Earthbytes

Earth Day: Give Earth a Hand (video)

This is amazing...

 

Earth Day 2013

President Obama: Honor the treaties. Protect the sacred. Forward on Climate. No Keystone XL.

Thousands of citizens have gathered on the mall in DC today to ask President Obama to move forward on climate and energy policy. The activists involved represent different campaigns and strategies to protect the Earth and restore ecological balance. Today they all march as one.

For several months, First Nations citizens of Canada, Native American Nations and many non-Indigenous allies have worked to reaffirm unity of the human family and love for Mother Earth. Check out the video and other links below to explore the growing movement.

 

 

Related articles:

Sunday rally could tip balance against Keystone pipeline (Paul Koring, Globe and Mail, 2/17/13)

Harper government presses Obama to approve Keystone XL Pipeline (Yves Engler at rabble.ca, 2/17/13)

The best solution on climate change requires Congress to act (Bernie Sanders in The Guardian, 2/16/13)

A Presidential Decision That Could Change the World: The Strategic Importance of Keystone XL (Michael Klare, 2/10/13)

Four States Introduce Keystone XL Resolutions, Lifting Language From ALEC and TransCanada (Brendan Fischer, 2/16/13)

Why Organized Labor Must Stand Against the Keystone XL Pipeline (Mark Vorpahl, Occupy.com, 2/13/13)

Time for President Obama to Choose Sides on Keystone XL Jamie Henn, 350.org, 2/13/13)

 

Related articles

Thousands Converge: Demand Action from Obama to Avoid 'Climate Disaster'

Crowd gathers for Forward on Climate Keystone XL protest in Washington, D.C.: slideshow

Tens of thousands to rally against Keystone XL in Washington, organizers say

Wall asks U.S. ambassador to clarify Obama's Keystone comments

Brook Meakins: An Inside Look at the First Village Forced to Relocate Due to Climate Change

Interesting article about a community that has contributed very little to climate change, but are feeling the effects in profound ways.

For the most part, many people still experience climate change on an academic rather than a personal level. But for the villagers of Vunidogoloa on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island, climate change has become a daily intrusion on every day life. The villagers of Vunidogoloa are currently relocating to drier and higher land because of sea level rise, erosion, and intensifying floods. I had the opportunity to visit the village midway through this process – one of the very first village relocation projects in the world – and spoke with people young and old about their upcoming move.

Read more at www.alternet.org

Bill Chameides: The Romney-Ryan Energy Plan by the Numbers

In an interesting analysis of the Romney-Ryan Energy Plan, Bill Chameides used the "word cloud" app. Word clouds can be a very revealing way to look at ideas.

Read the rest of Bill's analysis (which includes a link to a pdf of the Plan) at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

The wisdom of Sankofa: reconnecting with the Earth before we can move forward

Oh Sankofa, high on the Heavens you soar

My soul is soon to follow you, back to yesterday's moon

will it remember me?

Back to yesterday's sun, It will rekindle me

Rekindle the spirit into tomorrow and high on the wind

Sankofa flies again and again

-- Cassandra Wilson, SANKOFA/Blue Light 'Til Dawn

 

Before you can move forward, you must first return home. This is the meaning of the concept of Sankofa, said Zakiya Harris on today's Spring of Sustainability session entitled Sankofa: Regenerative Strategies for Connecting People to the Earth.

Before today, I was only familiar with the symbolism of the Sankofa bird through Cassandra Wilson's music. Before I heard Pandora Thomas and Zakiya Harris of Earthseed Consulting, I had not thought of it in terms of my interest in environmental justice. But they helped me connect the dots and it made total sense that resonated with my own discoveries. How does this apply to environmental justice work?

You can't start with An Inconvenient Truth to get people interested in climate change, for example, if people in the community have trouble securing basic life needs. But if you ask people if they know someone dealing with asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, inadequate housing, poverty, or limited access to healthy food, says Zakiya, everybody in the room will raise their hand. Then you can help them connect the dots  between those more familiar day to day challenges in one's own community and dirty coal plants, climate change, toxic chemicals and other stressors and conditions of the environment.

If the African-American, Latino and other communities of color seem to be underrepresented in the mainstream environmental movement, it's not because they are not interested in environmental issues. All of these communities have their own stories, their own culture's way of relating to Earth, their own expertise to do what's needed where they live.

Too often, says Zakiya, environmentalists wanting to help don't ask the right questions to reconnect communities with the expertise they already have. We don't start off by meeting them where they are before we try to help them move forward. What we need to do is listen to their stories and then frame things in a way that allows them to share and bring their own expertise back into the light.

According to Pandora and Zakiya, education and training is a key to their successful work with people, because when people learn new things, that naturally sparks interest to become involved in something. Among the projects that Pandora and Zakiya talked about were The Green Life program at San Quentin, and the City Slickers Farms project in West Oakland.

At the end of the discussion, Zakiya and Pandora each had a final thought to share (I was typing fast to get this, but I think this is close to what each one said with minimal paraphrasing):

Zakiya: We are witnessing the greatest paradigm shift any of us have ever seen in our lifetimes. We will need to be more inclusive and recognize that their [communities of color that have largely been excluded from the environmental movement in the past] expertise might look different. Drop the guilt, start with your own inner work...we're not here to heal the Earth, we are healing ourselves so we can stay on the planet.

Pandora: Get outside. There are so many aspects of the movement that have actually disconnected us from life. Immerse yourself in the outdoors no matter where you are and just listen.

You can listen to the discussion by registering at the Spring of Sustainability program page, however I think there is a time-limited replay window.

Here's a video of a TedEX talk -- The Vision of Sankofa -- by Pandora and Zakiya:

 

 

For some great articles on race and environment, check out Colorlines.

From "sustainable" to "regenerative" agriculture with Holistic Management

I just heard an awesome discussion with Allan Savory, a pioneer of holistic management. Long ago, large herds of wild herbivores roamed grasslands throughout the world. Humankind shifted grassland ecology with a focus on smaller herds of domestic livestock that were confined to relatively small spaces. This has contributed to desertification of grasslands across the planet. Holistic Management helps people develop strategies for managing herds of domestic livestock to mimic those wild herds and heal the land.

Here's a couple of videos on this idea:

 

 

 

 

Savory's work has wide implications, from revitalizing grasslands to managing deterioration of national parks and other public lands, especially in the more arid regions of the United States.

Some links:

The Savory Institute

Holistic Management International

Back to the Start: a move we need to make in lots of human endeavors

I totally love this ad from Chipotle that aired during the Grammy's. It speaks most directly to the tragedies of factory farming and our unsustainable food systems, but the idea of getting back to the start -- relating to Earth and each other from heart space, and co-creating our world from there -- is one we need to bring into everything we do on this planet. Enjoy this reflection from Willy and Chipotle...

 

The Human Cost of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Makayla Urias, 8, from Pike County, Kentucky holds contaminated water samples taken from her home which is surrounded by mountaintop removal coal mining.

 

If you haven't played with the new interactive map at iLoveMountains.org, please go check it out.

Over the past few years, several health studies on the interrelationship of human health and mountaintop removal coal mining have added to the urgency -- an urgency understood by citizens of Appalachia for many years -- to keep the mountains intact. Scientific evidence that this destructive mining practice hurts people and nature is piling up just about as fast now as surface mine operators can blow up the mountains and pile mining waste into Appalachian waters!

The interactive map will allow you to explore the relationship of mountaintop removal coal mining to poverty, changes in life expectancy, birth defect rates, or deaths from cancer, heart or respiratory diseases. The map allows you to view the data at various scales, from regional to state to county-level correlations.

You can also view summaries of the studies that correlate mountaintop removal coal mining with human health consequences.

After you play with the map, please visit the iLoveMountains action page. It lists several things anyone can do to make sure Makayla Urias and every other child in Appalachia has a fair chance for a long, happy and healthy life.

Knoxville Mayoral Candidates to Debate on Green Jobs and Energy Efficiency

The Steering Committee of the Knoxville Energy Alliance and Partnership for Green Jobs, also known as KEAP Green Jobs, will hold a City of Knoxville Mayoral Debate on Tuesday, Nov. 1. Doors open at 6:30 and the debate starts at 7 p.m.

The steering committee is made up of several organizations that promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in an attempt to bring green jobs to the City of Knoxville and promote environmental sustainability. Groups from the Alliance sponsoring the debate include SEEED (Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development), SOCM (Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment), TSEA (Tennessee Solar Energy Association) and TAP (Tennessee Alliance for Progress) in conjunction with the East Tennessee Chapter US Green Building Council and Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee.

In addition to questioning the candidates on their future plans for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs linked to green job development, the steering committee of KEAP Green Jobs will unveil its proposal to partner with the city in an “energy alliance” program to increase access to quality jobs, energy efficiency, and renewable energy for low and moderate-income residents. Examples of the job-creating projects KEAP Green Jobs proposes include weatherization of houses to save homeowners money on their utility bills and replacing some or all of a building's existing power source with solar power.

Audience questions will be allowed to please come prepared with your best questions for the candidates!

LOCATION: Pellissippi State Community College - Magnolia Campus