–tariffs–softwood—-Canada—-tariffs—-

Recently in the newspapers, I read so much fuss using these words.  The US and Canada are supposedly rewriting NAFTA, trying to agree on a “softwood” deal.  Canada wants to cut down more trees than it needs, and send them to the United States, but the Americans want to cut down more trees of their own.  “Not to worry, ” say our brave leaders.  “If we don’t sell lots of trees to the US, we can sell them to China.”  Yes, China will buy lots of softwood.  They will turn it into paper, then turn it into glittery Christmas bags, then sell them back to us in the dollar stores–three for one dollar.

What is the hurry to cut down as many trees as possible? Do we really need more softwood?  China, where are your forests?

Once upon a time,  many, many years ago, practically the whole earth was covered with forests.  Then came Humans, who discovered they could plant a seed and it would turn into food.  Then the Humans cut down whole swaths of trees so that they could sow many seeds,–the beginning of agriculture.  The Humans multiplied, and the forests started disappearing.  Not that long ago, Britain was covered with forests, Greece was covered with forests,  likewise the rest of the earth.  Today, eighty percent of the original forests on earth have disappeared, gone forever.  At this moment, they continue to be decimated at a high speed.

We Humans are now facing the biggest threat of mass destruction–CLIMATE CHANGE.  What will kill us indirectly is the speeding increase of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide.  Throughout the previous millions of years, the earth’s temperature has remained stable, greatly controlled by all the forests, the biggest natural sponge for carbon dioxide. We are destroying our forests as quickly as we can, quickly adding to global warming.

As well as all of our tree cutting, climate change itself is destroying the remains of the forests.  The pine beetle, normal for hundreds of years, is now able to eat up the forests.  Forest wildfires become more and more uncontrollable.  Canada has taken some steps in forest protection, but the forests of Indonesia and like countries are disappearing as fast as they can cut.

We have to take drastic measures NOW to slow up global warming.  Start with the easiest.

DON’T CUT DOWN MORE TREES!    LET THE TREES STAND ALIVE!

Uh-oh.  That sounds good, but what about the poor loggers.  Forests are THE most important thing in B,C. economy.  Where will they get jobs.  There are alternatives.  The permanent residents of the logging towns can continue to cut a little, and be the guardians of the forest, help it get back to health.  Transient loggers can get jobs on the flourishing alternate energy infrastructure projects that should be built immediately.  We can also set up small manufacturing factories to produce value-added products.

Sounds good?   Okay, but how are we going to pay for this.  In the new sustainable economy where we are heading, first of all, work hours will be cut down–32 hours a week or less.  No mistake, technology will rule.  We must learn to make the best of it.  Then we suggest that your elected government (you elect it) should set up an Infrastructure Bank, to speed up alternate energy infrastructure, and make loans to co-ops of owners for new manufacturing.  Who says we have to have humungous, expensive factories, why can’t they be small.  The electronics people certainly learned that small is better.

Are we afraid of the deficit, or rising debt?  What does that mean?  We don’t have a choice.  We have to do everything possible to prevent more climate change—-it is not negotiable!

Yes, we are going to see CHANGE!  It won’t be bad, it will actually be better.  Learn about new sustainable economy.  Make sure you question your politicians,  They should be educating themselves, too, but YOU have to bring it up.

There is almost no “original nature” left.  Let’s do our best to keep nature on earth.

Guns shooting, tanks rolling, bombs falling, people dying—the Middle East is still the setting for endless wars–for how long has it been? for many many years.

Iraq, the Kurds, and the American allies have been fighting the ISIS for years.  Now that the ISIS has fled for the moment, Iraq is fighting the Kurds.

Everyday when we watch television, we see miles upon miles of destroyed building, rubble in the street, and not a sign of life.  City after city ceases to exist.  A look at the nearby fields show dry cracked empty land.  Where are the previous inhabitants?  Not at home, for sure.  They are at our door, of course, where else could they try to survive.

For thirteen years the Americans fought the Taliban in Afganistan.  Then they continued fighting the ISIS in two more countries.

The Taliban were conquered.  But where are the Taliban?  They are back.

The ISIS has been conquered.  Where are they?  they are still hidden, they’ve not disappeared, they will fight back with terrorism.

Taliban and ISIS aren’t just armies.  They represent faiths and ideas.  You cannot kill a faith nor an idea with a gun,  These ideas are passed from person to person, from generation to generation.  A gun won’t convince them that they are “wrong.”

If we think that their ideas stem from ignorance, then the only way to fight ignorance is with education.  If we took a small portion of the money and effort that we spend on arms, we could supply a never ending number of schools and  teachers to all of these countries.  Besides learning their parents’ version of life, the young ones could read, search the internet, and learn other ideas.  Only education will finally conquer antiquated values.

So far, education has trickled along with non profit and non government agencies, trying to set up isolated schools sporadically in undeveloped countries.  The government doesn’t see anything wrong with using taxpayers’ money for the military.  As a taxpayer, I would certainly be happy that the money was spent on something useful, that our foreign aid should be spent on education rather than more highways for the rich in these poor countries

Cuba was blamed for “exporting revolution.”  What Cuba did export were schools and doctors.  Castro’s Cuba still exists.

If we are serious about tackling terrorism, military won’t do the job.  It is time to cooperate with the world.

Now there are four big hurricanes and three earthquakes in our hemisphere, international aid can’t seem to keep up with the damage.  Earth is heating up.  Earth is complaining.  Carbon dioxide continues to rise triggering even more extreme weather events.  When is it going to stop?–when every continent is ruined and we can’t grow food anymore?

The truth is:  WE have to stop the progression of climate change.  WE have to CHANGE, to bring down carbon dioxide.  There is no doubt that the burning of fossil fuels is a big factor in the rise of carbon dioxide, so what can we do?

If we look at the Three Commandments mentioned previously, number one is “avoid flying.”  What does this mean? We can’t fly?  Like where and when?  But flying is so EASY.  It means that flying to all those tourist trips to Italy, England, China, etc. on airplanes has done as much damage to earth as dozens of cars.  Flying is also something we can STOP instantly.

Oh, no, you can’t say that.  It is drummed into our lifestyles, into our hearts, that we must “see the world”, we must take vacations to “other societies”, fly here, fly there.

Be quiet, my heart.  Let me take a breath.  NO FLYING?  That’s unheard of.  What about my timeshare?  “Haven’t you been to England yet?” my friends say.  “You must go see the gardens.”  Look at all the tours, all over the world, advertised daily, we have to fly to get there.  How will the locals survive without our flying tourism?

Earth says NO.  No more useless flying.  Everyone in North america is destroying the atmosphere and earth for everyone else–including our own children.  We can take trains, ships, but don’t fly.

If we can’t fly, where will we go for vacation.  I even ask myself that question.  How are we going to live with only local travel?  How will we learn about the world?

First, as someone who as never been to Europe, I’ve seen so many castles, so many gardens, so may tourist and nontourist spots dozens of times , watching the many travel television shows.  I am sure that technology will soon offer a room where one can sit at one’s leisure, with surround sound and vision, and join a virtual tour group any place in the world.  Right now, many tourist spots, like Venice, are crying that they are being literally destroyed by too much foot traffic and movement.

Of course, if a person wants to “find himself” by immersing himself in different culture, living with the locals, he can explore how the locals travel: train, bus or boat.  Another issue is “love miles”.  They are visits to see family, rather than empty lookey-loo.  Even love miles contaminate the atmosphere, but might be more forgivable  In the future, maybe our kids will find good jobs closer to home.

.That leaves us with the question of how we can have vacations in our own area.  Here in British Columbia, most vacations emphasize sports and the glorious outdoors.  Been there, done that.  Not everyone is ready to hike, whiteraft, ride horses in the big mountainous outdoors.

We should invent new kinds of local vacations.  Personally i would pay for a weeks tour of little towns and private gardens.  I’s like to take a boat trip up a river for a few days.  The most important vacation I would take instantly, I would like to take my grandchildren to a week on a working farm, where the children could run around, help a few chores, enjoy the farm animals.  We would have little cabins and three meals a day.  Then in the evenings we could have entertainment, singalongs,  with local people, not “big names.”  I imagine this would require change of “zoning.”  Some dude ranches have lent themselves to tourism, but still emphasize horses, beer, and the big outdoors.

I am sure many of you readers could think of different kinds of local vacations.  Let’s hear from you.  Happy local holidays!  Satya Brwon

First Hurricane Harvey, now Hurricane Irma–and my family in Miami will see the brunt of the worst hurricane in history!  We’ve had drought for four months, here in rainy Vancouver, forests are burning all over the world.  More and more people are evacuated.  What will it be like next month?

I gave my first talk on climate change 25 years ago.  Then it was just a warning– if the CO2 carbon dioxide keeps increasing, we will have warming air causing weather extremes.  Now it is here, and yes, the CO2 went from 375 to 409.  What we have is climate breakdown, when is it coming to your house.  Since 25 years ago, it has been shown over and over that WE humans, particularly in North America, are causing this.  Why don’t we stop?

There we are again, looking at the Vancouver Sun newspaper today September 6, 17.  Our British Columbia premier, Mr. Horgan, says that we people in this province are against continuing the oil line from Alberta to our Pacific Ocean, because we are afraid of oil spills.

Going back, Kinder-Morgan is one of the several oil companies that want to pump oil from Alberta, across the Rocky mountains, and to our B.C. ports, to be loaded onto tankers that will wind their  way through our torturous passages, and eventually be burned in Asia.

Yes, Mr Horgan, we BritishColumbians worry about the oil that will surely be spilled in our waters someday.  But that is NOT the primary issue.  We citizens of earth want to stop the climate disasters, we wanted to STOP trying to produce and sell more oil, back off!  No more oil, not going anywhere, not by boat, by pipeline, by train.

This is not a dream, this is reality.  The alternatives are here, feasible, available.  We have perfect answers to an energy crisis, we have lots of jobs for a change in employment.  What does it take?

There will be many protests against the continuation of fossil fuels.  Will the newspapers mention them, will TV show them?  We will put out a banner:

YES we CAN stop climate breakdown!

SAY NO to more oil and fossil fuels.

from Satya Brown