ODE TO EARTH

Breathing Hope, Extinguishing Fear

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pure Water for all: NOT GOLF COURSES FOR THE RICH

1. Let's form an immense virtual & physical choir worldwide to sing ‘ODE to EARTH,' flooding the world with beauty and hope to counter fear, razor wire and drowned children, care for Earth and pure water for everyone.

2. Occupy/cut off water to Trump's golf courses, linking up with existing physical camps and climate strike movements to end war and heal Earth to form the heart of one global peace camp and movement, both physical and virtual - a 'GLOBAL STANDING ROCK', building concrete action, physical and via internet to achieve global disarmament, the redistribution of 3% of military resources and personnel, the promotion of World INTERDependence and a peace-filled, just and re-greened planet, rich in pure water.

3. Post videos of our own versions of 'Ode', straight, hip hop, raggae, salsa - wherever the imagination leads, posting them to social media, as widely as possible.

Daniel Barenboim: "I believe that music has the capacity to create a greater reality."

Especially from Hitler 'the monster' moved to tears to the end (minute 43.46). Wonderful!

Accelerating global warming threatens all life on Earth. Yet fear, greed and planetary ravaging are rampant, while the USA, only 0.046% of our shared planet's population, and by far its worst polluter per person, abandons the Paris Climate Accords and disembowels the US Environmental Protection Agency. Despite global warming being caused primarily by the USA/Europe, it is most savagely impacting already-impoverished peoples of the Global South, driving increasing millions into exile as refugees, and making the current global environmental tragedy catastrophic.

1.5/2.0C rises are global averages. For example, tiny impoverished/exploited Nicaragua is facing rises of 3.0-6.0C, yet its contribution to greenhouse gases is minuscule. And we can already fry eggs on the pavement!

This is a global emergency. It requires more urgent, and more widespread, action than all the great revolutions of human history to date rolled into one.

Fewer than 30% of his own people elect Donald Trump (0.0135 of global population!!), yet the lives of literally billions of people - indeed all living beings - are in his hands. For the sake of Earth and all her suffering peoples and species, policies based on dangerous fatuities such as ‘global warming is a Chinese hoax’ must be challenged by building a 'ONE PLANET! ONE PEOPLE!' single movement, worldwide, of hope, cooperation and care for the planet. A movement of beauty and imagination, rooted in serious and sustained action to regreen the planet. A movement that acknowledges and encourages the countless positive initiatives already working so hard all over the world, yet never reported, weaving them into an exquisite filigree of hope and beauty, holding the very Earth in tenderness.

Echoes of Silence believes the Arts are profoundly suited to inspiring such a movement since they offer limitless means of reflection/expression and influence us so profoundly, especially at the subconscious level. And, in its celebration of universal sister/brotherhood, Beethoven’s setting of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ stands supreme. Beloved throughout the world, it perfectly captures our most deeply-held aspirations and beliefs of peace and universal sister/brotherhood. Hence the proposal that:

Choirs/individuals worldwide come together as one immense global choir, to flood airwaves, stadiums, streets with an ‘ODE to EARTH’ set to Beethoven’s melody,

to celebrate hope, tolerance and care for the planet,

and calling on people everywhere to ‘Declare INTERDependence!’ and collective, united, Action for Peace

This global creative action both celebrates Earth’s exquisite beauty, and recognizes that, to have any hope of healing it, we must immediately commit to action to become who we truly are, one single people, guardians of one single planet.

1. Universities, religious bodies, city/state/national governments, radio/TV stations, etc. formally adopt a Peoples Declaration of World INTERDependence based on the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, and develop programmes of education/action to make it effective, locally and globally (for text of the Declaration, please see WINDY DAY page

2. They formally request the United Nations to declare an annual World INTERDependence Day, again with related educational and other tools to make it active in people’s daily lives.

3. They pledge themselves to defend the Paris Climate Accords by all means in their power, including disinvestment programmes, boycotts, social media, and even non-violent direct action where necessary.

4. They call on all governments to re-allocate at least 3% of current military budgets to regreen Earth amd bring pure water to everyone. As the planet’s single most environmentally-destructive entity, the military’s commitment of vast resources and millions of creative lives to develop ever-more frightful weapons is an affront to impoverished peoples everywhere; a shameful destruction of limited global resources; and an appalling abuse of our wonderful collective intelligence.

5. They also require all nations and individuals that have become obscenely wealthy by unjustly appropriating the Earth's common resources, to assist those countries impoverished by their greed to adapt to the climate change caused, in large measure, by that very same selfishness.

This proposal will:

Pre-empt wars over water - infinitely more precious than oil
Release vast quantities of resources and skilled personnel to transform life for all
Begin genuine global disarmament
Truly honor the millions who died, so terribly, so often, to ‘end all war’