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Empowering the Environmental Sustainability Movement
Earth's Newsdesk
Biocentric Press/Social Media Releases emphasizing ambitious yet attainable ecological sustainability solutions, a project of Ecological Internet
Including critically acclaimed Earth Meanders biocentric essays
January 31, 2012
EARTH MEANDERS: On Violence and Earth Revolution
Imagining the human family coming together to take well considered, decisive, and minimally or non-violent action to sustain global ecology
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Human Family’s Ecocidal Death Wish
The ecological foundation of being is unraveling before our very eyes. Without ecosystems there is no life. Fiercely loving Earth is the answer. Let's sustain global ecology together like our shared survival and abundance depends upon it. And while we set out using classic civil disobedience tactics, let’s not dismiss out of hand any obstruction, uncivil disobedience, sabotage and targeted insurgency tactics – that are non-terrorist – and that may be necessary to achieve global ecological sustainability. The human family’s shared survival depends upon passionately defending Earth using all means necessary.
Earth's ecosystems are collapsing under the burden of human growth, destroying our one shared biosphere that makes life possible. Industrial growth – frantically destroying ecosystems to feed insatiable, ever-growing appetites – is an aberration, a mistake, a disease. If left untreated, this will be the end of the human family, all life, and Earth's very being. Infinite economic growth at the expense of ecosystems is impossible, and seeking endless and inequitable growth in consumption and population can only lead to collapse and massive die-off.
Humanity’s last best chance to justly and equitably sustain a livable planet is to protect and restore ecosystems, end fossil fuels, and a people's power Earth revolution to utterly destroy the ecocidal industrial growth machine. We are all bloody fools to tolerate and not immediately overthrow a violently ecocidal system that is killing us all. If we all understood the implications of global ecosystem collapse, we would go now, together, and slay the global growth machine. It is too late to escape profound ecological decline, yet complete disastrous social and ecological collapse – and possible end to most or all life – may yet be avoided.
Sustaining ecology must become society’s central organizing principle or humans and all species face horrendous death. Globally it is time for radical change to simply survive converging ecology, food, war, water, inequity, population, climate, jobs, ocean, and extinction crises. It is deeply troubling most "environmentalists" deny the severity of ecosystem collapse, rejecting out of hand revolutionary measures sufficient to sustain ecology.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: On Violence and Earth Revolution" »
December 8, 2011
EARTH MEANDERS: They Say It’s My Birthday… and I have a few wishes
Today is my birthday and it’s going to be a good time. So as I craft a day of mirth, free spirit and all my favorite activities, let me ruminate upon what I wish for as gifts on this special day.
I want peace on Earth, real peace, the kind where the armies demobilize and don’t remain standing like it used to be. Peace where trillions aren’t wasted from funding public social needs. I want a real and permanent turning of tanks into ploughshares. War’s obscene waste of energy, materials, human potential and life cannot persist if human and ecological being are to continue. I want it to end now.
The truth is we are one human family, one species, perhaps from different lineages with a crazy uncle, but a family nonetheless. And I want us to start acting like it. Nation state boundaries are a new false construct meant to divide us. As a human family I want our basic universal rights strictly and unconditionally observed. The human condition is absolute freedom as long as we don’t hurt others. I want gods and governments off of and out of my body.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: They Say It’s My Birthday… and I have a few wishes" »
September 1, 2011
RELEASE/VICTORY: Papua New Guinea Begins Commission of Inquiry into Rainforest Land Grabs
By Earth's Newsdesk and the Rainforest Portal, projects of Ecological Internet
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CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Once again Ecological Internet’s true global rainforest action network contributes to questioning and obstructing the dominate paradigm that primary rainforests exist to be industrially logged
Papua New Guinea has launched a Commission of Inquiry into foreign land grabs of pristine, indigenous owned primary rainforests for clearcut logging and supposed oil palm development. PNG has the world’s third largest rainforests [search], but sadly industrial logging and oil palm are booming, and large, intact old rainforest ecosystems are dwindling fast. An entrenched and voracious Malaysian timber-mafia has until now virtually owned the government and the nation’s rainforests.
“Special Agriculture and Business Leases” (SABL) covering 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) were granted 74 times in recent years by former Prime Minister Michael Somare. These agriculture projects skirted forestry laws and customary land ownership, allowing clearcuts of primary rainforests on customary land without consent, for oil palm which may or may not get planted. Local national led NGOs such as the highly successful ACT NOW![1] and others expressed concern that SABL leases were improperly executed and would result in large scale logging without providing agricultural development.
June 23, 2011
RELEASE/VICTORY! Ecological Internet Successfully Leads in Protection of the Serengeti Wildlife Migration
EI 2011 Mid-Year Fund-Raiser Update: 44% to goal, $ 17,542 raised from 142 donors, $22,458 or 44% to go. Do you want more huge ecology victories like majorly contributing to protecting the Serengeti from roads – and many dozen equally important victories (see highlights at http://forests.org/shared/kudos/ ) in the past? Then please, donate now to celebrate this huge victory: http://forests.org/shared/donate/
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
The Tanzanian government has cancelled for now a road that would have cut through the northern portion of the Serengeti National Park [search]. The road would have threatened the entire ecosystem and cut the migration routes of wildebeest, elephant, antelope, zebra and much other magnificent wildlife. Serengeti's migrations [search] are one of the natural wonders of the world.
The proposed and nearly constructed major commercial highway – to be located near the Kenyan border – would have been in the most remote and pristine area in the Park’s entire ecosystem. It was expected that by 2015 some 800 vehicles a day would cross the park. The road would have physically blocked the migration, introduced invasive species, and led to greater poaching – ultimately killing the migration altogether.
May 13, 2011
RELEASE/ALERT: Time to Boycott Rainforest Action Network for Its Primary Rainforest Logging
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Ecological Internet calls for America’s largest and wealthiest rainforest protection organization to resign from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) [search] and finally end their shameful greenwash of primary forest logging [search]. Until their enabling of the final industrial destruction of global rainforests stops, and RAN resigns from FSC, Ecological Internet calls for an immediate boycott of Rainforest Action Network. If you love rainforests, you really must take action on this one and call-out the rainforest logging greenwash apologists so that together we can move to protect and restore old forests.
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW
Demand RAN resign from FSC primary forest logging
- ask RAN about their FSC primary logging support on their Facebook page please
ALERT! Tell Old Forest Loggers and Apologists to End Primary Rainforest Logging
- note there are two respectful protest emails, including one to RAN
April 22, 2011
RELEASE: Earth Day 2011: Peace with Earth Day
Re-Declaration of Planetary Ecological Emergency by Ecological Internet
From Earth's Newsdesk and New Earth Rising, projects of Ecological Internet (EI)
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, President, Ecological Internet glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
A year ago today Ecological Internet (EI) during Earth Day 2010 declared a planetary ecological emergency. After the past year’s Gulf oil spill, multiple nuclear meltdowns and unaddressed abrupt climate change escalates; it is eminently evident that Earth’s ecosystems are crashing. On Earth Day 2011, EI reiterates call for an immediate and escalating people’s power Earth Revolution on behalf of Earth, all her life, and the human family. And for the entire human family to find a way – each and every – to get out and plant organic Earth victory gardens, and protect and restore ecosystems.
Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet’s President, says “The human family faces the imminent collapse of the biosphere – the thin layer of life organized into ecosystems, upon an otherwise lifeless planet – that makes Earth habitable. As noted a year ago today, human pressures on Earth System’s life-support systems continue at such a dramatic scale that they are causing global ecosystems to collapse. Escalating people power revolutionary action may be the only adequate measures that exist to stop abrupt global ecological collapse. Already we are seeing fascist political responses to scarcity, lack ecosystems, freedom and economic disparities. We are about to witness major famine events as well home agro-ecology strides are a must.”
Continue reading "RELEASE: Earth Day 2011: Peace with Earth Day" »
March 7, 2011
EARTH MEANDERS: Long Live the Cheddar Rebellion, We Are All Wisconsinites Now
On Wisconsin, forward, sift, winnow for freedom, worker and ecology rights
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Global people's power rebellions sweeping Middle East and American states are our last best chance for shared abundance on a finite Earth. We are one human family with natural human rights to freedom, worker rights, ecological sustainability, equity, knowledge, truth and justice. This essay calls for continued protest, more civil disobedience and a general strike if necessary to achieve these ideals in Madison and the world.
In the late winter/very early spring of Cheesehead discontent, the Cheddar Rebellion in Wisconsin is resisting a corporate take-over of the state by the neo-Fascist wing of the GOP teabagger nuthouse. The new tyrannical Governor – Scott Walker – is bent upon stripping teachers and other public workers of their collective bargaining rights; pushing through massive tax breaks for corporations and the rich at the expense of education, unions, workers and the poor; and deregulating environmental protections while selling the state to corporate interests. I don't believe in Scott Walker's god or family values yet he sure as hell is ramming them down my/our throats. He and his ilk continually vilify teachers, firefighters and cops as slobs and thugs.
Darth Walker’s power grab manipulates a manageable budget shortfall as an excuse to take away state employees’ collective bargaining rights and imposing an authoritarian worldview upon Wisconsin. Collective bargaining is the established human right of workers to freely associate with others, to organize and negotiate, to sell their labor. People own their bodies, their hands, their minds and their work; and they have a RIGHT to collectively organize for their interests and for maximal benefits. It is only due to the grace of 14 fabulous state Senate Democrats having gone into exile, and hundreds of thousands of protest participants, that Wisconsin remains free for now.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Long Live the Cheddar Rebellion, We Are All Wisconsinites Now" »
January 22, 2011
EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Internet: Being Green and Meaning It
Caring for Earth is cool; not caring, overly consuming, greenwashing, ecological ignorance, superstition and inaction are not acceptable
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
The Earth’s life is some 3.5 billion years old. In a mere 300 years human super-predators have taken it upon themselves to cut and burn other life forms to make a more comfortable life. Most are blissfully unaware that they are destroying their habitat. Remedial actions are orders of magnitude inadequate, band-aids instead of open heart surgery. We will quickly halt this growing industrialization, commit to ecosystem protection and restoration, and return to the forest garden, or we will all die. Really, if we continue as we are, the biosphere and ecosystems collapse taking being with it. And it will be grisly.
I haven’t written a really good rip-snorting Earth Meanders in awhile; though this is largely what I am known for doing. I use to meander quite frequently, writing personal essays in the tradition of Montesquieu looking at ecological sustainability in relation to other social issues, showing it is all related with ecology as the unifier. Nor have I literally ruminated regarding my life and ecology like I use to, spilling my guts regarding my turmoil and depression resulting from an acute ecological and historical awareness of global ecological change. This is overdue; particularly as I recently turned 45, I am celebrating this month 20 years of using IT and the Internet for ecological conservation, and thus some personal reflection is due. Stop reading if you don’t want to be shocked by these personal meanderings…
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Internet: Being Green and Meaning It" »
July 29, 2010
EARTH MEANDERS: The Rights of Earth
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
...and All Gaia’s Creatures to Ecological Self-Defense
Gaia – the Earth System [search] – is alive and like any living entity has rights. Earth has a right to not be stripped of its vegetative skin, its flesh mined, body punctured by wells, ecosystems liquidated; and precious water, air and oceans tainted. Gaia has the right to peacefully exist and to be free of harm, violence or ecocide (to be murdered). Air, water, land and ocean ecosystems are Gaia’s self-regulating internal ecosystem organs. All Gaia’s creatures possess an equal claim upon a fair share of her bounty for continued existence. Yet Gaia has a right to prohibit at any time, using any means, any one species from over-running the biosphere and habitats shared by all.
Sadly the industrial, speculative and unsustainable capitalistic economy benefiting some humans is killing Earth. This growth machine in population, economy and inequitable consumption has established as the norm an immoral, short-sighted way of life based upon eating ecosystems and children (or at least their future) to wantonly consume and grow a bit more. If cumulative impacts of human ecosystem destruction upon Gaia continue; the Earth System dies, taking humanity, all life and creation with her. The current paradigm’s emphasis upon growth at all costs is so pernicious that almost certainly only revolution, fundamental social change and personal transformation can eradicate it.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: The Rights of Earth" »
June 12, 2010
RELEASE: Rainforest Action Network Expands Misleading Greenwashing of Primary Forest Logging
RAN’s recent “rainforest safe” book and luxury shopping bag campaigns show they value greenwashing primary forest logging [search] and sustaining old growth timber markets more than ecological science showing without primary forest logging ban biosphere collapses. Ecological Internet renews demand that RAN stops promoting primary forest logging as a false solution to rainforest loss and diminishment, and resigns from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) immediately.
Despite escalating international protest, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) continues to promote Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of first time industrial logging of primary forests. RAN’s new “Rainforest Safe Summer Reading List” [1] and “Gucci Shopping Bag” [2] campaigns falsely claim FSC certified paper products are free of rainforest destruction. In fact, most FSC products come from the first time industrial logging of primary forests or from toxic, industrial monoculture plantations which displace old forests. Virtually all of FSC’s tropical timbers and fibers come from such sources.
“The world’s rainforests, biodiversity, ecosystems, climate and biosphere are in a state of severe crisis and are collapsing; and the best Rainforest Action Network can do is continue lying regarding where FSC certified products come from, and shilling for primary forest books and shopping bags? As America’s largest rainforest protection group, RAN raises and expends more monies on behalf of rainforests than any organization, yet continues to insist FSC logging of primary forests ‘protects’ rainforests. This old forest logging appeasement will continue to be challenged by biocentric ecologists. Unless this NGO greenwash ends, and we join forces to end primary forest logging, the future of Earth and all life are at stake,” states Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet President.
June 8, 2010
RELEASE: Papua New Guinea’s Indigenous Landowners Stripped of Land Rights as Chinese Communist Influence Grows
PNG government amends Environment Act [search] with no debate to remove powers from landowners to challenge in court resource development projects on their customary land. Move reflects increased pressure by foreign developers, particularly Chinese government’s mining agency, whose efforts to dump uncapped 100 million tons of mine waste on ocean floor in Madang Province has been thwarted by pressure exerted by successful legal efforts and campaigning.
(Madang, PNG) - Indigenous landowners have been stripped of ancestral and constitutionally-protected land rights [search] by the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The fact that 97% of land has been under communal, customary land tenure has long been a source of pride, provided an important social safety net, and protected against resource corruption. Similar efforts pushed by the World Bank in the 1990s were met with national protests and over-turned. Ultimate power to irrevocably issue resource development environmental permits will now reside with the Department of Environment secretary, an office who’s current and past occupants have long been known for flagrant corruption.
The government, through the Environment Minister, Benny Allan, made changes to sections of the Environment Act 2000 to prevent landowners and concerned Papua New Guineans from “interfering” with industrial resource development projects destroying oceans and rainforests – like the Chinese Ramu Nickel Mine in Madang and Exxon-Mobil Liquid Natural Gas project in the Southern Highlands. Without any warning or consultation, on May 27, 2010, the government of PNG introduced emergency legislation that dissolved the Constitutional rights of all landowners in PNG, including the right of Indigenous People to own land, challenge resource projects in court and receive any compensation for environmental damage. The bill was passed without being seen or debated by parliamentarians.
May 29, 2010
EARTH MEANDERS: United States of Ecocide: Spilling and Consuming Way to Oblivion
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
A great, free nation remains immobilized in the face of ecological collapse
The United States of America is an epic experiment, as despite great accomplishments and numerous imperfections, we share a long history of constantly striving to improve our union. As Americans settle in for Memorial Day to remember veterans of all stripes – from great wars of world defense to more recent military adventurism – it is appropriate to consider what the current Gulf Oil Spill says about the American way of life. Plainly, our addiction to oil and consumption in general threatens to destroy regional and global ecosystems – the water, air, land and oceans –upon which Americans, humanity and all species depend upon for habitat and life.
America is truly exceptional. Yet it is not because of our materially excessive lifestyles, as best demonstrated by our wide girths and ample posteriors. There is more to America than consumption. Our greatness is primarily due to our wavering, imperfect yet unique commitment to freedom and liberty. Over two hundred years ago a just revolution was fought asserting individual liberties from monarchial authoritarianism. The principles of freedom and liberty were a gift to the world. This is what truly has set us apart. And despite two decades of consistent roll-backs in civil and human rights, Americans remain for now free peoples to prosper or expire.
America has and continues to face many challenges – repudiating slavery, enfranchising most, world wars – and most recently the inevitable slowdown of economic growth as speculative, industrial capitalism runs its course. America has enjoyed for awhile super-sized living and grown to be what it is based upon liquidating ecosystems. We have progressed to the point where regional ecosystems are collapsing – most obviously in the Gulf Coast, but throughout the vast country as ecosystems are dying. America now faces our most difficult and profound test ever, coming to terms with our deeply ecologically unsustainable lifestyles, and committing to national and global ecological sustainability.