Re-Gain

As a baby boomer I am blessed to have enough savings to retire. Looking to my golden years with the acceleration of environmental decline.  Will the human race end sooner rather than later? Are we in a comedy or tragedy of survival?  Now that I am on Medicare I can vividly remember infrequently seeing my Dad in my childhood. He was working overtime with Congress to legislate this and other Social Security bills. Years ago I embrace being a comic rather than a tragic figure.  Laughing and crying are closely aligned.  As a young tennis champ I got a passport to travel and meeting supportive people. Becoming a tennis teacher in the off season I embraced preventing waste as my salvation. However I found out trying to save things is like Don Quixote attacking the windmill. Use it or lose it personifies why I am very skeptical. Does ending trumps mending? Forty-three years ago I was the D.C. area and national Earth Day organizer. Before that in high school I wrote a paper citing our great

When I listen to my heart it creates “Here-ness”. This is a radical way to exercise self love and virtue. There are many diverse ways for me to explore this compassionate place. When I quiet my mind, and listen to my heartbeat I cultivate this priceless experience. This is a sacred gift I give to myself. Also this portal of a higher power allows me to be of greater service. Mindfully heart-fullness is the courage to fully show up to even the most horrific life events. Exploring my deepest emotions gives me the opportunity to see how the opposites balance each other.  Joy counters sadness, love redirects anger, hope overcomes despair. Heart-fullness gives me a perspective to see both sides and proceed on right down the middle. Such appreciative inquiry lessens my judging mind.  Also I find myself being more gentle and friendly to whatver arises including my cruel inner critical  voice. EE Such observations shifts me from becoming to a being or more proactive perspective. I get out of th

  We are now at 8 billion people. Everyday we can celebrate life on this fragile planet with ingenuity.  Otherwise humans will waste away. Essentially we have to downsize because our very size imperils our survival.  Less will be more if we wisely embrace the gift of thrift.  Saving not consuming benefits all. It is evident that weird weather imperils our well-being and planetary health. Already at least 4 billion people’s daily lives are threatened by climate change from heat waves, diseases, extreme weather, air pollution and starvation. Let’s embrace conservatism in all facets of our life.  Better resource management can renew dangerous waste.  New economic opportunities are bountiful if we counter our self destructive consumption.    Kindly do your part to make this world more livable and enjoy this precious resource. Preserve and conserve- celebrate everyday treating all things as sacred.  Re-design and fostering more sustainable relationships in all our affairs is a form of cele

Being mindful awakens me to how mindless I am and the importance of kindness. I kindly find this self care in the trees cultivating both meanings of “present.” Being here now and the gift I find from this “hereness”. Thoreau exemplified this by stating; Direct your eye inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography I interpret Thoreau as saying we can discover boundless things looking inward. I lessen my suffering and tap greater freedom with such introspection. Thoreau recognized the value of inner staycations by simple contemplation. Seeing things right at my home has been priceless for me. Travel is a matter of perspective, not location. With curiosity, an open mind and a broad horizon of free time, it's possible to travel in your own backyard. For 30 years I’ve profoundly experienced this living alone in the woods. I came 100 miles west of Washington DC to celebrate the wonders of the forest a

  Wise Trees The Lorax -“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” In the woods we return to reason and faith - Emerson   Trees have survived for over 360 million years.  Climate change is quickly accelerating our appreciation for forests.  Where I live the mighty hundred year oaks are dropping.  My four acres inhabit aspen, ash, cherry, locust, oak, hemlock, cedar, pine and other species.  Also located in my home town is Camp Roosevelt, where the first Civilian Conservation Corps camp began. Over 2 million men were employed and planted almost three billion trees revitalizing our 1930's American depression. Plants experts now document the wisdom of the woods in their interactive sharing of nutrients and interconnection.  Presently the world's forest are being decimated either by disease, fires, development and other factors.   Please refer to The Lorax, Dr. Seuss’s masterpiece. This story starts with a little boy walking into an uninhabitable-looking, ashen landsca

What fortune to grow up at the Edgemoor Club. It has been a second home to me over 60 years. Its tennis traditions have instilled a love of this Sport for my family, neighbors and people of all walks.    Where else could one have an opportunity to hit balls with beginners to Wimbledon Champions,  Or to have the opportunity to speak with Arthur Ashe or Stan Smith in their visits to the Club. Or to get to know members such as Donald Dell, Richey Reneberg, and other tennis icons? Of course it was the great champion Pauline Betz Addie who started me and many others in our lifelong teaching of tennis. She was a wonderful mentor, a great teacher and a loyal member of the Club. After a career of teaching at many Clubs, it always comes back to me that Edgemoor is a very special place for tennis players, Edgemoor has always fostered inclusion, not exclusion. Its tennis tradition has bred a diversity of competitive and recreational players of all ages sharing in the fun.  There are only a handfu

Oscar Wilde once defined a cynic as, “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.”  Today I am cynical since we have not adequately addressed both the price and value of pollution.   I have decades of experience of establishing all types of recycling and environmental protection programs in a subsidized disposal culture.    I call myself a resource management expert recovering from my title 30 years ago as a waste planner.  Today’s climate crisis challenges me to propose more with less.  It is simple: the problem of consuming must be tempered by conserving. Assisting in the design, implementation and promotion of recycling in the 1970’s gives me some unique insight on the unintended consequences of having a plan or failing to do so.  Climate mitigation will happen in bountiful ways, however, reduction is key. As we learned in solid waste management the chasing arrow  is not just reduce, reuse, recycling however marketing, collection and recovery.  Earth Day 1970 was a mar

  Acting as if I am in the eye of the hurricane is how I will best go forth.  The wild winds of what is presently going on provides me the opportunity to go within.  By remaining calm given today’s turbulence may I be free to respond. Rather than to react may I cultivate peace, love and joy.     Showing up to my circumstances as a PRO, I Pause, Relax and Open to whatever insanity that presently I may face.  May I liberate myself from such suffering and allow freedom to ring.  Acting from inspiration rather than reacting in desperation I celebrate my highest potential, purpose and possibility.    Pause relax open PRO -become a champ not a chump Take a breath —pause relax and open to PRO Laughing rather than crying may I lighten up Champion each moment with peace, love and joy Be free to breathe whenever or NOT Be kind and gentle with yourself - Well Yes  KISS —keep it simple, Sweetheart Be Free- Respond with ability   PRO liberates more possibility, potential and purpose.  PAUSE, RELA

A Better Deal-  Securing America’s Future- W e are all shareholders in securing our children’s future. Let’s best maximize our land’s value and minimize its loss.  WAR – We Are Regaining- conserve not consume  - Explore ingenious alternative environmental financing mechanisms (e.g.Eco-shares, green bucks or alternatives green fund/bond etc.)  1. Currently the American dollar is based on our faith in the Federal Reserve System. Without TRUST, the system will fail. What long term environmental economic social security system is there? 2. America’s best response is to help itself during a disaster. Disaster is now “happening.” Immediate mitigation measures such as tree planting are imperative. 3. Why WAR? Is not our current enemy ourselves? During a war, We are all united to combat the issue. Now, let’s focus on how life-cycle accounting for future financial savings.  4. A War on Waste ( people, places and things ) is an economical win/win option. New financial and insurance mechanisms w

Each year Americans use, discard and recycle more than 17 billion tons of waste.  Improved feedback on how we can re-utilize our discards is an emerging frontier of economic development.  How we stimulate a greater understanding on how we can either minimize and/or recover this waste. Also such endeavors will foster similar efforts in other enterprises. Improved inventories of what we discard may stimulate a greater understanding of how we can either minimize or better recover these resources.  The connection between waste and our land, air and water is a very important one.  Our increased living standard results in not just resource consumption but the need  to develop future resources from waste to meet increased demands for new products. Better tracking of the entire material cycle can provide us with better insights to manage our limited resources. Even though we have made major advances in cleaning up the environment, we must evolve as better managers of our natural and material r

Advocating resource management has been an uphill challenge. Economic growth has been driven by consuming while a new marketplace of conserving is the tenor of the times.  Growing in Washington DC I (see www.robertarner.com ) have witnessed an effluent America.  Assisting with various pollution prevention/recycling programs has addressed just the tip of the iceberg. Unless we forestall climate change and foresee new opportunities in environmental protection our future is in question. Ingenious investments lessening carbon is imperative.  Profiting from pollution prevention requires a financial  tipping point since our survival also is being challenged by a climate tipping point..  Unfortunately there are few incentives to save.  A new economic frontier exists once we transform from “consumers” to conservators”  Best management of resources coupled with designing sustainable forms of commerce where we will replace “Use it or Lose It ” to ``Pay as You Throw”.  More people recycle than vo

  A Better Deal-   Securing America’s Future Give your best to this land and its best will return.  We are all shareholders in securing our children’s future. Let’s best maximize our land’s value and minimize its loss. Sustainable acts will save us trillions of dollars.  WAR – We Are Regaining  Explore ingenious alternative environmental financing mechanisms (e.g.Eco-shares, green bucks or alternatives green fund/bond etc.)  1. Currently the American dollar is based on our faith in the Federal Reserve System. Without TRUST, the system will fail. What long term environmental economic social security system is there??? 2. America’s best response is to help itself during a disaster. Disaster is now “happening.” Immediate mitigation measures such as tree planting are imperative. 3. Why WAR? Is not our current enemy ourselves? During a war, We are all united to combat the issue. Now, let’s focus on how the almighty dollar may be the vanguard of change.   4. A War on Waste of people, places