This is my response to Maine's Senator Susan Collins after receiving a newsletter detailing her reasoning for voting against moving the Senate health care reform bill to the senate floor. Her newsletter starts with,

"U.S. Senator Susan Collins tonight voted against considering a divisive, partisan bill and, instead, urged her colleagues to work together to develop a new, bipartisan proposal to help reform our nation’s health care system."

And my response is:

Senator Collins,

In response to your rational about voting against moving the health care reform bill to the senate floor for debate, I believe you are out of step with the realities of the times and the country.

To vote against the opportunity to debate the bill is to vote against the American people who desperately need health insurance now. You and the Republican party have had plenty of opportunities to help craft a bipartisan bill. But to stand up to these opportunities took courage and only Senator Snowe in the senate has demonstrated such courage thus far.

I find your position cowardly, and overly political. And I am sorry that you believe the way you do on this matter.

Hopefully, you will have something more productive to offer during the debate.

Sincerely,
Adam Burk

Climate Change

Today is Blog Action Day, and the call to action is for bloggers to talk about climate change in connection to their respective blog topics. For Pushing Upward this is little different than any other day. What I am discussing is the development of mature, sane personalities for the growth of a peaceful culture. The means to do this is the study of the philosophy of change. Climate change is but one of the myriad manifestations of change.

Change is the interplay between two universal principles, known in Chinese philosophy as yin and yang, light and dark, male and female, etc. This is predicated on the understanding that there is no consciousness without contrast, and thus we must become accustomed to thinking in terms of it.

All universal activities, humans' included, is either aligned to the creative (yang) or destructive (yin) principle. Cosmically, as evidenced by the 13 billion year evolution of the known universe, the creative principle leads the destructive. Thus even through massive supernova's new and more complex systems come into being, leading up to this present day. This universal way of change is known as the Tao.

In humanity, there is the tendency to be misaligned to this cosmic principle of creative change. Due to unevaluated thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ultimately actions we act out our ignorance and wander from the Way. Thus, for a time, rigorous self-correction is needed.Now, is such a time.

As a culture that has long strayed from intimate contact and knowledge of universally harmonious rhythms and patterns, attuned now to technological pressures, we are readily at a loss how to solve our current problems.

As Albert Einstein said, "no problem can be solved using the same level of thinking that created it," we cannot hope to truly solve climate change or world hunger or war, without a dramatic shift of culture.

Culture is the collective living out of individuals, and while its collective force is huge, it is maintained or altered by the power of the small. Our daily habits are what write the story of our history everyday. Yes, it is our choices that must be reviewed. Every choice, from food to policy is reflective of ignorance or wisdom.

I apologize if I seem to be preaching, for I am first and foremost talking to myself. I evaluate myself just as sternly if not more so than any external source. I have deep compassion for myself and my human companions. I know change can be tough, I know habits dig deep, and that by living the understanding that the only constant is change, reduces my suffering and increases my ability to walk in wisdom's way.

So today, forgiving all my and your trespasses up to this day, what can we do to solve this problem? As a professor at Princeton has offered, it is a "stabilization wedge" comprised of various choices. Among them are enacting national and international policy that curbs the release of greenhouse gases, perhaps most importantly creating a target to level off current levels of emissions no later than 2015 and then to begin sharply reducing them so that we return to pre-industrial levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. The magic number is 350, 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is what the planet can handle at a maximum over a long period of time. Currently, we are at 382 ppm. Thus, it is imperative that this be dropped as fast as possible so that fewer long-term consequences are realized.

On a policy level, we need the commitment to this and the mechanisms to do it. Carbon caps and taxes for polluters, consumer protection against polluters passing the buck, creation and favor for the creation of sustainable technologies, infrastructure and jobs and subsidies for polluters, oil and gas, and factory farming must be ceased..

On a personal level, we need to refine nearly every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately, we have strayed so far from nature that a majority of our activities contribute in some significant way to the degradation of the environment. From driving to eating to powering and heating out houses, toxins are released and the world is being poisoned. We must learn to discipline ourselves, with love and compassion, to change our ways and to demand better options for us as consumers and living beings on the planet.

This personal transformation must be carried out not only at home, but at work also. Business leaders need to adopt "the triple bottom line" of not only profits but human and natural resources too. Our impacts must be lessened. We must learn to shut off computers, even if it is inconvenient to start them back up the next day. Alternatives to commuting alone in a car must be adopted on a regular basis, reduction of paper use in offices paired with the purchase of recycled paper enacted.

This is not a time for sticking our heads in the sand or being defensive, just like Americans' waistlines we are too big for our planetary pants.

And this is why it is about character, for those who are sensitive enough to have known that the planet is in trouble and we are living beyond our means, are already doing these things, there's no blame to join the party now, just get to it, but to drag your feet or make up stories and science about climate change being false just marks you a fool.

The call to action is great, and nothing less than great personalities are what is going to get us out of this and the planet alive.

Lastly, and ultimately, we must reattach ourselves to our mother earth. We must learn to learn from her and father sky once more. In nature there is no garbage, systems are continually regenerated and renewed, we must learn from her, philosophically and practically. Movements such as the Bioneers and Biomimcry are the waves of the future today. Furthermore, our personal psychological health is attached to direct conscious contact with nature. Nature's health is likewise attached to our personal sanity, thus efforts such as Applied Ecopsychology are recommended for all the planet's citizens. A wise man once said "understanding the nature of change, changes the nature of understanding." (Wolf Richards, The Way to See (W)hole) And it is this which we must undertake.

Emily Posner: Thoughts on Commeration and Recommitment

Thanks to Emily for all that she does to bring forth justice and care on Earth. The following is an excellent portrayal of Emily's presence in the world, issues we still face and the means to address them-more people like Emily.

With Hope,
Adam
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Tropical Storm Danny passes over Maine, I thought that I would share these words, experiences and thoughts to commemorate the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on our nation.

All Power to the People!

Free the Land!

Emily Posner

At this time last year silent tears meandered down old river beds that had not flooded my face for many months. I remember watching the weather channel alone in a back corner of rural Maine, wishing that my eyes would drain dry Gustav, the growing hurricane heading towards Louisiana's fragile, failing and eroding coast. In between private sobs, I made phone calls to Orleans and Plaquemines Parish with hope that my friends all had an evacuation plan, the financial resources and the emotional strength to leave their homes yet again. It was just three years since levee failure destroyed New Orleans in the aftermaths of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I questioned time as I watched the meteorologist forecast Gustav's potential routes. And sunk my head into my hands as the computer screen flashed additional warnings of coming storms that would later devastate Haiti and Galveston, Texas. Amongst the despair and worry, I stumbled to remain hopeful amongst nightmarish thoughts of what the future might bring in this time of great climate crisis.


Along with hundreds of thousands of others, my life changed profoundly in the aftermath of Katrina. I was a recent college graduate working as a deckhand on Portland Maine's ferry boats. For me, the storm's disaster unfolded on a television screen in the crew lounge of my workplace. I held strong critiques of our country's consumptive culture, its bigotry and wars. But, I never expected to personally witness my apocalyptic analysis manifest into such immense and widespread human suffering in my own country. Despondently, I and those around me waded through emotions of confusion, anger and helplessness with no clear route out through the fog that had settled on our country's collective conscious that first week in September 2005.


My personal story and emotional journey of traveling to New Orleans in the immediate aftermath is unique, nuanced and inappropriate to fully recall today. Perhaps another time it will join an anthology that honors the thousands of New Orleans residents and volunteers who sacrificed so much with so few resources to rebuild a more just and sustainable city. Nevertheless, clear memories align and buttress patterned post-Katrina experiences of many, and it is most certainly these patterns that must be recognized if our society is to truly work towards not repeating the institutional failures of four years ago.


I arrived in New Orleans exactly one month after Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. A close companion and I had spent the previous two weeks working in rural Mississippi with farmers salvaging the few remaining crops that the storm had spared. We were closely monitoring the news of New Orleans through both mainstream and alternative media sources. When an article appeared on Indymedia after Hurricane Rita that called for additional help and supplies, we decided to further travel south. The call originated from the home of a New Orleans community organizer and former Black Panther Party member who had turned his backyard into a makeshift relief center for residents and housing for incoming volunteers. The article clearly articulated growing and rampant disparity in New Orleans, as well as similar stories of institutional neglect in the First Nation community of Louisiana's Terrabone Parish.


We were diverted at a military checkpoint about forty minutes from the city just as the sun was setting. The passenger in the car ahead motioned to us. We pulled up alongside and were told by the Arab family inside that they knew another way to get into New Orleans and to follow them. Blindingly and faithfully trusting these strangers we agreed and fell in line. As darkness set in, we could not see past the license plate of their car as we journeyed through desolate and unlit back roads. At some point we said goodbye, and not too much later ended up on the expressway in the middle of an abandoned city.


We drove the only car on this four lane highway with the exception of a few police or military caravans. Lost, without a map, and armed only with the hope of finding this Panther's house in a neighborhood we knew was called Algiers, we drove aimlessly around for hours. My first impression of New Orleans--a city I have since grown to love like I do my brother--remains haunted by that initial night. Widespread urban desertion clouded my intuition. I could not distinguish fear from anger or confusion. Slowly we drove amidst an urban apocalypse of a sci-high movie. All I could hear was my friend repeating, “oh my god, where the hell are we,” and distant sirens of varied enforcement agencies that now occupied the city. With no streetlights all the landmarks and street signs we looked for remained hidden. Suddenly and unexpectedly we came across the Superdome. A few emergency lights illuminated the structure, seeming to project images I had recently watched on the evening news at work in Maine. In the chaos of the dark, I heard cries for help from grandmothers in wheel chairs and babies in diapers. People were tired, thirsty and exhausted from the heat and humidity of the New Orleans summer. Blinking, the scene of the past quickly slipped from my eyes back to my subconscious...but in that brief moment, I felt for the first time the depth of the horror/ghost story of an entire community that was discarded by a government that truly did not care.


The plot has only thickened as our society continues to unpack and dissect overlapping patterns of racism, governmental neglect and corporate profiteering that frightfully emerged in the Big Easy. About an hour after passing the Superdome, we pulled over in a gas station utterly lost. My friend and I later realized that we had accidently gone all the way into neighboring Jefferson Parish in our effort to find the Panther's house. I asked the first person I saw there, a middle aged white male, how to get to Algiers. He gave adequate directions, with an unanticipated addendum of “watch out for all the Black people, but I think the storm got rid of most of them.” It was this type of hatred and ignorance that I later learned had fueled the Gretna Police Department of Jefferson Parish to blockade the Crescent City Bridge that spans the Mississippi River and shoot at hundreds of mostly black New Orleanians fleeing the abysmal conditions we all saw on our television screens at the Convention Center. Four years later, neither the department nor any officers have been held accountable for their acts of violence.


When my travel partner and I made it to the Panther's home—we were met with tales that white vigilantes had been roaming this neighborhood and acting as if it was open-hunting season of black men. For the last three and a half years, the Panther has endlessly toured the country speaking of such atrocities in the hopes that justice would be served to what he believed were 19 victims. In July of this year, a news report sited an interview between one such vigilante and two police officers from Pennsylvania that he alone had shot 38 people. Still four years later, not one perpetrator has been charged or convicted by city, state or federal prosecutors.


In early December 2005, I met on the phone a woman who had been arrested just a few days before Katrina for a minor charge later dropped. She had been left in her prison cell as it flooded, only to be released and evacuated across the country without any form of identification or money. In desperation, she asked me to find her home in the Upper Ninth Ward. She needed me to search through her destroyed home to try to find any piece of mail that might indicate her New Orleans residency as she labored through the FEMA form process separated from her family in South Carolina.


A group of relief workers and friends were in a tragic accident on the interstate in December 2005. At the makeshift army hospital in the Convention Center, I watched a comrade who was mourning our mutual friend's death translate at triage. Somehow, the army did not have any Spanish speakers on staff.


I witnessed another 19 year-old relief worker get arrested by the NOPD in front of the volunteer run, neighborhood distribution center being run in the Panther's driveway. The police charged him with double-parking. He was loading a moving truck to run supplies to the public housing units in Algiers and Jefferson Parish.


The collective stories of residents and volunteers, such as the aforementioned, from the immediate aftermath of Katrina would intensify the plot of the most disturbing Stephen King novel. Together they weave an unprecedented historical chapter of US history, where infrastructural failure ends up producing the greatest and hardest privatization scheme in our country to date. From city owned lots and public housing units, to schools and trash disposal; every institutional aspect of the relief and recovery effort in Southeast Louisiana has been put up on the auction block. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents and volunteers have endlessly organized and labored amidst a devastated city or in a far and foreign place to come home and rebuild. Their spirit and faith of humanity have led them to accomplish more than any government contract with just a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars that have lined the pockets of the CEOs politically connected to the Blanco and Bush Administrations.


Fast forward three years to this time of year 2008. In between sensational images of the coming Hurricane Gustav, it is these past post-Katrina memories that uncontrollably resurfaced throughout the Gulf Coast. It did not take Mayor Ray Nagin long to exploit recent history as he urged New Orleans residents to evacuate the “storm of the century.” He announced the day before Gustav made land fall that “anyone who decides to stay, I'll say it like I said it before Katrina: make sure you have an axe, because you will be carving your way, or busting your way out of your attic to get on your roof with waters that you will be surrounded with in this event."


On September 1st, 2008, I boarded a plane just as Gustav was approaching the Louisiana coast and flew to Little Rock. I rented an SUV and headed south, mentally preparing myself to repeat the disaster of 2005. Soon bureaucratic and political leaders flaunted to the national media their success in evacuating millions from the greater New Orleans area. I, however, experienced something very different. As residents began to return, patterns of stories immediately emerged. Cost of food, hotels and gas drained the personal accounts of many. And even with the approaching of Hurricane Ike, a skipping record was heard all over New Orleans..“I'm just going to have to ride out the next one.” Stories of bigotry and inhumanity followed. As human rights advocate and attorney Bill Quigley wrote at the time:

Reports from the New Orleans Worker Justice Center for Racial Justice point out that 1500 people were housed in an abandoned Sam's Club warehouse that was not set up for habitation. "Mothers have been forced to bathe babies in portable toilets parked outside while diabetics are receiving food that puts them at risk." The Worker Center also published a state policy memo that sent people who evacuated on their own to one type of shelter and people who used public transportation to another type entirely. Another 1200 were housed in an old WalMart in Bastrop with insufficient toilets and had no shower facilities for at least 3 days.1


In the end, Gustav did not directly hit the city, but the storm still proved to be a social disaster. Real people's experiences exposed once again that systemic problems of racism, poverty and ecological genocide continue to undermine any genuine attempt to provide dignified and humane relief services.


Jump forward eleven days. Everyone was home from Gustav. I drove over to the levee along Florida Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward that borders the devastated cypress triangle. Alone I personally commemorated the seventh anniversary of September 11th. Slowly smoking a cigarette in the coming wind, I stared out at hundreds of cypress trees knees—the last remains of the once vibrant Bayou Bienvenue. Decades of salt-water brought in from a failed Army Corps project in the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) slowly has inundated this former urban forest.2 Hurricane Ike was moving through the Gulf, some 350 miles south of New Orleans. Here in the Lower Ninth, Ike's storm surge had sent water to just a few scary feet from the top of the levee wall. I lit another American Spirit, heavy in sorrow from realizing that wherever there is saltwater, danger and disaster are just a storm surge away. And where my feet stood, only a man-made wall of boulders and steel separated the encroaching ocean from a community struggling to still return their grandmothers, children, workers, parents, teachers, musicians and families.


The United States' recent and unprecedented economic growth over the last century has depended largely on massive construction projects, like MRGO and the leveeing of the Mississippi River. Such large-scale, industrial development have in turn greatly altered or destroyed hundreds of nearby ecosystems. Perhaps more than any other place in North America, the people and ecologies of the Louisiana Gulf Coast have disproportionately born the burden of this form of development that supports our consumer choices—from transportation mobility to the growth of industrial agriculture. The Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States and the fifth-largest in the world. Of similar scale, the Port of New Orleans is the fourth largest in the United States. New Orleans produces and brings in a third of the country's oil and a fourth of its natural gas, not to mention over 40 percent of the country's seafood. Further, the region exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are industrial agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A larger proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 57 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.3 Oil companies have cut over 8,000 miles of canals through the wetlands—enough to travel to Baghdad and back. At the same time, the fertilizers and pesticides used to grow the corn, soy and wheat shipped south on the Mississippi and out of New Orleans has contributed to a coastal dead-zone that has bloomed to the size of New Jersey. As our country remembers what happened today four years ago, no one should continue to exercise their purchasing power without recognizing the hidden and unaccounted impacts of such actions here in southeastern Louisiana.


More than 370 square miles of Louisiana wetlands have disappeared in the last decade. Katrina alone took 30 square miles. Together hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana, destroying and transitioning a once carbon sink into a carbon source. MRGO and its saltwater is primarily responsible for the destruction of Bayou Bienvenue. According to John Day of LSU's School of the Coast and Environment, "had those cypress swamps been in place, the levees probably wouldn't have failed."4


Institutional support required to transform the ecological, economic, political and infrastructural problems facing New Orleans has been far from adequate. Four years ago, for the first time in American history, Katrina's widespread destruction provided a unique glimpse into the future of climate instability, in particular for urban environments. Today, as our nation commemorates Katrina's human and ecological disasters, it is time for us to collectively recommit ourselves to never letting such a tragedy repeat itself.


We need to recognize the struggles of the people of New Orleans to rightfully return to their homes and communities. Further, their vulnerability is mirrored in all of our neighborhoods and reflected in localized and systemic problems of racism, poverty and ecological destruction. There is not a place in the United States that is not destabilized from the intersecting nature of these social and economic practices. Hurricane Katrina exposed the great need for cultural and ecological healing in this country.


Man-made walls always seem to crumble; whether by the hands of those suffering from its division or mother nature reclaiming her natural boundaries. While I looked out at the salt-filled Bayou Bienvenue last year, I finished that cigarette wondering if we, as a national community, would be able to find the necessary common ground to work not only united, but with our surrounding natural communities to rectify the environmental injustice facing the residents of Southeast Louisiana. Today, my question remains unanswered...but I remain hopeful.

1Quigley, Bill. “Displaced Poor Arrive as the Saints Go Marching In.” 8 September 2008.

2MRGO was built in the mid-1960s as a 76 mile shortcut for the shipping industry between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

3Friedman, George. “New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize.” Stratfor http://www.stratfor.com/new_orleans_geopolitical_prize 2 September 2005

4Guillot, Craig. “Hurricane Katrina's Ecological Legacy: Lost Swamp, Crops, Islands.” National Geographic News. 23 August 2006. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060823-katrina-ecology.html

We All Win!

Today I got some very exciting news. My inbox is usually filled with dozens of requests for donations, petition signatures, calls to government officials, etc. But today I received a rare gem, a major success story.

Greenpeace just announced that after five years of campaigning against Kimberly-Clark for their use of pulp from clear-cut boreal forests in their products, they are ending the Kleercut campaign. This is due to a new partnership between Greenpeace and Kimberly-Clark beginning with a solid plan by Kimberly-Clark to end its use of clear-cut materials and improve its sourcing.

From Greenpeace's press release:

"Kimberly-Clark has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the wood fiber used in its products – including the flagship brand Kleenex – from environmentally responsible sources. By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40 percent of its North American fiber is either recycled or certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – a 71 percent increase from 2007 levels, representing over 600,000 tonnes of fiber. Also by 2011, Kimberly-Clark will eliminate any fiber from the North American Boreal Forest that is not FSC-certified."

Greenpeace, their volunteers and the surprising leadership at Kimberly-Clark deserve credit for this major gain in responsible human behavior. It gives me great hope that we may just make it through this current cultural shift with a reduced loss of biodiversity.

While we have passed some markers and milestones to reverse human-caused climate change and prevent the extinction of thousands of species with failing marks, we haven't passed them all yet. Actions such as Kimberly-Clark's are what it is going to take to improve the chances of reducing the number of avoidable tragedies we as a planet are poised to experience.

As a smart man, recently said to me, "we basically have two choices and that is either consumer goods or ecosystem services." Considering the following information it would seem that the choice is easy.

“In 1997 an international team of economists and environmental scientists put a dollar amount on all the ecosystem services provided humanity free of charge by the living natural environment. Drawing from multiple databases, they estimated the contribution o be $33 trillion or more each year. This amount is nearly twice the 1997 gross national product (GNP) of all countries in the world, or gross world product, of $18 trillion. Ecosystem services are defined as the flow of materials, energy, and information from the biosphere that support human existence. They include the regulation of the atmosphere and climate; the purification and retention of fresh water; the formation and enrichment of the soil; nutrient cycling; the detoxification and recirculation of waste; the pollination of crops; and the production of lumber, fodder, and biomass fuel.” (E.O. Wilson. The Future of Life, 2002. p. 105-106)

However, as Michael Cohen points out, we have been conditioned by an industrial society and bonded to indoor, tropical environments. Psychologically, we are impaired to make this rational decision to value "the regulation of the atmosphere and climate; the purification and retention of fresh water; the formation and enrichment of the soil; nutrient cycling; the detoxification and recirculation of waste; the pollination of crops; and the production of lumber, fodder, and biomass fuel," over iPods and Coach purses. Because cultural conditioning is so pervasive, it is very difficult to overcome. It takes perseverance and the adoption of new habits--of thinking and behaving--to overcome. Furthermore, it takes positive reinforcement of these new habits, and for this we need exposure to communities with similar values.

These communities may be of people, such as I would guess Kimberly-Clark's (K-C) leadership found in conversation with Greenpeace representatives. Surely, the conversation started as heated and even adversarial, but as it continued, K-C leaders would have found their own inherent biophilia, awakened and acknowledged by Greenpeace members. Over time, this reinforcement would create the foundation for courage to create a new business platform based on environmental responsibility rather than exploitation.

The community of shared values may also be the natural world. We all have a story of a really good experience in nature. One that inspires us, brings us joy and peace. This is shared non-verbally with the more-than-human world. For exercises to explore this please visit Michael Cohen's website and try the orientation course. For a more neo-cortex understanding of this, I suggest David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous.

I leave you with Greenpeace's cute video reflecting on their work and future with Kimberly-Clark.

With hope,
Adam

Boring

We are bored.

For the past week I have been on the campus of Goddard College in rural Plainfield, Vermont. A place where boredom is often reported by residents of the area. From 6am until at least midnight, every day, I am engaged. Engaged in personal reflection, natural explorations, dialogues, eating, serving, playing, loving. There is not a moment that I am bored.

There is certainly a time and place for having nothing to do as this allows the mind, body, and spirit a rest; allows for mystery to usher forth in creative inspirations.

Our culture is driven by the idea that "leisure time" is an admirable goal. And that the more one has the greater the measure of the quality of his life. And we are bored.

We work jobs that we don't care about, they are a means to paying bills and having some sort of social experience, usually highly dysfunctional. We are bored when we are working, we are bored when we are home. Generally, we are dissatisfied with our lives. We are bored.

We have passions that we don't pursue, we have loved ones we don't call, gardens we don't tend, children we don't see (literally and figuratively), and we are bored.

The planet is in crisis. Climate change brought about by human actions is bringing forth extinction of untold numbers of species including our own in due time. People are being killed en mass around the world, children are sold into sexual slavery, people and animals are brutally murdered, people are starving...Yet we are bored.

I can't believe we are bored.

With hope,
Adam