Business As Usual Is Over: Value Change Required For Survival

Today’s blog posting was initially posted on 350orbust on June 30, 2010:

Chief Oren Lyons said, when speaking about Climate Change at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN Headquarters in 2007:

We’re talking about change. People have to change. Directions have to change. Values have to change. There is no mercy in nature; nature has none. It has only law, only rule. You don’t abide the rule, you suffer the result…it’s what you do, and how you live. Business as usual is over…Value change for survival. You’re either going to change your values, or you’re not going to survive. You’re going to abide that law or suffer the consequences…Business as usual is over. Carbon is over. Oil is over. We better find something else. We better find some equity. We’re not going to have the luxury of spending $200 billion in a war. You’re not going to have the time or the money. because you’re going to be paying for the environment, for damages coming. You want to talk about the economy, you’re going to wreck the economies of the world…Change or else…Tell your leaders to get off their ass, let’s get on with life.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiRFAvxu3k]

Chief Lyons is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is  Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy). Chief Lyon has been active in international indigenous rights and sovereignty issues for over three decades at the United Nations and other forums. He is the publisher of “Daybreak”, a national Native American news magazine.

More links:

Earthkeeper Heroes

The Plague of Plastic

From National Geographic comes an award-winning series Strange Days On Planet Earth. This documentary focuses on raising public understanding about how each of us are interconnected to our planet’s life systems. The inaugural 4-part PBS series, hosted by Academy-award nominated actor Edward Norton, earned 14 major film festival honors—including Best Series at Wildscreen, the environmental equivalent of the OSCARS®. The summary of this episode states:

Far out at sea and deep in the nation’s heartland, experts are discovering the disturbing consequences of a hitchhiker in our waters—plastic. On the remote islands in the Pacific, a team of researchers is trying to solve the mystery of why albatross chicks with full bellies are starving. Many miles away another team is finding more plastic than plankton in giant garbage patch of ocean called the North Pacific Gyre. Could these two events be related?

What’s equally worrisome is the menacing wake plastic pollution leaves on fresh water and consequently, our health. Scientists in Missouri are finding a gender-bending chemical called bisphenol A in local streams whose source may be plastics. They are also finding this nasty compound leaching out of commonly used plastic products (including baby bottles).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glVFMej_3g]

*Thanks to my sister Laurie for sending this my way*

Head over to Plastic Pollution Coalition website, and take the REFUSE disposable plastic pledge:

Disposable plastics are the greatest source of plastic pollution. Designed to be discarded, straws, plastic bottles, plastic utensils, lids, plastic bottles and so many others offer a small convenience but remain forever.  REFUSE disposable plastics! Follow the “4 Rs” of sustainable living: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

I’m looking for a practical alternative to disposable straws that is available in Canada.  Does anybody have any suggestions? 

More links:


David Suzuki asks “What’s the Real Bottom Line?”

David Suzuki,  a Canadian scientist, broadcaster, and tireless environmentalist who was recently voted the person Canadians most trust, has a new CBC radio show on Sundays between 11:00 and noon. The 10-part show,  The Bottom Line, premiered last week.  The first two hours have been fascinating listening. The show describes its goal as:

“Exploring the disconnect between our modern values and the natural world. Environmentalists are often told by politicians and corporate executives that without a strong growing economy we can’t afford to do the kind of things they are demanding, that the economy is the bottom line. This series is a celebration of the earth, the atmosphere, water, soil, and energy of the sun that work in tandem to sustain life on this planet. The true ‘bottom line’.”

The first episode featured discussions between Mr. Suzuki and Jim Prentice, Canada’s Environment Minister while they were in Haida Gwaai marking the expansion of a federal park. Suzuki pushes Prentice on the false dichotomy that still persists in this government’s attitude between the environment and the economy. The old “we can’t do anything about the environment unless we have a strong economy” argument. Suzuki clearly presents the urgency of climate change and environmental degradation, and Prentice doesn’t “get it” at all. His responses to Suzuki’s questions include such platitudes like: “It’s about balance.” “We are taking steps forward.”We’ve set a goal of reducing emissions to 17% below 2005 levels.” “I’m proud of the scientists we have at Environment Canada.” “We need technology to address these issues over time.

Really Mr. Prentice?!The former Chief Economist at the World Bank has said that if the world doesn’t deal in a heroic way to reduce emissions, the consequences of climate change are economically catastrophic. The risk to humanity from climate change is second only to the threat of nuclear war. And yet this is the anemic response Canadians get from our government – “we hope that some technology comes along to save us eventually because we can’t possibly find ways to reduce our emissions, the highest per capita in the world”! Good grief. It’s pathetic.

Anyway, The Bottom Line is worth listening to, just to hear Suzuki and Prentice offer their very different points of view. And Mr. Suzuki is pretty gentle on Mr. Prentice, considering that the Environment Minister’s responses were so inadequate.

Also in the first episode is an interesting interview with Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist at the World Bank and author of a report on climate change and economics for the British government. Stern says that the current view that separates the economy and the environment is “a basic analytical and intellectual mistake.” In the future, he asserts, the two will be seen as working together. And in response to David Suzuki’s questions about the lack of urgency in the world’s response to this looming disaster, Stern states that Britain and the rest of Europe know from their experience with two World Wars last century that the inability to cooperate internationally leads to disaster, and hopefully this experience will assist in addressing the problem of climate change:

We’ve got to use the rationality that developed with evolution to anticipate these problems. We’ve got the ability, we’re going to have to use that. If we wait for experience to tell us we’re in trouble it’s going to be almost impossible to get out of it. People need to understand the great dangers, but we need to go beyond that and talk about the great opportunities that we’ll create if we go the sensible route.

“Sensible route”? Sounds good to me! Are you listening, Mr. Prentice and Mr. Harper?

Listen to “The Bottom Line”.

More links:

David Suzuki Looks Back With a Hint of Regret. Globe and Mail

“The Bottom Line” on Facebook

The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity by Nicholas Stern.

The BP Catastrophe is Not Just A Spill, But a Spoiling of God’s Creation

Language fails us. This is not a “spill,” but a spoiling of God’s creation — of wetlands and beaches; of God’s myriad creatures; of lives and livelihoods. And we heard many testimonies of this devastation over these last few days. The words that kept coming to my mind were “reflection, restoration, and renewal.”

~ Excerpted from “Praying on the Gulf Coast“,

by Jim Wallis on God’s Politics Blog, Sojourners

photo by Georgianne Nienaber

photo by Lois Nickel

More links:

Praying on the Gulf Coast

Facing The Future As A Media Felon On the Gulf Coast – Georgianne Nienaber

Business As Usual Is Over: Value Change Required For Survival

Chief Oren Lyons said, when speaking about Climate Change at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN Headquarters in 2007:

We’re talking about change. People have to change. Directions have to change. Values have to change. There is no mercy in nature; nature has none. It has only law, only rule. You don’t abide the rule, you suffer the result…it’s what you do, and how you live. Business as usual is over…Value change for survival. You’re either going to change your values, or you’re not going to survive. You’re going to abide that law or suffer the consequences…Business as usual is over. Carbon is over. Oil is over. We better find something else. We better find some equity. We’re not going to have the luxury of spending $200 billion in a war. You’re not going to have the time or the money. because you’re going to be paying for the environment, for damages coming. You want to talk about the economy, you’re going to wreck the economies of the world…Change or else…Tell your leaders to get off their ass, let’s get on with life.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiRFAvxu3k]

Chief Lyons is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is  Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy). Chief Lyon has been active in international indigenous rights and sovereignty issues for over three decades at the United Nations and other forums. He is the publisher of “Daybreak”, a national Native American news magazine.

More links:

Earthkeeper Heroes

Louisiana Local Describes Media Blackout, Horrors Of BP Catastrophe

Kindra Arnesen lives on the coast of Louisiana with her fisherman husband and two children. In this video clip  from the Emergency Gulf Summit, she passionately and eloquently describes what she saw when she was given access to the front lines of the BP response to the emergency, and also the impact the oil spill is having on the health of her children and on the clean-up workers. She also describes in  heart-wrenching detail the dead and dying marine life she has observed since oil started spewing from the ruptured well.  As she says:

The bottom line here is if the country does not stand up and say ‘no more’ – we must take action – we cannot sit back – if this stuff does not stop, guys, this is going to global. It will destroy one third of the world’s water. Bank on it. If they do not stop this, every ocean is connected and it will go on and on and on, as my daughter says, infinity plus two. Enough’s enough.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkYJDI8pK9Y]

Links:

Gulf Emergency Summit.org

World Religious Leaders: Bold Action Needed On Climate Change

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Since Monday, dozens of religious leaders from diverse faiths have been gathering at the University of Winnipeg at the G8 Religious Leaders Summit. Besides Christian, Jewish, and Islamic leaders, there are also representatives from Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i, and Shinto traditions as well as Indigenous Spirituality. It is the first time Canada has hosted the Summit which, for the past five years, has been organized to complement the meeting of G8 political leaders. G8 leaders are meeting in Huntsville, Ontario, later this week.

A significant part of each Interfaith Leaders Summit is the writing of a statement, which underscores the nature of the G8 commitments to the Millenium Development Goals and other processes that move toward equality and justic for all children, women and men. The working statement, which is undergoing discussion and will be different at the end of the summit, can be read by clicking on: “A Time For Inspired Leadership and Action“.

I attended the summit yesterday as an observer, and was impressed and encouraged by the sense of importance and urgency that underscored the 1 1/2 hour discussion on climate change. The statement reads, in part:

Climate change has become an urgent and felt manifestation of our collective abuse of the very environment that gives us life. We see the consequences in melting icecaps and rising sea levels, lost habitats for animal and plant species, and erratic weather episodes that threaten the lives of millions of people.

As scientists discover new accelerators of climate change and note the compression of time available to avoid irreparable damage, it is clear that bold action is needed now. We need to move beyond short-term political interests and arguments over who pays. In our indivisible planet we all pay – and future generations will pay dearly – if we continue to delay decisive action now.

Around the table there were calls for courageous and concrete action. Katherine Whitecloud, an aboriginal leader from the Dakota First Nation and a descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, spoke powerful words to the gathered religious leaders. She reminded the room that the rivers are the veins of Mother Earth, and they are now poisoned.

My grandmother said, someday we will eat our children. That time has come. We are foolishly and arrogantly raping Mother Earth so She has nothing left to offer…Mother Earth is crying, attempting to rid herself of all the toxins we have poured into her [author’s note: it has been extremely wet here on the prairies recently]. You cannot wait for your president, or another elected official, to do something about this. You have to decide what YOU are going to do for your children, for your grandchildren.”

Katherine then went on to ask the assembled group about the meaning of sacrifice, because that is what is going to be needed at this point in human history.

“Sacrifice is going without so someone else will live…Now is the time for courageous and concrete action. In your heart, you know what that means.”

Katherine demonstrated the kind of bold and courageous leadership that we needed to steer through this crisis, and make the dramatic changes necessary so that our children aren’t consumed. What is each of us prepared to do?


Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: “America… Should Never Be On Its Knees Before Corporate Power, No Matter How Strong”

This is a followup to my earlier post on Senator Whitehouse’s speech on corporate corruption of the government agencies intended to oversee them. The following video is the first 7 minutes of his speech:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsjPsfHvWk8]

Thanks to Dante Ryel for sharing this link.