Everybody Deserves Some Time Off

When a friend said to me this morning, "I know all the environmental problems still exist, but ...." I cut her off by adding, "But you still have to eat breakfast, right?" "Exactly," was her response.

Well, I still have to eat breakfast. I need some time to recharge my batteries and reinvigorate my soul. It's been a taxing year, with illness and change and sad news. So I'm going to take some time off from this blog, and I'll see you back here when the spirit moves me.

Meantime, I'll leave you with some delightful news!

Gravity is illuminating sub-Saharan Africa

See this article in The Guardian about an innovative solution to burning kerosene (which produces black carbon, or soot, a byproduct of incomplete combustion; one kilogram of black carbon gives rise to "as much warming in a month as 700 kilograms of carbon dioxide does over 100 years") for light. More than a billion people (250-300 million households) around the world burn kerosene as their primary source of light. 

Kirk Smith, professor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and director of the Global Health and Environment Program, says: "There are no magic bullets that will solve all of our greenhouse gas problems, but replacing kerosene lamps is low-hanging fruit, and we don't have many examples of that in the climate world."

Says Jim Reeves, technical director of the Gravity Light Foundation and designer of this simple technology, "I was always a creative person, and did really enjoy making things. The potential outcome of some creative process, where you're just trying to solve a problem, where that outcome can be used in such a tremendously positive way, it really drives you to set about solving that problem.... If you're going to do anything that's vaguely innovative, then you're going to go through loops of real frustration and crushing disappointment. That's going to be part of that journey."

But, he added, "What we're trying to do is have a positive impact, improving life in general."

One of the first recipients of the gravity light said, "The bad thing with kerosene is that it is very expensive. Sometimes people get health problems because of the smoke. When you don't have money, you have to live in the dark." 

Until now. 

*****

What can you do about the climate change emergency? Encourage and support creative problem solving and innovation. Talk about innovative solutions like GravityLight with your family and friends, neighbours and colleagues.

Annus Horribilis (Let's Be Sentimental for the Future, Not the Past)

A friend told me yesterday that my blog posts often sound frustrated. I would like to point out that I have written a handful of positive posts since May 2009. I can't remember when or why or what they were, but I'm sure I have. (Wait, here's a recent example: How to Conjure Up Joy in Sad Times.)

Then there's today's post. Oh man, am I frustrated! I was already almost half way through my own personal annus horribilis (with a nod to Queen Elizabeth who had hers in 1992). Then a plumbing pipe broke. The ensuing flood in our living room and downstairs has complicated my life enormously (as you can imagine), especially since I recently moved dozens of stored boxes to our basement. I had pictured going through those boxes at a leisurely pace, deciding what to save and what to recycle or repurpose. The insurance company (and the threat of mold) have created a frenetic pace at which I now have to go through all the wet boxes to see if there's anything worth salvaging.

It's still hard to see the silver lining in this micro-catastrophe (I wasn't wishing for a new living room floor and I certainly didn't want to spend my birthday this way), but it's sure brought out the philosophical bent in my friends and me. 

After the flood, as I was tearfully bent over in the crawl space, heaving heavy wet boxes (and, mercifully, some still dry ones) into a dry area, I realized that African mothers of starving children might cry, but they just keep going. "Just keep going," I kept telling myself. "This is nothing – nothing – compared to their pain and their struggle."

My friend Cory wrote: "Think of it as a cleanse! Our memories are in our hearts and minds – not really in boxes." An excellent reminder. 

And my pragmatic hubby implored, "Why be sentimental about the past? Be sentimental about the future."

Ah, yes. The past is looked after. What I remember is what I remember (and it's mind-blowing how much I've discovered I'd forgotten). It's the future I should be focused on and concerned about. "Sentimental" is defined as "of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia." Well, since we're in the throes of making the future a thing of the past, it makes sense to feel nostalgic for the good old days when the future was bright and everything was possible. And a feeling of tenderness, too – for the children of all species.

And then I was reminded of this quote, by Hans Schellnhuber, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: 

"First law of humanity – don’t kill your children." 

Now how's that for future-focused sentimentality? (At least one skeptic blogger calls it "inflammatory" but methinks she is not a critical thinker.) 

Indeed, wouldn't it be fascinating to find out if there's a positive correlation between cultures that focus on the past (for example, family trees, portraiture, scrapbooking, ancestor worship, storage lockers, history study in school) and their impacts on the future? Hmmmmm.

Love, Death and an African Proverb: A Tribute to a Fine English Lady

I wrote this on Friday, 10 May 2013. That was the day of my husband's mother's funeral. It was therefore a sad day for us, but also a day of celebration. She lived a "good long life" (she died at the age of 96) and felt ready to go. Although her son sometimes feels that she led a hard life (especially with the personal fallout of World War II), she always insisted that she had only good memories. 

In the guestbook, I wrote: "I will forever be grateful to my mother-in-law for giving me the greatest gift she could give: the love of my life, the love of her life, her son."

Then I started to think about how his mum had helped my sweetheart become the wonderfully caring man that he is. And that's when this African proverb came to mind:

"What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help him to learn."

Mrs. C loved the birds, the forests, the flowers, her garden. And Peter loves all Creation, too. 

*******

It's a simple thing, isn't it? What you love will be what your child learns to love. So, parents, love the right things. Love the good things, the life-giving things.

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." 

— Rumi

Painkillers

We have a wonderful little coffee shop in my community ... friendly owner, lovely ocean view, great coffee (apparently; I don't drink the stuff myself), and a potluck feeling of "Hey, who might I run into here today?"

My husband and I were in there yesterday, meeting with a young climate activist friend, and there was a moment during our conversation when I suddenly started crying. I can talk about this stuff rationally and intellectually, but then all of a sudden the enormity of the problem hits me. Crying is the outlet that allows me to stay in the discussion without banging my fist on the table in a public place or, worse, becoming totally depressed and withdrawn.

It was kind of funny and ironic then that another friend – a rather pregnant one – walked in and we started talking about epidurals and pain during delivery and the magic of Demerol. One person in the café explained that he was prescribed Demerol years ago following a very painful surgery. To paraphrase: "I found myself lying in bed, happier than I've ever been, trying hard to think of something negative. But I could not come up with a single problem in the world. Then I realized it was the effect of the Demerol and I had to kiss that particular brand of happiness goodbye."

Aha, I realized! Demerol is the answer to climate change! If we all take it, there won't be a climate change problem anymore! Indeed, all of our problems will be over.* [Satire alert.]

It was an interesting thought for a moment or two*, until I had to kiss that brand of problem solving goodbye. But it made me realize several things. 

1. The psychic pain of knowing what we're doing to the Earth, to the future, to Life, can cut very deep at times – and there is nothing wrong with taking a painkiller from time to time. 
2. Every activist who hasn't burned out has found their own painkiller. "Demerol for All" isn't the answer, but we ought to be compassionate with ourselves. Constant pain is not in the recipe for healing or health. For example, my friend Sandy Hinden (see his call for a Sacred Earth Economics Conference) uses his creative powers and energies to keep himself going in the face of "knowing." He recently said: "The powers of greed and corruption are amazing, so cunning, so smooth and deeply entrenched throughout governments, non-profits and business… yet we are approaching a biological meltdown. I think I am toughening up for something."
3. And yet, our psychic pain of knowing is nothing compared with the pain already being felt and experienced by hundreds of thousands of the world's most climate change vulnerable. And they don't have the option of tuning out or turning away or taking a painkiller. They must stay totally focused on survival. 

So let's have a good cry or take our metaphorical or symbolic painkillers as and when we must in order to stay in the fight and the fray. As my husband just pointed out in his most recent Uprage post, "Believe me, we must save Africans to save ourselves. If we don't act on it now, by the time Africans are dying in their millions we will know we are watching our future."

* p.s. Demerol is a powerful painkiller, not to be used lightly and only with a prescription. Please note that not for one minute am I suggesting that we all take Demerol.

Am I a Teacher or a Human Being First?

I'm still "smarting" from a run-in with my professional union this week, one that broke my heart.

According to our new job action (precursor to a strike), teachers in my province are not participating in a whole host of activities, such as staff meetings, meetings with parents outside of instructional time, and fundraising — which I assumed meant raising money for school supplies that our government funding should pay for.

So I went ahead and planned our annual harvest luncheon as a soup potluck and invited students to bring pennies from home for famine relief in East Africa. "Soup for Somalia" we were calling it. I even contacted my union to make sure this was okay, and the rep told me my students and their parents could collect the money.

But my colleagues decided that this was "sidestepping the spirit of the current teaching strike initiative." One told me, "Although I agree that fundraising for Somalia is important, I also believe that it is not appropriate at this time. I would fully support a fundraiser after our job action." Another suggested that "using the school as the vehicle [for this fundraising] ... is problematic." This colleague thought that my unilateral organizing of this event (which I did last year, too, and no one complained) "does us a disservice at this time. What is the rush?"

Well, I put in a call to Somalia, and they said they can't postpone their famine til after we've settled our contract. But, like a coward (and I'm ashamed of my cowardice, especially after last week's entreaty to teachers to be courageous and compassionate), I cancelled the event — we're putting on a community soup dinner and benefit concert that evening instead.

Meantime, if you live here in Canada, anything you donate by September 16th will be matched by our federal government. (Visit the Humanitarian Coalition, or a similar group in your country.)

I know, I know, "donor fatigue" and "we've seen it all before." Here in my community, there's a huge benefit tomorrow for a young boy with cancer. And an all-out search elsewhere in my province for a child who's been abducted.

But Somalis and Ethiopians and Kenyans love their children, too. And so many of the factors leading to this drought, well, our lifestyles are implicated. Please, give what you can. And shame on teachers who think that helping our students become more compassionate is ever the wrong thing to do.

Is Mother Nature Really Starting to Get Pissed Off? And Who's Paying the Price?

Or is it just my imagination?

A cougar had to be shot in downtown Sidney, British Columbia (here in Canada) the other night. Cougars are so dangerous (to humans and other prey) that the conservation officer was afraid to take any chances with tranquilizing and relocating it.

Strange orange-backed bees are attacking people here in my rural community. One young man I know couldn't see for days after a sting swelled his eye closed.

Rodents of all sizes are moving into residential neighbourhoods en masse. And coming out in daylight hours — a bad sign!

The deer are hanging out in the middle of the road. (As if to say, Hey, maybe this will slow those humans down.)

Our weather has gone all wonky. It's dark and dreary here in the middle of summer (which really hurts this week because I'm running my Nature Daycamp, though I suppose the upside is the complete lack of sunstroke possibility).

Alas, it's been crossing my mind lately that perhaps Mother Nature isn't going to take it all lying down. Maybe she's thinking, "Exterminate your species all you want, but you're not taking the rest of us."

I continue to scan the news on climate change and the whole situation is becoming quite surreal. It appears we are indeed trying to exterminate our own species. The United States Department of State Official Blog has this to say about the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years:

Here at the port of Djibouti, thousands of metric tons of food assistance are ready to be shipped as part of the U.S. response to the massive drought currently ravaging the Horn of Africa. USAID is mobilizing nutritious split peas, along with vitamin-fortified corn-soya blend and other commodities, from warehouses around the world to assist the more than 10 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia most affected by the drought.

The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) began warning of the possibility of this crisis as early as summer 2010. Today, it has developed into the region's worst drought since the 1950s. Consecutive seasons of poor rainfall have resulted in failed crops, dying livestock, and sky-high market prices -- the cost of staple cereals are 40 to 240 percent higher in some areas. Malnutrition has reached emergency levels: one out of every two Somali refugees arriving in Ethiopia and one out of every three arriving in Kenya is acutely malnourished.

Does anything jump out at you? Once again we are, with ever increasing finesse and detail, documenting the impacts of global climate disruption on the world's most vulnerable — but doing nothing to prevent these impacts. An early warning system for famines? Do these people not realize their foreshadowing? Do they not see that what is befalling these African nations serves as an omen for the future of our children here in "western" developed countries?

3 Days to Copenhagen - For Shame ... Shame on the Lot of Them

Vultures play an important, nay, a vital role in the web of life. As scavengers who clean up corpses left behind by predators, by disease and by old age, vultures are among the "caretakers" who maintain the health and beauty of the natural environment.

Climate change deniers play a very dangerous and damaging role in the web of life. They are scavengers who first go around killing so that they can have something to pick on. They are not caretakers — they rape and pillage and to hell with the consequences. They don't maintain anything but their own worldview, and their sick, sadistic lies are killing the health and beauty of the natural environment. It is so very obvious that deniers want their children and grandchildren (and mine) to roast in the hell that they are creating on Earth — otherwise they would not have wasted the last 15 to 20 years — they would be enjoying the fruits of their investments in renewable energy by now.

Let us be very clear. To call these evil people vultures would be a gross insult to the vultures. (My post tomorrow will explain what we now know about the possible impacts of "business as usual" global warming and why the obfuscating of the deniers is a true sin and a crime.)

This post, then, is my very clumsy, but sincere, effort at offering a tribute to Professor Phil Jones, now resigned head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Dr. Jones was picked on and attacked for years by the climate change deniers, who have now hacked him, eaten him up and spit him out. (In this case, it's no coincidence that "hack" has a double meaning.) As vultures, climate change deniers suck. Dr. Jones, I will light my vigil candle on Saturday for you.

When I explained the Hackergate situation on Day 10, I never imagined that the evil deniers would win this oh-so-obvious smear campaign when they still have found no improprieties in the hacked emails (despite all their hysteria). My sadness knows no bounds, just as their evil knows no bounds.

Climate change deniers and idiots make me want to believe in a hell, so that they can burn there. I have reached the limit of my compassion ... alas, it is not as boundless as I thought (and hoped) it was six months ago when I began this blog.

No, the climate change deniers and idiots do not deserve my compassion. They have made victims of Phil Jones and so many other serious and dedicated climate scientists; of much of Africa, the Arctic, and the Pacific Islands; of the pine forests in northern British Columbia in Canada, and of the beautiful cedars in my front yard. They have threatened my (yes, my) food security and the water sources for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. They have foreclosed on the future of all the children — of all species — living today. They have committed the very worst kind of murder: progenycide — the genocide of future generations — knowingly, willingly, deliberately, eyes wide open and with smug smirks on their faces, like this is some kind of game instead of a deadly planetary emergency.

They do not deserve forgiveness, for they know what they do. The deepest shame on them all. I send out my compassion to their children and grandchildren.

45 Days - Become an Emmerdeur!

I was watching a video lecture by Gunter Pauli, Belgian designer and eco-entrepreneur, and he suggested that we should become "emmerdeurs." I spent a year studying in Belgium when I was 17, so I sat up when I heard him use this term.

I'd like to be able to say that it translates into "shit disturber" but it's more like "pain in the ass." (I remember that "tu m'emmerdes" was stronger than "you're bugging me.") Nevertheless, his encouragement got me thinking of ways that I could start being a pain in people's ....

I've gotta say, upfront, that this is difficult for me. I was always the good kid in class, teacher's pet, never got in trouble. So setting out to upset people, piss people off, become an emmerdeuse, bug people, question and guilt trip them, educate them in ways they don't want to be educated, well, this does not come naturally for me. I'm doing it for the children in Africa.

Remember we've been talking about going veg as a way to lower methane emissions as quickly as possible and buy us some time to get the other necessary solutions implemented? Well, here's tonight's idea.

I'm going to get some cards made that explain this situation, and I'm going to start handing them out in restaurants to people who order meat. Tonight we had delicious (vegetarian) pizza at our favourite place and we heard the waitress explain to the couple next to us what the two specials were: garden vegetable pot pie and a creamy Alfredo pasta. Both vegetarian! (We hadn't even bothered to ask cuz Wednesday is pizza night in our family.) But when I heard the woman order chicken strips with fries, I was ready to emmerde her! Sheesh.

Here's another example. I live in a community with a full, highly organized, very expensive Emergency Preparedness Plan. Many communities in Canada have similar plans. It's nice to know this plan is in place in case we ever have a tsunami or a big fire. I also discovered recently that our local school district has a Pandemic Plan, for the H1N1 virus.

Now, I can't just leave that alone. I wrote to the school district superintendant to wonder why we have an Emergency Preparedness Plan for an emergency that might never happen, and a Pandemic Plan for a pandemic that might not materialize — but we don't have a Climate Change Emergency Plan for the climate change emergency we're already in!!! (How's that for denial, eh?) I thought that was a good example of being a pain in the ....

So, let's just point out these stupid choices that people are making. In any way we can. Let's not be silent any longer! Let's become emmerdeurs extraordinaires.

59 Days - Climate Change Memes?

I remember first reading about MEMES years ago in Adbusters, but have only recently been thinking about their importance in our work to safeguard the future.

Now, this is just a blog, not an academic treatise, but I'd like to make a suggestion or two.

First off, let's define "meme" (rhymes with "cream"), from definitions I've culled from a few different sources.

A meme is an idea or cultural phenomenon that is passed on from one human generation to another. It's the cultural equivalent of a gene, the basic element of biological inheritance. Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976, in his book The Selfish Gene, in which he said that humans can pass their ideas from one generation to the next, allowing them to surmount challenges more flexibly and more quickly than through the longer process of genetic adaptation and selection. A meme is a unit of cultural information that is transmitted from one mind to another, verbally or by repeated action.

Examples I found listed as memes: the idea of God; social structure (importance of the individual versus family/group or tribe importance); a belief that the natural environment can be controlled; catch-phrases (just think of all the jingles you can still remember from commercials played during your childhood); the technology of building arches. Meme is an abbreviated form of the Greek word "mimeme," which means "something imitated."

Doesn't it seem as though the skeptics and deniers have a fully developed set of memes that they trot out continually, while the people who are trying to safeguard the planet for their children have come up with what? 350?

So this is a request for suggestions. Please send in your climate change memes ... how do you explain things to your friends and relatives? Here are some I'm trying to get going:

• The most important number in 350 is the zero. Zero carbon emissions.
• Hey, just leave the coal in the ground. It's not like it's going anywhere. Once we've got this whole thing figured out, you can go find it again.
• Global warming is the science of physics. And if you're scientifically illiterate, then you're going to want to go with someone who isn't, like a scientist who studies global warming.
• What's happening to the children in climate-ravaged parts of Africa today will soon be happening to our children.

Greenpeace suggests fewer than six words for a banner ... so my memes won't make it onto too many bumper stickers, but then climate change "education" doesn't have to be about short sound bites. We still have, I hope, some patience for deep listening and learning.

I'd like to leave you with this discussion of memes or cultural metaphors, from one of my eco-heroes, Chet Bowers:

The other major difficulty is becoming explicitly aware that language, which is also part of the cultural commons, serves the same role in connecting generations of individuals as the DNA does in the realm of human biology. The analogy even holds to the point where a metaphor, like a mutated gene, can be seen as reproducing over generations the misconceptions of earlier thinkers. Just as genes influence biological development over many generations, metaphors, constituted in the distant past influence thought and behavior over many generations. The major difference is that we can make explicit the analogy that is reproduced in the use of metaphors such as traditions, individualism, intelligence, data, and so forth — and then identify analogies that give the metaphor a more current and ecologically accountable meaning. The shift from thinking of wilderness as wild and in need of human control to thinking of it as a pristine ecology with its own cycles of regeneration represents an example of our ability to change the meaning of words in ways that account for today's realities.

(from Educating for a Revitalization of the Cultural Commons, in Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Volume 14, 2009, p. 198)

65 Days - The Problem is Another Kind of NIMBYism

You know what NIMBY means, right? It stands for Not In My BackYard. And it is still quite common, for example, amongst people fighting the installation of wind farms. (Have you seen "The Age of Heartbreak, er, Stupid" yet?)

It struck me the other day that the reason the climate change emergency has not garnered the attention it deserves is another form of NIMBYism. Because it's not in my backyard, I can't see it (don't see it; won't see it) and therefore I don't care about it.

I've started getting angry with people who talk like that. As though the children dying from drought in Africa are not our children. As though the people losing their homelands in the Pacific are not our brothers and sisters. As though the Inuit in the Arctic who are losing their homes and their ancient way of life are not our relations.

Even Mr. Compassion himself, the Dalai Lama, didn't talk about climate change until he realized that the glaciers in Tibet were melting. (It seems a little attachment is a good thing these days.)

Don't people realize that what's happening to the children in Africa now will very soon be happening to our own children, here in our own backyards?

It's still amazing how many people refuse to see what is not right in front of their noses. Maybe we need to give everyone a nose that reaches to Africa and the Maldives and the Arctic!

Damn it, where is Pinocchio when we need him?

(With thanks to André Koehne for the art.)

131 Days Until Copenhagen - If... Then... (The Saga of Melting Arctic Ice and Drought in Texas)

Remember that old expression, If the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he would have caught the rabbit?

Well, I'm starting to wonder....

If the Bush Administration hadn't chosen to keep spy satellite photos of melting Arctic ice top secret, maybe Texas wouldn't be going through the horrifying drought it's experiencing. Maybe, just maybe, those photos would have ignited concern about climate change across the United States and around the world. And then maybe, just maybe, we'd all be doing something about it.

My heart goes out to the Texans. For a generation and a nation that has never gone without water, this must be a very frightening time for them.

And once again, there but for the grace of the Universe (and a few years), go I (and you, too). Arctic ice is the air conditioner of the northern hemisphere during our growing season. No Arctic ice = no growing season due to drought and scorched earth. (By the way, have you heard? Those with money know this and have started buying up agricultural land in the southern hemisphere.)

Let's hold in our hearts that many people and places in Africa are already far worse off than Texas, where they can no longer water their lawns but still have water to drink. The devastation to the crops in Texas this summer might, however, give them some compassion for the plight of Africans already impacted by global climate catastrophe.

p.s. Why were they spying on the Inuit in the Arctic anyway?

159 Days - What Role Does Trust Play in Our Climate Change Solutions?

"Trust" has been a recurring theme in my life these last few days (including in my dreams at night), and maybe that's for a reason. What role does, or should, trust play in our climate change deliberations?

I keep reading reports from high level United Nations meetings or OECD meetings that underscore a perverse sort of trust: We can definitely, it appears, trust developed nations to ignore their role in the climate crisis (not to mention the economic crisis), and to do whatever they can to not have to change.

But that's not the kind of trust I mean.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to trust that politicians at all levels will remember their humanity and act as human beings (there is certainly reason to doubt this at times, when we witness their staunch refusal to grasp that human life is dependent on the rest of Life), with children and grandchildren whose future they care about?

Wouldn't it be great to be able to trust that our neighbours and friends and fellow community members will always (well, almost always) put the collective benefit before their own personal desires? ("I need chocolate chips... I must have chocolate chips NOW... I'll just run —read: burn fossil fuels by driving — to the store and get some" becomes "Oh well, I'm out of chocolate chips. The next time I'm out shopping, I'll buy some. Tonight, I'll make oatmeal raisin cookies rather than chocolate chip cookies.")

And finally, how do we come to trust ourselves, so that when that choice point comes (flying away on vacation or staying close to home, for example), we do what is for the greatest good of everyone, and not just our small circle of family and friends?

In other words, how do we become trustworthy in the face of climate change? Is it like forming a new habit? They say it takes three weeks to form a new habit, whether good or bad — so how about saying no to driving, flying, heating, burning, buying for 21 days, to see how it feels? How about if we spend three weeks always putting the face of an African child in our mind's eye when making a decision that could release carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the (our shared) atmosphere? What about discussing every climate-change-related decision with someone else before making it?

And what if, when we write to politicians and others (climate scientists or environmental groups? big banks and big corporations?) in whom we must entrust our future, we use the language of trust? For example, "Dear Mr/s. President or Prime Minister, may I trust that you will do everything — absolutely everything, at every opportunity — you can to safeguard the future of your children and mine?"

Let's plant the seed of trust ... and maybe those in charge of our climate future will become truly worthy of our trust.

191 Days to Go - Could Climate Compassion Lead to Climate Heroes?

This morning, I received several grateful responses to a posting I made yesterday to an environmental education listserve. In response to a research study showing why people aren't responding to the climate change crisis, I spoke about the importance of compassion.

In response to this quote from the article:

"Danger brings emotional reactions, dread, a feeling of alarm. Evolution has equipped us with that," says Elke Weber, director of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University. "The threats we face today are not of that type. They are psychologically removed in space and time."

I said this:

This is a developed-world response. Millions of people in Africa, the North and small island states are already facing danger, today, right now. Those of us who still look outside and see a beautiful day and then buy all the food we need in a grocery store might think our species is not facing immediate danger, but we are ... if we count our brothers and sisters in climate-change-vulnerable regions as "us." Sadly, our EuroAmerican-based cultures tend to psychologically remove us from any feeling of species/special connection with other human beings living in developing countries. Time to bring back compassion.

And to this quote:

But that will require overcoming some very basic impulses, she acknowledges. "People are very unwilling to sacrifice," she says. They base many decisions on the immediate cost. "It hurts us a lot to give up whatever we think we are due, such as our standard of living," Weber notes."

I said:

People *nowadays* in our EuroAmerican cultures are perhaps unwilling to make sacrifices. But parents elsewhere, indeed animal parents everywhere and throughout history have sacrificed to ensure their child/ren's survival. People *are* willing to sacrifice, but we have been brainwashed into believing that only chumps make sacrifices. [Chumps are gullible, foolish people who are easy to take advantage of.] ...Let's bring back the notion of heroes — people who give a damn about others. And then let's all be one. Compassionate climate change heroes!

What do you think? If anyone out there is reading this, I would love to hear from you. Could the promotion of compassion for climate-change-vulnerable people in other parts of the world turn us and our elected so-called leaders into climate change heroes? If you think so, how could we go about promoting such compassion? And if you don't think so, what other ideas do you have for getting through to people that we're already in a climate emergency because our brothers and sisters in other regions are already being impacted?

To help you decide, have a look at the two very sobering maps on this webpage: http://energybulletin.net/node/48953