How Climate Science Gets Tossed Around and Misrepresented

Exactly, xkcd! Thank you.

A couple of things this week helped me finally grasp that the field of climate change science is like any other human endeavour -- rife with human foibles, especially greed and ego.

First up, from Climate Parents, a little tale of greed (profit before integrity) [emphasis in original]:

Two major publishers have drafted new social studies textbooks for K-12 students in Texas that are filled with misinformation about climate change. Since Texas is the ... second largest buyer of textbooks [in the United States], books produced for the state are often sold nationwide.  

Among [the] egregious errors, the draft textbooks from McGraw-Hill and Pearson assert there is an active dispute among scientists about the primary cause of climate change. The climate change-denying Heartland Institute is given equal footing with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which integrates the work of thousands of credentialed, peer-reviewed scientists. 

McGraw-Hill and Pearson need to correct the many factual errors about climate change before its books are presented to the Board for final approval. Otherwise, students across the country could be denied accurate information about the biggest global challenge their generation will face.  

The publishers are responding to pressure from climate deniers on the Board of Education, who are determined to stop students from learning the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. It's crucial that we send a strong message right away that censoring climate science in order to sell books is unethical and an unacceptable disservice to students, and must be corrected.

You can sign their petition here, asking McGraw-Hill and Pearson to, you know, tell students the truth. (I'd hate to see what their science textbooks have to say about climate change!)

Next up, here's a tale of ego before integrity -- and science by haiku (which is a shortcut to misunderstandings). It seems the climate change blogosphere has been lit up with the story of a Twitter lynch mob at a recent fancy dancy scientific meeting. 

As a nonscientist who doesn't even make it onto the cartoon up top, it's been fascinating for me (while recuperating from the flu) to watch the perps and their groupies cry foul. "He hit me back first" sort of stuff. I figure if you're going to dish it out via Twitter, you'd better be able to take it in complete paragraphs. 

Anyway, it sure seems to be a case of the new (climate modellers) trying to oust the old (field scientists) -- a territorial thing? An ego thing? The only humour I've found in the whole sordid affair is that the main tweeter has two degrees, both in ... can you guess? Math. (See cartoon above.)

Here's an example of how the science got tossed around and misrepresented. 

The head honcho tweeter tweeted: So and so "clearly states that there is no physics behind his extrapolations." But here's how someone who was in attendance heard the same Q&A: Such and such "raised his hand to ask 'Is any of this based on Physics?' to which So and so replied 'no' referring to the fact that it is collected observational data." See the dangerous difference between what was communicated at the meeting and what was communicated in 140 characters? 

Perhaps those precious mathematical modellers are simply so high up there on their pedestals of purity that data collected through years of field studies is piffle to them -- even if it's data that, if extrapolated properly (and that's where peer review and scientific debate -- not condescending tweets -- come in), is quite foreboding. 

Man, talk about bursting my balloon. After all these years of thinking that scientists were somehow superior to us lowly humanities types, it turns out they're just human, too. 

It Just Isn't Going to Work Out

I don't think I've done this before: basing a whole blog post on an image. Usually I write a post and then find a suitable illustration. But when I found this graphic weeks ago, it spoke to me. So I've held onto it, thinking that its day would come. Today is that day.

Here where I live, we are experiencing our first truly warm weather of the year. At a potluck dinner last night with my students and their parents, the kids ate quickly and played out in the front yard all evening. The adults sat out on the back deck and ate slowly, enjoying the warmth and the grown-up conversation.

When I came home, it was still warm out. Not "hot and sultry" warm but warm-enough-to-be-outside-with-just-a-sweater-on warm. (I live on an island in the Salish Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean, and so we rarely get toasty evenings.) It was so warm that I invited my husband to take the dog for a walk in the dark with me. 

I woke up this morning to sunshine and warmth. The sunshine alone is the return of the prodigal son after a long, dark winter away. But to come home with the gift of such balminess! Now I understand why that son's return was so celebrated.

The first thing I did was read an evocative article by Jon Mooallem in The New York Times Sunday Review: A Child's Wild Kingdom. What an enjoyable read! The kind that felt like a conversation, because I was responding as I went, agreeing with this, disagreeing with that, recalling similar or dissimilar experiences or realizations. All that after a sit outside in the warmth of the new day. (I live on an island in the Salish Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean, and so we rarely get warm mornings.)

And just now, to be able to feel confident explaining something here, I waded through a Guardian article, White House warned on imminent Arctic ice death spiral, and the hundreds of comments following it.

So why is today the day that I'm convinced "it won't work out"? 

This kind of warmth in early May frightens me as much as it exhilarates me. I know, I know. I should just enjoy it, revel in it. But ignorance is bliss, and I'm not ignorant.

Last night at the party, we talked about several perpetual energy sources: geothermal, solar concentrating, closed loop steam engines, solar thermal. But these conversations -- and conversions -- are coming too late.

That article I read this morning? It completely skimmed over the fact that children -- that all humans -- are indeed animals. Forgetting (or ignoring) this has been one of the reasons we think we can override natural processes. 

And the article about the White House waking up? Ha! From the article: "In February this year, the US Department of Defense (DoD) released its new Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, which noted that global warming will have:

'... significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to greater competition for more limited and critical life-sustaining resources like food and water.... DoD will need to adjust to the impacts of climate change on its facilities, infrastructure, training and testing activities, and military capabilities.'" 

So there it is. The US is finally worried. They're finally "getting" how serious this is. And their response? "On the Arctic, the report highlights the imperative to protect US resource interests by increasing regional military penetration: 

'Melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to new opportunities for shipping, tourism, and resource exploration, but the increase in human activity may require a significant increase in operational capabilities in the region in order to safeguard lawful trade and travel and to prevent exploitation of new routes for smuggling and trafficking.'" 

So let's not worry about food security and trivial stuff like that. Let's just make sure that the US military is ready to deal with whatever wee problems come up around mass starvation and stuff like that. 

It's not going to work out, folks. So yeah, maybe I should just turn off this old computer and get outside for some sunshine and gardening. Not a bad idea anyway, global warming or no global warming.

Cole Porter and the Climate Reality Leadership Corps

That's me, at the Climate Reality Leadership Training 

Well, my trip to San Francisco to train with Al Gore and the Climate Reality Project was invigorating and memorable! After a tiring but fascinating 22-hour train trip, it was inspiring to spend three days with 1000 other like-minded and like-hearted people ... from 57 or so different countries, no less! I'm now a trained presenter, and look forward to sharing the Climate Reality slide shows with people of all ages and in all walks of life throughout my small corner of the world.

I had to laugh that even amongst allies, I still found myself holding a much more acute view of the global warming problem, the necessary solutions, and the power our fossil-fuelled industrial civilization (no, not the whole human species) holds to radically alter the biosphere, making it inhospitable to life, period (not just to human civilization). It's somewhat of a curse living with a full-time science advisor (aka my husband) who spends practically every waking moment reading and synthesizing the scientific research on global warming and climate change. I often rue knowing so much about what's really going on.
But a great gal (and a science teacher) sitting next to me restored my faith in a master evolutionary plan when she reminded me that the newly discovered creatures living around the thermal vents at the bottom of the oceans will survive just fine.

 After all, they didn't evolve in the narrow atmospheric temperature range that we're used to. So all hope is not lost. If we don't get our butts in gear and stop our carbon emissions while pulling CO2 out of the air, humans will disappear and millions of other species will disappear along with us.

But the tiny animals that don't need the sun (relying on chemotropic bacteria instead of photosynthesis for their energy) and that can survive water that's hotter than boiling will do just fine on a too-hot-for-the-rest-of-us planet. I suppose that soon enough, they'll crawl out of the ocean and repopulate the Earth. Just not with us. Or roses and lilacs and elephants and otters. (Actor Christopher Reeve used to say, "Once you choose hope, anything's possible." So I won't be giving up anytime soon.)

I'm not sure yet whether I'll tell the full truth about the reality of the climate change situation when I make my presentations. Mr. Gore has decided not to, choosing instead to talk about the end of human civilization. He probably knows his audiences well. Picturing the world without "me" in it is existentially difficult. Imagining a world completely devoid of the human species is nigh on impossible.

I keep thinking that this desperate state of affairs will motivate the pants off people to do whatever it takes to cool the globe. My theory, ahem, doesn't seem to work in practice. I don't know what the philosophers have to say about my dilemma (full truth or only partial truth?), but some psychologists believe that people (in our North American society, at least) simply cannot handle knowing the reality.

I watched De-Lovely recently, a movie about the life of Cole Porter. (No, I don't spend every waking moment contemplating the end of life on Earth.) I knew nothing about him except for some of his songs, so I did some research. (Yes, this is relevant to the question at hand ... wait for it.) It seems that some of his shows in the 1930s were failures. According to Wikipedia sources, this convinced Porter that his songs did not appeal to a broad enough audience. In an interview, he said, "Sophisticated allusions are good for about six weeks ... more fun, but only for myself and about eighteen other people, all of whom are first-nighters anyway. Polished, urbane and adult playwriting in the musical field is strictly a creative luxury."

So you see, with both Al Gore and Cole Porter suggesting that people won't listen to what they don't want to hear, I'm still torn on whether to tell people about the impending consequences of Arctic summer sea ice collapse (2012 is the worst year ever) and the drought we're seeing all over the world (2012 appears to be the worst year yet for Northern Hemisphere drought). (See short videos below.) I welcome your frank (but not brutal) advice on which way I should go. Thanks!

Arctic ice extent is critical to Earth's temperature. Less Arctic summer sea ice means more Northern Hemisphere heat and climate disruption. 

Can you say "bread basket"?

A New Low in Criminal Negligence?

My online friend and blogger, Michael Murphy, found a very timely quote this week: 

“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.”

— Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 2004

Now, leaving hope aside for the moment (you know the mantra: hope is not an action verb; action is our only hope, so we don't get the luxury of hope until we've done the work of ensuring a future for our children), today I'd like to discuss something that's taking place because we're not "shedding our fear" or "shifting to a new level of consciousness" or "reaching a higher moral ground." 

I'm starting to view this as a form of criminal negligence. Or worse. (Perhaps recklessness? Or an intended cover up?)

According to Wikipedia, criminal negligence is an actus reus ("guilty act"), accompanied by mens rea ("guilty mind"), that is "careless, inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind" and for which "the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest."

And the guilty parties? Arctic sea ice modellers and the peer reviewers and editors who are publishing their research. Okay, I know. Yawn, right? Climate change modellers as villains? Pretty boring story, eh?

But the problem is this: Climate scientists have the power to shift our consciousness, help us reach or at least reach for the moral high ground, and shed our fear to take action. Instead, they are carelessly, inattentively, neglectfully or willfully blindly basing Arctic sea ice models on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's mid-range greenhouse gas emissions scenario, not on what's actually happening in the world, emissions-wise. 

Still don't find that compelling? Well, we've been on the IPCC's highest emissions scenario (the A1FI) for many years now, but these "scientists" (are modellers truly scientists or are they glorified computer geeks who "use" science and advanced mathematics to make models that produce projections and "surprises," the latter admitted by the IPCC) are running their models using an irrelevant, outdated and now dangerous "scenario" (a concept invented for the study of climate change because it doesn't sound scary). 

Can you see how wasteful and careless (it sure seems they couldn't care less) and dangerous this is? They're basing climate "science" on irreality. So how could their projections possibly be real or helpful?

And what of their peer reviewers and publishers? Given the number of lives at stake if we get this wrong, you'd think they would demand the proper starting point or baseline for the modelling, so it doesn't look like they're all just playing around with numbers on computers.

We know the dangers of losing the Arctic summer sea ice. Russia of 2010, anyone? So are these people, these researchers, peer reviewers and editors, ignorant? Irresponsible? Willfully blind? Trying to cover up how bad the situation is? Working for the fossil fuel industries? In my view, no matter why they're doing it, the fact that they are "allowing otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest" makes them guilty of criminal negligence.

Could Permaculture be an Answer?

Permaculture … when I first became interested in it, I knew the term was short for permanent agriculture and sensed that it had to do with seeing the possibilities and opportunities for growing food everywhere and filling the world with food!

Having just finished the first day of a 12-day course, I've learned a "proper" definition. Permaculture is an integrative, holistic design system, based in science and ethics and derived from Nature, that creates regenerative, sustainable human habitat. It's about a lot more than food and can be applied to many of our human endeavours.

I'm in a wonderful class of young people with a sprinkling of oldsters like me (when did I grow up?). Those in their mid-years who are working hard to raise their families probably couldn't afford the time or the money. We sort of discussed the fact that this "sandwich" generation is missing, and how much harder it's going to be for us to create transformation when they, through no fault of their own, have their noses to the grindstone.

So what is it about permaculture that I think can lead to transformation?

Well, you know that I'm a huge proponent of food security, and teaching people how to grow food before they have to. Permaculture is a systematic way to get down to doing that. It has the potential to take the willynilliness out of community learning for food security. It's based on three ethics:

1. Earth care (the Earth provides us with everything we need, so we need to think beyond "sustainable" to "regenerative")
2. People care (we need to take care of the people in our community, to create resilience)
3. Fair share (we need to set limits on our consumption, then redistribute the surplus)

Permaculture has its own set of common sense principles, many of which aren't that common. The first, for example, is "observe and interact." But how many of us take time on any given day to simply observe what's going on around us, let alone observe how Nature already does something that works? Another is "produce no waste." Ha ha ha ha ha! Waste has come to be the definition of the word "human," it seems. Homo wasteful. But as green design guru Bill McDonough points out, in the natural world, there is no waste. Waste = food. The "waste" (abundance or surplus) from one process is food for another. There are several others.

The people in this course recognize that all is not well with the world. They don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation (the disappearing summer sea ice in the Arctic, for example), so they don't have the sense of urgency that I feel. But I think it's going to be a fun learning journey … getting my hands (and feet) in the soil will be a good thing. And we all know that if it ain't fun, it just ain't sustainable. It's probably not regenerative, either. Time for class!

Geoengineering, Our Metaphorical Tracheotomy

December 4, 2011

If your child is deathly allergic to insect stings, what do you do? You buy an EpiPen® (or two or three) and keep it near your child at all times. An epinephrine auto-injector could save your child's life one day if a bee sting or wasp sting leads to anaphylactic shock.

Now, let's apply this as a metaphor. Your child (or your wife, in the case I witnessed) is stung on the neck by a wasp. You always carry an EpiPen, just in case. Well, this is the "case" you've been waiting for, but instead you decide to wait and see. Why use an EpiPen if you don't have to, right? I mean, heck, nobody wants to be given a medication they don't need. Right? And why waste the money?

Fast forward about 30 minutes. You carry your child (or your wife, in the case I witnessed) into the emergency ward. They're almost dead, but the doctor works feverishly, injecting this and that, setting up a drip, calling the helicopter ambulance, staying with your child (or wife) to monitor their condition until the moment the helicopter ambulance closes its door. Just before that door closes, eyelids flutter and open slightly, and a very weak voice says, "I was almost gone there, wasn't I?" Your child (or your wife, in this case) lives. 

The doctor is shaken for weeks. He knows how close he came to losing your child (or your spouse). He's just happy he didn't have to perform a tracheotomy but keeps asking the same question, over and over. Why, if they had an EpiPen, did they not use it? (My husband was the doctor, I was his assistant. This incident took place many years ago. As you can tell, I am still shaken by this memory.)

WE ARE ALL ALLERGIC TO METHANE. The Arctic is warming and spewing methane. This is creating a huge allergic reaction (or positive feedback loop). The methane, a potent greenhouse gas, creates more warming. According to the latest satellite data, the Arctic is now warming four times faster than the rest of the world. This extra warming is leading to more melting permafrost and more destabilized (thawed) methane hydrates along the continental shelf, releasing more methane, leading to more warming. It is a viciously vicious cycle, and we are dangerously close to letting it kill us.

(You think I'm being overly dramatic, perhaps for effect? No. Once we allow the summer Arctic sea ice to disappear, the northern hemisphere will lose the cooling "air conditioner" effect during our growing season. Remember Russia, 2010? It won't take too many widespread crop failures before we descend into global chaos.)

How many people deal with their bee sting allergy by just living life indoors all the time? Not many. Most choose to go outdoors — and carry an EpiPen. We've been carrying a metaphorical EpiPen around since at least 1988: the concept of living the same lifestyle but lowering our global greenhouse gas emissions, moving to renewable energy, being greener.

Now we've been stung, and we refuse to use our EpiPen. It's too expensive, we say. We can't afford it. It's too inconvenient. "I'd rather die comfortable than live uncomfortable." (Real quote, that one.) I'm not going to use my EpiPen unless China uses its Epipen! Blah blah blah.

So what are we going to do? It's an emergency situation! What are we going to do? We're actually facing down the prospect of extinction of our species! What are we going to do?

Folks, the tracheotomy is an emergency procedure for emergency situations. Our collective tracheotomy is geoengineering: "deliberate large-scale engineering and manipulation of the planetary environment to combat or counteract anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry" (Wikipedia).

If we're already saying no to the possibility of geoengineering, then we either don't realize the emergency we're in, or we're choosing a future with no future for our children. The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition naively, in my view, calls geoengineering "a false solution."

Friends, geoengineering is not a false solution, it is our last resort — and soon to be our only solution. We have been stung. We are ignoring the allergic reaction. We are refusing to use our EpiPen. If we don't get some adrenalin into our system soon, we'd better be open to a tracheotomy (pardon the pun). Because otherwise, we are opting for death.

 

 

 

April 7, 2024

It's a dozen years since I wrote the post above. Everything is — still — getting worse, faster. The deniers (and yes, kowtowing politicians and non-brave climate scientists) have caused so much delay that we're on catastrophe's doorstep. (Anyone remember the summer of 2023? Yowza.)

While the deniers have been denying that digging up and burning carbon that was safely stored away via the long-term carbon cycle 250 million years ago — and spewing an extra ±50 billion tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year — would affect the climate system or overwhelm the short-term carbon cycle, conspiracy theorists have been insisting that some secret cabal has been geoengineering the climate. (To be fair, the geoengineering began at the start of the Industrial Revolution back around 1750 when we industrialized our fossil fuel burning. (And our impacts began 11,000 years ago as we started developing agriculture.) But Dane, seriously dude, learn the science of condensation of contrails at different altitudes and humidities.) 

Anyway, as I exhorted above, if we'd used our metaphorical EpiPen by lowering our carbon and other GHG emissions in every way we could, we wouldn't now be needing a tracheotomy / geoengineering. And so the geoengineering experiments have begun. (BEGUN, Dane, got that?)

Here's the scary part for me. With all extreme weather events now increasing in intensity, frequency and/or duration — and many now starting to compound (pile on top of each other) — and with taxpayers still subsidizing fossil fuel corporations (who are making windfall profits, BTW) to the tune of $7 trillion around the world every year (IMF, 2023), and with practically every government still "moving ahead" with business as usual (AKA full-steam ahead to extinction), it seems like a "mere" tracheotomy (geoengineering) isn't going to cut it anymore (sorry for the pun).

 

But nothing, not even geoengineering, is going to save us without an immediate and rapid decline in global GHG emissions.

It's as though the world has decided to wait until the too-late very last minute and then opt for ... decapitation. That's a sure-fire way to open up our constricted airway and get some air into our lungs. It'll kill us, sure, but we kept the economy pumping away, didn't we? Yeah, that's what our chosen trajectory seems to be. Sure will make us wonder why we didn't use our collective EpiPen when we still had the chance.

21 Days - The Deniers Have Nothing to Gain Worth Gaining

Here in Canada, my once proud and peaceful nation that fell into the hands of war mongers and climate change deniers when we became complacent and dropped our vigilance, a small group of oil industry-funded climate change deniers (who gave themselves an official name that makes them sound scientifically official) are running denier/skeptic/ignorer/delayer radio ads across the country. Gee, right before the Copenhagen climate talks. What could their motive be?

First of all, for shame! Shame on the climate change diddlers who obfuscate the truth and tell outright lies by manipulating and confusing and cherry picking the science. The people in this and similar groups are putting the future of the children of all species at risk (risk being a scientific term: risk equals magnitude times probability).
Here's what they (as a teacher, I refuse to give them any publicity, which would be the same as rewarding a negative behaviour with a positive consequence) say about their own ads:

"The purpose of the ads is to demonstrate the futility of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They point out that global warming stopped about 10 years ago, and that the Sun is the primary cause of climate change. Climate alarmists refuse to debate the science as they have no evidence that man's emissions of greenhouse gases causes significant climate change."

They always seem to use the same old tired tactics:

1. Attack the policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (These people must really hate their children, eh? And, by the way, WHAT policies? Our policies are still to keep increasing our greenhouse gas emissions.)

2. Lie about the warming itself. (Global warming has NOT stopped. The "0.78 degrees Celsius burner" is still on and the globe is still cooking. What this group would say if they had integrity is that the global average temperature has not increased any further in the last decade or so — because the oceans are absorbing the carbon dioxide and the heat (dooming coral reefs and devastating marine food chains) and because we are conducting a giant science experiment on latent heat of melting in the Arctic and the world's glaciers.)

3. Talk endlessly about the sun (even to the point of capitalizing it!), and in this case, stop making sense. "... global warming stopped ... the sun is the primary cause of climate change." Which is it? (Without the warmth of the sun, there would be no life on Earth, but its direct contribution to recent global warming is about 10 percent. That's a good chunk, but not a chunk we can control, so why not focus on our causes of the other 90 percent?)

4. Call us climate alarmists, as though raising the alarm is a bad thing.

5. Accuse us of refusing to debate the science. (I would rather debate the policies, but they know that most people, at least in North America, are scientifically illiterate, and therefore easily bamboozled by talking about climate science rather than which policies would safeguard their children's future.)

6. Completely ignore all the millions of people in the world already impacted by climate-change-exacerbated natural phenomena such as droughts, floods, erosion and wild storms. (These deniers are heartless bastards, apparently. Well, they must be to hate their children so much.)

What do they gain by wasting precious time, money and energy in this way? I just can't get into their heads (and can't find any hearts to get into).
Finally, why do these media outlets want to be complicit in this, what could amount to the greatest crime against humanity ever? Why will media outlets reserve the right to refuse counterculture ads from groups like Adbusters, but accept money from groups who bring shame on themselves, on their country, on the complicit media outlets, on the name of science in general? Why are media outlets like this so blind and mindless when it comes to making money, except when it comes to making money by helping those who want to safeguard the future? For shame. You'll be hearing from me — and I'll be boycotting you!

49 Days - A Little Self-Compassion?

Not only am I hurting all over physically (broken ankle almost better, blood clots doing okay, new painful complication in the same foot, more tired than I've been in years), but I seem to be getting more and more depressed all the time.

I'm pretty sensitive. I'm the type of person who can't watch violence on the screen (TV or movies). So it's really starting to get to me, all this climate catastrophe stuff. I'm worn out. But I'm not going to give up. Not yet.

Every time I start feeling sorry for myself, I simply picture the kids in Africa who go to bed hungry, who have lost their parents, whose future is a thing of the past. We are so coddled in our Western countries that we think we're starving when we miss a meal. We have no concept of what's waiting for us and/or our children and grandchildren if we don't get ourselves weaned off carbon.

I've read through a few past posts today ... I was definitely more chipper and more optimistic when I started this blog in May of this year. Since then, I seem to have lost my resilience. But then, imagine what it must be like for the family whose crops fail year after year. Imagine all the places in the world where water is already in short supply. That's us when the Arctic summer sea ice disappears.

I just don't get how people who know what's happening climate-wise (my country's prime minister, for example) can continue to think their children will survive eating money and drinking bitumen when they grow up.

Alas, if I don't post tomorrow, you'll know why. I think I need a day in bed, with the covers over my head — appreciating that I have a bed and covers and a roof and a kitchen full of food when I get hungry.

104 Days - Celebrating Our Local Food Traditions

I spent yesterday at my community's wonderful little fall fair. I convened the Young People's Agriculture section, and was delighted to see so many people appreciating the children's produce and educational projects on food growing.

It wasn't until a lovely German tourist came through the displays and mentioned that there is nothing like it where she lives, near Frankfurt, that I realized the power and importance of our fall fair tradition.

Small-scale farming and organic gardening connect us to the past, connect us to the earth (and the Earth), and connect us to future generations. Celebrating the fruits of our harvest helps people understand where their food comes from.

And since agriculture depends on a stable climate, and the stability of our climate is already deteriorating, it would be good for all of us to appreciate what we've got before it's gone.

As the Arctic summer sea ice disappears, the whole northern hemisphere is losing its summer "air conditioner," so summer weather is becoming hotter in some places and more unpredictable in others.

I grew tomatoes in pots on my sunny deck this summer, and midway through one of our extremely rare heat waves, I started adding up how much water they were getting. I was shocked! (I've since started using grey water/dirty dishwashing water on my tomatoes.) If my few tomatoes needed almost 100 litres per week, how much water must our food producing systems use? Yet our fresh water is one of the resources most at risk due to global warming.

We don't have a clue how much things are going to change and how bad they're going to get (because they certainly aren't, despite the hopeful protestations of certain commentators, getting better nearly as fast as they're worsening), but in the meantime, let's find ways to honour our food growers and support them as they try to adapt to the changing climate.

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?

151 Days Left - What's Ice Got To Do With It?

I'm not a science-leaning person (too emotional for that), but I understand both a scary science story and a brave scientist when I see them.

NASA satellite measurements are showing that Arctic sea ice is not only shrinking (think size or area), but is also "dramatically" thinning (think depth).

"The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from the winter of 2004 to 2008," wrote American Press science writer Seth Borenstein on 7 July 2009.

Arctic summer sea ice serves as the air conditioner for much of the northern hemisphere, ie, most of the developed world. Disappearing Arctic sea ice means we are losing our cooling buffer against rising temperatures. And that means our agriculture will become even more tenuous than it's been recently (ask any of the North American farmers already dealing with drought).

But the heartening news is that NASA scientist Jay Zwally is credited with saying — actually saying — that global warming is to blame. Climate scientists haven't been the most courageous (or, by extension, compassionate) bunch of folks lately. (Well, I shouldn't generalize — look at Dr. James Hansen!)

So it's wonderful that someone has spoken the words: "Global warming is to blame."

When politicians and other leaders start adding it all up (melting Arctic sea ice + rising global temperatures = holy !#$%), they're going to start acting fast. To date, most of them seem rather climate change illiterate and innumerate.

Cheers to brave climate scientists!

193 Days and Counting - Passing on Good Ideas and Good Events

I'm back from a great camping experience with my students (what a wonderful way to witness "the whole child" and guide each student to Mother Nature's marvels) and realizing that a compassionate action to take would be to pass on other people's compassionate actions! So here goes. Please keep in mind that people living in the North, especially those living traditional lifestyles, are already being gravely impacted by climate disruption.

*****

Countdown to Copenhagen is Isuma's six-month internet campaign to promote the importance of Inuit (indigenous people of the Arctic) knowledge and human rights in the global discussion of Climate Change. Monthly webcasts on IsumaTV from May to November will culminate in Live From the Floe Edge, ten days of daily internet streaming hosted by Zacharias Kunuk live from his arctic wilderness hunting camp during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, December 7-17.


The series will launch with a live webcast on Friday May 29, featuring Siila (also known as Sheila) Watt-Cloutier, Inuit climate activist and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, speaking on Inuit, Human Rights and Climate Change live from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada to a worldwide audience. The program leads off at 7:45 pm EST with the World Premiere of Tungijuq, Isuma's new 6-minute video starring Inuit jazz and throat-singing sensation, Tanya Tagaq. At 8 pm Siila Watt-Cloutier delivers the 9th annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture, introduced by John Ralston Saul, The Right Honorable Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada, Isuma's Zacharias Kunuk and The Honourable Ann Meekitjuk Hanson, Commissioner of Nunavut.


If you live in Canada, some screenings have been organized in big cities for Friday, May 29. (Visit the website below for more info.)


If you live elsewhwere, tune in by internet at home. Or get your own group together to watch the launch! Maybe in a screening room/small cinema or just at somebody's house with a good internet connection - anybody interested in climate justice, native issues/culture, or else fans of Isuma's films (Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner, Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Before Tomorrow). Invite your friends, make it a creative happening/salon - we need some grassroots (cross-continental) energy to start going viral!


Throughout 2009 Countdown to Copenhagen Live Webcasts will be downloaded to a growing network of digital screening rooms from Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal to as far as Tromso, Norway and Alice Springs, Australia. IsumaTV has the goal by December 2009 of a network of 1000 local-to-global screening groups around the world watching Live from the Floe Edge through digital download-to-projection.


Watch at: http://www.isuma.tv/hi/en

200 Days - Talking It Up!

In my excitement to start listing our Compassionate Climate Actions yesterday, I forgot to tell you my action for the day.

We had lunch (sunshine veggie curry) with a young friend who is a student activist on climate change issues (and bicycling across the country this summer to prove it). It's so rejuvenating to spend time with someone who gets what's happening in the world — and who isn't going to let the future slip through her fingers as long as she can do something about it.

We shared ideas, gave her some advice on how to deal with colleagues who think that "strategy" is more important than life on Earth, and came away with a renewed sense of purpose — it's her future we're diddling with while the Earth burns (with apologies to Nero), and we intend to safeguard it for her.

Some people think talk is cheap, or a form of procrastination, but when talk is learning, and good medicine, then talk is action.