Klaus Bosselmann's guest appearances

Klaus Bosselmann

GreenplanetFM Podcast

Common Home Conversations Pathway to 2022

Earth Charter Podcast: Turning Conscience Into Action

Tom Campbell

Bruce Lipton

Eben Alexander

Charles Eisenstein

Byron Katie

Sonia Choquette

James Wilson

Matt Wilson

Phil Gregory

Amit Goswami

Dan Millman

Malcolm Scott

Mike Joy

Russell Targ

James Cameron

OwlTail

Quick Overview Prue Taylor and Dr. Klaus Bosselmann recall how their concerns over the existing laws and systems led to their participation and collaboration in the drafting of the Earth Charter. On the document’s relevance nowadays, Ms. Taylor draws attention to the global citizenship movement and also explains how the Earth Charter is a tool to hold ourselves to account and to continue the needed ongoing dialogues on how to care and protect the Earth. Dr. Bosselmann stresses on the Earth Charter’s ongoing importance, especially to informing and influencing decision making. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on how the Earth Charter is neither a hard law nor a soft law. Additionally, Ms. Taylor and Dr. Bosselmann share their understandings of ecological integrity and elaborate on key concepts such as “the commons” and “trusteeships,” and relevant arguments in their publications. They conclude with a discussion on humanity’s major challenge, which Dr. Bosselmann believes is fear, and Ms. Taylor identifies as disturbed and fractured human-Earth relationships.

Quick Overview Prue Taylor and Dr. Klaus Bosselmann recall how their concerns over the existing laws and systems led to their participation and collaboration in the drafting of the Earth Charter. On the document’s relevance nowadays, Ms. Taylor draws attention to the global citizenship movement and also explains how the Earth Charter is a tool to hold ourselves to account and to continue the needed ongoing dialogues on how to care and protect the Earth. Dr. Bosselmann stresses on the Earth Charter’s ongoing importance, especially to informing and influencing decision making. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on how the Earth Charter is neither a hard law nor a soft law. Additionally, Ms. Taylor and Dr. Bosselmann share their understandings of ecological integrity and elaborate on key concepts such as “the commons” and “trusteeships,” and relevant arguments in their publications. They conclude with a discussion on humanity’s major challenge, which Dr. Bosselmann believes is fear, and Ms. Taylor identifies as disturbed and fractured human-Earth relationships.

Prue Taylor & Klaus Bosselmann | The Earth Charter, International Environmental Law and Global Governance

Klaus has just returned from addressing the highest body of the United Nations. The General Assembly - on Earth Trusteeship in April of this year. He is a Professor of Law and Director, New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, University of Auckland; Chair, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Ethics Specialist Group. With all the mounting ecological challenges, climate change, melting tundra, ocean acidification etc - that face us today these are finally being acknowledged as the logical symptoms of a disease and Klaus reiterates this - a disease that is permeating our society as a result of economics gone mad. As an extension of the Chicago school in the 1970’s and then policies by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher we are left with posing the question - who will look after the planetary environment? That economics having been the main and in many ways the only fundamental agenda over the last 35 - 40 years that we (even ordinary NZers) are realising we are now in deeper trouble. That without factoring urgent ecological solutions and taking action - we are to experience environmental blow-back of increasing proportions. We have been going backwards over this time especially as we have added another three and half billion souls to the planetary population. In doing so - the web of life ‘Nature’ - that embraces and integrates all the ecosystems that are layered over each other from the micro to the macro have been put under unprecedented stress. All due to the increase in mans dominating nature especially around deforestation and pollution at all levels - that has been so overwhelming that our planet’s biota, natural systems and feedback loops are unable to cope with the rapid changes that are upon us. It’s all happening far too quickly and our biosphere can not adapt fast enough in the time available. Thus, with multiple tipping points being reached the possibility of cascading problems is an extreme urgency that has to be addressed. Biosphere collapse has to be avoided!   Today, business people in general when we sit them down and talk ‘one on one’ they will agree that the commercial sector are grabbing and extracting voraciously from the earth, however when they go back to their corporation they cannot or are unable to initiate change. The main reason being that the business world in general has failed themselves by still being ‘ecological illiterate.’ This being predominant in the extreme in the global political arena as well. Today the concept of sustainability has so often been distorted, co-opted, and even trivialized by being used without the ‘ecological context’ that gives it its proper meaning. So, it is worthwhile to reflect about what “sustainability" really means. What is sustained in a sustainable community is not economic growth or competitive advantage, but the entire web of life on which our long-term survival depends. In other words, a sustainable community is designed in such a way that its ways of life, businesses, economy, physical structures, and technologies do not interfere with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. It may be also likened to ‘durable prosperity’ - that nature will last ad infinitum. The first step in this endeavor, naturally, must be to understand how nature sustains life. It turns out that this involves a whole new conception of life. Indeed, such a new conception of life has emerged over the last 30 years. Called ‘The Systems View of Life’ it is grand synthesis of this new understanding of life.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If2Fw0z6uxY Looking back. Historical Limitations. Klaus reviews Western civilisation over the last 3-4,000 years and though we as a Western material culture have ‘seemingly’ benefited hugely from our endeavours we have gradually committed so much ecological and cultural damage - that we are now belatedly realising that there is a limit to growth on a finite ecological - planetary system - that we are now teetering on overhang.  When we go back to Greece the word oikos means household and nomos means management. Oikonomos, economy, is thus - those things concerning the management of the house or home as on our ‘home' planet - earth. Note that eco for ecology and economics also have the same root prefix.  Thinking in terms of relationships is crucial for ecology, because ecology — (as mentioned above - derived from oikos) is the science of the relationships among various members of the Earth Household. Many indigenous cultures embody profound ecological awareness and think of nature in terms of relationships and patterns. Looking at what the Western model has brought to the world. Dualism: Can be seen as another Western construct.      The separation between the human sphere and the natural sphere. Where once we were connected to the earth - the wind whispered, the trees sighed, the brook gurgled and oneness within nature permeated much of life from as far back as neolithic times. We were embedded in natural forces. That over time the academic Greeks started to quantify and measure and objectify things and dualism and ‘separation’ gradually came into being. We put up walls and insulated and isolated ourselves from the environment. Anthropocentric:  human centeredness  - that we can measure everything through the lenses of human experience and that we only look at the environment for its usefulness. Materialism:  the predominance of measuring any reality in the terms of matter as against energy or spirit - or the intangible. Having things and measuring success by ‘owning’ things and stacking them up all around us. Atomism:  and our modern science where we are very proud “knowing all about very little and losing the ability to learn a little about everything” … A shift from a more general understanding to more precise expertise - and thus not seeing the larger context. Locked into reductionism and reducing everything down to the mini particle and eventual invisible energy packets. Greed: when individuals and materialism come together and the so called ‘enlightenment’ - celebrating the idea of individual freedom - another European invention - (has a lot of good things going for it - like human rights and even democracy and so forth) - the dark side is individualism that came into being and - taking it all - with no limits becoming a norm.  This translates that one does not have a sense of collective interdependence and responsibilities anymore - and when you combine these with capitalism and materialism we see the 001% of the 1% express what they are doing at the top of the power structures of today. This is what we have today. We have a great deal of separation - living in buildings doing our best to experience some sort of community yet people have in many ways -  just become consumers rather than citizens. Economism:  that we measure everything through the lens of economic cost benefit analysis - time is money  - be it Local or Central government.  How much is that worth? How much did you win, how much did you lose?   My net worth is ……….. Add up the 1st letters of these 6 words and they Equal = DAMAGE This European experience is totally out of step of non European cultures thus the need to heal our planetary systems and be more open to listen …. We need to become citizens of the earth see ourselves as brother and sisters with other parts of our planet. We are in this together - so we need to know what is it like to articulate what it is to be human on this - our beautiful planet earth. The necessity now is to have a Nationwide Conversation and talk about long term strategies. We are all integrated within the web of life - even if we do not realise it - and with all biota.  However, with climate change upon us and the invisible membrane of our atmosphere that envelope’s our planet as the only barrier between us and deep space. The imperative is to understand we are together - breathing in and out - this invisible barrier that is fundamental to our survival as a species. As Chief Seattle the American First Nation medicine man stated “whatever we do to the web of life - we do to ourselves.” That we as humanity need to understand what the ‘global commons’ is and then how to honour it and respectfully work with it. This is when we learn to become ‘Ecologically Literate.’ http://earthcharter.org/virtual-library2/images/uploads/Korten%20Earth%20Charter%20Indianapolis%20Talk.pdf

Klaus has just returned from addressing the highest body of the United Nations. The General Assembly - on Earth Trusteeship in April of this year. He is a Professor of Law and Director, New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, University of Auckland; Chair, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Ethics Specialist Group. With all the mounting ecological challenges, climate change, melting tundra, ocean acidification etc - that face us today these are finally being acknowledged as the logical symptoms of a disease and Klaus reiterates this - a disease that is permeating our society as a result of economics gone mad. As an extension of the Chicago school in the 1970’s and then policies by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher we are left with posing the question - who will look after the planetary environment? That economics having been the main and in many ways the only fundamental agenda over the last 35 - 40 years that we (even ordinary NZers) are realising we are now in deeper trouble. That without factoring urgent ecological solutions and taking action - we are to experience environmental blow-back of increasing proportions. We have been going backwards over this time especially as we have added another three and half billion souls to the planetary population. In doing so - the web of life ‘Nature’ - that embraces and integrates all the ecosystems that are layered over each other from the micro to the macro have been put under unprecedented stress. All due to the increase in mans dominating nature especially around deforestation and pollution at all levels - that has been so overwhelming that our planet’s biota, natural systems and feedback loops are unable to cope with the rapid changes that are upon us. It’s all happening far too quickly and our biosphere can not adapt fast enough in the time available. Thus, with multiple tipping points being reached the possibility of cascading problems is an extreme urgency that has to be addressed. Biosphere collapse has to be avoided!   Today, business people in general when we sit them down and talk ‘one on one’ they will agree that the commercial sector are grabbing and extracting voraciously from the earth, however when they go back to their corporation they cannot or are unable to initiate change. The main reason being that the business world in general has failed themselves by still being ‘ecological illiterate.’ This being predominant in the extreme in the global political arena as well. Today the concept of sustainability has so often been distorted, co-opted, and even trivialized by being used without the ‘ecological context’ that gives it its proper meaning. So, it is worthwhile to reflect about what “sustainability" really means. What is sustained in a sustainable community is not economic growth or competitive advantage, but the entire web of life on which our long-term survival depends. In other words, a sustainable community is designed in such a way that its ways of life, businesses, economy, physical structures, and technologies do not interfere with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. It may be also likened to ‘durable prosperity’ - that nature will last ad infinitum. The first step in this endeavor, naturally, must be to understand how nature sustains life. It turns out that this involves a whole new conception of life. Indeed, such a new conception of life has emerged over the last 30 years. Called ‘The Systems View of Life’ it is grand synthesis of this new understanding of life.    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If2Fw0z6uxY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If2Fw0z6uxY</a> Looking back. Historical Limitations. Klaus reviews Western civilisation over the last 3-4,000 years and though we as a Western material culture have ‘seemingly’ benefited hugely from our endeavours we have gradually committed so much ecological and cultural damage - that we are now belatedly realising that there is a limit to growth on a finite ecological - planetary system - that we are now teetering on overhang.  When we go back to Greece the word oikos means household and nomos means management. Oikonomos, economy, is thus - those things concerning the management of the house or home as on our ‘home' planet - earth. Note that eco for ecology and economics also have the same root prefix.  Thinking in terms of relationships is crucial for ecology, because ecology — (as mentioned above - derived from oikos) is the science of the relationships among various members of the Earth Household. Many indigenous cultures embody profound ecological awareness and think of nature in terms of relationships and patterns. Looking at what the Western model has brought to the world. Dualism: Can be seen as another Western construct.      The separation between the human sphere and the natural sphere. Where once we were connected to the earth - the wind whispered, the trees sighed, the brook gurgled and oneness within nature permeated much of life from as far back as neolithic times. We were embedded in natural forces. That over time the academic Greeks started to quantify and measure and objectify things and dualism and ‘separation’ gradually came into being. We put up walls and insulated and isolated ourselves from the environment. Anthropocentric:  human centeredness  - that we can measure everything through the lenses of human experience and that we only look at the environment for its usefulness. Materialism:  the predominance of measuring any reality in the terms of matter as against energy or spirit - or the intangible. Having things and measuring success by ‘owning’ things and stacking them up all around us. Atomism:  and our modern science where we are very proud “knowing all about very little and losing the ability to learn a little about everything” … A shift from a more general understanding to more precise expertise - and thus not seeing the larger context. Locked into reductionism and reducing everything down to the mini particle and eventual invisible energy packets. Greed: when individuals and materialism come together and the so called ‘enlightenment’ - celebrating the idea of individual freedom - another European invention - (has a lot of good things going for it - like human rights and even democracy and so forth) - the dark side is individualism that came into being and - taking it all - with no limits becoming a norm.  This translates that one does not have a sense of collective interdependence and responsibilities anymore - and when you combine these with capitalism and materialism we see the 001% of the 1% express what they are doing at the top of the power structures of today. This is what we have today. We have a great deal of separation - living in buildings doing our best to experience some sort of community yet people have in many ways -  just become consumers rather than citizens. Economism:  that we measure everything through the lens of economic cost benefit analysis - time is money  - be it Local or Central government.  How much is that worth? How much did you win, how much did you lose?   My net worth is ……….. Add up the 1st letters of these 6 words and they Equal = DAMAGE This European experience is totally out of step of non European cultures thus the need to heal our planetary systems and be more open to listen …. We need to become citizens of the earth see ourselves as brother and sisters with other parts of our planet. We are in this together - so we need to know what is it like to articulate what it is to be human on this - our beautiful planet earth. The necessity now is to have a Nationwide Conversation and talk about long term strategies. We are all integrated within the web of life - even if we do not realise it - and with all biota.  However, with climate change upon us and the invisible membrane of our atmosphere that envelope’s our planet as the only barrier between us and deep space. The imperative is to understand we are together - breathing in and out - this invisible barrier that is fundamental to our survival as a species. As Chief Seattle the American First Nation medicine man stated “whatever we do to the web of life - we do to ourselves.” That we as humanity need to understand what the ‘global commons’ is and then how to honour it and respectfully work with it. This is when we learn to become ‘Ecologically Literate.’ <a href="http://earthcharter.org/virtual-library2/images/uploads/Korten%20Earth%20Charter%20Indianapolis%20Talk.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://earthcharter.org/virtual-library2/images/uploads/Korten%20Earth%20Charter%20Indianapolis%20Talk.pdf</a>

Klaus Bosselmann: The urgency of Ecological Literacy and a new ‘conscious’ understanding of Nature

WHAT IS THE EARTH CHARTER? The Earth Charter is an ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society during this 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action. The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. Created by a global consultation process, and endorsed by organizations representing millions of people, the Charter "seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family, the greater community of life, and future generations." It calls upon humanity to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history. The Earth Charter's ethical vision proposes that  environmental protection, human rights, equitable  human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. The Charter attempts to provide a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues. How do we integrate world citizens into a grassroots movement to bring this into being? Can the people of the Earth promote this idea so as to not lose power to the overriding corporate global resource grab that is ubiquitous and increasing? With the TPPA the Transpacific Partnership Agreement and the TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being foisted upon many countries in their respective regions, is the  Earth Charter robust enough to ensure that humanity will be able to have a just and fair future? We are now also deeply embedded in an era of the Security State of Global Proportions how is this going to affect the Charter?    As we near 2020, we are seeing that the Charter may need some revising and that we as a humanity have to go beyond ecological sustainability and repurpose how we respond to the rapidly increasing ecological, economic and societal challenges that are all presently converging. Regeneration of the environment has to be a priority of the highest order, as well as looking deeply at the particulates in the air, water and food chain. With geoengineering being played with, what are the repercussions in our fast altering world, where democracy is now being seen as becoming very poorly represented and even problematic? (the two party electoral system in the USA and the UK) Whilst big world media becomes more omnipresent, globally yet concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.   Environmental Modification Convention   There is a need to give more teeth to enforce the rule of law on countries that break these conventions, especially ENMOD.   The Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), formally the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques is an international treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. It opened for signature on 18 May 1977 in Geneva and entered into force on 5 October 1978. The Convention bans weather warfare, which is the use of weather modification techniques for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction. The Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 would also ban some forms of weather modification or geoengineering. Yes, we definitely need regulation to stop unbridled degradation of the earth’s resources, because as most people know the corporate world’s only aim is to make a profit for shareholders. With corporate ‘responsibility’ seen with increasing suspicion we need to have this discussion of how we justly care for the 7.5 billion human inhabitants and the future of our biosphere especially children of today and tomorrow.       This is a repeat of an interview broadcast in 2006 and no doubt this important subject needs to be addressed far more in the public arena - now - 10 years after broadcast. http://earthcharter.org

WHAT IS THE EARTH CHARTER? The Earth Charter is an ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society during this 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action. The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. Created by a global consultation process, and endorsed by organizations representing millions of people, the Charter "seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family, the greater community of life, and future generations." It calls upon humanity to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history. The Earth Charter's ethical vision proposes that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_protection" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> environmental protection</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">human rights</a>, equitable <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_development_(humanity)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> human development</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_peace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">peace</a> are interdependent and indivisible. The Charter attempts to provide a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues. How do we integrate world citizens into a grassroots movement to bring this into being? Can the people of the Earth promote this idea so as to not lose power to the overriding corporate global resource grab that is ubiquitous and increasing? With the TPPA the Transpacific Partnership Agreement and the TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being foisted upon many countries in their respective regions, is the  Earth Charter robust enough to ensure that humanity will be able to have a just and fair future? We are now also deeply embedded in an era of the Security State of Global Proportions how is this going to affect the Charter?    As we near 2020, we are seeing that the Charter may need some revising and that we as a humanity have to go beyond ecological sustainability and repurpose how we respond to the rapidly increasing ecological, economic and societal challenges that are all presently converging. Regeneration of the environment has to be a priority of the highest order, as well as looking deeply at the particulates in the air, water and food chain. With geoengineering being played with, what are the repercussions in our fast altering world, where democracy is now being seen as becoming very poorly represented and even problematic? (the two party electoral system in the USA and the UK) Whilst big world media becomes more omnipresent, globally yet concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Environmental Modification Convention   There is a need to give more teeth to enforce the rule of law on countries that break these conventions, especially ENMOD.   The Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), formally the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques is an international treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. It opened for signature on 18 May 1977 in Geneva and entered into force on 5 October 1978. The Convention bans weather warfare, which is the use of weather modification techniques for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction. The Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 would also ban some forms of weather modification or geoengineering. Yes, we definitely need regulation to stop unbridled degradation of the earth’s resources, because as most people know the corporate world’s only aim is to make a profit for shareholders. With corporate ‘responsibility’ seen with increasing suspicion we need to have this discussion of how we justly care for the 7.5 billion human inhabitants and the future of our biosphere especially children of today and tomorrow.      This is a repeat of an interview broadcast in 2006 and no doubt this important subject needs to be addressed far more in the public arena - now - 10 years after broadcast. <a href="http://earthcharter.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://earthcharter.org</a>

Klaus Bosselmann - Revisiting the Earth Charter