Rap News 22: The Energy Crisis

Rap News is back with "The Energy Crisis". A well rounded look at all of the tomfoolery that is proposed to deal with the very real energy problems we face globally.



I have been having a lot of problems with my computer lately and have been unable to focus on blog posts for too long! There are a number of posts that will be coming up once I'm back online with a functional computer (hopefully very soon!). Stay tuned!

Rap News 21: "The News"

Yep, I'm still rocking the Rap News and keeping anyone that reads this blog updated with the latest.



This is wonderful and even has a guest weather forecast from Sage Francis!

Power Shifting to Truth

I haven't written anything recently to explicitly state my views on anything.
By recently, I mean probably in more than a year.
I find it hard to express specific views about most things because most of the time, I'm just not that certain.  There is a lot of uncertainty when you look deeply into issues and I'm not very good at looking into things any other way.
I have an incessant desire to find the heart of issues or to find the root or to find the truth.
The truth is not a straight forward thing.  The truth is messy.  Most of the time, I have no idea what it is, but it is always there.  It is at the centre of all the tension and arguments and disagreements.  It is like the eye of a hurricane, silently and calmly creating differing views and opinions to surround it.  Often creating massive destruction.
'Woah. Woah. Woah.  Are you bad talking 'the truth'?!?!' You might find yourself asking.
'No', I reply.  But I think it is very hard to find one truth. I think everyone has their own truth which may differ from others' truths.
'But isn't there a single underlying truth that is ultimate and undeniable?'
'You mean, like a God?'
'Well, maybe some people would look at an ultimate truth as God, but it doesn't necessarily have to be 'God', perse.  Just something that you know is right.'
'How do you know something is right?'
'I guess, sometimes you have a feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is right or you learn enough about it and so it seems obvious that one thing is right over another.'
'Such as?'
'Well, like when you lie.  Most people don't feel good about lying, even if it's a small lie.'
'Interesting. We're talking about lies already when we were talking about truth a minute ago.  But yes, it usually doesn't feel good to lie because we have some information that we know for a fact we are falsifying.  But I think rather than falsifying the information it's the impacts that lying has that makes it a problem.  The smallest lie can have a huge impact on the world. Can you imagine if you were the queen of the world and you lied about something as tiny as liking tea when really you found it horribly bitter?  Tea plantations would be set up all over the world in your name!  Tea brands would market their tea as your tea! The people of the world, forced (or genuinely) to show their admiration and respect for you, would drink tea enmasse!'
'So it's actually those little lies that make the hurricane.'
'What do you mean?'
'You start at the truth but you come into a world where there are lies everywhere. Basically, you're born into the hurricane. Then you get caught up in it. You start working with the lies instead of working against them and stop trying to get back to that point where the truth was, being totally true to yourself. The hurricane gets stronger and stronger and more and more convoluted'
'I suppose that could be.'
'But it could start with just one person.  One person makes one small lie and people believe them and this whole hurricane spirals out of control and eats North Eastern United States and Eastern Canada!!'
'Or one person could be totally true to themselves, unafraid of what anyone thinks, and have the counter reaction.'
'Just one truth?'
'Well, if one lie can have that effect, why not one truth?'
'So then truth is being true to yourself?'
'What is being true to yourself? Can you ever know that? How much of me or you was created by all of the people who we've ever met or talked to and how much of it was inborn?'
'The nature vs nurture debate.'
'Exactly. Together nature and nurture led us to this present moment where we exist.'
'Both are there simultaneously.'
'All of that biology and all of the people who have encountered you in any way are all there simultaneously inside of this present moment.  In that vein, the future, that will unfold after this present moment, is also already there, because you are creating it with whatever you do in this moment.'
'So the truth is everything all at once.'
'If you can put your mind around it.'
'I see what you mean about the truth being messy.'

My mind sometimes derails my writing like that, sorry.  I decided to just let it be hashed out rather than ignore it and not write anything.
But, if that made any sense to you, please let me know because I'm not even sure it makes total sense to me.
Anyway, it is because I have an inkling that truth is a multifaceted thing that I was very encouraged this past weekend by Power Shift 2012.  It wasn't perfect (is anything, ever?) and there was still a lot of representation missing, but the base of interested people is certainly growing.  Both in numbers and diversity, and that is extremely encouraging.
Now we can start talking about bigger issues and really get the juicy, messy debates going with a lot more of the stakeholders of the future at the table.
People are getting interested in this stuff and it's really exciting.  Mostly, it's exciting because we're starting to talk about systemic problems and challenging the underlying theories that have been used to reproduce and legitimize the status quo for a long time.
I think really, people are getting fed up.  More and more people are getting concerned about climate change (which I do believe is real, just for the record), they're getting scared because it's becoming less and less possible to deny, and simultaneously, they're seeing the government slash environmental regulations and protections.  There is an increasing disregard for indigenous rights and treaties, and increasing awareness that the tar sands are causing indigenous peoples a lot of harm.  Not to mention that it's an extremely energy intensive process that is not a long term or sustainable solution to help alleviate climate change.
People are understanding the weight of the situation we are in and seem to be waking up.  It's exciting because people are looking to young people and want to be involved.  It's exciting because a lot of young people, especially indigenous youth, seem to have a pretty good understanding of what the systemic issues are and how widespread they are.
But there is no easy or proposed one solution.  The thing is, that one solution doesn't really make sense.  There is no bandaid or quick fix to problems of this magnitude.  But I do know that solutions will involve building stronger and more robust communities, sharing information and knowledge and brainstorming.  They will take time investment, negotiation, team building and passion.  They will take creativity, innovation and honesty.
They will take all of us working together for our survival as a species.  If we are not all willing to stand up, in this present moment, our future is already written.

wake up, freak out and then get a grip!

We can be saved

If we build a bridge.
Not a tower or a bomb or a dam or a nuclear power plant.
If we build a bridge.
Not a riot or a genocide or a war or a conquest.
If we build a bridge.
Not a clear cutting or a mass poisoning or an extracting or a mining.
If we build a bridge.
Not a mass extinction.

A bridge that anyone can cross.  A bridge that is built by all of us.  7 billion+ strong.  It is built on a foundation of love with beams made of hope and courage and bolted together by trust, ingenuity, imagination and integrity.  A bridge that finally sees the preciousness of unique and each person's individuality as equal.  A bridge where diversity adds beauty and colour to the design.  A bridge that leads us from the banks of the status quo, over impossible to a new land we haven't yet seen. 

It's impossible.
If we don't work together.
It's impossible.
If we wait too long to realize the potential that is innate in each of us.
It's impossible.
If we're not willing to entertain the power of love to transform and heal.
It's impossible.
If we don't start with ourselves and start building our relationships with others.  Old and young.  Male and Female.  Conservative and Liberal.  Capitalists/Free-market advocates and Socialists/Communists.  White and Black and Red and Yellow.  Rural and Urban.  Christian and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist and Jain and Sikh and etc.  We're all in this together.

This is personal.  This is global.  This is it.  Now or never.  Let's make it worth living for.

Ecological Flaw

Ok so let me get this straight.

We were born into a world with lungs which breath Oxygen to nourish our cells and pump blood through our bodies before turning it into Carbon dioxide and exhaling it.  The air was clean and full of everything we needed to breathe.

We were born into a world with abundant vegetation and wildlife that all work together to reproduce themselves, which may not always look harmonious close up, but have natural checks and balances to keep one species from growing out of control so that overall harmony is maintained.  We were able to eat all of that food directly, most without any cooking necessary (although most times it was preferable) to nourish and sustain ourselves for long periods of time.  Without any pesticides or chemicals.  Without any packages or preservatives.

We were born into a world that once had clean fresh water that makes up some 50-78% of our body and is essential for our survival, abundantly available to most of us for free.

But then. . .

We were born into a world that put prices on these things.
We were born into a world that makes us sound crazy when we demand these things for free.
We were born into a world that puts more and more pressure on farmers who are trying to provide these necessities to use chemicals and corporate products that in turn poison and pollute the water, animals, crops and air.
We were born into a world that made necessities less and less accessible to the common people.
We were born into a world that sees that natural world as separate, alien, wild, dangerous, old fashioned, backwards. . .
We were born into a world that valued things like gold, oil, diamonds, silver, money. . .none of which help us to survive.

If we have no clean water and no safe food and no clean air, it doesn't matter how much gold or silver or diamonds or iphones or cars or oil refineries or investments or gucci or prada you have.  You can't buy your way out of this.  All castles and all slums still exists on this planet.
This is everyone's problem.  If we don't collectively try to find solutions, we will all suffer the consequences.  They will touch everyone as all water and all air circulate to touch everyone around the world.  In our existence on this planet, we are one people.  The ability with which we can work together will determine whether or not we survive.  Let's put the necessities back on the table and start taking up stocks in fresh water, clean air and organic produce until they are so abundant they are worthless again.

Yes Men Rock

The yes men fix the world!!

This is a great, hilarious movie that gave me a lot of hope and laughs. . .both of which are important :)

Pushed forcefully into now

All this climate change stuff and apocalypse stuff. . .ok, let's just say for argument's sake that it's going to happen.  Just for a minute, if you will, let your mind take you there.  I don't care if you want to actually believe it or not in real life, this is just a thought experiment.

So. . .ok. . .awesome.  How are you feeling?  Scared?  Angry?  Uneasy?  Justified?  Smug?  Excited?
What are you going to do now?  Buy lots of gold?  Stock up on food and build a secret underground bunker?  Start learning how to farm?  Move to the countryside and buy some guns?

Ok, sure.  Maybe those things will work. . .or maybe they won't.  Even if it were true, we still can't really predict what the outcome will be.  It's probable that a lot of people would die, it's probable that there would be food scarcity, at least for a while why we figured things out. . .and maybe there wouldn't be anything we could do anyway. . .even processed food has to come from real food that has grown on the earth at some point.  Healthy ecosystems are also important for growth. . .so we might be out of luck as far as both our knowledge and traditions go.

Anyway, you could start thinking really deeply about this and try to plan what you would do and maybe get paranoid and actually take steps to improve your situation if the worst case scenario DID occur and try to invest in gold and start growing your own food and/or stockpile food, build a time capsule, invent food that will withstand climate disaster, build earthquake proof and hurricane proof and etc. etc. proof shelters. . .go to war with others who might impede our survival by surviving. . .

wait a minute. . .doesn't all of that sound very similar to what we are all doing or passively participating in already??

My point is that most of us are living in the future.  We are living as if we are going to live until a distant time in the future that. . .logically. . .if we continue to live that way. . .we will never reach.  We put off things that we enjoy or that we love to do. . .things that fill us with love and laughter and life, because we believe that we will live until a time when we are better able to enjoy those things.  The situation will be better, we will be better, they will be better, things will improve and THEN we can do the things we want to do.  We can go to that place we've always wanted to go or do that thing we've always wanted to do or see those people we'd been meaning to see. . .

I believe that most people are scared at first, to face the present, because it is so vast and so full of unknown and also potential.  We are also trained to think. . .think think think think think think so we don't have any time to actually BE in the present.  To really be in the present you have to stop thinking. . .as soon as thought is involved you are transported out of the present to a different place.  Interestingly enough, the present is the only thing that really exists.  And yet, we're so disconnected from it, distracted by illusions of a future that will never come and a past that never was.  We can't see what's happening around us for what it is and be in that moment, the only place we actually have the power to act.

But anyway, back to climate change and the apocalypse and all of that.  I'm beginning to find those ideas liberating in a sense because if you take the "pessimistic" scientist's approach, we probably have about 5 years, maximum before we're in the "climate catastrophe" category. . .if we continue at our current rate.  Of course, this isn't REALLY as bad as it all sounds because the earth itself will be fine, it will just change drastically from what we know and make the way we are living currently, impossible.  We ourselves, or people we love would die, our lifestyle would be completely different, we would have to work together in order to have any chance of survival. . .probably.  Animal and human life may cease entirely. . .who knows. . .anything is possible really.  BUT ANYTHING IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE!  It is not JUST because of climate change or the apocalypse or Y2K or nuclear doomsday or aliens or WHATEVER. . .anything literally COULD happen at ANY TIME.  We could all die tomorrow or in an hour or December 21st 2012. 

So why are we doing things we hate doing?  STILL!?  You might die?  Or the future would become more uncertain??  Wait.  Really?!  The future is ALWAYS uncertain.  You ALWAYS might die.  Why don't you just do what you want to do?  Then, if you die, you won't ever regret it. . .no matter when it is! 

After thousands of years, thousands of books, thousands of prophets, scholars, artists, scientists, civilizations, politicians, historians, etc. etc. etc. , TECHNOLOGY!  We have access to all the information in the world (mostly!) at our fingertips (mostly!) and are we any better off REALLY than before?  we're still afraid, we're still not doing what we love to do.  We hate each other (which usually stems from fear. . .).  We're actually driving ourselves faster and faster towards our own destruction NOW that we have all of the information of our entire human history.  wtf is that??  If anything, it is a testament to the fact that WE WILL NEVER SATIATE OUR DESIRE TO KNOW.  There will always be an unknown.  And that I think, is actually the secret.

To know that you don't know and you will never know and be ok with that.  Now is as good as any other time.  Not knowing is the most intimate.  And if climate change and the apocalypse are the only things that can finally teach us that. . .to bring us back to wonder at the amazingness of simply being, to help us realize that being fully alive and awake in the present moment is all we need to overcome fear and realize our full potential. . .then bring it on.

You are free to resume your present thoughts and life, if you want to.  Go forth and love :)

In Response to Junkscience.com

I posted this comment to junkscience.com but it was removed. . .hmm

I came across your site by accident and feel compelled to reply. . .although I may regret it, I’m going to attempt to engage with this conversation which is, I’ll admit, contrary to what I believe.
I’m not anything. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a politician. I’m not religious. I have been inclined to believe in climate change and environmental sustainability as a direction we need to start pursuing but it’s never been for any gain to myself. I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t work for the government, a university, a political party or any kind of media. . .I don’t even have a job at the moment. It might be a bit easier to swallow something if I did. I guess I would need to swallow something in order to find a job worth doing and I’m having a lot of trouble with that. I agree with you that a lot of things that we are told have ulterior motives.
The motive is, you are right, largely making money, reproducing the status quo, keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. It’s hard to believe anything these days, especially since large corporations are usually the ones funding research and only certain results will warrant more funding (someone else said that above). Even a lot of “green initiatives” are only being considered if they are profit making mechanisms. I would agree that “green” in many situations, has been used as a marketing tool and at the end of the day, everything seems to be driven by making more money.
BUT, I have been many places. I cycled across Japan and Cambodia and Canada, I lived in India for 6 months, I lived in Honduras for 3 months and I just got back from Nigeria (I funded this largely with savings that I made while teaching English in Japan. . .I’m from a western country and white and went to university so I am privileged, and I won’t deny that but I funded these things by myself with money that I earned from working as an English teacher. I lived cheaply when I was travelling too so I didn’t incur a lot of expenses. I haven’t invested in the future or used this time to procure a “good job” but instead wanted to try to see things and understand the world from my own point of view rather than just what FOX news or CNN or in my case CBC or Sun media or a university very far removed from the situation is trying to tell me).
I have seen a lot of things that don’t give me hope for the future. I was told by Indians that the monsoon in India failed this year. Agriculture in India depends on the monsoon rains which come from June to September. Farms in Ontario were flooded last spring because of too much rain and the growing season had to start late (I don’t know how normal this is and exactly what effect it had, I just know that it was very muddy and prolonged planting since the fields were waterlogged for most of May). In Ontario, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the winter conditions are also less severe than normal (which they have been) because the growing season can be longer, potentially. But that’s speculation and Canada, not south where most of the major monoculture crops are currently being grown. South Western US and Mexico are having a massive drought currently. Since a lot of our food is imported from Mexico, I wonder what effect that’s going to have on food prices here. Not to mention the Mexican populace. Mexico is desert in a lot of places, so maybe “the worst drought in 70 years” won’t have much effect on food. . .but it concerns me. When I was in Honduras floods and excessive rains had a huge impact on bean crops and the cost of beans in the market nearly doubled for the year. These problems will effect the poorest people first, obviously and unfortunately, but no one can escape from food scarcity if climate and weather conditions are the cause behind them.
Drought and lack of water, clean, safe, drinking water is another thing that we can’t escape. Regardless of water regulations, companies are dumping chemicals into water systems constantly. Mining companies in Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, China. . .those are ones I know for a fact, it’s happening lots of other places too. Mining companies, who have the go ahead from governments do their mining out of the way of western, journalistic eyes as much as possible and assassinate or intimidate locals who are making too much of a fuss because their drinking water is giving them arsenic poisoning. In Nigeria, Shell has been destroying the homes and livelihoods of people living in the delta region for decades. They keep spilling oil, contaminating water, killing vegetation, with impunity because corporations, politicians and the fuel price are always more important than human lives. In each case, the bottom line is always more important than human lives. Especially if those humans are poor and can’t afford good lawyers.
I don’t have any doubt that climate change is happening and I don’t have any doubt that we are the cause. Our own stupidity is the cause. We’ve set up a system that is determined to make money by exploiting resources and people as if they are infinite when we live in a finite world. The people making the most money from this won’t change their practices because REAL SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS are not profitable for them and mean that we would have to depend on one another, which is exactly what our system has determined to be evil. Not to mention that we are divided on and suspicious about so many different issues that we can’t even talk to our own neighbours without breaking into a cold sweat.
Logically, if we are continuously pumping carbon into the air (from stores of carbon that have been buried underground in the form of oil) at faster and faster rates, there is going to be SOME effect, even if you disregard everything else. Trees and plants that eat the CO2 have been desecrated and destroyed to make room for more profitable residential areas, cash crops, the development of mines to extract one thing or another. Pumping CO2 back into the ground and burying it also buries oxygen which I’m not sure is very productive. But even if you want to take the “we-have-no-idea-because-it’s-too-big-and-we-can’t-trust-anyone-to-tell-us-the-truth” approach, it can’t be denied that everything is utterly interconnected. That is the basic underlying rule of our life on earth that really can’t be disputed. Everything we do, has an effect. The earth is round (surprise!), what we do to the earth doesn’t just disappear, it sticks around and effects everyone sooner or later.
I don’t think it’s useful to question and confuse people to make them inactive and apathetic to issues happening in the world regardless of your politics or viewpoints. What I’ve said above are really happening. I’m not trying to get rich quick, I really don’t have an agenda besides survival. I’m hopeful that we can overcome our differences, stop our greediness and selfishness and start taking action before we all regret that we didn’t.