating with our two-part The Common Good Podcast in Jan. and Feb. (interviewing Mark Rasmussen, Exec. Dir. of The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture), I will be blogging some about food, agriculture and the Earth environment.
Many have heard of the military-industrial complex, maybe even the prison-industrial complex, but the animal industrial complex? Probably not. But you should. It's huge. Meat consumption per capita in the U.S. exceeds all other countries except for Luxemburg. The U.S. with its ubiquitous fast food outlets might be called Burgerstan.
But the love affair with meat may be waning. The Hindu-Buddhist roots of vegetarianism have gone way beyond their origins in South Asia. Today, adherents of vegetarianism can be found everywhere and in ever growing numbers.
Concern about cruelty and violence to animals and the impact of meat eating on the environment are all contributing to heightened awareness as to how we treat other creatures. We share our homes and lives with dogs and cats. We lavish care and affection upon them. But other animals endure pain and suffering on their way to our dinner plates.
David Nibert, a former tenant organizer and community activist, is an award-winning writer and professor at Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH. He is the author of Animal Rights, Human Rights and Animal Oppression and Human Violence.
SPOILER ALERT! David Nibert and Mark Rasmussen probably don't agree on everything.
Animal Industrial Complex, Alternative Radio Program #NIBD001, recorded in Cleveland, OH, July 25, 2013. Hear an audio sample at AlternativeRadio.org, but no link to this specific complete podcast. You may either buy the CD ($14) or MP3 ($4) of this speech there or subscribe to the FREE podcast series (on iTunes, for example).
Cecile Andrews, Champion of Simplicity Circles & Community Conversation
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
Enjoy the Latest Offerings from Collaborating Organization
Simple Living Works!
Champion of Simplicity Circles and Community Conversation
A community educator, Cecile is active in the transition movement in the United States. Cecile and her husband are founders of Seattle's Phinney Ecovillage, a neighborhood-based sustainable community, which has morphed into Sustainable Greenwood-Phinney.
She's the author of. . .
The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life(1998)
Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre(2006)
Less is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness(2009)
NEW Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good (2013)
Cecile's site is CecileAndrews.com, NOT SimplicityCircles.com.
To LISTEN or see more Details, visit theSLW! Podcast Episode Index.
COMING next episode: Alternative Rites of Passage
RELATED: Reimagining America: An Evening with Gus Speth & Juliet Schor
Watch these videos to hear Speth and Schor discuss innovations in collaborative consumption, ways the sharing economy is changing our country, and opportunities to define a new American Dream.
Share the Joy of a Simpler Lifestyle Through Speeches, Workshops, Events, Study/Action Groups, Simplicity Circles and Social Media
+ BONUS: Social Media Supplement - Jerry's Excellent Adventure, including
To LISTEN and read Details, visit the Episode Index.
Also, visit SLW! Blog.
Mutagenesis?
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26
Coordinating with our two-part The Common Good Podcast in Jan. and Feb., I am blogging some about food, agriculture and our Earth environment.
We've heard of the Green Revolution, and now the second Green Revolution underway in Africa and India. Norman Borlaug (above) was the creative mind behind the first Green Revolution between 1940s and 1960s. The initiatives, led by the "Father of the Green Revolution," credited with saving over a billion people from starvation, involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.
But then yields leveled off and we became aware of issues not initially seen. Example: many technologies were too big, heavy, and expensive to be appropriate for small farmers to afford, maintain, or fuel them; too many inputs of artificial, expensive fertilizers and pesticides. Big profits resulted for the multi-national ag corps, not the independent farmers. Wikipedia: Green Revolution
What's next?
Beyond the Green Revolution and GMO's may lie mutagenesis.
Mutagenesis is a process by which the genetic information of an organism is changed in a stable manner, resulting in a mutation. It may occur spontaneously in nature, or as a result of exposure to mutagens. It can also be achieved experimentally using laboratory procedures. In nature mutagenesis can lead to cancer and various heritable diseases, but it is also the driving force of evolution. Mutagenesis as a science was developed based on work done by Hermann Muller, Charlotte Auerbach and J. M. Robson in the first half of the 20th century.
Agribusiness Turns from GMOs to Mutagenesis [RT America]
Related Materials
Is Monsanto Giving Up On GMOs?
Perennial Design
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12
In stark contrast to the destruction of farmland presented in the current episode of TheCommonGoodPodcast, the Land Institute in Wichita, KS, cultivates perennial grains.
The Land Institute
Confronting the realities of resource depletion usually involves a grim tale. And understandably so. Which is why this graceful, eloquent article by Wilson Miner on why agriculture must change" and how "is so deeply rewarding to read.
Perennial Design from AlwaysReadTheManual.com
My grandfather was born not far from where I'm standing. This is his land, his wheat. A few years from this moment, it will be my father's responsibility, and eventually, maybe mine.
RELATED MATERIAL
Green American, Jan.-March
PAGE 12: GMOs & the Case for Precaution
PAGE 16: Uncovering Deadly Research Suppression and Bias Toward Biotech
PAGE 19: Farmers vs. the Corporate Seed Police
PAGE 20: 4 Big Problems With GMOs
PLUS Web-exclusives!
Seeds Of Death - Full Movie on youtube.com
In preparation of the global March Against Monsanto, watch the award-winning documentary Seeds of Death to see the deep corruption surrounding GMOs and the nefarious deception being perpetrated against the world.
Renowned NYU Professor: GMOs Could Literally Destroy the Planet
Vicki Robin: Blessing the Hands That Feed Us
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19
In stark contrast to the misuse of farmland to produce biofuels presented in the current episode of TheCommonGoodPodcast, Vicki Robin presents a vision of locally produced food and strong community in Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: What Eating Closer to Home Can Teach Us About Food, Community, and Our Place on Earth.
Hear an interview with Vicki produced by the co-host of The Common Good podcast through Jubilee Economics' collaborating organization, Simple Living Works!
With Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin wrote one of the most enduring, influential books to have come from the sustainable living movement, Your Money or Your Life.
Vicki has blogged about the hyperlocavore eating experience with YES!
"Vicki Robin has helped millions of Americans reshape their lives in sound and beautiful ways, but this may be her most important project yet, and a crucial one for our tired planet, too!" Bill McKibben.
"Vicki Robin is a national treasure, a source of wisdom and uncommon sense now directed at the most basic of basics: how and what we eat and how that connects to our health, prosperity, and prospects. The ten-mile diet should be national policy!" David Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin
RELATED MATERIAL
::Ted Talk - Seattle - 14 minutes of heart, head and humor on Relational Eating
::Vicki's website
::Book: Your Money or Your Life
::Blessing the Hands that Feed Us Facebook page
::Local Food Lab - restoring local food systems
Vicki's touching personal story: Liberating Limits
Enjoy five foods killing the planet.
Tending the Concept of Urban Agriculture
The Future of Civilization
GERALD IVERSEN WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
In preparation for The Common Good Podcast in April, listen to Lester Brown's forecasts [audio info below]. Then Brian Czech's appeal for The Steady-State Economy will make perfect sense.
Lester Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute. The Washington Post calls him "one of the world's most influential thinkers." In 1974 he founded the Worldwatch Institute, the first research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental issues. He is the recipient of many awards including the UN Environment Prize. He is the author of numerous books including Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization; World on the Edge; Full Planet, Empty Plates and Breaking New Ground.
The Future of Civilization, Alternative Radio Program #BROL003, recorded in Seattle, WA, November 11, 2013. Hear an audio sample at AlternativeRadio.org, but no link to this specific complete podcast. You may either buy the CD ($14) or MP3 ($4) of this speech there or subscribe to the FREE podcast series (on iTunes, for example).
A man of this calibre is well worth an hour, maybe while driving or on the treadmill exercising, as I do.
Related Material
NASA Scientists: Civilisation Irreversible Collapse
Scientists Sound Alarm on Climate.
TrillionTreesCampaign.org
My own positive Vision of the Future
Just Published! "Pastoral Economic Struggles: Facing Together Global Capitalism's Domination in Daily Life" by Lee Van Ham
GERALD IVERSEN - WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9
Jubilee Economics is gratified that its partner organization -- Simple Living Works! -- has published a NEW addition to its Featured Writers -- Pastoral Economic Struggles: Facing Together Global Capitalism's Domination in Daily Life, an essay by Lee Van Ham.
Lee wrote this essay a few years ago as a contribution to an anthology on pastoral responses to the unfairness people were having foisted upon them by social and economic injustices. The anthology, a Mexican-U.S. collaboration, was abandoned by its editors. Given that origin, Lee wrote this essay before his recent book Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us. The essay sets out some of the current crises in a way that pastoral leaders can begin to deal with them. As used in this essay, "pastoral" does not mean only clergy, but anyone who behaves and intervenes pastorally.
CONTENTS
This Present Moment as a Kairos Moment
Poor-Rich Apartheid
Pentecost and the Early Church
Prayer and Protest
Pastors and Prophets
Principalities and Powers
EXCERPTS
In pastoral work, we need to address the systemic causes of the tragic and grotesque separation between poor and rich. We must never imply in our teaching and practice that this apartheid can be overcome by good, ethical business choices within the system of domination. Nor that a change of attitude is all that is needed. Transformation of apartheid is not just about the rich becoming less greedy and more compassionate, nor about the poor becoming less docile and more assertive. It is about changing the gulf of apartheid which is held in place by an institutionalized complex of governments, trade agreements, the World Bank and all the international development institutions, the militaries, arms sales, intelligence networks, and the transnational corporations that seek cheap commodities, cheap labor and large profits without giving a hand up to the 50% of the world's people living on $2 (US) or less per day.
Our pastoral work needs the Holy Spirit because she will conceive in us a new creation, empowering us to live it amid global capitalism's pernicious web of entrapment that enslaves most while privileging few. We need daily to perceive that global capitalism's promises are false. In addition to its empty promises for the poor, we can see that its track record is grim, even though it formulates ever new products and new promises. In contrast, the Holy Spirit's fruit includes love, joy, and peace (Gal. 5:20) -- 'products' on which life thrives.
Four strong elements converge this week.
Lee's essay brings together four related publications from Jubilee Economics and Simple Living works! -- all in one week. These four elements fit together to help us maintain a right relationship with God's Creation. They show how faith-based and secular efforts complement each other.
First, in the current SLW! Podcast, Peter Sawtell of Eco-Justice Ministries discusses a new initiative -- Not Ordinary Times. This challenging call to "be the church in this time of environmental crisis is backed up with a comprehensive set of resources and background materials that will guide churches through a six-month season of worship and preaching that takes seriously the devastation of the global environment.
In the second half of the current SLW! podcast is an overview of the resources from Worship Alternatives for Pentecost and Ordinary Time (the non-festival half of the church year that runs from Pentecost to Advent, June-Nov. Some of us like to plan ahead. By the way, Worship Alternatives has little to do with the rites and practices of the pentecostal denominations.)
The third element is Lee's Pastoral Economic Struggles. This faith-based essay focuses on changes that can be made thanks to the Holy Spirit. It is an inspiring piece for Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is a force for change, an agent for transformation.
In the fourth element, Brian Czech of the secular Center for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy (CASSE), explains not only why our growth-oriented capitalist economic system is destroying the Earth but also how a steady-state economy could bring our relation with the Earth back in balance. Creating a Strong Economy That Does Not Grow: TheCommonGoodPodcast.com, episode 46.
You may want to see my earlier blog Ready for Pentecost?
WINDFALL: The Booming Business of Global Warming presents a contrast to The Steady State Economy presented in this month's TheCommonGoodPodcast by Brian Czech.
This fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world also contrasts with Richard Smith's Green Capitalism - The God That Failed.
McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand the catastrophe of global warming is to see it through the eyes of those who see it most clearly as a market opportunity. Global warming's physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge.
Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see in each of these forces a potential windfall. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral-rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland, and for the surprising kings of the manmade snow trade, the Israelis. The process of desalination, vital to Israel's survival, can produce a snowlike by-product that alpine countries use to prolong their ski season.
Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies in California as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland. As droughts raise food prices globally, there is no more precious asset.
The deluge, the rising seas, surging rivers, and superstorms that will threaten island nations and coastal cities has been our most distant concern, but after Hurricane Sandy and failure after failure to cut global carbon emissions, it is not so distant. For Dutch architects designing floating cities and American scientists patenting hurricane defenses, the race is on. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the coming deluge presents an existential threat.
Funk visits the front lines of the melt, the drought, and the deluge to make a human accounting of the booming business of global warming. By letting climate change continue unchecked, we are choosing to adapt to a warming world. Containing the resulting surge will be big business; some will benefit, but much of the planet will suffer. McKenzie Funk has investigated both sides, and what he has found will shock us all.
To understand how the world is preparing to warm, Windfall follows the money.
RELATED: Mother Jones excerpt and discussion
WINDFALL: The Booming Business of Global Warming
GERALD IVERSEN
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16
WINDFALL: The Booming Business of Global Warming presents a contrast to The Steady State Economy presented in this month's TheCommonGoodPodcast by Brian Czech.
This fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world also contrasts with Richard Smith's Green Capitalism - The God That Failed.
McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand the catastrophe of global warming is to see it through the eyes of those who see it most clearlyas a market opportunity. Global warming's physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge.
Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see in each of these forces a potential windfall. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral-rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenlandand for the surprising kings of the manmade snow trade, the Israelis. The process of desalination, vital to Israel's survival, can produce a snowlike by-product that alpine countries use to prolong their ski season.
Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies in California as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland. As droughts raise food prices globally, there is no more precious asset.
The delugethe rising seas, surging rivers, and superstorms that will threaten island nations and coastal citieshas been our most distant concern, but after Hurricane Sandy and failure after failure to cut global carbon emissions, it is not so distant. For Dutch architects designing floating cities and American scientists patenting hurricane defenses, the race is on. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the coming deluge presents an existential threat.
Funk visits the front lines of the melt, the drought, and the deluge to make a human accounting of the booming business of global warming. By letting climate change continue unchecked, we are choosing to adapt to a warming world. Containing the resulting surge will be big business; some will benefit, but much of the planet will suffer. McKenzie Funk has investigated both sides, and what he has found will shock us all.
To understand how the world is preparing to warm, Windfall follows the money.
RELATED: Mother Jones excerpt and discussion TagGREEN CAPITALISM, TagMCKENZIE FUNK, TagTHE STEADY STATE ECONOMY
IPCC Report & "Sixth Extinction" Point to Jubilee Economics
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23
Here's a helpful summary of the latest Intergovernmental Panel report on Climate Change, i.e. Crisis.
If you or a friend or relative or colleague question (or even deny) the progress of the current Climate Crisis, view or hear one of the following.
On Book TV author Elizabeth Kolbert explains the current Sixth Extinction.
The entire March 08, 2014, program of Sierra Club Radio (podcast) is devoted to a conversation with Elizabeth Kolbert on her new book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.
Elizabeth Kolbert argues that we are currently undergoing a sixth mass extinction (five others have occurred over the past 500 million years). She says that it is likely that this one, the result of human action, will be the most devastating. Ms. Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe.
Both the latest IPCC report and Sixth Extinction affirm the need for the types of systems presented by Jubilee Economics. For a quick preview, listen to Jubilee Economics in 90 seconds. For a bit more in-depth, click Jubilee Today in the menu at the top of any page. For a 30-day immersion in Jubilee Economics, click "30 Days" above. Read about Blinded by Progress at TheOneEarthProject.com.
Read and hear about The Steady State Economy on The Common Good Podcast.
NAFTA at 20 -- Fair Trade vs. Free Trade
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7
Free Trade agreements are the opposite of Fair Trade practices. The results of 20 years of "free trade" between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. (called NAFTA or the North American Free Trade Agreement) are devastating to all players except the corporations. See the excellent report entitled NAFTA: 20 Years of Costs to Communities and the Environment.
That report greatly adds to how important it is (1) for us to use Fair Trade whenever we can and (2) the work of Diane Nesselhuff, Founder and Exec. Dir. of the Fair Trade organization Sharing the Dream in Guatemala. She's our guest on this month's The Common Good Podcast.
Among other conclusions, this report finds that NAFTA:
