New York Times Declares Climate Change Emergency (Nah, I Just Made That Up)

Credit: The New York Times (funnily enough, they don't see the irony)

Climate change has stripped me of all my sentimentality. And if you've known me since I was young, then you know how much of me that is.

It's a sad loss (not, in my view, a healthy shedding). Defined as "excessive tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia," my sentimentality is what connected me to the human condition. And yes, some might have seen my empathy and compassion as excessive because it did often make me feel sad. But I'm a people person and an extrovert — so my connections to others make me feel complete and worthwhile. (Yes, introverts of the world, we extroverts have our own existential demons.)

Oh, what am I trying to express today? I think it's that I'm finding it more and more exhausting and depressing to, on the one hand, recognize that the climate change emergency fight is pretty much lost already due to global apathy, while on the other hand still wanting to punch through that fatigue and depression to deal with the likes of T**** and the denier NGOs — and now The New York Times, as well?

Yes, I'm going to weigh in, briefly, on the NYT's hiring of an opinion columnist whose views diverge, shall we say, from the laws of physics.

1. Buddy, only you would call 0.85ºC, or about 1.5ºF of warming of the Earth (it's not "earth") since 1880 (most of it quite recently) "modest."

That modest warming unleashed natural disasters that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And now that "modest warming" is up to 1.38ºC (March 2017), and all indicators are on the rise. This is observation, not projection. Which part of "it's happening and you can see it if you only look" don't you grasp? And then you have the gall to say something about "the possible severity of its consequences." How cavalier, inhumane and unfeeling of you. 

2. "[O]rdinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know — as all environmentalists should — that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power."

No, sir, ordinary, scientifically illiterate citizens do NOT have the right to question the science of climate change. Citizens who read and keep up to date on the research — especially the evidence of what's already happening — have the right to pose questions. But giving people who still think we were invented 6000 years ago the power to weigh in? No. If you need proof of human wreckage, turn on the nightly news — or better yet, a weather channel.


And "overweening scientism." What the hell is that, but the sound of a writer who likes his own voice?

C'mon, New York Times, you hired a skeptic (oh, no, this fellow doesn't "deny" climate change — he's a delayer, which is just as bad) as a fumbly, feeble attempt to make T**** supporters feel welcome? While campaigning on the importance of truth? Your opinionator is being irresponsible and dangerous, and his opinions and his writings are promoting progenycide. (If you think that's hyperbole, then know this: I WANT TO BE WRONG. But I don't want time to prove me wrong because by then, it will be too late.)

Please, if you want controversy, why not declare the emergency? That'll get people talking! And give the kids and their future a break.

And so, as my husband laments, not only is there no action on declaring this an emergency, but nor is there any sorrow, any sadness, any regret, any apology about what we're losing. There's just people like the NYT's opinion writer and his cleverness, while a whole lot of other people are snoring.

It Just Isn't Going to Work Out

I don't think I've done this before: basing a whole blog post on an image. Usually I write a post and then find a suitable illustration. But when I found this graphic weeks ago, it spoke to me. So I've held onto it, thinking that its day would come. Today is that day.

Here where I live, we are experiencing our first truly warm weather of the year. At a potluck dinner last night with my students and their parents, the kids ate quickly and played out in the front yard all evening. The adults sat out on the back deck and ate slowly, enjoying the warmth and the grown-up conversation.

When I came home, it was still warm out. Not "hot and sultry" warm but warm-enough-to-be-outside-with-just-a-sweater-on warm. (I live on an island in the Salish Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean, and so we rarely get toasty evenings.) It was so warm that I invited my husband to take the dog for a walk in the dark with me. 

I woke up this morning to sunshine and warmth. The sunshine alone is the return of the prodigal son after a long, dark winter away. But to come home with the gift of such balminess! Now I understand why that son's return was so celebrated.

The first thing I did was read an evocative article by Jon Mooallem in The New York Times Sunday Review: A Child's Wild Kingdom. What an enjoyable read! The kind that felt like a conversation, because I was responding as I went, agreeing with this, disagreeing with that, recalling similar or dissimilar experiences or realizations. All that after a sit outside in the warmth of the new day. (I live on an island in the Salish Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean, and so we rarely get warm mornings.)

And just now, to be able to feel confident explaining something here, I waded through a Guardian article, White House warned on imminent Arctic ice death spiral, and the hundreds of comments following it.

So why is today the day that I'm convinced "it won't work out"? 

This kind of warmth in early May frightens me as much as it exhilarates me. I know, I know. I should just enjoy it, revel in it. But ignorance is bliss, and I'm not ignorant.

Last night at the party, we talked about several perpetual energy sources: geothermal, solar concentrating, closed loop steam engines, solar thermal. But these conversations -- and conversions -- are coming too late.

That article I read this morning? It completely skimmed over the fact that children -- that all humans -- are indeed animals. Forgetting (or ignoring) this has been one of the reasons we think we can override natural processes. 

And the article about the White House waking up? Ha! From the article: "In February this year, the US Department of Defense (DoD) released its new Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, which noted that global warming will have:

'... significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to greater competition for more limited and critical life-sustaining resources like food and water.... DoD will need to adjust to the impacts of climate change on its facilities, infrastructure, training and testing activities, and military capabilities.'" 

So there it is. The US is finally worried. They're finally "getting" how serious this is. And their response? "On the Arctic, the report highlights the imperative to protect US resource interests by increasing regional military penetration: 

'Melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to new opportunities for shipping, tourism, and resource exploration, but the increase in human activity may require a significant increase in operational capabilities in the region in order to safeguard lawful trade and travel and to prevent exploitation of new routes for smuggling and trafficking.'" 

So let's not worry about food security and trivial stuff like that. Let's just make sure that the US military is ready to deal with whatever wee problems come up around mass starvation and stuff like that. 

It's not going to work out, folks. So yeah, maybe I should just turn off this old computer and get outside for some sunshine and gardening. Not a bad idea anyway, global warming or no global warming.

Air Conditioning - The Opiate of the Masses

It was Karl Marx who said, "Religion is the opium of the people." Like many quotations, it has been taken out of context, part of a much longer discourse on religion in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. It turns out, though, that others felt the same way about religion as a tool of oppression. The Marquis de Sade, in 1797, spoke of "this opium you feed your people, so that, drugged, they do not feel their hurts, inflicted by you." In 1798, Novalis wrote: "Their so-called religion acts merely as an opiate: irritating, numbing, calming their pain out of weakness." Kingsley and Lenin used the term, as well.

But even out of context, the narcotic metaphor is quite apt for what's happening during this hottest-summer-ever in North America.

Air conditioning, it turns out, acts as a sedative. Without it, people would be up-in-arms angry at their governments. Without A/C, people would need to be demanding that their leaders stop the rise in global average temperature. Without it, we would be seeing action on the climate change emergency.

Air conditioning is the general process of altering air properties such as temperature, humidity, quality, and velocity to achieve desired conditions. In North America, this almost always means the cooling of indoor air. Wikipedia says:

The concept of air conditioning is known to have been applied in ancient Egypt where reeds [that were] hung in windows had water trickling down. The evaporation of water cooled the air blowing through the window, though this process also made the air more humid. In Ancient Rome, water from aqueducts was circulated through the walls of certain houses to cool them down. Other techniques in medieval Persia involved the use of cisterns and wind towers to cool buildings during the hot season.

I'm remembering when I lived in India. It was so hot at night that I'd prepare my bed/mosquito net, turn the overhead fan on, then pour a bucket of water over my head and hop into bed to get tucked in and asleep before I dried off. (The unofficial national motto of that country is "Everything dries quickly in India.")

Nowadays, people just flick on a switch or - if they can't afford A/C in their home - go hang out at the local mall. It seems that very few people are having to actually suffer from the heat of this 2012 overheated summer, and we're not quite yet feeling the results of the widespread crop losses.

I know that air conditioning wasn't "invented" to ravage the biosphere. Indeed, it's a case of unintended consequences. (Back in 1842, for example, Florida physician John Gorrie used compressor technology to create ice, which he used to cool air for his patients in his hospital.) But even forgetting that running all those extra appliances is burning more fossil fuels, and that refrigerants like R-22, a hydrochlorofluorocarbon, are fantastically powerful greenhouse gases (about 1,800 times more powerful than carbon dioxide), the problem is that A/C dopes us into believing that we'll be okay.

If you're a conditioner of air, please, stop. Turn it off.* Get hot. Be uncomfortable. Become unproductive. Be willing to suffer a little for the sake of the children's future. Then create some political will. Get angry! Get angry with your politicians and other leaders. They have known for decades that this was going to happen, and they just didn't care. They've done nothing to stop the quickening pace of global heating. And frankly, I'm starting to believe it's because they've got air conditioning, too!

* If you truly believe you cannot turn off your A/C (literally for fear of dying ... remembering the tens of thousands who perished in the European heatwave of 2003), then at least turn it off during the day. Do everything you can to reduce the heat in your home (close the drapes during the day, wear wet clothing). Sleep in the basement, in the backyard, or on the balcony. And if you can't take any of those measures, then at least make sure that your air conditioner is set for higher than your winter furnace. I can't believe how many people warm their homes or work places to 72ºF (22ºC) in the winter, then cool them to 69ºF (20ºC) in summer! It's sheer lunacy.

The Cake is Burning! The Oven's Still On!

We had a lovely dinner here last night with two wonderful young friends. Over ratatouille (it's that harvest time of year) on couscous with pain de campagne (sounds fancier than it was), we talked about a lot of fun things as well as harrowing life experiences — as friends do over dinner.

And then, sometime during dessert, C sat back in his chair and said, "I guess this is a debate that could go on all night.... [long pause to leave us in suspense] ...but a lot of people are saying that there's no such thing as global warming and that the Earth is actually cooling."

I'm happy to say that I avoided spewing my blood orange sorbet with fresh cherries all over the table! My beloved very calmly explained that the temperature has gone up — and it hasn't gone back down again, therefore the Earth can't be cooling.

Then he used the analogy that's so easy to understand, our friends were nodding in no time.

If you put the oven on at 350ºF (my stove hasn't gone metric yet), the temperature of the oven will rise until it hits 350, and then stop rising. That's when the little light goes out and we put the pan full of cake batter in. Now, if we don't at some point (about 30-40 minutes later) turn the oven off and take the pan out, what happens to that cake? It is going to go past "baked" to dried out and then to burned.

Globally, we have turned the oven up by 0.8ºC — AND WE HAVE NOT TURNED THE OVEN OFF! Hence there's no way the Earth can be cooling.

I know that a 0.8ºC increase in global average temperature doesn't sound like much, but it's been enough to rough up the climate in numerous parts of the world: I'm freezing (okay, chilly) in early August where I live, Russia is ablaze with forest fires and heat records, precipitation patterns are changing (hence more droughts and floods), and on it goes.

Remember, we've evolved to be an agricultural species since the last Ice Age, and our agriculture has been based on a stable climate (and stable global average temperature) over the last 10,000 years.

Folks, we have to turn the oven off (mitigation) or at least start taking the pan out of the oven (adaptation) — and we have to start yesterday. Why are so many people still listening to the progenycidists, children haters, and fossil fuel investors?

What's stopping us from drumming up a little courage and compassion, putting on our metaphorical oven mitts, and simply getting the job started?

A New Kind of Judgement Day?

There's a button out there that says Less Judgement, More Tolerance. This is a great slogan when you're encouraging intercultural understanding and things like that. But is there not a place and time for judgement in our fight to safeguard the future for our children?

As I listened to a panel of inspirational vegan speakers the other day, I noticed that they all either spoke directly about or alluded to the notion of not judging others.

They spoke of leading by example, serving as inspiration, not making others defensive — by not judging.

As I sat and listened, I thought to myself, "If we judge people who murder other people, and murdering animals is now directly related to murdering fellow humans through the impacts of global warming and climate disruption, then is it not time to judge those who murder animals for meat?"

(The chemical-intensive agri-business livestock industry causes an inordinate yet unnecessary percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, particularly the very powerful heat forcers, methane and nitrous oxide — not to mention the water wastage, water pollution, land degradation, and world hunger caused by our meat habit.)

I got up the nerve to pose my question aloud, but I think it was considered a bit, hmm, over the top. Most of us still don't really think of other animals as our kin, and most of us still can't conceive of faceless future generations and what we're doing to them (progenycide). Over and above that, most of us don't think in terms of systems, so we view solutions as changes that individuals make, rather than as full system overhauls.

So, let's look at it this way. We have (at least here in North America) managed to demonize smoking (if not the smokers themselves), and smoking is no longer allowed in any public buildings in most places. If we can go that far because of the personal health impacts of secondhand smoke, can we not go even further when meat eating is contributing so much to the climate change emergency (40% of human-caused methane emissions, for example), which could see life on this precious planet disappear? A global switch to a vegan diet would buy us some time for implementing all the other solutions that already exist (like renewable energy technologies).

I guess what I'm saying is this: When someone asks, "Why are you a vegetarian?" the response should be "Why aren't you one?"

If you need some inspiration for hanging up your meat habit, becoming a healthy vegetarian or vegan, and being kinder to the planet, the future and the children of all species, check out the resources at BeautifulEarth. org.

Open Your Eyes!

Our friend, Anthony Marr, is off on his 7th Compassion for Animals Expedition. A friend of his had this to say in response to Anthony's "parting shot."

"It is one thing to see a blurb on the 6 o'clock news ... it is quite another to see it first hand. The clubbing of the seals is one thing that one will never forget ... these animals scream and cry out for the clubbers to stop. I have seen this myself and it destroys me still.

And now ... Global Warming is fast changing my country, Canada, forever. Ice is melting ... seals are dying without the ice.

For those that have seen this first hand and recognize its impending doom, Global Warming no longer becomes a debate to be watched on TV or argued around the water cooler. Many folks haven't seen it with their own eyes — and until they do, there is little excuse to even try and attempt to explain it."

To the people who haven't seen it with their own eyes, I say, "You have not been looking." You have not been looking at your children's faces, at their future, at the world's glaciers, at the animals losing their homes, at your fellow humans losing their homes.

Open your eyes, dammit! Open your mind, open your heart, and open your eyes!

There are none so blind....

Lessons from a Bat, Part 2

Back in July 2009, I wrote about a bat that makes its home in the rock cliff above our home. Recently, we've been having some interesting experiences with bats again, and I decided I'd better do some research.

The other night, a bat started flying up against our bedroom window — not so much smashing into the window like a bird would, but smushing up against the window like a moth does when seeking the light. But this was no moth! It happened about 8 times. We were quite stupefied. Even without getting all "woowoo" about this event as a possible message or portent, it simply didn't seem right.

For the next two days, bats kept getting mentioned in books and articles or conversations. "Okay, okay, I get the message."

So, it turns out that Canada has just experienced the warmest and driest winter (well, it ain't quite over yet) since nationwide records were first kept in 1948. (Sorry all you eastern Yanks who thought the whole rest of the world must have been blanketed in white along with you!) In parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, precipitation has been 60 per cent below normal. (Reported here in the Ottawa Citizen of March 9, 2010.)

The article, by Margaret Munro, doesn't use the terms global warming, climate change per se, but the armchair deniers were out in full force anyway, denying any link to global warming or climate change. But the warning is clear:

"It's beyond shocking," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told Canwest News Tuesday. Records have been shattered from "coast to coast to coast." 

"It is truly a remarkable situation," says Phillips, noting that he's seen nothing like it in his 40 years of weather watching. He also warns that "the winter that wasn't" may have set the stage for potentially "horrific" water shortages, insect infestations and wildfires this summer.

Then I looked up bats. Seems they wake up in April. It's still early March. If I were a bat, I'd be knocking at somebody's window, too.
 

Check out this 7 March 2008 article by Brian Nearing in the Times Union, Bat deaths linked to climate change. According to renegade wildlife pathologist, Ward Stone:

"... [B]ats are dying from starvation and weakened immune systems resulting from the unusually warm late fall and winters during the last several years, which has kept bats flying even when fewer insects are available to eat.

"That has led bats to begin hibernation with insufficient fat reserves, prompting them to starve and sometimes leave the safety of caves in search of food during cold weather, which is usually fatal."

And then I went to my Medicine Cards book, by Jamie Sams and David Carson:The beautiful Medicine Card is illustrated by Angela C. Werneke.)

21 Days - The Deniers Have Nothing to Gain Worth Gaining

Here in Canada, my once proud and peaceful nation that fell into the hands of war mongers and climate change deniers when we became complacent and dropped our vigilance, a small group of oil industry-funded climate change deniers (who gave themselves an official name that makes them sound scientifically official) are running denier/skeptic/ignorer/delayer radio ads across the country. Gee, right before the Copenhagen climate talks. What could their motive be?

First of all, for shame! Shame on the climate change diddlers who obfuscate the truth and tell outright lies by manipulating and confusing and cherry picking the science. The people in this and similar groups are putting the future of the children of all species at risk (risk being a scientific term: risk equals magnitude times probability).
Here's what they (as a teacher, I refuse to give them any publicity, which would be the same as rewarding a negative behaviour with a positive consequence) say about their own ads:

"The purpose of the ads is to demonstrate the futility of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They point out that global warming stopped about 10 years ago, and that the Sun is the primary cause of climate change. Climate alarmists refuse to debate the science as they have no evidence that man's emissions of greenhouse gases causes significant climate change."

They always seem to use the same old tired tactics:

1. Attack the policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (These people must really hate their children, eh? And, by the way, WHAT policies? Our policies are still to keep increasing our greenhouse gas emissions.)

2. Lie about the warming itself. (Global warming has NOT stopped. The "0.78 degrees Celsius burner" is still on and the globe is still cooking. What this group would say if they had integrity is that the global average temperature has not increased any further in the last decade or so — because the oceans are absorbing the carbon dioxide and the heat (dooming coral reefs and devastating marine food chains) and because we are conducting a giant science experiment on latent heat of melting in the Arctic and the world's glaciers.)

3. Talk endlessly about the sun (even to the point of capitalizing it!), and in this case, stop making sense. "... global warming stopped ... the sun is the primary cause of climate change." Which is it? (Without the warmth of the sun, there would be no life on Earth, but its direct contribution to recent global warming is about 10 percent. That's a good chunk, but not a chunk we can control, so why not focus on our causes of the other 90 percent?)

4. Call us climate alarmists, as though raising the alarm is a bad thing.

5. Accuse us of refusing to debate the science. (I would rather debate the policies, but they know that most people, at least in North America, are scientifically illiterate, and therefore easily bamboozled by talking about climate science rather than which policies would safeguard their children's future.)

6. Completely ignore all the millions of people in the world already impacted by climate-change-exacerbated natural phenomena such as droughts, floods, erosion and wild storms. (These deniers are heartless bastards, apparently. Well, they must be to hate their children so much.)

What do they gain by wasting precious time, money and energy in this way? I just can't get into their heads (and can't find any hearts to get into).
Finally, why do these media outlets want to be complicit in this, what could amount to the greatest crime against humanity ever? Why will media outlets reserve the right to refuse counterculture ads from groups like Adbusters, but accept money from groups who bring shame on themselves, on their country, on the complicit media outlets, on the name of science in general? Why are media outlets like this so blind and mindless when it comes to making money, except when it comes to making money by helping those who want to safeguard the future? For shame. You'll be hearing from me — and I'll be boycotting you!

29 Days - Where are the Elders' Voices?

I have found myself wondering a lot lately where the "elders" are in the fight to safeguard the future from climate chaos.

I know the Raging Grannies are out there, singing their hearts out, bless them. I know the American Legion passed a resolution this past summer to urge the American President and Congress "to establish a worldwide plan to significantly reduce carbon-based emissions" (bless them, too) (although they misguidedly "whereas-ed" it by saying "the United States based its refusal of the Kyoto Protocol on inconsistent provisions within the protocol that unfairly burdened the United States with stricter prohibitions than other developed [sic] nations including China, Russia, and India" as though they've been to China and India and didn't see the tiny, tiny carbon footprint of millions and millions and millions of Chinese and Indian people).

It turns out that George Monbiot — and the Pew Research Center in the US — also noticed that anti-global warming/climate change "beliefs" seem to be strongly influenced by age. "The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it's caused by humans, or that it's a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?" asks Monbiot.

My husband has greying hair, and he gives up to 18 hours a day to this issue. But it does seem as though the majority of deniers, skeptics, delayers or just plain "ignorers" are senior citizens. An environmental campaigner told me recently of her encounters with seniors ("It has been so surprising how many people say, 'Oh, I am too old.' Seriously? To me it sounds like they are saying, 'I am done, I support nothing new, I live in my safe little box and do not care to think of anything else.' It blows my mind," my friend told me).

And I remember clearly a visiting grandfather, at the school to pick up his grandson, who started chatting with me while I was putting a climate change bulletin board up in the hallway. "Ah well," he concluded our conversation, "it's not my problem."

It's not your problem? It's not YOUR problem? With any due respect, Sir, let me tell you why it is, indeed, your problem.

1. Your generation had a huge hand in creating this problem.

2. Yours is the wealthiest generation in history, and you probably made your wealth, at least in part, by helping to create this problem. For several decades, your exploitation of the Earth was ceaseless.

3. Those of your generation who can afford it continue to shop, fly and travel with no thought to the future — just a big fat "we're entitled to it" attitude. (Being able to afford to do something does not give you the moral right to do it.)

4. Your children and your grandchildren are your descendants — and their future is threatened by this problem.

5. If you don't die soon, your future is also threatened. Climate disruption is already impacting senior citizens (and their children and grandchildren) in many regions of the world.

If the Arctic summer sea ice disappears as early as now predicted, then expect heat waves, droughts, wildfires and crop failures in the northern hemisphere — and in your lifetime! And that will definitely be your problem.

The problem seems so big, so potentially overwhelming, doesn't it? (I say "potentially" because it is not yet overwhelming those of us in the developed world.)

But here's the thing ... and here's where you come in. Two huge solutions are small, quick and easy!!

1. Paint your roof white, to replace the disappearing 2.5 million square miles of albedo — the heat-reflecting effect of white ice and snow — in the Arctic. No less an expert than Steven Chu, US Secretary of Energy, explains that painting our roofs white would be the equivalent of taking all the cars in the world off the road for 11 years. The simple act of painting roofs white, he says, could have a dramatic impact on the amount of energy used to keep buildings comfortable, as well as directly offsetting global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth.

2. Stop eating meat — for the sake of our children and grandchildren (and for your own sake, too ... a plant-based diet is better for you and for the planet).

That's it. Sure, stay home more often. Quit flitting about the planet. But your generation has the power and the advantage of money and time — and these two quick simple solutions are easily within your grasp. Please do them.

Then spread the word. At the Legion, your favourite coffee shop or pub, the seniors' centre, your next card party. Just talk about it. Talk about what you've done and why — because you love your kids and grandkids and want to take responsibility for your part in the mess the world's in, and you've decided to start thinking like an ancestor. Talking about the actions you've taken is the easiest thing you can do to help save the future.

64 Days - Five Things Everyone Ought to Know

According to British author, David Edwards (as explained by Derrick Jensen, "leading voice of uncompromising dissent" in How Shall I Live My Life? On Liberating the Earth from Civilization), there are five things that everyone ought to know. I hope that Jensen and Edwards won't mind me listing them here. I've only just started reading the book, but so far it's delicious.

Here are the five things that everyone ought to know:

1. "The planet is dying." Coral reefs doomed. Sea mammals and sea birds going extinct. Global warming dooming other ecosystems.
2. "Huge numbers of intelligent, motivated people are working all out to obstruct action to save the planet." Here, Edwards quotes a mining company executive who admits, "We think we have raised enough questions among the American public to prevent any numbers, targets or timetables to achieve reductions in gas emissions being agreed here... What we are doing, and we think successfully, is buying time for our industries by holding up these talks."
3. "The death of the planet is symptomatic of a deeper, institutionalized subordination of all life — including human life — to profit." And people aren't talking about this crucial question of valuing profits over life.
4. "The same economic and political forces that profit from these atrocities also profit from the suppression of truth." And Edwards believes that the role of corporate mass media and politicians is to keep us from digging up the truth. "It only takes a moment of honest reflection to realize that when a world is being ravaged by corporations, a corporate media system is the last place to look for truth."

And then he gets so busy explaining these four that he forgets to give the fifth! But I've chosen one from the rest of this brilliant interview:

5. "It's a great kindness to be honest." In other words, telling the truth, when the money powers want to control what we know and believe, is a gift.

I would add that sometimes it's an unwelcome gift. Many people are so ensnared in the propaganda that they don't want to hear the truth, because it makes them uncomfortable. Therefore you make them uncomfortable when you speak the truth. So truth telling can be a lonely place. Edwards suggests that there is "a certain bliss that comes from telling the truth," but it's an inner bliss, an I-can-sleep-at-night-and-look-myself-in-the-mirror sort of bliss.

94 Days - Welcoming an Economic Depression (A Guest Post)

With thanks to Remi Charron, a concerned father and expert in solar homes and sustainable housing, for this post:

Climate change poses a serious threat to humanity and other life on Earth. The world needs to come together and drastically reduce, if not eliminate, its greenhouse gas emissions in short order. This monumental task will require global collaboration like we have never seen before. However, if our focus is simply to eliminate global warming, humanity and the world will still be in great peril. Why? Global warming is simply a symptom of a bigger problem.

Humans have unleashed a cancer on our biosphere and it has metastasized, with global warming being only one of a number of tumours. Others include deforestation, increasing fish stock collapse, the extinction of over 70 life forms per day, collapse of global fresh water supplies, etc. They are all related; it is one big cancer. 

Here's a definition of cancer:

A class of diseases in which a group of cells displays uncontrolled growth (beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).

Some say that humans themselves are the cancer that plagues the Earth. However, we are part of Nature; we are as natural as the birds and the bees. But we have become a group of cells in uncontrolled growth. 

In my mind, it largely stems from our current need to have sustained economic growth. The model of continual growth the global economy relies on treats natural resources and the environment as externalities in infinite supply, and puts a huge value on money. 

In reality, the concept of money is made up. It is simply a bunch of 1's and 0's and coloured paper going from one hand to another. Nature and its natural resources are real. That is where the real value lies.

Stopping the spread of the cancer — indeed, curing it — requires the global economy to shrink and shrink and shrink, until humanity can once again be in balance with Nature. 

Is growth possible? Yes, as with the definition of cancer, cells can grow within normal limits. But we have grown way beyond those limits, and need a period of sustained economic contraction to return to a healthy balance. 

Current politicians have limited or no money to stop global warming, yet easily find trillions of dollars to slow or stop a recession. The challenge is to get the world to embrace a sustained depression and find a way to spread the hardship so that we can remain happy and upbeat, while coming out at the end better off than we started. 

What we face cannot be fixed through technology, but requires a whole new mindset.

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.

132 Days Left - The Art of Revelling in the Gifts of Summer

Today, my compassionate act is (with apologies to those of you living in the southern hemisphere) to revel in the wonderful gifts that a warmer-than-usual summer is bringing to my part of the world. 

One of the definitions of "revel" in my dictionary is "to take intense satisfaction" and that's what I'm doing these days! 

The irony is that the word comes from the Latin rebellare meaning to rebel. In a sense, revelling in Nature's gifts these days is an act of rebellion —against the twin tyrannies of technology and narcissism.

I am revelling in Okanagan Valley cherries, the plumpest and sweetest I have ever tasted! Each one is two juicy bites' worth.

I am revelling in the early sweet corn, eaten on the back deck in the shade, with butter and salt. (Corn is the only thing I put butter and salt on, so this is a delicious indulgence.)

I am revelling in my late peas! The first I planted were eaten by rodents. The second peas I planted were roughed over by marauding deer. I finally ate my first peas today.

I am revelling in shade. As the planet heats up, I am appreciating the coolness provided by the trees around our home. I'm sure we'll be trading shady comfort for sunny growing space before too long.

I am revelling in the little tomatoes that are ripening in my one sunny spot. Any day now, I'll be popping my first tomato of the season, and it will be heaven on Earth.

I revelled last night in a giant thunderstorm that watered the garden and had me grinning with joy at my memories of jumping in puddles as a child.

I am revelling in warm summer nights. I grew up with sultry evenings in central Canada, but here on the west coast of Canada, we usually have to put a sweater on as soon as the sun even thinks about going down. This is quite new for us, and I recognize that it's probably not a good thing. (The reason the heat wave of 2003 killed so many people in Europe is that the temperature didn't go down at night to give people respite from the heat.)

So I am revelling because I don't want to be so caught up in the climate change fight that I forget to appreciate what it is I'm fighting for.

Thank you, Summer, for all your gifts.

184 To Go - What Children Don't Know Will Hurt Them: Let's Teach the Carbon Cycle, Deeply!

A dear young friend spoke to the Eco Club at my school the other day. It was unseasonably hot, so they gathered in the shade under some trees in the school yard.

Nadia and her sister are joining other Canadian youth this summer in bicycling across this vast country to make people aware of climate change and its threats to their future. (She's one of my climate heroes!)

Before telling the students about her trip, and about the sustainable transportation event she's planning here in our community before she goes, she asked them what they know about climate change.

Educators everywhere, listen up! Our children do not understand the carbon cycle. They do not understand global warming. They do not understand climate change. And they certainly do not understand how it threatens their future. They are still stuck in the "Don't Litter" mode.

Now, if you look at GreenHeart's Green School Curriculum Model, you'll see that I believe (or at least I still want to believe) that we can wait until students are about 12 years old before we start focusing their attention on environmental solutions. (Get it? They will need to understand the problems before they work on the remedies, but their focus is positive and creative.)

But starting before then (at about age 8 or 9), students must learn how the Earth works and how life works on Earth. Knowing both carbon cycles (long and short) should be required for graduation from elementary school; full ecological literacy should be a requirement for secondary school graduation.

Two or three carbon-cycle-illiterate generations are responsible for the mess we're in. Let's make sure the students in our care become a generation that is creating the solutions instead of perpetuating the problems.

For more information, visit

• Global Warming as the Overarching Focus of Curriculum for Sustainability
• Climate Change Primer

199 Days - Still A Lot of People Who Don't Understand Climate Change

My "action" today was attending a book launch of a friend and neighbour, Hans Tammemagi. His new book, Air: Our Planet's Ailing Atmosphere, is all about the most important thing on Earth — what we breathe!

Here's a description from the publisher:

"Tammemagi's fascinating exploration of air illustrates that it is far from being an empty void; rather, it is a vast ocean of gases that are layered, constantly mixing, generating weather, and providing the basis of life itself. While illustrating the beauty and mystery of air, Tammemagi also examines its declining quality in chapters that discuss smog over cities (and elsewhere), acid rain, the depletion of stratospheric ozone layer, and, of course, global warming. As a scientist, writer, and activist, Tammemagi explains the key issues associated with air in a clear, lucid, and compelling style. Air is a vital piece of reading on an issue of rapidly growing urgency."

After reading aloud from a few chapters — and admitting that he's feeling rather pessimistic these days — Hans led a discussion amongst the attendees (from our small rural community) that showed how many people still have a lot to learn about the urgency of the climate crisis.

So, fellow educators, how do we reach our neighbours, friends, colleagues, acquaintances? How do we make this most obfuscated of environmental and scientific issues ever, crystal clear for people like several of those I sat with today?

First, let's make sure we understand it ourselves — and find a way to stay up to date with the ever-growing body of research. Try Climate Emergency News, for starters.

Next, let's work together to find that happy medium — somewhere between holding it up to their faces and rubbing their noses in it — that helps people hear, see and learn things they just don't want to open up to.

I guess I'm suggesting that we don't just need compassion for people who are already being impacted by climate change. We also need compassion (no time left for patience) for those who are so far removed from what's happening in other parts of the world that they cannot feel compassion for the most climate-vulnerable people themselves.

Sometimes this isn't easy. So let's go easy on ourselves if we muck it up somehow. We're still learning too! Let me know if you need some morale-boosting or inspiration.