Declaring—and Advertising—the Climate Change Emergency Closer to Home

Did that get our attention? Back in 2014, for a Climate Emergency Countdown, I wrote:

DEMAND THAT GOVERNMENTS DECLARE THE CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY

... And in every way we can think of, let's urge all government representatives and negotiators at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Climate Summit 2014: Catalyzing Action to declare the emergency.

Once governments declare that we are "beyond dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), things will start to happen. This declaration would be an automatic trigger for the bureaucrats who work underneath politicians and within governments to start working on climate change solutions. Scientists say that determining whether climate change is an emergency is a value judgement that society must make. So let's make it! We're society. Let's get the CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARED!

Have we? No. Every time I (metaphorically) come running from my burning house, stumbling through the smoke and blaze with my beloveds (and my laptop, if I'm lucky), I find a ring of firefighters sitting on the front lawn in lawn chairs, discussing the need for more study of fire safety rules. Although I remember that they did publish another report on more serious fire safety rules just a few weeks ago, so things are looking up (or down?).

 

And among the lookie-loos on the street are those who say, "Fire? There's no fire at my house, so I don't believe in housefires." The more erudite and learned among the deniers will point to my house and say, "Sure, your livingroom's got some smoke and flames coming out of it, but look at your kitchen windows. Nothing. You're cherrypicking the data and exaggerating the risk." Ah heck, they're probably afraid the burnt-out shell of my house will lower their property values. Or they just can't face the possibility that a house fire can happen to anyone with a house.

 

Well, there's a sort of solution to the lack of global and national urgency on the climate crisis front. Municipalities are declaring the climate change emergency and doing what they can locally. Let's hear it for:

• Oakland​, USA
• Berkeley, USA ​
• Byron Shire Council, Australia 
• Darebin, Australia
• Colorado Democrats
• Richmond, USA​
• Montgomery County, USA

We'll see if Tuesday's election in the United States brings more attention and voice to the issue, state-wide and federally. 

Near my home in Canada, we're working to have two local cities declare the climate change emergency. The Climate Mobilization offers a city-by-city campaign toolkit. We all live somewhere with some sort of local governing body, so this is something we can all do!

Here in BC, one of the province's best-known and loved environmentalists, Guy Dauncey, has launched The November Offensive in which he asks British Columbians to write to the province's governing (NDP and Green Party) MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly) to ask that 12 policy requests (inspired by the urgency of the IPCC's special 1.5ºC report) be included in BC's upcoming new climate action plan.

"The second goal is that people will step forward to seek a meeting with their MLA, to impress the same urgency and solutions in person. The concise, specific, actionable request is that the MLA you meet with will convey your concerns, hopes and recommended 12 Actions in person to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and to the Premier of BC."

"Actionable." If people want action on the climate change emergency, they have to TAKE ACTION. Which leads me to ....

 

Finally, I'm just reading The Climate Truth, an essay by Climate Reality presenter and psychologist, Dr. Joe Silverman. In it, he almost agrees with my take on cognitive dissonance:

"In some ways, action on climate change seems caught in a Catch-22. Politicians don't act because the voting public does not demand it. And much of the public is not fully engaged on the issue because their individual actions are a drop in the bucket that will do little to solve the problem."

(To me, the problem is that politicians are waiting for the public to demand climate action, but the public is waiting for politicians to take the lead and tell them it's urgent.) 

 

Dr. Silverman suggests that what's been missing in climate change problem-solving is "the need for engaging and motivating the public on this issue using a multi-dimensional [and, I would add, multi-media] publicity campaign." 

 

He's calling for a Climate Truth Campaign. "Despite all the efforts to communicate the urgency of global warming, this approach [a publicity campaign on the climate crisis] has never been tried" [his emphasis].

 "Advertising routinely sells the public on a number of unhealthy products (e.g., drinking soda, eating junk food), so perhaps it's not unreasonable to think that an advertising model could 'sell' a message about a healthy environment and sustainable future."

 

Give his essay a read. His idea is something that we can all contribute to and get going on, whether on/in local media or further from home.

We can't wait any longer for our elected officials to declare the climate change emergency. Many of them have only one aim, and that's to get re-elected. 

So let's declare the climate change emergency ourselves, in every possible media available to us. Let's do a GoFundMe®, a Kickstarter, an Indiegogo campaign, or just pass the hat at local events to raise funds.

 

And then, let's advertise it! 

 

Let's tell the world in, as Joe Silverman recommends, short, vivid, eye-catching, visual ways (even on radio!) that we're in a climate change emergency, and we all have to wake up, get out of the burning house, and start hosing it down together!

We Certainly Live in Interesting Times

Know what? I'm sensing (and perhaps it's simply new year's verve I'm picking up on) a turn in our attitude towards the climate change crisis. My Debbie Downer side would say it's coming too late, but let's, for the sake of optimism, say it's not. People seem to finally be "getting" that decarbonizing and making the world a better place would, well, make the world a better place!

Robert Kennedy, in a speech in Cape Town, South Africa in June 1966, said:

There is a [now debunked] Chinese curse which says 'May he live in interesting times.' Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of [women and] men than any other time in history.

So as climate scientists are dreaming up ever fancier ways to tell us that +4ºC is the new +2ºC (which, as a European Union policy "guardrail" decided upon in 1996, was already way too high since crops will start failing at +1ºC and extreme weather events are already upon us) and that we're hooped, here are some examples of the new enthusiasm and creative energy that's happening in the webosphere these days. [Bold emphasis added.]

1. Guy Dauncey is one of Canada's best known and loved environmentalists. He's the one who taught me that we have to create "a compelling vision" of the future we're trying to create (which is why I go on and on about a zero-carbon world being safer, cleaner, healthier, more equitable and more peaceful than one based on depletable fossil fuels). If Guy ever gets down about the future, he doesn't let it show. Here's something he wrote in his first blog post of the year. It's number 7 in his "'Wouldn’t That Be Amazing!' Wish-List for 2014."

The World Embraces Climate Solutions Treaties
Why are we stuck in negative when it comes to the biggest crisis of them all — the global climate crisis? We have treaties to reduce this and mitigate that, but none of it cries out, "Come on over here — this is amazing!" When was the last time you used the word "mitigate" over the dinner table? "Honey, can you mitigate this soup? It’s so bland."

We need to have amazing confidence in how great a sustainable world beyond fossil fuels will be, and how much better it will be for everyone once we stop grubbing around in the dark of the Arctic Ocean and the beauty of Alberta’s forests to scrape out the last gooey substance to satisfy our addicted craving for oil. As well as Kyoto-style reductions treaties, we need Climate Solutions Treaties in which nations agree to work together to accelerate the many solutions, from solar energy to electric vehicles, from soil carbon storage to ancient forests protection.

How could that happen? I see a big gathering attended not by national leaders but by climate leaders in the world's cities, businesses and universities, all of whom are working hard to implement the solutions. They could develop some draft treaties, and then seek support from the new E-17 Group of Nations [something Guy proposes in #6 to replace the old G-20] to advance them to the global agenda in time for the big UN Climate Summit in New York in September 2014.

2. Murray Dobbin, a Canadian commentator, is calling 2014 The Year of Living Consciously.

The terrible irony of our situation is that just as we all need to be what I call "intentional citizens," we are, unconsciously and even unwillingly, becoming less and less engaged, more and more individualistic. Just what are we to do, as individuals, when faced with crises so overwhelming that our minds reel at the thought of the varied, frightening consequences: "Oops, better not go there. Way too scary. I know! Let’s go shopping!" 

Our collective institutions are similarly at their weakest points just as we need them to be at their strongest and most imaginative. Our democracy — including political parties — is increasingly unable to deliver what it once promised, let alone what we want. Universities are increasingly corporatized, jettisoning traditional ethics for corporate loot to pay their bills. 

Regulations developed over decades to protect us are either being eliminated or simply unenforced by governments whose job it once was to ensure our safety. Major media, which once, nominally at least, entertained the notion of political debate about society's direction, have been hijacked by corporatist ideology and are thus rendered incapable of seeking the truth, let alone telling it. 

So, as always, it is up to us to reverse this juggernaut, to get in its way, to make clear statements through our actions as individual citizens until a time when we constitute a critical mass of citizenry that becomes a movement for social change. And it will take time. My generation will only see the start of it. 

How realistic is such a notion? No one can say for certain how the next five to 10 years will unfold regarding democracy, inequality, climate change and peak oil. But the notion that we can behave as if it is business as usual will not wash. We can hardly expect our institutions — which like it or not are reflections of us — to address the moral imperative of facing the crises, if we don’t do so personally.

3. As if to support Dobbin, Faith Morgan (Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, which works in Cuba) wrote:

Given the lack of political will to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, it is time for us to embrace the future, and say, "A life of less energy consumption can be a good life. Let's seek it, develop it, and stop fighting the inevitable, pretending it won't come." This long view is what we are developing at Community Solutions, ways to have hope and joy in life as it is and will be. At a talk at Antioch College this fall, Wendell Berry was asked how he was able to stay positive. He didn't mince words about the problems he sees. But he said we must also keep wonder in our lives; see the beauty around us, in the earth, family, and friends. Believing there will be a good tomorrow helps. 

I learned several things from Cuba that I think are important. First, before 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were people who foresaw the approaching catastrophe and began developing solutions, living as if they already didn't have what the Soviet Union was providing. They persisted and developed and refined their approaches, even though few other people were interested. Once the emergency was upon the country, the knowledge and skills developed by these visionaries were needed and valued. So, I encourage people to find ways to curtail their energy use, experiment in living a simpler, less consumptive life — for you, for the earth, and as an example that others can follow when conscience or circumstances brings them to change. 

Second, when our Cuban friend Roberto Perez was asked whether people would turn on each other when times get bad, he paused, then said, "That's not what happens. People come out and help each other. The best comes to the surface... I know, [because] that's what happened in Cuba."

4. Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, mayor of Marinaleda, Andalusia, an intentional utopian community in Spain, says:

We have learned that it is not enough to define utopia, nor is it enough to fight against the reactionary forces. One must build it here and now, brick by brick, patiently but steadily, until we can make the old dreams a reality:  that there will be bread for all, freedom among citizens, and culture; and to be able to read with respect the word "peace." We sincerely believe that there is no future that is not built in the present.

5. Polly Higgins, who instituted the Eradicating Ecocide Global Initiative, reminded us of John F. Kennedy's challenge of landing a human being on the moon, Nelson Mandela's challenge of working for his people despite life imprisonment, and William Wilberforce's challenge of ending the slave trade.

The impossible happened. How? Each set an intent, never let it waver, empowered others to help make it happen and expanded people's vision. Each of them shifted their vision of what is possible — and the world shifted its vision too. 

In fact, the impossible happens many times and in many ways in all of our lives every day — it just may not be as dramatic as the image of the first astronaut setting foot on the moon, or the day apartheid was declared a crime or the moment the British Slavery Abolition Act was brought into force. Shifting our vision — meeting the challenge that comes with facing the seemingly impossible — brings with it the means to get there. Each step takes us closer.

Each of these men handed over the baton to others to help make their vision become true. What they sought was something greater than any one person could achieve and they united many in a common intent to help make something truly remarkable happen. Each of them helped create a legacy from a place of genuine belief in a greater good. 

What we do know, and can learn, from each of them, is that each of us can bring our vision of a greater world to bear, be that through our standing up for bringing an end to an injustice or by supporting others who are speaking out. We each have different roles and often it is not until later that we see how each of our lives can and does have impact. 

It seems to me that the starting point is to challenge ourselves — especially when the justice we seek seems to be so impossible. For me, one phrase keeps on coming back: "It's up to us what happens next." I wonder how many times each of the above said to themselves words to the same effect.

We definitely are living in interesting times. Let's work together to make that a blessing rather than a curse.

Where is our Earth Anthem? (A guest post by Guy Dauncey)

Guy Dauncey is probably British Columbia's finest and best known environmentalist (and he's certainly one of Canada's best). For years now, he's been publishing EcoNews monthly, and this month's lead editorial really struck a chord with me (sorry for the pun).

I'd like to share it with you here. Hey, maybe you're the one who is going to write this song!

WHERE IS OUR EARTH ANTHEM?

 

That may seem a strange question when we are trying to tackle such enormous problems as global warming, species extinction, and the need to redesign our whole way of life so that it doesn’t trash the way our children and grandchildren live.

 

But where is the music that makes us feel the inevitability of victory? Our culture is producing and listening to more music than ever, yet there is this big piece missing.

 

We have new age music that celebrates the purity of nature; punk, hip hop and heavy metal music that denounce the injustices and stupidity of the world; and folk music that mourns the loss of beauty and the dying of species — but where is the music that celebrates a future in which we succeed in building a sustainable world, and makes us determined to get there?

 

It is impossible to recall the South African struggle against apartheid without the stirring music of Nkosi Sikeleli and a host of other songs.

 

It is impossible to recall the French Revolution without the stupendous music and lyrics of La Marseillaise, and its furious call to defend their newly found freedom:

O Liberty, can man resign thee

Once having felt thy generous flame?

Can dungeons, bolts or bars confine thee

Or whips thy noble spirit tame?

Nor can we recall the movement to end slavery without its music:

When Israel was in Egypt's land,


Let my people go! 


Oppressed so hard they could not stand,


Let my people go!

Go down, Moses, 


Way down in Egypt's land. 


Tell old Pharaoh 


To let my people go!

 

What would the US civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s be without its utterly determined lyrics:

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome some day,

Oh deep in my heart,

I do believe,

We shall overcome one day.

 

Today, we face a peril like no other, and people all around the world are working overtime to tackle the multiple threats to Earth's ecosystems — but forty years after the first Earth Day, in 1970, where is the global Earth Anthem we can sing together to celebrate our determination to succeed?

 

No-one has written it. That is the surprising reality.

 

There are songs that address environmental themes, including many by Victoria's singer/songwriter Holly Arntzen, but where is the all-commanding anthem that will draw us together with words of such joy and determination that they give us the strength we need to persist with the work and overcome the many setbacks and obstacles on the road to victory?

 

Its absence, I believe, lies in our failure to articulate what "victory" means, or even to believe that it is possible. Too many people think collapse and failure are inevitable; some even welcome the prospect, believing it is we greedy consuming humans who are the problem, and the sooner we are gone the better.

 

Some believe that the best way to mobilize people is by attacking the greedy polluting corporations and their evil capitalist ways, destroying more forests, polluting more oceans, and selling us more garbage for the sake of a buck. It may be true, but it does not convey a vision of victory.

 

Victory has to be more than a successful defence — protecting a forest, saving a beach, stopping a housing development. Victory has to be the shining city on the hill, a utopian vision similar in power to those that inspired people to work so hard to achieve public health care [here in Canada], public education, pensions, the end of child labour, and votes for women — things for which we are enormously grateful, even if we take them for granted.

 

The vision of victory, sufficient to inspire the world's first Earth Anthem, must offer a shining vision of Nature protected, our economies and banking systems transformed, our food supply secure in our own hands and the hands of organic farmers, our energy being entirely renewable; our neighbourhoods being resilient and full of celebratory cooperation; our nations working together to restore Earth's ecosystems; our hearts full of respect for each other no matter the colour of our skins, the way we love each other or the amount of money we carry in our pockets.

 

These things are all possible — and if we believe them not to be, it is only because we have forgotten our history, and the astonishing things we have achieved in the past. Creating global harmony with Nature is no larger a challenge than ending slavery or creating democracy. It takes innovation, struggle and persistence, but above all it takes vision — and an Earth Anthem that will inspire our hearts to sing.

As soon as that song is written, we will know it — and from that moment on, victory will be that much more possible. We need to believe in the future. Earth's creatures and our own children and grandchildren ask nothing more.  

— Guy Dauncey

36 Days - Creating that Compelling Vision of a Renewable Energy Future

If you're following this blog, you'll know that I struggle with the 350 campaign. They're running a damn fine campaign, they know how to use the new media, and I'm sure their hearts are in the right place. Part of me has thought all along that we should be trying to get back to below 300 ppm, not just to 350. But I've finally figured out exactly why I struggle with it.

One of Canada's best known and best loved environmentalists, Guy Dauncey, talks of offering people a compelling vision of the future, a sustainable future, a future that will be safe and equitable for our children and grandchildren. I read something yesterday that helped me "see" the importance of creating this compelling "vision."

As an educator, I know that about 80% of us (at least in North America) are visual learners. We take things in and make sense of the world mainly through our sense of sight. For example, when I hear something spoken, I have to take it in, visualize it in my head, and only then can I respond to it.

I was looking through a week-old paper that described the October 24 - International Day of Climate Action events that were to take place in a nearby community. "Do Whatever It Takes to Get Us Below 350 ppm!" was the headline.

Raise your hand (yes, I'm speaking figuratively, unless you need the exercise) if you can picture what 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere looks like? Can you see in your memory that day in October 1989 when we surpassed 350 ppm? What did the sky look like before it became dangerously high in CO2?

Now try this. Raise your hand if you can picture a zero-carbon world. A world where we no longer burn fuel to create energy. A world of wind turbines and solar panels, tidal energy and geothermal installations to heat or cool our homes, to run our appliances, to move the public through transit infrastructure.

I did this at our local October 24 event, and I could see people's eyes going up, doing that NLP (neurolinguistic programming) thing that happens when we're trying to construct a picture of something in our mind's eye. Participants started nodding and smiling. Yes, they could picture a carbon-free world!

Once we can picture that zero-carbon world, it's easy to discuss and picture how to get there: a zero-carbon economy that subsidizes renewable energy and taxes carbon and other forms of pollution; moving towards self-sufficiency in our food and energy production; giving up meat as a gift to our grandchildren; staying closer to home and taking 100-mile vacations; doing all this out of compassion for the people already horribly impacted by climate disruption in Africa, the Arctic, the small island nations, and, increasingly, all those depending on water sources that are drying up, even if just seasonally.

Even if we're able to picture 350 ppm (other than on a graph), then what? The concept doesn't hold within it the compelling picture of how to get there.

So, the most important number in the world is still that zero at the end of 350.

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