Climate Change Heroes Come in All Sizes

I enjoyed doing something nifty yesterday. I offered a keynote address to a small conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan ... via the internet. Once we got the technology to settle down and behave, it went well and was virtually well-received. 

I went to bed the the night before this presentation still not quite knowing how to structure my talk. The audience was filled with teachers participating in a program called Little Green Thumbs (LGT), an indoor school gardening program available in a handful of Canadian provinces (though I know they'd like to expand within North America; contact LGT here to find out more about becoming a host organization). 

I knew that I wanted to talk to these teachers about climate change, and about the important role they're playing in preparing children for the future we're bequeathing them. But I couldn't quite put my finger on a unifying theme for my talk.

Just as I was drifting off, it came to me: Little Green Thumbs, Big Green Heroes. My subconscious then got me up at 4 am to make sure I was ready for my 12 noon presentation, and I had some fun creating that little green-caped superhero as my motif (with thanks to clipart and the LGT green thumb). 

I began my talk asking why we all chose to become teachers. Perhaps it's because we love children, or we love our subject area. Maybe we loved school when we were kids, or we simply love to teach, period. No matter what the reason, we probably didn't become teachers because we wanted to be heroes.

And yet, any educator who is teaching food growing skills to today's children has become a hero, even if inadvertently. Teachers now shoulder much of the responsibility for preparing children for their climate-changed and carbon-constrained future. It's a responsibility we're not facing, however. Our teaching, from now on, has to be imbued with both compassion and courage ... compassion for our students and their future, and the courage to acknowledge the climate change emergency and that it demands changes in what and how we teach.

Needless to say, the children in Little Green Thumb programs are going to be the food security leaders and heroes of their generation. As I've noted here before, we can't grow food overnight; nor can we learn to grow food overnight. Grown-up Green Thumbs will be the ones ready to take on the food-growing challenges presented by chaotic weather events and changing climatic patterns. 

So here's a salute to the educators — the big green heroes — who recognize the value of teaching "agriculture in the classroom" and who are passing on the vital skills of soil building and food growing.

When Old People Ignore Young Heroes (or Worse)

Sorry to any readers in other parts of the world. This week's post is decidedly Canadian.

We need to get very clear about something. When a young person takes a risk to tell us oldsters something important, we need to listen — not criticize!

I was away at an educational convention this past weekend, and came home to news that Canada has a new hero! Brigette Marcelle DePape was a page in the Canadian Senate who simply couldn't listen anymore without "saying" something. Why is it that Brigette's generation has all this courage while we elders keep denying that there's anything awry?

So, Brigette does this brave thing (check out the video) and what's the response of the "elders"?

• She disrupted the reading of the Throne Speech. Ah, no. She stood and held up a sign. Nothing disruptive there! The fact that the Senators were disrupted says more about how distractible they are or how boring the Throne Speech was.

• It was a breach of security. That's such a funny one! We live in such a dangerous society (not!) that a piece of cardboard is now a security threat. (Mike Duffy, you're such a ....)

• She showed a lack of respect for democratic institutions. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Oh my, if this one's true, we can certainly point to the man who taught her everything she knows. No, wait, his name was on the cardboard! Yeah, you know, the prime minister who was found in contempt of parliament!

Besides something to do with hockey, it must have been a slow news week to turn this young woman's plea for sanity within our political system into a media circus. But do let's remember that our prime minister — not elected by a majority of Canadians — has sinister motivations that entail liquidating the future for Brigette's generation in the name of profits for his cronies today.

Come on, CBC et al. Harper has already made a farce of our parliament. Quit pretending he hasn't.

Meantime, Brigette Marcelle DePape just joined my list of climate change heroes.

By the way, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has this to say about Brigette's small act of civil disobedience:

"For a young person to do that and to do it peacefully, and quietly and with grace, I thought it was a very powerful moment. Every now and then there is an iconic moment where an individual takes action, and it inspires others to think .... I think that Canada and Canadians probably need to put aside the full respect thing and bring out their inner hockey stick and get to work on preventing their government from turning into a version of ours."

The Secret is Empathy

So many thoughts, ideas, questions converging this week. I started reminiscing about a successful environmental campaign that my hubby and I participated in nearly 20 years ago (gak!). A friend sent me one of those cool animated lectures and asked me what I thought. An issue of New Scientist kept staring at me til I finally opened it. And I discovered Jeremy Rifkin.

Okay, here we go.

Peter and I lived for 10 years in a wonderful city in north central British Columbia. During that time, a multinational corporation (which had already dammed the river once) started talking about how much more water they needed. There was one woman who raised the alarm. She worked tirelessly for quite a while — until she heard that the political party she belonged to (and which was in power at the time) wasn't going to do anything about it.

So she disappeared. Just like that. Her sense of belonging to that political party outweighed her love for the river. We carried on without her (and WON!), but I've always been intrigued by her sense of allegiance. This is the kind of thing that's happening in the United States around climate change. If you're Republican, you're not really allowed to believe in it if you want to stay in the club. And belonging, as we know if we think about it, is everything. (Maslow certainly knew it.)

The animated lecture sent by my friend is a wonderful polemic (I mean that kindly) by Barbara Ehrenreich, who has been described as "a barbed social critic." The lecture, called Smile or Die, is about the cruelty and moral callousness of the very American belief that positive thinking will fix everything — and if things aren't right, it's our own bloody fault for not thinking the right things. This belief was immortalized in that recent bit of claptrap, The Secret. That movie made my blood boil! Not only did it imply that those of us without mansions are losers, but that anyone who wants to think hard enough and positively enough deserves a mansion! Grrrrr. No regard for anyone else. Just me, me, me and what I want.

Ehrenreich's lecture does a stellar job of denouncing this delusional view of the world, suggesting instead a form of realism that allows us to see what we can change. No, the people impacted by tsunamis are not sending out tsunami-like vibrations. No, the people hit by earthquakes are not sending out earthquake-like thoughts. And no, the people who are losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes and entire homelands due to the climate change emergency are not creating their reality! We are, with our bloody fossil fuel and livestock emissions. And we can change that.

She also points to the nonsense, as my friend describes it, "of having to be positive and hopeful, thereby compromising and minimizing the truth and danger/threat" of the global climate change emergency — like a lot of mainstream environmental NGOs feel they have to do. It's pretty consternating, and leads to a whole lot of cognitive dissonance.

As you know, I think the answer is compassion. According to researcher Margaret Kemeny at the University of California, San Francisco (this is where the 8 January 2011 issue of New Scientist comes into the story), compassion is a complicated construct that likely involves several emotional skills. "To be compassionate with someone, first you have to recognize that they are experiencing a negative reaction. Then you have to consider what a beneficial response might be. Then you have to have the motivation to do something about it."

Did you know that Stanford University opened The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education in 2009? It's "funded by neuroscientists, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the Dalai Lama." I think they should get on with it. I haven't heard boo from them — and we could use a little research about compassion around here.

Finally then, I'd like to share with you 2 versions of a similar lecture by Jeremy Rifkin, who is a new climate change hero of mine. Rifkin is an economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist — and he gets that the secret is empathy. In this video (The Empathic Civilization), he explains that our drive to belong is hard-wired (and soft-wired), but so is our empathy. In fact, he calls us Homo empathicus, and explains that empathy has evolved and expanded along with our sense of belonging.

Rifkin asks, "Is it possible that we could extend our empathy to the entire human race, as an extended family, and to our fellow creatures, as part of our evolutionary family, and to the biosphere as our common community? If it's possible to imagine that, then we may be able to save our species and save our planet." ***

I've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. If, as Rifkin suggests, we can start thinking of ourselves as members of a species — and one that is threatened — then perhaps we can start to feel compassion for those members of our species who are less fortunate (ie, hit sooner rather than later) than we are when it comes to the climate change emergency. There but for the grace of ....

Enjoy Rifkin's animated explanation of the Empathic Civilization, below, and then to watch a more scholarly explanation of it, visit this link.

***What George Carlin didn't know back in 1992 is that the planet we know as Earth is indeed in peril if we're talking about its biosphere. But he's still funny. He also points out that much of environmentalism isn't based on empathy or compassion, but on having a nice, clean place to live — for me.

Less Than Zero Expectations for Cancun

Can anyone believe that a year has passed already since the Copenhagen climate talks became the biggest global disappointment of all time? (Worse, even, I suspect, than Bush illegally invading Iraq following peace vigils and protests all over the world — which were wonderful but one-offs. Climate activists in this household spend up to 16 hours every day on this issue, so Copenhagen was shockingly depressing.)

The Cancun climate talks begin tomorrow. I don't care. I know nothing good will come of them. The new UNFCCC executive secretary, Christiana Figueres, has told us to expect nothing. The outgoing Yvo de Boer had nothing promising to say before he left his post. Journalists are already using pessimistic terms to describe the negotiations, slated to run from November 29 to December 10, 2010 in Mexico.

• Battle lines drawn for Cancun climate conference
• Delegates brace for setbacks
• UN talks in Mexico to seek modest climate steps
• EU sets sights low for climate talks
• United Nations climate talks in limbo
• No hope for climate talks, says Britain's chief scientist
• Two hundred nations, one mission: to repair the mess left by Copenhagen
• Hopes low as Australia heads to climate talks
• Prospect of climate deal slim: Analysts
• Doubts surround climate deal
• Cancun conference: Climate change back-burnered
• Cancun & the climate 'standstill'
• Stalled on treaty, climate talks turn to money
• No big surprises likely at Cancun meet
• Optimism, though cautious, remains ahead of Cancun climate conference [Me: optimism, though cautious, equals pessimism]
• Horror summer fails to shift Russia climate scepticism [Me: many Russians are still convinced climate change is an American conspiracy — no, wait, the Americans think it's a ....]
• Climate change will make a billion homeless [Me: oops, sorry, thought I'd throw a little reality in there]

Already negotiators are talking about things like "notching up progress" on a few issues "to help revive faith" in the UNFCCC process. According to Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Union's chief negotiator, all parties "want to show the world that this process can deliver, it can move the international climate agenda forward." Harvard professor, Robert Stavins, has said, "The most sensible goal for Cancun is progress on a sound foundation for meaningful long-term action, not some notion of immediate triumph."

Got that? No talk of saving the world or safeguarding the future. No mention of Africa and small island states. No mention of the children of all species. No mention of actually %$#!ing well doing something!!!!! Why wouldn't we want immediate triumph, for heaven's sake?

Gee, shucks, people have lost faith in the process. BLOODY RIGHT WE HAVE! And for good reason. Because "governments" care more about the process and who's "winning" and who's "losing" than they care about the Earth and the future and their own children.

So go ahead, Cancun. Achieve something. Do something good. I dare you. But I ain't holding my breath — I'm not setting myself up for the deep depression I suffered last year post-Copenhagen. Nope. Not me. I know you're going to keep diddling while the Earth burns. You're all ignorant, you're mean-spirited, you're avaricious, and you're cowardly — and you certainly don't have a creative neuron in your 200 brains put together.

I'm just going to keep doing what I do ... teaching people about the urgency of the climate change emergency — and encouraging them to feel some compassion for the world's most climate-change-vulnerable and become heroes for their own children.

p.s. Hey, just thought of something! What if all the negotiators who love their children just walked out? Just said, "Screw it!" to their bosses back home? Just went to the beach? Ah, I guess I am still a little bit optimistic.

55 Days - What Shall We Be Thankful For?

It's Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I remember becoming mysteriously homesick in October when I was an exchange student in Belgium many years ago. Then I received a Thanksgiving letter from my mother and realized what I'd been subconsciously missing.

So what can we be thankful for in Canada in 2009?

I know what we're NOT thankful for. Our not-very-prime minister, who still thinks the economy and re-election are more important than giving his children a chance at a future. The tar sands in Alberta, our national disgrace. (For heaven's sake — or Earth's sake — leave the bitumen in the ground as a carbon sink!) The rather pervasive Canadian attitude that we would rather die comfortable than live miserable (an admission from someone I met recently). That attitude surely is held only by people who can't conceive of how wonderful a renewable energy-powered world will be.

But we are thankful for people — climate heroes — like UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Al Gore, climate scientists James Hansen and John Holdren, Glenn MacIntosh of ecoSanity.org in Toronto (who keeps us sane and inspired; thanks, Glenn!), and all the children of the world, of all species, who remind us why we're doing the climate work that we do.

We are grateful for our fresh water, our food security, our fresh corn and ripe apples, our peace and our prosperity, our luck and our timing. We are so very blessed — most of us, at least — in this country, and it's a shame that we aren't more compassionate towards those less fortunate around the world.

If you don't celebrate a thanksgiving holiday in your country or culture, give it a try yourself, with your family. Acknowledge your blessings, and work to change what vexes you and the Earth. For a place to start, visit GreenHeart Education's Saying Grace Together and Graces and Prayers for the Earth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

68 Days - Climate Heroes and Moving Forward

During brunch with a friend yesterday, I told her (a) about Kevin Conrad's magnificent show of heroism at the Bali climate talks in December 2007 (how time flies), and (b) how much I'm sick of politicians using the term "going forward" or "moving forward" — as though if they don't say it, we'll all think they're going backwards?

I watched the videos again today for old time's sake, and not only am I re-impressed with the Papua New Guinea representative's courage to stand up to the main obfuscators, but I also heard that dastardly line again. In one video, you'll hear applause for Mr. Conrad, and in the other, you'll hear applause for the United States of America. In the third, you'll get more background from Mr. Conrad on why he did what he did. 

147 Days - If Everybody Did a Little Bit...

...no one would have to do it all.

As I watch my favourite up-close climate heroes - my husband (Climate Change Emergency Medical Response), our wonderful ecoSanity.org friend Glenn, and our great young friends who are spending their summer cycling across Canada (it's a vast country!) to raise the alarm on climate change - I must admit that I get peeved.

These people are working tirelessly, day in, day out, long hours, long nights, giving it everything they've got (time, money and energy).

Yet I still don't see that uprising, that bandwagon, the joining in, the crest of wild concern that will turn the tide. Why can't everyone else just do a little bit so that I can have my husband back? So that Glenn can make his life sane again? So that ... well, our young friends are probably having a ton of fun on their Pedal for the Planet trip.

If everybody did a little bit, no one would have to do it all, or give it their all. Practically everyone, practically everywhere (at least certainly in the developed world) can spare an hour a week to learn, talk and write about the global climate change emergency.

Do they? No, they fill their empty hours with television, or video games, or twittering, for heaven's sake! (I would rather they spent that time outside, listening to the real twittering of the real birds. At least then they would feel some connection to what's being lost, and perhaps some compassion for the birds and other gifts from the Earth who are facing the climate change emergency, too!)

Having said that, I think I might just try Twittering (whatever the heck it is). My "accidental environmentalist" friend says it would make sense for what I'm trying to get across to people:

"You can type in 'climate change' on the far right to look up topics and see what people are buzzing about. It's the perfect thing for your messages!"

So, if my friend thinks it will help, I might as well give it a try. Right? Maybe all that twittering (tweeting?) will save the world. Maybe our political leaders are following our twitters. Maybe while people are twittering and tweeting, they're not driving and buying and consuming and eating meat and burning fossil fuels (all those things that turn into greenhouse gas emissions). Maybe, just maybe, Twitter could become a way for everyone to do their little bit.

(Note to self, however: Do not hold breath.)

148 Days - We Have Our New Churchill!

I so wanted Al Gore to become our climate change Churchill. I will always resent the American (and other) climate change deniers and progenycists ("progenycide" is the killing of future generations, a term I coined recently) who turned his understanding of the climate change emergency, his passion for sharing the truth far and wide, and his mission to safeguard the future into a political football. (I'm usually a pretty positive person, but those people are despicable. Sadly, they're not the ones who are suffering the consequences of climate chaos first.)

I am, however, thrilled to see that a softspoken statesman is taking on the role of Churchill when it comes to the climate change emergency. His name is Ban Ki-moon, and he is the secretary-general of the United Nations.

Please watch this video (ignore the dork at the other end of the microphone — what a stupid question he poses!) to see Mr. Ban's quiet passion, skillful diplomacy, and strong commitment to this issue. The man is a hero — still unsung, but singing his own song — of the children of the world, and indeed the whole planet.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon - Climate Hero!
on the Moral Imperative of the G8 Nations

If you would like to write a note of thanks or congratulations to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, visit the Emergency Action page at Climate Change Emergency Medical Response. Scroll down for his contact information, including his email address.

182 Days to Copenhagen - Courage is Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway: The Kingsnorth Six

Climate change activism is a study in courage these days. It takes guts to stand up for the children of all species and for all future generations if you're living in a culture that deifies now, me, and this quarter's profits, and that has no space in its heart for the rest of Nature.

So when I come across inspiring examples of ordinary citizens doing extraordinarily courageous things to raise the alarm on global warming and the climate change emergency, it would be selfish of me not to share them.

Here's an excerpt from one such story in the UK's Guardian, a tale of six people who risked death and jail terms to make a powerful point about coal-fired energy in England: Why Six Britons Went to Eco War.

"When six activists, protesting against climate pollution, scaled a tower at a coal-fired power station in 2007 the resulting court case drew support from the world's leading scientists. Their subsequent acquittal proved historic and changed government policy."

Reading the full story first (at the link above) before clicking to watch the video below will make your viewing richer and more meaningful. Be inspired!

(p.s. To muster up your courage in the face of deniers, skeptics and apathetics, just remember the children - and the precautionary approach.)

A Time Comes - the story of the Kingsnorth Six from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo

(If this version doesn't work for you, visit The Guardian.)

185 Days to Copenhagen - Damn the Cowardly Scientists and Environmentalists, Too: ABC's Earth 2100

Why did it take ABC (the American Broadcasting Corporation) to show the public what our future is going to look like if we don't make radical cuts to our CO2 emissions? Why have so many of the scientists and too many of the environmentalists been too afraid to tell the truth about the global climate change emergency — especially heaped on top of so many other environmental disasters around the world?

Don't want to rant on tonight ... just wanted to make one point. The present with which 300 million people are already afflicted will soon enough become our present. A little understanding of climate science (especially positive carbon feedbacks) and a whole whack of empathy and compassion could get us on track in negotiating for the right things (a renewable energized climate-stable future) instead of trying to protect the wrong things (our deadly fossil-fuelled present) at the Copenhagen climate talks.

Check out ABC's courageous, timely and prophetic Earth 2100.

188 Days Left - The Art of Shameless Self-Promotion

There's no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn't tell you about it?
— Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

A friend of ours wrote today to tell us some good news (you read about his Global Green Fund idea in yesterday's blog ... the guy's a genius with a good heart) and sent it to practically everyone on his email list. Shameless self-promotion, I call it.

That got me thinking that my action today could be shameless promotion of the work of others — good people fighting the good fight, giving up a lot (time, money, energy and sometimes relationships) to do what they feel they have to do for what they love ... the Earth, the children, life itself.

So here, in no particular order, are the websites of some really great climate heroes, people I count as like-hearted friends.

1. See. Act. Inspire. Glenn MacIntosh is ecoSanity.org. The name says it all. Glenn tells people, "The world's atmosphere is on course to reach a state of unsurvivable extremes within the lifetimes of today's children." He gets the urgency (not to mention the insanity) of global climate disruption. Visit ecoSanity.org especially for fascinating video clips of some fascinating climate warriors.

2.Beatle George Harrison once said, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." Fortunately, we do know where we need to get to, and it's 350 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere - or even less - to avert global climate catastrophe. Michael McGee started CO2 Now after taking his young son to hear Al Gore speak about the climate emergency. CO2 Now is "what the world needs to watch.... Global warming is mainly the result of CO2 levels rising in the Earth's atmosphere. Both atmospheric CO2 and climate change are accelerating. Climate scientists say we have years, not decades, to stabilize CO2 and other greenhouse gases. To help the world succeed, CO2Now.org makes it easy to see the most current CO2 level and what it means. So, use this site and keep an eye on CO2. Invite others to do the same. Then we can do more to send CO2 in the right direction

3. My husband, Peter Carter, MD, is a retired family physician. Throughout his adult life, he has been involved in the peace and environmental movements. As a doctor, he knows only too well that climate change is going to be (and in many parts of the world, already is) the biggest public health threat ever. (And that's just on our way to the biggest threat to our very survival ever.) His website for health care professionals is called Climate Change Emergency Medical Response. Check it out for the latest scientific climate research, and for suggested actions that doctors and other health care personnel can take. Hey, why not send it to your doctor?

Yo! Where are the women in this campaign? Oh right, here I am!!! (Just a little shameless self-promotion. ;-)

191 Days to Go - Could Climate Compassion Lead to Climate Heroes?

This morning, I received several grateful responses to a posting I made yesterday to an environmental education listserve. In response to a research study showing why people aren't responding to the climate change crisis, I spoke about the importance of compassion.

In response to this quote from the article:

"Danger brings emotional reactions, dread, a feeling of alarm. Evolution has equipped us with that," says Elke Weber, director of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University. "The threats we face today are not of that type. They are psychologically removed in space and time."

I said this:

This is a developed-world response. Millions of people in Africa, the North and small island states are already facing danger, today, right now. Those of us who still look outside and see a beautiful day and then buy all the food we need in a grocery store might think our species is not facing immediate danger, but we are ... if we count our brothers and sisters in climate-change-vulnerable regions as "us." Sadly, our EuroAmerican-based cultures tend to psychologically remove us from any feeling of species/special connection with other human beings living in developing countries. Time to bring back compassion.

And to this quote:

But that will require overcoming some very basic impulses, she acknowledges. "People are very unwilling to sacrifice," she says. They base many decisions on the immediate cost. "It hurts us a lot to give up whatever we think we are due, such as our standard of living," Weber notes."

I said:

People *nowadays* in our EuroAmerican cultures are perhaps unwilling to make sacrifices. But parents elsewhere, indeed animal parents everywhere and throughout history have sacrificed to ensure their child/ren's survival. People *are* willing to sacrifice, but we have been brainwashed into believing that only chumps make sacrifices. [Chumps are gullible, foolish people who are easy to take advantage of.] ...Let's bring back the notion of heroes — people who give a damn about others. And then let's all be one. Compassionate climate change heroes!

What do you think? If anyone out there is reading this, I would love to hear from you. Could the promotion of compassion for climate-change-vulnerable people in other parts of the world turn us and our elected so-called leaders into climate change heroes? If you think so, how could we go about promoting such compassion? And if you don't think so, what other ideas do you have for getting through to people that we're already in a climate emergency because our brothers and sisters in other regions are already being impacted?

To help you decide, have a look at the two very sobering maps on this webpage: http://energybulletin.net/node/48953