James Lovelock ( the British Scientist who advanced the Gaia hypothesis) says that we should call it Global Heating since "Global Warming" sounds cozy and we're on the brink of hell for so many beings on this earth with the man made changes underway to our climate. His new book
The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity (Hardcover) lays out the situation in plain language.

Some think he exaggerates, some think he's just doom and gloom but reluctantly I've come to see that he's put the indicators together and applied his scientist's intuition to project himself into a future that won't have room for most of us.

I'm a supporter of immediate research programs to develop nuclear ( both fission and fusion systems), flywheel, alternative energy, and conservation, emission controls and the rest but cynical about the efforts of most politicians as they would direct our energies toward irrelevant actions that "feel good" but have little effect.

Typical of this is the recent California Attny General suit against car companies for making gas guzzlers. No doubt they are complicit in worsening the crises, but since the Federal Government in the thrall of the Republican Neocon cabal has set the rules this action is a waste of resources.

We need to immediately listen to folks like Art Rosenfeld ( Scientist who also saw global warming and took effective action) so that our efforts will be effective. We need to listen to Christian Anampour when she shows how to deal with epidemics in Africa ( CNN Special broadcast this weekend "Where have all the parents gone?").

We'll surely need to conserve species as this thing accelerates as the species that are saved will be the one's that form the basis of the Gaia that nutures whatever civilization remains in 2300 ad.

With globalization and urbanization trends accelerating, the chances of taking some action that will really change the course of things is small and we'll soon be mainly responding to the changes that we've started in motion.

So I see a burst of population growth followed by grim contention for resources as who ecosystems shift from the eden we now enjoy toward massive deserts, swelling oceans and as new disease epidemics prune the population back from historic highs.

While I don't think we'll be able to avoid most of the shifts, there is plenty of opportunity in the short term. We have the technology to live within our carbon budget, we have the ability to understand climate shifts and to model responses to our actions at a crude but useful level.

I'd like to see the efforts to confuse us such as practiced by Exon-Mobile shut down immediately, the Bush administration replaced with some folks with some modium of ethics who would let a bit of truth inform our discussion.

We must see the changes in glaciers, the melting of the polar ice caps and the plight of the folks who depend on the Himalayan snow pack for their rivers, forests and farms as relevant to us all.

God is sending us a wake up call just as Moses brought to humanity so many years ago. The message is clear, our duty is clear, and the opportunity won't last long.

I'm not one of the Apocalypse types out of Revelations who welcomes the disasters, I'm one who realizes that of the millions and billions who will suffer, god will be crying at the destruction of such a beautyful community of beings, at the destruction of so much beauty.

We must heed the call and turn this as around as we can or I fear that humanity will pay for thousands of years for a few years of euphoric development. The first years of using fossile fuels to develop human civilization are understandable and hardly a sin, but once we know for sure what the continued use of this technology will bring, we are morally bound to move to the next step, the next level.

On a long term basis, we could live quite well using sustainable technology and enjoy a high civilization but only if we also care for the billions who simply aspire to meet their basic human needs. If we bring the basic food, the basic health care and the basic knowledge about how to run our society with the same energy balance that the Hopi used, then we can survive.

If we see this as only a chance to run the same game, we'll have a period where the changes will be out of control and way beyond any shift or human control. I'm scared to be an old person going through such times, scared for the plants and animals who must experience this shift.

I'm not sure that the climate will just shift, I'm not sure that the methane release from Clathrates and such won't just cause a shift that is so dramatic that civilization as we know it won't just evaporate.........back to Gaia, a global adjustment that would "deal with" the problem as the world will go on, the question is will human civilization continue in year 3000?

Our society is more connected, but also has fewer nodes that create the parts for the rest. What happens if our clean rooms are contaminated and no more microprocessors are produced? What happens if the few who know the secrets of the latest generation of chip making are gone in an epidemic?

Surely this challenge is big enough to capture the imagination of some of the brightest and the best thinkers. We need to embrace the human treasures like the Dali Lama and listen to how our consciousness can be expanded to meet the challenges, to meet the responsibility that we have as the folks who set the direction for the next 10000 years for humans and the rest of the planet.

Thanks for this morning, thanks for this breath and thanks for living at this time in history.

Thanks.

Table Mountain Ranch Association
Annual Circle: August 2006

Observations and Questions

Here are some of my photos from the 2006 Reunion and Annual Circle at Table
Mountain: Table Mountain Ranch 2006
(It’s a flash file; broadband suggested) It was really wonderful to be camping with this amazing community on the Mendocino coast this summer. Wonderful to see the faces of our friends, new faces, old faces, and missing some dear faces. The reunion also brought up some serious reflections, some thoughts that I want to share with you.

Observing how a group manages its commons, and the health of that commons,
is a window into the health of the group. A group with a commons that thrives
benefits all members, while a commons exploited by a few will wither and die.
We see this on many scales, from the whole Earth (greenhouse warming) to the
micro family level.

It's especially important at Table Mountain Ranch, as we consciously created a commons both on the land and in our hearts, even in the midst of a society where every pressure is counter to cooperation and counter to tribal affinity, encouraging purely selfish behavior.

A healthy group will treat its commons as a resource that is respected and
replenished by the members, one that members draw upon in a sustainable way. The commons may be physical, as in some land; it may be emotional, as in a safe space; perhaps it's a web space; maybe it's a coalition of allies but in any case we look to the health of the commons and the dynamics of the interaction to gage the health of the group overall.

Applying this framework to Table Mountain Ranch Association, we have a commons in the land, a commons in the circle where we gather each year to share fellowship and make decisions about the association, and on our board.

The land seems healthy and vibrant, so on that level we get a "B", but the circle was not well and shows signs of malaise.

The disrespect that Doug and Willow showed to the other members of the circle as they made disparaging remarks and sulked sullenly away was painful to see.

The withholding of support by senior members is a vote of no-confidence in the residents’ group and the board. There were several founding members who voiced this position, including Zoe.

The board had some meetings where respect and decency were discarded and distracting theatrics used to avoid talking about the serious violations of the agreements that took place on the land last year. Board meetings need to be a space where respect for each other is a reliable assumption, and where board business is discussed in a collaborative setting.

Uproar is a tactic that doesn’t belong in the circle or at the board meetings.
Doug seemed to feel that it’s OK for him to storm out instead of talking with us about what’s going on. His show of sullen disrespect seems to confuse resident status with ownership. If he’s going to live on the land and benefit, then he belongs at the one most important meeting, treating us with respect, and we must respect the residents’ need to make good operating decisions.

Residents must build a viable farm economy in order to create a sustainable
ranch, so some autonomy is essential.

With Google Earth and similar neutral observing platforms in operation, we must understand that any structure won’t be hidden for long, and, once discovered, will make the land vulnerable to government interference unless it complies with county requirements, etc.

The bylaws define an important commons, the way that the land will be managed, and the process that we members agree to use to govern this commons. It’s a powerful tool and shouldn’t be discarded in the rush to exploit the commons that we see underway today.

The board has a duty to carry out duties as specified in the document, and to do less is to expose the land and the assets of TMR to decay or worse. The board cannot permit a cabin to be built without knowing about the proposed structure, evaluating how it would fit in, and who owns the resulting structure/improvements!

Where is such a contract? Vennie's draft of a residents’ contract is a good start. I think that it should add the elements of a lease, since the residents don’t have ownership rights and we can write it to take into account our unique relationships. Not a burden, a tool.

We’ve seen that when the board tells, and verbally agrees with, a resident to
limit some behavior that may affect us all, sometimes it’s not honored. In these situations it's often best to have an contract as a basis for resolution. Clearly contracts could protect the land by giving us leverage when folks use strong-arm tactics to take what they want.

I’d suggest that the Board immediately obtain a signed “hold harmless” document from everyone staying on the land. The board did a good thing in developing the "hold harmless" and I’d say that without the “hold harmless,” it's goodbye to the non-signing residents.

We should have a written contract from everyone who is a resident at TMR: A simple way to clarify what isn’t clear now. The land is owned by the Table Mountain Co-Op with a board that has oversight responsibility. We either have squatting, or we have residents as defined in the bylaws of TMR, and it’s clear from this year’s circle that it’s time to write it down, or we may well see more and more bullying tactics.

When Ishvi spoke about one side of the commons (how residents should benefit from living on the land), he was right, but not complete. I believe that each resident should do well, and as he or she does well, so should Table Mountain as those residents,visitors, and general members put back in a fair share to the common good.

In an era when the political elite has declared war on the "safety net", war on the underclass, in an era when our rights are eroding, where the very web of life is under attack, we need to nurture our precious centers of cooperation and sanctuary. We must understand and appreciate the precious gem that is the Table Mountain Ranch Association.

Bruce Bagnoli