One Thumb Up! (And a New Form of Anarchism)

Not my thumb!

Ah, the Universe sometimes has a sense of humour. After resolving last week to become an "Earth Mama" in 2013, I started the year off by spraining my right thumb on January 2 in a fall while skating backwards (or trying to skate backwards, to be more correct). 

I'm right-handed. Have you ever noticed how much we use our thumbs, especially the one on our dominant hand? Some say it's our thumbs that make us human! In palmistry, the thumb deals with a person's will. According to palm reader, Comte C. de Saint-Germain, "People with large thumbs [that's me!] are governed by their heads, and are more at ease in an atmosphere of ideas, rather than in one of sentiments. They judge things better by reflection than by acting on the spur of the moment." 

The good sir knows me well, as I am indeed a thinker, not a doer. So becoming an Earth Mama is (a) put on hold until my thumb has healed and I can pick things up again, and (b) really going to pull me (kicking and screaming) into my discomfort zone. But for now, at least, I get a reprieve!

So I took advantage of not being able to do too much and spent two and a half hours with our young climate activist friend this afternoon, sipping chai and discussing our shared feeling that a lot of people — including former activists — have turned their backs on the climate change struggle. In just the past week, I've had four friends basically tell me that they're "movin' on" to other endeavours (peace, planting seeds of love, "deliberately living and feeling with appreciation"). Those are all tangentially related, but if there's no food, there's no peace, no love, no sense of appreciation. We all need food. 

But we also talked about government and corporations and other political woes. (Did I mention I'm an ideas person?) And we think we coined a new phrase! Corporate anarchism. If anarchism is a belief in the abolition of all government, then corporate anarchism explains who, exactly, has done away with our governments, abolishing any wisp of leadership from our elected leaders.  So we're actually living in anarchy ("a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority"), because corporations don't recognize any authority but their own.


p.s. I just looked it up ... turns out we didn't coin a new phrase. Others are already talking about corporate anarchism online. Darn!

Scientists as the Enemy? Sometimes!

Regular readers know that my husband spends hours and hours every day reading and synthesizing the research on global warming and climate change, so when something new comes along, he's on top of it.

Still, his antagonism towards the majority of climate scientists has always confused me a bit. After all, the research that he's reading and synthesizing day in, day out comes from scientists! But he maintains that these scientists — who could have made the conscious choice to be human beings first and scientists second — have a lot of the weight of inaction on climate change on their shoulders.

Yesterday, I saw this in action, and it disturbed me to the core. We were invited by a friend to have a meeting over coffee (okay, soy chai latte) with a scientist friend of his, someone with a high degree in physics and a government job.

I figured this was going to be a friendly meeting of minds and hearts. Wrong! This fellow was a denialist wolf pretending to be nice in sheep's clothing. As he kept "playing" devil's advocate, disagreeing with research he had neither heard of nor read, I felt more and more slimed. I had gone there with my defences down, not realizing it was a trap.

At first, I thought it was slightly strange but friendly repartee. But the number of times he used the terms "devil's advocate" and "don't believe the numbers" convinced me that his motives were not friendly.

His big "lesson" for us was to not forget the negative feedbacks (which in this case are the good ones). Hey, mister, if you can get your negative feedbacks to overwhelm the overwhelming positive (bad) feedbacks in the climate system, go for it. But so far, your negative feedbacks are losing because we keep pumping 30 billion tons of extra (human-made) carbon into the atmosphere each year ... and rising! (So not only is that figure not falling to zero carbon emissions, but the rate of acceleration of our emissions is still rising.)

The lesson I hope I left this man with is this: Physics, schmysics. What about the humans in the equation? What about the kids? What about their future? Why would we not employ the precautionary principle if there is any risk whatsoever?

The science is valuable, but not if we're ignoring what's happening in the world because it doesn't fit with our "scientific models," and not if scientists are going to put science before life itself.

Leaders and Followers and Betrayal

I've been quiet lately. Too discouraged to know what to do, say or write.

But tonight, I need to rant. First, I'd like to mention that a Canadian political party that I have a lot of respect for is calling for Canada to show "climate leadership." Well, I think it would be quicker and safer for Canada to show climate "followership."

We should be following the nations that have already felt the impacts of the global climate change emergency — who KNOW that something drastic must be done.

Next, I want to apologize to the world on behalf of all the Canadians who, today, were mortified by our appointed senate politicians. They pulled a fast one on us, and our already not-strong-enough climate legislation is now dead. Just before Cancun.

A dear young activist friend of ours is devastated. Here's her response to our bully of a prime minister:

I would like to express my extreme discontent with the decision made in Senate to kill Bill C-311. Last summer, I rode my bicycle to Ottawa, from BC, to tell you that we need (at least) Bill C-311 — that we have a MORAL OBLIGATION to protect the future of today's children. Yes, that includes your children. I am devastated by this decision and its implications for further stalling of progress in the UN climate negotiations and the embarrassing position it puts Canada in on the international stage--an international stage that I would like to believe is slowly waking up to the climate emergency. Shame on Canada for not taking a leadership role in the fight against climate change; the greatest threat to human civilization. This evening, I go to bed with a heavy heart and a great feeling of uncertainty as to what my future holds in the face of a rapidly changing climate. This evening, I am embarrassed to be Canadian, and I feel a deep sense of compassion towards those people around the world who have done NOTHING to deserve the climate devastation that is being inflicted upon them, and that will continue to wreak havoc on their survival. This is so unjust; this is criminal.

Sincerely,

NN