Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
On Sunday, February 17th, at 1 pm, in solidarity with the Washington DC “Forward on Climate” rally, join Tar Sands Action Southern California, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, and Food and Water Watch, along with many more other environmental organizations as they march in downtown Los Angeles to deliver a message – “Solve the Climate Crisis! Take a Stand Mr. President!”
The Kallawaya cosmovision is based upon thousands of years of experiential knowledge about their environment and shared among many other communities across the High Andes. At the center of the cosmovision is the notion that humanity must live in harmony with the environment. Illness is the result of a spiritual dissonance caused by some sort disconnect between a person and his or her environment. One of the main tenets of the Kallawaya cosmovision is an ethic of reciprocity that is applied equally to people, communities, and the environment.
Dr. James Hansen: We can fix this. The answer is a price on carbon. We must make the price of fossil fuels honest, reflecting their cost to society including the economic devastation wrought by storms like Sandy, the toll on farmland and ecosystems, as well as priceless human lives.
It’s like a Gary Larson cartoon. Fires, floods, and droughts keep coming and we laugh them off, though the joke might be on us. We must all make positive personal and political contributions to solving the climate crisis before it’s too late.
Bill McKibben said hurricane-type disasters, like what slammed the East Coast: NYC’s worst since its founding in the 1600’s, should be named for major oil companies flooding the GOP with ginormous super pac contributions hoping to elect Romney and his anti-global warming pals, via Citizens United super pacs.
In Dhaka, climate change refugees are moving from the countryside and into squalid slums due to repeated monsoonal floods that have rendered traditional farmland unusable. A new documentary by Ami Vitale from the Knight Center for International Media wades through the floods, looking for solutions.
Vicki Kirschenbaum of Citizens Climate Lobby advocates for legislation that puts a fee on carbon pollution to stop global warming. This would spur energy conservation, create incentives for investment in renewables, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the devastating environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels.