11:41am UK, Wednesday February 27, 2008

Johan Eliasch, Cool Earth founder

The journey to school is probably not everyone’s favourite childhood memory. But growing up in Stockholm, the arrival of the winter snow in November was the happiest times of year.

It meant that for the next four months I could ski to school. I’d wake up, struggle with clumsy bindings and set off on a journey that should take 10 minutes but I’d stretch to half an hour.

Johan Eliasch and Frank Field

That was in the 1960s when snow was such a familiar part of the long Swedish winter it wasn’t even remarked upon.

Today, Stockholm’s children would be lucky to see a week of snowy weather.

Of course, it’s not the weather that has changed in the past 40 years. Europe’s climate has changed.

I’m sure you have a climate change trigger too, whether it’s remembering waking up and building snowmen before school or sledging down hills during wintry weekends.

For someone with a passion for skiing, it just happens to be skiing to school. For friends in Britain it is often longing for a cold, crisp Christmas.

The recognition that we are losing our cherished seasons is prompting an ever louder debate on climate change.

Not a day goes past without political statements on emission targets and Kyoto protocols. Every MP seems sure that global warming is the number one priority on their ‘to-do’ list.

Unfortunately, a ‘to-do’ list won’t avert a global crisis.

Like so many people, I despair of debate ever leading to effective action.

This prompted me to leap-frog a debate with action. Weaning society off a 100-year fossil fuel addiction is the only long-term solution.

But as anyone in business knows, doing what you can today is sometimes more important than what you can tomorrow.

For anyone serious about halting climate change this means only one thing - ending tropical deforestation.

It’s a little known fact that forest destruction releases as much carbon into the atmosphere each year as the entire US output.

Helping protect tropical forest by giving local communities incentives is the most effective way of reducing global emissions.

To start the ball rolling I bought 400,000 acres of rainforest to secure it with local communities. Along with Frank Field MP I have started a charity, Cool Earth, to help everyone do the same.

The logic of Cool Earth is very simple. With a donation of £35, ½ acre of at-risk rainforest can be secured along with the 130 tonnes of CO2 it stores. That’s equivalent to more than 10 times an average Briton’s annual carbon footprint.

Sceptics will ask how they can be sure sponsored forest is secure.

Cool Earth believes that only by creating a direct link with our forest projects can sponsors feel their commitment to tackling the climate crisis is being delivered. So that’s what we’re doing.

And by using high-resolution satellite imagery, regular biodiversity sampling and reports from our locally employed rangers, we provide reassurance that forest is being protected in your name.

And of course those who buy will be able to view their acre on GoogleMaps in real time and receive regular updates.

So this is how you can make a real difference and, with the valued support of Sir David Attenborough and Sir Nicholas Stern, Cool Earth offers a chance of halting a global crisis that politicians seem incapable of addressing.

It may not bring back the glorious winter snows of my childhood but it might just stabilise our changing climate.

Find out more about Cool Earth

From http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20082851268984

See https://www.coolearth.org/

Alaya Weekly Message, June 7, 2008
Love That Knows No Other
Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

This is the conclusion of a message I have transcribed and edited from a talk Ishvara gave on November 4, 2007. - TG.

Ishvara:

In this awareness there is much to do, but none of it can be done in the old ways. I implore you, I encourage you to give up the old ways of doing things, the old ways of seeing, and listen to what love says. Love says: “It is all right.” Love says, “There is a way.” Love says: “Love, and see what happens.” This is not the conditional love of consensus reality. This is the absolute love of the universe that is empowerment, that is the very core and source of all that you are, and it is up to you to embrace this love. It is up to you to love, and you begin with the most difficult person in the world to love: yourself. You may think, “I can love myself. I’m the best person I know.” But you really don’t love yourself. You are afraid and judgmental of yourself. You are resistant to yourself. You don’t approve of yourself. You want to be something else. You don’t like the way it is. Loving yourself is a most difficult thing.

Loving yourself means loving your pain, your suffering, your past, your present. Yet if you realize that love is simply unconditional acceptance of what is, that may make it a bit easier. It is not defeat to accept what is. When you totally accept what is, you would be amazed at the intelligence the cells bring into play. You would be amazed about how you are led to various processes and awarenesses, and perhaps you will find within those something which helps you. This awareness is not at all “anti-help.” Yet it does not involve seeking help from a belief or concept of the past. It involves embracing something new, something unique, something that is not the way of the world, something that may not seem logical.

Everything is subtle in the New Consciousness. The smallest amounts of energy affect the cells. Consequently, one’s thinking affects the cells: One’s fears, one’s beliefs, and one’s conditioning affect the cells. As long as you are resisting what is, that effect continues. When you surrender to what is you are allowing love to penetrate into the very depths of the cells. You are allowing love to flood your being with acceptance, self-acceptance and other-acceptance. It doesn’t mean that you are going to like or change everyone. It doesn’t mean a whole lot other than that your body will begin to benefit from it, and when your body benefits from it, others will benefit. It is not an experience that takes place in isolation. It is a shared experience. You realize you are designed to help each other in this process, to inspire, encourage, and support each other, to create a community of help, of care, of compassion, of love, of being, to create a life that you know and live from the core of your existence, from even the smallest awareness you hope for.

Disappointment with the world is natural, because you know the world could be so much different. But disappointment with yourself is not natural. You are not to be disappointed with yourself. You are to know within yourself that you are doing everything you can, that you are expanding, connecting, and achieving as much as you can in the moment. If you think you are failing, you experience the failure. If you think you “can’t,” then you can’t. This is not magical thinking. It is practical thinking. You see, you have before you conditions, beliefs, and concepts. These have shaped the body. They have affected your life. That is the way it is. There is no blame or fault, but you need to know about it. You need to realize that there is more to you than those things.

Some live their lives in a very restricted way. To have to deal with a condition, something they have inherited, something that was caused from the outside, is a problem for them. Yet the power of the human being is the ability to overcome whatever is put before you. Whatever appears to be an obstacle is not actually an obstacle but an opportunity for empowerment, for a greater realization, for hope. You need not close yourself to love, because it is the very Life force. When you think you are wrong, or feel guilty, or embrace separation or isolation, you are closing yourself to love. You need to be open to receiving.

It is funny, but the best way to be open to receiving is to be giving, to give love: I give you the opportunity to love me, because when you can love me, you will love yourself. When you can love me unconditionally, you will love yourself unconditionally. When you can share that love with others, you will experience transformation and healing. You will become more compassionate, patient and understanding, and then you will know the secret of Life. The secret of Life is simply: to be seen. All that human beings want is to be seen. All that you want is to be seen. Being seen is being recognized, and with recognition comes respect, allowing, and acceptance. You live in a world that is so fearful, so resistant to acknowledging others, so resistant to being love. There is fear that you will be overwhelmed, taken advantage of, or misused. The fear keeps you locked into a pit of despair and separation.

So stop doing things to make yourself better. Start doing things to acknowledge yourself where you are, with honesty and openness. I have seen over and over again that the moment a person admits where they are, where-they-are changes. It is quite magical. You don’t have to do something with it. You simply acknowledge it, and that acknowledgment somehow begins to transform the morphic field in which you have been trapped. It begins to let something else in, and then the body starts feeling something new, something different, something unique. It starts feeling hope, and hope is what everyone needs now, because consensus reality, this conditional world, has become hopeless. People are feeling powerless and helpless, but it need not be that way. You can embrace Life as it is and become empowered.

You can acknowledge the truth of your being, being open to your place in this existence, going beyond the systems and structures of the world, realizing that this awareness, this Space, has no boundary or border. This Space is everywhere, and thus it can help. It can support and encourage, because it is the Space of love: love that knows no other, love that has no outside or inside, love that is.

I come to you as love. I need you to love me so that I continue to love you. It cannot be one-sided. It is a continuous flow which opens the possibilities of your life. To love and to be loved is the same love: love without a boundary, love that is not taken, love that is. Embrace love as you embrace this Life. Find places of compassion and patience in your experience, and be real. What is real continues to exist, what is false will fall away as one surrenders all of it, moment by moment.

Copyright © 2008 by Alaya®.
EnLifement™ 2002

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