From Lima to Paris, or Bust!

"While the difficult takes time,

the impossible just takes a little longer." 

- Art E. Berg

I just noticed that in April (2014), CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere hit 401.33 ppm. The dreaded 400 ppm upper limit has been breached. Ouch. Angst.

Quite by coincidence, for the last few days I've been trying to figure out if I'm up for one last big push, between now and the next climate change conference (COP20) in Lima, Peru in December of this year. You know, get all the governments in the world to agree to agree in Paris at the COP21 in 2015. And then maybe pack it in. Start working on local issues again. Or take a break? I dunno. I do know in my head it's probably already too late for an effective global agreement, but my heart keeps believing in miracles.

1. What if, in the next few months, we could convince scientists to state categorically that we're beyond dangerous interference with the climate system?
2. What if, in the next few months, we could convince NGOs everywhere to urge governments to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and let the "invisible hand" of their precious "free" market (ahem, it's not a free(dom-from-government-interference) market if governments are pouring $2 trillion of fossil fuel subsidies into it annually, now is it?) fix the carbon problem?
3. What if, in the next few months, we could achieve the impossible and get governments to commit, by law, to a zero-carbon economy and a climate-safe future?

I asked a friend for advice (and moral support, really, for making this commitment to an 18-month-long campaign), and he did an excellent job of reminding me why I do this work to begin with. And then he gave me a virtual kick in the pants. He asked:

If you lead (in life) with your heart, it's going to get broken along the way. Should you then stop leading with your heart? 

If the end hasn't arrived yet, why stop trying until it does? 

If you love the children (and parents) of all species, shouldn't you - and don't you - want to keep trying to help them?

"It's hard to try," he continued, "but I think for people of certain character, it's just as hard (or harder?) not to try and not to act."

This friend shared with me a line he uses when others are defeatist: "Regardless of odds or potential outcomes, we ALL have the power and moral responsibility to ACT. And if we take the choice to see and face the true, existential wickedness of the predicament, there will at least be possibilities.... What matters (if anything does) is how we choose to live, how we choose to act / react, regardless of whether something's going to work out or not." 

Hey, he reminded me, we're all gonna die. So I might as well die (or in my case, get old ... I'm not ready to die yet) trying.

With all that encouragement (and butt-kicking), how can I not commit myself to campaigning for a strong agreement in Lima to agree strongly in Paris?

I hope you'll join me on this virtual carpet ride from Lima to Paris, or bust! (And never has "or bust" been so dire, or so literal, since it means "... or die trying.")

I'm not alone! Check out
http://abibimman.blogspot.ca/2013/12/build-climate-change-momentum-from-lima.html

A Round Up of Interesting People Proposing Interesting Solutions

Once again, it's time for a smorgasbord of solutions to what ails us globally. Three of these come from friends!


1. COMMONWEALTH FOR EARTH & HUMANITY

Let's start with my online friend, Sanford Hinden. I've never known anyone to try so hard to hit the right chord! This idea (or rather, amalgamation of ideas), I think, is resonating for people this time. It's the Commonwealth for Earth & Humanity. The Commonwealth for Earth and Humanity (CEH) Fund will invest in Earth, humanity and community.

Enlightened members of humanity are welcome to participate in the co-creation of the CEH. Qualifications for CEH Participants and Global Council Members:
1. See the vision of humanity as a whole.
2. Honor the Earth as sacred.
3. Remember the vastness of the universe and the preciousness of life.
4. Acknowledge that Earth as a planet with water and a climate that supports life is very special and rare in the universe.
5. Be devoted to creating sustainable families, sustainable communities and a sustainable planet.
6. Seek to promote new business models that honor the Earth and humanity.
7. Be patient, persistent, perseverant, co-empowering, collaborative and co-creative in creating the CEH. 

Sandy and his co-creators have all sorts of nifty plans. Check out the latest iteration here (which is a link that might change, so use the one above, if necessary). Maybe you'll want to hop on board one of their Development Teams: 

• Whiz Kids Team
• World Regions Network Connectors Team
• Best Companies Research Team
• Investment Regulation Team
• CEH Celebrity Leaders Team 
• Website Team
• Young Investors Team
• New Ideas Team
• Global Meetings Team

If you would like to participate, people of all ages, from any nation, are welcome to contact Sandy (sanfordhindenATverizon.net).

2. ASAP ISLAND: "CO-CREATE, FLOAT, SHARE"

Here's an interesting adaptive measure for floods and sea level rise. Now, I can't vouch for the seriousness of this venture (much of the publicity surrounding it seems to be a tad tongue-in-cheek), but they're raising funds on Indiegogo. And I figure anything that brings awareness to the climate change emergency is a good thing. 

I actually had to laugh at myself reading about this project. Depending on your age, this description either will make sense or just won't make any!

Asap ["as soon as possible"] island is the vision of an autarkic [fancy word for self-sufficient] sustainable floating island, made out of recycled and renewable materials. It is low-tech, low-budget and open source, to help the people in flood-affected areas worldwide to raise their climate change resilience. It also serves as a global floating makerspace for open maritime innovations and eventually a realworld multiplayer game. Got it? A little open island for a better world. 

Asap-island will be low-tech, low-budget and open source, to empower the people in flooded and endangered areas to fight the results of climate change on their own. 

Started by the German street artist Joy Lohmann in the year 2000, the vision has meanwhile developed into a global community of makers, an artventurous concept and a feasible plan for how to realize it  A.S.A.P. 

THE GOOD NEWS: the construction of the "as-soon-as-possible island" is to be started in early 2014 within a 6-week workcamp in Goa/India. The location and riverside is set from our Indian team, 4 workshops will be held by experts from 3 continents and I bet, the glocal participants will deeply enjoy to get it done.

Check out their website (in German) and their blog (in English). They seem to be holding workshops all over the world. I think I'm going to splurge and go for co-ownership of one of these little floating arks. p.s. They're currently seeking mermaids.


3. ECO-SANITY

Our real-life friend Glenn MacIntosh in Toronto is still fighting the good fight. Through ecosanity.org, he puts out the most thorough compilations — probably in the world — on the global (lack of) response to the climate change emergency. Once you've spent some time going through an ecoS alert, you will understand the issue. Glenn's latest compilation, on the "betrayal of life" that was COP 19 in Warsaw, can be found here. 


4. "SAVE THE AMAZON" — A POEM

Another wonderful real-life friend, Cory Morningstar, is an investigative writer who is helping us see the unending strings attached between the neo-liberal corporate world and what is passed off as grassroots green organizing. Isn't it amazing how poetry can cut right to the point?

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet every summer you replace your Home Depot (teak?) patio set. 

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet if I suggest a transition to a plant-based diet, anger fills the air.

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet if I tell you that the cause is capitalism, you smirk and walk away.

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet you acquiesce to the voice of the colonizer while you dismiss the Indigenous voice with an unspoken superiority.

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet, you accept that the words and thoughts of Indigenous Peoples must be conveyed by way of white mouths.

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
Yet I witness your acceptance of blatant, highly financed, white paternalism.

I hear you cry "Save the Amazon!!!"
And I know you are a liar.

Depression or Demise?

I'm currently on vacation, visiting family and friends in Hades (the hotter than hell part of Canada these days). So only a short and late post this week.

Had a lovely brunch with ecoSanity's Glenn MacIntosh a couple of days ago. Glenn is someone who deeply understands what's happening in the world, and his website/blog is an excellent source of compiled information, links and videos on the most important climate change topics. So our brunch wasn't your normal "Hey, how's life been?" sort of meal. It was a heart-rending sharing of our deepest fears about what's happening right now (heat waves, droughts, crop failures, Arctic sea ice losses) and what the ramifications are going to be – much sooner than anyone was expecting.

But perhaps the scariest thing Glenn told me is that one of his best friends, while supporting his efforts, refuses to read anything that he writes because depression runs in her family. That little story is haunting me. His friend is someone who cares and who attends rallies and protests. But she just doesn't want to learn about the depth and breadth of the climate change emergency because she's afraid she might become depressed.

The question struck me, would people really choose famine rather than depression? Death rather than depression? Extinction rather than depression? It reminds me of the comment we heard at a climate change presentation a few years ago: "Canadians (or insert your own EuroAmerican culture) would rather die comfortable than live uncomfortable." That one stunned me, too.

So there we have it. I don't want to get depressed therefore I don't care if the biosphere dies and life on this precious planet is extinguished.

Frankly, I can't think of anything more depressing.


p.s. I've suffered from clinical depression, so I know how immobilizing it can be. But potential depression is not immobilizing. And if the thought of extinguishing life on Earth doesn't motivate and mobilize us, what will?

The Courage and Compassion of My Climate Hero Friends

Just a quick one today. I want to say thank you to some very special friends of mine who are giving their lives to help safeguard life on Earth. All three are climate activists extraordinaire, and I'd like to showcase and share their work with you.

Glenn MacIntosh, of ecoSanity.org, has been calling it like it is for several years now — one of the few anywhere in the world brave enough to tell the truth about the threat we face. ecoSanity.org's focus is "the clear, present, accelerating global emergency of the climate crisis and the unprecedented threat it poses RIGHT NOW to the survival of most life — this century." ecoSanity.org advocates "emergency worldwide mobilization at war-time speed to restore our rapidly destabilizing global climate to the safe balance that allowed us to evolve." Glenn works non-stop to bring us blogSanity and vidSanity. Visit his website to SEE, ACT and then INSPIRE. But take your courage and compassion with you!

Cory Morningstar is a fearless inspiration to me. She has wonderful children and pours her love for them into her work and her writing, which you can find at Canadians for Action on Climate Change. Cory also makes me laugh when the world gets me down (like last weekend when someone called me "negative" for talking about ensuring food security for the children in my community in light of the threat of climate change). Cory is currently working on a kick-ass book that will unmask many of the world's biggest climate change cowards and cons. You can check out some of Cory's chapters at The Art of Annihilation. But take your courage and compassion with you!

And finally, my hubby, Dr. Peter Carter ... man, is he one committed fighter! It is possible that Peter knows more about the climate change emergency than any other human being on this planet — that's how much time he spends at it, searching and sifting through the data, comparing, contrasting, extrapolating ... realizing what's happening. The thought of losing the birds, bees and butterflies and all the other beauty in the natural world (growing up an only child in the countryside ensured a lifelong love for the rest of Nature) spurs Peter to spend all day, every day researching, writing about and then filming his syntheses of the climate change research. Please visit his Youtube Channel if you'd like to learn the science behind the worst threat our species has ever faced. But take your courage and compassion with you!

39 Days - ecoSanity.org's Race 2 Survival

I want to share this public service announcement about the climate change emergency with you. It was created by Glenn MacIntosh of ecoSanity.org, and I think he did an excellent job of expressing the urgency — and the implications of doing nothing. Please share it with your networks and visit ecoSanity.org for more.

55 Days - What Shall We Be Thankful For?

It's Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I remember becoming mysteriously homesick in October when I was an exchange student in Belgium many years ago. Then I received a Thanksgiving letter from my mother and realized what I'd been subconsciously missing.

So what can we be thankful for in Canada in 2009?

I know what we're NOT thankful for. Our not-very-prime minister, who still thinks the economy and re-election are more important than giving his children a chance at a future. The tar sands in Alberta, our national disgrace. (For heaven's sake — or Earth's sake — leave the bitumen in the ground as a carbon sink!) The rather pervasive Canadian attitude that we would rather die comfortable than live miserable (an admission from someone I met recently). That attitude surely is held only by people who can't conceive of how wonderful a renewable energy-powered world will be.

But we are thankful for people — climate heroes — like UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Al Gore, climate scientists James Hansen and John Holdren, Glenn MacIntosh of ecoSanity.org in Toronto (who keeps us sane and inspired; thanks, Glenn!), and all the children of the world, of all species, who remind us why we're doing the climate work that we do.

We are grateful for our fresh water, our food security, our fresh corn and ripe apples, our peace and our prosperity, our luck and our timing. We are so very blessed — most of us, at least — in this country, and it's a shame that we aren't more compassionate towards those less fortunate around the world.

If you don't celebrate a thanksgiving holiday in your country or culture, give it a try yourself, with your family. Acknowledge your blessings, and work to change what vexes you and the Earth. For a place to start, visit GreenHeart Education's Saying Grace Together and Graces and Prayers for the Earth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

188 Days Left - The Art of Shameless Self-Promotion

There's no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn't tell you about it?
— Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

A friend of ours wrote today to tell us some good news (you read about his Global Green Fund idea in yesterday's blog ... the guy's a genius with a good heart) and sent it to practically everyone on his email list. Shameless self-promotion, I call it.

That got me thinking that my action today could be shameless promotion of the work of others — good people fighting the good fight, giving up a lot (time, money, energy and sometimes relationships) to do what they feel they have to do for what they love ... the Earth, the children, life itself.

So here, in no particular order, are the websites of some really great climate heroes, people I count as like-hearted friends.

1. See. Act. Inspire. Glenn MacIntosh is ecoSanity.org. The name says it all. Glenn tells people, "The world's atmosphere is on course to reach a state of unsurvivable extremes within the lifetimes of today's children." He gets the urgency (not to mention the insanity) of global climate disruption. Visit ecoSanity.org especially for fascinating video clips of some fascinating climate warriors.

2.Beatle George Harrison once said, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." Fortunately, we do know where we need to get to, and it's 350 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere - or even less - to avert global climate catastrophe. Michael McGee started CO2 Now after taking his young son to hear Al Gore speak about the climate emergency. CO2 Now is "what the world needs to watch.... Global warming is mainly the result of CO2 levels rising in the Earth's atmosphere. Both atmospheric CO2 and climate change are accelerating. Climate scientists say we have years, not decades, to stabilize CO2 and other greenhouse gases. To help the world succeed, CO2Now.org makes it easy to see the most current CO2 level and what it means. So, use this site and keep an eye on CO2. Invite others to do the same. Then we can do more to send CO2 in the right direction

3. My husband, Peter Carter, MD, is a retired family physician. Throughout his adult life, he has been involved in the peace and environmental movements. As a doctor, he knows only too well that climate change is going to be (and in many parts of the world, already is) the biggest public health threat ever. (And that's just on our way to the biggest threat to our very survival ever.) His website for health care professionals is called Climate Change Emergency Medical Response. Check it out for the latest scientific climate research, and for suggested actions that doctors and other health care personnel can take. Hey, why not send it to your doctor?

Yo! Where are the women in this campaign? Oh right, here I am!!! (Just a little shameless self-promotion. ;-)