Planting Seeds with Vandana Shiva and Prince Charles in India

In 2013, Shannon Biggs traveled with Global Exchange to India with Dr. Vandana Shiva, and got a surprise visit from His Royal Highness, Prince Charles. In preparation for our next trip to India this November, we are re-posting Shannon’s report-back here.

Prince Charles and Vandana Shiva, Global Exchange delegation, other visitors and Navdanya staff.

Prince Charles and Vandana Shiva, Global Exchange delegation, other visitors and Navdanya staff.

Arriving in Delhi (or nearly anywhere in India), can be a bit of a cultural hard landing for those not from the country. As my friend and Rights of Nature Reality Tour participant, Suzanne York said, “The sights — cows in the road, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks, auto rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, begging mothers, horse and cart, dogs, goats, pedestrians; I’m sure I’m leaving one or two things out.  The sounds – car horns, truck horns, rickshaw horns, firecrackers, dogs barking…did I mention the horns?” Yet despite the pollution and the crowded chaos of the city streets, there is a magic and a poetry that keeps travelers like Suzanne coming back to India time and again (this marked her 5th India trek).

Over a billion people live in India. High levels of poverty and pollution met us in the cities, just as environmental degradation is visible on farms, dried riverbeds, and throughout the countryside. Yet India is equally a land of peaceful, transformative revolution and a cultural and spiritual legacy of dignity for people and sacred respect for the Earth.

Along with spending time with world renowned anti-globalization movement leader, physicist, and eco-feminist, Vandana Shiva, founder of the seed-saving and Earth learning farm, Navdanya, it is this dichotomy that we came to explore in the age of climate chaos, corporate globalization and its quest for endless growth on a finite planet. Rights of Nature, which, as put forward in the Constitutions of Ecuador, national laws in Bolivia and New Zealand, and a growing number of U.S. communities—defines legal rights for ecosystems to “exist, flourish, and regenerate their natural capacities.” 

What is the promise of Rights of Nature in a place like this?

Did you know there are more NGOs in India than anywhere else? 

While our Reality Tour tour visited a few big cities, the focus of the trip was on India’s growing work for Rights of Nature and how that fits with Gandhi’s legacy of peaceful revolution for change.

Children and cows picking through the trash on the streets of Agra.

It is here we learn that there are more NGO’s—whether advocacy groups or direct service providers—than hospitals or schools in India. Here non-profits provide support in formal and informal settings. Many are very small, connecting people in rural settings and big cities with very localized support.

In Delhi, near the railway station, we walked the troubled street life of homeless youth with our guide, a young man whophoto[10] figures he’s about 22, having been discarded by his father when he was around 5. Now college-bound, he works for the famed Salaam Baalak Trust, an organization that helps homeless children find  safety and alternatives to drugs (which are commonly introduced to kids as young as 5 years of age on the streets), and possibly a new future. Our group also met with scholars and activists in the movement against the Korean-based POSCO corporation’s dangerous and deadly project to build a 12 million-tons-per-year steel plant in Orissa, with a captive port and iron ore mines. According to the India Times, more than 250 international human rights organizations, comprising social workers, scientists, legal luminary activists, academics among others, have strongly criticized the Orissa government for using forces to acquire fertile lands on behalf of the corporation, a practice also know as “land grabs.”

photo[16]

In Jaipur, better known as the ‘Pink City,’ we celebrated Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and participated in an entrancing ceremony at the temple of Birla Mandir, honoring Lakshmi, Goddess of both material and spiritual prosperity, for whom Diwali is celebrated, as fireworks and firecrackers and light displays illuminated the skyline. By day we also met with a large group of women empowered through a community micro lending project. From there it was a quick 6 hours by bus to Agra, a city of stark contradictions. The streets are barely able to contain the carpeting of trash and piles of garbage bags, all in the midst of luxury hotels surrounding the Taj Majal. The haze of pollution and the sheer volume of Diwali firework smoke still hanging in the air made it hard to see the Taj from any distance, but stepping closer to this world wonder it is a palpable marvel of architecture and cultural history.

 What the Earth tells us if we listen

Dr. Vandana Shiva at Navdanya

Next stop, a working farm called Navdanya, which promotes biodiversity conservation, organic farming, seed saving, the rights of farmers and the rights of nature.  The farm sits a quiet distance back from the bustle of Dehra Dun and its mere 600,000 inhabitants. As the bus pulls up to the gravel road marked with newly laid chalk, we walk the last 1/2 mile to the open gate of the learning farm. After settling in to our appropriately spartan rooms, equipped with solar showers distilling rain catchment water from the roof, we sit in the gazebo for a conversation with Vandana Shiva before taking a tour of the farm.

Navdanya’s Soil Ecology Lab and Bija Vidyapeeth (Earth University) draws inspiration from India’s first Nobel poet (1917), Tagore, who created a university based on living in and learning from the Earth.  “We must stop living as owners of the Earth, because it is a fallacy that we can continue that path. Here on the farm, we can first begin to learn to be a member of the Earth community,” says Vandana. Circled around her, we speak to Vandana for an hour or more, as she explains the farm, the library, the community activities, and invites us to get our hands dirty while we are there. As the sun gets lower in the sky, she encourages us to walk the grounds, we will meet again tomorrow.

It smells good here, energizing. It feels good here, with the crunch of the Earth beneath our feet. We walk the grounds as our guide, Anna, an intern from France staying on for 6 months, explains that all the food prepared each day for upwards of 50 people, comes from the bounty grown in the humble fields before us. Despite the expertise of the staff and its transient population of interns, scientists, researchers and farmers who have come from around the world—it is the land that is the true teacher here. The rows of plantings are tidy, but not uniform. Anna explains that plants with shallow root systems are placed next to compatible plantings that take their nutrients at deeper levels of soil. Dotted around those are marigolds and other natural insecticides, and crops that replace nutrients the others remove. These acre plots are surrounded by fruit bearing trees and quick growing bamboo. There is a healthful pharmacy planted as well, providing ingredients for the soap used, and natural remedies to treat “Delhi Belly”and other ailments.

Our guide points to another series of single-acre plots, part of a project dedicated to teaching farmers how to grow organic, regionally and nutritionally rich food for a family of 6 on only one acre of land.  As Vandana says, “the idea that we need corporate farming to feed a hungry planet is a destructive notion that contributes to the breakdown of the farming system. We demonstrate the viability of self-sufficient farming that relies only on the relationship between farmer and the land. No chemicals, no GMOs, no seed patenting. Here we plant in right relationship with the land.”

As the sun goes down bringing a chill to the air, it is too dark to finish the tour so we pass the barn, and say hello to the new calf and the two cows that provide milk for the chai tea we are about to enjoy back at the dining hall. That night in the lecture hall, in preparation for tomorrow’s Royal visitor, the lecture on permaculture was postponed in favor of watching the film “Harmony”, a collaboration with Vandana Shiva and outspoken advocate for organic farming, His Royal Highness, Prince Charles who first converted his Scottish home, Highgrove Castle to organic in 1986, to great public ridicule.

Rights of Nature: A gift fit for a prince

photo[7]

By sheer coincidence, Prince Charles and his wife the Dutchess were in India on a general tour, and while Camilla was off making pottery in Debra Dun, the prince walked the farm with Vandana, the same tour we had taken with Anna, ultimately visiting the seed bank where Navdanya conserves 1,500 seed varieties. There he planted two varieties of barley, and ultimately made his way to the gazebo, where the rest of the staff and visitors were drinking chai.

Accompanied by Vandana, he spent about 15 minutes with our delegation, readily making jokes and asking questions about our journey, Green party politics in Texas, the state of the US anti-GMO movement. Introducing our group, I described the delegation’s purpose, and shared our understanding that currently, law treats nature as property, and that our legal systems are aimed at controlling and dominating nature. (So far he seemed interested, so I continued): unless we begin to use law to drive rights for communities and ecosystems, the natural and organic farms that he championed were all under threat from agribusiness, GMOs, and industrial activities like fracking. I wrapped up my sermon by giving him a copy of our Rights of Nature book, which I mentioned was written by people he knew, including Vandana Shiva, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and others.

Once the caravan departed and the Royal dust settled, our group sat down with Vandana Shiva for a discussion on Rights of Mother Earth, water and seed saving. “The seed, for the farmer, is not merely the source of future plant  food, it is the storage place of culture, of history,” as Vandana has said. “Seed is the first link in the food chain. It is also the source of life itself, the ultimate symbol of food security.” Through patents on seeds, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” on the planet, collecting rents from life’s renewal and from farmers, the original breeders. Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into a plant cell is not the “creation” or invention of the plant.

photo 3

When seeds are no longer the bounty of the Earth, but corporate property, the farmer enters the cycle of being forced to purchase Monsanto corporation’s seeds, which do not produce as promised, take more water to grow, and require expensive pesticides—putting farmers into debt they cannot repay. This is the leading cause of farmer suicides in India, and a growing phenomenon in the United States, as corporations like Monsanto gain control over farmers everywhere. “That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto’s Bt (GMO) cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic. No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.” Before we left Navdanya we gave a presentation to the community on Rights of Nature, speaking about communities in the United States, and the movement around the world. (Watch Shannon Biggs and Vandana Shiva speak on the Global Exchange panel at the UN Rio + 20 summit in 2012.)

Floating candles, flowers and prayers for the Rights of the Ganga

photo[18]

Despite the undrinkable nature of tap water for visitors, or the toxins and pollution that flow freely into the waterways from homes and industry—water in India is sacred, and nowhere more so than the Ganges, or the Ganga, as she is called.  We left the farm for Rishikesh, a hilly village that is as famous for its role in the making of the Beatles’ White Album as it is for its stunning landscape, built around the Ganga and framed by the Himalayas. It provides about 40% of India’s water, though the entire watershed is breaking down under the intense strains of use and abuse.

The widespread Save Ganga movement follows the Gandhian model for peaceful change.  A powerful component of that broad coalition is the National Ganga Rights Movement, led by the charismatic Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji. We met with him and his staff, sitting cross legged on the ground in a small quiet garden oasis behind their office. “Welcome Home,” Swami greeted us.  As he would explain, we breathe the same air that our ancestors did, drink the same water and are connected to one another by the web of life. So we are always home.

They are working to pass a national Ganges Rights Act to protect the entire river watershed with our allies at CELDF.   Some of the language included in the Act can also be found in a chapter we wrote with Mari Margil, for our book, Rights of Nature: The Case for A Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.  It was exciting to see it being used in actual legislation:

Under a rights-based system of law, a river may be recognized as having the right to flow, fish and other species in a river may be recognized as having the right to exist and evolve, and the flora and fauna that depend on a river may be recognized as having the right to thrive. This legal framework seeks to protect the natural ecological balance of that habitat. Just as the lion hunts the antelope as part of the natural cycle of life, recognizing Rights of Nature does not put an end to fishing or other human activities. Rather, it places them in the context of a healthy relationship where our actions do not threaten the balance of the system upon which we depend. Further, these laws do not stop all development, rather they halt only those activities that interfere with the existence and vitality of the ecosystems dependent upon that land.

Today, the Ganga River Basin is right-less, mere property to be used at will. The proposed legislation would:

• Establish the basin’s right to exist, thrive, regenerate, and evolve;
• Establish the rights of the people, as well as other ecosystems and natural communities, to a healthy river basin;
• Provide that any activity that interferes with the basin’s rights is prohibited;
• Provide that any damages that may be awarded for violations of the basin’s rights are to be awarded for the purpose of, and in the amount necessary to, restore the ecosystem to its pre-damaged state;
• Establish enforcement mechanisms to protect and defend the basin’s rights, including establishing governmental offices responsible for defending those rights; and
• Empower people, communities, civil society, and governments within India to protect and defend the basin’s rights.

One of the ways the Ganga Rights movement is spreading education is through the Aartis, a devotional ritual that uses fire as an offering, held daily at 6 pm in the three most spiritual parts of the Ganges, including Rishikesh. Each night thousands come to the river to participate in this beautiful ceremony. The Priests say a prayer using lanterns, and the people float flowers and candles down the river in tiny boats made of woven leaves. The offering is made to the Goddess Ganga, goddess of the most holy river in India.  With prayer, it is believed the holy Ganga can cleanse the sins of the devoted. “The problem is,” says Swami Saraswatiji, “people believe that in addition to washing away sins, many believe the river can clean the toxins.  We use the aarti each night to educate people about the rights of the Ganga, and what is needed from us to protect her.” The swami is one of the priests who preside over the Rishikesh aarti, which Prince Charles and Camilla had attended the night before.

photo[9]

Our last stop on the Ganges was in Hardiwar, considered the holiest of places on the river Ganges and where we would take in an Aarti.  Thousands came, prayed and left. It is not a long ceremony.  As I stood with my feet in the river Ganges, I said a quiet prayer for the rights of this river, and for the people that would come together to defend those rights, and sent my flowers and my thoughts  floating quietly into the night.

Prince Charles Vandana

Shannon Biggs explaining Rights of Nature to Prince Charles, with Vandana Shiva

Click here to learn about our next trip to India, November 1-11, 2015!

The following post was written by Caitlin Kawaguchi, summer intern with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

When J. Stephen Cleghorn realized that Paradise Gardens and Farm, his certified-organic farm in Pennsylvania that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, was at risk of being “fracked” for shale gas extraction, he knew he had to act. But he did more than just act against fracking when he became the first private property owner in the United States to use a deed easement recognizing the Rights of Nature to ban all activities that would do systemic harm to the ecosystem both above and deep below the surface of his farm.

“We wanted to preserve organic agriculture on these 50 acres to be sure, but also wanted to employ this recognition of Rights of Nature to deter any activity that would threaten those rights at the surface in the deep biosphere below this farm,” said Cleghorn.

Subsurface rights, sometimes called the mineral estate or ‘split’ estate, are often leased or sold to fracking companies in order to drill and dump millions of gallons of toxins below private property and ground water. In most states, these mineral “rights” were sold as long ago as 100 years or more, affording residents no say over what happens under their feet — and sometimes even on their property.

Cleghorn describes himself and his late wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart Gonzalez, as environmentally conscious, although they didn’t leave the city to take up farming with the intention of making a huge statement. His wife wanted to be a cheese maker and Cleghorn wanted to farm again after a short experience he had as a young adult. Together they thought that, while they might not be able to change the world, on their 50 acres they could make a positive contribution, farming as true stewards of the land, be part of a vibrant local food system and community, and reduce their carbon footprint. They set out to transition the farm to a local, organic, sustainable farm and hoped it would be a place to inspire and train future generations of farmers.

When Lucinda passed away in 2011, Cleghorn decided to use the easement to memorialize Lucinda’s legacy of very difficult work by which she and Cleghorn built a viable and thriving organic farm. He named the easement after her and enacted it on the first anniversary of her passing, November 14, 2012. With  THE DR. LUCINDA HART-GONZÁLEZ CONSERVATION EASEMENT, Cleghorn sees himself as living the change the world needs and setting an example of working in partnership with Nature. That could change the world, he hopes, as the Rights of Nature are asserted, fully recognized, and protected under the law. He hopes that this easement will inspire other individuals to also take a stand for Nature and the future of the planet.

“This easement is not only about about preserving land for organic agriculture; it also speaks to a paradigm shift that is needed in our thinking so that we recognize that we are part of nature, not lords over it. Our long history is catching up with us. We’re either going to turn around our thinking and behavior, or we are going to leave a wasteland for future generations,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn accepts that the easement could devalue his property because it restricts the use of the land, but he believes that defending Nature’s rights is more important. Since it is attached to the deed, even when the deed changes hands, the new owners will have to comply with its terms.

“The groundbreaking idea of affirming the Rights of Nature is that this property is not so much longitudes and latitudes divided up into commodities. It’s first of all Earth, Nature, and it is indivisible,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn says he no longer recognizes Pennsylvania state laws that speak of supposed surface and subsurface “rights” to the land. “The state’s practice of splitting a part of Nature into who owns the surface versus who owns the subsurface, as well as considering each surveyed property as only ‘private’ property without respect to its origins within and connection to Nature as a whole, those are ‘rights’ I don’t recognize anymore. What we’re trying to do is make the gas companies come into court and argue against the rights of Nature , to make them argue that their industrial activity they call “fracking” gets to threaten those living systems by which all of life is sustained. We don’t think they will want to do that. The easement is one of a number of steps I’m willing to take to hold them off.”

It isn’t only individuals that can take a stand, and are taking a stand, in this way. Cities, townships, and municipalities are adopting community bills of rights that put their right to a clean ecosystem and the Rights of Nature into law. Pittsburgh has banned fracking within its city limits on such a basis. These local ordinances display a paradigm shift in our culture towards recognizing Nature’s rights and asserting our community rights. If the government won’t protect Nature, it’s time that others follow Cleghorn’s example and take action, as individuals or in our communities, to protect the world we live in.

Anyone interested in discussing a similar easement for their land should contact Shannon Biggs at Global Exchange, or the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). CELDF helped Cleghorn write his easement and is a signatory to it, standing ready to defend the easement in court if that becomes necessary.  Stephen Cleghorn is also an active boardmember of the Stop The Frack Attack Network.

Exactly 13 years after the #N30 actions to shut down the WTO, Global Exchange returns to Seattle with a similar message: #StopTPP!

We all know free trade agreements are politically, economically, and environmentally harmful.

But this weekend at TPPxBorder, hearing people speak to the real consequences of these deals brought my understanding of the dangers of these Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to a very human scale.

Listening to the voices of people who are affected by these FTAs – a pulp mill worker from Everett, WA, who got laid off two years before pension, HIV positive people who won’t be able to afford life-saving medication because of patent laws that protect profits instead of access, a Philippine woman who was forced to leave her family in search of work – these voices remind me that free trade isn’t just an ‘issue’ to discuss or debate. Free trade is about about profits at the expense of people’s health and safely. About trade over ethics. About politics over people and planet.

Free trade ‘agreements’ are anything but consensual.

In fact, the only partnering happening in the TransPacific ‘Partnership’ is is the stitching together of the 1%- corporations and politicians-  whilst the entirety of civil society is excluded and ignored… for now.

That’s why on Saturday December 1, a crowd of hundreds gathered at the U.S.-Canada border to demonstrate our unity and solidarity against the TransPacific Partnership. Representatives from four of the 13 negotiating countries – along with New Zealand by phone – spoke of the risks that the TPP presents to their communities, and the powerful international unity being built to stand up and protect our dignity, our planet, and our human rights.

Jill Mangaliman, Philippine U.S. Solidarity Organization pusoseattle.wordpress.com/

We called this one TPPxBorder: The People’s Round. What I loved about this rally wasn’t only the fiery speakers, the diversity, the music, the unity, the hot coffee, and the ultra-legitimacy of our opposition to this heinous version of the TPP…. what I loved was learning about what an alternative deal would look like- one by and for the people. Listening to speakers and experts articulately describe what fair trade looks like, what it offers communities internationally, reminds me why these fights are so important, and the promise of real, practical, and respectful trade solutions. We have answers – now is the time to join hands and fight for them.

After our rally, and piñata action (in which people managed to overcome ‘blindfolds’ of corporate greenwashing and lobbyist money to finally destroy the TPP piñata and release the affordable jellybean ‘medicines’ and GMO-free popcorn trapped inside!) we headed indoors to a warm meal and strategy sessions to plan future action.

Global Exchange & Witness for Peace co-led a “Social Media to #StopTPP” breakout group to discuss “Twitterstorming”  the corporations secretly negotiating TPP.

The breakout group I co-lead was about how we can use social media to #StopTPP. Our strategy is to call out the corporations negotiating the TPP in secret… and put their secrets in public view on social media channels. This week, our coalition members are calling out two corporate interests a day on their ties to the TPP… would you like to join the Twitterstorm? Just follow @GlobalExchange and @ElectDemocracy on Twitter, then retweet our actions every day this week at 11am and 2pmPST to help spread the word about #StopTPP using the very follower lists that these corporations have built. We can use your help and you can participate from anywhere.

The TransPacific Partnership is on a 1%-gilded beltway and it’s moving fast. But there is time (and enough of us) to stop it. The first thing we all can do is help spread the word. None of us can afford another NAFTA. Help us get the last 250,000 signatures needed this year to reach 1 million on the Avaaz petition against the TPP! And ask your organization to sign the Unity Statement.

VIDEO: Unity Statement at TPPxBorder Rally Dec. 1, 2012

For more information about the TransPacific Partnership and what you can do to stop it, see “10 Reasons to Oppose the TPP.” Thank you for supporting Fair Trade this holiday season, and telling corporations negotiating the TPP in secret exactly what you think of them. Together, we can #StopTPP.

That’s right folks, the sign says “Free Trade, my Ass!”

 

Turning U.S. Military Bases into Eco-Development Centers

This project could forge a diverse global coalition to press for the transformation of hundreds of U.S. military bases overseas into eco-development centers for launching the global green economy from the grassroots.

The world is facing two interlinked crises: militarism and global destruction of the environment. They are obviously related, in that the U.S. military is probably the most egregious polluter and waster of resources on the planet, and the Pentagon functions to protect the dominant role of transnational corporations, which are notorious violators of human rights and environmental justice principles. This project will seek to unify the peace movement and the green movement by working together on a visionary campaign that simultaneously addresses the environmental crisis and the need for the United States to make a transition from being an empire to being just one nation in a community of nations.

The more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world are part of an old model of domination, militarism, and environmental contamination. Instead of protecting the United States, these bases have made us the target of animosity and attacks from groups opposed to the U.S. presence on their soil. These bases represent institutional inertia rather than serving any real national security interest of the American people. Quite the contrary: by inserting thousands of young, poorly educated yet well-armed American males into foreign cultures they know little about, we are generating hostility and resentment that fuels the passions of those who would do us harm.

This project has an important national security component, given the fact that the force structure of the U.S. military is not appropriate for the current threats we face as a nation. The force structure and strategic doctrine of the U.S. military were forged over 60 years of preparing for a land war with Soviet tank armies on the steppes of Eastern Europe. Now the threat is a highly  motivated individual with a suitcase bomb containing radioactive material. The struggle against this type of zealotry cannot be won with tanks and bombs, it is a war for hearts and minds, and that war can be won with eco-development on a grand scale.

This campaign will call for handing U.S. bases back to their respective national governments, with the U.S. government and civil society institutions undertaking a clean-up campaign during the transition in ownership.  Through grassroots networks and donations from local citizens, the local governments will be encouraged to transform these bases into educational and experimental clean-tech centers promoting green practices that will help us address the environmental crisis, while generating good green jobs and eco-entrepreneurship.

The conversion of these bases into models of eco-development would be beneficial to the United States in many ways:

  • it would help transform the U.S. from a dominating empire into a global partner, thereby making us more appreciated and less of a target for terrorist attacks;
  • it would save the U.S. billions of dollars now being wasted on maintaining this global network of bases;
  • by helping countries develop more sustainable practices and cutting-edge green technology, it will have a positive impact on the planet we all share.

Objectives

  • Unify diverse global movements that are now separated by tactical issues. Global Exchange already has close ties with many of these networks so we are well placed to play this match-making role. Existing programs such as Fair Trade and Reality Tours could introduce this new messaging with little additional cost.
  • Provide a positive and cohesive framework for thousands of groups around the world struggling to bring peace and to create jobs by saving the environment.
  • Put the U.S. government and military on the defensive instead of us always being on the defensive against their various wars and wasteful spending.
  • Get people like Congressman Dennis Kucinich to sponsor legislation aimed at switching resources from the military to eco-development.
  • Generate cross-sector collaboration between NGOs, governments, and green enterprises to transform the foreign bases.
  • Regain respect for America after the damage done by the Bush administration’s aggressive foreign policies.
  • Grow organic food that can be given to local service agencies helping the weakest sectors of the local population.
  • Innovate new technologies in toxic waste remediation through natural methods.
  • Create collaborative spaces where international youth brigades could come together to learn nonviolence and sustainable development practices.
  • Provide large enough space for permaculture “universities” to train the trainers who will then go out and instruct communities on green economy issues such as green building, energy conservation, renewable energy technology, urban agriculture, water conservation, natural purification of grey water and black water, clean-tech incubation, alternative transportation, neighborhood empowerment policies, and much more.

All empires collapse. The challenge before us is this: can we create a soft landing for the U.S. empire by transforming our military bases around the world into platforms for accelerating the transition to the next economy: the green economy.