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The 8 Green Steps to Solartopia
The noble vision of a Solartopian green-powered Earth is at last upon us.
Our eco-future is defined by the four Great Green Truths: we have a global crisis, it has a solution, the solution is winnable, and winning requires a "middle path" of action that is both non-violent and non-stop.
There are technological solutions to the crisis, but they demand political action. Together they comprise the Eight Green Steps to a sustainable world:
1.BAN WASTE AND WAR: Nothing may be produced that cannot be fully recycled or that will not completely bio-degrade. This includes weapons whose sole purpose is death and destruction, and whose manufacture and use must be ended by a global community that knows war to be the ultimate act of ecological suicide.
2.MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY & CONSERVATION: From energy to building materials, food to fiber, water to paper, our resources must be preserved. Our unsustainable consumption and wasteful industries must be made appropriate and efficient, starting with a reborn mass transit system and complete preservation of all remaining virgin land and waters.
3.TRANSCEND FOSSIL/NUKE: King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas) must take its place in the compost heap of history. Our addiction to filthy, finite fossil/nuclear fuels has led us to the brink of economic and ecological collapse. In the new green millennium, we either kick the habit, or it kills us.
4. CONVERT TO RENEWABLES: Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal, wave, current, sustainable bio-fuels and their green siblings are proven, profitable and have time on their side. Each has its imperfections, and no single source will dominate. But union-made renewables sing in economic and ecological harmony, and are the ultimate job-creators.
5. GO ORGANIC: Factory farming, genetically modified crops and chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers are unsustainable. Diverse, community-scaled, reliably organic agriculture is the key to a future fed by food that's fit to eat.
6. TRANSFORM THE CORPORATION: Our most powerful---and destructive---institution claims human rights without human responsibilities. Corporate charters must require social service, ecological accountability and establish a barrier between capitalism and cannibalism. "Green" corporations whose legal mandate still remains limited to accumulating profits will make a mess of the planet as surely as all those that have come before.
7. ASSURE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: Universal hand-counted (recycled) paper ballots and curbs on the power of money to sway elections are the essence of global democracy, as is the demand for social justice. Until all humans are assured the basics of life---food, shelter, clothing, health care, education---democracy and freedom are shallow illusions.
8. EMPOWER WOMEN / CONTROL POPULATION: Where enfranchised, educated, fairly paid and in control of their own bodies, the natural union of women with Mother Earth brings us the children She wishes to support. On a healthy planet, birth rates find their natural level when all children are loved and wanted, which is where Solartopia starts.
This list follows the form of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths and Eight-Fold Path to Enlightenment. But all religions at their core call for universal harmony between people and the planet.
Solartopia is diverse, sustainable, and socially just, the necessary, possible vision of a civilization in which we can all survive and thrive.
See you there!
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7 Comments so far
Show AllTo all those who desire a rapid and total defeat of King CONG:
Support the development of the most efficient renewable technology (patented) to produce electricity and achieve Solartopia:
http://vortexengine.ca
The wide availability of the energy source (CAPE, geothermal or Ocean/Lake thermal) at the time of day and year when most needed, the low investment cost of the technology per KW, and the efficiency of conversion to electricity ($/KW-h) leaves all other renewable power schemes wanting, IMO.
To points number 6 & 7:
Do you advocate for an end to private ownership of property? This would certainly hamper personified corporations, as well, wouldn't it? I've never been able to figure out why I can start an airline, have a plane go down and a bunch of people die, yet not have anything happen to me personally...
Don't get me wrong, I understand it intellectually, I just don't understand it morally or ethically...when you lift someone bodily off of the ground, are you not responsible for bringing them back down safely?
Harvey, I think we have been abandoned by all of our central (federal and to some extent state) governments. They have become incapable of anything except blind perpetuation of a long-term suicidal status quo. They are more of an obstacle to change than a path to change, whatever their current happy-face shill-in-chief says. I think we are on our own. I think we will have to do all this ourselves, but I haven't the faintest idea how...
I started collecting rain water last winter. Have a 5Kw PV system, drip irrigation, support local organic ag, compost the garden and veg scraps, my kids carpool to school, send money to lots of progressive causes, manage green programs at work. I write letters to the editor and vote every time. Sometimes I get out in the street for a demo. But even if 40% of the people in the country did all this (odds vs. are astronomical) we could not forestall forever the coming ecological/political/economic fubar.
I know where I want to go, Harvey. Your piece is a good re-statement. But how to get there?
How to get there? You say you vote--I hope you haven't been voting for Democrats or Republicans. We all need to vote for independent progressives/socialists or, if no such choice is on the ballot, write one in or not vote at all. That's step one on the electoral front.
Mr. Wasserman,
Thank you so much for your tireless pursuit of a Sustainable future. I have followed your career through you website: FreePress. I did't pick up on Sustainability until back in the early days of the 90's, as a tourguide for a Sustainable experiment called Biosphere II, in Oracle, AZ, near where I live today.
I was fired by the benefactor, Ed Bass, along with the original "Biospherians" in a mass firing after a quite chaotic time of biome collapses, under the glass inclosure. For me and other Sustainable converts, learning the nuts and bolts of Sustainability was the experience of a lifetime that changed my career path forever, for the better.
I soon found myself teaching Adult Education at the local community college in the years between 1995 and 2003, but then was forced out. I argued for Sustainable curriculum. I was admonished for being argumentative and either shut up, stick to standardized test preparation or get out.
I quit that March, right after the misguided George II invaded Iraq. I travelled to Bozeman, MT in 2004 and attended a "Satellite" Bioneers Conference. Well, I must say, I felt more deeply than ever that my life's work would be getting the word out on a global climate disaster and worse, a web of life collapse - unstoppable and worldwide.
I've since gone out on my own and co-produced a Satellite Bioneers Conference, unfortunately, the last for Arizona. I now write a weekly Blog on a website, BSOLR.com that I produce and edit. (Pronounce BE SOLAR)
To get to the point: You and the rest of us in this dirty, out-of-control, corporate mess need a vision - an actual Vision! A book, treatise or an easy to imagine world of say in 2050? ...... 2080?
Think of this time (it's said that the target for 2050 is an 85% reduction in CO2 emissions) and ........ say, after implementing your eight necessary changes. What would the world look like to a Rip Van Winkle, who falls asleep in 2009 and wakes 40 or 60 years later?
Ordinary people need a Vision that they can hang their hat on when the hail of propaganda floods the media, like what is happening today. What did you think of the debacle of mudslinging and obfuscation during the 4-day markup of HR 2454, last week? The entrenched wealthy still think they can move away from the horror, unfolding! They is us, too. They need to get with vision ASAP......
Best regards,
Bob Zavoda, Geologist, Sustainable Vision Lecturer, Editor of "The Precautionary Collection", an Internet Site Collection at www.BSOLR.com
PS. I hung out at the Heidleberg South (downstairs) while a student at O.S.U. in '63. Is it still there? I think CD misspelled your last name!
harvey wasserman---thanks for your comments....please visit me at www.solartopia.org. bob, the congress never ceases to amaze. and now obama seems excruciatingly cautious. but after w, not to mention 220 years of white bread presidents, it's easy to cut him some slack...
now: i don't advocate ending property, just CORPORATE monopolies which, as mentioned, are for cannibals, not even capitalists. check out the platforms of the american socialist party 1900-20 as they 're edited in my HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US. i'm for essential private property, but corporate holdings are a different story.
i'll check out the vortex engine. thanks!
the real question is when we'llhave a prez who's not a dem or a rep. gotta crack through somehow. no easy answers just yet.
bob---cd got my name right...write through the solartopia website.
no nukes!!! harveyw
Thank you Mr. Wasserman for you comments. You and Mr Solomon's work on the book Killing Our Own is one of the best and most compelling books I've ever read. For that book alone you'll probably always have my respect and admiration. Keep up the good work. I also find it highly commendable that you read the comments to your articles and reply yourself.