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by Jan Lundberg, oil industry analyst and eco-activist
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 Courtesy BP
The movie is soon getting its major national release in theaters and on Netflix. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 Ecotopia Summer |
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by Jan Lundberg
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As the scientific consensus jells to advise us that economic growth on a finite planet is unsustainable, and anyone can see that maximizing consumption is increasingly disastrous, we must ask ourselves what we do next. The first thing would be to focus humanity on what biology-savvy people see as the basic problem: more and more people being born who consume much more than their ancestors did.
This concern is not in the corporate press or tossed around the typical local pub or bar. Why should population size be so uninteresting to the vast majority? |
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by Brent Blackwelder
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Each year in April, the Goldman Environmental Prizes are awarded to six activists, one from each of the six inhabited continental regions. This year’s winners have overcome tremendous odds and threats to their lives to lead effective protests and carry out brilliant strategies. The inspiring winners give me hope that, on the economic front, we can energize an enormous protest movement in the United States. The Occupy movement has provided a solid start on opposing the outdated, unfair, growth-dependent economic model — a model that drives unemployment, encourages casino-style financing, enlarges the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society, and sucks the blood from the life-support systems of the planet. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 The big money continues to talk. For environmental protection in extreme times, what have we got?
• A government much more intimate with BP, for example, than citizens want to know.
• Environmental groups promoting electric cars instead of advocating car-free living -- such as the Sierra Club, which accepted $26 million in donations from Chesapeake Energy, the natural gas fracker.
• News media usually adhere, as though they were corrupted, to the above kinds of influences. Real news can filter through, such as on climate change, but less frequently than a few years ago.
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by Jan Lundberg
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My mother lost her life because of others' greed and corruption. But the oil-driven political aspects of the conspiracy that my brother and I allege in Santa Barbara Superior Court are an important part of the story. A citizen's concerns over somebody else's mother's wrongful death might be significant in this case when it relates to today's unprecedented Big Oil domination.
Why did BP get off easy with its unlawful Corexit poisoning, as it was allowed to keep the truth of the oil & gas blowout from the public? |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 When I first heard of the Gaia Hypothesis in the 1990s, as formulated by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis, I was skeptical but respectful of the idea. I didn't rule it out. But neither did I feel confident that the Earth is a living single organism. Perhaps I was too caught up in scientific reductionism, and needed to have proof -- such as to sit down with Gaia herself. So I took note of the notion and kept on trying to save and heal Earth. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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As Roger Waters expressed on the dark 1981 Pink Floyd album, The Final Cut, "There's too many home fires burning / and not enough trees / So f--k all that..." In other words, too many people consuming.
It's all becoming obvious. The heat wave called "March summer" registers, to those noticing, like a sentence to be marched off to the ovens. Ecocide = genocide. But many people still do have minds of their own. So it is good news we are all hit with the ultimate wake-up call. Adhering to the status quo, trying to ignore our environment, will give way to taking action and treating the climate carefully. One might even go off in search of water instead of looking at Facebook. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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Something provocative for one and all -- but global-warming deniers should not take offense, despite their cherished wealth machinery disparaged herein, for they say sea level rise is BS.
An amusing interview with a climate activist and alternative energy businessman who requested anonymity.
A Science Daily article on March 19, 2012 reported a new study published in the journal Geology that depressed everybody who was paying attention. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 I attended, and Culture Change videotaped, Captain Charles Moore's presentation at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California, on March 6, 2012. The well attended event gave additional insight on the plastic plague afflicting the oceans and our bodies that, along with his celebrated new book Plastic Ocean, surprised and motivated the audience.
Watch it on our website:
Plastic Ocean: How Bad Is It? |
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by Gar Smith
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 Gar Smith, environmental journalist, amused us with "My review of The Lorax (with apologies to Dr. Seuss)"
My name is the Lorax and I speak for the trees.
So how'd I get sucked up in Hollywood sleaze?
My message was lost in the Stremulous Stream!
Even Swomee-swans told me to "Get with the Team!"
The Grinch (who stole Christmas) got all the attention
Why TV? Why Movies? Why all this Big Mention?
Because he's defeated, so Whos can start shopping!
But me? I'm ignored because I'd stop chopping. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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Also: plastic/petroleum/population overshoot connection; Meryl Streep's plastic water-bottle embrace
The new book Plastic Ocean by Capt. Charles Moore was featured March 4 on CBS television, NY City:
"The invention of plastic was a revelation, but its durability makes it almost impossible to decompose. So where does it go? Into a 'soup' of floating garbage that is filling our oceans. David Pogue of the New York Times reports." |
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Songs of Petroleum is available now.
