Touché! Two Can Play at the Government's Game

Well, last week got away from me and I completely forgot to post a blog. But today, as if to make up for it, I woke up to this exciting news!

Some of you will know that my beloved and I are huge supporters (in all ways possible) of Our Children's Trust (OCT) in the United States. (If you haven't added your name to their call for intergenerational climate justice, please do it now!) Those 21 beleaguered youth plaintiffs have discovered just how convoluted the American (and likely any) justice system can be — and how tight-fistedly the fossil fuel industry rules the world. 

Truly, it's like all the politicians (except for a small handful), at least in Canada and the US, are afraid that Big Oil is going to pull their Big Money from election campaigns (like that would be the end of the world or something ... snark alert). Or is it worse, and lives have been threatened? (I've watched enough American TV to have a few conspiracy theories of my own.)

President T****'s government has tied this case up in dozens of knots (imagine, an appeal before the case has even been heard! now that's desperate — and practically proof of their guilt), but I've got to hand it to the lawyers handling the OCT case. They have spoken truth to power with their latest Urgent Motion for Preliminary Injunction. The Table of Contents alone had me cheering this morning! (Check out section VI. B. below. The plaintiffs, by the way, are the young people, and the defendants are the departments of the US Government that deal out death, I mean, deal with fossil fuels.)

Here are a few choice quotes:

"The record shows that, for decades, Defendants have knowingly and affirmatively placed Plaintiffs in peril of present and worsening climate change-induced harms, with shocking, deliberate indifference to the known and obvious dangers in advancing a fossil fuel-based energy system."

"Defendants made every effort to prevent Plaintiffs' case from being decided, all while accelerating fossil fuel development [as President T**** promised he would do as part of his election platform] and increasing GHG emissions to the point where it will become impossible for Plaintiffs to protect themselves from the climate danger Defendants have had a role in causing. Defendants have deliberately chosen to prioritize use of fossil fuels in our national energy system, disregarding decades of knowledge that this path would destroy our Nation and the lives of children and future generations. This injunction will serve and protect the public's interest in national security and liberty and prevent further inequity to Plaintiffs."

"Dr. Stiglitz confirms that '[t]he current national energy system, in which approximately 80 percent of energy comes from fossil fuels, is a direct result of decisions and actions taken by Defendants.' In his expert opinion Dr. Stiglitz avers: 'The fact that the U.S. national energy system is so predominately fossil fuel-based is not an inevitable consequence of history. The current level of dependence of our national energy system on fossil fuels is a result of intentional actions taken by Defendants over many years. These actions, cumulatively, promote the use of fossil fuels, contribute to dangerous levels of CO2 emissions, and are causing climate change.'"

Folks, I see this as a watershed moment. If the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit does not immediately grant this urgent motion, then we're going to know just what we're up against and how dumb it would be to remain peaceful and calm and good and kind and sweet in our protests to safeguard the future of life on this precious planet! 

Our Children's Trust, meet Extinction Rebellion. I, for one, rebel against the extinction of the children — of all species — that I love so dearly.

I'm Becoming More and More Concerned About the State of Things

The Peruvian spectacled bear is facing an uncertain future

Here's a new year's compilation of what's got me feeling more and more worried these days.

We tried to watch Paddington the other night. You know, the live action movie about a sweet little talking bear from Darkest Peru? (It's supposed to be a spectacled bear, known for being playful and mischievous.) For some reason, one of the characters is a evil taxidermist (played by Nicole Kidman) who is not content with the animals she has already stuffed. We might have made it through her nasty scenes except that she suddenly let loose with a not-well-veiled screed against immigrants and refugees. We turned it off immediately, but I was shaken. That sort of manipulative mental violence is pretty insidious. :-(

Next, my hubby put together a film this week showing how little the latest climate talks (in Katovice, Poland) achieved — and then they lied about it, with the media lapping it up. It's bad enough that they haven't accomplished much of anything in 24 years of meetings, but to be deceptive about it, as well? That takes the cake. Perhaps we could blame it on their lack of sleep. Anyway, here's the movie. It's called Life Condemned: The Intolerable Evil Corporate Carbon Corruption. Says it all, eh? :-(

Next, do democratic governments around the world seem to be more and more at the beck and call of fossil fuel corporations? Here in British Columbia, Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted (they're not so mounted anymore) Police have warned that they're moving in soon to forcibly remove a First Nations community that has barred a natural gas pipeline from crossing its unceded territory. This makes me feel sick to my stomach. Sick in my heart. Sick for all the children, and for all that is sacred, healthy and beautiful in the world. :-(

Where is the love? Where is the care and concern? Where are the parents willing to make sacrifices for their kids? Where is any government willing to stand up for the people against Big Money and Big Oil? I never imagined it would play out so blatantly ... so cruelly ... right before our eyes. :-(

Children ... Our Vulnerable Little Ones

Twin tornadoes ripped through Canada's capital region on Friday night. In a country blessed with strong infrastructure (due to our winters and our wealth as a nation), nearly 300 properties were damaged or destroyed. Several people were injured but no fatalities have been reported, thank goodness, though hundreds have been displaced and some have lost everything. The stories of complete strangers opening their doors to those left without power or without a home at all have been heartwarming.

However, one harrowing sound bite of a father who nearly lost his daughter left me sobbing ... it is so metaphorical of what is already happening in other parts of the world, but what is only just beginning in this privileged region. Our children — our most beloved and yet our most vulnerable — are being hit first and worst by the ravages of climate disruption.

Listen in here as this distraught father describes what he experienced as he struggled to hold on to his daughter during the tornado. 

Folks, we are ALL struggling to hold on to our children now. Tomorrow, it might be the children of the wonderful fellow trying to comfort his friend. But we need to acknowledge that parents all around the world are not able to protect and save their children who are being lost in storms and mudslides and floods, or because of droughts and famines and contaminated drinking water. This one man's raw emotion is, for me, a metaphor for the pain and agony that all parents go through when they lose a child, or even just come close to it.

This morning, I received the latest piece from a wonderful friend and climate change activist, Dr. Reese Halter. Fossil Fuels Poisoning Children explains why we need to get to zero combustion and zero carbon emissions, even without climate change in the picture. The statistics in this article are horrifying. Half of the 4.4 million schoolchildren in New Delhi, India have permanently stunted lung development from breathing fossil fuel pollution. What are we doing to our children?

"Man has poisoned our children and the entire planet with fossil fuels. Now we must all fight for our survival."

One commenter wrote: "In a world that has been created for all, it is a tragic reflection on humanity that our children are being born already poisoned by our own hand. No accident of nature but the hand of man's own greed." 
Reese responds: "We are ALL one. And it's high time that we understand the severity of this crisis...."

Which brings me to the last thing I want to share this week (besides a link to a 2017 post I wrote called What Parents Won't Acknowledge About the Climate Crisis Is Going to Kill Their Children). It's a video in which two scientists talk about the "perfectly normal and natural" reactions that people have when they first truly grasp the urgency of this crisis. 

While watching it, I noticed two things. At about 7:30, one of the scientists shows that she hasn't yet grasped how bad (and not neat) things are going to become. You can hear the denial set in when she talks about her own child. The other thing I noticed is that feeling this range of la-la-I-don't-want-to-hear-this emotions is a developed-world privileged luxury. As I pointed out above, many parents have already experienced devastating loss — they can't deny that this is happening.

Toothache as Metaphor for the Climate Change Blame Game

From LifeHacks Mama

I, quite blessedly, reached the autumn of my life without ever losing a tooth or suffering from toothache. Well, all that has changed. And whose fault is it, anyway?

The year I turned 40, I landed in hospital twice — both times for "old people" problems. It was quite a shock to so suddenly "turn old." I'd thought I was healthy and fit. What the heck? (I'm happy to report that I haven't been in the hospital since, although I have sat in the emergency ward several times with a sprained or broken ankle.*)

Twenty years later and shortly after my 60th birthday, I'm suddenly in excruciating pain and facing my first root canal or tooth extraction. The funny part is that I've started playing the blame game!

• Is it that new dentist's fault? Did he go a millimetre too deep when drilling to replace that lost filling?
• Is it my old dentist's fault for not repairing the tooth properly in the first place?
• Is it my fault for not getting to the dentist sooner?
• Is it my community's fault for not finding a new dentist to replace the old dentist in a more timely way?
• Is it my fault for not taking care of my teeth properly for the last 55 years?
• Is it my parents' fault for giving me lousy teeth genes? 

And all of a sudden, I've realized how ridiculous the blame game is. What matters is not whose fault it is. The inventors of the internal combustion engine? The captains of industry who saw big profits in a world of manufacturing using fossil fuel energy? The car makers who, perhaps quite genuinely, pushed their automobiles as a way to clean the streets of smelly, unhealthy horse manure? Rich people in the USA for spewing more than their fair share of greenhouse gases in order to luxuriate in their wealth? Hollywood for promoting that lifestyle? The millions of people in Africa and Asia for burning wood to cook their paltry meals? Each one of us for partaking in what's available to us?

Sure, each and every sector must now be accountable for their role in the climate change emergency. Each must take responsibility for doing their part to save my tooth, er, the biosphere.

What matters is that I need to get my tooth fixed so the pain will go away. And we need to stop spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We need to get our carbon emissions down to practically zero, as rapidly as possible. We need to work together as a global community of nations to achieve this zero-carbon economy — or perhaps race each other to zero. 

I think a global race to zero carbon would be fun! Am I alone in this? The USA loved the race to the moon. Why not a race to ensure our survival? Developing nations have a head start, in a sense, because they haven't gone as deeply down the fossil fuel energy rabbit hole as we have (in the same way that they leapfrogged over landline telephones and went straight to cellular phone technology). 

So, getting my tooth fixed — or losing it completely — is going to be painful, but trying to pin the blame on anyone is not helpful. And I'll feel much better once it's done. Getting our energy mix down to zero carbon is not going to be easy, but we are going to feel so much better once it's done.

* Completely unrelated, here's the best advice I've ever heard for people with weak ankles. Every time you brush your teeth, stand on one foot for half the time, and then the other foot. This balancing act is what will strengthen the ligaments in your ankle. It's working for me. Touch wood, after seven sprains and three fractures, my ankles have been strong and healthy ever since I received this advice. (And tooth brushing has become much more fun ... even if it didn't work for this poor aching tooth!)

Cassandras of the World, Unite and Be Heard!

I was never much interested in Greek mythology and didn't study it in school. In fact, I knew nothing about Cassandra until people starting calling me by that name. Suddenly Cassandra became a theme in my writings about climate change.

Today I want to say that it feels like the Cassandras of the world are starting to be heard — and believed. Which means, of course, that the deniers and Big Money and Big Oil are becoming more and more desperate and underhanded. But it also means that the Cassandras of the world aren't as lonely.

My husband stumbled upon this prescient ABBA song yesterday (video below). It's from 1982 and was the B-side (only oldsters will understand that reference!) to their song The Day Before You Came. "Pity, Cassandra, that no one believed you ... Some of us wanted but none of us would listen to words of warning."

To be clear, I'm not saying that I have Cassandra's gift (or curse) of prescience or clairvoyance. I merely make and take the time to keep up to date on the climate change science and then look around the world to see what's already happening. And I understand that what's befalling others will soon enough befall us. Then I make and take the time to write and teach about what I've learned. That's when I get called Cassandra.

Alas, there are more and more of us, and our collective voice is getting louder and louder. (It also helps that people are witnessing economic signs that the market is moving to renewable energy, even if our governments aren't switching fossil fuel subsidies over yet, which is deplorable and unforgivable.)

Enjoy this blast from the past, even if the message is a sad one. And hey, invite a Cassandra out for a tea or coffee this week!

Cassandra

(written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus; sung by Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog)

Down in the street they're all singing and shouting
Staying alive though the city is dead
Hiding their shame behind hollow laughter
While you are crying alone on your bed

Pity, Cassandra, that no one believed you
But then again you were lost from the start
Now we must suffer and sell our secrets
Bargain, playing smart, aching in our hearts

Sorry, Cassandra, I misunderstood
Now the last day is dawning
Some of us wanted but none of us would
Listen to words of warning
But on the darkest of nights
Nobody knew how to fight
And we were caught in our sleep

Sorry, Cassandra, I didn't believe
You really had the power
I only saw it as dreams you would weave
Until the final hour

So in the morning your ship will be sailing
Now that your father and sister are gone
There is no reason for you to linger
You're grieving deeply but still moving on
You know the future is casting a shadow
No one else sees it, but you know your fate
Packing your bags, being slow and thorough
Knowing, though you're late, that ship is sure to wait

Sorry, Cassandra, I misunderstood 
Now the last day is dawning
Some of us wanted but none of us would
Listen to words of warning
But on the darkest of nights
Nobody knew how to fight
And we were caught in our sleep
Sorry, Cassandra, I didn't believe you really had the power
I only saw it as dreams you would weave
Until the final hour

I watched her ship leaving harbor at sunrise,
Sails almost slack in the cool morning rain
She stood on deck, just a tiny figure
Rigid and restrained, blue eyes filled with pain

Sorry, Cassandra, I misunderstood
Now the last day is dawning
Some of us wanted but none of us would
Listen to words of warning
But on the darkest of nights
Nobody knew how to fight
And we were caught in our sleep
Sorry, Cassandra, I didn't believe you really had the power
I only saw it as dreams you would weave
Until the final hour
(I'm sorry, Cassandra)

I Have a Question for Climate Change Deniers: What Is It Going to Take?

It was a bad week for those who believe that the children (of all species) deserve a future — one with a viable biosphere and a survivable climate.

First, "President" T**** (I refuse to give his name airtime) decided to halt American momentum on the climate crisis. Is that ignorance? Stupidity? Negligence? Or just plain cronyism? (With his biggest crony being Putin, who cares not for the Russian people but for the Russian gas and oil industries and their continuing profits.)

Then we got word that the climate change denial group, the Heartland Institute, is sending their denialist drivel of a book (authored by three fossil fuel industry shills with PhDs), intended to seed even more doubt about anthropogenic global warming in the minds of the scientifically illiterate American public, to 200,000 science teachers throughout the United States. Good grief — no, bad grief. 

As I commented online about a Washington Post piece about this travesty of propaganda, there is a bright side. The Heartland Institute has just set the precedent that will allow us to send a copy of Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, to 200,000 science teachers, too! After all, fair's fair. Thanks, Heartland.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power trailer

I got up the nerve to ask Heartland Institute to explain their mindset given the climate change emergency we're facing down. Another commenter wrote: "You do know of course that in a matter of time, very distant time, the sun is going to burn up and that will bring about the end of life on earth as we know it. Our piddling carbon footprint in the grand scheme of things means very little."

My response? "So in the near future, you don't care what kind of world we're leaving the children? Because the sun's going to burn out in a few billion years?" (I was glad to see that others suggested her comment was inane if not a little hard-hearted.)

I am really trying to understand a mindset that seems to put profit and greed ahead of life. I feel like I'm missing something. We can't drink oil, breathe "natural" (methane) gas, or eat coal. So why do so many North Americans continue to defend those industries ... at our peril?

To another Heartland supporter and climate change denier who likes the idea of spewing pseudo-science to teachers across the United States, I suggested that they follow the money. "If you do your due diligence, you'll soon discover innumerable links between the authors, fossil fuel and (for at least two of the three) tobacco companies, and 'think tanks' or other organizations (such as Heartland) funded in part by Big Oil or Big Coal (Exxon, Koch Brothers, Peabody, etc.). Even the person who wrote the forward for this second edition works for a lobby group 'funded by New Mexico oil and gas industry interests' (Sourcewatch). What the authors Bob Carter, Fred Singer and Craig Idso do (and continue to do with this publication) is called shilling."

The Heartland Institute Facebook page has a Ronald Reagan meme up top: "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." Then why, I asked, isn't the American government protecting its most vulnerable citizens (its children) from the hellish future that is already being unleashed by climate chaos? I just don't get it.

On a friend's FB page, in a discussion of T****'s climate change policy devastation (and the suggestion that he's doing this for the profit), someone wrote: "Exactly gore has made what a billion off of climate change." [sic]

I flipped on the guy. I'm so sick and tired of people ranging on Al Gore. I wrote: "The man has probably done more to make us aware of the climate change emergency than any other living human being. Gore understands that the fastest way to curb greenhouse gas emissions is through market mechanisms, which can turn on a dime (which T****'s stupid tweets have proven). I don't agree with him on everything (I don't agree with anyone on everything!), but revolution takes a lot longer than people think -- and we don't have that time." I invited him to read The Planet-Saving, Capitalism-Subverting, Surprisingly Lucrative Investment Secrets of Al Gore.

But I couldn't stop there: "If you want to rang on someone/something, why not rang on the governments (i.e., taxpayers) the world over who are still giving trillions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuel corporations every year! (And that's while they say that renewable energy companies should be able to stand on their own two feet. Gimme a break. Fossil fuel corporations have never stood on their own two feet. Society has always had to pay the social/health and environmental costs of fossil fuel pollution.)"

Another one that made my blood boil said that abnormally high snowpack in the Sierras proved that climate change is a scam and the California drought is over. Look, we all hope and pray for California that their drought will end (heck, Canada gets nearly 50% of its food from that American state, so you know we've got our fingers crossed for good luck), but it's not as simple as one horrendously rainy season (five deaths!) and a high snowpack. All those aquifers and reservoirs and wells are going to take years to refill.

What is it going to take for climate change deniers to see that their delay tactics are endangering us all? Oh well, let's face it. It's just been a bad and sad week for the climate.

It Would Appear Evil Has Triumphed

Evil has "trumped" good. The future can feel the reverberations.

Here's an excerpt from an essay-in-progress by Dr. Peter Carter, an indomitable climate change activist.

How bad can a Trump US presidency be?

Surely it would not be the end of world? Actually it would.

The surprise Trump win turns out to be the latest episode in a decades long overt conspiracy and campaign of deception and "big money" political influence by the American fossil fuel corporations to keep America and the world dependent on and dominated by the fossil fuel industry.

This makes Trump the greatest ever threat to world and US national security. A Trump presidency in the United States would be the end of our world, including particularly America.

During the campaign, a number of reasons were given for a Trump win to be a national security nightmare, but the greatest, most definite security issue has been all but missed.

Trump as president would be the end of US national and world security because his stated agenda is to pollute the planet to death with catastrophic levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, global warming, climate disruption, and ocean acidification.

This is definite. It is in his platform on his campaign website, where, if elected president, Trump promises to "unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves." That "unleashing" — at a time when we should be desperately trying to meet a goal of zero carbon emissions — would result in the collapse of the life-sustaining biosphere, both land and oceans.

Since the Trump win, several reasons have been given why the Electoral College in the United States should not confirm Trump, but global climatic annihilation is not one of them.

The reason a Trump presidency would be the end of the world, which he has made no secret of, is that he rejects any measures to mitigate the effects of atmospheric greenhouse gas pollution. Worse still, his election platform is to burn all the American fossil fuels as fast as they can be fracked and mined. According to the science of greenhouse gases, this will lead to the end of American and world agriculture, ending civilization and making an unlivable world for today’s children.

The resulting global climate disruption, with its ever escalating heat waves, forest fires, drought, ocean heating, ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification makes the Trump agenda for his nation a death sentence for our planet.

The media gave the impression during the lead up to the election that Donald Trump had no fixed policies and just made things up as he went along the campaign trail — and they are still saying he has no election mandate. That is dangerously not the case. 

We're now hearing that Trump is back pedalling on a lot of his campaign rhetoric, including admitting that climate change might be real. But let's not be fooled. This man is a shill for Big Money and the fossil fuel corporations — and we know they will stop at nothing. There is no longer any distinction between the Church of Greed and State in the United States of America.

Summoning the Courage to Speak Our Minds (and Hearts) on Climate Change

Hannah and Rachel from Birmingham
getting their brave on!

As part of my introduction at our Break Free from Fossil Fuels presentation in Victoria (British Columbia's capital city, not the state in Australia) this past week, I talked about how often I find myself lowering my voice when I'm talking about climate change in a public place such as a restaurant. As I do this self-censoring, I chastise myself for being a coward at the same time that I'm rationalizing that I don't want to upset others.

Well, as so often happens in this world, synchronicity kicked in and the very next morning, an article on self-silencing around climate change came across my desk. In it, Chris Mooney for the Washington Post outlines research done by Nathaniel Geiger and Janet Swim of Penn State University. It turns out that I'm not alone. A lot of people self-silence when they think others aren't as concerned about climate change as they are. The researchers found that:

"[P]eople are often afraid to talk about climate change with their peers [let alone near strangers in a restaurant!] because they wrongly think those peers are more doubtful about climate change than they actually are. This incorrect perception -- which the authors dub 'pluralistic ignorance' -- then makes people fear that others will think they're less competent [or unkind, in my case], and thus, view them with less respect, if they bring up the subject or talk about it."

Reading that reminded me of the year we discovered on Christmas Eve that we hadn't been invited to a traditional Christmas get-together the next day. I was able to laugh it off (made for a very relaxing holiday!), but my hubby was more bemused than amused when the only explanation we could think of was that we'd talked about climate change at the previous year's Christmas dinner. We're pretty sure other friends have shunned (well, dropped) us because we have a lot to say on the topic of the changing climate. 

Certainly I've had friends suggest that I not be so negative (hmm, well, um, the end of most life on the planet will certainly give jellyfish the chance to flourish ... how's that for positive?), or not be so emotional (we seem to have chosen a path to extinction, ho hum, pass the peas ... is that better?). Have you seen my article on this topic in Alternatives Journal? Love in the Time of Climate Change. (Not my title -- I wanted to call it Can Deep Green Climate Change Activists Have Friends and Find True Love?)

When I speak to educators and other audiences, I often underscore the necessity of summoning our courage and compassion to becoming heroes for today's children -- and all future generations -- of all species. I hadn't registered that the simple act of speaking about climate change to others and speaking up about it in front of others is actually an act of courage.

Since I read that article, I've got my brave on and have started fighting back against the deniers (who are still around in full force despite the sheer weight of the evidence of climate chaos from around the world) by calling them out in the comments sections of online articles about climate disruption. They're often so irrational, so lacking in compassion, or so just plain wrong that it's not at all hard to respond to them. 

In other words, one doesn't have to be a climate scientist to counter the deniers, one just has to be a person who understands, as Greenpeace Canada's Laura Yates does, that "climate change is the most urgent threat humanity has ever faced." She wants to "be part of the generation that listens to the science, moves away from fossil fuels and begins the clean energy revolution." I'm a lot older, but so do I!

Just remember to talk compassion for the children and the world's most vulnerable who are already losing their lives or their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes and entire homelands. You can also mention the precautionary principle, thinking like an ancestor, and how you'd like to leave behind something other than progenycide as your legacy. Let's all start speaking up on climate change!

No to Climate Change, But No Time for System Change

We attended a lecture (we had to leave early, so missed the "public forum" part) the other night by Professor Richard Smith, Rutgers University lecturer, economic historian, member of the System Change Not Climate Change network in the U.S. and author of articles like "Green Capitalism: The God That Failed" and "Capitalism and the Destruction of Life on Earth: Six Theses on Saving the Humans."

Professor Smith's visit was sponsored by the Social Environmental Alliance and the Vancouver Eco-Socialist Group, organizations that see capitalism as a root cause of the climate change crisis and who are calling for "system change" as the crisis deepens.

"Ecosocialists see this ecological crisis as a symptom of the underlying economic and social system called capitalism, whose basic operating features include: (1) the imperative of profit and competition-driven expansion without limit, (2) the treatment of human labour and the natural world as commodities for sale rather than having value for human well-being and ecological stability; (3) benefits to a small and privileged social class wielding inordinate political power, (4) deformed social priorities amongst humans, including in our relationship to the rest of nature."

The title of Smith's talk was No to Climate Change - Yes to System Change. It was interesting and in many ways, spot on. He sure understands the climate change emergency. He is calling for a revolution away from capitalism -- or at least the worst forms of our Western, industrial, globalized, capitalist economy (the pillaging sort of capitalism that doesn't give a damn about the consequences of habitat destruction, resource loss, pollution or climate change). 

The problem is, we don't have time for an economic revolution. We need to get going on what we can be doing now. And that's simple. Economists keep telling us that the market can solve our ills. The time has come for them to prove it. Let's see what that "invisible hand" does with the market once we've set the following in place. My guess is that investments will swing briskly toward renewables!

1. Stop all direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels.**

2. Tax carbon. Really tax carbon.

3. Charge for pollution. Let companies pay for the social (health) and environmental costs of their businesses, damn it. Seriously, why should taxpayers have to cough up when corporations should be paying these costs before calculating their profits and paying dividends to shareholders?

4. And what of the banks? Don't they have just a teeny weeny bit too much power ("credit capitalism")? With none of the responsibilities?


** Some people worry that removing all fossil fuel subsidies will be unjust for poorer people. In the short term, this could well be true. But long term, fossil fuels are going to kill all of us, whether we're rich or poor. However -- and I welcome your thoughts on this, as mine aren't fully formed yet -- I think that winning an international race to zero carbon will actually be easier for the least developed nations, as they have come late to the fossil fuel party. Climate justice is for future generations as much as for today's less fortunate.

Do We Even Recognize Our Addiction?

I remember reading once about a woman who didn't recognize that she was an alcoholic until she looked objectively at her recycling bin and compared it to her neighbour's. 

There sure can be lots of denial around alcoholism, eh? People will have a drink to steady their nerves or to wind down after a busy day. Then they'll have a glass of wine with dinner and a nightcap before bed. Add a glass of wine at lunch, a second drink after a particularly stressful day, a whole bottle of wine at dinner, and ... well, I don't need to continue. It can be a creeping addiction. 

Not like crack cocaine, say, or heroin, where you have to procure an illegal (in my country) substance and a needle or pipe and then inject it or (um, I'm sort of drug-illiterate). The point I'm trying to make is that some habit-forming dependencies and addictions are socially invisible like drinking, and therefore are harder 1) to recognize, and 2) to admit to.

Lately, we've become more and more willing to admit to our addiction to fossil fuels. There have been many "interventions" over the last few decades. The "oil crisis" of the early 70s was one. Our growing awareness of greenhouse gases and climate change could be seen as another.

But I realized the other day that we're still not willing to admit to our addiction to growth. I attended a week-long event in a nearby city for the last week and stayed in a hotel. One evening, I was clicking through the TV channels (we don't have a TV at home, so it's always like a toy) and flicked quickly past the talking head of one of Canada's leading political parties, commenting on the country's latest budget. All I heard was "This budget does not have a plan for growth. It does nothing to help grow the economy."

Just with that tiny clip of an interview (on my way to finding a romantic comedy), I realized how hard it has been, is, and is going to be to get people thinking that we might want to examine our addiction to growth.

If our youngest, "hippest" political party leader can't speak to change, to green jobs, to a zero-carbon (or even low-carbon) economy, how will we ever break our dependence on continual growth? 

Folks, we need to speak the words. We need to say the words "zero" and "carbon" when we speak of the economy. We need to plant the seeds of transformation and revolution. This addiction is going to kill us if we don't end it soon. The "green economy" is our methadone ... a zero-carbon economy is more like a new, healthy lifestyle filled with fun exercise, fabulously healthy food and wonderfully sustaining relationships. 

The latest IPCC assessment (AR5) only offers one scenario (RCP2.6) that gives us any hope of keeping the global temperature increase below 2ºC (and it probably hasn't included carbon feedbacks, etc.). But that scenario is based on a centuries-long drawdown of CO2 from the atmosphere (lots of green jobs there!). If we don't start reducing CO2 emissions by 2015, cutting them by 5% per year, then we'll quite simply die of an overdose.

Five percent per year ... that probably sounds scary for anyone who can't see beyond the worldview of continual fossil-fuelled economic growth. But it's actually quite an exciting prospect because it represents a transition to an economy that is safer, cleaner, healthier, more peaceful, and much more equitable.

Let's talk about it in coffee shops and classrooms, waiting rooms and newspapers. Let's help people see that development of a zero-carbon economy is the antidote to our addiction to growth.

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?

Forget Climate Chaos ... Our Governments Are Out to Get Us First

British Columbia premier:
"Um, liquefied natural gas ...
you can drink that stuff, right?"

Have you noticed that those thin lines between paranoia, conspiracy theory and reality are becoming thinner all the time? 

I used to think of conspiracy theory as a fun but purely recreational "critical thinking" activity, one that perhaps sometimes leaned too far over into "creative thinking." 

But you know, that innocence died when George W. Bush watched as millions and millions of people, the world over, begged him to leave Iraq alone, and then he illegally invaded that beleaguered (and 9/11-innocent) country anyway. That was the moment I realized that the world had become nothing more than a stage for the obscenely rich and the mean-spirited multinational corporations (don't tell me they're amoral) to play out their brutish games.

A week ago I noticed that my province's ministry of education removed ecological literacy from its list of competencies that we want our students to graduate with. They completely "disappeared" anything about the environment, Nature, being a good eco-citizen. (Digital literacy, on the other hand, now figures prominently.) I was confused. Was I missing a page or what? 

Then, a few days ago, it all became very clear when we got the throne speech from our unelected premier. It was all about how LNG (liquid natural gas) exports will "disappear" our provincial debt. Hey, we don't want our schoolchildren understanding why putting profits before life might "disappear" their future, now do we? How sickeningly blatant. Completely stinks.

Yesterday, we heard from a professor friend whose research is being confiscated by his national government ... research that shows how perilously close we are to a climate change tipping point. The only other people who had access to his data have died recently. (Doodoo doodoo. That ran chills down my back.)

Today, I saw this:

Yes, in Canada, if you stand peacefully at a pipeline protest, you are "attacking" our prime minister's oil and gas cronies as they "innocently" go about their business of destroying our land, our air, our waters — and our future. If you do the same in Washington, they'll haul you away in handcuffs.

The ruthless corporate-owned sociopaths (isn't that the definition of fascists?) are winning and I, for one, am sorely afraid. But I'm also angry, and I hope that my anger will provide me the courage I'm going to need (indeed, that I already need) to keep defending the rights of today's children and of future generations to a planet that is viable.

You know what oil and gas and coal companies and governments at all levels who don't give a shit about life? Damn you. DAMN YOU! My gawd, I am so sick of pussyfooting around, giving you bastards the benefit of the doubt. You're all freaking stupid (you cannot eat oil, gas and coal) and evil (when progenycide becomes a crime, you'll be first in line to be tried). My. Gloves. Are. Coming. Off.

Choice is Addictive

I made a commitment a few weeks ago to get back to the theme of this blog, compassionate climate action — this time, focusing on food growing and food security. So I'm rereading The 100 Mile Diet right now, a wonderfully written, evocative book that definitely makes me think about my food choices.

The other day, however, I started thinking about my food choices from a different place. I visited Walmart for the third time in my life (don't ask). After provisioning my hubby for a stint of granddog-sitting (don't ask), we wandered a bit. Suddenly, in the middle of an aisle in the middle of a warehouse-sized everything store bigger than the community I live in (well, almost), I stopped and burst into tears. 

"This is what's killing everything," I sobbed, leaning on the super-sized cart. "All this. All this choice, all this sense of entitlement. People thinking they can have anything they want, anytime they want, at the cheapest possible price."

I heard a woman with a cart filled to overflowing with boxes of processed foods telling the cashier that her daughter was considered "difficult" at school. I so wanted to say something, but decided against it. I wanted to ask her if she'd like a simple antidote (fresh fruits and vegetables) for her child's behaviour, but chickened out. 

So perhaps I've been barking up the wrong tree when I call Wall Street and fossil fuel corporations "the juggernaut." Maybe Walmart and all the big box stores in North America are the juggernaut — and we're pushing ourselves under the wheels. 

Choice is addictive. It's not fossil fuels we're addicted to, it's choice. The word "choice" comes from the French choisir - to choose. 

What if we started choosing to let the Peruvians eat their own asparagus in December, and the Californians their own strawberries in January? What if we chose to buy less food, waste less food, eat less food? Or at least less unhealthy food? I'm all for everyone in North America eating more kale! (And learning to grow it first.) What if we set up information booths outside every grocery store to tell shoppers what fruits and veggies are in season? Or to offer them a different nutrition lesson each time they shop? To show them the connections between their food choices and the climate change emergency? What if every region had a community farm and every school a schoolyard garden?

What if we started choosing to acquire our food in a way that contributed to the healthiest possible future for ourselves, for our children — and for the Earth? Could that kind of choice ever become addictive?

I've Finally Figured It Out!

I discreetly followed the proceedings of the Republican Party convention in the United States this past week. (Know thy enemy, eh?) The things they say and believe and promote – it's like they're from another planet, one without poor people or ecological limits. It truly does seem as though money and American hegemony are more important to them than life. (Cue gnashing of teeth sound effects.)

After bouncing around the blogosphere a bit, I had a sudden revelation! I ran upstairs to bounce it off my husband, who had just had his own epiphany. Together, we have worked it out. Not solved it, mind you. Just figured it out.

And here's how "it" goes*:

If the powers-that-be in the United States admit to the global climate change emergency and their role in it, their citizens will start clamouring (or clamoring, I guess) for the government to get going on solutions. And that will entail spending some money. Where will that money be diverted from? Subsidies we give, directly and indirectly, to fossil fuel corporations? The Pentagon and its odious and sometimes illegal military operations? The CIA and its odious and mostly shadowy doings around the world?

Now, why would that be considered a bad thing, given that most people would say they prefer peace? Well, the USA has to maintain its place as the world's fossil fuel superpower. And the only way to do that these days is through military force and might (with a whole whack of lies and deceit and mercenaries and wagging the dog thrown in, to make "the game" more fun, I suppose; take Libya and Syria as examples – contact me if you don't understand what I'm alluding to). 

Okay, but why does the USA have to remain the global head honcho when it comes to fossil fuels? Because it depends on the fact that the American dollar is the world's petro-currency. The only internationally approved currency for buying oil is the American dollar. (Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi were trying to change that, and look what happened to them! Check out this October 2009 article by Robert Fisk in the Independent, The Demise of the Dollar, for more info.) On the other hand, people can pay for wind turbines and solar panels with any currency they want! So if fossil fuels go down, and the USA isn't bringing in billions (trillions?) of dollars in petro-dollars every year, then it will go down too, completely bankrupt. 

So, when I complain that American conservatives (of both Republican and Democratic ilk) think money is more important to them than life, it's true, they do. Because they realize, whether intellectually or viscerally, that the "greatest" nation on Earth is built on a fossil-fuel-dependent house of cards. All the money that floats around the USA – and buys the 1% their mansions and yachts and Hummers – comes from that country's special fossil-fuelled status.

Ergo, perhaps the solution lies in helping small communities see that their resilience no longer lies in the security provided by a nation, but will come from their working together at the local level to build soil, grow food, collect rainwater, and generate energy from perpetual sources.  

The USA has to deny climate change not only because of its dependence on fossil fuels, but also because of its dependence on fossil fuel dollars. Perhaps the sovereign nation state and the American dream are ideas whose time has passed. 

* With apologies to those who have known this all along.