Faster Than Expected - podcast

The Arctic Sea Ice Volume is 2017 at it’s ever recorded low. Maybe this sounds somehow special, but what‘s going on in the Arctic now has huge consequences for the climate of the planet. Finland‘s President Niinistö said in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’

(https://finlandtoday.fi/president-niinisto-in-north-russia-if-we-lose-the-arctic-we-lose-the-world/)

In this episode I have an interview with Torstein Viddal from Norway, now living on Greenland. He is a novelist, has a master in information science and is an eco activist since decades. Torstein is following data of ice extent and volume in the Arctic very closely. Now in 2017 he has observed the lowest ice volume of millions of years.

Torstein about the dire situation we are in:

“Emotionally I think I will always be like – keeping it real. Accepting the situation we are in, is so much easier than denying it, because I suspect, that even the deniers fear what’s inside that box, but they are not looking into.”

I have inserted a short introduction from THE Arctic expert in the world, Professor Peter Wadhams, from October 2016.

Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus of ocean physics at Cambridge University, is a sea ice specialist with 46 years of research on sea ice and ocean processes in the Arctic and Antarctic. In more than 50 expeditions to both polar regions, he has worked from ice camps, icebreakers, and aircraft. He also has traveled six times on Royal Navy submarines under frozen north polar seas to conduct research. His book, highly recommended, is "A Farewell to Ice".

http://xwer.de/fte21

This interview with Jürgen Hornschuh about living with animals should have been part of the 19th episode “worldwide connected - Burden on other Species”, but we haven’t been able to connect technically. So we recorded it afterwards. I am sure it is worth an extra episode.

Jürgen is born in Germany and living in India in the town and ecological and spiritual community Auroville. He is working as a farmer and a librarian. He talks about the language he is using to enter a relationship with animals. The Indian attitude towards animals is affected by karma. Jürgen says, they “surrender in the necessity of pain”.

Shownotes: http://xwer.de/fte20

This episode we want to dedicate to the animals and the burden inflicted on the other species by us, Homo sapiens. In times of abrupt climate change or ongoing anthropogenic climate disruption, there is no doubt, we are in the sixth mass extinction event. Billions of animals are dying and suffering. And 200 species (of animals and plants) are going extinct every day.

So this may be a grief session about this suffering around the world, but I hope, we’ll find a way not to forget the gift and the beauty we receive, because we can share living on this planet with all these creatures.

These days climate disruption leads to an exponential occurrence of disasters. Hence, I am talking with the American disaster manager Nick from ReliefAnalysis. I talk with him about different phases of disaster management, about exponential extreme weather events and about a hospice situation.

Nick has Turkish roots, an Asian wife and two children, well, he is a family man.

On his website reliefanalysis.net he writes:

„From 2004-2006, I served for a disaster management think tank located in the Pacific Islands. That experience exposed me to the geopolitical, sustainability, and overall survival of  Pacific Island Nations and cultures ...

I have degrees in geography and international relations, and what I studied decades ago is woven into the fabric of this site and my interests.“

Nick had some very interesting interviews in his ReliefAnalysis podcast series. Now there is a break in this series, I hope we‘ll hear further episodes.

Shownotes: http://xwer.de/fte18

In this seventeenth episode of Faster Than Expected I ask myself the question, if there can be holidays of doom, of climate disruption and the dire consequences. At the end I will guide a short meditation to find an inner room of silence and peace.

I have pushed along writing and recording of this episode since some weeks. Maybe a reason is, that I don’t feel very strong these days and I don’t want to show it here in public. What helps has been an exercise to overcome a writer’s block. Every day the first I am doing is to write for 15 minutes anything what crosses my mind. Many thanks to Walter Epp. Anyway, you, my listeners, will know these times of weakness, vulnerability and grief stages. And that’s the purpose of this podcast: not to feel alone and isolated with these emotions.

In my Buddhist study and meditation group we are reading a book from a German gynecologist (Wilfried Reuter, Der Tod ist ganz ungefährlich, Death is totally nonhazardous). He is writing about age, illness and death from the point of view of a Buddhist and a doctor. In the chapter about aging he is underlining the opportunity to loosen the bonds to our body by perceiving and accepting, that our body isn‘t working very good any more. Maybe we move to a smaller flat or an old people‘s home or in hospice. We loose our surrounding we are used to since many years. In this situation we can be happy if we have trained to be in our inner world. There is an inner room, that is still save, silent, familiar and without all the suffering and the fast changes of the outer world.

It is quite easier to find this inner room than you think.

At the end of this episode I guide a little meditation, where you can stay for a short time in this inner room.

http://xwer.de/fte17

We are talking about living and dying in times of abrupt climate change from the perspective of India.

Since some years Jürgen is living in India in the small town Auroville. There he is working as a farmer and librarian. He loves books and so he had voluntarily translated some books into German during his holidays, some thick books, for example: from Charles Eisenstein and some novels. We got to know each other, as he asked me to look through the text of a translation project in the field of abrupt climate change.

For Jürgen Auroville is an experiment with ways of life. He is working as a farmer to have to do with the basic needs and with relationships with animals and people. Now – 25 years after he has studied librarianship – he is also working in the library of Auroville.

While he is a radical thinker – in the meaning of digging to the root – this is an infinitely deep and never ending story. Guy McPherson with his work about abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction rang a bell, because he has already realized, that our way of life can not last, it’s unsurvivable.

LINKS

Auroville: https://www.auroville.org/

Jürgen’s blog: http://wuestenzeitung.blogspot.de/

Jürgen on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010846146229

translation: Charles Eisenstein, Die Renaissance der Menschheit: http://www.scorpio-verlag.de/Buecher/94/Die-Renaissance-der-Menschheit.html

This is the first worldwide podcast episode, co-hosted by Kevin Hester, New Zealand, and Wolfgang Werminghausen, Germany. We are talking about the role of water in abrupt climate change, the lack of water, floods, risk for nuclear power plants and the inner connection with the whole nature, that can be experienced with water.

Kevin Hester is living on Rakino Island, a small Island near Auckland New Zealand. He is a lifelong activist for ecology, for peace, against nuclear power and weapons and since some years he is tireless warning the world’s public about the dire consequences of the ongoing abrupt climate change. He is the living example, that the assumption, someone who is certain about the near term human extinction, will do nothing anymore, is really bullshit. We can laugh about that.

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Wolfgang Werminhausen is living in Münster, Germany. He has 4 children and is more than half of his life father of children. After study of psychology and working as psychotherapist, he had a trip into the world of finance for some years. With the insight, that the economic paradigm of infinite growth is a delusion and does harm ecologically, it was only a small step to Guy McPherson’s theses of abrupt climate change and the near-term human extinction.

Kevin and Wolfgang really have a different temper, you‘ll hear it obviously. So this an experiment, if this teamwork is working. Of course, we have one aim: to connect people in these dire times of collapsing bio-systems. Please give a comment on facebook.

Kevin’s website: kevinhester.live

Wolfgang's website: xwer.de/fte15

Everybody who is dealing with abrupt climate change leading to a climate catastrophe will stumble upon different emotions, that may be summarized as grief. In this 14th episode I am honored to introduce a wonderful woman to you, who dedicates herself to offer grief rituals: Azul-Valerie Thome.

On her website souland.org she is writing about herself:

I live in Devon, England with blood from Lebanon and France in my veins, the mother of a young warrior man. I am an eARTh artist and a ritualist. My work is infused with soul and beauty, informed by ancient Earth’s wisdom, systems thinking, ancient philosophy as well as archetypal psychology.

We could not talk about all her exuberant creative activities. Here we concentrate on her grief work, that‘s so necessary these days.

* SOULand.org: http://www.souland.org/

* http://www.xwer.de/en/fte-014-grief-composting-circles

What makes a biologist like Guy McPherson suppose, that the climate change leads to the demise of the human species? One of the answers we will hear in this episode is: Habitat, habitat, habitat!

Guy McPherson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona. He taught and conducted research for 20 award-winning years before leaving the university. He is THE authority for abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction.

A very few scientists in the world dare to talk about in public, that the climate is just now in a radical irreversible change, that will effect all life on our planet.

Guy McPherson, with his major fields conservation and evolutionary biology, is the only biologist, I know, who assumes that these changes lead to a mass extinction, even of the human species, within a very short period of time, within a few years.

So, in this episode we focus on Biology for Doomers.

http://xwer.de/en/fte-013-biology-for-doomers

My guest, Catherine Thompson is leading an extraordinary life. Born in Canada, she is living a somewhat nomadic existence mostly in the west of Canada. In the years of  2011-13 she traveled, on horseback, more than 2500 km through the southern plains of Saskatchewan  and Alberta. She is presently based in a small mountain village in the north of Thailand where she has set up a musical instrument making and composing studio.

We are talking about Irish music, instrument making, connecting with nature and how to accept the ongoing mass extinction.

Catherine‘s Website

http://dondtreebpa.blogspot.de/

her instrument website

https://musicforestinstruments.wordpress.com/about-catherine/