Climate Change Happinesses and Sadnesses

HAPPINESS

I love xkcd's comics. They're pretty off the wall and fun (and sometimes delightfully inappropriate). And he's so generous that he allows non-profit folks to use them for free! The comic above is dedicated to my husband, who's always been someone who tilted at windmills, only the enemies he's been attacking haven't been imaginary. Okay, so maybe the hubby-as-Don-Quixote metaphor doesn't hold up (except in the minds of deniers, skeptics, ignorers and delayers). Hmmm. ;-)

SADNESS

On Friday, I attended a professional development workshop for educators on trauma. It focused on the impacts of trauma on child development, and how those impacts might manifest in our classrooms. The facilitator warned that it might bring up our own traumatic experiences, and by the questions and discussion that came up, I could tell that that was how most of us were making sense of the new information (especially about brain research) we were hearing.

The facilitator talked about Type 1 trauma, which is a single event, and Type 2 trauma, which is ongoing, such as a childhood filled with abuse, and that Type 2 especially creates all sorts of attachment disorders in children and therefore psychological (eg, anxiety) and psychosomatic problems later in life (eg, digestive problems). Everything is connected, and so this made a lot of sense. 

Today, I find myself wondering if we've subjected a whole generation of children (in the West and beyond) to a childhood of ongoing (Type 2) trauma, with parents and other caregivers disconnected from each other and the rest of Nature, within a polluted biosphere (light pollution, air pollution, water pollution, land degradation) and a polluted noosphere (the realm of consciousness), with fewer fellow creatures due to biodiversity loss (kids growing up without birds and butterflies is tragic), at a speed of human life and living that creates disconnections and anxiousness from the very start.

Just a thought. A sad one. Compassionate climate action would include giving children back a healthy, carefree childhood surrounded by caring, attentive parents and their loving Mother Earth. 

HAPPINESS

If you're not deeply involved in climate change activism, it's probably hard to imagine how incredibly traumatic it is to work and work and work for solutions ... and then constantly see only more obfuscation and delay on the global front. So imagine our sheer delight when we heard yesterday that Climate Action Network (CAN) International is promoting its fabulous 2014 climate change position statement far and wide! Thank you, thank you, CAN International and your 900 member organizations, not just for hammering out this powerful emergency response to the climate change crisis, but for pushing the important demands within it onto the international agenda. 

SADNESS

You know who these gentlemen are? When I saw this photo, I cried. This is Iraq's president, Fouad Massoum (left) and Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani. They attended the UN Climate Summit in September. Canada's not-so-prime minister did not. 

China, India, Russia, Germany, Australia, Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and more did not send their presidents and prime ministers. I dunno, it just made me sad that so few world leaders of big nations took the time to attend. Though I have to admit that it warmed my heart to see Iraq and Iran sitting next to each other, knowing what they've been through together.

HAPPINESS

This Hopi prophecy is happy-making for it gives one (all right, me) a sense that yes, it makes sense to keep on trying.

"The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. For we are the ones we have been waiting for."

Here's to another week of feeling the fear and the sadness (and the joys of connecting and small successes) and carrying on with this vital work!

The Compassion Games Start Soon!

Those of you who enjoy TED Talks will know that the TED Prize is the granting of a wish. A big wish! In 2008, Karen Armstrong, a religious scholar, won the TED Prize and her wish was to create a Charter for Compassion. 

She asked TED and its audiences to help her with "the creation, launch, and propagation of a Charter for Compassion — crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule." Here is Karen Armstrong's rationale:

[I]t is an arresting fact that right across the board, in every single one of the major world faiths, compassion — the ability to feel with the other ... — is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call "God" or the "Divine." 

It is compassion, says the Buddha, which brings you to Nirvana. Why? Because in compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we're ready to see the Divine. And, in particular, every single one of the major traditions has highlighted — has said, has put at the core of their tradition — what's become known as the Golden Rule. 

First propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ, "Do not do unto others what you would not like them to do to you." That, he said, was the central thread that ran through all his teaching and that his disciples should put into practice all day and every day. And it was the Golden Rule would bring them to the transcendent value that he called rén, human-heartedness, which was a transcendent experience in itself.

You can affirm the Charter yourself on the website, taking "the first step in a global movement that can change the world. By listening, understanding and treating others as we wish to be treated ourselves, we can reset compassion as the cornerstone of a just economy and a peaceful world."

This blog has looked at compassionate climate action from many different perspectives and through many lenses. It has even worked hard (at times) to be compassionate towards those who seem hell-bent on destroying the biosphere, because, as Dr. Stan Goldberg explains in The Fear of Change, "most [of their rantings] are expressions of loss that are as significant to social conservatives as the losses are to the disabled or those coming to terms with the end of their life."

And what is being challenged is not just an isolated behavior or value, it's usually something integral to their identity; something that has given meaning to a lifetime of actions and beliefs. Social conservatives are not just being asked to "do the right thing" because it's moral. They are being asked to abandon belief systems that have served as the foundation for their personality....

So, today, as a compassion tune-up for myself and for any readers who want to have some compassionate fun, I'd like to tell you about the Compassion Games, a global "coopetition" where community members "compete with and not against each other to bring out their very best while striving to make their community more compassionate ... where genuine altruism becomes the norm." Their motto is "Survival of the Kindest" (which, in a sense, is ecologically correct).

The Compassion Games run from September 11 to 21 each year (the start date having special meaning in the United States). They're "designed to help heal and inspire, making our community a safer, kinder, more just and better place to live." 

IKT: Compassion Games
International Kindness Team

You can perform a Random Act of Kindness, or become a Secret Agent of Compassion and receive a secret mission for each of the eleven days. You can participate in Service Projects, report on your compassionate acts, and then celebrate with the rest of the online community. I think I'm going to encourage my students to get involved!

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With that, I would like to send out a prayer for peace and compassion in and towards the Middle East, especially Syria — with a heartfelt request that people not jump to accept any conclusions coming from those who stand to gain much from destabilizing yet another stable government in that fossil fuel-rich yet beleaguered part of the world.

A New Year, a New Purpose?

I've already started wishing people "the kind of new year that is a gift to the world" and so I bid you and yours the same. Happy brand new year, full of potential!

Of course, that's got me wondering what sort of gift I would like to create for the world this year. As a teacher, I have two "new" years each year, one in September and one in January. My autumn new year is usually focused on new teaching strategies and learning experiences to share with my students.

But January 1st! Ah, what is it that sends so many of us off into the rite of rapturous resolution-making? I mean, every day is a new day, right? We could decide to start new projects, eat better, lose weight, stop a bad habit any day, couldn't we? But there's something about the very beginning of a new year that holds excitement and allure for us.

So here for all the world to see, I would like to pronounce my 2013 New Year's Resolution. I am going to become an Earth Mama!

I mentioned that to a friend yesterday and she laughed, asking "You want to have a baby?" "No, no!" I quickly replied. "That's not what I mean." Nor do I mean any of the other definitions I just found in the online Urban Dictionary. I'm not referring to the wonderful Joyce Johnson Rouse (aka Earth Mama) either, but check out her wonderful music.

Yikes, I'd better define this if I'm going to realize my dream. To me, an Earth Mama (or Earth Mother?) is a woman who is connected to the earth (and the Earth), who knows how to grow food, who cans and preserves the food she and others in her community grow, who fixes things around the house without having to call in expensive experts, who is confident in her own abilities to survive.

Me, in our school garden

Right now, I'm more of a coordinator ... someone who knows how to get things done without really knowing how to do those things herself. A good example is our school garden. It wouldn't exist if I hadn't pushed to have it created, however, I'm not a food growing expert (parents and other staff lead on that). But I'd like to become one. 

What's all this got to do with compassionate action on climate change? Well, the food crisis looms. Drought has become persistent in some of the world's greatest grain growing regions (American midwest, southwest China) and the whole world will soon see food shortages. We're going to have to start looking after our own food needs on a local basis. 

When I see lawns, I see food gardens. When I see golf courses and school yards, I see food gardens. When I see leaves and grass clippings on the roadside, I see soil. When I see yard "waste" being burned, I see soil going up in smoke. And when I see children stuck in classrooms, I see future food growers not being taught the skills they are desperately going to need to survive.

So this is my year to, as the Gandhi-esque quote suggests, become the change I want to see in the world. I keep proclaiming that 21st century education needs to revolve around teaching kids how to build their own soil, grow their own food, collect their own rainwater, and generate their own energy. So that's my mission this year: to learn how to do all of those things.

If something is doable, then it's learnable. And if it's learnable — and I set my mind (and heart) to it — then I can learn it. Right? We're not talking rocket science here, just food growing and preserving, and composting, and setting up rain barrels, and learning about renewable energy technologies along with my students. I can do this.

Good luck with your resolutions this year. May your learning and your doing in 2013 be a gift to the world!

Individual Activism - Seven Points from an Activist Extraordinaire

Our friend and fellow activist (indeed, the most active activist I know!), Anthony Marr, will soon be leaving on his 7th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE-7). Anthony has dedicated his life to activism on behalf of the voiceless ones: non-human animals, children, future generations of all species.

He is a speaker every year at the Animal Rights Conference in the USA, and in 2009, he made a presentation entitled Individual Activism. Below are the 7 excellent and eloquent points that Anthony made.

1. The Power of One: One activist standing in the rain for 10 days is more powerful than 100 activists holding a one-hour protest in the sun.
2. Where you can lead: If you have no leadership quality, you would not be an activist. There is one thing among the millions that people can do in which you are the best. What is it?
3. Go where no one has gone before: Do what no one has done before. Media will cover you if you do something that has never been done there before, bearing in mind that something new anywhere is new only once.
4. Go where angels fear to tread: Do what no one dares to do — physically and spiritually. You need not be an outlaw to be brave. You can work within the law to change the law. Treat restrictions as challenges to your ingenuity.
5. Choose your enemy with compassion: Do it for justice, not for vengeance, and certainly not out of cruelty on our part.
6. Live for your cause. Be its instrument on Earth: You will live on in the difference that you will have made.
7. Save the Earth for her own sake, and our children and all creatures, for their own sake: An individual human has the potential to be an individual planet-saver.

"The rest is all up to you," he concluded.

You can watch Anthony Marr's speech, Individual Activism, on video.

Tell 'Em What to Do

My friend, Elise, responded to my self-description as a foghorn by saying:

"Foghorns are wonderful things. I love them. (Especially in fog in a boat — where I have been.) So I reconsider: Be a foghorn! Our culture is in a fog — maybe a foghorn is actually a more apt metaphor, when I think about it. Beacons are for the clear-eyed. We are in pretty deep fog. Not able to see where we need to get to. Very short-sighted.

"I do however think that if you attached something to DO with some of your rants, people would feel empowered instead of distressed, because you are always right when you say what you know — so then what? This is all about needing to do things."

Point taken. I have to admit that I keep thinking there's so much information "out there" about how people can lower their energy consumption or decrease their footprint on the Earth that it sounds silly to keep repeating it. But I went to a meeting today of a new environmentally focused group here and the organizer put the heat and lights on instead of urging us to wear sweaters and sit near the windows. So I guess we have to keep saying it.

When we can save some energy by sacrificing some comfort for the sake of future generations, let us decide to be uncomfortable and save the energy!

It's that simple. We must change our habits, including our habits of mind and heart. We must change our expectations. Change what we think we're entitled to. Start thinking (picturing) zero carbon. Picture no more fossil fuels, no more burning. Envision finding energy from nega-watts (conservation and efficiency), creating energy from the sun and the wind and the water and the deep earth.

Once we start to think differently, it will soon feel easier to act differently. That's my response to "But what can I do?" for today, damn it. Be a little chilly for once! (Or a little hot, if you're living in the southern hemisphere.)

Suffer for the children — just a little bit, so that they won't have to suffer a lot.

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)

How Does One Address a Dictator? (Petition Alert — See Below)

One day, I'm living in a free democracy. The next day, I wake up in a dictatorship. And damn, just when I was starting to feel a bit better.

So, is it Mr. Dictator? Honourable Dictator? Seriously, how does one address, with any due respect, a man who dissolves a democratically elected parliament at the drop of a hat — and for malevolent rather than benign or benevolent reasons?

Our so-called prime minister here in Canada (yes, the one that keeps winning us the Colossal Fossil award at climate change meetings) has decided to prorogue our parliament — again! (This is a "leader" who already appears to have broken three laws — through fraudulent election funding, contravening his own fixed-date election law, and ignoring Canada's Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act — so he's not big into ethics and doing the right thing.)

Prorogue comes from the Latin prorogare, pro- "in front of, publicly" + rogare "ask." I don't see how this man "asked" (it seems all he has to do is snap his fingers), and he certainly didn't do it publicly — he waited until we were all busy with the holiday season.

And while he says it's until the Winter Olympics (to be hosted by Canada in the Vancouver area) are over, and members of parliament in other parties say it's to avoid answering to concerns about Canada's involvement in torture in Afghanistan (by the way, most Canadians have forgotten why we're there), and commentators say it's so that he can restack our appointed senate with his cronies, I'm sure many of us know what it's really all about. And it proves something important.

This proves that Stephen Harper (just the name makes me shudder now) is not stupid or ignorant when it comes to the climate change emergency. It proves that his intentions are downright evil. All this is a ploy to gain a majority government by kowtowing to fossil fuel industries, Big Money, and all those who refuse to know the truth about the global climate change emergency — and to continue putting off any action on climate change. Indeed, prorogation will ruin any chances of Bill C-311 (our greenhouse gas reduction bill, which still isn't strong enough but beats what we're doing now) being passed, even though he says that the bills of private members of parliament will be "safe." In early December 2009, the House Standing Committee on the Environment finally sent Bill C-311 back to the House of Commons for a final vote — in the new year!

Harper is determined to make sure his "new Canada" thinks the economy is more important than life itself, so after appointing several new conservative (or Conservative?) people to the Senate, there's no way this bill is going to pass.

Harper is undoubtedly ecologically illiterate. In a December 2009 address to National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), he proved that he thinks people can eat money. As host of the G-20 meeting in June 2010, he said he is going to urge member countries to put economic recovery before efforts to protect the environment.

“Without the wealth that comes from growth, the environmental threats, the developmental challenges and the peace and security issues facing the world will be exponentially more difficult to deal with,” Harper said. He doesn't seem to realize that if the world doesn't achieve zero carbon emissions as rapidly as possible, there will be no economy — no "wealth that comes from growth" — because there will be no human beings. No humans = no money. Economics does not exist except in our human world.

Back to the prorogue ... Harper's toadie, er, spokesperson, said that the government sought the suspension to consult with Canadians, stakeholders and businesses as it moves into the "next phase" of its economic action plan amid signs of economic recovery.

I always thought that Parliament was the way the Canadian government consulted with Canadians — through our elected officials. There's just so much I don't know, eh?

Well, folks, if the Canadian not-so-prime minister wants to consult with Canadians and stakeholders and businesses, I'm two out of three. Bring it on, dude! My place or yours? Any day but Wednesday would suit me just fine.

"Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt. It may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

— Tommy Douglas, father of medicare and voted Canada's Greatest Canadian

*****

I've signed this petition to have Harper removed from office for negligence. Please consider signing it as well. And protests are being planned for Saturday afternoon, January 23, across Canada.

If you aren't living here in Canada, I'm sure the not-really-prime minister would love to hear your thoughts on this issue nonetheless, considering it concerns the fate of the planet!

Office of the Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON
Canada K1A 0A2
Email: pm@pm.gc.ca
Fax: 613-941-6900

These might be some of the most compassionate climate actions we ever take!

YO, COPENHAGEN! TIP FOR SUCCESS: PUT THE NEEDIEST FIRST

The talks in Copenhagen have been suspended because (a) they have this crazy ass rule of 100% "consensus" (which is actually unanimity; consensus is something completely different), and (b) usually it's the USA standing in the way of consensus but this time it's a little guy country who is refusing to budge. And good on them! (See below.)

Yet there need be and should be no impasse in Copenhagen. The negotiators should simply do the obvious and ethical thing: consider and discuss the needs and requests of the most climate-change vulnerable populations. Put the neediest first.

In fact, this is the clearly stated requirement under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention specifically requires that small island states be protected from adverse impacts of dangerous interference with the climate system, and specifically requires Annex 1 nations (the developed countries) to provide all manner of assistance (also specifically listed) for the protection of the small island states.

The 2001 Third IPCC Assessment (reinforced with additional evidence in the 2007 Fourth IPCC Assessment) said that small island states are exceptionally and extremely vulnerable to many inevitable adverse impacts of global warming, climate disruption and ocean acidification. The committed global temperature increases already constitute the grossest of crimes against humanity for small island states and the other most climate change vulnerable nations (whose populations number in the billions of our brethren).

*****

Tuvalu wants a legally binding agreement that might save their small island nation in the Pacific. Other small island states and poor African countries (indeed, close to 130 nations) are supporting Tuvalu's call for a "Copenhagen Protocol" — complementary to the Kyoto Protocol but, it seems, for those major developing countries not bound by the Kyoto Protocol (you know, the ones George W. Bush kept bitching about). Tuvalu wants a CO2 target of 350 ppm, and a global temperature increase target of 1.5ºC. (We're almost at 400 ppm now and with the warming already in the pipe, pretty close to 1.5 already, too.)

Folks, this is an easy one. Oh, so easy — if you negotiators have any heart and any regard for your children's future, that is.

Tuvalu is going to disappear — literally — if we don't do something urgent to halt greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Human decency, compassion and plain old common sense would dictate that we move to help the country that's in the most trouble, first. It's what we do in our communities, right? We help out those in trouble. We give, we make sacrifices, so that the situation of those worst off is somewhat alleviated.

What is happening to Tuvalu will, before too very long, happen to us. They're among the first to be impacted, but they're by no means going to be the last. It is only a matter of luck and timing. This is NOT a time for selfishness or greediness, obstinacy or pretending that the atmosphere respects national borders. It certainly is NOT a time to put our economies ahead of our humanity.

(Note to China and India: Dudes, relax. It's climate disruption that's going to "constrain your economies." Racing to achieve zero carbon emissions, making the transition to renewable energy and saving ourselves from climate chaos is going to fuel your economies, pardon the pun. You've got to get that through your heads!)

This is a crisis of heart and of imagination. I've said it before, and I'll say it again — only now, it's playing out in real life at the Copenhagen climate negotiations:

COMPASSION WILL BE WHAT SAVES US.

1 Day to Copenhagen - Things to Remember

We're almost done together. One more day. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey. I want to leave you with some things to remember....

*****

A large proportion of the people who don't "believe in" global warming are probably amongst the scientifically and ecologically illiterate. For example, about 30% of Europeans and Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth. Keep that in mind when you read or hear denialist drivel online and in letters to the editor and on TV and radio.

Global warming causes climate disruption. It doesn't mean everywhere is going to be warmer all the time. Disruption = chaos, unpredictability in the climate system. And that, along with droughts and some scorching summers too hot for agriculture (leading to crop failures), will be what ruins human civilization (we're an agricultural species dependent on a stable climate), killing our chances of surviving as a species.

*****

Some deniers say things that are just simply bonkers, to wit:

"The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology. But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao."
— Nick Griffin, British National Party, 29 November 2009 in The Guardian

Others are really good at bamboozling people by sounding really scientific. And since a whacking huge proportion of us are scientifically illiterate, we sort of fall under their spell (well, I don't). Remember that they are doing this on purpose, to sway public opinion in order to maintain the status quo so that they don't have to change anything. If they were real climate scientists, you probably wouldn't be reading them because their findings would be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that we don't read.

And then there are those even more evil deniers (the Bjorn Lomborgs of the world) who spew platitudes like safeguarding the future from climate chaos will shortchange all the poor people in the world today. And people fall for that fake sanctimonious claptrap. Remember, never believe anyone who says the poor people will lose out if we spend money now on combatting climate change (they're already losing out) ... the Cybjorns have no intention of giving that money to the poor people or poor nations. Or they would have done so by now, keeping the commitment they made in 1992 when they signed onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

When you read or hear a comment from a skeptic/denier/ignorer/delayer, think money. Think greed. Think investments in fossil fuels. These people have nothing to gain worth gaining, but they don't view it that way. Life as a fundamental value means nothing to these people. Money is everything to them. It's all a game and money is the prize. If you look at what they have to say through this lens, it will usually make sense and their evil will be quite evident.

*****

• The most important number in the world is zero. The most important number in 350 is that zero at the end. Zero carbon emissions. We can achieve that. But it means that any more use of fossil fuels is for helping us get to zero carbon (building solar arrays and wind turbines and public transit systems).
• Hey, just leave the coal and tar sands oil in the ground. It's not like it's going anywhere. Once we've got this whole thing figured out, you can go find it again.
• Global warming is the science of physics. And if you're scientifically illiterate, then you're going to want to go with someone who isn't, like a scientist who studies global warming.
• What's happening to the children in climate-ravaged parts of Africa today will soon be happening to our children. How much do we love the children in our lives?

*****

My husband, now retired, was a family physician for almost 40 years, and a busy one at that! He had to deliver sad news and bad news to hundreds if not thousands of people throughout his career. Never, he will assure you, never once did he have a patient who received news of a terminal illness and shut down, overwhelmed. No, they all fought. They all did what they could. They all did something. Some got better. Many died. But none of them gave up.

I, for one, will never give up, despite the diagnosis — and the prognosis. I love this sacred planet and its children too much. If we're going down, I'm going down fighting for what I cherish.

*****

We have to continue to be the town crier.

— Richard Habgood

We still have a long way to go so we must be brave and of good cheer and keep the good energy. That takes work, too! No point being grumpy about all this — life is too good and not worth spending in a funk.

— Elise Houghton

Instead of shaking our heads at the difficulty of this task and saying, "Woe is us, this is impossible, how can we do this?", we ought to feel a sense of joy that we have work that is worth doing, that is so important to the future of all humankind. We ought to feel a sense of exhilaration that we are the people alive at a moment in history when we can make all the difference."

— Al Gore

Inscribe this single word on your heart:

Compassion

Whenever you are confused, keep heading in the direction that leads towards deepening your love and care for all living beings, including yourself, and you will never stray far from the path to fulfillment.

— Sam Keen

[My note: I would like to substitute "survival" for fulfillment.]

*****

I still believe that compassion will be what saves us. Remember to open your heart and allow yourself to feel the pain of what's happening already in the world and what is to come. Feel compassion for those already losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and their water sources, their homes and their entire homelands. Feel compassion for your children and grandchildren, for all future generations, of all species.

And then start writing those letters to your government leaders, attending those meetings, talking with friends and family, learning what you need to learn to counter the lies and procrastination. (Learning is a form of action.)

The world is still in our hands.

89 Days - "Climate Change Now Has a Name and a Face"

As summer is now unofficially over here (most Canadian children head back to school today), it's a great pleasure to share this education-related compassionate climate action with teachers and non-teachers alike.

Lauren McClanahan is a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, USA — quite close to where I live. In her quest to help her student teachers understand the climate change emergency, she called on the voices of students in a small village in Alaska. In Educating Heather, McClanahan explains how she found a way to connect the hearts of her students to the climate change crisis:

No doubt my preservice secondary education student, Heather, is familiar with the topic of climate change. Everywhere we look, we see media coverage. But there still seems to be something missing. There still appears to be a disconnect, for my preservice teachers, anyway, between what they read about online and what they see in their day-to-day lives. And this has huge implications for their futures as public school teachers. One way to address this disconnect has been to put a face to the topic of climate change. By connecting all of my "Heathers" to students who live in places where climate change is having actual, observable effects, a topic that was once only theoretical to many of my students becomes real.

She explains that her students probably believe themselves to be "green," but when it comes to the catastrophic changes happening in the Arctic, for example, her students just don't see them. The "First Person Singular" project she undertook gave voice to thawing permafrost, disappearing fish stocks, changing migratory routes, and an unravelling subsistence culture that has lasted for thousands of years.

I won't say too much more. The article is beautifully written and evocative. Please read it!

And let's start looking for ways to help people really see and hear what's happening to those already impacted by climate chaos in the most climate-change-vulnerable regions of the world.

111 Days - My Own Predictions for the End of the World

I'm sure you've been hearing or reading about all the "prophecies" that say our world will end on 21 December 2009.

Well, I think the Mayans and others are out by just a couple of days. I believe the world as we know it will start to end on 18 December 2009, the last day of the Copenhagen climate change "talks."

My prediction goes like this: Between now and 7 December 2009, very drably dressed people, chosen for reasons most of us will never fathom, will feel they are doing important work together as "The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention" and other such committees and working groups.

But these drably dressed people will not, in their endless talks and thoroughly boring negotiations, ever put the survival of life on Earth at the top of their agenda and at the centre of their discussions.

They will talk about what their country wants, needs and "deserves" and they will not budge.

They will (bless them and damn them, for they will be complicit in the greatest evil ever) let life on this precious, miraculous planet go to hell in a handbasket.

All because they will not bring themselves to see past their invisible borders and their small-minded economies. They will not bring themselves to talk of their children and grandchildren, and the gardens they love, and the animals that bring them joy. They will not share stories and photographs of the beautiful sacred places in their lives. They will not wear their hearts on their sleeves nor put what they love on the negotiating table. They will not represent humanity and they will not speak out on behalf of life and the children of all species.

On 19 December 2009, the end of the world will have begun, because our climate negotiators, in their drab grey suits, will have negotiated their way to nothing.

And then it will be too late to try again — with colour, with verve, with life! With heart and soul and love and compassion. With tears and heartache and some small offering of regret to our children and all future generations.

P.S. In the hope that my prediction will not come true, I send out this request to the dozen or so women who wore bright colours at recent climate talks in Bonn, Germany: Please speak out! Stand up! Take a stand! Dance on the tables! Wake your co-negotiators up! Save the world! Please!

112 Days - Yikes, Back to Climate Frustration

Well, it's back into the climate fray in an effort to get some compassion and action and compassionate action happening long before December's Copenhagen climate talks.

I figured out today — when confronted with all the latest bad news on the climate change front — that one of the reasons I loved my week of Nature Daycamp is that I could leave climate change behind. I was working with kids too young to be worrying about it, and so for one week, I didn't either.

What a rude awakening this morning when I started checking my climate-related emails again. For example, here is a little compendium of quotes from Mr. Yvo de Boer, current executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:

• "...a climate deal in Copenhagen this year is simply an unequivocal requirement to stop climate change from slipping out of control."
• "So with only 115 days of negotiating time left before Copenhagen, negotiations will need to considerably pick up speed for the world to achieve a successful result at Copenhagen."
• "...if we continue at this rate, we're not going to make it [get an agreement in Copenhagen in December]."
• "It [Copenhagen] must revolutionize international cooperation to combat climate change."
• "...serious climate change is equal to 'game over'."

Scary, eh? I must admit, I cried when I read and heard Mr. de Boer's angst and warnings. This is the most important gathering of the human tribe ever, and people are treating it like a pissing match. And believe me, pissing will not put out this fire!

(The other scary thing is that Mr. de Boer feels he must say all this with a level tone of voice. What if he actually started to sound the panic alarm with some panic in his voice? What if he were more picturesque in his choice of language? What if he called for compassion from the government leaders and negotiators he is working with? People didn't buy into the consumer culture because a reasoned voice told them once or twice to do so. Our EuroAmerican Western culture bought into our destructive way of life because our whole audiovisualsphere was jammed with lively jingled commercials and brightly coloured advertisements. Over and over again. Constantly. Please, could we not take a leaf from the other side's book?)