One Planet III

A photo taken in Sydney, Australia in 2008 – one of those used in my revised One Planet video.

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My 1983 pro-environment anti-nuke song has gained new, urgent relevance.

Back in 1983 the situation was so scary that I wrote two songs on the nuke issue.

Note on March 7, 2022: even more perilous.

In 2016, I  replaced the old One Planet video with a much better video produced using new equipment and software. It contained new, HD photos taken by me with the same great, old, quotations from gifted female and male thinkers on world issues.

Having done a very small editing of the 2016 version II I now call the video,

One Planet III

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Dr. Vandana Shiva, author of the above photo’s quote, born in November, 1952, is a brave, brilliant agricultural activist from India, known as the Seed Lady for her successful securing of seed banks of key, traditional plants against their extinction. Traditional seeds are now threatened by the patenting of seed for profit perpetrated by powerful corporations like Monsanto. This article from 2019 indicates that the valiant seed battle continues. The older ways are sometimes less threatened by flooding and the “food crusaders” are fighting hard to preserve India’s heritage of a vast variety of plants and seeds.

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Different Methods of Truth Telling

I guess my style of truth telling is pretty direct and “in your face.” It alienates some people, but gets quickly to the point (admittedly as I see it and thus imperfect).

A friend pointed out recently that there are gentler, artistic ways of presenting truth.

Louise Erdrich’s latest book, The Roundhouse,  is one major subject of her wonderful November interview with Eleanor Wachtel of the CBC Radio’s Writers and Company, aired every Sunday at 3 PM. Erdrich is a Native American writer who writes novels that build awareness of injustice towards native peoples. Here’s the CBC Podcast … Well worth a listen.

Video and music are other vehicles for building awareness. One very touching piece, John Trudell’s Crazy Horse, combines poetry, music and video.  I was gripped by its masterful, solemn  combination of these three native-generated media. Just a snippet from Trudell’s poetry:

Crazy Horse, we hear what you say.
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth the people walk upon…

I know that all these types of truth telling have value and all are necessary.

I have used music and video myself. I have written 14 songs and have put three of them so far on my Songs page. I should really work on getting the other 11 up on this site.

I feel that the unprecedented speed of the resource-greedy, multinational, corporate attack on our planet creates an urgent necessity for the direct form of truth telling. There is no time left for a slow brew here.