Donations – Membership

DONATIONS   —   MEMBERSHIP
And 1,700 word summary of needed-proposed efforts addressing the climate crisis

Human Civilization Worldwide (HCW) is an 501(c)(3) Operating Foundation that is primarily doing educational work

We appreciate donations as we are a non-profit corporation. To contact/communicate with us, please write to:  hae.hcw@gmail.com

You may pay with PayPal Donate Via PayPal or checks may be mailed to   APS-HCW,  2824 S Congress Ave.,  Austin, TX 78704.

Most of the HCW work is done by its founders, two brothers, European-American physicians. Donations are mostly used to expand our educational efforts, informational advertisements, networking, at times paying a part-time worker  to help us with mailings.

MEMBERSHIP: We apreciate if you send us your email and postal address(es) to join HCW as a member. If you are comfortable adding other information, please do so, such as date of birth (or age) and gender, ethnicity, profession, your interests that relate to our cause, and maybe phone number(s).

There is no specific membership fee, however, as a non-profit organizaion (as opposed to a foundation), we are to be funded by people other than founders and board members.

Please encourage family members, friends, and acquaintances to learn about us and, maybe, join!

Thank you

1,700 word summary of needed-proposed efforts addressing the climate crisis

­THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Nothing that is today seriously pursued can halt the rapid deterioration of climates. However, an effective response, which may save our civilizations, is still possible.

Please give us feedback. The proposals described here in no way intend to express criticism of what you are doing and how you are living now; they are about future actions you may care about. You may write to hae.hcw@gmail.com

Global warming is the worst crisis in human history, – what do you consider to be your role in these critical times? Will you help distribute this information?
• The key issues that people should understand:.
1. “Net zero” or carbon neutrality will only slow developments..
2. Approaches that are effective in halting vicious cycles and reversing global warming, are known..
3. But only governments can enact them – the government response must be radical, comprehensive and decisive..
• Re. lack of political will: political will results from people understanding the issues and being emotional about the issues, about the suffering continued global warming will cause. We should feel fear when thinking about our future, and compassion when considering young people and of the poor.
• Please take a small step towards reversing global warming and halting our sliding into “climate hell” and Consider:
– all the ethical, valuable work you do will become meaningless if developments are not reversed. And
– ”How will young people see us in the future: did we care and take steps that are effective?” Today’s young people deserve that we think very seriously about their future.
• We need to understand and explain this basic information to the people we know; spread this information also on social media, mentioning humanecivilization.org; and we may have to contact activists, authors and leaders of nonprofit organizations who appear reluctant to urge governments to enact the needed comprehensive response to this crisis.
• Together, we, the people, will have to demand the necessary, comprehensive government response that will reverse the disastrous developments. Without pressure by the people, governments will hardly act.
• The alternative to effective steps may be lowering our carbon footprint while essentially condoning and supporting the economic growth which will destroy vital ecosystems and modern civilizations, the world as we know it.
• America was instrumental in winning WWII because the seriousness of the situation was recognized. The people were behind the government’s radical actions: instead of producing civilian goods, corporations had to fulfill government contracts. A similar response is needed today – the climate crisis is as bad or worse than was WWII.
• There is little progress largely because most people do not realize that there is a way to reverse the climate deterioration. Many or most people appear to have given up, no longer trying to understand some basic information about a solution, holding on to unrealistic ideas about “adapting,” and they do not want to think about how weather catastrophes keep becoming more extreme and deadly, that climate conditions will not re-stabilize for centuries. Many young people still do not think much about “climate hell” and the A. I. Developments that are very dangerous and in many ways catastrophic.
To clarify further:
Scientists predicted four decades ago and we now observe: worldwide, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and much more destructive and deadly. And we appear helpless.?
• We must not accept “climate change” as an unchangeable reality. Unless developments are reversed, the world’s warming will continue for centuries. And humans cannot adapt to heat above a certain level.
• Vicious cycles, caused by earlier and present human actions, not primarily CO2 releases, drive global warming. As climates are further destabilized, more carbon-absorbing vegetation will be lost and vital ecosystems be destroyed.
• Large, densely populated areas will become unlivable; within decades, there will be at lest half a billion climate refugees; migrations are likely to cause worldwide violence.
• We all need cursory insights concerning the severity of the crisis and what a feasible, effective response would be like. It must be a combination of many approaches, previously described and newly invented. Measures to bring atmospheric CO2 into the 280-300 ppm (parts per million) range may be needed to establish sustainable climate stability. For a million years, long before Homo sapiens appeared, CO2 levels were never higher than about 280!
• Activists and authors who have been describing the climate crisis have to acknowledge that voluntary, private initiatives and government incentives failed. They must overcome their reluctance to talk and write about the need for a radical, comprehensive government response, and that the people must pressure our elected officials.
• When the time is right, when a significant minority understands the issues, a nationwide movement may be able to demand the needed decisive, radical, comprehensive government actions, and succeed.
• Governments will have to create and work with public-private partnership enterprises that will, without profits, realize the creation of efficient transportation systems, the revamping of production programs, needed changes in land management, such as planting trees on most land that is today used for beef production, etc.
• And, we must consider and pursue, many ways of saving energy and resources, minimizing CO2 and methane releases, avoiding waste, and developing ways of sequestering much carbon.
• Living more simply, closer to nature and to each other, we will be healthier and happier.

The following is a draft or sketch of how we imagine that the disastrous developments can be reversed:
• Governments must restrict data centers and artificial intelligence developments; and outlaw cryptocurrencies.
• Bank lending and credit must be curbed (being indebted has mental health consequences and decreases cognitive abilities). If bank lending is restricted, creating new money to fund government projects will hardly cause inflation.
Consumerism, which often becomes a psychological-behavioral addiction, is a primary cause of the climate crisis: people wanting cars, beef, more gadgets, and everything bigger. Still, people tend to miss a simpler life, many like to camp and spend time outdoors without electronic gadgets; they may appreciate having to live more simply.
• The most effective way to decrease atmospheric CO2 is to greatly increase the world’s vegetation: planting trillions of trees, bamboo, kelp and other water plants, enlarging tall grass prairies, wetlands, salt marshes, mangrove forests, etc. Since today about 4/5 of all agricultural land produces beef, curbing beef production will make much land available for CO2 absorbing and natural plants. (Since 1850, an estimated 1/5 of the world’s vegetation has been destroyed, mostly burned – much CO2 has been released and there are much less CO2 absorbing plants.)
• Worldwide, governments must establish large plantations of commercially useful trees and rapidly growing plants for carbon sequestration; also enlarge and reestablish natural prairies, forests, and wetlands.
• Governments must curb beef production significantly. Diets should become more plant-based. Governments need to promote lab-produced milk, salmon, chicken, eggs, beef and other types of animal-protein foods.
• As feasible, we must prevent the decomposing and burning of dead plant material, such as dead trees, branches and brush removed from forests, and other organic material. Plant material will hardly decompose when cold and dry, for instance roof-covered in large piles on mountains; buried several meters deep underground where it is dry and no air reaches it (vaulting); or if sunk into deep lakes. Mostly organic landfill material and wet dead plants like washed-up and harvested algae may be kept in stagnant water that rapidly becomes acidic, covered with sphagnum moss; or it may be preserved in salt-bog-like conditions.
• Areas that previously were fertilized by composted material and ashes from fires may need mineral fertilizers and plants that bind nitrogen, mainly legumes.
• Governments must promote the use of cooling white paint and passive solar designs to help minimize air conditioning, planting shade trees, building with wood instead of steel and concrete, etc. As feasible, dry flat surfaces must be avoided since they become extremely hot, damage surrounding vegetation and influence local climates.
• Expanded comprehensive rail networks should include high-speed, standard, small light and slow ultra-light trains, many 70cm to 100cm track. Small light-rail and ultra-light lines may be built on existing roads, without costly foundation; they are to connect all neighborhoods, settlements and important destinations. Trains should be complemented by ships, and, in mountainous areas, gondola lifts. Compared with roads, rail lines cause much less local heat and damage to surrounding vegetation. In sensitive areas of natural vegetation and habitats, trains may be built below or a few meters above ground.
• For short commutes and also for exercise, we need many types of slow ultra-light vehicles, human-powered, electro-assist and electric, most with protective, aerodynamic light bodies, some with useful cargo space.
• Plastic trash, much of it collected from rivers and oceans, may be compressed into bricks (usable for walkways?).
• Much more is needed. We suggest the wide use of wind-powered snow-making machines to enlarge snow fields and protect glaciers, permafrost, maybe also ocean ice. Where droughts damage forests, canals may be built to irrigate land around rivers; small dams in rivers may keep the river beds filled with water and greatly slow the flow of water.
• Governments must implement many other approaches to decrease atmospheric CO2 and methane levels and minimize releases, as described by Paul Hawken, Peter Fiekowsky, and others. More must be invested in research..
Broad efforts of education:
Broad efforts of education should focus on how pursuing ethics largely coincides with pursuing health and happiness: humans do best when having caring friends and families, and when living more simply, close to nature and to each other. Caring relationships readily form when we follow basic ethical principles, when we find meaning in giving, forgiving, cooperating, and broadly in being kind, caring and compassionate, also trying to be fair and respecting some reciprocity in relationships; we must avoid all “us-against-them” thinking. These ethical attitudes are contagious and strengthen friendships..
Basically, evolution and nature are cruel – most animals are eaten by predators while young. Humans have powerful propensities to being unethical: competitive and vindictive, greedy and exploitative, callous and cruel. We have to work on being “good,” learn to recognize normal unethical impulses, halt, then focus on alternate or opposite propensities. We have to learn thinking and acting ethically, to also consider beings that are distant and different from us; and to be compassionately empathetic across lines of “us-versus-them” thinking (empathy is largely learned). (To clarify: “us-against-them” refers to people perceived as enemies or despised competitors, which is an attitude we can influence; “us-versus-them” is normal and may refer to people outside a group or to people who are quite different, which may make empathy more difficult, example boys versus girls.)
Humans are inherently docile, gullible, and tradition-bound but much in our cultures and religions is not ethical; we thus must learn to be open-minded; we may learn from other cultures and generally people who think differently. Breaking with traditions, we specifically must learn about and respond to global warming, and also work on restraining the dangerous, greed-driven developments and harmful uses of artificial intelligence. We will do better if our thinking is much less conventional. For an intuitive sense about something being ethical, we may seek distance from the “here and now,” thinking: what I want to do or omit, would I recommend such an action to a best friend or same sex child in a very similar situation? Or: if I could ask a favorite wise, ethical person, what would he/she advise?
should focus on how pursuing ethics largely coincides with pursuing health and happiness: humans do best when having caring friends and families, and when living more simply, close to nature and to each other. Caring relationships readily form when we follow basic ethical principles, when we find meaning in giving, forgiving, cooperating, and broadly in being kind, caring and compassionate, also trying to be fair and respecting some reciprocity in relationships. These ethical attitudes are contagious and strengthen friendships.
Basically, evolution and nature are cruel – most animals are eaten by predators while young. Humans have powerful propensities to being unethical: competitive and vindictive, greedy and exploitative, callous and cruel. We have to work on being “good,” learn to recognize normal unethical impulses, halt, then focus on alternate or opposite propensities. We have to learn thinking and acting ethically, to also consider beings that are distant and different from us; and to be compassionately empathetic across lines of us-versus-them thinking (empathy is largely learned).
Humans are inherently docile and tradition-bound but much in our cultures is not ethical; we thus must learn to be open-minded; we may learn from other cultures and generally people who think differently. Breaking with traditions, we specifically must learn about and fight climate change, and work on restraining the dangerous, greed-driven developments and harmful uses of artificial intelligence. We will do better if our thinking is much less conventional.