Conversations of Consequence

Title

Conversations of Consequence

Description

Created by activist and philanthropist Ruth Westreich, this is a selection of thought-provoking and stunning canvas paintings from the larger collection Creating Conversations of Consequence. Her work engages and unites multigenerational audiences over challenging topics such as climate change, health and the pharmaceutical industry; and business ethics and responsibility. Providing an educational platform that inspires observers to work together to build a safer and healthier planet, Conversations of Consequence shows how personal and planetary health are intricately intertwined.

Creator

Ruth Westreich
Mommy, Daddy, Tell Me What It Was Like Before

AS A LIFE-LONG ARTIST, I have strived to paint beautiful things, and to create beauty in my life when there was none. Being in nature is where I find peace and tranquility; tree-tops swaying in the breeze and the beautiful white cumulus clouds are my inspiration. Something stirs in me that I can’t explain. All my senses are heightened, and I know at my core that I am a part of the wonder of Mother Nature – we are not separate. I look with my eyes at her beauty. I breathe in the smells that are life-giving and life affirming. I walk upon the earth and touch the trunks, branches and leaves of the trees and bushes. I hear the birds calling and singing, the small creatures rustling in the brush, the water bubbling, and washing over rocks as the water moves along the stream. All of my life I have found solace, serenity and peace in nature.
Our Mother Earth Thriving - Before

THIS IS MY VIEW of Mother Earth thriving in our not too distant past. Lands, oceans, rivers, coral reefs and Mother Earth’s delicate ecosystems thrive where no one species predominates. Less than 500 years later, it looks very different. Climate change is real. We must take it very seriously, and work together for paradigm shifts and lasting change.
Round and Round and Round the Collusion Goes

THE AGENCIES such as the EPA, CDC and FDA that were created to protect us are now in profit partnerships with Big Industry, Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, and Big Oil and Gas, and Big Philanthropy. They hire hundreds of powerful lobbyists to push their corporate agendas. The term “revolving door” refers to the movement of high-level employees from public sector jobs to private sector jobs, and vice versa. The idea is that there is a revolving door between the two sectors as many legislators and regulators become lobbyists and consultants for the industries they once regulated, and some private industry heads or lobbyists receive government appointments that relate to their former private posts.
Democracy for Sale

THE 26 RICHEST PEOPLE on Earth now own as much as the 3.8 billion who form the poorer half of the planet’s population. Concentrated wealth on this scale invites corruption. Corruption makes it impossible to fight stagnant wages, climate change or any other problem facing the vast majority of the world’s population.

Our democracy relies on free and fair elections that guarantee citizens’ equal rights. Therefore, does foreign political spending influence our elections? In a recent case affirmed by the Supreme Court, the District Court of the District of Columbia stated that the ability to exclude foreigners from our elections is “fundamental to the definition of our national political community.”
The End of Denial

WE NO LONGER have the luxury of globally debating who or what is causing our climate crisis. At this point, it really doesn’t matter because the cost of doing nothing is catastrophic for Mother Earth.

Just one of the unintended consequences of our climate crisis is the giant Sequoia trees of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are the largest living organisms on the planet and can grow over 300 feet tall. When they do die after 3,000 years or so, the oldest trees, known as monarchs, usually succumb to their own size and collapse. Their giant trunks will fall on the forest floor for another millennia.
Only Humans Deny Climate Change

THE LIFE OF EVERY CHILD born today will be profoundly affected by climate change, with populations around the world increasingly facing extremes of weather, food and water insecurity, changing patterns of infectious disease, and a less certain future. Without accelerated intervention, this new era will come to define the health of people at every stage of their lives.

Unless we have a drastic turn around, a child born in 2020 will live through a world that is 4 degrees warmer, with worsening air pollution and food insecurity. Adults will experience more heat, stronger storms, infectious diseases, extreme poverty and mental illness.
Atlas and the Anthropocene

IN MAY 2019, a prominent group of scientists voted to designate a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, that reflects the commencement of substantial human impact on the Earth’s systems.

It is hotly debated among scientists and anthropologists exactly when the Anthropocene may have begun. Perhaps its seeds were sown with the rise of agriculture and later, industrialization. What is clear is that our trajectory human dominance reached new heights with the Great Acceleration in the 1940s as the nuclear age began. Since then, nuclear testing and the use of nuclear weapons, combined with other human activities from water and fertilizer usage to environmental pollutants have dramatically accelerated the Anthropocene Epoch.
Is Big Tech too Big to Fail?

IN 2018, Amazon paid $0 in United States federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes. It also received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. Amazon has a long-history of tax management. It paid 1.2% in federal income tax in 2017– a three-year high for the company. The corporation, which is headquartered in Seattle, funneled $1.5m into the
local city council elections by way of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee.
Collusion, Corruption... Uninterrupted

THE PHARMACEUTICAL industry is one of the largest moneymakers in the world, with with more than $1 trillion in profits every year. It is an industry that heavily influences our healthcare system, yet, it only profits when people are sick. Pharmaceutical companies are one of the largest lobbies in Washington, with dozens of lobbyists.
No One Wins In The Nuclear Waste War

SAN ONOFRE, Generating System is located south of San Clemente, California on the Pacific coast near the water’s edge. Work began on the San Onofre in 1964, and was commissioned in 1968. New steam generators were installed in 1983 and 1984. By the end of their third decade of service, their pipes were getting plugged up, and the units needed replacing. San Onofre had a radiation leak in 2012. It has not been usable since then. Billions of dollars were at stake when the plant failed.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimated a meltdown could have resulted in as many as 130,000 immediate deaths, 300,000 cancers and 600,000 genetic defects.
Puppet Masters All Around

A PUPPET MASTER is a person, organization or corporate entity in a position of power that in the background secretly influences or controls outcomes as if everyone below them were puppets.
Too Big to Fail?

IN 2018, Amazon paid $0 in United States federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes. It also received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. Amazon has a long-history of tax management. It paid 1.2% in federal income tax in 2017– a three-year high for the company. The corporation, which is headquartered in Seattle, funneled $1.5m into the local city council elections by way of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee.

The banking industry received a “too big to fail” bailout in 2008, and it gave rise a generation of companies that have in the last decade been allowed to grow even bigger and more unwieldly. Technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have adopted the stance that with great scale comes total impunity.
If You Could Only Sea

OUR OCEANS are polluted with plastics of all kinds and sizes. It is a global problem with no real agreed on solution.

Only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled. From its contributions to global heating and pollution, to the chemicals and microplastics that migrate into our bodies, the food chain and the environment, the overwhelming cost of this cheap material is becoming more apparent. We have technology that can see microplastic particles that don’t breakdown, and find their way into almost everything including the snow packs in our mountain regions. We have specialized equipment for the detection of nanoplastics – plastics that have broken down to sizes below a thousandth of a millimeter, smaller than a single cell. Laboratory tests show that unlike microplastics, nanoplastics are small enough to accumulate within the bloodstreams and cell membranes of a range of organisms.
What Happens When A Reef Dies?

THE REASON REEFS are dying because of human activity.

Most coral reefs occur in shallow water near shore. As a result, they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of human activities, both through direct exploitation of reef resources, and through indirect impacts from adjacent human activities on land and in the coastal zone.
Global, Galling, Gluttonous, Gargantuan Greed... 5G

IN 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), responsible for regulating the safety of wireless technology, adopted guidelines which only protect consumers from thermal levels of wireless harm, ignoring substantial evidence of profound harms from non-thermal levels. The FCC hasn’t reviewed its guidelines since, despite clear scientific evidence and growing rates of Radio Frequency related sickness.

In 2012, the General Accountability Office published a report recommending that the FCC re-assess its guidelines. As a result, in 2013, the FCC opened docket 13-84 asking for public comment. Despite overwhelming evidence in support of new rules submitted by hundreds of individuals and scientists, the FCC did nothing. On December 4, 2019, the FCC closed the docket and affirmed the adequacy of its guidelines without proper assessment. Lawsuits are being brought that challenges that FCC decision.
The True Cost of Privilege

OUR CURRENT FORM of unconscious capitalism with profits above all else, even the health of Mother Earth, be sustainable? Our current broken global economic system is prospering while climate change, resource depletion, ocean acidification and over population are suffering. Most scientists agree we have entered a new Epoch, the Anthropocene, acknowledging that man’s constant intervention into Earth’s natural order is wreaking havoc on our planet. Our brand of capitalism is an energy-intensive way of life that is affecting every living thing on Earth.
Out of Time... and Still Running

HOW DO WE KNOW if we are running out of time? What scientific experts do we listen to?

With Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, Big Oil and Gas, Big Tech, Big Banking, Big Philanthropy, politicians and lobbyists are constantly creating narratives encouraging us what to think, what to buy, what to eat, and how to be “healthy” using their guidelines. They sow doubt about the science of climate change to confuse the public and delay action to curtail emissions.
The Great Reckoning as People Rise Up

IS IT POSSIBLE that the way forward in solving some of the world’s most pressing issues will be through grassroots organizations standing together and rising up in solidarity? Albert Einstein, the Nobel physicist wrote, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Grassroots organizations harness the power of the people, and use collective action around a common cause.
The Return

OFTEN, THE TERMS Mother Nature and Mother Earth are used interchangeably.

The obvious parallels between woman and nature are every-where. Both are traditionally associated with purity, simplicity, beauty and grace. A female’s seasons and cycles can be linked to the earth’s own recurring seasons and lunar cycles. Both nature and women have the power to grow life. And, when you have the ability to bring forth life, the commitment to preserving what you have created is very strong. As a mother cares for her children, and puts their well-being above her own life and liberty, so does Mother Earth.
Mother Nature, Mother Earth - Mothers Protect

OFTEN, THE TERMS Mother Nature and Mother Earth are used interchangeably.

The obvious parallels between woman and nature are everywhere. Both are traditionally associated with purity, simplicity, beauty and grace. A female’s seasons and cycles can be linked to the earth’s own recurring seasons and lunar cycles. Both nature and women have the power to grow life. And, when you have the ability to bring forth life, the commitment to preserving what you have created is very strong. As a mother cares for her children, and puts their well-being above her own life and liberty, so does Mother Earth.
Out of Chaos Gaia Comes

I USE THE METAPHOR ‘Gaia” for Mother Earth because I believe that metaphors are needed for widespread comprehension of the true nature of the Earth and an understanding of the lethal dangers that lie ahead for our planet Earth.