I don’t want to tell anyone about global warming these days (I mean hardly anyone). Most of us know about it. Rupert Murdock, of all people, has recently pledged to make his company News Corp. carbon neutral by 2010! The behemoth Walmart Corp. is pushing CFL light bulbs (compact fluorescent bulbs, which use about 75 per cent less electricity than incandescent bulbs*).
Good Grief, Charlie Brown! There’s nothing to worry about!
Maybe not and maybe so.
What I would like to do, for myself and interested readers, is to track the information flow on these issues and try to understand what is really happening. Like the age of the internet, climate change as an idea, is creating social and cultural change. It is controversial, and we, the United States, are highly responsible and on the spot to create solutions. My intent is to try to distill this and present some concrete methods for making personal changes…maybe even some political action…who knows… to live a more enlightened life.
I should put in here too, that I feel a tremendous responsibility for the mess we appear to be leaving the kids who are being born today. Not to mention, the rest of the world.
This, the tracking of information, however, is not as simple as it seems. The information flow we have today is “mass media” and others. Information is not always pure; it is often propaganda, to speak very directly. Exxon/Mobil ,for instance, has spent millions to inject doubt into the nascent national debate on global warming. (More to come on this, I am prepared to back up all my accusations with documents and facts.)
It is not easy to get to the truth, to feel really informed. With this age of the internet there is so much information being thrown at us I sometimes feel like I am being deluged with the force of a fireman’s water hose. Yet, in an effort to remain sane, concerned and informed (as well as productive) I have pared down my reading habits, my email “news alerts”, my magazine subscriptions, my rss feeds and my newspaper scans.
What this amounts to, curiously enough, is coming up with just the right keywords to define my circle of awareness and interest.
So here they are: climate change, global warming, greenwashing, green business, deep economy, technology, peak oil, energy, biofuel, cradle to cradle, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration, plastics, organic,local food, architecture, agri-business, OPEC, Kyoto, wind power, solar, sustainability, LEED, , IPPC.
Have you thought of your life in keywords?
*Postscript: A CFL bulb uses only one fourth as much electricity as a regular incandescent, lasts 10 times as long, and easily saves $50 during its lifetime.
Dearest Janek (and Bones),
I'm not sure which of you wrote this . . . I'm going to guess Janek wrote it and Bonnie posted it, yet I know that your sentiments on such inspirations meander down the same lovely river.
Yes, I once collected a few of the keywords in my life, though now that we are circa one million dead and wounded down the way, I stopped depressing myself on such Google finds around and about the words: "Dover" (as in the nocturnal cemetery gates); "Iraq", "Veteran" "wounded". I had saved literally hundreds, maybe a few thousand articles where these words appeared, hoping to eventually seek out the real number of wounded and dead, and in some as-yet-uncreated way, nurture each one of the suffering. How naive of me . . .
But your ideas and structure here are reviving my faith in the materials of the world. Maybe it is possible to use the material to transcend the material, if you know what I mean. Instead of stepping back in grief and letting it all happen (i.e., not voting, not picketing, etc., like my dear sister Marine mother Cindy), as I have been doing, why not put to work the nonviolent means you present for what is heavy on my heart? After all, pacifism is doing nothing but in a loving way, whereas nonviolence is compassionate action (not my idea . . .).
So, you have changed my mind . . . and now I would like to Google my life around a few key words that would eventually spawn others as I became informed: "Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's); "Monsanto"; "salmonella", etc., you get the picture. I believe this is an area desperately needing your structure of a coalition of information presented to the richest people in the world who have the power to change.
I'm heading off in a few minutes to Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio, to circumambulate and say prayers and mantras for our great suffering and for the eradication of our great delusions.
much love for your good hearts,
mickey morgan
Hale, Fellow Visionaries – –
We wouldn't be in a global pickle if our nation's leaders weren't so arrogant. Billions spent on wind power farms is far more prudent than wasting away a tribal nation, life by life.
I've recently bought shares of Vestas, a windpower company which builds the big ones. Would not the desert between Riverside and San Bernardino be an excellent place for a wind farm? Driving the LV once I saw a camper almost capsize – most amazing wind I've seen this side of Argentia Newfoundland.
Keep up the good work, and info flow . .
John
Thank you, John, for your comment . . . communication and understanding seem like the jewels in the crown of peace and harmony and love possible in our lifetimes. Bonnie, I see that you are the fine writer initiating this website.
I have forwarded this link to many of my friends, and just today I received a call from a nurse at the VA Hospital here in Ciny, who I met while volunteering for a short stint. She is very interested in the website and says she too is someone who wants to be kept informed in this alternative format.
How can we find out about the people who comment here? For myself, I am the author's sister and live miles away from her Topanga Canyon digs in Cincinnati.
joy, mindfulness,
mickey