Try, these two, ‘best seller’, books from Steven Pinker: ‘Better Angels’ and his recent ‘Enlightenment Now’, for ‘Alternative Facts’..!!!
Below is a clip from a review of Enlightenment Now, by Samuel Moyn a professor of law and professor of history at Yale University. (New Republic)
“As for environmental degradation humanity will surely find a way to counteract this in time. “As the world has gotten richer,” Pinker explains, “nature has begun to rebound”—as if the failure of a few prophecies of ecological disaster to come to pass on schedule means the planet is infinitely resilient. Once he gets around to acknowledging that climate change is an actual problem, Pinker spends much of his time attacking “climate justice warriors” for their anti-capitalist hysteria.” Read the full book review here
‘Enlightenment Now’ is an almost iconic, ‘Taker Tribe’, view of Humanity’s progress today, in its almost evangelistic ‘cover up’ of the existence of our fundamental ‘Flaw of Success’: Our creation of ‘The Chasm‘. The huge, ever widening, rift between Nature and Humanity.
Where is Bill Gates in ‘All This‘?
Interestingly, Samuel Moyn also points out in his review: “Bill Gates loves Pinker’s creed. After recommending Better Angels for years, Gates recently proclaimed Enlightenment Now “my new favourite book of all time.”
Does that make Bill Gates a member (leader?) of ‘The Taker‘ Tribe, ‘The Crowd‘??? (See earlier post)
Best YOU debate and decide???? All very Real, and Challenging, to each and all of us in a new unfolding world, where we need to change course and ADAPT!
Is ‘The Chasm’ Real? Is closing ‘The Chasm’ a Humanity Moral Imperative?
The Chasm: It’s not quite about ‘Heaven and Hell sides across the Chasm yet, but no physical chasm on our planet today, can start to help us imagine the magnitude of our One Point Seven and increasing, Chasm between, Nature and Humanity.
‘The Chasm’ is the ever-widening disconnect in the relationship between Humanity and Nature. A ‘Silent Divorce’, because on the one side Humans are anthropocentrically arrogant, and on the other side Nature as the ‘Higher Power’ couldn’t care!!
The first fracture was back in 1970, as we started demanding more from Nature, than Nature could provide. Back then few were aware of its ‘relationship severing’ significance for human life.
Ever since then, that crack has been growing wider and wider to become the vast Chasm of today. Nature has long abandoned us, and is taking its natural corrective action burgeoning imbalance we are creating. Nature’s goal is protection of the planet ecosystem, and eradication of the forces challenging the constant process of re-balance, and where necessary to establish new equilibrium free of the agitations.
‘The Chasm’ at Work: Our Three Tribes
As The Chasm grows, it is dividing all of us humans in to essentially Three distinct, human ‘Sub Tribes’:
The ‘Righteous’ Tribe!
The First Tribe, are those who live according to Nature’s sustainability rules, on Nature’s side of The Chasm.
The simple test for membership of this Tribe, is an affirmative answer to the question: “If every human in the world lived with your Ecological Footprint would we need less than One Point Zero planets to sustain all of us humans?”
These are individuals, communities, and a few Nations, who live a One Point Zero or less lifestyle,and so aren’t ‘Planet Depleters’ and net takers from Nature.
Without this Tribe’s low footprint, we, as Humanity, would be in an even more dire situation as far as far as The Chasm goes. Essentially they are Footprint subsidising all other humans. Almost without exception this tribe, is made up of people at the lower end of the Wealth spectrum.
‘The Taker’ Tribe: The Crowd
The Second Tribe, and the most influential and sadly, fastest growing human tribe: They live, all around the world, on the other side of The Chasm, from Nature: ‘The Crowd‘! This tribe is the most affluent and almost all the upper and middle class people of the developed world nations: Those who are locked onto the Western world vision of Success, and the aspirational, ‘Good Life’ model. Ever increasing Happiness is the goal, and Increasing Wealth, Material Success, and Consumption are the means to that goal.
Influential members of this tribe, almost all, take an anthropocentric view, denying climate change, and / or believing human innovation and resolve alone, will overcome Nature. Their words may even say otherwise but their Way of Life does not convey that they acknowledge that ‘we’ have a huge ‘Chasm problem‘. They deny our System is broken and is in need of a new vision and fundamental change .
Beyond that they are actively evangelising expansion of the current flawed system into the so different way of Life of the ‘Righteous’ Tribe (above). With its sophisticated, self serving, evangelistic marketing, many in the ‘Righteous Tribe’ are made to feel ‘less successful’, being sold the temptations of ‘The Taker’ Tribe’s, Good Life, ‘Success’. In the process adding to the more rapid widening of The Chasm.
‘The Crowd‘ is an conglomerate of many sub tribes, many of which feed off the energy of The Crowd, and its unspoken lies.
The two defining traits for all members of ‘The Taker Crowd’, are: Firstly, their members have life style Ecological Footprints that are above ‘fair share’ie If all humans lived like them, ‘we’ will need more than One Point Zero planets to be sustainable, survive and prosper for generations to come. Secondly, their Ecological Footprint is not shrinking each year, and they have no desire to shrink it, as they pursue the iconic, ‘Good Life’, and follow its ‘More, and More’ tenet. For almost all the members, knowing their footprint, and then proactively, being ‘life decision mindful’ of it, is not part of their day to day life.
Almost as a sub-tribe to ‘The Crowd‘, there are also many people in this second, ‘Taker Tribe‘, who do truly acknowledge the existence of ‘The Chasm’, and its ever widening trajectory.They know there is, A Serious Problem’, yet know their life is very comfortable in ‘The Crowd’, and dependent on it. They often plead overwhelming helplessness and despair at the vastness of ‘The Chasm’, and their personal inability to ‘change anything’. This despair is almost their ticket that validates their belonging to the ‘taker crime’ of ‘The Crowd‘. In the process they allow themselves to become reluctant prisoners to ‘The Crowd’s cause.
Inside themselves they know they are not being courageous and true to themselves. Often resorting to society, distraction candy, social media, and other ‘belonging crutches’ to help deal with their soul’s real pain and loneliness of their chosen, trapped position, as part of ‘The Crowd’. It isn’t easy and ‘we’ all need to help these people join the ‘Moral Adventurers‘ below.
Another ‘sub-group’ of this Second Tribe are those who believe that ‘God’, or some ‘higher power’ is looking after ‘it’ all, and ‘it’s not ‘Our Problem’. This earthly existence is merely a trial ground for the awaiting ‘life prize’. A reward of an idyllic, non-earthly, everlasting existence. For them concern about any threat to our earthly existence is wasted energy. The discussions go about Genesis, and whether Nature is for us to use, or whether we have a ‘Dominion’ relationship, role. Read some very entertaining discussion on The Pope and Scott Pruitt (US Government, EPA administrator) here.
The ‘Moral Adventurer’ Tribe
The Third Tribe which is small, but rapidly gaining in numbers all over the world, are the courageous explorers who realise that staying with ‘The Crowd’ of ‘The Taker’ Tribe is unhealthy for their soul.
They have accepted that where society is today, and where it is going is no longer an acceptable trajectory for them, and so have made a decisive choice: To breakaway from ‘The Crowd‘.
They have ‘face to face’, confronted The Inconvenient Truths personally and they know it is a human imperative to be on the Nature side of ‘The Chasm’.
Deciding to act takes courage and conviction. Finally saying ‘Enough is Enough’, they have set off on a ‘Chasm Crossing’ adventure, to free themselves from the moral prison of The Inconvenient Truths. (Truth to Power… Read more here
These people are each in various stages of their ‘Chasm Crossing’, but all have a common mind and resolve: To explore a One Point Zero way of living. Understanding and reducing their Ecological Footprint is their liberating Life affirming imperative.
In the context of The Chasm, Society and Nature are currently so far apart, that this crossing of The Chasm requires each explorer to undergo varying degrees of personal, ‘Way of Life’, and value system, change. while at the same time they become a catalyst for change in society and others. In this dual role each explorer finds deep, beyond-self, meaning, in being part of helping solve Humanity’s Biggest Ever Challenge: To avoid our own Self Destruction, and to Find New Prosperity and Flourishing Success.
As they travel further across The Chasm, it becomes clear that they are moving on a different type of personal development journey to those within The Crowd.:
Adaption is their developmental process, and living Intensely, belonging with Nature, and Our Planet, The Goal. Given how wide The Chasm is today, this require huge ‘personal evolution’, but the rewards are true belonging, with The Righteous Tribe! Just like all living things on this planet, ‘Adaption’ to Nature’s demands, is the critical mark of Real Success.
For ‘The Crowd‘ , Success is unbounded. And ‘mere adaption’ is failure, or a ‘Success for only fit for, ‘lesser’ humans and, ‘non-humans’: Giving up the dream of unbounded, self determination, with ever increasing dominance, and acceptance of Nature’s constraining submission, is not in The Crowd’s, story line of Success.
This graph is nothing short of ‘Scary’Y
In their pursuit of an unconditional, One Point Zero goal, the evolving ‘adapters’ of the First and Third Tribes, will in their belonging with Nature, find true Human Success. ‘The Crowd’ in their anthropocentric development arrogance, will continue ‘taking’ more and more planets, for their ever increasing, insatiable appetites.
Without Nature WE are Nothing
The Creating of ‘The Stampede’
We as Humanity need more and more Third Tribe people: Chasm Crossers: The new leaders, the new visionaries, and the moral warriors, each leading others, whose growing numbers in taking on the ‘Chasm Crossing‘ challenge will eventually bring about ‘The Stampede’: The new Crowd that will make it easier for ‘all of us’ to cross The Chasm to where we truly belong: On Nature’s side.
Ponder for a while where your soul belongs?
In which Tribe are you living TODAY? Where does your soul say you should be, and are you there wanting to share your story to help catalyse ‘The Stampede‘ toward Human Liberation?!
Let me know how you feel about your journey to One Point Zero…?
Send me an email at howard.fairbank@one-point-zero.com
Since One Point Zero’slaunch in May 2016, ‘The World’ has seen an unprecedented number of tectonic decisions that have collectively set humanity and individual nations on a courses further away from a One Point Zero goal.
If the ‘Whole of Humanity’ is ‘Team Human’, our ‘Ultimate Tribe’, then these world changing decisions have all been ‘Sub-Tribal’, and surely that is not good for any of ‘US’ in the medium / longer term?
These decisions have been based on a vision of a more fragmented, divided, and narrow, humanity: Essentially self serving, and exclusive, Sub Tribe Visions. History has been fraught with tribal conflict, and many are of the opinion that tribal conflict is ‘Just us being human’!
With our planet in deficit, way out of Ecological Capacity, never before in the history of humanity are single, ‘Grand Tribe’ decisions, more desperately needed.
Our survival NOW requires it….!
Surely, One Point Zero is a fundamental, Human Purpose, imperative? Given this fundamental and urgent status, and the enormity of the One Point Zero challenge today, the solution needs a United, One Tribe, Humanity.
That’s not a, ‘One Tribe’, as in us all being the same cult, creed, and fabric. We are a humanity of many different sub tribes, and that richness of diversity is what makes us very the Humanity we are!
Rather: A tribe of ‘One Humanity Tribe’ all signed up to a single, simple Nature unifying, team Goal, yet a Humanity free to achieve that goal in each’s own unique, individual, or Sub Tribe way? This is Our Challenge today!
Humanity’s Single Unifying Goal?
That, Single Goal, and its underpinning Belief is simple:
The Belief: Without Nature we are Nothing!
Accepting that we Humans are an integral part of Nature, and that Nature is bigger than US! Almost all religions can fit under this belief, without ‘upsetting their specific religious beliefs. This Belief tied to our human imperative for our ongoing, future, inter-generational survival, creates our collective goal:
The Goal: We have to ALL, collectively live within One Point Zero Planet’s Natural resources.
Surely a Simple, and non-Negotiable, Goal? One that will require each one of us to personally commit to that Goal! That is our only ‘Humanity Tribe’ restraint. Beyond that we are all Free to pursue what ever other beliefs, culture, creed one has ! It’s totally up to ‘your tribe’ on how it lives within that One Point Zero, only, constraint….!
Today we need One Point Seven, and it is guaranteed that next year we will need more! By 2050 we could be demanded more than Two Point Five planets from an ever more depleting, One Point Zero, planet earth.
Humanity has been on a course away from Nature for more than a century, those before us just didn’t know it….. As the graph above shows, around 1970 we raced through the ‘Balance Point’ fracturing Our relationship with Nature, and that fracture has grown ever since to The Chasm, the vast gap between Team Human and Team Nature. I’m sure like me, you also believe, Team Human was created as a sub team of Team Nature. It’s part of our DNA to belong with that family.
We all know about the Wealth Inequality issue, and depending on whether you are strongly capitalist or not, you may see this as a sign of success of ideology or not? Here is what two ‘Icons of Wealth’ have to say:
Warren Buffet and a New York Times quote from a few years back:“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Bill Gates in another recent quote said: “I very much agree that High levels of inequality are a problem—messing up economic incentives, tilting democracies in favour of powerful interests, and undercutting the ideal that all people are created equal.”
We all know that the ever widening Wealth Gap is a fact and the cause of ever increasing conflict within the societies of the world today. This ‘Result’ is all to be expected and inherent in the design of capitalism encased in a Western ideology. (Western ideology being “a rationally orientated culture based on reason, and represented in several core ideals and values, which include Individualism, Happiness, Rights, Capitalism, Science and Technology.” )
Some may even justify this ‘Result’ saying that “This is also how Nature works”: Survival of the Fittest, and Natural Selection of the Fittest! Where in this Western Ideology, ‘Fittest’ equals Wealthy, and ‘Natural Selection’ is based on Anthropocentric Power, where Power is derived from Wealth of Capitalist ‘Success’.
In the past, without the concrete knowledge of our 1970 fractured relationship with Nature, maybe the ‘Western Success’ with its ever widening ‘Wealth Gap’ was almost defensible: Maybe without legitimate moral or ethical flaw!
As Warren Buffet laid out above: This was a ‘war game’ designed by humans, and only for humans: “A class war”! One void of any transcendental or Spiritual context: ‘Success’, with the rules of the game clear and known to all it seemed fair. In voluntarily participating in the game one accepted there could be winners, losers, and maybe some in ‘between-ers’, and each chose to play the game at the level they deemed fit! The winners were free to enjoy their ‘well deserved’ victory spoils. Losers had no choice but to accept defeat graciously.
Sounds all plausible, but unfortunately the Western Ideology’s anthropocentric orientation and Spiritual void, has created another ‘Inequality Gap’: One that is non-defensible as it defies that very same Nature and its fundamental ‘Law of The Planet’!
This is the ‘One Point Zero Inequality Gap’.
The wealthy 10% consume 59%
The facts are beyond doubt: Almost without exception, whether at a National, Community or Individual level, the more ‘Western Success’ one achieves, the further away from One Point Zero one moves. The further away from One Point Zero one moves, the more of a ‘Net-Taker’ of Nature one becomes.
In the context of our 1970 fractured relationship with Nature, surely this is tantamount to a moral / ethical crime against humanity. If all of us was a ‘Diamond Medallion Frequent Flyer’ in the USA we would need more than 15 planets just to deal with the footprint of the flying ‘required’ to keep our Diamond status! They clearly turned their back on any hope of stepping up to meet Nature’s condition for a flourishing relationship again!
To Fly or Not to Fly??
So rather than being in sync with Nature’s Rules, this ‘War Success’ is actually in direct breach of the Law of Nature. The One Point Zero Law that says there is a limit to Nature’s ability to Support Human Life, and us using beyond that, the relationship with Nature is fractured and Humanity’s survival is doomed.
The ‘Successful’ Nations are almost without exception the ones with the ‘multi Planet’ demands on Nature’s bio capacity. Within those nations it’s the ‘Real Successful’, the ‘classes’ that form the elite ceilings of the Wealth Gap, who have ecological footprints that are way out of line with the ‘less successful’ classes. At a ‘class level’, in many cases this ‘One Point Zero Gap’ is an order of 40, or more, ie. some people in these nations and communities have life styles that demand more than ‘forty Planet Earths’, when the good, simply living, salt of the community citizens may only demand a ‘fraction of The Planet’.
If you want to see what your ‘One Point Zero footprint’ is try this calculator from Global Footprint Network (More on Footprint Calculators in the next blogs. I’m working on a more appropriate way of doing this, versus the ones online that I have seen)
This ‘One Point Zero Gap’ is much more serious than the ‘Wealth Gap’ as it is surely not morally or ethically defensible?: This ‘One Point Zero Gap’ is about taking a very scarce resource from others without their engagement or consent. Further without the low ecological footprint ‘subsidy’ of the ‘simple living’ citizens, these ‘Successful’ people would be part of an even more serious ‘Ecological crime’: They desperately need this credit, and the simply livers to live ‘even more simply’, to recycle more, to reduce consumption more, so that they can carry on using more of their Ecological Footprint credit!
The huge ‘One Point Zero Gap’ in directly tracking the ‘Wealth Gap’, now makes the Wealth Gap also morally indefensible in today’s Socio-economic landscape. I have no doubt that the obvious linkage of the ‘Two Gaps’, as the One Point Zero Gap becomes apparent will result in a significantly increased revolutionary energy! I cannot see how this could be opposed as a Revolution without deep moral and ethical conviction? If one believes this, then positioning oneself as things unravel, can provide some personal challenges that bring on some turmoil! Spiritual turmoil and ‘relationship turmoil’. To be selfish when ‘everyone else is’, or to be humanitarian, to be class loyal, to be a more lonely revolutionary? Then the whole question about one’s ‘Environmental Identity’: Our personal relationship with Nature, and the non-human that I discussed two blogs ago…???
I know this ‘turmoil’ all too well, because I have been personally dealing with this within my own context for a while now?
We are all at different points along the “Class” / “Success” continuum, different chronological points in our lives. ‘All’ in our own struggles for ‘merely’ our own Success as we have defined it, and this all may challenge one’s soul? We each have to work out what stance we will take for these issues and make a decision on whether the revolution will take off? My only guiding light for me is what fits right with my soul, and then I have to take care of the details flowing out from that… Some of these details aren’t just small ‘dot’ bullet points, but huge ‘planet size’, ‘Life Meaning’ ones!
Gee, the Equator and its equal split symbolism brought all this unequal ‘Gap stuff’ above up hey! Thanks Equator!
Age, Wisdom and Intelligence: Intelligent / Intelligent vs Stupid / Intelligent needs Youthful Wisdom. Read below:
All the very, very Best for 2018….
Did you have a One Point Zero living 2017? Maybe an achieved Sustainability Awareness goal?
How ever many planets your life style needed for 2017: Maybe its not too late to make a New Year Resolution to move a wee bit closer to a One Point Zero lifestyle in 2018!
If you are not on board already: Make 2018 the year you join the Intelligent / Intelligent, and come out from under The ‘New Apartheid’ Mushroom… Your soul will relish the wide open sky!!
Intelligence, New Apartheid, and living underneath Mushrooms…???!! :
Read what the New York Times says about ‘us’ here:
1.4 Million Kilograms of Nature’s Minerals, Metals and Fuels
This Baby is born with a high consumption gene, and most others in the rest of the Western World are born with a gene to want to follow and ‘also be successful’….. In the process ‘The Chasm’ between Nature and Humans widens each day!!
Maybe science can help us do the most valuable DNA modification yet….. To stop us wanting more, and more!
Al Gore is back in the spotlight with his new documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel, making him a top target again of the right-wing counter-intel complex. On Thursday, the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research released a report, “Al Gore’s Inconvenient Reality,” that paints the former vice president as a hypocritical climate advocate. In near-creepy detail, NCPPR author Drew Johnson maps Gore’s home in Nashville, Tennessee, down to the number of windows, and concludes that “Gore’s own home electricity use has hypocritically increased to more than 21 times the national average this past year with no sign of slowing down.” Johnson also slams Gore’s numerous attempts to modernize his home through energy efficiency, solar panels, and geothermal heating, saying they have been inadequate in offsetting his energy use. Read more here ……….
Truth to Power: Making the Convenient, Inconvenient, and The Inconvenient, Convenient!
Living a One Point Zero lifestyle means:
Living continuously with a less than One Point Zero, personal Ecological Footprint.
What THAT means is:
That if all 7.6 billion of ‘us’ lived like ‘you’ (ie had the same Ecological Footprintas yours)‘WE’, as Humanity, would only need One (One Point Zero) planet Earths today, to sustain US all. And future generations, if they do the same.
Where are we Today?
Today, we need One Point Seven planets, and each day this number has been increasing and 1970 was when we ‘flew past’ the One Point Zero mark unaware of our future trajectory!
If everyone one of us humans lived like the average resident of American, UK, the ‘Top tier’ European nations, Australia, and Canada, we would need between 3 and 5 Planet Earths today, to prevent our ecosystem losing its ability to support human life on Earth. I think ‘WE’ do all know we only have One Planet… actually One Point Zero to be precise!!!
So for most western world people, this requires a 60—80% reduction in ‘our’ current, Consumption and Footprint related, activity, and exploring ‘A Place’ few of ‘us’ would know exists, and even less would have ever been ‘There’. Yet surely, ‘WE’ should all, not only know ‘The Place’ exists, or have just made a temporarily ‘tour’, but rather ‘The Place’ should be our home, where we ALL live???!!
The concepts of Ecological Footprint, Ecological Capacity and Ecological Demand are critical components of understanding of One Point Zero, and are the intellectual property of Global Footprint Network. To understand more about them read here.)
(The above facts and figures above and the methodology behind the One Point Zeroconcept are all courtesy of The Global Footprint Network, and by clicking the link you can find out where your nation fits in. If you want to have some idea of your own personal Ecological Footprint today, go here.
‘He’ lives a One Point Zero life, because ‘He’ knows: ‘Without Nature his species is Nothing!’
The Human Imperative: A ‘One Point Zero’ Lifestyle
If each and every one of us was living a One Point Zero (or below) lifestyle we would have no One Point Seven ‘Planets problem’ today, and we would be an integral part of Nature: Living collectively in Ecological credit, and with a sense on oneness with each other and Nature and OUR Planet home. We would be passing on lifestyles and a World that the next generation can build on and in that way have REAL human legacy value.
Surely that is the most Basic Human Purpose?
This is what personally living a One Point Zero lifestyle means!
Yes, today, there are many humans around the world living within this One Point Zero condition, but it is almost guaranteed that they aren’t the people the western world sees as ‘Developed’ or ‘Successful’. Almost without exception, those that the western world deems ‘successful’ are living way outside that condition today. Typically the society defined, ‘Real Successful‘, are the ones living the furthest from a One Point Zero lifestyle.
How sad this is, when the ‘Judges‘ are really the ‘Not Successful‘, and only ‘Judge of Success’, because they designed ‘The Court’. The ‘defendants‘ should really be ‘The Judges‘!
More than a technical requirement to meet a scientific sustainability test, this is about getting back to living with our human soul. Opening that spiritual connection between Nature and our souls. Rekindling a world where each and every one of us, individually and collectively, would feel part of something much Greater, and more Powerful than our Human selves:
A deep sense of soul belonging with Nature, The Planet and Humanity! A belonging that surely fits, without conflict, with all Religions and other Spiritual beliefs.
Even with an atheist or agnostic perspective, surely Humans cannot be at the pinnacle of the Greater Universe, hierarchy of power?
Without Nature: We humans are Nothing!
Beyond Genesis: This is Nature’s Planet, NOT Ours!
The specific Goal of my adventure was to try and live for at least 12 months continuously in the 18 months, with a less than One Point Zero, personal Ecological Footprint.
What that means is:
That, if every 7.6 billion of ‘us’ lived ‘like me’ (Ha-ha!) ‘WE’, as Humanity, would only need one (One Point Zero) planet Earth’s natural resources today, to sustain US all.
Where are we today?
Today we need One Point Seven planets, and each day this number has been increasing and 1970 was when we ‘flew past’ the One Point Zero mark unaware of our future trajectory!
If everyone one of us humans lived like the average resident of American, UK, the ‘Top tier’ European nations, Australia, and Canada, ‘we’ would need between 3 and 5 Planet Earths today, to prevent our ecosystem losing its ability to support human life on Earth. I think ‘WE’ do all know that we only have One Planet… actually One Point Zero to be precise!!!
So for most western world people this requires a 60—80% reduction in their current, Consumption and Footprint related, activity, and exploring ‘A Place’ few of would know exists, and even less would have ever been ‘There’.
This, Last Frontier, Unknown, with the potentially large ‘Truth to Power‘, benefit to society, made for the perfect, phase of life, exploration for me, ?
Here is My ‘Final Ascent’ to that Mission Success
Having simplified my life dramatically over the years, I thought I ‘just’ had the last little bit of the One Point Zero -peak’ to conquer …. As is often the case with adventure challenges: ‘The Final Ascent’ is the most difficult, and that was what the last 18 months was about…Read about that ‘Final Ascent‘ here:
Earlier: The Journey to ‘Base Camp’
And for how I got to ‘Base Camp‘ before the ‘Final Ascent’: You can read my 12 year, transformation journey, from ‘Western world Capitalist’ to a ‘Without Nature, We are Nothing‘ Truths, here.
All about this powerful ‘Footprint’
The concepts of Ecological Footprint, Ecological Capacity and Ecological Demand are critical components of understanding of One Point Zero, and are the intellectual property of Global Footprint Network. To understand them more read here.)
(These facts and figures above and the methodology behind the One Point Zeroconcept is all courtesy of The Global Footprint Network, and by clicking the link you can find out where your nation fits in. If you want to have some idea of what your own personal Ecological Footprint today is go here.)
Hmmm, The Challenge: To making The Convenient, Inconvenient’ and The Inconvenient, Convenient…. The Personal Revolution we all Fear! Truth to Power!
One Activist Battered by ‘The System’… Feeling Powerful within. Ha-ha, and old pic from a tough day in my 2012 Siberia Adventure!
Phew, just back In New Zealand from a five month, ‘State of The Planet Truths’, world tour! Man, the world can be brutal out there when one gets deep in ‘The System’! Give me the -50 C and the wild Nature of the Arctic wilderness any day…!
Watching Al Gore’s recent movie while I was in London, and then seeing how his lifestyle is probably a ‘15-20 Planet needing’, lifestyle, I thought to myself: Surely this ‘clever man’ sees that his lifestyle and the ideology that he is part of is THE Cause of what he is trying to warn us about??? Read about the movie: Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, here
Gandhi: Walking the talk: “My Life is my Message”.
REAL Truth to Power
Unlike Politicians, we Explorers can’t ‘Talk the Talk’, until we have personally ‘Walked the Talk’. So rather than make high footprint movies, do talks, and / or read about all this, for the past 18 months I have been ‘out there’ living, feeling, and truly experiencing, what personally living a One Point Zero life is really about….? I call this actuality of exploring the reality of The truths, The Journey of ‘Truth to Power‘: Becoming ‘powerful in soul’, by confronting ‘The Inconvenient Truths’, and personally transforming so they become ‘Convenient’! Then we have nothing to fear! This adventure was ALL about that!
The specific Goal of the adventure was to try and live for at least 12 months continuously in the 18 months, with a less than One Point Zero, personal Ecological Footprint.
What that means is:
That if every 7.6 billion of ‘us’ lived ‘like me’ (Ha-ha!) ‘WE’, as Humanity, would only need one (One Point Zero) planet Earths today to sustain US all.
Today we need One Point Seven planets, and each day this number has been increasing and 1970 was when we ‘flew past’ the One Point Zero mark unaware of our future trajectory!
If everyone one of us humans lived like the average resident of American, UK, the ‘Top tier’ European nations, Australia, and Canada, we would need between 3 and 5 Planet Earths today, to prevent our ecosystem losing its ability to support human life on Earth. I think ‘WE’ do all know we only have One Planet… actually One Point Zero to be precise!!!
So for most western world people this requires a 60—80% reduction in their current, Consumption and Footprint related, activity, and exploring ‘A Place’ few of would know exists, and even less would have ever been ‘There’.
This, Last Frontier Unknown, with the potentially large ‘Truth to Power’, benefit to society, made for the perfect, phase of life, exploration for me.
Having simplified my life dramatically over the years, I thought I ‘just’ had the last little bit of the One Point Zero -peak’ to conquer …. As is often the case with adventure challenges: The final ‘push to the Pole’ is the most difficult, and that was what the last 18 months was about…
(These facts and figures above and the methodology behind the One Point Zeroconcept is all courtesy of The Global Footprint Network, and by clicking the link you can find out where your nation fits in. If you want to have some idea of what your own personal Ecological Footprint today is go here.)
Antarctica a laboratory for Our Future!
The Final One Point Zero Ascent Accomplished!
Hmmm, the ‘Convenient’, Inconvenient Truth!!! It need a personal revolution within!
I have now been ‘There’ to One Point Zero, and I have lived in ‘The Place’ for more than 12 months…. (The medal ceremony follows, in Hollywood! Invitations will go out once the current scandal dies down….!!)
In summary: Like all adventures: I lost weight, but grew enormously as a real human! Without Nature we are Nothing… The gold credit card and associated bank balance means nothing when footprint credit is the ultimate determiner of affordability! Greed is never an option!
Read all about the Final Ascent ofOne Point Zerohere!
Russian and English hoping to attract advertising!!!
Stock Take of The World: The Other Part of The Adventure
Beyond ME, the past 18 months purposely involved an EXTENSIVE, around the world, ‘Stock Taking‘ of Society….. to find ‘The Truths’ behind, the many fenced off, segments of society today.
Hmmm….., breaking through class, cultural, sexist, spiritual, and political fences to get to the ‘Society Truths’, during this time of unprecedented turmoil in the world, has been absolutely fascinating….Gut wrenching at times!
I even got involved in the watershed, June UK election, and almost ‘got it right’… see here.
I want to thank the many of ‘you’ all over the world, who gave me of your time along the way, and then to the many, many new friends / acquaintances, I met and exchange ideas: All a big Thank You, and without your input, my mission would not have been the success it was.
My ‘Stock Take’ Conclusions: The World and One Point Zero
In its broad and deep goals, this 18 months has been, beyond doubt the most challenging time of my life! The exploration has taken me further to the core of who WE are as Humans, how we, as Human Society ‘were’ supposed live flourishing lives on this Planet, and how far away from that we are heading!
I have no doubt that much of the current unprecedented turmoil in the world is directly related to our underlying inability to Belong with Nature and The Planet. We as a collective have lost our instinctive human purpose, and have developed belief and value systems that are alien to Nature, and what are required to Belong on the Planet. All heavy stuff, but truly fascinating!
The interesting thing is that once people understand One Point Zero ‘they all’ agree:
‘WE’ as Humans cannot be aiming for anything above a ‘One Point Zero’ world?! We will be failing in our basic Human Purpose! ‘It’s obvious!”
However unfortunately,
‘WE’ as society aren’t aiming THERE, so will never get ‘There’!
I sense
‘We’ are trapped in the ever-growing Crowd, its lies and ‘alienated Belonging’!
We each need
The courage and conviction to step out of The Crowd and find our real Belonging and our true Humanness!
Suffice to say that it is now blatantly obvious, that nothing short of a radical Global Revolution will change the course Humanity is on. We all know that significant global change has started happening, albeit not focused specifically on the goal of a One Point Zero world. The challenge is to help society see the direct connection with the ‘discontent’ and our the alienation of our Ultimate Belonging: With Nature and Our Planet.
Beyond anthropocentric Genesis: This really is Nature’s Planet… NOT ours!
I do sincerely hope one can now see why One Point Zero is such a unique, simple, clear and all unifying Humans Initiative. That what we are dealing with is is not a Global Warming problem, nor an environmental problem, but a Human Identity problem…..
Arguing about an acceptable Global Warming Temperature Rise Target will Not Solve our Inconvenient Truth Dilemma??
It is in the above context that I’ll be hoping to connect my real life, ‘One Point Zero’ experience, to be of use to Humanity!
Fingers crossed for the change of course and a New World Order!
PS: Check out this view from the Man from Mars on the run up to the June 2017 UK election!
(For context: Fifteen years ago, the author WAS a devout Neo- Libertarian. One Point Zero transformed him!!
If you connect with any of this or more about One Point Zero I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email at lifeaseriesofadventures@gmail.com
