I’ve turned my hand to making a little home-made video for my climate-science-electro-pop-dance track “Love for our Future”, as part of my Rose Carrousel music project. Thanks to Sudip Khadka for his excellent camera work. I’ve added the lyrics as text – you can read them if you turn on cc (see instructions below the video). I hope you find the lyrics inspiring and uplifting when thinking about caring for our future world. If you like the track you can buy a copy at bandcamp. 50% of sales go to the Long Future Foundation.

Want to read the lyrics while you listen? Turn on cc:  There is a little box with the letters cc that you turn on at the bottom of the youtube window, or you will find it if you click on the 3 little vertical dots at the top right of the youtube window on your phone.

By request, here are the lyrics:

Love for our Future
Heidi Edmonds

Verse:
This is the sound of my heart beating
And a little heart beating, beating next to mine
And there’s a little billion heart beats beating, keeping time
When I hold my little loves in my arms I wonder how can I best show love for our future
Show love for our future

Clean air, green trees, little birds tweeting
It’s amazing this place we live
I want these wonderful things
in my girls’ futures

Chorus:
Buy less
Love More
Speak up
For the future of those that we adore

Its time for us
to be superheroes
and save
the world

repeat chorus

break
don’t need these big shiny things
just time for conversations and love
don’t need these big shiny things
just a healthy planet and food to eat

Verse 2:

This is my heart beating
These are my feet stomping
Won’t you come and join the dance to do all we can
to show love to the future, show love for our future

Tend your garden
Buy an education
For a little girl on the other side of the world
Put solar panels on your roof darling

we can keep our plant safe for the ones we love
for our little ones

Second Chorus:
Buy less
Love More
Speak up
For the future of those that we adore

Its time for us
to be superheroes
and save
the world

Outro:
we’re going to weather this together
we’re going to weather this together
keep the coal on the ground and the solar panels high on the roof
we’re going to weather this together
we’re going to weather this together
see the birds in the sky and these green trees and the waves crashing to the shore

Buy less
Love More
Speak up
For the future of those that we adore

for the future of those that we adore

****

mp3 artwork by Stella and Lucinda Edmonds
Vocals, lyrics, music and production: Heidi Edmonds
Mastered by Mastered by Shuhandz at Sapphire Studios (shuhandz.com)

https://rosecarrousel.bandcamp.com/track/love-for-our-future

****

Want to read more:
this song is inspired by:
www.drawdown.org/
www.longfuture.org/
climatesafety.net/climateemergencypetition/
www.deartomorrow.org/en/home/

lots of love
Heidi
http://www.rosecarrousel.com
http://www.climatekiss.com

Want to connect on facebook? You can find me at https://www.facebook.com/rose.carrousel and https://www.facebook.com/climatekiss/

I am very honoured that my good friend Dr Tammra Warby, an Australian family doctor, has written a guest blog about the emerging field of planetary health. Planetary health seeks to address human health and the stability of ecological systems in tandem. Defined as “characterising the linkages between human-caused disruptions of earth’s natural systems and resulting impacts on public health.” While a lot of people may think that climate change is important because of its impacts on the environment, its the potential impacts on human health, happiness and survival that make it personal! Here’s Tammra’s story, which is a call to all of us to look after our planet and look after ourselves at the same time :

Photo credit: The Lakes area near Salzburg, Tammra Warby

Tammra’s story:

I was part of the Emergency team at Ipswich hospital that responded to the massive floods of Queensland in 2010/2011. As the impact spread, I witnessed first hand the effect of the environment on human health. Tragic deaths were followed by a wave of deterioration due to lack of access to crucial medicines caused by road and pharmacy closures, and failure of crucial home medical equipment due to lack of electricity. Injuries and infections during the clean up and a huge spike in mental health issues followed.

According to the CSIRO MegaTrends report, as the next generation grows up they will be affected by water scarcity and food security, both of which depend on the health of the ecosystem around us. We can also already see the increase in number of asthma warnings due to air quality, following the Thunderstorm asthma event in 2016, with it’s 3000% increase in emergency asthma presentations. The Planetary Health Alliance (co-housed with Harvard University) is unravelling the links between accelerated environmental change and it’s effect on human health. Other efforts to introduce change include ecoAmerica’s Climate for Health program, and the Australian Climate and Health Alliance.

The fact is we and our kids all deserve to breath clean air and drink clean water. We are so lucky that as a race we are more connected through technology and information than ever before, with a great ability to effect change together. It can feel like no one else is doing anything, but one of the simplest things you can do for your current health and your children’s future health is reduce your meat, and especially red meat consumption, which in turn will lessen the stress on our limited natural resources and benefit us all.

I plan to meet with the Outreach Coordinator of the Planetary Health Alliance next year when I’m in Boston to speak at the Harvard University Leadership Skills for Women in Healthcare conference. Until then you can follow the conversation on Twitter @DrTammraWarby.

Dr Tammra Warby is an Australian family doctor with a keen interest in the current and future health of people and the planet.

Ok let’s make this brief.

LOVE this book (http://www.drawdown.org/). And not just because of the book itself. What I didn’t know from reading the reviews I found of this book is that you can find the list of their “100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming” right here on their website:

http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

That’s the kind of basic information and data that I love to see! Presented simply and informatively.

I was very excited to get a copy of this book, which, as it’s editor and key driver Paul Hawken states, is the first really comprehensive attempt to present the best practice ideas that we can all start clamouring for to save our wonderful planet and its wonderful civilisation (that’s you and me!), by taking action ourselves and by calling on our governments and industry to do their part.

It presents these 100 solutions with accessible technical information that the average technologically savvy person should be able to understand. For each solution, it lists how many gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents could potentially be avoided or removed from the atmosphere (during the time period between 2020 and 2050). To give a comparative example, the highest scoring “solution” is refrigerant management, which could potentially save 89.74 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents. Another stand-out “solution” is reducing food waste, which could save 70.53 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents, just trumping the 66.11 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents saved if 50% of the world’s population were to convert to a plant rich diet.  In 2016, globally, around 36 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents were released.

The book is an easy-to-use reference, very well put together. The website itself contains a lot of useful information, extending what is presented in the the book. I highly recommend getting  yourself a copy of the book for the ease of use and how it contains so much highly useful information. But I want to make the point that ANYONE with access to the internet can access the important information presented here. As a start, try printing a copy of the “100 most substantive solutions”and sticking it to your fridge so you can help educate yourself and others about what technological and cultural changes we need to be pursuing. You might like to follow their facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/projectdrawdown.

With love,

Heidi