Stand Up for Science!

Fascinating. A week in the United States, San Francisco, both before Christmas and before the Electoral College decides on the new president.

I can report that yes, the "T**** effect" is a real thing. Emboldened jerks are saying rude things to women, visible minorities, anyone they think might be an immigrant. The waitress in our favourite restaurant told us a story that ended with her suggesting to one particular table of jerks that unless they were of Native American heritage, they too were immigrants. (She was an "immigrant" from New York City.) Apparently they had a hard time wrapping their brains around that. And yes, people south of the border are wearing safety pins to signify that they're a safe haven if things get ugly.

We were attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, one of the largest meetings of scientists in the world, where my hubby, Peter, presented on the planetary climate change emergency. (It was called Climate Golden Age or Greenhouse Gas Dark Age Legacy?)

The highlight for me, besides the opportunity to meet and dine with some wonderful online friends and fellow climate change activists, was the Stand Up for Science rally at noon on day 2 of the AGU conference. (You can see Peter in the bottom left corner, below, and our friend, "Earth Doctor" Reese Halter, in the top row in red.) 

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2016-6-november-december/green-life/these-scientists-are-fighting-for-our-future-we-need#6

Several scientist-speakers, well known as brave souls to climate change activists, called on their colleagues to speak out against a politicization of science that is increasingly dangerous for the planet.

We ALL need to become CLIMATE HEROES for the children of all species and all future generations — but scientists have a particularly important role to play in helping the rest of us pluck up our courage through knowledge and understanding.

Science is definitely under attack. The US has a president-elect who is gearing everything up (Exxon CEO for Secretary of State, anyone?) to continue burning fossil fuels at any cost, when the science says we need to get to zero carbon emissions by mid-century if we want to ensure a future.

Let's stand up for climate change science and scientists, folks. After all, we don't quibble with gravity. Then why do so many of us doubt the physical law that pumping more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causes it to retain more heat?

UPDATE: Here in Canada, things are getting better for scientists.

Climate Highs and Climate Lows Leading Up to UN Climate Summit and the People's Climate March

No, I'm not talking about the temperature today. The climate highs and lows I'm talking about are all the things people are doing or not doing (or not doing right) for the huge climate convergence coming up in New York City in three, count 'em, three weeks. That's three as in 3, as in one less than 4, as in only one more than 2. As in, before we know it. As in, holy sh!t!

You see, this mobilization can't be just about numbers of marchers at the People's Climate March. It can't be just about calling for urgent action. Time is so short (methane hydrate plumes, anyone?), it has GOT to be about very specifically demanding the very specific urgent actions that we urgently need!

So with that urgency as our backdrop this week, let's have a look at what's been happening.

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People are writing -- or finding -- anthems for the climate change movement. A friend of ours is working on one:

Climate safety is a human right
We're not going to get it
Without a fight
We need to unite
Take action - right now
Here's how ....

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That's a good thing. On the other hand, Avaaz, with its self-confessed gazillions of members, just sent round a message asking people to sign a petition that's, well, wrong (see if you can spot the wrong bit):

Right, the "2 degrees" bit is wrong. Two degrees is not "the safe level," it's global suicide. For years, the nations most vulnerable to climate chaos have been asking for a global temperature increase limit of no more than 1.5ºC -- some even 1ºC (recognizing what's already happening at +0.8ºC). 

Here's the problem with 2ºC. Because most of us haven't grasped that (due to the ocean heat lag doubling whatever temperature increase we end up with) 2ºC is the eventual result of only 1ºC of warming. So if we "aim" for 2ºC, we'll end up with 4ºC (which is certainly unsurvivable, given that all crops in all regions will go into decline at or before 1.5ºC of warming). Remember, this isn't temperature increase as in "tonight's low will be 70ºF and the high tomorrow will be 78ºF" -- this is temperature increase as in "98.6ºF is healthy, but you are pretty much dead at 106.6ºF."

So Avaaz has done the world a(nother) disservice by reinforcing the idea that +2ºC is safe. (Indeed, the conspiracy theorist in me figures it's just more proof that Avaaz is indeed part of the nonprofit industrial complex that supports the corporate agenda whenever that support is called upon.)

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From above: "... by rapidly shifting our societies and economies to be powered by 100% clean energy." I don't like Avaaz's wording there (do I smell a shill for "clean coal"?), but this is, properly defined, the goal we all need to be aiming for. Zero-carbon, clean, perpetual energy by 2050. Due to the length of time that 20-40% of our emitted carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere radiating heat (up to a thousand years!), we've got to achieve zero carbon emissions by mid-century or sooner in order to stabilize and drop the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. The Burning Age is over ... we have to start picturing a world of no fuels (no biofuels, no biomass burning; burning = carbon emissions).

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Remember I mentioned plumes of methane up top? The discovery / witnessing of these plumes in the Arctic and along the Atlantic Coast of North America should be striking sheer terror into the hearts of every thinking adult human being on the planet. These plumes are evidence that the seabed's normally frozen methane hydrate deposits are destabilizing. In other words, they're thawing, for heaven's sake! This is the methane timebomb we've been warning about for the last several years. We are freaking well running out of time.

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Speaking of bombs .... 

I keep running across research and lay articles in which scientists "conclude," not that we'd better get our butts in gear to safeguard the future, but that more monitoring is necessary. From an article entitled Vast Methane Plumes Spotted Bubbling Up from the Arctic Ocean Floor:

"Does this mean that the disaster scenario is now developing? Unfortunately, at the moment, that's an unknown. The SWERUS-C3 team will be continuing to monitor the location as long as the weather holds out for their expedition. However, as the Stockholm University press release stated: "These early glimpses of what may be in store for a warming Arctic Ocean could help scientists project the future releases of the strong greenhouse gas methane from the Arctic Ocean."

What is it with scientists and other researchers constantly and continually just calling for "more research" and more understanding? Why can't we just understand the research results we have now and get concerned enough to demand some urgent action from our governments?

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Well, I started with a climate high, and I'd like to end with a high. But I'm drawing a blank. We're meeting some wonderful new climate change activists, but for every new one, two or three climate "cynics" pop up. If you've got any good climate change news to share, please let me know.

We Don't Know What We Don't Know

When I was still fairly new to teaching, I made friends with a colleague in her first year as a teacher. After completing our first term set of report cards, E. promptly threw out all of her records: marks, notes, even attendance records. Imagine her quandary when a parent asked for justification of their daughter's mark in that course. E. didn't know that she had to maintain all those records for seven years.  

And because she didn't know what she didn't know (and we didn't know that she didn't know), she didn't think to ask. 

Here are a few examples of things I didn't know that I didn't know. 

1. Do you know why there's so much violence on TV? I'm talking North American TV here (I'm not sure what it's like in other parts of the world). I just found out. It's because it gives the commercials a nice, peaceful feeling that make viewers feel more comfortable, opening them up to the sales pitch. I figure this explains why the show Touch was kind of sweet and very creative in its first season — and then turned into disgustingly violent crap in its second season. "Sure, we'll renew the contract. But you've got to ramp up the violence ... it's not selling enough doodads!" Because I didn't know that there might be a financial reason for the violence on TV, I never thought to ask.

2. Do you know why our economy is hell bent on growth at all costs? Herman Daly, former World Bank economist and someone who understands the system, says: "The growth ideology is extremely attractive politically because it offers a solution to poverty without requiring the moral disciplines of sharing and population control." And don't think for one minute that Daly is being cynical. He's been to the inside and he knows of what he speaks. But I didn't know what I didn't know ... and so never bothered to ask why our economy apparently must keep growing when growth in a mature system equals cancer.

There is lots about the climate change emergency that people don't know they don't know. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard or seen well-educated and well-respected climate scientists talk about oncoming impacts of the climate crisis without ever mentioning that the most urgent problem is what will happen to our food systems because of those impacts. And because the public doesn't know what they don't know, they don't speak up and ask about threats to our food security.

A corollary to this conundrum is that ignorance begets ignorance. So if you didn't learn the carbon cycle in school, then you probably don't know that you don't know the carbon cycle. And that can misinform your understanding of climate change until the cows come home. For example, here's, ahem, an interesting comment from an online article about climate change:

"Plants use carbon dioxide and put off oxygen, so the more carbon in the air the better plants grow and the more oxygen they put out. The better that plants grow the warmer the air. BTW CO2 settles toward the ground and is readily absorbed by plants, and causes problems with people's breathing."

See how he sort of knows something about it, while not understanding enough to have a full grasp of the short-term carbon cycle and the greenhouse effect (perhaps confusing carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide?). 

But it's people like this fellow who are impacting other people's understanding (or lack thereof) of the climate change threat — without knowing what he doesn't know so he doesn't think to learn more.

Can We Just Get On With the Transformation? Please?

Okay, I'll admit that my nerves are somewhat frayed from a busy week at work and the radiating pain of a pinched nerve in my neck. I might be feeling a little less compassionate and a lot more cynical this week. (Is it just me or do dastardly events pop up in the Middle East region whenever the American president's ratings dip or there's a presidential election coming up? Grrr.)

So this week, I would like to simply ask this. Can we not just get on with the critical transformation we have to make to the Golden Age of Solar and other perpetual energy technologies? Just in the last couple of days, I've received listserve messages that I'm sure have contributed to the pain in my neck! Let me give you a few examples:

"Activists on all sides of the argument can, and do, try to influence the political process. Problems start to arise when scientists jump from saying 'this is how things stand' to 'therefore you should do this.' As soon as they make that jump, they have entered the political process and are expressing a political opinion NOT a scientific one."

WHAT? Scientists who see and can understand what we're doing to the atmosphere and the biosphere (not many of us can actually grasp the processes at work in global warming and climate change) aren't being scientific when they beg, "STOP PUMPING OUT SO MUCH GREENHOUSE GAS"? So it's scientific to understand life, but not scientific to want to safeguard it?

As it is, there aren't enough scientists with guts and holistic vision speaking out at all. To then accuse scientists of being unscientific if they make the logical leap, well, I think we'd better figure out what our priority is. 

This commenter continued:

"Using a national survey, [So and So] has found that, among low-income and low-education respondents, climate scientists suffered damage to their trustworthiness and credibility when they veered from describing science into calling viewers to ask the government to halt global warming. And not only did trust in the messenger fall – even the viewers' belief in the reality of human-caused warming dropped steeply."

I think we'd also find that a lot of "low-income and low-education respondents" are still smoking and don't like wearing their seat belts. Why can't people see that this doesn't matter? Governments should be going ahead and creating the necessary transformation no matter who's on board, no matter who trusts which scientists, and no matter who believes what. 

Every day that we spew another 90 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the long-suffering atmosphere is another day that we're heading in the wrong direction. We can't take those 90 billion tons back! And 20% of that carbon dioxide will still be in the atmosphere 1,000 years from now. So quibbling and squabbling over whether scientists should have an opinion on what to do, oh my gawd! Can we all grow up now please and get on with the transformation?

This line (same commenter) cracked me up:

"At this year's [Such and Such] meeting, the President's address lamented the falling trust in science. If true, that would indeed be a sad state of affairs that society can ill-afford. However, scientists need to reflect as to how much of their own behavior in conflating science with politics may drive that decreasing trust."

What? Falling trust in science is lamentable? No! Falling ability to survive on this planet is lamentable! A sad state of affairs? Can we get our priorities right, puhleeze? A sad state of affairs is the drought that gripped the bread basket agricultural areas of the world this summer! And blaming scientists? Listen, if science shares the blame, it's only because science combined with technology had a hand in getting us into this mess in the first place. The fact that some scientists are trying to make up for this is a good thing, not something to bemoan.

Another commenter (same listserve, different topic) explained that "psychodynamically rooted perspectives concerning the management of anxiety" are equally compelling when it comes to looking at why people do or don't change their behaviour. I'm thinking that governments switching more than $1,000,000,000 (that's $1 billion plus) per year in direct and indirect subsidies that they give to fossil fuel corporations over to new perpetual energy companies – that would be compelling! Talk about behaviour change. Investors like to back a winning horse – and guess who would then have a chance at winning! 

This person (a professor) continued: "What I find is that students consistently are powerfully moved, motivated and impacted by any writings that bring into the frame emotional dimensions – that includes unconscious management of acute anxieties."

Just wait. They are definitely going to be moved, motivated and impacted by the climate change emergency! Think you're seeing "acute anxieties" now? Just wait till the Arctic summer sea ice – the Northern Hemisphere's air conditioner during our growing season – collapses completely if you want to deal with acute anxieties.

I don't know. Is it just me, or is there a lot of talking about bullshit stuff that just DOES NOT MATTER in the face of the climate change emergency? Why are we still sitting around talking about fire safety regulations while the Earth is burning?

Okay, okay, I'll go take a painkiller and a hot bath and see if I can shake my grumpiness. And maybe I should unsubscribe from that listserve for the sake of my blood pressure. But truly, folks, we need to make the swift transformation to the perpetual energy (renewable minus burning) economy yesterday! What is the hold up?

A New Low in Criminal Negligence?

My online friend and blogger, Michael Murphy, found a very timely quote this week: 

“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.”

— Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 2004

Now, leaving hope aside for the moment (you know the mantra: hope is not an action verb; action is our only hope, so we don't get the luxury of hope until we've done the work of ensuring a future for our children), today I'd like to discuss something that's taking place because we're not "shedding our fear" or "shifting to a new level of consciousness" or "reaching a higher moral ground." 

I'm starting to view this as a form of criminal negligence. Or worse. (Perhaps recklessness? Or an intended cover up?)

According to Wikipedia, criminal negligence is an actus reus ("guilty act"), accompanied by mens rea ("guilty mind"), that is "careless, inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind" and for which "the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest."

And the guilty parties? Arctic sea ice modellers and the peer reviewers and editors who are publishing their research. Okay, I know. Yawn, right? Climate change modellers as villains? Pretty boring story, eh?

But the problem is this: Climate scientists have the power to shift our consciousness, help us reach or at least reach for the moral high ground, and shed our fear to take action. Instead, they are carelessly, inattentively, neglectfully or willfully blindly basing Arctic sea ice models on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's mid-range greenhouse gas emissions scenario, not on what's actually happening in the world, emissions-wise. 

Still don't find that compelling? Well, we've been on the IPCC's highest emissions scenario (the A1FI) for many years now, but these "scientists" (are modellers truly scientists or are they glorified computer geeks who "use" science and advanced mathematics to make models that produce projections and "surprises," the latter admitted by the IPCC) are running their models using an irrelevant, outdated and now dangerous "scenario" (a concept invented for the study of climate change because it doesn't sound scary). 

Can you see how wasteful and careless (it sure seems they couldn't care less) and dangerous this is? They're basing climate "science" on irreality. So how could their projections possibly be real or helpful?

And what of their peer reviewers and publishers? Given the number of lives at stake if we get this wrong, you'd think they would demand the proper starting point or baseline for the modelling, so it doesn't look like they're all just playing around with numbers on computers.

We know the dangers of losing the Arctic summer sea ice. Russia of 2010, anyone? So are these people, these researchers, peer reviewers and editors, ignorant? Irresponsible? Willfully blind? Trying to cover up how bad the situation is? Working for the fossil fuel industries? In my view, no matter why they're doing it, the fact that they are "allowing otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest" makes them guilty of criminal negligence.

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.

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.

Okay, I'm Back! Depression -> Anger -> Action

The suicide of our young friend really got to me. But I'm happy to report that several things have conspired recently to pull me out of my "it's no use, the world is too cruel" blue funk and depression.

First, I attended a work-related retreat that decidedly did not live up to its name (it was purported to be about "education for human sustainability" — but I was the only person there talking about the survival of our species). That got me realizing that there is still an ENORMOUS amount of educating to do — even amongst educators. And that's my vocation, so I need to hop to it.

Then, at the retreat, I talked with a lovely mother of two students. She told me that she has lots of energy to create change, but that even contemplating the climate change emergency saps her of this energy. So I found myself giving her a pep talk that worked on me, too! Here's what I suggested to her:

"Feel the despair. Truly feel it. Don't be afraid. It's the perfectly natural reaction if you understand the situation. But then turn the resulting depression to anger (especially on behalf of your children). And then, as Gandhi suggested, channel that anger into positive action."

Also, I've been inspired by some friends and fellow climate change activists who have decidely NOT let the situation get them down. Whoosh, I'm being swept along by their ongoing hard work and enthusiasm. (We don't have to be strong every minute, but we should remember who's got the life buoys.) I am also grateful for supportive emails from acquaintances and strangers.

Then, some posts on my favourite listserve got me hopping mad about how much we're allowing the climate scientists to be bullied. I've always been a defender of the underdog, and right now the climate scientists are down and need our support and defence.

Sure, the IPCC has flaws ... perhaps the greatest is that they were set up to NOT make policy recommendations. Another flaw is that they decided at their first meeting to sugarcoat the truth (the scariest story in 2030: Confronting Thermageddon in Our Lifetime by Bob Hunter) in order not to alarm the policy makers into feeling there was nothing to be done. They haven't been including carbon feedbacks in their therefore too tame projections. And many of them have not been courageous enough to speak out about the climate change emergency (join the crowd). Indeed, I suspect that many of them are so focused on reductionist research that they haven't even seen the climate change emergency, which requires an integration of research results and a bird's eye view.

But they don't deserve our doubt and derision on top of the deniers' / skeptics' / ignorers' / delayers' bullying and harassment. If anyone deserves our compassion right now, it's the climate scientists.

And finally, spring has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest of North America. I cannot feel blue when every plant I see is demonstrating such life force!

For the sake of the Earth, the future, and the children of all species, I'm back!

(with thanks for the photo and the kind thoughts to Karen of BitStop.ca)

10 Days to Copenhagen - Hackers and Deniers/Skeptics, Beware!

We've blown your cover.

All this talk of hacked emails had me daydreaming today about what hackers would find if they hacked into my emails ... snore. They sure wouldn't find much to amuse them.

Instead, I got into the fray a couple of days ago at Grist, when someone named Phil asked, "For God's sake, why don't you folks discuss the content of these emails?"

He was, of course, talking about the hacked emails that skeptics and deniers somewhere will have paid good money for — and in which they are now revelling. I asked Phil to consider (a) that scientists are human beings with human frailties, and (b) that there are far more important things to be discussing. (Like carbon feedbacks, or getting to the Age of Renewable Energy, or going veg to reduce methane emissions and buy us some time in the Arctic.)

However, my husband spent a large part of yesterday going through all the hacked emails (not just the juicy, cherry-picked ones) and he discovered something that no one else is talking about.

Here's what Dr. Peter Carter has to say about the hacked emails:

Of course, the emails are very different in their full context and for sure there are a few (very few) containing emotional content that has no place in professional correspondence. We all know, however, that the email story coming just before the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference is part of an orchestrated campaign to deny the scientific reality of catastrophic global climate change.

The amazing thing that comes out of reading these emails is the steady stream of harassment that our top climate change scientists are subjected to by the aggressive campaign of the skeptics/deniers.

The scientists at Hadley are being continually forced to spend an inordinate amount of their time in defending their science from totally unfounded claims that appear on climate change blogs and get reported in the media. As this is a battle over complex computer models based on masses of scientific research, the climate scientists are at a huge disadvantage to prove that the statements of the deniers on the models are wrong.

The scientists spend a great deal of their out of work time educating public audiences on the climate change facts to counter the denial disinformation campaign. The scientists, as a result of all this, operate under a high degree of personal stress. The harassment includes threats of civil litigation and they are also subjected to personally insulting emails on their work. In other words, there is an aggressive campaign that has been constantly waged for years, against the scientists and the science. I would not be surprised if some of the scientists have been at nervous breaking point at times.

Reading the emails, it comes across so clearly that these scientists are trying hard to protect the future of humanity from global climate catastrophe (inevitable if greenhouse gas emissions don't fall) and the deniers don't care one bit that their campaign has already condemned to death and suffering countless millions of the most climate change vulnerable and innocent. In my mind, the deniers are a bunch of .... Oops.

I have been critical of the reluctance of the IPCC scientists to tell the full extent of the terrible risks that the world is facing. Now I know the reason for their reluctance.

So, take that, you accursed hackers and deniers! We're really starting to find out what a rotten bunch of bastards you are (I'm no longer afraid to say it). How about you having a little compassion for the scientists who are doing their best to help us all understand the grave situation we're in? How about you holding in your hearts some compassion for all the children, of all species, and all future generations? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You don't have hearts.

77 Days - Where Has All the Courage Gone? (How I Have Wimped Out)

No sense harping on climate scientists (see yesterday's post) when I often find myself standing at a moment when some courage (or at least a little boldness) would see me do something for the Earth, the future and the children ... but I don't do it.

My most common example is not having the nerve to ask idling drivers to turn off their parked cars. I usually have to give myself a good talking to and remind myself that I'm breathing in those fumes before I'll get out of my car or venture over and use that little hand gesture (turning the key in the ignition to off). I've never had a problem (except for the one fellow who ignored me, despite the fact that he was idling right by a no-idling sign, underneath the windows at a school), so I don't know why it's still so hard for me to do it. Perhaps because I'm not a confrontational person in other areas of my life.

So, to vindicate the climate scientists somewhat (well, they're not vindicated, so to have some compassion for them), here's an email I wrote yesterday that I just can't bring myself to send. It's in response to the notice of an October 24th Climate Action Day event in a nearby community that read in part (all identifying hints removed):

"What can people here do to cope with climate change, peak oil and other challenges that threaten the resiliency of our rural communities?

"That's the question [our group] will ask a public gathering of community members on October 24 at the local secondary school.

"It's a serious question, but organizers promise that the 'gathering' won't be gloomy. The goal is simply to encourage and celebrate the people and programs that will keep our community a wonderful place to live and visit."

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Here's my response:
"Hi So-and-So,

"I am pretty saddened that your community has decided to turn October 24th into a day of celebration when hundreds of thousands of people are dying and millions more are losing their livelihoods, their food security, their water sources, their homes and their entire homelands due to global climate chaos. At least one of your speakers will be stating the truth.

"If you have some insight you could share on why people in North America (or at least on your organizing committee) are so deathly (and I mean that literally) afraid of doom and gloom when the situation, as your after-lunch speaker points out, "could mean the end of humanity," I would appreciate you taking the time to share it.

"We're going to do a gloomy event in our community that day. A day of lament. Of course, no one will come to ours. And the denial will continue. Alas.

"All the best with your event. The emcee and the keynote speaker you have chosen will keep it hopping.

"p.s. I am pressing the Send button with reticence and a heavy heart. I mean no ill will to anyone, but I keep seeing images in my mind's eye (perhaps my mind's eye is too close to my heart) of African children afflicted by climate-change-related drought and famine, and Inuit homes crumbling into the sea, and the president of the Maldives begging for action on the international stage. We are so blessed here in our beautiful little communities. We are experiencing no pain (yet); so why are we so unwilling to even feel some of the pain that others are going through? Think of the gloom of their lives."

*******

Is that a terrible email? Why am I afraid to send it? It has struck me that with allies like this, who needs enemies? So far, we live in the luckiest part of the world, but it's sheer luck! We celebrate this luck every day that we live here, free from climate tyranny and, for the most part, political tyranny. Are we flaunting our luck by celebrating it?

Why — and I ask this sincerely — must we spend this day, which is devoted to climate action, celebrating locally when there is so much to lament globally? Are we callous? Wimpy? Narcissistic? Blinded? Numbed? Or simply unwilling to feel the pain of others?

If you can figure this out, please let me know. This is really bothering me — and worse, it does nothing to forward the cause of getting radical emergency climate action happening. We've spent the last 40 years or more trying to cajole people to embrace a more "sustainable" way of being in the world. Cajoling has failed. It's time for painful truth-telling (and truth-hearing) and some heavy-duty, internationally defined but nationally implemented zero carbon legislation. Which we needed to have in place yesterday.

159 Days - What Role Does Trust Play in Our Climate Change Solutions?

"Trust" has been a recurring theme in my life these last few days (including in my dreams at night), and maybe that's for a reason. What role does, or should, trust play in our climate change deliberations?

I keep reading reports from high level United Nations meetings or OECD meetings that underscore a perverse sort of trust: We can definitely, it appears, trust developed nations to ignore their role in the climate crisis (not to mention the economic crisis), and to do whatever they can to not have to change.

But that's not the kind of trust I mean.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to trust that politicians at all levels will remember their humanity and act as human beings (there is certainly reason to doubt this at times, when we witness their staunch refusal to grasp that human life is dependent on the rest of Life), with children and grandchildren whose future they care about?

Wouldn't it be great to be able to trust that our neighbours and friends and fellow community members will always (well, almost always) put the collective benefit before their own personal desires? ("I need chocolate chips... I must have chocolate chips NOW... I'll just run —read: burn fossil fuels by driving — to the store and get some" becomes "Oh well, I'm out of chocolate chips. The next time I'm out shopping, I'll buy some. Tonight, I'll make oatmeal raisin cookies rather than chocolate chip cookies.")

And finally, how do we come to trust ourselves, so that when that choice point comes (flying away on vacation or staying close to home, for example), we do what is for the greatest good of everyone, and not just our small circle of family and friends?

In other words, how do we become trustworthy in the face of climate change? Is it like forming a new habit? They say it takes three weeks to form a new habit, whether good or bad — so how about saying no to driving, flying, heating, burning, buying for 21 days, to see how it feels? How about if we spend three weeks always putting the face of an African child in our mind's eye when making a decision that could release carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the (our shared) atmosphere? What about discussing every climate-change-related decision with someone else before making it?

And what if, when we write to politicians and others (climate scientists or environmental groups? big banks and big corporations?) in whom we must entrust our future, we use the language of trust? For example, "Dear Mr/s. President or Prime Minister, may I trust that you will do everything — absolutely everything, at every opportunity — you can to safeguard the future of your children and mine?"

Let's plant the seed of trust ... and maybe those in charge of our climate future will become truly worthy of our trust.

168 Days - Message to Climate Scientists: Show Some Emotion - Please!

Great long reports of climate science research keep crossing my desk. Luckily, I have our GreenHeart Education climate science advisor sitting next to me. He reads, digests, synthesizes and then shares with me what these huge tomes have to say.

And it's always the same. Very calm language depicting the climate change emergency in words that don't depict a climate change emergency!!

Here's an example. The brand new 196-page Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States is introduced at Global Warming is Real.com with this headline: "U.S. Government Report Says Climate Change a Clear and Present Danger." But when you go to the actual report, you can't find the word "danger" — or "emergency" or "urgency" or "catastrophe." Instead, they use language like this: "Responses to the climate change challenge will almost certainly evolve over time as society learns by doing" (p. 157).

Climate change "challenge"? Like it's a game show or something?! What's with these scientists? They're human, too (right?) Aren't they afraid for their children and grandchildren? Don't they care about future generations of all species? Don't they feel any compassion for the billions of climate-change-vulnerable and the hundreds of thousands of people already impacted by the climate change crisis?

I can't help but think that what would actually help is a little bit of urgency, of panic, of fear, of scared-silliness on the part of these scientists. These are the people who know what is going to happen, and they (with a few notable exceptions) keep saying nice, calm, this-is-not-an-emergency sorts of things like "Temperature rises above 2 degrees C will be difficult for contemporary societies to cope with" (p. 12). (That quote is from the Synthesis Report of the biggest climate change conference of the year, held March 2009 in Copenhagen, entitled Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges, and Decisions [pdf]).

What does it take to get thousands of scientists excited? "Difficult for contemporary societies to cope with"?! Thousands and thousands of people are already losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes and their whole nations at only +0.78 degrees C of global warming! The fact is, 2 degrees C is a target for catastrophe!

Why are climate scientists not jumping up and down, yelling and screaming, standing on their heads, going on hunger strikes to get the point across — THAT WE ARE BEYOND DANGEROUS INTERFERENCE WITH THE CLIMATE SYSTEM!

Are scientists SO programmed with rationality that they can't ever let their hearts speak for them? Here's another quote from the Copenhagen conference synthesis, to make my point:

"Defining 'dangerous climate change' is ultimately a value judgement to be made by societies as a whole" (p. 12). Well, I'm society and I value life on Earth and my fellow brothers and sisters of the human species, so I'm making the value judgement: WE'RE BEYOND DANGEROUS, DUDES! Now get on with safeguarding the future.