Valhalla is a growing tribe of storytellers out to proliferate freedom culture
by igniting a global passion for sustainability, self-reliance, and collaborative action.

G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuel use by end of century

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The G7 leading industrial nations have agreed to cut greenhouse gases by phasing out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has announced, in a move hailed as historic by some environmental campaigners.

Related: G7 fossil fuel pledge is a diplomatic coup for Germany’s ‘climate chancellor’

On the final day of talks in a Bavarian castle, Merkel said the leaders had committed themselves to the need to “decarbonise the global economy in the course of this century”. They also agreed on a global target for limiting the rise in average global temperatures to a maximum of 2C over pre-industrial levels.

Environmental lobbyists described the announcement as a hopeful sign that plans for complete decarbonisation could be decided on in Paris climate talks later this year. But they criticised the fact that leaders had baulked at Merkel’s proposal that they should agree to immediate binding emission targets.

As host of the summit, which took place in the foothills of Germany’s largest mountain, the Zugspitze, Merkel said the leading industrialised countries were committed to raising $100bn (£65bn) in annual climate financing by 2020 from public and private sources.

In a 17-page communique issued after the summit at Schloss Elmau under the slogan “Think Ahead, Act Together”, the G7 leaders agreed to back the recommendations of the IPCC, the United Nations’ climate change panel, to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions at the upper end of a range of 40% to 70% by 2050, using 2010 as the baseline.

Merkel also announced that G7 governments had signed up to initiatives to work for an end to extreme poverty and hunger, reducing by 2030 the number of people living in hunger and malnutrition by 500 million, as well as improving the global response to epidemics in the light of the Ebola crisis.

Poverty campaigners reacted with cautious optimism to the news.
The participant countries – Germany, Britain, France, the US, Canada, Japan and Italy – would work on initiatives to combat disease and help countries around the world react to epidemics, including a fund within the World Bank dedicated to tackling health emergencies, Merkel announced at a press conference after the summit formally ended on Monday afternoon.

Reacting to the summit’s final declaration, the European Climate Foundation described the G7 leaders’ announcement as historic, saying it signalled “the end of the fossil fuel age” and was an “important milestone on the road to a new climate deal in Paris”.

Samantha Smith, a climate campaigner for the World Wildlife Fund, said: “There is only one way to meet the goals they agreed: get out of fossil fuels as soon as possible.”

The 350.org campaign group put out a direct challenge to Barack Obama to shut down long-term infrastructure projects linked to the fossil fuel industry. “If President Obama wants to live up to the rhetoric we’re seeing out of Germany, he’ll need to start doing everything in his power to keep fossil fuels in the ground. He can begin by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline and ending coal, oil and gas development on public lands,” said May Boeve, the group’s director.

Others called on negotiators seeking an international climate deal at Paris later this year to make total decarbonisation of the global economy the official goal.

“A clear long-term decarbonisation objective in the Paris agreement, such as net zero greenhouse gas emissions well before the end of the century, will shift this towards low-carbon investment and avoid unmanageable climate risk,” said Nigel Topping, the chief executive of the We Mean Business coalition.

Merkel won praise for succeeding in her ambition to ensure climate was not squeezed off the agenda by other pressing issues. Some environmental groups said she had established herself as a “climate hero”.

Observers said she had succeeded where sceptics thought she would not, in winning over Canada and Japan, the most reluctant G7 partners ahead of negotiations, to sign up to her targets on climate, health and poverty.

Iain Keith, campaign director of the online activist network Avaaz, said: “Angela Merkel faced down Canada and Japan to say ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to carbon pollution and become the climate hero the world needs.”

The One campaigning and advocacy organisation called the leaders’ pledge to end extreme poverty a “historic ambition”. Adrian Lovett, its Europe executive director, said: “These G7 leaders have signed up … to be part of the generation that ends extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.” But he warned: “Schloss Elmau’s legacy must be more than a castle in the air.

But the Christian relief organisation World Vision accused the leaders of failing to deliver on their ambitious agenda, arguing they had been too distracted by immediate crises, such as Russia and Greece. “Despite addressing issues like hunger and immunisation, it was nowhere as near as ambitious as we would have hoped for,” a spokeswoman said.

Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust said the proposals would “transform the resilience of global health systems”. But he said the success of the measures would depend on the effectiveness with which they could be coordinated on a global scale and that required fundamental reform of the World Health Organisation, something the leaders stopped short of deciding on.

“We urge world leaders to consider establishing an independent body within the WHO with the authority and responsibility to deliver this,” he said.

Merkel, who called the talks “very work-intensive and productive” and defended the format of a summit that cost an estimated €300m (£220m), said that the participants had agreed to sharpen existing sanctions against Russia if the crisis in Ukraine were to escalate.

She also said “there isn’t much time left” to find a solution to the Greek global debt crisis but that participants were unanimous in wanting Greece to stay in the eurozone.

Demonstrators, about 3,000 of whom had packed a protest camp in the nearby village of Garmisch Partenkirchen, cancelled the final action that had been planned to coincide with the close of the summit.

At a meeting in the local railway station, the head of Stop G7 Elmau, Ingrid Scherf announced that the final rally would not go ahead “because we’re already walked off our feet”. She denied the claims of local politicians that the group’s demonstrations had been a flop. “I’m not at all disappointed, the turnout was super,” she said. “And we also had the support of lots of locals.”

Only two demonstrators were arrested, police said, one for throwing a soup dish, another for carrying a spear.

Additional reporting by Suzanne Goldenberg

Prefab wooden dome home spins to let sunlight in from every angle

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The wooden dome house is constructed largely from organic materials, including cedar, bamboo, and limestone. It has another eco-friendly feature, too, that allows the home to be more energy-efficient in a very peculiar way. Much like the sci-fi flying saucers it shares its shape with, this house can spin. At the push of a button, the entire home can rotate, allowing the owners to take fullest advantage of the sun (or shade) in any part of the house.

Related: Clever earth-sheltered house uses natural surroundings to reduce energy needs

The round, two-level home has very few interior walls, so there’s lots of usable space. The openness, combined with the serene surroundings, conveys an almost sacred feeling for guests. The wood-clad walls arch upward and meet in a single point at the center of the home’s 40-foot ceiling, which simultaneously reminds of a cathedral and a sauna.

This amazing structure tucks three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a full kitchen, library, and office into just 2,300 square feet, without feeling remotely cramped. Its relatively open floor plan and enormous curved windows work together to create the illusion of an expansive estate, all neatly packaged within the dome.

Oh, and it’s for sale. This beautiful, curvaceous, rotating home can be yours for less than a cool million – a bargain at $950,000.

Germany turns military bases into rare-bird nature reserves

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© AFP/File | Germany wants to turn more than 60 former military bases into nature preserves, with the aim of creating vast new green oases and sanctuaries for rare species of birds

Germany agreed Thursday to turn more than 60 former military bases into nature preserves, with the aim of creating vast new green oases and sanctuaries for rare species of birds.

Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said an ongoing overhaul of the German armed forces had made it possible to set aside more than 31,000 hectares (76,600 acres) of forests, marshes, meadows and moors.

She said the government had opted against selling the land, in some cases, prime pieces of real estate, to investors in favour of creating natural refuges.

“We are seizing a historic opportunity with this conversion — many areas that were once no-go zones are no longer needed for military purposes,” she said.

“We are fortunate that we can now give these places back to nature.”

In recent years, large swathes of land in the former communist east that had been occupied by the military, including the so-called “Green Strip” along the once-fortified heavily border to then West Germany, have been turned into nature reserves for flora and fauna.

The 62 bases and training areas earmarked as nature reserves Thursday by the parliamentary budget committee are mainly in the densely populated former West Germany.

The sites will primarily serve as bioreserves, which the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation said would provide crucial habitats for threatened species such as certain bats, woodpeckers, eagles and beetles.

However many sites will also be open to the public, and bring to 156,000 hectares the amount of federally protected wilderness.

Germany is in the process of reforming its military from a Cold War defensive force into a 21st century institution prepared to counter new threats.

In the process, it is creating a smaller “footprint” of bases in favour of a more efficient and mobile organisation.

Democracy: Can We Do It Ourselves?

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This is a solid, thought provoking documentary covering a relevant economic topic in-depth. The question of capitalism’s grip on the modern world is highly relevant today and the film questions if we should be pushing for a democratic co-operative way of doing business, showing case studies of businesses who are surviving as democracies within a …

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In Wyoming it’s now illegal to collect data about pollution

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Do it anyways!
#1Love

 

A new Wyoming law expands on the “ag-gag” trend of criminalizing whistleblowers in a new way: making it illegal for citizens to gather data about environmental pollution.

Wyoming’s Senate Bill 12, or the “Data Trespassing Bill” as it’s being called, criminalizes the collection of “resource data.”

It defines collection as “to take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government.”

Yes, you read that correctly. This law is explicitly targeting those who gather evidence from open land of corporate pollution for the purpose of turning that evidence over to the government.

The law goes on to say that any evidence gathered without the property owner’s written or verbal permission will not be admissible as evidence in any civil, criminal or administrative proceeding.

The Wyoming bill came with heavy support from cattle ranchers, who are involved in a lawsuit against the Western Watershed Project. Ranchers say the environmentalists improperly collected water samples, which showed elevated E. coli levels.

The lawsuit is pending, but regardless of how it turns out, collecting data on public lands is now illegal in the state.

“This is an effort to make it illegal for citizens to gather truthful information about all the people using natural resources,” Wyoming attorney Justin Pidot told VICE News. “It has a significant chilling effect on citizens who want to gather information about public land.”

I talked to VICE about how this fits into the broader ag-gag trend:

Will Potter, an investigative journalist who has written extensively on government attempts to clamp down on environmentalists, told VICE News the Wyoming bill had the potential to be enforced as broadly as Pidot and Wilbert fear because the wording gave room for a myriad of interpretations.

“Over and over again I’ve seen promises by politicians that legislation is not going to be used in X, Y, or Z way but it doesn’t play out that way,” Potter warned. “Once you put laws like this on the books they can be pushed to their limits.”

North Carolina recently passed a sweeping ag-gag law as well, which was opposed by AARP, veterans, animal welfare advocates, and domestic violence groups.

These laws are a blatant attempt by corporations to shut down any attempt to investigate their activities and hold them accountable.

This Wyoming law, just like ag-gag laws, ensure that evidence collected can’t be used in court. Even if the evidence shows pollution that is putting public health at risk.

And the people who collect the evidence of pollution? They face up to a year in jail, and up to a $5,000 fine.

Tagged as: Ag-Gag, Environmental Activists, wyoming

Bernie Sanders Is Building an Army to Take D.C.

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I always tell myself I won’t put too much emotional intent and attachment to the US elections. They can build up our hopes and render us empty handed, with nothing to show for our divine passions of betterment – for creating the world we know is possible in our hearts. But its exactly that which I admire in a community! The newborn drive to build connections and solutions, whether it’s through government or grassroots designs, it will happen. Elevating change-making consciousness, here is an article written by Eleanor Clift


Bernie Sanders is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. That’s why he’s running for president. He’s filled with righteous anger about a lot of things, and lots of people agree with him. Close to a thousand people turned out to see him in New Hampshire; 750 in Iowa, one of the largest crowds for any of the candidates. He’s “bulking up” now in terms of his campaign staff and he’s doing pretty well fundraising, too: With 200,000 contributors at 40 bucks a piece, that’s $8 million dollars.

“We’re going to be outspent, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “We can run the kind of campaign I want.” His kind of campaign is about the big challenges facing the country, income inequality, climate change, the unaffordability of college, a disappearing middle class. He speaks about these issues with an ever present edge of outrage, what he calls “from my heart,” that lets you know he’s not just spouting briefing papers, these are his causes.

The reception he’s gotten in the four or five weeks since he announced his candidacy has persuaded him that maybe the country’s disgust with politics as usual has created an opening for somebody like him, a 73-year-old self-described “democratic socialist” who calls out the excesses of Wall Street and stands up for working families. “It is not a radical agenda,” he told reporters at a breakfast organized by The Christian Science Monitor.

He wants to expand Social Security, move away from Obamacare to Medicare for all, and make tuition free at public universities. He would pay for these expanded benefits with a tax on Wall Street speculative trading, and he would end the loopholes that allow corporations to store their profits tax-free offshore. He doesn’t expect support from the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, or Wall Street, he says with delight, treating their opposition like a badge of honor.

There’s nothing wrong with running to get your ideas heard, he says, but he insists he’s in the race to win, however improbable that is given Hillary Clinton’s big lead, and his own marginal status as a national candidate given his age and leftist politics. Asked what Clinton’s biggest vulnerability is in a debate setting, he says,

“I like Hillary Clinton, I respect Hillary Clinton, I disagree with Hillary Clinton…We don’t have to make these campaigns personal, but we do have to discuss these issues.”

He wants to know what “the Secretary” thinks about the Keystone pipeline. He led the fight against it and believes climate change is a “planetary crisis.” Where is she on the trade debate roiling the Congress? Asked if Clinton’s vote for the Iraq war should disqualify her from the presidency, he said no, that he didn’t intend to bring up that years-ago vote. (Someone else will.)

Listening to Sanders is like going back to the future. He is introducing legislation that would guarantee workers 10 days of vacation. These are the kinds of victories that labor unions won decades ago, but that are under assault in a Wall Street-driven economy. Sanders recalled American workers a century ago held up placards that said, “Give us a 40-hour week.” Today, he says, millions of Americans don’t have that guarantee because they’re working two, three, four jobs to get by.

Asked what his first executive order would be as president, he was stumped, admitting he hadn’t thought about that yet. He used the question to segue into the impact of big money on everything that goes on in Washington, and the reality that no one person can make the changes that he is advocating for. “I have a lot of respect and admiration for Barack Obama,” he said, but the “biggest mistake” he made after running “one of the great campaigns in American history” was saying to the legions of people who supported him, “Thank you very much for electing me, I’ll take it from here.”

“I will not make that mistake,” Sanders said, making a pitch for a mobilized grassroots movement that every candidate dreams of and that in ’08 Obama came closest to achieving. The Obama movement faltered amidst legal issues once he was in the White House, and in ’12 became Organizing for America, primarily a vehicle for fundraising and a shadow of what it once was. Sanders sounds like the political science major he was in college, explaining that the free tuition in public universities he seeks will not happen if it comes down to President Sanders negotiating with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “It will happen,”he says, “if a million young people are marching on Washington.”

The challenge for the Democratic nominee is to generate the kind of excitement that led to Obama’s election and reelection. Among the issues that get Sanders most exercised is the “massive alienation among the American people” that leads to low voter turnout. If 60 percent and more of eligible voters don’t vote, “nothing significant will change,” he says. He is not happy about the Democratic National Committee scheduling only six debates, beginning in the fall, and decreeing if candidates participate in other debates, they will not be allowed in the sanctioned ones. “It’s much too limited,” he said. “Debates are a means to get people interested and engaged.”

If it were up to him, candidates would debate across party lines. “Republicans have gotten away with murder because a lot of people don’t know what their agenda is,” he says. “Christie, Perry, Bush are all in favor of cutting Social Security. I want to expand it. Let’s have that debate,” he says. Sanders has never played party politics. He’s the great disrupter. He’s there to break the rules and regulations, and the voters are cheering him on.

The Time Feels Right

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For those paying attention, we are living in extraordinary times. People have always made extraordinary art and overcome extraordinary challenges so why is now any different from the past? Self-awareness empowers the shift towards a more sustainable way of life where we are more connected to nature and to ourselves. Where traditional media has failed to inform us, independent voices have risen to educate the people about what is really going on. Technology puts content and the ability to make content within reach for anyone that has curiosity, creativity and discipline. The documentary film, Time is Art, was born from that combination of necessity and opportunity, seized by passionate creatives looking for a hungry audience with the hope that such important ideas are considered more and more legitimate in the mainstream. While it’s true that many of the claims we make are esoteric and mysterious in nature, if you check into any one of the artists, scholars, activists and scientists featured in the the film Time is Art, you’ll see they have plenty of legs to stand on. Their books, such as Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion”, have a backing in science’s rigorous methods. We are making this film because it is imperative that these ideas get out into the mainstream if we are to continue to create a more balanced world that cares for the well being of the planet and it’s people.

It’s rare when everything lines up for the underdog documentary project and it’s under resourced creative team. It is also rare for an artist to be able to pinpoint the exact source of their ideas or even how they ultimately end up executing ideas that were once completely abstract. There is obviously vision and talent involved, but sometimes there is something more to it – what many artists call a “divine spark” of inspiration – that which is mysterious and oftentimes, unexplainable. It is important to note that this entire transmedia project has been a co-creation between a group of talented artists, each contributing an important skill throughout the production process and trusting the very phenomenon we were documenting; synchronicity. This mysterious phenomenon is a template, a guide, to our creative process that allows things to just happen, to breathe and flow as opposed to forcing the outcome. The exploration of the nature of time has truly become the driving force behind many of our artistic choices.

Visionary art, that which is ahead of its time, is often misunderstood and overlooked. Yet over time it eventually reveals its secrets to the world. Although we are at a very peculiar moment in human history, the time feels right for telling a story of this kind. Millions of people buy books, read articles, and watch documentaries about spirituality and supernatural experiences because they’ve had something unexplainable happen to them and want to explore it further. We have come to realize over time that we all share this connection and we call it the “collective dream”. The spiritual path we follow can be better understood through art, community, and conversation. Thus, the transmedia project becomes a tool we can use at conferences and retreats for individuals who want to explore these topics more in depth. We plan to develop and facilitate workshops around the world, screening the film and assisting groups of people in co-creating transformative projects together. This type of direct action is happening all over the world. People are starting schools, retreat centers, community centers, wildlife sanctuaries, permaculture farms, building earthships and ecovillages. The time feels right and we are confident our film can reach an international audience itching for this kind of experience.

The time doesn’t feel right every second of the day but in general, it’s feeling more like we are co-creating a new timeline. Life is a rollercoaster ride and the moment you receive the truth and think you’ve reached the end of the ride, someone tells another big lie, creating more karma and suddenly the ride is going in reverse. Maybe that’s why its helpful, even on just a psychological level, to be more open to the cyclical patterns of nature, the hidden meanings of symbols, and the dreamlike overlapping of people, places, and moments. This is a major theme in our forthcoming film, Time is Art.

There are many prophecies about the coming age. This fascinating article, Earth Changes and Hopi World-Ages By Gary A. David via Graham Hancock’s website (Graham is also featured in Time is Art), helps one gain a larger understanding of the cycles of time.

“We are currently living at the end of the Hopi Fourth World, where chaos and a life out of balance with the ways of the Creator are the norm. Hopi elders believe, however, we are soon to enter the next world-age (Fifth World), where peace, prosperity, and spirituality shall reign. Some Hopi prophets forecast that fire will again be the purifying agent that ultimately brings us into this new era. In biblical terms it will be “a new heaven and a new earth.” Grandfather David Monongye, Fire Clan member from the village of Hotevilla, Arizona, stated the following during the 1970s when he was over 90 years old.”

Another Hopi teaching and for me, one of the most powerful prophecies from the Hopi which also resonates with the creators of the film, who are mostly women, refers to the rise of the divine feminine.

“The wave that we ride is the emergence of the “grandmother archetype” that is remembered in the ancient stories… a powerful metaphor, a truly sacred symbol that arises now from the depths of the psyche of the individual and of society. It is being activated and embodied by circles of elder women on many fronts, in many locales, and it holds the seeds of an entirely new consciousness that stands in stark contrast to the prevailing paradigms of our current situation as a human family. I like to call this the Age of the Grandmothers.” – GrandmothersSpeak.com

Meditating on Time is Art

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Meditation is a modality that can sometimes feel as if its being shoved down your throat. You hear about it and read about it all the time. My first exposure was through the filmmaker, David Lynch, some ten years ago. He travels the world doing lengthy presentations on transcendental meditation. It’s a long story, but at the time, my cousin who was also interested in meditation suggested we go to one of his talks at UCLA. It was totally last minute and hundreds of people were in line. At one point I think we finally figured out that it was, of course, completely sold out. But the universe does it’s thing and somehow I ended up at the stage entrance where people working the event were taking a smoke break. The next thing I knew, I walked in with them and sat down at an empty seat. No one blinked an eye, because it was as if I was meant to be there and they seemed to know this, too. A minute later with his massive head of hair, there was David Lynch on stage literally blowing my mind. Besides the usual rants about how Hollywood ruins films, he talked about how meditation helps him channel his increasingly risky ideas into his films through a “stream of consciousness” technique. He even had a physician on stage hooking people up to some machine that showed how the brain waves were effected during meditation.

According to the David Lynch Foundation, Transcendental Meditation doesn’t focus on breathing or chanting, like other forms of meditation. Instead, it encourages a restful state of mind beyond thinking.

Stevie Wonder also sang about TM in one of his most popular songs “Jesus Children of America” from his mind blowing 1973 album, Innervisions. The lyric “transcendental meditation speaks of inner preservation” used to loop in my mind for hours after listening to that song. I thought, wow, Stevie was really tapped in to the incredible creative energy of the 70’s and I need to meditate so I can write songs as profound as he did during that time.

I tried TM but soon realized it wasn’t really “hooking me” so I gave it up. I tried chanting with a Buddhist organization and it was a form of mediation to some degree but that didn’t seem to work for me either.

Meditation works differently for everybody. For some people, they need to do 20 Ayahuasca ceremonies and ask for help with their meditation practice. Some people need to do a 2 hour yoga class to relax enough to actually mediate. I love yoga, and I can typically meditate for a few minutes after a class but in order to really “tap in” I needed to step it up a notch.

One day I discovered a group sound meditation session lead by Alexandre Tannous. He uses gongs and tuning forks to “tune” the body. Not long after a session with Alexandre, I formed my dream project, a band called Dream Circle with my husband Joel. Alexandre was also the inspiration for the first webisode that eventually turned into the feature documentary, Time is Art. Watch the clip below.

Fast forward many years later. My husband Joel and I had been editing Time is Art for months. When it came time for story editing, the most difficult part of the process, the three core collaborators did a private sound meditation at Golden Drum to help smooth out the tension. We are all very opinionated with strong personalities that often talk over each other so it was important to get in sync. We were also told after the session that creating an alter in alignment with the four directions before a major meeting or editing session will help the collaboration process.

Just to relax, I started listening to a particular mantra with tibetan bowls. Not long after the sound bath we started each editing session by creating an alter and listening to this recording which turned out to be the Gayatri Mantra. In the beginning I didn’t know what it meant but felt transformed every time I would meditate to it for even just a few minutes which goes to show you just how powerful it is.

The Gayatri Mantra is revered by both Buddhists and Hindus worldwide and is a Vedic Sanskrit verse from a hymn of the Rigveda. It is considered to be a supreme vehicle for gaining spiritual enlightenment. The longer form of the mantra activates all seven major Chakras and connects them to the seven great spiritual realms of existence.

A modern translation of the entire mantra says, “I invoke the Earth Plane, The Astral Plane, The Celestial Plane, The Plane of Spiritual Balance, The Plane of Human Spiritual Knowledge, The Plane of Spiritual Austerites, and The Plane of Ultimate Truth. Oh, great Spiritual Light which is the brilliance of all Divinity, we meditate upon You. Please illumine our minds.” By chanting this mantra, Divine spiritual light and power is infused in each of the seven chakras and connects them to the Spiritual Realms. The last part infuses our minds, hearts and souls with the power of the spiritual light that created the Universe.

After a few months of consistent meditation to this recording I began to live the messages in the film. Time truly became less about rushing and trying to get things done. I’ve learned to slow down and take things as they come. My creative ideas have always been more then I can handle (or anyone else for that matter, just ask my husband). When the time comes I know all the documentary treatments, the screenplays, the events, the workshops, the albums, the trips all over the world will be executed when they are ready. There’s no rush because there’s plenty of time, especially since there is really no time when you live the mantra ‘Time is Art’.

From Apartheid to Ecovillages

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In this 17 min TEDx Findhorn talk Kosha Anja Joubert reminds us of the future we dream of and how people all across the globe are building it now, following their inner values, focussing on life as a whole and rebuilding the connections that have been broken. We can regenerate the soil, replenish depleted water …

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