Episode 45: About how we treat mother earth, with Dominic MacCormack

According to countless experts, the climate change emergency is the greatest threat of our era. The issue though, is that this problem is of such enormous magnitude that our individual nervous systems have trouble processing and treating it like an emergency.

Today on the podcast you’ll meet Dominic MacCormack, an expert on land use and water resources. Dominic’s answer to how to address climate change? With storytelling. With our voices. Dominic offers that it’s crucial that we share our visions with each other about the world we want to live in. Only through raising our voices can we take action as a collective to create a new story. 🗣🌟🌎

Listen here on Apple Podcasts.

Listen here on Spotify. 

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Show Notes:   

Recap

• 0:00 - Welcome to and some background about Dominic, an expert on land use, water resources, and climate change.
• 6:54 - What is sustainability? Dominic offers: It is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.
• 7:35 - Dominic explains the Sustainable Development Agenda from the UN - an international effort to work together to tackle the enormous problem of climate change.
• 13:00 - Our Speak Your Truth check in. 
• 20:32 - Elissa asks: How do we harness the sacred feminine quality of infinite organizing power to tackle climate change? Actions to prevent climate change don’t have clear, immediate “events.” So we have to create vision through storytelling.
• 29:17 - Dominic shares a story about the BirdReturns program in California. Over the past 150 years, we’ve lost 95% of the wetlands in the California Central Valley. This program gives thousands of migrating birds a place to rest along the Pacific flyaway.
• 37:52 - during Hurricane Sandy wetlands in the region prevented 600 million $ in damages
• 41:20 - if we think we’re smarter than nature, we’re wrong
• 42:53 - More about climate change and how we approach it. Most important actions: achieve climate neutrality and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies (this is the exact money - $10 million per minute!!! - that could be helping us build a greener future)
• 49:54 - How do we make a difference as individual citizens? Answers: Break up with your bank… aka divest your money from the fossil fuel industry. And: VOTE! In every election you possibly can. And organize, connect, and collaborate.
• 54:30 - Dominic answers: What does it mean to you to speak your truth?
• 57:06 - Dominic reads us a letter of apology to Mother Earth, an excerpt from V (formerly Eve Ensler)’s book The Apology

Resources

You can reach Dominic and learn more about his consulting business, Better Planet Policy, on his website here: https://www.betterplanetpolicy.com

Dominic spent a recent portion of his career working for the US Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA)

Here are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/

Dominic encountered V’s letter on Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/10/28/eve-ensler-apology-mother-earth/

In case you want to watch the Crown too 👑

Elissa mentioned Episode 1 of this podcast, “About your story” with Christina Blacken

Here is information about the BirdReturn program from the Nature Conservancy

Information about the Cornell bird database

Information about the IMF estimate of the hidden cost of fossil fuel subsidies

Organizations to support: 350.org (the number 350 is significant because it is the safe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in parts per million, and today we are way above that safe concentration at around 416ppm) and the Sunrise Movement.

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Production Credits:

Our Editor is Sean Brennan

Our Graphic Designer is Laura Sills

Our Photography is by Sophie Mathewson

And our theme song is “Waters of Body” by Strange Weather

 Please note that Amazon links in the show notes are connected to the Voice Body Connection Associates account. All other partner links are acknowledged. Thank you for supporting the podcast!