Entries Tagged 'The Way Home' ↓

The world oil supply is running down and we have no ready substitutes.

Climate change is happening now – stronger storms, more devastating wildfires, rising sea levels, diseases spreading – the list goes on, and there is every indication that it will continue to worsen.

The US economy, upon which the world economy still depends, is unstable due to corruption at the top, from most Congressmen to presidential advisors all being former bank executives.

Our leaders are not moving quickly enough to protect the economy in general, never mind your or my livelihoods in particular. Some of our leaders are actually doing things to worsen the situation, such as denying the very existence of climate change or ignoring the ever-rising price of oil.

We are facing “interesting times.” The turbulence has begun, and it’s buffeting us from all directions. Have you ever had the experience of going for a walk and, no matter which direction you were going, the wind always seemed to be in your face? That’s what the future is going to feel like for many people.

I could (and have) proposed large-scale responses to the situation, which frankly at this point need to be a WWII-scale mobilization to re-industrialize and re-do our living arrangements to drastically cut oil dependence immediately and, long-term, eliminate pollution of all kinds by moving to a ‘restorative economy.’

But we’re not going to do that in the foreseeable future, are we? Or anything even remotely close. If you take your family’s security seriously, then you will do what you can to buffer yourself against the coming storms. The best way I have seen to do that is Transition Initiative, and you should seriously consider joining (or starting) one in your area.

TI is a completely grassroots, apolitical initiative, and this is what they do:

Transition Network helps communities deal with climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy (peak oil). This process, which we call Transition, aims to create stronger, happier communities.

That’s how we’re going to get through this; by working together in local communities. As the Transition Network site puts it well:

What we are convinced of is this:

• • if we wait for the governments, it’ll be too little, too late
  • if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little
  • but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

Your level of involvement can be minimal or massive; the choice is yours. Here are some things that local TIs do:

• Teach people how to grow a garden, save seeds, preserve foods
• Educate people by showing documentaries about peak oil, climate change, solutions, and more
• Host online and IRL forums to discuss and learn
• Show people how to insulate their homes or build a solar greenhouse

Like it or not, the world is changing. You can adapt, or not.

Freedom with a capital damn ‘F.’

You may not agree with everything WikiLeaks is doing, but you must admit that it is necessary. Our governments, in particular the U.S. government, have gone too far. They are keeping too many secrets, and a secretive government cannot be trusted. The truth must come out.

Many Redditors are donating. Others may be helping with the current hacking of those banks and other institutions attacking Assange and WikiLeaks.

(To digress slightly, I really think governments and corporations are going to be in for a very rough ride. Once a few million young people realize they can make a difference by hacking to help WikiLeaks, why would they stop there – whether or not Assange is freed? Why would they not start choosing targets for transparency? If I were the CEO of CitiBank or Goldman Sachs I would be very worried right now.)

A whole lot of people want to do something but don’t want to risk arrest. So let’s do something.

Post your ideas on Reddit; upvote the best, and let’s donate to make the best happen.

Choose formats that are in the real world. Internet freedom is not enough, not will it last without wider freedom. First they came for Julian Assange, and I did not speak up, and so one day they came for the web….

I tried to choose messages that would be appealing to conservatives, because we need them on our side. It’s not conservatives versus liberals, or right against left. It’s those who value liberty against those who lust for money and power, and original conservative values are very much for freedom. I also picked formats that are IRL – we need to get our message off the net and ‘out there.’

If this takes off, we’ll need to coordinate donations and route them to the areas that donated. Does anybody have a suggestion for the best way to do that?

My suggestion for a relatively inexpensive way to get the message out:

Billboards, bus stop ads, any organization with digital advertising boards.

Benefits:

• Relatively cheap
• Message stays for at least a month, not one day like a newspaper ad or a few seconds like a TV spot
• Unavoidably visible to millions of drivers and passengers in good locations; you can’t miss them
• Local – donate to one in your area
• Makes a statement
• Sound-bite size – easy for MSM to briefly cover…while repeating the message

Suggested messages:

• “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”  - Thomas Jefferson
• Let Freedom Ring – subtitle: Support WikiLeaks
• The truth will out – support WikiLeaks
• It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Looking at you, Koch brothers.
• “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”  - Winston Churchill
• “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nothing hidden that will not be made known. Everything you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight; what you have whispered in locked rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.”
  – Luke 12:2-3  - Love this one; found it on Daniel Ellsberg‘s (the Pentagon Papers leaker) site.

As someone on Reddit said today, he just realized we are witnessing history in the making. Wilileaks has exposed our governments, and they don’t like it.

But the true historic event that may come of Wikileaks is that it’s something a lot of young developers can do. Easily. They can become Leakers. Destroy Assange and WikiLeaks and you will move the young, disaffected, and technically savvy, who have realized voting changes little of importance, to start another site to host the files. In fact, probably a peer-to-peer filesharing site, so that there are thousands – millions – of sites.

The cats out of the bag now. Knowledge is power, and suddenly the big guy just lost some to the little guy. And the harder he tries to grab it back, the worse he’s going to look and the more legitimate the Leakers will seem.

UPDATE: And I forgot the obvious next step – attacking the attackers. Fighting fire with fire. Young developers can – and now are – hacking the sites of those who attack WikiLeaks: http://www.antemedius.com/content/payback-bank-froze-wikileaks-funds-hacked.

Well. Time to eat some crow.

A couple of weeks ago I slagged Lana (and fellow NDP MLA John Horgan) for standing in the way of what we really need, which is rapid and decisive action on climate change and peak oil. Their party will, in fact, contribute to both climate change and our dependence upon oil by continuing to subsidize it.

That said, it is pointless, unfair, and ungentlemanly to harshly criticize well-meaning people who are trying to do their best in our broken system. Lana and John, both of whom I know personally though not well, are good people. I don’t agree with everything they do; I think subsidizing oil and gas is shortsighted and foolish.

But.

And it’s a very large but.

Our political system is broken. I have written as much elsewhere, and will do so again in my forthcoming book, The Way Home. (Tentatively subtitled: You Can’t Get There from Here, or, what you should be doing to protect yourself and your family against the coming economic, environmental, and social collapse. Cheery, no?)

I wish she would follow-through on some very important promises; at one point, she had asked Guy Dauncey and me to serve on an advisory group to help her with environmental issues. That never happened, and we could have been of some help. As an almost trivial example, Lana was “named “runner up” as Community Leader in the annual CFAX awards for her campaign to replace disposable plastic bags with reusable ones.” (Almost amusing, considering CFAX leans heavily toward climate change denial.) Had I been advising her, I would have suggested that instead all bags should be compostable. What’s the point in replacing disposable bags with ones that last longer but still ultimately end up in the landfill? That still sounds like disposable to me.

Had I been offering suggestions, I would have suggested that someone in the government go talk to companies that make compostable products and ask them if they would locate a plant in BC if a law were passed requiring all ‘disposable’ bags to be compostable. I bet they would. It’s a guaranteed market.

I digress.

The point is, why am I being so hard on a well-meaning person who is doing her best within a broken system? Lana understands the danger of climate change. She is, I have no doubt, working hard within our system, which includes that of her party, to do the right thing.

It is unlikely to be enough. Ideally, all the well-meaning people who ‘get it’ would go on ‘strike, a la Atlas Shrugged.* If only all the Lana Pophams and John Horgans (and Brian Gordons) would go on strike, would refuse to serve a corrupt political system, surely the masses would be forced to confront reality, would rebel against the self-serving crooks who largely populate our political landscape, and finally start selecting people of wisdom over those of substance….

It is an idle and ridiculous dream at this point, and as someone committed to embracing reality, I must apologize to Ms. Popham (and Mr. Horgan). If Lana stepped aside, someone would rush to fill her place, likely someone much less worthy. I would infinitely rather have Lana as my MLA than that person.

I accused Lana of being an obstacle to the change that is necessary. That was unfair. In an ideal world, she would be. But we don’t live in an ideal world. All the wise people who ‘get it’ are not going to go on strike and force a confrontation with reality. We can’t even get it together enough to speak with one voice, never mind actually act in concert for the good of humanity and the planet.

So, all this said, I am glad that Lana is my MLA, and I apologize to her, publicly, for my harsh words.  Do I think her party, if elected, will do what is necessary to at least mitigate some of the coming damage due to climate change and peak oil? Sadly, no. But Lana is doing her best within a broken system, and I can hardly ask for more.

—————————

* For those who have not plodded through Ayn Rand’s opus, the premise is that those who actually do positive things go on strike. In Rand’s view, these people are people like steel and railroad magnates.