A DIFFERENT KIND OF APOCALYPSE: Part 1 - Europe's Energy Crisis
Series Intro: Revealing Denouements
Generally, the “Apocalypse” is thought of as the final cosmic showdown between good and evil. In the Book of Revelation, written 2,000 years ago, the forces of good are prophesied to finally overcome the forces of evil. Over the centuries, libraries of books predicting the soon-coming Apocalypse, put out by thousands of Biblical interpreters, have come and gone.
But, as yet there has been no showdown, final or otherwise.
Read moreStand Against Thacker Pass Lithium Mine
On January 15th, activists Max Wilbert and Will Falk launched a protest on pristine land in northwest Nevada (Northern Paiute / Western Shoshone territory), slated for destruction on behalf of “green” industry.
In the final days of the Trump administration, the BLM fast-tracked the approval of a lithium mine in northwest Nevada, at Thacker Pass.
Lithium Americas Corporation, a Canadian-based company, plans to blow up this pass, extract millions of tons of stone, and build an array of infrastructure to process this into lithium, with harsh chemicals like sulfuric acid trucked in from oil refineries. Along the way, they will build vast mountains of toxic tailings, leaching heavy metals and uranium into what groundwater remains after they pump nearly 1.5 billion gallons per year into their industrial machinery.
And they have the gall to call this GREEN!!!
This wild and beautiful place has some of the best remaining old-growth sagebrush habitat and is home to many wild creatures, including the most iconic of Western species, the critically endangered greater sage grouse. This area is part of a wildlife management unit that is home to 5-8% of the total remaining sage grouse on the planet. Crosby’s Buckwheat, a rare desert wildflower, lives in this project area. Several creeks here host threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, and nearby springs are the only home of King’s River pyrg (a critically endangered snail).
From BRIGHT GREEN LIES co-author Max Wilbert:
We want to resist this project because it is emblematic of the lies that are being sold to us about so-called “green” technology. This company and many others are trying to convince us that if we just switch to electric cars, the destruction of the planet and global warming will be fixed. This could not be further from the truth. So we're here to push back against this specific mining project, as well as the entire narrative of "green" technology, and to try to build and strengthen a movement that has its allegiance to the land, to Mother Earth, and to the other beings with whom we share this planet.
As the author of a new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES that examines the failures of so-called green technology, I know these issues well — and lithium is a distraction that allows us to maintain the illusion that a modern, wasteful, high-energy lifestyle can (or should) be maintained, not a solution. We will not solve the problems caused by destroying and consuming the living planet by further destroying and consuming the living planet.
Donate to fund the grassroots resistance and defend this land.
Support the resistance in other ways -- join the protest or help provide needed supplies.
Learn more about Thacker Pass and the proposed mine's impacts here and here.
Learn more about the new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES.
We are Strip-Mining Life While We Drink “Bright Green Lies”
Industrial civilization is strip-mining Life. Human economies are suffocating our remaining natural living systems. As a result, wildlife and insect populations are plummeting, while humans, pets, and livestock numbers are soaring.[1] But some of the newest threats to the natural world are from unexpected sources: wind turbines, solar panels, energy storage, and other “green technologies.”
Read moreWe Are All in the Clutches of the Delusion Dragon
Originally published at The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
It’s time to accept that we are not going to dislodge the entrenched interests holding back effective action on looming climate chaos by any means tried so far. Believing that 97% of credible scientists is consensus enough is 103% short for effective response. (Even 200% may not be enough.) Undeniability and incontrovertibility are the only criteria that will work to break through the Hydra-Headed Delusion Dragon clutching all of us.
Read moreSIGN PETITION: DECLARE A GLOBAL WARMING STATE OF EMERGENCY
We, the citizens of our nation and of our Earth, are endowed with certain rights, powers, and obligations, which demand we act both individually and collectively to protect and preserve the ongoing evolution of life on Earth, including our future generations.
Based upon a preponderance of scientific evidence we recognize our global climate is rapidly warming and becoming increasingly unstable due to human-caused carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels. If we do not change course before global warming tipping points are crossed, this destabilization of our climate will continue to cause ever-increasing suffering and potentially
We further recognize that rapidly escalating global warming and its consequent climate destabilization is the greatest currently active threat to the security of all nations, comparable in scope of impact to global nuclear war. Escalating average global temperature rises will lead to destabilization affecting first millions, then billions of people forced to deal with ongoing climate catastrophes, food and other resource depletion, and mass migrations.
Nearly all of the major problems our world faces today worsen and multiply due to escalating global warming. All of the ecological, economic and political problems listed below will cross-intensify and therefore worsen as average global temperatures rises.
- Food and resource depletion
- Severe droughts, floods, and wildfires
- Rising sea levels
- Water pollution and water table loss
- Desertification and deforestation
- Ocean fish stock depletions
- Growing economic inequity, poverty, and instability
- Political instability and injustice
- War and regional conflicts
- Increasing potential of pandemics and other health crises
Despite 30 years of education, study, and discussion about the possible irreversible effects of human-caused carbon and methane pollution of our atmosphere, global warming temperatures have escalated to levels that may have already passed or be close to passing global warming tipping points with impacts that are irreversible. We must immediately reverse the continued rise of average global temperature by decreasing human-caused production of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.
Failure to resolve global warming for ourselves and future generations is simply not a survivable option.
As global citizens of every nation on Earth, we ask you, our national leaders, to initiate the necessary steps to formally declare a national and international global warming State of Emergency, calling for the immediate allocation of the needed research, resources, personnel, and interventions to quickly resolve this State of Emergency and sustainably protect, preserve, and advance the continued evolution of humanity and life on Earth.
By signing this petition, I pledge to act together with others as one human family to acknowledge and resolve the escalating global warming-caused climate destabilization crisis.
When we reach the required number of petition signatures for each area, we will submit the petition with all signatures to: (1) the Office of the President of the United States and the members of both houses of U.S. Congress, as well as (2) governing bodies of other nations (if you provide your nationality). Our priority is to make the case to members of both houses of the U.S. Congress that this is the most urgent place to draw a line between themselves and the Trump Administration, in addition to being potentially the most politically defensible. This is true insofar as withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement abdicates America's role in international leadership on the number one issue of the century, isolating the U.S. in a marginalized triad with Syria and Nicaragua, and in opposition to the overwhelming other 193 world nations. We gain nothing by withdrawal except appearing less scientific, rational, and committed to world peace than North Korea and similar rogue states.
NOTABLE PETITION SIGNERS*
Vinit Allen, Founder & Executive Director, Sustainable World Coalition
Paul Allen, Project Co-coordinator, Zero Carbon Britain
Steve Bhaerman, Co-author of "Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here" and political satirist
Philip Bogdonoff, Director, Washington DC Chapter of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
Russell Brockhurst, Project Team Leader, Caterpillar of Australia, Ltd
Gerardo Ceballos, PhD, Senior Researcher, Institute of Ecology, UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico], Districto Federal, Mexico
Karen Cisler, Secretary-Treasurer, PSR-TN [TN Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility]; member, Air Quality Board, State of TN Department of Environmental Conservation
Cliff Cockerham, PhD, Director, PSR-TN [TN Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility]
Siobhan Colombo, Faculty of Science & Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
John Cooksey, Writer/Director/Producer, "How to Boil a Frog"
Raymond Cummings, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Villanova University
Kathy Dervin, Senior Consultant, Center for Climate Change & Health
Rev. Michael Dowd, Pro-Future Evangelist
Hans Ehrbar, PhD, Professor of Economics - retired, University of Utah
Duane Elgin, Author of "Voluntary Simplicity"
Dave Ewoldt, Co-founder & Senior Analyst, Coalitions for Mutual Endeavor
Karen Feridun, Founder, Berks Gas Truth [fighting shale gas development]
Peter Fiekowsky, Founder, The Healthy Climate Project; Lead Volunteer & Founder, CCL's 100-Year Planning Group
Len Finegold, PhD, Professor of Biophysics - retired, Drexel University
Dr. Katherine Forrest, MD, MPH, Co-Founder & former President, The Commonweal Institute; Board Member of The Peninsular Democratic Coalition [PDC] and founding member of PDC's Climate Action Group
Len Frenkel, Author of "Will We Survive Climate Change?: One Last Chance"
Victoria Furio, Convener, The Climate Justice Initiative at Union Theological Seminary
Valerie Gardner, Founder & Executive Director, Climate Coalition
Gisele Giorgi, PhD, Biosciences Faculty, Merritt College
Russell Greene, President, PDA-People Demanding Action & is the leading climate activist of Progressive Democrats of America who is credited with securing the Climate Mobilization plank in the 2016 Democratic Presidential platform, saying: "There is time left for gradualism. That window has passed. This is a climate emergency — the moment to make a stand for the future. For each other. For our children."
Mary Gutierrez, Executive Director, Earth Ethics and Earth Action, Inc.
Heidi Harmon, Co-Organizer, "Up to Us Caravan" to the DNC
Dr. Mary Headrick, MD, Board Member, PSR-TN
Harold Hedelman, Director of Engagement - Business Climate Leaders at Citizens' Climate Lobby
Bill Henderson, Freelance Climate Journalist
Cynthia Flores Hernandez, PhD, former Researcher, Institute of Ecology, UNAM, Districto Federal, Mexico
Ken Hickson, Author of "Race for Sustainability" and "ABC of Carbon"
James Hilgend Video Producer & Author of eleven books, including: "A New Myth for America", Forever Here", "The Great New Emerging Civilization"
Michael Hoexter, PhD, Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and Campaign Volunteer for Bernie Sanders 2016
Allen Johnson, PhD, Professor of Geology - retired, University of West Chester
John Jorgensen, Biologist-turned Activist/Marcher, Great March for Climate Action
Hannah Kaminsky, Author of "My Sweet Vegan", "Vegan Desserts", "Vegan a la Mode", "Easy as Vegan Pie"
George Paul Kemp, PhD, Associate Research Professor, Center for Coastal, Energy and Environmental Resources, Louisiana State University; Co-founder & former Executive Director, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana
Rev. Earl Koteen, Environmental Justice Minister and Board Member, Unitarian Universalist Earth Ministry
Felix Kramer, Founder, Beyond Cassandra and the of Congressional Climate Project
Mark Lichty, Documentary Film Producer of "Groundswell Rising"
Natalie Lucas, Executive Director, Care About Climate; member of U.S. student delegations to the UN's COP 18 (Doha), 19 (Warsaw), 20 (Lima), & 21 (Paris)
Cynthia Lukas, Producer, "Heaven on Earth Creations'" and upcoming film "Ghandi's Gift"
Chloe Maxmin, Co-founder, Divest Harvard
Bruce Melton, PE, Executive Director, Climate Change Now Initiative
Debbie Mytels, Associate Director, Acterra: Action for a Sustainable Earth
Jim Newell, PhD, lobbyist & government relations professional & CEO, ELS, Inc and TCM [The Climate Mobilization] Lead Organizer - Washington, DC Chapter
Terry Patten, Founder, Bay Area Integral
Dr. Linda Rudolph, MD, MPH, Co-Director, Climate Change and Public Health Project, Public Health Institute
Vanessa Rule, Co-founder, Mothers Out Front - Mobilizing for a Livable Climate
Dr. Pouné Saberi, MD, MPH, National Board of Directors, PSR; President, PSR-Philadelphia; Clinical Faculty, University of Pennsylvania; Section Chief for Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Philadelphia VA Medical Center
Adam Sacks, Executive Director, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
Paul Severance, Chair, Elders Climate Action
Ezra Silk, Co-Founder and Director of Policy and Strategy, The Climate Mobilization
Mariana Garcia Solana, Executive Director, The Friends of the Maya Foundation and Climate Mobilization Volunteer Lead Organizer for Mexico
Susan Soleil, Former Executive Director, Utah Interfaith Power & Light
Maria Luisa Tasayco, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Biochemistry & Biophysics Graduate Center, City University of New York
Kristina Turechek, Adjunct Faculty, SUNY College at Oneonta
Brian von Herzen, PhD, Executive Director, The Climate Foundation
Cassandra Wardle, Conservation Researcher, School of the Environment, Griffith University, Australia
Tom Weis, President, Climate Crisis Solutions
Lawrence Wollersheim, Director, Job One for Humanity
Elizabeth Woodworth, co-author of "Unprecedented Climate Mobilization"
"I heartily support the Climate Emergency Coalition and its work to shift philanthropy to organizations and initiatives fighting the threats to humanity brought by climate change."
- Paul R. Ehrlich
People who have worked with us on earlier breakthrough initiatives beginning in 2014:
Turner Anderson, Project Engineer at Siemens Energy, Inc.**
Duncan Callaway, PhD, Associate Professor of Energy & Resources, Division of Electrical Engineering/EECS, University of California - Berkeley**
William Christopfel, PhD, Director of Scientific Affairs, Bell Pharmaceuticals**
Simon Dalby, PhD, Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies and CIGI Chair in the Political Economy of Climate Change, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada**
Robert Dello-Russo, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Anthropology & Director, Office of Contract Archaeology, University of New Mexico**
William DeMott, PhD, Professor of Biology, Purdue University**
Paul R. Ehrlich, PhD, Bing Professor of Population Studies and President, Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University
Daniela Gioseffi, Editor & Publisher of Eco-Poetry.org & PoetsUSA.com; American Book Award-winning author of 16 books of poetry and prose***
Sebastian Groh, PhD, CEO at ME SOLshare Ltd; Assistant Professor at North South University, Bangaldesh**
John Harte, PhD, jointly appointed Professor in the Energy & Resources Group and the Ecosystem Sciences Division of the College of Natural Resources, University of California - Berkeley**
Donald Hnatowich, PhD, Professor of Radiology - retired, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Presenter, Climate Reality**
Andy Hoffmann, PhD, Office of Sustainability working group, University of Utah**
Daniel Kammen, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Energy, Energy and Resources Group, University of California - Berkeley**
Rik Leemans, PhD, Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis Wageningen University, The Netherlands**
Michael Mann, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology & Director of the Earth System Science Center Penn State University**
Trae Menard, Director of Forest Conservation, Hawaii Chapter - The Nature Conservancy**
Sergio Pacca, PhD, Research Fellow, University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems; Associate Professor of Energy & Sustainability, Sao Paolo University, Brasil**
Robert Strom, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Lunar and Planetary Lab. and Dept. of Planetary Science, University of Redlands**
Anders Wijkman, PhD, elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for outstanding services to the environment; Co-President, Club of Rome**
Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, PhD, Fellow, Energy and Resources Group, University of California - Berkeley; Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, Austria**
* Institutional affiliation listed for identification purposes only
** Signers of preliminary sign on letters leading up to the emergency petition.
The Tinkerbell-Effect & Breaking the Climate
This is Part 1 in the CEC's new free e-book Climate and Ecological Delusions and Contradictions That Will Rapidly End Humanity, Unless….
The story about our collective Delusions and Contradictions picks up speed with a stunning revelation!
It goes like this: With the UN 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, all of the world’s leadership and nations have promised to hold-the-line on warming the planet and to stabilize our climate system at no more than 2° Celsius (3.6◦ Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.[1] Yet, the way they have chosen to do this is to blast past that 2°C heat limit with hundreds of billions of tons of excess pollution, and then later to magically suck the polluting CO2 that causes a cooked and broken climate—out of the air. If you do not know this (perhaps because the world leaders are hiding behind what might be called the “Tinkerbell-Effect”) then you have not yet heard how the world’s leadership plans to actually implement this magical technology.
Read moreCuriouser & Curiouser
Of course, events in and around our world have gotten so egregiously curiouser and curiouser, that we thought it important to lend some interpretation, call it briefing, before we all become mad-hatters! Now to be sure, we are lending to ourselves as well, because it is important to try to make some sense of events, even in the face of unrelenting non-sense.
Read moreClimageddon Review
Get your free copy!
Released to coincide with nationwide climate marches on April 29th - and now co-sponsored by the People’s Climate March - Climageddon is unlike any preceding global warming warning book.
Climageddon radically disrupts what most informed individuals currently believe. In its new model for our destabilizing climate (the Climageddon Scenario,) it uses big data analytic methodologies to predict the likely progression of global warming consequences rapidly coming our way.
Climageddon is a comprehensive tour-de-force loaded with dozens of illustrations that make complex climate processes easier to understand. It pushes readers to rethink outdated or inaccurate ideas about how global warming will really affect their families, finances, physical security, and future.
Climageddon is a 180° turn-about from the usual information found in most global warming books. In May 2006, Al Gore stated in An Inconvenient Truth that we had “10 years left to avoid a tailspin of epic proportions involving extreme weather of all kinds.” Ten years later we have missed Gore’s action targets; we are experiencing that extreme weather; and Climageddon now says we have 6 to 10 years to avoid complete irreversible global warming, which unchecked will eventually lead to extinction.
A few of Climageddon’s well-documented positions and conclusions:
Source: Climageddon
- Global warming is much worse than is being portrayed and its effects are coming faster and with more ferocity than anyone is prepared for.
- The common belief that gradual progress is adequate for global warming reduction is completely misguided.
- Current global warming progression and risk assessments are hiding rapidly approaching risk levels. Disruption is coming for our markets, businesses, nations, and families.
- We are already in an undeclared global warming State of Emergency, and it's too late for organizing grassroots bottom-up solutions.
- Hundreds of trillions of dollars will be lost by the individuals, businesses, and nations most uninformed and unprepared for the massive changes coming. Even worse, the most expensive and devastating global warming consequences will not occur in 40 to 80 years as we are being told. They are already occurring and more will occur in less than half that time.
- If we are lucky, we have another 6 to 10 years left to make the costly, painful, and radical changes needed to prevent losing whatever remaining control we have left to prevent irreversible global warming from becoming an inevitability. (Those critical changes are described in prioritized and sequenced action steps of the Job One for Humanity Plan found in Climageddon.)
- If we fail to respond immediately and irreversible global warming occurs, extinction-level global warming will follow.
- There is a clear and final global warming battle line we must not cross. It is very near, and staying on the safe side of that line will be the greatest adaptive challenge humanity has ever faced.
If we successfully execute the actions described in the Job One for Humanity Plan and we complete those actions within the critical 2026 deadlines, our civilization should survive, and eventually our world will recover from the damage we have already created
Just as global warming has become the great disruptor of the 21st-century, Climageddon will be the great disruptor of much of what we believe about global warming and much of what we are failing to do.
There is little doubt that word-of-mouth will make this book a must-have, must-read for those interested in global warming issues and education. It will also become a must-read for individuals and businesses that will be severely impacted by the rapidly unfolding Climageddon Scenario such as investment bankers, stock and commodity investors, city, corporate, and government planners. It is crucial for farmers, business, and real estate investors. The content of Climageddon must be understood by intelligence agency risk and threat analysts, and by relevant futurists.
Gradualism related to our Climate Crisis is deadly. Either we declare that our Climate Crisis is an emergency or we give up any chance for humanity's future. Most of life would perish with us, as well.
Or get a free copy of Climageddon, complements of JobOneForHumanity.org:
Anyone attending the People’s Climate March in DC or its sister marches (or anyone wanting to go but unable to attend) can get a free copy of Climageddon. Until midnight May 1st, you can receive a free Climageddon copy – just email [email protected] and ask for the free eBook. Download instructions will be sent to you.
The Gift of the Trumpocalypse
For growing numbers of Americans, tracking the exploding Trump-Russia scandal has become a necessity, like slowing for a major multi-vehicle pileup. Rachel Maddow delivers bombshell reports almost every weeknight, each plotline adding more gasoline to the conflagration that is consuming our political system. As Senator John McCain has offered: “There’s a lot more shoes to drop from this centipede.”
Read moreCan This Unprecedented Administration Be "Un-Presidented" Too?
"Donald Trump and his band of Banana Republicans are turning our country into a banana republic."
– Swami Beyondananda
Is the honeymoon over yet?
Perhaps a better question is, what kind of honeymoon follows a shotgun wedding? For the past two months, I have explored how the failure of neoliberalism helped fuel the perfect storm that put Donald Trump in the White House, and how given the choice between status quo and disruptive change, the body politic chose the latter.
OK, so here we are. Now what?
Read more