The Original Earth Manifesto is the first of what has evolved into 12 Books of the Earth Manifesto. Each of the 121 one-page Soliloquies in this original manuscript has been transcribed from the original in this historic version of provocative ideas and insightful understandings. This Book Nine also contains important ideas that were germinating as history unfolded in late 2015.

The author, raised in the shadow of a powerful preacher, was totally caught up in the religious phenomena and followed in the footsteps, seeking truth. After working his way through college, for a BA in psychology and graduate school for his M.Div., he became shepherd to a few flocks. But in a few years he began to suffocate under the thick blanket of pretense, contrived coercion, and outright lies being inflicted upon the naive trusting sheep by the policies, politics, dogma, and doctrines in the name of the invented god/savior, so the corporation could collect piles of tax-free money to feed its desires and grow unrestricted while controlling the sheep through guilt, fear, and historical habituation. He escaped the flock mentality, spent years unraveling the blanket, and found the true omnipotent omnipresence of the universe: the Earth and its energy. The path to reality starts here and is not for the faint-of-heart.

Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies. We live in critical times. Choices we make daily now will affect the future of life itself. Years from now children will study our era on the brink and ask their elders “When the planet was burning, what did you do?” Problems as big as the world are daunting, but solutions are at hand, within each of us. The Earth Manifesto: Saving Nature with Engaged Ecology offers an approach to regain control of our environmental destiny by rediscovering our affinity for nature and then acting to preserve it. Rooted in common sense, the author’s “Six Laws of Engaged Ecology” move us from theory, in concepts such as interdependence and the wilderness found in our minds, to practice with explanations of ground-truthing and creating a community through shared environmental principles.

For more than a decade Mikhail Gorbachev has been engaged in working to protect the earth and its inhabitants via the organization he founded in 1992, Green Cross International. In an age when ecological crises, poverty and military conflicts are humanity’s main challenges, Gorbachev urges us to stop regarding these problems in isolation. The man who changed the destiny of Russia, Europe and the world is now calling for a global and comprehensive Perestroika (reform) for the twenty-first century. Based on his many years of experience in international politics, Gorbachev appeals for urgent action founded on a broad vision, including a strengthening of the UN and reforms to the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. To complement the Declaration on Human Rights and the Charter of the UN he has co-authored the remarkable Earth Charter that is based on four key principles: 1. Respect and Care for the Community of Life; 2. Ecological Integrity; 3. Social and Economic Justice; 4. Democracy, Nonviolence, and Peace. Manifesto for the Earth is a courageous and thought-provoking work by a respected elder statesman. In a partisan and polarized world, this is a “manifesto” that does not compromise its integrity to political, ideological or national sympathies.

What the world is waiting for

Summary: Edgar Morin, one of the leading figures in European thought, challenges us to think differently about our past, our present, and our future. Morin points to the development of a planetary culture that is not homogenizing or fragmented, and the need to recognize complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity as potential sources of creativity, learning, and transformation. Given the uncertainty of our journey, Morin presents "complex thought" as a way to overcome the "crisis of the future," and stresses the importance of solidarity.