Responding to Scientists Who Don't Like "Alarmism"

Sometimes I find myself commenting on websites and blogs (or responding to other commenters) and thinking that what I've written is rather profound or potentially transformative. So today I'd like to share a couple of those comments with you.

Here's the first:
"But what if you're completely wrong? What if it is NOT 'true that climate impacts will be ... not as bad as some climate hawks say'? What if agriculture is going to fail everywhere? What if billions of people are going to die? What if the planet is going to become uninhabitable (to all but jellyfish and cockroaches, if they're lucky)?

"When my first teaching job took me to a logging town, I quickly learned to say, 'Sure, not every tree is for saving, but nor is every tree for chopping down.' Loggers and kids of loggers could handle that 'moderate' stance. But we weren't talking about a (literally) potential end-of-the-world scenario, we were talking about local forests.

"Does it really make sense to continue sitting around, talking about our fire safety rules and discussing the wisdom of pulling the alarm while the blinkin' house is on fire? If you're going to do that, at least lead the children to safety first, damn it! Indeed, take all the time you want to figure out how best to communicate the emergency, just ensure the children — of all species — a viable future first."

That was my response to the blogger. Then I read some of the comments and bumped up against a scientist who seems to be placing "the scientific method" ahead of life. Guys, guys, when are you going to get it through your heads? If you're fighting for anything other than life, what you're fighting for is moot! It (money, profit, power, fame, the scientific method) will not even exist if we don't safeguard the future of life on this planet.

So here's my response to that scientist, in the form of five questions: 
"1. Given that the Global Humanitarian Forum "conceded" a significant margin of error and was reviewed by Hans Schellnhuber, Jeffrey Sachs and other experts, what is the real complaint about their Human Impact Report? (It strikes me that any human loss due to the climate change emergency should invoke a humanitarian response, but I guess if those who've died aren't our loved ones, well ....)

"2. Scientists think that the best way to think about the impacts of global heating and climate disruption is scientifically. But how have scientists proved this? What if the best way is to think with our hearts and our guts, with our compassion, spiritually, or with our parents' and grandparents' love and concern for the children we love? I'm just sayin'. That we should stay calm and think scientifically is still just a hypothesis, is it not?

"3. Isn't considering the worst case scenario an important aspect of risk management?

"4. Is it true that many (most? all?) computer climate models don't include the scariest, er, biggest Arctic carbon feedbacks (peatlands, permafrost, methane hydrates)?

"5. If that's true, then shouldn't we be far more concerned than we are now?"

Give me James Hansen any day. He's a scientist through and through (listen to him give any presentation other than his TED Talk), but he loves his grandchildren and he's willing to fight for their right to a viable and climate-safe future.

25 Days - Lest We Forget ... All Those Giving Their Lives for Our Lifestyle

Should one wish another "Happy Remembrance Day"? No, I suppose not.

But this year, along with commemorating all those who have given their lives to protect our EuroAmerican lifestyle, I would like us to think about those who have died because of our EuroAmerican lifestyle. I'm thinking especially of the 300,000 who die every year due to climate change, which will soon enough be the greatest enemy any of us could ever imagine.

To honour and remember all those who have died because we believe we have a god-given right to drive honkin' big cars and eat big macs, I dedicate the following, which was found among the effects of a Canadian infantry sergeant who perished outside Ortone, Italy in December 1943.

Today, a bird sang for me.

Today, I leaned against the strong trunk of a living tree.

Today, a little lizard ran across my hand.

So, I am not alone.

When I get back to Canada, I'll remember this.

I will cherish all of life, for all of life is really

One.

I will never again be a destroyer, though that is what Man is.

This is my dream, that we will learn to live in harmony, not between just man alone, but

WITH the whole living world.

38 Days - When 1000 is Greater than 300,000

American president Barack Obama has declared that the H1N1 flu is a national emergency. Because more than 1000 people have died.

So — and help me here — swine flu is an emergency when 1000 die, but global climate disruption is not an emergency when 300,000 are dying each year? I don't get it.

According to the article I read, Obama's officials said the declaration "was a pre-emptive move designed to make decisions easier when they need to be made." Sheesh, sounds a lot like what the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to be all about — and what the Copenhagen climate talks (that Obama will probably not attend, even though he's going to be in Scandinavia to pick up his Nobel peace prize) are supposed to lead to.

Apparently "many millions" of Americans have had swine flu so far, with 20,000 hospitalizations, according to an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control. All but about 1000 of these people have recovered, no problem. But millions of people are losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and their water sources, their homes and their entire homelands due to global climate disruption. But that's not an emergency?

The world needs to get a grip (rather than la grippe — flu, in French) and declare that global climate disruption is a planetary emergency. Without that declaration, nations will not work together as a world-wide human family to safeguard the future.

Mr. Obama has just proven how vital an emergency declaration is for implementing an action plan.

80 Days - Compassion by Numbers

I've been talking with my students' parents about Gardner's 8 Intelligences:

• Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
• Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
• Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
• Musical intelligence ("music smart")
• Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
• Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
• Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
• Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")

So, I'm trying to remember that not everyone will learn about the climate change emergency, or be able to picture it, or even be impressed by it, in the same way. I'm sure we all have the capacity for compassion, but our individual learning styles mean that it will come to us and develop in us due to different sorts of experiences and sensory inputs and other perceptions.

I've mentioned before that I don't have a "science mind." I don't even think of myself as having a math mind (though I got 100% in grade 6 math! — thank you, Mr. Welburn).

But for anyone with number/reasoning smarts, these estimated statistics from the Global Humanitarian Forum have got to make an impression — on your heart.

ESTIMATIONS OF SUFFERING TODAY:

• Deaths - over 300,000 per year
• Severely Affected - over 300 million people
• Living at Extreme Risk - 500 million people
• Climate Displaced People - over 20 million
• Economic Losses - over US 100 billion dollars

ESTIMATIONS OF SUFFERING TOMORROW (IN 20 YEARS TIME):

• Deaths - approximately 500,000 per year
• Severely Affected: approximately 650 million people
• Climate Displaced People – more than 75 million
• Economic Losses – over US 300 billion dollars

There's a chance these figures are too conservative. What if these estimations weren't based on Arctic carbon feedbacks ramping up once the summer sea ice in the north disappears, taking with it the Northern Hemisphere's summer air conditioning, upon which our agriculture depends? What if they didn't consider the methane time bomb setting off runaway global warming?
Even if these estimations are overinflated, off by an order of magnitude, the numbers are still scary.

Unless you have no heart.

186 Days - Damn the Deniers and Their Lack of Compassion: Global Humanitarian Forum Report

Near the beginning of this century, the World Health Organization determined that about 150,000 people were dying per year due to global warming-related climate change. That figure has doubled.

The Global Humanitarian Forum, a think tank headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has just released the Human Impact Report: Climate Change - The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, which looks at the humanitarian side of climate change. And it isn't pretty.

Climate change, the report says, is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300 million people. It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces:

• four billion people are vulnerable now and 500 million are now at extreme risk
  
• water shortages will threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic development and damage ecosystems"
  
• hundreds of millions of people are expected to become water stressed by climate change by the 2030
  
• weather-related disasters will bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods, and pose a threat to social and political stability

If emissions are not brought under control, within 25 years, the report states:

• 310 milliion more people will suffer adverse health consequences related to temperature increases
  
• 20 million more people will fall into poverty
  
• 75 million extra people will be displaced by climate change

Here's the sad, deplorable news:

Nearly 98% of the people seriously affected, 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters and 90% of the total economic losses are now borne by developing countries. The populations most at risk the report says, are in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, south Asia and the small island states of the Pacific.

Furthermore, of the 12 countries considered least at risk, 11 are industrially developed. Together they have made nearly $72 billion available to help themselves adapt to climate change but have pledged only $400 million to help poor countries. "This is less than one state in Germany is spending on improving its flood defences," says the report.

To see where these excerpts came from, check out this Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/29/1

Now, can you say compassion? I bet the deniers and skeptics can't.