So! Where do you sit on the issue of global climate change; on the right side of the table or on the other side? Whichever side you choose, there’s food for thought as we explore the sources of global climate change. But the food is a scarce resource, so choose wisely.

Rondônia in the Brazilian Amazon. Left June 1975, Right August 2009 // Credit: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). From Latin America and the Caribbean Atlas of our Changing Environment (2010)

We can bide our time foolishly debating who is right and who is wrong about global climate change as it grows hotter and dryer by the year; as water disappears into the atmosphere and mixes with greenhouse gases and we find ourselves quite literally embroiled in being broiled during our debates, or we can prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

Humans have an odd proclivity to ignore warnings and not only when a preponderance of evidence is present, but even when proof beyond any shadow of doubt presents itself.  This proclivity is persuading many of us to ignore the global climate change taking place and while Mother Nature is certainly responsible for a very small portion of it, the evidence is irrefutable that our behavior has tipped the balance of her natural cycles and tipping this balance is playing with the lives of over 7 billion people, along with every plant, insect and animal on Planet Earth.

The debate over humanity’s future is very much like you and I standing on the rim of an active volcano as it rumbles angrily beneath our feet.  We debate endlessly; is the ground moving because the magma chamber is expanding, or is the magma chamber expanding because the ground is moving?

Either way, it becomes exponentially foolish by the minute to debate who’s right and who’s wrong as we ignore the rumblings.

There are many alternatives to the way we impact one another on a global scale, alternatives to ignoring global climate change.

We have no armies to mobilize to force change, but we know from experience that our collective decisions and efforts have more power than even the largest, best equipped armies. And in that, we are very powerful.

Political changes! Politics are almost always changed through local, even personal efforts and are done so as our partisan politicians ignore every sign before them that they’re losing the electorate in droves while IVN’s contributors choose to promulgate the extraordinarily vital message of independent affiliation to turn the tide of our political process.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

Personal effort! It has and always will be the most effective means to achieve change on a large scale.  We have no ability to physically, or even through legislation in DC, given our ailing political climate to force change upon greedy corporations enslaving populations in sweat shops across the globe and polluting our environment at alarming rates. But we can choose to stop buying their products and pass the message to others which will most assuredly create change.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

We've learned that our politicians serve only the rich and powerful who buy their efforts with campaign contributions and lobby efforts, yet here we are currently seeing  political changes not seen at any time since the early years of our nation and we've done so by making personal decisions and passing the word along.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

Global climate change is being debated in true partisan manner by our politicians as they stand on the rim of the volcano debating the causes and it is up to us to make the personal choices, extend the personal efforts, to stop the behavior which is killing and enslaving its people and destroying our planet.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

Millions of our fellow human beings in the US and across the globe are dying of disease and starvation as our monetary system built entirely upon greed ignores their plight. But! We can change that too, though personal decisions and collective efforts as we have done so well in the past and are doing now to force change.  And I firmly believe global climate change, the greed that is killing millions and our political system are all interconnected.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

We have the power in each of our voices to change the world. We can make changes through small, everyday decisions; carpooling, supporting mass transit bills, using energy efficient appliances, reducing our dependence on carbon-based fuels by under-utilizing mechanisms which rely solely upon those fuels. Even changing our eating habits by supporting community farmers and not supporting corporate-based chains will have a drastic impact on our environment.  But we must make personal choices, changing personal habits.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

When the word “Illuminati” is spoken, most envision a dark, secretive society, but I say there were reasons then for secrecy. It seems a lot of folks were unhappy with the elitist attitudes during the 18^th Century when secrecy was often vital to survival and even to efforts to change the world.

Adam Weishaupt founded the Illuminati of Bavaria on May 1, 1776.  The Illuminati was founded on the principles of his early training as a Jesuit. Originally called the Order of the Perfectibilists, its professed object was, by the mutual assistance of its members, to attain the highest possible degree of morality and virtue, and to lay the foundation for the reformation of the world by the association of good men to oppose the progress of moral evil.

 "As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot and priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the principles of pure morality. This has given an air of mystery to his views, was the foundation of his banishment.... If Weishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise and virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose."  Thomas Jefferson Letters 1800.

Henry Wilson Coil describes the order as a "short lived, meteoric and controversial society" while George Kenning refers to it as a "mischievous association.” In his own defense, Weishaupt wrote:

"Whoever does not close his ear to the lamentations of the miserable, nor his heart to gentle pity; whoever is the friend and brother of the unfortunate; whoever has a heart capable of love and friendship; whoever is steadfast in adversity, unwearied in the carrying out of whatever has been once engaged in, undaunted in the overcoming of difficulties; whoever does not mock and despise the weak; whose soul is susceptible of conceiving great designs, desirous of rising superior to all base motives, and of distinguishing himself by deeds of benevolence; whoever shuns idleness; whoever considers no knowledge as unessential which he may have the opportunity of acquiring, regarding the knowledge of mankind as his chief study; whoever, when truth and virtue are in question, despising the approbation of the multitude, is sufficiently courageous to follow the dictates of his own heart, - such a one is a proper candidate." 

"The tenor of my life has been the opposite of everything that is vile; and no man can lay any such thing to my charge."

The only thing we should seek is change on planet Earth for the benefit of all Earth's inhabitants and we must do so very soon. The centuries old methods of enriching the wealthy and empowering the powerful as if they were given some special birthright to be rich and powerful must end and we must live within the confines of our environment, allowing all the planet's inhabitants the right to an enriched life.

Post Mesoamerican Native Americans understood this concept supremely, never living beyond their necessity,  never employing hunting techniques or farming methods which depleted their environment’s ability to provide for them.  These Native Americans are perhaps the very symbol of humanity’s demise as we destroyed their way of life in order to incorporate them into the “civilized culture” of the European settlers, forcing them into a monetary exchange system of greed and destruction.

Every living organism which engorges themselves on their finite resources faces inevitable self-destruction; e.g. viruses which kill their hosts, thereby killing themselves; bark beetles feasting on forests until the forest is dead; humans who slaughter snakes in Southeast Asia for a ritual of religious manhood until rodents make it impossible to maintain meaningful crops and fishermen fishing waters until they devastate the fishing industry itself.

The signs are there.  We've ignored them for decades and we can no longer do so and expect to survive as a functional society, or even as a species.  We must either abandon our old, jaded, disastrous systems upon which we've relied for centuries and WE, not government leaders, must band together to achieve what governments are incapable of even understanding in their sacrosanct worlds of operating the turnstiles allowing only those with the correct token to enter.

The proclivity to ignore is very often disastrous.

Global Climate Change Part I here

Global Climate Change Part II here

Global Climate Change Part III here

Global Climate Change Pat IV you just read it