Home
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
|
When we boil down what we need to survive and be happy, the sine qua non is to be healthy. And most truly educated people have by now learned that personal health has a limited future if our ecological health is plummeting -- which it is.
As a long-time observer of environmentalism, peak-oil based survivalism, and yearnings for peace, I find that two reasonable wishes have become the common denominator: (1) to be healthy, as one attempts to navigate the toxic present, and (2) to hope that the climate can be stabilized. A third wish, often at the top of the list, is to see one's personal material security be elevated as times get rougher.
|
|
|
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
|
 Steve Mosko
What better symbols of the culture of consumerism than branding and logos. Marketers use these visuals in relentless campaigns to convince us that their brand of this or that is more desirable than the rest and that we can’t, and shouldn’t, live without it. |
|
|
by Basel Action Network
|
 [Editor's note: And you thought the Exxon Valdez met its end in Water World at the hands of Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper. You thought wrong!]
U.S. Ship Disposal Policy Called 'Shameful' following
Export of 'Exxon Valdez' and 'Delaware Trader' to Indian Beaches
Obama Administration Ignores U.S. Law, Poisons Asian Workers,
While Exporting Good U.S. Jobs |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 Humanity has had a century of unprecedented mass insanity that has culminated in overstepping our ecological bounds. The time has come to look reality in the face. Although the scientific consensus is overwhelming, behavior dominates along the lines of discredited denial.
Of two root causes of our dilemma, the first is well known, as popularized by George W. Bush: "America is addicted to oil." The other is that the dominant culture of materialism has relied upon violent expansion for thousands of years.
|
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 I'm gaga for Gaia, which I don't expect many modern consumers to relate to. So it's harder for me to point a finger at anyone believing in scientifically unproven ideas. But I draw a line between spiritual experiences and claims such as "aliens are among us and are here to raise humanity's consciousness because it's 2012."
Such were my biases when I covered the New Living Expo in San Francisco, Calif., April 27-29 this year at the massive Concourse Exhibition Center. |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 Play the show at FindTheConversation.com
Reporter and commentator Aengus Anderson is motorcycling around the U.S. this summer with microphones and a recording machine. He contacted Jan Lundberg for an interview in April and said, "I will be traveling America in search of ideas that are out of the mainstream today but may inform the common sense of tomorrow." |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg, oil industry analyst and eco-activist
|
 Courtesy BP
The movie is soon getting its major national release in theaters and on Netflix. |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 Ecotopia Summer |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
|
As the scientific consensus jells to advise us that economic growth on a finite planet is unsustainable, and anyone can see that maximizing consumption is increasingly disastrous, we must ask ourselves what we do next. The first thing would be to focus humanity on what biology-savvy people see as the basic problem: more and more people being born who consume much more than their ancestors did.
This concern is not in the corporate press or tossed around the typical local pub or bar. Why should population size be so uninteresting to the vast majority? |
|
|
by Brent Blackwelder
|
|
Each year in April, the Goldman Environmental Prizes are awarded to six activists, one from each of the six inhabited continental regions. This year’s winners have overcome tremendous odds and threats to their lives to lead effective protests and carry out brilliant strategies. The inspiring winners give me hope that, on the economic front, we can energize an enormous protest movement in the United States. The Occupy movement has provided a solid start on opposing the outdated, unfair, growth-dependent economic model — a model that drives unemployment, encourages casino-style financing, enlarges the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society, and sucks the blood from the life-support systems of the planet. |
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 The big money continues to talk. For environmental protection in extreme times, what have we got?
• A government much more intimate with BP, for example, than citizens want to know.
• Environmental groups promoting electric cars instead of advocating car-free living -- such as the Sierra Club, which accepted $26 million in donations from Chesapeake Energy, the natural gas fracker.
• News media usually adhere, as though they were corrupted, to the above kinds of influences. Real news can filter through, such as on climate change, but less frequently than a few years ago.
|
|
|
by Jan Lundberg
|
 When I first heard of the Gaia Hypothesis in the 1990s, as formulated by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis, I was skeptical but respectful of the idea. I didn't rule it out. But neither did I feel confident that the Earth is a living single organism. Perhaps I was too caught up in scientific reductionism, and needed to have proof -- such as to sit down with Gaia herself. So I took note of the notion and kept on trying to save and heal Earth. |
|
| << Start < Prev 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . Next > End >>
|
|
|
|
