Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Okay, so key question. The first thing is to find your voice. Finding your voice means speaking from your heart. The word voice comes “voce.” It’s where we get the word “vocation.” When our vocation, that means when our calling, when our lifework comes from the heart, then our voice is empowered and then we really move each other to make a difference. Global warming is not about science. It’s about experience. Science will give us the facts. It will give us the data and it may move us to act. But ultimately, how we move each other to act is a question more to the heart than it is the head. And one of the finest ways to get that is actually to experience nature in a new way. And what I advocate is just spending time alone in nature on a regular basis, every day if possible, and just feeling the heartbeat of the planet; just feeling the heartbeat of nature. So, that’s on a kind of perceptual level. The next thing if you like is to really get educated. Learn the facts about global warming. I mean if you’ve seen Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” get your friends to see it. Get trained in this information. Start talking about it in small groups in your families and your friends. Go to the Willits Economic LocaLization web site. It’s called “WELL”; www.willitseconomiclocalization.org. That’s localization with a Z. And this is my hometown and in our hometown of Willits, we’re taking the whole community through a transformational change to not only help with climate protection, but also to create sustainability. I’ll talk more about that a little later on. So, that old beautiful saying of “think globally, act locally” is one of the most important things we can do. We’ve got to frame our speaking. We’ve got to restore our balance with nature. We’ve got to basically hammer the door of our politicians to make sure they get this idea; reduce emissions in our own lives, whatever that means. Reduce carbon. Join the Cities for Climate Protection. That’s something that we can do everywhere around the world and local politicians will do that when we, the people, ask them to in sufficient numbers. Start [channel] campaigns. Enroll your local politicians. Also, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economists known as the Bali Network started in the States. Get that established in your own country. Check on to their website, Bali. So, these are some of the things we can do and tell others to stop global warming and we’ve got to do it right now. Anyway, thanks for listening to this. I appreciate it.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Catherine David: You have to be responsable, you have to respect the law if there are laws. And you have to try to ensure that certain great powers, starting with the United States, sign the treaties or charters and respect them. I think you should simply begin in this way.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: Answertext will be available soon.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: Every human can try to live a environmentally-oriented live in its personal environment and try to influence, in whatever occupational group he works, as a journalist, as a writer, as a technician. Every human can influence his private environment, in his vocational surrounding field, where he can notice the threats and can meet them. Is crucial to strengthen the political groupings today which really engages themselves ecologically and try a predatory exploitation, as it for instance the North American policy at present tries to hold back. It is a threat that humans, 80% of humans in the industrial nations or the other way, perhaps one can formulate it in the following way, that 20% of humans in the industrial nations use 80% of the world energies. The world is not any more thinkable without system development, first of all it is not thinkable that a world exists where China and India with the two-third of the population of the world in 20 30 years has the same autoproduction, having the same smoke, the same contamination. One considers that today in China between 3 and 10 per cent of the gross national product must be already spent on the pollutants of the environmental impact, that are about 50 to 51 billion dollars in the year, already today with rising tendency, i.e. the economic growth in India and China has its price, as also in Brazil, as also in Africa. Only a lasting development, with whom everyone must cooperate, which corresponds to the ecological challenges, can at all be proven to be true. Everyone must act by himself in its private and vocational environment and that is possible.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: In this question -- I have a very short answer to this question. You plant a tree and don’t smoke and tell others to plant a tree and don’t smoke, and in that way you can contribute to the happening of the global warming. However, this can be easily said than done, but I think we can do it. Just imagine if the billions and billions of people in this world can plant a tree in one year, then we will have a billion of trees in one year that would help absorb the pollution that is now destroying our ozone layer leading to the global warming. And so, just simply plant a tree and don’t smoke. Plant a tree and don’t smoke. By doing that you can contribute to the global warming and this should be the responsibility of all of us, rich and poor, Third World or First World countries. Everybody is affected by global warming and, therefore, this is everybody’s responsibility. So, plant a tree and don’t smoke.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi:

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Eddie Glaude: Well, sister Nancy there are a number of levels that you can address your question. One involves a level of a person; what can you do to address global warming in your personal choices; what kind of car do you drive? What kind of home do you live in? The very ways in which you live your life individually can address some of the issues around global warming. So, there’s the personal level, but then there is actually another level and that level has everything to do with organization. What organizations in your town, in your neighborhood are actually mobilizing resources, people, to speak to the issue of global warming and you should join that organization and give it all of your energy. And in the process of doing that, proselytize, talk with your fellows, urge your fellows to speak to this issue in every way and any way that they can. So there’s the personal level that is in your daily choices, and then there is the choice at the level of organization to join an organization that’s already in existence to address these issues. Those are the two levels that I want you to think about. Okay, excellent.

by Eddie Glaude

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: In my opinion things like the global warming, the disturbances of earth, the diseases and the imbalances are all produced by the human being. This situation has already been debated and questioned in the whole world and every one should be responsable concerning water, waste, wastage, environment and the place where he lifes. We should not pollute rivers and air and also not minds. There should be ways of life and filosofies of life that help creating a good balance of nature, respecting the environment and the human beings that are next to us. I think that if men are holistic and respect nature they can fight against global growth and against any disease. So I think that it is sufficient that the human beings are conscient of this and turn into a stimulator concerning this subject. People at public places like in supermarkets or at bus stations should always be aware that they are only renting those places in the sense that they have to be careful with them because they are parts of the planet and because we need health. And we only get this health from our planet if we treat it well like for example the environment in which we live.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: The thing that’s new in our world of course is the presence of the Internet. And because of the Internet, one no longer has to rely on the traditional forms of the media, and in terms of getting one’s own message across. And suddenly, one has a potentially global platform. In the Internet world, everybody is their own book publisher, their own newspaper magazine editor, their own columnist, their own journalist. So, an obvious place to begin, if you have something that you want to tell others about, the place to begin is either in a community, if you have a community, if you have a group of like-minded souls, or people that you are in contact with all the time, or otherwise through the Internet because the Internet is where like-minded souls find each other.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: We stop emitting warming hot house gases into the atmosphere. You emit such gases when you burn fossil fuels, when you burn anything under, in the fresh air is [inaudible]. You can also do, use your resources in a more responsible, more less wasteful manner, so as not to use up those resources that are in short order, because every resource used -- the disappearance of forest, for example, -- also contributes to global warming. So, just look up on the literature of what it is that contributes to global warming and stop doing it.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: I think personally what I can do to stop global warming, and what I think each of us must take the responsibility, is to be able to appreciate the local innovations on the ground that already exist, that actually shows that it’s possible to get livelihoods, accumulate livelihoods, put food on the table, but, at the same time, conserve our own natural resources, the biodiversity, the forest, the rivers, and act in a way that it stops the environmental degradation. So I feel if we care and understand that we must conserve, that we must stop the global warming, that we must protect our environment, the solution is with the community, but also the solution is with us appreciating that the time is coming, and it’s coming so soon, when we no longer cannot compete with extraction of end resources and still think that the natural – the environment will contribute as quickly as we are extracting. Because there is a limit to that. So I think we must watch in the threat of what is happening now and know that the time is coming when we must stop our own actions in thinking that – in the biodiversity, the natural resources we have, it’s endless. It isn’t endless. I think there is a limit to how much more we can go.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: We all have the responsibility to tackle the tragedy of global warming. We all have the responsibility to express ourselves and to give this subject a high priority in what we [deberíamos de estar]. We all have the responsibility to speak out and organise ourselves to promote this huge global mobilisation that should demand from the leadership of our nations to respect the regulations and to find new regulations that stop global warming. The last international meeting concerned with the environment and the ecology have been a fiasco. The United States were opposed to the regulations to reduce the emissions of carbonic acid and to take measures to adjust and transform its polluting industries. The worldwide consumer society and the central countries which are the ones that consume the major part of the polluting energies are the ones that should be indicative and that should have the best answers.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: I think, first of all, global warming is the result of our human activity and indeed the best thing is to go inside and analyze our own attitudes and see if we indeed need to use all the power that we need. For example, is it important to leave the light on in a room when you are not there? Is it important to leave the computer on when you are not using it or the TV? How do you deal with water when you brush your teeth, do you let the tap run or do you stop it when you don't use it? These are all questions on the domestic level, on the household level that we can deal with. It also includes of course the question, do we need a car, do we need to use the car all the time, or can we go by bike, or can we walk, or can we perhaps use the public means of transportation? Of course, I am also the cause of global warming through my activities. I also use a car. I also use planes. And to be honest, sometimes I perhaps don't need to do that. I could pool with other people the car, I may not even need to go somewhere by plane and handle situations over the phone. But, anyway, these are some guidelines on the personal level, on the family level. But, to take it a step further, we could also join in neighborhoods or communities and set up scoring list of our actions and see over time how we score our actions and see if we can diminish our use of energy and our waste. It was interesting to read an article not too long from now in a Dutch newspaper of a person who had an out-of-body experience and who was so moved by the experience that he indeed reduced his waste use to two bags of garbage every year. So, that was a person that really is now kind of example to me, a kind of stick or a goal to go for, at least to remind me of his great efforts to reduce energy. It's a big example to me. Anyway, on a national level, of course, all kind of laws might help as well to enforce on people that change they need to make.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Galsan Tschinag: In the last decade there are more and more sign to believe that our planet is in danger of a climatic disaster and the indications are becoming clearer. Do we want to go on pretending to be blind and deaf? Wouldn't we than be not only stupid but also evil creatures with regard to mankind. But I believe in human reason even though I might have been disappointed often and deeply by ourselves as human beings, as homo sapiens. We have to take aim at governments, at fundamental and directing corporations and we have to force them to act in a different way, nobler and wiser. This is possible. In this regard an encouraging and also leading voice is heard from the Germans. They are, despite their many sins in the past, today the people who treat nature in a wise and gentle way. Most Germans have reawakened their consciousness for nature. I follow this and the direction their government takes for a long time with sympathy and increasing hope. The work of many corporations, lead by Germans, confirms this hope. Above all I want to mention Michael Otto and its company Otto-Versand (a mail order business). His WWF has achieved things which set an example and which awaken hope.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Geert Lovink: Let's dream up at least a catalog of possible actions. I still think that for, let's say, affluent Western consumers, there is whole range of possibilities. And even though Nancy, you are 57, I would advice younger generation in fact to go into scientific research because I think there is still a lot that can be discovered and the whole debate about the core of the problems of global warming is not yet over. Even the most radical alarmists would say that we need to have a better understanding of the exact mechanisms that are in place. Having said that, of course, research is not enough and even research into the alternatives for fossil fuels might not be enough. Many people say that we are running out of time. So, selling your car and installing solar panels on your roof might be a good beginning but I don't think that this is really an issue that can be tackled through the change of behavior of individual consumers. I think we need to think up entirely different solutions on another level altogether, and that changing individual behavior also is a bit too moralistic. And I personally think that I am quite optimistic in that sense about technological solutions. The previous generations haven't really seriously done enough and the martial plan, let's say, for global warming on a global scale [audio ends].

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 2:10:00 PM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, who is responsible about this defect, not effect, because already it is a defect, the quality of, I'll say of -- how to describe, to make each product that will help look like to have a easy life, rather than this fabrication of this product produce a disaster in the environment of the planet. Say, in one point, we must decide what we prefer - to breathe and to be in a planet without expecting the disaster or to live a little more comfortable -depend on us. Again, we spoke before about law. You see there exist law, they make more laws, more sophisticate, more complicate, more tough. But, the conscience of the human society will also find how to go around the law to serve self-interest or desire. Here we have already the consequence. We must all of us together, the people who produce this product for perhaps with a good intention, with deep intention, with a lot of favor to find the method to give us this comfort, together to find a way to compromise, to live in peace with the planet and in the planet.

by Giora Feidman