Category Archives: Climate Change

Ecological Economics is the Future

In my book A Fool for Peace I speak of Wholistic economics. This is based on real needs and wants. Ecological economics is a step closer in that we start to factor in the real costs of economic activity. When I studied economics the first thing I realised was that economics only deal with infinite growth modelling. It regarded all activity as wealth, whereas real wealth must factor in Gross National Happiness (actual purpose of economics) and optimal resource use whereby we do not denude future resources for future generations. We have to understand the real meaning of balance and homeostasis not only with the planet but within ourselves as all needs arise from inner narratives that say ‘I need…I want…’ When we become happier the needs and wants narrow as we no longer fill gaps but meet actual needs. This runs counter to the economic narrative that depends on expansion in expenditure (wants) and profit (wealth) rather than balance where need=want. So this is where the tension is. We see this in how the government deals with environmentalists and the resistance of industry to living a truly sustainable life, rather than marketing one that sounds good but does not have any real impact on nature, no matter the digital rhetoric. The outer world always reflects the inner state of ourselves. The outer will not change until we address the inner state, this is universal law not man made law. Even ecological economics has not understood the fundamental link with inner peace. I am waiting still, I am still waiting… for change. Now to the article on ecological economics…

http://theconversation.com/what-is-ecological-economics-and-why-do-we-need-to-talk-about-it-123915?

Ecological economics focuses on sustainability and development, rather than the traditional economic concerts of efficiency and growth. thodonal88/Shutterstock

What is ‘ecological economics’ and why do we need to talk about it?

November 5, 2019 6.03am AEDT

Anitra Nelson, Brian Coffey, RMIT University

Authors

Anitra Nelson

Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Brian Coffey

Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, RMIT University

Disclosure statement

Anitra Nelson is Vice-President of the Australia New Zealand Society of Ecological Economics (ANZSEE), has been on the ANZSEE executive (2015–19) and is Chair of the Organising Committee for the ANZSEE 2019 Conference at RMIT University. An Australian research team she has led also received funding associated with entries made for the online data-base EJAtlas.

Brian Coffey is on the Organising Committee for the ANZSEE 2019 Conference, which is to be held at RMIT University.

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This article is part of a series on rebalancing the human–nature interactions that are central to the study and practice of ecological economics, which is the focus of the 2019 ANZSEE Conference in Melbourne later this month.

As environmental crises and the urgency to create ecological sustainability escalate, so does the importance of ecological economics. This applied, solutions-based field of studies is concerned with sustainability and development, rather than efficiency and growth. Also, given that cities account for 70-80% of global economic activity and associated resource use, emissions and waste, they are central to finding solutions to the challenge of sustainability.

Ecological economics recognises local to global environmental limits. It ranges from research for short-term policy and local challenges through to long-term visions of sustainable societies. Ecological economists also consider global issues such as carbon emissions, deforestation, overfishing and species extinctions.

Core concepts

You’re probably familiar with some core concepts of ecological economics. These include “steady-state economies”, “carrying capacity”, “ecological footprints” and “environmental justice”.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was one of the first economists to argue that an economy faces limits to growth as a result of resource depletion.

A steady-state economy is both relatively stable and respects ecological limits. Drawing on the work of mathematician and economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, economist Herman Daly elaborated the model, editing a 1973 anthology, Toward a Steady-State Economy.

In 1990, Daly co-founded the International Society of Ecological Economics (ISEE). It had three key principles:

the human economy is embedded in nature, and economic processes are actually biological, physical and chemical processes and transformations
ecological economics is a meeting place for researchers committed to environmental issues
ecological economics requires transdisciplinary work to describe economic processes in relation to physical reality.

Joshua Farley, who has worked with Daly, discusses some of these principles in an opening address to the Australia New Zealand Society of Ecological Economics (ANZSEE) conference at RMIT University later this month.

In a partnership program of several North American universities, Farley teaches Economics for the Anthropocene postgraduates. They apply ecological economics to “real-world environmental solutions”. Some will talk at the conference about their research.

Today overconsumption is measured against Earth’s carrying capacity.

William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel developed the related concept of the ecological footprint. It’s an indicator of the ecological impacts of everyday activities and practices.

Ecological footprints are useful ways for industries, governments and people to assess which practices we need to reduce to keep within the limits of Earth’s regenerative capacity.

The ecological footprint explained. See https://youtu.be/fACkb2u1ULY

ISEE co-founder Joan Martinez-Alier established the global Environmental Justice Atlas. Activists and scholars developed this online database of around 3,000 environmental justice conflicts. It provides open access to many and various ecological and economic value assessments.

Issues of environmental justice in Australia include:

fatalities from asbestos-related diseases
health and climate impacts of coal mining and natural gas fracking
ineffective waste systems and landfills
clear-felling of Australian forests, and timber imports from Asia-Pacific deforestation.

Mountains of waste are a stark reminder we are consuming more than the Earth can sustain. ThavornC/Shutterstock

A new kind of economics

Ecological economics partly developed from frustration with the narrowness of environmental and resource economics. These approaches apply mainstream economics to the environment. In doing so, they fail to incorporate critical environmental concerns that arise with inputs, outputs and waste.

In addition, ecological economists have a broader view about what “progress” is and how to measure it. Ecological econonomists are more sceptical about how much human-made capital improves on the benefits we get from nature. Critically, they ask: “How useful is it to put a monetary value on nature?”

Ecological economist Clive Hamilton discusses that question in the case of Coronation Hill in Kakadu National Park. He argues that market-based assessments such as “willingness to pay” favour market-based solutions. Similarly, Brian Coffey highlights the conundrum of monetising ecological values:

I would rather ask “why is nature important?” and “how can we live with, and within, it?”

Despite this, certain ecological economists use monetary data to make powerful ecological statements. For instance, Ida Kubiszewski and her co-authors surveyed land uses under different future scenarios. They concluded that continuing business as usual could wipe out a third of the value of Asia-Pacific ecosystems by 2050.

Solutions for sustainable and just futures

In short, ecological economics has contributors from diverse disciplinary and professional backgrounds.

Presenters to the ANZSEE conference of course include ecologists and economists. But there are also social and physical scientists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, planners and sustainability experts.

Sustainability expert Samuel Alexander speaks about living well with degrowth. Others argue that a climate-safe world requires radical forms of economics.

Contributors will also talk about just transitions, commoning, the genuine progress indicator (GPI), School Strike for Climate (SS4C), resilience, decarbonisation and ethical investment. Keynote speaker Jon Altman presents a model of hybrid economies that’s useful in the context of Indigenous peoples

Jane Goodall’s 4 Issues to Solve Climate Change

In the public interest.

Jane Goodall: These 4 Issues May Not Seem Related to Climate Change. But They Are and We Need to Solve Them Now

By Jane Goodall

September 12, 2019

IDEAS

Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Harry Campbell for TIME

I’ve stood with Inuit elders by a great ice cliff in Greenland as water cascaded down and icebergs calved. It never used to melt, the elders told me. I’ve witnessed the shrinking of a Mount Kilimanjaro glacier. I’ve watched wildfires rage in Africa and in California. And I’ve seen the carcasses of animals who have died in droughts.

As I travel around the globe, people tell me how the weather patterns have been disrupted and the worst kind of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are getting more destructive and more frequent. It is because we are polluting and destroying the environment by using natural resources in an unsustainable way.

When I started my research in Gombe, Tanzania, in 1960, it was part of the forest belt that stretched across Africa. In 1990, I looked down from a small plane on an island of forest surrounded by completely bare hills. More people were living there than the land could support, so trees had been cleared to grow food or make charcoal.

In order to slow down climate change, we must solve four seemingly unsolvable problems. We must eliminate poverty. We must change the unsustainable lifestyles of so many of us. We must abolish corruption. And we must think about our growing human population. There are 7.7 billion of us today, and by 2050, the UN predicts there will be 9.7 billion. It is no wonder people have despaired. But I believe we have a window of time to have an impact. Here’s why I’m still optimistic.

The Resilience of Nature

Habitats and species on the brink of extinction can recover if given a chance. When I realized the plight of the people living around Gombe, the Jane Goodall Institute started a program called Tacare to help them find ways to make a livelihood that did not involve devastating the environment. As they realized that protecting forests is good not only for wildlife but also for their own future, they became our partners in conservation. Today we have Tacare in six other African countries, and the hills in Gombe aren’t bare anymore.

The Human Brain

How is it possible that the most intellectual creature ever to walk the earth is destroying its only home? There has been a disconnect between our clever brains and our hearts. We do not ask how our decisions will help future generations, but how they will help us now, how they will help our shareholders, etc. Yet every day we are also inventing technology that enables us to live in greater harmony with the natural world (clean energy, for example). Those same communities around Gombe are using smartphones and satellite imagery to monitor their forests and set aside village land for regeneration.

Danish people try out bicycles being set up to produce electricity in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Anja Niedringhaus—AP

Social Media

These networks have enabled us to connect on issues in a way never before possible. It was the People’s Climate March in New York in 2014 that showed me this in real time. People posted and told others to join them, and what was supposed to be a march of 100,000 turned into one of 400,000.

The Power of Young People

I started Roots & Shoots—a program in which kindergartners and university students alike choose projects to make the world a better place for animals, people and the environment—in 1991 when I realized how many had lost hope. It exists now in more than 50 countries, and many participants are working on climate-change-related issues.

If we all get together, we can truly make a difference, but we must act now. The window of time is closing.

This is one article in a series on the state of the planet’s response to climate change. Read the rest of the stories and sign up for One.Five, TIME’s climate change newsletter

Is the Conflict in Hong Kong Citizen Initiated Action or a CIA Cyber Trade War?

How do we stop trade wars influencing government policy in respect of the government/business nexus and unquestioned belief that economic growth is power and stability? How do we prevent citizens from being caught in the cross fire in yet another war based not on defence but business interests? This issue becomes more complex when we look at acquisitions, cross ownership, controlling shares in businesses that keep changing with powerful global players. The world becomes a chess board, less about nation states and more about retaining or expanding control and influence. This is the nature of economics.

So how do we bring in accountability and ensure real democratic processes of checks and balances? A central intelligence question!

It is alleged by a few articles that the CIA was involved in fanning the flames for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and China. I have included from the Sydney Morning Herald article a few links refering to Donald Trump and the trade war, which in my view, is the real war behind this uprising.

From a peace perspective what I see is two countries and one system of totalitarianism enshrined in government and totalitarianism enshrined in corporations influencing government. I speak about the law of attraction as a universal law where like attracts like, what you think about you bring about through focus as we influence events by our attention and intention. It is evident in the dispute between China and the US that like attracts like. in this case a domination agenda appears to be the purpose of this clash, a fight for supremacy and it is a mirror. The 5G issue is considered critical from the perspective of controlling the IT global grid (matrix), data gathering, automation and artificial intelligence in cyber wars as the perceived theatre of war. The Chinese government according to the US military are ahead of the US in 5G and there is concern that the leader position technologically means the domination of networks, apparently there is no second place in this war game. So this is a power struggle.

What concerns me always is the people are used in these conflicts as pawns in counter terrorism strategies to destabilise the perceived ‘enemy’ rather than working on transitioning our world to cooperation and peace. In an enlightened world we would be looking at changing the rules (laws) to ensure truly free trade that benefits people, changing the United Nations (free of corruption), a world free of corruption, stopping foreign government interference in sovereign domestic policy and curtailing corporate control (acquisitions, assets) preventing corporate concentration of wealth as this influences governments. This is another line of control.

There is much work to be done if real peace is the final goal out of this emerging global conflict which is inflamed by vested interests whom do not have a genuine desire for democracy on any side. Often playing both sides against each other. For other interests over and above government are interested in the collapse of both. This is how a separation consciousness can be controlled and greed is the tool that moves people to take sides rather than a neutral third party.

It is the people who want democracy believing it is freedom but what we are seeing in the West is the loss of freedom of speech, weakening or criminalising whistleblowers, data gathering breaching privacy, profiling and tracking citizens, the weakening and corporatisation of the social welfare system and the privatisation of public assets (without distributing yields) which weakens the voice of the people as they are not able to hold government to account in the public interest. So behind the facade of so-called democracy is another control paradigm that works along the lines using silence weapons for quiet wars. I cannot verify the legitimacy of this paper below but it raised my awareness to an end game possible scenario that both the US and China may wish to contemplate in respect of the implications of 5G. If accurate, it is a zero sum game where no-one wins. Why zero sum? The real goal of life is freedom to be who you are, no-one can experience this is a Brave New World scenario. All become imprisoned as paranoia rules. Is this what is truly wanted on both sides? What is the fear driving the cyber wars? How to resolve the conflicts for the higher good of citizens?

This is posted in the public interest for public discussion http://www.stopthecrime.net/docs/SILENT%20WEAPONS%20for%20QUIET%20WARS.pdf..

So rhetoric about a genuine belief in sovereignty and democracy is held up to the light of further questions. I have concerns about media spin and third party countries involving themselves in global disputes because they are compromised by powerful countries rather than operating as sovereign. There is the more proactive option of offering to mediate disputes to ensure bullying is not the modus operandi of power as this becomes a fight to the bottom.

Be mindful that all this conflict is happening as the ice caps melt. Always my mind turns to where all resources would be going if we had peace and social harmony as the real balancing point (justice) in the world where scales are rebalanced, Efforts and resources would be directed towards restoring the natural balance e.g. planting forests (CO2 extraction), living sustainably (decentralised eco villages and smaller communities not mega cities), ecological marketing (not infinite growth marketing) as this encourages expenditure on needs and wants in harmony with nature. The focus would be on directing consumption towards ecological balance not IT markets to sell more products as the last boom as they are addicted to wealth and power not transformation. This is the bottom line that no-one wants to examine as public attention is on trade wars with the same rhetoric that no longer works.

The ecological collapse and human imbalance are the real wars going on in the background. It is the war against ourselves where no-one wins as we are in denial about who we are, what we truly want and the empowerment of citizens to live to their full potential. It is not about endless trade wars it is about infinite possibility when we recognise real freedom is to know thyself and be true. Instead we continue on economic treadmills of consumption (growth), then look at population issues rather than ecological footprint per person. We consume too much and this false abundance is what fuels population. This combined with the lack of education of women and the inequality there.

We have not learned that until we come into homeostasis with the planet (balance) the wars that play out in the media, in the cyber reality (fake) and on the ground are distractions from real transformative change. The real disruption would be to business-as-usual and financial concentration as we move to disperse more fairly incomes that send demand and supply signals empowering a renewable system that preserves not only the planet but restores balance between all cultures so that we can learn to live together as one. The key to whether this is happening will be around wellbeing and happiness. These are the signals of alignment. Pleasure and staving off the feeling of ‘not enough’ are the signals of unconsciousness, identifying with material wealth and poverty. Inequality is the imbalance, powerlessness is the felt imbalance and to know thyself and be true becomes the empowerment that transforms our world. It is nonviolent, principled and peaceful in the true sense. We have barely begun to understand yet an awakening is occurring globally.

What could be considered the ‘good’ coming out of this US/China trade war and the disruption of Hong Kong is a global movement for real democracy (freedom) whereby those observing around the world can see that they have real power when they come together peacefully rejecting totalitarianism (visible and silent). They are learning to take back their power to recognise they are not weak and for the sake of the future of their children. Then communities can start to focus on turning this Titanic (sinking ship) around from the biggest fastest ship to a lifeboat that floats the whole of humanity and sail into a renewable future that will look very different to the one we are living through. That is my vision.

This statement below is an example of the voice of real democracy,.It is about true freedom of speech that does not seek to criminalise, demonise, bully but truly allows those we disagree with express their viewpoint. Interestingly the quote is from a woman not Voltaire as thought. I see the woman who holds the scales as lady justice. The clashing up of opinions is what expands civilisation…

I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It

Voltaire? François-Marie Arouet? S. G. Tallentyre? Evelyn Beatrice Hall? Ignazio Silone? Douglas Young? Norbert Guterman?

Dear Quote Investigator: Would you please explore a famous saying that apparently has been misattributed to Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The words above reportedly originated with an English author named Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906. There is a different version in French, but I do not think it is authentic: Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire.

Here is one rendering in English:
Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

What do you think?

Quote Investigator: Voltaire was the pen name of François-Marie Arouet who died in 1778. The earliest evidence of the saying appeared many years afterwards in the 1906 book “The Friends of Voltaire” by S. G. Tallentyre which was the pseudonym of historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Her book described an incident involving the French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius who in 1758 published a controversial work titled “De l’esprit” (“On the Mind”). The book was condemned in the Parlement of Paris and by the Collège de Sorbonne. Voltaire was unimpressed with the text, but he considered the attacks unjustified. After Voltaire learned that the book by Helvétius had been publicly incinerated he reacted as follows according to Hall: ¹

Another quote that I find interesting is: “the love you withhold is the pain you carry”.

This article below is from the Sydney Morning Herald and reports the CIA involvement. I have added an additional link for public comment regarding alleged CIA involvement in the Tianamen Square conflict.

One further message to the CIA/FBI/5 Eyes surveillance network/Chinese Communist Party/business interests:

Those who express counter views are not the enemy they are teachers, This is part of the rebalancing of nature as we live in a system of duality. The central intelligence question is:

Are you learning from critical opinions or suppressing/harming those you disagree with?

When you discover the wise agreement you will win/win. It is my desire you win/win.

Tiananmen Square Massacre – Facts, Fiction and Propaganda

What needs to be discussed in the public interest is:

are there agent provocateurs in the background stirring the flames of protest to serve other interests?
Are activists/opposition funded and trained to disrupt governments?
What is real democracy? Should it be encouraged through dialogue, the vote and peaceful community gatherings?
Do we in the West live in real democracies?
What is the real underlying conflict map of the conflicts? How can we resolve these conflicts peacefully to ensure civilians are not placed in harms way?
To what extent does business/powerful interests influence violent and subversive conflict in our world undermining the will of the people?
How do we help governments to deeply integrate that serving the public serves them?
How do we move away from control towards the hard work of resolving conflict?

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/chinese-state-media-blames-cia-for-violent-hong-kong-protests-20190726-p52b1x.html

Chinese state media blames CIA for violent Hong Kong protests

Beijing: China’s official newspaper The China Daily has accused the CIA of being behind “extreme acts” by Hong Kong protesters in an editorial warning Beijing has the capability to bring Hong Kong under control.

The editorial on Friday came as the Chinese propaganda machine stepped up the rhetoric against protesters this week, after the Chinese national emblem was defaced at Beijing’s office in Hong Kong during protests dispelled with tear gas and rubber bullets on Sunday.

Amid the wave of patriotism, the Chinese consulate in Brisbane issued a statement praising students who responded to “anti-China and secessionist protests” at the University of Queensland on Thursday, the nationalist Global Times newspaper reported.

Student protesters clashed at UQ on Thursday.Credit:Twitter

The consulate said it supported the “spontaneous patriotic behaviour of Chinese students” and “firmly opposes any words and deeds intended to split China”.

On Friday, China Daily wrote about the situation in Hong Kong: “It does not take Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the CIA has been – to whatever degree removed – behind the more extreme acts [of protesters].”

It said that the mainland has “so far remained restrained despite all the provocations, does not mean that it has no capability to bring the situation in Hong Kong under control.”

Demonstrators carry banners during a protest organised by the elderly in the central district of Hong Kong on July 17.Credit:Bloomberg

On Friday a protest was held at Hong Kong’s international airport.

Global Times ran a front page story predicting “large scale violence” in Yuen Long in the New Territories on Saturday, with one headline warning “PLA involvement debated to end turmoil in HKSAR”.

Police refused to authorise a planned protest in Yuen Long against Triad gangs on Saturday, that is expected to go ahead regardless. There has been a wide backlash in Hong Kong to the violent attacks by white-shirted men in Yuen Long that left 40 people with injuries on Sunday night.

Masked men attack people at Yuen Long metro station.Credit:Stand News/AP

“Debate is growing over whether the central government should deploy the People’s Liberation Army to end the chaos as soon as possible,” the Global Times story said.

Men wearing white shirts have been filmed attacking protesters in Hong Kong. Vision on social media shows men wielding rods and beating demonstrators at Yuen Long MTR station.

Hong Kong protests

Triads linked to violent pro-China gangs as Hong Kong protests enter dangerous new phase

But the veiled threats in Chinese media that the PLA could be deployed contradict statements from the Hong Kong government, which on Wednesday dispelled rumours the PLA would be used to guard the Legislative Council and other key buildings as “totally unfounded”.

In Hong Kong, New Territories North Acting Regional Commander Tsang Ching-fo said police will be deployed to Yuen Long to prevent violence on Saturday, and conceded police handling of attacks on July 21 didn’t meet public expectation.

Umbrella movement founder Joshua Wong said the Global Times was encouraging mainland Chinese people to travel to Yuen Long ahead of the planned protest, after it published an article that suggested Yuen Long egg rolls were the best souvenir for mainland tourists going to Hong Kong.

Global Times editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, argued the PLA garrison shouldn’t be used as “Hong Kong’s police back-up” and the Chinese mainland needed to be patient.

Reporters scramble to get copies of the China's national defense white paper before a press conference at the State Council Information Office in Beijing on Wednesday.

Defence

China’s military warning on Hong Kong, Taiwan

People’s Daily had earlier in the week delivered a stern condemnation on its front page of Sunday’s graffiti attack on the national emblem as “openly challenging the authority of the central government and touching the bottom line of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle.”

On Friday a Hong Kong appeal judge overturned the convictions of two police who had been sentenced to jail for assaulting a protester during the 2014 Umbrella movement protests. But five police officers were returned to jail for the attack, with sentences reduced.

Message for Australia from Sir David Attenborough

The Australian Government has to think very deeply about what is important and what is not? If only our leaders could see through Sir David Attenborough’s eyes and awaken to this emergency. Australia is going to be hard hit by climate change and we are still supporting the Adani mine, still supporting resources extraction and a disproportionate influence by the energy industry.

It takes great courage to put the future of the children ahead of short term interests. Those who do will never be forgotten.

We need to be able to express how we feel about climate change and we need to be free to speak, free to go onto the streets, free to speak to others as we want our world to change in a direction that serves the majority of people, not industries alone.

Interestingly, Sir David speaks about slavery – the ownership of people. I felt that even employment is a form of ownership which translates into control and a suppression of our human feeling and natural freedom. We are nature. We have to remember the important balance, the importance of policies that do not promote greed, growth but reform our system to be able to recalibrate with natural systems. I sense the leaders do not know how to look out of the box we have travelled in for centuries. We are going to need leaders who are visionaries with the knowledge to be able to recognise the importance of real sustainability rather than business economics who have no idea of the great impact coming. The greed becomes a barrier to real change.

David Attenborough, Cher, Chomsky and Climate Denial

The video below features a few experts commenting on the times we are moving through. The selfishness and greed of economic narratives are the barrier to healing our planet. Yet until we look into ourselves, become very still, speak our truth and work together it is a struggle to the bottom. What sort of world are the children going to inherit? The lower video is David Attenborough speaking to a Parliamentary inquiry.

One of the World’s experts on the dynamics of our planet, David Attenborough. Here is a video on climate change. I certainly can feel the heat. I wonder if he will get the Nobel Peace Prize for his educational work informing us about nature. Watching this film with its brushstroke across the world from the perspective of a biologist given a deeper impression of our footprint. I think about the butterfly effect and can see it works in nature. When you think about self interest can you make the quantum leap to best interest? Global temperatures have risen 0.6 degrees (average) since 1900. David asks how can such a small increase create such havoc. He speaks of places cooling and then refers to the Arctic warming by 3 degrees. The environment is highly specialised and he describes the extraordinary animals living above and below the ice. He has explained the Arctic is melting so fast that the wildlife is under threat, especially the animals at the top of the food chain, the polar bears. As the ice melts earlier each year mothers are finding it harder to provide for cubs.

Here is a video featuring David Attenborough. We must wake up!

My poem.

SINKING THE PLANET

Are you top of the world,

Can you see the northern lights?

A ribbony weave waving

providing a natural display of great beauty,

Yet the ground feels unstable under my feet,

As the ice is melting,

The polar bears are starving,

As climate change is the Mount Everest of humanity

that cannot be climbed in a day,

For mountaineers are no longer adventurers with the courage

to acknowledge the peak in CO2 emissions,

As denial provides the immunity from an

inconvenient truth.

Yet the ice caps are unable to cap trade,

Humanity is unable to understand the missing links,

The feedback loops,

The wildlife pressures in search of diminishing food stocks,

As stock and trade is the human food security,

Detached from the natural economics of supply,

For we keep demanding business-as-usual,

Unconscious of the sinking ship,

In a climate of real change,

As we wait to see who ‘will be the change’

of a new future and a new earth

of awakened stewardship.

For The World