So, Do We Really Have Time to Avert Climate Catastrophe? Yes, If We Deploy the Military

Anyone who understands the climate change emergency deeply knows that our Climate EMERGENCY Countdown is a desperate, last-ditch effort to ensure that world leaders at the Climate Summit this September in New York City get us on a path that at least gives us a hope in hell of a future.

Someone responded to the Countdown on FB by saying "This is a realistic plan, but it is also too slow. 2ºC is already locked in at present CO2, methane and NO2 levels. We need to slash the defense budget and use it to convert everything to renewable energy ASAP." 

Yup, all true. But if we start our decline in carbon emissions by next year, then we'll already be on a different trajectory -- one that gives us that hope in hell. And next year is as close to now as we're going to get. (Though the financial crash in 2008-2009 showed us how quickly greenhouse gas emissions can be turned around.)

Several years ago, we and Anthony Marr were talking about a Global Green Fund -- paid for by a 10% donation from each country's military. That would have got the ball rolling, but it didn't happen. (Indeed, ha ha ha ha ha. What were we smokin'?)

Doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea, or that my FB friend's friend's idea isn't a good one. Imagine a world where the soldiers are all busy, not fighting each other (and invisible enemies), but retrofitting whole cities and countries and kickstarting the solar age. Imagine armies of people taking constructive rather than destructive action. (Imagine the increase in military self-esteem!)

So, do we have time? Yes, just. But first, to ensure our success, we have some important things we need to do ... fast. And since we all know who can mobilize fast, let's ask the calvary and the National Guard and the King's Army and the FBI and the CIA and maybe the Mafia and street gangs, too, to lend us a hand. After all, they're all human beings with beloved children in their lives. Why wouldn't they want to help?

46 Days - How Can We Afford the Conversion to a Veg World?

Someone wrote yesterday to say that aiming for everyone to go vegetarian or vegan would be too extreme and probably impossible. Yes, and ....

Extreme is good, because it's only extreme measures right now that will give us a chance at safeguarding the future. There are a lot of people out there who either don't realize this, don't want to realize this, or realize this and don't have it in their hearts to go ahead and take extreme measures.

If people truly understood that "extreme" measures could save the future for their children and grandchildren, would they not take them? Would they not make the "sacrifice" of giving up meat to give their progeny a chance at a safe climate? Maybe they wouldn't. But let's tell them the truth about the urgency of the climate change emergency so they can at least choose whether to fry their children or not.

The other point this commentator made was that making the switch away from livestock farming would be quite costly for farmers, and therefore politicians would balk.

Here are some ideas. Did you know that the livestock industry is only responsible for less about 3% of global GDP? So there aren't that many people to worry about (relatively). It's true that the conversion could be costly, however:

1. It's cheap compared to killing the future.

2. The industry is already highly subsidized in many developed nations. Quit subsidizing and farmers might switch to more sustainable farming practices on their own.

3. The environmental and health impacts of the livestock industry are huge! If those in the business had to internalize the costs (of water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, for example, and the health care costs of obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease), then meat would become so expensive that most people wouldn't buy it (at least not often) and farmers would turn to growing something more lucrative.

4. A carbon tax applied to the livestock industry (it's responsible for a HUGE proportion of the greenhouse gases that are dooming the future) would also make meat too expensive for every day consumption, again helping farmers decide to move into another type of farming.

5. And finally, you remember those huge bank bailouts? Bailouts for the automotive industry? Why not for the meat industry? But on the condition that they make the switch. (Just like bailouts for the car companies should have been dependent on them retooling to make wind turbines and solar panels.)

6. You know how much countries like the US and Canada are spending on their useless invasions of foreign countries? Take some of that money and redirect it to the livestock producers instead, getting them to switch to sustainable organic agricultural practices (or retire early). If we're going to go into debt for stupid reasons, why not go into debt for a reason that will give our children a chance at a future — I bet that's a debt they'd be happy to pay off, just like today's Brits have just recently paid off their debt from the Second World War.

I'm no economist, but I can recognize a fighting chance when I see one. Getting off the meat habit (Gandhi called it a superstition of the British) could drop anthropogenic methane emissions 37%! That's huge! Methane is so scary as a greenhouse gas that lowering it at all will be great, but almost 40%, wow, that would be a true gift to all future generations, of all species.

Industries come and go. Lots of jobs that existed a hundred years ago no longer exist. The livestock industry's time is up, and those workers will surely be assimilated into new, more sustainable employment (or, ahem, put out to pasture). It's a win-win all round.

73 Days - Working Together to Safeguard the Future: Creating a Global Green Fund

A friend said something the other day that really struck a chord. "Those of us working on climate change are like a bowl of sand, not cemented together."

He was talking about our lack of a unified, global campaign or effort to get things right, to get our carbon emissions to virtually zero as rapidly as humanly possible.

What he said reminded me of a feeling I get sometimes that what we're all doing is throwing sand at a wall and hoping some of it will stick. The analogies are so close, I suspect there's truth in them.

We could dissect the why. One big reason is that our new technologies keep activists inactive, separate and apart. I think I've mentioned before another friend's old line that the powers that be are always "keeping the greenies busy in the bushes." Well, not anymore. Now the greenies are kept busy on their computers, with their "(anti/un) social media. (Look at me blogging and websiting — I'm just as guilty, which means I know of what I speak.)

These new technologies do not unite us on the ground, so we aren't gaining strength from each other and a sense of cohesion and common purpose. Paid environmental and social justice activists (those working for NGOs) who do get together are paid to go to meetings, so they think that by meeting they are doing something. WRONG! (Oh how I wish I could spell the sound of that WRONG buzzer!) Talk is only action when it leads to learning. Talk is not action when it takes the place of action.

Another reason for our lack of a global, unified effort is that nations — and economies (despite the best efforts of globalizers) — have borders, but the atmosphere does not. Since we think of ourselves as belonging to nations, not to the Earth and the biosphere, we really have to struggle to transcend to a global vision of what needs to happen to protect future generations.

So, let me raise Anthony Marr's idea again of a Global Green Fund, into which every country puts 10% of its military budget. This will build up the fund quickly, and then countries won't have to wrangle over who gets how much to develop which renewable technologies when. We can just all work together as a global species.

One other suggestion: let's all, please, set our sights on what the world needs ecologically (zero carbon fast), not on what we think we can get politically, which will still be suicide, though perhaps slightly slower suicide.

79 Days - Why Does It Seem So Simple from Here?

There are lots of rumblings these days that the December climate talks in Copenhagen are not going to yield the needed agreement. Indeed, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in an interview with Environment & Energy Publishing, seems to have lowered his expectations considerably, outlining what he sees as the four "essentials" for an international agreement in Copenhagen (Yvo de Boer is one of my climate change super-heroes, but I fear his super powers are fading):

1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases? [Me: With all due respect, putting "industrialized" and "willing" in the same question is begging for climate catastrophe.]

2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions? [Me: There can be no more growth in GHG emissions! Those days are gone. We must aim for zero. For the sake of all the children in China and India, too.]

3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed? [Me: I've got that one figured out below.]

4. How is that money going to be managed? [Me: Ditto. It's called a Global Green Fund. See below.]

“If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points, I’d be happy,” says Yvo de Boer. [Me: Happiness is not a destination, but a way of travel. Please, Sir, don't give up now.]

*********

Well, Mr. de Boer has been trying heartily to make something of the new international agreement, but he's not asking for enough. Here's how simple it could be:

1. Every nation on Earth must — and is going to — get to zero carbon emissions as rapidly as possible, and certainly within a timeframe of years, not decades (which we don't have). That's it. No questions asked. Abiding by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which almost 192 nations signed onto, including the USA, and ratified) demands it. Our collective duty is to avoid "dangerous interference with the climate system." We've already failed the millions of human beings already impacted, but that in no way lessens our ethical responsibility.

2. This is not a competition (unless friendly competition will serve to make you work harder and move faster). This is an international — call it universal — cooperative venture on behalf of all future generations, of all species, but especially our own.

3. Oil, coal and natural gas are dead. Grieve their demise if necessary (don't be too sad, those fossil fuels aren't going anywhere — well, unless Kuwait pulls that nasty slant drilling stunt again) and get on with the rapid and radical global transformation to a renewable-energy-based economy.... an economy that is safer, cleaner, healthier, more equitable and more peaceful. Go, go, go!

4. Several developing nations are amongst the largest populations on Earth. Think China, India, Indonesia, Brazil. Now picture how many geniuses, innovators, entrepreneurs and whiz kids live in each of those countries. THAT'S where our funding should go (not to nations, who will squander it pandering to the fossil fuel corporations who haven't read #3 above).

5. With fossil fuels out of the picture (the appropriate carbon tax — one that truly pays for the environmental and social devastation of carbon emissions — should do the trick), the new economy should naturally put its money where it's needed (isn't that what economists are always trying to tell us?). But if that doesn't happen, then all the carbon tax money could go directly into a Global Green Fund to finance the transformation.

Please, Mr. de Boer, don't stop posing the right questions or asking for what we need if, as I know is your goal, we're to leave our grandchildren a future.

189 Days to Go - Compassionate Solution #4 Call for Demilitarization

The annual budget of the world's militaries tops $1.2 trillion. Can you imagine the carbon footprint that goes along with that? Not to mention the fact that the raison d'etre of armies these days seems to be protecting oil and other fossil fuel interests. With our children's future as "collateral damage"!

No folks, military might is not sustainable. Let's start dreaming of all the ways the world's armies could contribute to ensuring a future for all the children instead of dooming it! (And they call environmentalists doom and gloomers. Sheesh!!)

Let's create a list together. Send me your ideas for what our armies could do once they're demilitarized. Here are a few to start with:

• get to work immediately to retrofit all the cities
• work on habitat protection and anti-poaching teams
• contribute 10 percent of their budgets for a United Nations Global Green Fund (please support this petition)
• get trained fast in alternative energy technologies and start building the new infrastructure
• learn how to respond to extreme weather events in timely fashion (militaries have the capacity to deploy rapidly) and how to build decent refugee villages for victims of climate catastrophes