Last summer I saw the movie Battle in Seattle and came away with quite a brew of emotions. I started this article back then but never finished it. With the economic mess of 2009, we are on the cusp of change. We are balanced on a fulcrum–we can tip towards economic justice for the masses, or towards the same old system of wealth amassed at the top and corporations creating and driving policy. So the movie is as relevant as ever. It attempts to capture the 1999 unprecedented nonviolent street action that brought attention to globalization and corporate power over governments and over the interests of people and the planet as epitomized by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The protest brought together a vast array of constituencies (environmentalists, human rights activists, labor unions, religious groups, anarchists, and many others) to bring public attention to the wrongs of the WTO.

My review of the movie? The text that ran on the screen at the beginning and the end of the movie were the most poignant and I would have liked for the issues to have more presence in the movie itself. The text gave us information about globalization and corporate wealthfare. And about the hammer of debt that the WTO uses to bludgeon developing nations into the perfect places for corporations to make money. Filmmaker Stuart Townsend tried to put a human face to the events by focusing on fictional characters from various factions including the police and a news reporter. I did not feel he gave as full or sympathetic a story to his fictional activists until the very end of the film.

So what does this have to do with land conservation? Much! The WTO and other arms of corporate policymaking and globalization clearly place the rights of corporations to make profit above the rights of people for a clean, healthy and safe community. Did you know that corporations have been granted Read the rest of this entry »

Since my September entry looking at unleashing our passion in a big way for wild and natural lands, people came out of the woodwork to support a change in the United States. President Barack Obama and family have moved into the White House. The global economy has continued to crash and burn. Policymakers worldwide are trying to figure out what to do about it. Now it is time not only to rage for the wild, but also to rage for economic justice for the masses. I call your attention to a well-researched article by James Lieber describing What Cooked the World Economy. We need to assure that taxpayer dollars are not thrown at the institutions and powerbrokers who are responsible (like AIG) nor used to pay off derivatives and other wildly inventive and destructive and unsustainable investment schemes. In fact, we need to prosecute those dangerous men whose greed took our collective wealth for their own. As Lieber found, even collecting 5 percent of the amount of money that these men stole will fill national coffers and go a long way towards offsetting the amounts of money governments will need to spend to help restore economic systems. Actually, let’s change that language from restore to reinvent our economic systems. Please join me in pushing our policymakers to invest in people (through education) and in a sustainable and regenerating future for us all. See as an example Read the rest of this entry »

I am just getting back to writing after a rough Fall. My mom passed away in October. She’d always said that she would love to be buried in a green cemetery or on my land, but knew that she likely wouldn’t still be walking on this Earth by the time I figured out that type of arrangement. And so we chose cremation. When it feels right I will create a memorial garden for her and let her cremains nourish the Earth.

Death is a gateway not only for the one who has crossed through, but also for those of us left behind. Through gateways sometimes come pleasant surprises. One such for me: through a series of events that led her to the website I set up to honor my mother, a high school friend contacted me. It turns out that Diana is also an artist (as was my mother) and someone who loves the Earth. See her post on our Forum entitled Forest Cathedral. Read the rest of this entry »