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Biocentric Press/Social Media Releases emphasizing ambitious yet attainable ecological sustainability solutions, a project of Ecological Internet
Including critically acclaimed Earth Meanders biocentric essays
February 9, 2010
RELEASE: Global Campaign to Protect and Restore Old Forests Gaining Traction
Campaigns to end industrial primary rainforest logging in Papua New Guinea and Madagascar based upon ecological science, and meant to end corruption and ecological harm
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Ecological Internet’s (EI) ongoing campaigns in Madagascar [1] and Papua New Guinea [2] (PNG) to end primary forest logging [search] (please continue to take action below), is part of EI’s global network’s campaign to globally protect and restore old forests. Ecological science reveals forest and other terrestrial ecosystem destruction to be a primary cause of climate change, biodiversity loss, water and soil degradation, and social disintegration. Yet forest policy-makers, including major environmental groups, continue to assert “sustainable forest management” and “FSC certified” logging of primary and old-growth forest logging is possible and desirable. They are wrong, as ecologically intact old forests are vital components of Earth’s biosphere and are the optimal land cover to absorb and hold carbon long-term, while maintaining biodiversity and operable ecosystems, and the Earth System.
The term “old forests” is used to encompass primary unlogged forests, late successional natural regrowth, and planted mixed-species forests regaining old-growth characteristics. Forests logged industrially for the first time are permanently ecologically damaged in terms of composition, structure, function and dynamics. It is becoming abundantly clear that ending industrial diminishment and working for the full protection and restoration of old forests are a keystone response to climate change (to say nothing of biodiversity, ecosystem, water and poverty crises). More of the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems – and old forests in particular – have already been lost and diminished than required to maintain an operable climate, all species and a fully operable biosphere.
Continue reading "RELEASE: Global Campaign to Protect and Restore Old Forests Gaining Traction" »
January 18, 2010
EARTH MEANDERS: Ode to Madang
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Yet another paradise lost?
Prime Minister Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea is ruling as a Mugabe like thug bent upon becoming a tin-pot dictator. Once a great man that led his country to independence, Mr. Somare is now using his “Grand Chief” status for corrupt personal, family and tribal gains – illegally and immorally allocating huge swathes of his great nation’s forest and marine resources without landowners’ prior and informed consent. On the bidding of Somare’s increasingly despotic and erratic leadership, Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) natural assets are being sold off to invading Asian business interests – destroying rainforest, ocean, water and land – as well as the resource and ecosystem rich nation’s future development potential. Will one man – big man Sana or not – single-handedly destroy Earth’s third largest remaining contiguous old rainforest expanses for personal gain?
Nowhere is this more evident than in Madang Province, PNG, which contains some of Earth’s last remaining mostly intact tropical and marine ecosystems in the world. The “Jewel of the South Pacific” includes large ancient rainforest tracts, huge tuna and other fisheries, and barely explored mineral deposits; as well as beautiful, loving and peaceful people. Madang’s rainforests and oceans feed and house all its citizens, regulate national and regional climatic patterns, and make the Earth habitable by providing global ecosystem services. As Somare flits about in his new high-end private jet (who paid for that?) signing illicit business deals with Asian cartels and otherwise stealing Madang and the nation’s resources (including attempts to corner nascent carbon markets), Madang and PNG’s infrastructure including schools, hospitals, police and roads are in shambles.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Ode to Madang" »
January 5, 2010
EARTH MEANDERS: Resisting Global Ecological Change
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Shared survival requires powering down, going back to the land, and ecological resistance.
The human family faces imminent and (Copenhagen would suggest) inevitable collapse of the biosphere – the thin layer of life upon an otherwise lifeless planet – that makes Earth habitable. Marshes and rivers and forests and fish are far more than resources – they and all natural ecosystems are a necessity for humanity’s existence upon Earth. A few centuries of historically unprecedented explosion in human numbers and surging, albeit inequitable, consumption and resultant resource use, ecosystem destruction and pollution; is needlessly destroying being for all living things. Revolutionary action such as ending coal use, reforming industrial agriculture and protecting and restoring old forests and other natural ecosystems, is a requirement for the continuation of shared human being.
Earth is threatened by far more than a changing atmosphere causing climate change. Cumulative ecosystem destruction – not only in climate, but also water, forests, oceans, farmland, soils and toxics -- in the name of “progress” and “development” -- threatens each of us, our families and communities, as well as the Earth System in total and all her creatures. Any chance of achieving global ecological sustainability depends urgently upon shifting concerns regarding climate change to more sufficiently transform ourselves and society to more broadly resist global ecological change. Global ecological, social and economic collapse may be inevitable, but its severity, duration and likelihood of recovery are being determined by us now. It does not look good as the environmental movement has been lacking in its overall vision, ambition and implementation.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Resisting Global Ecological Change" »
September 19, 2009
EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Overshoot: Climate, Inequity and Corruption
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
A call for reluctant Earth revolutionaries to unite and slay the economic growth machine consuming ecological being.
A disease is ravaging Earth as ever more people, consume ever more, destroying natural ecosystems that are our shared habitat. In a few short centuries the violent, expansionist and deeply ecologically unsustainable Western mindset has become virtually universally accepted. The meaning of life is more, ever more of everything, at the expense of a finite biosphere. The emptiness of such a vacuous worldview is revealed through changing climate, devastating human inequities and an irredeemably corrupt economic system.
More than just a climate crisis, humanity is facing profound over-population and injustice that are spurring dozens of inter-related ecological and social crises. Billions suffer as their basic human needs go unmet, while billions more gorge themselves. Forests, prairies, streams, rivers, estuaries, wetlands, lakes, soil, oceans, air and all the rest are all life's flesh and blood. Humanity, Earth and kindred species have entered the late stage condition of ecological overshoot -- whereby our cumulative demands upon ecosystems exceed their life-giving capacity and cause them to collapse.
We are eating creation. Hardly anyone is thinking or acting at the necessary scale to avert global ecological Armageddon. Market based solutions are pervasive with corruption and inequity. Nothing we do is going to maintain an affluent life, as it is now for some. Widespread economic decline will certainly accompany abrupt climate change and global ecosystem collapse; indeed, it has begun. If existing political systems are unable to deal with the inevitable collapse of the growth machine, at the same time as pursuing rigorous environmental policy-making, then new political structures will be necessary.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Overshoot: Climate, Inequity and Corruption" »
August 6, 2009
RELEASE: Greenpeace Wipes It's Soft, Virgin Butt with Canada's Ancient Boreal Forests
- Against what ecological science tells us is required for global and regional ecological sustainability, Greenpeace Canada endorses continued clearcut of ancient boreal forests for paper products including toilet paper. Nothing to change as ancient boreal forests continues to be clearcut to wipe bottoms, albeit certified by FSC and Greenpeace as "well-managed".
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Ecological Internet vigorously condemns Greenpeace Canada's greenwash endorsement of continued Canadian ancient boreal forest logging [search] to make throw away paper items, including toilet paper. Yesterday Greenpeace announced a premature end [ark] to its "Kleercut" campaign [search] against Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the maker of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brand paper products, boldly proclaiming "today, ancient forests like the Boreal Forest have won."
Greenpeace's long-standing campaign against "ancient forest crimes" by Kimberly-Clark was suspended on the basis of promises that 40% of its North American tissue fiber will be either recycled or FSC certified by 2011. The company traditionally has used 3 million tones of virgin fibre a year, which will fall to 2.4 million tons if they are successful. This atrociously weak target will legitimize continued destruction of Canada's ancient forest ecosystems for throw away paper products for decades.
August 4, 2009
RELEASE: "Good REDD" Fully Protects and Restores Old Forest Carbon and Local Livelihoods
All Copenhagen bound climate parties urged to get back to basics of avoiding deforestation and degradation as a keystone climate change response. The focus must be upon ending first time industrial logging of primary forests, while providing local peoples alternative incomes based upon fully intact standing old forests. Anything less is unworthy of green support.
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue of Germany have launched a campaign leading to Copenhagen's climate talks in December to ensure carbon based funding for forest protection -- called avoided deforestation [search], or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) [search] -- remains ecologically and socially rigorous, or does not proceed at all. REDD has the potential to help end primary and old-growth forest logging and other industrial destruction and diminishment of old forests.
The REDD concept faces immediate risk of being usurped by industry. The focus in project design remains primarily upon profit-making and greenwashing "Sustainable Forest Management", rather than necessary policies to ensure large areas of primary and old-growth forests are fully protected to optimally keep existing and new carbon sequestered. It is even being suggested that first time logging of primary forests and establishment of industrial tree plantations should be worthy of carbon market financing.
June 29, 2009
EARTH MEANDERS: Old Forests, REDD Rage and Earth Revolution
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Earth and her humanity need old forests to exist. And all enabling their destruction, including potential carbon markets paying for 'sustainable forest management' in primary forests, are legitimate targets for an Earth Revolution.
For too long those feeding upon the trough of "sustainable" forestry have been perpetuating the myth that primary and old growth forests can and should be harvested using "Sustainable Forest Management" (SFM) techniques. Old Forests are key to ecosystem, biodiversity, human and the Earth System's survival. Along with other intact natural terrestrial, aquatic and marine habitats; old forests are the internal organs of the Planet and regulate the Earth System to maintain conditions conducive to life. Primary forests logged for the first time are permanently ecologically damaged in terms of composition, structure, function and dynamics.
I am stunned, dumfounded and enraged at the wholesale selling out of the climate and forest, led by big environmental NGOs (BINGOs). The latest positive idea for an ecologically sustainable Earth -- Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Diminishment (REDD) -- to pay for ancient forest protection with carbon monies, is at this very moment being watered down to mean business as usual first time logging of primary forests that forever destroys ecosystems and habitats. Like "sustainable development" and "certified forestry", the REDD concept of paying for protection of old forests' carbon stores, biodiversity and ecosystem is being taken over by industry.
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Old Forests, REDD Rage and Earth Revolution" »
June 9, 2009
VICTORY/RELEASE: Global Consensus Emerging Regarding Need to End Industrial Primary Forest Logging as Keystone Climate Change Response
After being a lone voice in the wilderness for decades, Dr. Glen Barry and Ecological Internet's biocentric forest protection position has been adopted by most major forest protection organizations. It remains to be determined how those committing to keeping such logging out of UN carbon finance can reconcile with their support for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of first time old forest logging. Regardless, time to unite the forest and climate movements going into Copenhagen with strong message of protecting and restoring standing old forests for local development and biodiversity benefits, and regional and global climate and ecosystem sustainability.
June 5, 2009
RELEASE: Police Violently Attack Peaceful Indigenous Blockade in Peruvian Amazon, Killing Many
Peruvian police reportedly shot indigenous protesters from helicopters -- as peaceful protesters were protecting their ancestral land. Online affinity campaign demanding Peru respect indigenous rights continues.
TAKE ACTION! Peru's police have clashed with Amazon tribes opposed to foreign companies opening oil wells and mines in their rainforests without their consent. Police reportedly shot at protesters from helicopters, killing as many as twelve blockading a road to protect their land. Amazon Watch and Western media report indigenous protesters outside of Bagua, in a remote area of northern Peruvian Amazon, were forcibly dispersed by tear gas and real bullets. Reuters reports 12 protesters were killed, while Agence France-Presse puts it at 9. It may have been worse.
The threat of continued violence is real and imminent. Some 30,000 indigenous people have blockaded roads, rivers and railways for months to demand repeal of new laws that allow oil, mining and logging companies to enter indigenous territories without their consent or even any consultation. Reinhard Behrend, Rainforest Rescue's Director, notes "it is important to realize that our overconsumption in the rich and emerging nations is at the root cause of deadly conflict for rainforests and Indians. We ask people to eliminate their use of industrially harvested timbers, oil and minerals from the world's rainforests, and protest this senseless violence at Peru embassies all over the world."
June 4, 2009
EARTH MEANDERS: Radical Idealism: Come Home to Gaia
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Let me tell you about the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees. THEY ARE ALL DYING. Global grassroots protest action -- informed by ecological science, impassioned by green rage, and dedicated to sufficient policies to achieve global ecological sustainability -- our last best chance, together, to avoid ecocide.
FOREWARD: For the past two months Ecological Internet has been micro-blogging on Twitter http://twitter.com/ecointernet (as well as at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ecological-Internet/84943913664 on Facebook) regarding requirements for ecological sustainability [search]. Being forced to capture complex ideas in 140 characters has been good for our biocentric writing by enforcing brevity. Ends up the series of one-liners string together relatively well to present a compelling vision of what is necessary to protect Gaia and our beings.
From these terse pronouncements comes a sense of planetary urgency. As we ponder whether there are enough funds for Ecological Internet to continue to use the Internet to facilitate global ecological sustainability, and consider cutting back or even closing (and whether our "public radio" type funding appeals remain a viable funding method), this twitter compilation is one means to make a compelling case for you to support our unique brand of global grassroots eco-advocacy.
Your support broadcasts such biocentric thought and action 24/7 to an ecologically hungry world -- as our portals and writings are used and read by several million people a year. Please enjoy this essay and donate now. Together we will make it.
For Earth,
Dr. Glen Barry
****************************************
(EARTH) - Gaia. Earth is alive. Biosphere is self-regulating. Interactions between ecosystems make Earth habitable. Gaia once vibrant is in mid-death swoon. Humans. Are killing. Gaia. Earth is faced with global ecological collapse, this is an unprecedented emergency, and threatens major upheaval and death of all. Wake up you bloody fools. Earth is dying. We are losing our habitat. Humanity is in deep shit as Earth well past carrying capacity. We and all Gaia's creatures are heading for mass extinction. Radical idealism that profoundly transforms humanity's relationship to natural being is the cure to ecocide.
Things are not as they ought to be. Humans dismantle natural ecosystems that are their habitats because they like making money more than truth, justice, equity and continued shared being. We spew into our air, excrete into water, piss in our oceans and foul the land for a pocket full of mumbles and throw-away consumer junk. All but a few are able to overcome their childhood indoctrination and limited lifespan to see this is not how life was meant to be, that humanity has morphed into a disease upon Gaia. Yet as our atmosphere collapses, water grows dear, and extreme poverty epidemic; more are realizing that something has gone dramatically wrong with the human project.
Gaia, the Earth System, is alive and self-regulating. Gaia is a super-organism, and as such can die. There is no guarantee of continued evolution after ecosystem collapse. Being can end. Humans are one with Earth and as goes Gaia's health goes ours being. Being is fragile. The biosphere is a thin mantle of life upon otherwise lifeless rock. These ecosystems are more than resources, they give life. All Gaia's life including us is crashing. Humans appear hell-bent to destroy life's biological foundation. Earth going bad with industrial agricultural, dead oceans, strip malls, toxic cocktail, climate weirding and logging old forests. Pandemic disease stalks an overpopulated, poverty wracked and ecologically devastated Earth. Factory farms breed disease sold as food. All must change, be restored.
Global inequity in wealth and standard of living is evil. Malignant consumerism devours Earth's being and the only profits to be seen are false. About 2 billion live on under $2/day and 2 billion in relative opulent luxury. These disparities are unsustainable and must end. Our and all creatures' being imperiled as human disease overwhelms all naturalness. Ecological fabric of being unraveling, daily news full of ecosystems failing, yet few put it together. We and our planet are needlessly dying now. Over-consumption from ecosystem liquidation by some while others starve root cause of ecosystem collapse, war and injustice
Continued being depends upon escalating protest action. For humanity's shared survival we must broaden our sphere of love and emotional support to include Gaia, all her creatures and the human family. Time for action is now. There is nothing wrong with Earth System that a good healthy dose of radical idealism can't fix. It's simple: humanity cutting and burning Earth to death. These practices must end. We can and must stop coal, logging, tar sands, industrial agriculture, war and poverty. There exists a global ecological imperative to protect and restore whole Earth as our garden. Either you are committed to stopping ecocide or you are the problem.
Only road to ecological sustainability is immediate industrial powerdown, and ecological protection and restoration. Time to level with global citizens -- fighting climate change raises energy prices and requires substantial personal sacrifice. The option is apocalyptic planetary disintegration. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an urgent planetary necessity whether or not it creates jobs as techno-optimists claim. Shame on people, and there are many, who put their opulent consumption and luxury ahead of needs of Earth and the poor. Fatal flaw in Western exceptionalism is its use as justification to overconsume. Climate change and sustainability require simpler lives. How much is enough?
Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Radical Idealism: Come Home to Gaia" »
June 2, 2009
RELEASE: Geo-Engineering and Biochar: White Roofs, Black Dust and Slippery Slopes
PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE
- Climate Engineers Seek Techno-fix As Global Negotiations Get Underway
June 2, 2009
By ETC Group, Biofuelwatch and Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu's speech last week advocating painting rooftops and roadways white to reflect sunlight may be yet another attempt to test the international waters on the controversial subject of geoengineering [search].[1] "We need an unequivocal statement from the White House that the U.S. Government is not green-lighting geoengineering in the run-up to Copenhagen," said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, an Ottawa-based civil society organization monitoring new technologies. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meets in Denmark this December; UNFCCC subsidiary bodies are meeting this week and next in Bonn, Germany. "Benign as a new planetary paint job may appear, white rooftops may be the thin edge of the wedge - a technology that seems harmless but that opens the door to riskier geoengineering schemes," suggests Mooney.[2] Geoengineering refers to the intentional, large-scale manipulation of the earth's environment, primarily to counteract the effects of climate change.
May 23, 2009
EARTH MEANDERS: This Memorial Day: Should We Arrest Cheney and Bush, Impeach Obama?
Democratic consumption is an irredeemable political/economic system that has proven itself unable to justly and equitably allow all global citizens to live in peace, abundance and sustainability.
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
It has been awhile since I have written how U.S. militarism to prop up an unsustainable way of life is destroying both Earth and freedom. As Obama induced "hopenosis" starts wearing off, it is clear that on several key issues -- war, civil liberties and climate change -- we are getting "Bush Lite" policies from President Obama that differ little from his criminal predecessor. Military commissions to try those illegally held for years will occur after all, and some may be held forever without charges. We continue to be spied upon. Obama is escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and drawing out the criminal occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile the real Earth and society crushing crises of climate change and global ecosystem collapse remain woefully unaddressed. Heil Bush! Heil Obama!
After nearly a decade of criminal rule, America continues under new management to careen forward, wounded and flailing in vain attempts to return to a state of excessive democratic consumption. On the economy, the President has borrowed (stolen?) trillions from our children to rescue a dying industrial and speculative capitalistic shell game built upon usury, greed and unsustainability. And we are getting an inadequate climate change policy that cherry picks token measures to be seen as acting while coddling coal and tar sands which we know must end to survive. America's might makes right, damn the truth and consequences, mind set is destroying civilized society and our one shared Earth.