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I'm lying in bed with a bad cold/flu combo, so I've got too much time on my hands. Even so, some weeks, I just don't know what to blog about. Much of the news is so bad that anything positive I might write about risks seeming trite in comparison.
I do want to let you know that I've had the privilege of meeting and working with two classes of wonderful first-year international students this past month. These fine young people are from China (mostly), Singapore, Vietnam, Mongolia, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Ukraine and Iran. What a pleasure and an honour it is to talk with them about sustainable development and their future.
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This past week — President T****'s first in office — has people around the world not only petrified by the thought what he has up his sleeve but actually impacted by the executive orders he's signed already. WTF? Truly, WTF? How can one loose cannon, in such a short time, undo so much good work of so many good people who have worked for years in a country that has been talking social justice for decades if not centuries? They've not always been successful, but there's always been someone trying.
The first thing I did before starting this post was listen to the song in this Compassion Tune-Up. Loudly. Perhaps I need to start offering Outrage Wake-Ups as well. If the new American president is going to be emboldened, then we ought to become bold, too. One piece of advice I've read more than once this week is to not normalize T****'s actions — to stay outraged by them (99% of them have been outrageous already). But that's going to mean taking care of ourselves by sometimes taking time to not focus on what he's doing.
So in my sickly stupor, I'm going to watch some re-runs of the Mary Tyler Moore show ... Mary Tyler Moore died this week, and a lot of us are feeling quite nostalgic, I think. I know I am. Her television portrayal of a working single woman in the early 1970s inspired a whole bunch of second generation feminists to see it as quite normal that women would succeed in work just as men do.
Perhaps we can (re?)create a sense that it's quite normal that elected officials look after more than just the economy of their constituents — especially when it's that predatory economy that's fuelling the foreclosure on our children's future. The new president has children — he must hate them somehow to wish a climate hell on them. Or maybe he just doesn't see it as his job to ensure the viability of their future. (He probably thinks he created his present "success" all by himself, so why should he have to help his children make it? Frankly, because of the climate change crisis, that small attitude leads to progenycide. And people have to ask — read the comments at your peril — what it is that others are protesting. Sheesh.)
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I'll leave you with the link to an article by Bill McKibben: The New Battle Plan for the Planet's Climate Crisis, in which he talks about something sort of new: renewable energy denial amongst T****'s roster of cronies. It's an interesting read.
And hey, Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! It's the Year of
the Rooster (my sign) and my Chinese students tell me it means I'm going
to have a lucky year. (I promise to share my luck.)
Several years before I started hearing about climate change (and way before I morphed into a climate change activist), I made a childhood dream come true by travelling around the world. I took a leave of absence and my plan was to be gone for a year, but China's capitalist economic development had other plans for me.
My date of departure was carefully chosen. I left my home in British Columbia, Canada on the gorgeous September morning that I would normally have been heading back to school as a teacher. The first stop on my trip was more random. The airline I booked with was about to start flying to Beijing. It seemed as good a first stop as any. I was on their inaugural flight.
I hadn't thought it through very well. At my very first destination, I found myself completely illiterate and quite helpless. I quickly learned the character (or hanzi) for women's washroom, I can tell you. And I only found out later how blessed I was to spend my week there in sunshine. The Gobi desert didn't want me taking its sand home, and the streets were still filled with buses and bicycles, not cars.
Anyway, I had lots of adventures in China (and a few misadventures), but what I really want to share with you is what I witnessed there: the rapid rise of Chinese capitalism. And it was not a pretty sight. I met two doctors, married with one child, who were making the equivalent of $30 per month between them. They made me an absolutely delicious (and delightful) dinner, and when I suggested that they could open a restaurant, their food was so good, they admitted that they'd wanted to do that, but didn't know who to bribe in order to get the permits.
I wrote in my journal, "The Chinese are adopting all the very worst aspects of capitalism so fast that it's annoying." They just didn't seem to get that I was not going to buy their souvenirs on my way UP the Great Wall, no matter how much they accosted me.
Not only that, but the Chinese economy was heating up so fast that with my Lonely Planet Guide for China only a year or two old, I spent three months' worth of my savings on only two weeks in China! That's how much the prices had soared.
All that to say that it makes complete sense to me that China would want to make a commitment to fight fossil fuel greenhouse gas pollution. Over at ClimateProgress, Kiley Kroh explains:
"Late Tuesday night [11 November 2014], the U.S. and China announced an historic agreement
to combat climate change, a major step forward from the world’s two
largest greenhouse gas emitters. Not only does the agreement hold the
two nations to taking additional steps to bring down the carbon
emissions that drive climate change, but China just pledged to deploy a
tremendous amount of clean energy."
Of course, it's not enough. Not by a long shot. Neither country is talking zero (carbon emissions) or 100% (renewable energy), but Obama is finally doing what he should have done in 2009 for the Copenhagen climate talks. And China ... well, much of China can barely breathe, so they couldn't hold out much longer either.
Congrats to both President Obama and President Xi Jinping for taking this step in the right direction. Now, if they could just drag Australia's prime minister Tony Abbott and Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper along, kicking and screaming, we'd really get somewhere.
We are all connected. Each baby born carries a miracle inside. A unique purpose and that miracle is promised to one person and one person alone. We are voyagers set on a course towards destiny, to find the one person our miracle is meant for. But be warned: as we seek out the light, darkness gathers and the eternal contest between good and evil is not fought with great armies... but one life at a time. (from the movie Winter's Tale)
The one friend I have whom I can talk to about the bleakness of our climate-changed future is feeling so low, she told me yesterday, that she's in the bell jar. So she's feeling pretty fragile.
But I've realized that the tiny glimmer of hope that's been peeking into the dark tunnel ahead, well, maybe if we adjust our eyes, we can use that glimmer to light our path.
There's the news that the IPCC's scenario RCP ("Really Cool Plan"?) 2.6 (especially when combined with some excellent suggestions from Climate Action Network International's new position statement, so RCP2.6+) presents the possibility of keeping global average temperature increases within a survivable range. (The oft touted 2ºC limit would be catastrophic and deadly.)
There's also evidence that more and more people are "getting" it. At this weekend's convention of Canada's Green Party, it seemed the strongest, loudest and longest applause came when leader Elizabeth May spoke about the urgent need to deal with climate change.
Different types of people are entering the fray. "Masters of the Universe" (today's version of the captains of industry of yesteryear) are meeting to explain that climate change is Risky Business.
The entertainment industry is starting to take climate change seriously (if in funny ways; Jon Stewart and John Oliver, anyone?)
American President Obama is steppin' it up on climate change, in a dance with China that, if they don't step on each other's toes, could lead to major movement toward decreasing emissions. Okay, so they still don't get the "zero carbon" part of the dance ("This week, the United States and China took important steps to advance their cooperation to combat global climate change and work towards the common goal of low carbon economic growth."), but at least they're twirling on the dance floor together. (See Key Achievements of U.S.-China Climate Change Cooperation Under the Strategic and Economic Dialogue.) (Seriously, can't these leaders see that keeping economic growth as their main goal is, um, see Risky Business above.)
Parents in the US are starting to demand scientific teaching of climate science in schools. (What a concept! Apparently one that Wyoming cannot grasp.) Check out the Climate Science Students' Bill of Rights.
And the Climate Psychologist (Margaret Klein) has developed a mobilization campaign, to get people motivated by joining a movement (think WWII). Read the full strategy document here.
Plus, the deniers are just getting sillier and sillier! To wit:
There is no global warming. There is climate change. This melting is caused by the underground volcano's..We are starting a mini ice age due to the suns inactivity..This is all a money thing for the bigwigs..Pollution is poison, we are killing our planet. This is not made by us. This is a nature process..We cant stop it. We can stop Fukushima. sharon b, ky,usa 18/07/2014 06:55
So folks, maybe, just maybe, it's starting to happen. Can we create a crescendo of public outcry that convinces negotiators at the December 2014 UN climate conference in Lima, Peru to adopt the RCP2.6+ for the text of the all-important agreement that will be negotiated in Paris in 2015?
Let's start here and now: * * * ** ** * *** ** * ** *** *** ** *
* * * * * * * * * **** **
* * RCP2.6+ * ** * * !!!
RCP2.6+ ** *** * ** **** ** * ***
RCP2.6+ *** * ** *** ** * * *** **
RCP2.6+
RCP2.6+
I'll tell you something that should chill your blood. No matter how far we tip the scales our way, no matter how many of them we turn dark, nothin' seems to break their capacity for hope. They pass it back and forth like the flu at a preschool fair. We're losing, Lucifer. One bright star at a time, we're losing. (from the movie Winter's Tale)
Which means we just might be winning!
