Rajendra Pachauri was a speaker at the State of the Planet Conference at Columbia University (NYC) where I met him in 2006. Tomorrow he will speak at the EMERGING ISSUES FORUM (along with Thomas Friedman) in Raleigh, NC. Such good fortune does not occur often. I will attend a reception/luncheon in Dr. Pachauri’s honor, prior to his address to the EIF.

The presentation of Dr. Pachauri’s thinking, just above, was timely and most helpful. Thanks.

Always,

Steve

DR. R.K. Pachauri: The key massages of the IPCC Report

CLIMATE CODE RED

http://www.climatecodered.net/

When oil crisis hits, fantasyland will become nightmare

Wed Feb 6 2008

Frances Russell

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gEaS-K3j3M8

“Time may change me, but I can’t trace time. I said that time may change me. But I can’t trace time.”

- —

Life is not as difficult as people think; all one needs is a good set of rules. Since it is probably too late for you, here are some guidelines to pass along to your children.

1. Relax and take it easy. Don’t get caught up in hollow conceits such as “doing something with your life.” Such twaddle is outmoded and a sure formula for disappointment.

2. Whatever it is you pursue, try to do it just well enough to remain in the middle third of the field. Keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself and don’t ask questions. Remember, the squeaky wheel is the first one to be replaced.

3. Size people up quickly, and develop rigid attitudes based on your first impression. If you try to delve deeper and get to “know” people, you’re asking for trouble.

4. Don’t fall for that superstitious nonsense about treating people the way you would like to be treated. It is a transparently narcissistic approach, and may be the sign of a weak mind.

5. Spend as much time as you can pleading and impressing others, even if it makes you unhappy. Pay special attention to shallow manipulators who can do you the most harm. Remember, in the overall scheme, you count for very little.

6. Surround yourself with inferiors and losers. Not only will you look good by comparison, but they will look up to you, and that will make you feel better.

7. Don’t buy into the sentimental notion that everyone has shortcomings; it’s the surest way of undermining yourself. Remember, the really best people have no defects. If you’re not perfect, something is wrong.

8. If by some off chance you do detect a few faults, first, accept the fact that you are probably deeply flawed. Then make a list of your faults and dwell on them. Carry the list around and try to think of things to add. Blame yourself for everything.

9. Beware of intuition and gut instincts, they are completely unreliable. Instead, develop preconceived notions and don’t waver unless someone tells you to. Then change your mind and adopt their point of view. But only if they seem to know what they’re talking about.

10. Never give up on an idea simply because it is bad and doesn’t work. Cling to it even when it is hopeless. Anyone can cut and run, but it takes a very special person to stay with something that is stupid and harmful.

11. Always remember, today doesn’t count. Trying to make something out of today only robs you of precious time that could be spent daydreaming or resting up.

12. Try to dwell on the past. Think of all the mistakes you’ve made, and how much better it would be if you hadn’t made them. Think of what you should have done, and blame yourself for not doing so. And don’t go easy. Be really hard on yourself.

13. If by chance you make a fresh mistake, especially a costly one, try to repeat it a few times so you become familiar with it and can do it easily in the future. Write it down. Put it with your list of faults.

14. Beware also of the dangerous trap of looking ahead; it will only get you in trouble. Instead, try to drift along from day to day in a meandering fashion. Don’t get sidetracked with some foolish “plan.”

15. Finally, enjoy yourself all the time, and do whatever you want. Don’t be seduced by that mindless chatter going around about “responsibility.” That’s exactly the sort of thing that can ruin your life

- George Carlin

I know, very well, that David Bowie must have been in a more humourous mood while writing this song, which really is all about paranoia and social angst, and not much more than that. Well, anyway, this I can imagine.

However, these days, and in this very space — an environmentalists’ internet subculture, or blog — I think I’m finding a lot of reasons to be worried about the notion that God lives in every man and woman, and that God, in this sense, is very much an American, and that the American dream is the key concept for all westernized humans to try, as hard as they can, to live up to. It’s the meaning of modern and westernized human life. The United States of America, the American culture, and the American lifestyle is what guides all the cultures of the third world, and urges them on, as they are struggling to modernize and become prosperous as fast as they possibly can. And there really can be no expecting any climate change mitigation to take place on this planet; not until the word is out that green living has become hip and cool in the cities, the suburbs, the bigger and smaller towns, the villages and the countrysides of the U.S.A. — Until the populations of every other nationalities from around the world get to hear and see good evidence that the American people has actually started to do something useful about their larger than life ecological footprint, there can hardly be any reason to believe that any positive climate change action is going to be undertaken by any South Asian, Chinese, African, Central or South American.

Looking at the most problematic topic of climate change inaction, there’s every reason to say that God is indeed an American, and that he just don’t give a shit.

- — 8)

“There’s a starman waiting in the sky. He’d like to come and meet us, but he thinks he’d blow our minds. There’s a starman waiting in the sky. He’s told us not to blow it. ’cause he knows it’s all worthwhile. He told me: Let the children lose it. Let the children use it. Let all the children boogie.”

“I’m afraid of Americans. I’m afraid of the world. I’m afraid I can’t help it. I’m afraid I can’t.”

- David Bowie, 1997

http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/cols/nev07.htm

“If God is not listening to our prayers or if the “gods” have forgot they made us, then the fool must step in to describe the majesty and sorrows of this “god-damned” starving life. The blind fool is a “Sober Philistine” in a state worse than Hell. A Stone Boy watching the crawling land. A Poor Dunce standing so near to innocent eyes.”

“The soullessness that pervades ‘The Heart’s Filthy Lesson’ also infiltrates the song ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’. Johnny is in America. He’s a Nobody, a low tech “has been” and he’s behind the wheel. In 1997′s America, it is every man for himself. Individualism means everything. Nobody needs anyone and it’s not just pretense! Johnny’s desires are mediated through mass consumerism and rampant commercialization. Johnny wants a woman but he’s having a hard time thinking of a joke to tell her. Johnny can’t think, not unlike the zero in 1989′s ‘I Can’t Read’, who spends all day changing tv channels and watching the police cars.”

- Nevada Kerr, 2001

radio interview danny bloom

THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN

by Dave Barry

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative
on the same night.

2. There is a very fine line between ‘hobby’ and ‘mental illness.’

3. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never
want you to share yours with them.

4. You should not confuse your career with your life.

5. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

6. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling
reason why we observe daylight saving time.

7. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests
that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging
from her at that moment.

8. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age,
gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep
down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

9. A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice
person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

10. Your friends love you anyway..

11. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur
built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

The overdeveloped world is showing a decline in the growth rate of absolute human population numbers, while the underdeveloped world is witnessing a continuing explosion in its population numbers.

In the overdeveloped world, millions of people are moving toward the stabilization of their populations, while billions of people in the underdeveloped world are rapidly growing their numbers.

A person in an overdeveloped country like the USA consumes 32 times more resources than a person in an underdeveloped country.

These unsustainable practices and gross imbalances need to become primary sources of immediate concern for the human community, I suppose, because global overgrowth activities of human species could soon produce either an economic breakdown or an ecologic collapse or both in these early years of Century XXI.

What leaves me with a sense of foreboding has to do with something within the psyche of the family of humanity that is making it difficult for too many of the brightest and best leaders of our species to recognize and come face to face with the threats to life as we know it and to the integrity of our planetary home which are posed to humankind by the gigantic scale and rapid growth of unrestrained consumption, unbridled production and unchecked propagation activities of the human species now overspreading the surface of Earth.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

It does appear that commentators like the one you cite above as well as many too many leaders of our culture can choose to keep chuckling and running away for a while longer from discussions like ones found on this and other blogs, but that they are not doing our children any favors by trying to hide from the predicament looming ominously before humanity on the far horizon, the one dimly visible in the offing.

Thanks to you and a growing number of other people who possess a capacity for intellectual honesty, clarity of vision, coherence of mind and moral courage, the “tale” is beginning to be told…… and yes, thanks to the tellers of the tale, perhaps life as we know it and the integrity of Earth will be saved for coming generations.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001.

Steve,

I remember, during the televised Nobel Prize Peace Concert in the Oslo Spectrum Arena of 2006, celebrating the awarding of the Peace Prize to Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank, the Norwegian television commentator made a comment thatr I’d never believed I’d ever get to hear on Norwegian television.

- —

http://www.grameen-info.org/Media/mediadetail6.html

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.”

- —

The television commentator, like straight out of the blue, made a rather blunt but equally brilliant statement concerned with the kind of people that were seated in the audience that evening. — Rich people. Extremely rich people, famous or not.

And the television commentator made the blunt statement that if anyone had placed a bomb at this location, this evening, the entire cultural, political and financial elite of Norway would be wiped out in a moment.

Furthermore, the television commentator was thinking about the reality of proposed poverty eradication, and hinted at the fact that none of the people in the audience had any intention to doing very much for the poor of this world, and chuckled a litte as (s)he said: “I wonder, who is going to tell this tale?”

Dear Friends,

This blog is helpful and refreshing in many way. Thanks, John. It becomes possible for people to see something clearly that is routinely obscured by the politicians, economic powerbrokers, celebrities, talking heads in the mass media and all the minions who benefit from patently unsustainable levels of per-capita overconsumption driven by the rampant spread of unbridled, seemingly endless economic globalization.

Perhaps someone in Davos in 2008 will notice what is being discussed in blogs like this one.

At the recent IPCC Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia quite a lot of criticism was directed at the lavish behavior of some of those in attendance. This is only a guess, but I am imagining that there is no place on Earth this year better than Davos, Switzerland to see so grotesque a “parade” of `virtuously’ rich, famous and powerful people living such a patently unsustainable lifestyle.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001