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Last week, I was reading over the Foreword to Outcry that was written by Mother Nature. Well, sort of. Actually, she came to me in a dream and told me what to write.
Just today, I went online to find an appropriate picture of our landlord and this is the one I liked best. She likes this image much better than the other one that appears later in this SOS Memo.
In re-reading one of the ending paragraphs of that foreword from her last week, I was struck by her use of the word "tenants" to describe our status on her planet.
As a result of your failed stewardship of this planet, things are likely to become very painful for you in the near future, and for that, I am terribly sorry. But frankly, I have run out of patience with you and your selfish ways.
Quite simply, you've become very problematic tenants who are now in serious danger of being evicted. Consider this your first warning -- yet it could be your last. If you don't get your act together real soon, I am doubtful about your long-term chances.
With tough love, Mom
Since we are the "tenants" and she is our landlord, we don't really "own" much of anything. We are just one of billions of species on this planet but we are the only one that thinks we own land.
Here is another image of Mother Nature that illustrates her frustration with her nearly eight billion human tenants.
The truth is that we Americans do not own land in the USA any more than the tigers own land in India or the lions own land in Africa. We Homo sapiens are just one species out of the billions of species living on planet Earth -- but we are the ONLY species that does not live in harmony with nature. And now we think that we own most of the planet.
Actually, we are Johnny-come-lately's when it comes to Earth's hundreds of species of mammals. Here's a little history that may help to stamp out some of our audacity.
There has been life on Earth for about four billion years -- we humans emerged as a species just 300,000 years ago. If you crammed all of those four billion years into just one year, we humans have been living on Earth for just the last two minutes of that year. Yet now, we think that the entire universe is all about us.
The Bottom Line. Audacious is too kind a word to describe our behavior. Our own selfish lifestyles are rapidly driving hundreds of species extinct every day -- and many scientists are predicting that we will drive ourselves extinct before 2100.
Terminator might be a better word to describe us -- as we seem to be trying to see just how fast we can destroy all life on Earth.
In Outcry, we do our best to jolt people around the world into thinking differently about our relationship with Mother Nature and her natural world. This next link includes the entire foreword by Mother Nature.
In addition to the book, we're in the process of producing a 15-minute video that broadcasts the same urgent message in a different format. Click the "connecting-the-dots" link below to view the 43 PowerPoint slides that will appear in that video.
About halfway through the slide-show, Dr. James Lovelock describes Earth as a self-regulating "system." There is another system that is currently wreaking havoc on Earth; it's our own modern civilization. Stuart and I feel that it must be totally re-imagined and replaced. And that process must start now.
In closing, we also feel that our future as a species is dependent on us getting that done. Here's the link for viewing those slides -- a pictorial version of Outcry.
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PS: To help jumpstart the essential global conversation that I keep mentioning, I am now offering to conduct Zoom conferences free of charge to groups of almost any size. I look forward to Zooming with you and your group in the near future. Send me an email and let's get started.
In preparation for those sessions, I have developed a one-hour format consisting of an opening statement followed by a slide show, discussion and Q&A with the attendees. The sessions that you organize will be far more interesting and productive if attendees have read Outcry in advance.
Our book, for a host of environmental reasons, is only available as an e-book on Amazon. As such, it contains hyperlinks to hundreds of references and videos, is less expensive, does not kill any trees and does not have to be manufactured and delivered.
You can join my mailing list and/or find all of my previous postings by visiting the SOS Memos page on my website. Here are a few of them where you can see how my vision has evolved since that first "creative idea" on 9-21-18:
As always, I am just trying to spark a global conversation about what is needed. By sharing a vision of what I believe is possible, I hope to influence others to think bigger, better and bolder.
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As for speaking, I continue to search for mainstream audiences who may have an interest in learning more about a realistically hopeful vision for our future - and their role in making that vision come true.
In the months ahead, I will continue to focus on the urgent need for a totally reinvented greening of our civilization - beginning with a model in the USA that could be applied globally over the next fifty years.
Upcoming talks: There are lots of open dates on my calendar and I look forward to the opportunity of tailoring my presentation to best suit an audience you may have in mind:
Universities, churches, book groups, legislative bodies, think-tanks, environmental organizations, alumni associations, leadership clubs, PTA's, family, neighbors
and/or civic groups who may appreciate a message of reality and hope for our future.
What else can you do to help? Three things:
1. Live as greenly as possible while doing all that you can to raise the awareness of "big picture" solutions that are crucially necessary for saving our civilization.
2. Share this BSB and my "Mama Ain't Happy" BSB with prominent journalists, thought leaders and/or elected officials whom you respect. They need to learn a lot more about the many reasons why Mama ain't happy.
3. Here are a few more GRATOLA-related blogs that you can share with your most powerful friends, leaders, journalists and movie producers.
Until next time, just remember...
Humanity is on a collision course with Nature.
A damaged Nature will survive. We may not.
We must change course to avert an ecological disaster.
This SOS Memo series was created by:
J. Morris (Jim) Hicks
CEO, 4Leaf Global, LLC
In the past two years, I have spoken at a VegFest in
Fort Myers, at vsh.org in Honolulu and Kahului, Maui, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, a Plant Powered Manhattan event in New York, at a lakeside health conference in South Haven, Michigan, in Buffalo, NY, at the University of Scranton, at Dr. Fuhrman's Golden Gate Health Getaway in California and at the Healthy World Sedona Health and Sustainability Conference in AZ.
Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth
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