JEROME RINGO
President, The Apollo Alliance

Today the environment is at the forefront of everyone's thoughts, not only in this country but also worldwide. I haven't seen an issue with such a magnetic capacity to bring people together since the Civil Rights movement.

Excessive temperatures have a greater impact on the poor who have less access to air conditioning and proper heating. Poor people have less access to health care to deal with climate-related medical problems. Water is a major problem worldwide, either because there's too much of it-the poor tend to live in flood zones-or not enough that's safe to drink.

The most powerful mechanism of change is our right to vote. We have the ability to elect officials who are going to focus on and

Consciousness is the creator creating the creation and all of the above. It does not cease upon physical death because it underlies and creates the physical. A portion of the conscious spectrum is gone, i.e. your body & your life, but the mind, its personality and all it has experienced continues in more subtle realms. You want proof of life after death? You go to school for years and years and years to get educated and secure the perfect job but won't spend a solid month confirming the existance of the other realms or even a few weeks seriously contemplating the possiblity. It's there, it's been explored, it's been studied. It is subjective and until you begin to entertain the possibility, it is impossible to know the truth until

THOMAS E. LOVEJOY, PH.D.
President of H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and The Environment

The ocean's food chain is at risk
We were one of the first to call attention to the acidification of the oceans. The oceans take up a huge amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. A portion of that carbon gets turned into carbonic acid, so that the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans become. The oceans are now 30 percent more acidic than they were before the Industrial Revolution. It's the most chilling change I've seen in my professional career. If it continues, tiny organisms at the base of the food chain will have their shells dissolve while the animals are still alive. It will

DEIRDRE IMUS
President and Founder, Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology At Hackensack University Medical Center, N.J.

Small changes quickly add up
We are only as healthy as our planet. And, unfortunately, it's obvious that we're not doing a good job in keeping our planet healthy for our children. It's clear to me and to many experts in the field that environmental toxins play a role in some childhood cancers and other illnesses. But people get overwhelmed. They believe the problem is just too big. When people saw "An Inconvenient Truth," they were saying, "How can I save the glaciers? How can I save the polar bears?" All you have to do is make simple changes. Most of us use the same cleaning products our mothers used.

RICHARD CIZIK
Vice President for Government Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals

God told us to protect his earth
The protection of the environment is a Biblically rooted epic task straight from God. The status quo [of how we are treating the earth] is simply unacceptable. The idea that we can continue as a nation without exhibiting leadership to the rest of the world in this crisis is simply anathema. We have to be at the forefront of providing energy-efficient green solutions across the board, from autos to heating and air conditioning. We have to show leadership if India and China are to follow. Yet we're at the back of the line; that's not American. I'm a Ronald Reagan sunny conservative, and I know for a fact that evangelicals

K. R. SRIDHAR
Founder and CEO, Bloom Energy

Look at the crisis as an opportunity
I think the debate about the climate crisis in this country has been framed the wrong way. We've been talking about it from the perspective of the cost to society, rather than the point of view of the opportunity for profit. People are missing that this is a $4 trillion market for energy, and that's before we factor in the supply-demand imbalances that will occur as China and India ramp up their energy use. There is both a climate crisis and an impending energy crisis, and as Stanford economist Paul Romer has said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Energy is just the capacity to do work, and work is what creates economic output. I'm not against

LAURIE DAVID
Environmental Activist and Producer of 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Everybody can do something
One important lesson I've learned in advocating environmental progress is that the perfect is the enemy of the good. It's not about everyone doing everything. Those days are over. In fact, that's part of what held back the movement. We can't hold people up to a gold standard, because that's unattainable. We're all guilty of being part of this problem. I have a swimming pool that I keep heated for our kids and a house that's got a big carbon footprint. I recognize that and try to do other things, not to justify it but to do the best I can. I can't do everything. But it's about everybody doing something. And if everyone would do something, we

FRAN P. MAINELLA
Honorary Doctorate and Visiting Scholar, Clemson University; Former Director, National Park Service

We've got to get our kids outdoors more
Linking our children back to nature is one of the most challenging environmental issues we have. When I used to come home from school, my mom and dad just said, "Go out and play, and come back in time for dinner." But today, because of security issues, children aren't going outside and playing in nature as much anymore, because we want to know where they are every minute; there's a greater need for supervision. And, as much as we love our technology, many children prefer to come home and be on a computer and in a chair rather than being out of doors-it's what Richard Louv [a visiting

JOHN R. MCNEILL
Former Cinco Hermanos Chair Of Environmental and International Affairs, Georgetown University

The next 50 years are make-or-break
The way I look at it, global climate change and the environment have been important for quite some time. I hope they stay here in the forefront of the U.S. consciousness, but they may not. Something could relegate those issues to the margins tomorrow. Since 9/11, the situation has been fairly simple and straightforward: issues of terrorism and security have seized the public imagination to the extent that everything else has become a lesser priority. Anything that has a longer time horizon, like climate change, with a slower fuse to anticipate catastrophe, has to wait.

But clearly the salience of

Published on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle

We Are Doomed! Sort Of!

Earth in crisis, food and water increasingly scarce, people freaking out. Should you join them?

by Mark Morford

It would be nice to think much of the ugliness is coming to an end.

It would be lovely to imagine the era of brutal Earth-mauling technologies, coal extraction and petroleum and industrial agriculture and strip mining and clear cutting and industrial fishing and all rest, all the more rapacious and unforgiving notions of how we exist on this planet are, after an era of unchecked capitalistic greed and waste and over-consumption right along with almost zero concern for consequences and the ethics of sustainability, finally moving toward

It is unfortunate that we live in a present reality where the only way for global civilizations to transcend past pain and fear is to go trough it at such intense polarities; polarities that create extreme dissension and conflict. We can blame such adverse conditions on the Illuminati, Rothschilds, Bilderbergs, Rockefellers, and the remaining ilk of Secret Societies, benign aliens, Luciferians, government conspiracies, whatever you want. But in the act of blaming, we ourselves become the creators of the tribulations we experience. We can say that we have allowed such behavior to be cast upon us. Is that statement one that you can swallow? It may be a difficult fault to accept, but in its very essence it is a Truth. By pointing the finger to someone else, we have completely misunderstood and distorted the nature of life and essence of Free Will. For individuals, casting blame is a simple way of dissolving responsibility. This dissolution comes at a price; the price of self empowerment. Relieving the self of responsibility pulls one’s self distant from free will choices. To cast blame on to anything else but yourself, is the casting away of your ability to learn life lessons in our pursuit and attainment of Wisdom. Blaming someone else in an attempt at temporary relief or temporary fix to discomfort is a direct result of egotistical paradigms. It is a giving away of your inner strength, free will, and inner growth.

The idea of victimization is a classic form of suppression, an easy manipulation of the populace the end goal of which is to bury the eternal human drive of progress, keeping that drive in a stasis field of inaction. To be subject to victim tendencies is to give up your base human rights in a subtle, therefore brilliant, path to the disempowerment of individuals and individuality. Whether it comes from governmental institutions in the form of welfare, subsidies, and the numerous other types of programs that invisibly manipulate personal motivation and extract will from its disciples by encouraging participants to denounce the prime objectivity of the human condition; Betterment. Teaching societies of victim-hood is a preying on those individuals momentarily in need of immediate help and by strongly influencing those individuals to freely participate in these systems designed to disempower.

The ideology of victim-hood flourishes and branches itself in a self perpetuating manner into other areas of gross manipulation. In the U.S., frivolous lawsuits come to mind, feigning individual empowerment through the constructed claim, ‘I am a victim’. We have and are witnessing this illusory gleaming gem for the temporary fix of individualistic problems as they swell into unhealthy portions as the ones forfeiting to responsibility... take advantage instead.

This is one of many manipulation projects designed to disempower particular segments of populations for generations by giving them easy way outs to exist in relative comfort without the need of personal exploration or the valuable life lessons earned by self improvement. Other avenues using these various long-term degradating systems arise from our many religious institutions birthing this practice by its leaders since their inception; practicing various forms of victim-hood by convincing followers that, from the very beginning of our time here on Earth, we are all the victims of evil tendencies and are the physical embodiment of original sin.

The ‘victim’ concept teaches that the power to absolve our negative tendencies comes not from within the self (as it healthily should) but from without the self, from a source of power external to our selves. This further tract of manipulation effectively gives away your individualistic power to some falsely invented external force as a means to solve individual problems by dangling the carrot to bait their insecurities.

In denying our spirit the growth and experience that comes from personal solutions to personal crisis, we shackle the foremost tool that binds spiritual growth and conscious evolution. It is a surrendering, and resultant stagnation, of the gloriously unique personal spirit to a false ideal playing out as a savior, a savior disembodied from your true beingness imprisoning mankind, keeping steadfast the strength of individualism from percolating through to the overall collective conscious, thank the workings of Carl Jung. Organizations which prefer unending dominance will – as their base tenant – infuse the false basic premise of placing blame and the constituent victim-hood ideology on that which is outside of you. This clever formula strips the divine right of personal control and personal responsibility, diluting your own fortitude; however that fortitude should manifest in your life experiences. “Keep the sheep in line.”

Awareness of these debilitating tactics is surfacing across our collective, but possibly at a pace much too slow. People en masse are beginning to recognize disempowering social patterns created and vigorously maintained by our various institutions, but have yet to rise in tipping point numbers to reverse the overall effect in society as a whole. Though admittedly smaller segments of populations are displaying resistance to its poisonous grip and are therefore remaining resourceful unto themselves.

So rise up and take responsibility for your life. Cast the disempowering thought contextualized in that of being a victim. In so doing you put the control of your life, your spirit, back in your hands. In the words of Carlos Castaneda, Live like a Warrior.

By Bruce Friedrich

Gone are the days when vegetarians were served up a plate of iceberg lettuce and a dull-as-dishwater baked potato. With the growing variety of vegetarian faux meats like bacon and sausages - along with an ever-expanding variety of vegetarian cookbooks and restaurants - vegetarianism has taken the world by storm.

With World Vegetarian Week beginning on Monday, here without further ado are PETA's picks for the top 10 reasons to give vegetarian eating a try.

1. Helping Animals Also Helps the Global Poor

While there is ample and justified moral indignation about the diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat. Is the

"The global effects of meat consumption don't stop on land. Agriculture also requires water consumption, and animal agriculture is no exception. Animal production consumes an amount of water roughly equivalent to all other uses of water in the United States combined. Besides grains, animals need water to survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons. Meat production is inefficient as it requires the consumption of an extensive amount of resources over many months and years before becoming a usable food product. With the water used to produce a single hamburger, you could take a

Our Solar System is seeing vast alterations in its planets, obviously including that of Earth. As our solar system continues its swing around galactic center it has entered a higher density of energy. This higher density of energy is causing ‘transformations' of all our planets including the sun.
These dramatic changes have been and are currently being studied by top scientists around the world. Unfortunately the news media of the world refuses to run stories to educate the people of the world as to what is actually occurring. It is of extremely

When I mention selflessness, altruism, heroism, bravery, having hope, finding joy, loving, sacrifice, charity, forgiveness, what does your heart tell you about these things? Then why don't you live these everyday? This is where you will find your happiness; this is where you will find the answer to your question.

He is the voice behind your heart. Even though, you are afraid that if you forgive, you will be hurt. You are afraid that if you love, you will be hurt. You are afraid that heroism is too much of a risk; charity is too much of a task. Hope is dangerous. The search for love and joy could be disappointing.

Your fear is preventing you from doing God's Will, and that is what is preventing you from awakening