The concept of Spaceship Earth goes back to the visionary thinker Buckminster Fuller, and now is the time to pay heed to it. Spaceships carry a limited supply of food and water with them, and the crew must be disciplined about those limited reserves. It would be fatal to run short, but it would also be fatal to contaminate even a small portion of food and water. Because we haven't seen Earth as our spaceship, we've lost all discipline. After centuries of human influence, there is contamination everywhere.
The toxic oil spill in the Gulf is heartbreaking and so massive that it cannot be overlooked. But thirty years ago the pioneering ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau reported that every square mile of the world's oceans is covered with a thin film of oil. It's barely visible, if at all, but it's there. Because there are seemingly endless stretches of ocean -- just as there seemed to be endless stretches of ice at the poles -- human beings could afford to pretend that we aren't living on a spaceship.
That time is at an end. Technology will eventually bring us an end to fossil fuels. Water diversion can bring drinking water to the overcrowded cities where clean, potable water is quickly running out (several in India, including Mumbai, are reaching the critical point). Genetic therapies may one day bring down cancer rates by more than a trifling amount. In other words, if you are an optimist, the hazards of climate change and overpopulation are waiting for solutions that will one day emerge, hopefully sooner than later.
But what kind of a solution is it to survive on a toxic planet? This is like telling a patient that he is well because he's not about to die. We need to adopt a new kind of consciousness in which the wellness of Spaceship Earth is true wellness, not simply the absence of potentially fatal conditions. Right now, we face the potential for ecological disaster on many fronts, from the melting glaciers of the Himalayas that threaten to dislocate millions of refugees to the rising seas that could submerge the Maldives to dying coral reefs all over the globe.
Our choice is to stand back and passively let bad go to worse, or we could become active stewards of the planet. A new consciousness involves networking and group efforts. It involves political influence and the development of new leadership. But all activity begins in consciousness first; you must be aware enough to look reality in the face. We aren't doing that except in fits and starts. Overwhelmed by bad news on the ecological front for more than a decade, all of us find it easier to shut down and tune out. But there's another alternative: the invigorating, energizing call to action that leads to personal fulfillment and empowerment.
Healing this planet would be empowering for all of us. What won't empower us is sitting at the sickbed watching Mother Nature grow sicker until signs of death appear. Planetary wellness needs to become a global movement, yet it begins with you and me, and the time to act is now.
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One of the comments to his blogs asked what is the first step we need to take. My answer is: WE NEED TO BE THE FIRST STEP. This avoidance of what's happening to our beautiful planet, in fact, is not dissimilar from how we deal with our bodies and our minds. We eat unhealthily and more than we need; we stay up well past bed time; we work too much; we listen to music that is too loud; we live in neighborhoods where there are not enough trees and not enough space for children to play, and so on.
How can we become aware of what is happening to our planet, if we are not even aware of what's happening to US?
Getting more in touch with how we regularly and thoughtlessly treat our bodies and our minds, living more balanced lives and being more mindful of the effects of certain choices and behaviors allow us to be more aware of what happens around us as well. As we learn to better care for ourselves, we learn to better care for others, the environment around us and for everything that provides sustainance to life on earth.
So, let's wake up from our lethargy and start making changes that are healthy, long lasting and productive for everyone and everything involved.
For thousands of years, there has been an alliance between the ruling class and the clergy.
The clergy gain influence over communities of faithful believers by repeating the lie that a myth is a truth in defense of a fraudulent claim of an ability to know about the existence and will of a good one in Heaven at war with an evil one cast down to and ruling over Earth.
The ruling class buys influence over communities faithful believers from the clergy.
With promises of divine eternal bliss in Heaven and threats of abominable infernal suffering in Hell, the clergy extort tithes and offerings from communities of faithful believers in exchange for a life long indoctrination in the lie that a myth is a truth and lead the communities of faithful believers they influence to believe that the will of the ruling class is in fact the will of a good one in Heaven.
The purpose of this alliance between the clergy and the ruling class is to achieve and maintain authority, power, order and control over communities of faithful believers and by extension the states of our global culture.
Spiritual slavery enables the ruling class to raise great armies from amongst communities of faithful believers and order those great armies to march off to their deaths if need be.
A billion people do not get enough food to eat every day.
About thirty thousand children ages zero to five die of starvation every day.
Regardless of what is happening in the world around us, these liars lead communities of faithful believers to channel all sexual energy into sex for procreative purposes; be fruitful and multiply; work all the hours of the day from dawn to dusk and fight evil.
That is fight against anybody that is not doing the same thing; and or not believing the same way.
The consequence of loyalty to mendacity is illogical behavior.
What could be more illogical then leading communities of faithful believers to behave like racist, heterofascist, warmongers motivated to out work, out fight, and out number competition in a race to Armageddon, and to believe that Armageddon is a good thing, because that means that judgment day is nigh and the faithful will soon be elevated to a place of divine eternal bliss some call Heaven?
We need to stop lying to ourselves, stop lying to one another, start telling the truth and start behaving in a logical manner.
Selfishly we do not acknowledge the value of the theft. Willfully we refuse to see the cost of the burning. God bless America!
Really!
At the bottom of the same article the Democrats are already using this as a political bargaining chip for near term elections.
A new consciousness requires individuals to look around and desire a new path.
It appears that both parties are content with using this disaster as a tool rather than a call to arms or an opportunity for a new consciousness.
When I was a teenager I remember watching the Clamshell Alliance fight with the NRC about Emergency Procedures for the evacuation of the public around Seabrook Nuke Plant. It was clear that the procedures were not realistic but the political and financial powers felt it was a manageable risk and moved forward.
Here we like to blame the Bush's and Obama's but clearly the emergency procedures weren't adequate and the political and financial powers at the time felt it was a manageable risk, so they moved forward. We are still working on drilling deep wells as we speak.
I'd be willing to bet if we all looked around in our lives whether it be with what we eat, or how we raise our kids, or what we do at work or play we'd all find times where we decide that the risk is manageable and we're just going to move forward.
New consciousness Hmmm
butterflies, they all visit my garden, every day, year around. When the squirrels were digging up my seeds i looked online and found that they don't like marigolds. I surrounded my garden with marigolds and now the squirles stay out. 30 years ago I move into my home. I planted five redwood trees. Now they stand majestically on the West side of my home shading us from the hot summer sun and providing habitat for hundreds of little creatures. This spring I worked for the U.S. Census
Bureau. Instead of driving my car I rode my bike. It was easy, more efficient in doing my job, and I got exercise as well. When I go to san francisco I take the train....they have public transportation
in the city once I get there.....we can make changes, if everyone made small changes we could change the condition of our planet. We can do it!
Sexual predators do not contribute significantly to population growth.
If we are to try to live in a way that does not cause irreparable damage to our environment, we need to make decisions based on data and not on emotion.
Hopefully, maybe . . .
Many people are making positive changes, but then there is Texistan! Joking aside, my concern is that the pace of change will be too slow. We have only a decade or two before hell is inevitable and it seems to me that the necessary change in human perceptions and behavior may take a century or two.
The end will disappoint those expecting a Steven Spielberg production.
No walls of water or streaking asteroids.
Just a slow generational decline.
A steady litany fouled uninhabitable places.
Nagging rumors of famine, war and pestilence.
Political upheaval as people turn anywhere for a solution and turn inevitably to the wrong directions.
Individuals struggle but eventually withdraw, beaten and overwhelmed.
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."