Bloggers Unite:     

Vote Green
 

To Stop the Abuse
 

Of All who Depend
 

Upon a Clean and
 

Natural Planetary
 

Environment!

September 27 is Bloggers Unite
Against Abuse Day:
MP³ is Proud to Participate

By Hank Edson

The hardest part about abuse in all its forms is that it almost always involves a cycle of repetition magnified through a complex network of co-dependent relationships, wreaking a social havoc that spreads outward in incalculable shudders through the lives of one’s community, as an earthquake shaking city skyscrapers. Such is the case with the largest scale, if not yet the most violent or egregious, case of abuse human beings have ever known, committed, or suffered: global warming. So who are the abused and who are the abusers? What is the community in peril here? Obviously, we are all touched in some way.

As a spiritual person in a scientific way, believing that there is a conscious intelligence at the quantum foundation of existence where light energy and creative intention combine, I am inclined to think of our planet as a life unto itself as an identity endowed with a sacred right to its own natural cycles, development, and evolution: Gaia.

Even without embracing the Gaia hypothesis, even without recognizing in the individual plant and mineral existences anything of the universal breath of life, there are still all the human beings and animals who live without participating in our oil-based industrial economy: the innocent ones.

And of course, there are the rest of us, the classic abusers, heedless of what we are doing even to ourselves.

We are all going down together unless we get help, unless we help ourselves.

Most of us don’t like what we’re doing. We may even be trying to address the problem. But like the planet Earth, the entities at issue are bigger than what we normally identify as individually conscious and responsible parties: We are talking about our abusive society, our abusive economy, our abusive industry. We are talking about collective societal abuse and the network of co-dependent relationships existing between individuals within society, the society itself, the international economy, and a whole host of dynamics that at present exert an enormously self-destructive magnetism.

To break the cycle of abuse, we will find ourselves compelled into a transformation that is healing and powerful on a global scale. We have no other choice. If for no other reason, this combination of being driven to become enlightened is justification for thinking of the consciousness we share in this moment of peril as spiritual in nature: a challenge to free will, a moment of decision, a crossroads clearly marked. This way doom, that way dawn.

So great is the damage already done, so grave is the danger in front of us, that we really can’t be confident about what the future holds even in the best of circumstances, given the vast complexity of existence or even of our little planet. Mankind, you, we, really aren’t the masters we thought we were. How foolish we have been!

Still some progress is being made. If we build on it, if we focus all our energy on building on the movement that has begun, perhaps, we may succeed in the transformation we all long to live to see.

This week marked the anniversary of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) which requires the state by law to cut Green House Gases by 25% by 2020, which, if successful will bring us back to 1990 levels.  California's economy is the 6th largest in the world and this law has set the standard for the other 49 states.  It's significance as a marker of public consciousness is huge.  The power of California's entreprenuerial ingenuity hopefully will be even greater.

In Washington D.C., this week there was also attention being given to Global Warming, largely thanks to the fact that Democrats now control congress. On Monday, a Senate committee listened to testimony about the impact of global warming on forest fires. On Tuesday, a different Senate Committee heard testimony about the economics of reducing our nation’s carbon footprint. That same day, a House committee hosted inhabitants of the Alaskan coastal village of Shishmaref, who testified about the damage being done to their town and their way of life as the ice and permafrost melts across Alaska.

Although President Bush refused to attend the U.N. summit on climate change this week, he will meet with 16 “major emitter” countries later this week. Likewise, even if Presidential Candidates like Republican Fred Thompson still deny the threat of global warming, dismissively asserting an erroneous argument that the other planets are experiencing the same warming trends the Earth is, other long stubborn deniers like Newt Gingrich are finding it politically expedient to acknowledge what everyone else already knows. In November Gingrich will publish a book, A Contract with the Earth, promoting “market oriented” responses to Global Warming. This is no endorsement of Gingrich, just a recognition that the abuse that is being committed can no longer hide its face. And this is a very important beginning.  (But don't vote for Gingrich!)

As Newsweek recently reported in a cover story on the Global Warming denial machine, six long years under President George W. Bush has been one long hard lesson in the capacity of the addicted to betray their loved ones. In this case, it was the president who betrayed his countrymen. The president’s chief partner in denial, Exxon Mobil, gave $19 million to false-front “think tanks” such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute to manufacture bad science undermining public awareness of the real threat facing humanity. That today such abusive conduct is recognized , confronted, and condemned marks the beginning of a long, long road to recovery we all have in front of us. We may celebrate just a little that the continued denials offered by politicians such as Thompson almost guarantee that he cannot win the presidency.

With Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Eleventh Hour, and a host of accumulated research and active organization by the world’s scientific and environmentalist communities, the denials and lies that President Bush offered the public in 2000 and 2004 are no longer effective in 2008. As we move forward toward this next all important election day, we must keep Global Warming up front and center in the political discourse. Every day, every moment, the abuse of the environment and ourselves is continuing.  It will not cease until we find a means for stopping ourselves and our society from our self-destructive addiction to carbon-based fuels.

I thought I would make this blog about the various candidate’s positions on addressing global warming, but while doing my research I found two excellent surveys that need not be duplicated here.

The Council on Foreign Relations has an excellent guide called, “The Candidates on Climate Change.”

The League of Conservation Voters has a created a chart called, “Where the Candidates Currently Stand,” which I post below.

There are many good ideas out there and there is every reason to believe that our next president will finally exercise national leadership in addressing this terrible self-destructive addiction we have as a society to Green House Gas producing energy sources. The more we study the candidates’ proposals, the more we can create a healthy political climate: one that brings out our leaders wisdom, courage, and sophistication in guiding our society out of this catastrophic cycle of abuse.  With unstinting committment and self-discipline, we may then find our way back to a natural and healthy planetary climate: one where Gaia, her gardens, creatures, and human civilization all live in a self-sustaining community expressive of a deep appreciation for life and all its pure natural beauty.

Where the Candidates Currently Stand

This information was compiled from candidate websites, their votes in Congress, and recent public statements. It reflects the current positions of candidates as of September 12, 2007. As candidates release their energy plans or new policies, we will update this information. Click here for a downloadable pdf file. 

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