The Talanoa Dialogue for Climate Ambition — An Opportunity to Have My Say

The United Nations 2017 climate conference (Conference of the Parties or COP23) was hosted by Fiji (though, sadly I'm sure for many attendees, it was held in Bonn, Germany). 

A lasting keepsake of the Fiji talks is the Talanoa Dialogues, to which I contributed yesterday.

Talanoa is a traditional word used in Fiji and across the Pacific to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue. The purpose of Talanoa is to share stories, build empathy and to make wise decisions for the collective good. The process of Talanoa involves the sharing of ideas, skills and experience through storytelling.
—https://talanoadialogueplatform.godaddysites.com/background

The goal of the Talanoa Dialogue is to help implement and increase ambition in each nation's commitments to emissions reductions and other climate action (their Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) by asking stakeholders to answer three questions:

1. Where are we?
2. Where do we want to go?
3. How do we get there?

I responded to the first question on behalf of GreenHeart Education (my professional me), and would like to share it with you here. The Dialogue is open for submissions until 29 October 2018, so that input can be compiled before the next UN climate change talks in Katowice, Poland in early December. Go for it if your organization has got something to say!

By the way, you'll see why I laughed at my captcha ("school") when you read my contribution. 

--> Question 1: Where are we?

a) The commitment (planned and/or announced) as well as the actions taken so far that are in line with aims of Paris Agreement, the 1.5/2 degrees’ goal and the transition towards a net-zero emission society by this mid-century [Maximum 300 words]

Where we are is in a climate change emergency, but one we refuse to acknowledge. Where we are is still talking all sorts of numbers when the only number that counts is ZERO – zero carbon, zero combustion, zero emissions of greenhouse gases. Where we are is the poor and the vulnerable being hit by climate diasters first and worst. 

Where we are is smack in the middle of a crisis of imagination and empathy – only compassion and innovation can save us now, but it seems they’re in short supply. Where we are – but we just don’t know it yet – is in the most exciting time ever to be a human being: at the very start of a huge global race to ZERO … or bust. And luckily, because developing countries perhaps aren’t as (politically) entrenched in fossil fuel energy as the so-called developed nations, they all have a headstart in the race to ZERO.

b) Progress made so far against the above commitments, including success stories, case studies and gaps [Maximum 300 words]

Sadly, in many educational circles, climate change is still seen as controversial (thanks to the highly funded and highly successful denial campaign), and therefore barely gets taught. Because human beings have evolved over the last 10,000 into a species dependent on agriculture, and because agriculture depends on a stable climate (which we’ve mostly had for the past 10,000 years), the impacts of a destabilizing climate are threatening food security around the world. 

The Most Important Curriculum

We cannot grow food overnight and nor can we LEARN to grow food overnight, therefore learning food growing skills must become an important part of every school’s curriculum (along with soil building, water collections, and energy generation). While literacy and numeracy will always be part of education, they are of no importance to people who are starving. 

This is one area where we are seeing progress around the world, although we still have far to go. The spread of permaculture, agroforestry, carbon farming, and organic and regenerative agriculture is helping to build resilience in food
systems while we work toward ZERO
greenhouse gas emissions.

c) Quantitative impact so far with respect to mitigation, adaptation, resilience and/or finance [Maximum 300 words]

I’m sorry I don’t have numbers to share. But perhaps this is where 100% (the opposite of zero) should come in, in the form of a global goal to get a learning garden into every schoolyard around the world.

**************************************
UPDATE
I just received this message re my input:

On 2018-09-12 06:12, Talanoa Dialogue wrote:

Dear Sir/Madam, 

Thank you for your message. In order to inform the Talanoa Dialogue, the COP president invited Parties and stakeholders to the Convention on Climate Change as well as expert institutions to submit input.

We regret to inform you that we cannot publish inputs by individuals.

We would encourage you to affiliate yourself with a non-Party stakeholder to the Convention for submitting your input.

Best regards, 
Talanoa Dialogue Team 

Here's the response I sent:

I'm sorry to hear that you don't consider GreenHeart Education an "expert institution." However, I do appreciate you letting me know. (I'm not sure how far you'll get in the fight to safeguard the future by only listening to those who haven't yet managed to safeguard the future. But there's the conundrum.)

Julie Johnston
GreenHeart Education  

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!

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 

Turning Play Weapons into Garden Tools?

As my thumb heals, I'm finding lots of time to think about my new year's resolution to think less (ahem) and do more, especially where it comes to food growing and preserving, and learning the old arts (soap making, paper making ... Earth Mama stuff). 


I'm also seeing connections pop up everywhere. I've started taking an online course called School Gardening 101, and the section on the socio-emotional benefits of gardening for children fit right into a professional day spent with my colleagues the other day where we talked about social development, social thinking, and social and emotional intelligence. 

(No, my colleagues were not even remotely thinking about the school garden, but I was. It's always a bit surreal to me that educators can spend several hours talking about the welfare and best interests of their students without ever mentioning that their future is extremely threatened by the climate change emergency, but that's the way it is. 

We teach in non-integrated, non-ecological ways, separating our days into separate "subjects" as though math has nothing to do with science, which has nothing to do with art and language and social studies — and we talk about teaching in non-integrated ways, as well. I'm getting used to living in cognitive dissonance when I'm at work.)

But here's what I'd really like to share with you. When I first started working with my group of students over five years ago (it's an innovative family-based learning program), I quickly latched onto the word "pacifist" to help the kids create an ethic of peace, empathy and cooperation together. 

They've been great about respecting our pacifist nature, but as the boys have grown older, their play keeps turning to playfighting. They're able to turn anything into a weapon, it seems. (I guess encouraging their imagination and creativity can have its downside!)

I was just about to intervene in the gym the other day when play fighting (using little scooters and shuffleboard cues/sticks) was turning a bit too raucous (ie, someone was going to get hurt) when the mother of one of the boys ran over instead. 

A discussion ensued with my oldest student, a great kid who's very active but willing to engage in deep conversations for as long as he can stay still. We talked about whether boys' predilection for weaponry is atavistic (coming from a deep, ancient place) or even vestigial (having become functionless in the course of evolution). 

Can (should?) we help boys honour what could be seen as their role as protectors? And if so, how can we do this without them having to play fight so much? It's probably a much deeper anthropological and psychological question than I have time to delve into, so if you have any insights or references, please send them along in a comment.

But this Biblical quote keeps running through my head (and here's where we get back to where I started this rambling post):

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. — Isaiah 2:4

If we started channeling the play fighting of boys into gardening ... if we had them turn their toy weapons into the tools of food growing ... would that give young males a sense of purpose in this strange world we're living in? Indeed, as the illustration above shows, young men and women could be working together for the common purpose of rediscovering the ancient agricultural arts that were more in tune with the climate (rather than forcing everything to grow anywhere). 

And the bonus would be fewer greenhouse (gardening ... popping up everywhere these days!) gas emissions, since militaries and their wars are the biggest carbon polluters on the planet! Hey, how many nuclear missiles does it take to make one wind turbine? I've got students who would love to beat those particular swords into plowshares!

104 Days - Celebrating Our Local Food Traditions

I spent yesterday at my community's wonderful little fall fair. I convened the Young People's Agriculture section, and was delighted to see so many people appreciating the children's produce and educational projects on food growing.

It wasn't until a lovely German tourist came through the displays and mentioned that there is nothing like it where she lives, near Frankfurt, that I realized the power and importance of our fall fair tradition.

Small-scale farming and organic gardening connect us to the past, connect us to the earth (and the Earth), and connect us to future generations. Celebrating the fruits of our harvest helps people understand where their food comes from.

And since agriculture depends on a stable climate, and the stability of our climate is already deteriorating, it would be good for all of us to appreciate what we've got before it's gone.

As the Arctic summer sea ice disappears, the whole northern hemisphere is losing its summer "air conditioner," so summer weather is becoming hotter in some places and more unpredictable in others.

I grew tomatoes in pots on my sunny deck this summer, and midway through one of our extremely rare heat waves, I started adding up how much water they were getting. I was shocked! (I've since started using grey water/dirty dishwashing water on my tomatoes.) If my few tomatoes needed almost 100 litres per week, how much water must our food producing systems use? Yet our fresh water is one of the resources most at risk due to global warming.

We don't have a clue how much things are going to change and how bad they're going to get (because they certainly aren't, despite the hopeful protestations of certain commentators, getting better nearly as fast as they're worsening), but in the meantime, let's find ways to honour our food growers and support them as they try to adapt to the changing climate.

109 Days - Where Will You Live?

My husband has been studying computer modelled projections of which parts of the world will be habitable the longest, under a global warming of several degrees.

Tonight at the dinner table, he was explaining to our niece that a big factor in her decision about where to go to university should be where she can safely put down roots, learn to grow food, and live out her days in an overheated world.

That's a lot for a 17-year-old to think about! What a thing to have to ask young people to do.

But if we don't ask them to think about their "adaptation" to global warming and climate change, then we'd better be mitigating like crazy to make sure they don't have to adapt.

And for what it's worth, if we allow the global average temperature to go too high (well, it's already too high — since we're seeing carbon feedbacks already — but you know what I mean), then most species on Earth will not be able to adapt. We simply won't survive.

My niece and I are having fun this evening, so I don't think she was traumatized by the discussion, but it's sure got me thinking about where I'd like to be when the climate you-know-what starts hitting the fan in my part of the world.

P.S. I don't want to suggest places that people could start heading (areas that will continue to get precious rainfall, for example), but I have heard (as I've mentioned here before) that people with money are starting to buy up land in those areas. If you're concerned, please do your own research.

179 Days to Go - The Role of Children in Fighting Global Warming: Gardening

I keep insisting that children — everywhere — should have the right to a childhood. But nowadays, we need all hands on deck with this climate change emergency.

So how can children help out? They can learn how to grow food. They can participate in the great "homecoming" of people around the world to the land. They can plant seeds and watch them grow.

One spring, my students and I, with the help of a parent who understood grain growing, created a pizza garden (in the photo above) and planted wheat on an old farm that has since become a community garden. The families tended this garden during the summer, and then in the fall, the students picked the veggies and harvested the wheat with little kindergarten scissors. We threshed the wheat by hand (ouch!), and milled it in a parent's stone grinder.

We then made pizzas right after milling the wheat into flour. Oh my. Not only was this a fantastic experience for the kids (experiencing the circle of life) but the pizzas were absolutely delicious! I had no idea how much flavour we sacrifice for the sake of convenience.

I tell that story because I don't want anyone to think that I'm advocating a return to child labour. No. I am advocating a return to children understanding where their food comes from, and being able to grow it locally. Every schoolyard in the world should have a school garden, and children can grow food plants no matter where they live — even in the tiniest of apartments, with pots on a window sill.

This is something that children can contribute in our struggle to regain a stable climate. Because without that stable climate, there will be no agriculture, no ready food, and definitely no pizza.

200 Days - Talking It Up!

In my excitement to start listing our Compassionate Climate Actions yesterday, I forgot to tell you my action for the day.

We had lunch (sunshine veggie curry) with a young friend who is a student activist on climate change issues (and bicycling across the country this summer to prove it). It's so rejuvenating to spend time with someone who gets what's happening in the world — and who isn't going to let the future slip through her fingers as long as she can do something about it.

We shared ideas, gave her some advice on how to deal with colleagues who think that "strategy" is more important than life on Earth, and came away with a renewed sense of purpose — it's her future we're diddling with while the Earth burns (with apologies to Nero), and we intend to safeguard it for her.

Some people think talk is cheap, or a form of procrastination, but when talk is learning, and good medicine, then talk is action.