GreenPolicy360 Highlights

November 2015

In Paris

Spotlight on Dispatches from Rebecca Solnit: Climate change means that there is no status quo. Either we make dramatic changes in our greenhouse gas emissions or we accept dire changes in the impact on oceans, sea level, weather, agriculture, geopolitics, species extinction, economics, and human and nonhuman life generally...

The climate conference is tens of thousands of people from civil society, government, and industry gathered in what I’ve come to think of as the End-of-the-World’s Fair, a vast, secured suburban cluster of convention buildings with exhibits, displays, meeting rooms, conferences, and cafes. The meetings are essentially editorial meetings; the editors are the 195 nations’ negotiating teams. The text is a document proposing how we manage the fate of the world. There are line-by-line fights, battles over the terms, which result in terms being placed in brackets and in brackets inside brackets.

Of course every sentence translates into what we will and won’t do, how we will do it, and how we will live (or die).

November 2015

Road to Paris

UN / Climate Plans "Synthesis Report"

Drawing closer to the epochal climate meeting of nations in Paris...

And as Christiana Figueres asks us to do: It's time to "Focus"

October 2015

CARB & ICCT

This month we highlight California's Air Resources Board, 'out in front' on the green front

Busted: VW admits to deception, emissions violations, 1/2 million cars in US effected, pollution levels far-exceed regulation level

EPA and CARB Statement / Policy response to the VW defeat device discovery

Policy solutions to reduce vehicle exhaust emissions under real-world driving conditions

Transition to a global zero-emission vehicle fleet: A collaborative agenda for governments

September 2015

Seventh Generation

Seventh Generation vision...

"We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come...."

August 2015

First Earth Images from DSCOVR-EPIC

After journey of about 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) to the L1 Lagrange Point, the DSCOVR satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth, the first 'whole Earth' images since Apollo in 1972 when astronauts captured the iconic Blue Marble photograph. While NASA has released other Blue Marble images over the years, these have mostly been mosaics stitched together with image processing software — not a single view of Earth taken at one moment in time.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "We see our world as only a cosmic perspective can provide: Blue Oceans — Dry Land — White Clouds — Polar Ice. A Sun-lit planet, teeming with life, framed in darkness... Occasions such as this offer renewed confidence that we may ultimately become responsible shepherds of our own fate, and the fate of that fragile home we call Earth."

July 2015

Pioneering 'Immersive Reality'

A nod of respect to Douglas Trumbull who has aligned with us and the "Overview Institute", continuing his big picture, visionary work that started with Stanley Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Douglas Trumbull Studios --- "Trumbull and...future of cinema / NY Times"

Doug in his Berkshires studio / 2015

"Hypercinema" --- Immersive Cinema beyond 3D

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June 2015

Highlighting Bioneering eco-solutions

The 26th annual Bioneers

OCTOBER 16th – 18th · MARIN CENTER · SAN RAFAEL, CA

For 25 years, the National Bioneers Conference has connected thousands of people with practical, visionary solutions for pressing environmental and social challenges

May 2015

Nonproliferation or Proliferation?

As the five year Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference draws to a close, we must raise serious questions in an escalating nuclear future

The nuclear threat environment is recharging to produce a new era. A multiple nation realignment and force modernization are producing elements of a new Cold War. Entangling alliances are developing. Next-generation nuclear weapons — ‘smarter’, more deliverable, and usable — are in development

A new era of ‘smart’ nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons modernization policies are carried-forward within a framework of “instant alert” and “fire on-warning” carry-over command-and-control protocols of the Cold War. The mix of billions in planned new nuclear spending and multiple delivery systems will produce a new and potentially more deadly nuclear order

Updated:

http://strategicdemands.com/one-day-in-the-life-of-a-nuclear-arms-race/

http://strategicdemands.com/escalating-geopolitics_eurasia/

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http://strategicdemands.com/hair-trigger-revcon-ends/

http://strategicdemands.com/re-pits-nuclear-warhead-cores/

http://strategicdemands.com/national-defense-authorization-act/

http://strategicdemands.com/new-nuclear-arms-race/

http://strategicdemands.com/npt-treaty-at-risk/

April 2015

Highlighting Editorial Cartoonists

This month we highlight all the environmentally conscientious artists who run WILD editorially

March 2015

Italian Astronaut Samantha's tweets from space

02 Marzo 2015 from Italian Astronaut Sam Cristoforetti / https://twitter.com/AstroSamantha

February 2015

GreenPolicy360 highlights Ron Garan

We greatly appreciate the newest from Astronaut Ron Garan as his interactive project "Orbital Perspective" is published this week. Some 45 years ago, near the end of December 1968 and beginning of an auspicious 1969, we began seeing the Apollo 8 mission's first-ever images of our "whole earth". It's not overstating to say - these images from above changed everything. These pictures from space looking back at Earth, taken as Apollo circled around the moon, carried realizations with the images -- that together we are planet citizens.

We welcomed a perspective that no human had ever had.

January 1969 was an eye-opener as the images of Earth were broadcast. We celebrated the images and our place in the cosmos even as we, the planet and our populations, were in the midst of violent war and troubled times.

Today, the famous Earthrise photo rekindles our memory, and the serendipity of how the Apollo 8 crew was lucky that day as, looking out their window, the Earth suddenly came into view. There was no "mission plan" to take Earth photos and the astronauts scrambled to get to a camera, put in film and shoot a few frames. They were in awe, they said, and fortune was in play that day. There we were, us, Earth. In the Earthrise images our space traveling planet citizens captured a realization of our wholeness, connectedness, and our shared future as together we spin thru space.

Later, the Apollo 17 mission, as the program was coming to its end, brought home the "Blue Marble" photograph, the first complete 360° image of our planet, a high-res Earth described as the most reproduced photo in history. It is the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and still is only one of the whole earth ever snapped by a human being. Of the two living astronauts, Cernan and Schmitt, who believe they were the photographer who took the photo, here is how one describes his view.... Whichever astronaut of the three aboard Apollo 17 who snapped the picture, what is most memorable is Earth360:

"You have to literally just pinch yourself and ask yourself the question, silently: Do you know where you are at this point in time and space, and in reality and in existence, when you can look out the window and you're looking at the most beautiful star in the heavens -- the most beautiful because it's the one we understand and we know, it's home, it's people, family, love, life -- and besides that it is beautiful. You can see from pole to pole and across oceans and continents and you can watch it turn and there's no strings holding it up, and it's moving in a blackness that is almost beyond conception."

The sense of awe, an Earth point of view, has continued to be communicated by astronauts since and has continued to be shared, more recently with high tech ways to see and experience our Earth as planetary citizens as we see from the International Space Station. The term "Overview Effect" begins to share the experience.

We welcome Ron Garan's words, images and interactive ways to help us appreciate the beauty of our "Blue Marble planet", our home and how we can collaborate to make a difference, to make the world a better place.

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Here are just a few of Ron's thoughts -- for more on what he's doing to bring the Overview/Orbital message to the world's population visit his online sites. To have empathy with his experience is a way to begin a planet citizen "Orbital Perspective."

Astronaut Ron Garan: "Up there, hovering above Earth with my orbital perspective, I came to believe that the problem lies primarily in our inability to collaborate effectively on a global scale. There are millions of organizations around the world working to improve life on Earth, but for the most part these organizations are not engaged in a unified, coordinated effort...

"We already possess all the technology we need to enable truly consistent, world-changing global collaboration. Our real challenge lies in demonstrating how vital and valuable such collaboration is, despite the real and perceived risks. Open collaborations make solutions more effective and efficient through the pooling of resources and information. Working together multiplies cost-effectiveness… It is the only real way to enable economies of scale that can scale innovative solutions. Open collaboration encourages greater accountability, which in turn fosters trust. We are all in this together, so we should share common goals, and the only way we are going to overcome the challenges facing our world is by working together.

"You don’t need to be an astronaut to have the orbital perspective...

"When we look down at the earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But it also, at the same time, looks extremely fragile... Anybody else who's ever gone to space says the same thing because it really is striking and it's really sobering to see this paper-thin layer and to realize that that little paper-thin layer is all that protects every living thing on Earth from death, basically. From the harshness of space.

Earth From Space

"The Goal is to bring people along on our space missions not as spectators but as fellow crew mates -- http://www.rongaran.com/gallery/

"It is truly moving to look at Earth from space. And when we do – we also have the privilege of sharing this orbital perspective with people back on our planet. We are all riding through the universe together on this spaceship we call Earth, we are all interconnected, we are all in this together. We are all family."

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January 2015

GreenPolicy360 highlights Governor Jerry Brown

Perhaps it's fitting to move from a Jesuit pope to a former Jesuit seminarian...

This week we highlight Governor Edmund G. 'Jerry' Brown.

Some years ago, your GreenPolicy editor had the opportunity to serve as an advisor to Jerry's presidential campaign and the Governor and I worked closely on the campaign's We the People platform. Political reform across a breadth of issues was on our agenda. The preparation of briefing books for the debates was a challenge, as we argued watering down of environmental and work protection laws was flawed policy. Up until the 90's the US had set green and labor standards which were being set aside by both parties in the 90s. We argued for a better approach, and for money out of politics, and univ health care, and we came close to winning the nomination which eventually went to the next president, Bill Clinton. The many green ideas we brought forward continued on in the Green Platform which your siterunner was the key drafter and Jerry and his ideas and agenda carried on in California. To this day, Governor Brown is out in front with model initiatives for change. Decades now, day-to-day, Jerry has been hard at work to make a difference and create, with vision, a better world.

Here's a nod of our green hat to Jerry Brown -- a principled visionary, making it happen.

Today the press reports -- California leads the nation and Jerry Brown's point of view? “What happens here doesn’t stay here. It goes all around the country and all around the world.”

The 'greening' results are showing... Transportation -- Energy -- Climate Change -- Pacific Coast Climate Plan, A Model for a Regional Approach to Climate Change -- and Arnold who added some Muscle.

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December 2014

GreenPolicy360 highlights Pope Francis

Catholic pontiff speaks of the environment

Time to take another look at the new Catholic leadership

“In this globalised world,” Pope Francis, “we have fallen into globalised indifference.”

Next year, he will intervene again in the secular world. Today, the Observer reports his intention to write a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN General Assembly and call for a summit of the world’s main religions. He will also issue a rare papal encyclical in March on climate change and human ecology, all part of an attempt strongly to influence the UN climate change meeting in Paris in 2015 to achieve a universal commitment to reduce carbon emissions. “Eco-theology” alarms creationists and divides the Catholic church. Opponents, including some in the Vatican, condemn it as “un-biblical”. Pope Francis sees economic inequality and the plundering of the Earth’s resources as part of a theme. He has said: “In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of accrued profits, whatever is fragile like the environment is defenceless against the interest of a deified market, which becomes the only rule.”

To the plight of carrying an olive branch of peace as we look to the future and struggle with the realities of today.

And to a different kind of pope, Francis, a spiritual voice for 1.2 billion Catholics, calling for peace during the traditional Christmas Day speech, Urbi et Orbi

Thoughts of a leader taking a church in new directions.

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November 2014

GreenPolicy360 highlights George Brown Jr.

Remembering the 'start-up' of the environmental movement and the first laws, a set of founding legal precedents many of which came from forward-looking green visionaries from California, like George E. Brown who passed away suddenly in 1999.

George's work in Congress in air quality/clean air, water and the founding of the EPA highlighted the era's achievement... George was out in front in "big science" -- his profound accomplishments are esp missed now as anti-science positions threaten in the current Congress...

Memories of George http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

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GreenPolicy360 highlights Rebecca Moore

Rebecca envisioned setting up Google Outreach -- and she did.

As our site mgr Steve wrote: Rebecca had an idea how to save trees around her home

and her idea led to setting up Google Outreach - She had a great idea, she made it happen,

she is continuing to make it happen ! Each day there's new progress, local and global...

Global Forest Watch & Global Fishing Watch are two most recent successful launches.

Here's a tip of our green hat to Rebecca's Earth Outreach 'planet citizen' work !

Thank You Rebecca, congratulations - time to see how it's all connected !

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Global Fishing Watch launches

Google Outreach out in front again

Global Fishing Watch_newly launched [1]

Global Forest Watch launches - 2014

Google Outreach continues its impact

Global Forest Watch

World Resources

Monitoring the world's forests

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October 2014

GreenPolicy360 highlights Paul Hawken

Project Drawdown CO2

Introduced at the Bioneers Conference by Paul Hawken

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GreenPolicy360 highlights Iain Keith

Climate March organizer, from Avaaz:

"We realized that a March could send a powerful signal.

Marches don't always change the world.

Sometimes they are the only things

that shake the system into widespread change."

InsideClimate News (TW)

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GreenPolicy360 highlights the Bioneers

Bioneers celebrating their 25th Anniversary Conference [2] [3] [4]

Long time, very good friends of GreenPolicy360 and a preeminent eco-network, here's to the Bioneers!

A celebration of the genius of nature and human ingenuity, the Bioneers network continues on doing its good work locally and globally. [5] [6] [7] [8]

Hearty Congratulations especially go to co-founders Kenny and Nina

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Bioneers Dennis Kucinich, Chief Lyons & Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo speaks at the UN Climate Summit

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Signs from the March

September 23rd -- UN Climate Summit

September 21st -- #PeoplesClimateMarch

Green friend, Louie Schwartzberg's newest film opening the UN Climate session

"Choose to make a difference -- this is our only home..." What's Possible

No apologies, take a stance

Five Vids from the March

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Naomi Klein at the Bioneers Conference

Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything" Naomi Klein speaks at the Bioneers Conference

NY Times..."the most momentous and contentious environmental book since 'Silent Spring.'"

Climate Leadership (Conf videos)

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GreenPolicy360 highlights the Carbon Brief

Carbon Brief - FB - TW

They asked 25 thinkers, writers and journalists a simple question:

What books or readings inspired you to get involved in climate-related work?

They got back some very interesting insights into why people work on climate,

why they started, and why they carry on. Warming Earth

Inspirational books and readings

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