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.

BUCKY + BARACK = LIVABLE PLANET COMING SOON!

IMAG2801I am pinching myself today to make sure I am not dreaming. Did Barack Obama really say that climate change was going to be a major focus of his next four years as president?

Most of the media is not saying much today, but the New York Times, (GOD BLESS THAT NEWSPAPER!) has the right take on it, once again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/us/politics/climate-change-prominent-in-obamas-inaugural-address.html?_r=0

I don’t have time to write more at the moment, as I trying to write my book about Bucky.

Please say I am not dreaming, that we are really going to have the courage to demand cleaner, greener, less costly alternatives, so that we can create the world that Buckminster Fuller envisioned: A world that works for everyone.

It all sounds so pie-in-the-sky, I know. But Buckminster Fuller was a pragmatic utopian. He knew it was possible and could prove it mathmatically, through his “Inventory of World Resources”. The only thing we had to do was try. Have the courage to believe the best is possible, and then focus on that. A world that works for 100% of humanity, what’s so hard about that?

Bucky had faith in the amazing abilities of human beings to solve even huge and complex problems.

Just have faith and keep that pressure on. That’s all you have to do. Use the law of attraction. Be a good “trim tab” on this United Spaceship Planet Earth, and just lean into Bucky’s proverbial curve, and let the fossil fuel industry know that the people have more power than the people in power, and we demand a transference to solar power now. And wind, wave and all those other interesting possibilities you have been shutting down for decades.

Yes, the human species is going to put the brakes on carbon and turn this great ship around, just in the nick of time.

BUCKY IS DANCING TODAY!

BUCKY IS DANCING TODAY!

The world is waking up! A letter from Climate Progress, signed by an impressive group of environmental scientists, urges President Obama to take immediate and decisive action on the climate. The United Nations, the World Bank, and important groups of investors are now recognizing what environmentalists have known all along: a collapsing environment is a serious economic problem. The letter, sent today, basically demands that the president treat climate change as what it is: Public Enemy Number One. Here’s the letter. Read it, share it, and pray that President Obama will have the courage to respond.

“Corporate Socialism Must End”

As we continue to throw our poor and our grannies under the bus, America is still coddling and protecting its corporations as if they were essential to our future, even though the reverse is true.

We have known for over 50 years that fossil fuels must be phased out to ensure the future of our species.

Our will is lacking, because there is a perception that the sacrifice will be too gerat, that we will have to return to pre-industrial lifestyles in order to reduce our carbon footprints and restore balance to our natural world.

This is (denier think-tank concocted) utter crap. All we have to do is muster the will to insist that our government (and its cozy corporate partners) move quickly, now, to support full-scale development of already known and readily available clean energy technologies.

The time is now. Even climate change deniers agree that viable alternatives exist. But because America and other capitalists economies continue to insist on corporate socialism we just can’t seem to make it happen.

Not only are corporations not “people” as our ridiculous courts have ruled, but (in Bucky’s words): “Corporations are socioeconomic ploys — legally enacted game-playing — agreed upon only between overwhelmingly powerful individuals and then imposed upon human society and its unwitting members.”

Today, not only are the sun, wind and waves standing idle and ready to help, but Nobel Prize winning scientists have also proven that every nanoparticle of our entire universe contains energy waiting to be harvested. In the form of geothermal, electromagnetic or plain old “zero point” energy, the technology now exists to harvest and use this energy. Check out the recent Ted Talk from Justin Hall on this. As Hall puts it, “The energy of future is free energy. The grid of the future is no grid.”

Bucky wrote in 1982: “A vast overabundance of Earthian cosmic energy income (electromagnetic, geothermal, wind, sun, wave, water) is now technically impoundable and distributable to humanity by presently proven technology. We are not allowed to enjoy this primarily because tax-hungry government and money-drunk big business can’t figure a way of putting meters between those cosmic energy sources and the Earthian passengers, so nothing is done about it.”

So when climate deniers demand to know why you still drive a car if you believe that fossil fuels are ruining the Earth, ask “Why are you demanding we retreat as a species to solve problems that are clearly solvable by moving forward – to clean, renewable energy sources?”

If we simply do this, we can begin to live as nature intended. Just as the grass pays nothing for sun and rain, Humans too should expect to live in a free energy world. No more absurdity of driving a car to get to work in order to earn enough money to drive a car to get to work!

Doing this would, as Bucky said, “elevate all of humanity to realization of an inherently sustainable higher standard of living.”

And if we don’t? Again in Bucky’s words: “Whether or not it will be Utopia or Oblivion is our choice. It will be a touch and go relay race up to the final moment. Humanity is in ‘final exam’ as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance.”

Let’s call upon all the fine people of United Spaceship Planet Earth, and especially all Americans who have fallen for corporate socialism: It’s crunch time. Let’s do this.

All we have to do is loosen the noose around our necks and step out of it. Support carbon taxes, green incentives, and global partnerships with countries that are way ahead of us. All of the above.

Yes, there will be some economic costs to this, and some sacrifices. But economies come and go. The environment is forever.

By speaking up, writing often and continuing to demand that our government turn its full attention to making this absolutely critical transformation happen, we can accomplish the true and nature-intended evolution of our amazing species of “United Space Planet People.”

The alternative is unthinkable.

Still waiting for the world to change?

613_10151227915312708_465097864_nIt was April, 1971 on the New York Times Op-Ed page that Buckminster Fuller and Maine Senator Edmund Muskie debated “the poetics of pollution”.  Their lively discussion was spurred by an oil refinery proposed for an area not far from Bucky’s beloved home on Bear Island. Bucky demanded that Muskie intervene, emphatically opposing further mining and burning of fossil fuels. To go on using fossil fuels, Bucky said, “is equivalent to drilling a hole from the sidewalk into a bank vault, pumping out money and calling it free enterprise discovery”.

Bucky patiently and poetically pointed out that tapping the sun’s “cosmically inexhaustible energy” and harnessing the tides would generate sufficient renewable energy income to allow polluting fossil fuels to remain permanently in the ground.

Muskie, who actually had no power to block the refinery, but was a potential presidential candidate at the time, acknowledged the greener environmental possibilities. “The U.S. has the knowledge, the skill and treasure” to thus save our environment in this way, but “only our dedication — commitment — is in doubt.”

More than forty years later, while we allow the fossil fuel industry desperately dynamite the earth in order to gain release of remaining vaults of fossil fuels, these were almost identical to the words spoken by President Obama in his first press conference following his re-election in November. While acknowledging the urgency of the problem, he questioned whether America had the political will to tackle climate change in any meaningful way.

Needless to say, this is all getting a little wearisome for those of us who have been waiting for the world to change for forty years or more.  The evidence of real and destructive impacts of continued and increased fossil fuel use is growing by leaps and bounds. Yet little is actually being done to counter it, or even control it, or to motivate greener technologies.  As Bucky said that same year “Man knows so much, but does so little.”

There are a few good signs.  An Eco-Watch summary report of climate change stories in 2012 makes it clear that the subject is slowly rising in the public consciousness:  http://ecowatch.org/2012/story-of-year-its-global-warming-stupid/

But other critical issues like gun violence and the economy, along with silliness like Kardashian pregnancies (!) still too often steal America’s attention span from this, the one most critical issue facing the entire human race.

What we need is a new high profile leader, someone engaging and compelling, who can make Americans demand more and better action from our government. Making John Kerry our Secretary of State might help.  Matt Damon makes a good effort in his anti-fracking movie called Promise Land.   Too bad Oprah Winfry doesn’t care about anything more substantial than fluffy family room pillows these days. She could have been a real force for change.  Michael Moore is too much about Michael Moore.  George Clooney might be able to do it. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert seem luke warm on the subject. Maybe Brad and Angela or Sean Penn could help.  Even better might be an articulate, outspoken child.

While this may sound desperate, it has become obvious that the baby boomer generation, which is unfortunately still in power, is too selfish and myopic to manage this issue effectively.  The paradox of our age is that we still have, forty years later, everything we need in order to turn this ship around in time. Except for the will to do it. Which is everything.

Ask climate deniers what’s the downside?

Artic Melt Before and After

I’ve been battling it out on the front lines (comment columns) with climate deniers recently, and I have to say that some of them are very good at substantiating their positions.  It’s true that regardless of which position you take, it is relatively easily to find charts and graphs and numbers to support that position.  So to me, it comes down to this: what’s the harm in trying to clean up the environment?  What would be the worst case scenario if we all went the way of Germany and began to harvest a major percentage of our energies from clean and renewable sources?  Does anyone really believe that fracking, or deep water drilling, or dirty-no-matter-what-you-call-it coal, or high risk nuclear power is a better way to answer our energy needs than solar, or wind, or other readily tappable, natural forces of nature? We know the technology to do this now exists, that it’s all just a matter of scaling it up.  So what could possibly be the harm in pursuing newer, clener forms of energy, except that there would be a loss in profits for the fossil fuel industry?  An active pursuit of new energy technologies would help stimulate the economy, while making us all healthier, less polluted people. To me the whole issue is like C.S. Lewis’s (corrected) famous evaluation of Christianity: It’s either a fanciful story designed to get us all to behave better, or it is the single most important fact of human existence and absolutely critical to our continued existence.  So what’s the worse case scenario?  What’s the harm in moving ahead and doing things a better way?  Isn’t it time for us all to come together, over on the side where there aren’t any definite losers, other than a single industry that has done at least some harm to our environment?

Some of the deniers I’ve been chatting with really don’t like this Buckyworld blog at all. That’s okay. If you would like, as some of you requested, to read a more in-depth story, here’s a great little piece on climate deniers from Truthout. Some of you will get to see your name in lights!  And if you scroll down here, you can also find many links to recent climate change new stories. And just to cover all sides, here’s a link to one of the most popular climate change denial blogs, www.wattsupwiththat.com (where you can find several very lively attacks on me!)

I do hope we’ll come together for what may be the most important challenge human beings will ever face. Or at the very least, for a healthy and exciting way to stimulate the economy with some great new technologies.   Open mind, clear conscience, can’t lose!

P.S. I’m unplugging for a few days to take a trip with my daughter, so no more posts for a few days, but please keep sharing Buckyworld with your friends and keep e-mailing those who need to hear from all of us about what Buckminster Fuller believed was “humanity’s final examination”. Thank you for reading!

 

End Fossil fuel subsidies — before they end us!

It is long past time to cease altogether the $52 billion (or more) in subsidies and tax breaks paid to the US Fossil Fuel industry. Sign this quick petition to President Obama. With just 25,000 signatures, it will land on his desk!  Put those billions into alternative energy development and we could start to steer this sinking ‘united spaceship planet earth’ onto a whole new course.

Obama throws climate under bus…….Send e-mail now.

Time to send another e-mail to Mr. Obama, who has failed the climate and its people once again.  Some 20 million offshore acres, many in deepwater, have been auctioned off to the oil industry.  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held an oil and gas lease sale this morning selling off most of the 20 million offshore acres available in the Western Gulf of Mexico. That’s every last available parcel.

And that’s not all.  President Obama also just signed a bill that excludes all U.S. airlines from modest, reasonable European carbon emissions fees. Here’s the full story from The Hill. It would have amounted to a few bucks per international plane ticket.  But the U.S. airlines industry threw a typical hissy fit, and congress whipped together a “ban” on such tariffs.  Obama signed the law on Tuesday.

This was President Obama’s first test of his second term. He has failed, proving that Americans and their president are all talk and no action on climate change.

And yes, this the same president who said that Americans are “threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”

Now, this morning, Obama wants Americans to tweet that they want their “#my2k” in tax cuts.  Tweet this to Obama:

“What good is #my2k to people on a dying planet?”

While you’re at it, send him an email, demanding he stop coddling the corporate toddlers who are ruining the planet.  Tell him to end fossil fuel subsidies now.  To face our global climate failure now.  To live up to his promises, to deal with this issue.

Strap in for a rocky ride on United Spaceship Planet Earth. I can feel poor Bucky spinning in his grave right now.

Why no news on climate change?

Despite last week’s urgent warnings from the United Nations, World Bank and International Energy Authority, the mainstream American media remained virtually silent on climate change.  Sex, shopping and the ‘fiscal cliff” dominated the headlines.  To help make climate change news happen, use these easy links to demand coverage from the national media now:

Chris Matthews, Rachel, Ed and what should be low lying fruit of MSNBC….

ABC News

NBC News

CBS NEWS

CNN

And, what the heck, it’s worth a try, FOX NEWS

Two weeks of of U.N. Climate Talks are getting underway in Doha, Qatar. Here’s a (rare) story on these talks from MSNBC online.  Here’s the full story on the World Bank statement, and a great pitch from Think Progress on why addressing climate change is smart economics.

Extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise are on the horizon regardless of what we do.  But we can affect how serious these events are.

Buckminster Fuller said whether or not humanity passes this critical evolutionary test will be up to the individual.  Our effort last week to reach out to President Obama resulted in over 150 additional emails to the White House, according to click-thru stats.  So reach out and speak up (while you are also, of course, eating less meat, driving fewer miles and using less fossil fuel energy overall).

Take a few minutes now to demand responsible journalism on this issue. At the very least, you will know you did something.

Investors waking up — the “tipping point” we need.

Bucky would be smiling today at some totally synergetic news:  Some of the world’s richest investors are up in arms about the devastating economic impacts of climate change. This could be a huge breakthrough, since when money talks, politicians listen.  This time, for a nice change, the inextricable link between the two could be excellent news for the rest of us.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release dated 11/20/2012:

“Groups representing the world’s largest investors today published an open letter addressed to governments of the world’s largest economies calling for a new dialogue on climate change policy in order to avert dangerous climate change and its resulting economic impacts. The letter, announced ahead of international climate negotiations starting on 26th November in Doha calls for:

  • Clear, consistent and predictable policies that encourage low carbon investment;
  • knowledge sharing between governments on effective climate and clean energy policies, building on successful existing national and regional measures;
  • stronger international agreements that send clear market signals about the future of climate policy and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

According to the 2012 International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, announced last week, current policies and recent trends will lead to long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6°C, a level which scientists have suggested could cause catastrophic and irreversible changes to the global ecosystem.

The re-election of President Obama in the United States, the leadership transition in China and the upcoming gathering of policy makers in Doha for the UN climate change conference provide an opportunity for investors and governments to begin a new dialogue on climate change and to advance the ambitious policies necessary to substantially reduce emissions and mitigate their potential impact on the world.”

Let’s hope President Obama takes note of this letter. And just to make sure, add  yours to the pile:  E-MAIL THE PRESIDENT NOW.

Other than that, we can keep doing what many of us have been doing all along to help: Drive less. Use less energy. Invest in solar power. Support locally owned businesses.  Plant more trees. Eat less meat. Pray. Love.  Oh, and don’t forget to email the president.

 

How to put climate change on the front burner.

More and more credible reports are asserting that climate change is the most critical issue for all of humanity.  And now that the economic realities of massive climate catastrophes are now being seen and understood, maybe our own government will start to pay attention.

First, and most importantly, here again is the link to email President Obama, who needs to hear regularly, from as many of us as possible, that this issue must be effectively addressed now.

The latest reports are downright frightening, but at least they are getting some attention:

The World Bank issued an urgent warning in a report, entitled ‘Turn Down the Heat’ which says the world is on course to heat up by 4 degrees by the end of the century, triggering a torrent of catastrophic climate events, such as extreme heat-waves, declining global food resources and sea-level rises affecting hundreds of millions of people. President Jim Yong Kim says the world must tackle the problem of climate change more aggressively. The report urges immediate action by all governments to curtail C02 emissions, and to make major investments in new green technologies now.

At the UN General assembly on November 9, Secretary-General Banki-moon said:  “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal. This may be an uncomfortable truth, but it is one we ignore at our peril. The world’s best scientists have been sounding the alarm for many years,” he said. “Our own eyes can see what is happening. There can be no looking away, no persisting with business as usual, no hoping the threat will diminish or disappear.”

The UN chief said the challenge before the international community remains clear and urgent: a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening for adaptation to the even larger climate shocks expected in the future, and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015.

“This is an opportunity, not just a burden. It is a chance to steer the world on a more sustainable path – creating the jobs and energy systems and other foundations for long-term prosperity and stability for all,” Mr. Ban said. Here are his full remarks.

There’s been some excellent writing on the subject. One of the best is from Think Progress, on how turning to clean and green energies is a huge economic opportunity.  The deniers are always saying that we cannot afford the solutions, but in fact, as Think Progress points out, doing what’s right and necessary will bring out substantial economic benefits.

And speaking of deniers and liars, watch for this new documentary www.greedylyingbastards.com all about the fossil fuel industry and how their deceptions are causing us to subsidize our own destruction, to the tune of $4 billion a year. They’re negotiating distribution rights now, and the movie should be released very soon.

If you need any more inspiration to fight for ending fossil fuel subsidies, here’s a two minute video that makes a compelling pitch from an organization called Speak Your Mind.

Lastly, do speak your mind, in an e-mail to President Obama, now.  He’s waiting to hear if there is enough political will to aggressively take on this issue. Enough political will to take on the most powerful and destructive industry on the planet.  He needs to hear from all of us that we will not settle for anything less.