Picking Cherries, By Guy McPherson

Picking Cherries, By Guy McPherson

I pick cherries because I see nobody else connecting the dots on climate change. I see nobody else making an honest effort to describe our predicament. So, by default, I’m The Connector. I collate, summarize, and synthesize information about climate change. And in the process of serving as host for the finest reality show on the Internet, I connect people, too.

Refugees Without Legs: How Climate Change Leaves No Room For 'Invasive Species', By Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Refugees Without Legs: How Climate Change Leaves No Room For 'Invasive Species', By Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

In the Summer of 2012, I met a Shoshone Elder named Finisia Medrano. (The story of that meeting is told in “Postcard from Eastern Oregon: When Planting Food is Illegal”[link: https://carolynbaker.net/2012/09/16/postcard-from-eastern-oregon-when-planting-food-is-illegal-by-kollibri-terre-sonnenblume/]). She has spent decades following the routes and practices of the ancient migratory “Hoop” of the Great Basin Native Americans, harvesting and cultivating wild food seasonally. In so doing, she has safeguarded vanishing knowledge and made invaluable observations of the ecosystems in an area spanning several states. Over that time she has witnessed the undeniable effects of Climate Change.

Hospice Is A Busy Place, By Carolyn Baker

Hospice Is A Busy Place, By Carolyn Baker

Whenever the topic of near-term human extinction arises, I invariably hear comments like, “Well, if it’s true, I might as well lay down and die then.” I never fail to respond with my perspective that if there is anything we must not do, it is to “lay down and die.” Die we will, but it’s the laying down part that I cannot abide for the simple reason that we have a choice: to die lying on our butts under the influence of some recreational substance that keeps us in a state of mental and emotional oblivion (which does not arise from the same motivation as using medication to relieve pain) or to embrace our dying consciously and with intention. Why reject the former and choose the latter? 

Growing Up From The Need To Always Grow, By Tom Jablonski

Growing Up From The Need To Always Grow, By Tom Jablonski

It is by embracing these falls – these failures – that we begin to see the limits of first-half-of-life thinking.  We learn to live in tension, instead of searching for ways to avoid it.  We learn to transition from conditional love based on compliance, into an unconditional love based on connection.   Instead of repeating mistakes over and over again, we embrace our mistakes and learn to try new ways.

Global Climate Change: Less Terrifying, More Horrifying, By Matt Owens

Global Climate Change: Less Terrifying, More Horrifying, By Matt Owens

We are literally making the planet into a wasteland like this is some post-apocalyptic science fiction story. It is just shocking. And the most horrifying aspect of it all is that we’ve waited to reduce emissions so long that we’re exiting the win-win field of possible climate responses. We’re now headed into a world of lose-lose. That’s the news nobody wants to convey – or hear. But there it is.

Embarking On The Journey Of Consciousness: Staying On The Train, By Carolyn Baker

Embarking On The Journey Of Consciousness: Staying On The Train, By Carolyn Baker

Perhaps you’ve noticed that staying on the train is a full-time job and that in doing so, there is little chance of maintaining business as usual. Sometimes the speed of the train feels painfully slow, as if one is riding on the little engine that could. At other times, one feels hurled through time and space on a bullet train. In either situation, whether consciously or unconsciously, all passengers on this train have signed up for a spiritual, as well as historical, intellectual, and physical journey, and it is no longer possible to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times.