Happy Halloween ... It Doesn't Get Any Scarier Than This

Just a bunch of scary stuff for you this week, in honour of Halloween. (Wouldn't want to take our minds off the whole climate change emergency just cuz of a fun little holiday, now would we?)

Here's a very good movie called Last Hours. Scarier than heck, but presented in calm, soothing tones. Kinda creepy how that works.

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A couple of thoughts. I was reading an online article called How to Get People to Give a Damn About Climate Change and wanted to comment: "Really, all this is moot. Who cares what the public knows, understands or believes? It's governments that have to make sweeping changes …."

And then I thought, "Oh yeah, wait. The public votes in governments! Now I get it." (When people ask, "What can I do about climate change?" I often respond, "Help create the political will for the government to do something about it.")

There was a comment below that article: "It wasn't long ago that German scientists had a 100% consensus that eugenics was an excellent policy."

"Ah," I said to myself, "that could explain the IPCC's phobia about policy." (Did you know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change refuses to say whether all this warming and climate chaos is dangerous?)

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Guess what? I discovered (rather belatedly) why Canada's last Environment Minister, Peter Kent, lost his job! "You don't have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and we need to address it." Oh my, what a way to get fired by Not-so-Prime Minister Stephen Burn-It-All! Harper. 

The (okay, almost year old) article that I read reported Kent as saying "he talks to his U.S. counterparts on a 'more than monthly basis' and there's a general consensus that it's an issue that has to be addressed. 'We would ignore it at our peril.'" Which kinda proves my point that governments know exactly what's going on ... and they're ignoring it at our peril. 

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Did you know that there's a Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change? Me neither. But yup, there is. Retired Bangladeshi Major General ANM Muniruzzaman chairs it. And here's what he said about the climate change emergency and global security: 

"When I was a major general in Bangladesh’s military, my job was to avoid conflict while planning for the worst-case scenario. And, from the perspective of the military, the consequences of global warming constitute the worst-case scenario. 

"When I meet with my colleagues at the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change — generals and admirals from around the world, all with career-long experience in military planning and operations — I am struck by the similarity of our concerns. All countries of the world are experiencing changes that are destabilizing communities and increasing security concerns. Diseases are spreading, wells are drying up, storms are smashing cities and destroying crops, and rain is either a distant memory or an acute danger.  

In global security circles, we often speak of the 'international community.' Climate change is the ultimate global challenge and global threat, and the global community must meet it together. We cannot have our separate attitudes and plans."

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And I'll leave you with something that isn't scary. Once Halloween is over, it'll be November. And you know what that means, right? Yup, Christmas carols in shopping plazas! (Okay, maybe that is scary.) So here's a new idea. An alternative gift registry, where you sign up to let loved ones know what you don't want to receive (sort of). Anyway, have some fun exploring whether this would be useful in your life. SoKind Registry. Their motto is More Fun, Less Stuff. It's a project of The Center for a New American Dream, so to be honest, I don't even know if it'll work for the rest of us. If not, let the idea start to inspire some fun gift-making between now and the holidays.