The Central African Republic - Disaster Fatigue, Take Two

Here is a story that is getting no attention at all in the western news media.   The public is almost entirely unaware of the human tragedy in the Central African Republic.   The media fails to report it. It's out of sight, out of mind. Unspeakable cruelty and suffering swept under the rug; an inconvenient truth we prefer to ignore. Just another example of disaster fatigue.  

Truthfully, as painful as this kind of thing is to consider,  indifference is the easiest way to cope for those of us observing from a distance.  The plight of the Central African Republic is just one of a burgeoning number of places in the world that have been overwhelmed.  They are real time, contemporary examples of the many faces of disaster fatigue that beg for a global response that is comprehensive and life affirming rather than the limited response we offer, which is reactionary at best.

It is shameful that the world places no real value on these people that are suffering and dying, and the parts of the natural world that they occupy.  Quite simply, the scale of disaster these days, the number of people caught up in it, the cost of corrective action, is overwhelming.   It is overwhelming.

I like to think that, as humans, we can do better;  I think to think we can reshape our values and our world to treat every person, every creature, every stretch of our biosphere as though they have value. Humanity needs a reboot, before it's too late.


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Published on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 by Common Dreams

With Scant Media Attention, 'Human Catastrophe of Epic Proportions' Unfolding

UN, humanitarian groups warn of spiraling crisis in the Central African Republic

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

People fleeing conflict in the Central African Republic. (Photo: UNHCR/ B. Heger)A situation described as a "human catastrophe of epic proportions" is underway in the Central African Republic (CAR), yet has failed to garner widespread media attention.


On Monday, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson warned that the impoverished nation was "descending into complete chaos before our eyes.”

Describing the current turmoil in the country, the New York Times reports:

The situation has deteriorated dramatically since a coup in late March overthrew the president, François Bozizé, and installed a new president, Michel Djotodia, who was supported by an alliance of guerrilla fighters known as the Seleka, drawn from neighboring nations and the Central African Republic. Since then, the new government’s formal and informal forces have wreaked havoc or stood by while militia groups destroyed homes and carried out extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, according to human rights groups. [...]
Both the former government of Mr. Bozizé and the current one of Mr. Djotodia, which is backed by the Seleka, are accused of serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture, according to a report released in September by Human Rights Watch.
However, since the beginning of 2013, many of the abuses of civilians have been carried out in Seleka-dominated territory, according to the report. Tensions are heightened by religious differences between members of the Seleka, who are Muslims, and the predominantly Christian populace, which is increasingly defended by armed Christian groups.

In response to the increasing violence, France’s Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed on Tuesday his country was preparing to send "about 1,000" troops to the former colony. Those troops are in addition to approximately 2,600 troops deployed by the African Union, ostensibly to protect civilains.

Doctors Without Borders/MSF has warned of "horrific violence" gripping the country plagued by a chronic humanitarian and health emergency.

“We are extremely concerned about the living conditions of the displaced, whether overcrowded in churches, mosques or schools or invisible, living in the bush with no access to healthcare, food or water and threatened by epidemics. Much more needs to be done and it needs to be done now," stated Sylvain Groulx, MSF Head of Mission in CAR.

Amnesty International sounded alarm as well, stating that a "human catastrophe of epic proportions" was underway in the central African country.

“The crisis is spinning out of control, despite the fact that it has been ignored by the international community for far too long,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
"There was a time when a humanitarian disaster on this scale would have had the world’s press swarming all over it, or at least received a due amount of attention," wrote Martin Bell in the UK's Independent.  "Sadly, not here and not now."

Meanwhile, on Monday, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, a thousand women staged a protest in the CAR's capital city of Bangui. The women, whose mouths were taped over in protest of violence against women, held placards reading, “Stop violence against women. I am not an object,” and “No to murders, torture, rape.”



 

Grocery Stores Without Bees

Found this piece on the net. We depend on bees to pollinate the plants that provide much of our food. Bees and other beneficial insects are in big trouble. Very likely, our use of dangerously toxic pesticides and herbicides has a lot to do with it. Yet another example of how out of step we humans are with the rhythms of nature. It doesn't have to bee that way.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I., June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- One of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators. Yet, major declines in bee populations threaten the availability of many fresh ingredients consumers rely on for their dinner tables.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130612/DA27199)

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121015/DA92273LOGO)

To raise awareness of just how crucial pollinators are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store temporarily removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on pollinators. They pulled from shelves 237 of 453 products – 52 percent of the department's normal product mix.

Products removed included:

• Apples
• Onions
• Avocados
• Carrots
• Mangos
• Lemons
• Limes
• Honeydew
• Cantaloupe
• Zucchini
• Summer squash
• Eggplant
• Cucumbers
• Celery
• Green onions
• Cauliflower
• Leeks
• Bok choy
• Kale
• Broccoli
• Broccoli rabe
• Mustard greens

 

"Pollinators are a critical link in our food system. More than 85% of earth's plant species – many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diet – require pollinators to exist. Yet we continue to see alarming declines in bee numbers," said Eric Mader, assistant pollinator conservation director at The Xerces Society. "Our organization works with farmers nationwide to help them create wildflower habitat and adopt less pesticide-intensive practices. These simple strategies can tip the balance back in favor of bees."

 

Whole Foods Market offers four more ways to "bee part of the solution." Details are online at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz.

• Bee organic: Buying organic is an easy way to support pollinators.
• Bee savvy at home: Most pest problems can be solved without toxic and persistent pesticides.
• Bee a gardener: Plant bee-friendly flowers and fruits.
• Bee a smart shopper: Look for the "Share the Buzz" signs throughout stores to support vendors also donating to The Xerces Society.
  • "Queen Bee" partners ($25,000): Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and Hain Celestial (MaraNatha, WestSoy, Terra Chips, Arrowhead Mills)
  • "Worker Bee" partners ($5,000): Attune Foods, Cuties, Kashi, Sweet Leaf Teas, Muir Glen Organic, Talenti Gelato, So Delicious, Udi's Gluten Free.

 

SOURCE Whole Foods Market

George Clooney - Inspiration

As celebrities go, some are good, others not so much. They are a reflection of what you find in society in general. My definition of a good soul is someone who has a high level of awareness of the world in general, and enough caring and compassion to want to make the world better.  I would count in the category of celebrity good souls,  Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, Leo DeCaprio, Charlize Theron, Betty White, Ryan Gosling, Elle DeGeneres, Bono, and Brad Pitt.  There are others, but the latter names always come to mind first. If there is one among them all who has elevated himself above everyone else, in my mind that would be George Clooney. 

George Clooney

George Clooney has got the world by the tail. He's remarkably good looking.  He's elegant. He's dapper and charismatic. He moves gracefully from one gorgeous woman in his life to another. He's got an amazing coterie of friends. He's a very talented actor, director, and writer. It could easily end there, but it doesn't. With all that he has going for him, George Clooney is also a deeply committed and compassionate champion for those in the human family who struggle for survival every day.

George Clooney lends his voice to many good causes, but he has chosen to give the greatest share of his activism as a voice for the long suffering, oppressed peoples of Darfur, in the South Sudan of Africa.

The Sudan is an arid nation in east Africa, directly south of Egypt. It is one of the poorest places on Earth.  The northern part of the Sudan is Arab culturally, the southern part, called Darfur, is ethnically African.

The political power in the Sudan has always been held by the Sudanese Arabs in the north. They didn't bother much with the Africans that had always occupied the southern, Darfur region of the Sudan. That is until oil was discovered in Darfur. When outside interests started sniffing around for oil and found ii in Darfur, the Arabs running the country decided it was time for some ethnic cleansing. What ensued was not much different than many historical instances of ethnic cleansing, including the one perpetrated by the US government on indigenous, native American populations in the 19th century.

About ten years ago, the Sudanese political power structure started sending planes with bombs and armed military forces into the Darfur region to terrorize the people and drive them from their homeland.  Since then, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the  Darfur War by forces controlled by the Sudanese government. In fact, Sudanese  President Omar-Al-Bashir has been indicated on genocide charges by the International Criminal Court.

Anyway, this is a piece about George Clooney. How does he fit into the conflict in Darfur?  Turns out,  he is an important player in this real life drama. For several years, George Clooney has been using his celebrity to draw attention to the atrocities done by the Sudanese government to its own people in Darfur. Part of this effort is channeled through Not on Our Watch, an organization Clooney co-founded with several other celebrities.

George Clooney has seen the war for himself. He's traveled to Darfur several times.   He's gone to the White House on more than one occasion to ask for aide. He speaks about Darfur whenever he can. Where Darfur is concerned, Clooney not only talks the talk, he walks the walk.

Before I go on to his latest bit of assertive action for Darfur, I want to talk about how he inspires the masses with the movies he makes. I'm talking about films that wouldn't get made without him.  Good Night, and Good Luck, Michael Clayton, The Ides of March, to name a few. Sure Clooney makes movies that are entirely about entertaining and selling tickets. He's a bankable, 'A' List movie star. He uses part of the leverage he gets from his iconic status to get movies made that are about things that matter.  George Clooney is a very accomplished producer and director of quality films about things that matter. He's getting it done in an era when that kind of movie making is tantamount to swimming upstream against a very swift current.  You have to really admire the guy for that. 

Talk about a rich and very full life. George Clooney has got it in spades. It would be so easy for him to coast frivolously through life.  Fortunately, he's about as far from Charlie Sheen as one could be.

Now, Clooney's latest gambit for Darfur. He recently began to do a series of French TV commercials for a coffee called Nespresso.  He's using the money he makes from those commercials to buy satellite time to maintain a watch over the Sudanese government and its actions against the now autonomous region of the South Sudan (Darfur).  Buying satellite time to keep the bad guys in line. That is radically cool.

George Clooney is an inspiration.  I only wish he would consider politics at some point. Let's keep in mind that another actor became President. Ronald Reagan was not nearly as smart  as George Clooney. Reagan was a personality more than a person of substance.  It was charisma more than political savvy that got him elected to the highest office in the land.  George Clooney has at least as much charisma as Reagan, probably more political savvy, and for sure a whole lot more compassion. I would love to see Clooney as President.

Whatever George Clooney chooses to do with the remainder of his time on Earth, I'm sure he will have a good time doing it,  and I'm sure he will have a positive impact on millions of people in the process.  George Clooney is what every gifted person should be, a wonderful example for the majority of people, who need inspiration before they are willing stand and be counted.

Here are link to an article on Clooney and Nespresso ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/george-clooney-nespresso-spy-sattelite_n_3681937.html#slide=more214630

Here is a link some of George Clooney's Nespresso commercials....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXru4Q7Lgxo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbwrwWDXfc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBp1e9zzBow


Here is a link to Not On Our Watch,  a Clooney co-founded organization dedicated to highlighting ethnic conflicts, particularly in Africa... http://notonourwatchproject.org/

Never Seconds

In Scotland in a small town named Lochgilphead, a nine year old school girl from named Martha Payne took an interest in the lunches served at her school.  She began photographing them and posting the photos along with a rating on a blog she created called 'Never Seconds'.  She soon found many other young students from other countries sending in photos and reports about what they were eating at their school lunches. Her blog became such a sensation that one day the authorities at her school called her in to the 'office',  and told her she could no longer photograph her school lunches and write about them. 

Martha Payne

Martha reported to her blog followers that she was being shut down.  What followed was a minor firestorm, with internet followers from around the world coming to Martha's defense.  The school board backtracked and gave their blessing to Martha to resume her daily ritual of photographing and reporting on her meals at school. 

Now Martha's blog is largely focused on the stories of students and school lunches around the world.   Martha has a donation link on her page to a group called Mary's Meals that is raising money to build kitchens at schools in places like Malawi in Africa.  Martha's effort has raised a lot of money for Mary's Meals.

Martha Payne and her father have co-authored a book about her experience.  Next, they will travel to Malawi to visit students there who were touched by her blog.


Here is a story from the U.K. Guardian newspaper about Martha's story...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/16/martha-payne-never-seconds-blog-climbdown


Here is the link to Martha Payne's Never Seconds webpage...
http://neverseconds.blogspot.com

I love stories like this.  They give me hope...

Bushmeat

In West Africa, people depend on bushmeat for survival. We're talking about wild animals hunted and killed for human consumption.  Professional hunters armed with snares and rifles fan out in the heavily vegetated jungle in places like the Congo and the Cameroon  to collect every kind of warm blooded vertebrate for sale in the 'meat' sections of local village markets. In West Africa, villages don't have supermarkets with the latest packaged edibles.  They don't have McNuggets  or frozen pizza they can heat up in the oven. They don't have ovens either. Even if they did, the people have no money to buy food.  The average person survives on less than two dollars a day in West Africa.   They get along the traditional way, subsisting on what nature provides,  plants like cassava root and bushmeat.

Subsistence living has worked in West Africa for tens of thousands of years of human evolution.  It does not work anymore.  There quite simply are too many people trying to survive on nature's rapidly dwindling reserves.

As much as twenty percent of the bushmeat trade is in wild primates. We're talking gorillas, chimps, colobus, and various other kinds of monkeys. These creatures have hands like ours, and large brains in relation to body size. The evidence shows they are sentient beings, able to experience pleasure and pain.  They can't speak like humans, but the closest primate relatives to humans - the great apes like gorillas and chimps - can be trained to communicate to a remarkable degree using sign language. Koko the gorilla is wonderful testament to that fact.  She understands  more than a thousand hand signs and more than two thousand spoken words.

In West Africa, we humans are eating our closest relatives; consuming them as food.  There is little or no malevolence involved.  It's just a fact. It's all they have ever known in West Africa, and there is no alternative.  Corporations that provide an abundance of food for developed nations have little presence in West Africa, mostly because there is no money in it.

Eating our closest relatives is not new to humans.   A hundred thousand years ago, 'Australopithicus' - a close human relative that walked erect, but had a smaller brain -  shared the landscape with humans. Guess who hunted the lesser species and ate them.  If you haven't seen the 1981 movie, Quest for Fire, check it out. See who's tied up, hanging from a tree limb, waiting to be put on the dinner menu.

In 2012, the bushmeat trade in West Africa is an abhorent fact of life.

Eating off the land is the way it's always been in Africa. In fact, before developed nations were developed, that's how it was in those places as well. Humans were hunter/gatherers before they became farmers.  In much of Africa, it's still that way. Estimates suggest up to 90% of animal protein consumed by people living in the Congo Basin comes from bushmeat. Only now, the human population is exploding. Humans are taking more and more of the land, the water, and other resources for themselves.   The massive wild animal slaughter that is taking place is devastating.

It's easy to apply lazy logic and place all the blame on the Africans for the demise of their wildlife. That would be very wrong.

Rapacious multi-national corporations covet the still largely untapped natural resources in Africa.   In the Congo, Cameroon, and other West African nations, we're talking timber and a whole range of valuable rare earth minerals that have already been substantially exploited in other parts of the world.  Killing off the wildlife that currently occupy the lands these outside forces covet is the first step to opening up rampant exploitation.

It's hard to see much hope for the wild creatures of West Africa.  There are already parts of the landscape in the Congo basin that have largely been stripped of their wildlife.

The bushmeat trade is heartbreaking.  I so wish there was a way to stop it, or at least reduce it to a level that nature can manage.

Much of the world's human population growth is taking place in Africa.  That's because we gave them modern medicine but have not helped them manage their fertility.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo currrently has a human population of about 75 million.  That is expected to mushroom to 180 million by 2050.   With all those people dependent on bushmeat, what chance do the wild animals have?  It pains me in the deepest way to think that gorillas, chimpanzees,   other primate species - in fact all the wildlife - in Africa are doomed to extinction, to a great degree from being eaten by humans.

Since the earliest days of colonialism, Europeans have manipulated the African continent.  One thing we haven't done is provide access to family planning.   By focusing mostly on what we can take from Africa rather than what we could do for it, we are complicit in its demise. Africa's expanding human populations will eat their wildlife legacy to survive, and when that legacy is gone, and there is nothing left to eat, the people will starve.  As devastasting as it is to consider, the entire African continent is caught up in a death spiral... not just the animals, but for the  humans who live there as well.

Here is a link to a study about the impact of the bustmeat trade...
http://www.culturallandscapes.ca/blahdocs/uploads/2003bushmeat_and_food_security_1758.pdf


Here is a link to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force
http://www.bushmeat.org/

Mostly Vegetarian Fifty Years From Now

Some consequences of unchecked human population growth are becoming ever more apparent. World population exceeds seven billion, with the total increasing about 70 million annually.   That's, in effect, the addition of six more cities the size of Los Angeles every year.  At least two billion more people will be on Earth by 2050. 

An article in the Guardian (U.K.) reports that the current portion of human food consumption from animal protein is about twenty percent.  Given the planet's increasing water and food scarcity, the only way to feed a human population expanded to nine billion would be to reduce consumption of animal protein to about five percent of total food intake.

It takes about ten pounds of grain and a huge amount of water to produce one pound of meat for human consumption. The Guardian article quotes Malik Falkenmark at the Stockholm International Water Institute ,  "There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade."

Eating lower on the food chain allows water and grain resources to be used much more efficiently.  It's the only way to avoid mass starvation in the poorest parts of the world.  Beyond that, a transition to a mostly vegetarian lifestyle would have substantial health benefits. It would also mean that the slaughter of literally billions of animals raised now as industrial commodities would be dramatically curtailed. The latter consequence, in itself, is reason enough for me to embrace this inevitable change in human lifestyle.


Here is the link to the article in the Guardian newspaper...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/aug/26/food-shortages-world-vegetarianism

The Population Bomb - 2012

Here's the one subject that remains uncomfortable for even average people to talk about.  Well, damn. Maybe it's time to bite the bullet.  There isn't a cultural or civilization scale problem on this planet that isn't at it's core about too many people chasing after too few resources.  The developed nations have largely used up their own mineral and biological wealth, so they are now  fighting over the largest stores that remain. Those stores are in the poorest countries,  which also happen to often be the same places where the human population is growing the fastest. The entire Africa continent is under seige, with China, Europe, Russia, and the U.S. jousting over who's going to control what the African nations have.

There are seven billion - that's billion with a B - humans on planet Earth. Everyone of those folks needs a minimum amount of food, water, and shelter to survive. Some of us, those of us living in the US, Canada, Europe, and some of the Asian nations are doing okay  But about two-thirds of the people living on the planet are not doing okay. They are living marginally at best.  At the same time, they aspire to what the developed nations have, and why shouldn't they? . They have every right to want what those of us who are privileged have. The problem is, there just isn't enough to go around.

The world is still adding about 75 million to the human population every year. There is no wisdom in that. It is insanity. 

We have the means to moderate our population problem.  We have the ability to manage our fertility to limit the number of births to those that are truly wanted.  It is entirely possible to eliminate unwanted pregnancies.

That's already happened in the developed nations.  It's the poorest places that keep on growing.   Until they have unfettered access to contraception; until they have reproductive choice, the Earth's human population is going to keep on growing.

It is just crazy  that we don't talk about this issue. It is the 500 lb gorilla lurking behind every conversation about global climagte change, deforestation, water scarcity; you name it.  

There are already too many humans on planet Earth.  There ought to be a way we as a human culture can talk about this thoughtfully and work together to stabilize then reduce our population numbers over the next century to a level that is sustainable over the long term.

Until we take on population, everyting we do to save water, stop deforestation, protect the oceans, etc are  only treating symptoms.  Time has long passed for us to  recognize that we are the problem. There are too many of us, and that simply must change.

Plan B 4.0

I am a huge fan of Lester Brown. He founded the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Years before he did that, he launched The Worldwatch Institute.

An agronomist by training, Lester Brown is an advocate for nature and the environment, with a broad view across all the science, technology, and governance policy that impacts life on Earth.

For a number of years, Brown and his colleagues at EPI have been publsihing the Plan B. series, a book that explains the  alarming status of global climate change, water resoure depletion, deforestation, food security, militarization;  all the mactro-scale issues and factors that are shaping life on Earth.  Brown and his team deliver a thoughtful, and most important, achieveable pathway to restoration and sustainability.  They call it,, Plan B. The most recent update is Plan B 4.0.

For those who want to educate themselves about the issues: for those looking for a reason to feel optimistic about the future, get a hold of Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0.   You'll find everything you need to know presented very effectively in this one volume. Highest Recommendation.

Here is the link to Plan B. 4.0

http://www.earth-policy.org/books/