The Unstoppable Momentum of Natural Forces

Institute of Noetic Sciences blog post by Claudia Welss on COP21 and Subtle Activism: The Unstoppable Momentum of Natural Forces 9 December 2015 By: Claudia Welss, IONS board of directors, Global Coherence Initiative Steering Committee, Gaiafield Project Council   Twenty years ago I was distributing research by the Union of Concerned Scientists to global executives of major corporations as director of executive education at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, trying to get their attention and hoping to influence their policies. The research concluded we had twenty years before Earth and humanity reached a climate tipping point, beyond which there was no…

The Truest Thing I’ve Seen All Year

While we re-imagine this site, I couldn’t resist posting this.  This is Rx not just for people, but for Earth.  We are cells in the planetary body.

THRIVE Movie Premiers 11.11.11

Thanks to NextNowers Vic Desotelle and Bill Daul for circulating to our NextNowNetwork community.  The website is interesting. “My name is Foster Gamble and I’ve spent nearly a lifetime trying to figure out what happened that could account for the staggering agony and deprivation on this planet.  I set out on a journey seeking to answer questions like, is it even possible for humans to thrive?  I found a code, a pattern in nature, that’s been embedded in arts and icons throughout the centuries.  Truth hidden.”

Happy Earth Day. Now Text TREE.

From NextNowCollab partner Marc Ian Barasch and Green World Campaign.  Text TREE and show your support for the planet. On Friday, April 22, from the heart of Times Square, the Green World Campaign will launch a year-long initiative to “ReGreen the World.”  Supported by Earth Day New York, the GWC’s dazzling animated graphics will swirl across jumbo screens day and night, inviting spectators—and people across the country– to Text TREE to 85944 and ReGreen the World. It will be spectacular, with more than 10 jumbo screens involved—including the building-sized NASDAQ and American Eagle—turning Times Square into a virtual forest at…

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…

Making the Invisible Visible 350-Style

Making the Invisible Visible is foundational to NextNow Collab’s mission.  350.org is coordinating a campaign to do just that.  It’s the same concept embraced by the Digital Earth initiatives–images communicate more viscerally than words (or charts, graphs, and tables) especially when the story is a complex one.  Or, as NextNower Bonnie DeVarco (co-author with Eileen Clegg of the forthcoming “Shape of Thought”) puts it, “Words capture ideas.  Images free them.” If any of our NN artists are in any of the cities mentioned below (or can get there) and collaborate on one of these projects please let us know. From…

Adjusting National Economic Development Policy to the New Reality of Ecological Limits

The bad news is, it’s been a lean few months for posts.  The good news is, it’s because we’re too busy doing the work to report it.  Thankfully Global Footprint Network can do both. Below is the Global Footprint Network‘s report to NNC regarding the status of the Ecological Creditor and Debtor Initiative (ECDI) project we are supporting. 2009 REPORT Ecological Creditor and Debtor Initiative To NextNow Collaboratory Overview Thank you; your contributions toward kick-starting the Ecological Creditor and Debtor Initiative (ECDI) over the last year has helped us to generate a global debate about how to best adjust economic…

The Emotional Power of Visualization: Bella Gaia

“The first day or so, we all pointed to our countries.  The third or fourth day, we were pointing to our continents.  By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” Astronaut Bin Salman Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia, Reflections from Space, The Foundation for Global Community (2008) The vision of BELLA GAIA is to bring the power of art, technology, space science, and real scientific data visualizations together, into a context that is both entertaining and educational, fused with a common goal of raising the awareness and appreciation of our home planet. BELLA GAIA can actually visually display how…

COP15: Accepting Responsibility (Huffington Post)

Forwarded by Jim Garrison, State of the World Forum, NextNow Collab collaboration, as, in his view, “an excellent perspective on the reason for the breakdown in Copenhagen today.” William S. Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project HuffingtonPost: December 14, 2009 COP 15: Accepting Responsibility Imagine you’re a well-to-do person attending a dinner of your peers. The food is top-rate and there’s plenty of it. Course after course is laid upon the table. A group of less-advantaged people has been watching from the sidelines. When the dinner is done, you invite them to join you at the table. After the…

Straws are for Suckers: Take the Plastic Pollution Coaliton’s SUPER Hero Pledge (It’s about Climate Change, too)

A few days ago, Timothy Geithner was in a Q & A session with the Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill.  Everyone had a single-use plastic water bottle at their seat.  Everyone.  This scene normally would seem very, well, normal.  But once you understand the perils of single-use plastic, once you’ve been exposed to the crazy reality of a product that lasts 500-1,000 years in the environment but which will be used for 5 minutes, you never see such scenes the same way again.  The illusion begins to become transparent as you visualize the life cycle of most plastic. If…