Errors of Emission

"We are stardust

Billion-year-old carbon

And we've got to get ourselves

back to the garden."

~ Joni Mitchell, lyrics to Woodstock

In the classic, An Inconvenient Truth, Earth steward Al Gore laid out for us, cleanly and with humor, why the way we conduct our lives matters monumentally — and how we each have a stake in the outcome.

He wrote, "If denial is not a river in Egypt, despair is not a tire in the trunk." We're all canaries in the global coalmine: carbon-based life forms whose carbon footprint now resembles Bigfoot. This telescopes everything else — such as what to have for dinner, whether we'll contract avian flu, or where the latest war has erupted — into stark focus.

Gore says, "We're witnessing a collision between our civilization and the Earth. We can't just mindlessly continue the patterns of the past. Our moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable."

He understands the macro issue from a micro perspective. Gore's family used to operate a tobacco farm, and his sister Nancy, who began smoking at age thirteen, died in midlife from lung cancer. For decades we downplayed the Surgeon General's warning. Today, with the link between smoking and cancer well established, close to 100,000 young people worldwide still take up the habit daily.

The same holds true for our planetary body. If we keep "smoking" Earth, she'll soon be burned out. Then life as we know it ceases. Our planet, given an epoch, will regenerate, perhaps to support a more symbiotic life form.

"Environmentally sensitive" people (an estimated 10-40 percent of the U.S. population) are part of our global warning: a voice for the trees, the oceans, our animal kin. It's only a matter of perspective — and time — until we can no longer pretend that climate change isn't altering our reality more surely than any psychotropic substance. Architects in the Netherlands, which is located below sea level, have already developed floating buildings.

Re-Sourcing Ourselves from Life's Well

As we approach the second coming of Atlantis, we're being called to remember that we are all resourceful — full of resources — and that we can re-Source ourselves from the infinite well of creative energy.

Sustainable technology is within our purview. We need only engage more of our elemental mind. Solar (fire), wind (air) and hydro (water) power are available, viable, and affordable. So far we've only tapped petroleum (earth) to its potential — and this doesn't even include biofuels.

There is an Aboriginal axiom, "The more you know, the less you need." The most joy-filled people on Earth aren't the most consumptive. They're the ones who remember our connection with all life, and live that connection as a prayer to both the ancestors and future generations. What they "know" comes not from textbooks, but from ensouled wisdom.

As Gore reminds us, power without wisdom is extremely dangerous. Einstein said, "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe." We've created a humongous microwave oven, and our collective brainpower is cooking inside it.

The question remains: will we choose to transform our errors of emission into values of volition? Can we regain a penchant for all species' survival, which was imprinted in our cellular memory eons before we grew the desire for more horses under the hood?

In a sense, it's a collective conscious evolution exam. We've already united as one planet in a moment of focused emergency: to ban CFCs and begin to close the hole in the ozone layer.

Now we're again at a global choice point. Because there is no greener grass, only greenhouse gas, and no one at whom to point the finger and pass the buck. Our 21^st century dependence on fossil fuel, techno-lifestyles — and past patterns — is only fueling our drive to become fossils faster.

What You Can Do

Each of us is simultaneously a cause of and a solution to climate change. One aware individual can make a small difference. Times 7 billion, the impact is, to say the least, statistically significant.

Some sites to help you take action to reduce your carbon footprint:

http://www.ases.org (solar energy)

http://www.awea.org (wind energy)

http://www.green-e.org (renewable electricity)

http://www.freecycle.org (the ultimate recycling network)

http://www.nativeenergy.com (carbon offsets and renewable energy credits)

http://www.newdream.org/junkmail/optout.php (just say no to junk mail)

http://www.earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm (why what we eat matters)

http://www.weathervane.rff.org/Pages/default.aspx (research and policy)

http://www.graduationpledge.org (grads pledge to choose socially and environmentally responsible employment)

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/jobs/index.cfm (global green jobs)

Lights Out! And More Power to You

I encourage people daily to Live Your Light — and we're all letting our light shine more brilliantly than ever before. As we reclaim our inner radiance, it's ever more crucial to reduce our man-made light to co-create a sustainable future. This Saturday is your chance: the 6th annual Earth Hour.

What began as a one-time event organized by World Wildlife Fund/Australia in 2007 rapidly rolled out to countries around the globe. In 2011, Earth Hour saw hundreds of millions of people across 135 countries switch off the power for an hour. But it also marked the start of going beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action on climate change.

There's now an awesome Earth Hour dare: an "I will if you will" YouTube channel that showcases the creative and amusing extent committed planetary citizens will go to for environmental action.

So set your clocks for "lights out" at 8:30 pm local time on March 31st — and let it be your inspiration to shrink your carbon footprint for good.

Blessings!

Obama Helped Stranded Stranger 20 Years Ago

Walkin' it: this heartwarming story demonstrates just why the man we've elected as the 44th US president is the Lightworker who will lead the charge to change:

Obama Helps Reunite Norwegian Newlyweds

08.08.08: Change Is Infinite!

Friday, 08.08.08, heralds not only the Beijing Olympics, but a worldwide moment for peace: the number 8 on its side signifies infinity, and 8 has always been the number of change numerologically.

Link up with your global siblings on Worldwide Moment and share your ideas for creating a more equitable, loving, harmonious place to live.

Blessed Be!

Relocating to ... Mars?

Could the Red Planet be our next home? If climate change continues at its present pace on both planets, perhaps.

A pair of geology professors has just discovered that Alaska and Mars share some strikingly similar geological formations, caused in both cases by an astonishing number of snow and ice avalanches — caused, in turn, by temperature changes. Global warming is apparently occurring on both worlds, but since the median temperature on Mars is -81 degrees F., we've got a ways to go before our prospective new habitat will be too hot for humans to handle.

So start packing.

Peace Through Creativity

I've written about how we can create planetary peace by telling ourselves a new story about the world we've created. Celia Fenn takes this concept a step further by advocating creativity itself as the way through and beyond anger and despair.

In her current Earthlog, she writes, "Peace is not just the absence of conflict ... it is a profound state of consciousness that expresses compassion, love and unity through creativity. In order to move beyond conflict in our lives and globally, we need to enter into this state of creativity, harmony and peace."

What does creative peacemaking look like? Celia quotes Brazilian Jaime Lerner, who speaks about changing cities through stewardship: "When I was governor, we had to clean the bays. In our state we proposed to the fishermen the equation of co-responsibility. We said: 'If you catch the fish, the fish belong to you. If you catch the garbage we are going to pay you. The more you fish garbage, the more money you will have.' The more they cleaned the bay, they more fish they had. That's a win-win solution."

Lerner maintains that global issues such as climate change, food shortages, resource depletion and sustainability are not "terminal"; we must not give up in fear that there's nothing we can do to change what we have created.

The more creative we can be in shifting our perspective on cities themselves, and on the problems that need to be solved, the closer we'll be to a truly new world.