Among my pursuits and businesses are the caring of birds as protected pets, including via bird cages. It has got me to thinking about humanity and the mind in a fashion that others may never arrive at.

But first: Jan Lundberg is still suing the Big Oil-funded parties who, he and his brother allege, knowingly caused the wrongful death of their mother Mesa Vernell Lundberg. The brothers lack funds for legal representation, but an even greater concern to Jan is his ability to remain fully functional on Culture Change matters when he must also work on the case mid-December intensively. But if you support Culture Change now, such as by buying his autobiographical book Songs of Petroleum, he may better juggle his duties all the way around.

So you thought, "we're screwed. The UN Climate Change Conference talks in Durban were a pre-ordained failure, and no progress is possible for who knows how long."

Fortunately, there is a way to immediately begin bypassing nationalistic and corporate power-tripping in Durban and at the UN. It relies on a win-win-win grassroots, bottom-up resolution, starting at the local level.

adios Santa Cruz garden

Occupy Santa Cruz has had in three days three major setbacks. Perhaps they were fruitless attempts to set back the movement.  The last one in the series, that the police wish to pull off today Wednesday Dec. 7, is the eviction and dismantling of the tent city of Occupiers (and previously homeless folk) downtown at San Lorenzo Park by the river.  [Update: the tent city was partly abandoned by dark Wednesday, and the police came in after 7 AM, arresting six people]

Songs of Petroleum: The Autobiography of Jan Lundberg, Independent oil Industry Analyst and Eco-Activist
By Jan C. Lundberg
391 pp. Culture Change Press – April 2011. $18.00.

Jan Lundberg is a former oil analyst turned whistleblower and rock musician. Lundberg’s memoir, Songs of Petroleum, delves deeply into the goings-on at his family's oil market-research firm, Lundberg Survey, from when he was growing up to when he took charge of the company.

“There should be recognition that per-capita rather than national emissions are the logical and fair basis for assessing proportionality, determining who bears the greatest responsibility for cutting emissions, and allocating emissions constraints.”

Publisher's Note: On Dec. 1, Robert Engelman, president of the Worldwatch Institute, unveiled his promising proposal for breaking through the nation-oriented, stalled climate treaty process.

In my previous essay I showed how today's inflated, vast monetary wealth is false and will disappear, and that it cannot be redistributed under our form of economy when its entire foundation is sinking.

Of useful, lasting value is the land that can grow food, retain water, and withstand climate chaos on the rise.

The main purpose our webmaster John Mendonça and I had in coming to Washington, D.C. this month was the annual peak oil conference. But it was even more exciting to witness and participate in Occupy actions in DC and New York. Additionally, we advanced sail power on Capitol Hill and the news media.

A message for Local Future conference participants:

Greetings friends,