“Loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” – Mark Twain
Welcome to the future, a place full of opportunities and threats. We have what is here today, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Don’t look back, we’ve got work to do. Keep your mind wide open. You know the rules, care for our common home and the people in dire need. Clean air, clean water, safe food, and stable climate will improve our quality of life and protect the environment.
Endless growth is a delusion. We live in a finite world with an increasing population. Survival is not measured in billions of dollars or the number of weapons. We must seek perfection of character, live the way of truth, be faithful, respect others, endeavor, and refrain from violent behavior.
How did we get here?
The global climate emergency, with rising sea levels and extreme weather, is the result of decades of wars, energy overdevelopment, and using mountains, forests, and rivers as industrial resources. To show profits on a balance sheet, we have used oceans, rivers, and the atmosphere as sewers, ignoring simple rules of ecology: nature knows best, everything is connected, everything goes somewhere, and there is no free lunch.
The economic mindset is driven by gross domestic product, an aggregate monetary measure of economic output dating back to the 1930s, based on consumption. GDP ignores what ordinary people treasure: freedom of choice, health, equality, trust, respect, honesty, and everything else America stands for.
Reducing greenhouse gases
Killing whales to light a lamp seems barbaric. Before 1850, whale oil was big business with storage tanks and distribution systems. In 1860, drilling holes in the ground to make kerosene from petroleum at low cost saved the whales. The transition was smooth, the world was not running out of whales. Sunlight and wind will save life on Earth.
The unstoppable transition from burning fossil fuels is already in process, driven by smart cities, private companies, climate organizations, and individuals. Consumers make the final choice and do more with less.
Survival will be measured with the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index. Urgent action is needed. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said 2016 had the second-biggest jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide on record; the heating effect of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere increased by 2.5 percent last year. We are headed the wrong way.
Arkansas opportunities and threats
Forests and farming soil are nature’s way to sequester emissions. We need to plant more trees and preserve what we have. Foresters need to stay out of the woods. We need more carbon in the soil and less in the atmosphere. Regenerative agriculture and land use incorporate traditional and indigenous best practices of organic farming, animal husbandry, and environmental conservation.
Arkansas has year-round sunlight and open spaces for residential, community, and utility solar systems. According to Duane Highley, president and CEO of Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, one megawatt of solar energy is added every 36 minutes in the U.S., equivalent to twenty-four 600-megawatt power plants per year. And that is only the beginning.
Electric co-ops and AECC Today’s Power, Inc., are making great progress with solar fields, creating hundreds of jobs in East Camden and Benton. Solar power lowers the high cost of peak demand energy. Co-ops love sunlight!
Stopping emissions and pollution
To stop fracking and shale crude exports, Diamond and other pipelines must go. Crude prices below $50 per barrel are a threat to the U.S. financial system. Private companies’ use of Homeland Security resources and heavily armed military mercenaries used in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop non-violent peaceful water protectors, must stop. Biofuels and other products made from trees must stop. Pine Bluff Wood pellet mills and China’s new Sun Bio mill in Clark County are on the list.
Survival
First Nations must be protected and respected, they know the secrets for survival. Planting sacred tobacco on the path of the Diamond pipeline is a brilliant project in Oklahoma.
Dr. Luis Contreras
Gov. Hutchinson applauded the decision to withdraw from the UN Climate Agreement and praised the Natural State. Our governor has done everything he can to sell Arkansas and hopes to get a second term based on headcount. Sad.