The Global Emergency Goes Beyond Climate!
The future of planet Earth must not be dictated by Capitalism, Socialism or Communism, because Nature does not DO “isms“.
The biosphere of planet Earth has its own dynamics and rules that are billions of years old, and little Johnny-come-lately humanity can either learn to live within them once again OR PERISH! Just two decades into the dawn of the Third Millennium of the modern era, we are learning a hard lesson about our planet: our greed-based, parasitic paradigm is FAILING SPECTACULARLY!:
- SOIL: compaction erosion, loss of soil fertility, natural bacteria and mycorrhiza, deprived of the insects and natural vegetation that is their habitat and food
- AIR: pollution affects every inhabited continent, cities unfit for human habitation, global Climate Change threatening the planet with a runaway greenhouse effect;
- BIOTA: while wild animal species have been lost at a vertiginous rate, ‘domestic’ ones have been reduced to biological factories, breeding new diseases;
- ENERGY: in spite of the cost of wind and solar now far below that of coal, oil and natural gas, subsidies continue to propup electricity generation by Fossil Fuels;
- FOOD: natural, nutricious food is no longer the norm, as manufactured foodstuffs come to dominate ‘modern’ diets, threatening human and environmental health;
- PEOPLE: driven from family farms that had fed generations, sustainably, their land acquired by Multinationals, are turned into “surplus labour” and starve;
- POLLUTION: industrial, agricultural and human wastes pollute streams, rivers and lakes, decimating life, before draining out to sea and polluting marine habitats;
- WASTES: accumulating in all compartments of the ecosphere, as toxic and pathogenic waste buried in the land, vulnerable to climate-driven Sea Level Rise;
- WATER: intensive exploitation of freshwater for the soft drinks industry is leaving dried-up acquifers, desertification and permanent loss of species on huge scale
We need new, resource-based forms of Co-operative enterprise that allows real people, not Corporations to develop trade, commerce, manufacturing, farming, energy and our communities. What have become profit-making machines for the wealthy must be returned to sustainable sources of living for people, symbiotic with the ecosphere, not as parasites. Working alongside one another, as equals. WE can benefit from a migration SUSTAINABLE, HUMANE, ETHICAL paradigm.
WE, not Industry and commerce, must reclaim the Planet and its resources, because it is NOT our planet, we are merely borrowing it from lour children and grandchildren!
Community energy co-ops
Housing co-ops
EARTH 20:20 VISION!
This website aims to signpost the choices that we, our families, friends and communities can make, to put the brake on Climate Change and other phenomena that threaten the future of planet Earth.
Loss of biodiversity, sea level rise, soil erosion and water eutrophication, plastic waste and other pollution, all require that we make different choices, and that means access to the necessary information.
In these web pages you will find ‘How to guides’, links to initiatives and examples of various projects to empower ordinary people to decide how best to influence the direction of our ‘development’, into this coming, pivotal decade in the history of our planet.
Please be patient, as we continiue to build up the pages, a bit at random, but hopefully in a sustained, ongoing effort
“In November 2017, 15,364 scientists signed a World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: Second Notice written by eight authors calling for, among other things, limiting population growth, and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources. The Second Notice included 9 time-series graphs of key indicators, each correlated to a specific issue mentioned in the original 1992 warning, to show that most environmental issues are continuing to trend in the wrong direction, most with no discernible change in rate. The article included 13 specific steps humanity could take to transition to sustainability.
The Second Notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published.[1] The full warning was published in BioScience[a] and it can still be endorsed on the Scientists Warning website.” – Wikipedia
For over 40 years climatologists have been tracking increases in our planet’s mean global temperatures. After much research and debate, most concluded that the process responsible for this sudden increase is the Greenhouse Effect. Human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of fossil fuels – petrol, diesel and gas – alongside methane emissions, from animal husbandry – persist in the atmosphere, and hold in heat, like a blanket. Increasing concentrations make the blanket ‘thicker’ and heat from the sun, volcanic and human activity, is trapped in this capsule of Greenhouse Gases gases (GHGs)
“The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.[1]
The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change, the text of which represented a consensus of the representatives of the 196 parties attending it.[2] The agreement will enter into force when joined by at least 55 countries which together represent at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions.[3][4][5] On 22 April 2016 (Earth Day), 174 countries signed the agreement in New York, [6] and began adopting it within their own legal systems (through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession).” – Wikipedia
The scientific consensus is that we are running out of time to stop Climate Change from going critical.
“Since at least the start of the 20th century, the average global sea level has been rising. Between 1900 and 2016, the sea level rose by 16–21 cm (6.3–8.3 in).[2] More precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements reveal an accelerating rise of 7.5 cm (3.0 in) from 1993 to 2017,[3]:1554 which is a trend of roughly 30 cm (12 in) per century. This acceleration is due mostly to human-caused global warming, which is driving thermal expansion of seawater and the melting of land-based ice sheets and glaciers.[4] Between 1993 and 2018, thermal expansion of the oceans contributed 42% to sea level rise; the melting of temperate glaciers, 21%; Greenland, 15%; and Antarctica, 8%. Climate scientists expect the rate to further accelerate during the 21st century.[5]:62 ” – Wikipedia
This means that every continent will experience a rise, not only on its coastline, but within its very soils, as water soaks into soils, sands and invaades wetlands, along every coastline.
The earliest impacts of Sea Level Rise (SLR) will be on the fringe of the land, as the rising waters seep into and penetrate all waste-filled voids underground- yet these impacts have received absolutely no attention by the scientific community or media.
Amongst the earliest impacts of SLR on marine infiltration of and leaching from:
- Sewers, septic tanks and cess pits
- Cemeteries, mass graves and animal carcass pits
- Mines and mining spoils
- Landfills and diffuse litter
- Toxic and radioactive wastes
- Underground fuel stores
Loss of biodiversity or biodiversity loss is the extinction of species (plant or animal) worldwide, and also the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat.
The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration / ecological resilience or effectively permanent (e.g. through land loss). Global extinction has so far been proven to be irreversible.
Even though permanent global species loss is a more dramatic phenomenon than regional changes in species composition, even minor changes from a healthy stable state can have dramatic influence on the food web and the food chain insofar as reductions in only one species can adversely affect the entire chain (coextinction), leading to an overall reduction in biodiversity, possible alternative stable states of an ecosystem notwithstanding. Ecological effects of biodiversity are usually counteracted by its loss. Reduced biodiversity in particular leads to reduced ecosystem services and eventually poses an immediate danger for food security, also for humankind.[1] – Wikipedia
Over the past year or so, in what has been termed “Climate Rebellion“, we have been hearing protesters demand that “Governments do something to tackle Climate Change”.
Some of this is absolutely legitimate and right, however, we individuals have a much more immediate role to play:
By actin in the first person we can take the lead e in the process of changing OUR impacts on our planet to reduce, and even reverse our impacts. But that means changing the choices WE make:
- as buyers
- as tenants
- as colleagues
- as neighbours
- as homeowners
- as business owners
- to fund Virtuous Circles
- to de-fund Vicious Circles
- to build our own green jobs
- to own our own lives and future
- to build resilient, sustainable communities
- Fossil Fuels
- Fracking
- Tar sands
- Coal mining
- Agribusiness
- Drilling and Minerals
- Logging of virgin forests
- Appropriateing Indigenous Lands
- Appropriating water and other natural resources abroad
Set-up local co-operatives and collective buying groups for:
- Sustainable food
- Sustainable housing
- Workers’ co-operatives
- Community Energy Co-ops
- Regional transport & Energy Networks
- Co-operative vehicle conversion projects
- Community Afforestation projects
Network with other groups and co-ops to make your £$€¥ buy BIG volumes of sustainable goods, and choose ethical wholesalers, asking them to buy from small farmers and even encourage them to form Farmers’ Co-operatives.