Experiencing Censorship in All the Wrong Places

Censorship. A simple definition might be "the examination of material (such as books, movies, news, and art) and official suppression of any parts that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security (adapted from my computer's dictionary). It is closely related to censure, which means harsh criticism or to criticize harshly.

We used to think of censorship merely in terms of what happened to books and movies that hadn't yet been released. Next came book banning and even book burning. Then some (of the very people who liked to ban and burn books) started equating political correctness with censorship. (I've always considered political correctness to be society's fancy way of labeling what mothers everywhere used to urge: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.") And with the election of T**** in the United States, saying nasty things about "others" is now considered freedom of speech, so any talk of censorship is seen as unconstitutional — almost tantamount to treason. (Sheesh.)

But lately, censorship seems to have gone wonky in other ways, too ... some consternating and some downright dangerous. Within the last three days, I have experienced censorship in conversation with three different friends.

First, I was telling a friend about a disturbing incident that I'd read about in the paper. "Does this have a sad ending? If so, I don't need to hear it." The story was a cautionary tale about her field of work, but it did, indeed, have a sad ending. So with that, I was shut down. 

And I felt shut down — censored. But mostly I felt sad that there are people who won't (can't?) allow themselves to feel the sadness of others. Have some of us become so fragile that there's no strength and no room left for empathy? How are we going to face the extreme sorrow of the climate change emergency if we can't even share a story about a sad incident in a next-door city?

I don't just tell stories willy-nilly. There's a point to a story that I choose to share — sometimes it has a connection to the other person, but sometimes it's simply something that I found interesting or edifying. In the second incident, I recounted a short TV show that I'd watched on Netflix and found instructive for my own career. I'll admit that my menopausal brain might have made the story more meandering than it needed to be. But my friend, instead of engaging with the story, said (I'm paraphrasing), "You know how people who watch TV will talk about shows they've watched and bore you to tears? You just did that."

Ouch. Obviously her mother never instructed her to say nothing if she didn't have anything nice to say — that was my first thought. But then I began to mourn the lack of patience our society has developed. Can't we just talk about "stuff" with friends anymore? If we don't have the time and patience for everyday — uncensored — conversations, how will we ever have the time and patience to listen to how serious the climate crisis is, the science behind it, and the solutions we needed to implement yesterday?

On my way to tea with a third friend, I kept chanting, "Don't talk about T****, don't say anything negative. Don't talk about T****, don't say anything negative." This friend is (what I think is being called) a progressive. I'm simply someone who likes to get to the bottom of things, so months before the American election, I'd been reading up on T****'s growing popularity. My friend and I had a falling out because I wanted to talk about it (the rise of T****) and she didn't. I've been self-censoring around her ever since. (In fact, it didn't even cross my mind until just now that I could have said, "I warned you.") 

Positive thinking does not stop evil and greed. It just doesn't. It doesn't get the good people elected. It certainly hasn't mitigated climate disruption. Talking about how Big Money and Big Oil are killing the future, what their strategies are, and how we can beat them — that's how we will, well, beat them. Not by pretending that everything is goodness and light. 

If we're going to fill our lives with censorship, I'd like to suggest some Censorship for the Planet. Let's stop giving column inches in our newspapers and blogs to climate change deniers. Let's stop watching news and other shows that give air time to climate change deniers. Let's stop "sharing" the dangerously misleading drivel and "alternative facts" of climate change deniers on our social media channels. 

Folks, let's stop censoring ourselves, our friends and our loved ones (and our climate scientists) and start really listening to them. If we're going to censor at all, let's censor (and censure) those who are committing the greatest evil and the greatest ever crime against humanity: climate change deniers who have delayed urgent action on this emergency for decades, causing millions to lose their lives or their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes or entire homelands. 

Let's be very clear that freedom of speech and expression should not, does not, cannot include the freedom to commit progenycide.

Why Are We Losing the Climate Change Battle?

We've spent this weekend with a wonderful new climate change activist friend who's collaborating on a writing project with my hubby. It's such a comfortable treat to spend time with a like-hearted soul.

One of the questions all three of us have been asking ourselves lately is how it is we've come this far and the deniers are still winning. In an email I received recently, Avaaz put it this way: "Just as we thought that crazy climate deniers were fading into history, they're back, with their hands on the levers of power in the country that emits 14% of the world’s carbon!"

Three answers to why this is so came my way yesterday. 

1. Canadian blogger Rolly Montpellier wrote: "Claiming that we can take effective action on climate change and ramp-up fossil fuel production at the same time is delusional. But for the most part [our prime minister Justin] Trudeau has been able to convince Canadians that this is a wise and a prudent course for Canada to pursue. He has lulled his followers into a deep sleep while climate change makes its ugly consequences felt around the globe."

According to science historian, Naomi Oreskes, "a new form of climate denialism is at work … one meant to persuade the public that fossil fuels are necessary and renewables unreliable…. Alternatives to fossil fuels are disparaged by a new generation of myths."

Rolly continues: "Trudeau is an artful practitioner of public messaging intended for mass consumption by a receptive but naive Canadian public. We Canadians want to believe that we are acting quickly on the climate problem. But we are not. So if you think that climate deniers are finally irrelevant, then think again. Deniers have found more creative and sneaky ways to support the strong interests of the fossil fuel industry. It would be dangerous to imagine that the era of climate denialism is over. Because, it’s simply not so!"

2. My response to Rolly's post helped me realize what we're up against: "We are going to extinguish most life on this precious planet because of a failure of imagination. Besides all the small addictions (alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, cleaning) we suffer from as individuals, there is just one big culture-wide (and increasingly globalized) addiction that is killing us: money. The reason money is winning out over life itself is that people don't have (or aren't using) the creativity to imagine a world powered differently. So they fall back to the 20th century default ... money, profit, greed and fossil fuels."

3. The other answer came from an article in a(nother) new rightwing, depressive (is that the opposite of progressive?) online rag (the quote is so, um, stupid, that I can't even share it here), which showed that "the other side" is still quoting denying dorks with no credentials, trotting out years-old denial bullsh!t, slinging insults without apology, stating misfacts without flinching, and uttering nonsense without the slightest hint of embarrassment. And they somehow always out-time us, psychologically projecting by calling us the names we ought to have called them. But as usual, our side is too nice (after all, we're the ones who care about the climate change emergency), so they get away with it. 

And if you want a free trip into the Twilight Zone, just visit the comments section. You will read (if you can stomach it) the most illogical, irrational, unreasonable, unsound, groundless, incorrect, fallacious, preposterous, specious and disingenuous arguments ever presented on any topic, I'm sure. Yet it would take you a day or two to counter all their lies and mistakes and non sequiturs, so you won't do it. (The last time I tried, I was hung out to dry in a local newspaper so I don't blame you for not even attempting to set the other side straight.)

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that climate change deniers don't follow any rules, respect any rules, have any rules. They literally say whatever they want, even if it's totally cracked or untrue or irrelevant or debunked. The truth does not matter to them. They don't care enough about their children to check out what the current state of climate change is. They're too stupid or un(der)educated to realize that they're applying no critical thought to what they're (poorly paraphrasing from some denier website somewhere and) spewing.  

I feel for these people. I really do. But how can we possibly counter their deceit, their greed and their nonsensical rubbish when they're a moving target and our feet are stuck in the truth? My brain wants to explode just thinking about it.

The Wrath of Grapes - An Experiment in Denial

I like a good thought experiment every once in a while. But I discovered they can be a bit scary as well as instructive.

My favourite thought experiment was when I tried to picture being a big-time capitalist, someone for whom profit and money (and greed) are everything. It was fascinating. After I (in my imagination) let go of all the things I -- and many other so-called progressives, or lefties -- care about (you know, children, other species, future generations, just some small things), I was left with visceral excitement at the thought of making money. Truly, my imaginary profits made me feel like the winner in a game.

The thrill was an addictive feeling! Suddenly I understood why people who don't have a deep bond with the rest of Nature, who don't give much of a flying leap about their children's future, who wouldn't understand when I say "I love the butterflies" act the way they do. Because what the hell else do they have to live for? To them, life is a game, and if life is a game, then they might as well be winners rather than losers. And big winners, too. Sadly, this globalized attitude is making losers of all of us, but at least I understand it now.

Imagine my shock when I was the subject of an unintended thought experiment -- and learned viscerally what it's like to be a denier of a new truth. And I'm not talking about paid shills, touts, ringers, abettors and accomplices of the fossil fuel industries. No, I mean the people who deny the climate is changing (or that we're changing the climate) because they cannot abide the thought (it collides with what they've always known to be true -- I mean, things have been going along pretty tickety boo their whole life, haven't they?). [They probably don't even know that the climate has indeed been stable for the last 10,000 years, allowing the invention of agriculture to take hold and the population of humans on the Earth to increase dramatically.] They cannot allow in the possibility (it's too scary, for heaven's sake; just don't even go there; if we ignore it, it'll go away, right?). Nor do they use their critical thinking skills when presented with the evidence (that's because many of people never develop critical thinking skills or scientific literacy).

So here's what happened to me. We were enjoying a birthday lunch with a wonderful friend earlier this week. Somehow the conversation moved to the epidemic of food waste around the world and what some countries are doing about it. From there, we made our way to the topic of organic food and the notion that there are some fruits and vegetables one should never buy and eat unless they're organic. 

"Like grapes!" I piped up. I can proudly say, with visions of Cesar Chavez in my head, that I haven't eaten an un-organic grape in decades. 

"Grapes aren't on the list anymore," said my friend. 

That was it. As my stomach lurched, I went into a kind of out-of-body experience, watching myself go into full-body visceral denial. "Yeah," he continued, "the magazine Consumer Reports created a chart of which conventionally grown fruits and veggies we can eat if they're from certain countries." 

Najlah Feanny/Corbis

Yeah, sure, I thought to myself. Grapes? Those luscious orbs of sweet, delicious juiciness not dripping with pesticides? No way. If Cesar Chavez taught me nothing else (and there was much he had to teach), he taught me not to trust produce grown and harvested by oppressed, underpaid, gassed and poisoned farm workers. Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) union ... that was all happening during my most sensitive and absorptive years, my childhood and early teens. Something that was so inculcated -- that conventionally grown grapes poison not just the eaters but the planters and the pickers and their children, too -- well, it had to be true. 

And how could something that was so true then not still be true now? (See the acrobatics my mind and soul were going through to defend myself against this attack on a deep-rooted knowing?)

"Hmmph," was about all I could splutter. "Where's the evidence?" He made a copy of the chart for me, but my eyes couldn't focus on it. My mind was racing back through those years of not eating grapes when I could have. How long ago did this situation change? Worse, how could it have changed without me knowing? When did Cesar Chavez and the UFW win and I didn't notice? OMG, I didn't know if I was embarrassed, saddened, bittersweetly happy -- I just knew I felt challenged to my very core, er, pips. 

It took me days to work up the nerve to finally take a good look at the chart. Yup, according to Consumer Reports, I can trust the safety of conventionally grown (why is it "conventional" to spray poison on our food?) grapes as long as they come from Chile, Peru, Mexico or the United States. Peaches, nectarines, tangerines, apples (except from New Zealand), strawberries and cranberries; green beans, peppers (sweet and hot), sweet potatoes and carrots -- that's the list of ten foods to "always buy organic" no matter where they come from. This is produce you're better off not eating if you can't eat organic. And grapes are not on that shortlist. (By the way, the chart is found in a special report entitled Eat the Peach, Not the Pesticide: A Shopper's Guide.)

Please note: Organic food growers are not paying me to promote organics or to feel yucky about eating produce that used to kill farm workers. So I'm a garden variety denier -- with some critical thinking skills. I therefore decided to dig a bit deeper. I came across a USDA Dirty Dozen list that rates produce on a scale of least to most pesticide residue. I've known about this list for ages -- and always just assumed that grapes were on the list. Well, it turns out they are on the list: #11 - imported grapes. What? I can trust Californian grapes? Really?

"Why are some types of produce more prone to sucking up pesticides than others? Richard Wiles, senior vice president of policy for the Environmental Working Group says, 'If you eat something like a pineapple or sweet corn, they have a protection defense because of the outer layer of skin. Not the same for strawberries and berries.'"

Well, grapes are pretty thin-skinned. Okay, maybe not like berries, but still. (See what my denier mind is doing? Bargaining! One of the stages of grieving. Yikes.)

"Remember, the lists of dirty and clean produce were compiled after the USDA washed the produce using high-power pressure water systems that many of us could only dream of having in our kitchens."

Ha! There, see? (I'm cherry picking from a PBS blog there, looking for evidence to shore up my belief system.) Ooh, I would have made a good climate change denier, had I not spent the last quarter of a century living with one of the world's holistically sharpest minds on the climate science.

Anyway, folks, I just wanted to share with you that I have new empathy and compassion for deniers (of the unpaid ilk). It's tough, eh, when a new truth comes along that upsets the (organic or conventional?) apple cart of what you knew to be foundational truth. 

I think I'll probably keep paying the premium for organic grapes (who does it hurt?), but I'd like to encourage climate change deniers to hop on the apple cart and simply start learning and talking about climate disruption and what it is going to mean for your children and grandchildren -- and their food security.

And don't feed your loved ones peaches this summer unless you know they're organic!

from Consumer Reports Special Report: Pesticides in Produce

When Climate Change Denial is Almost Laughable -- Were It Not So Lamentable

I'm a huge fan of permaculture. (It's an integrated design system for permanent (agri)culture that's modelled on nature's patterns. Its founder, Bill Mollison, says: "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system.") 

I love permaculture and its principles and strategies so much that when the climate change emergency has me down in the dumps, it's the thought of permaculturing the world that puts a smile on my fence and gets me out of bed in the morning. 

So you can imagine my consternation bordering on distress when a very well known and highly respected permaculture author, teacher and practitioner wrote a blog post called Is Food the Last Thing to Worry About? and didn't once mention the climate crisis. 

"Our food system is woefully dependent on petroleum," he starts with, pointing to writers such as Richard Heinberg and Michael Pollan. Yes, and since we have to get to zero carbon emissions as rapidly as possible in order to have any chance of stabilizing global temperature increase and ocean acidification, we therefore need a huge fossil-fuel-free revolution in the way we grow food. 

"Soaring food costs have brought on riots in some countries, and in unstable nations, famine continues to be a regular visitor." Yes, and many of those problems are being caused in large part or at least exacerbated by global warming and the newly unpredictable climate. Remember Russia's summer of 2010? 

That country lost 30% of its grain crops due to heat waves and wildfires. The Arab Spring began in 2011. Think there was no connection? Well, Russia had to stop its grain exports that year. Imagine what that did to food prices in the Middle East! (And that's not even mentioning or mourning the 56,000 people who lost their lives due to the smog and heat.)

This author goes on to talk about "post-Peak Oil" (rather than climate disruption), and how people are worrying needlessly about food. "In the developed world, especially the breadbasket nations such as the US, Canada, and other food-exporting countries, the food network may be one of the last systems to fail during energy descent." 

Hey buddy, can you say "disappearing Arctic summer sea ice"? (That sea ice is the air conditioner for our Northern Hemisphere growing season.) Do you even know that central continental regions (those "breadbaskets" -- already in decline) warm faster than the global average? And what's going to happen if our breadbaskets become responsible for feeding the whole world (for as long as they can) because we haven't mitigated the climate crisis?

"I think there are many reasons not to be focusing primarily on food as the system most likely to fail. This isn’t to say that industrial, oil-based agriculture is invulnerable, let alone sustainable. And we may see temporary shortages of specific foods. But there are many reasons why our fears of a food collapse [...] may be distracting us from focusing on more immediate and likely risks."

Risk equals probability times magnitude. That's the equation for risk. So even if "food collapse" were unlikely (it's not ... it's already happening to varying degrees all over the world -- look at California and its drought, for Earth's sake!), when it happens, its magnitude is going to be life-or-death. That immediately makes it a risk that we need to pay attention to. 

"Distracting?" Here's something distracting: "I suspect we focus on food in part because providing it appears much more possible than, say, keeping the financial, health care, or automotive industries running." Cuz sure, keeping those automotive industries running is just so much more important than ensuring food security around the world. Not! See what happens when we don't think in systems? When we don't look at all the variables? We get ridiculous. 

And no, providing food is not going to be "much more possible" once we factor in droughts, floods, other extreme weather events, destructive wildfires, and heat waves that kill off crops and make it impossible for labourers to work on farms. 

Why would someone who is a permaculture hero -- and an otherwise highly intelligent person -- be so short-sighted on climate change? Denial comes in all shapes and sizes, it would appear.

You Don't Have to Be a Denier to Be in Denial

We're taking our time watching a difficult and eye-opening movie called Labyrinth of Lies. Based on the life of Fritz Bauer, Frankfurt's attorney general, and three prosecutors who were instrumental in bringing Auschwitz Nazis to trial in 1963, this film is a story that exposes the conspiracy of prominent German institutions and government branches to cover up the crimes of Nazis during World War II. 

I had no idea that many, many Germans in the post-war era didn't acknowledge, accept or even know about the atrocities committed in Nazi concentration camps during the war. (I knew about Ernst Zündel and his Holocaust denial but didn't realize he'd immigrated to Canada in 1958 from a zeitgeist of denial in Germany.) After the camps were liberated by the Allies (April 1945), "German civilians [were] forced by American troops to bear witness to Nazi atrocities at Buchenwald concentration camp, mere miles from their own homes." (See Forgotten Alfred Hitchcock Holocaust Documentary Gets New Life.)

When Auschwitz and several other camps, like Bergen-Belsen, were liberated, the British army sent along a film unit. Under the aegis of Sidney Bernstein, and with the help of supervising director Alfred Hitchcock, the grisly and shocking footage was meant for a documentary called German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. However, as the war came to a close, the governments that had once supported exposing German crimes had a new interest in reconciliation. So plans for the film were scrapped, and most of the footage was archived at Britain’s Imperial War Museum until the 1980s.

That footage is now included in a new documentary, Night Will Fall, which "tells the story of how the footage came to be, and what happened to it."

Margaret Bourke-White, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

In an Independent article (Germany finally pays tribute to first Nazi hunter Fritz Bauer), I learned that "only six of the [22] accused ["Nazi SS henchmen"] were given life sentences. Twelve others were given terms of up to 14 years. The trials nevertheless obliged a reluctant German public to face up to the horrors of the Holocaust and accept that the perpetrators lived in their midst." The article says that "surviving film footage reveals how controversial the trial was. Inside the court the police saluted the accused as former 'comrades.'"

I'll bet you can see where I'm going to go with this. I probably don't even have to say it. The terrifying metaphor revealed itself as we watched Labyrinth of Lies. Many German people weren't deniers -- but they were certainly in denial. Their ignorance. Their apathy. Their disbelief. (Some of the Germans who did see the footage believed it was propaganda staged by the Americans.) Their hubris. The fact that many were still benefiting from their Nazi connections. Their society-wide unwillingness to look at what had happened, to see that "many Third Reich values were still admired," to feel shame and deep remorse, to take some responsibility. (There's a scene in the movie where the stenographer taking down witnesses' testimony runs from the room and breaks down in sobs. No longer in denial, her character is becoming someone who helps in the fight to bring justice.)

I don't know what I would have done if I had -- by luck and timing of birth -- been there. I'm not saying I'm better than any one of those German civilians. But I'm alive today, and I'm not going to let the climate chaos holocaust carry on without vociferously protesting it. And why wouldn't I protest it? There is no SS threatening to track me down and lock me up because I oppose the globalized Western economy's biosphere-devastating, life-murdering business-as-usual fossil fuel status quo. 

I can go about my daily life and speak up about the climate change crisis online or in person, with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers. I can keep my job and send faxes and emails about emergency climate change mitigation to my elected representatives and leaders. I can live free of fear in my country and attend protests, make presentations and give workshops about climate justice. (Confession: I can't do all these things and keep my house tidy. So I've chosen life over tidiness.)

Fritz Bauer received death threats nearly every day once he began his campaign to see justice done (he was responsible for the capture of Adolf Eichmann). What's keeping you from speaking up on behalf of those most vulnerable to the ravages of climate change impacts ... on behalf of all those who are already losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes and entire homelands? 

Our very own "Global Reich" -- fossil fuel companies, the big money that bankrolls them and the governments sitting comfortably in their pockets -- is killing about 5 million people per year, and that number is rising as 2016 continues to knock out temperature records and see record CO2 levels. We see increasing evidence everywhere we look. So where is our outrage? 

"Yesterday I Couldn't Say 'Scientific Illiterate' ... Today I Are One"

Tom Toles cartoon

My father, born in the 1920s, was raised in a desperately poor family and had to drop out of school in grade 8 to take a $7 per week job. A few years later, he moved up to sales and started making a better living. He used to recount the day that a few other salesmen confronted him in a diner. "Jack," they said, "if you're going to make it in the world of sales, you need to shine your shoes and start talking better."

From then on, he shined his shoes regularly and (before I was born) read a dictionary every day to improve his vocabulary. He read newspapers and watched and listened to the news. He was well read and quite smart -- if a little too opinionated (now you know where I get it from).

So perhaps it's understandable that my dad wasn't a big fan of school. Sure, we had to do our homework and graduate from high school, but beyond that, he didn't hold the education system in high regard. He was a "self-made man." 

"Yesterday I couldn't spell teechur and today I are one," he used to tease. So you can imagine the ribbing that began when I actually became a teacher. It ended, however, when I spoke up and challenged him (at his favourite pub, in front of all his drinking buddies, after he'd started pontificating about how overpaid and underworked teachers are) to spend two weeks in my class with me -- and still believe that I wasn't earning my salary. He never took me up on that challenge, but he sure shut up about it, at least when I was around.

But I'm at the point now where I'm starting to feel furious at the (North American) education system. I cannot believe the scientific illiterates we're turning out ... the graduates who can't think logically, or critically, or even creatively. It's like they can't think at all. And then there are the bullies (probably sociopaths by now) who make it all the way through school still not able to find it in their hearts to think about others in the world. (And the apathetics ... let's not even go there.)

Yes, I'm talking about climate change deniers -- again. Apparently they haven't gone away. Or read up. Or crawled back into their heartless holes. Why aren't they embarrassed? (I guess they don't know what they don't know -- and don't care.) How can they be so illogical? (I suppose the social media echo chamber makes it more than possible to believe unreasoned, unjustifiable, groundless, unfounded, incorrect, erroneous, invalid, spurious, faulty, flawed, fallacious and unscientific drivel because it's repeated over and over again.)

Where is their shame? How can they close their eyes and their hearts to all the people around the world who are already being impacted by climate crises? (Maybe we threw the baby out with the bath water when we turned away from religion. Or maybe it's the fault of Faux TV-style media outlets, which have been tasked with creating a whole populace that doesn't give a flying leap about others.)

In the interests of taking back scientific literacy, truth and compassion, here are some of the latest egregious examples of the BS flying around the internet ether.

Randall S poses: "What is Carbon? Black soot? It's carbon dioxide, a colourless, odourless gas necessary for life on earth and beneficial to plants at levels 4X current levels. In fact, you could say we are in the midst of a global atmospheric CARBON DIOXIDE DEFICIT." (Sure, Randall, we're pumping out 90 million tons of CO2 every day, but we're in a carbon dioxide deficit. That makes a lot of sense. And yes, black soot is carbon, too, and happens to be the second worst cause of global warming.)

Paul c-o's shares a quote from "Geologist Leighton Steward": "There is not a single professor of chemistry that I have come across that can give one single example of carbon dioxide being a pollutant." (Oh, I'm sure geologist Steward hangs out with all sorts of chemistry professors. And oh, let's just check out Steward's credentials, shall we? He's the spokesman for the denial front group Plants Need CO2 (as though those concerned about climate change ever said that plants don't need CO2), and is affiliated with oil and gas companies (he's a retired energy industry executive and is still sitting on fossil fuel energy boards). But I'm sure that hasn't coloured his understanding of global warming at all.) 

(BTW, the definition of pollution is: "the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects." When too much CO2 is introduced into the atmosphere or the oceans, harmful effects arise. Ergo, we have turned CO2 into a pollutant.)

bluecougareyes is feeling all smart with his contribution to the discussion (and look, so nicely laid out): 

"Warming and cooling come and go over 100's of Millions of year.

AND...

Earth’s temperature is always changing.

AND...

CO2 levels will change with or without human contributions.

AND....

There is no one “right” temperature.

AND...."

(I should have guessed that scientific illiterates might be historically illiterate, as well. Are you listening up, teachers? The reason we have over 7 billion human beings on this planet is that the stable climate -- the "one 'right' temperature" -- of the last 10,000 years or so allowed agriculture to proliferate. We've become a species dependent on agriculture and agriculture depends on a stable climate ... something we've said goodbye to. Hello, heat waves, droughts and floods. Hello, crop failures, higher food prices, conflicts and revolts, and famines.)

I could go on and on (but it's a beautiful day here). Practically everywhere one goes on the internet, the comments sections are filled with diatribes and misfacts and downright made-up stuff from scientifically illiterate armchair pundits. I'm starting to think that it's not the doom and gloom of our climate reality that's getting me down these days (there's actually some good news on that front), but the free-for-all democratization* of commentary, even for those who don't know what the hell they're talking about. Forgive them, Climate, for they know not what they don't know.

Teachers, any chance we could teach some climate science and thinking skills in school this year?

p.s. If you'd like to hear about the science of climate change from actual climate scientists, have a look at 97 Hours of Consensus.

* Democratization of the Comments section just when the United States has been officially designated an oligarchy. Kind of ironic, eh? But that's for another post.

Scientists Displaying a Different Kind of Denial — A Different Kettle of Fish

A Different Kettle of Fish by DeviantArt.com

My husband and I have noticed that ocean and marine scientists seem to either understand better or care more deeply (pardon the pun) about the climate change crisis than scientists in many other fields. I figure it's because ocean and marine science is about life, or always comes back 'round to life (unlike pure chemistry and physics, for example, or geology and atmospheric science). There's still lots of scientific modelling in this field, but the modelling seems to be about life (often in some form of "seafood").

This is why the new kind of denial of the climate change emergency that I witnessed recently is so disheartening. As a guest at the conference my husband attended this past week, I was able to sit in on a couple of sessions. During the first, a bioscientist at a marine laboratory explained the impacts that ocean acidification is having (along with a whole host of other depredations, including atomic testing!) on coral reefs. He walked us through the graph showing the different scenarios that he and his colleagues had run. And then he stepped in it. 

Perhaps you'd like to read the background to this first. In a world where scientists keep abdicating from telling the full truth about the urgency of this spectacularly serious problem because, in their words, they don't want to give policymakers an excuse to do nothing about climate change, they have given policymakers no reason to do anything! Not only that, but the notion that scientists don't want to "be political" went out the window the moment they made a decision about which and how much science to share with policymakers.

This fellow told his huge audience that he insisted to his research / modelling team that they run a fifth — and totally unrealistic — scenario through the model, a good news scenario where we all stop emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow and everything gets pretty much back to normal. He thought this was necessary so that policymakers wouldn't lose hope.

Dude! You've once again given policymakers a reason to do nothing! Policymakers don't deserve hope, Mr. Scientist. They haven't earned it. They haven't taken action yet. But you scientists haven't given them reason to take action, so who's to blame?

You say the scientist's job is to provide "the best available science" (I would add "within the context of the precautionary principle"), and yet you provided them a way out. You gave them a big, fat "See? Things will be just fine again!" With one little line on your graph that goes up when it should have gone down.

But that wasn't the worst of it. I stayed for the next plenary session, which was entitled Why Aren't They Listening? Ironically over half the audience walked out before this one even began (hence the name of the session could have been Why Aren't Half of Us Listening?). (Granted, it was verging on the lunch hour, and scientists get hungry, too.)

The panelists proffered some good suggestions:

• Make this (climate change) issue an issue that governments already care about (jobs, economy, health).
• Offer to help politicians and policymakers make sense of the climate science.
• Say "As a scientist, this is what I see. As a concerned citizen/parent, this is what I feel."
• Create a human connection with the people you're communicating the climate science to.
• The information is out there. Appeal more to people's emotions and values. 
• In the United States (I can't imagine that this is true in very many other places), the sector with the highest credibility is the military. Remind people that militaries around the world, but especially in the US, see climate change as a security issue.
• Do all this, but keep working on your tenure and promotion first and foremost.

No, wait. What? Work on tenure and promotion? As though there's a normal future for these young scientists? WTF? Is this panel not discussing climate change?

There it is. They slipped it in, but there it is. Their denial of the climate change emergency. Although they're ocean scientists and they can see what's happening (especially with ocean acidification), they keep living, working, and giving advice to young scientists as though nothing has changed.

What a Broken Ankle Can Teach You About Climate Change Denial

I'm in a warm place. I mean that literally, not figuratively. Going someplace warm (actually, it's swelteringly hot and humid here) in the winter is something I haven't done since I learned about climate change almost 20 years ago. But we're here on "business" — the business of climate change. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. Flying somewhere to talk/teach/learn about global warming and ocean acidification is the act of a crazy person — or a desperate person. I can't disagree and I do feel guilty. But here we are at an important conference, so we're making a vacation of it.

Unfortunately, I'm here with a broken ankle, a walking cast and a cane. Today, while eating a picnic lunch on the beach, I started feeling sorry for myself. The first warm water I've encountered since 1996 and I can't take advantage of the recreational opportunities like surf lessons and learning how to paddle board. I couldn't believe my bad luck.

After a little pity party, we walked (slowly) to an outdoor art festival and then hung out at a different beach for a while. I could not believe how many people I saw who had canes, crutches and wheelchairs! The moment I really got it — that I need to stop my whingeing because I'm quite blessed generally and particularly blessed to be visiting this land of warm beaches — was seeing a brand new amputee wheel up beside us, alone. Self-pity turned to embarrassment for my thoughts and admiration for his gumption.

On the way home, my hubby and I talked about the fact that I never usually notice people with canes or wheelchairs, but here I'm seeing lots and lots. Is it because I'm currently "among them" that I'm noticing more of these people lately?

And that got me wondering (make the leap with me here) ... are people who have been impacted by climate chaos more likely to acknowledge the climate change emergency? Apparently, research shows that to be true ... but it's fleeting. And I suddenly understood why.

I want to get back to normal. I want my ankle to be mended, my foot to be healed, and the whole thing to be a fading memory. Of course! If I had been hit by Hurricane Sandy or a horrific heat wave or a terrifying flood, I'd want to forget it as quickly as possible, too!

So in the case of those already touched by climate disruption, denial is more a case of forgetting. Or wanting desperately to forget and get on with normal life. Even though "normal life" no longer exists. And for some (impacted by life-changing illness, injury or extreme weather events), simply still being alive is the blessing. Millions weren't that lucky.

It's Like Living in the Twilight Zone

An activist friend and I are both feeling like we're living in the Twilight Zone, a surreal place where reality is like science fiction — but most people don't see it.

Today's reality is definitely like science fiction: a cancerous culture [my hubby hates it when I blame the whole human species when it's really just our globalized EuroAmerican economy to blame], new to the Earth, starts burning a secret, ancient fuel, making life much easier while actually (and secretly) killing off the viability of the planet.

This is all being done so surreptitiously that by the time the people wake up and smell the ocean acidification, it's too late. Rod Sterling tried to warn them, but they were too busy being enthralled to that easy life they were living.

The few of us who didn't drink the Kool-aid are spurned (well, ignored or, at the very least, looked at funny) and no one wants to hear what we have to say.

It is like living in the Twilight Zone. It is surreal. The populace carries on as if life is not threatened, as if there is no climate crisis, as if we are a major inconvenience for them. "Oh, for heaven's sake, why don't you shut up about climate change already? We don't really know for sure that it's happening and I'm trying to watch my favourite TV show."

I got quite depressed yesterday when I looked through the program of an upcoming environmental education conference that I'll be attending. Climate change was mentioned only a handful of times in over 40 pages of workshop descriptions. How I would love the educational community to open its eyes to the greatest threat we've ever faced and get serious about how to teach it in ways that will help transform the evil cancerous culture that has us in its grip.

And I sure as hell got depressed when I woke up the day after our provincial election to the same old pro-growth, pro-resource-exploitation government and the same old nasty premier (who didn't even win her own seat!).

While the chaos in my own heart and my own home matches the chaos in the atmosphere and the oceans, hardly anyone else seems to notice or seeks to understand. They don't want the climate crisis to make them "feel bad" — so environmental education conferences don't embrace the theme and governments win by ignoring the problem, and life, I guess, just carries on until it doesn't. And when things get really bad, everyone will ask "Why didn't they tell us? Why didn't they do something?"

Meantime, I realized this morning that I'm still not doing everything I can do — and that's one of the reasons I've become depressed. So here's to dreaming up wonderfully fun and imaginative ways to educate about this issue. If no one else is going to feel sad about it, why should I waste my life energy being depressed about it when I can get even more active and creative? Indeed, a young activist friend said that when she gets down or angry, she goes out to the garden. And when she's managed to clear the crabgrass away from the rhubarb, she feels — for a moment, at least — as though she's won the fight. 

Surreal, eh?

I Experienced It! Visceral Denial! And the Solution is Simple

My best friend and life partner, my husband, is ill. Not with the flu or a cold but with something much scarier, a repeat of an illness that left him crippled with fatigue 12 years ago.

This was unexpected. He's been feeling much better over the last few months, so we thought he was "a new man" if not quite "his old self." But this thing has hit with a vengeance, and it couldn't have come at a worse time. (He's trying to get ready to present his life's work 
on climate change at two upcoming conferences.)

I'm so busy and stressed out and angry trying to keep it together and take care of him and get him to medical appointments that I haven't allowed myself to cry yet. I don't know which way this will go yet, so I've been keeping my reaction all bottled up inside.

But because my husband is a retired doctor, he does have a good clue about what's going on. The other day, he sat me down and tried to explain it all. And that's when I felt it. That's when I finally understood your everyday, garden-variety climate change deniers! I could sense myself glazing over. I could feel myself shutting down. I could see myself doing an interior "La la la, I'm not listening!" When he was done explaining, it was like I had to snap out of a daze — and apologize, because I hadn't heard (or at least, hadn't taken in) what he'd said. 

I started wondering why I can face the climate change emergency with strength, courage and determination, but I couldn't even listen to what's happening with my loved one's health. And then it struck me. 

It's because I haven't cried that I can't hear it, can't let the bad news in. I haven't been willing (or able yet) to "feel" my fear and sadness, therefore I am not willing to countenance the severity of my husband's illness, nor able to think about it or even conceive of it.

So I've had it wrong all these years. I've been thinking that if we could just get people thinking about climate change, learning about it, then they would feel the sadness and therefore get to work on behalf of their children and all future generations. 

It turns out we probably have to help people feel the pain of the realization that we've condemned our children to a future of climate hell, and only then will they be willing to start learning about it and able to start thinking about it rationally.

The other thing that breaking through that emotional, visceral denial does is make it very clear how much of the life we live day to day isn't important. And who the heck wants to face that truth until we've psyched up and it's spiritual spring cleaning time?

I've written about this issue before (see You CAN Handle the Truth!), but I had the order wrong. My thinking now is that we have to help people open to the sadness, lament and grieve, and then tell them the truth about the climate crisis.

Remember that old show, Laugh In? (Okay, some of you are too young to remember it.) You could almost hear the laughter coming out of people's homes up and down the streets of every neighbourhood in North America when that show was on! 

Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan of Arc

Maybe it's time to create a new TV show: Cry In. One that will help people get their tears and sadness out so that they're ready to open up to the sad reality of climate change.

You CAN Handle the Truth!

You know what? We're in a no-analogue Catch-22. Psychologists tell us not to tell people the full truth about the climate change emergency because they won't be able to handle it and will shut down and not do anything. But if we don't tell people the full truth, they're not going to do anything anyway! I've recently asked readers and friends for advice on how to handle this conundrum. Below is some of the feedback I've received, and then I'll give you my new take on all of this.

Unknown shared this: "I say go ahead and tell the whole truth, don't sugar coat it. You'll get people more scared, but maybe a little fear is what we need -- along with a heaping dose of reality. People are still WAY too self-absorbed, or worried about which celebrity is divorcing who, or which sports team scored higher than another. They need to realize that none of that matters at all, that their world is crumbling around them and they're too blind (or busy watching television) to see it."

So, truth as wake up call! That resonates with me. Unknown finishes with "So bring it on, sister!"

My online friend, David Wilson, concurs with the age-old adage "The truth will set you free." He also brings up an excellent point, told through this anecdote:

"Back in the days of Simon Charlie's Festival of the Sun, there were always people showing up and taking too much of the wrong thing ... bikers on tequila, kids on shrooms, acid, whatever ... and you know, my learning then, which has not changed much over the years, was and is that people get through their freak-outs if someone will just invest the time and energy to talk to them, calmly, openly, compassionately, in a way that lets them know you are not going to up and leave them stranded there."

So I can't just plop the full truth on the table and walk away. I know there's always someone who asks, "What can I do?" as if they haven't been awake for the past 20 years. "Create political will" is not the first thing I'm going to suggest to people like that. But there will have to be hand-holding and hugs. After all, I've been dealing with this bad news for years now. The general public has not. (More on that here.) 

And patients who have just received a terminal diagnosis don't jump into action -- they have to digest the news and grieve a bit first. Then, however, according to my husband-the-doctor, they are ready to jump into action, to do whatever it takes to change their prognosis or prepare for the end.

My husband-the-doctor and I have had many conversations about the psychology of climate change communication. There is just a small handful of psychologists who have driven the don't-tell-the-truth-about-climate-change agenda here in North America (and in the UK, too, I think). We suspect these psychologists weren't alive before World War II, so they haven't witnessed how the people in our culture can rally together when necessary. Nor have they worked in medicine to witness the courage of people who discover they are terminally ill. 

It's not that people (in our culture/society -- it's frustrating when psychologists talk about "people" as though they mean the whole human species when their research has dealt only with Americans; and even there, check out the Yale study Global Warming’s Six Americas) can't handle the truth. It's that people need someone -- their doctor, a Winston Churchill, their president or prime minister, a Climate Reality Project leader, ahem -- to be there for them once they've absorbed the truth.

Furthermore, the truth does need to be the full truth (for example, the history of the denial machine) so that cognitive dissonance doesn't set in. You know, "the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change." In other words, if people finally come to see the urgency of what really needs to happen in the world but still don't see their leaders taking action, that's going to mess with their minds unless they understand all the forces at work to keep us embroiled (pun intended!) in the fossil fuel economy.

And finally, here's my epiphany for the week (keeping in mind that sometimes my epiphanies are things I figured out long ago and then forgot about ;-). When "common knowledge" says that people can't handle the full truth about the climate change emergency, that they'll shut down and become immobilized, there are quite likely two flaws in that thinking. 

First, it's quite possible that the researchers (including the armchair variety) who tell us this are simply projecting their own fears and attitudes onto the rest of us. 

Second, that view of the human spirit forgets that we've really only been taking people to the door to peer in. 

We haven't yet been taking people right in, inviting them to sit down, and introducing them to the emergency in a way that allows them to calmly get to know it.  

We haven't yet asked them to feel deeply the plight of others in more climate-change-vulnerable regions of the world -- or their own country.  

We haven't yet put a box of tissues on the table next to them and encouraged them to cry their pain or sing a song of lament (the lost art in our society of passionately expressing our grief or sorrow) that will surely bubble up once this new knowledge is deeply understood -- and felt.  

And we haven't yet urged the perfectly natural anger that parents will feel once they realize their children's future is literally at risk because we're not willing to make the switch to cleaner, safer, healthier, more peaceful and more equitable perpetual energy technologies. 

So no, unlike Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, we do not have the right to tell our fellow citizens that they can't handle the truth. We've never given them the chance.