Using Our Voices: We will not be Silent on Tar Sands Expansion

               Last Tuesday I attended a talk at the Brookings Institute - a DC based non-profit think tank - titled US Alberta Energy Relations: A Conversation with Allison Redford. I attended with the full intention of having a conversation about Tar Sands extraction and the climate consequences with Premier Allison Redford - the lead government official from Alberta, Canada. When I arrived I quickly realized that I was not going to be having a conversation with anyone. In this form of "conversation" the Brookings Institute asks audience participants to write down their questions on a card that get passed up, then a woman chooses which questions get asked and the Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Association, Daniel Yergin get's to talk to Premier Redford about the question. 

My viewpoint looking at Premier Redford and Alex Yergin

                According to the dictionary the definition of conversation is "The informal exchange of ideas by spoken words." Instead of having a conversation -which by everyone's connotation implies an exchange of ideas with voices - the Brooking Institute chose to assault and kick-out anyone who sought to use their voices to have a real conversation with Premier Allison Redford. By the end of my time at the hearing, I would be assaulted by security guards and removed from the room for attempting a conversation about the climate impacts of tar sands extraction and proliferation. Here's the video and below is my story.  Here's a link to a major news outlet that covered "the interruption." Here's a link to the entire conversation via webcast made available by the Brookings Institute.

Label GMO's! Stone Soup Rally, part of my story, and a recording of the song "Adam Smith"

As many of you know, I just completed a three year walk across America picking up trash the entire way called Pick Up America. I am writing this to tell one of many stories about our country that I was able to witness firsthand.I am also writing this to build momentum for the Stone Soup Rally happening next Monday at the FDA in College Park. (RSVP here).  Here's the flyer for the rally. 

 For about 1,400 miles of the American heartland I saw the same thing. Everyday, I'd gaze into what seemed to be an endless field of corn or soybean. I'd see rivers choked with sediment and on particularly humid days I could even smell the pesticides hanging in the air. It was a far cry from the "down on the farm" vision I had always had for the Midwest. Aside from the small towns, the midwest seemed to be one giant corn and soybean field spanning to the north, east, south and west for more than 10 states.

Growing just one or two heavily subsidized crops throughout our hearltand is an environmental travesty in itself. It causes rapid degradation of two of life's most precious resources - our soil and our flowing water. It requires huge amounts of climate altering, fossil fuel fertilizers to produce our food. It pours herbicides and pesticides all over our countryside killing bees and the diversity of bugs that can provide resilience to evolving pathogens. It keeps diversity of life, the staple of planetary evolution, at an abysmal low. And it is only this way only because large agriculture industries seek to control our entire seed bank and food chain to maximize profits.

  After these GMO corn and soybeans are processed they are mostly transferred to CAFO's -Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations - to make the meat most American's believe to be the staple of a "real meal." The other corn and soybeans are made into intensely processed foods that come into our lives as fast food, TV dinners, and high fructose corn syrup. While this may seem to be an overstatement to some, with all I've seen and heard I stand by this honestly - The primary reason for disease and illness in America is this process of producing our food. And it's all done this way because there are a vast majority of people who don't know any better and with their ignorance are supporting a fossil fuel drenched status quo that is on track to destroying a livable planet. 

The Foreword for the Dream City Community Plan

This business, community, and general plan to heal the track of human interaction with self, community, and nature comes from the sons and daughters who grew up dumbfounded and helpless to the confusing reality of a world not grounded in gratitude, humility, and courage for a peaceful way. We went to your schools. We did our best to follow your rules. But even our pure, honest light was oppressed in a society based on conspicuous consumption, intimidation, and fear. 

As we grew older, we further realized the degradation of morality within industrial civilization. We'd see and feel pain for how our ancestors had disavowed the sanctity of life, for the pursuit of greed, profit, and exploitation. We'd ask ourselves "Could it have always been this way?" And in many cases we'd escape through mindless self indulgence. But at end the end of the day our pain still remained.

Then some of us were inspired. We started taking steps to learn another path. But in doing so, we felt isolated in our purge of consumer civilization. We'd wonder "Could there really be others out there like us? Everything I see on the TV tells me that this deep inclination for truth and respect is one I must keep in secret. One that if I speak too candidly about I will be laughed at and degraded." 

If you can take anything from this life, know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in this inclination. Deep down we all seek healing and inner peace. Right now, it is obvious to say that some of us fight harder to achieve it, but no matter what it is an achievable goal for any who choose the path. 

Within your being, you hold the seed for the great social rebirth that will be 21st century living. You possess a personal power to engender an abundant relationship with nature. You are the only one who can transform your spirit to pursue compassion in all interactions. No one else besides you is going to save you. No politician. No sweeping technological fix. No environmentalist. No friend or lover. And you are equally not doomed by any enemy or unforeseen force to a painful uncertainty. You are your only hope at a better world. 

Once you believe more in the healing potential of the human spirit than the greed and convenient consumption of a debt based monetary system you will find true freedom. 

Plans for The Harvest Collective in 2013

If we choose to embody COMPASSIONATE EARTH WORK, we are the consciousness that will solve our society's present economic, social, and environmental crisis. We must choose to cultivate life - people, communities, social movements, animals, plants, fungus - in their most abundant and healthy form of self expression, rather than give our entire being to a modern civilization that is causing irreparable damage to our biosphere and the consciousness of humanity. 

Davey Speaking at PUA's Stepping Forward Day - 11/11/2012

The mission of The Harvest Collective is to create a network for individuals, communities, and businesses to actively share resources to provide families with cost savings, healthy local food, and community supported spaces for art and healing. We are now looking for volunteers, donors, and input on our vision to help us build our programs, website, and network. Below is a list of our most immediate initiatives. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work to empower our mission by donating through the Pick Up America website. If interested in any of these ideas, please get in touch with me as soon as possible - davidrogner@gmail.com. 

Re-Entering the Blogosphere

Dear Friend,        
      It's been a long time since I've blogged. It's not that I lost interest in sharing my story or that I didn't have anything to write about. I just simply needed a break from this electronic medium of communication. I needed to spend sometime living in the real world, learning from real world interactions, before I could get back onto the blogosphere to share the realizations that the real world can bring you to.

        What has re-kindled my interest in blogging is knowing how unique of an individual I am. I know that that the experiences I've had for three years living on the road with Pick Up America and the streak of activism and truth that has been my path for over 6 years make me very unique. The intense energetic interactions that bound me to understand the interconnectedness of life at a deeper level than most I've met, afford knowledge and understanding that is very unique. I am ready to blog again simply because my yearn for compassion tells me that my story as maybe it could be of some help to you.

Hard at work in Cincinnati with Pick Up America - a non-profit I co-founded 

that removed more than 100 tons of litter over three years across 14 states.

        God or the summation of all the energies in the universe that have been, presently are, and will be, (please except whichever term you are most comfortable with) have brought a game changing and ultimately fulfilling perspective into my life. My soul yearns to bring compassion and speak truth so that many of my fellow men and women might also align their mental, spiritual, and physical yearning with a path that brings them to their highest truth and allows them to tread out of consumer culture without hesitation, fear, or regret.