By Stephen Fitzgerald The fact that we look different is telling us something. We are different. The way we view the world, the way we process information, the way we communicate, the way we do things and what we choose to believe, is all different. As individuals, we have a right to believe what we…The…
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035681
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/02/1032801
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind, it ís important that we achieve each Goal and target by 2030. Click on any specific Goal below to learn more about each issue.
Economic growth must be inclusive to provide sustainable jobs and promote equality.
The food and agriculture sector offers key solutions for development, and is central for hunger and poverty eradication.
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for all at all ages is essential to sustainable development.
Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to improving people’s lives and sustainable development.
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
Clean, accessible water for all is an essential part of the world we want to live in.
Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity.
Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs.
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to achieving sustainable development.
To reduce inequalities, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations.
There needs to be a future in which cities provide opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more.
Responsible Production and Consumption
Climate change is a global challenge that affects everyone, everywhere.
Careful management of this essential global resource is a key feature of a sustainable future.
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
Access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels.
Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035681
28 March 2019
The increasing number of natural disasters and dangers linked to climate change, highlighted in a major UN report released on Thursday, represents “another strong wake-up call” to the world, which must be countered by finding sustainable solutions quickly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said.
Beneath I copy an article about the ‘benefits’ of CO2. Can somebody please explain to me, what this means?
https://journal-neo.org/2016/05/13/the-very-good-effect-of-more-co2/’
Ever since the late Margaret Mead organized a conference in 1975 to deliberately propagate an unscientific fear campaign, fraudulently claiming that manmade emissions of CO2 gases were endangering the global climate, the UN, countless NGOs and many governments have spent billions of dollars trying to find ways to reduce CO2 “man-made” emissions. In those days it was known as Global Warming until measured temperatures began falling, whereupon when the sponsors of the colossal scientific fraud changed the name to Climate Change. The campaign has largely failed, fortunately for the future of life on the planet. One indication of a return to scientific honesty is a study just published by Washington’s NASA on the effects of CO2 across the planet since the 1980s.
A new scientific study published in April in the journal Nature Climate Change reveals that between 25% up to possibly 50% of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening over the last 35 years. Moreover, the study says that the greening is largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The study was carried out by an international scientific team consisting of 32 scientific authors from 24 institutions in eight countries. They used satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. They found that the measured greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States. The research determined that increased “fertilization” by CO2 accounted for fully 70% of the planet’s increased greening area, with increased nitrogen deposition another 9%. That’s an impressive statistic.
A recent National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) review of the CO2 findings noted that, “Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth. Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.”
The report’s lead author, Zaichun Zhu, a researcher from Beijing University, pointed out that the extent of the greening over the past 35 years “has the ability to fundamentally change the cycling of water and carbon in the climate system.”
What does it mean in terms of life on our planet?
USDA’s Kimball Study
It has quite a lot to do with life on our planet, and very positively so. Over the years, ever since 1804 when Swiss plant physiologist Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure first demonstrated that peas exposed to high C02 concentrations grew better than control plants in ambient air, numerous experiments have been performed to determine the effects of enriched C02 atmospheres on plants.
In 1982 Dr. Bruce A. Kimball, a plant physiologist at the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture undertook a comprehensive review of all such studies on effects of higher CO2 concentrations on plant growth and agriculture yields. Kimball found that C02 enrichment had an overwhelmingly positive effect on yield. Of 437 separate observations only 39 yielded less than their respective controls.
In brief, the billions of taxpayer dollars that have gone to study ways of burying or otherwise eliminating CO2 from our atmosphere are little more than attempts to diminish one of the essential drivers of “the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth.” Perhaps the future of our planet is not as bleak as doomsday prophets like Bill Gates or Al Gore claim.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
https://journal-neo.org/2016/05/13/the-very-good-effect-of-more-co2/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3526310/
“The World Awaits” is a documentary feature depicting the effects of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for the nuclear states to reduce and eventually eliminate these highly destructive weapons of mass destruction. The film features interviews with noted philosopher-linguist Noam Chomsky, world renowned author-activist Helen Caldicott, MD, and David Krieger, founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. ‘The World Awaits’ presents the dangers of nuclear weapons, including recent and past close calls and almost attacks we had had over 70 years since the first use of nuclear weapons in August of 1945. The film also explores the threat of nuclear terrorism and the dangers of nuclear power plants in our world today. These three intellectuals-activists interviews are interwoven with archival footage of presidents Barack Obama, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman. The film makes a strong argument for never using these weapons again and how these outdated weapons and power …Written by Anonymous
| Winner Trophy Award |
Scientific & Educational Award Don Haderlein (director) North Hollywood Pictures (production company) |
| Nominee Trophy Award |
Best Film Don Haderlein (director) North Hollywood Pictures (production company) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Bruce
Bryan Bruce is a documentary maker and author. Born in Scotland in 1948, he emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1956. He grew up in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury, where he graduated with a M.A. in sociology and philosophy. He earned a Diploma in Teaching from Christchurch Teacher’s College and taught for 10 years. He was a professional musician for 20 years before he took up a career as a documentary maker. He now resides in Auckland, New Zealand.
His published non-fiction works include the following:
His feature-length documentaries cover diverse topics, from natural history to crime.
He wrote, produced and directed the real crime show The Investigator [1] that screened on TV ONE (Television New Zealand) and CBS Reality.
https://www.fibershed.com/about/
Our Mission & Vision
Fibershed develops regional and regenerative fiber systems on behalf of independent working producers, by expanding opportunities to implement carbon farming, forming catalytic foundations to rebuild regional manufacturing, and through connecting end-users to farms and ranches through public education.
We envision the emergence of an international system of regional textile communities that enliven connection and ownership of ‘soil-to-soil’ textile processes. These diverse textile cultures are designed to build soil carbon stocks on the working landscapes on which they depend, while directly enhancing the strength of regional economies. Both fiber and food systems now face a drastically changing climate, and must utilize the best of time-honored knowledge and available science for their long-term ability to thrive.
As each Fibershed community manages their resources to create permanent and lasting systems of production, these efforts to take full responsibility for a garment’s lifecycle will diminish pressure on highly polluted and ecologically undermined areas of the world. (China produces 52% of the world’s textiles. The industry is the third largest fresh water polluter in the country.) Future Fibershed communities will rely upon renewable energy powered mills that will exist in close proximity to where the fibers are grown. Through strategic grazing, conservation tillage, and a host of scientifically vetted soil carbon enhancing practices, our supply chains will create ‘climate beneficial’ clothing that will become the new standard in a world looking to rapidly mitigate the effects of climate change. We see a nourishing tradition emerging that connects the wearer to the local field where the clothes were grown, building a system that can last for countless generations into the future.
How did the Fibershed project start?
The project began in 2010 with a commitment by its founder, Rebecca Burgess, to develop and wear a prototype wardrobe whose dyes, fibers and labor were sourced from a region no larger than 150 miles from the project’s headquarters. Burgess had no expected outcomes from the personal challenge other than to reduce her own ecological footprint and maybe inspire a few others.
Burgess teamed up with a talented group of farmers and artisans to build the wardrobe by hand, as manufacturing equipment had all been lost from the landscape more than 20 years ago. The goal was to illuminate that regionally grown fibers, natural dyes, and local talent was still in great enough existence to provide this most basic human necessity—our clothes. Within months, the project became a movement, and the word Fibershed and the working concept behind it spread to regions across the globe. Burgess founded Fibershed’s 501c3 to address and educate the public on the environmental, economic and social benefits of de-centralizing the textile supply chain.
AuntyUta 