A New Anthem for Saving the World? From Lil Dicky?

ALERT: I am about to shamelessly show my age!

The other day, a young friend sent me this new music video by Lil Dicky (never heard of him). It's called Earth (not very original, but I'll take enviro songs wherever I can get 'em ;-). 

You know, we've been searching for an anthem for the climate change movement. Environmental activist extraordinaire Guy Dauncey explains the importance of finding a song for this movement.

"[An] Earth Anthem ... will inspire our hearts to sing. As soon as that song is written, we will know it — and from that moment on, victory will be that much more possible. We need to believe in the future. Earth's creatures and our own children and grandchildren ask nothing more."

I'm not sure we've found the anthem in this song though. But I do like the simple chorus (it's the rest of the song I'd have a problem singing while marching in a protest):

We love the Earth
It is our planet
We love the Earth
It is our home

My questions to you. (This is where I get to show my age.) Is this song edgy, or just offensive? Is it cool, or just stupid? Is it helpful (for a certain generation — not mine, that's for sure!), or just gratuitously over-the-top? It has 2 million likes (as of today) but also 51,000 dislikes (so I'm not the only one feeling torn about the usefulness of this song?) and several "reaction" videos (which I haven't watched). What do you think? How does the song make you feel?

This part at the end is cool: "Honestly, everybody, scientists are saying that we have about 12 years* to turn this environmental crisis around or we're screwed. Whaddya say? You guys wanna save the world? Of course you do!" 

You can visit this website "for more information on how to save the Earth": https://welovetheearth.org

* Actually, while many people seem to have latched on to the "we only have 12 years to save the world" meme (which gives people an out for the next 11 years or so), the IPCC has warned in several assessments over the last several years that emissions must be in decline by 2015-2020 to give us a chance at keeping global temperature increase to a survivable level — which gives us ONLY ONE YEAR to "save the world."

Lyrics are available here (but if you're my age, better to leave some lyrics unheard): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDNNGhsL9Oo&frags=wn

*******

Now, if that song kinda makes you feel a bit slimed (you know, cuz you're of my vintage) but you'd like to share it, here's a link to a cleaned up version: https://youtu.be/S2SMvfGe72U.

And then let me leave you with this lovely thought on this day before Earth Day 2019:

"What is the mark of a good life? Who should be considered a success? Easter offers a surprising and helpful answer: success is not about obvious worldly triumph, it’s about developing an ability to use one’s own suffering as a route to compassion for others…. May we transform individually, so we can truly transform collectively, building a better world, a better life. This Easter Sunday, let's think about the kind of world we’d like to create."

— Prof. Kamran Mofid, Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI)

Earth Day Emergency ... and More

I'm writing this on Earth Day 2017. It's also the 26th anniversary of the day my hubby and I fell in love — at an Earth Day sunrise ceremony — and our fourth wedding anniversary (yes, it was a sunrise ceremony). So it's always a special day for us. I hope it was a lovely Earth Day for you, too, wherever you celebrate it. 



Here's a small collection of thoughts and poetry for Earth Day.

The Rainbow Warriors
by Nicola Beechsquirrel

Come, all who ever loved our Earth
Who lived in peace amongst her creatures
Gentle, loving, caring folk
With healing hands, and wisdom in your souls.
Come, incarnate once more
Come to Earth in her greatest need.
Help us rid her of her burdens
Cleanse her of all poisons
Close up the deep sores on her sacred body
And cover it once more in soft green.
Walk amongst us again
That we may relearn ancient skills
And long-forgotten wisdom
And tread lightly upon our Mother Earth
Taking from her only what we need
Living her ways in love and joy
Treating her creatures as equals.
Teach us how to reach those who exploit her
How to open their souls to the beauty of Life
That they may destroy no longer.
Come to us, Rainbow Warriors
Share with us your wisdom
For we have great need of it.


Climate change impacts have now been documented across every ecosystem on Earth, despite an average warming of only ~1°C so far. (Scheffers et al, 2016, in "The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people")

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. 
— Marie Curie

 Information is everything.
— Pamela Anderson


     To understand that humanity is on a collision course with the laws of Nature is to be stuck in what I call Cassandra's Dilemma. You can see the most likely outcome of current trends. You can warn people about what is happening and underscore the need for a change in course. Some people can understand you, and a few may even believe you and try to take action — but the vast majority cannot, or will not, respond. Later, if catastrophe occurs, they may even blame you, as if your prediction set in motion the process that resulted in disaster (self-fulfilling prophets are the most reviled). If, however, the World manages to avoid the potential catastrophe, thanks in part to the work of those who were motivated to action by your warning, many will point to that escape from danger as evidence of your incompetence as a prophet.
     The role of Cassandra, issuing unpopular warnings of avoidable danger, is a no-win situation. Failure to convey the message effectively results in catastrophe. Success in being understood — which leads to action to avoid that catastrophe — means ultimately being proven 'wrong.' 
     Being willing to be 'wrong' is, by itself, not enough. Your timing and your tone must be perfect. You must be 'wrong' at the right moment, because once proven 'wrong' — and the World will use every possible means to label you mistaken, as soon as possible — your credibility will be destroyed, so that thereafter your effect on the World will be minimal. Moreover, your means of communication are severely limited: if your warnings are too shrill, you will be ridiculed; too sober, and you will be ignored.
     Even the best-case scenario — predicting disaster at precisely the right moment, in the most strategically balanced tone of voice — does not guarantee a successful outcome: a failed prediction of disaster. Warnings are notoriously ineffective. People may believe you and still do nothing.
     The worst and most painful outcome for any Cassandra is to be proven right. 
— Alan AtKisson, in Believing Cassandra: How to Be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World

Earth Day Emergency

by George Elliott Clarke

Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada

Earth Day should be Thanksgiving, not Mother

Earth’s Good Friday, when Extinction’s spectre—

Those ghosts of the Endangered or those Dead 

Creatures haunt us—souls polluted by lead,

Mercury, arsenic, acids, and seeds

“Frankensteined” genetically. Live meat bleeds

As it conveyor-belts from plains to plates—

Shrink-wrapped, sporting “Best Before”-stamp, stale dates—

While dolphins and whales, having gulped down our

Plastic garbage and water bottles, lour,

Thrash, and beach themselves, their bellies starving,

And tides turn as red as blood spilled, carving

And serving mad cows or sick swine, all ill

From ingesting strange flesh and/or feces,

Contracted in ponds, scum-green with algaes.

Earth Day should be Eden Revival Day,

Not a “Mayday! Mayday!” Emergency,

When the Apocalypse sounds factual—

Angels strike, and precious seem wine and oil,

And the seas belch up blood, and all fish die,

And sun scorches like fire, so wetlands dry,

And locusts chew roots, leaves, fruits, and Famine 

Eats every human down to skeleton,

And skies shine with poison Radiation 

Or go dark with choking smog. No nation

Is immune from terra firma that shakes!

One must ask: Does fracking trigger earthquakes?

Ebola, SARS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu,

And other pestilential plagues renew,

Plus West Nile Virus, and other disease—

Infections without treatment, deaths sans cease.

Lethal’s now the baffling kiss of sunlight—

Intricately broken down is skin, white

With pus, putrid with boils, palpably raw,

While tornadoes whirl and swirl, clout and claw,

Oceans go soapy as a laundromat,

Foaming; skyscrapers totter; homes go splat;

A tsunami of trash washes away

Hospitals, leaving unsanitary

Cadavers. Each toxic anatomy—

In obscene inundation—heaps awry.

Oil spills, clear-cut forests, firestorms, sink-holes

Swallowing suburbs whole, are routine tolls

Now, for “Progress.” Condemned seas and damned winds,

Waste lands, Rust Belts, vast contaminations,

Thorns and rubbish, smashed glass, cracked ceramics,

Charred remains, scorched-earth, war-zone Economics,

Bomb-blast disasters ever more drastic,

Atomic threats, arms races elastic,

Ever expanding, is just a short list

Of unpalatable residues unjust,

The catastrophes now making us sick—

Unsustainable—and uneconomic.

Is Capital the acceptable

Villain, or are our choices culpable?

If Mother Earth now faces assassins,

Who are the culprits if not we humans?

This Earth Day demands deliberate turns

Back to Nature: Balance: What each child learns.

Earth Day Musings 2013

Earth Day Canada poster, 2013

Earth Day 2013 is tomorrow. I used to be a huge fan of Earth Day, organizing events wherever in the world I found myself at the time. But then, I used to be a huge fan of Christmas, too. The sheen has worn off a bit. 

So, as my Earth Day gift to you, here's a selection of random ramblings.

*****

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. — Joseph Campbell

Ha! How many of us even think in terms of Nature anymore? Years ago, when I was in an ineffective relationship (did I express that delicately?), I read every self-help book about love that I could get my hands on. One author suggested that women should try to match their breathing to the rhythm of their husband's breathing. I tried that (I was desperate!). I nearly suffocated. It was a horrible feeling. The strategy made no sense! But I love the thought of this ... matching my heartbeat to the heartbeat of the universe. The First Nations drumbeat here in Canada is said to be the heartbeat of the world. This Earth Day, let's listen for the heartbeat of the rest of Nature, of this Earth, of our Universe.

*****

Dave Roberts at Grist wrote an article the other day called "None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use." In it, he said, "The notion of 'externalities' has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs."

Roberts goes on to summarize a report by "environmental consultancy Trucost on behalf of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) program sponsored by United Nations Environmental Program." The results are shocking, but not a shock.

"Of the top 20 region-sectors ranked by environmental impacts, none would be profitable if environmental costs were fully integrated. Ponder that for a moment. None of the world’s top industrial sectors would be profitable if they were paying their full freight. None!"

People who don't get that we need a radical, transformative, complete revolutionary overhaul of our economic system just don't get it. Paul Hawken (quoted in this article) puts it this way: "We are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP." And we think we're soooooo smart.

*****

The Ecological Society of America (ESA), representing 10,000 ecological scientists, made a recent statement that's quite pertinent. They believe that as the world attempts to recover from the latest financial crisis, there's an opportunity to "rebuild the economy for long-term sustainability. The key, these scientists say, is to take natural capital—ecosystem services such as clean water provisioning—into account.  Because they lack a formal market, many of these natural assets are missing from society's balance sheet and their contributions are often overlooked in public and private decision-making."

The ESA has laid out four strategies for moving towards sustainable economic activity:

• Create mechanisms to maintain ecosystem services
• Require full accounting for environmental damage
• Manage for resilient ecosystems
• Enhance our capacity to predict the environmental costs of investments

You can read more about their statement here.

*****

A friend who's an investigative reporter made me want to throw up with her latest article. Guess what? You know those tar sands pipelines I've been protesting against? They're a red herring. The "rich people" have been buying up rail capacity and that bitumen is shipping by rail. Needless to say, I'm more than a little miffed that I allowed "them" to "keep the greenies busy in the bushes," as another activist friend used to say. 

Here's a quote from Cory Morningstar's latest piece, in Counterpunch:

Barack Obama is a charismatic smokescreen for the oil industry. Utilizing his charisma, he safeguards his toxic neighbor to the north, Canada, protecting it from US public scrutiny. For its part, Canada has quietly played a vital role in tar sands expansion via rail utilizing the corporation Canadian Natural Resources Ltd board of directors, which includes Gordon D. Griffin, former US Ambassador to Canada (1997-2001), director of CIBC, Transalta Corp., Canadian National Railway, and registered US lobbyist for Nexen Energy Inc., part of Syncrude.

For a moment, try to imagine the progressive greens if this same scenario was unveiling itself under the (Republican) Bush administration. Organizations such as 350.org would be having a field day. Yet, with a Democratic administration and a Black American president in the White House, the dominant left organizations have never found it so easy to protect capitalism and white privilege via strategic discourse. The native peoples who live on much of the poisoned land and endure much suffering, are used for beautiful "Stop KXL!" photo-ops all while oil mining, refineries and fracking continue to flourish and expand at an unprecedented rate. 

An important question that must be asked is this: Why do people continue to believe that NGOs such as 350.org/1Sky that are initiated and funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Ford, Gates, etc. would exist to serve the people rather than the entities that create and fund them? Since when do these powerful entities invest in ventures that will negatively impact their ability to maintain power, privilege and wealth? Indeed, the oligarchs play the "environmental movement" and its mostly well-meaning citizens like a game of cards.

*****

Well, what can I say? Despite a century of Mother's Days, people still abuse their mothers. And despite decades of Earth Days, people still abuse their Mother Earth. So there's not a lot of good news these days, and my ramblings aren't very upbeat. Nevertheless, I hope you can find some time today or on April 22 to contemplate whatever blessings the Earth still affords you. Happy Earth Day, my friends. Let's try to make the Earth happy, shall we? 

Waking People Up

It's Earth Day, and I'll admit that after 20 years or so of being a big fan (and an events coordinator wherever I was living), I'm miffed with the direction Earth Day has taken, in Canada at least. (Their merchandiser is now called "Eco Bling." Is there something wrong with that, or is it just me?!)

Happy Earth Day, nevertheless. I'm staying with a friend this weekend, and last night we were talking about people needing to be spoonfed. "If you wake people up," my friend said, "you'd better have breakfast prepared for them."

Okay, okay, I'll admit that Diana is younger, more optimistic and obviously much kinder than I am. Because my reaction was, "Wait a minute. People have been making their own breakfasts since they were 5 years old, pouring cereal and milk into a bowl so they could watch Saturday morning cartoons on TV without waking up their parents. Why do we have to spoonfeed them solutions to the global warming crisis when there's a whole cupboard full of solutions available to them?" (It was late after an Earth Day festival so maybe I wasn't quite that eloquent or coherent. :-)

Diana makes a good point, however, and here's where I struggle. Most (most? the vast majority of) people do not spend their every waking hour feeling concern for the human race, Earth's biosphere, or all the other species we're taking down with us. Indeed, I would bet that most people don't even spend a minute a day thinking about these issues. So if we try to "wake them up" without having the smell of freshly brewed coffee (or whatever ... I don't drink the stuff) wafting into their bedrooms, they will simply roll over, pull the covers over their heads, and go back to sleep.

But climate change activists are tired, too! We'd like to be able to sleep in sometimes, too (and wake up from the nightmare), without always having to get up first to make the breakfast. Why can't our governments make the damn breakfast? Why can't fossil fuel companies quit stealing all the food from our cereal cupboard? Why can't people lay out their own breakfasts before going to bed the night before? Why must this be so damn hard, when the solutions are yummy and nutritious for everyone but those heavily invested in fossil fuels — though extremely healthy for their children and grandchildren!

Well, I've just made myself hungry for breakfast, so will leave you with this thought for Earth Day. If we don't make the solutions look, smell and taste incredibly delicious (and cheap and available), I guess it doesn't make sense to wake people up. They'll just get cranky with us! So, into the kitchen with us, fellow climate change activists. Let's get cooking together.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Getting Tough (Instead of Trite) on Climate Change

A friend sent me a link to Jeff Goodell's piece in Rolling Stone, Time for Climate Activists to Get Tough. Articles like this always do a number on my head (and heart), because I'm the sort who spent years picturing "Julie was a nice person" as the epitaph on my gravestone. I just don't know how I'm ever going to "get tough," as Goodell suggests (as he writes of taking to the streets, expressing some outrage, and maybe engaging "in a little guerilla warfare against Big Oil and Big Coal").

"This question of how far to take the fight to stop global warming has haunted activists for years. But now that more conventional solutions, such as a global treaty to cut greenhouse-gas pollution, are dead, the issue is more pressing than ever. As the crisis grows, the temptation to turn up the volume with more dramatic and attention-grabbing protests will only increase. Climate activists often speculate about who will emerge as the Martin Luther King of the climate movement. But it may be equally relevant to ask who will emerge as the Malcolm X."

So, with the question of my courage gnawing away at me (just what does compassion in action look like?), I was clearing out some old documents yesterday and came across a brochure by a very famous Canadian environmental NGO. The brochure is called Teach Today, Change Tomorrow and it lists all the "award winning programs" this ENGO offers. And that's when I realized ... I don't have to get into anyone's face physically. I need to challenge organizations who are still spreading trite platitudes about changing light bulbs. Here's how their brochure concludes:

"Close your eyes and listen. Hear the hum that is powering your life. We need energy. We need it to live, to light, to help us read cereal boxes, to bring us music, to power our computers. Few of us can walk to work, fewer still want to vacation in our backyard. The truth is we can't conserve everything. This isn't an excuse. It's reality.

But there is something you can do. Today. And it's easy. Learn about the simple things you can do and take action. Switch to energy efficient light bulbs, walk and cycle more, use less water, buy local produce and foods. It's all small stuff. But here's the thing: if your neighbour does the same thing, and your neighbour's neighbour ... now that adds up to something substantial.

That's why [this organization] exists - to help you, regardless of your age, do something amazing, one small, magically simple step at a time."

Is it just me, or is that a bunch of mind-numbing drivel? Dammit, environmental groups should be encouraging revolution! Mass shutdowns! Teenagers getting angry at the adults in their lives! A rapid transition to zero-carbon energy technologies! An urgent response to the climate change emergency!

ENGOs who are still encouraging "small, simple steps" more than 40 years after the first Earth Day, well, I'm thinking they're going to look like vacuous idiots when the climate change sh!t really starts hitting the fan.

Here's the trailer for a movie coming out this summer, which is available to rent here: Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws. I want to be as brave as these (mostly) young people, but in the meantime, I'm going to lambaste the ENGO who wrote that twaddle.

A Pep Talk — It's Not How Many...

A short one today. We're heading out to present at a Living the Green Life conference, which will address the climate change emergency, and the quickest solution to it: going veg.

Today, I just want to encourage anyone who has organized an Earth Hour event for tonight, or is organizing something to celebrate Earth Day, which is coming up on April 22.

It's not how many people come out to your event — the important thing is how many people hear about it, see posters or read emails about it, get the idea planted in their hearts and minds.

So please don't get discouraged about turnout if it's low. (Did I ever tell you about the time we held a Hiroshima commemoration event? The only person who came was there to deliver the sushi that we'd ordered from his wife as refreshment. We invited him — well, coaxed him, really — to stay and ever since have been great friends!)

Just know that you've spread the word, and got people thinking and talking about your important issue.