While America’s people are calling overwhelmingly for less money in politics, our Supreme Court is moving in the opposite direction. 
Here are a couple of courtroom renderings by the Daily Show, depicting this week’s proceedings: 
Is there any other explanation for the SUPREME mess in America today? Please, somebody, make it make sense. Bucky is spinning in his grave.
Author: Patricia Ravasio
I love speaking about ideas for achieving humanity’s success, which were passed on to me in 1982 by American genius Buckminster Fuller. Bucky’s ideas and integrities reflect subtle shifts in thinking necessary to help humanity find a more sustainable path to the future. Or at least to know we were leaning in the right direction.
WHY WOMEN MUST STEP UP TO LEAD THE WORLD NOW.
What would life on Earth be like if women were in charge? Bucky’s wisdom about the overall superiority of the feminine gender to provide enlightened global leadership was published by McCall’s Magazine in a 1968 article, entitled “Why Women Will Rule the World”.
Bucky said that if woman can find the courage and power to insist on a government focused on nurturance, replacing our obsession with weaponry with that off “livingry”, we can help all countries around the world get onto a sustainable course that aims to make the world work for 100% of humanity.
This is not about politics, Bucky says. This is about real life on planet earth. With all due respect to today’s male paradigm leaders, focused on competition and aggression against one another, we know you have tried, but in light of abysmal recent events and a decided lack in any progress on peace and justice issues, isn’t it time to give women a shot?
A world led by women, Bucky said, would toss out outdated notions of scarcity which dominate the male paradigm. Abundant technology and knowledge has brought humanity to the point where we need not be “us versus them”, but contrarily, must insist that it is all about “US”. All of us connected. At-one-ment. Atonement. One United Spaceship Planet Earth.
Women, and people who think like women, bring so much to the table: compassion, cooperative spirit and community, and in doing so can create a new and superior kind of leadership. This leadership paradigm is not exclusively female, yet is clearly based on a feminine model and should be accepted as such.
The first (and huge) step in which women must lead is to wean the world off fossil fuels. Most of the oil in the ground needs to stay there. They are our reserves for the future, our “energy savings account” as Bucky put it, and burning them is like burning up the house to keep the family warm. Not worth it.
By switching to “readily tappable cosmic energies of sun, wind and wave power” we can create true economic freedom for all people. Clean energy would allow us to work less and thrive more in a healthier environment. We could stay closer to home, and live more creative, artistic and sustainable lives if we didn’t have to labor daily for our energy supply. And that would give us time to rule the world, just like Bucky said we would, while our husbands tinkered with their scientific inventions and other intellectual pursuits in their home offices and backyard.
Women must find the courage to speak truth to power NOW. Wield your mighty keyboard. Share this message. Future generations are depending on us. Start by reading Bucky’s article below for more details about how cool life could be with women in charge. As Bucky said, If we simply commit ourselves to making this happen, we are almost there.
Dealing with carbon is moral imperative of war
UN Panel’s latest report shows the need for Congress to put aside differences and move toward a solution. Common ground can be found in a carbon tax that gives revenue back to the people. (The following report is from the Citizen’s Climate Lobby.)
With the world’s leading experts giving their most dire warning yet on the impact of climate change, it’s time for the United States to move at wartime speed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, starting with a revenue-neutral carbon tax. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could not be clearer or more emphatic: Our world is already seeing the disastrous effects of climate change, and things will get much, much worse in years to come if we do not swiftly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are literally our goose.
From The New York Times:“The report… concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.
“The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth, the report found.
“Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said.
“And the worst is yet to come, the scientists said in the second of three reports that are expected to carry considerable weight next year as nations try to agree on a new global climate treaty. In particular, the report emphasized that the world’s food supply is at considerable risk — a threat that could have serious consequences for the poorest nations.”
“Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the intergovernmental panel, said at a news conference releasing the IPCC report.
Despite our enourmous political differences, America’s history shows we are capable of coming together and achieving remarkable things when faced with great threats and challenges. Such was the case in stopping global tyranny during World War II and again with the Moon landing, events that firmly established the U.S. as the world’s leader. Today we face a threat greater than the fascism of the 20th Century and a challenge more daunting than putting a man on the Moon. We have the capacity to overcome the self-inflicted wounds of climate change and avoid a catastrophic future, but only if this crisis is met with similar urgency and effort. Such urgency and effort requires that Republicans and Democrats in Congress set aside their differences for the good of our nation and our world, but that is yet to happen. Perhaps this is because the two sides have yet to find common ground on effective solutions. With Congress at an impasse, President Obama has taken the initiative by directing the Environmental Protection Agency to develop regulations that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. Republicans, who oppose further regulations and view new EPA rules as an expansion of government, are pushing back hard on the President’s effort.
Rather than attacking the EPA for doing what Congress has failed to do, opponents of regulation should embrace a market-based solution favored by a number of prominent conservatives: Put a tax on carbon and give the revenue back to the people.
Conservative economists, from Romney advisor Greg Mankiw to Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, argue that the free market normally gravitates to things that are good for our society. There are times, however, when the price of something does not reflect its damage, the cost of which is borne by society. Such is the case with fossil fuels, whose price does not reflect the health, security and environmental costs that arise from their use. If we fix this price distortion – through a steadily-increasing tax – the market will gravitate toward cleaner energy and energy efficiency without the need for regulations or subsidies.
Detractors who argue against a carbon tax say it will kill jobs, drag down the economy and burden families with higher energy bills. But a well-designed carbon tax that recycles revenue back to households and into the economy would protect families from rising costs and actually add jobs. A recent study by Regional Economic Models, Inc. found that a carbon tax in California, even at very high levels, would increase GDP and add hundreds of thousands of jobs, provided the revenue is returned to the public, either as tax cuts or direct payments.
The other main argument against a carbon tax – that it will put American businesses at a disadvantage with foreign competitors – can be easily dismissed by placing border tariffs on imports from nations that do not have an equivalent price on carbon. Such tariffs would provide the incentive for other nations to adopt similar policies, making the revenue-neutral carbon tax a solution that is global in scope.
The health, food, security and economic costs of climate change – both now and in the future – far outweigh the costs of transitioning to a society that emits less and less greenhouse gases.
From the IPCC report:
“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger.”
A carbon tax with revenue refunded to households can speed the crucial transition to a low-carbon society AND have a positive impact on our economy. It’s time for lawmakers in Congress to exhibit the kind of cooperation shown in previous times of great adversity by embracing this sensible solution.
NEW CLIMATE REPORT SAYS ACTION POSSIBLE
The first updated climate report in seven years, from the International Panel on Climate Change, finds that fossil-fuel created greenhouse gasses have already affected every continent with damaging climate events and changes, and will continue to do so. The report, due out Monday, and leaked to the Guardian (UK), says these effects include droughts, floods, food interruption, water interruption, ocean warming and acidification. It concludes that these risks can be lowered if ambitious action is taken to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
It concludes that governments – if they act now – can help protect populations from those risks. The IPCC hopes that by presenting the report in terms of risks, it can avoid some of the inevitable controversy that will emerge when the report is reviewed by climate deniers.
There is a dance of insanity and calamity underway today. Having been criticized as alarmist seven years ago, government officials and scientists are gathered in Yokohama, Japan this week to finalize the report before the final wording is released on Monday. Nearly 500 people must sign off on the exact wording of the summary, including the 66 expert authors, 271 officials from 115 countries, and 57 observers.
But, according to the Guardian newspaper in the UK, everyone is already signed off on the critical finding that climate change is already having an effect. And that even a small amount of warming in the future could lead to “abrupt and irreversible changes”.
So the question we need to start asking ourselves is this: If our government knows how to control risk, why aren’t they doing it?
Here’s my petition asking president Obama to end fossil fuel subsidies.
We need lots of signatures. Please sign it, and then share this Buckyworld post. Thank you.
One thin layer of compost, one giant leap for mankind.
Who would have imagined that a thin layer of compost, spread over grasslands, would be able to suck massive amounts of carbon out of the air, all while helping the land retain more water and be more productive for agriculture?
The Marin Carbon Project in Marin County, California, is a new carbon sequestration program which is said to provide ecological benefits to farms, improve agricultural productivity and economic sustainability, all while helping to mitigate global climate change by sequestering carbon.
Field testing by MCP indicates we could offset most of the greenhouse gases produced by commercial and residential energy use in California by applying the program to just half of its grasslands. See MCP’s test results here.
The MCP project has received a grant from the USDA to develop a countywide agricultural carbon sequestration program to serve as a model for other regions in California, the western US, and the nation.
MCP launched its year-long carbon farming program last Fall (2013) on three farms in West Marin: Stemple Creek Ranch (700 acres), Straus Dairy (500 acres), and Corda Ranch (in the San Antonio Creek watershed). 
After performing extensive baseline soil sampling and rangeland assessment on these farms, close to 4,000 cubic yards of compost supplied by West Marin Compost was applied on nearly 100 acres of rangelands on these farms.
This program, which pulls carbon right out of the air, could make a difference not just in California, but also in our global search for climate solutions.
We need more ideas that suck the way this one does.
JUST AS BUCKY SAID: CLIMATE CHANGE URGENT THREAT TO HUMANITY
Scientists are again calling for a revolution now, saying we simply must turn away from fossil fuels, so that we can disable the rogue industry which places their profits ahead of our entire planet’s future. 
In a report released yesterday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science warns that the situation is now urgent.
What are we going to do?
Still nothing?
Here’s the link to the full statement and report, which you can download.
UPDATE ON THE CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION
“What once seemed impossible now seems inevitable.” – Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben and Hunter Lovins just wrapped up an inspiring conference call on the Whole Earth Summit, a virtual global gathering aimed at bringing anxious and sleepless followers up to date on how the revolution is going. There are signs of hope:
More solar panels were installed in California last year than all previous years combined. Major divestitures of fossil fuel stocks is now shaking and waking the industry. The beast is growling. The resistance is growing. The revolution is on, and here’s what they say we should be focused on doing now to support it.
1. DIVEST. McKibben’s divestiture campaign has been successful. While we can’t make them bankrupt (Exxon earned more last year than any year or any company ever on Earth) we can make big oil and its destructive enterprises morally bankrupt. Which is all it has ever taken to bring down a big ugly monster. (Think Apartheid.) We are de-legitimizing the industry, he says, and it is working. A global leadership has coalesced which agrees that fossil fuels have become a moral issue. Smart businessmen know their futures are also at stake in a collapsing ecosystem. The world is coming around to knowing that something must be done quickly to put the brakes on carbon.”What once seemed impossible now seems inevitable.”
2. LIVE LOCALLY. To do your share as an individual, Hunter Lovins calls on us to spend locally, and with our morality. If we live, work and spend closer to home, supporting businesses that support our community, we will greatly reduce our carbon footprints. If we trade with our neighbors for things that we need, we will put less into the landfills. If we grow and eat locally grown food, we will know exactly what we are eating.”What you do every day with your money and your life can serve your community, build your community’s economy, and also save the world,” said Lovins. Maybe it’s time to end that long stupid commute to nowhere? Get back to the garden somehow.
3. BECOME STUDENTS OF NATURE. “We must set our sights on creating a regenerative world,” said Lovins. “We know that nature is in charge, not us, which is why there is a clean energy imperative now.” Nature can sweep us off like a bad case of fleas, she said, and Nature is now giving us her final warning, that we must do everything we can, both globally and locally, to curb the amount of carbon pollution we are creating. For example, from nature’s standpoint, if you drive a long way to work, there is virtually nothing you can do in the course of the day to make up for the damage you have done, and you haven’t even driven home yet.
We must learn to want what nature needs from us. A regenerative, resilient, sustainable existence. And, painfully and improbably, but necessarily, America must lead the world on this — since we have been among the world’s worst offenders up until now, and since developing countries want to be like us.
4. JOIN THE REVOLUTION. SHOW UP. Join http://www.350.org and get updates on what you can do locally to support clean energy. There’s a big anti-fracking event on March 15 in Sacramento. I am hoping to be on that bus!
5. HAVE HOPE. McKibben and Lovins were less than visionary on the whole “what is your vision” thing, so I will share Bucky’s. In a clean energy world, we will be able to labor less for our daily energy supply, meaning we could enjoy more in our lives. We could give up the specious notion that everyone has to work for a living. Once we have crossed over to the other side of fossil fuels, we will be able to relax more, live more and find new freedoms.
ULTIMATE FREEDOM FOR HUMANITY CAN ONLY COME FROM A CLEAN ENERGY WORLD.
PLEASE ANSWER THIS POLL AND THEN SHARE THIS POST to help keep this amazing and necessary revolution going.
Thank you.
AMERICA’S MEMORY LOSS: What we knew in ’82.
The greenhouse effect has been well understood for over a century, and by 1982, conclusive proof was delivered to the US Congress that global warming was a real threat, and that our use of fossil fuels was the primary cause. So says former NASA scientist James Hansen, who testified before Congress back in the 1980s. Hansen gave scientific proof back then that greenhouses gasses were acting like a blanket over the Earth, and that increasing levels of carbon would exacerbate both ends of the weather extreme. His report predicted more heat, floods, droughts, fierce storms, rising oceans, melting icecaps, all things happening now as carbon levels continue to rise.
Hansen was attacked for his statements, especially when he pointed out that the White House had altered transcripts of his testimony. “I decided to go back to being a scientist, and leave the communication to others,” he says. But a couple of years ago, Hansen realized that nothing was happening. Our governments were continuing to force us to subsidize fossil fuels. This made Hansen feel he needed to speak out again, motivated by love for his grandchildren, who he said “did not deserve to inherit a climate that was spiraling out of control”.
In a 2012 Ted Talk, Hansen brilliantly proposes a simple fee and dividend system, instead of a tax, that would be paid by the fossil fuel companies directly to the American people. Putting a price on carbon, which more accurately reflects its true cost to the world, Hansen says, is the chief requirement for making a transition to clean energy in time to avoid a collapse of our climate.
Hansen patiently explains that the longer we dither the more expensive and difficult it will become: “If we’d done this in 2005,” Hansen says, “we would have only needed a 2 percent reduction in carbon to regain a balanced environment.” By 2013, he says it would have taken 6 percent. A few more years from now and it will be fifteen percent, which will be very difficult, painful and expensive to accomplish.
This soft spoken Midwestern scientist is asking for all our help in communicating the need to put a price on carbon NOW, before it is too late.
He’s doing it for his grandchildren. I’m doing because I don’t want to be part of the first generation to know conclusively that we screwed it all up, even though the solution was right in front of us.
Hansen’s Ted Talk has under a million views. It should have at least one billion.
Thank you for all the Facebook shares. I hope you and your friends will follow Buckyworld — to help keep these important ideas alive.
What would Bucky say?
My brilliant young friend pitched a book this weekend at the San Francisco Writers’ Conference about the need for an environmental revolution. A New York literary agent interrupted him. “Don’t you realize people read to escape all that?” She was right of course. There are no bestsellers about how Earth’s ecosystem is shutting down, even though it is. It doesn’t help to rehash the negatives about how far behind the Earth has fallen, or about how geniuses like Buckminster Fuller predicted the state of the world today. Nobody wants to hear it. The challenge is to find a positive spin, something people will want to read, and then give them a meaningful (not too demanding) call to action.
My guess is there are thousands, maybe a million writers working on this. Let’s hope someone figures it out.
In the meantime, there is some positive news Bucky would like. John Kerry’s bold proclamation this week that climate change is the world’s most fierce “weapon of mass destruction” was a blast of fresh political air. Bucky would give Kerry’s Indonesia speech a standing ovation, saying that the State Department’s mission to protect the security of our country by reckoning with all enemies, both foreign and domestic, is finally being addressed. But what will actually come of this? Will he and President Obama still approve the KXL pipeline? Are they not begging us to support their stance against the awesome power of the fossil fuel industry? Might we be on the verge of understanding, at long last, that today’s “weapons of mass destruction” are the oil, gas and coal reserves now safely under ground? How do we get these “resources” reclassified as enemies of life on earth? Bucky would say that the answer to this is simple: Speak out. Speak truth to power. Let them know the political will exists. Don’t just think about it. Do it. Write John Kerry right now.
Bucky woke up every day wondering what he could do to help all of humanity thrive on Earth. Today he would call on us all to simply lean into the ongoing evolutionary shift, away from weaponry and toward “livingry”. He would encourage each of us to be a “trim tab”, the tiniest rudder that helps turn even the greatest ship around. He would remind us that the little individual has the freedom to accomplish things no government or corporation can. He might also say it’s time to flip the famous Franklin D. Roosevelt quote on its head: “The only thing we have to fear is not enough fear.”
But back to the positive! We can also celebrate China’s decision one year ago today, to tax carbon pollution. Yes, Virginia, there is a carbon tax in China. Despite this, the number one argument you hear from Americans about why nothing can or should be done about climate change is that countries like China and India will ruin the Earth no matter what Americans do. Put this in the “everything you know is wrong” column. Bucky would kindly say that Americans should make an effort to see America the way the world does, that we are the ones who still believe we are too big to fail. We are the ones Fracking our lands and water to ruin.
But there is hope from ideas springing up all over the world that exemplify Bucky’s ‘design science revolution’. One close to my home in Marin County, California, is the Marin Carbon Project, an agricultural experiment to learn just how much carbon the dirt can hold, and what influence that might have on crops. The answers are: more than anyone thought, and wow, it makes a huge difference. You can read more about the magic of mulch in an op-ed piece in the Marin Independent Journal.
Revolution is Televised from Davos
A panel of world leaders – Ban ki Moon, Bill Gates, Paul Polman, Al Gore and others – concluded at the World Economic Summit in Davos that we are on a path toward a new “Climate Change Economy” which will phase out fossil fuels and help eradicate world poverty.
At last a stated objective from world leaders to live up to Bucky’s vision of “a world that works for everybody, without harm to the environment”.
What’s happening now, according to the panel, is not a government process, but a partnership of concerned entities and citizens to create a more just and sound economy AND a healthier climate. They spoke of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies worldwide, of progress being made in agriculture, urbanization and financing of clean energy development.
A representative from Nigeria explained her country’s “Domestic Resource Mobilization” program, which is working to help that country marshal its own resources toward clean energy and poverty reduction. Isn’t that something that could be used everywhere, including here in America?
“We must break the false paradigm of thinking that we cannot solve climate change and world poverty at the same time. We can and are,” said Paul Polman. Polman said the emerging partnership between governments, business and citizens is “a partnership based on morality” and that today’s “incredibly complex” and urgent situation creates “a unique opportunity to join and work collectively”.
Buckminster Fuller predicted in 1982 that it would take an “emergence through emergency” for humans to muster the will to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. It is gratifying, at long last, to hear that this may actually be starting to happen. Al Gore says we are almost at the tipping point, politically speaking this time, when “the will will exist” for 100% clean energy.
There are many brilliant and shining examples in the world every day of how a peaceful, just, and clean energy planet may be coming. The photo above is of Singapore’s solar powered super trees. (The link is for a CNN report about them.) These trees create energy, capture rainwater and carbon. And here’s a link to an even more exciting idea from a company that is modeling energy solutions on the wisdom of trees.
As of today, after watching the Davos panel and reading up on what’s new, I am a born-again optimist. It’s a Bucky kind of day!
BUCKYIDEAS 