The New Science of Remote Causation

We’re supporting this campaign/experiment to determine if something real is being measured….

I Controlled a Huge Freakin’ Laser With My Mind!  The New Science of Remote Causation by Tam Hunt, UC Santa Barbara

Reprinted from the Santa Barbara Independent Journal, Wednesday, March 27, 201

I contrive no hypotheses. ~ Isaac Newton, discussing gravity in Principia Mathematica

Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist who ever lived, did of course make many hypotheses about gravity. In fact, he developed an incredibly profound general theory of gravity that united such seemingly different phenomena as a falling apple and the circling of the planets around the Sun. His theory of gravity stood firm for over two centuries before Einstein argued convincingly that Newton’s theory was incomplete. (Einstein’s general theory of relativity renders Newton’s theory a “limiting case.”)

What Newton refused to do, however, was speculate about exactly how gravity works its magic. Gravity just is, and Newton apparently recognized that his era’s scientific knowledge was not sufficient to go beyond the equations that formed his theory of gravity. He contrived no hypotheses1 as to the mechanism behind gravity, but he recognized fully that it seemed to be some kind of “action at a distance” that operates quite differently than through direct contact, which is how the world around us operates more generally.

Cause and effect is what physics is all about, and science more generally. What causes what? Even though we can never make definitive statements about what caused what, we can probe correlations and make reasonable inferences.

The most familiar form of causation is the direct contact of push and pull. A billiard ball bounces directly away from the cue ball due to the direct contact of ball upon ball. The energy from the pool cue is transferred by the pool player’s arm to the cue ball and then to the second ball.

But even this extremely simple form of cause and effect is not as simple as matter pushing matter. Rather, the electromagnetic force that holds the molecules of the balls together is the intermediary for these actions. Electromagnetism is in fact the most important force at our scale of reality: It holds all molecules together and it allows us to see, hear, touch, etc. The billiard balls don’t actually touch. Rather, the electromagnetic forces generated by the molecules in each ball repel each other.

Gravity keeps us, as well as apples, on terra firma, and plays a very large role in the universe outside of the scale of human life. But it is electromagnetism that forms the basis for life and much of our existence as earth-bound organisms, due to its attractive/repulsive qualities at the molecular level.

What’s behind the various forces of nature?

Electromagnetism – the combination of electricity and magnetism, which we know now are different aspects of a single force – was described comprehensively by Maxwell and others in the 19th Century. These scientists developed what are now known as “Maxwell’s equations,” even though their modern form wasn’t actually Maxwell’s work. While we can describe electromagnetism quite well mathematically, and predict its workings based on these equations, there is still no consensus as to what electromagnetismactually is.

The photon is a massless particle that carries the electromagnetic force. Einstein stated around 1955, shortly before his death: “A full 50 years of deliberate brooding have not brought me any closer to the question: What is the [photon]? Today every clod thinks he knows it, but he deceives himself.” Einstein had for decades tried unsuccessfully to develop various field theories of electromagnetism and the other forces, but still couldn’t say what the photon really is. For Einstein, in his later work, fields were fundamental. Despite significant development of field theory since Einstein’s era, we’re not much closer today in understanding what the photon is.

Similarly, we still don’t know the mechanism for gravity with any certainty. Einstein’s general relativity suggests that matter and energy literally curve space, and gravity simply reflects the easiest path for matter and energy to follow as it moves through curved space. It’s a two-way street, then, with matter/energy curving space and curved space causing matter/energy to change its trajectory.

However, the Standard Model of particle physics, based on the other pillar of modern physics – quantum mechanics – suggests that gravity works through the exchange of “gravitons” (boson particles) between massive bodies. The Higgs Boson is yet another way in which today’s physics attempts to explain gravity, and it made big news in 2012 due to evidence suggesting it had actually been found by the Large Hadron Collider.

Reconciling these two different models, general relativity and quantum theory, is the objective of theories of quantum gravity, none of which are yet widely accepted. String theory is the most popular approach to quantum gravity, though it has yet to lead to any experimental verification, and it suggests, through its “brane cosmology” approach, additional ideas on gravity that go beyond both the quantum mechanical and general relativity notions of gravity.

So who’s counting? How many forces are there?

Anyway, my point is to show that our physical understanding of cause and effect is still quite nascent and always evolving. While there is a broad consensus that there are only four fundamental forces or interactions – gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear force – there are also serious efforts underway to explain key observations through additional forces.

For example, dark energy, which is thought to comprise the majority of the matter/energy in the universe (about 70%), would itself constitute a new force. Specifically, dark energy is posited as the force behind the accelerating expansion of our universe, and also of the very early inflationary period that saw our universe expand from minute dimensions to a sizeable fraction of its current size in literally millionths of a second.

Yet another possible new force or interaction is suggested by the strong evidence for quantum entanglement, which appears to operate far faster than the speed of light. In 2008, a Swiss team led by Daniel Salart showed that entanglement operates at, at the least, 10,000 times the speed of light. What’s behind this effect? No one really knows yet, but apparently it is not one of the traditional four forces.

So, even without getting very exotic in our survey of different physical theories (which is certainly a relative notion given the extremely broad array of theories in physics today!), we can make a good argument that there should be at least six fundamental forces. A seventh force is compound interest. Einstein declared that “the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.” Okay, that’s a joke…

Action at a distance

Now, here’s where I’m going with all of this discussion about cause and effect, and forces of nature: While action at a distance, mediated by fields or force particles like the photon or graviton, is very much part of our mainstream physical and cosmological theories, action at a distance when it comes to human causation is far too often dismissed as impossible or as wacky “woo woo” science. And despite its wide recognition in physics, we still don’t know much about the actual mechanisms behind such action at a distance, for example, with respect to gravity or quantum entanglement.

In fleshing out a more complete understanding of the physical world, and the role of mind in the physical world, we are gathering substantial evidence that the human mind may have a broader causal role than has been assumed. It seems clear that human minds can directly impact more than just our immediate bodies. Dean Radin’s excellent book, Entangled Minds, surveys the field of what is known often as parapsychology or extrasensory perception.

The data in this field are certainly debatable and the effects are clearly subtle, if they are indeed real. If they weren’t subtle, there would be far less controversy surrounding them. However, there is one area of parapsychology that I’ve found pretty convincing, and I’ve now been personally involved with research in this area – I’m referring to work with random number generators (RNGs) and the influence of mass celebrations on the output of electronic RNGs.

This is a really interesting area of research but it takes a little background to explain it. Traditional random-number generators include dice, coins, shuffled cards or any physical device used to produce a random outcome. Modern RNGs, however, are small electronic devices that produce zeros and ones (bits) randomly (hence the name). They’re traditionally used in cryptography, gambling, and other areas by producing true randomness and thus foiling attempts to algorithmically discover passwords or predict outcomes. However, there is a more recent tradition of using RNGs to probe the impact of minds on matter, and the evidence produced is increasingly convincing that there is a causal link between mind and matter.

Probably the best way to explain this area of science further is to explain the experiments that I’ve been involved with recently. I’m a visiting scholar in psychology at UC Santa Barbara (under Professor Jonathan Schooler) and I’m also a regular Burning Man attendee (a “Burner” in the parlance of this sub-culture). I’ve met some very interesting people by being a regular at this massive celebration in the Nevada desert. About 50,000 people attend each year, celebrating music, art, and collaborative creation.

A few years ago I met Cassandra Vieten, the executive director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California. IONS focuses on frontier science, which includes working toward a better understanding of the relationship between mind and matter. IONS was founded by Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon. Mitchell was so inspired by a profound spiritual experience as he hurtled back to Earth that he wanted to re-direct some scientific attention to phenomena that are too often denied as impossible by mainstream science. IONSwas the result.

Vieten, Schooler (another Burner), and I were chatting at the Burn in 2010 about the research that IONS does, and we decided it would be awesome and fun to do some RNG experiments at Burning Man. Many past experiments have shown a correlation between mass celebrations, like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, and a deviation from randomness in RNGs. The reasonable inference from these correlations is that there is a causal link between the mass focus on a single event, and whatever mechanisms produce the random events in the RNG.

The twist in our idea was that we decided to add a huge freakin’ laser to our experiment, connecting the output of the RNG to a laser in order to show, visually, any deviation from randomness. This would, we hypothesized, create a positive feedback loop and the effect would be enhanced.

We turned this idle talk into reality in 2012 by completing our first experiment on the Playa, which is where the Burning Man event is held each year. It worked! We obtained strong evidence of a correlation between the collective focus of thousands of minds on the burning of the Man (which happens on Saturday night every year), and the burning of the Temple (another major structure that is integral to the Burning Man celebration, on Sunday night), and the output of our RNGs.

Figure 1 shows the key result of our experiment: a strong spike in deviations from randomness during the burning of the Man, with a p value of 0.004. (A p value of 0.05, which means one-in-twenty odds of the result occurring due entirely to chance, is considered standard in most areas of science; a value of 0.004 is far more significant and means that the odds of our results occurring entirely due to chance were four in one thousand).

Unfortunately, our huge freakin’ laser wasn’t very huge and it didn’t function very well due to various technical problems. So we’re going back this year, in August, to repeat the experiment and use a really big laser, in collaboration with other more experienced laser technicians. We’re going to use a 30-watt laser rather than the one-watt laser we used last year. A 30-watt laser is easily visible across the whole Playa, so the positive feedback loop should be substantial. Yes, it’s huge!

But what does it all mean?

At the end of the day, what does all this mean? Who cares if there’s a tiny impact from mass celebrations on the output of zeros and ones from a little electronic device? Well, first, we think it’s just really cool and intriguing that this stuff works at all. It’s denied as impossible by many scientists today. Personally, I think the really powerful result of this research is to show that we could in theory,if we can amplify what are obviously very subtle effects, use just our minds to influence macroscopic events in the world around us.

There is an ironic convergence of traditional science and this frontier science, when we consider that “mind reading” using electromagnetic technologies is advancing quickly. Using various types of brain imaging, we can now tell what words subjects are thinking (from a pre-selected list only, at this point); and monkeys have used the power of their minds, implanted with electrodes, to control mechanical arms.

It may be the case that using electromagnetism alone will be the more fruitful path to manipulating macro events with thoughts alone. However, understanding that there may be other ways for mind to influence matter is really important for a more complete physical understanding of the universe, and it may give rise to more options for helping physically disabled persons to transcend their disabilities, allow us to create interesting new forms of entertainment, and perhaps help in many other human endeavors.

We’re in the middle of a crowd-funding campaign to pay for the laser and other equipment for round two of our RNG experiment at this year’s Burning Man. If you’re inspired by these ideas, please contribute something to our Indiegogo campaign or spread the word more generally:

Who knows – you may be helping to usher in a really exciting paradigm shift in how we understand physical reality. And maybe you too can one day control a huge freakin’ laser with your mind!

Gone in 60 Nanoseconds (Repost)

All I can say is *Just In Time* (and I have a new favorite joke).

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: October 6

“We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender.A neutrino walks into a bar.

— Joke circulating on the Internet

The world as we know it is on the brink of disintegration, on the verge of dissolution. No, I’m not talking about the collapse of the euro, of international finance, of the Western economies, of the democratic future, of the unipolar moment, of the American dream, of French banks, of Greece as a going concern, of Europe as an idea, of Pax Americana — the sinews of a postwar world that feels today to be unraveling.

I am talking about something far more important. Which is why it made only the back pages of your newspaper, if it made it at all. Scientists at CERN, the European high-energy physics consortium, have announced the discovery of a particle that can travel faster than light.

Neutrinos fired 454 miles from a supercollider outside Geneva to an underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, Italy, took less time (60 nanoseconds less) than light to get there. Or so the physicists think. Or so they measured. Or so they have concluded after checking for every possible artifact and experimental error.

The implications of such a discovery are so mind-boggling, however, that these same scientists immediately requested that other labs around the world try to replicate the experiment. Something must have been wrong — some faulty measurement, some overlooked contaminant — to account for a result that, if we know anything about the universe, is impossible.

And that’s the problem. It has to be impossible because, if not, if that did happen on this Orient Express hurtling between Switzerland and Italy, then everything we know about the universe is wrong.

The fundamental axiom of Einstein’s theory of relativity is the absolute prohibition on speed faster than light. Einstein’s predictions about how time slows and mass increases as one approaches the speed of light have been verified by a mountain of experimental evidence. As velocity increases, mass approaches infinity and time dilates, making it progressively and, ultimately, infinitely difficult to achieve light speed. Which is why nothing does. And nothing ever has.

Until two weeks ago Thursday.

That’s when the results were announced. To oversimplify grossly: If the Gran Sasso scientists had a plate to record the arrival of the neutrinos and a super-powerful telescope to peer (through the Alps!) directly into the lab in Geneva from which they were being fired, the Gran Sasso guys would have “heard” the neutrinos clanging against the plate before they observed the Geneva guys squeeze the trigger on the neutrino gun.

Sixty nanoseconds before, to be precise. Wrap your mind around that one.

It’s as if someone told you that yesterday at drive time Topeka was released from Earth’s gravity. These things don’t happen. Natural laws don’t just expire between shifts at McDonald’s.

Not that there aren’t already mysteries in physics. Neutrinos themselves are ghostly particles that travel through nearly everything unimpeded. (Thousands are traversing your body as you read this.) But that is simplicity itself compared to quantum mechanics, whose random arbitrariness so offended Einstein that he famously objected that God does not play dice with the universe.

Aphorisms don’t trump reality, however. They are but a frail, poignant protest against a universe that often disdains the most cherished human notions of order and elegance, truth and beauty.

But if quantum mechanics was a challenge to human sensibilities, this pesky Swiss-Italian neutrino is their undoing. It means that Einstein’s relativity — a theory of uncommon beauty upon which all of physics has been built for 100 years — is wrong. Not just inaccurate. Not just flawed. But deeply, fundamentally, indescribably wrong.

It means that the “standard model” of subatomic particles that stands at the center of all modern physics is wrong.

Nor does it stop there. This will not just overthrow physics. Astronomy and cosmology measure time and distance in the universe on the assumption of light speed as the cosmic limit. Their foundations will shake as well.

It cannot be. Yet, this is not a couple of guys in a garage peddling cold fusion. This is no crank wheeling a perpetual motion machine into the patent office. These are the best researchers in the world using the finest measuring instruments, having subjected their data to the highest levels of scrutiny, including six months of cross-checking by 160 scientists from 11 countries.

But there must be some error. Because otherwise everything changes. We shall need a new physics. A new cosmology. New understandings of past and future, of cause and effect. Then shortly and surely, new theologies.

Why? Because we can’t have neutrinos getting kicked out of taverns they have not yet entered.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Happy Holidays from N e x t N o w Collab

Every year we choose our favorite holiday greeting to share.  This one comes from AlianzaClimate in Panama, a new NGO alliance building bridges to link business, government and the UN in climate leadership.

Happy Holidays

 

Earth Island Journal Article by NextNower Manuel Maqueda

Manuel Maqueda (founder of NextNow Collab’s Trash Island project) reminds us in this report that single-use plastic is used for applications that last days, hours, minutes or even seconds but pollutes our environment for hundreds of years.

Earth Island Reports

Plastic Pollution Coalition

The Bioplastic Labyrinth

Plastic is a material that Earth cannot digest. Every bit of plastic ever produced still exists and will be here with us for hundreds of years. Once in the environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller particles that attract toxic chemicals, are ingested by wildlife on land and in the ocean, and contaminate our food chain.

Our oceans and waterways are full of these small particles, which currents accumulate in convergence zones called gyres, located in the center of the word’s oceans. The most notable of these is called “the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” but while the idea of a giant patch of garbage in the ocean is unsettling, the reality is more so: a planetary soup of small bits of plastic that circulate throughout the water column and which we have no hope of cleaning up.

However, plastics are not destroying our environment and compromising our health by themselves. It is our use of them that has catastrophic consequences. A material that lasts hundreds of years in the environment should never be used for applications that last seconds, minutes, hours, or even days. In addition, a material that has complex, non-transparent formulations involving toxic additives should not be in contact with our food and drink.

Chris Jordan. Sea birds and fish have a hard time distinguishing plastic from food. When they eat the stuff, they cannot digest it, and eventually die with bellies so full of plastic that no food or water can pass through them.

Plastic pollution is not a problem created by improper disposal. It is a problem created by irresponsible design, paired with unsustainable throwaway habits. Add in the lack of producer responsibility, and the omission of the precautionary principle when it comes to product toxicity, and you have a perfect environmental and human health storm.

As the magnitude and the human health implications of our plastic pollution problem are better understood, there is more and more buzz about plastics that are bio-based, biodegradable, or compostable. Many eco-minded people see in them an easy solution to our plastic pollution problems. The reality, however, is not that simple.

With new types of plastics should also come a concern over how we use plastics, bio-based or otherwise. Biodegradable plastics may or may not be the next best step, depending on the properties of these new materials – but also depending on the particular object or application we are seeking to replace.

For many disposable plastics, solutions already exist, such as reusables (lasting bags, bottles, cutlery, cups, etc.) or alternative materials (such as metal, glass or paper.)

Currently, manufacturers are not responsible for the end-life of their products. Once an item leaves their factories, it’s no longer the company’s problem. Therefore, we don’t have a system by which adopters of these new bioplastics would be responsible for recovering, composting, recycling, or doing whatever needs to be done with them after use. Regarding toxicity, the same broken and ineffective regulatory system is in charge of approving bioplastics for food use, and there is no reason to assume that these won’t raise just as many health concerns as conventional plastics have. Yet again, it will be an uphill battle to ban those that turn out to be dangerous.

Terminology-wise, we need to be extremely careful with the word “bioplastic.” It’s a neurolinguistic booby trap. Bioplastics, just like regular plastics, are synthetic polymers; it’s just that plants are being used instead of oil to obtain the carbon and hydrogen needed for polymerization. Bioplastic may or may not be biodegradable, may or may not be toxic, just like any other plastic. A plastic such as high-density polyethylene HDPE can be 100 percent bio-based (for instance 100 percent organic hemp), and yet still be non-biodegradable. The public, however, is led to think that any bio-based plastic is biodegradable, which is not at all the case. Dasani and Coke’s “Plant Bottle” is a notorious example of this type of greenwashing.

Some bioplastics, however, are indeed biodegradable and compostable. The problem is that there is no agreement on what this really means, and under what circumstances. One has to read the fine print for each manufacturer and for each type of product, and often rely on the industry’s self-awarded certifications. Biodegradability usually requires industrial composting facilities, which are few and far between – and make us wonder who is actually responsible for taking these plastics to those facilities after disposal. Also, composting is a much longer cycle than recycling, and the vast majority of bioplastics are not cradle-to-cradle recyclable. Some, in fact, contaminate the downcycling of conventional plastics.

There’s also the question of ecological footprint. In order to make bioplastics we need land, water, energy, and often pesticides and genetically modified crops. Given the enormity of our plastic consumption, one wonders what impacts we would see on food prices and resources if we transitioned to bio-based packaging.

In comparison, using paper, glass, or metal is simple: We know the ingredients, we know that these materials truly are recyclable, and we have the infrastructure and resources to produce and recycle them today. Reusable items, meanwhile, are simply better for the environment.

Nobody wants to demonize biodegradable plastics. However, we should ask tough questions before accepting anything new with a green label on it. Otherwise our eagerness to solve a problem might make us easy victims of greenwashing or lead us in a direction that could trigger or aggravate other environmental and health problems. Even worse, we might be hampering or delaying the adoption of effective, sustainable solutions, namely changes of habits, and deep changes in the ways products are designed, manufactured, packaged and discarded.

— Manuel Maqueda

Take Action

At Plastic Pollution Coalition we are junking our disposable habits and composting the throwaway society that has destroyed our planet and compromised our health. Our organization calls for the elimination of useless, senseless single-use and throwaway plastic junk, starting with bags, bottles, plastic cutlery, straws, excessive packaging, and a great deal of other things we can give up or replace with alternatives now. See www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org for more information.

Support the Bag Ban! (AB1998)

California’s AB 1998 would ban plastic bags and encourage reusable bag use at grocery stores, pharmacies, and convenience stores. Plastic bags are a primary component of urban litter. And urban litter is the primary component of marine pollution. You may not know it, but you’re probably already paying for that because plastic pollution costs California families hundreds of dollars annually in hidden cleanup costs. Retailers distribute approximately 19 billion plastic carryout bags annually. Imagine the real damage that much plastic can do to the environment. For more information and to support the bag ban, visit http://www.cawrecycles.org.

Share This Parody With A Purpose: (No) Plastic State of Mind

NextNow Collaboratory is at the center of mobilizing a citizen movement against single-use plastic by shifting awareness.  NextNower Manuel Maqueda is co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition and project manager of Trash Island, a NextNow Collab project.  Recently, as an Advisor to PPC, Claudia Welss contacted the recently launched WorldShift Movement to to add the “Fourth R”–Refuse–to their “Shift One Thing Campaign“:

(Actually, “Refuse” should be the FIRST R–Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.)

“REFUSE single-use, disposable plastics such as drinking straws, bottled water at conferences, plastic to-go containers, etc. which will send a message to the purchasers of these items, and will eventually stem the tide of plastics being produced.  The same is true of other dangerous products.  Reducing helps, but Refusing is a World Shifting act. Read more on the Plastic Pollution Coalition web site.”

Today we were alerted by NextNowers Bill Daul and Miriam Karell of Three Point Vision of a new video created by Green Sangha (Miriam is on their board) and New Message Media called “Plastic State of Mind“.  We love this “Parody With a Purpose”–please pass it on!

(By the way, we know Ashel Eldridge, aka Seasunz, not just as a Spoken Word Poet, but as a Green For All Fellow…He’s worth following.)

Global Footprint Network Issues Earth’s Overdraft Notice TODAY

Reprinted from NNC collaborator Global Footprint Network:

On August 21, We Exceed Nature’s Budget

It has taken humanity less than nine months to exhaust its ecological budget for the year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations.

Today, humanity reaches Earth Overshoot Day: the day of the year in which human demand on the biosphere exceeds what it can regenerate. As of today, humanity has demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can regenerate this year.  For the rest of the year, we will meet our ecological demand by depleting resource stocks and accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“If you spent your entire annual income in nine months, you would probably be extremely concerned,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “The situation is no less dire when it comes to our ecological budget. Climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water and food shortages are all clear signs: We can no longer finance our consumption on credit. Nature is foreclosing.”

Click to watch video

Earth Overshoot Day Occurring Earlier Than Ever

Last year, Earth Overshoot Day was observed on September 25, 2009. This year, the day is estimated to come more than a month earlier. This is not due to a sudden surge in human demand, but rather to improvements in the calculation methodology that enable us to more adequately capture the extent of overshoot. For example, our latest data show we have less grazing land than previously estimated. As a result, the ratio of how much we use as compared to how much we have has increased. The graph below shows when Earth Overshoot Day would have occurred in past years based on our most recent accounting of overshoot.

How big is humanity’s total Ecological Footprint? See our Footprint ticker in global acres and global hectares.

Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by UK-based new economics foundation, is calculated by comparing our demand (as calculated by the Ecological Footprint) against nature’s supply (as calculated by biocapacity.) This ratio shows that in just 233 days, we demand the amount of biocapacity that the planet will generate in 12 months. The 233^rd day of the year is August 21.

“We would expect our estimates of overshoot to be, if anything, conservative.” Wackernagel said. “We know we are far from living within the means of one planet. The good news is, much of the technology we have to begin to address this problem is available and it is open source: things like compact urban design, energy-efficient housing, ecological tax reform, removal of resource subsidies, safe and affordable family planning, bicycles, low-meat diets, and life-cycle costing.”

(Click here to calculate your own Ecological Footprint and learn what you can do to reduce it.)

The 2010 figure is derived from preliminary assessments of 2007 data, and projections based on historical rates of change for biocapacity and Ecological Footprint, as well as the historical link between world GDP and resource demand. (Click here for more information.)

These calculations show pressure on ecological resources continuing to rise, even in the face of a worldwide economic slowdown. This is due in part to continued population growth and in part to the fact that, globally, per capita consumption is continuing to increase even if, in certain countries, it may have declined as a result of the recession.

Living Within Our Means

Global Footprint Network and its international partner network are dedicated to addressing the problem of overshoot by making ecological limits central to decision-making at all levels.

Learn how we are working with governments and businesses to incorporate Ecological Footprint accounting into their investment and policy choices.

Learn about our international partner network and how they are working to create a “one planet” society.

You can work to end overshoot by making changes in your own life, supporting organizations that are working to reduce human demand on the biosphere (including greenhouse gas emissions) and challenging your leaders to take the actions necessary to maintain natural capital and enable us to live within our means.

NextNow Collab Joins World Resources Simulation Center and Save the Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010

NextNow Collab has become an institutional partner of the World Resources Simulation Center (WRSC) to help create powerful community around the use of information visualization tools to globally “visualize our resources, assess our needs, compare strategies and choose the best course of action.”  Anyone familiar with the goals of NextNow Collab will immediately recognize the synergy between the two organizations.

On Wednesday, March 31 from 6-7:30 p.m., Natural Logic (NextNower Gil Friend) and NextNow Collaboratory will host an event for WRSC at our collaboration space at the Strawberry Creek Design Center in Berkeley to introduce this critical work to our broader community and to help raise funds to support the work. Details will be posted here as they become available.  Please save the date so you can join us.

For more information on joining this collaboration see the World Resources Simulation Center page and visit their website, which has great links to examples of visualization technologies and new technology demonstrations on their homepage.

State of the World Forum Indefinitely Postponed: Letter from Jim Garrison

Dear Friends,

I want to inform you that we have decided to postpone indefinitely the Washington conference Feb. 28 – Mar. 3. There is simply not a critical mass of receptivity at this time for the kind of “Climate Summit” we have designed, which has emphasized an integral approach to climate change and the need for an “urgency coalition” to come together to take immediate and decisive action to resolve the climate crisis

As disappointed as we are that the conference will not take place, the considered opinion of all our conference partners has been that this is simply not the right time to convene a major conference of this kind in the nation’s capitol.  It would have virtually no impact on either the thinking or the agenda with which the U.S. Congress and the president are now engaged, such is the paralysis to which Washington has succumbed with regard to any action on global warming. In due course, this situation will no doubt change, probably induced by a sufficiently strong climate related catastrophe, but this is the stark reality we face at the moment. As a result, raising funds and registering sufficient numbers have been extremely challenging.

State of the World Forum will in time convene a Climate Summit in Washington but that time is not now. We need to put our energy elsewhere. While a single conference has been postponed, the over-all strategy of the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign will continue to unfold. We believe that the process in which we engaged, the dialogue that transpired, and the contacts and partnerships that we developed around the event, will prove to be tremendously valuable as we move forward.

For those in the United States, it seems time to work, as Governor Schwarzenegger urges, at the sub national level as he has done so effectively in California. The fact that Washington seems incapable of action is actually an opportunity for traction locally in specific cities, states and regions.  This is where the 2020 Campaign in the U.S. will focus its energy – supporting local initiatives and strategies. There is very significant work being done which inexorably will turn the tide.

For example, we are supporting the Pachamama Alliance around their Four Years.Go campaign that is seeking to mobilize concerted action within the next four years; Lester Brown and his work through his Plan Be 4.0; Bill Becker and his effort to impact executive policy through the Presidential Climate Action Project; the Climate Prosperity Alliance in their efforts to build growth economies by taking up the challenge of global warming; Osprey Lake and her Women’s Leadership Caucus that is mobilizing women around the country; Carol and Tom Brayford who are doing extraordinary work in St. Louis to generate a city wide effort to green the city; and David Gershon and his Cool Community campaigns all over the country mobilizing city wide efforts at CO2 reduction.  All these efforts, and many more, are of critical importance in developing forward momentum.

More broadly, we must recognize that Washington is not alone in its inability take serious action with regard to global warming, especially in the aftermath of Copenhagen.  The net result of COP 15 was the collapse of the Kyoto Accords and the attempt to get the nations of the world to agree on common goals, fair financing, and a realistic timeframe. The only agreement to emerge seems to have been a vague commitment to share information, with each nation now basically on its own and free to set its own goals, timeframes, and standards.

It should also be noted that civil society in Copenhagen was essentially as disorganized and incoherent as our governments. There was no over-arching set of common demands, little coordination between groups, and no sense of what to do collectively in the aftermath of the inevitable failure of the negotiations.  The NGOs were in fact summarily excluded from the negotiations in the final week, with little drama and no public outcry. This indicates just how complicated and politicized climate discussions have become and how well organized the fossil fuel lobby and conservative elements are in national and international affairs in blocking any forward momentum.

An important learning from the postponement of the Washington conference is that the difficulty we had in crafting a single coherent marketing message and agreeing on the best possible audience, purpose and intended result is, in fact, a reflection of the complexity and the chaotic state of the climate change discussion in general.

We thus move into 2010 with the climate crisis intensifying but climate politics adrift and civil society as disorganized about what to do as our governments, and not only in the U.S. but worldwide, with precious few exceptions.  There is enormous work to be done both at the level of strategy and at the level of engaging in concrete actions that actually make a difference.

What is essential moving forward is to discern where the energy is and where climate leadership is emerging.  Looking internationally, the most dynamic leadership seems to be coming from Brazil where President Lula has just signed into law a bill passed by a strong majority of the Brazilian Congress to reduce CO2 emissions by just under 40% by 2020, which includes a commitment to reduce deforestation by 80% by 2020. It is always easy, of course, for politicians to make bold pronouncements and Brazil is no exception, but unlike most countries at least Brazil is making the bold pronouncements. Contrast this, for example, with the U.S. offer at Copenhagen to reduce CO2 by 4% and not even being able to get this passed by the Congress.

The Brazil 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign has been deeply involved in shaping climate leadership in Brazil. This was why State of the World Forum launched the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign in Belo Horizonte last August. Recognizing Brazil as a climate leader allows us to work in the United States and elsewhere with a solid referent and a locus of vision and action.  It would be an extraordinary advance if we could mobilize countries around the world to join Brazil and commit to 40% reductions in CO2 by 2020. This is half way to our campaign goal of 80% by 2020, a very good start.

Of course many other nations besides Brazil are taking leadership. Costa Rica and Sweden have made dramatic commitments, and the EU is committed to making progress. China has become the world leader in clean technology and is on an aggressive march to develop renewable energy. Bolivian president Evo Morales is convening a post Copenhagen gathering in that country in April.  All these efforts, and many others, are deserving of support.  As possible, we should be convening 2020 Campaigns and events in countries developing dynamic progress and action.

One of our 2020 campaigners Susana Osiguera is working hard in Mexico as well, where COP 16 will take place this next December, probably on the same scale as Copenhagen.  Susana is putting together a Mexican Climate Leadership Initiative. Goodnews Cadogan is also active in South Africa along similar lines. Johannesburg will be the site of COP 17 in 2011.  We just learned that a number of groups have come together in Nigeria around the 2020 goals and want to collaborate. Peter Merry and Morel Fourman took the Meshworks to the next level of refinement in Copenhagen, building on what they pioneered in Belo Horizonte, and they are building the 2020 network in Europe. Richard Hames and Laurent Labormene are hard at work in Australia developing 2020 plans.

What is clear is that the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign is gaining traction in many ways and in many areas of the world.  We are in this for the long haul – at least for the next ten years through 2020. Postponing the Washington event was a necessary tactical retreat in an area of the world where climate politics are especially fraught and counterproductive right now. The U.S. is simply no longer the center of gravity for the world and we must adjust accordingly. We must continue to expand where the situation is the most conducive and where climate leadership emerges, especially at the sub national level where so much dynamism is taking place, including in the U.S.

I will be in touch shortly with further updates and areas for collaboration.

Warm Regards,

Jim Garrison
President
State of the World Forum

Happy Holidays from NextNow Collaboratory

Last year we posted a card from 1Sky.org. This year, it’s from….Starbucks?!?

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Here’s wishing everyone, everywhere, a happy holiday season and a Very New Year, full of the energies of Love.  Love is All We Need.

Pre-Copenhagen Sunday “Funnies” Courtesy of New Internationalist: International Climate Slam-Down

Not So Funny:  Gort and Klaatu’s International Climate Slam-Down by Marc Roberts and Marc Hudson, in the December 2009 New Internationalist.

Happy Sunday.