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Black Friday-Day of the Zombies

 

 

 

 

Consumer zombie- Artist Aeryn James Davies, Ravanna

Governments have built values around material wealth, not ecological wealth and the only way to save ourselves and the planet is by putting financial value on ecological wealth, as it is usually invisible or an abstract concept, in terms of human understanding of how much work and production goes on in nature, that we pay no attention to, let alone the way in which what we do affects the mechanisms of nature or ecosystems. Our anthropogenic impact, the effects of how we live, has deeply affected nature to a level where environmental scientists or ecologists have no time to measure our impact efficiently on each ecosystem or species that is being affected, though the signs that are appearing, point to warning signals for the future of all species on this unique planet.

The environmental crisis is a crisis of human understanding, the outer manifestation of this destruction is an indication that we need to change. We are living in a time where we need to re-establish our lost connection with the Earth.

"At a deep psychological level, convincing young people that they will get the respect, admiration, and love that they are looking for, through consumerism, is a manipulation of a deep human instinct to want to belong. Advertising and the media reinforce this message, in the process, destroying the community structures that provided people with the affirmation that they need. We have evolved in groups – deeply interdependent and connected – the separation and competition of the modern world is antithetical to our deepest needs." - Helena Norberg Hodge

Helena Norberg Hodge who is an ecological pioneer and author of Ancient Futures, studied with Noam Chomsky, Founder of the Society for Ecology and Culture and believes that those running the global economy are imposing structural violence on our world.

Over the last 50 years, an ecological imbalance has arisen from the monopolisation of natural resources and energy, a monopoly that overlooks a need to create a more sustainability based economy that is within the bounds of the Earth’s natural carrying capacity. Centralisation (control) of natural resources in the ‘free market’ causes imbalances such as socio-economic problems in the countries where these valuable natural resources are based. The result is deforestation, famine, debt, homelessness and problems for local food growers and indigenous producers, how is it justifiable that a wealthier country has helped itself to local resources leaving the natives with nothing? We need to focus on localised sustainability, basically going back to the traditional ways of farming and managing local agricultural practices. People in the west hold a lot of personal power by being ethical with the products they buy, if people were more aware that their consumerism perpetuates injustices around the world then everyone would be more conscious about what they buy and who they buy it from.  However most people that live in priviledged countries rest on the poverty and injustice of slave continents such as Africa and parts of Asia for cheap clothes and electrical goods.

It is definitely a fundamental truth that ‘needing and having’ are the current basis of what drives Capitalism.

Our over-reliance on technology and machines is also driving this unfolding ecocide, with emphasis conveniently on emissions from cars and industry rather than consumption of oil which is at a record breaking high of around 96 to 100,000 barrels a day by 2016, there is no excuse now to keep ignoring the Water Fuel cell car which Honda and Genopax have already made available on the market but that the governments and corporations conveniently ignore.

The consumerism of electrical goods such as ipads, tablets and android phones is a highly unethical industry that relies on slave labour to mine and assemble electrical products in inhumane conditions in addition to driving the destruction of the last cloud forests home of the highly endangered Silverback Gorilla populations. This is well illustrated by the story of the Silverback Gorillas in the African Congo. The mining of Gold, Diamonds and Coltan, (geological name - Columbite Tantalite), a mineral used in the microchips of every single new electronic device, cell phone or tablet and laptop, comes from the African Congo, Virungas National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A biodiverse ecosystem where a small group of the world’s last remaining Silverback Gorillas are critically threatened with extinction from poaching and continually reduced habitat due to these existing ‘Conflict Minerals’ being extracted in the area, that the world is responsible for plundering.

Coltan can only be found in a few places in the world, one of which is in Australia, which was the world’s largest producer at Wodinga Tantalum mine in Western Australia, however they closed their mine in 2012 because it is cheaper to mine it using slave labour in inhumane conditions in Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo. To make matters worse for the Silverback Gorillas, the SOCO International energy company are pushing to extract gas and oil reserves from under Lake Edward in the National Park, all this, at the cost of one of the last greatest African forests and majestic Gorillas which have only been given an estimated 15 years of survival amidst the adversities they face and through our lack of global responsibility to better manage conservation of such situations, because minerals, gold, diamonds and oil are far more important than saving the Silverback Gorillas and their forest home.

The fact that a mining company can cut corners to make a bigger profit at the expense of an entire endangered species such as the Mountain Gorilla and at the expense of hard working African miners that are virtual slaves, shows that international environmental and human rights laws are far too flimsy and there is a lack of ethics in business that feeds and perpetuates slavery.

The current psychology behind what drives capitalism cultivates a certain emptiness and spiritual deficit that leads to severe depression and lack of self-worth, when people feel that they have failed society and in societies view have not achieved a desirable status. For some, this leads to severe depression. I have lost several good friends to suicide and there was an element of not feeling useful to society or community that made them feel that way. If we had stronger communities in the West, perhaps such severe depression could be reduced. I understand how it feels to be that despairing. Last year in the UK at least 12 men under the age of 45 committed suicide in the UK per day.

Depression is an indication that human consciousness needs to change, the current social environment does nothing to remedy depression, it does everything to cause mental illness and disfunction. We need to change our psychological and status values in Western society to values that have more depth and meaning for the human spirit. An ecological economy would influence and cultivate healthier values for individuals as well as stronger communities, people could cultivate a self-worth that can be attributed to feeling part of a community and caring for the environment, values not based on status, or on consumerist needs and wants that are never deeply fulfilling.

Being as honest with one's self and others as is possible is important, we are not robots, and we are not machines. Being in nature, being creative, painting, writing, singing, and making things; developing projects that could contribute to a better and more harmonious world, playing music or getting involved in a community project or doing something that aids deep relaxation, meditation or trance, all of these things can help bring feelings of deeper fulfilment and bring us more into the moment, reconnecting us with the joy that comes from just being and connecting with others on a deeper level. Reaching out as much as possible to friends and family, without feeling humiliated or the stigma that is carried with the label 'depression' and the negative stigma that go with it such as the words ‘mental illness or mental disease’. Inner work is really important for all of us, not just those of us suffering from depression, but those of us suffering from denial which seems to be the greater problem in human society.

William Manson explains that in 1968, Erich Fromm prophesied"The year 2000, might be the beginning of a period in which man ceases to be human and becomes transformed into an unthinking and unfeeling machine”. -In the context of a prevailing dehuman syndrome, spontaneous human expression becomes pathologised: Being open in speech; being unashamed of one’s body; relating to nature; hugging, touching, feeling and making love with other people; refusing to serve in the army and kill; and becoming less dependent on machines are generally considered ‘disturbed behaviour’ by a society of robopaths”. Of course, behavioural modification is facilitated through ideological training, expanding law enforcement, and emotional anaesthesia (psychopharmacology). In my view, revitalisation of one’s desiccated human-ness first and foremost requires a renewed contact with the web of evolved life, with Walt Whitman’s ‘primal sanity of nature’. Transcending the blinkered, bourgeois-utilitarian (mechanistic-industrial) world-view, one can embark on a purification of consciousness, a purging of the detritus of cultural pollution (and a recovery of emotional innocence). Withdrawing from the world of urban commerce (and its mind-numbing “messages”), one severs the flow of media propaganda and ceaseless “information” (relating to the ubiquitous ‘buying and selling’). Compulsive ‘having’ is the pathology of deficient ‘being.’ Aesthetic simplicity means disconnecting from repulsive superfluity. Seeking sanctuary in wilderness surroundings, one rediscovers the gentler rhythms of low-cost rural living: walking instead of driving, and prevention of disease through a style of living consonant with ecological wisdom.’’-William Manson.

 

by Carlita Shaw

Ecologist and Author

 

The Water Fuel Cell Car vs Oil, Terrorism and Climate Change

While the world is on terrorism alert and certain countries are trying hard to foster a political climate for  World War III via Machiavellian tactics, while Paris is gearing up for the COP21 Climate talks and unbeknown to most, there will be a global Carbon Tax implimented as a result of these talks, because governments and banks gain around 33 trillion a year from trading carbon and taxing emissions.  This system does not remedy the root of the problem, while the emphasis is on emissions instead of consumption of Oil. The root cause to these critical environmental problems are blatently ignored, it is the consumption of oil which is the true cause of ecocide on the planet, because oil consumption is the highest it has ever been in human history, in 2010 the world oil consumption was at a rate of 87 million barrels of oil per day, which has currently increased to 97 million barrels per day by 2016, that is almost a 100 million barrels per day drained from the Earth!  How much more do these world oil barons think they can bleed out of the Earth?

Souce Bizarro.com http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.co.uk

Aside from the fact that the climate has always been changing, that is what its role in ecology is, to change, it is not global warming or emissions environmentalists and politicians should be focusing on, this is all an astroturfed distraction, because they are all too afraid of having their multi-billions taken away from them. The climate change debate on emissions is solely designed and engineered for reasons that provide political control and unfairly repressive sanctions over developing countries such as Africa and other countries that have been made to submit, so that more powerful countries gain access with emission cuts, whilst the Western world can exploit their natural resources and make trillions from trading carbon and carbon taxing.

This is what Obama said at a talk in 2013, just to give you a clue of what is really driving these wars on Middle eastern terrorism and the problems we have been seeing unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, Tar Sands and other pipelines, its all connected to the globally manufactured war on terror.

 I’ve come to Cushing, an oil town -- (applause) -- because producing more oil and gas here at home has been, and will continue to be, a critical part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy.  (Applause.)

Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years.  (Applause.)  That's important to know.  Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states.  We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore.  We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high.  We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.

So we are drilling all over the place -- right now.  That’s not the challenge.  That's not the problem.  In fact, the problem in a place like Cushing is that we’re actually producing so much oil and gas in places like North Dakota and Colorado that we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go -- both to refineries, and then, eventually, all across the country and around the world.  There’s a bottleneck right here because we can’t get enough of the oil to our refineries fast enough.  And if we could, then we would be able to increase our oil supplies at a time when they're needed as much as possible.

Now, right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast. And today, I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done. (Applause.) ´´ - President Obama, March the 22^nd 2012.

´´Cut through the red tape´´ means take several years to bypass respectable environmental laws that protect national parks and oceans from oil drilling and refining and foster a war on terror to make the world bend to America´s oil processing and refinery needs.

It is interesting that everytime the Water Fuel Cell car has been close to being publically unveiled or featured in mainstream media newspapers, not long afterwards a major event occurs that totally distracts the world media. Japan was about to launch a water fuel cell car in 2011, a company called Genepax, they unveiled a car that can run on river, rain or sea water, and even run on Japanese tea. Then Fukushima occurred as a result of the earthquake activity and tsunami before the car could be made available to the world market. Since then, we have had the radiated pollution of the Pacific ocean sea life and thousands of marine species have had mass die offs as marine ecosystems collapse, rather disconcerting when it is the oceans microbial and algal life forms that produce around 80 percent of our oxygen requirements.

This year it has been announced in mainstream media newspapers that Honda will launch the Water Fuel Cell car in 2016 and this Water Fuel Cell system has been demonstrated to also be able to support a domestic household with all the power it needs. Alternative energy solutions exist, the Water Fuel Cell was invented by Stanley Meyers back in the 1980s, he was poisoned in 1998 at a restaurant, probably by oil barons. A few years before Stanley was murdered he gave a presentation on his water fuel cells, in the presentation, Meyer describes a molecular, chemical and electrical level of  how water can be used as fuel — not just as a gas, but for domestic and industrial electrical generation. Meyers was also the holder of  40 patents.

Ten years later Honda launched a water fuel cell car that also has the capability to provide domestic power for a house, this probably evolved from Stanley Meyers original design.  Honda made this car available to the Hollywood elite in 2003, now they claim to be launching this water fuel cell car to become available in 2016 to the public. However, they are saying that the current lack of infrastructure worldwide to support Hydrogen fuel cell technology will need to be worked on. What this actually means is not something a mainstream newspaper will publish, it means that the oligarchy, the politicians and oil company CEOs and shareholders will not take kindly to the Water Fuel Cell car that can also provide domestic power to the home to finally become available to the public market, therefore they will make it difficult for hydrogen processing plants and Water Fuel Cell stations to emerge as part of this supportive infrastructure while those that hold the oil monopoly cards also hold places of decision making that stop the emergence of alternative emission free solutions that are also solutions as alternatives to consuming oil, stopping ecocide and the current mechanisms behind war.

Think about the economically devasting implications this would have on the current oligarchy monopoly on grid electicity power companies and oil stakeholders, when oil companies presently rake in 100,000 dollars per hour in profits. An astronomical amount of fortune that the world powers will defend with severe vehemency to protect its domination and fortune, the war on terror is being used to protect this fortune. These figures can easily be found in Forbes and Business insider and various geopolitical newspapers. Most people do not think about the simplicity of the expression ´´follow the money´´ but it does yeild the true motives of war, let alone bypassing environmental legislations and environmental agreements.

Most people do not realize there are currently clean energy solutions available, there are solar powered and water fuel cell cars that can travel thousands of kilometers before needing to recharge. These are the most advanced alternative vehicles we have so far to oil, yet these technologies are being ignored by politicians and NGOs at the Climate Talks that just focus on emissions rather than stopping oil consumption altogether by bringing this technology to dominate the world market.  What better opportunity to display such cars at these events for the world to see at the sustainability exhibition event at the Paris COP 21 Climate talks, these should be the solutions presented or point to the question ´why´ are these vehicles not available to us now, why is the consumption of oil not made obsolete on the basis of the current environmental crisis?

How can world leaders discuss cutting emissions without stopping the root cause of the problem when oil consumption is at a record breaking high worldwide?

If the global world leaders genuinely cared about the planet, government representatives at the Paris COP talks would focus on putting an end to the environmentally destructive oil industry, stopping the consumption of oil, not constantly focusing on emissions, which is a debatable unsettled science for climate change. Despite this, the environment is still in severe crisis with 150 to 200 species disappearing each day due to oil and gas extraction on terrestrial and the ocean environments. Rainforests occupy around 5 percent of the Earth's terrestrial land, yet rainforests contain over 50 percent of the world's plants and animal species (biodiversity). There is no accounting for the number of plant and tree species fast disappearing, especially from the rainforests, which are being destroyed at a rate of 60 square kilometres per hour. That is the equivalent of 4,000 football pitches per hour, every hour of every day that passes, with an exponentially rising rate of biodiversity loss.

As we already have proven solutions such as the Water Fuel Cell and Solar Powered cars that have been test drived over thousands of kilometres are efficent form of emission free these cars are available for use to the world now, why are these wonderful technologies not available now to the public and why have they not been put into immediate production use?

For the obvious reason that the oil monopoly has bought its way into politics because oil production yeilds 100,000 million dollars per hour per oil company. These are the issues that should be highlighted at the Paris Climate Talks, not debating emissions or whether CO2 is a natural pollutant or whether the climate is heating up or cooling down. The fact that the Water Fuel Cell car and Solar cars are available for use but being ignored as alternative solutions is a question that should be on everyone´s mind for this climate change conference. These and other various forms of current solutionary energy systems that are breaking the mold of mainstream energy monopolies right now, but that are conveniently being ignored by world leaders, who are solely interested in perpetuating war for oil whilst destroying the planet in the process.

By Carlita Shaw

Ecologist and Author