IF I HAD JEFF BEZOS’ MONEY
Just had this piece published this morning on the Stanford University MAHB website. MAHB stands for Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
Just had this piece published this morning on the Stanford University MAHB website. MAHB stands for Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
There are a number of compelling overviews of what is wrong with humanity and how to make it right. This one, by a group called Transition Earth, is on point and about as succinct as these planetary prescriptions come.
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The Anthropocene is a new geological epoch that began with the Industrial Revolution and became
fully established after World War II, during what is called the ‘The Great Acceleration,’ when human
activities began to alter the state of the planet. The effects of the Anthropocene have already
percolated throughout virtually all aspects of the planetary system. Its impacts include rising levels of
greenhouse gases, mass extinctions, deforestation, and altered oceanic and atmospheric chemistry.
One predicted consequence of the Anthropocene epoch is that the planet may lose two-thirds of its wild animals by 2020. In the last fifty years, the Earth has lost 38% of its terrestrial vertebrate, 36% of it’s ocean vertebrates, and 81% of its freshwater vertebrates.
The impact of this goes far beyond just sentimentality – the interconnectedness of the web of life means all organisms serve
an ecological function upon which another relies, so to lose a species is to lose a part of the ecological system which sustains life.
How can we construct a future that will nurture the needs of the planet while protecting the rights of its vulnerable people in the face of an expanding population?
The previous epoch – the Holocene – nurtured modern day humanity, as agriculture thrived due to a relatively stable
climate; it is the only period we know to be able to sustain contemporary life.
As human pressures mount, and with the global population set to hit 10 billion by 2050, it is clear that the way we live and
run our world needs to be reformed. It is time to ensure that the natural earth systems which got us here today are
protected from irreversible repair, and most importantly, to support people’s rights while doing so.
How can we construct a future that will nurture the needs of the planet while protecting the rights of its vulnerable people
in the face oi anexpanding population?
Strategies for stabilizing the effects of the Anthropocene and securing a sustainable future include the following:
Rights of Nature
In a world where, according to the Living Planet Report 2016, global populations of fish, birds, mammals,
amphibians and reptiles declined by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012, new approaches are needed to save
nature.
In 2014 New Zealand passed a law to recognize the Wanganui River as a natural entity with rights, protecting it
from threats such as pollution, and in doing so, protecting the abundance of life that the river fosters and the
ecosystem services it provides that enhance the well-being of people. Legally recognizing nature as an entity
means its rights to be and to thrive are protected, and not simply property to be plundered. As all life is
interconnected, this concept protects both wildlife and human well-being and is therefore a promising example
for future strategies.
In India, courts have granted rights to the sacred Ganges and Yamuna Rivers as living entities, and rights of
nature has been recognized in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador. Over 100 communities in the U.S. have
enacted some type of rights of nature legislation at the local level in an effort to protect both people and the
environment from threats such as fracking and toxic sludge waste.
New Economic Systems
The current global economic system is one that demands constant resource consumption and population
growth; not surprisingly, this system is unsustainable. While this economic model may have lifted people out of
poverty in the past, it is no longer viable, as Earth’s resources are limited, which in turn threatens the quality of
life for many people and harms the environment.
Alternative models exist that promote healthy communities living within the means of the planet. Steady state
economics is the ‘sustainable alternative to perpetual economic growth’, where population and resource
consumption mildly fluctuate or remain stable. In a steady state economy, the constant pressure to create more
jobs is reduced as population growth stabilizes, and the jobs that do exist are within enterprises of a more local
and sustainable nature. With less outside/foreign influences, jobs and local economies will be stronger and more
resilient while contributing to a cleaner and greener world.
Dietary Changes
A shift to a less meat-intensive and more plant-based diet is an effective, tangible way in which an individual can
reduce their contribution to planetary degradation. Animal agriculture is far more costly to the environment
than plant agriculture, in that it uses more water, land and nutrients, generates more greenhouse gases and
waste, and causes greater degradation to land by overgrazing and deforestation for pastures.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the total area of land dedicated to
growing feedcrop for livestock amounts to 33% of all arable land on Earth; the total amount of land used for
grazing by livestock itself amounts to 26% of all ice-free terrestrial land. These statistics combined mean that
livestock production comprises 70% of all agricultural land use and 30% of all land on the planet – land cleared
for food production equals the size of South America and Africa combined. A shift to a more plant-based diet
would mean less land and resources to grow more food.
With studies now showing that plant-based diets are linked to lowered risk of heart disease and some cancers,
this change in eating habits would benefit people’s health as well as the planet.
Invest in Voluntary Family Planning Services
One of the most overlooked but critical solutions for a sustainable future is the need to invest in voluntary family
planning services and women’s health. Some 214 million women and girls in developing countries who don’t
want to get pregnant do not use contraception, often due to a lack of access, supplies, money or information.
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia are home to almost 60 percent of the women who want to avoid
pregnancy but cannot access proper contraception. The birth rate in 20 African nations exceeds five children per
woman.
Tackling this issue means that women will be able to support healthier families and communities by having a
choice of how many children they want in alignment with the resources they have, and will simultaneously help
manage population growth.
In countries where communities are facing the problems of climate change and ecological collapse, access to
family planning, reproductive rights and education will empower women to confront these challenges,
benefitting both their well-being and that of their families, as well as the planet’s.
Looking Ahead
Having constructed, reclaimed and drilled our way out of the last epoch and into a new, ecologically
impoverished, concrete Anthropocene, it is time to rethink the way we interact with the world in which we live.
It is vital that we put efforts into curbing the impacts humans have on the planet so that the Anthropocene does
not shift into an environmental state that is hostile to life, something that could happen if changes are not made.
This can be done by respecting nature and protecting it, realizing that we are part of a web of life that should be
nourished not exploited, shifting away from an economic model based on perpetual growth and consumption,
reducing the amount of food obtained from animal sources and investing in voluntary family planning services.
Published August 2017 by Transition Earth, a non-governmental organization that works to increase awareness of the
effects of increasing population growth and unsustainable economic growth on people and the planet.
www.transition-earth.org
Here is a link to an excellent article that was just posted, by The Guardian. The author, Rana Dasgupta, provides an excellent view on the destabilizing forces at work in the world we know today. The nation-state model of political organization no longer works. Global scale corporations ignore consequence as they focus entirely on profit. The people who control world financial markets are no longer constrained by national borders. Neither are the dynamics of mass communication and the social media. Dasgupta’s analysis reflects the reality of our modern world. Perhaps the biggest factor in this is the massive burden of 7.6 billion humans on the planet we all share. That is double the population that was on Earth just fifty years ago. We live on and must share a planet with finite resources. We are outstripping its ability to provide.
Belgian physicist, Ilya Prigogine developed ‘General Systems Theory’, which basically says that as a system becomes more complicated and burdened, the instinct is to lay on ever more scaffolding, stabilizing things temporarily, until the weight of the reinforcing structures cause the entire system to collapse, clearing the way for a new order that takes into account the forces that brought down the previous order.
What is the new order all humans must embrace? Planetary citizenship, and a commonly shared responsibility to protect our planet and its biosphere, That seems to be what Dasgupta is calling for. I could not agree more.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta?CMP=share_btn_link
Just had this piece published this morning on the Stanford University MAHB website. MAHB stands for Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/planetary-duty-feminist-construct/://
Neoliberlism is basically a political/economic system designed to unleash unbridled greed. Some millennials may not know the two people pictured in this blog piece. They are Ronald Reagan, who was the American President from 1980 till 1988, and Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during roughly the same period. An the core of neoliberalism is a concept called ‘trickle-down economics’. It has been the foundation of our economy since Reagan and Thatcher were leading the world. In a nutshell, neoliberalism funnels all the profits and all the wealth into the hands of billionaires and giant corporations. Neoliberal proponents claim that the rich and powerful, who take all the marbles will then distribute some of their largess downward to labor and the middle class. Except, it actually doesn’t come close to working that way. What we know now from experience is when you funnel all the wealth to those already at the top, they not only keep it all for themselves, they actually demand more and more and more….for themselves. Neoliberalism is raw, unregulated greed. It has never worked for anyone but the rich. It’s why the corporate elite make 1,000 times as much as the people working for them. It’s why the top 1% took home 82% of all the new wealth generated last year.
This piece from The Guardian by economist George Monbiot presents the ugly reality of ‘trickle-down’ and neoliberalism. We must move in a new economic direction that serves the interests of all our citizens, not just the rich and powerful.
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Neoliberalism – The Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems
By George Monbiot
Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?
This artixcle is well done. Written by celebrated economist, George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
I read this book by Jeremy Rifkin, who also wrote The Zero Sum Marginal Cost Society. It shines light on a new day
Here is a documentary that features Rikfin presenting the trends that should make us optimistic about where our world is headed.
Just read a new article in Scientific American that looks at how monkeys respond to sexual imagery. A study done by Michael Platt, a neuro-biologist from the University of Pennsylvania looked at how humans and monkeys respond to sexual imagery. The link to the article is https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/what-monkeys-can-teach-us-about-advertising/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_content=link&utm_term=2018-03-16_top-stories
No surprise. The biological link to the adage, ‘Sex sells’ was affirmed. It turns out monkeys, like humans, are biologically hard-wired to show serious interest in provocative imagery of the opposite sex. Qualitatively, the interest displayed by females was somewhat different, but no less intense than that displayed by males looking at images of females.
We are sexual creatures. All of us…both males and females. That’s what nature intends for us to be. Women particularly, have had their natural sexuality suppressed…for thousands of years. There is no biological reason for it. The oppression of women is entirely a cultural phenomenon. It’s really a control issue, encouraged by men, with men being the beneficiaries.
This planet we all depend on is withering under the weight of a broad range of global scale challenges, all driven by pressures unleashed by humanity. Climate change, resource depletion, human overpopulation…all of these issues must be addressed with firm resolve. A big part of creating a future that is life-affirming and sustainable is a level playing field for both sexes. That must include accepting women as equals, and tolerating whatever choices a woman makes about her personal sexual expression. There is no ambiguity about this. Michael Platt’s research, as presented in Scientific American, shows that It’s just nature’s way.
February 22nd, 2018 by The Beam
By Melissa Ruggles, Neva Nahtigal, Tjarda Muller and Xenia Wassenbergh, International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy (ENERGIA)
How do you get sustainable energy solutions to more than two million people in the most remote areas — the last mile — of Africa and Asia? And how do you make sure the solutions are really used? The answer is as brilliant as it is simple: appeal to the power of women.
At the most basic level, women are the main providers and users of household energy. At the same time, they are disproportionately affected by the lack of energy and tend to be overlooked as key stakeholders of energy initiatives. When women gain access to quality energy services, this has multiple poverty reduction impacts: on health, income generation, and family.
Another critically important fact is that women can play a central role in expanding energy access to the last mile, which is the greatest challenge we are faced with when aiming for sustainable energy for all.
“The link between women’s rights and renewable energy is more logical than you might think at first sight,” says Tjarda Muller, Communications Coordinator of ENERGIA at Hivos. “We know that women are the ones who use the most energy at home. And from experience, we also know they tend to buy and use more sustainable products if another woman explains how the product works and what the benefits are.”
Over the last four years, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy (ENERGIA), has supported 4,000 female entrepreneurs through its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WE) program, a program that supports women and their communities in the most remote areas of Africa and Asia to access energy. They, in turn, provide about two million people with sustainable energy equipment, such as solar panels, solar lights, and energy-saving cooking appliances.
These 4,000 women have created opportunities for the people who buy their sustainable products, but also for themselves. As Sheila Oparaocha, International Coordinator and Programme Manager of ENERGIA at Hivos explains: “The women entrepreneurs’ own lives have also changed enormously. They started out as housewives, and are now seen as successful entrepreneurs. With their new position and status, they gain respect. They also set a very different example for their daughters. These women are the driving force behind social change.”
Oumy Ngom, the leader of a Senegalese women’s group, had been trying to improve the wellbeing of her community for over a decade. After participating in the ENERGIA-sponsored Energy 4 Impact Women’s Economic Empowerment programme, Oumy engaged her group in the use and sale of solar lamps and improved cookstoves. Among other things, Oumy was excited about the savings that the products provided for the local households. “Where families used to spend 500 or 600 Francs on charcoal for cooking, they now spend only 200 to 250 Francs because the new stoves consume so much less than traditional ones,” explains the entrepreneur. During the past year and a half, the women’s group led by Oumy recorded the highest sales of clean energy products among Energy 4 Impact’s entrepreneurs, and Oumy has become a true role model for other women in the group. “What I enjoy most in my work is introducing new products to people. And as an accomplished entrepreneur, I can now share my knowledge with others, by teaching them how to make improved cookstoves or fix solar products,” she explained.
Another inspirational example is Niru Shrestha, who was nominated for the ENERGIA Women Entrepreneurship Award based on her success in selling improved cookstoves. Niru has been in the cookstove business for more than 13 years. When she began her business, she initially constructed built-on-site mud chimney stoves. However, after participating in ENERGIA’s training for female entrepreneurs in 2015, Niru set up shop and started selling biomass cookstoves and components for fixed mud stoves. It soon became evident that she filled a crucial gap in her district’s cookstoves supply, and her business has continued to grow. Niru has developed a solid business plan, established links with city-based suppliers and engaged more than 100 women, who have also been trained in the Women’s Economic Empowerment program, as local sales agents. During the fiscal year of 2015–2016 alone, her enterprise sold over 6,100 cookstoves, a more than twelve-fold increase compared to total cookstoves sales in her district before Niru launched her business.
Starting with a small energy business, or almost nothing, many of the women go on to become social leaders in their communities. “The economic empowerment of women is a real game changer,” Sheila believes. “These women are role models for other women in their communities, and showcase how others like them can run successful businesses, and negotiate and advocate for their interests. At the same time, this market-based innovation brings clean energy to rural customers’ doorsteps where traditional distribution channels have simply not reached. It furthermore helps to reduce poverty and promotes more social investments in health and education in the women’s communities.”
The WE approach implemented and promoted in ENERGIA involves capacity building, mentoring, and other ways of supporting women (and their networks) as energy entrepreneurs. We focus on supporting women’s energy enterprises and other women-led (non-energy) businesses that promote and improve the use of renewable energy sources to generate income and deliver better services to their communities, for instance using a solar-powered refrigerator to chill juices or a solar-powered water pump to irrigate crops.
The approach comprises enterprise development, addressing women entrepreneurs’ specific constraints, and doing this in a way that empowers the women and builds their agency. “Think of skills like market analysis, drafting a business plan, sales training, introduction to financial institutions, providing potential partnerships, and other such things. In addition to the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme, ENERGIA also carries out research and actively lobbies to put renewable energy and equal rights for men and women on regional and national governments’ agendas,” says Tjarda.
The women-centric ‘last mile’ distribution model for affordable clean energy technologies integrates women in both the supply and demand sides of a thriving grassroots green economy. It combines the best of an enterprise development model with a women’s empowerment model.
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This article was originally published by The Beam
Why is this so very serious? Because increased ocean temperatures translate directly into more extreme weather events. It’s just amazing to me that very serious issues like climate change continue to generate so much denial. The physics of climate change are not complicated. Heat is a form of energy. Heat trapped in the atmosphere warms ocean surface water.
This article from THE GUARDIAN offers up the latest information on how bad, keeps on getting ever worse.
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Among scientists who work on climate change, perhaps the most anticipated information each year is how much the Earth has warmed. That information can only come from the oceans, because almost all heat is stored there. If you want to understand global warming, you need to first understand ocean warming.
This isn’t to say other measurements are not also important. For instance, measurements of the air temperature just above the Earth are really important. We live in this air; it affects us directly. A great commentary on 2017 air temperatures is provided by my colleague Dana Nuccitelli. Another measurement that is important is sea level rise; so too is ocean acidification. We could go on and on identifying the markers of climate change. But in terms of understanding how fast the Earth is warming, the key is the oceans.
This important ocean information was just released today by a world-class team of researchers from China. The researchers (Lijing Cheng and Jiang Zhu) found that the upper 2000 meters (more than 6000 feet) of ocean waters were far warmer in 2017 than the previous hottest year. We measure heat energy in Joules. It turns out that 2017 was a record-breaking year, 1.51 × 1022 Joules hotter than any other year. For comparison, the annual electrical generation in China is 600 times smaller than the heat increase in the ocean.
The authors provide a long history of ocean heat, going back to the late 1950s. By then there were enough ocean temperature sensors to get an accurate assessment of the oceans’ warmth. Their results are shown in the figure below. This graph shows ocean heat as an “anomaly,” which means a change from their baseline of 1981–2010. Columns in blue are cooler than the 1981-2010 period, while columns in red are warmer than that period. The best way to interpret this graph is to notice the steady rise in ocean heat over this long time period.
What is interesting is that from year to year (or over the span of a few years), the heat in the oceans may increase or decrease. This is because there are natural fluctuations that can transfer extra energy to or from the waters. One such natural event is the well-known El Niño/La Niña cycle in the Pacific Ocean. During an El Niño, the Pacific Ocean tends to have very warm waters at the surface, which causes heat loss to the atmosphere (so the ocean cools and the atmosphere warms). Conversely, during a La Niña, the reverse process occurs.
There are other fluctuations and natural occurrences like volcanic eruptions and other changes in ocean currents. But it just means we don’t want to take any one year as proof of global warming. The fact that 2017 was the oceans’ hottest year doesn’t prove humans are warming the planet. But, the long term upward trend that extends back many decades does prove global warming. The graph above is the most important image to show someone who denies the reality of a changing climate.
It’s interesting to look at the top five years on record in terms of ocean heat; they are listed below.
Note that these are the five hottest years ever recorded. Truly astonishing.
Further consequences of this heating include declining oxygen levels in the oceans, bleaching of coral reefs, and melting of both sea ice and ice shelves (the latter of which which will also raise sea levels). We are observing these effects. Arctic ice is undergoing a long-term decline, and it’s possible the Arctic will become ice-free. Massive coral bleaching events have been recorded, particularly in the waters off of Australia. The point is, the effects of global warming aren’t just academic; they are real.
The consequences of this year-after-year-after-year warming have real impacts on humans. Fortunately, we know why the oceans are warming (because of human greenhouse gases), and we can do something about it. We can take action to reduce the heating of our planet by using energy more wisely and increasing the use of clean and renewable energy (like wind and solar power).
There are two things that every human person can do to be part of the solution to global warmig and climate change. The first would be to transition from gas guzzler to clean, renew-ably powered electric transport. Translation…make you next care an electric car.
The other big step each of us can take would arguably have even more impact. That would be reducing or eliminating animal protein in one’s diet. I just pulled this article from the internet. It suggests that the tide may be turning on the human addiction to animal protein. If so, this is some good news we all should celebrate.
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The food space has changed drastically in the past 10 years. With the rise of the internet and social media, it has never been easier to share information about the food we purchase in grocery stores. Thanks to video footage and research reports, we now have direct insight into how a majority of our food is made – unfortunately, to many consumers, this knowledge has caused them to distrust the food system.
In fact, a recent study from the Center for Food Integrity found that only 33 percent of consumers are confident in the safety of our food system. Further, the meat and dairy industry are becoming increasingly “untrustworthy” in the eyes of consumers, and the same report noted only 25 percent of participants believe humane treatment is provided for animals used in the U.S. meat industry, and only 30 percent think that American farmers take good care of the environment (for context, 42 percent believed this was true in 2017).
Thankfully, consumers today are not content with simply carrying on “business as usual” with their purchasing, they are seeking out better alternatives, and increasingly, they are buying plant-based foods. From plant-based meat alternatives to dairy-free milks, yogurts, and cheese, the plant-based food space is exploding to meet the demands of these new – hungry – conscious consumers.
In a recent episode of #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias, Lisa Feria, CEO of Stray Dog Capital, a mission-driven Venture Capital firm that drives alternatives to the use of animals in the supply chain through investments, expertise, and support, speaks to the confluence of trends that are happening to make the plant-based food space one of the most prime for investment opportunities.
As Lisa explains, it’s more than just the consumers who are shaping this rising sector of the food industry, some of the major players in the meat and dairy space are getting in too. Tysonand Cargill are seeing that the only way to keep producing enough meat and dairy to feed a rising population, they will need more resources, namely, more land and water that just is not available. Even at the highest rate of “efficiency,” their business to produce protein using animals is messy, strife with animal welfare and human rights concerns, unhealthy, and unsustainable in every sense of the word. Knowing this, they are looking to plant-based and even “clean” meat companies and seeing how they can invest or acquire more of these businesses to help them move away from being reliant on animal agriculture.
As an investor, Lisa gets to see behind the scenes innovation and is instrumental in making sure companies that have the potential to disrupt industrialized animal agriculture and our broken food system have all they need to be successful. In this enlightening conversation, she shares more about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and gives her take on trends and opportunities in the plant-based food space, as well as her predictions for the future of food.
In the next 30 years, the food system we know will be completely different thanks to people like Lisa, and without a doubt, thanks to consumer demand, meat companies will certainly not be making protein in slaughterhouses.
If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias podcast for new episodes with food industry leaders, health, and sustainability experts, as well as entrepreneurs and creative minds who are redefining the future of food.