Step It Up!

Speaking to a Dartmouth audience about changing global warming’s impact by modified lifestyles and economies, Bill McKibben was accused of “preaching to the choir”. How will converting the converts do any good, asked one person in the audience.

“Only if the choir sings five times louder is there any chance we’ll get federal legislation to help stop global warming”, McKibben said. “It’s important now to get everyone in the choir to sing at the top of their lungs.”

His timing may be right: Congress is considering more than a dozen global warming bills, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” just won an Oscar, two global oil companies are investing in wind energy, and several corporations are backing legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

A youthful-looking 46, McKibben was among the first to sound the alarm about global warming in 1989 with “The End of Nature.” But after that book and nine others, he no longer seems content with just issuing warnings. He wants to lead people into action.”

Step It Up happens in your area on Earth Day, April 14. Be there. (Click JOIN AN ACTION at top of stepitup web page to find an event near you.)

And I’m buying DEEP, McKibben’s book (which he recommends you buy LOCALLY), published just this month. Here’s an excerpt from the author’s webpage that talks about the book:

“The time has come to move beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment.”

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. In response to your post on Bill McKibben, Culture and “Environmental Crisis” I want to post a part from my article which examines the impact of consumerism/ industrialization on our minds and environment. Please read.

    The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

    The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

    Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

    Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
    Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
    Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.

    Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

    If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

    Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

    When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

    There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

    People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

    Emotion ends.

    Man becomes machine.

    A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

    A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

    A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

    Fast visuals/ words make slow emotions extinct.

    Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys emotional circuits.

    A fast (large) society cannot feel pain / remorse / empathy.

    A fast (large) society will always be cruel to Animals/ Trees/ Air/ Water/ Land and to Itself.

    To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

    PlanetSave

    TheHolisticWheel

    sushil_yadav