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• Very Important Information
  by RedBubble

  Calling anyone who may have uploaded a t-shirt onto RedBubble at any point in the past, present and future, you will want to read this: / ...

  Calling anyone who may have uploaded a t-shirt onto RedBubble at any point in the past, present and future, you will want to read this: Very Important Information On T-Shirt Previews Thank you.

• This is a hard story to read and a tougher one to live...please read it anyway..It's the most important thing I've written on Red Bubble.
  by Melinda Kerr

  Many of you guys know my passion for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda after visiting there as a photojournalist …

  Many of you guys know my passion for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda after visiting there as a photojournalist in April and May this year. Much of our time was spent at HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, in the eastern province known as South Kivu. South Kivu is considered ‘lawless’ as the various militias roam the countryside and villages quite literally raping and pillaging. I say various because there are many. One consists of the remnants of those who slaughtered their fellow Rwandans 13 years ago, another is from Robert Mugabe’s private army (think ‘Blood Diamond’ – that’s their style). Yet another is secretly supported by the Rwandan government who are lured by the promise of diamonds and more land. You see D.R. Congo has the most natural resources of any country in Africa. This should be a cause for celebration. But it brings heartbreak, despair and the most overwhelming cruelty you could imagine possible. You must wonder at my obsession with this cause. The thing is, it’s invaded my mind and kidnapped my heart. Following is an article about D.R. Congo. It was published in the New York Times in October this year. You remember October. It was less than 4 weeks ago. I hope you read it. It’s not meant to make you sad and turn away. It’s an unashamed attempt to get you involved. In prayers and you bet, in money. These guys don’t want your sympathy they want your help. This is written about another hospital apart from HEAL Africa. But the story is exactly the story of the HEAL Africa hospital. And the people you seein my photos. Take my word for it. I stood in the victims urine and feces. I touched their macheted limbs. And I played with kids who suffer diseases we fix with one of those pesky little things we call needles. Ladies this is a call to action. In February (14th lunch time) my sister here she is… she is hosting a lunch for Lyn Lusi the head of HEAL Africa. Yep she’s going to be in Melbourne. And I am getting a table together. It’s $55 a head and Lyn will tell you first hand what is happening in Congo. Much of it will be about the treatment of women. I’d love love love to have some Red Bubble chicks at my table. $55 for charity, a great meal and words that will change your life, from one of the rarest people you will ever meet. Please please please come. Anyway to the article. Read it please. Knowledge is power. The New York Times October 2007 BUKAVU, Congo — Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair. “We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.” Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country. “The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.” The days of chaos in Congo were supposed to be over. Last year, this country of 66 million people held a historic election that cost $500 million and was intended to end Congo’s various wars and rebellions and its tradition of epically bad government. But the elections have not unified the country or significantly strengthened the Congolese government’s hand to deal with renegade forces, many of them from outside the country. The justice system and the military still barely function, and United Nations officials say Congolese government troops are among the worst offenders when it comes to rape. Large swaths of the country, especially in the east, remain authority-free zones where civilians are at the mercy of heavily armed groups who have made warfare a livelihood and survive by raiding villages and abducting women for ransom. According to victims, one of the newest groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies, kidnapping women and literally chopping up anybody who gets in their way. United Nations officials said the so-called Rastas were once part of the Hutu militias who fled Rwanda after committing genocide there in 1994, but now it seems they have split off on their own and specialize in freelance cruelty. Honorata Barinjibanwa, an 18-year-old woman with high cheekbones and downcast eyes, said she was kidnapped from a village that the Rastas raided in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her delicate neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her, she said. “I’m weak, I’m angry, and I don’t know how to restart my life,” she said from Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where she was taken after her captors freed her. She is also pregnant. While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon. “It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.” Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized. At Panzi Hospital, where Dr. Mukwege performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day, bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage. “I still have pain and feel chills,” said Kasindi Wabulasa, a patient who was raped in February by five men. The men held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished, Ms. Wabulasa said, they shot him anyway. In almost all the reported cases, the culprits are described as young men with guns, and in the deceptively beautiful hills here, there is no shortage of them: poorly paid and often mutinous government soldiers; homegrown militias called the Mai-Mai who slick themselves with oil before marching into battle; members of paramilitary groups originally from Uganda and Rwanda who have destabilized this area over the past 10 years in a quest for gold and all the other riches that can be extracted from Congo’s exploited soil. The attacks go on despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 17,000 troops. Few seem to be spared. Dr. Mukwege said his oldest patient was 75, his youngest 3. “Some of these girls whose insides have been destroyed are so young that they don’t understand what happened to them,” Dr. Mukwege said. “They ask me if they will ever be able to have children, and it’s hard to look into their eyes.” No one — doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers — can explain exactly why this is happening. “That is the question,” said André Bourque, a Canadian consultant who works with aid groups in eastern Congo. “Sexual violence in Congo reaches a level never reached anywhere else. It is even worse than in Rwanda during the genocide.” Impunity may be a contributing factor, Mr. Bourque added, saying that very few of the culprits are punished. Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu. Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago. Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias. “These are people who were involved with the genocide and have been psychologically destroyed by it,” he said. Mr. Bourque called this phenomenon “reversed values” and said it could develop in heavily traumatized areas that had been steeped in conflict for many years, like eastern Congo. This place, one of the greenest, hilliest and most scenic slices of central Africa, continues to reverberate from the aftershocks of the genocide next door. Take the recent fighting near Bukavu between the Congolese Army and Laurent Nkunda, a dissident general who commands a formidable rebel force. Mr. Nkunda is a Congolese Tutsi who has accused the Congolese Army of supporting Hutu militias, which the army denies. Mr. Nkunda says his rebel force is simply protecting Tutsi civilians from being victimized again. But his men may be no better. Willermine Mulihano said she was raped twice — first by Hutu militiamen two years ago and then by Nkunda soldiers in July. Two soldiers held her legs apart, while three others took turns violating her. “When I think about what happened,” she said, “I feel anxious and brokenhearted.” She is also lonely. Her husband divorced her after the first rape, saying she was diseased. In some cases, the attacks are on civilians already caught in the cross-fire between warring groups. In one village near Bukavu where 27 women were raped and 18 civilians killed in May, the attackers left behind a note in broken Swahili telling the villagers that the violence would go on as long as government troops were in the area. The United Nations peacekeepers here seem to be stepping up efforts to protect women. Recently, they initiated what they call “night flashes,” in which three truckloads of peacekeepers drive into the bush and keep their headlights on all night as a signal to both civilians and armed groups that the peacekeepers are there. Sometimes, when morning comes, 3,000 villagers are curled up on the ground around them. But the problem seems bigger than the resources currently devoted to it. Panzi Hospital has 350 beds, and though a new ward is being built specifically for rape victims, the hospital sends women back to their villages before they have fully recovered because it needs space for the never-ending stream of new arrivals. Dr. Mukwege, 52, said he remembered the days when Bukavu was known for its stunning lake views and nearby national parks, like Kahuzi-Biega. “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there,” he said. “But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”

• To All Redbubblers "Important Information"
  by Ilunia Felczer

  “I received this email from my daughter-in-law and I thought I need to share this with all of you.” / / Hi All: Thought this might b…

  “I received this email from my daughter-in-law and I thought I need to share this with all of you.” / / Hi All: Thought this might be of interest. / / / From: Dr. Paul Nahid Neman “Who works in the breast cancer unit at Mt. Sinai Hospital , in Toronto. “ If there is a female you care anything about, / Share this with her. I did!!!!! I am also sharing this with the males on my e-mail list, because they need to tell the females THEY care about as well! Recently a lipstick brand called ‘Red Earth’ / Decreased their prices from / $67 to $9.90. It contained lead. / Lead is a chemical which causes cancer. The lipstick brands that contain lead are: CHRISTIAN DIOR LANCOME CLINIQUE Y.S.L ESTEE LAUDER SHISEIDO RED EARTH (Lip Gloss) CHANEL (Lip Conditioner) MARKET AMERICA-MOTNES LIPSTICK. The higher the lead content, The greater the chance of causing cancer. After doing a test on lipsticks, it was found that the Y.S.L. Lipstick contained the most amount of lead. Watch out for those lipsticks which are supposed to stay on longer. If your lipstick stays on longer, it is because of the higher content of lead. Here is the test you can do yourself: 1. Put some lipstick on your hand. 2. Use a Gold ring to scratch on the lipstick. 3. If the lipstick color changes to black, then you know the lipstick contains lead. Please send this information to all your girlfriends, wives and female family members. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center “Dioxin Carcinogens cause cancer, especially breast cancer.”

• Importance of Tags
  by RedBubble

  It is important when you upload works (images or journal entries) to add tags. As we don’t categorise works, tags are our way of finding …

  It is important when you upload works (images or journal entries) to add tags. As we don’t categorise works, tags are our way of finding works in search results. Tags can be as descriptive as you like (eg include the colour of the work, its location, main theme etc). Separate tags with a comma. If you want to include multi-word tags the normal way to do it is to run the words together: eg SydneyHarbour, SanFranciso. More on tags by clicking here.

• Important and confronting shots.
  by Melinda Kerr

  / Hi, some of …

  / Hi, some of you may know I have many shots in my folio shot in some of the poorest parts of Africa. I am pleased to say that one of my travelling companions Rebecca Zachariah has joined RB and has started uploading her shots. In Africa Bec & I discussed at length our desire for people to see the harsh reality of life there. We saw hundreds of people traumatised by war, AIDS and otherwise preventable disease. Some of these shots and stories are not for the faint hearted but they are for the warm hearted. I encourage you to check out Bec’s work. As I say, it’s brutally honest. But we believe incredibly necessary.

• Its all YOUR Fault !!!! How important are your artwork and Photos to you?
  by Randy Monteith

  Now that I have your attention! When’s the last time you made a backup of your treasured artwork? You keep putting it off right? ...

  Now that I have your attention! When’s the last time you made a backup of your treasured artwork? You keep putting it off right? I’ll do it this weekend! Yeah Right!! Then your computer crashes and you have a heart attack thinking that you have just lost all your treasured work! All computers crash and will crash wether its software or hardware. People make mistakes and delete the wrong files! All hardrives will Crash eventually!!! Even the USB backup drive you bought for backing up!!! The inexpensive USB drives are great for using to make backups of your prized photos and artwork! I have 3 of them ! I also backup tp DVDs and make an extra copy that sits at my inlaws in case of fire at my place. So whats your excuse for not backing up your precious artwork? oops did I just heard another hardrive fail? and yet another? This was not to be mean , or in your face ! But I don’t want anyone to lose any of their precious photos of any kind or artwork!! and thusly cheating us all of the great artwork we see here on Redbubble!!

• Great site!
  by Leah Highland

  http://www.attributor.com/ This place is up and running and will be offering services to small businesses and photographers like us sh…

  http://www.attributor.com/ This place is up and running and will be offering services to small businesses and photographers like us shortly. / Check it out!

• “Your most important sale is to sell yourself to yourself”
  by Paul Hamilton

  Just got back from a trip to Melbourne to find I’ve sold 22 cards. A big thank you. What a wonderful start to the week. After several f…

  Just got back from a trip to Melbourne to find I’ve sold 22 cards. A big thank you. What a wonderful start to the week. After several features in my groups and National magazines it’s safe to say my confidence is high. How important is confidence and self-belief? “Your most important sale is to sell yourself to yourself” – very true. Have a great week everyone. Regards Paul

• BITCH and moan about something real...
  by kathleen

  Everyone has been ‘exposed’ to a bit of ranting lately … but you know what… I read this here this morning… Shouldn’t this kin…

  Everyone has been ‘exposed’ to a bit of ranting lately … but you know what… I read this here this morning… Shouldn’t this kind of stuff be on the what hot list… or is it too depressing and important? No matter how much you ‘use’ the system… important messages don’t always get the airtime they deserve. Let us all consider ourselves luck we have food in our tummy’s and a bloody computer to waste our lives away on… CONSIDER YOURSELVES LUCKY AND READ ABYSSAL SOUL’S RANT ... MAKES US ALL LOOK A LITTLE BIT PETTY DOESN’T IT… IMAGINE LIVING IN A PLACE THAT IS NOT THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN LOUNGE ROOM! MAYBE REDBUBBLERS CAN DO SOMETHING MORE CONSTRUCTIVE WITH THEIR ENERGIES FOR THE GREATER GOOD…

• POWERFUL - Everyone should see this.
  by Al Bourassa

  “www.BlueRibbonMovie.com” / is a life-changing event. / I really hope this catches on all over the globe. / This is SO worth the time to wat…

  “www.BlueRibbonMovie.com” / is a life-changing event. / I really hope this catches on all over the globe. / This is SO worth the time to watch, please take a few moments. / You will definitely not regret it.

• Import Duty in the UK update...
  by justlinda

  This has been sent to me from Red Bubble this afternoon. Hi Linda, You shouldn’t be charged this – can you forward the details to…

  This has been sent to me from Red Bubble this afternoon. Hi Linda, You shouldn’t be charged this – can you forward the details to me and I’ll take care of it with UPS. If there is any tax or additional costs we will cover them (UPS is mistakenly applying these charges and we’re following this up with them). Regards, Peter

• The importance of happiness
  by sunset

  How many people think happiness is over rated? Could you do without happiness or is it something you think is pretty good when you experi…

  How many people think happiness is over rated? Could you do without happiness or is it something you think is pretty good when you experience it? Knowing how good it is when you experience it, how much of your life do you spend, nay, live being truly happy? Does happiness sound like hard work? How many times a day do you do something you know from experience is not going to benefit you tomorrow, but you do it anyway, because you feel like it now. Can’t be bothered to make the effort. How happy does that make you? I’m not bringing this up to accuse anyone. If you point one finger at someone else, three fingers point back straight at you (I wish I’d come up with that myself, but I have to credit Roz Lawler’s talks for that gem of wisdom). I am, in fact, pointing a few fingers at myself right now. The reason for this is I have been delaying my happiness. How do I know? Well, for a big fat obvious reason, I haven’t been my usual happy self for the last 2-3 weeks until recently. Those of you who know me, know I usually do one hundred thousand things at once to find true bliss. Now of course, if we rush through life, we don’t enjoy those experiences when they come. We do need time to reflect and appreciate. That’s one thing. However, there is also such a thing as living in the moment. Living intuitively. That does not mean making no plans or without budgeting etc. I usually maintain that balance quite well. I get fully into things, achieve mountains of things and occasionally need a good time out. I got to that point awhile ago. You think you can go gogogogo forever at the pace you do and suddenly, there is no interest in it whatsoever. All those seeming ‘demands’ get too much and you have to walk away. I thought I’d begin training for a hard and heavy road of hormones and a slower pace of life, in preparation for motherhood. Oh god! There is always room for change, and nothing wrong with a time of introspection. There also comes a time when that much thinking is just excuse for not doing. All those fears of what might be, what others might think, might do weigh upon you too seriously. Time to live and do again. When you begin to embrace those thoughts of what might be good o do, you sow a seed of happiness and trust. That idea was good. I did it. And it turned out ok. I handled everything I needed to. Life was the answer, and whatever needed to be changed, I did. And now, what next? So what have I been doing/meaning to do and doing? I’m getting there. I’ve been meaning to AT LEAST enquire about pilates. No relief is found if you don’t DO. I haven’ enrolled yet, but will. I will go to bed earlier. Yes, I did do that for awhile last year. I ‘had to’. I’d always known it was a secret to feeling more energised. But when I finally ‘had to’, I really noticed it worked wonders. I have more to say on this, but that’s most obvious and enough for now. I’m going to bed. Early. Ish! Good night!

• The Earth has a Fever: An Important Message About Our Future...
  by Curtis Bard

  This message is so timely, so important, that I wanted to share it with all my RB friends and acquaintances. Yes, today our world is sick…

  This message is so timely, so important, that I wanted to share it with all my RB friends and acquaintances. Yes, today our world is sick; sick in many ways, and now our world has a fever. If I tried for the rest of my life I don’t think I could express my concerns about our global situation any better than Al Gore has done here. We need to personally, collectively, and actively begin to do our very best to discern what the Truth is concerning our relationship to each other, to our earth, and to our God. Gore’s speech is rather long, but in my humble opinion almost each and every sentence has important meaning and the ring of truth, and should be a wake-up call for all of us. All good people want to help and do whatever they can to make our world a better place, but the inevitable question arises: “What can I do?” You can start by buying products that are clearly better for the environment and facilitate energy independence. You can start communicating your concerns to others and to your news agencies, and to your government representatives. You can confront and address your own inner conception of how our government and our citizens should react to coming threats and how we can work together to help each other. And you can apply subtle pressure on business and government to begin to accept a less selfish, less wasteful, and more w/holistically enlightened approach to social and economic problems and their potential solutions. And as difficult as it is, you can also start by addressing your own shortcomings as an individual, and by trying to be a little less selfish, a little less consumptive, a little less ego driven, and a little more concerned about the welfare of others and the proper stewardship of the earth. Cast all fear aside and find just purpose and healthy development in this new opportunity for personal and spiritual growth. If you have any helpful ideas or ways that the rest of us can start to live more appropriately and harmoniously with each other and with our environment, please pass them along and share them with the rest of us… / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-- Dear Curtis, I wanted to share with you my speech from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. Check AlGore.com for video of the event later today. Thank you, Al Gore SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE / OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE / DECEMBER 10, 2007 / OSLO, NORWAY / Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen. I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it. Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace. Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name. Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose. Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.” The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly. However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.” So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun. As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong. We are what is wrong, and we must make it right. Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years. Seven years from now. In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed. We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane. Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day. But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless—which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable. We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.” In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions. Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually assured destruction.” More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race. Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.” As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.” But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet. We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge. These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves. No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong. Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion? Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.” In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free. Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility. There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly. We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.” That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously. This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world. When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.” In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation. My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive. Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored. We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community. Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions. This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself. Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed. We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide. And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon—with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis. The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority. But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act. Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment. These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths: The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow. That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.” We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now. The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.” The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?” Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?” We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource. So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

• *** IMPORTANT REMINDER ***
  by RoughDiamond

  Time to backup your work! I just did mine. I thought I’d remind you all so you don’t lose your precious thousands of hours of blood, ...

  Time to backup your work! I just did mine. I thought I’d remind you all so you don’t lose your precious thousands of hours of blood, sweat, tears and art. x / x / x Love you all on RB

• Regrettably... Devil's Advocacy is an important tool for subjectivity
  by kathleen

  (Disclaimer: these ideas are not necessarily reflective of personal opinion) / I HAVE TO ADD THIS TO EVERY JOURNAL I POST FROM NOW ON, P…

  (Disclaimer: these ideas are not necessarily reflective of personal opinion) / I HAVE TO ADD THIS TO EVERY JOURNAL I POST FROM NOW ON, PLEASE NOTE IT. Sometimes I like to raise topics for discussion and elaboration, like radio talk-back! For some reason some people seem to think i am stating my own opinions (please read my wording more than once if you feel angry at me and before getting tense in your response… please, I am getting better too at developing this style here.) If you state your perspective from the most extreme angle it encourages further participation and thought because it invokes the more extreme emotional responses, just a bit on psyche… hee he It’s what all those right wing talk back hosts do (just some of them believe it as well… tch tch)... So please, try to separate the topics I raise from me… I feel that some people might like to bite, which is fine, but bite into the topic not my thigh… please… I am pretty thick skinned but I also believe that concerning topics should be open for discussion even if they leave a bad taste if your mouth… This little community is a society, how can we manage it so this can happen? Should I stop asking for opinion publicly about topics I am airing? Chances are I won’t, RedBubble needs independent media… But tell me your thoughts and opinions without making it personal please. YOU HAVE THE CHOICE OF NOT RESPONDING, YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ MY JOURNAL EITHER… BUT I AM GLAD THAT YOU DO AND I VALUE YOUR OPINION…

• They only removed tags.
  by Crokus Label

  HERE (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=247766) / and HERE...

  HERE (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=247766) / and HERE (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=250511) / are proofs that polyvore.com as never removed the “sets” ... Furthermore, I bet that they still have our links in their database… so anything that is being linked to the images can still get there. I do not have other adresses for the old files that contain our images, but I do have THIS (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=267816) it is a “work” I did a few minutes ago, using some of my own stuff from redbubble that I took… / here are the the links to the NEW files I got in there. / Crokus’ Original (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/thing?id=339915) / and Crokus’ t-shirt design (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/thing?id=339937) / / Hope you can all see that… I created it there.

• 01-05-08 IMPORTANT INFORMATION IF YOUR JUST ADDING
  by DarrellMoseley

  Theres lots of time to add work! Maybe up to a year, before we finish! *Before loading your images!*...

  Theres lots of time to add work! Maybe up to a year, before we finish! / *Before loading your images! Check before adding images, by searching for these tags* flower power project sceensaver2 / / If you see less total than 140 images, add you can add but dont go over 140! *STOP ADDING IMAGES AT 140* / *AND GO TO THE NEXT SCREENSAVER3 ,4 ,5 ,and so on ! / / Add no more than 2 images to any screensaver, *DONT ADD MORE THAN TWO IMAGES PER SCREENSAVER* Go to the next to add more! This will keep it from being overloaded by any one artist! SKIP FORWARD / TILL THERE ROOM TO ADD MORE Once you add tags to search they are saved, put the first letter ( f ) into the search feild, and auto fill should come down, click on lower right conner and pull down to the right exposing tags already added, pick the one you want and hit search AGAIN 140 IMAGES, STOP*AND MOVE TO THE NEXT*DO NOT ADD / I AM LOOKING FOR IMAGES OF FLOWERS, AND SAFE FOR KIDS! * / *SCREENSAVER IMAGES, SHOULD FIT YOUR MONITOR / *ADD TEXT FOR YOUR NAME RECONGINITION & PROTECTION* / If you got a question, you can quickly browse over my journal to find most answers! / BUT FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME IF YOU NEED HELP* / But, feel free to contact me, just remember I type with two fingers! And its going to get crazy, the more find out! You can email me at darrell-moseley@hotmail.com and will be added to contacts to update, be sure to put SUBJECT/ RECORDS of Email / Your name, / Your RB name, / Titles of work added / #1 / #2 / #3 and so on! / *I also ask for you to add any or all of these tags you choose, TROOPS PEACE LOVE FREEDOM DREAMS HOPE FAITH MIRACLES * / / to help make the statement for the Artists Community, at large!

• Government plan to kill photography! make it stop!
  by Forest Friends Photography

  I have just come across this on someone else page….......... people this is so important please read this photography ban...

  I have just come across this on someone else page….......... people this is so important please read this photography ban please sign the petition to save our work & liberal rights! War is to answer to this….......... not photography! I would also like to mention…........ that considering China has weopans of mass destruction, has the UK governement not thought about the implications involved if they were to kill the camera manufacturing industries, and all the jobs lost. / I see another WAR starting here & this is our chance to put a stop to it! / This can’t happen, please don’t let it people!

• Imagination is more important than knowledge
  by Gayla Drummond

  Connie’s adopted a cat. That’s him. Ain’t he cute? I’m…

  Connie’s adopted a cat. That’s him. Ain’t he cute? I’m working on Rising Moon tonight, and it’s sort of slow going, but the wrapping up has commenced. Once it’s finished, time for edits, and then…maybe, if I don’t edited the holy heck out of it, it’ll be ready for publishing. Paperback in my Lulu store, e-book, as well. I still haven’t taken care of all my content, so still no new art. The last one I uploaded was something I did before I got the bright idea to do a clean install of Poser. I’m still wondering what I was thinking…and if Socrates doesn’t stop thumping the lid of his cage up and down, I’m going to do some corporal punishment on his little rat ass. Stop that! Oh, yeah…I have a pet rat named Socrates. Heh. He’s cute. Annoying right now, but cute. Where was I? Rising Moon, right. Two full chapters, and four that still need some fleshing out, and it’ll be done. Ready for editing. I have a severe need to post some more excerpts from it, for some reason. I probably will. Past Shadows, book three…I think I’m going to do some rearranging of chapters/events, because I think I did a reveal a little too fast in it. The Council meeting, Shady’s first, does occur in it, and there’s a murderer to hunt down, plus two of her friends return to Dallas…Maureen, her former Girl Friday, and ‘Reen’s hubby, Ted. The ending of Rising Moon’s a bit of a shocker…at least for Shady. Past Shadows sets the stage for book four…I think the title’s going to be Blood Stalking…not sure yet. Might work. I’m babbling without any purpose…hope no one was expecting any good information. Oh, look, a kitty! No, really, look up above, at the start…kitty! Yeesh, I need to go to bed, lol.

• Read this! Important for all artists!
  by dimarie

  ALL Artists need to read this now Shannon ha…

  ALL Artists need to read this now Shannon has provided links to the articles and there are also links to sign the petition if you have already heard about this, but havnt signed the pettion yet, click here and it’ll take you to where you can sign! Thankyou! We CAN make a difference!

• STILL USING OUR WORKS.
  by Crokus Label

  They are stil using our works… Polyvore.com is still using our works in their “sets” They are still using the “sets” that people …

  They are stil using our works… Polyvore.com is still using our works in their “sets” They are still using the “sets” that people created with our art… http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/search?idx=collection&query=redbubble&x=0&y=0 / the sets this HAS to go too… it is part of our petition’s / Demand as followed -We, users of RedBubble.com ask that all of our works be completely removed from Polyvore.com. That also includes all works that have been created with our original and copyrighted material. We have to keep on mooving and signing the petition… please send this link / http://www.redbubble.com/people/crokuslabel/writing/266182-petition-to-stop-copyright-theft-at-polyvore-com to as many RedBubblers as possible so we are taken seriously.

• A Very Important Subject
  by Sally Omar

  Please take the time to read two writings; Roger Sampson..Good vs. Evil .. A Child Waits..Rog has written an amazing / piece on an extr…

  Please take the time to read two writings; Roger Sampson..Good vs. Evil .. A Child Waits..Rog has written an amazing / piece on an extremely important subject.. Matt Richardson..Tragedy.. These two writings are important and should really be read by all..Roger and / Matt have alot of insight into the subject of children being abducted and abused / and murdered.. Thank you. Much Love and Peace, Sally xxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooooo

• ATTN: ALL USA CITIZENS !!!!!! PLEASE READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  by bamagirl38

  ALL UNITED STATES CITIZENS: Tomorrow is STAMP OUT HUNGER DAY !!!!! The postal service will be picking up can good and non perishable i…

  ALL UNITED STATES CITIZENS: Tomorrow is STAMP OUT HUNGER DAY !!!!! The postal service will be picking up can good and non perishable items from mail boxes all across the country! PLEASE PLEASE…… Please support this effort and leave your items for your local mail carrier to pick up! It will take each and everyone of us working together to make a difference in the world…. This may have not been the place to post this, and If I have offended anyone, I am truly sorry……. BUT, I wanted to get the message out there! Its up to each of us to make the world a better place! Hugs and love to you all and have a wonderful weekend!!!! Bonita :)

• Today i am a witness of an important transformation...
  by liesbeth

  aspectsoftmk-Terri- wrote a devostating journal about a shooting in Knoxville… as you read it you can feel the sadness and the pain… ...

  aspectsoftmk-Terri- wrote a devostating journal about a shooting in Knoxville… as you read it you can feel the sadness and the pain… but she transformed her feelings in a way i like to share it with you. Think and feel for yourself…to me she shows us what it is all about to change the world.. i was enjoying a lazy sunday morning and mid afternoon when the phone rang…. / had i heard the news….no, i said…what news…. / a gunman terri….at the church…its bad. one gone and many critical… / these were my friends….the people of the community….humans all sharing the world.. / it was numbing…and questions of why….. / i spent the day with jacqui talking and laughing and crying… looking in galleries filled with heART…and listening to the words…life after life…. / i went into the garden looking for some answers….why someone does this, i do not know….but, as i was walking in the yard i heard jacqui say..he is an angel walking on earth…..and lina life after life….i saw many images and i kept the thoughts that i believe in my heart…there is so much more…i absolutly believe in life after life…sometimes it is just hard to see it…so as i walked and talked to the flowers and the birds flying by i thought to myself…perhaps there does not have to an answer….just this thought …to live each moment and dance. / greg mckendry…….i will always see your smile, feel your hugs….and hear you say my foods smell good… fly……............ / we all feel the pain yes…. / .knoxville is a sad ….but i see in tomorrow…new light for the days… / thank you everyone for the thoughts and the prayers of gentleness… / namaste / xxxx terri here you can see how she takes it to the positive…