Category: Earth Intelligence

A reader sent me this in response to the piece I ran yesterday on the five largest carbon polluters. It makes the point even stronger. Basically what this is telling us is that 90 corporations in the whole world are responsible for two-thirds of the climate change causing pollution. Think about that for a second: there are seven billion! humans and to maintain the profits of a few thousand individuals, the entire planet must suffer. One has to ask also, why is it I only find these stories in the non-U.S. press

Just 90 Companies Caused Two-thirds of Man-made Global Warming Emissions
SUZANNE GOLDENBERG, US environment correspondent – The Guardian (U.K.)

This essay by Noam Chomsky hits the target, as anyone who travels outside of the U.S. knows. When you are outside of the country it is easy to see how much everything is motivated by fear, and how often fear is used by politicians, particularly Theocratic Rightist politicians, to manipulate public opinion. Fox News is built on the premise of scaring people. This is an excerpt from the just released 2nd edition of Noam Chomsky’s ‘Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity,” published by Zuccotti Park Press. Reprinted from Truthout.org. with permission. Noam Chomsky is amongst the world’s most cited living scholars. Voted the ‘world’s top public intellectual” in 2005, he is perhaps best known as a critic of all forms of social control and a relentless advocate for community-centered approaches to democracy and freedom. Over the last several decades, Chomsky has championed a wide range of dissident actions, organizations and social movements. In this excerpt from the just-released expanded edition of the Zuccotti Park Press book, ‘Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity,” Chomsky speaks with Free Speech Radio News about media control, fear, indoctrination and the importance of solidarity.

Noam Chomsky: America Is a Terrified Country
CATHERINE KOMP – Salon/Truth-out

Tom Atlee's Co-Intelligence Journal

What this message is about: Concerns about civilizational collapse and human extinction in the foreseeable future are rising and moving from the fringes into the mainstream. Many who share these concerns are understandably prone to despair and cynicism. What are the various life-serving ways to confront and respond to these daunting realities?
Acknowledging real end-times possibilities

Co-evolution of Life and Death

Dear friends:

An increasing number of people are coming to the conclusion that there's a non-trivial chance that civilization will collapse – or, more terminally, that the human species will die off – within the next few hundred years, thanks to climate chaos and/or many variously related threats.[1]

These extreme but no longer “crazy” views are drifting towards the mainstream. Quite in addition to the many apocalyptic movies, novels, and music – the R.E.M. anthem “it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine” being exemplary – former Vice President Al Gore recently suggested that civilization might not survive the next 100 years – and two separate New York Times op eds by Roy Scranton and Samuel Scheffler (below) recently explored the philosophical and psychological implications of human extinction.

These cultural phenomena are the tip of an iceberg of disturbed collective consciousness increasingly haunting the minds, hearts, and spirits of ordinary citizens who really don't want to think about it or talk about it.

For years writers seriously concerned about climate change and peak oil have been pioneering ways to address these emerging realities head-on, with varying degrees of pessimism, practicality, positive vision, and spiritual inspiration. Some of the many voices I know of in this choir include:

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Considering End-Times Possibilities”