Challenging times. Solid science shows identical “hockey stick” trajectories of accelerating growth for human population, development, fossil-fuel usage, carbon emissions, natural super-disasters, and the number of climate refugees.
The 7th edition of marquismillennium.com's Who's Who Millenium Magazine features our founder, Lee Temple!
Challenging times. Solid science shows identical “hockey stick” trajectories of accelerating growth for human population, development, fossil-fuel usage, carbon emissions, natural super-disasters, and the number of climate refugees.
We already use over 1.5 times Earth’s available resources, but still rely on growth-based economic, political, and behavioral models. To bequeath our great grandchildren a habitable planet, we must quickly unite across the globe to turn the climate crisis around. Life’s future here now depends on it.
The good news is that billions of us—in businesses, organizations, communities, and governments worldwide—are already on board. U.S. emissions have declined 15% since 2007. But too many remain unable or unwilling to address this greatest crisis of any human era effectively, and a catastrophic climatic tipping point is upon us. Global emissions, fueled by BRIC countries and others, still rise steadily, up 2.1% to nearly 36 billion metric tons in 2013. Participation in facing this global emergency is no longer optional: It’s time for “All hands on deck!”
What’s missing is a larger sense of selfhood. We need a new ethics/worldview founded in a sensibility of wholeness and “world-first” global responsibility. We need to value the sources and sustenance of our existence even more than our “me-first” agendas.
As time goes by, we see steadily increasing devastation from global climate change all around the world. We also see clearer and clearer evidence of our role in its acceleration, and ever more convincing proof that our negative effect on climate is accelerating as well. We can’t escape the troubling conclusion that, if we want to deliver a habitable planet to our grandchildren, we must unite quickly in actions across the globe to make a decisive difference—by changing our destructive behaviors now, while we still can.
AIR DATE: 11/17/14, 1 PM, KHEN 106.9 “FREE RANGE RADIO,” SALIDA, COLORADO, A PART OF THE “COMMUNITY JUSTICE TALKS” RADIO SERIES, CONDUCTED BY HOST MOLLY ROWAN LEACH
by Kelly Hart
There are many reasons for remodeling. It could be the desire for greater comfort in your home from improved insulation or heating and cooling options. Or perhaps you want to create new space for activities or family members. Or maybe you hope to achieve increased efficiency and savings on utility bills. Sometimes toxic materials can be replaced with more benign, natural choices. Perhaps you want your house to be more attractive. All of these goals can be accomplished with a carefully planned green remodel.
To renovate a home is one of the ultimate ways of recycling, taking an existing structure and using it as a basis for creating just what you need. This is certainly a more sustainable choice than building an entirely new home that would likely entail the use of much more material with all of its embodied energy and negative ecological impact.
Over the course of the author’s life he has engaged in numerous remodeling projects, as a professional carpenter, as a home owner, and as a renter. He draws on this experience as he explores with you what he considers to be the main principles that should guide you in your choices for your own green remodeling project.
The chapters include fitting your house to your needs, the basics of passive solar design, tips on keeping your house cool, options to power your house with renewable energy, ways to conserve water, employing local, natural and recycled materials, the value of cultivating vegetables, how to naturally store the produce that you grow, and why to consider sharing some facilities with others for economy and sustainability.
“This simple, step-by-step healing magic perfectly counters the ultimate challenge of our time. Kelly demonstrates convincingly that this humble approach can move us out of the danger zone and into a trajectory toward a safe, vibrant future. He shows us how our global climate crisis can be turned into delight — right here, right now, where we each live our lives.” Lee Temple
Sometimes it’s hard to take today’s “Twilight Zone.” I’m referring to life in that strange disconnect between the majority’s consensus—concerning weapons legislation and climate change, for example— and the selfish string-pulling of small, financially and politically powerful special-interest cabals actively thwarting commonsense advances in national and global culture. In evidence: Global greenhouse gas levels continue their unchecked growth.
They likely won’t peak until 2030 at the earliest, even though the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified 2015 as “the tipping point,” the time after which no human activity will be able to forestall catastrophic global climate change.
“A sense of place is the sixth sense, an internal compass and map made by memory and spatial perception together.” —Rebecca Solnit
An article originally published at ORION Magazine, December 12, 2011.
Last night I went walking in the full-moon’s light, under a cloudless, starry sky. Earth slept silently, wrapped in Her holiday snow-shawl, and I could just barely see Mount Antonito a hundred miles to the south – some simple joys of high-desert living in southern Colorado’s Delaware-sized San Luis Valley. Here, winter’s dead stillness invites reflection, contemplation and blessing-counting. Crunching through the snow, I pondered mysterious traits of the Earth-healing zeitgeist: like its’ overwhelming time/effort/money-intensiveness, and its’ unpredictable manifestation, on its’ on terms, in miraculous, grace-filled ways.
