The Clock

Taken in the City of Leipzig. This clock is actually a reproduction of the original clock found in Prague, Chech Republic. It is said that the person who made the orginal was made blind afterwards to disable him from making another such clock.

Quotations on Nature

Quotations

Struggle Against Genetic Technology on Food

EARTH MEANDERS

Economic Collapse and Global Ecology

by: Dr.Glen Barry

Given widespread failure to pursue policies sufficient to
reverse deterioration of the biosphere and avoid ecological
collapse, the best we can hope for may be that the growth-
based economic system crashes sooner rather than later

Humanity and the Earth are faced with an enormous conundrum --
sufficient climate policies enjoy political support only in
times of rapid economic growth. Yet this growth is the primary
factor driving greenhouse gas emissions and other
environmental ills. The growth machine has pushed the planet
well beyond its ecological carrying capacity, and unless
constrained, can only lead to human extinction and an end to
complex life.

With every economic downturn, like the one now looming in the
United States, it becomes more difficult and less likely that
policy sufficient to ensure global ecological sustainability
will be embraced. This essay explores the possibility that
from a biocentric viewpoint of needs for long-term global
ecological, economic and social sustainability; it would be
better for the economic collapse to come now rather than
later.

Economic growth is a deadly disease upon the Earth, with
capitalism as its most virulent strain. Throw-away consumption
and explosive population growth are made possible by using up
fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Holiday shopping
numbers are covered by media in the same breath as Arctic ice
melt, ignoring their deep connection. Exponential economic
growth destroys ecosystems and pushes the biosphere closer to
failure.

Humanity has proven itself unwilling and unable to address
climate change and other environmental threats with necessary
haste and ambition. Action on coal, forests, population,
renewable energy and emission reductions could be taken now at
net benefit to the economy. Yet, the losers -- primarily
fossil fuel industries and their bought oligarchy --
successfully resist futures not dependent upon their deadly
products.

Perpetual economic growth, and necessary climate and other
ecological policies, are fundamentally incompatible. Global
ecological sustainability depends critically upon establishing
a steady state economy, whereby production is right-sized to
not diminish natural capital. Whole industries like coal and
natural forest logging will be eliminated even as new
opportunities emerge in solar energy and environmental
restoration.

This critical transition to both economic and ecological
sustainability is simply not happening on any scale. The
challenge is how to carry out necessary environmental policies
even as economic growth ends and consumption plunges. The
natural response is going to be liquidation of even more life-
giving ecosystems, and jettisoning of climate policies, to
vainly try to maintain high growth and personal consumption.

We know that humanity must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
at least 80% over coming decades. How will this and other
necessary climate mitigation strategies be maintained during
years of economic downturns, resource wars, reasonable demands
for equitable consumption, and frankly, the weather being more
pleasant in some places? If efforts to reduce emissions and
move to a steady state economy fail; the collapse of
ecological, economic and social systems is assured.

Bright greens take the continued existence of a habitable
Earth with viable, sustainable populations of all species
including humans as the ultimate truth and the meaning of
life. Whether this is possible in a time of economic collapse
is crucially dependent upon whether enough ecosystems and
resources remain post collapse to allow humanity to recover
and reconstitute sustainable, relocalized societies.

It may be better for the Earth and humanity's future that
economic collapse comes sooner rather than later, while more
ecosystems and opportunities to return to nature's fold exist.
Economic collapse will be deeply wrenching -- part Great
Depression, part African famine. There will be starvation and
civil strife, and a long period of suffering and turmoil.

Many will be killed as balance returns to the Earth. Most
people have forgotten how to grow food and that their identity
is more than what they own. Yet there is some justice, in that
those who have lived most lightly upon the land will have an
easier time of it, even as those super-consumers living in
massive cities finally learn where their food comes from and
that ecology is the meaning of life. Economic collapse now
means humanity and the Earth ultimately survive to prosper
again.

Human suffering -- already the norm for many, but hitting the
currently materially affluent -- is inevitable given the
degree to which the planet's carrying capacity has been
exceeded. We are a couple decades at most away from societal
strife of a much greater magnitude as the Earth's biosphere
fails. Humanity can take the bitter medicine now, and recover
while emerging better for it; or our total collapse can be a
final, fatal death swoon.

A successful revolutionary response to imminent global
ecosystem collapse would focus upon bringing down the Earth's
industrial economy now. As society continues to fail miserably
to implement necessary changes to allow creation to continue,
maybe the best strategy to achieve global ecological
sustainability is economic sabotage to hasten the day. It is
more fragile than it looks.

Humanity is a marvelous creation. Yet her current dilemma is
unprecedented. It is not yet known whether she is able to
adapt, at some expense to her comfort and short-term well-
being, to ensure survival. If she can, all futures of
economic, social and ecological collapse can be avoided. If
not it is better from a long-term biocentric viewpoint that
the economic growth machine collapse now, bringing forth the
necessary change, and offering hope for a planetary and human
revival.

I wish no harm to anyone, and want desperately to avoid these
prophesies foretold by ecological science. I speak for the
Earth, for despite being the giver of life, her natural voice
remains largely unheard over the tumult of the end of being.

January 12, 2008

Awadi Anti APE Video

A CREED TO LIVE BY

Don't undermine your worth
by comparing yourself with others
It is because we are different
that each of us is special.
Don’t set your goals by what
other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you,
as you heed God’s leading and guidance
and the counsel of the wise.
Don’t take for granted the things
closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life,
for without them life is meaningless.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers
by living in the past or the future.
By living your life one day at a time,
you live all the days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have
something to give
Nothing is really over…
Until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to admit that
you are less than perfect,
it is this fragile thread
that bind us to each other.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that
We learn how to be brave.
Don’t shut love out of your life
by saying it is impossible to find.
The quickiest way to receive love
is to give love;
the fastest way to lose love
is to hold it too tightly;
and the best way to keep love
is to give it wings.
Don’t dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope
to be without hope is without purpose.
Don’t run through your life so fast
that you forget not only where you’ve been
but also where you’re going.
Life is not a race,
but a journey to be savored
each step of the way.

World and Indigenous Culture

Reviewed by David Redman
Holding Yawulyu:
White Culture and
Black Women’s Law
Zohl De Ishtar(Spinifex Press, 2005)
This book looks at cross-cultural
interactions, and the complicated
and continuing effects the Kaytiya
(the white Euro-Australian)
have had on Aboriginal culture,
specifically in the remote
Wirrimanu area of Western
Australia. Looking at the mission
era (1939 to 1983) through to the present, “it is a story of White
religious, political and economic dominance characterised
by cultural ineptitude and political mismanagement” (p76).
Drawing on her own experience of living with Wirrimanu
women, the author looks at the struggle of the elders to
maintain their culture and their sacred Yawulya (women’s law).
One way in which the women did this was by forming
Kapululangu (women’s groups). Starting with a meeting in
1983, where 350 women from 30 communities came together
in ceremonial dancing and song, the Kapululangu initiative
was formed in the hope of strengthening cultural identity.
De Ishtar first became involved with the project in 1993,
permanently relocating in 1999 to help form the Kapululangu
tjiliami (woman’s camp). In a situation of administrative
chaos, limited or no funding and a male cultural dominance,
Kapululangu went from strength to strength. It was able
to run more meetings and ceremonies for people from all
over Australia, participate in international tours and provide
shelter for women in danger. Through a variety of techniques
such as dance, song, painting, hunting trips, and story telling,
Kapululango encouraged the transference of wisdom and
knowledge to the next generation.
Because of De Ishtar’s intimate relationship with the project,
this book gives insight into the misunderstanding and
undervaluation of indigenous knowledge, and the bureaucratic
incompetence, competition for resources and underhand
management techniques that communities put up with across
Australia.
De Ishtar also gives an understanding of what the loss of
cultural identity can lead to.
The problems of Wirrimanu, such as alcoholism, spousal abuse,
petrol sniffing and increased violence, are traced to a lack of
pride and sense of identity. Cultural erosion results in people
feeling they have no role within the community, a loss of
connection with the land, a loss of understanding of Tjukurrpa
(cosmology) – in other words a loss of respect for their Yawulyu.
Central to the book is the importance of being aware of the
cultural implications of even the most well intentioned plans,
and the importance of maintaining culture. A great book not
only for those interested in Aboriginal people but for anyone
working or dealing with other cultures as it allows us to review
our perceptions, how these perceptions may have been formed
and the effect these perceptions can have.

David Redman has a degree in Psychology from
Canterbury University and is currently studying towards
a Masters of Development at Massey University.

The World and Indigenous Culture

Reviewed by NINA SPRINGLE
Is the Sacred for Sale?
Tourism and
Indigenous peoplesAlison M. Johnston
(Earthscan Publications, 2005)
It would be all too easy to write this
book off as just another far fetched
conspiracy theory, spouting an albeit
unusual mix of development theory
and new age spiritualism, but the
deeper you go, the more merit Alison
Johnston’s argument has. ‘Is the Sacred
for Sale’ is a self declared call to fellow
citizens of the world to think very carefully about the choices we will
inevitably have to make about how we treat the earth and how we
perceive our spiritual connection to it.
Her fundamental contention lies in the idea that tourism is the new
means by which corporations and governments of the industrialised
world maintain their colonial monopoly over the developing world.
That in reality, tourism is a means of converting the developing and
consolidating the commitment of the developed to the new ‘religion’
of consumerism, all at the expense of indigenous cultures and spiritual
beliefs which she terms sacred knowledge. By paying lip service to the
politically correct jargon of sustainability, biodiversity and community
participation, the ‘industrial Man’ (including some UN agencies,
WHO , WTO , IMF etc…all the usual suspects) is able to abuse and
exploit indigenous land rights and sabotage the self determination
of indigenous peoples who more often than not ‘find it impossible
to effectively challenge industry practices or government approval
processes that threaten their ancestral territory and culture.’
Her contempt never shines as brightly as it does in her exploration
of the supposedly virtuous and ecologically sustainable spin off,
‘Ecotourism’. A simple but overwhelmingly effective marketing
strategy, ecotourism dupes affluent people into believing that they
are participating in a venture that is based on equal partnership,
community consultation and sustainable practises all designed
to benefit indigenous peoples. When in actual fact, it is simply a
devious means of getting them to spend their money gawking at
the very cultural and environmental diversity they are destroying
with their consumerist lifestyles.
This is an important book, even if simply to counterbalance the hype
of the tourism industry, but be prepared for some heavy claims.
For example, that compensation given to indigenous peoples for
government/corporate initiated land swaps/buyouts equates to
‘calculated genocide’. Or that the profit formulas for ecotourism
industry perpetuate colonial patterns and the classic trickle down
effect, creating oppressive relationships in target communities,
which experience loss of culture, identity and self esteem. This
can include post traumatic stress syndrome, which results in the
acting out of grief through substance abuse, domestic violence,
prostitution, corruption and crime.
Johnson is scathing in her critical analysis, and decidedly evangelical
about possible solutions to such a pronounced imbalance of power.
However, like so many anti establishment theorists, Johnston tends to
reiterate the same or similar ideas over and over again at full voice,
just in slightly different guises. Other critics may point out her hazy
definition of the word ‘indigenous’.
But perhaps this is nit picking. Perhaps Johnston’s intention for
a book like this is less an academic exercise and more a wellreferenced
proclamation of consciousness or humanitarian
manifesto, a wake up call to humanity. Either way, it is clear why
she is so passionate and committed to this cause – it’s one we all
should be committed to.
reviews
Nina Springle is a writer and community development
worker currently undertaking a Masters of International and
Community Development at Deakin University, Australia.