Compassion is Starting to Taste Quite Different

My husband said something shocking to me recently — something that made me hang my head. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It's just sad that we even have to contemplate that," I replied. "Well, it's even sadder for the rest of Nature if we don't" was his response.

So what shocking thing did my husband say?

What is left of the land and oceans must be left to restore itself. As I see it now, the only solution is that as much food as possible must be manufactured from chemicals and cell culture to set the land and oceans free.

A couple of days earlier, he'd passed on the link to a February 2021 research paper entitled Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss: Three Levers for Food System Transformation in Support of Nature. While those three levers are all solutions I've thought of often, it was good to see them in (someone else's) print from a prestigious outfit, Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which is a world-leading policy institute based in London, UK. Here are the three levers they are suggesting for "creating a more biodiversity-supporting food system" (pp. 22-29):

Lever 1. Dietary change to reduce overall demand for food - We produce more food than we need per capita; one third of the food we produce is lost or wasted; the environmental footprint [foodprint?] of animal-sourced foods is generally larger than for plant-sourced foods; trends towards consumption of high-impact foods are increasing. In other words, we need to make a shift from beef to beans (and anyone who's had a yummy black bean burger knows that this isn't an imposition or a sacrifice). 

Lever 2. Setting aside land specifically for the conservation and proliferation of habitats and wildlife that support biodiversity - We have to return vast tracts of pastureland and farmland to native forest cover (or tall prairie grasslands, where appropriate), as this will provide the greatest potential for carbon sequestration, especially in developed nations that "account for 70 per cent of the carbon that would be sequestered by restoring land currently occupied by animal agriculture" (p. 25). 

Protecting or restoring undisturbed habitats and whole ecosystems of significant size is vital for species recovery, especially of large animals at risk of extinction. [I mean, c'mon, do we truly believe that our species — despite the impacts on every other species — has the right to every square inch / centimeter of this planet? Are we truly that arrogant? What a fatal hubris!]

Lever 3. Adapting the way that land is farmed - We must "adopt more biodiversity-supporting modes of food production." There are two avenues for this: i) Retain wildlife habitat "pockets" within agricultural lands; ii) change farming methods. 

The report suggests three "key avenues" for changing how we grow our food:

• Reducing the volume of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, mulch, water, etc.) and using inputs more efficiently (something called precision agriculture) through the "4 Rs" principle: the right source, in the right amount, in the right place, at the right time.
  
•  
• Substituting more sustainable alternative inputs, such as crop rotation to ensure soil fertility instead of using chemical / synthetic fertilizers. Another example is using no-till methods to limit disturbance of natural processes in the soil. Still another example is supporting natural pollination and pest control rather than using pesticides.
•  
  
• Switching to modes of production that use land quite differently, through agroforestry, agro-ecological and organic approaches, and permaculture principles. These practices eschew monocultures (huge tracts of land on which only one crop is sown), recognizing that biodiversity is the farmer's friend. This is sometimes called Nature-friendly farming.

Now here's the catch:

Someone commented over dinner last night that we're still not doing much "forward thinking." (The Natural Step calls it backcasting — picturing what we want or where we need to get to, and then working backwards to figure out what we must do to achieve these goals.)

Indeed, the increasingly intersecting climate emergency and biodiversity crisis (can you say Sixth Mass Extinction?) represent what I call a crisis of imagination. Despite the millions of people who read science fiction and no doubt equal numbers who enjoy fantasy and sci-fi movies, apparently we can't imagine our way out of an economy that is destroying all the life-sustaining properties of our biosphere.

So here's my contribution for this week. We need a "significant reduction in overall demand for food"? Then let's stop manufacturing Cheetos®. They're a non-vegetarian (there's animal-derived rennet in the so-called cheese) "crunchy corn puff snack" that people just. don't. need. Imagine how much farmland could be saved and shared with the rest of Nature if we got off our addictive junk food habits! This boycott idea fits the three levers described above: 

Dietary change to reduce overall demand for food (this idea would help mitigate the obesity crisis, too)

Using less land for farming so it can be re-naturalized (no more junk food crops = less land needed for farming)

Changing how we farm the land (no more corn monocultures)

Here's to a diet that includes fresh corn on the cob rather than "crunchy corn puff snacks"!

 

It's that Harvest Time of Year Again

Young People's Agriculture entries at my local fall fair

Fall Fair time again! And what a delightful day yesterday was for my small community's annual harvest celebration. 

As I've been doing for eight years now, I once again convened the Young People's Agriculture section. I'm always in a big open-sided tent with all the other children's sections, so I get to witness their imagination and creativity in all sorts of arts and crafts categories along with their food-growing skills and commitment in my section. 

I get big smiles and hugs from little ones, handshakes from teenaged trophy winners, and lots of oohs and ahs from the visitors impressed by gorgeous, healthy fruits and veggies — not to mention giant zucchinis! 

(The whole point of fall fair judging 100 years ago was to teach what healthy produce should look like, which is why uniformity was sought. Nowadays, that uniformity often comes with the cost of GMOs and food waste, so we're starting to appreciate imperfect and blemished foods. But the initial intent came from a good place.)

Again I was reminded of the importance of teaching our young people how to grow food. I'm so convinced of the significance of this shift in our culture, our societies and our education systems that I'm presenting on it at the upcoming World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC 2017), being hosted in Vancouver, Canada in September. 

The title of my presentation is The Most Important Curriculum: Learning to Grow Food in a Changing Climate. Here's the abstract I submitted:

The climate change crisis, largely ignored by education systems in North America, is changing everything, but especially our food security (an issue largely ignored by North Americans). Climate disruption is leading to droughts, floods, heat waves, extreme weather events, negative impacts on yields in all major food-producing regions, crop failures, food shortages, volatile food prices, food riots, famines, conflicts, revolts, and starvation. For the last 10,000 years, human beings have evolved into a species dependent on agriculture, and agriculture depends on a stable climate — which is now disappearing. Developing resilience by learning how to grow food, build soil, collect rainwater and generate energy seems to be quickly becoming more important than learning to read, write and do math.

A few years ago, I was part of an environmental education workshop where someone derisively said, "Sure, we can teach kids to grow a cup of beans, but ...." What he added next was all theory and no dirt on hands (or hands in dirt).

Beans and beets

I realized then that this person must not understand global warming, carbon feedbacks and climate disruption. The greatest threat isn't melting Arctic summer sea ice, rising sea levels or even extreme weather events — it's what is going to happen to agriculture and our food security as these impacts worsen. 

We can't grow food overnight, and nor can we learn to grow food overnight. That "cup of beans" — if it is grown in a place that has been ravaged by climate chaos by someone who learned young how to "grow food in a changing climate" might someday mean the difference between life and death ... literally.

As the climate change emergency deepens, today's children need to learn the skills that will help them create their best possible future. Offering food-growing opportunities is one of the most valuable gifts we will ever give to young people. 

Let's provide them with as much access and exposure to — and experience in — home and school gardening and community farming as possible, throughout the school year and into the summer. Encouraging their entries at your local Fall Fair is one way to do that.

Learning to grow food in ways that respect the rest of Nature

 

Their Most Important Learning

Last weekend was the Fall Fair in my small community. I have the privilege of convening the Young People's Agriculture section each year. As a tribute to this harvest time, my blog this week will simply regale you with photos of local children's efforts in learning to grow their own food, medicine and beauty. 

Enjoy!

Potatoes are one of the most important survival crops

Pumpkin, biggest and most unusual (it was a small year for pumpkins!)

An entry into the Garden Challenge

Flower arrangements

Aren't these gorgeous sunflowers? I've never seen them that soft yellow colour before.

Herb Growing and Processing (lots of interest in this fairly new category!)

An entry in one of the education categories: "If I grew the food my family needs, I would ..."

The Scarlett runner beans grew HUGE this summer!

The judges loved this collection of fruit

It's sometimes hard to keep the exhibits from making their way into my tummy!

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.

And With That, Lima, We're Through

* Click here for an update. A happyish update.

What's the word for what happened in Lima at the COP20 climate change conference over the last two weeks? Besides ZERO, I mean. Nothing, nada, nichts. Nothing was accomplished. Absolutely sweet $#@! all. But what's the word to describe hundreds of countries and thousands of people getting together to solve the climate crisis and ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING? 

Despicable? Obscene? Callous? Negligent? Criminal? Suicidal? Ecocidal? Progenycidal, for sure. 

When I was out yesterday, I heard people talking about the French Revolution. The guillotine. Aristocratic heads rolling. People getting sick and tired of the oligarchy having their way with the planet. Why are the rich not afraid of an uprising? 

Not one gawddamn blessed thing that is actually going to safeguard the future was agreed to. Not one! I'm sure they would disagree, with their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and their Multilateral Assessments and their Adaptation Knowledge Initiative and their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions and their Nazca Climate Action Portal (no, not NASCAR). But not a single one of those, well, whatever-they-are, gets us even heading in the direction of zero carbon, which is where we need to be by mid-century (with our emissions declining by the end of 2015 ... not sort of waiting until 2020 to even get started sort of thinking about slowing our emissions). I didn't hear any talk at all of adopting the IPCC's best-case scenario, RCP2.6! [Update: There is no mention of it in the draft agreement, although the spirit of it seems to have been included.]

Here's a short history of global action talk on climate change:

• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC)
• Kyoto Protocol
• Bali Roadmap
• Poznan, um, nothing?
• Copenhagen Accord
• Cancun Agreements
• Durban Outcomes (and the Durban Platform for Advanced Action)
• Doha Climate Gateway
• Warsaw Outcomes (Come on, Poland! "Outcomes" again -- can't you be more creative?) (p.s. Turns out they also offered the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts)
• Lima Call for Climate Action

I've had respect until today for the UNFCCC and its difficult task and the daunting process of bringing nearly 200 nations to consensus. But each year, it's more of the same old nothing. New names (ahem, Poland) for the same old empty promises. Now I'm convinced that this whole thing has been a charade, a farce played out to appease us -- no doubt so that we won't rise up!

You can read the pile of bollocks here: http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lima/lima-call-for-climate-action-puts-world-on-track-to-paris-2015/

So, I'm through. I'm finished. Over and out. If the fossil fuel corporations and the fossil-fooled governments of the world so badly want to extinguish most life on the planet, who am I to get in their way and try to ram a stick in their wheels? I mean, those poor rich bastards don't have all the money yet, so how can people like me even think of asking them to stop this deadly global game before they're through? The Burning Age truly is over, but it seems world leaders need to be burned before they'll admit it and embrace the Golden Age of Perpetual Energy.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to focus on teaching children how to grow their own food, build their own soil, collect their own rainwater, and generate their own energy. I'm not saying that's going to be easy -- there are still lots of parents and teachers in my culture who don't recognize the threat that climate disruption poses to their children's food security. But at least I'll be doing something, and not just "talking" here with you every Sunday morning, achieving nothing (though I've enjoyed "meeting" some of you along the way).

This blog started out as a compendium of compassionate climate actions in countdown to the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. That COP15 finished off a lot of climate change activists. High hopes were dashed to smithereens. 

Many of us re-emerged a few months later and we've been slightly reinvigorated over the last few years (no thanks to the COPs but to sharing in a global civil society movement, and more recently, thanks to CAN International and to the IPCC's Really Cool Plan 2.6, which gave us some small remaining hope in hell of surviving this). 

But I, for one, have lost much of the resilience I came into this fight with. I don't want to hang around waiting for the utter disillusionment and anguish that the Paris COP21 seems likely to produce. My puny efforts won't make any difference anyway. (I can imagine how all the small island states must feel.) 

So picture me in the garden with the children at my school! Sowing, tending, harvesting in our six little beds. Building bat boxes and pruning raspberry canes. Playing Photosynthesis Relay and sitting quietly writing garden poetry or creating garden art. Baking pizzas we've made from scratch in the outdoor cob oven we built ourselves. 

Below is my parting gift for you. If the uprising happens (and not just in my pizza dough), I'll be there in a flash! Till then, take care.

p.s. Here's my favourite thing I've posted: 0 Days to Copenhagen - The Power of One (+ 3,741,952 Others) 

Rise Up

by The Parachute Club

Rise up, rise up

Rise up, rise up 

Rise up, rise up, rise up

Rise up, rise up

The spirit's time has come

Woman's time has come

Spirit's time ....

We want lovin' we want laughter again
We want heartbeat
We want madness to end, we want dancin'
We want to run in the streets
We want freedom to live in this peace
We want power, we want to make it okay
Want to be singin' at the end of the day
Children to breathe a new life
We want freedom to love who we please

(Rise up, rise up) Oh, rise and show your power
(Rise up, rise up) Everybody is dancing to the sun
(Rise up, rise up) It's time for celebration
(Rise up, rise up) The spirit's time has come

Talkin' 'bout the right time to be workin' for peace
Wantin' all the tensions in the world to ease
We want to love, run wild in the streets
We want to be free, we want to be free

Talkin' about a new way
Talkin' about changing our names
Talkin' about building the land of our dreams
This tightrope's got to learn how to bend
We're makin' new plans
We're gonna start it again

Rise up, rise up

Rise up, rise up 

Rise up, rise up

Rise up, rise up, rise up

Spirit's time has come 

Spirit's time has come

(Rise up rise up) Oh, rise and show your power
(Rise up rise up) Ah, dance into the sun
(Rise up rise up) It's time for celebration
(Rise up rise up) The spirit's time has come

Woman's time has come

Spirit's time has come

Rise up

 (Rise up)
Everybody
Time for you and me 

You gotta be happy

Rise up 

Why We Can't Solve the Climate Crisis ... We're Useless, Narcissistic and Disconnected

Caveat: I'm talking about EuroAmericans in this post. I don't want to assume that all human beings on this planet are as useless as we are.

When you spend hours every day reading about climate change, researching climate change, writing about climate change, teaching about climate change and talking with others about climate change, it's easy to get a little miffed at times about the slowness of our reaction time.

And when I say "reaction time," I'm talking about society's general apathy about climate change, but also about how long it's taken the average Joe Public person in our culture to wake up. The latest instalment of the IPCC's 5th assessment report has people talking though (with thanks to the media). Generally misquoting the report and not understanding who or what the IPCC is, but finally talking at least.

Unfortunately, it seems people are talking ... but still not thinking. And that's probably because we still aren't taking the time to sit down and think about what we're hearing on the news and in the other media.*** 

Case in point: given all the warnings in the Working Group 3 report on mitigation about food security, I'm still hearing people go on and on about sea level rise. Our food security is extremely fragile. Food emergencies have already started. Every aspect of global warming and climate change (from loss of Arctic summer sea ice to yes, sea level rise) can affect our food production. Sea level rise -- the kind that people are picturing and pseudo-panicking about -- on the other hand, is a creeping problem that will likely take decades if not a century or more.

My husband and I (he's the one who spends hours and hours every day on climate change) were talking about how blessed we are, food-wise, at this time in this place -- and how we're throwing it all away. Environmental NGOs still create climate change campaigns that don't mention food security while others are creating food security campaigns that don't even mention climate change. It's crazy!

Why can't people (of all ilks and intelligences) critically think their way to seeing the connection between food security and climate change? We came up with two theories:

1. Pathological cultural narcissism (this one comes from an old friend who practises psychiatry in a large Canadian city)

Narcissism is excessive interest in oneself; extreme selfishness; a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration. Because it runs our lives (remember, I'm talking societally here) and we have no insight into the fact that it's controlling us, it is a psychosis (a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality).

We are disconnected from reality.

2. Pathological cultural uselessness (again, please remember that I'm talking societally and about EuroAmericans) 

People in this culture no longer know how to ensure our own survival. Practically no one knows how to grow, prepare or preserve all their own food. We don't know how to grow or forage our own fibre plants to make our own cloth and clothing. We have to hire tradespeople to create our shelters (and even then, each one has a specialty and very few can build a whole house). We don't know how to collect our own clean drinking water or generate our own electricity.... All we know how to do is shop, shop, shop ... buy, buy, buy. In other words, we're useless. 

We are disconnected from reality. 

So if we don't understand our connection to the "real world" there's little chance that people are going to see/understand/act on the connections that are being impacted by climate disruption.

Which brings me to the children and what they should be learning in school. The most important curriculum in a child's life today is learning how to build their own soil, grow their own food, collect their own rainwater, and generate their own energy. Let them study reading and writing, math and science, social studies and physical education through their real-world learning about how to survive. 

On this day of religious rebirth for many millions of people around the world, may you find some time to reconnect with Creation.

*** Perhaps every time we sit on the toilet, we could take that time to think about climate change. It's not like we've got anything else to do (I'm obviously desperately trying to figure out ways to get the public thinking up climate change solutions ;-).

We're Getting Close to a Breakthrough in Public Understanding of Climate Change, But World Leaders Are Still Dense

The IPCC AR5 WGII SPM is out. Isn't that exciting? Wait, what?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report Working Group II Summary for Policymakers is out. It's the one that looked at impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and despite the shenanigans that only people who read the technical (scientific) report before the policymakers' report will see, it's making waves where IPCC reports don't normally make waves ... at my school, for example, and at my favourite sushi restaurant.

My school principal told me the other day that students should be learning how to grow food because the UN said so (or something like that). As the teacher who designed, fundraised for and installed (with my students and their families) the school garden -- I'm someone who has known for years that students should be learning how to grow food. Alas, my colleagues, for the most part, don't see food growing as a curricular pursuit, so it's not as effective a program as I'd hoped.

It was interesting to hear my boss and some folks at the restaurant talk about the latest instalment of the IPCC's fifth report. Suddenly it's serious! Suddenly it's about food security and water sources! And it's about bloody time! 

I can tell that it's finally getting into the general public's awareness by how much the loony tune deniers are out in full force, telling bigger whoppers than ever. A natural health newsletter that purports to have millions of subscribers responded to the Working Group II report with headlines like "Plant use of CO2 utterly ignored by IPCC" and "The UN goal is to enslave humanity under a system of dictatorial control." Seriously! The author of this "editorial" has "a background in science and software technology" so that makes him a total expert on climate change and the workings of the United Nations, right?

Anyway, the more frightened the deniers get about "losing" (which I don't understand, because we're all losing), the more ridiculous their claims become. But that's simply a sign that public awareness about climate change is growing.

In the meantime, President Obama's Administration in the United States is "taking public comment about possibly updating standards for existing landfills." Oh yeah, that's gonna solve America's pesky wee climate change emergency! You go, Barry. 

So once again, we have voices telling us on the one hand that climate change is threatening our food and water ... and on the other hand, we see world leaders doing diddly squat about it.

I'm sorry, folks. This is disheartening work. I'm signing off now.

We Don't Know What We Don't Know

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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