global energy revolution – Page 2

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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One Connected Crisis: Energy, Climate, Food, Terrorism, Finance

This creative and even funny documentary shows how all our current crises -- energy, climate, food, terrorism, finance -- are intertwined. — This creative and even funny documentary shows how all our current crises — energy, climate, food, terrorism, finance — are intertwined. It’s about an hour long, and well worth every minute.

The movie explains how the doctrine of unlimited growth is a failed doctrine, but that our natural tendency is to try to shore up and fix what's broken instead of finding new and necessary solutions. — The movie shows how the doctrine of unlimited growth is a failed doctrine, yet our natural tendency is to try to shore up and fix what’s broken, instead of finding new and necessary solutions.

It shows how many of our most pressing problems are actually created by the very policies established to solve them, and that the roots of these problems run deep.

There's massive systemic dysfunction, such as the way we hire, direct and pay terrorists to help us acquire access to resources (oil) in difficult areas, and then later try to distance ourselves from them. — There’s massive systemic dysfunction, such as the way we hire, direct and pay terrorists to help us acquire access to resources (oil) in difficult areas, and then later try to distance ourselves from them. The system systematically produces more and more terrorism.

The tendency toward militarization is caused by the fact that we ask military people to solve our problems.

Policies like cap and trade on carbon credits have created a world in which corporations can simply buy permission to pollute and destroy the planet.

This allows even the worst polluters, motivated only by their own profits, to not only undermine the system, but be able to brag as if they are actually helping.

At the same time, the news that almost all of our most brilliant scientists have come to agree that we simply must reduce our carbon output, is largely ignored, such as James Hansen or NASA has been, since he first called our attention to this clear and present danger in 1988. — At the same time, the news that almost all of our most brilliant scientists agree we must reduce our carbon output is largely ignored, as was James Hansen of NASA, who first raised awareness of this clear and present danger in 1988.

Hansen said we must keep carbon levels below 350 parts per million. (We are now well over 400, some say as high as 445) — Hansen said we must keep carbon levels below 350 parts per million.

We are now well over 400 parts per million, some say as high as 445, and well on our way to unsustainably higher temperatures on our planet.

Because business people are specialized in their fields, most cannot see how interrelated issues are. Instead they (we) are walking in lock step to support a system that is clearly failing our society. — Since business people are specialized in their fields, most of them cannot see how interrelated all of these issues are. Instead they (we) are walking in lock step to support a system that is clearly failing our society.

The multiple converging crises, which are all escalating, are resulting in mass militarization of our communities, and — The multiple converging crises, which are all escalating, are resulting in mass militarization of our communities.

... increasingly draconian treatment of our own citizens. — To keep this broken system in control, we are seeing increasingly draconian treatment of our own citizens, and a loss in personal freedoms and previously guaranteed rights.

At the core of all of these problems is the false belief that we can solve our problems through more growth; and that consuming more and better things will make us happy and successful. — At the core of these interrelated problems is the false belief that we can solve our problems through more growth; and that consuming more things will make us happy and successful.

It suggests that we have passed "peak oil" and soon will face the same inevitable decline of our food production system, unless we take control locally to produce food and get control of the system by encouraging more clean energy development and less trigger happy war efforts. — It suggests that we have passed “peak oil” and soon will face the same inevitable decline of our food production system, unless we take control locally to produce food and unless we incentivize clean energy development and demand participation in fewer wars, which cannot be won any longer, since all they do is grow more and more enemies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMgOTQ7D_lk

Human Success: What will it take?

Buckminster Fuller’s Eight Rules for Securing Humanity’s Success

In this time of global struggle and awakening, Buckminster Fuller‘s ideas and inventions are more profoundly relevant than ever before.
Most notable are his “integrities for living” which he shared with me in May, 1982, during an interview which turned into one of the famous Bucky’s trademark one-on-one “all I know” multi-hour lectures. I promised I would share his ideas with you, and that I would watch to see when people would be ready to hear them. So here they are, Bucky’s eight general guidelines for securing a happy future for humanity:

1. REALIGN WITH NATURE. Despite what we have been taught, it is not our role to dominate nature, but to live by her rules. Nature is never wrong. She wants us to succeed, but she does not depend on us. We are not her only experiment. If we fail to conform to her design integrities, she will sweep us aside like a bad case of fleas and start over. Nature’s design principles must guide all our decisions about how to live.

2. EVOLVE CONSCIOUSLY. This is about stretching ourselves to arrive more quickly at the place Nature is leading us. As the first species on Earth that’s aware of its capacity to destroy itself, we also sense that we have a choice in the matte. If we can evolve consciously, together, by embracing values of compassion, cooperation, and community, we can affect our own future as a species. Only then we can “begin to make all the right choices for all the right reasons.”

3. DEMAND AND SPEAK THE TRUTH. Seek the truth. Know the truth. And then, speak the truth. Bucky went over this again and again. If this was our true ‘religion’ everything else would fall into place. Take time to become informed about what’s going on, so that you will know what you are talking about. Women especially must not allow their voices to be shut down by those who feel threatened by it. Beware of masterfully crafted messages, designed to deceive.

4. BE A COMPREHENSIVIST. Humans are becoming too specialized. We must resist being pigeonholed as specialists and keep our eyes forever on the big picture. Bucky was not just an architect, a scientist, a mathematician, a poet, an author, a mapmaker, an inventor and a philosopher; but in consciously devoting his life to serve all humanity, he was also greater than the sum his parts. He even introduced the world to the word “synergy” and coined the phrase “Think global. Act local.“ He called on us all to do the same. Overspecialization (reliance on only fossil fuels, for example) will lead to our extinction.

5. EMBRACE ABUNDANCE. Current economic theory is based on the outdated notions such as the assumption of scarcity. Technological capabilities exist to move beyond an ‘us versus them’ scenario to one of ‘enough for all’. It is a great fallacy of today that there is not enough for all. If we work toward providing enough for 100% of humanity, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological harm, that is exactly what we will achieve.

6. DEMAND LIVINGRY. After serving in the Navy during World War I, Bucky was dismayed that technological innovations used to kill people weren’t later turned around and applied to creating better lives during peacetime. He called for a turning away from weaponry and killingry technologies, and toward ‘livingry’, or life supporting enterprises and inventions. This calls for a new feminine paradigm of leadership, He said, focused on creating abundance. Once we set out with the objective to take care of 100% of humanity without ecological harm, we have an excellent chance of making it happen.

7. EPHEMERILIZE YOUR LIFE. As technology evolves, we continue to increase our ability to do more and more with less and less. This is the concept of ephemerizaliton. A great example is how something as small as a phone now connects us to the entire world. Writing a letter to the president once took paper, ink, envelopes, and several days. Now you click a link and dash off your thoughts (although a handwritten letter is now more powerful!)

We must use ephemerilization to help us reduce our massive carbon footprint. Leading the way toward clean energy development will make America a leader again. Humanity has amazing potential to do more with less. All we have to do is take advantage of that potential.

8. KNOW YOUR POWER. The ordinary individual human being can accomplish things that no government or corporation can. Not subjected to the will of stockholders or bureaucracies, an individual can do as he or she sees fit with great untapped power. This is Bucky’s famous “trim tab” idea, a metaphor of how a small tab on a small rudder is what turns a huge ocean liner around.

Bucky said if we follow these rules and therefore pass our final examination as a species, everything will get easier and better. So surely that is at least worth a try. Right?

Humanity’s Race Against Time

Photo credit: www.metalsucks.net — Photo credit: http://www.metalsucks.net

Humanity is engaged in a dramatic race against time to secure its future on planet earth, according to a report from Stanislav Grof entitled “The Current Global Crisis and Future of Humanity” Echoing the ideas of Buckminster Fuller, Grof calls on humans to evolve consciously by expanding our own consciousness. He sets forth our predicament, for which there is no precedent in all of history, in clear and simple terms:

The resources clearly exist to solve our problems.
The only remaining problem is the human personality.
A radical inner transformation of human consciousness is needed.

The question is whether or not this will come about quickly enough to reverse the current self destructive trend of humanity. We need greater emotional maturity, spiritual (not religious) awareness, and profoundly improved ethical values. And we need them all soon.

Our Western Capitalist Society, says Grof, glorifies personal success at the expense of others. We have thus far been unable to appreciate the critical importance of cooperation and peaceful coexistence, necessary for our survival. He calls for a new guiding myth, a new vision which will combine the best of science and spirituality. He doesn’t really spell out this vision, but what he’s getting at is 100% Bucky: We need to develop a deep sense of being planetary citizens first, rather than members of any country, race or religious group. We must drastically expand our understanding of the human psyche and mobilize deep inner intelligence to guide our own healing and transformation. Grof sets forth that we are all damaged, that our experience in the birth canal symbolizes and begins our constant striving to reach a better reality, but that, in Joseph’s Campbell’s words, is like “Getting to the top of the ladder to find it is leaning against the wrong wall”.

Grof stresses the need, as Bucky did, for a unity with nature, as the primary path to this needed enlightenment. We must intuit that every act against nature is an act against ourselves. And just as Bucky said, it all comes down to energy and the environment. Grof calls for massive commitment to the development of alternative energies, saying it deserves the concerted efforts of our best minds, just as the (diabolical) Manhattan Project received in the 1940’s.

The evolutionary progress that is necessary may indeed be Utopian, but it is nonetheless essential, Grof writes. At stake is the future of life on planet earth. “A sufficient number of people must undergo a process of deep inner transformation,” and if we do, Grof says, we might reach a level of consciousness evolution which will allow us to live up the the proud name we gave our species, “HOMO SAPIENS”.

Or as Terrance McKenna said in 1992, “The history of the silly monkey is over, one way or another.”

Buckminster Fuller’s hopes for humanity begin at home.

Bucky said it wasn’t too late for humanity to rescue itself by getting control of our environment and energy. That was in 1980. We need to get with it. Here are Bucky’s notes on housing. His inventions are pictured in the previous post.

“My 1927 Dymaxion House was invented to function in due course as a prime instrument (for human life) in an air-deliverable, mass-producable, life-protecting and -nuturing dwelling unit. This is a means of transferring the do-more-with-less capability, and moving from a weaponry to a livingry focus.” (Utopia or Oblivion by R.Buckminster Fuller, p 29.)

Fuller’s work provides desperately needed keys that can help us unlock the doors to a sustainable future for all of humanity. His most important works: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, Utopia or Oblivion and And it Came to Pass, Not to Stay, are “time capsules of wisdom” for which we are now ready.

All following quotes are from Utopia or Oblivion, page numbers noted.

“Nature obviously knows just what to do … The lily pads did just what they should do, the fish did just what they should do. Everything is beautifully coordinate …I felt that if we ever found nature’s coordinate system, it would be very simple and always rational…

“In 1965, I met with competent scientists in all related fields of physics and they accepted the coordinated system which I had discovered and disclosed as probably being nature’s most efficient means of accounting nature’s generalized relationships…” p 272

And from Guinea Pig B;

“It is irrefutably demonstrable that a ten-year design revolution that employs all the physical resources (now majorly invested in killingry technology) can, within ten design-science-revolution years, have all humanity enjoying a higher standard of living than we have ever experienced, while concurrently phasing out use of fossil fuels and atomic energy. We can live handsomely using only our daily income of the sun’s and gravity’s intergenerated energies.”

And lastly, the clincher if you ask me: “Another reason for the world’s failure to comprehend the significance of industrialization’s suddenly obsolete role is the insurmountable communications barrier between the 1% of the world population who are scientists and the 99% who are not. This is an obstacle that may be surmounted just by taking note of it.” pg 336

Bucky said it wasn’t too late. Then again, he said that in 1980. We need to get with it. Let’s roll.

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