Gun control is an environmental issue

There's no point in preserving a habitable climate for a species so passively complicit in the murder of its own children. The time for "meaningful action" on the senseless proliferation of assault weapons in this country is long past, but all we've got is now.

Adam Gopnik on #Newtown: The people who fight...to make guns available are complicit in the murder of those children: http://nyr.kr/Z6u6UZ 

Bill McKibben ‏@billmckibben

Am recalling all the days i dropped my daughter off at kindergarten, and the atmosphere of complete trust. Just too sad for words

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3hBill McKibben ‏@billmckibben

Crazed horrible knifeman in China wounds 22 at elementary school. Wounds. http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html …

Knights of the Green Table, UNITE!

Before anyone gets too comfortable in their Christmas slippers, I'd just like to say, ummm, well, don't!

Seriously, anyone interested in having a meeting about our previously discussed organization, and any causes/groups/activismy stuff, can contact me on here, or...by my other email, wsp2692@aol.com

Similarly, my number is 615-900-7368, I don't answer for numbers I don't know, however, if you leave me a voice mail, I will check it.

I don't hope you have a good break!
Breaks are for the weak!
MAY IT BE PRODUCTIVE!

Naomi Klein

"So, yeah," she said, "it's important to build local alternatives, we have to do it, but unless we are really going after the source of the problem" — namely, the fossil-fuel industry and its lock on Washington — "we are gonna get inundated."

For McKibben and Klein, going after that source means, to begin with, going after the industry's business model and its very legitimacy. To that end, they've used the sold-out national tour, which ended on December 3 in Salt Lake City, to help launch a student-led divestment campaign calling on universities to stop investing in fossil fuels. As of early December, that effort had already spread to more than 150 campuses around the country, including more than a dozen in New England. The point of divestment may not be whatever economic leverage it can wield over some of the richest companies on Earth, but instead a kind of moral leverage, as a rallying point for a broad-based movement — committed to mass protest and nonviolent direct action — that aims to delegitimize what McKibben calls a "rogue" industry and its lobby....

'I'd rather fight like hell': Naomi Klein's fierce new resolve to fight for climate justice - News Features

This Is Morgan Speaking.......

This is Morgan speaking.  Any use of the pronoun I refers to Morgan and not to Professor Oliver.  Our views are very different, please do not mistake mine for his.  Thank You-

Final Blog Post Over Our Personal Ecotopia

     Being the cynic that I am it was difficult to take Ecotopia seriously.  Harder still was trying to come up with my own version of Ecotopia.  Some much within the book frightened me.  Their negative view on producers, wealth, and private property, their lack of difference to a Higher Power, as well as the destruction of the nuclear family and their rearing of children all made me shudder.  And of course their flippant use of abortion and complete lack of value given to human life in all its forms was disgusting.  Not to mention their silly emotional outbursts and amoral sexual practices both of which just plain got on my nerves.  But in spite of all this I do appreciate the author's efforts to use imagination and out of the box thinking to present the reader with other avenues of thinking, another possibility to life.
     Seeing as all semester I have read and discussed the materials given in the course, I want to extend a challenge to all of you to practice the same willingness to examine views outside your own.  While I have no personal Ecotopia, or any desire to invent one, Ecotopia did remind me of another author who put forth an ideological vision of what man and society is and what it could be.  In my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand presents her vision of the ideal man.  Her novel could be seen as a direct response to the quote from Ecotopia that, "...mankind...was not meant for production..." ( pg. 47 Kindle version).  I dare all of you to read her novel and then think for yourself as to which principles hold more truth.  In hopes to tease you toward such ends I will leave you with a passage from Atlas Shrugged.


"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to  live- that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values- that all work is creative if done by a thinking mind..."  from Atlas Shrugged

And one more just cause...

"So you think money is the root of all evil?...  Have you ever asked what is the root of money?  Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them.  Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.  Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force.  Money is made possible only by the men who produce.  Is this what your consider evil?"   from "The Meaning of Money"  from The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand

Let us eat cake

I stopped by @PresidentMcPhee's house yesterday afternoon, with a couple of colleagues, for his annual campus holiday reception. He met us at the door and instantly remarked on what a nice conversation we had the other week, when he visited our Environmental Ethics & Action class to discuss the ACUPCC. (Let's keep pushing on that!)

And then he directed us into the parlor, where the baby grand piano was groaning under the weight of a cake designed to resemble this humble Carolina abode:

Whatcha think, Scott? Maybe next year we can persuade him to order up from Aramark an Earthship cake?

Happy holidays, everybody! Keep the faith!! JPO

==

P.S. Speaking of cake...

A timely note from Josh's Students for Environmental Action:

Since this is finals week and everyone is stressed out, we are replacing our regular meeting with a Pancake Party!! So this Wednesday at 4:00pm we are meeting at Josh Moore's apartment (University Gables apt 1132) to have delicious pancakes and possibly talk about some stuff for activity fee and next semester. Even if you have no intention of working on anything and you just want to come relax and eat some pancakes, do it! We just want to see your lovely faces and feed you pancakes! Here's a link to the facebook event so you can RSVP!

Also, just a reminder to everyone to please fill out this short interest survey to let us know what you want to do in the spring semester. Respond by Dec 19th at the very latest, but the sooner the better so we can start putting things in motion. Take the survey here...

Let's be active.

My Own Private Ecotopia -- A final "presentation"

I planned on giving my final presentation on Earthships. They keep popping into my mind as an intriguing concept, something beautiful and unique. But I realize that this is the inherent problem. It is the problem with Earthships, the problem with Ecotopia, and the problem with climate change. They are all intriguing concepts, but that is where they remain.

We seem to have backed ourselves into a perceptual corner. I touched on some of these ideas when talking about Beyond Civilization and hate to be redundant, but I cannot seem to avoid the overwhelming feeling that all of these things, and many more, are not actually solutions because they reside in the same inherently flawed system that produced the issues in the first place. The “answers” and debates are all based on some version of an adversarial hierarchy.  That must be focused on, or at least maintained in awareness, to make any action effective.

Ecotopia only works in the long term if the people within it are different, not just acting different, but thinking and being different. The geopolitical reality imposed by hypothetical secession is only a means of reinforcing the ideas which come into practice once the people change. That means that any scenario can be theoretically successful if we can manage to create, or more accurately empower, significant and authentic change within the individual. Personal individual change may not occur fast enough to save us from the crisis of climate change.  But I believe speed is not the most critical factor in this equation. I think what we should focus on is the type of change.

Change that is defined by the same programs that lead us to crisis is not the answer; it is only a stop gap solution.  We must push ourselves to be the best and truest versions of ourselves.  If we can identify in that way, see ourselves and each other in that way, as fellow humans connected through and to everything around us in a common interest, namely that of Life, then all we must do then is act accordingly towards our own individual best interests.  This isn’t as new age as it sounds. It is just the logical extension of the idea that if some of us fail, none of us succeed. Unfortunately, those who are currently the greatest failures environmentally are the most successful by our societal criteria of wealth and consumption. They have been strongly reinforced by the very people they are failing. Fortunately, perception change is much more effective utilized through a bottoms up approach than a top down one. A top down approach is based only on power and the rewards and punishments which it can provide. When something is changed from the foundation it is based on need and can be made as a conscious choice.

I know, all this is easier said than done, but if this can not save us, perhaps we were not meant for survival. Or perhaps, as I think in my cynical moments, we do not deserve to survive as a species after the way we have behaved. If it is true, that we have waited until it is quite literally too late, then our extinction, or at least the end of life as we currently know it, is something that we will have to come to terms with. Whether we accept it or not, those terms will be enforced. Earth will continue creating life, no matter what we choose, we just may not be a part of the plan.

I know that sounds brutally harsh but we have reached a point in history where mere survival should not be enough. Simple awareness of these issues, and this I feel is true for really any important issue, is not enough. This is especially true when things like acculturation prevent us from even being aware that we are unaware. We have forgotten that these things are merely first steps.  There is much to be done and an almost infinite amount of ways to act. Any action away from the culture of maximum harm is a start. We can only hope that the cumulative effect results in an overwhelming snowball. One way or another, life will not be the same.

I've really enjoyed this class. The discussions were excellent and consistently surprising. I would like to thank you all for being a part of it and showing that education can function in such a stimulating and respectful manner. This has not always been my experience.  I am quite happy to be graduating on this note. I hope this is not the last we all hear from each other. Good luck to you all.  
-- Scott

A few links of interest in closing:

http://earthship.com/  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/331645193563218/    
--Facebook group for Earthship Biotecture TN

http://tinyhouseblog.com/     -- I just think these are neat

https://www.facebook.com/groups/334993393195494/?fref=ts    
-- Facebook group for Rosewater, a community I am a part of that is more theoretical than geographical at this point. But who knows what the future may hold. Feel free to join us.

Carlin Shows Remorse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLRQvK2-iqQ
 Start at 01:00-02:00.
Perhaps some conflict with his environmental bit?

Political Portraits

     President McPhee gave our class some very important advice- vote.  So often younger constituents do not vote or even recognize the importance of local elections.  Someone once said that all politics are local and as we came to find out in our pursuit to join the Presidents Climate Commitment, politics are fundamental to achieving our goal.
      In light of this discovery I would like to present a short biographyof our local representatives, shared areas of environmental concern, and possible angles in which to approach them in order to gain their support for our cause.
     We shall begin with our State Representative Joe Carr representing District 48.  Joe Carr is a Republican and a graduate of our great school Middle Tennessee State University with a BS in Behavior Psychology.  His previous experience includes much work in sales and sales management, and a venture in entrepreneurship successfully building and selling his own company.  He is from a farming background and grew up in Lascasses.
     Representative Carr currently sits on the following committees; the Commerce Committee, Small business sub-committee, State & Local Committee, and the state sub-committee.
     I did not find many environmental concerns in Rep. Carr's current favorite issues.  His big issue is illegal immigration which is difficult to parlay with the environment.  However I believe his connections in the small business community could be exploited for our purposes.  One of our classroom favorite corporations, General Mills, has a Yoplait Yougart Plant located here in Murfreesboro.  A possible corporate sponsorship with General Mills could be mutually beneficial and could appeal to Rep. Carr's interests.  I would suggest seeking a contact from their local public relations office and building a relationship there.
     A much more hopeful connection could be made with our local State Senator Bill Ketron representing District 13.  He too is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University receiving a BS in Political Science and History.  In 1991 he was given the distinguished alumnus award and he was a founder of and still is actively involved with the Blue Raider Athletic Association.  His daughter is also a student at MTSU.  All of this involvement with the University can be built into a positive relationship with the environmental movement on campus and maybe even an ally for those solar panels on the football stadium Julianne has been advocating!  His previous experience was in the insurance industry.  Sen. Ketron sits on several very important committees such as the Finance, Ways and Means Committee, State & Local Committee, Transportation Committee, Ethics Committee, and is Chairman of the Fiscal Review Committee.  As President McPhee reminded us budgets are important.  Sen Ketron sits on the Committee responsible for taxes, revenue and appropriations.  He could be a powerful alley indeed.
     While politics can be a bitter pill to swallow for the environmentally minded, the reality remains that it is necessary to start somewhere and that somewhere is within the current political structure.  By making friends with and reaching out to our current representatives we can build powerful relationships and build bridges to a brighter future for all of us.  This sounds like a win-win to me.

Ecotopia and the American Dream: Final Test Blog

One of the factors I ran into while writing my presentation on "My Ecotopia" was realizing that in many ways it cannot logically exist unless everyone thinks like I think. What fits in my Ecotopia may not be apart of Morgan's Ecotopia or Willie's Ecotopia. Perhaps in some ways this is why some parts of Callenbach's 70's-esk Ecotopia seem so jarring and incompatible to our mentality today. This why I would like to focus this blog on a much broader explanation of a eco-perfect world by designing a new scale of social consciousness. Actually this model is not my invention but merely a design from the hard questions that Van Jones asks in Rebuilding the American Dream. Perhaps this scale can make Ecotopia more in the realm or probability and provide a more progressive implementation without sexist assumptions and Ridiculous "Soul Cities." This scale would allow social memes to be reconsidered through a new type of social equation cutting out some of the excess of argument when it comes to environmental argument. The first part of this process would be 1) Allowing for little to no time spent on arguing against Climate Deniers. I believe that in science, minority or dissenting views are important to the integrity of science but when it comes to the science of climate control we cannot afford to up hold something for its own sake. In the words of scientist R.C. Lewontin, science is used in two major ways, to explain nature and to change it. We cannot afford to just explain the science of global warming, its time to change it. 2) We must turn our efforts for change from arguing with climate deniers to those who simply choose to ignore climate change. Although many might claim that overcoming denial is the first step to consciousness, I claim that the climate complacent are an even harder battle to win in the fight for environmental consciousness, not to mention that this category of thinkers represents the general population of thought. We must consider this train of thought as worse than those who simply deny the science of climate change. The lack of progressive change in the environmental movement has not been because of the lack of science by the lack of compassion. So how do we fix this problem? 3)(Not to get all Principe on you but...)We must begin to admit that mass consumerism, the birth of the corporation, and the modern concept of the American Dream has completely broken down our sympathy for our neighbor and the environment in which everyone resides. The breaking down of the meme of the American Dream is crucial to how progressive we will become as a society. We can no longer think in terms of the American dream as individualized comfort. Instead we must find ways to redirect the sense of success to personal character within a community and not social status through material possession. The scale for finding the dream of Ecotopia would be less jarring if we looked at these factors as well this last important factor. One of the places where Callenbach seems to fail is on the true belief that the citizens of Ecotopia perceived social issues and environmental issues of equal importance and one in the same. Although this sense of social freedom seems to be evident in the way that Ecotopians speak and fight with one another, it is contradictory in the explanations of Soul Cities, the War Games, and other gender reversals that occur throughout the book. Why would choosing to live in exclusive groups or act in exclusive ways be conducive to a world where the primary concern is the environment (an environment which also includes society) Just food for thought I suppose. In many ways this leads us to wonder whether or not our eco-perfect environment can exist as long as there is a distinct line between us and them, rich and poor, black and white, etc. Instead maybe there can only be one distinction in the human race, the willing and the unwilling, in order for us to achieve a sustainable world.

Art in Ecotopia

Hello! For my Blog report I have decided to discuss with the class "art" in a society similar to Callenbach's Ecotopia.

First I would like to start by talking about Plato's "attack on art." In the Republic, Plato attacks art but it truly seems to be misinterpreted and what he really is attacking fake art, precisely art that takes the form of amusement or entertainment. He is not attacking true art at all but just this fake art. If one recognizes this it is easy to see why Plato would attack entertainment and entertainers. To be amused or entertained allows the entertainer to create a feeling inside his audience and then the audience discharges the feeling. However being amused has no use in practical life. One would like to be entertained simply for the sake of being entertained. Therefor it has no true value in itself. This amusement is not even true art because it is just skillfully constructed and not a true expression of emotion or imagination.

 Soon people cannot feel any emotion from ordinary life because they are so addicted the being amused, and the amusement is all fake. This causes people in a society (like ours) to put a massive emphasis on entertainment. Our entertainment industry is massive and still growing rapidly, while entertainment itself seems to get more insane in order to entertain the people that have become numb from the endless amusement.

So even in Callenbach's Ecotopia he still has a lot of entertainment. And even though it seems like the Ecotopia is a great stable place, it could be possible for it to spiral out of control and lead to another society like ours that is built upon consuming and being entertained at all times. Even the chapter dedicated to music and art in the book is short and does not describe with much detail what kind of art is produced. Maybe since Ecotopia isn't real it would be impossible to even try to imagine this kind of art?
And I'm talking about true art that is from the expression of emotion and imagination. 
Basically entertainment is not useful at all, so is it still necessary to have so much of it in the new world of Ecotopia? Instead of entertainment like the "war games" we would need more true art.

So my questions for the class to be discussed is,
"Would Callenbach's Ecotopia produce more art that is not just for "amusement"?"
"What kind of art do you think an "Ecotopia' like society would create?"
"Would is be a good idea to have very little amusement and entertainment in this new society, focusing the entertainment part on true art or philosophical discussion or something that is useful for the society."

Feel free to discuss .. thanks for reading!! =^..^=

Your Ecotopia?

Julliane gave us her “ecotopia” yesterday in EEA. I like it better than Ernest Callenbach’s, with its alternative reality world of cool science, free magnetic supertrains, and a reunified U.S.E. (United States of Ecotopia)... and no stupid War Games, residual 70s sexism, or cringe-inducing Bad Sex, "Soul City," etc. I love the alt-history involving President Vera Alwyn and President Al Gore. (Bet you do too, Morgan.) Algae-fueled trucks, retrofitted electrified clunkers, Einstein haircuts... "One Earth, to enjoy not destroy"... much to love there!

But again, check out the superior prequel and the posthumous epistle before you write Callenbach's version off. He may have had a few motes in his eye but was still a visionary. 

It’s good to dream. We  must continue to build our castles in the air, as Henry said, and then build the ladders to reach them.

So... what's your "ecotopia" look like? 
==
UPDATE: Bill McKibben's "ecotopia", Tuesday night, looked like a well-earned homecoming on the heels of a promising road trip:

My last 24 hours:
1) Do the final show of the #DoTheMath tour -- as usual, a sold-out, full-of-power evening, this one in Salt Lake City with my old friend Terry Tempest Williams.
2) Get myself home for the first time in a long while -- happily, both my wife and dog seemed to recognize me.
3) Open the computer and find this article about the Do the Math Tour and fosil fuel divestment in the New York Times -- a huge, prominent vindication of everyone’s hard work.

The article in The New York Times tells the story of students, faculty and alumni around the country who are demanding divestment from fossil fuels. On a few campuses, like Swarthmore, they’ve been at it for semesters -- but all of a sudden, as the article says, they find themselves “at the vanguard of a national movement. In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks. The students see it as a tactic that could force climate change, barely discussed in the presidential campaign, back onto the national political agenda.”

The picture that accompanies the article comes from our Minneapolis roadshow last Friday night, and the article concisely lays out the demands and the strategy of the campaign. It’s precisely the boost we need. So please, go read it here: www.nyti.ms/SESrfr We’re quickly getting traction, but we can get more if we have your help. So, first things first: please email the article... then start thinking about ways you can join in this fight. If you're a student, you can join in on campus...

And just maybe we can persuade President McPhee to look again at the ACUPCC. Just for starters.

Not a bad close for our semester of "Environmental Ethics and Activism." With all due respect to George Carlin, this was only the beginning.

No worries

With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming

Most of us seem not to be too worried, actually, based on this page one story's failure to crack the Times Top 20...

It was one of those Sundays when the Times was full of fun and fascinating stuff (from my delighted POV) as reflected in the "most e-mailed" list.

Happiness researcher (& former Phil of Happiness author) Sonja Lyubomirsky held the top spot with her reflections on how new love fades. Another story spotlights the trend towards ergonomic workstations. And another notes another trend, of special interest to us parents of restless High School seniors: unCollege.

And there was more: Jellyfish immortality in Japan, Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy, @brainpicker's brilliant Maria Popova, the year's most notable books... but guess what people weren't reading, despite its prominent placement on page one?

With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming

It didn't even crack the Top 20. Meanwhile, our university president was busy again this weekend tweeting his praise for our athletic teams and staying mum about the ACUPCC.

But like so many of my fellow Times subscribers, I still enjoyed my 70-degree December weekend. That's the point, after all, isn't it? To enjoy life?

While it lasts? 

DS, Get it while you can

==

...It occurs to me that I need to draft one more addendum to question #5, as we continue in EEA to dream of “Ecotopia,” touching on my life philosophy with respect to our terrestrial home.

ECO- from the Greek oikos (household or home) -TOPIA from the Greek topos (place)

Carl Sagan said it best: we live out our lives, all of us, on “a pale blue dot… a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.” This astonishing fact must, if anything can, “underscore our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”  U@d, A questionnaire