end fossil fuel subsidies – Page 3

Something just shifted. Things are getting better.

Am I just detoxing or does 2015 seem to be brimming with possibilities for all of humanity?

President Obama has promised to veto KXL and has crafted a plan with China to reduce emissions. Awareness that there are solutions to the carbon problem is growing. Awareness of the problem itself is growing. Environmentalists and scientists are receiving more and more support in their battle for a clean, healthy and just environment.

Could the long awaited transfer to clean energy finally be happening?

It has been an awfully long wait since the 1970s, when the need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels was first acknowledged and discussed publicly. Ever since, BIG OIL, backed by corporate America and a complicit government, has worked diligently to disable these efforts.

It is time to call them what they are: greedy, selfish, nihilistic criminals. They commit crimes against humanity. Every day.

They know climate change is real. You can find proof of that right here on this site. They refuse to act because doing so would interfere with their financial profits. This is the problem with giving corporations the same rights as people. They are not people. They are androids focused soley on financial success. The government leaders in bed with them are even worse, because they have vowed to be otherwise.

As Bucky would still be saying today, it remains the job of every individual to learn into the truth and then to speak the truth. Whether or not humanity passes its final examination is an individual decision.

Do not be afraid to call out the hypocrisies and scandalous behaviors of the oil industry, and all those who call themselves leaders, but who clearly are not.

The stars are aligned for revolution. There is momentum for a clean energy economy as well as an open, acknowledged pursuit for peace and justice — for 100% of humanity.

Your actions and inactions will make the difference. There is safety in numbers. We should all speak truth to power now.

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Obama is Bucky’s kind of guy.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that renders the old one obsolete.”

― R. Buckminster Fuller

We live in dysfunctional times, and realizing this, President Obama is finding new ways to get things done for America and for the planet, and in doing so, creating a new model of leadership.

It’s no secret that the U.S. Congress is broken. Its most recent approval ratings approach single digits. During the midterm campaigns, while Republicans unanimously pointed the blame at him, President Obama quietly moved on to create new ways of working that would render the broken model obsolete.

It was announced yesterday that Obama had worked behind the scenes to solidify a plan with China to curb greenhouse emissions, and now, today we learn he also has a plan to address immigration reform.

It is a beautiful modern-day drama playing itself out: The kooky keystone cops run about smacking each other on the heads, while the calm, intelligent yet maligned leader of the free world gets matters under control. He knows our Republican controlled congress will continue to be distracted with efforts to destroy him and his previous accomplishments, such as Obamacare. While they fiddle and Rome burns, President Obama will wake up every morning and calmly step into his virtual phone booth to don his superhero cape.

It’s not that he’s being a dictator. He’s doing what he knows the majority of Americans want, and need. He’s following the wishes of his constituency, doing an end run around the bowel constriction that our Congress has become.

Now, if only he would also embrace Bucky’s core philosophy that “either war is obsolete or man is” and realize that in order to create a world that works for 100% of humanity, all we have to do is turn away from weaponry, and focus instead on creating “livingry”.

President Obama would do well to read Bucky’s book The Grunch of Giants, a brilliant exposé of how a corporate controlled government works against the interests of every living thing, including all humanity. Maybe then he will find the strength to give a flat veto to any more pipelines, including Keystone, end fossil fuel subsidies, and not ratify any more trade agreements that undermine the environment and social justice interests. Maybe he’ll even come up with some reasonable new gun laws?

Our Superhero may not be perfect, but at least he’s trying. I believe President Obama would get a big thumbs up from the genius that was Buckminster Fuller.

We are being fossil fooled.

If the world has a chance of limiting temperature rise to 2C, which has been determined to be crucial to our survival on Earth, 60 to 80 percent of current fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground.

The reverse is happening. We are subsidizing the scraping of every last vein on Earth. Ours and our government’s addiction to big oil have been happy bedfellows with the fools who put their own private financial interests ahead of humanity’s survival.

We simply must break the chains of this enslavement or risk ecosystem collapse.

Worldwide, governments are still subsidizing fossil fuel development to the tune of $500 billion annually, according to conservative estimates. What will it take to phase out exploration subsidies, and then all fossil-fuel subsidies, while while we also transfer these critical public resources to low-carbon development and universal clean energy?

How do we stop this idiotic, fossil fuelish destruction of our planet?

It begins with the courage to speak up.

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“A problem clearly stated is a problem solved.”

Buckminster Fuller said it best. If you can clearly define the problem, it is well on its way to a solution. Apply this to our dysfunctional government in America today. How do we arrive at a clear statement of the problem in light of the devastating mid-term elections, where a inexplicably destructive right wing gained full control of the US Congress?

Here is one attempt:

The takeover of our Democracy is now complete. A primary goal of this takeover is to perpetuate continued denial about the most urgent matter humans will ever face: climate change. This is to ensure continued profits for the fossil fuel industry, and makes it clear that the accelerating destruction of Earth is motivated by simple materialistic greed. Is America about to hit bottom?

Why is accurately stating the problem so important? Here’s what Bucky said (from the book Fuller’s Earth, by Richard J. Brenneman):

“The first and most important thing in solving a problem is to state what the problem is, very clearly, concisely, and incisively. State what the problem really is. I can’t stress how important this is: a problem stated is a problem solved. So many people misstate the problem to fool themselves or others. But if a problem is properly stated, if its relatedness is clearly defined, the answer will become apparent.”

Okay, your turn. How would you sum up the problem with America today? Thank you in advance for your thoughts, and for sharing Buckyworld.

Climate deniers must be denied.

We live in a time when scientists and people who respect science are so troubled by climate change that there is a whole new category of psychology being created to deal with it. A story from Grist gets into this in some detail.

Catastrophic environmental events brought on by climate change will take a heavy toll on the human psyche, and just the emotional stress of knowing can be devastating. Looking to Bucky’s wisdom for some new light to share on this problem, here’s what I found, all from the forward of his seminal 1981 book, Critical Path:

_ We are being denied. “Government and business are doing nothing to facilitate the necessary transition to clean, renewable energy.”

_ The technology exists. “Earthians are now able to live entirely within its cosmic-energy income (sun, wind, geo, etc.) instead of spending its energy savings account, fossil fuels. That we fail at making this transition is a folly no less illogical than burning up our house to keep the family warm.”

_ We must force the issue. “Only when the leaders of the world’s great power structures are convinced they are in danger of being destroyed do the adequate funds become available for new technologies.”

_ Everything is on the line. “The legacy of humanity is being held in probate by general ignorance, fear, selfishness and by bureaucratically maintained incumbent power structures.”

_ We must each speak up now. “Humans are helplessly inarticulate in the face of this crisis. They know their political representation to be corrupt, and this is devastating, but none-the-less they must find the right words, and the courage to use them.”

And finally, these words from Bucky which seem forever engraved in my mind, are what get out of bed to face the darkness:

“On personal integrity hangs humanity’s fate.”

As Bucky put it: “This is a race between a better-informed, hopeful inspired young world versus a running-scared, misinformedly brain-conditioned older world.”

Only the individual has the freedom to do what no government or corporate entity can. Speak up. Let every elected representative and candidate know that if they deny science, they too will be denied.

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The Courage to Speak Up.

I brought up the subject of climate change at a dinner party over the weekend, giving my quick pitch about how we must immediately end fossil fuel subsidies and invest in clean energy. Screen Shot 2014-10-21 at 2.31.17 PM I got nods all around, especially from the women, but my husband didn’t talk to me the rest of the night. Later he asked “Why do you always have to be such a downer? Why do you insist on hijacking every conversation?”

Thinking it over, I realized he was right. I can be an awkward nerdy jerk sometimes. I get frustrated at something someone says and just blurt it all out like some crazy lady on a street corner. My frustration has grown over the decades from seeing just how little has been accomplished toward what Bucky called “the most critical task our species will ever face.”

I did not choose this issue. It chose me the same day I spent my four hours with Buckminster Fuller on the sky deck of the John Hancock Building in Chicago (which I learned this weekend doesn’t even let you go out there anymore!) It has been some thirty years since that talk on the sky deck, and a couple of days since that dinner party, and what comes to me now is one of the last things Bucky said to me.

“It is most important that you spend time really working to get at the truth of things. Once you do, and you know a certain amount about it, you must dare yourself to speak out, and you must work hard to find ways to influence the thinking of others. Whether or not humanity survives will be an individual decision. We must each speak up.”

So what is the truth of things, as far as I can see? Well, here’s where it starts:

To achieve the necessary slow down of carbon emissions, we must immediately END FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES. At present, according to Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, world governments provide over $1.7 TRILLION in subsidies to help energy companies frack us, excavate vast polluting tar sands, cross our small towns and most pristine lands with pipes that burst, and with rail cars and derricks that explode and spill. While we are paying for this “progress” we could be developing more solar, wind, geothermal and other perfectly clean energies that would also be free, which is of course why it is not happening. We simply must stop subsidizing our own demise.

We must invest that same amount of money to DEVELOP CLEAN ENERGY.

Carbon emissions are still growing fast. It is long past time to slow them down. We must remain below a 2 degree C increase in temperature change, and the window on this is closing. Brilliant scientists are begging us to panic. Yet we allow ourselves to be distracted by wars for more oil and football and baseball. Go Giants. But let’s do panic. Let’s do speak up on social media, to our representatives, and at dinner parties.

We can explain that we do have the technology and the economic ability to accomplish 100% clean energy. That we are just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz: The power was always ours. All we have to do is decide to use it. See TheSolutionsProject.org for more on this.

A clean energy revolution will also create millions of jobs. There is no longer any excuse for allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue to subvert the clean energy revolution that will save us and change everything. We cannot allow our government to continue to subsidize our demise. As Bucky put it:

“The only reason we are not allowed to tap vast and readily available energies is that business hasn’t found a way to put a meter on the sun.”

It is not going to be easy to change the direction of this massive train on the tracks, because it requires that we change some fundamental thinking about how things work, but unless we find the courage to speak up we do not even have a fighting chance. Wield your mighty keyboard

We can and should all work on finding kinder, gentler ways to smack people upside the head with the truth, since, as the Dali Lama said, unless you can do it with kindness, you shouldn’t do it at all.

But we will all sleep better at night knowing that at least we tried; that we had the courage to speak up, even if our spouses got a little miffed.

It is a war of words and we are not yet winning.

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Prevention Versus Cure?

Superstorm Sandy A report from the U.S. Department of Defense Monday warns that climate change is a “threat multiplier” which can worsen national security problems such as terrorism and infectious disease spread, yet they, and the rest of us, seem positively determined to NOT actually tackle this enemy, at least not in any way that might prevent this most serious threat.

The military has long shown that it understands the realities of climate change. It has previously released reports warning of altered natural disaster response and drought, which will lead to conflicts over food and water. The Pentagon has also released an entire report on its strategy to address Arctic melting. Yet they are still focused on mitigating the impacts of climate change, while totally ignoring the subject of preventing it, which of course would require discussing the largest elephant in the global room to ever have lived: fossil fuels.

We desperately need leaders who are actually willing to lead on this issue. They are few and far between. Northern California’s freshman congressman, Jared Huffman, has emerged as one of those brave leaders, and has already been called a leading voice for the environment in Congress. During his tenure in the California legislature, he authored and passed bills to protect oceans and water quality, implement clean energy alternatives, promote green chemistry practices and reduce toxic chemical pollution.

The U.S. House of Representatives, however, has actively acted to prevent anyone from addressing environmental and energy problems. Back in May, the House passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) that would have forbidden the Pentagon from using any of its funding to address the national security impacts of climate change. We need more Jareds and fewer Davids, that much is obvious. This from Climate Progress: The 20-page “2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap” said the U.S. Department of Defense is “already beginning to see” some of the impacts of sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, rising global temperatures, and increased extreme weather — four key symptoms of global warming. These symptoms have the potential to “intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict” and will likely lead to “food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe,” the report said. Because of uncertainty surrounding just how bad these problems will be in the future, the report calls for a proactive defense strategy — one which will require “thinking ahead and planning for a wide range of contingencies.”

“Climate change will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the nation and poses immediate risks to U.S. national security,” the report reads. “Weather has always affected military operations, and as the climate changes, the way we execute operations may be altered or constrained.” clean energy.005