for a Planet adrift...
by Paul Grignon and William Thomas In newspaper and TV headline news, a constant stream of sensational and alarming events parades across our numbed consciousness. Most of these ephemeral and mostly irrelevant "news" stories quickly vanish, only to be replaced by fresh distractions. Media mesmerizations are usually presented with little or no context, consideration or appropriate priority. Is this just pandering to the shallow self interest and shortsightedness of "human nature" - or a deliberate design to hide the truths that threaten to "deconstruct" the consumer fantasy world corporate-controlled media has built to market fear and greed? Clearly, as intricately intertwined ecological and economic crises mount, the most urgent and pertinent news should be repeated and intensified not just become part of the "stream". Here, in our estimation, are the HEADLINES that should top the news every day:
The Sixth Extinction Event Not since the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago has the extinction of species reached such extraordinary proportions and speed. Spurred by human settlement and industrial processes, the "Sixth Great Extinction Event" appears to be on course to bring the evolution of mammalian and most other life to a shockingly swift and tragic conclusion. If we do not move immediately to change our habits, attitudes and priorities, the human epitaph may very well be: "Oops!" The End of Oil At the root of the Sixth Extinction are hungry humans in poor countries and media-driven human consumers in the rich ones. "Big Oil" has played a huge role in both hemispheres, providing the chemical fertilizers that have allowed the Earth's population to balloon beyond an unsustainable six billion - while providing artificially cheap energy to drive the insatiable appetites of homo-consumerus. Experts say that half of the world's oil has been taken out of the ground and it's carbon content put into a rapidly warming greenhouse atmosphere. US and Canadian residents and businesses top the world in per capita waste and pollution. While Congress continues to vote down fuel-efficient cars, and the Canadian government offers no incentives to pursue alternative energies, one million Iraqi people - mostly children under the age of 15 - have died so far in order to ensure cheap gasoline for our cars. It seems very likely many more will die in determining who uses the rest. Unless we find ourselves fighting over water long before then. Climate Change The jinn is out of the bottle. "Extreme Weather Events" driven by explosive climate change are a runaway freight train hurtling toward every nation and economy on this planet. If we allow corporate privateers to raze the world's remaining forests, while we collectively burn all remaining fossil fuels- we will soon be living without forests, gasoline and predictable, hospitable weather. If we make the smart choice to implement a post-petroleum economy while we still have the time and fuels to make the switch - Spaceship Earth's life support system will have a chance to regenerate before we turn this galactic oasis into another Mars. Confronting The Corporate Goliath Capitalism's most destructive characteristics are made sacrosanct in the legal rights ceded to mutinational corporations with assets greater than most once-sovereign nations. Having allegiance only to short-term profits, rapacious corporations hiding behind a sophisticated smokescreen of glossy magazine and TV ads have replaced history's notorious feudal barons - whose exploitation of workers and their lands led eventually to popular revolt. Without access to land, sustainable income, dignity and clean air, water and food - there is no real freedom. With the majority of Earth's teeming population reduced to indentured "wage slavery", independent farmers whose non-genetically modified seeds hold the key to world survival remain as the last beleaguered bastion of empowered free-choice. Farm Crisis and Biofuels Revolution Farmers and the fields they till hold the key to unlocking the petroleum trap. Plants grown today absorb at least as much carbon dioxide as they release when burned. Therefore, "biofuels" made from plant matter result in no net increase in carbon released into the atmosphere. Farmers currently under financial siege by banks, petro-fertilizer suppliers, monopolistic middlemen and Monsanto's genetically altered seeds, could reverse the twin trends toward corporate control and catastrophic global warming by growing "energy crops" - initiating a transitional new economy based on energy not money. "Resource" Efficiency and Self-Control If there is to be a world fit for the children of all species, it will be characterized by human dedication to "resource" efficiency. As birth rates start to fall, ending the even greater impacts of wasteful consumerism is an urgent priority. Whether voluntary, or compelled by increasingly dire circumstances, embracing simplicity will result in less stressful, more family- and neighbor-oriented lives. The key to success is a return to bioregional trade and decision-making Human evolution has made its greatest gains through cooperation, not remorseless competition. Whatever we own, owns us. Giving up cars, cows and chainsaws - sharing more and owning less - is a recipe for personal happiness. And planetary survival. Stay tuned to these pages for solutions and news on alternatives already being put into place around the globe.	LINKS will open in a new window   The most comprehensive up-to-the-minute news on the mounting planetary crises Earth Crash Global Circle The Limits Live Updates on Global Vital Statistics Mass Extinction Underway Majority of Biologists Say Washington Post The Sixth Extinction National Geographic The Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D. Institute on Energy and Man, June 27, 1996   The Coming Anarchy The Atlantic Monthly by Robert D. Kaplan Joy Ride to Global Collapse The Nightmare: Life Without Fuel "fiction" by Andrew Barham The Oil Crash & You The end of affordable petroleum is at hand and yet our leaders stumble in the dark about the reality of our situation and ignore the emergency we face trying to make a conversion to renewable energy that should have begun a half century ago.   "Energy is the lifeblood of the world's economy, the underlying means by which modern societies function. Oil, coal, natural gas, and electricity are needed for virtually every important function in industrial societies -- from growing and cooking food, to manufacturing, heating and cooling buildings, and moving people and goods...As the peak and decline of world oil production comes within sight, policies to encourage more efficient oil use and a switch to alternative energy sources, especially in transportation, become urgent. Unfortunately, ...few decision-makers appreciate how little time remains, and efforts on both of these accounts are weak and overdue". When Will Global Oil Production Peak? by James J. MacKenzie   THE END OF OIL Jay Hanson's Dieoff Site The most complete documentation of the decline of our one-shot petro-civilization   Atlantic Monthly Mideast Oil Forever? by Joseph J. Romm and Charles B. Curtis   A most comprehensive site Global Commons Institute CLIMATE CHANGE Climate Feedback Processes climate changes can be extreme AND sudden   The Heat Is Online by Ross Gelbspan,   Pew Centre Corporate and Government Views on Climate Change   Eleven Inherent RULES of CORPORATE BEHAVIOR by Jerry Mander Corporate Rule By Jay Hanson Ending Corporate Governance What Can Replace Oil? Journey to Forever Biofuels and Other Appropriate Technologies in Practice Around the World Henry Ford, Charles Kettering and the "Fuel of the Future" "If there is an historical lesson to learn from the "fuel of the future," it is that technology is often political...For different reasons, Henry Ford and Charles Kettering both saw the fuel of the future as a blend of ethyl alcohol and gasoline leading to pure alcohol from cellulose. A dedicated agrarian, Ford thought new markets for fuel feedstocks would help create a rural renaissance" ENERGY FARMING In America By Lynn Osburn American Farmers could be making America energy self-sufficient, countering global warming AND fighting the corporate takeover of the globe. BIOFUELS and Farm Independence HEMP by William Thomas A few words about the plant that, before petroleum, was the mainstay of human economies Sustainability when is enough "enough"? Frugal Living   Organic Farming A lot more productive than the Petrochemical companies would have us believe