Focus on Arts and Ecology

Purpose of the articles posted in the blog is to share knowledge and occurring events for ecology and biodiversity conservation and protection whereas biology will be human’s security. Remember, these are meant to be conversation starters, not mere broadcasts :) so I kindly request and would vastly prefer that you share your comments and thoughts on the blog-version of this Focus on Arts and Ecology (all its past + present + future).

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The Danger and Opportunities of 1.5°C for Smallholder Agriculture

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The decision to limit global warming to 1.5°C is vital for small scale family agriculture, which is especially climate-vulnerable. However, as the UNEP emissions gap report highlights, there is still too much distance between the Paris Agreement targets and Parties’ NDC commitments. This gap reveals a clear imperative for countries to reaffirm and set an ambitious course towards attaining this goal during COP22, a sentiment echoed across platforms here this week.

Maintaining and increasing ambition is crucial, but ECO reminds Parties that they should also consider how these commitments will be met. In order to meet the long-term goal, IPCC scenarios estimate that up to a billion hectares of land need to be dedicated to negative emissions efforts such as bioenergy—a strategy that can threaten land rights, trapping farmers between a warming world and restricted land access. If done wrong, climate action in the land sector could have massive negative impacts on food security, adaptive capacities, development potential, gender equality and the livelihoods of communities dependent on small-scale agriculture, as well as on biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, with an increased risk of land-grabbing and rises in food prices. 

To ensure the 1.5°C target is reached in the best way, Parties need to be proactive in reducing their emissions before looking at offsets. Strong, comprehensive social and environmental safeguards that ensure human rights must be developed. Parties must prioritise emission reductions before 2020, instead of delaying on the assumption that they can compensate later with negative emissions. Moreover, solutions are at hand, in the energy, transport, and forest sectors, and within food systems (production and distribution models, diets, food waste, agroforestry/livestock combinations). 

In Monday’s Opening Plenary Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa stated that COP22 will herald a “new era of international climate action”. ECO urges this COP to work on ensuring that the legacy of 1.5°C is a movement towards a more just, equitable, and environmentally sound world – one in which land rights, local food sovereignty, and security are reaffirmed and emboldened, and not a reversal of the (hard won) development gains of the 21st century.  

Challenging Sacred Cows
It's great that today is Farmers' Day! That way, ECO gets to celebrate and protect the 2 billion smallholder farmers who feed most of our fellow planet dwellers, using less than a quarter of the world’s farmland.

Large-scale industrial agriculture drives the majority of emissions from the agriculture sector. Synthetic fertilisers create high levels of emissions. They require large amounts of water, threatening water tables and wetlands and making crops more vulnerable to climate change. What’s more, intensive meat production generates high levels of methane emissions and deforestation to grow livestock feed.

In contrast, many smallholder farmers—especially women in developing countries—use agroecological techniques to strengthen adaptation, nurture biodiversity, soils and natural fertility, all while avoiding emissions.

Putting all that into consideration, it is time to freshen up the SBSTA agriculture talks, which have gone stale. With clear references to food security, sustainable consumption patterns and human rights in the Paris Agreement, negotiations on agriculture have a critical opportunity to make these a reality for the world’s farmers facing climate change.

A new SBSTA Work Programme on Agriculture and Food Security is critical to provide a sustained space for open dialogue, where countries can consider how to implement their own agriculture NDC pledges, whether on adaptation, mitigation or both.

This new programme should also develop guidance to ensure that food security and farmers’ rights, including safe access to land, are protected in the face of climate change or risky new technologies. It should be a space where all aspects of food security—including social, environmental, gender, biodiversity and food production—can be addressed. And guidelines for finance to support the right types of agriculture should be developed.

In particular, a work programme on Agriculture and Food Security must address mitigation in those areas, which, when addressed, have the greatest potential for meeting the 1.5°C goal. These are industrial livestock, intensive agriculture, food waste and retail and consumption patterns. Protecting smallholder farmers means targeting countries with the highest per capita emissions. Now, post-Paris, it’s time to challenge a few sacred cows.

[____]: What this holds for the world?

Don’t worry, ECO gets out of the (UNFCCC) house every now and then. Or at least enough to know that there's something going on in America right now, and it could mean good or bad news for the climate. 
The Paris Agreement was a watershed moment for the world: it signified a global commitment to climate action. With the US election (finally!) over, the new President will have an opportunity to catalyse further action on the climate, sending a clear signal to investors to stay on track transitioning to renewable-powered economy on track.

Climate is an important diplomatic area for the US, as seen during COP21. It is also an area where the next President should continue to build collaborative relationships to address climate change. All over the world, climate change action is gaining momentum. While ECO might be late to (or recovering from) the US election party, stay tuned for the reaction from Marrakech to the next American President tomorrow. 

Conditional NDCs Must Unlock Ambition

Every single assessment of the NDCs has indicated that Parties are not on track to meet the 2°C goal of the Paris agreement, let alone 1.5°C. Fortunately, some Parties have already put forward the seeds of a possible solution to this problem. Some have used their contributions to specifically indicate additional mitigation potential that could be unlocked with technology, finance and capacity-building support. These efforts, conditioned upon the delivery of support, represent an additional 2.4 GT of emissions reductions in 2030.

If we identified 2.4 GT of additional mitigation potential through contributions without any guidance, how many more GTs could be unlocked if developing country Parties indicated how much they can contribute to the international effort if a specified level of support was provided (in addition to what they could do with their own resources)? Developed countries should then honour their dual obligations to deliver mitigation efforts within their own borders as well as deliver support to unlock efforts in developing countries that are conditional on receiving support. More than any other space in the negotiations, partially conditional NDCs emphasise how critical the delivery of finance, technology and capacity building is to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. And they offer an opportunity for countries to work collaboratively to unlock additional emissions reductions.

As Parties pursue further discussions on the features to be included in future NDCs, ECO can only hope that they will all agree that clarity on conditional and unconditional efforts is a key feature that can help to unlock greater ambition by quantifying the levels and nature of support required.

Let’s Make Inclusiveness the Norm

ECO heartily applauds the move by Parties negotiating loss and damage yesterday to deviate from the bad practice of closing informals to Observers after the first session. ECO was inside the second informal meeting (after being there for the first), and neither did the sky fall in nor did Observers disrupt any conversations. The work of the loss and damage mechanism itself already sets a good example of inclusiveness and interaction with civil society. This now sets another precedent which all other informals should follow. We hope this is the beginning of a long running love affair with openness and transparency.

With kisses, Civil Society

The Search for Loss and Damage

Delegates, who amongst you does not have a UNFCCC website horror story? ECO is the first to acknowledge that unfccc.int has improved dramatically over the years, but there’s still one problem area, seemingly designed to drive the casual (or even daily) user to the brink of madness: Try to find “Loss and Damage” on unfccc.int.

Go on, ECO will wait for you to try…

...don't worry, we're still here.

Ah, yes, dear delegate, welcome back. Don't worry, we're here for you. We understand. Or did you get there? If so, kudos! ECO wouldn't be surprised if you gave up in frustration, though. Or hurl your mobile device in exasperation. Or worse, your laptop.

It seems the UNFCCC web team has not yet understood that loss and damage is now, in this post-Paris world, wholly separate to and distinct from adaptation and worthy of being found in its separate section, rather than hidden in the bowels of the website, only to be discovered via an interminable set of clicks. After all, if loss and damage has graduated to its own Article in the Paris Agreement, surely it can graduate to its own link on the left hand menu of the website.

Linh Do
Editor-in-Chief, The Verb

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First Rule of Holes: When You’re in One, Stop Digging

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Now that the Paris Agreement has been signed by 193 parties and ratified by over 100, one message is very clear: the era of fossil fuels is over. But it seems that not everyone has gotten the message. In many countries, the coal lobby stubbornly believes it can delay the inevitable.

Let’s take Brazil as an example. Brazil likes to boast about being a climate champion. But its Congress just approved a billion-dollar subsidy to the coal industry. Equally problematic, this comes at a time when coal represents less than 5% of electricity generation in Brazil, but over 20% of emissions. Has anyone in the Brazilian Congress done the maths?

The coal industry spends a fortune on lobbying. But President Temer now has the chance to veto this subsidy, as tens of thousands of Brazilians have urged him to do. The world is watching closely, and expects meaningful action from a country that could otherwise be one of the first to reach 100% renewables.

But it’s not only Brazil where coal still dreams of a future. Forbes Magazine recently described Japan as having a “renewed love affair with coal”, with over 40 new plants being built, planned or proposed before 2020. If implemented, this would be a nightmare for the climate.

Perhaps even worse, Tokyo’s renewed love for coal isn’t confined to home. As the world’s biggest contributor of public financing for coal projects, Japan invested over $22 billion overseas from 2007 to 2015, including funding for several proposed coal projects in–wait for it–Brazil. It’s high time for Japan to stop sleepwalking, catch up with the times and stop funding the dirty fossils of the past, both at home and abroad.

Turkey’s situation is nearly as sickening. The country won COP22’s inaugural Fossil of the Day award yesterday, in part for its absurd plans to build 70 new coal power plants that would add over 70 GW of dirty energy capacity. Just writing that sentence makes ECO nauseous. No matter how you cut it, this blatant denial of physics is bad, bad medicine for an ailing climate. If Turkey wants to be taken seriously, it needs to take some remedial lessons and get back on track for renewables. The coal financiers investing there and in the Balkan region are big players: largely Chinese money channelled through different development banks.

All around the world, the coal industry is desperately attempting to defy the laws of physics. It wants us to believe that when you’re in a hole, if you keep digging you just might get out. Thankfully, ECO had an excellent physics professor and has sounder advice: when you’re in a hole, stop digging. One thing is certain–if we are to deliver on the promise of the Paris Agreement, every country must show more ambition when it comes to emission reductions. Getting rid of dirty coal would be a great place to start.

All Hands on Deck!

Many of us have spent years in the UNFCCC bubble, where every bracket, and every comma (especially the commas) matter. Slowly, though, we are lifting our gaze and seeing that there is more to action already occurring on the ground. One concrete example is right in this COP’s backyard—the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station. It is one of the world's largest solar thermal power plants. It will provide renewable energy to more than one million Moroccans. ECO is impressed by such an innovative project.

This project convinces us that we can learn from the good things already happening out there. Non-state actors, such as cities and regions, businesses, and civil society groups are paving the way by demonstrating ambition and concrete achievements. Can these “outside processes”, such as Global Climate Action (GCA), help increase ambition inside these processes? 

Another question remains: How can non-state actors help raise ambitions for the 2018 facilitative dialogue, including leading by example through setting science-based targets? And how can the efforts by state actors help to ensure credibility, ambition and transparency in voluntary initiatives and coalitions under the heading of GCA? 

So-called inside and outside processes are both needed to function well. Each can enable and assist the other to create virtuous cycles so that all actors can do more.

ECO and our friends will be exploring these issues at a CAN side event Tuesday 8 November at 3pm in room Bering. Please join us. 

Four Conclusions on BA2016
 
Now that the Standing Committee on Climate Finance (SCF) has presented its 2016 Biennial Assessment (BA2016) of climate finance, the report’s key findings and recommendations are meant to guide negotiators through the next two weeks’ worth of climate finance agenda items. ECO finds four items to be particularly noteworthy:
 
First, the SCF had the interesting recommendation (probably inspired by studying the chaotic jungle of past Biennial Reports) that Parties should be enabled to provide additional information on, you guessed it, how they have identified finance as being “climate-specific”. ECO reads this as a finely-worded, slightly ironic critique of what’s plain for everyone to see: the current, very lenient reporting system creates the temptation to overstate the climate-relevance of provided funds. Of course, ECO is quite sure this would never happen because anyone would seek to inflate their numbers. But to many it seems like a lot of work to track down what portion of funds was aiming specifically at climate action. That’s especially for flows where climate is one of many objectives. Clearly, tightening these reporting guidelines should be addressed in the SBSTA negotiations on accounting modalities.
 
Second, the BA2016 confirms what every other climate finance report has said: the continued existence of an ugly imbalance between adaptation and mitigation in climate finance (with the notable exception of the UNFCCC funds). The recent $100 billion roadmap released by developed countries highlighted that, in 2020, a mere one-fifth of the total is projected to target adaptation. The BA2016 confirms that observation. Parties should address this when negotiating their COP22 decision on long-term finance. Or perhaps developed countries have some announcement up their sleeves for next week to do away with that imbalance?
 
Thirdly, as ECO hears the SCF present its executive summary, ECO wonders how much the BA2016 will say about finance for loss and damage. The Biennial Assessment’s next iteration should study such flows, based on conclusions from the WIM and the SCF’s work on accounting for loss and damage separately from adaptation. This should be combined with a proper work plan of at least two years for the WIM, to understand–and scale up–loss and damage finance further.

Fourthly, ECO was pleased that yesterday’s panel discussing the BA2016 also mentioned the role of future iterations of the Biennial Assessment in understanding progress toward implementing Article 2 c) of the Paris Agreement: to make all flows–whether public or private–consistent with low-emissions, climate-resilient development. 

After noting these points of direction, ECO wonders: why not reserve one chapter of the BA2018 to study fossil fuel subsidies, including an evaluation on actions taken by countries to remove them? Consider this something to chew on for those seriously planning to implement the Paris Agreement. 
Moving Transparency in the Right Direction
With transparency coming into focus in the APA, here are three cheat sheet answers to help with the transparency eye chart.
Transparency is a cross-cutting issue and Article 13 has many facets, making it a complicated piece of the Paris Agreement puzzle. To deal with this complexity, Parties need a boost of strong modalities, procedures and guidelines (MPG).
The first step is to build a common and inclusive framework to enhance effectiveness. This means ensuring all strands of the transparency framework are tied together with flexibility and in the context of equity, to account for differing national circumstances. The MPG must be the leader of the transparency pack on several fronts. These include the level of action and support for how Parties implement the commitments, in the context of the cross-cutting principles reiterated in the Agreement, including the integrity of ecosystems, human rights and gender equality. 
Secondly, non-Party stakeholders can provide a great contribution to the effectiveness and integrity of the transparency framework. The modalities, procedures and guidelines should recognise and promote this role. 
Finally, the entire process needs to be complete and ready for 2018. When aiming to reach such an imperative goal, concrete steps must be taken. Hence extra sessions might be necessary to make this transparency framework operational for 2018. Also, it will aid national implementation to be comparable across the board. Let Marrakech be the constructive conversation that kick starts this. It’s a continuous journey; but let’s not forget that all marathons started with a single step in the right direction.

Year of the Turkey
Everyone loves a good COP -- so much so that even though delegates are roaming around a half-finished conference centre. And although we don’t know where the 2017, 2018 or 2019 COPs will be hosted, we do know one thing: 2020 could be Year of the Turkey.
The Government of Turkey’s bid for the 2020 COP has caught the eye of some who happened to find themselves wandering around the colourful pavilions in Area D. It cannot overshadow the awarding of the Fossil of the Day award for most ironic agenda item request. Despite having not yet even ratified the Paris Agreement (like the hundred odd countries that have), yesterday Turkey had the nerve to ask for an agenda item on financial support under the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund. Brave, courageous, audacious—or simply ludicrously out of touch?
Unfortunately, it is possibly the latter, given Turkey’s plans to support the opening of new coal plants and increase its greenhouse gas emissions in the near term. Instead of pretending to access financial support under the Agreement, Turkey should do the simple 1, 2, 3: ratify, increase ambition in its national climate action plan and move towards 100% renewable energy.

Linh Do
Editor-in-Chief, The Verb

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Welcome to Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm

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The Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm was founded in 1997 by Peg Schafer who was seeking a niche market to utilize her background in nursery management and farming. Along with potted medicinal plants and row cropping came experimentation with various cultivation methods leading to specialization in certified organic, wild-simulated herb cultivation. As part of the farm mission novel medicinal plants are trial grown to evaluate for viable domestic crops. To date more than 260 different Asian medicinals have been trialed from germination through harvest. The Farm maintains a unique collection of over 300 Asian medicinal plant species under cultivation, many of which are botanically authenticated, as well as an extensive database detailing criteria of import to the production of Asian medicinal plants.
As the farm has evolved the focus is now primarily educational and Peg teaches budding and established growers as well as Oriental Medicine students and practitioners via on and off-farm workshops. Peg is a frequent lecturer addressing herb quality, ecological cultivation practices, traditional and contemporary Chinese herb production, future access of Chinese botanicals, conservation and other issues affecting Chinese herbs at Oriental Medicine colleges, conferences, and community events.
In addition Peg consults with various farm operations, grower/practitioner enterprises, herbal companies, botanic and research institutions and other stakeholder industries. Advice is available for all aspects of medicinal farm, garden or nursery herb production operations as well as marketing to foster successful sustainable endeavors.
Fortune was bestowed and Peg has had the guidance and kinship of many renowned experts, Chinese herbalists, botanists, fellow growers, and many other wonderful folks, all of whom have worked together to bring Asian herbal medicine to the health enhancement of those who seek it. There is plenty of opportunity for entrepreneurial growers and together we can build a healthy, dynamic, domestic collaboration.
Peg is the author of The Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm A Cultivator's Guide to Small-Scale Organic Herb Production recently published by Chelsea Green.

THE CHINESE MEDICINAL HERB FARM:
A Cultivator’s Guide to Small-Scale Organic Herb Production
Price $34.95 plus CA sales tax (where applicable) and shipping. Order here

by Peg Schafer
Chelsea Green Publishing
More about the book here

Order here
What others are saying:

“Having this as a resource, from the most experienced Chinese medicinal herb grower in North America, offers more than a cultivation guide…” more by Roy Upton, RH, DAyu here

“I can't stress enough how valuable and rare this information is to practitioners and users of Chinese herbal medicine.…”  more by Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac., D.A.O.M here

“For anyone who has an interest in growing their own Chinese herbs, Peg Schafer gives us a new reason to look forward to spring.…”  Andrew Ellis, author of Notes from South Mountain: A Guide to Concentrated Herb Granules here

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Morning talks at the Nordic COP22 Pavilion

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November 8-18, every day from 9.30-10.00 (free coffee and croissants) – watch the streaming from our COP22 morning talk at facebook and join us virtually or in real life at COP22
 
SEE ATTACHED PROGRAMME, INCLUDING FULL OVERVIEW OF EVENT AT THE NORDIC COP22 PAVILION – ALL OTHER EVENTS ARE STREAMED AT WWW.NORDEN.ORG/COP22/STREAMING
 
 
Tuesday, November 8: YOUNGO – UNFCCC Youth will talk about the climate crisis or challenge seen from a young person’s perspective. The talk is also a follow up to the Youth Day at the Nordic COP22 Pavilion, including an Action for Climate Empowerment workshop.
 
Wednesday, November 9: Kåre Press-Kristensen, the Ecological Council of Denmark, will tell us on the personal level about how he and his family have managed to achieve a low energy life and on the political level hone in on the need to include the transportation sector in the CO2 quota system.
Thursday, November 10: Stéphanie C. Lefrère, former curator of the department of Natural History, Regional Museum of Lapland, has been living almost 18 years in Lapland. She will talk about her own  experiences when observing climate change in Lapland
Friday, November 11: Bernard Plancade, Senior Vice President, ROCKWOOL International, will talk about how energy efficiency can contribute to cutting costs for a +2C future and how circular business contributes to greener growth - plus what barriers need to be overcome?
 
Saturday, November 12: Kjell Nilsson, Director of Nordregio, the NCM institution for regional studies, will talk about the fact that the Arctic is not a nature reserve: 4 million people live in the Arctic region. He will focus on the challenges and opportunities people in small Arctic communities face.
 
Monday, November 14: Steen Gade, former Danish MP and climate veteran, will talk about “Climate Year 2” after the Paris Agreement and the passing of the SDGs. Why did it take so long and what needs to be done now?
 
Tuesday, November 15: Ida Klockmann, will address the issue of gender and climate. How are the two linked and why does it make sense to talk about climate in a gender perspective at all?
 
Wednesday, November 16: Yvo de Boer, former head of the UNFCCC and director of the 3GI, will give us his view of the status of the climate agenda now that COP22 is drawing to a close.
 
Thursday, November 17: Dagfinn Høybråten, Secretary General, Nordic Council of Ministers will talk about green policies and green growth in the Nordic region, including initiatives by the Nordic prime Ministers, and lift the veil for the next wave of Nordic green projects with a global scope.
 
Friday, November 18: Surprise speaker….
 
 
Follow us at COP22 at www.norden.org/cop22
 
Med venlig hilsen/Kind regards

Michael Funch
Projektleder COP22/Kommunikation
Project Manager COP22/Communication
Mobil: +45 21 71 71 43
mifu@norden.org

cid:image001.png@01D236A7.1C140C80

Nordisk Ministerråd
Nordic Council of Ministers
Ved Stranden 18
DK-1061 København K
Telefon: +45 33 96 02 00
www.norden.org
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5 Reasons to Meditate

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Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche Courage Pema Chödrön Shambhala Sun - Sept '13 Sitting meditation
Photo by Liza Matthews.

Yes, it’s a strange thing to do — just sit there and do basically nothing. Yet the simple act of stopping, says Pema Chödrön, is the best way to cultivate our good qualities. Here are five ways meditation makes us better people.

The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can’t escape any of these experiences in the vast terrain of our existence. It is part of what makes life grand—and it is also why our minds take us on such a crazy ride. If we can train ourselves through meditation to be more open and more accepting toward the wild arc of our experience, if we can lean into the difficulties of life and the ride of our minds, we can become more settled and relaxed amid whatever life brings us.
Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we can truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
There are numerous ways to work with the mind. One of the most effective is through the tool of sitting meditation. Sitting meditation opens us to each and every moment of our life. Each moment is totally unique and unknown. Our mental world is seemingly predictable and graspable. We believe that thinking through all the events and to-dos of our life will provide us with ground and security. But it’s all a fantasy, and this very moment, free of conceptual overlay, is completely unique. It is absolutely unknown. We’ve never experienced this very moment before, and the next moment will not be the same as the one we are in now. Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we can truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
We do not meditate in order to be comfortable. In other words, we don’t meditate in order to always, all the time, feel good. I imagine shockwaves are passing through you as you read this, because so many people come to meditation to simply “feel better.” However, the purpose of meditation is not to feel bad, you’ll be glad to know. Rather, meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the big sky— spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.
In meditation, our thoughts and emotions can become like clouds that dwell and pass away. Good and comfortable, pleasing and difficult and painful—all of this comes and goes. So the essence of meditation is training in something that is quite radical and definitely not the habitual pattern of the species: and that is to stay with ourselves no matter what is happening, without putting labels of good and bad, right and wrong, pure and impure, on top of our experience.
Meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the big sky— spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.
If meditation was just about feeling good (and I think all of us secretly hope that is what it’s about), we would often feel like we must be doing it wrong. Because at times, meditation can be such a difficult experience. A very common experience of the meditator, in a typical day or on a typical retreat, is the experience of boredom, restlessness, a hurting back, pain in the knees—even the mind might be hurting—so many “not feeling good” experiences. Instead, meditation is about a compassionate openness and the ability to be with oneself and one’s situation through all kinds of experiences. In meditation, you’re open to whatever life presents you with. It’s about touching the earth and coming back to being right here. While some kinds of meditation are more about achieving special states and somehow transcending or rising above the difficulties of life, the kind of meditation that I’ve trained in and that I am talking about here is about awakening fully to our life. It’s about opening the heart and mind to the difficulties and the joys of life—just as it is. And the fruits of this kind of meditation are boundless.
As we meditate, we are nurturing five qualities that begin to come forth over the months and years that we practice. You might find it helpful to reconnect with these qualities whenever you ask yourself, “Why am I meditating?”

1. Steadfastness

The first quality—namely, the first thing that we’re doing when we meditate—is cultivating and nurturing steadfastness with ourselves. I was talking to someone about this once, and she asked, “Is this steadfastness sort of like loyalty? What are we being loyal to?” Through meditation, we are developing a loyalty to ourselves. This steadfastness that we cultivate in meditation translates immediately into loyalty to one’s experience of life.
Steadfastness means that when you sit down to meditate and you allow yourself to experience what’s happening in that moment—which could be your mind going a hundred miles an hour, your body twitching, your head pounding, your heart full of fear, whatever comes up—you stay with the experience. That’s it. Sometimes you can sit there for an hour and it doesn’t get any better. Then you might say, “Bad meditation session. I just had a bad meditation session.” But the willingness to sit there for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, a half hour, an hour, however long you sat there—this is a compassionate gesture of developing loyalty or steadfastness to yourself.
We have such a tendency to lay a lot of labels, opinions, and judgments on top of what’s happening. Steadfastness—loyalty to yourself—means that you let those judgments go. So, in a way, part of the steadfastness is that when you notice your mind is going a million miles an hour and you’re thinking about all kinds of things, there is this uncontrived moment that just happens without any effort: you stay with your experience. In meditation, you develop this nurturing quality of loyalty and steadfastness and perseverance toward yourself. And as we learn to do this in meditation, we become more able to persevere through all kinds of situations outside of our meditation, or what we call postmeditation.

2. Clear Seeing

The second quality that we generate in meditation is clear seeing, which is similar to steadfastness. Sometimes this is called clear awareness. Through meditation, we develop the ability to catch ourselves when we are spinning off, or hardening to circumstances and people, or somehow closing down to life. We start to catch the beginnings of a neurotic chain reaction that limits our ability to experience joy or connect with others. You would think that because we are sitting in meditation, so quiet and still, focusing on the breath, that we wouldn’t notice very much. But it is actually quite the opposite. Through this development of steadfastness, this learning to stay in meditation, we begin to form a nonjudgmental, unbiased clarity of just seeing. Thoughts come, emotions come, and we can see them ever so clearly.
In meditation, you are moving closer and closer to yourself, and you begin to understand yourself so much more clearly. You begin to see clearly without a conceptual analysis, because with regular practice, you see what you do over and over and over and over again. You see that you replay the same tapes over and over and over in your mind. The name of the partner might be different, the employer might be different, but the themes are somewhat repetitious. Meditation helps us clearly see ourselves and the habitual patterns that limit our life. You begin to see your opinions clearly. You see your judgments. You see your defense mechanisms. Meditation deepens your understanding of yourself.

3. Courage

The third quality we cultivate in meditation is one that I’ve actually been alluding to when I bring up both steadfastness and clear seeing—and it happens when we allow ourselves to sit in meditation with our emotional distress. I think it’s really important to state this as a separate quality that we develop in practice, because when we experience emotional distress in meditation (and we will), we often feel like “we’re doing it wrong.” So the third quality that seems to organically develop within us is the cultivation of courage, the gradual arising of courage. I think the word “gradual” here is very important, because it can be a slow process. But over time, you will find yourself developing the courage to experience your emotional discomfort and the trials and tribulations of life.
Meditation is a transformative process, rather than a magic makeover in which we doggedly aim to change something about ourselves. The more we practice, the more we open and the more we develop courage in our life. In meditation you never really feel that you “did it” or that you’ve “arrived.” You feel that you just relaxed enough to experience what’s always been within you. I sometimes call this transformative process “grace.” Because when we’re developing this courage, in which we allow the range of our emotions to occur, we can be struck with moments of insight. These insights could never have come from trying to figure out conceptually what’s wrong with us or what’s wrong with the world. These moments of insight come from the act of sitting in meditation, which takes courage—a courage that grows with time.
Meditation allows you to see something fresh that you’ve never seen before or to understand something new that you’ve never understood before.
Through this developing courage, we are often graced with a change in our worldview, if ever so slight. Meditation allows you to see something fresh that you’ve never seen before or to understand something new that you’ve never understood before. Sometimes we call these boons of meditation “blessings.” In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your own wisdom to manifest, and this happens because you’re not repressing this wisdom any longer.
When you develop the courage to experience your emotional distress at its most difficult level, and you’re just sitting there with it in meditation, you realize how much comfort and how much security you get from your mental world. Because at that point, when there’s a lot of emotion, you begin to really get in touch with the feeling, the underlying energy, of your emotions. You begin to let go of the words, the stories, as best you can, and then you’re just sitting there. Then you realize, even if it seems unpleasant, that you feel compelled to keep reliving the memory, the story of your emotions—or that you want to dissociate. You may find that you often drift into fantasy about something pleasant. And the secret is that, actually, we don’t want to do any of this. Part of us wants so earnestly to wake up and open. The human species wants to feel more alive and awake to life. But also, the human species is not comfortable with the transient, shifting quality of the energy of reality. Simply put, a large part of us actually prefers the comfort of our mental fantasies and planning, and that’s actually why this practice is so difficult to do. Experiencing our emotional distress and nurturing all of these qualities—steadfastness, clear seeing, courage— really shakes up our habitual patterns. Meditation loosens up our conditioning; it’s loosening up the way we hold ourselves together, the way we perpetuate our suffering.

4. Attention

The fourth quality we develop in meditation is something I’ve been touching on all along, and that is the ability to become awake to our lives, to each and every moment, just as it is. This is the absolute essence of meditation. We develop attention to this very moment; we learn to just be here. And we have a lot of resistance to just being here! When I first started practicing, I thought I wasn’t good at it. It took me a while to realize that I had a lot of resistance to just being here now. Just being here—attention to this very moment—does not provide us with any kind of certainty or predictability. But when we learn how to relax into the present moment, we learn how to relax with the unknown.
Life is never predictable. You can say, “Oh, I like the unpredictability,” but that’s usually true only up to a certain point, as long as the unpredictability is somewhat fun and adventurous. I have a lot of relatives who are into things like bungee jumping and all kinds of terrifying things—all of my nephews, particularly, and nieces. Sometimes, thinking of their activities, I experience extreme terror. But everybody, even my wild relatives, meets their edge. And sometimes the most adventurous of us meet our edge in the strangest places, like when we can’t get a good cup of coffee. We’re willing to jump off a bridge upside down, but we throw a tantrum when we can’t get a good cup of coffee. Strange that not being able to get a good cup of coffee could be the unknown, but somehow for some, maybe for you, it is that edge of stepping into that uncomfortable, uncertain space.
Meditation helps you meet your edge; it’s where you actually come up against it and you start to lose it. Meeting the unknown of the moment allows you to live your life and to enter your relationships and commitments ever more fully. This is living wholeheartedly.
So this place of meeting our edge, of accepting the present moment and the unknown, is a very powerful place for those who wish to awaken and open their heart and mind. The present moment is the generative fire of our meditation. It is what propels us toward transformation. In other words, the present moment is the fuel for your personal journey. Meditation helps you meet your edge; it’s where you actually come up against it and you start to lose it. Meeting the unknown of the moment allows you to live your life and to enter your relationships and commitments ever more fully. This is living wholeheartedly.
Meditation is revolutionary, because it’s not a final resting place: you can always be more settled. This is why I continue to do this year after year. If I looked back and had no sense that any transformation had happened, if I didn’t recognize that I feel more settled and more flexible, it would be pretty discouraging. But there is that feeling. And there’s always another challenge, and that keeps us humble. Life knocks you off your pedestal. We can always work on meeting the unknown from a more settled and openhearted space. It happens for all of us. I too have moments where I am challenged in meeting the present moment, even after decades of meditation. Years back, I took a trip alone with my granddaughter, who was six years old at the time. It was such an embarrassing experience, because she was being extremely difficult. She was saying “no” about everything, and I kept losing it with this little angel whom I adore. So I said, “Okay, Alexandria, this is between you and Grandma, right? You’re not going to tell anybody about what’s going on? You know, all those pictures you’ve seen of Grandma on the front of books? Anyone you see carrying around one of those books, you do not tell them about this!”
The point is that when your cover is blown, it’s embarrassing. When you practice meditation, getting your cover blown is just as embarrassing as it ever was, but you’re glad to see where you’re still stuck because you would like to die with no more big surprises. On your deathbed, when you thought you were Saint Whoever, you don’t want to find out that the nurse completely pushes you over the wall with frustration and anger. Not only do you die angry at the nurse, but you die disillusioned with your whole being. So if you ask why we meditate, I would say it’s so we can become more flexible and tolerant to the present moment. You could be irritated with the nurse when you’re dying and say, “You know, that’s the way life is.” You let it move through you. You can feel settled with that, and hopefully you even die laughing—it was just your luck to get this nurse! You can say, “This is absurd!” These people who blow our cover like this, we call them “gurus.”

5. No Big Deal

The fifth and last quality regarding why we meditate is what I call “no big deal.” It’s what I am getting at when I say we become flexible to the present moment. Yes, with meditation you may experience profound insight, or the magnificent feeling of grace or blessing, or the feeling of transformation and newfound courage, but then: no big deal. You’re on your deathbed, and you have this nurse who’s driving you nuts, and it’s funny: no big deal.
This was one of the biggest teachings from my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche: no big deal. I remember one time going to him with what I thought was a very powerful experience from my practice. I was all excited, and as I was telling him about this experience, he had a look. It was a kind of indescribable look, a very open look. You couldn’t call it compassionate or judgmental or anything. And as I was telling him about this, he touched my hand and said, “No . . . big . . . deal.” He wasn’t saying “bad,” and he wasn’t saying “good.” He was saying that these things happen and they can transform your life, but at the same time don’t make too big a deal of them, because that leads to arrogance and pride, or a sense of specialness. On the other hand, making too big a deal about your difficulties takes you in the other direction; it takes you into poverty, self-denigration, and a low opinion of yourself. So meditation helps us cultivate this feeling of no big deal, not as a cynical statement, but as a statement of humor and flexibility. You’ve seen it all, and seeing it all allows you to love it all.
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This teaching is from Pema Chödrön’s book, “How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind,” published by Sounds True.
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World must join hands to protect Earth’s climate

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Võ Tuấn Nhân, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, spoke to the Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) about the country’s efforts to adapt to climate change. What are your assessments on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) achievements and Việt Nam actions on climate change?
The whole world, particularly developing countries, has felt strong impacts of climate change However, Its impacts are becoming stronger, more complicated and more unpredictable. Fortunately, the world community is joining hands to respond to these negative impacts. This unity is reflected through the adaptation of the Climate Change Act adopted at the 21st Paris Climate Change Conference by 196 countries and territories. All countries involved are actively preparing further steps to ratify COP 21 documents and to start implementing the agreement from 2021 onward. In addition, the IPCC’s 6th Assessment report will help the world further understand the impacts of climate change. On the other hand, the reports will help countries determine how to access climate change (CC) impacts and come up with adaptable technology to cope with CC and cut down the greenhouse gas emission in the global scale. The IPCC’s proposals offer precious information for policy makers in all countries to come up with adaptable policies against climate change in their own countries. At the same time, the IPCC’s report has provided a firm background for scientists to come up with adaptable measures to cope with CC impacts, including those in Việt Nam. Do you have any comments on Việt Nam’s climate change scenarios and the sea level rise discussed at the conference? Việt Nam is one of the many developing countries vulnerable to climate change. We are well aware of the importance and great significance of responding to climate change and against natural calamities in the course of sustainable development of the nation. Việt Nam has adopted many policies, strategies and programmes in response to climate change, natural calamity and green growth. We’re confident that these documents will help to protect the country’s sustainable development while joining hands with international friends near and far in protecting the Earth’s climate system. Regarding our country, developing detailed CC scenarios for all localities is the most important task. We’re basing these on climate change and sea level rise in 2009 and 2012, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will try to update those scenarios based on the latest information that has been collected, including the information contained in the AR5 of the IPCC. I’m confident that these updated scenarios will help localities come up with workable measures in the course of restructuring their economy to make it adaptable to the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. What’s the significance of the workshop in the present context of the nation? The workshop was an occasion for Vietnamese managers, scientists and experts in the field of climate change to exchange their experiences in this field and to discuss how to expand their co-operation during the implementation of Paris Agreement in Việt Nam. I’m confident that the strong co-operation between Vietnamese and foreign scientists will help the Vietnamese government come up good and workable socio-economic development strategies for all domains.
Viet Nam News – October 29 – http://vietnamnews.vn/opinion/345310/world-must-join-hands-to-protect-earths-climate.html#4f8fzTkxHs5O6W5V.97
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A Stunning, Dangerous Verdict After Oregon Standoff

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Like almost everyone, we were stunned by last week's "not guilty" verdicts for the Bundy brothers and other defendants following the 41-day armed takeover of Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year.

"This is an extremely disturbing verdict for anyone who cares about America's public lands, the rights of native people and their heritage, and a political system that refuses to be bullied by violence and racism," said Kierán Suckling, the Center's executive director. "The Bundy clan and their followers peddle a dangerous brand of radicalism aimed at taking over lands owned by all of us. I worry this verdict only emboldens the kind of intimidation and right-wing violence that underpins their movement."

Particularly galling was the juxtaposition of the Oregon verdicts, which involved armed militants, with the brutal treatment of unarmed activists fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

Watch Kierán's recent interview on DemocracyNow! and read Taylor's McKinnon's op-ed on the far-reaching implications of the Bundy verdicts.
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Judge overrules feds’ refusal to list as endangered Utah wildflowers that grow on oil shale

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Conservation agreement would not adequately protect the rare flowers, judge says.
A federal judge intends to vacate a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not list two rare desert wildflowers whose range overlaps with Utah's rich oil shale deposits in Uintah County.
Denver-based U.S. District Judge William Martinez faulted the decision's reliance on a conservation agreement that he doubts would adequately protect Graham's and White River beardtongue, issuing a decision Tuesday that could upset a landmark deal to keep the plants off the endangered species list.
The FWS and federal land agencies hammered out the conservation agreement two years ago with Colorado and Utah, counties with oil shale potential, and the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), pulling concessions from these pro-development stakeholders intended to mute the potential that oil shale mining would displace beardtongue.
Martinez found some of the agreement's provisions inadequate and is giving its signatories several months to work with environmentalists to fix them. If a deal can't be reached, the judge will enter the order, which could lead to a listing of the two wildflowers — something some environmentalists would like to see.
Such groups hailed his decision, which they say repudiates a flawed conservation plan.
"It's deeply troubling that, in the face of global climate and extinction crises, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would illegally deny protections to imperiled species in order to accommodate the most pollution-intensive fossil fuel on earth," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "This is dangerously backward public policy."
The center is among seven environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Utah Native Plant Society, that sued the federal government over the non-listing decision, calling it a sell-out to the energy industry. Tuesday's ruling is the second time the courts have rejected FWS's refusal to protect these two flowers.
Utah officials fear a listing would put a damper on the oil shale industry, which is developing major projects in the Uinta Basin after decades of failed efforts to extract commercial quantities of oil from Utah's vast shale reserves that harbor an estimated 77 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Beardtongue tends to grow only near outcroppings where these deposits breach the surface, so extensive mining would threaten these plants' existence.
The conservation agreement places development caps on public lands within 44,373 acres of beardtongue habitat "conservation areas" that cover 64 and 76 percent of known habitat for Graham's and White River beardtongue, respectively. It also imposed 300-foot buffers around any beardtongue found on any lands — public or private — in these areas.
SITLA and the other Utah parties to the agreement had argued that it provides better protection than a listing. Endangered species status would provide minimal protection to the half of known beardstongue that grow on state and private lands, which could in theory be bulldozed immediately.
The judge did uphold some of the FWS's handling of the agreement, but had serious reservations about the adequacy of its 15-year term and 300-foot buffers.
SITLA officials, who intervened in the suit, had yet to review the 43-page ruling, but they noted that SITLA and Uintah County have since adopted rules imposing restrictions on non-federal lands.
"It is important to note that we followed though and already addressed this issue the court raised," said John Andrews, SITLA's general counsel.
But Martinez took issue not just with the small size of the buffer zone, but also with how FWS agreed to it, suspecting it was the result of "horse trading with energy developers" rather than careful analysis as required by law. This is because the agency's own recommendations had earlier called for much larger buffers.
"FWS accepted a 300-foot buffer in the Conservation Agreement because its internal study identified it as the minimum needed distance, and selecting that minimum distance balances plant protection with energy development. For two reasons, this size of the buffer zone selection was improper," Martinez wrote.
His ruling reinstates FWS's proposal to list the two species as threatened and designate critical habitat, but stays that decision until after Feb. 21. By that date, all parties, including the Utah entities that intervened in the suit, are ordered to meet in person "to discuss in good faith whether the Conservation Agreement may be modified such that Plaintiffs [the environmental groups] can agree that it will adequately protect the beardtongues for the foreseeable future," Martinez wrote.
"FWS must go back to the drawing board and make a decision based not on politics, but on science, as the law requires," said Robin Cooley, an attorney with Earthjustice representing the environmental groups. "FWS has also recognized that in order to survive the beardtongues need large protected buffer zones around the plants—700 meters for the Graham's beardtongue and 500 meters for the White River beardtongue. These buffers are necessary to prevent habitat fragmentation and to support the wasps that pollinate the wildflowers. Any revised conservation agreement must include adequate buffers."
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Radical Realism About Climate Change

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BERLIN – Mainstream politics, by definition, is ill equipped to imagine fundamental change. But last December in Paris, 196 governments agreed on the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – an objective that holds the promise of delivering precisely such a transformation. Achieving it will require overcoming serious political challenges, reflected in the fact that some are advocating solutions that will end up doing more harm than good.
One strategy that has gained a lot of momentum focuses on the need to develop large-scale technological interventions to control the global thermostat. Proponents of geo-engineering technologies argue that conventional adaptation and mitigation measures are simply not reducing emissions fast enough to prevent dangerous warming. Technologies such as “carbon capture and storage” (CCS), they argue, are necessary to limit damage and human suffering.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seems to agree. In its fifth assessment report, it builds its scenarios for meeting the Paris climate goals around the concept of “negative emissions” – that is, the ability to suck excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But this approach ignores serious problems with the development and deployment of geo-engineering technologies. Consider CCS, which is the process of capturing waste CO2 from large sources like fossil-fuel power plants and depositing it in, say, an underground geological formation, thereby preventing it from entering the atmosphere.
It sounds good. But what makes it economical is that it enables enhanced oil recovery. In other words, the only way to make CCS cost-effective is to use it to exacerbate the problem it is supposed to address.
The supposed savior technology – bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) – is not much better. BECCS begins by producing large amounts of biomass from, say, fast-growing trees which naturally capture CO2; those plants are then converted into fuel via burning or refining, with the resulting carbon emissions being captured and sequestered.
But bioenergy is not carbon neutral, and the surge in European demand for biomass has led to rising food commodity prices and land grabs in developing countries. These realities helped persuade the scientists Kevin Anderson and Glen Peters recently to call carbon removal an “unjust and high-stakes gamble.”
What about other geo-engineering proposals? Solar Radiation Management (SRM) aims to control the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth, essentially mimicking the effect of a volcano eruption. This may be achieved by pumping sulphates into the stratosphere or through “marine cloud brightening,” which would cause clouds to reflect more sunlight back into space.
But blasting sulphates into the stratosphere does not reduce CO2 concentrations; it merely delays the impact for as long as the spraying continues. Moreover, sulphate injections in the northern hemisphere could cause serious drought in the Africa’s Sahel region, owing to dramatic reductions in precipitation, while some African countries would experience more precipitation. The effect on the Asian monsoon system could be even more pronounced. In short, SRM could severely damage the livelihoods of millions of people.
If geo-engineering can’t save us, what can? In fact, there are a number of steps that can be taken right now. They would be messier and more politically challenging than geo-engineering. But they would work.
The first step would be a moratorium on new coal mines. If all currently planned coal-fired power plants are built and operated over their normal service life of 40 years, they alone would emit 240 billion tons of CO2 – more than the remaining carbon budget. If that investment were re-allocated to decentralized renewable-energy production, the benefits would be enormous.
Moreover, with only 10% of the global population responsible for almost 50% of global CO2 emissions, there is a strong case to be made for implementing strategies that target the biggest emitters. For example, it makes little sense that airlines – which actually serve just 7% of the global population – are exempt from paying fuel taxes, especially at a time when ticket prices are at an historic low.
Changes to land use are also needed. The 2009 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development charts the way to a transformed agricultural system – with benefits that extend far beyond climate policy. We must apply this knowledge around the world.
In Europe, the waste sector could make a significant contribution to a low-carbon economy. Recent research, commissioned by Zero Waste Europe, found that optimal implementation of the European Commission’s “circular economy package” waste targets could save the European Union 190 million tons of CO2 per year. That is the equivalent of the annual emissions of the Netherlands!
Available measures in the transport sector include strengthening public transportation, encouraging the use of railways for freight traffic, building bike paths, and subsidizing delivery bicycles. In Germany, intelligent action on transport could reduce the sector’s emissions by up to 95% by 2050.
Another powerful measure would be to protect and restore natural ecosystems, which could result in the storage of 220-330 gigatons of CO2 worldwide .
None of these solutions is a silver bullet; but, together, they could change the world for the better. Geo-engineering solutions are not the only alternatives. They are a response to the inability of mainstream economics and politics to address the climate challenge. Instead of trying to devise ways to maintain business as usual – an impossible and destructive goal – we must prove our ability to imagine and achieve radical change.
If we fail, we should not be surprised if, just a few years from now, the planetary thermostat is under the control of a handful of states or military and scientific interests. As world leaders convene for the 22nd United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to bring the Paris agreement into force, they should repudiate geo-engineering quick fixes – and demonstrate a commitment to real solutions.


Lili Fuhr heads the Ecology and Sustainable Development Department at the Heinrich Böll Foundation.



Lili Fuhr
Referentin Internationale Umweltpolitik /
Department Head Ecology and Sustainable Development
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Schumannstraße 8
D - 10117 Berlin
T +49 (0)30 285 34 304
F +49-(0)30 285 34 5304
M +49 (0)151 40201775
E: fuhr@boell.de / www.boell.de
Twitter: @lilifuhr

Recommended Reading: Inside the Green Economy - Promises and Pitfalls
Tipp: Kritik der GrÜnen Ökonomie
Thomas Fatheuer, Lili Fuhr, Barbara Unmüßig. 
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