Hope on Earth

Hope on Earth, is a highly engaging dialogue between two  remarkable human beings,  Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich, President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology,  and global ecologist/author/anthropologist/filmmaker Michael Tobias.   Ehrlich is best known for The Population Bomb, a book co-written with his wife Anne more than four decades ago.  I should mention that I was a young man when I read the Ehrlich’s book back when it first came out.  Chilling as its message was, then and now, that book had a profound impact on my understanding of the world.  Dr. Tobias’ work is also well known to me. He is the author of more than fifty books, including World War III – Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium and, with his colleague, partner, and wife, Jane Gray Morrison,  Sanctuary – Global Oasis of Innocence. Tobias has also had a distinguished career as a film maker – more than 150 productions - on subjects (mostly non-fiction, but some fiction) related to animal rights’, biodiversity, and humanity’s tenuous relationship with the environment.  Tobias is also the long-time President of The Dancing Star Foundation, a global animal protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental education non-profit.

 

 

 

Both men have spent much of  their lives investigating and reporting on the massively expanded pressure on our biosphere caused by human population growth.  To put this in perspective, the number of people on Earth when The Population Bomb was first published in 1968 was 3.5 billion. In all of human history, it took till then to get to 3.5 billion. In the 46 years since that time, the population has more than doubled to 7.25 billion. This massive human expansion is not sustainable. The Earth’s resources are finite. We humans are pushing our freshwater, our farmland, our forests, our marine resources rapidly  to exhaustion. Our dependence on fossil fuels like oil and coal is pumping billions of tons of pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a planetary warming that puts the very livability of our tiny dot in the galaxy at great risk. Human exploitation is pushing unprecedented numbers of plant and animal species to the point of extinction.  In fact, the consensus seems to be, for humanity to live within the planet’s long term ability to provide sustenance for most sentient beings, including Homo Sapiens,  the human population should no more than about one to two billion.  The current condition for humanity is one of extreme overreach.  Can we turn it around? Can we change our ways sufficiently to roll back  human demand so it does not exceed the planet’s ability to provide?   

Ehrlich and Tobias are skeptical. Despite that, they remain hopeful. They have both  been aggressively sounding a warning for decades. They both clearly detest the general state of public indifference, and even hostility in some cases,  despite the powerful warning signals we are getting from nature; signals like the melting of our glaciers and the collapse of the polar icecaps, the increasing incidents of extreme draught, wildfire, floods, and massive and highly destructive weather events like Hurricane Sandy and Super Typhoon Haiyan. 

In Hope on Earth, Ehrlich warns, “The past is over. We’re here now, and we’d better damn well make our ethical decisions.”  He goes on to say, “If we don’t solve the issues of population growth and consumption, all the rest of these issues won’t stand a chance of being remedied.”

Ehrlich and Tobias agree that humanity must find a path to achieving critical mass in awareness, and beyond that, a thoughtful, ethical approach to the unprecedented global-scale challenges that have emerged. The course we are on is a dead end.

I really enjoyed reading Hope on Earth. In the end, it is a dialogue about ethics. I loved being a fly on the wall, absorbing this great conversation between two exceptional minds, who understand and care deeply about the ugly turn human history has taken. Their prescription: Wake up and embrace a life-affirming cultural paradigm built on a foundation of compassion, and commitment to planetary stewardship. Do it now, before it is too late.

I give five stars to Hope on Earth. Highest recommendation.

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My Two Summers as a Tour Director

When I was 20 years old, I got a Summer job managing package tour groups for a company called Berry World Travel out of Kansas City.   It didn't pay a lot, but then nothing much did in those days, especially for a student on Summer break.

My first year as a tour escort, I was assigned to an eight day train/bus tour called the Colorado-Yellowstone.  I would pick up my tour group in Chicago. Typically, there would be up to 40 people in these groups..  This in in the days before Amtrak. We boarded a Burlington Route passenger train for an overnight trip to Denver. From there, we spent two nights in Colorado Springs, did the Pike's Peak' tour, then back to Denver, where we were booked on a Union Pacific Passenger train to Salt Lake City. After ne night in Salt Lake, there was another train to Idaho Falls, where a bus picked us up and took us to Grand Teton National Park, then on the Yellowstone.  Our last night in Yellowstone was at the Mammoth Hot Springs. The next morning, a bus took us to Livingston, Montana, where we caught a North Pacific Railroad, passenger liner, headed for Chicago. After getting my group settled on the train, I left them at Billings, Montana, where I caught a flight to Chicago, where I started with another tour group the next day.

Sometimes, I alternated the Colorado-Yellowstone tour with different itinerary called the Colorado 8 Day.  It was similar except that it stayed in Colorado the whole trip. Instead of Yellowstone, we traveled around Rocky Mountain National Park.  It wasn't a hard job, except that I worked the whole Summer without a day off.

My second Summer working for Berry was a combination. Most of the time I was doing the Jasper Park-Canadian Rockies tour.  The itinerary for the Jasper Park-Canadian Rockies tour started in Edmonton, Alberta, by train to Jasper Park for two nights, then by bus to Lake Louise for two nights , then on to Banff for two nights . After that, we took a bus to Vancouver, B.C. Then, a ferry took us to Victoria, B.C., and then on by a ship called the Princess Marguerite to Seattle.    At that point, the trip ended and I would pick up a new group and do the same thing, except in reverse order. 

Along with that, I escorted a couple of Berry Tours called 'The California Headliner. With this one, we started in Chicago, where we boarded the Santa Fe Railroad's 'Super Chief' passenger liner. After about thirty hours on that train, we got off at Williams, Arizona, where a bus picked us up and took us to Grand Canyon National Park. After a day, we went back to Williams and boarded the 'Super Chief', which took us on to Fresno, California. From there, we bussed to Yosemite National Park. After a night there, we bussed to San Francisco. After a night in San Francisco, we took a train to Los Angeles.  I was in Los Angeles a week or so after presidential candidate Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated. My group and I stayed at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd, which was where the attack on Kennedy happened. In fact, the bus driver who drove us around Los Angeles was the same one who drove Kennedy around during his fateful campaign stop there.  The year was 1968.

That was also the last year I worked as a tour escort. The nest year,  after I graduated from college,  I enlisted in the Army and ended up in Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. 

FDR's Second Bill of Rights

Toward the end of World War Two, the American President,  Franklin Delano Roosevelt  (FDR) proposed what he called a 'Second Bill of Rights', designed to assure a decent post-war society in which no one was left out.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 President Roosevelt called for the following 'Rights'  to be part of  his  Second Bill of Rights.  It was a very ambitious vision. Aspects of it are now part of life in America, but most remain elusive.

Here is a summary of FDR's 'Second Bill of Human Rights, which he called "a new basis of security and prosperity for all".'


The right to a job with a wage adequate to provide shelter, food, clothing, and recreation

The right of every farmer to a decent return for his product

The right of every family to a decent home.

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade freely at home and abroad

The right of every citizen to adequate medical care

The right to adequate protection from fear of old age, sickness, or unemployment

The right to a good education



A high percentage of the politicians in public life these days re little more than craven opportunists.  The only one I see on the current scene that reflects some of Roosevelt's bold vision, courage, and decency is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.  She would be my choice to succeed Barak Obama.  

Here is a link to an old film of FDR delivering a radio broadcast telling the American people about his  'Second Bill of Rights'  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZ5bx9AyI4

Interviewed on the Dr. Don Show

Don Baham is a retired clinical psychologist.  He's an amazing presence. He has a weekly interview TV show that is available on the internet and also on some public access TV channels..  Don asked me to guest on his show.  The taping was done on Wednesday evening, June 18th,  2014 at a TV studio in Portland. An hour of chatter focused on many of the things that interest and concern me the most. Fun!

Here is a link to my TV date with Dr. Don... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZWz37R3Krk&list=UUfi1QHZLKx3ESeO0GrdeO2Q

Mt. Pleasant Iris Farm

A very nice outing today to a beautiful location in Washougal, Washington overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.    Chad Harris and Dale Grams have created their own little slice of paradise about 25 minutes east of Portland.  This is a small farm that specializes in hybrid breeds of Japanese Iris. Chad has created some new cross breeds himself.   What a privilege to spend a bit of time here. Chad was a very gracious host, giving us access to all of his carefully landscaped garden work. If you're looking for a very satisfying way to spend a bit of time,  the Mt. Pleasant Iris Farm gets my top recommendation.

See some of my images below....

 

For directions and information, go to the farm's link...  http://www.mtpleasantiris.com/

Burt's Buzz

There's a movie out now called Burt's Buzz.  It's about the quirky beekeeper from Maine that founded the  billion dollar company, Burt's Bees.  I haven't seen the movie yet, but I hope to see it soon.  It's about Burt Shavitz the man. He appears to be a genuine 'Down East' character, who has been transformed by some very sophisticated marketing into a brand, worth a billion dollars. 

Here is the link to the trailer for Burt's Buzz...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdGZoABFYYA

Solar Freakin' Roadways

This is such an amazing idea. Think of all the landmass around the world that is dedicated for use of of one kind of transport vehicle or another - roadways, parking lots, airport runways.  What if those paved places were resurfaced with tiles that produce solar energy.  It's a fantastic idea. 

Check out this video produced by a group that has a plan to make it happen... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU





 

The Ultimate Swan Lake - Amazing!

One of the big guns of classical ballet, Swan Lake has been performed on stages all over the world for more than a hundred years. When Tchaikovsky created this music, he could never have imagined a performance like that in this video of the Great Chinese State Circus.  It combines acrobatics with the classic grace of ballet in a way that must be seen to be believed.

Check out this link of an absolutely remarkable rendition of Swan Lake...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sMc-p19FIk

Sunseeker Duo

I first learned to fly more than thirty years ago. I rarely get pilot time these days, but I am still passionate about aviation. I also have a long-standing commitment to clean, renewable energy. Some very cool things have been happening recently that involve both aviation and clean energy.

There are several groups developing solar powered aircraft. Solar Flight, a group based in Italy, has developed a series of solar-powered motor gliders. The latest iteration, the Sunseeker Duo, is big enough for two. It can take off on its own and stay aloft  as long as there is daylight in the sky.

I learned to fly gliders in California's high desert.  I love the quiet and the lazy grace that goes with this kind of cloud dancing. At this point in my life, having a Sunseeker Duo based at the gliderport ten miles west of my home would be the perfect way to satisfy my undiminished desire to take to the sky.

Here is a link to a beautiful video of the solar powered Sunseeker Duo taking off, flying over some gorgeous Italian countryside, and landing again, quietly, gracefully, using only the powered provided by the sun.   https://vimeo.com/92499008
 
Here is a link to the Solar Flight website... http://www.solar-flight.com