New Clear Vision


constructive commentary for the chronically farsighted


Ecological University

September 28, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Ecology, Economy, Evaggelos Vallianatos

Is a Successful Ecological Civilization Possible?

by Evaggelos Vallianatos

In ancient times people believed in many gods and worshipped the natural world and the Earth. Now our world is primarily a world where most people believe in one god and consider nature a mine for the extraction of “resources.”

Such a dramatic shift from a sacred natural polytheism to a business monotheism does not bode well for human survival.

Of all modern ecological calamities, global warming suffices to bring to an end life on earth. Climate change, the usual name for global warming, is a result of the heavy human footprint on the natural world. This affliction, the human addiction to coal, oil, and gas, is deleterious to human health and to long-term survival.

Unless we slow down and stop dumping into the atmosphere countless thousands of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, our children and grandchildren will surely curse us. (more…)

Demilitarization

August 30, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Economy, Guest Author, Politics

It’s Not a Dirty Word…

by Jody Williams

HUMAN SECURITY FOR GLOBAL SECURITY: Demilitarization is not a dirty word, nonviolence is not inaction, and building sustainable peace is not for the faint of heart.

The political, social and economic changes we all face are serious.  Some might call the state of the world today chaos.  The ongoing, dramatic changes in technology and communications are other elements adding to uncertainty and the feelings of insecurity that people around the globe are confronting.  No one can predict the future but we can work hard to shape the outcomes.

Clearly there are huge obstacles to creating a world of sustainable peace with justice, equality and an end to impunity.  A world free of militarism, armaments and the arms trade in which human and other resources are focused on meeting the needs of humanity rather than fueling conflicts and war. A world of sustainable development that nurtures our planet instead of continuing to devastate the environment and threaten life on earth.  This will not happen over night.  But worrying about the future is not a strategy for shaping it. (more…)

Rio+20

June 19, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Current Events, Ecology, Economy, Jennifer Browdy

Fiddling While the Earth Burns…

by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

I am having trouble summoning any enthusiasm over the upcoming Rio+20 UN Conference, which will begin on June 20.

When you go to the conference website, everything sounds so benign, forward-looking and responsible.  For example, talking about food security, the conference framers call for the promulgation of sustainable agriculture, meaning “the capacity of agriculture over time to contribute to overall welfare by providing sufficient food and other goods and services in ways that are economically efficient and profitable, socially responsible, and environmentally sound.” (more…)

Finding Hope in Heartbreak

June 08, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Ecology, Jennifer Browdy

Wisdom and Understanding Are the Keys to Our Survival

by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

There has been a steady beat of heart-breaking news lately from various fronts.  Did you hear that the flame retardants required by law to be sprayed on American sofas are highly toxic chemicals that continue to break down in your living room? And those sofas, by the way, if they’re the nice wood-framed ones from Ikea, are being made from irreplaceable 600-year-old trees.  When you lie on your sofa to breast-feed your baby, you’re getting a whopping dose of PCB-type chemicals, and your infant is too, since toxic chemicals pass right into breast milk.

Or maybe you caught the long article in the New York Times the other day about American zoos becoming Arks for modern-day Noahs, who have to choose which species to try to preserve and which to let go into extinction. (more…)

Sustainable Water Use?

June 01, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Ecology, Martin Zehr, Politics

Water Budgets Meet Financial Budgets in California ‘Water Wars’

by Martin Zehr, aka Mato Ska

There is an increasing body of evidence that any resolution to the peripheral canal and Delta infrastructure is meeting a financial wall around which there is no room to maneuver. What is happening in California is no different in many ways from what is happening elsewhere. Water wars are driven by allocations, financial and hydrological. Coastal urban allocations in California are disproportional in their priority because of the use of geo-political entities. As the Central Valley becomes more urbanized there is an increase in their political representation. But as long as diversions are the solution of choice in California, regional planning will never be utilized to integrate urban users with agricultural and rural users in the decision-making process.

There is a real base of support here in California among ag and rural users for regional planning. At this stage, this is primarily to get the State Legislature out of the process. Politically, there remains the Arnold attitude towards water that “We can have it all.” This is simply because of the political control of the State Legislatures by urban users. (more…)

Life Beyond War

May 28, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Ecology, Politics, Winslow Myers

Exploring the Dimensions of Genuine ‘Security’

by Winslow Myers

The vision and possible shape of a world beyond war has modified since the lessening of superpower tensions between the United States and the now long-departed U.S.S.R. In the late 1980s, hopes for a peaceful world primarily involved the successful abolition of nuclear weapons. As Jonathan Schell has written, while inadvertent nuclear war is more probable than ever before, nuclear abolition begins to look relatively easy in the context of emerging global environmental challenges. Nuclear weapons themselves have become one more of our many ecological problems: even a small regional nuclear exchange could fatally affect agricultural production worldwide over decades, cancelling out the security benefits for any nation of possessing these weapons.

Glaciers melt and mean temperatures rise year by year. At what point do officials distracted by mutual nuclear threats start to take in the bigger picture — that the real “existential threat” to their security might be, say, the unleashing of an irreversible cycle in the thawing of methane gas presently frozen within the Arctic tundra, gas that could dangerously accelerate global warming trends? (more…)

Of Uncertain Futures

February 23, 2012 By: NCVeditor Category: Community, Ecology, Economy, Jan Lundberg

As We Are Not Yet One…

by Jan Lundberg

As the modern age accelerates its downward spiral toward an uncertain outcome, we are divided in our outlooks and fears.  Yet, if we examine them, and if enough of us have a dialogue resulting in action, we might discover our apparent weaknesses in such a way to make us stronger.

More “haves” than ever sense an uncertain future, mainly that of becoming have-nots.  But when haves admit that deeper threats are getting close to engulfing humanity — ecological deterioration, famine over rising energy prices and water shortage — the future appears downright doubtful.

The have-nots have fears about the future too, but rarely about becoming haves.  That was so ’60s. The uncertain future of non-rich, insecure people can appear to them to be limited to severe lack of money.  But knowledge of ecological collapse and resource shortages are also appreciated by many of the poor, thereby putting almost all people in the same boat (today or very soon). (more…)

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