Happy Halloween ... It Doesn't Get Any Scarier Than This

Just a bunch of scary stuff for you this week, in honour of Halloween. (Wouldn't want to take our minds off the whole climate change emergency just cuz of a fun little holiday, now would we?)

Here's a very good movie called Last Hours. Scarier than heck, but presented in calm, soothing tones. Kinda creepy how that works.

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A couple of thoughts. I was reading an online article called How to Get People to Give a Damn About Climate Change and wanted to comment: "Really, all this is moot. Who cares what the public knows, understands or believes? It's governments that have to make sweeping changes …."

And then I thought, "Oh yeah, wait. The public votes in governments! Now I get it." (When people ask, "What can I do about climate change?" I often respond, "Help create the political will for the government to do something about it.")

There was a comment below that article: "It wasn't long ago that German scientists had a 100% consensus that eugenics was an excellent policy."

"Ah," I said to myself, "that could explain the IPCC's phobia about policy." (Did you know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change refuses to say whether all this warming and climate chaos is dangerous?)

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Guess what? I discovered (rather belatedly) why Canada's last Environment Minister, Peter Kent, lost his job! "You don't have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and we need to address it." Oh my, what a way to get fired by Not-so-Prime Minister Stephen Burn-It-All! Harper. 

The (okay, almost year old) article that I read reported Kent as saying "he talks to his U.S. counterparts on a 'more than monthly basis' and there's a general consensus that it's an issue that has to be addressed. 'We would ignore it at our peril.'" Which kinda proves my point that governments know exactly what's going on ... and they're ignoring it at our peril. 

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Did you know that there's a Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change? Me neither. But yup, there is. Retired Bangladeshi Major General ANM Muniruzzaman chairs it. And here's what he said about the climate change emergency and global security: 

"When I was a major general in Bangladesh’s military, my job was to avoid conflict while planning for the worst-case scenario. And, from the perspective of the military, the consequences of global warming constitute the worst-case scenario. 

"When I meet with my colleagues at the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change — generals and admirals from around the world, all with career-long experience in military planning and operations — I am struck by the similarity of our concerns. All countries of the world are experiencing changes that are destabilizing communities and increasing security concerns. Diseases are spreading, wells are drying up, storms are smashing cities and destroying crops, and rain is either a distant memory or an acute danger.  

In global security circles, we often speak of the 'international community.' Climate change is the ultimate global challenge and global threat, and the global community must meet it together. We cannot have our separate attitudes and plans."

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And I'll leave you with something that isn't scary. Once Halloween is over, it'll be November. And you know what that means, right? Yup, Christmas carols in shopping plazas! (Okay, maybe that is scary.) So here's a new idea. An alternative gift registry, where you sign up to let loved ones know what you don't want to receive (sort of). Anyway, have some fun exploring whether this would be useful in your life. SoKind Registry. Their motto is More Fun, Less Stuff. It's a project of The Center for a New American Dream, so to be honest, I don't even know if it'll work for the rest of us. If not, let the idea start to inspire some fun gift-making between now and the holidays. 

When Good People Think Positive Thoughts about Very Bad Situations

Post Durban, a young Canadian member of parliament, Justin Trudeau (whose father was a very colourful prime minister in his day), made the news this week by swearing at Canada's minister of the environment — right in the House of Commons! (Woke a few people up, I'm betting.) His outburst has created quite the commotion in this "I apologize if you step on my toes" country of ours.

To be fair, our environment minister IS a hypocrite of the first degree when it comes to the climate change emergency. Peter Kent, when he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), researched, wrote, directed and narrated a 1984 hour-long documentary entitled The Greenhouse Effect and Planet Earth. (Watch it here.) To wit, here's the show's description:

There's weather, and then there's climate. Weather patterns come and go, but forecasting has become much more accurate through improved meteorological techniques. Climate change is harder to predict. But, as the CBC's Peter Kent shows in this 1984 documentary, it's happening. Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere have been steadily rising, and by the year 2050 the average global temperature may rise by five degrees Celsius due to the greenhouse effect.

So, if Kent knew all that back in the mid 1980s and, after recently becoming Canada's Environment Minister, embarrassed us all at the climate change talks in Durban, then it would be quite fair to call him a hypocrite. Mr. Trudeau simply expressed it a different way, that's all.

Pundits have been asking (here and here ... but do come back, okay?) when we're going to start following suit. When is our sense of outrage going to boil over?

But I have to ask: What sense of outrage is that? I was at a Christmas party the other night and stayed late to talk with four women that I like and respect a lot. One knew nothing about climate change, one knows a lot and stayed quiet, and two talked about the importance of positive thoughts, even in the context of global warming.

Positive thoughts? POSITIVE THOUGHTS? I was having negative thoughts just thinking about positive thoughts!! How are positive thoughts going to safeguard the future for the children? Since it was a Christmas celebration, I too stayed quiet. Since then, I've been trying to figure out if they're onto something. But I think this is what I've decided:

If a child runs out in front of a car, it is not a negative thought to run after them. If someone is having a heart attack, it is not a negative thought to call for an ambulance and perform CPR. If 1% of the world's population is ruining the future for all life on Earth, it is not a negative thought to call them on it and try to correct the situation. I mean, what is the "positive thought" about the end of life on our beautiful, precious planet? And how can thinking positive thoughts change anything?

Maybe I'm a quantum physics illiterate (it's always struck me as a cop out, or selfish and self-absorbed somehow), but with 1% trying to suck every last drop of fossil fuel out of the ground and burn it up for profit, and most of the 99% either struggling to get by or watching TV to avoid the pain of the spiritual emptiness they feel, that doesn't leave very many of us to EXPRESS OUTRAGE!!!!

In other words, I'm with Justin Trudeau. If we don't start calling a spade a spade, and a piece of sh!t a piece of sh!t (that's Anglo-Saxon for hypocrite), then we will never garner enough outrage, political will or even interest in the climate change emergency.

So, yeah, I've decided that being real, feeling real, expressing real is more important than being nice and thinking positive thoughts (I've equated those two: nice and positive; if you can explain the distinction to me, I'd love to hear it).

My compassion is reserved for the children, and for those who are sick or on the streets or caring for others while working two jobs. The rest of us should be learning all about the climate change emergency and GETTING REALLY MAD!

p.s. We lost a giant this weekend. Vaclav Havel died in the Czech Republic. I'll leave you with one of his quotes. Though it might seem to contradict what I've just written, it doesn't. Lies and hatred can be concealed by niceness, while truth and love can come out in righteous anger.

Vaclav Havel: "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred."