There is Nothing Sexy about the Climate Change Crisis

Mr. Mr. called me over to his desk just before bedtime the other evening. "Check out these heatwave maps! Look at southern Europe! And check out this part of Canada!" (You can see some maps below.)

"You really know how to romance a gal," I said aloud. (Let's face it. There is *nothing* sexy about the climate change crisis.) 

But inside I was crying. Crying for what this means. Crying for all the people (human and otherwise) who are suffering and struggling in this heat, with these wildfires, under these droughts. Crying for all the times I was called an alarmist, too negative, a climate crank, a greenie, an ecoweenie, a doom-and-gloomer — and wishing they were right and I'd been wrong.

Through the orange haze of wildfire smoke from many hundreds of kilometres away, how I wish we could all just wake up and get back to "normal" lives of love and romance, work and fun, raising our kids and paying our bills ... without the stench of the future going up in flames plaguing my sleep with nightmares, plaguing thousands of people in my province with evacuation orders, and plaguing hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people every year now to loss of loved ones and livelihood, food security and water sources, homes and entire homelands. 

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/maps/forecastmaps?LANG=en&CONT=namk&MAPS=vtx&LOOP=0&LAND=__&MORE=1&UP=0&R=0&DAY=0

  

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/firemap/

August 5-6, 2017

Compassion Tune-Up: "There's a Choice We're Making, We're Saving Our Own Lives"

Do you remember the song We Are the World? It's a song that was recorded by umpteen famous American singers in 1985, to raise money for African famine relief. I remember at the time thinking, "There go those Yanks again, thinking they own the world." But the single went quadruple platinum and they raised over $63 million US (the equivalent of $138 million today), so who was I to judge? 

You know, one million people died in Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985 due to famine. Today, the lives of 5.6 million Ethiopians are threatened by drought and famine. As La Rochefoucauld said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

*******

That was a long-winded way of introducing this week's blog post. My hubby and I were despairing earlier this week that nothing is changing. People still don't feel the emergency, the crisis, the climate chaos and the ocean devastation, and they're not demanding change. 

That reminded Peter of Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher "discovered" by the Theosophical Society in 1909.

For Peter, the wisest thing that the very wise Krishnamurti ever said was that (I'm paraphrasing) we are the world, so if we ever expect to change the world, we'd better change ourselves. Right now. 

To explain it better, some pictures might be worth a thousand words or so. 

We Are the World

— Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie

There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We all are a part of God's great big family
And the truth, you know,
Love is all we need
Chorus:
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart so they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand
[Chorus]

When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there's no way we can fall
Well...well...well
Let's realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one
[Chorus]
                                                                                                                                                                                    

Creating Change is Like Gardening

It was a sad day for me. I discovered yesterday morning how difficult it is to change a norm, even if it's a simple change (with not much sacrifice attached to it) and even when making the change would be a gift to the children and their future.

For almost a year, I've been a member of a group of teachers who are interested in social justice issues. I sit on the sub-committee that deals with environmental justice issues, so it's normal that we would bring forward environmentally related issues. 

Yesterday I presented a simple motion that we transition to meatless meals at our meetings (which would amount to a couple of lunches, the three times per year when we meet). The supporting statement explained that eating lower on the food chain (note no use of the V word) has many benefits.

My rationale was that this would lower our carbon footprint and set an example to other educationally-focused groups. It truly is the easiest way we can reduce our personal and collective greenhouse gas emissions. 

Industrial livestock processing (veganspeak: the inhumane torture and slaughter of almost 30 billion animals every year in the USA alone -- but I didn't use that language, because it's often considered inflammatory) (imagine how it feels to the animals, then compare that to the "pain" we feel when we "feel their pain" -- we're such wimps at times, eh?) is one of the most carbon-intensive and environmentally damaging human activities on the planet, polluting water, degrading land, and spewing carbon, nitrous oxide and 35-40% of anthropogenic methane emissions. 

It took me three meetings to get up the nerve to put forward this resolution. I guess I already knew what the reaction would be. And I was right. To be fair, I was encouraged by how many people spoke in favour. But we use a consensus model and that means that one person holding up a red card can scuttle a motion. Four or five people held up red cards. One person tearfully admitted she's not ready to give up meat yet. (For six lunches per year?) Another said she didn't want to lose her freedom of choice. (Forget that billions of people are losing their freedom to choose to live on a habitable planet.) 

The motion was defeated. I was defeated. Afterwards, I got some advice and had some helpful discussions. I'll rework and reword my motion and present it again the next time we meet. But the bittersweet ending came during our farewell go-round. One of the no-voters thanked the group for opening her up to new ideas that haven't been within her realm of consciousness. "I might even start eating less meat," she said. "But not quite yet."

What do I take from this experience? Creating change is more like gardening than building. We have to plant our seeds (the earlier the better) and then be patient. A lot of the process is outside of our control ... though definitely within our circle of influence. Time for me to tend those seedlings.

p.s. Speaking of food growing, the news from drought-afflicted California grows ever more terrifying!

From 7 States Running Out Of Water: "At [the current] usage rate, California has less than two years of water remaining."

And this, from Cows, Rice Fields and Big Agriculture Consume Well Over 90% of California's Water: "Agriculture uses 93% of California's water and almost half of that is devoted to growing alfalfa for shipment to the Far East, mainly China, to feed their cows. California is, in effect, shipping almost half its precious water to China."

Permaculture to the Rescue!

I'm already into the fourth week and the fourth lesson of the online permaculture design certificate course I'm taking with Geoff Lawton and his team in Australia (see this intro to Geoff). I've gotta tell you, it sure is exciting learning!

Given that I'm as far away as you can get from having a three-dimensional-seeing brain, I'm already on my way from being a person who only saw flat land versus hills to someone who can detect contour and see the nuances in a flattish landscape. I'm starting to be able to see possibilities and opportunities whenever I look at someone's land. (Now my own chunk of rock in the shade, it still stumps me.)

But more important than the landscaping "eye" I'm developing is the ecological learning I'm doing. For example, there's a whole section just on patterns in the natural world. It's the patterns that capture energy for living systems, and it's vital that we harmonize with patterns rather than working against them. 

Things got really out of whack in this culture when we started working against the rest of Nature: growing monocrops in straight lines with no diversity, with no features for trapping and recycling nutrients, with no water features. Topsoil was either lost or depleted of nutrients. So farmers had to start using chemical inputs, which has led to even less diversity of life in soils and on farms generally. This course teaches that soil degradation is at the core of the environmental problems we're facing. Permaculture is about partnering with ecosystems and designing for ecosystem interactions that will build soil. 

Looking at what's happening in California right now is chilling, knowing how much of western Canada's food comes from there. One hundred percent of the state is in drought of some kind (and it's only April, close to two months away from summer), with nearly 25% of California in exceptional drought. The most important element in permaculture is water, and permacultured landscapes are focused first and foremost on water retention. 

Imagine the resilience in the face of climate disruption that would come from food growing that is based in and on natural systems (which we help along) that have many connections, that are rich in diversity, and that waste nothing because everything is cycled through the system. Imagine!

If you are ever feeling totally blue about the state of this planet, I won't blame you for going the way of Paul Kingsnorth and Will Falk (I often go there myself). But if you want to try out something different, look up permaculture. Watch Geoff Lawton's videos on it or check out the old videos by permaculture founder Bill Mollison. Read a book on it (try Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, or a book by co-originator of the movement, David Holmgren). Take a course in it. It will definitely cheer you up for a while, by the sheer sense of possibility and opportunity it will give you.

p.s. I am grateful to permacultureprinciples.com for the wonderful image above.

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!

What If All of Us Squares Changed Our Focus?

Have I ever told you about a workshop I attended during which I discovered I'm a complete and utter square? It was a presentation on the latest brain research and learning styles. The brain's synapses fire at a typical speed, but each of us has a quadrant that is much more efficient. Turns out I'm a "left-basal" (that's the quadrant in which my synapses fire at 400 miles per hour) so, in essence, a square. 

We squares are the kind of people who start making Five Year Plans when we're still teenagers. Who fit into the school system because we "get" the systems of reading and writing. We're punctual and we do our homework. We become writers and editors and teachers. (Oh man, I was so predictable!) We're the planners, the organizers. In short, we're the ones who keep the world humming along, more or less on time.

SIDE BAR: I don't want anyone to feel left out, so here are the other personality types/learning styles:

• left-frontal (the triangle): the controllers, the CEOs, the bossy pants, the people who make sure that other people get things done
• right-basal (the circle): the harmonizers, the supporters, the people who nurture others and keep the peace
• right-frontal (the squiggle): the visualizers, the artists, the creative ones, the dyslexics (or "eugraphics" - the term I coined to positively describe people who think in images and for whom the arbitrariness of alphabets doesn't make natural sense)

END SIDE BAR

Okay, so where am I going with this? Let me tell you. I stumbled upon a blog post this morning about the very common spelling mistake "alot" (as in, I stumble upon alot of things on the internet). The correct spelling is two words: a lot. A left-basal square is going to notice booboos like that. We correct grammatical errors on TV (out loud, to our family's chagrin), and point out typos on restaurant menus. We can't help ourselves. It's a curse (people call us Grammar Fascists and Spelling Nazis), except when it's not. (You know, like when someone needs something edited and they can't spell to save their lives.)

Well, here's the thing. Despite the fact that the biosphere is going to hell in a handbasket and the American drought has continued into December (including in Alaska and Hawaii!), the blogosphere is acting as though nothing's wrong, nothing's different, nothing's changed. On the one hand, I write these blog posts and do my activism and watch my husband do all his climate change work, and still there are only 23 people in the world who care. (Okay, it might be up to 27 by now.) 

On the other hand, that blog post on the misspelled "alot" got — wait for it — 784 comments!! Isn't that astounding? That 784 people would care enough about the spelling of "a lot" that they took the time to write and post a comment?

It's obvious to me that all these people (except one, who complained) are squares. (Nobody else gives a damn about spelling.) So what if we could recruit even a fraction of the squares in the world to help counter the climate change deniers and skeptics in the blogosphere? 

They, like I have, could learn the science of global warming and climate change. At least enough to respond to the trolls. Or perhaps these squares could serve as the scribes of old, helping all the triangles and squiggles get legible and readable letters written to their elected officials.

I'll admit it. It's depressing. I don't exactly begrudge that blogger her 784 commenters (imagine how many actual readers that means), I just wish they could all find the time to comment on important stuff, too, like the global climate change emergency, which is threatening the viability of there/they're/their children's future, and is already impacting hour/our generation's food security, two/to/too.

The Street Scribe, by Carlo Naya

Nowhere to Run - Drought and Floods

Martha and the Vandellas said it best:

Nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide

Between increasing droughts, too much precipitation, and more heat waves and cold snaps, there is nowhere to run to anymore. Check out these maps, developed by NCAR scientist Aiguo Dai. A fellow climate scientist, Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, remarked "The term 'global warming' does not do justice to the climatic changes the world will experience in coming decades. Some of the worst disruptions we face will involve water, not just temperature."

Dai's 2010 study also found that "drought risk can be expected to decrease this century across much of Northern Europe, Russia, Canada, and Alaska, as well as some areas in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the globe's land areas should be drier overall."

So, the areas where increased wetness is expected tend to be areas that aren't our greatest agricultural regions. Can we grow food in the boreal region? And can we grow food in an area with increased rainfall, which means decreased sunshine?

If you were to look for a new place to live right now (for any reason, but especially to escape the impacts of climate change), where would you go? It seems there is no place left to run to. So imagine what life is going to be like for people without the means to migrate anywhere.

(Not that migrating is going to be easy in these political times. Look at what happened to the democratically elected president of the Maldives. He's one of the few world leaders who has spoken up about the climate crisis and the need to start moving his people. Suddenly he's ousted by gunpoint during a coup, and the American envoy is meeting with the "new president" in less than a week. Anyone else smell, well, you can't say that "c" word on the internet anymore, can you? Or perhaps lack of sleep getting to me again. I feel particularly responsible for the fate of the Maldive Islands. Back in my younger days, before I knew anything about global warming, I made a childhood dream come true by travelling around the world. When my ticket got screwed up and I had to skip my trip to the Maldives, I phoned home and told my loved one, "Well, not to worry. The Maldives aren't going anywhere, so we can come back to visit anytime." I did not touch wood.)

My greatest fear in life is drowning. My second greatest fear is great thirst. I'm a water person, obviously. But besides getting into the water cistern business, what can we do? Doesn't it seem like we're heading into a very dangerous place? A world of not enough water and too much water? Dying of thirst happens so fast. For those who can still eke out a little water, drought then leads to crop failures, famine and starvation (often with food riots and violence in between).

When will world leaders pay attention? There soon won't be anywhere for them to run to, either.

Is Mother Nature Really Starting to Get Pissed Off? And Who's Paying the Price?

Or is it just my imagination?

A cougar had to be shot in downtown Sidney, British Columbia (here in Canada) the other night. Cougars are so dangerous (to humans and other prey) that the conservation officer was afraid to take any chances with tranquilizing and relocating it.

Strange orange-backed bees are attacking people here in my rural community. One young man I know couldn't see for days after a sting swelled his eye closed.

Rodents of all sizes are moving into residential neighbourhoods en masse. And coming out in daylight hours — a bad sign!

The deer are hanging out in the middle of the road. (As if to say, Hey, maybe this will slow those humans down.)

Our weather has gone all wonky. It's dark and dreary here in the middle of summer (which really hurts this week because I'm running my Nature Daycamp, though I suppose the upside is the complete lack of sunstroke possibility).

Alas, it's been crossing my mind lately that perhaps Mother Nature isn't going to take it all lying down. Maybe she's thinking, "Exterminate your species all you want, but you're not taking the rest of us."

I continue to scan the news on climate change and the whole situation is becoming quite surreal. It appears we are indeed trying to exterminate our own species. The United States Department of State Official Blog has this to say about the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years:

Here at the port of Djibouti, thousands of metric tons of food assistance are ready to be shipped as part of the U.S. response to the massive drought currently ravaging the Horn of Africa. USAID is mobilizing nutritious split peas, along with vitamin-fortified corn-soya blend and other commodities, from warehouses around the world to assist the more than 10 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia most affected by the drought.

The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) began warning of the possibility of this crisis as early as summer 2010. Today, it has developed into the region's worst drought since the 1950s. Consecutive seasons of poor rainfall have resulted in failed crops, dying livestock, and sky-high market prices -- the cost of staple cereals are 40 to 240 percent higher in some areas. Malnutrition has reached emergency levels: one out of every two Somali refugees arriving in Ethiopia and one out of every three arriving in Kenya is acutely malnourished.

Does anything jump out at you? Once again we are, with ever increasing finesse and detail, documenting the impacts of global climate disruption on the world's most vulnerable — but doing nothing to prevent these impacts. An early warning system for famines? Do these people not realize their foreshadowing? Do they not see that what is befalling these African nations serves as an omen for the future of our children here in "western" developed countries?

I Went There ... and I Cried

I was trying to ignore the Russian summer. And I was definitely trying to not notice the floods in Pakistan and the drought and famine in Niger. (I haven't "noticed" the landslides in China yet.)

And I certainly did not want to go "there" — there meaning, Russia's deadly fires and heat waves mean they lost a lot of their crops, so they're not exporting any grains this year ... and Pakistan's crops have been washed away while Niger's never came.

The United Nations estimates that over 21 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan (killed, injured, homeless, without food, whole villages destroyed). Imagine that! Australia's whole population is less than 21 million. There was a point where about one-fifth to one-quarter of Pakistan's total land area was underwater due to the flooding.

And Niger has experienced a "double whammy" leading to their worst ever famine disaster. According to Christy Collins, the country director for the American charity Mercy Corps, "in most years, even if the country's primary crop failed, at least the secondary crops survived. This year there was so little rain that not only did the fields of millet not bloom, but the secondary greens used for animal fodder also failed." This means that their livestock — their only "insurance" against famine — is also starving.

I didn't want to notice these disasters of epic proportions. But they finally found their way into my life, into my heart. And I cried.

By the way, is it "compassion fatigue" or just downright mean-spiritedness that leads people to make comments like this (truly):

"Who gives a crap?"

"Floods in Pakistan, killer smog in Russia, and famine in Niger. Tragedies all, but sorry, the good old USA is out of $$$$$ and has problems of its own in the Gulf States, in Iowa and in the economy. These people are just going to have to do the best they can, we are tapped out."

"And there are kids starving in every country... and the point is? Isn't that country against US or UN assistance, except when it benefits certain entities? It would be better to put the money into a failed stock than to give it to that country. Same difference. Sorry, those are humans there. But there are humans here. And just about everywhere on this fragile Earth that is being exploited. Let them work out their own problems."

Wow.

p.s. We are going to organize a fundraising event here in our small community. In the short term, it seems to be all we can do to help. In the longer term, we need to stabilize the climate — fast. "There but for the grace of God go I."

18 Days - This is Really Going to Hurt a Lot of People

Not sure why I didn't think of this sooner (perhaps because I drink neither wine nor coffee), but global climate change is really going to "hurt" a lot of the people who are currently totally oblivious to the emergency.

That's because it's already impacting coffee growers and wine producers. (My compassion today is towards these growers and producers, not, I must admit, towards the coffee and wine drinkers.)

According to an August 2009 article in SciDev (the Science and Development Network website), coffee is the most valuable tropical agricultural export in the world — and it's already impacted because of rising temperatures, and droughts interspersed with heavy rain.

This is bad news because coffee grows well "within a limited climatic range."

"As temperatures rise, so will coffee — to higher altitudes and latitudes. But space is limited and there will be competition with other crops. Coffee farmers will experience climate change through greater unpredictability, with more droughts and floods — the last thing any farmer wants."

The article (please read it) is fascinating in its breadth and its understanding of the interconnectedness of all things climatic and agricultural and economic:

"As the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it, globalisation is where everything is connected and nobody is in charge. And that highlights the weakness in the neoliberal agenda — global problems such as climate change cannot be solved by the invisible hand of the market."

So, adults around the world will have to pay more — and then perhaps give up completely — their morning drug of choice [I will leave out my editorial comment on the hypocrisy of a generation that talks of needing their morning fix while telling kids to just say no to drugs]. And, it turns out, they're might be losing out on their evening drug of choice, as well.

Wine growers from around the world met in Spain recently and global warming emerged as the industry's top concern on their agenda. Check out Winemakers Face Climate Change with Dread at Grist.

Yikes, imagine what a grouchy world this will be with no coffee and no wine. That's got to be reason enough for laggards to get on board and start demanding urgent action on the climate change emergency from their governments and other leaders.

Yo, you beer drinkers, don't get smug. The price of your beer is going to rise while its quality falls because rising temperatures and other climate changes are impacting the quality of hops. With global climate change, fun just ain't going to be as much fun as it used to be.

131 Days Until Copenhagen - If... Then... (The Saga of Melting Arctic Ice and Drought in Texas)

Remember that old expression, If the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he would have caught the rabbit?

Well, I'm starting to wonder....

If the Bush Administration hadn't chosen to keep spy satellite photos of melting Arctic ice top secret, maybe Texas wouldn't be going through the horrifying drought it's experiencing. Maybe, just maybe, those photos would have ignited concern about climate change across the United States and around the world. And then maybe, just maybe, we'd all be doing something about it.

My heart goes out to the Texans. For a generation and a nation that has never gone without water, this must be a very frightening time for them.

And once again, there but for the grace of the Universe (and a few years), go I (and you, too). Arctic ice is the air conditioner of the northern hemisphere during our growing season. No Arctic ice = no growing season due to drought and scorched earth. (By the way, have you heard? Those with money know this and have started buying up agricultural land in the southern hemisphere.)

Let's hold in our hearts that many people and places in Africa are already far worse off than Texas, where they can no longer water their lawns but still have water to drink. The devastation to the crops in Texas this summer might, however, give them some compassion for the plight of Africans already impacted by global climate catastrophe.

p.s. Why were they spying on the Inuit in the Arctic anyway?

161 Days Left - Time is Running Out: Kofi Annan's TCK, TCK, TCK Campaign

Just a short one today (we're joining a bike ride send-off for our young friends who are cycling across Canada this summer to raise the climate change emergency alert — follow their Pedal for the Planet journey).

Climate Justice Allies including Desmond Tutu, Rajendra Pachauri, Wangari Matthai and Jeffery Sachs, among others, have joined former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan in the TCK TCK TCK Time for Climate Justice campaign.

This is a brand new, global, new media-centred (Web 2.0, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube, etc.) campaign to tell the world that time is running out to deliver climate justice at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, December 2009, where negotiators from the world's nations will attempt to finalize a successor to the Kyoto Protocol (and so far, they're failing miserably).

The campaign's goal is to recruit Climate Allies from around the world. The more that general public participants engage with the campaign, the more their status as a Climate Ally increases, making the campaign interactive and engaging (at least for young people and new-media-savvy oldsters), and securing a commitment of attention and assistance for the cause.

*****

Sometimes people think that "just talking about it" is a waste of time. My research shows that "finally talking about it" can be viewed as action. By talking about it, you are

• reinforcing your own understanding of the issue
• raising awareness
• spreading the word
• teaching others
• making it okay for others to talk about it
• getting it into the public discourse.

The "it" in this case is climate justice, something that human beings have never had to think about before now (the climate was the climate, every region of the world had its own —stable for the last 10,000 or so years — and human beings did not affect it).

The notion of climate justice is asking those of us living in greenhouse gas-spewing developed nations to recognize that we have wrecked havoc with the global climate, and that the impacts of this climate chaos are hitting the least developed regions of the world first - and to do something to mitigate these impacts.

But our day has come; to wit, the severe drought affecting agriculture in the southwestern USA. "There but for the grace of God go I" will not apply to us much longer.

What we do to the children of the poor and "climate innocent,"

we do to our own children.

Tck, tck, tck.