I was asked why I call myself Peace Rider and what my ride is about.
I call myself Peace Rider to honor the inspiration. The way to Peace on Earth and with the Earth is the Way of Love. It's an old message. Love understands, as we have not for millennium, that all things are connected at the level of spirit which is to say at the level of energetics. Nothing is inherently separated from another, we are the waves and the ocean, part of the same Universal energy.
What we give to another returns to the self individually or collectively as a consequence. Acts of violence only harm ourselves. This is the reason many soldiers returning from the battlefield are psychology maimed, because their higher self knows this, creating inner conflict between mind and spirit.
This is a shift in consciousness, a new awareness, embracing Oneness and not separation. There is hope of healing and restoration in this, the creation of a flourishing future. All the dysfunction and mess we have created comes from the illusion of separation.
If we continue the same thinking we will either destroy ourselves through continuing wars and weapons of mass destruction or make our planet uninhabitable for life as we know it. The early and ominous signs of the latter changes are already upon us. The "alarm bells," are going off from the dying of trees, to melting of the polar and Greenland ice caps. The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated.
Yet many are in denial it is happening or human caused. It is happening, driven in large measure by increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels.
This is no time to sit idly by or to be silent. We must make a major detour, and quickly, so our children and theirs will not suffer the worst consequences of climate change. It is our moral obligation to get it right for their sake, to be proactive, forceful, nonviolent in word and action, working together to create a new a future on a planet being healed and restored.
There are no sheep and goats here. We are all in this together, "rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief."
How do we get there? Form a New Earth Movement of like minded souls committed to driving the political systems of the world to create a clean energy future for the good of all living things. It is clear without significant citizen action to impel change it will not happen soon enough or be sufficient to redirect the resources of the planet towards this end. This will likely require tough love, non-violent civil disobedience.
Scientists consider 350 ppm CO2 as a safe global standard. It is already above this and increasing at about 2ppm/year. The goal worldwide is an 80% net reduction in C02 emissions by 2020.* The overall goal is to reduce then eliminate all point sources of global atmospheric contaminants to prevent further destabilization of our life support system. This will require international cooperation and technical assistance on an unprecedented scale.
There are not decades to get this right due to changes already set in motion that at some point become irreversible and self-reinforcing. This is a "stick of dynamite" that will go off with unimaginable and tragic consequences. A prudent person would defuse it without delay.
The challenges ahead are great but we are not in this alone or without help in our hour of greatest need. The Universe is on our side, rooting for the home team. We are all on it. It is time to throw off he yoke of past misunderstanding and embrace a new awareness of unity of Oneness and act from it. I am greatly encouraged that many have already done so.
It is the hour of our greatest peril and opportunity. Ours to seize or let slip away. Join me in creating a New Earth Movement, a great turning to bring Peace on Earth and Peace With The Earth. Our children deserve no less.
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Hi Don,
ReplyDeleteI met you on the Katy Trail at Jefferson City yesterday. I admire your fervor and dedication and desire to make the world a better place. I also mostly agree with you about energy conservation, but I probably disagree with most of your conclusions.
I am a year older than you and started cross state bicycle rides in 1988 and I've done one each year since. This summer I will be enjoying Wisconsin.
Since you began your ride on October 3 of last year, the global warming concept has come under a lot of fire, since some of the major proponents of the concept falsified their data and had a conspiracy among themselves to try to discredit any other view. The hockey stick uptick did not happen. They deliberately destroyed much of their data which didn't support their conclusions, it was warmer in the middle ages than now, and there has been no statisticly significant planet wide warming for 10 years. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html
It turns out that many of the scientists who were early supporters of global warming are now deciding that they may have been too hasty.
Here may be the major difference between you and me and our views. I believe in God the Creator, who set everything in motion and still holds it together. There is ample evidence that He is who He says He is and is still in charge. The Icelandic volcano eruption last week, has alone put more polution into the air than all the vehicular traffic for a year. The earth can deal with it, it always has. It has self-regulating mechanisms in place that keep things on an even keel.
So Don, even though I disagree with your conclusions, I support your effort to make the world a better place. You go Don!
The ice caps are melting. The deserts are spreading. The oceans are rising and contain fewer fish for us to eat. Species are dying at a 1,000 times the normal rate. All of this is common knowledge, verifiable, and not in question. Virtually ever scientific organization has said that global warming is happening and that people are the cause.
ReplyDeleteYet one still finds people who refuse to believe the thousands of scientists - drawn from all the major faiths, political systems and nations of the world - who agree on this. Misled, they instead yet believe the corporate deniers and the web of lies propagated on hate radio, and so on - some of which you can see in the post above.
They live in a parallel universe and refuse to accept actual information, making up facts that agree with their beliefs. There are no means with which to engage them.
Climategate my eye! It was a pimple on and elephant's ass.
Don, good luck! You are a hero, and you have an uphill battle. Some places now have a 100-year storm ever five years. We may go down despite all you do. I admire you for trying. Might as well go swinging.
I fondly recall those amazing days we spent hiking in the Arctic Refuge, and often relive those moments on my long runs. I'd like to see all the folks from that trip.
Best regards,
Dallas
dallassmith@charter.net
http://dallasfallsforward.blogspot.com
Dallas,
ReplyDeleteHere's the difference between our views about global warming. Everything I said was provably true and everything you said about it has proved to be false. I can tell you are an Al Gore Acolyte since you bought his proved hyped distortions about GW. He obviously doesn't believe in rising sea levels himself, since he recently bought a 9 million dollar mansion on the coast - he just wants you to believe it so he can push his leftist political agenda. GW is just a new way for leftists to try to gain more control over people's lives. I'm sorry you were sucked in by it. I hope you weren't also a proponent of Global Cooling in the 70's, which also proved to be a passing fantasy.
Global Warming was caused by sun spot activity and other factors well beyond man's puny control. Mars had diminishing ice caps at the same time as the earth, which obviously was not casused by man. Check it out, there has been no GW for 10 years, that's why the acolytes switched to "climate change" since warming was no longer happening. Much of the world experienced record cold winters and snow last year.
As for "hate radio", if it's so filled with hate, why does it have more followers than the now defunct Air America could ever hope to attract. The real "haters" are those who denigrate anyone who doesn't believe the way they do. By the way, the listeners to talk radio were proven to be better educated, better informed, and wealthier than the general population.
Another thing, you can get down from your high horse and realize that many others of us that you look down on, do recycle and try to conserve and minimalize our carbon footprint. I don't care to breathe pollution either.
You would do far better to put your faith in God, the Creator and Sustainer "who holds all things together by the power of His might" than than in what a polititian tells you.
You also might attract more converts if you didn't begin your polemic by saying my side is right and anyone who doesn't agree is stupid.
I don't think you are stupid - just misguided, and you obviously are willing to listen to facts. You and I would likely find many areas of agreement.
Remember the words of Robert Burns, Scottish poet, who said with such insight, "I would the power that God would give us - to see ourselves, as others see us."
I know...that goes for me too. ;-) Best to you!
Sometimes the chasm seems just so wide. But if a humble man on a bicycle can get people talking, well, I have to believe that's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteA couple quick comments and I apologize for not providing links. Maybe later. It's commonly called 'climate change' because, although globally the trend is to get warmer, that's not true everywhere. Some places are predicted to get more rain. Check out Dallas' recent post elsewhere on this site about the rain in Tennessee. More moisture in the air means more snow in the winter, which despite warming temperature, is still winter and so it snows. A lot. That is not evidence that climate change is not happening, it actually supports the models. And the whole email thing in the UK. There was an investigation into that and it was determined that they, well, not much of anything. They were probably careless in how they worded some things, but they didn't fabricate data or lie about it. I will try to find some links for this because it's important not to take my word for it because you already agree or to think I'm blowing smoke because you don't. Find sources you trust. Certain talk show entertainers make stuff up and have admitted to making stuff up. Anyway, I'm short on time, but I'll try to get back with some links.
Congratulations to Don on his arrival in Washington DC. I'm proud to know you.
Thanks for the post Sag Wagon,
ReplyDelete[I stop for you every time I take a cross state ride with a group. ;-)
The supporting evidence I would like to see is about talk show hosts making things up. I sincerely doubt they are any of the major ones because that would destroy their credibility, and if it's not a major one, then you can't infer that they all do it.
I sincerely believe that the major ones sincerely believe everything they say, unless it is an obvious tongue in cheek comment that should be obvious to anyone. I know for a fact that many things attributed to them did not occur, but were promulgated by people trying to discredit them.
As Mark Twain said [I believe] "A Lie can travel half way around the world before the Truth has time to put its boots on."
Once any person, even a scientist, has a vested interest in a point view, it becomes a little like one of his children - just a little better than anybody else's. ;-)
It's just human nature - it's a lot easier to see the faults in another person's point of view than it is in your own. [That too, is pointed out in the bible. Great book, that!]
I salute you for your accomplishments, Don, and for your convictions.
Kenno