Solutions to our Planet in Peril this Decade: Restoring Oasis Earth with Author Dr. Rick Steiner

This election season is the ultimate time to consider that this decade is our last best chance to transition to a liveable planet instead of continuing to further recklessly degrade the sustainability of our own species’ future, and that of fellow earthlings, and our one Oasis Earth. Marine conservationist, former U of Alaska professor, and clean energy and wildlife consultant, Dr. Rick Steiner speaks with In Tune to Nature radio host Carrie Freeman about his book Oasis Earth: Planet in Peril – Our Last Best Chance to Save Our World. Anyone can download, read, and share this open-access/free digital book at the website  https://www.oasis-earth.com/oasis-earth-planet-in-peril (or you can buy a hardcopy of this beautiful, full-color book, full of images from the UN Environmental Program’s photographic contest winners and NASA images of Earth from space).

In this special 52-minute radio show, we set the stage for outlining environmental solutions by first reviewing the four fundamental causes of ecological crisis and why this decade 2020-2030 is so crucial to everyone’s future viability (why we can’t keep going business as usual). Then we go through some of the main environmental problems we face, especially human population growth, unsustainable animal agriculture and fishing, and the climate and wildlife extinction crises.

In the latter half of the show, we focus on Rick’s many solutions and goals in Oasis Earth, including redefining progress to account for what we really care about (going from GDP to wellbeing), instituting more citizen advisory councils around all communities for bottom up democratic leadership, and funding/investing in ecological initiatives like wildlife conservation and a living planet emergency fund and no longer subsidizing destructive practices like fossil fuel energy and unsustainable ag. We focus a lot on needed government policies and legal means to ensuring our political leaders and us as citizens start to foster a liveable planet rather than a dying planet, and creating that political will to prioritize this transition to an ecocentric way of living and not a short-sighted/misguided anthropocentric way of living (living as only human lives matter is ultimately going to kill us, along with so many other species). Dr. Rick Steiner helps us understand his concept of “constructive engagement” toward a variety of Oasis Earth goals he outlines for Agenda 2030.

But in this decade, will we vote in the kind of political leaders who are brave and visionary enough to institute these needed, life-saving transitions to a liveable planet?  Can we make that our priority? Please share this podcast to see if we can make it a movement!

 

In Tune to Nature is a weekly radio show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50-plus-year old independent, progressive, non-commercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Photo Credit: The cover of the Oasis Earth book published by Cirque Press, Anchorage, Alaska

Vote not only to take care of yourself, but to take care of others, including other species who need us to be their voice!