The Great Rainforest Heist

The Great Rainforest Heist: Greenpeace, WWF, RAN, FSC and REDD+ Conspiracy to Log Earth’s Last Primary Forests for Their Protection

WHEN GOOD RAINFOREST GROUPS GO BAD you get monoculture and secondary forest plantations where ancient intact primary rainforests once stood, called sustainable forest management and carbon forestry, by BINGO’s (big NGOs) and United Nations greenwashers, paid for with your membership fees and taxes. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is primary forest logging greenwash by money-sucking environmental bureaucracies. Rainforests and other old forest must be protected and restored for local and global ecology and local eco-development from standing forests. 

August 10, 2011

by Dr. Glen Barry

INTRODUCTION

What would you say to me if I told you the world’s pre-eminent environmental organizations, widely perceived as the leading advocates for rainforests and old growth, have for decades been actively, indeed intimately, involved in logging the world’s last old forests. Would you call me a liar? Tell me I am mentally ill? Or because of the cognitive dissonance would you simply ignore me, thinking it impossible? Well here goes nothing…

There is a global conspiracy to log the Earth’s last primary forests – destroying ancient forests for disposable consumer items – while claiming it is “sustainable forest management” and “carbon forestry”. A number of public forest advocacy groups are going so far as to actually claim that industrial first-time primary forest logging is good for climate, ecosystems and local peoples. 

This essay is not the result of top secret research – it is all public record. For three years of campaigning and this essay, Ecological Internet, the organization I head, has been simply connecting pieces of public record information to see just how big NGOs (BINGOs), and the United Nations have been selling out old forests under the radar. They have been selling out primary rainforests and other old growth in broad-daylight, the perfect crime, for decades – and things are getting much, much worse as moves to allow primary rainforests to be cleared for toxic monoculture plantations gain strength.

If you are a Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), or World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund (WWF) member – you are funding the greenwash destruction of 320,000,000 acres of primary rainforest and other old forest logging. These groups co-founded and have been active members in the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for two decades, an organization that exists to build markets for primary and other old growth forest timbers. Some 70% of FSC forest products – supposedly the best of forest certification – come with primary forest timbers in them, destroying an area of primary rainforests and other old forests across an area the size of South Africa (or two times the size of Texas)!

Primary rainforests cannot be logged in an ecologically sustainable manner – or for that matter even acceptably. Primary forests logged industrially for the first time – FSC certified or otherwise – are destroyed. What remains is permanently ecologically diminished in terms of composition, structure, function, dynamics, and evolutionary potential. Logged primary forests' carbon stores, biodiversity and ecosystems will never be the same in any reasonable time-span. Selective, industrially logged primary rainforests become fragmented, burn more and are prone to outright deforestation. 

FSC certified forestry destroys ancient naturally evolved ecosystems that are priceless and sacred. Old forests have a prominent role in making the Earth habitable through their cycling of carbon, energy, water, and nutrients. The Forest Stewardship Council is a non-democratic, unaccountable, unrepresentative organization that exists solely to greenwash the final first-time industrial logging and marketing of Earth's original, naturally evolved, and last primary rainforests and other old forests – in order to turn them into tree plantations.

Increasingly both FSC and REDD+ are moving towards certifying and funding the conversion of natural primary forests to be cleared and replanted as plantations. They call it carbon forestry and claim it is a climate good. We ecologists know this destroys primary forests when they become greatly ecologically reduced from first time industrial logging, and are on their way to being plantations. Toxic mono-cultures of trees are not forests, much less when planted on cleared primary rainforests. There is far more carbon stably stored in old forests than toxic monocrop tree plantations, most of whose timbers are in the landfill decomposing within months of harvest.

There is no doubt that these groups – Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF – are involved in this primary forest logging. Five minutes on Google can confirm this for anyone interested, as each of the old forest logging apologists takes credit for founding and supporting the FSC publicly on their websites. Despite claiming credit, there is little justification for doing so. The logging apologists are closed-mouth regarding their justifications for doing so – but presumably they believe that by industrially logging primary forests they are ending deforestation, and claim that their rules for doing so make it acceptable and superior to other ways of murdering primary forest ecosystems. 

But being the best ecocidal rainforest destroyer is nothing of which to be proud. All such deadly old forest certification schemes must stop in order to ensure enough intact terrestrial ecosystems exist to power Earth’s biosphere. For nearly 20 years the FSC has certified as "well-managed" and “sustainable” primary old forest logging on a massive scale. Competing certifiers make similar claims, as do old school non-certified primary forest loggers. FSC legitimatizes this larger trade in old forest timber products, and a false market for green products from the destruction of ancient trees. 

FSC is primary forest logging with Greenpeace, RAN and WWF greenwash, corruption, conflicts of interest, bad ecology, and ecocide. 500 year old trees in 60 million year old primary rainforests and other old forests are chopped for toilet paper, lawn furniture and other such “necessities” with these groups’ greenwash and marketing clout. The rainforest logging apologists – with little or no accountability, transparency, or openness are killing Earth’s last old forests.  They – particularly WWF – boast they are creating markets for ancient trees industrially pillaged from primary forests, and such market forest logging campaigns are thus little better than illegal logging, which at least is honest that it is about the money for old forest timbers.

After 20 years of working prominently with various stakeholders in the rainforest movement, I have seen a whole generation of promising activists and groups sell out for good paying jobs, saying logging old forests protects them. None have fallen as dramatically or treacherously as Greenpeace and RAN and their staff (you sort of expect this corporate greenwash bullshit from WWF and the United Nations) who suckle on the teat of rainforest logging everyday for decades. The UN’s “Avoided Deforestation” work – which is now known as REDD+ – is to pay to marketizes rainforests claiming "sustainable forest management" of primary forests – turning them into secondary forests and always ultimately into  tree plantations – is a public good and helps ecology. 

Ecological Internet and others feel strongly based upon the urgency of emerging ecological science and our closeness to global ecological collapse that it is better to fight like hell in any way we can to fully protect and return to native tenure standing old forests as the most desirable forest protection outcome. The Earth is already undergoing global ecological collapse and it is deeply irresponsible for organizations committed to the environment to carelessly make false old forest logging prescriptions that worsen the problem. 

The BINGO old forest greenwashers sound just like get-out-the-cut forest managers – we need these resources, better to log them legally than legally, primary forests exist to be logged. Where is their former channeling of the spirit of Edward Abbey, John Muir and the other conservation greats upon whose back they stand? Somewhere along the line these groups lost sight of ecology truth, didn’t keep up with the science, had no metrics or systems to identify, monitor and handle their failed forest policy, perhaps didn’t think it mattered because it was win-win and economical.

So the rainforest logging apologist lent their names and logos to those murdering rainforests, ecosystems, their plants and animals, to wipe our asses. They turned to the dark side, using business and PR techniques to market ill-gotten old forest timbers as sustainable. They sold their souls. They have bullied critics, censored and stonewalled their brothers’ and sisters’ forest protection. They have lost their souls and legitimacy as old rainforest protection voices. And they must be stopped from doing so any longer with public monies.

BINGO COMPLICITY IN FSC LED PRIMARY RAINFOREST ECOCIDE

FSC was created in 1993 to “promote responsible management of the world’s forests”, yet has failed miserably. FSC certifies as “sustainable” the logging of over a hundred million hectares of primary and old-growth forests – hundreds of year old trees in millions of year old naturally evolved ecosystems – for lawn furniture, toilet paper and other throw-away consumer items. Many environmentalists initially supported FSC, expecting it would reduce logging of primary and old growth forests, and result in more community based eco-forestry. Instead, FSC and members have built a massive market for continued business as usual industrial primary forest timbers – with minor, cosmetic changes – in order to certify as acceptable murdering old forests for consumption. 

FSC has become a major driver of primary forest destruction and forest ecological diminishment. Despite certifying less than 10% of the world’s forest lands, their rhetoric and marketing legitimizes the host of other ghastly certifiers like PEFC, SFI and others, as well as traditional non-certified ancient forest timber. It is expecting far too much of consumers to expect them to differentiate between the variety of competing claims to being green and environmental sustainability – when in fact none are as they all include old growth forest timbers. 

FSC and old forest logging apologist pals policies seeking to prevent primary forests from being deforested, by allowing them to be heavily industrially and selectively logged for the first time, becoming either secondary forest or toxic mono-crop tree plantations, is not old forest protection. Deforestation and ecosystem diminishment of forests are both of profound concern ecologically – much of great importance is lost when primary forests are logged for the first time. 

Standing old forests are a requirement for global ecological sustainability and local advancement. Yet, FSC is about getting out the primary forest cut – recall best estimated as 70% FSC timber and fiber from planned and past logging of 320,000,000 acres (120,000,000 hectares) – and is particularly threatening now as FSC and old forest logging apologist friends claim carbon forestry (logging primary forests to plant new plantations) is a climate change solution. 

FSC’s relatively minor improvements upon the murdering of old rainforests legitimate the entire trade, FSC certified or not. While other certification schemes may be even worse, this is not the issue, as industrial first-time primary forest logging cannot be done ecologically sustainably and should not be happening at all. FSC’s claims to being the best destroyer of primary forests is like killing someone more humanely, treating your slaves better but refusing to release them, or being half pregnant. Like past battles to end monarchy and slavery before them, and continuing efforts to resist their recent forms found in fascism and human trafficking, the task before us is to fully END the stripping of Earth of its protective covering. Not doing it marginally better.

These independent estimates of FSC’s dependence upon old forest logging, one published in German already and the other by myself in publication, were able to make reasonable estimates from FSC’s own national certification data which is collate and released, and what is known about each country’s forest types and industry. If they are wrong after three years of complaint, they would have trotted out the figures and shown us. Conveniently, none of the culprits say they collect information regarding whether any particular FSC certified forest that was logged was primary, old growth or other old forests. 

After years of campaigning against Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network – two key co-founders and supporters of FSC’s primary forest logging – and FSC itself; Ecological Internet’s genuine forest ecology concerns have been met with nothing but stonewalling, censoring and vilification. No one within FSC will say how many hectares of primary forests FSC has certified for industrial logging, how much more is planned, and explained in detail how logging primary forest protects them. 

Despite tens of thousands of people from around the world asking, none of the organizations who routinely campaign against other close-lipped forest destroyers, feel obligated to explain how logging primary forests protects them. Nor can they provide any other reason to justify, or to otherwise defend, the ecology, strategy and tactics of continued prominent membership in FSC primary forest logging.

WWF, Greenpeace, and RAN's forest campaigns have been perhaps mortally compromised. Their forest advocacy efforts are a corrupt shell of their former selves. The rainforest logging apologists have chosen power, prestige and money coming from sitting at the old forest logging mafia's table, rather than and over protecting rainforest and other primary forests. With rainforests threatened as never before, RAN targets Disney and the Girl Scouts, Greenpeace Barbie dolls, and WWF runs a bad-boy logger club which they call the Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN). Posers like Greenpeace and RAN don't get it because by and large they are marketers and accountants, elite liberal arts grads, and not ecologists.

WWF forest campaign is composed of resource managers, not deep ecologists, and it shows. Not only is WWF perhaps the most power BINGO totally enmeshed with FSC, it also partners with the World Bank and companies that destroy rainforests, and threaten endangered species. Some 20% of the timber industry has lined up to pay WWF $50K, for which they can use the panda logo and continue to log as they were. This is unethical, corrupt and destroying global ecology and local options for advancement. 

Greenpeace’s forest protection campaign is all over the place, full of contradictions, and it is nearly impossible to see the strategy of divergent and countervailing forest protection campaign tactics. Greenpeace not only co-founded the Forest Stewardship Council, until recently Greenpeace held the international chairman of the board position for FSC for six years! Greenpeace's quirky new rainforest campaign says Ken is leaving Barbie (Mattel's dolls) because of rainforest destruction, yet they leave the door open for "certified" primary rainforest paper pulp for toy packaging. Two years ago Greenpeace openly embraced Kleenex's clearcut of Canadian old growth forests for toilet paper. Now they condemn Barbie doll for tiny amounts of packaging from primary forests!

The Rainforest Action Network is the smallest of the lot, yet they are a well-known rainforest protector organization in the United States, soaking up most of the money for doing so. RAN similarly says is against primary forest logging, yet promotes FSC paper – full of old-growth – for Disney’s children books. The group is ridiculously under-qualified to be determining global rainforest policy. Their staff is mostly liberal arts grads and accountants that wouldn’t know a rainforest if it bit them in the ass. They are great at raising money, throwing lavish parties, being seen with the right celebrities, trashing opponents, and working to end coal – but their rainforest campaign is in shambles. For the first decade they worked strongly against old forest logging, but now target the Girl Scouts and Disney for relatively small amounts of rainforest destruction, as global stores of ancient rainforest temples burn and require a much larger, more urgent response.

Greenpeace, RAN and WWF must continue to be encouraged to resign from FSC greenwash; and work to end primary forest logging, protect and restore standing old forests, for local and global advancement and ecology.  These groups’ vision of sustainable rainforests is logging, turning them into both secondary diminished forest (essentially plantations) and fully replanted mono-crop tree plantations, rather than working to fully protect and restore as much as possible. The rest of the grassroots global rainforest protection movement thinks we need to implement proven ways to keep old forests standing intact for local advancement and global ecology (and vice versa).

Rainforest Action Network continues to censor – and along with Greenpeace stonewall – legitimate global protest by tens of thousands of grassroots forest activists regarding their greenwash complicity in logging 320,000,000 acres of primary old forest for such necessities as toilet paper. I really don’t think young adults with liberal arts degrees should be seeking to discredit PhD professionals on the question of whether primary forests should be logged or fully protected for local community development.

At FSC recent tri-annual General Assembly in Malaysia – the "sustainable" old forest logging greenwash worsened, as FSC voted (seconded by Greenpeace) to start the process to begin certifying plantation timbers from land cleared of primary rainforests as being "sustainable". FSC Motion 18 which was approved furthers the process of industrial toxic plantations being established on rainforests cleared since 1994, to be certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council. 

Just before the vote Ecological Internet’s global network’s carried out a large email protest, which led to the motion’s wording going from essentially preparing to certify plantations on cleared rainforests, to studying it, to the latest revisionary history of completing an unnamed earlier report. Despite how it is packaged, FSC decided last month to begin trying to certify monocrop plantations on land cleared of primary rainforest since 1994.

 By crossing the rubric, FSC’s embrace without merit the ideas of carbon forestry – that it is better to log well stored and carbon rich old forests, in order to plant fast growing carbon removal species – they have gone from being misguided on forest policy to being downright dangerous. FSC has already lost European NGO FERN on the issue of carbon forestry – which sees the potential peril of essentially geo-engineering the world’s old forests upon community and ecology – one of the last mighty naturally evolved ecosystems.

FSC plantations on cleared primary rainforest had rightly been excluded since FSC inception in order to not promote primary rainforest being converted specifically for later planting of depauperate plantations, but now the flood gate is wide open. FSC is continually changing the wording of Motion and downplaying its importance, and as usual Greenpeace and RAN aren't talking, but I reckon they think tree plantations –are better than outright deforestation of primary and old growth forests.  So they are trading away ecological jewels – primary forests – to become managed forests and plantations, thinking slowing outright deforestation justifies destroying wild forests.

REDD+, FSC and other certifiers, sustainable forest management, and carbon forestry are all myths and meaningless catchphrases to allow continued western market access to primary rainforest logs. Standing and intact primary rainforest and other old forests are a requirement for sustaining global ecology and achieving local advancement. We must end their logging for full protection and restoration. REDD+ has become all things to everybody – forest logging, protection, plantations, carbon, growth – when all we need is funding to preserve local old standing forests.

These organizations believe their own PR that they are so special – so hip and groovy – they can establish and avidly support with impunity an organization that facilitates the logging of rainforests and other old forests. They don’t have to answer questions about their role in rainforest destruction like others supporting logging do. It is really an abuse of power and trust. The old forest logging greenwashers all follow the same playbook and personally attack the messenger (me!). Shameful, as more old forests and terrestrial ecosystems have been lost than the biosphere can absorb and continue to make Earth habitable. This dispute is about ecological science and not personalities. 

Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF are engaged in a con game for money and influence at the expense of old forests that must remain standing for local peoples and global ecology. Global ecosystem collapse is being abetted by these so called protectors. These organizations’ policies are a carefully calibrated effort to be seen as reasonable by the growing logging industry machine and benefit in donations for doing so. None make a decision without thinking how it affects their bottom line. The only way this old forest greenwash logging machine will be stopped is to make doing so too expensive to them in terms of lost donations, grants, and other support – whose sources are usually unaware of the great rainforest heist.

WHY FSC AND OLD FOREST LOGGING MUST END FOR A NEW FOREST PROTECTION VISION

Here is the honest to Gaia old forest ecology science narrative. The human family must protect and restore old forests – starting by ending industrial-scale primary forest logging – as one keystone response to biodiversity, ecosystem, climate, food, water, poverty and rights crises that are pounding humanity, ecosystems and plants and animals. When naturally evolved old forest ecosystems are logged in any manner other than appropriately small-scaled local community traditional uses and eco-forestry – their ecological function, structure, dynamics, and composition are destroyed forever. 

Protecting and restoring old forests – which means ending their industrial harvest – are a keystone response to climate, biodiversity, food, water ecology crises. You can’t take a bulldozer for a rumble through intact natural rainforests, cutting all the big merchantable timbers, and causing huge amounts of collateral damage – and not rip the hell out of ecosystems, plant communities, wildlife populations, species biodiversity, local forest dependent communities advancement potential, and carbon holding potential.

Old forests are a vital part of the biosphere's eco-infrastructure. Along with other terrestrial, water, ocean, and atmospheric ecosystems, old forests makes Earth habitable and ensure it is fed and watered.

Old forests are perhaps the most important global ecosystem as intact primary, old growth, and regenerating old forests are at the hub of the nutrient, energy, heat, and water transfers and fluxes which power global ecosystems. It is clearly past time for an end to primary forest logging to protect these global ecological processes and local advancement potential from standing old forests.

Industrial old forest logging must end in order to protect and restore ancient forest ecosystems necessary for a habitable Earth. Primary rainforests that have been logged for the first time are on their way to being scraggly secondary forests that are in fact tree plantations, and might as well have been deforested, as their full natural ecological patterns and processes have been destroyed. When primary forests become secondary must is lost and diminished and many local and region ecological processes fail. The impacts of seeing primary forests only as resources to be whacked down has impacted a large enough area globally, with over 80% of old forests being gone or logged for the first time, that old forest logging’s impact is aggregating to diminish, damage and destroyed our one shared biosphere. Old forest logging is one of a handful of ill-advised industrial processes leading to global ecosystem collapse. 

There is no such thing as well-managed, sustainable primary forest logging – first time industrial harvest always destroys natural evolution and intact ecosystems. Humanity can, must and will meet wood product demand from certified regenerating and aging secondary growth and non-toxic, native species plantations. Any lesser vision that includes "sustainable forest management" of primary forests is worthy of virulent opposition, as such greenwash destroys local livelihoods and global ecosystem services associated with standing old forests, for throw-away consumer items.

FSC should meet market demand for well-managed forest timbers by certifying only 1) small scale community eco-forestry practiced by local peoples in primary forests, 2) regenerating and aging secondary forests, and 3) non-toxic and mixed species plantations. Further, reducing demand for all timber and paper products is key to living ecologically sustainably with old forests. Only 10% of any given FSC certified product’s content need come from a certified source anyway, this is mixed with conventional fiber sources, and the 10% that is certified content is mostly murdered primary forest.

In light of current and emerging ecosystem, biodiversity and climate science; it is clear that FSC certification for industrial primary and old-growth logging is antiquated and dangerous. By logging old forests and now moving to certifying plantations established on cleared rainforests as being “sustainable”, the Forest Stewardship Council and allies are no longer a force for good, and like all primary forest logging apologists, must disband and be forcefully encouraged and assisted in doing so. 

Industrial primary forest logging must end to herald in era of old forest protection and restoration based upon standing forests for local advancement and global ecological sustainability. Logging and otherwise destroying ecosystems is an 8,000 year old disease upon Gaia now perfected and terminal with RAN, Greenpeace, FSC, WWF, and REDD+ greenwash. Like slavery, industrial old forest logging for throw away consumption is a global evil that must end, not be slightly reformed. Old forest diminishment when first industrially logged is nearly as ecologically damaging as outright deforestation, as naturally evolved ecosystems that make Earth habitable are on the path to becoming tree plantations. 

There is a zero chance of protecting and ending first time industrial logging of primary rainforests when RAN, Greenpeace and WWF say it is sustainable, even desirable, and continue to greenwash FSC markets for old forest timbers through their presence in the organization. Old forests must be protected and restored in order to sustain global ecology and local well-being. This NGO complicity with rainforest murder must end in order to collapse FSC and all other old forest certifiers, and move onto stopping old forest timber producers and consumers from continuing to do so using whatever means are necessary.

From the perspective of a 60 million year old primary rainforest with 500+ year old trees, it does not matter if being destroyed by illegal or legal logging, certified or not, the Asian timber mafia or WWF, Greenpeace and RAN. There is no such thing as well-managed, sustainable primary forest logging – as first time industrial harvest destroys natural evolution and intact ecosystems. Humanity can and must and will meet wood product demand from certified regenerating and aging secondary growth and non-toxic, native species plantations. If all BINGOs greenwashing FSC withdrew, old logging may well collapse as ratchet up pressure together on even lesser certifiers and old forest logging industry in general. 

Together we must end primary forest logging, protecting and restoring old forests. The unholy trinity of REDD+ finance, FSC and BINGO pals for greenwash and "sustainable forest management" are clearing the biosphere's last old forests. Please Greenpeace, RAN, WWF, and REDD+ tell us how your FSC's logging of 500 year old trees in 60 million year old rainforests is sustainable and offers any real protection. You tout this as ending deforestation. Yet, are you aware of the tremendous damage and, by definition, ultimate destruction of primary forests that are heavily industrially and "selectively" logged for the first time? 

There are others like EI that understand we have already lost more intact terrestrial ecosystems including old forests than the biosphere can bear. We will fight for each old forest and their peoples as resources and people allow, understanding when ecosystem collapse comes, having as many intact ecosystems for restoration as possible will be key to any sort of ecology and human recovery. We ecologists know that primary forests are destroyed when greatly ecologically reduced from first time industrial logging, and that plantations are not forests, much less when planted on cleared primary rainforests. 

As Earth burns, any groups engaged in greenwashing primary forest logging and offering no defense of doing so are seriously misguided and in crisis themselves. If you are a RAN, Greenpeace or WWF member your donations support participation in logging primary forests and converting to plantations! Greenpeace, RAN and others' PR stunts and market campaigns have become old, stale, ineffective and even dangerous. They are inadequate to the ecological crises on hand, and do not use these organizations' resources and organization well. Campaigning groups need an overall ecology vision of how to achieve global ecological sustainability, to campaign more on sufficient ecological policies (whether initially photogenic or not), and work more to mobilize people protest – and less on quirky, token stunts to raise awareness and funds for themselves. 

Local community development based upon standing old forests including small scale eco-forestry is fine. Small scale community eco-forestry has a context of intact primary forests as its context for seed and animal sources, and management mimics natural disturbance and gap species establishment. It is the industrial first time logging – selective logging defined as selecting all merchantable, mature trees – turning primary forests into plantations that is problematic. Ruling elite and their bought shills will not manage, invest, certify or greenwash their way to global ecological sustainability. There is no way other to global ecological sustainability than people power ecology, protecting old forests, powering down, and returning to the land.

The human family – if need be as part of a people's power Earth revolution – must end primary forest logging, and protect and restore rainforests and all old forests, as a keystone response to biodiversity, climate, ecosystem and poverty crises. Together we will end primary forest logging, herald in an era of old forest protection and restoration, to benefit local people and sustain global ecology. We will fight for each old forest and their peoples, saving and delaying old forest industrial destruction and diminishment, and understanding when ecosystem collapse comes, having as many intact ecosystems for models and seed sources for restoration as possible will be key to any sort of ecology and human recovery. Ecological Internet puts our faith in truth and ecological science over looking good and PR greenwash. 

WHAT NEXT TO SUSTAIN OLD FORESTS AND THEIR ECOLOGY

Ending primary forest logging is Ecological Internet's number one commitment to sustaining global ecology. We will not rest until dead or an end to trade in ill-gotten forest timbers by murdering natural evolved forest ecosystems for trinkets, curios, and ass wiping. Please join with Ecological Internet and others to oppose all forces working to industrially cut or otherwise develop rainforests and other old forests, laying bare the illogical, greedy and lying rhetoric for doing so. Doing so is crucial to our and many species' survival including Gaia, the Earth System.

As a movement, we must return to the goal of a ban on industrially harvested primary forest timbers. This means continuing to resist and obstruct old forest harvest, businesses involve, timber marketing, purchase, storage, milling, product construction and marketing. The entire supply chain for ecocidal primary forest timbers must be destroyed. More of us must return to the forests to work with local communities to build on-the-ground desire for ecologically inspired advancement from standing old forests, and blockading and physically obstructing the practice of old forest logging. 

We must make ill-gotten old wood from life-giving ecosystems to become an unacceptable taboo, like gorilla hand ash-trays only worse. Ending primary forest logging further requires greater international affinity made possible by transnational advocacy networks on the Internet. There is a long proven track-record of using the boomerang effect – whereby local forest protection advocacy efforts that are being stonewalled are expressed simultaneously by the international community. The dual voices make the concern hard to ignore, the first step to ending old forest logging.

The rainforest movement has become split between those logging primary rainforests and others working to fully protect and restore for local and global benefit. I'm old enough to remember when the rainforest movement worked to protect ancient forests and ban their logging, not abet their 'sustainable' destruction. What these rainforest logging apologist groups are doing is every bit as alarming as loggers and governments, and they will not be given free rein to continue in their not thoughtful, self-aggrandizing manner any longer. The rainforest, forest, and ecological protection movements must unite behind effort to end primary forest logging for full protection and restoration.

And to those that say these concerns are splitting the movement, just shove it. There is no benefit to Earth from unity in support of ecocidal rainforest policy. Just as working to better the conditions of slaves is no substitute for working for total emancipation, we cannot log and have our old forests too. Even as we protest the loggers and government policies, we must continue to confront our wayward brethren that think that logging primary forests protects them – or risk becoming irrelevant as global ecosystems collapse. Rallying around a false and ecologically destructive global forest policy of logging primary forests for plantations is a must.

Rather than participating in old forest logging, it is better for the rainforest movement to fight to work to protect each old forest and their peoples, understanding that when ecosystem collapse comes, having as many intact ecosystems for restoration as possible will be key to any sort of ecology and human recovery. The grassroots global forest protection movement has to commit to fully protecting and restoring old carbon, species and ecosystem service rich forests as a keystone response to achieve global ecological sustainability.

The goal must remain to maximize the extent, size, connectivity of core terrestrial ecological areas –largely but not exclusively forested – to maximize global and local ecosystem processes, and local material and other advancement from standing old forests. By dragging out the forest protection fight on a forest by forest basis, until ecological collapse becomes publicly acknowledged, we can hold onto more ecosystems, biodiversity, and carbon than logging them now. Soon the human family will catch up with the ecological science and realize old forest destruction and diminishment must end as we ramp upreforestation and ecological restoration for large, connected natural forests adequate to power the global ecosystem. 

We must continue to call upon all BINGO FSC members to reject the certification of primary forests by resigning immediately, as many others have recently done. We must continue to call upon Greenpeace, WWF, and RAN to resign from FSC, to fully account for its founding and 20 years of membership, including detailing expenditures and benefits received for greenwashing old forest logging. Further, we must demand FSC immediately stop certifying primary forest logging or disband itself. 

Greenpeace, WWF and RAN have been revealed as corrupt greenwashers of the final harvest of Earth primary rainforests and other old forests, and must be stopped for global ecological sustainability and local benefits from greenwashing the destruction of standing old growth forests. This means boycotting these organizations, even their other work as what to do with old forests is such a fundamental ecological issue, until they stop greenwashing the final loss of old forests. And it is past time for the groups’ members to end their memberships as ultimately these big NGO businesses are more concerned with their image and money than having global forest policy that is ecologically valid and correct.

The worst part regarding Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF greenwash membership in Forest Stewardship Council is their secrecy, lack of transparency, censorship, stonewalling, vilifying critics. Who do they think are? What are they hiding? What benefits are they receiving from old forest logging? Their stonewalling is reprehensible and alarming. Like all public entities they have a responsibility to defend your public positions.

Despite best attempts to portray Ecological Internet campaign and ecological science concerns as being personal and political motivated, this essay and continued growing global protest demonstrates in fact efforts to resist those supporting primary forest logging is a reasonable ecology dispute that must be redressed. We have had bad experiences with the head of RAN’s forest campaign for years, before he worked for RAN and this campaign started, so this is immaterial and we deal with his debilities. There have been a series of personal attacks coming from the other side which refuses to have a specific debate, or even provide any justification, in defense of this ecological travesty known as FSC. 

Given RAN and Greenpeace's irresponsible behavior when questioned on their rainforest 'protection' policy that is of global ecological importance how can they be trusted? These liberal arts under-grads and accountants think they are qualified to set policy because they have money and influential friends, but are making dreadful mistakes. Despite founding and actively supporting, they can’t say how much primary forests are being destroyed by FSC. This is ignorance, duplicity, or corruption. These groups are dangerous enemies to old forests and biosphere, profiting from their demise, while acting like and being paid well as the publicly viewed good forest protection groups.

This old forest logging corruption will not stand, it must and will be fully investigated, and end with widespread resignations. Ecological Internet calls upon Greenpeace, WWF and RAN staff to protest their organizations' greenwash of primary forest logging from within, and resign immediately if they are not heard and NGO primary rainforest ecocide continues. It is time to investigate all three organizations' involvement with FSC and other activities to support primary forest logging with the timber industry. Until then the awareness building and resistance to greenwash of BINGO old forest logging must continue, tarnishing the not good old forest protection names. EI remains willing to negotiate terms of their resignation from FSC and debate the importance of doing so in a public arena at any time. 

In the meantime, Ecological Internet is writing a grant to do a report on the matter based loosely upon this essay. We have a good lead on a funder to investigate BINGO complicity in FSC old growth logging, but need a couple thousand dollars to prepare and do the initial research. We would really appreciate your help turning this document into a fully referenced report based upon FSC logging site visits and full of pictures by donating to our “Ending Primary Forest Logging” campaign at http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/donate/end_primary_forest_logging . This is a draft document, put out hurriedly in draft form, before I go to vacation and decide upon Ecological Internet’s future.

Ecological Internet challenges Rainforest Action Network and/or Greenpeace to debate any time and any place of their choosing (which can afford to get to) regarding the efficacy and ecological sustainability of first time industrial logging of primary forests for toilet paper and other consumer items. From dialogue comes truth, reduction in conflict and hate, and right action. Their greenwash of old forest logging will not stand. The secret of their having been compromised is out and nothing can save their policy of logging old rainforests for their protection.

No excuse for Greenpeace, RAN and FSC for not having answered a three year global protest demanding details regarding how their forest campaign policies see logging primary forest as benefiting ecology.  

Hundreds of thousands of protest emails and a dozen protests have been ignored simply because the guilty organization are bigger and think they can get away with ignoring us. Even as we protest and demand they resign, let's hold out our hands to help rehabilitate our fallen brethren. WE have truth, ecology, old forests, Gaia and Internet on our side. Forward!

Greenpeace International and Rainforest Action Network in particular would rightly never accept rainforest or other environmental destroyers unwilling to defend their policies, they would protest until they got answers and it ended. The same is true with the more grassroots, transparent rainforest protection movement regarding RAN and Greenpeace's failure to defend in detail their support and membership in FSC, which greenwashes the destruction of massive tracts of primary rainforests, old growth and other old forests for consumer products.

The Greenpeace and RAN Out of FSC Primary Forest Logging Now! campaign on Facebook has been going on for nearly 3 years with picketing and online protests. We will protest there and elsewhere at the time and place of our choosing – as the old forest logging apologists do against the orders of magnitude smaller rainforest destruction by Barbie, Disney and Girl Scouts – until old forest logging apologists unconditionally resign from FSC greenwash of ancient primary forest logging. 

ANY continued deforestation or diminishment of old forests – legal or illegal, certified or not – are not ecologically or socially acceptable. At risk is Earth’s continued habitability if old forests continue to be lost and are not restored. Old forest logging certification schemes are ecocidal certified madness as these standing old forests are needed for global ecology and local advancement. BINGO’s will resign from FSC and forest certification of primary forest logging end or protests continue against the greenwashers and all perpetuators of these ecocidal practices. For Earth, we must end old forest logging now.

Dear Red State Cousin - Keep Your God Off My Country, Body and Earth

The following essay is a response to the recent American Presidential election, in which differences in moral values between the liberal "blue states" and conservative "red states" were widely perceived as decisive. I argue below in an imaginary letter to my "red state cousin" that environmental conservation is the ultimate moral issue, and insist that born again christians keep their god off my country, body and Earth.

Dear Red State Cousin,

I have read with interest your emails full of christian wit and patriotic passion.  This must be a time of heady optimism for the far right faithful, as Christian crusaders are on a roll in America and throughout the world.

I thought it time to respond.  Please forgive me for using this as an opportunity to clarify my own thoughts on god, the Earth, humanity's place in the universe and moral values in politics.  And to take exception with christian extremism.  

Firstly, let me state I do not believe in your god.  I feel the passion of your believe in Christ and know this is so very important to your philosophical foundation and well-being.  But not all share this believe, nor should we be required too.  Diversity in all things is a virtue.

Religious self-righteousness, self-proclaimed omnipotence and blind self-assuredness are but a wee distance from nationalism, totalitarianism, and despotism.  Instinctively I am leery of those who are certain in matters of faith.  I note you and your president are so very sure of yourselves and your moral footing.  

Oh that I could feel such sanctimonious certainty but once in my lifetime. Oh how I long to be sure of anything.  The closest I have come is to be sure that we need the Earth to live.  We come from the Earth, are nourished by her fruits, her waters slack our thirst, and her atmosphere constantly replenishes our lungs.  

No human endeavor - be it economic, political, cultural, social, or religious - is possible without Mother Earth being healthy and stable.  I can think of no more self-evident truth.  I am also as certain as a human can be that religion indeed is the opiate of the masses, as conflicts over gays and prayer obscures the demise of humanity's habitat.

I would not deny anyone comfort found in acts of blind faith, but it should not free its practitioners from critical thinking.  In turbulent and changing times, I would suggest decisions are best based upon scientific knowledge, humanism and ecological intuition.  Not based upon what some Middle Eastern people may or may not have said and done two millennia ago.  

Both muslim and christian fanatics want us to live based upon centuries old rules and an understanding of reality that no longer applies.  Humanity desperately needs a new vision free of the dogmas of the past, and based upon concrete logical analysis of human and ecological necessity.

Religion should be a deeply personal experience, not something forced upon others.  Too many people have died fighting for something that can never be known.  My faith comes from knowing that the sun shines each day, that the seasons pass on schedule and that all types of life abound (however, the actions of your faithful president threaten the latter two).

I recently saw The Passion of The Christ.  I would have been nice to see a bit more on Jesus' teachings, and a little less of him getting beaten up. In seeing Jesus' non-violence, I am at a loss to explain how much war and suffering has been and continues to be carried out in his name.  I do not think Jesus would have bombed anybody, nor given tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

I would never presume to demand that you worship my God.  But under our nation's laws I will insist that you not force me to worship yours - nor to live under laws based upon your religion's tenets.

Regarding moral values: how about a little consistency - do we stop caring about unborn children after their birth?  Thousands of children die a day from bad water and hunger, where is the outrage?  Many, many innocent children have died in our unprovoked invasion of Iraq.  Is it moral that a few children have so much while most have so little?  

Do you grasp the violence and un-ethicalness of grinding poverty and hopelessness which is the norm for most of the world's children?

One of the primary reasons I take exception to christianity is that the focus on the afterlife has, for some, become a reason not to be concerned about the condition of the Earth and all her peoples now.  The demise of the Earth and the presence of grotesque poverty becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, as the faithful wait to be whisked off to paradise after their death.

Climate change, forest loss, water scarcity are all moral issues.  All are various expressions of global ecological un-sustainability that threaten us all.  People are dying from ecosystem collapse every day, and our species and many more are threatened with extinction. 

The collapse of human civilization (such as it is) into barbarism and anarchy is a near certainty if the dominant culture - based largely upon christian traditions - continues to view rapid diminishment of the Earth's riches as a desirable norm.  But if I accept Jesus as my savior, then everything is all right?

Yes I am a liberal, a free thinker, a bit of a bohemian, and a worshipper of the Earth.  This is what I believe: there have been, are, and will be many prophets, a spiritual force that is good exists, and humans are on their own to live their worldly lives without divine interventions or a mystical afterlife.  I find inspiration in christian values, as well as those of buddhism, islam and multitudes of pagan faiths based upon intimate knowledge of the Earth.  

To presume that all human knowledge regarding what is and ought to be is tied to one rather insignificant messianic cult from way before the middle ages is dangerous and cult like thinking that will not meet the challenges of the coming millennia.

Further, I believe women are the only legitimate authority over their body.  In a world rife with hate, loving relationships between adults should be supported wherever found.  It is obscene that some have so much while most struggle to meet basic needs.  The world will not long survive such gross economic imbalances.  

Equity, justice and sustainability are universal values that must be embraced now for the world and our children to have a chance.

There are some people very angry with America - including those that terrorize innocent people.  Such anger results from our opulence and arrogance, and we had best understand this fury is more than just islamic fundamentalism.  

Personally, I would certainly fight to protect my family and our Earth, and perhaps even my country, but not for your or anyone else's god.  Unilateral war = state sponsored terrorism, and while I feel pity for the plight of American soldiers (and their victims) overseas, there is little heroism in their brutal occupation.

Given our utter dependence upon the Earth for our every physical need, clearly we would be wise to realize that the Earth is the best representation of the father figure found throughout religious faiths.  

I believe the Earth is alive and is godlike.  We come from and are one with the Earth.  Gaia heals our wounds, provides for our needs, and we return to her upon death.

I am writing to ask that you keep your God off my country, body and Earth.

May Gaia bless you and yours.

Everything and Everyone is Connected

The global environmental crisis requires holistic approaches, based upon the revelation that all of the Earth's life is sacred and connected.  All environmental ills that threaten the Earth and her life are illustrative of the same issue - too many people, consuming too much, while having lost touch with their oneness with the Earth.  The Earth and her water, forests, air and oceans have been afforded little worth and are treated as little more than expendable trash dumps.

Environmentalists are doing valuable work on single issues such as climate change, forest and water conservation, and toxics.  There are good reasons to focus on more scoped and manageable issues in isolation.  Solutions are easier and less intrusive, lending themselves to reformist policies that do not threaten the status quo.

However, it is highly unlikely that any single major environmental issue facing the world will ever be solved without progress on all the others.  Forests will not be sustained if climate change is not addressed.  Soils will continue to be eroded and water diminished as long as forests and wetlands are lost.  

Recent flooding in Asia and Haiti illustrates comprehensive collapse of ecological systems in whole.  There climate change brought intense rainfall, water run-off was exacerbated by poor land management, and great human suffering and further ecological decline resulted.  Numerous studies have recently shown that air pollution is global, i.e. America receives Asia's pollution, while itself polluting Europe.

The global ecological whole - which I like to refer to as Gaia - is a tightly coupled system composed of ecological sub-systems that cycle nutrients and energy.  This finally honed ecological apparatus of immense complexity makes life possible.  Thus photosynthesizers release oxygen while consuming carbon dioxide, and animals do the reverse, completing the cycle.  Oceans and terrestrial ecosystems effect and are effected by climate.  Water is the life blood of all life.  

Failure of any one ecological system reverberates through the whole.  The realization that forests are connected to the well being of virtually every other ecological system, and vice versa, has turned this forest conservationist into a global ecological sustainability crusader.  Forests, climate, water and oceans - and the Earth in total - will only be sustained if there is more emphasis upon the big picture and the interactions between these issues.

Humanity cannot continue to procreate and consume as if the Earth does not matter.  The Earth does matter - other species and emergent ecosystem processes make humanity and our society possible.  There are real physical and biological limits to the Earth's capacity to provide sustenance and maintain a habitable environment for humans.  Increasing numbers of people are being faced with this reality as their water supplies falter, climatic patterns fade, land becomes desert, and oceans are made lifeless.

Humanity and all that we have been able to achieve has been by and of the Earth.  Wal-Mart parking lots do not sustain us - the wind, water and trees do.  Any suggestion that the Earth's intricate ecosystem services can or should be engineered is misguided foolishness.  The Earth is a tightly honed system perfected for one purpose - to provide for all her life.  

Why tinker with the perfection found in a seed?  All the Earth requires in return for making our lives possible is an acknowledgement of our oneness with her, and that we not dismantle the ecological machinery whereby the Earth is maintained, regulated and restored.  This seems reasonable.

The Human Nation

It may be easier to accept that we are all connected to the natural world than to accept we - all of humanity - are deeply dependent upon each other.  As ecological, political, social and technological trends converge, the idea of nation-states has become antiquated.  For globalization to be sustainable, desirable and successful the concept of the human nation must be embraced.  

I am a strange messenger to be delivering the message that the fate of all humans is linked.  I do not much like people, and have spent much of my life feeling depressed and alienated.  Yet my experiences have led me to conclude that what happens to a poor child in Bangladesh is intimately bound with my and my Planet's fate.

In the globalized world there is no such thing as another country's problem.  How much longer can the luxurious over-developed world expect billions to peacefully suffer a fate of acute human need and desperation?  It is greedy and evil for American and other mega-polluters to demand that peasants in China limit their carbon emissions before Americans work to reduce their much larger impact.  

An expenditure of some 40 billion dollars a year would provide basic health services, clean water, and primary education to everyone in the World.  This is some 1/10 of what the United States alone spends on its militaristic solutions to world conflict.  Might does not make right, and security in a globalized world will not come solely from the barrel of a gun.

Liberal democracy and market economies need not be synonymous with militarism, Earth devouring industrialism, nor continuation of massive economic inequities and other social injustices.  

We are one human nation.  For the Earth to have a future we can not afford to think otherwise.

Life Journeys

Realizing that everything and everyone is connected, and thus sacred, has been a long journey for me.  I first caught a glimpse of this in my young adulthood spent in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea.  I was faced with, and tried to make sense of, the evil of huge logging concessions of ancient rainforests to make cardboard boxes and toilet paper while local peoples continued to live in abject material poverty.  

During this time, I crudely sought to synthesize what I was learning of life's meaning with spirituality and ecology.   I wrote that given "Truth is God" in the Ghandian tradition, and that I was coming to realize that "Earth is Truth", then it must be that "Earth is God".   

These first attempts to enunciate the ecological intuition that all life is connected and their sum - Gaia - is holy, met with a wide range of responses.  These ranged from appearances on public radio, to speaking events; to derision, ridicule and incomprehensive by naïve and consumerist relatives.

I love the Earth and all her life very much.  It is this love that restores me constantly.  Never, ever let the laughter of the consuming heathens thwart your deep emotional attachment to Mother Earth.  As goes the Earth will go us all.

America's Gasoline Dangerously Inexpensive

Oil's true cost: cheap gas kills the Earth and diminishes society

Gasoline in America is dangerously inexpensive, threatening the ruin of society and the environment.  Consumers generally have little idea how much fueling their automobile actually costs, or the impacts it has on national security, the environment, their health, and their quality of life.

America's current national outrage over gasoline prices that remain historically low is ill-advised.  Car owners must recognize that government subsidies to petroleum companies and users, and environmental, health, and social costs associated with gasoline use, place the real cost of gasoline at around $10 a gallon - or at least five times current prices. 

Factors not reflected in the price of gas include the destruction of 60 million year old rainforests and other ecosystems during exploration and drilling, military adventurism to secure supplies, marine oil spills during transport, unprecedented climate change as consumed, and political corruption throughout - to say nothing of crashes, pollution, noise and congestion. 

Energy prices, climate change, terrorism and childhood asthma are all symptomatic of the same problem - overdependence upon oil, a polluting and finite resource.  And oil is simply not worth killing for - yet this is precisely what is being done in Iraq. 

American over-consumption of artificially cheap oil and other sources of natural capital - notably water and land - has fueled a huge and precarious bubble economy that will eventually unravel.  Implications of the bubble's burst will depend upon actions taken now to reduce and eventually eliminate petroleum products as the basis of our society.

America and the rest of the industrialized world's prosperity are based upon unsustainable rates of energy consumption.  Americans are 4% of the world population, yet consume about 25% of the world's petroleum - much going towards feeding their automobiles.  Oil provides transportation, grows our food, and provides warmth and cooling - though there are alternatives.

Europeans and others have routinely paid twice the amount Americans pay for oil.  Are Americans so exceptionally noble of mind and character that ever cheaper oil in real terms is our birthright - while the rest of the World must be content as lesser beings using less energy for which they pay more?

Many Americans have become lazy and addicted to mechanized mobility, believing it their right to drive a small room sized vehicle whenever and wherever they wish, and at the expense of massive government subsidies and the natural ecosystems upon which life depends.  And as a result, the American government has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil oligarchy - government for, by and of the petro-pigs.

If Americans are unwilling or unable to come to terms with their petro-addiction, they deserve the profound societal ills that will follow the bursting of the petro-bubble economy.  If every last bit of oil is to be ripped from the Earth and burned before alternatives are seriously pursued, large natural ecosystems and the global atmosphere will cease to function in the manner they have throughout history.   A post-petroleum World will face widespread poverty, persistent environmental problems and a dearth of energy adequate to meet basic needs.

Breaking the deadly addiction of cheap oil will require that consumers eventually see the entire cost of burning gasoline reflected in the price they pay at the pump.  Only then will it prove more difficult to ignore the harmful effects that their addiction has to the Earth, society and their children's prospects.  Only then will alternative means of energy be competitive and flourish.

Clearly gasoline prices can not immediately rise to their true cost to society and the Earth.  But rise steeply they must.  An initial 50 cent a gallon increase in the federal tax on gasoline would result in more conservation and decreased oil consumption.  Carbon and other energy taxes need not increase the overall tax burden - as income taxes should be reduced by an equal amount. 

A steady, incremental incorporation of external costs into energy prices is exactly the stimulus needed to promote conservation, energy independence and renewable alternatives.  And a whole slew of other benefits will follow such as less international conflict, more intact ecosystems, and more livable communities.

Though only a few generations old, not many Americans can imagine a non-automobile centered society or community.  It is time to take back our cities, by designing people centered communities, where the needs of roads and cars are secondary.  Americans must set an international example of moderation in the use of petroleum resources - striving for efficiency - before the rest of the World mimics our gross wastefulness.

Sustainable living is about reducing your energy use: live close to where you work, travel using your feet and bike as a first priority, buses and trains when possible, and a rented fuel-efficient car when necessary.  Kill you car while coming alive personally.  If America can not learn to live as though oil is dear, our addiction will soon cost us our and the Earth's future.

Living as if the Earth Matters

Why you are responsible for Climate Change and the Western drought, and what you can do about it

Think environmentalists are a bunch of whacked out hippie communists?  Perhaps some.  However, if you eat, drink, breathe or crap - what they know and espouse has importance to you and your children's lives, indeed, your very existence. 

Dark Greens realize that the Earth's processes and life diversity are required to maintain ecosystems and all aspects of human life.  Forests, water, the atmosphere and oceans remain in a delicate balance that provides the conditions for life. 

Perhaps nowhere are failing ecosystems more readily evident and acute than the western United States.  The region, including California, is in the grips of a severe drought and annual large forest fires - the result of climate change, poor land use, faulty water management and over-population.

The response thus far from the Oil Presidency is to heavily log the forests so they don't burn - his "Healthy Forests" initiative, and to propose massive rollbacks of air pollution rules - the likewise Orwellian "Clear Skies" program.  And he has turned his back on climate change by rejecting the Kyoto Treaty while offering no alternatives. 

President Bush has no grasp of ecological fundamentals, and rules as if the Earth has no value.  These programs are a fraud being waged upon the American people and environment for the benefit of industry.  How could fragmented, over-managed, dry forests that are fire adapted do anything but burn? 

The not so Wild West's ecosystems have been severely degraded and are nearing collapse.  It is wrong to spend millions of dollars to fight fires every year.  When possible, let them burn.  Fires are an integral part of the region's natural history and are responsible for ecosystem regeneration including making healthy, natural baby forests.

A more effective approach to Western drought and forest fires would emphasize land use planning, reduced logging, restoration of old-growth forests, and an aggressive national climate change policy.  Residential sprawl into forested areas must be restricted, fragmented landscapes reconnected through targeted restoration activities, and degraded forests allowed to regenerate - thinning and burning naturally as they mature and acquire late successional old-growth characteristics.

Solutions exist.  All Americans and other affluent nations are going to have to change the way they live.  Sprawling automobile dependent suburbs will give way to compact walking communities - with smaller houses and cars, but a larger sense of community and well-being. 

There are a myriad of personal actions all persons - particularly the affluent - must take to achieve personal ecological sustainability.  Choose quality over quantity of consumption.  There are many ways to consume wisely including buying compact fluorescent lightbulbs and using 100% recycled paper.  Have fewer children, no more than two.  Buy and love a piece of land, and help it to rest and restore itself.

Our cumulative actions have caused climate change and fragmented forests, leading to the present crisis in the West and elsewhere.  Only immediate remedial action on all of our parts will repair failing ecosystems.  These and other measures can be taken now while affluence is relatively high and sustainable options to achieve a comfortable and meaningful life abound, or they can be made under duress as ecosystems fail in times of great scarcity, limited options, and civil strife.

It is not simply whether our civilization survives.  How will we do so?  Will it be through imperial militarism and pillaging of other countries, or by reforming our excessive consumption and becoming more efficient?  Will we restrict freedoms, or enlarge them?  Will there be prosperity for the few, or the many?

Global ecological sustainability depends upon diffusion of a new code of conduct.  Respecting and caring for the Earth must become the highest judge of an individual and the merit of their actions.  Living for and of the Earth must become the foundation of an honorable new way of life. 

The Earth is truth and beauty and sacred.  The Earth is God.

As the West and Earth burns, the Emperor fiddles and bombs.  Failure to recognize, acknowledge and reform your life's impacts upon the Earth makes you the petro-bomber's second fiddle, and implicates you in the burning and demise of Gaia.

Living as if the Earth matters, indeed, is worthy of reverence, must be your code of conduct and become the fundamental organizing principle of society.

Today in America - Conservative Fascism and Environmental Decline

Key American Ideals Are in Conflict with the Earth and Other Nations

America - land of plenty as well as the free and brave - is pursuing military solutions to environmental scarcity.  The American lifestyle depends upon tremendous resource inputs from the rest of the world.  Accessing these resources; i.e. oil, timber and minerals, while marketing the American lifestyle, products and morals - including cars, Coca-Cola and Britney Spears - is a major cause of global conflict.  America's war on terror has become a masquerade that seeks to maintain a level of affluence at the point of a gun that the Earth cannot sustainably provide, and does little to identify and address the most serious underlying threats to global security. 

For example, four percent of the world's population cannot consume twenty-five percent of its oil without conflict.  Some one billion humans live with chronic hunger, while being bombarded with American marketing/propaganda that highlights the good life to be found in democratic consumption.  Billions more eke out a meager living in landscapes scarred by industrial capitalism and terrorized by American corporate client governments. 

It is far from certain that democratic capitalism can provide plentiful, equitable, just and sustainable livelihoods to the world's teeming masses.  Islamic and other revolutionary responses capture well the frustrated aspirations of those that know only grinding poverty, violence, environmental damage, and life outside of the American safe zone of conspicuous consumption.  Unmet human need, environmental decline and an absence of justice in the face of American opulence and power fuels criminal acts of terror.

The American lifestyle is not currently sustainable - nor can it ever be universalized to the global population.  Institutionalized over-consumption has caused looming ecological crises of mammoth proportions - including collapse of terrestrial ecosystems, water scarcity, climate change, and ocean dead zones - that threaten the existence of key human habitats and thus the very ecological foundation of being. 

Perspective is dreadfully lacking in post-911 America.  Loss of life in the attacks upon New York by a band of Islamic criminals, while horrific, is less than how many humans die each day from lack of clean water - a situation that is easily reconciled with modest investments.  This is an example of environmental failures that are killing now and will do so more in the future.

American style liberal democracy - one of the greatest political philosophies of all time, particularly in terms of individual and minority rights - has been nearly totally usurped by conservative fascism, an unholy alliance of government, business interests and Christian fanatics.  Islamic and Christian fanaticism are two sides of the same coin - forcing ones spirituality upon others, and seeking power to do so.

In particular, outdated resource oligarchies responsible for so much environmental and social damage (big oil with a Bush mouthpiece) have successfully lead a coup de tat to gain control of America's federal government, and have preemptively launched an imperial war under false pretenses to protect their narrow interests.  America's military adventures may keep the oil spigot flowing a bit longer, but at the cost of 1) continued global economic inequities which breed terrorism and 2) further pushing the Earth's environment past its capacity to support humanity well. 

How then should America address the connected issues of conservative fascism, ecological sustainability and criminal terrorism?  First of all, the body politic must come to terms with the war criminal George Bush.  One act by a bunch of lunatic thugs does not legitimize further crimes against humanity including unilateral perma-war, erosion of civil liberties (spying on citizens and indefinite detentions), nor corporate welfare at the expense of environmental protections. The reign of a tyrant must be ended and America's recent past critically examined, as many nations including Germany, Japan, Italy and France have done in the past.

America's future freedom, material well-being, and safety from a world that hurts, depends upon dramatic political, economic, social and environmental reform.  The following agenda would provide a start towards a demilitarized and environmentally sustainable future, devoid of both criminal violence and shocking human misery:

* Immediate military withdrawal by the United States from Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere.

* Major investments in energy conservation and renewable alternatives; including doubling energy taxes and new car energy efficiency requirements.

* Renewed vigorous support for international legal institutions and tribunals to punish criminal acts of terror, genocide and military adventurism.

* Launch major international initiatives to support community based sustainable development, and to slow and then reduce human population growth through non-coercive means.

* Eliminate corporate subsidies and gradually reduce military expenditures, channeling these resources towards conserving, protecting and renewing the land, air, water and oceans.

At a personal level, in addition for advocating for the above, there are a number of things each American can do to build a plentiful, just, equitable and sustainable future.  Americans must be challenged to develop a personal notion of enoughness.  Such voluntary simplicity distinguishes between consumption for consumption's sake and human needs and reasonable wants, focusing upon quality rather than quantity. 

American citizens' dreadful detachment from the World, as evidenced by lack of geographic knowledge, must be redressed.  The world is a village - and reasonable aspirations of other peoples for a fair share of the wealth, and freedom from the American cultural monolith, are ignored at all our peril.  America must engage with the World non-militarily.

And finally, the author challenges all Americans to reexamine their relation with the Earth.  Human societies and economies are entirely dependent upon the Earth's ecosystems for our biological needs.  We can no longer live as if the air, water, land and oceans are garbage dumps; but instead, must recognize them as human habitats required for life.  Our life.  As goes the Earth will go humanity.