Star Stuff Connectedness : a video excerpt

An extraterrestrial visitor examining the difference among human societies would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities. Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars…We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this work…and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins…star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth…Our loyalties are to the species and the to the planet. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.

We are one Species. We are star stuff harvesting starlight.     -Carl Sagan

Excerpt on symbiotic living systems from a controversial movie Zeitgeist: Addendum by Peter Joeseph.

Download full movie through the Zeitgeist Movie site, or watch on google video.
WARNING – Full movie may be offensive to some of certain established religious beliefs.

SOLAR TODAY: free online digital edition

SOLAR TODAY’s January/February issue launches the magazine’s first major redesign since its launch in 1987 with a free online digital edition.

Issue highlights include –

• WAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE coverage, featuring “Charting a Bold Course” by Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation.
• ASES Policy Committee recommendations for the new administration.
• New sections such as What’s New at SolarToday.org, Howzit Work?, Advances and New Energy.

— American Solar Energy Society [ASES]

1. Get Free Email Updates >
2. Become a Member >
3. Donate to ASES >
4. Find a Solar Installer >
5. Find an ASES Chapter >

UN Climate Change Conference falters, defers

Prez Elect Obama’s Green Team nominations came just after the United Nations’ annual climate change conference sputtered to an indecisive close at Poznań, Poland last week, failing to set ambitious new goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Al Gore rallied future hope saying, “To those who are fearful that it is too difficult to conclude this process with a new treaty by the deadline that has been established for one year from now in Copenhagen, I say it can be done, it must be done. Let’s finish this process at Copenhagen. Don’t take the pressure off. Let’s make sure that we succeed.”

Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist, was one of the first to describe global warming as an emerging environmental crisis in his 1989 book The End of Nature. His latest book is called Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is also co-founder of the environmental mobilization campaign called 350.org. The number 350 refers to calls for a new global target to reduce carbon dioxide levels to no more than 350 parts per million. Just returning from Poland where he attended the UN climate change conference in Poznan, he comments on the changing paradigm as the seriousness of the situation is setting in:

The politics of this, as opposed to the policy, is finally starting to change as more and more people begin to realize that we’re way deeper into the climate problem than we thought.
First thing that happened was that the small island nations and less-developed countries of the world, the first and most vulnerable victims to climate change, sharpened their rhetoric considerably. They started talking about survivability and asking other nations, many of which complied, to sign a pledge saying that whatever they did, they would try to build a climate policy that allowed all nations of the world to survive, not to sink beneath the rising seas or the expanding deserts. I mean, we’re seriously talking, in the not-too-distant future, about hauling flags down outside the UN, because those countries no longer exist. That began to sharpen, the rhetoric.

The other thing that happened—was a part of Gore’s speech, that got him by far the longest and lustiest round of applause—was when he said—and this was an [enormous] breakthrough—that we have to start aiming for 350 parts per million CO2. That sounds like a small technical change from 415 parts per million, the current goal, but in fact it changes every aspect of this debate. Since we’re already past 350—we’re at about 387 parts per million now; that’s why the Arctic is melting—it means that we have to treat this as the full-on emergency that it is, not one more problem on a long list, but the absolute central keystone problem that we have to go to work on in the most impassioned way right now.

Now, look, the momentum of the talks is such that they’ll kind of drag on in their current form for a while towards Copenhagen next December. But I think that the reality of the world’s—the reality of the physics and chemistry in the atmosphere is beginning to overtake the political reality that’s been the main feature of these talks. We’re going to see a much sharpened, much heightened debate with a lot more people getting a lot angrier and demanding actual change.

read more from Democracy Now.org
Al Gore endorses 350 for the planet – read the story…
pingback on 350 is now the most important number on the planet

ecopsych 101

ec-o-psy-chol-o-gy n.
1. The emerging synthesis of ecology and psychology
2. The skillful application of ecological insight to the practice of psychotherapy
3. The study of our emotional bond with the Earth
4. The search for an environmentally-based standard of mental health
5. Re-defining “sanity” as if the whole world mattered

Principles of Deep Ecology

1. All living beings have intrinsic value.
2. The richness and diversity of life has intrinsic value.
3. Except to satisfy vital needs, humankind does not have the right to reduce this diversity and this richness.
4. It would be better for human beings if there were fewer of them, and much better for other living creatures.
5. Today the extent and nature of human interference in the various ecosystems is not sustainable, and the lack of sustainability is rising.
6. Decisive improvement requires considerable change: social, economic, technological, and ideological.
7. An ideological change would essentially entail seeking a better quality of life rather than a raised standard of living.
8. Those who accept the aforementioned points are responsible for trying to contribute directly or indirectly to the realization of the necessary changes.

from The Trumpeter (.pdf)

This Is Reality

the This Is Reality – Come Clean on Clean Coal Campaign: There is no such thing as “clean”coal

This Is Reality|these are The Facts

Atrazine: U.S. use and biological effects

The movie FLOW, raises close-to-home concerns about use of Atrazine–a herbicide so toxic it’s banned in Switzerland where it’s made–on U.S. crops, especially corn–which, as shown in King Corn,  is ubiquitous in the tap water of 10 million people in corn-belt states. EWG reports that 7.2 million Americans in 21 states drank tap water contaminated with Atrazine at levels above health-based limits between 1998 and 2003.

Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004 because of its persistent groundwater contamination^.[2] In the United States, however, atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides, with 76 million pounds of it applied each year.^[9] It is probably the most commonly used herbicide in the world, and is used in about 80 countries worldwide.^[10] Its endocrine effects, possible carcinogenic effect, and epidemiological connection to low sperm levels in men has led several researchers to call for banning it in the US.^[2]

THE SHIFT movement

THESHIFTMOVIE.COM

THE SHIFT is a transcending movement and a movie-in-progress that stems from an uncompromising longing for cultural reform all across the globe…it can be felt as a fundamental desire throughout humanity for peace, social justice and sustainability…and it is manifesting through a swell of activity at the most grass-roots levels of our society!

Appropriate Technology Resources

Foxfire is the term for the bioluminescence created in the right conditions by a few species of fungi that decay wood.

As a kid, I remember my Grandfather’s Foxfire books, which were an effort  to document the lifestyle, culture, and skills of people in southern Appalachia in a mixture of how-to information from first-person narratives and oral history. The series of Foxfire books come from the Foxfire Magazine, which was created in the late 1960s by Eliot Wigginton and his students in an effort to record and preserve the unique traditional folk culture of the Southern Appalachians. This particular type of knowledge is a kind of social science but, can also be referred to as Appropriate Technology,  as it was specific to the region and needs of its people.

There are regions all over the world in which the needs of its local population vary, but are similar to the needs of other regions. All of these appropriate technologies are very simple and sustainable in their practice. Another term for this phrase could be “sustainable technology” as well.

Sustainable Consumerism? there’s strength in numbers

Sustainable Consumerism sounds like an oxymoron… but buying certified products makes good social, economic and ecological sense. It cuts out intermediary buyers and guarantees small producers prices that exceed their production costs. It also helps protect the environment. Purchase items that benefit the environment and producers in developing countries – how and where you spend your money matters!

The Center for Biological Diversity: a great cause

The Center for Biological Diversity works through science, law, and creative media to secure a future for all species, great or small, hovering on the brink of extinction.

spotlight campaigns

	An Arctic Icon Changes the World Meet the beloved bear that made the Bush administration sit up and take notice of the effects of global warming — if not its causes.
	The Endangered Species Act in Peril In his 11th hour, President Bush is trying to gut our nation’s flagship environmental law. Get the details and take action today to save it.
	Watchfrogging Political Corruption See how we uncovered evidence of government malfeasance and are working to save the species harmed.
	Hear the Call of the Wild? You’re not alone. We recently celebrated the 150,000th download around the world of our endangered species ringtones.