Brilliant Humans Often
Do Stupid Things
What we must learn from Ian's visit thru Florida
SOS #179 -- J. Morris Hicks -- (10-11-22)
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Ian is not the last hurricane that will visit Florida and the next one could be even worse.
We all should know that climate change is going to get worse before it gets better -- even if we do everything right.
What does this factoid tell you? Coastal counties
of the U.S. are home to over 128 million people.
Knowing the facts about the combined impacts of superstorms and future sea level rise, where would we Americans be living if we went back to the drawing board and logically planned where and how we must live in order to maximize our chances of long-term survival?
We simply must start looking at the "Big Picture" regarding how we choose to live on this planet. But individual citizens cannot get that done. For that, we need competent leadership who have the knowledge, the megaphone and the funding to jolt the entire developed world into coming to grips with reality.
For a lighthearted lesson regarding our collective ignorance on this and so many other crucial topics, click here to read what our creator had to say about our stewardship -- when she returned for a visit after a 50,000-year absence.
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For decades, we have all been urged to turn off lights, lower thermostats in winter, take shorter showers, recycle like crazy, car-pool, take public transportation, install solar panels, use less air conditioning, etc. So, here's the question of the day:
If everyone in the world would do all of the above (and much, much more), would that be enough to slow climate change, prevent the collapse of civilization and ultimately enable us to live in harmony with nature?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. And it wouldn't even be close.
It's because our civilization in the developed world is a harmful, wasteful and grossly unsustainable system of living for humans.
And for us to survive much longer as a species, our living arrangement with Mother Nature must be totally reinvented. And it better start happening real soon.
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That means that all human activities must be carefully studied, re-designed and replaced within the next thirty or forty years —for us to even have a chance. Mere "individuals" like each of us, no matter how hard we try, won’t even be able to scratch the surface when it comes to reinventing our overall system of living on this planet.
For that, we desperately need globally coordinated, systemic, big picture solutions. Importantly, doing all that we can as individuals may help to buy us the time required to reinvent the overall, global system of living for humans.
But, let's be real clear. We must not let "doing our best" on a personal basis make us complacent relative to the global mess in which we find ourselves.
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JOB ONE for all of us Is to do everything possible to promote the absolute necessity of those
big picture, systemic solutions.
Working together, we must spark the global conversation regarding the necessity of replacing our entire civilization ---with one that is sustainable indefinitely. For us to survive, this topic must become more ubiquitous in the news than Donald Trump has been for the last six years.
That topic, of course is the necessity for systemic change.
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We must employ sweeping
Systemic Change!
In every aspect of our lives, we're talking about going back to the drawing board. Our ultra-wasteful and harmful way of life cannot be tweaked enough to comply with Mother Nature's demands.
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And that means walking away from coastal residences in most of the USA. That doesn't mean that we can no longer visit the beautiful beaches of Florida and California -- it simply means that we won't be able to reside and work there.
In the above paragraphs, I borrowed a few sentences from our 2020 book, OUTCRY, which we are now giving away FREE to the entire world. As such, we have started using a new title that better conveys what the second half of the book is all about. Click this title for your free copy -- or scroll down for links to the last nine chapters.
How to preserve nature's ability to keep us alive
The first six chapters of the book describe the dire situation in which we find ourselves and the challenges we face. The rest of the book addresses how we can maximize our chances for avoiding extinction while transitioning to a way of life that can be meaningful and enjoyable for all humans.
The images below convey the kind of sustainable lives that we are envisioning for everyone. In a nutshell, we describe a futuristic, 3,000 mile living corridor from Boston to Seattle (25 miles wide) -- in which over 300 million Americans can live comfortable, enjoyable, meaningful and sustainable lives -- in a total area about the size of Oregon.
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The remainder of the USA, with the exception of farmland to grow our plant-based foods -- would be completely returned to Mother Nature.
In the book, we dubbed that living corridor the Great Big Northern (GBN) after the storied railroad that traversed most of that route in the early 1900s. With competent leadership, I believe that the GBN could be welcoming residents by 2030 and completed by 2050.
As for visiting those Florida and California beaches, the photo in the upper left corner of this slide provides you with a sneak preview of a superior and ultra-efficient way to travel to exotic destinations.
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If the GBN were welcoming new residents today, I bet that there are a few hundred thousand Floridians who would be delighted to move there.
Here are links to the fun part OUTCRY. The final nine chapters are devoted to the ultra-green way that all humans on this planet can be living well before 2200.
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The Bottom Line
If humanity is to survive as a species, this engineer is convinced that we must totally reinvent the way we live by 2035; then we must move rapidly in that direction until all of us are living sustainable lives.
To buy us enough time to accomplish anything at all, we must first deal with the elephant in the room:
Climate Change
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That topic was addressed last week in SOS Memo #178. Just imagine what can happen when those nine or ten highly respected, capable women of courage and integrity decide to make eliminating the #1 driver of climate change their primary focus.
At this moment, there are few, if any, prominent leaders in the world who are even talking about the leading driver of climate change and how we can easily eliminate it.
Earlier, I mentioned that we must have competent leadership who have the requisite courage, knowledge, megaphone and the funding necessary to jolt the entire developed world into coming to grips with reality.
As described last week, with enough funding, conviction and solidarity, I am highly optimistic that these nine women could literally change the world. Read all about it here. |
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After dodging that climate change bullet and buying us some time, these nine courageous leaders, along with a host of others, can shift into the full-time mode of making something like the Great Big Northern a reality -- all over the world.
For that to happen, our leaders will probably need to learn how to fully leverage the awesome power of artificial intelligence, as explored in Chapter 12 of Outcry.
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All of the above starts with exceptional leadership -- something that has been conspicuously absent on the world stage for the last few decades. This engineer, and author of three books on the subject, has concluded that the above group has the collective courage, integrity, fame and fortune to get this done.
In closing, it is very likely that someone, somewhere -- reading this SOS Memo -- knows someone who is capable of pulling this stellar group of courageous women of integrity together.
Hopefully, she or he will do it soon.
For these guys...
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As always, at the end of these SOS Memos, we provide tons of FREE data & "big picture" reference materials, beginning with free access to our two latest books. After the books below, scroll on down to the:
"Big Picture" Data and Video Section
In closing, do you want to do your part to help people get healthy...while slowing, stopping or even reversing climate change at the same time? Then, share this SOS Memo and the free books below with everyone you know.
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FREE: Two "Big Picture" Books
Our health, our planet and climate change
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To our knowledge, OUTCRY is the only book ever published that features a summary of "outcries" from the natural world, along with consensus conclusions of nine big picture scientists regarding our dilemma — AND an envisioned sustainable civilization of the future, using today’s technology.
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In mid 2022, we began giving this book away free of charge.
"the most important info in all of humanity is going undiscussed."
We're talking about the crucial information regarding how we can possibly slow or stop climate change within a few years.
Want to help relieve the desperate situation in which we find ourselves, read OUTCRY as soon as you can and send it to everyone you know. Just click on the book cover above.
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Here is the 2nd book we are now offering FREE to the world public: a quick and easy read that I wrote with Dr. Kerry Graff in 2015.
Using the Power of Food
to Heal Ourselves and Our Planet
This compact book is still highly relevant, focusing on helping people take charge of their health and reverse chronic disease by urgently shifting to a whole-food, plant-based way of eating.
A fringe benefit of their efforts is the steady downsizing of the leading driver of climate change: animal agriculture. Merely suggesting that the masses cut back on their meat, diary, egg and fish consumption will accomplish very little.
We want everyone to completely eliminate all animal-based foods from their diet. Yes, that includes cheese, eggs and all forms of seafood.
For your children and grandchildren, just do it!
Please share today's timely SOS with everyone.
Click the image below to hear my recent (May 2022)
45-minute talk regarding much of what has been covered in my recent SOS Memos.
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Finally, please contact me about arranging a FREE "live" Zoom talk for your group. They will get a lot more out of my talk if they have read our two FREE books in advance of my talk.
Sincerely, J. Morris (Jim) Hicks
PS: Scroll on down for more "big picture" information that is mainly in the form of powerful videos, most of which are free.
For a concise summary of "big picture" information about our situation, take a look at the landing page of my primary website that I recently updated. Just click hpjmh.com
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What about the "preservation" of civilization? |
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To clarify, we're not trying to preserve civilization as we know it. Because what we have now is extremely wasteful, harmful and grossly unsustainable. It's an incredibly reckless way of living that is now threatening our very existence as a species.
We're talking about replacing it with an entirely new, ultra-green civilization of the future -- and we do our best to paint a picture of that envisioned way of sustainable living in OUTCRY. For what one Ohio State professor emeritus of history had to say about that book on Amazon, click here.
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As for making our stand on the only planet in the universe capable of keeping us alive, this "Big Picture" section below will provide you with handy reference materials on this most crucial of all topics. |
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"Big Picture" Data and Video Section
Beginning with the timeline of research
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Five World-Changing Films
That People Everywhere Must See
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Film #1 in 2014
In 2014, Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn produced their first documentary film Cowspiracy. Executive producer is Leonardo DiCaprio, it runs 90 minutes and has been on Netflix since 2015. In 2020, I met Kip and Keegan in Sedona where I was honored to be able to speak at the same conference with them and other great leaders in this movement like Dr. Sailesh Rao and Dr. Michael Greger.
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Film #3 in 2021
In 2021, Kip Anderson teamed up with British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi, to produce Seaspiracy, an 89-minute film that vividly and alarmingly reveals what is at stake when it comes to the crucial importance of our oceans to our future as a species. Most people have no idea regarding the environmental horrors of commercial fishing -- a disgusting industry that kills dolphins by the thousands and tosses them back into the ocean. It runs 90 minutes on Netflix. Click here to view the trailer.
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Film #4 in 2021
As our situation becomes more desperate, the documentary films become more terrifying. As alluded to earlier, we are literally Eating Our Way to Extinction, a process that is vividly covered in this 2021 film (81 minutes). Narrated and produced by Kate Winslet, you can watch this great film on Amazon Prime or on YouTube for $3.99. The great ocean scientist and former head of NOAA, Dr. Sylvia Earle lends powerful credibility to such a crucial topic.
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Film #5 in 2022
This new film (89 minutes) features a young activist who travels around his country, New Zealand in an effort to find out the truth about the horrors of the dairy industry in his native land.
The film uncovers alarming information about the environmental and health impacts of the industry -- leading up to the discovery that we are on the edge of the biggest global disruption of food and agriculture in history. This new film is now available for free at waterbear.com
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Grasping the "Big Picture"
These 2 films will help in understanding
our unprecedented dilemma.
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This 83-minute documentary is all about the findings that were documented in Dr. Stephen Emmott's 2013 book. TEN BILLION.
He brilliantly describes the grossly unsustainable way of living that has brought us to the emergency situation in which we find ourselves. Since I met him in London in 2013, he has become much more serious about the need to abolish the practice of eating meat, dairy, eggs and/or fish at almost every meal.
Just click on the hourglass image. Dr. Emmott delivers a very compelling message from the stage of a theater in London. This 2013 film is still relevant and will certainly help more people grasp that all-important "big picture."
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Finally, this half-hour video was published in November of 2021. It was produced by Michael Dowd, a non-scientific researcher like me who does a very fine job of explaining the many facets of the obstacles standing between us and our survival as a species.
As do practically all researchers, Dowd focuses entirely on the problem; not the solution. I prefer to focus on both.
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What else can you do?
Probably a lot more than you think
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Start with the new documentary (Film #4) mentioned earlier -- Eating our way to Extinction for $6 on Netflix. Watch it often with your friends and family.
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Share this SOS Memo widely: Certainties, Uncertainties & Priorities by J. Morris Hicks.
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Get an e-copy of OUTCRY. Visit Outcry page on Amazon and get a much bigger understanding of the situation in which all humans find ourselves.
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Inform all the young people in your world that you are deadly serious about this topic. Urge them to read these SOS Memos and our latest book, OUTCRY.
- Completely stop eating meat, dairy, eggs and fish today and tell everyone why you are taking such a "radical" step. You're doing it for the innocent children of the world.
- As noted above, do yourself a favor and make sure that your plant-based meals of the future consist of whole plants -- the kinds of foods that prevent or reverse most chronic diseases AND enable your body to effortlessly seek its optimal weight.
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I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested this book that there would be a more robust conversation around the world regarding our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world.
To my knowledge, OUTCRY remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable, future way of living for humans -- along with ideas for how we might get there as quickly as possible.
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The links below to earlier SOS Memos will help you understand how these ideas unfolded since 2018. |
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Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth |
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