Former Vice President Al Gore, the unofficial leader of the world environmental movement, is not yet vegan. Just today, the New Yorker magazine reported that Al Gore was the chief guest at an eight course dinner event in Las Vegas earlier...
Wouldn't it be amazing if the Dalai Lama follows up his words with this concrete action and urges his Facebook friends to go Vegan? With signatories of the Durban Addendum such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Gandhi (the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi), Bishop Geoff Davies,...
Happy Cows and Pink Elephants are on my mind. After last month's encounter with Al Gore and the Pink Elephant of animal agriculture that he's largely ignoring in his climate change slide show, I've been bombarded with emailed reverberations from the...
A dear colleague observed recently that I seem to have lost faith in the power of governmental policies and markets to solve climate change. Having attended the UN COP-17 meeting in Durban, South Africa last year and watched the sausage making in the international policy...
I wish Al Gore well in his dance. As far as I am concerned, he is part of the Dancer who is sending me messages with respect to my own blinders. And I better pay attention and listen.
...Mr. Gore's slide show itself has devolved into an "I'm right and you're wrong" style diatribe which is unlikely to win the hearts and minds of the intended audience. And therein lies the true tragedy of the training event, that almost 1000 people flew in...
At the root of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, there’s a gaping hole where half of the solution has gone missing and isn’t being talked about. In that hole, a very conspicuous pink elephant is flapping her ears.
...At their core, all religions are based on the foundation of compassion. Even secular humanism, which admits to no God, is based on compassion. That is a powerful basis for unity, not division.
...There are two kinds of denial that have become part of our psychological response: 1) the denial that it is even happening, which is rapidly becoming impossible to sustain given the evidence, and 2) the denial that our personal consumption patterns need to change in...
Carbon Tax and Dividend is like Gandhi agitating for an Oppression tax to be levied on white train travelers, to be collected and redistributed equally to all white train travelers in the form of dividends, so that they have an economic incentive to reduce their...
Paul is right. The Earth is Full and we better understand that our adolescent growth spurt is over and that we need to adjust to an age of limited growth with an ever increasing maturity.
...It turns out that it is far more important to change what people eat than how they cook their food.
...When climate scientists continue to consume animal foods, while talking about catastrophic weather events in the coming decades if we don't make policy changes, I personally find it difficult to take them seriously.
...The human impact on the carbon cycle is much bigger than we thought. But on the flip side, this also means that the carbon sinks of the natural world are much more powerful than we thought.
...Second hand diet is not such a well known social behavioral issue even though the harmful effects of second hand diet are far worse than the harmful effects of second hand smoke.
...Every atrocity committed by humans stems from an underlying absurdity in their belief systems. The belief systems may be traditional and cultural, but as Brian McLaren points out, "Uncritical loyalty to your ancestors may implicate you in a crime against your descendants."
..."While Climate Change is a symptom, the fever that our Earth has contracted, the underlying disease is the disconnection from Creation that plagues human societies throughout our Earth.
We, the undersigned, pledge to heal this disconnection by promoting and exemplifying Compassion for all Creation (my emphasis) in...
We, the undersigned, pledge to heal this disconnection by promoting and exemplifying Compassion for all Creation in all our actions.
Signed:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Bishop Geoff Davies, Executive Director of South African Faith Communities' Environment
...Climate change is a symptom while the extinction of Life is the true underlying disease that needs treatment.
Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) focused on the wrong problem.
..."I don’t understand how there isn’t—millions of people can all of a sudden go out in the streets in the United States and begin destroying things, I don’t know. That may perfectly happen. You know, the situation is absolutely dramatic. " - Manfred Max Neef
...Here's the text of Jim Hansen's statement from Freedom Plaza and some editorial commentary.
...Of all the stories in Hindu mythology, the one about the cosmic fig tree is among the most profound.
...It is virtually certain that the behavioral transformation that is needed would include repudiating the current abuse of Life, especially by the affluent community. If affluent humans begin nurturing Life instead, the earth will begin to heal from these self inflicted wounds.
...In her book, "The World is Blue", Dr. Sylvia Earle, the National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, uses the analogy that Life is like a PC and human beings are wantonly destroying various components in the PC, without realizing that the PC could crash as a result.
...It was a good milestone for vegetarian activist DIXIE MAHY, President of the SAN FRANCISCO VEGETARIAN SOCIETY, to see her efforts come to fruition in a BOARD RESOLUTION on Tuesday, April 6, 2010
...In his book, "Domination of Nature," William Leiss traces the destructive impact of modern civilization on Life to pervasive attitudes originating with Sir Francis Bacon in the 17th century. Countering the defeatism in 17th century society towards natural disasters in the form of the...
In Oct. 2008, Dr. James Gustave Speth, the dean of Environmental Studies at Yale University wrote, "All we have to do to destroy the planet’s climate and biota and leave a ruined world to our children and grandchildren is to keep doing exactly what...