Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace | Tags: Deep Green, Rex Weyler, Sustainability
Cultural habits – like people – go through stages when they face death. Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross described this process as the ‘five stages of grief’ – denial, anger, bargaining and depression, before the final acceptance of reality. In human society, growth economics will eventually collapse in the face of ecological reality. We have witnessed decades of denial and anger about this end of growth, and society now appears to be entering the bargaining stage.
Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace | Tags: Deep Green, Rex Weyler, Sustainability
A reporter from Dubai phoned last week and asked, “Can Dubai become a sustainable city?” and specifically, “Could the tourism industry be sustainable?” In the age of global warming and declining fossil fuels, the entire airline industry is probably not sustainable. Dubai, of course, is not even remotely sustainable.
Dubai is a city built with oil cash, but the global economic recession brought construction schemes to a sudden halt. Many entrepreneurs fled the city, abandoning some 3,000 cars, found with keys in the ignition and maxed-out credit cards in the glove compartments.
Between 2002-2008, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and its partners invested $600 billion US dollars in Dubai, creating the world’s tallest building and largest shopping mall, man-made islands, and an indoor ski hill. Dubai has a beach ‘designed’ by Versace with chilled sand. Meanwhile, sections of the city have no sewage system, so sewage is collected by truck convoys and driven into the desert, where it seeps back through the sand – and reappears on the Versace beaches.
Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace | Tags: Deep Green, Environmentalism, Rex Weyler
Recently, we’ve been hearing about ‘the death of environmentalism’ because – allegedly – the world’s corporations now understand ecology and will solve our problems with investment, innovation, and gung-ho optimism.
Of course, what the investors want to create with all that optimism and ingenuity are profits, not real sustainability.
Critics regularly accuse environmentalists of being ‘doom and gloom’ prognosticators who complain of endless problems, but offer ‘no solutions’. However, if we check the record, we’ll discover that serious ecologists have been offering solutions for centuries.
Filed under: Deep Green, Stop climate change | Tags: Deep Green, Ecology, Global Warming, Rex Weyler
Global warming is a symptom of human overshoot: the consumption and waste that exceeds the biophysical capacity of the Earth. If we attempt to reduce the fever, but ignore the disease, we will, at best, extend the suffering.
Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace, Protect ancient forests, Stop climate change | Tags: Copenhagen, Deep Green, Rex Weyler
An aerial view of the rainforest during the burning season in the Amazon, photographed during a flight from Itaituba to Alta Floresta.
Deforestation contributes to global warming. A rising Earth temperature kills trees and damages forests. Dying trees release more carbon. Atmospheric carbon increases planet temperatures.
This cycle of forest collapse represents a critical feedback loop that will likely drive warming for centuries, change life cycles on Earth in general, and usher in a sweeping transformation of human civilisation.
Worldwide forest destruction – due to logging, human habitat sprawl, and clearing for crops such as soybeans and palm oil – continues at a net loss of about 13 million hectares each year. Many cleared forests are burned on the site. Meanwhile, trees die or grow slower due to global warming. Declining forests absorb less CO2 and release more carbon.
Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace, Stop climate change | Tags: Climate Change, Contdown to Copenhagen, Deep Green, Rex Weyler
Last summer, for the first time in recorded history, boats could circumnavigate the North Pole. To the oblivious observer, this might seem like a good thing. Perhaps some green entrepreneur will build resorts on Finland’s Svalbard Islands. However, as we know, there’s a dark side…
The year 2009 may be the tipping point in human history when society responds to or ignores global warming. The UN climate meeting scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be humanity’s last chance to avoid total chaos. It is too late to avoid some climate chaos.
Filed under: Deep Green, Greenpeace | Tags: Biology, Deep Green, Economics, Rex Weyler, Technology
In the future, economists will return to Earth
The year 2009 will witness a tsunami of economic appeals to fix, as disgraced Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put it, the ‘flaw’ in their thinking. Most will get it wrong.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia 