While nations rally to reduce their carbon emissions, and try to adapt at-risk places to hotter conditions, there is an elephant in the room: for large portions of the world, local conditions are becoming too extreme and there is no way to adapt. People will have to move to survive.

Over the next fifty years, hotter temperatures combined with more intense humidity are set to make large swathes of the globe lethal to live in. Fleeing the tropics, the coasts, and formerly arable lands, huge populations will need to seek new homes; you will be among them, or you will be receiving them. This migration has already begun—we have all seen the streams of people fleeing drought-hit areas in Latin America, Africa, and Asia where farming and other rural livelihoods have become impossible.

The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent as the planet heats.

We can—and we must—prepare. Developing a radical plan for humanity to survive a far hotter world includes building vast new cities in the more tolerable far north while abandoning huge areas of the unendurable tropics. It involves adapting our food, energy, and infrastructure to a changed environment and demography as billions of people are displaced and seek new homes.

Our best hope lies in cooperating as never before: decoupling the political map from geography. However unrealistic it sounds, we need to look at the world afresh and develop new plans based on geology, geography, and ecology. In other words, identify where the freshwater resources are, where the safe temperatures are, where gets the most solar or wind energy, and then plan population, food and energy production around that…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Search For A New Community

April 29, 2020

The Search For A New Community

A look at intentional community in a world who may be calling for a reimagining of collective actions.

Every intellectual had a “draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shaker Meeting, an early Utopian Community, New Lebanon, New York, Engraving circa 1804. Photo: Wikimedia/Public Domain

We have reached a new epoch in our planet’s history. Few can look at the increasingly authoritarian tendencies across the globe, the mass stress-fueled migrations, the degradation of the environment, the increasingly chaotic climate, and the fragility of systems exposed by the current Covid-19 without pondering upon what are authentic responses in these times. I would like to offer some observations and perhaps some questions regarding the role of intentional community in a world who may be calling for a reimagining of collective actions.

I have been part of a number of communities tied to independent schools and political and activist-driven movements. I want to look at three primary examples of communities that I believe are relevant to reimagining the ‘New Community’ and provide an insight into the taste of community.

The Abode of the Message

For many of us, the ideal of living in an intentional community was a vision that led to a quest for such. Personally, an early experiment lasted several years in the later 1970s at a Sufi community, The Abode of the Message, in upstate New York. Situated on 350 acres of a former Shaker utopian community and based on the idea of the universality of all religions, our band of just over one hundred individuals and families strove to put into practice the ideal of “spirituality in everyday life.” We farmed, baked, led retreats, and worked in a variety of jobs in surrounding towns. The Abode spawned the Omega Institute, a mechanic shop, a private school, and a fledgling computer business set in a former Shaker workshop.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“We Made Mistakes”: France Changes Tone On Yellow Vests As Movement Hits Canada

December 17, 2018

“We Made Mistakes”: France Changes Tone On Yellow Vests As Movement Hits Canada

The Macron government has changed its tone after five straight weeks of violent “Yellow Vest” demonstrations across the country.

On Sunday Prime Minister Édouard Philippe admitted to Les Echoes newspaper that mistakes were made in the handling of the protests, and that a dialogue is needed.

“We made mistakes. We did not listen enough to the French people. I remain convinced that they want this country to be transformed,” said Philippe.

Protesters donning yellow reflective jackets began filling the streets across France on November 17 – initially in protest to a fuel tax aimed at combating global warming – and morphing into a country-wide rebuke of the Macron government. There have been seven deaths, over 4,500 arrests and hundreds of injuries during the demonstrations – as protesters smashed store windows, looted, set fire to vehicles and defaced statues. In addition to a massive presence, Police have responded to the protests with tear gas and pepper spray to try and disperse crowds.

In early December Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the economic impact of the protests a “catastrophe,”

Meanwhile, the Yellow Vest protests have spread to multiple European countries – most notably the Netherlands and Belgium, while also spreading to Israel, Iraq and now Canada.

Yellow Vest protesters and counter-protesters were seen last weekend in several Canadian cities, including Toronto, Calgary, Halifax, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Moncton.

“I have never met even one Canadian that understands how a carbon tax is going to reduce carbon emissions,” said protester James Hoskins to CTV Atlantic. Another Canadian Yellow Vest, Barry Ahern, called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s summer grant program “oppression of Canadians by our own people.” The program has been criticized for requiring organizations applying for summer job grants to sign an “attestation” confirming that they respect LGBT and abortion rights.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Macron Heralds The End Of The Union

December 7, 2018

Macron Heralds The End Of The Union

Paul Almasy Paris 1950

The concept of the EU might have worked, but still only might have, if a neverending economic boom could have been manufactured to guide it on its way. But there was never going to be such a boom. Or perhaps if the spoils that were available in boom times and bust had been spread out among nations rich and poor and citizens rich and poor a little more equally, that concept might still have carried the days.

Then again, its demise was obvious from well before the Union was ever signed into existence, in the philosophies, deliberations and meetings that paved its way in the era after a second world war in two score years fought largely on the European continent.

In hindsight, it is hard to comprehend how it’s possible that those who met and deliberated to found the Union, in and of itself a beneficial task at least on the surface in the wake of the blood of so many millions shed, were not wiser, smarter, less greedy, less driven by sociopath design and methods. It was never the goal that missed its own target or went awry, it was the execution.

Still, no matter how much we may dream, how much some of the well-meaning ‘founding fathers’ of the Union may have dreamt, without that everlasting economic boom it never stood a chance. The Union was only ever going to be tolerated, accepted, embraced by its citizens if they could feel and see tangible benefits in their daily lives of surrendering parts of their own decision making powers, and the sovereignty of their nations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Never Go Nuclear — The EU Goes After Hungary

September 14, 2018

Never Go Nuclear — The EU Goes After Hungary

If there is one thing people with power always do when confronted with intransigence it is they always go nuclear.

As a parent we’ve all been there. That moment when your child calls your bluff on a particular thing you’ve been arguing over and you’re left with no other option than to go through with some terrible threat or back down.

Backing down is usually the right call, but the right course of action was to never get to that situation in the first place.

Because when you do go nuclear the damage from that is invariably far worse than whatever it was you were fighting about in the first place. Because the nuclear option creates scars. It builds layers of distrust which cannot be smoothed over with an apology later.

Well, now the EU has invoked their version of nuclear option against Hungary for refusing to accept migrants as part of the Soros/Merkel plan to import chaos and unrest into all corners of the European Union.

Hungarian President Viktor Orban has steadfastly refused to budge one inch on this issue. He has politically gone after George Soros directly by passing a strong anti-NGO law that takes its structure from a similar one passed in Russia championed by President Vladimir Putin.

Orban’s refusal to accept one migrant is where the rubber of national sovereignty meets the road of globalism. Orban knows exactly what he is doing. And he knows the consequences of this course of action.

The EU’s response is a symptom of a much deeper problem that persists due to its fundamentally anti-democratic structure. With the veneer of democracy here, calling for a vote to ratify a biased report on Hungary’s human rights abuses, 487 MEPs voted to pursue stripping Hungary of its voting rights within the EU, which is what the ultimate result of an Article 7 invocation would entail.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Italy-EU Migration Feud EU Boils Over With Italian Threats: Schengen at Risk

August 26, 2018

Italy-EU Migration Feud EU Boils Over With Italian Threats: Schengen at Risk

Italy and the EU are in a standoff setup over migration issues. Italy threatens to halt payments to the EU budget.

A migrant ship, the Diciotti, docked at the Italian port of Catania, but prime minister Luigi Di Maio threatened that Italy would cease to become a net contributor to the EU budget unless there is a fair distribution of refugees.

The EU called an emergency meeting but no action was taken.Instead, the EU rebuked Italy for making “Unacceptable Threats“.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that envoys from EU states who met in Brussels on Friday did not reach a deal to share out the 150 migrants on board the Diciotti, an Italian coastguard ship docked in Catania since Monday.

Italy will “act accordingly”, he said on Facebook, noting the EU had failed to live up to its principles of “solidarity and responsibility” and that there was a gulf “between words and actions” that is colored by “hypocrisy”.

More than 650,000 people have reached Italian shores since 2014 and Rome has begun to take a rigidly anti-immigration line, saying it will not let any more rescue ships dock unless other EU states agree to take the people in.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who heads the anti-immigrant League party, has insisted they will not be allowed ashore until other EU states agree to take them in – prompting a criminal investigation into whether the migrants are being held against their will.

“Unconstructive comments, let alone threats … will not get us any closer to a solution,” [EU] spokesman Alexander Winterstein told a news conference on Friday.

Opposition lawmaker, Riccardo Magi, said most on board could qualify for asylum.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tomgram: John Feffer, On the Verge of the Great Unraveling

November 11, 2015

Tomgram: John Feffer, On the Verge of the Great Unraveling

The figures are staggering. In what looks like a vast population transfer from a disintegrating Greater Middle East, nearly 200,000 refugees passed through Austria in September alone. About half a million desperate refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have arrived in Greece since 2015 began (those, that is, who don’t die at sea), and the numbers are only expected to rise. Seven hundred children a day have been claiming asylum somewhere in Europe (190,000 between January and September 2015). And at least three millionrefugees and migrants from the planet’s war and desperation zones are expected to head for Europe in 2016.

Under the circumstances, I’m sure it won’t surprise you that, once the first upbeat stories about welcoming European crowds had died down, the truncheons and water cannons came out in some parts of the continent and the walls began to go up. Nor, I’m sure, will you be shocked to learn that an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim fervor is now gripping parts of Europe, while far-right parties are, not coincidentally, on the rise. This is true in France, where Marine Le Pen’s virulently anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-European-Union National Front is expected to make significant gains in local elections this winter (and Le Pen herself is leading early opinion polls in the race for the presidency), while in “tolerant” Sweden a far-right party with neo-Nazi ties is garnering more than 25% of the prospective vote in opinion polls. In Poland, an extreme party wielding anti-refugee rhetoric just swept into power. And so it goes across much of Europe these days.

All of this (and more) represents a stunning development that could, sooner or later, reverse the increasingly integrated nature of Europe, raise walls and barriers across the continent, and irreversibly fracture the European Union, while increasing nationalistic fervor and god knows what else. In the United States, in a somewhat more muted way, you can see similar developments in what’s being talked about here as an “outsider” election, but is, in fact, significantly focused on keeping outsiders separated from insiders.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe Will Never Be The Same. Neither Will The World.

November 2, 2015

Europe Will Never Be The Same. Neither Will The World.

RLOppenheimer New flag for EU 2015

To reiterate: People are genetically biased against change, because change means potential danger. People are also genetically biased against acknowledging this bias, because they wish to see themselves as being able to cope with both change and danger. Put together, this means that when changes come, people are largely unprepared or underprepared.

Take this beyond the bias of the individual, and apply it to that of the group (s)he belongs to, the vantage point of a society, and you find the bias multiplies and becomes self-confirming. That is, the members of the group reinforce each other’s bias. When change comes in small and gradual steps, as it mostly does, this can be said to work relatively well. When it comes in large and sudden steps, trouble ensues.

This little bit of psychology 101 may seem redundant, but it is indispensable if we wish it to recognize the implications of Europe -and the entire world with it, in its slipstream- having already entered a period of change so profound it is impossible to predict what the impact will be. We can do a lot better at this than we do today, where so far the drivers of change, and indeed the changes themselves, are ignored and/or denied.

This ignorance and denial threatens to lead to a needless increase in nationalism, fascism, violence, misery, death and warfare. If we were to acknowledge that the change is inevitable, and prepare ourselves accordingly, much of this could be avoided.

There are two main engines of change that have started to transform the Europe we think we know. First, a mass migration spearheaded by the flight of refugees from regions in the world which Europeans have actively helped descend into lethal chaos. Second, an economic downturn the likes of which hasn’t been seen in 80 years or so (think Kondratieff cycle).

Negative ideas about refugees are already shaping everyday opinion and politics in many places, and this will be greatly exacerbated by the enormous economic depression that for now remains largely hidden behind desperate sleight-of-hands enacted by central bankers, politicians and media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Real Reason for the Refugee Crisis You Won’t Hear About in the Media

October 9, 2015

The Real Reason for the Refugee Crisis You Won’t Hear About in the Media

There’s a meme going around that the refugee crisis in Europe (the largest since World War II) is part of a secret plot to subvert the West.

I completely understand why the locals in any country wouldn’t be happy about waves of foreigners pouring in. Especially if they’re poor, unskilled, and not likely to assimilate.

It leads to huge problems. Infrastructure gets strained. More people are sucking at the teat of the welfare system. The unwelcome newcomers compete for bottom-of-the-ladder jobs. Things easily turn nasty and then turn violent.

But the idea that the refugee crisis in Europe is part of a hidden agenda – rather than a predictable outcome – strikes me as strange. And it’s a notion that conveniently deflects blame away from the people and factors that deserve it.

Interventions Destabilize the Middle East

The civil war in Syria has turned the country into a refugee-maker.

Syria’s neighbors have reached their physical limit on their ability to absorb refugees.

That’s one of the reasons so many are heading to the West.

Lebanon has received over 1 million Syrian refugees. That’s an enormous number for a country with a population of only 4 million – a 25% increase. Jordan and Turkey also have millions of Syrian refugees. They’re saturated.

The number of refugees heading to the West, by contrast, is in the hundreds of thousands. So far.

But it’s not just Syria that’s sending refugees. Many more come from Iraq and Afghanistan, two other countries shattered by bungled Western military interventions.

Then there are the refugees from Libya. A country the media and political establishment would rather forget because it represents another disastrous military decision.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Special Thread: The Camp of the Saints

September 26, 2015

Special Thread: The Camp of the Saints

Wiki’s take on Jean Raspail’s prophetic novel, The Camp of the Saints:

The Camp of the Saints is a novel about population migration and its consequences. In Calcutta India, the Belgian government announces a policy in which Indian babies will be adopted and raised in Belgium. The policy is reversed after the Belgian consulate is inundated with poverty-stricken parents eager to give up their infant children.

An Indian “wise man” then rallies the masses to make a mass exodus to live in Europe. Most of the story centers on the French Riviera, where almost no one remains except for the military and a few civilians, including a retired professor who has been watching the huge fleet of run-down freighters approaching the French coast.

The story alternates between the French reaction to the mass immigration and the attitude of the immigrants. They have no desire to assimilate into French culture but want the goods that are in short supply in their native India. Although the novel focuses on France, the rest of the West shares its fate.

Near the end of the story the mayor of New York City is made to share Gracie Mansion with three families from Harlem, the Queen of the United Kingdom must agree to have her son marry a Pakistani woman, and only one drunken Soviet soldier stands in the way of thousands of Chinese people as they swarm into Siberia. The one holdout until the end of the novel is Switzerland, but by then international pressure isolating it as a rogue state for not opening its borders forces it to capitulate.

The novel was published 42 years ago but it is suddenly back in the news again, ‘Camp of The Saints’ Seen Mirrored In Pope’s Message.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Refugee Crises At Dangerous Tipping Point As Hungary Makes Arrests, Germany Loses Patience

September 15, 2015

Refugee Crises At Dangerous Tipping Point As Hungary Makes Arrests, Germany Loses Patience

“I’m not happy. I had to leave Syria — I love Syria, but so much killing there.”

That’s from 17-year old Mohammed Al-Hamdan who made it across the Hungarian border with Serbia at a railroad crossing near the village of Roszke before it was closed on Tuesday. As NBC reports, “just before Hungarian police closed the railroad crossing, a Syrian family ran down the tracks trying to make it through, the patriarch screaming to his wife and small children, ‘Yallah, yallah!’ — Arabic for ‘Let’s go!’” Before closing the “popular” passage, Hungary had reportedly begun hauling migrants on to trains and shipping them straight to the Austrian border. “The situation is that after crossing the border these people have arrived at the collection point in Roszke, where there is no official procedure, people are just being collected. Earlier these people were being taken to the registration points … this is not happening now, but rather, buses are taking people from the collection point to the Roszke train station according to our information,” a UNHCR spokesman told Reuters.

Of course even for the migrants who were “lucky” enough to be rounded up and shipped to Austria as opposed to being stranded behind Hungary’s new migrant-be-gone fence, their fate is far from certain. As The New York Timesnoted on Monday, Austrian officials have now sent “2,200 soldiers to help reinforce the eastern border.”

The rush to get into the Hungary came as the country largely completed a four meter, razor wire fence meant to cut off the flow of refugees and channel them to official registration centers where they can apply for asylum. “If their applications are refused,” BBC says, “they will now be returned to Serbia rather than being given passage through Hungary.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Search of a Resolution to the Syrian War, Refugee Crisis

September 15, 2015

In Search of a Resolution to the Syrian War, Refugee Crisis

One of the main migration routes is to head for Turkey, then to Greece in order to proceed towards the Balkans and Italy, and finally branch into France and then the United Kingdom. Another route sees passage via Romania, Hungary, and Austria, with the final destination of Germany. This route has drawn a lot of attention over the past few weeks as the number of migrants opting for it has dramatically increased. Note that the Syrian refugees are very different from the African migrants, whose routes begin in West Africa and the Horn of Africa, converging in Libya, where human traffickers and criminal organizations force them to ‘board’ the infamous ‘boats’ and cross the Mediterranean powered by fortune and prayer in order to land in Italy or Malta. There are also less popular – more controlled – routes that run through Algeria-Morocco-Spain.

As if to emphasize the fact that the various Middle Eastern adventures of the ‘Bush of Arabia’ years, from Afghanistan to Iraq and the War on Terror in general, have all failed miserably, arriving with the Syrians are also migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan. They tend to use one of the many “routes” created by heroin traffickers to ship their product from Afghanistan to northern Europe and the Russian Federation. The coincidence is not surprising given that the smuggling of migrants is controlled by organized crime. We talk a lot about Greece, but the real buffer state between the countries of origin and Fortress Europe is Turkey. There are two routes used by migrants to reach Turkey: the Middle East from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Germany & Austria Close Borders — Schengen Agreement Under Pressure — Will War Emerge?

September 15, 2015

Germany & Austria Close Borders — Schengen Agreement Under Pressure — Will War Emerge?

The Schengen Agreement was to be the cornerstone of the entire euro proposition. We just warned that this freedom of movement would begin to come under pressure with this turning point:“As the economy turns down very hard after 2015.75, we are more likely than not going to see the freedom of movement in Europe fragment and that will be the crack that signals the eventual risk of breaking up the EU idea of empire-building.”

Germany has closed its borders with Austria and in turn Austria has now closed its border with Hungary. We are starting to witness the turn. Obama praised Merkel for accepting so many refugees, but after Merkel boasted that there was no limit to the number of refugees Germany would accept, it set in motion a huge migrant crisis. All public buildings and stadiums are full. Germany cannot handle any more refugees and these people have to be fed. Besides that, the winter will be harsh and many could die from exposure. This is going to be a real crisis.

Then, the headlines in France yesterday declared in the latest polls that 56% of the French people are now in favor of war. We are looking at the economy turning down very hard and the blame will be directed at the immigrants fleeing because of ISIS. We will see war rise because of this issue, as they are blamed for the economic decline in Europe. With unemployment among the youth already at 50% on average in many areas, accepting this many migrants who will also be unemployed will topple the economic system in Europe. We are seeing the seeing for this turning point of 2015.75 unfold before our eyes. As always, domestic populations will blame the migrants for the economic decline.

Another Reason To Move Away From California: ‘Conditions Are Like A Third-World Country’

April 20, 2015

Another Reason To Move Away From California: ‘Conditions Are Like A Third-World Country’

As if anyone actually neededanother reason to move out of the crazy state of California, now it is being reported that conditions in some areas of the state “are like a third-world country” due to the multi-year megadrought that has hit the state. In one California county alone, more than 1,000 wells have gone dry as the groundwater has disappeared. The state is turning back into a desert, and an increasing number of homes no longer have any water coming out of their taps or showerheads. So if you weren’t scared away by the wildfires, mudslides, high taxes, crime, gang violence, traffic, insane political correctness, the nightmarish business environment or the constant threat of “the big one” reducing your home to a pile of rubble, perhaps the fact that much of the state could soon be facing Dust Bowl conditions may finally convince you to pack up and leave. And if you do decide to go, you won’t be alone. Millions of Californians have fled the state in recent years, and this water crisis could soon spark the greatest migration out of the state that we have ever seen.

Back in 1972, Albert Hammond released a song entitled “It Never Rains In Southern California“, and back then that was considered to be a good thing.

But today, years of very little rain are really starting to take a toll. In fact, one government official says that conditions in Tulare Country “are like a third-world country”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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