Considering the plethora of important issues facing planet earth, the need to engage in conversation that cross both political and ideological lines has never been greater.  In recent years, conversations in America between Liberals and Conservatives have devolved to the point where there’s rarely an exchange of meaning information, but rather an exchange of heated rhetoric that bares little resemblance to the truth.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this TED Talk from 2008, Jonathan Haidt speaks to the differences in the liberal and conservative moral compasses, but more importantly to the need for us all to understand both points of view and both sets of moral values in order to create a better world.  This is a point that all political parties should pay attention to.

I’m also reminded of the passage below from Fritjof Capra‘s book, The Turning Point, in which he describes the contrasting aspects of Yin and Yang, as well as the need for both to be present in a balanced, harmonious society.

Self assertion is achieved by displaying Yang behavior; by being demanding, aggressive, competitive, expanding, and – as far as human behavior is concerned – by using linear, analytic thinking. Integration is furthered by Yin behavior; by being responsive, cooperative, intuitive, and aware of one’s environment. Both Yin and Yang, integrative and self-assertive tendencies, are necessary for harmonious social and ecological relationships.

As Global Patriots, it’s important to see the balance between Yin and Yang!

If you’ve spent any time researching the long history of global oil production you’re familiar with the phrase, “the easy oil is all gone”, which means that reserves close to the surface have all been exhausted, and oil companies now need to drill deeper and deeper to find deposits.  This infograph from Energy & Capital provides a clear picture of where we’ve been, and where the world is now heading as we seek new sources of oil to satisfy the thirst of an expanding global population.

From the old days when West Texas crude oil made America the #1 producer in the world, we now drill more than 10 times deeper, and do so offshore where the risk of accident is much higher.  We all know what happened when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in a ball of fire and ultimately sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

Relative Depth of Oil Reserves - Click on Image for Larger Size

The ultimate point is that the process of extracting oil from the earth is becoming more and more difficult, resulting in much greater cost and risk to the environment.  It’s impossible to say exactly when the supply will run out, but the fact is that oil reserves are not unlimited, and that day will eventually come.  The question before us is whether we have the will and determination to advance the use of alternative energy sources as a way to maintain sustainability.

I’ve always thought that Earth Day should be a day of celebrating, of giving thanks to a planet that sustains all life and brings such immense beauty, joy and diversity.  But that’s not always an easy thing to do when facing corporate indifference and government inaction.  Sometimes it seems that for every step of progress, there comes an equal and opposite force that’s intent on pushing us all backward, but scientists from all corners continue to fight the good fight – the fight for truth.

Science to the Rescue

“The global scientific community must deliver to society the knowledge necessary to assess the risks humanity is facing from global change. It must provide knowledge of how society can effectively mitigate dangerous changes and cope with changes we cannot manage.”

Despite the recent assault from all sorts of liars & deniers, climate scientists remain hard at work collecting and analyzing the latest planetary data to foster meaningful solutions to our current climate change dilemma.  The London Planet Under Pressure conference provided attendees from around the world with a comprehensive update of Earth system knowledge and detailed the pressure our planet is now under.

State of the Planet Declaration

This conference was the world’s largest gathering of experts on global environmental and social issues in advance of the upcoming United Nations Rio+20 Summit in June.  Below I’ve highlighted four points from the State of the Planet Declaration published at the conclusion of the conference.

1. Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk.  Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources: these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological and social crises, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale.

2. In just one lifetime our increasingly interconnected and interdependent economic, social, cultural & political systems have come to place pressures on the environment that may cause fundamental changes in the Earth system and move us beyond safe natural boundaries.  But the same interconnectedness can provide the potential for solutions: new ideas can form and spread quickly, creating the momentum for the major transformation required for a truly sustainable planet.

3. The defining challenge of our age is to safeguard Earth’s natural processes to ensure the well-being of civilization while eradicating poverty, reducing conflict over resources, and supporting human and ecosystem health.

4. As consumption accelerates everywhere and world population rises, it is no longer sufficient to work towards a distant, future ideal of sustainable development.  Global sustainability must become a foundation of society.  It can and must be part of the bedrock of nation states and the fabric of societies.

Nothing could be more appropriate on Earth Day 2012 than to make sustainability the fabric of society as a whole, and the fabric of our daily lives!

Significant progress has been made in recent years, yet the potential for capitalizing on wind power is largely untapped.  The main issue continues to rest wtih politicians (often known as petroleum prostitutes) who are firmly entrenched in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, and we certainly don’t want to leave out the climate deniers (who also believe in the tooth fairy), but another key factor in the equation involves our inability to visualize the enormous resource that wind represents.

Click on image to see current map in motion!

Creative & graphical data analysis to the rescue!  Using surface wind data from the National Digital Forecast Database, Fernanda B. Viégas and Martin Wattenberg have created just such a visualization.  In order to show just how variable the many wind patterns are across the United States they captured some previous days of activity.  Compare the image from the current day above with two days in March of 2012.

March 17, 2012

Click on image to see March 17, 2012 map in motion!

March 27, 2012

Click on image to see March 27, 2012 map in motion!

Once you get to the full motion image, click on a specific area to zoom in and check out the wind patterns in more detail.  You can also hold down the left mouse button and drag the image across the screen.  Hopefully this visual representation of wind will help us all appreciate an incredible natural resource, provided free of charge!

Global Patriots are everywhere, on every continent and in every country and city, which is why finding one in my own backyard is such a treat.  Bill Toone works his magic at ECOLIFE Foundation these days, located in North San Diego County, but he’s been dedicated to protecting endangered birds, insects, plants, and mammals for over 30 years – someone worth celebrating on Global Patriot Day 2012!

ECOLIFE believes that there is still space and resources for all the people and wildlife that hold this fragile web of life in place.  We believe conservative use of our resources will allow more people to improve their quality of life, manage family sizes and ultimately allow a greater balance with our resources.  Conservation and quality of life must ultimately go hand-in-hand.

In possession of a master’s degree in avian science from UC Davis, Bill signed on with the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park as the zoo’s curator of birds.  He achieved a great deal during his 36 year career at the zoo, but of special note was his service within the California Condor Recovery Team, a program that increased the California Condor population from just 22 in 1982 to over 400 today.

You Can’t Save Bambi Without Building a Stove

Click here to view the embedded video.

But it was his effort to save yet another winged creature that caught my attention.  In this presentation during the 2010 TEDxSanDiego conference Bill details his efforts to protect the Eastern Monarch Butterfly and the importance of community-based conservation to solve local problems that include global implications.

That passion began 23 years ago when Bill and his wife traveled to Mexico in order to witness one billion monarch butterflies awakening from hibernation, an amazing event that challenges any of his worldwide adventures in both scope and beauty.  But as the Mazahua Indians continued to cut trees for cooking and heating, the butterfly population continued to decline while the local inhabitants increasingly suffered the effects of smoke inhalation due to their use of open cooking fires.

If the indigenous population living around the butterfly sanctuaries were able to use more efficient wood-burning stoves for cooking and heating, there would be a significant reduction in the deforestation of the trees on which the monarch butterflies depend, and fewer smoke-related illnesses and deaths.

The answer was introducing a new way of cooking, and in a classic case of systems thinking, ECOLIFE built over 200 Patsari Stoves for the native population to use and replanted over 10,000 trees to reforest the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.  It’s not a happy ending yet, as more work remains to be done, but with Bill Toone’s continued dedication to protecting our planet, it’s only a matter of time.

So how can you help the cause?  Make a donation, educate yourself on this critical issue, or better yet, join Bill on his next excursion south to Mexico and witness the butterfly migration for yourself!

Honored to have Bill Toone in my backyard on Global Patriot Day 2012!

Much as been said about the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, designed to transport synthetic crude oil from the Athabasca Tar Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada into the United States.  While many folks tout this project as a way to support the American economy by providing energy resources and creating jobs, in this dynamic and impassioned TEDxVictoria session Garth Lenz presents the ecological nightmare currently unfolding in Alberta as a result of our insatiable thirst for oil.

The world’s largest and most devastating environmental and industrial project is situated in the heart of the largest and most intact forest in the world, Canada’s boreal forest. – Garth Lenz

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Alberta Tar Sands, situated in the Canadian boreal forest, represents one of the earth’s largest reserves of fossil fuels, second only to Saudia Arabia, but the nature of these tar sands, and the method of extraction, is quite different from the oil that is pumped from the ground; requiring far more energy & water while producing more toxic pollution.

The Boreal Forest ecosystem supports nearly 50% of the world’s remaining intact forests and is the world’s largest and most important carbon storehouse – holding 22 percent of the total carbon stored on the earth’s land surface, and almost twice as much carbon per unit area as tropical forests.
- International Boreal Conservation Campaign

These stunning photographs by Garth Lenz tell the big story, and beg the question: Which vision of the future resonates most with you?

An industrial landscape created by oil companies?

Or the pristine landscape created by nature?

We have a choice of ecological destruction, or development of clean energy.

The question is, what does your future look like?

America has changed in many ways since the fateful events of September 11, 2001.  Two wars have been fought, Afghanistan and Iraq, while passage of the Patriot Act and a massive buildup in the intelligence community have forever altered this land.  While some feel that these changes have made us safer, there is another view that should give us all pause.  In her book, The End of America: A Citizen’s Call to Action, Naomi Wolf lays out ten warning signs that indicate America is moving away from the foundation of liberty as defined by our Founding Fathers.

The big picture reveals that ten classic pressures – pressures that have been used in various times and places in the past to close down pluralistic societies – were set in motion by the Bush administration to close down our own open society.

At the core of her argument is the notion that we feel separate from the events that have shaped other countries throughout recent history, especially the events that unfolded in Germany, Italy and Russia in the 20th century; it can’t happen here.

Naomi also contends that we have gradually relinquished our personal responsibility to protect the freedom and liberties that this country was founded on by subcontracting our patriotic duties to others.

Instead of our personal engagement, we hired lawyers, scholars, activists and politicians to protect our rights.

It’s no secret that our government engaged in torture and kidnapping while creating secret prisons and subverting the sacred rule of law, but have we turned a corner with regards to our own democracy?

“There are ten steps that are taken in order to close down a democracy or crush a prodemocratic movement, whether by capitalists, communists, or right-wing fascists.  These ten steps, together, are more than the sum of their parts.  Once all ten have been put in place, each magnifies the power of the others and of the whole.”

My first reaction to this hypothesis was disbelief, but having finished the book, Naomi does make a strong case that we’ve damaged the very infrastructure that brought forth the world’s leading democracy, and I would encourage you all to read the text for yourself and think about the ways in which this country has changed in the past decade.  There is a chapter devoted to each of the ten steps mentioned:

• Invoke an External and Internal Threat
• Establish Secret Prisons
• Develop a Paramilitary Force
• Surveil Ordinary Citizens
• Infiltrate Citizens’ Groups
• Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens
• Target Key Individuals
• Restrict the Press
• Cast Criticism as “Espionage” and Dissent as “Treason”
• Subvert the Rule of Law

Naomi provides detailed examples for each of the ten steps on this list, and some of the comparisons to past totalitarian regimes are truly chilling to read.  While it still seems far-fetched that America would, even under dire circumstances, abandon our democracy, it’s quite clear that the past ten years have opened up that possibility.

What are your thoughts in regard to protecting our personal rights and liberties vs. the desire to protect us from harm?  Is it a valid trade-off to give up aspects of the freedoms we were guaranteed in the Constitution in order to defend America from those who seek to destroy us?  Are you engaged in protecting our democracy?

“We have been slow to learn that liberty, like nature, demands a relationship with us for it to continue to sustain us.”

The reality that everything on the planet is connected at a fundamental level is an important aspect of the Global Patriot philosophy in that it speaks to the fact that everything we think, say and do affects everything that is.  The inspiring film“I Am” takes us on a journey of self-discovery and reveals the world which lies below the surface, a world in which all life on the planet is connected and nothing is separate.

After recovering from a mountain biking accident that left him nearly incapacitated for many long, pain-filled months, Hollywood writer/director/producer Tom Shadyac (Ace Venture: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty) took a look at his life up to that point, a life that was largely ruled by rampant materialism which consisted of travel in private jets and living in a 17,000 square foot mansion.

With the realization that there was more to life than just accumulating possessions, he shifted gears from comedy to documentary, assembled a small camera crew, and set out to ask some of world’s most profound thinkers two questions:

What’s wrong with our world, and what can we do about it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film includes interviews with scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, activists, philosophers, entrepreneurs such as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Coleman Barks, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, Marc Ian Barasch, John Francis and Howard Zinn, each providing a unique piece of the puzzle.

Though Tom began his journey looking for what’s wrong in the world, he discovered what’s right with it by examining the science of connection and unity, the universal nature of compassion and empathy, and the mystery and magic of the human heart.  In the end he came to see that we all have the power to effect change on a global basis, and that serving humanity is far superior to collecting more Stuff.

“Once we start embracing the idea that we are all one, then we’ll start fixing things – it starts with consciousness, and our definition of ourselves.”

The basic human principles of love, compassion, kindness and empathy are explored alongside scientific research on topics such as mirror neurons, the vagus nerve and quantum entanglement in an attempt to describe the true nature of being human.  This is a film you should see, a story you should hear, an idea you should embrace.

“God says, you know what, I don’t have anybody else, except you.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

While kudos are due to the many millions of global citizens who loudly protested the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation, which resulted in the bills being shelved, it is likely that similar bills, with similar restrictions on our freedom to communicate, will come to light after the presidential elections.

“Congressional leaders on Friday indefinitely shelved two antipiracy bills that had rallied the Internet and rocked Capitol Hill, dealing a major defeat to the traditional media industry while emboldening a new breed of online political activists.”  San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 2012

If you are unsure why these bills were so dangerous, please take a moment to watch this Khan Academy video!

Click here to view the embedded video.

But many Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, saw the bills as a threat, and said they would stifle creativity on the Internet while forcing search engines and social media to become police officers for the Justice Department.  San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 2012

Make no mistake, while there is a need to protect intellectual property, these bills as written are so draconian that any of us could be arrested for copyright violation just by writing a blog post.  It’s extremely important that all of us pay attention to this critical issue – the freedom of the internet itself is at stake!

I often ask people just how long we’ve know about climate change / global warming. Those folks who have been following the topic have an answer that’s in the ballpark, but at least half of those questioned reply along the lines of, “Probably 7 or 8 years.”

“Current human activities – such as the widespread burning of fossil fuels to run power plants and vehicles – are releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere (gases so named because they trap heat much as the glass in a greenhouse does).

If present trends continue and these gases effectively double in concentration during the coming century, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences predicts that global average temperatures would rise between 3 and 8 degrees farenheit (between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees centigrade), leaving the Earth warmer than at any time in human history.” – From the preface – Fred Krupp, Executive Director, Environmental Defense Fund, and George Langdon, President, American Museum of Natural History

The quote is within the preface of Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast, by Andrew Revkin. What is quite surprising is that this book was published in 1992, 20 years ago, and based on scientific research that was conducted before publication.

At the time this book first came out, in tandem with a traveling exhibition on climate change sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and the Environmental Defense Fund, the general feeling was that action was called for to reverse the trends.

Andrew points out early on that climate change is nothing new, and has been in play throughout humankind’s duration on this planet, but the other point he makes, some two decades ago, was that scientific evidence had already indicated human activity was having a profound negative influence on global climate.

The Story That Needed Telling

Since global population has risen from less than 5 million, at the end of the last ice age, to our current level of 7 billion (a 1,400 fold increase) it’s not so surprising that our planet would experience some sort of imbalance, but what had scientists worried back then was the possibility that this imbalance could potentially threaten all life on the planet.  That realization prompted more and more climate scientists to speak up.

Thus an era has begun in which humans are no longer simply polluting a particular lake, or cutting down a certain forest, but changing the composition and dynamics of one of the essential components of the planet.

The book is relatively brief at under 200 pages, but rich with examples of how the earth evolved from its formation some 4 billion years ago, and most importantly, how the greenhouse effect works and CO2′s role in changing our climate as levels rise.

The challenge now is to find a way to act that will make geologists of the future look upon this age as a remarkable time, a time in which a species began to take into account the long term impact of its actions.

What I love most about the book is its accessibility; a teenager, with a modicum of science background, can easily grasp all the concepts presented.  What’s perplexing is why, some twenty years later, such an easy to understand problem, backed up by thousands of pages of scientific research, is denied and attacked by a small, though very influential, slice of our society.

The answer lies in two fundamental motivations: Greed and Ideology

Stay tuned, as the next Global Patriot blog post will cover the history of those liars and deniers who set about convincing us that tobacco was safe to use, the ozone layer was doing just fine, and now tell us climate change is nothing to worry about.