In the last two newsletters, readers may have noticed that the book "This Spaceship Earth" was the featured book to buy. This book, co-authored by planetary ethicist Tim Rumage was my seventh book and was published in December 2015. The writing of it has actually altered my life to a great degree.

As a result of writing this book, I have co-founded a global non-profit to face climate change. More on the non-profit is just below

When I was a young man I read a lot of Marshall McLuhan and R. Buckminster Fuller. Reading these two visionary thinkers, along with Alvin Toffler [who passed away since the last newsletter] and a lot of mid-century science fiction probably helped shape my thinking as a futurist more than almost anything else.

In the late 1960's, Fuller wrote a book called "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth". In it he stated that we live on this planet and that we should think of it as a spaceship. His thesis was that we had to develop an operating manual for the spaceship if we wanted to avoid extremely unpleasant consequences. A year after he wrote that book, McLuhan said the quote that seared into my mind, never to leave:

"There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew"

The following year, the prolific Fuller wrote another book "Utopia or Oblivion: the Prospects for Humanity". The thesis of this was that it was time for humanity to develop an operating manual for spaceship earth and that if we didn't that in several decades humanity would approach a fork in the road, utopia or oblivion.

In the two years it took to write "This Spaceship Earth", all this early reading came right up for me. It became clear to me that Climate Change is oblivion for civilization. In fact, given what I learned in doing all the research for the book is that, in dynamic, interconnected ways, humanity is already walking, perhaps running down the path of oblivion.

Then I realized that as a futurist it would truly be a dereliction of my professional duty as a futurist to not speak about and create awareness about the single greatest threat to humanity in the future.

Then the question became how might I truly help humanity face the truly multiple catastrophes that are rushing towards us in the category of Climate Change. With a small group of three other people we decided that this issue was so critical that setting up a non-profit was a commitment to be made.

thisspaceshipearth.org

Our 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation is now six months old. The purpose of TSE.Org is to create ever more Crew Consciousness around the world. Our mission is:

"To bring about a new, global consciousness in how we think and interact with the finite resources on this planet through education, global awareness, and empowerment of individuals, communities and companies"

Our vision is to recruit 1 billion crewmembers on This Spaceship Earth. In the process of moving toward that number we hope to start reaching critical mass of people who will therefore accelerate the change to Crew Consciousness.

Here is Chapter 1 of "This Spaceship Earth" which defines Crew Consciousness.

Here is the updated Quartermaster's Report on the status of This Spaceship Earth. Please make sure to read the questions at the bottom of the page.

Please take a look around thisspaceshipearth.org to learn all about what we are doing, what you can do and how, together we can begin to start to shape our collective future relative to the threat of Climate Change.

Please sign up for our Newsletter on the site. Here is our YouTube Channel.

Here is our Facebook page.

We have a matching grant opportunity that will TRIPLE all donations from $25-100 in one 24 hour period, starting Tuesday 9/20 at 12n eastern. It is often that there are matching grants, but rare that donations can be multiplied by 3X.

Please help us gain a 6-9 month runway to build up our non-profit by making a donation of $25 to $100 as what you give will the multiplied 3X. Here are the exact directions:

1. All $25-$100 donations MUST BE made after 12noon eastern time Tuesday 9/20 and before 12noon on Wednesday 9/21 for donations to be tripled.
2. Here is the direct link to our donation page: https://givingpartnerchallenge.org/npo/this-spaceship-earth-inc
3. Once there make donation of $25 -100

Thank you!