Author: Clifton Ware

SEF News-Views Digest No. 86 (4-1-15)

Another April Fools’ Day rolls around, and this year I’m more attuned to it. Some see this day as a celebration related to the turn of the seasons, while others believe it stems from the adoption of a new calendar, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar-1582)) to replace the old Julian Calendar, which called for New Year’s Day to be celebrated January 1st. Some traditionalists continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on April 1^st, and others made fun of them, by sending them on “fool’s errands”, or tricking them into believing something false, a practice that gradually spread throughout the world up to the present.

Profits versus Science  (Clifton Ware, Editor-Publisher)

This past week I read two thought-provoking articles that address the general public’s conflicting views about science—and scientists. According to John Michael Greer, the growing number of science deniers, notably on the conservative side of the political spectrum, is most likely the confusing result of contradictory reports by research scientists (in a variety of fields), particularly “experts” funded by major corporations, organizations, foundations, or wealthy individuals.

In other words, there’s a noticeable growing distrust of scientific findings, largely based on legitimate concerns. It’s widely recognized that much research appears to be motivated by profiteering, rather than serving worthy altruistic causes, including the goal of improving health and wellbeing for all life forms.

Distrust or skepticism of published research data and recommendations exists in many fields, including nutrition, pharmaceuticals, climatology, medicine (think vaccinations), energy, harmful recreational substances, education, economics, the military, and, well, practically everything.

In short, the quest for money, power, and fame rules the hearts and minds of some scientists, those who sell their expertise to the highest bidder. Of course, the proportion of “bad scientists”” is dwarfed by the multitude of “good scientists” who love and pursue their work diligently, often without sufficient recognition and funding, but deeply motivated by altruistic intentions and an unbiased search for truth.

Easing the public’s widespread mistrust will require restoring faith and trust in science, the scientific method, and scientists. To accomplish this goal, at least three initiatives are needed: 1) the  public needs to gain greater understanding and appreciation of science by becoming more informed; 2)  the scientific community needs to work at developing better public relations, by providing more information about scientific procedures and accomplishments; and 3) political leaders, in collaboration with the scientific community, need to develop greater transparency about funding sources, as well as establishing clearly regulated guidelines.

For a fuller understanding of this issue, please refer to Greer’s article, The View From Outside (Enlightenment section).  Another article, GMO Science Deniers: Monsanto And The USDA (Environment section), provides a cursory overview of “profits versus science”, in relation to genetically engineered crops. Finally, you can cap off this study by listening to an informative 30-minute broadcast interview: Naomi Oreskes On “Merchants Of Doubt (Equality section).

ENVIRONMENT (• Natural Resources • Wildlife • Climate)

> Common Dreams: A Global War On Nature And The Politics Of Extinction (William deBuys). Uncounted species — not just tigers, gibbons, rhinos, and saola, but vast numbers of smaller mammals, amphibians, birds, and reptiles — are being pressed to the brink. We’ve hardly met them and yet, within the vastness of the universe, they and the rest of Earth’s biota are our only known companions. Without them, our loneliness would stretch to infinity.

> The Washington Post: The Melting Of Antarctica Was Already Really Bad. It Just Got Worse (Chris Mooney). 2014 might be remembered as the year we first learned that great ice sheet of West Antarctica has irreversibly destabilized, thus setting in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise. Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy — when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again.

> Occupy.com: Justice Must Flow: Economic Democracy And The Water Commons (Matt Stannard).  The water crisis has nothing to do with the actual availability of water. Instead, the culprit is local communities’ inability to control their wealth, their common resources, their institutions of lending and credit.

> On Earth: Alberta’s New Water Pollution Policies Would Let The Tar Sands Industry Off The Hook (Clara Chaisson). Tar sands mining companies divert millions of gallons of water every day from the Athabasca River to process bitumen, and more than 99 percent of that contaminated water never goes back to the river. Along with toxic sludge, it is held in giant, high-leakage waste lagoons (tailing ponds).The Alberta government has introduced tougher rules, but pollution will likely continue.

> Huffington Post: GMO Science Deniers: Monsanto And The USDA (Andrew Kimbrell). It’s time for our government to require real and rigorous science in regulating GE crops, to say “no” to these herbicide-promoting crops, and prevent the looming agronomic disaster they will inevitably cause. When hearing about “GMO science deniers” — think of 70 million acres of super-weeds and diseases caused by a growing use of herbicides; think Monsanto and its enablers at the USDA.

ENERGY (• Carbon Based • Renewable)

> Resilience: The Global Coal Boom Is Going Bust: Report (Mike Gaworecki).  A new report by CoalSwarm and the Sierra Club provides compelling evidence that the death knell for the global coal boom might very well have rung some time between 2010 and 2012. CoalSwarm data compiled of every coal plant proposed worldwide for the past five years shows that for every coal plant that came online, plans for two other plants were put on hold or scrapped altogether.

> ENSIA: Beyond Keystone XL: How To Win The War On Climate Change (William H. Schlesinger). I stand with those who recommend a carbon tax that would make it uneconomical to market the tar sands oil in the United States, shifting our attention away from fossil fuels in general and focusing our attention on renewable sources of energy.  A carbon tax would be a fee paid anytime a pound of CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere from fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas.

> MPR: Mndot: 326K Live Within Oil Train Evacuation Zones. MnDOT reports that five to seven trains of crude oil pass through the state daily, each carrying about 3.3 million gallons of oil. Fears of a potential disaster have grown in recent years as the numbers of train cars shipping Bakken crude has jumped in the past few years.

> Resource Insights: Cheap Oil, Complexity And Counterintuitive Conclusions (Kurt Cobb). The chief intellectual challenge of our age is that we live in complex systems, but we do not understand complexity. How can cheap oil be a harbinger of future supply problems in the oil market? Here’s where complexity, history and subtle thinking all have to combine at just the right intellectual temperature to reveal the answer. [Cheap oil may be indicating a period of austerity, not abubance.]

ECONOMY (• Finances • Commerce • Global-Local)

> Yes! Magazine: Change The Story, Change The Future: A Living Economy For A Living Earth (David C. Korten). A new book by YES! Co-founder David Korten challenges readers to rethink their relationship with Earth. In order to survive and flourish, Korten argues, we must stop thinking about Earth as a mere source of raw materials, and embrace the understanding that we humans are part of a living Earth, and we need an economy that works in co-productive partnership with Earth.

> Local Futures: The Global Economy’s “Impeccable Logic”(Steven Gorelic).  Does morality have any place in conventional economic thinking? While the overseers of the global economy are beginning to see problems with the wealth gap, it’s for reasons that are neither moral nor ethical, but purely practical: extreme inequality, they fear, might threaten the continuance of the system itself.

> Time: Don’t Trust The Markets: A Correction Is Coming (Rana Foroohar). Every time the Fed says it will keep rates low a little longer, the market party goes on. All that means is that there will be more pain, eventually, when the punch bowl gets pulled away.

> Financial Sense: Fed Loses “Patient,” Wall Street Says, “I’m Cured!” (Bill Fleckenstein). The question then becomes at what point will the stock market start to sink, and when will expectations for it, the economy, and the dollar all change? As noted, we can’t know that in advance, we can only react to change once it occurs.

ENLIGHTENMENT (• Expectations • Ideas • Beliefs • Psychology)

> The Archdruid Report: The View From Outside (John Michael Greer). The corruption of science by self-interest is an old story, and unfortunately it’s most intense in those fields where science impacts the lives of nonscientists most directly: medicine, pharmacology, and nutrition. [Scientists accepting pay for promoting products and services provided by corporations negatively affect how non-scientists (general public) think about science, and the majority of honest scientists.]

> Resilience: Naomi Oreskes On “Merchants Of Doubt  (Alex Wise, Naomi Oreskes, Sea Change Radio) The same playbook that was used by tobacco companies to hoodwink the public is now being applied to climate change. The book Merchants of Doubt inspired a recent documentary film by the same name.

> Peak Prosperity: Things Are Unraveling At An Accelerating Rate (Charles Hugh Smith). Every attempt to further expand debt-based consumption is yielding diminishing returns: net income is stagnant virtually everywhere in the bottom 95% of the populace, and further declines in interest rates are increasingly marginal as rates are near-zero everywhere that isn’t suffering a collapse in its currency.

> CASSE-The Daly News: Adjusting The Fifth To A Finite Planet, Part II [Part 1 here] (Eric Zencey). Three avenues by which Takings case law could be adapted to the reality of a finite planet: 1) change the default by changing the definition of what constitutes a reasonable investment expectation; 2) change the default by promulgating the notion of an ecological servitude; and 3) acknowledge that value in land is created as an externality of decisions made by others, and compensate accordingly.

> Weathering the Storm: The Cyber Blitzkrieg (Michael Conley). The perfect storm is being shaped by a broad base of economic, energy, environmental, behavioral and geopolitical forces on a collision course. Cyber-warfare changes the geopolitical equation by providing smaller forces with an asymmetric capacity to ”level” the playing field.

EQUALITY (• Equity • Health • Social Concerns)

> The Atlantic: Is Minneapolis The Best City In America? This excellent video, produced by PBS News Hour, gives a brief overview that demonstrates why the Twin Cities area is widely recognized for progressive qualities that are attractive to young people (especially millennials). But the growing poverty and lack of opportunity among non-whites—an increasing proportion of the population—is a challenge that must be addressed—politically, socially, economically, and educationally.

> Ecology: Walking: The Secret Ingredient For Health, Wealth, And More (Jay Walljasper). The 2013 Walking Summit marked the birth of a new walking movement committed to: encouraging everyone to walk more; and boosting policies, practices, and investments that make communities everywhere more walkable. It was convened by the Every Body Walk! Collaborative

> The Washington Post: In 23 States, Richer School Districts Get More Local Funding Than Poorer Districts (Emma Brown). Nationwide, states and localities are spending an average of 15 percent less per pupil in the poorest school districts (where average spending is $9,270 per child) than they are in the most affluent (where average spending is $10,721 per child).

> Leaving Babylon: Logic Of Power II  (Vera Bradova). A good type of power is often spoken of as “power-to.” Looking at the uses of power specifically within social settings, however, there appear to be two other kinds of power: power-over, the ability to force others to do one’s bidding against their will, and power-with, the use of power together with others in a variety of voluntary, collaborative ways. Much of the malfunction of “this civilization” has to do with its heavy-handed reliance on power-over.

ENGAGEMENT (• Goals • Activism • Solutions)

> Ecological Gardening: Hedgerow Hypotheticals: Our Cities And Suburbs Need Hedgerows Too (Adrian Ayres).  There is a crying need for vastly more “bits of nature” in the form of all kinds of gardens, large and small, utilizing native plants and natural, ecological gardening practices, and even more of a need for vastly increased “connectivity” in the guise of hundreds if not thousands of miles of hedgerows of one sort or another, bordering properties, acting as living fences, and sheltering gardens.

> Low-Tech Magazine: How To Keep Warm In A Cool House (Kris De Decker). Modern comfort standards don’t recognize the freedom to actively move throughout a space in search of thermal comfort, although this could have profound consequences for energy use while maintaining thermal comfort, according to researcher Michael Humphreys and two of his colleagues in “Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Principles and Practice”.

> e360.Yale: Designing Wetlands To Remove Drugs And Chemical Pollutants (Carina Storrs). Drinking water supplies around the world often contain trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and synthetic compounds that may be harmful to human health. One solution being tried in the U.S. and Europe is to construct man-made wetlands that naturally degrade these contaminants. A full-scale, 380-acre constructed wetlands at the site, called the Tres Rios Wetlands provides a model system.

> Yes! Magazine: Depaving Cities, Undamming Rivers—Here’s How We’re Undoing The Damage (Diane Brooks).  All around the United States, people are stepping up to help a damaged planet heal. Here are seven positive initiatives.

EVENTS AND INFORMATION

> MN350: Action Projects. Several are planned for this spring, including meetings related to Tar Sands, divestments, climate change, energy legislation, teach-in/solutions workshop, and oil shipping. See info on the MN350 website: http://mn350.nationbuilder.com/ ; Also see: Calendar of events, Community meetings, Campaigns, Join an action teams

> Mississippi Watershed Management Organization: Spring Water & Energy Stewardship Workshops for Congregations, Thurs., Mar. 26^th, 6-9 p.m., 2522 Marshall St NE, Mpls. (Lowry and Marshall Ave NE). Free! RSVP (http://tinyurl.com/aforsrsvp). Learn more (www.afors.org/congregations; Sean Gosiewski, Alliance for Sustainability: 612-250-0389; sean@afors.org)

> St. Catherine University: Rediscovering The Promised Land: Revitalizing Our Urban Communities. Speaker, Majora Carter, an urban revitalization strategy consultant; Thurs., April 9, 7 p.m., O’Shaughnessy auditorium, St. Paul. Free tickets (The O’Shaughnessy Box Office).

> Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Monthly Meeting (First Saturday), April 4^th, 10 a.m., JoJo’s Rise and Wine Cafe 12501 Nicollet Ave., Burnsville (Dakota County). Info:

> Midwest Solar: Midwest Solar Expo 2015, May 13-14, Hilton, Minneapolis. Info: Midwest Solar Expo 2015

Keep Talking About IT!          Clifton Ware, Editor-Publisher

“IT” in the title of this commentary refers to sustainability, the main focus of this newsletter. The statement—“Keep talking about it”—was passed on to me by my beloved spouse-partner, Bettye, who read it on Facebook recently, attributing it to either Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson.

This positive statement is a practical response to persons feeling overwhelmed by a plethora of converging crises and wondering: “What can I (we) do?” Simply speaking, the least one can do is to keep talking about it. In any promotional campaign, the more the public experiences a single word or phrase, the more effective it becomes, at least over the long term. This newsletter, in presenting a variety of news and views related to creating resilience and sustainability, “keeps talking about it”.

In this issue we lead with the Enlightenment section, which includes five stimulating articles that address various aspects of sustainability. Richard Heinberg’s article heads the group with “Only Less Will Do”, a thesis that a majority of well-to-do citizens find abhorrent — no matter the preponderance of evidential data indicating that material growth is mathematically limited, principally due to declining natural resources.

Chris Martenson’s article is the most alarming, with his sincere, well-founded concerns about the growing potential for increasingly aggressive conflicts between Russia, the U.S. and our NATO allies. Michael Conley, Eric Zencey, and Ugo Bardi weigh in with articles that relate to similar concerns. Even a cursory skimming of these articles will provide increased awareness of the problems we face, in creating a sustainable existence for all life on planet Earth.

ENLIGHTENMENT (• Expectations • Ideas • Beliefs • Psychology)

> Peak Oil: Only Less Will Do (Richard Heinberg). Almost nobody likes to hear about the role of scale in our global environmental crisis. That’s because if growth is our problem, then the only real solution is to shrink the economy and reduce population.

> Peak Prosperity: Special Report: Is It Time To Prepare For War? (Chris Martenson).  I am finding the risk of a major conflict between NATO/EU and Russia to be high and seemingly growing higher with every passing week. Such are the times in which we live. It leaves me asking if it’s time to begin preparing for war, which means being ready for the worst.

> Weathering the Storm: The Perfect Storm In 2014 (Michael Conley).  The forces of the “perfect storm” continued to escalate in an insidious and stealth-like manner in 2014. Malignantly growing and hidden – metaphorically speaking – beneath the waterline of an “iceberg” called life, we fixated on the tip of the iceberg and overlooked the real threats lurking below.

> CASSE-The Daly Report: Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet, Part 1 (Eric Zencey). Infinite-Planet Thinking is deeply embedded in our political economy. It’s there in the expectation that investments will pay off at a continually compounding rate. It’s there in the unquestioned consensus among elected officials that economic growth is always good–that it can’t possibly ever be uneconomic growth, costing us more in lost natural and social capital than we gain from additional consumption.

> Peak Oil: How Do Empires Hunt Bears? The Control Of Natural Resources From Ancient Rome To Our Times. (Ugo Bardi). You probably know the joke that starts with the question “how do economists hunt bears?” The answer is, “they don’t, but they believe that if bears are paid enough, they’ll hunt themselves.” It is a good illustration of the awesome power of money. It doesn’t work so well with bears, but, if paid enough, people will engage in all sorts of nasty and unpleasant activities, including hunting and killing other human beings.

ENVIRONMENT (• Natural Resources • Wildlife • Climate)

> Resilience: Lord Man Parable: Video (Tom Butler). This 5-minute video does a superb job of introducing the perils of overdevelopment, overpopulation, and overshoot.

>  Inside Climate News: Q&A: ‘Merchants Of Doubt’ Author On The Origins & Persistence Of Climate Denialism (Katherine Bagley).  Naomi Oreskes discusses the network of pundits and scientists who have delayed action on climate change, and how they did it.

> Star Tribune: Buffer Strip Bill Has Support From Sports Groups, Opposition From Farmers (Doug Smith). Recently, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued a report saying many of the lakes and streams in southwest Minnesota are unsafe for both people and fish to swim in. Nitrate pollution from farmland is a major problem. And of 93 streams the study examined, only three were able to fully support aquatic life, and only one was safe for aquatic recreation.

> ENSIA: The Environment Goes To Washington. Looking for a reason to visit Washington, D.C., next week? The Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital — billed as the “largest and longest-standing environmental film festival in the United States” — is the place to be March 17–29. View a 3-minute video.

> Upstream: Recycling In The Anthropocene (Bill Sheehan). Science writer Emma Marris’s Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World (2013) gives a thoughtful overview of people and projects exploring new approaches to conservation in the Anthropocene, the age of human-dominated ecosystems.

ENERGY (• Carbon Based • Renewable)

> Our Finite World: The Oil Glut And Low Prices Reflect An Affordability Problem (Gail Tverberg). For a long time, there has been a belief that the decline in oil supply will come by way of high oil prices. Demand will exceed supply. It seems to me that this view is backward–the decline in supply will come through low oil prices.

> Oil Price: Big Changes Needed For Big Oil To Survive (Michael Klare). In the 1990s, the oil industry focused its efforts on extracting as much oil as possible, regardless of the difficulty or risk of a given project. Fast forward to 2015 and the industry is beset by falling prices, increased competition from renewables and an ever-strengthening climate change movement. It is now sink or swim for fossil fuels in a new energy price era.

> Resource Insights: Lipstick On A Pig: America As The World’s Swing Producer Of Oil (Kurt Cobb). Most people have heard the old saying: “You can put lipstick on a pig. But it’s still a pig.” That’s sort of what is happening in the American oil patch as producers try to put a positive gloss on the devastation that low oil prices are visiting on the industry.

> New York Times: Emissions By Makers Of Energy Level Off (John Schwartz). For all of the progress, however, billions of people will be entering the middle class in coming years. “Some of these early gains are going to be wiped out pretty quickly unless we develop some of the renewable energy sources that can replace fossil fuels.” (Steve Cohen, Earth Institute at Columbia U)

ECONOMY (• Finances • Commerce • Global-Local)

> MinnPost: Community Voices: For Lasting Climate-Change Reform, Focus On Consumption (Sam Rockwell). Markedly absent in mainstream conversations are suggestions that Americans simply consume less. Ideas that do circulate about lifestyle change tend to be either “back to the land” proposals or framed in the language of “giving people options”: bicycle lanes give people the option to get out of their cars; condos provide snazzy options for young people and empty nesters. Few propose regulating or actively disincentivizing consumption.

> The Archdruid Report: The Prosthetic Imagination [False Data] (J. M. Greer).  The jubilation about a current 5.5% unemployment rate makes perfect sense so long as you don’t happen to know that the official unemployment rate in the United States doesn’t actually depend on the number of people who are out of work, but rather the number receiving unemployment benefits. It’s worth noting that 92,898,000 Americans of working age are not currently in the work force—that is, more than 37 per cent of the working age population.

EQUITY (• Equality • Health • Social Concerns)

> Yes! Magazine: Do Corporations Really Need More Rights? Why Fast Track For The TPP Is A Bad Idea (David Korten). The TPP is presented as an agreement to increase U.S. exports and jobs. But what is really at stake is democracy—in the United States as well as in the 11 other Pacific Rim countries that are parties to the TPP. By strengthening corporate rule, its provisions will likely have significant implications for nearly every aspect of American life, including jobs.

> Resilience: How Agriculture Grew On Us (Vera Bradova). Homo sapiens lived in relative equality, in small foraging bands all its existence from the time they emerged about 200,000 years ago. Then, around 30,000 years ago, during a bit more clement time within the last ice age, glimmerings of inequality arose at sites known in Europe — in places that were unusually plentiful in game.

ENGAGEMENT (• Goals • Activism • Solutions)

> Transition US: Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage: Living Abundantly On 10%. In 1996, attracted to the low cost of land and the lenient zoning restrictions, a group of young Stanford graduates raised money from friends and family and headed to northeastern Missouri to set up what is now known as Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, a successful intentional community and 270-acre community land trust. Their idea was to “move beyond protesting ecological destruction towards finding a positive alternative for ecological living.”

> ENSIA: Environmental Activism Needs “Good Cops” And “Bad Cops (Marvin Smith). Environmental activism shouldn’t be an either/or proposition. While bad cops can disagree with good cops, both roles are critical.

> Yes! Magazine: Beyond The CSA: Four Ways Communities Support Everything From Books To Beer (Dana Drugmand). You know the model: Consumers purchase a share of the season’s harvest upfront and get a box of fresh produce each week from the farm. Now you can get your medicine and artworks that way too.

> Star Tribune: Tiny (House) Idea Has Big Promise For Helping The Homeless. (Jenna Ross). The village has inspired international curiosity and could become a template for similar projects. ­Activists, nonprofits and students from hundreds of cities — including Rochester, Duluth and St. Cloud — have e-mailed, called and visited. One guy recently stopped by from Australia. Google is interested.

> Star Tribune: Minneapolis, Food-Sellers Prep For A Ban On Foam Food Containers  (Erin Golden). Restaurants, hotels and other businesses that sell takeout food in Minneapolis have six weeks to go before they’ll no longer be able to package food in foam containers — or in any container that isn’t recyclable, reusable or compostable.

EVENTS—INFORMATION

> Global Solutions Forum: Overpopulation Is Solvable, David Paxson, Director, World Population Balance (http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/), Thurs., Mar.19, 6:45 p.m., Plymouth Congregational Church (Jackson Room, lower level), 1900 Nicollet Ave. S. Mpls.

> Women, the New Economy, and Anti-Poverty: Let’s Talk Strategy To Achieve A Basic Income, Friday, March 20^th, 6:30–8:30 pm, 4200 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. Speakers: Kristine Osbakken, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Liane Gale. Free event. Information: www.facebook.com/events/1559710660963183/

> MN350: Action Projects. Several are planned for this spring, including meetings related to Tar Sands, divestments, climate change, energy legislation, teach-in/solutions workshop, and oil shipping. See info on the MN350 website: http://mn350.nationbuilder.com/ ; Also see: Calendar of events, Community meetings, Campaigns, Join an action teams

> Midwest Solar: Midwest Solar Expo 2015, May 13-14, Hilton, Minneapolis. Info: Midwest Solar Expo 2015

> Mississippi Watershed Management Organization: Spring Water & Energy Stewardship Workshops for Congregations, Thurs., Mar. 26^th, 6-9 p.m., 2522 Marshall St NE, Mpls. (Lowry and Marshall Ave NE). Free! RSVP (http://tinyurl.com/aforsrsvp). Learn more (www.afors.org/congregations; Sean Gosiewski, Alliance for Sustainability: 612-250-0389; sean@afors.org)

Sustainability Education Forum March 14th

(Clifton Ware, Editor/Publisher)

Bettye and I returned Tuesday from a winter getaway trip to the Southwest, so my commentary and this newsletter will be abbreviated. I hope to be back in normal publishing mode by next week.

The main thoughts I have to share relate to SEF’s educational mission, including the occasional forums we organize to address sustainability issues and concerns. I sent a notice last week about the SEF Meeting (Saturday, March 14^th, 2:30-4:30, at the St. Anthony Village Library), but I wanted to issue a final invitation, as a gentle reminder. Our main topic will be focused on Chris Martenson’s ‘Accelerated’ Crash Course, a one-hour video/text participants are encouraged to watch or read in preparation for group discussion.

Our intimate group has enjoyed some very stimulating discussions of various sustainability topics in our previous three forums, and we welcome other committed seekers and learners to join us. Seating is limited to 20 persons, so please let me know if you’re coming.

ENVIRONMENT (• Natural Resources • Wildlife • Climate)

> MinnPost: A Q&A With Paul Douglas, The Evangelical Christian Republican Poster Boy For Climate Change (Brian Lambert).  “At this point, debating climate science is roughly equivalent to debating gravity.” And the thing is, the “debate,” if you can call it that, really is just here in the United States. China gets it. The debate is over in Europe. Only here, with the powerful vested interests, the special interests and the money in play, is it still a “debate.”

> MPR: St. Paul Mayor Calls For Cities To Play Larger Role In Climate Change Talks (Elizabeth Dunbar).  Leaders from St. Paul and other cities around the country gathered in Washington, D.C. on Friday to discuss the role cities should play in global climate change efforts. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said cities have been active on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to build resiliency in the face of climate impacts.

> On Earth: You Won’t Believe How Much Plastic We Dump in the Ocean (Brian Palmer).  Humans release between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic into the ocean annually. Here’s some perspective on that hard-to-fathom number. Nine million tons of plastic is the equivalent of 136 billion plastic milk jugs! Stack them up and they’d reach more than halfway to Mars.

ENERGY (• Carbon Based • Renewable)

> Peak Oil: The Science Of Peak Oil (Andrew McKay, Southern Limits). One of the many barbs often pointed at peak oil proponents is that they are constantly shifting the goal posts. Peak oilers are accused of changing the definition of what peak oil actually means, therefore the entire concept of oil production peaking is rubbish. Far from a valid criticism however, this is actually a scientific virtue.

> The Guardian: Keep Fossil Fuels In The Ground To Stop Climat Change 
(George Monbiot).  The extraction of fossil fuels is a hard fact. The rules governments have developed to prevent their use are weak, inconsistent and negotiable. In other words, when coal, oil and gas are produced, they will be used. Continued production will overwhelm attempts to restrict consumption. Even if efforts to restrict consumption temporarily succeed, they are likely to be self-defeating. A reduction in demand when supply is unconstrained lowers the price, favouring carbon-intensive industry.

ECONOMY (• Finances • Commerce • Global-Local)

> Sierra Club: A Fast Track To Disaster (Michael Brune).  Who might profit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),  a massive trade deal with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, and seven other countries? Answer: Multinational corporations — including some of the planet’s biggest polluters. Are corporate profits more important than protections for clean air, clean water, climate stability, workers’ rights, and more?

> Resilience: Can Public Banks Become America’s New Engines Of Prosperity? (Mike Krauss, Occupy.com). New bedfellows are writing what may be the next chapter in the story of American democracy: a network of public banks to facilitate a lateral and collaborative distribution of affordable credit, enabling the diversity of American enterprise and initiative to challenge Wall Street and the Federal Reserve’s control of banking and finance.

ENLIGHTENMENT (• Expectations • Ideas • Beliefs • Psychology)

> The Archdruid Report: Peak Meaninglessness (J.M. Greer).  Last week’s discussion of externalities—costs of doing business that get dumped onto the economy, the community, or the environment—is reinforced by a previous article in Grist. It pointed out the awkward fact that none of the twenty biggest industries in today’s world could break even, much less make a profit, if they had to pay for the damage they do to the environment.

> Resilience: Pulling The Plug, Part 2 (Vera Bradova; Read Part 1-).  The only way for us to win is not to play. At the core of the Machine is a whirlwind of human and planetary energy sucked into a global positive feedback loop that’s formed a funnel of destruction and death, mowing down everything in its path. An out-of-control vicious circle is very difficult to stop; there is no point underestimating the daunting nature of this task.

EQUITY (• Equality • Health • Social Concerns)

> Sierra Club: A Win for Walmart Workers (Dan Byrnes). Rarely would an environmental organization put “Walmart” and “win” in the same headline, but when a company increases wages for half a million employees and makes big gains in clean energy, it’s a victory for grassroots activism in our books.

ENGAGEMENT (• Goals • Activism • Solutions)

> Treehugger 11 Easy Ways To Reduce Your Plastic Waste Today (Margaret Badore). Learn about 11 different ways you can reduce the plastic use and waste in your life and help your local and global communities be less burdened with plastic waste management.

> Associated Press (US News): Solar-Power Plane Takes Off From Abu Dhabi. A Swiss solar-powered plane takes off at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, early Monday, March 9, 2015, marking the start of the first attempt to fly around the world without a drop of fuel.

EVENTS AND INFORMATION

> Global Solutions Forum: Overpopulation Is Solvable, David Paxson (http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/), Thurs., Mar.19, 6:45 p.m., Plymouth Congregational Church (Jackson Room, lower level), 1900 Nicollet Ave. S. Mpls.

> MN350: Action Projects. Several are planned for this spring, including meetings related to Tar Sands, divestments, climate change, energy legislation, teach-in/solutions workshop, and oil shipping. See info on the MN350 website: http://mn350.nationbuilder.com/ ; Also see: Calendar of events, Community meetings, Campaigns, Join an action teams

> Midwest Solar: Midwest Solar Expo 2015, May 13-14, Hilton, Minneapolis. Info: Midwest Solar Expo 2015

Look Around, What Do You See?  (Clifton Ware, Editor-Publisher)

I’ve often wondered why most people register little concern about the increasing growth of materialism, which also includes the 78-million human bodies added to the planet each year, plus accumulations of ever more stuff. In addition to having essential life support items (food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.), we “developed-world” citizens enjoy an enviable level of material prosperity, thanks primarily to the plentiful and cheap carbon-based energy used to fuel economic growth in the modern era, beginning with the Industrial Age.

      One explanation for humanity’s “materialism blindness” may be attributed to our highly adaptive nature. We tend to accept familiar socio-cultural, economic, political, religious, and environmental conditions with the attitude “that’s just the way things are”. In general, we lack knowledge of “how things used to be”, and sufficient wisdom and imagination concerning “how things could be”.

      I recall having read somewhere that people born into a collapsing or collapsed society (Mayan, Incas, Grecian, Roman, etc.) are typically unaware of how life could be otherwise. In other words, our default mechanism seems to be acceptance of the status quo, especially when most people around us share similar conditions, favorable or unfavorable.

      For example, I recall my parents explaining that their Mississippi farming families managed to live quite well during the Great Depression. Although they owned small farms and homes, and had plenty to eat, they were relatively poor in comparison to our modern material lifestyle, which we take for granted. Because everyone they knew shared sustenance-farming lifestyles, they were mostly contented with their lives and grateful for having life-sustaining essentials. As materialistic expectations have risen over the past century, most contemporary Americans might view such lifestyles as quaintly austere. In other words, we’re spoiled silly.

      Beginning in the mid 1960s, I became acutely aware of materialistic growth; first, wondering “Is there an end to all this growth, including human population?” With ongoing awareness of deteriorating infrastructure—streets, sidewalks, pipelines, plus buildings and all human-produced goods—I’m reminded that constant maintenance is the only method that effectively addresses entropy. Of course, maintenance can be very expensive, as illustrated by the enormous projected costs (three trillion dollars) associated with restoring our nation’s deteriorating highways and bridges.

      This topic popped into my mind when reading Peter Berglund’s commentary in the Star-Tribune titled  “The Climate-Change Debate, Simplified”. Berglund reduces the climate-change issue to a simple exercise: just look around! In sum, he suggests we need to develop our visual awareness skills, so we can clearly see what’s going on with all of our human constructs. Some questions we might raise: How much construction and consumption is truly necessary? Can we use more simple and frugal approaches in providing essential constructions that benefit all life forms? What will future generations need, and how can we help them, beginning now!  Please read Berglund’s commentary, which follows in the Environment section.

Also, I strongly urge you to read A Brief History Of Happiness: How America Lost Track Of The Good Life—And Where To Find It Now (also listed in Equity section). This informative article provides a brief history of America’s devotion to an economic system based on material growth, rather than adopting a humane, natural system that’s focused on creating body-mind health, worthwhile pursuits, and an overall state of happiness for ALL citizens.

ENVIRONMENT (• Natural Resources • Wildlife • Climate)

> Star Tribune: Commentary: The Climate-Change Debate, Simplified (Peter Berglund). Another way to think about the question of whether climate change is caused by humans is to simply contemplate how we’ve changed the landscape. Ask yourself if all of these changes, all of these sources of CO2, could grow without having some effect? Then, ask yourself: “So what?”

> MPR (Series: Climate Change In Minnesota): • As Climate Changes, Cities Grapple With Big Rains • A Forest Dilemma: What Will Grow In A Changing Climate? • As State Warms, A Few Spots Keep Their Cool • Henry Paulson And Greg Page On The Business Risks Of Climate Change • More Carbon, More Misery For Allergy Sufferers • The Birth Of “Cli-Fi”: Books That Tackle Climate Change • What Climate Change Means For Minnesota Moose (See more on MPR)

> On Earth: Small Streams Need Protection, Too. Our Drinking Water Depends On It (Jason Bittel). Making sure the Clean Water Act covers small streams and headwaters would protect the drinking water of millions of Americans.

> Business Wire: Sustainability Of U.S. Cities Held Back By Transportation, Environmental Factors. North American cities lag behind European and Asian cities on sustainability, according to inaugural global ARCADIS Sustainable Cities Index.

> Environmental News Network: Seafloor Volcano Pulses May Alter Climate (Earth Institute, Columbia U). Volcanically active mid-ocean ridges crisscross earth’s seafloors like stitching on a baseball, stretching some 37,000 miles, and might produce eight times more lava annually than land volcanoes. If the undersea chains became more active, their CO2 output would shoot up.

ENERGY (• Carbon Based • Renewable)

> Grist: 6 Charts That Show Renewable Energy Is Getting Cheaper (David Roberts). The latest numbers on electricity costs show that various forms of renewable energy are already competitive with fossil fuels, and will only strengthen their position in future years, with costs expected to continue falling. It’s a ” new world ” available.

> Our Finite World: Charts Showing The Long-Term GDP-Energy Tie (Part 2 – A New Theory Of Energy And The Economy) (Gail Tverberg). In Part 1 Tverberg explained why cheap fuels act to create economic growth. In this post, her data show how this connection works. Low prices are a signal that we are reaching other limits of a networked economy, such as too much debt and taxes that are too high for workers to pay.

> Energy Balance: Why Cheap Oil Does Not Mean That Peak Oil Is A Myth: Some Salient Points. (Chris Rhodes). Here are 26 points that explain the concept of “peak oil”—all of the what, why, where, and how. Since most people misunderstand the concept, this article provides a brief summary overview.

> Resilience: Review: The World After Cheap Oil (Frank Kaminski, Mud City Press). World After Cheap Oil, a report by Finnish energy analysts, offers an exhaustive, up-to-date dissection of the world oil situation. It looks at the issue from every angle, starting with the looming supply shock for which the world’s developed nations are tragically unprepared, and moving on to the concomitant crisis with Earth’s climate that our oil use has unleashed.

> Resource Insights: Alternate Opinions: The World’s Energy Information Duopoloy Comes To An End. (Kurt Cobb). Most energy forecasts are based on information from the two leading energy information agencies: the EIA and the IEA. That’s about to change. Policymakers, investors and the public should take heed.

ECONOMY (• Finances • Commerce • Global-Local)

> The New York Times: Climate Change’s Bottom Line (Bert Helm). The ray of hope is that businesses changing their business plans–to cope with a changing climate that doesn’t really need to happen–will help people understand that we can still avert the worst impacts of climate change.

> Positive Money: What Does $200 Trillion Of Debt Really Mean For The Global Economy? (Mike Roscoe). We can summarize the global economic problem in one sentence: Not enough people are doing the right kind of work anymore, that is, the real wealth-creating sectors of the economy are employing fewer and fewer workers as a percentage of total population.

> Project for Public Spaces: The Trouble With Modernization: Lessons For Endangered Markets Everywhere. Despite their many benefits, public markets, particularly in the context of developing countries, can be endangered by many forces – and often by a combination of forces. The good news is that with focused local action that is sensitive to an area’s existing cultural fabric, struggling markets can once again become vital centers of commerce and community.

> Peak Prosperity: Nomi Prins: The Sinister Evolution Of Our Modern Banking System. Today, the ‘revolving door’ connecting our political and financial systems is evident to anyone with eyes. Prins’ latest book, All the President’s Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, is a groundbreaking narrative about the relationships of president’s to key bankers over the past century and how they impacted domestic and foreign policy.

ENLIGHTENMENT (• Expectations • Ideas •  Beliefs • Psychology)

> Resilience: Utopians Are Ruining Everything (Vera Bradova). Utopianism is motivated by a desire for social perfection and ideal worlds, typically involving four aspects:
1) privileging of ideals over messy human realities, of future over the present, of ideas over nature; 2)  imposition of top-down design: 3) refusal of responsibility and of paying close attention to untoward consequences (ends justifying means); and 4)
 social pressure or propaganda to induce people to “like” the results.

> CASSE-The Daly News: Who Moved Obama’s Win-Win Cheese? (Brian Czech). Let’s hope Obama comes full circle, back to the more innocent Obamanomics, with recognition that economic growth is unsustainable, and increasingly harmful—in a century already slated for extinctions, climate change, water supply shocks and the like, all in proportion to our obsession with increasing production and consumption of goods and services, otherwise known as economic growth.

> ENSIA: M. Sanjayan: Nature And Humans, Together Again (David Dooley).  Humans have been “framed out of the picture” when it comes to documenting nature, says Conservation International executive VP and senior scientist M. Sanjayan in the opening of a new series, “EARTH A New Wild,” which premiered Feb. 4th on PBS. For humans, saving nature is a very self-serving necessity. Episodes are available online: EARTH A New Wild | Watch Online | PBS Video

> Common Dreams: War And Perpetual Adolescence (Robert Koehler). “What’s truly ‘exceptional’ in twenty-first-century America is any articulated vision of what a land at peace with itself and other nations might be like . . . “Instead, war, backed by a diet of fear, is the backdrop against which the young have grown to adulthood. (William J. Astore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel)

> The Guardian: Anti-Intellectualism Is Taking Over The US (Patricia Williams). There has been an unfortunate uptick in academic book bannings and firings, made worse by a nationwide disparagement of teachers, teachers’ unions and scholarship itself. Happily, there is pushback occurring against such anti-intellectualism. One of the most vibrant examples is a protest group called Librotraficante, or Book Trafficker (librotraficante.com).

EQUITY (• Equality • Health • Social Concerns)

> Common Dreams: The Super-Rich Can’t Hide From The Rest Of Us (Michael Winship). “Even though corporate profits are at their highest level in 85 years, corporations aren’t pumping it back into the economy. Instead they’re holding it. S&P companies last year spent an incredible 95% of their profits on stock buybacks to enrich executives and shareholders.” Wages grew just 1.7 percent last year, “the slowest rate since at least the 1960s,” Bryce Covert at ThinkProgress reports.

> Alternet: Robert Reich: Why Work Is Turning Into A Nightmare. What about an economy where robots do everything that can be predictably programmed in advance, and almost all profits go to the robots’ owners? Meanwhile, human beings do the work that’s unpredictable – odd jobs, on-call projects, fetching and fixing, driving and delivering, tiny tasks needed at any and all hours – and patch together barely enough to live on. Brace yourself. This is the economy we’re now barreling toward.

> Yes! Magazine: A Brief History Of Happiness: How America Lost Track Of The Good Life—And Where To Find It Now (Sarah van Gelder). For decades, we’ve been taught that economic growth and buying more stuff will make us happy—while trashing the planet. The good news is, there’s a better kind of happy: It starts with meaningful work, loving relationships, and a thriving natural world. (Based on an excerpt from Sustainable Happiness: Live Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference, an anthology of work from YES! Magazine.

> Pew Research Center: America’s ‘Middle’ Holds Its Ground After The Great Recession (Rakesh Kochhar & Richard Fry). Middle-income households, by our definition, earn as much as twice the median income or as little as two-thirds the median. This results in a range of $40,667 to $122,000 for a middle-income American household of three in 2013. Data provide further confirmation of the nation’s growing economic inequality.

> Common Dreams: New Evidence That Half Of America Is Broke (Paul Buchheit). Half of our nation, by all reasonable estimates of human need, is in poverty. The jubilant headlines above speak for people whose view is distorted by growing financial wealth. The argument for a barely surviving half of America has been made before, but important new data is available to strengthen the case.

ENGAGEMENT (• Goals • Activism • Solutions)

> CUESA: How Will We Grow New Farmers? (Brie Mazurek). Farmers perform one of society’s most essential functions, yet farming is one of the most undervalued and endangered professions in the U.S. There’s a deep cultural need for exposure to our food system at all ages, and a need to create bridges between rural producers and urban consumers. Such education is crucial in building community support for young farmers, so that farming is seen as a viable and valuable occupation.

> Organic Consumers Association: Carbon Sequestration: A Climate Change Solution Often Ignored (Dr. Mercola). Rarely do you hear climate activists address the issue of soil and land regeneration, yet it is perhaps the most comprehensive solution to everyone’s concerns.

> Common Dreams: ‘Fighting For The Places We Love’: A Vision For The Climate Battles To Come (Naomi Klein & May Boeve). There are various reasons why, if we get the right set of incentives in place—both political and economic—it can be a really, really good time to get off fossil fuels and push very aggressively toward a decentralized, renewables-based economy.

>Star Tribune: DNR Halts Pines-To-Potatoes Conversion In Central Minnesota. Alarmed by rapid deforestation in an ecologically sensitive swath of central Minnesota, state regulators have ordered a broad environmental review that will temporarily halt conversion of the region’s jackpine stands to potato fields.

EVENTS AND INFORMATION

> UM IOE: Frontiers in the Environment: Big Questions, Wednesdays, 12-1 p.m., Feb. 11-April 29, IonE Seminar Room R380, Learning & Environmental Sciences Bldg., St. Paul February 11 — How Can Individual Cities Make A Global Impact On Climate Change? February 18 — How Can Art And Story Heal The Disconnect Between Modern Humans And The Environment? Join us online via UMConnect

> Move MN: Transportation Day at the Capitol, Mon., Feb. 12^th, 2 p.m. Register here

> Eastside Food Co-op Movie Nights – Power of Community, Thurs., Feb. 19^th, 6:30-8:30 p.m., • Food for Change, Wed., Mar. 4^th, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Granite Studio.  Free – RSVP required – luna@eastsidefood.coop or 612-843-5409

> Community Rights Movement: A Grassroots Strategy To Protect Our Climate (Paul Cienfuegos, speaker), Mon., Feb., 23, 5:30-8:30 p.m.,Sabathani Community Center, 310 38^th St.S., Mpls. 5:30 p.m.-Networking; 6:30-Talk; 7:30-Q/A. Donation, $5-20. Info: twincitiescommunityrights@gmail.com

> MN350.Org: Upcoming Team Meetings & Events (http://www.mn350.org/) • Local Campaigns: http://www.mn350.org/category/local-campaigns/ • Climate and Energy Calendar: http://www.mn350.org/calendar/ • Global Divestment Day, Sat., Feb. 14^th, 10 a.m., Joule Microbusiness Network. Info/RSVP

> MN Renewable Energy Society: Classes–Solar Photovoltaics 101; Zero Net Energy Homes; Passive House Design; For more information, explore Minnesota Renewable Energy Society.

> CERTs: CERTs 2015 Conference: Community Driven Clean Energy, March 10-11, 2015, St. Cloud, MN Agenda & Register to Attend

> Midwest Solar: Midwest Solar Expo 2015, May 13-14, Hilton, Minneapolis. Info: Midwest Solar Expo 2015