Climate Change: What's Greed Got to Do With It?

Like many people around the world whose mediascape is (at times sickeningly) filled with sound bites and film clips, photographs and FB memes of candidates in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, I am trying to wrap my head around how far the American Republican party has strayed from its roots with their current choice of candidate. (Think Theodore Roosevelt. He was a(n admittedly progressive) Republican president, but also an environmental champion.)

You can probably guess why this American election (even though I'm not American) has had me thinking a lot about greed. And that, in turn, has got me thinking about the role of greed and greediness in the climate crisis. 

My own swirling thoughts have gone something like this: Greed, at its deepest subconscious level, must be a form of defensiveness, a seeking of security in people who don't believe in the abundance of the Universe. Which means there must also be a streak of ecological illiteracy inherent in greed, as greedy people don't seem to understand the collaborative nature of, well, nature (of which we're a part), and the fact that there is enough for everyone's need (as Gandhi pointed out).

The catch-22 is this: How do we help the greedy people who are ruining the biosphere feel more safe and secure at a time when their greed has made the climate (and therefore life itself) less safe and secure? Bad timing, eh? It feels like we're hooped. 

I decided to do a smidge of research to see what others put greed down to. The dictionary says that to be greedy is to have or show an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth or power. (That certainly describes a certain Republican candidate.)

Thought leader (I love that term! I want to be one!) Frank Sonnenberg also equates greed with selfishness. "Greed is a term that describes ruthless people with naked ambition, people with an insatiable appetite for riches, those who give new meaning to the word selfish." We're living in a time when rich people can't have as much as they might want, because it all comes with carbon emissions that the world can't afford anymore. Maybe we just have to tell people like Donald Frump and the Rhymes-with-a-Soft-Drink Brothers that -- literally -- enough is enough. But that's going to take a huge shift in worldview, isn't it? After all, we're fighting not just hundreds of years of capitalism, but also a couple of decades of woowoo new age you-can-attract-everything-you-want brainwashing.

Sonnenberg quotes the character Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street: "It’s not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses." And yet, in ecosystems, there are no winners as long as there are losers. So are greedy people those who (think they can) live above the laws of nature? Is that why they just keep burning fossil fuels with nary a care for the biosphere -- because to them, metaphorical "winning" is more important than actually surviving?

Now as Sonnenberg points out, it's unfair to automatically "equate success and wealth with greed. The fact is, many successful people give generously of their wealth and/or their time. It’s also true that you don’t have to be particularly wealthy in order to be able to give.... [Some] people without means contribute generously of their time and skills every day, yet others don’t. Greed doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor."

But according to Oxam, when it comes to global warming and climate change, the world's richest 10% produce half of global carbon emissions, while the poorest half of the world's people contribute to just 10% of emissions.

Let's wrap our heads around that. "An average person among the richest 1% of people emits 175 times more carbon than his or her counterpart among the bottom 1%, Oxfam said." So in order not to be considered a greedy bastard, I guess one really has to consider -- and lower -- one's sense of entitlement, and then one's carbon footprint. 

So yeah. Greed => climate change.

p.s. Check out Oxfam's report, Extreme Carbon Inequality: Why the Paris climate deal must put the poorest, lowest emitting and most vulnerable people first, here.

Too Nice ... Why Are We Always Too Nice?

Walt Whitman, American poet, journalist and humanist, once said, "Be curious, not judgmental."

And during an Unlearning Racism workshop I attended many moons ago, we were taught the difference between openly saying "I wonder who you are" versus an inner "I know who you are," which is a prejudice (or prejudgement).

But times change, don't they? As I noted back in October 2011, during my Selfish &%$#@! Theme Week: 

Teachers have a saying: "Judge the behaviour, not the child." However, when it comes to adults, I'm judging them by their behaviour! So if their behaviour is selfish, then so are they. And if their behaviour is mean-spirited, then so are they.

So what do we do with this situation? My husband is on a climate change listserve that was started and is moderated by a lovely person ... who insists that if two brothers — whose family name starts with K and sounds like a soft drink — walked (virtually) into their group, she would expect all members to treat them with respect and kindness, because they're humans, too.

That attitude, so bloody pervasive amongst New Age-leaning lefties (or are they left-leaning New Agers?), makes me sputter (or is it splutter?). It's, it's ... ludicrous, absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, foolish, mad — and dangerous.

"Hello, Mr. and Mr. Progenycidal Mass Murderer, come in. Welcome. Please take a seat. May we offer you a cola? Thank you for taking the time to allow us to show you how important niceness is to our side. In fact, niceness is more important than safeguarding the viability of life on this planet. So please, do enjoy your soft drink. Oh, you'd like to keep getting stinking filthy rich from choking off the future for the children of all species? By all means, go ahead. We're too nice to stop you. Politeness ... where would life be without it?"

I would like to point out that if compassion is going to have a hand in saving us, it's not compassion for the Soft-Drink Sound-Alike Brothers and the rest of the fossil fuel and big money mafia that we need.

What we need to conjure up in our hearts and minds is compassion for all children, everywhere. It's compassion for the millions who have already lost their livelihoods or their loved ones, their food security or their water sources, their homes or their entire homelands. It's compassion for the billions who are going to be affected by climate chaos.

We need to express to the K--- Brothers and their co-conspirators the derision, disdain, scorn and contempt they and their actions richly deserve. Indeed, their deeds should be judged as a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court (but it doesn't seem there are many Rich White Guys getting tried there these days). 

We're talking about the ongoing, now-deliberate destruction of the viability of the Earth's biosphere — its ability to support life. There can be no forgiveness when they know exactly what they do. They deserve no compassion. I refuse to "suffer with" the rich bastards who refuse to leave one ounce of fossil fuel in the ground, even as they're killing off their own descendants. 

INsuring Versus ENsuring Our Children's Future

We are a culture that eats its children and grandchildren.
— Tom Brown, Jr.

I read the abstract of an article this week about aquifer overexploitation and groundwater depletion in the US High Plains and Central Valley (hey, we all spend our spare time in different ways), and it got me thinking. Why is it
we're willing to INsure our future,
but not willing to ENsure our children's future? 

We're willing to pay money today (those of us who can afford it) to arrange for future financial compensation to our loved ones in the event of our own illness, injury or death. We "provide" for them financially. But we're not willing to make any sacrifices (of time, money, energy or comfort and luxury) today to make certain of providing our progeny with what they'll really need: adequate clean water, secure access to healthy food, shelter safe from extreme storms and heat waves. In other words, we insure our lives but don't ensure their lives.

Here again, it seems we can blame economics, and especially the EuroAmerican economy. (It's early morning and I feel like oversimplifying today.) According to our friendly Wikipedia, life insurance "began as a way of reducing the risk to traders, as early as 2000 BC in China and 1750 BC in Babylon." (See? Traders = economy?) Lloyd's of London (perhaps the most iconic insurance company) began in the 17th century as a group of merchants, ship owners and underwriters who met at Lloyd's Coffee House to discuss their deals.

Then there's the notion of future discounting (an accounting/financing principle that says "a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow"), which has crept into our collective EuroAmerican psyche: A life today is worth more than a life tomorrow. This is already true for us geographically or intragenerationally (a life here is worth more than one half way around the world), so why not intergenerationally as well?

Indeed, the noted economist, Julian "Doom Slayer" Simon (I predict he'll soon be renamed Julian "Future Slayer" Simon), once quipped: "Because we can expect future generations to be richer than we are, no matter what we do about resources, asking us to refrain from using resources now so that future generations can have them later is like asking the poor to make gifts to the rich." Pardon? See the kind of mindset we've been dealing with? Future generations don't stand a chance!

Here's another example I heard from a friend during the George W. Bush presidency. At an environmental conference in Seattle, a federal US employee with the National Marine Fisheries Service was asked, "Can you really support four more years of this administration's policies toward the environment?" Response? "I'm with George. He's all about right now. None of this future generations stuff. After all, what have they done for us lately?"

Perhaps saddest of all was the reaction recently to the World Future Council's call for Ombudspersons for Future Generations. (Please consider signing their petition here. It might be the only good thing that comes out of the Rio+20 Summit later this month.) They are calling for a network of special representatives to help protect the resources and livelihoods of future generations ... guardians of the future. The negative response I read (not to mention my husband's exhortation that this will come to naught if we don't give future generations legal rights), utterly disheartening, was it written mainly by selfish &%$#@! or by those who've simply never heard or learned about intergenerational equity?

Anyway, thinking like an ancestor isn't about buying insurance. It's about love for our children, our grandchildren, and all the children in our lives. It's about concern for our family's health, prosperity, safety and security, now and in the future. It's about child honouring ... placing the welfare and well-being of the children at the centre of all our deliberations and decisions. It's about ensuring a viable (livable, survivable) future for all the children. Of all species.

A man has made at least a start on discovering
the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which
he knows full well he will never sit.
— D. Elton Trueblood

"Selfish &%$#@!" Theme Week: Friday

So many sad things in the news these days. I suppose the reason we here in the West (in EuroAmerican countries) are okay with committing atrocities overseas and allowing or even supporting atrocities overseas (short-term and long-term atrocities) is that if we don't think about it (look at it, hear about it, talk about it), it's not a problem.

For example, a new study out of Norway shows that Norwegians are in denial about climate change not because they "don't believe in it" (it's not a religion, after all), but because acknowledging climate change will challenge their image of themselves as nice people who don't harm anyone (except with the greenhouse gas emissions from their economy based on oil and gas). Here is Paul Thagard describing the research at Psychology Today:

Kari Marie Norgaard is an American sociologist who spent a year in a small city in Norway interviewing people about their beliefs and attitudes concerning climate change.... Norgaard says that global warming is difficult for ordinary Norwegians to think about because it threatens their individual and collective sense of identity. Norwegians tend to view themselves as egalitarian and socially just on an international scale, so it is difficult for them to acknowledge that their country's large production of oil and gas contributes to global warming....

Given their knowledge of climate change and their political values, it upsets Norwegians to think that global warming is a threat to human well-being, so they steer clear of thinking and talking about it.... Norgaard plausibly argues that explanation of climate change denial by ordinary Norwegians needs to be framed in terms of complex links between emotions and social structures. Denial results not just from individual thought processes, but also from processes of social interaction that encourage people to talk and think in some ways rather than others.

What if we turned these thought processes and social norms on their heads, and started asking Americans and Canadians and Norwegians and all the other comfortable, fossil-fuel producing/consuming people in the world to approach the climate change emergency with compassion, altruism, and selflessness. Because caring about the world's most vulnerable will, in the end, be good for all of us.

Selfish &%$#@! Theme Week is wrapping up today, so I just want to say it one more time. Selfishness when it comes to what we do (or don't do) today to mitigate climate change for future generations will come back to bite us in the butt. And if you're so old that you scoff at that notion, then please consider your role as an ancestor, or simply as a fellow human being.

And yes, to the man who said those incredibly selfish things in our local newspaper, I am talking to you. Please, have a heart and get some compassion. For your karma if not for your kids. Feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about the science.

p.s. I'm taking tomorrow off. Going to spend the day with some very unselfish, wonderful friends.

"Selfish &%$#@!" Theme Week: Thursday

Selfish &%$#@! do this self-righteous, oh-poor-me thing whenever anyone challenges their fabrications, mis(anthropic)interpretations and cherry-picked data.

These climate change denialists keep forgetting that (a) they do indeed have the right to their own opinions (even when those opinions make them look like selfish &%$#@!), (b) they do not have the right to make up their own facts, and (c) all the evidence, all around them, shows them to be wrong, dead wrong. With tragic, lethal and catastrophic results.

And now that panel reports are showing the economic costs of climate change, and research reports are showing the urgency of the climate change emergency, and agronomists (you know, those scientists who study soil management and crop production) are freaking out about the dual hazards of too much or too little water and higher temperatures — well, now we're seeing the true colours (and complete ignorance) of some of our favourite selfish &%$#@!.

For example, as Reuter's reports, (Canada's) "Environment Minister Peter Kent responded by saying the report showed the importance of adapting to climate change." Dear kind sir, how do people adapt to burning forests, withered crops, unsafely high temperatures, increasingly freakish weather? How? If you had an ounce of understanding (of the, ahem, environmental science underlying the climate crisis, Mr. Environment Minister), courage or compassion, you would be talking about lowering Canada's greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible, as quickly as possible, starting yesterday!!

But because you selfishly put your campaign contributions and your narrow worldview before the lives of all the young people alive today, you do nothing but kowtow to fossil fuel interests.

I could go on, and on and on and on. But I want to — selfishly — enjoy the rest of my day. So let me just leave you with this. Now there are complaints that renewable energy infrastructure is leading to ugliness ... as though power lines and oil pipelines are not ugly. As though famines and droughts and floods are not ugly.

I don't know ... can selfishness get any deeper? Any more callous? "I want my (own ugly) brand of beauty back!" Then stop using so much energy, doughbrain! Sheesh. (Oops, am I going to get in trouble for calling someone a doughbrain?)

p.s. For an interesting look at transmission tower as art, by extension proving that wind turbines and solar panels can also be seen as art, click here.

"Selfish &%$#@!" Theme Week: Wednesday

So, another day, another look at how selfishness is finishing us off.

Has anyone else felt sickened by what's happened to Libya? A country that was taken from poorest in the world to highest standard of living in Africa (and if you think that's not saying much, higher standard of living than Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, I've read) ... trashed because our EuroAmerican culture cannot tolerate economic diversity!

We are so selfishly and slavishly attached to our deadly capitalist, free-market mono-economy that Qaddafi's form of socialism (you know, free health care and education, affordable housing, shared profits from nationally-owned oil fields, a debt-free nation) drove us nuts. Indeed, drove us to foment revolution, which turned us into murderers and assassins — killing the people we said we were going there to protect. The real reason the US led NATO into Libya is that Qaddafi was forming an African economic union around the gold dinar, and the US doesn't like anyone using a currency that isn't theirs. Can you say Saddam Hussein? (Do some research, people!)

Free-market economy. Yeah, sure — except when it's someone else's. Our Western nations cannot stand being left out of a game!

So what's all this got to do with climate change? Indeed, Libya's wealth was oil-based, so it wasn't all roses. But if you're willing to look deeply into what happened in, er, to Libya, you'll discover why the Big Boys won't make or allow the necessary transition to a zero-carbon economy. They want to own everything themselves. They want to have all the money. They want to be the only winners. They want everyone else to be losers. They are, in short, selfish &%$#@!.

Compassion? Okay, I'm betting that most of these people in high places had horrible little childhoods with no love from their parents. And either too much money or not enough of it. So I can feel sorry for them for that.

But you know, teachers have a saying: "Judge the behaviour, not the child." However, when it comes to adults, I'm judging them by their behaviour! So if their behaviour is selfish, then so are they. And if their behaviour is mean-spirited, then so are they. Ergo, they are selfish &%$#@!, pure and simple.

"Selfish &%$#@!" Theme Week: Tuesday

My husband suggested that I choose a different name for my theme week. Something like "Climate Change Wimps Week." As in, what's driving the denialists and their denialist campaign is their fear; they are afraid to face what we're doing to the atmosphere and hence the biosphere. 

I actually like the sound of "climate change wussies" but I'm going to stick with "selfish %$#@!" anyway. 
However, the idea must have been rolling around in my head last night, because I woke up with this thought:

People who are working to slow global warming and to mitigate the climate change emergency are people who know that any "costs" involved in doing this will be miniscule compared to what it will cost if we don't stave off climate catastrophe. We've looked at Pascal's Wager, and we've made our decision. (See the video below.)

Our fear is grounded in deep care and concern for our children and their future. But where is the fear of climate change wussies grounded? I'm afraid it might now simply be a deep-seated fear of being wrong.

As I stated earlier this week, I would LOVE it if we climate change activists were wrong. The BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD would be finding out that the denialists were right. I would gladly trade my years of learning all this stuff, writing about all this stuff, crying about all this stuff for the news that it was all unnecessary.

Tragically, risk assessment won't let me give up. (Nor will my love for life.)

Risk = Probability x Magnitude.

Probability? It's already happening. Northern British Columbia's forests are orange, not green. Hells bells, even the cedars in my front yard are dying! University of British Columbia professor, Lori Daniels, says the death rate of cedars corresponds with the rise in average temperatures in the past few decades [pdf], and the ensuing longer dry periods and drought stress.

Scientists have been loathe to blame climate change for any one specific weather event — until now. According to a new computational approach, there's an 80% chance that climate change was responsible for the Russian heat wave of July 2010, which killed 700 people* and was unprecedented since record keeping began in the 19th century. "While the influence of climate trends on weather is recognized as 'loading the dice,' making extreme events more likely, individual events are still described in general terms of fitting patterns."

And magnitude? Oh my gosh. This is where I get really upset. I can see denialists not looking out the window, not following the news, not giving a damn about the more vulnerable populations in the world who are already suffering from climate change-related disasters. But I cannot fathom them being unable or unwilling to look to their own (grand)children's future. Why do they not want the best for them? And by "best" I mean food and water security. Why are they willing to gamble with their (grand)children's future for the sake of giving up some creature comforts today?

Our generation (at least in EuroAmerican cultures) has had it the best of any generation in human history. Hands down, no argument. And that has turned us selfish and lazy — but do we truly not give a damn about the future? Are we just lacking in imagination, and can only picture more of the same for them (which belies complete ecological illiteracy, sorry)?

Or are most of us afraid? Afraid of the monster our culture has created. Afraid to admit to it, to face up to it. And afraid of the consequences of not facing up to it, but afraid to admit they've been wrong?

Alas, maybe I'm overstating my case. Perhaps they're all just selfish %$#@!, and this has nothing to do with fear.

Time for some soul searching on the part of climate change denialists. Some heavy-duty, what-do-I-truly-value soul searching. Some "what do I want my legacy to be" soul searching. Some "my parents don't control me anymore so why am I still afraid of being wrong" soul searching. Some "do I believe in heaven or karma" soul searching. Some Pascal's Wager soul searching.

And if, after all that soul searching, the denialists still want to deny, may they please do it over a beer at the pub, instead of in forums where they're going to look selfish and mean-spirited. Cuz don't forget, we're trying to safeguard the future for your (grand)kids, too.

p.s. Here's one flaw I see in Greg Craven's version of Pascal's Wager. Costs. How come building new coal-fired plants and digging new oil wells (and cleaning up after them) and putting in new highways is never considered "costs" — but doing stuff to protect the children's health and future is "costs." That just doesn't make sense.

* The heat wave in Russia in 2010 didn't kill 700 -- I really don't know where I got that number from. It's estimated to have killed 55,000!

"Selfish &%$#@!" Theme Week: Monday

If being nice means not speaking my truth or not sharing the truth, then there's no sense being nice anymore. The gloves are off. I cried for a day about the fallout of calling an unnamed denialist a selfish &%$#@! (though everyone I've talked to has expressed their support). My tears are over today and I'm feeling much stronger.

 

In her 1988 (and recently updated) book of the same name, Susan Jeffers says, "Feel the fear and do it anyway." This was a self-help book (if memory serves, it helped me!), though Dr. Jeffers probably wasn't talking about standing up to climate change bullies and wussies.

 

But it's a reminder nonetheless that being courageous doesn't mean not feeling scared. It means, as Dr. Jeffers suggests, that one acts despite feeling scared. So call me courageous but I woke up this morning realizing that lashing out is simply one of the tricks in the satchel of climate change denialists — and I'm not going to fall prey to it.

 

I'm going to keep calling a spade a spade — and if my wannabe nemesis thinks it's all about him, so much the better. I ain't giving up on the kids and their future.

 

I don't have (too big of) a problem with people who are simply too busy and tired — working hard, raising kids, growing food, etc. — to do the research on climate change. Long ago, I realized that with no kids of my own (but a beloved niece and two wonderful stepsons whose future I care a great deal about), I would have to pull some extra weight. And though it's sad, sad work, I don't mind it or regret it. (Though I do mind and regret that anyone has to do environmental work to begin with. Oh, but that we had an economic system that didn't bulldoze everything in its path!)

 

The people I really have a problem with are those who read a couple of denialist websites — or columns in the local paper — and decide they know everything they need to know about climate systems, ecology, carbon feedbacks, and the physics and chemistry of greenhouse gases to be able to tell everyone to relax, it's no big deal, it's happened before (yeah, buddy, long before humans existed, and certainly before we "evolved" into an agricultural species dependent on a stable climate). These are people who can't say "food security" and who can't bring themselves to give a flying $#@! about the millions of people in the world already being impacted by the climate change emergency. Grrrrrr.

 

So, as a sort of spiritual mother to all the children in the world (just as all elders are spiritual parents), I take my responsibility to fight for their future very seriously. Does a mother bear make a polite request when she first feels threatened? No, she knows exactly how she's going to protect her cubs — and it ain't pretty!

 

I AM MOTHER BEAR. HEAR ME ROAR!

Which Tombstone Will They Choose for You?

I have always been a "nice girl." Thoughtful, kind, avoided trouble. But enough!

Is being nice (calm, understanding, compassionate towards wrongdoers) really more important than safeguarding the future for all children? Am I supposed to sit idly by while armchair "pundits" with no climate science qualifications bamboozle their audiences with cherry-picked data, misinterpretations and outright fabrications, the future bedamned? We are all entitled to our own opinions — but not to our own facts.

And which is worse? Calling someone a selfish %$#@ or being the someone who promotes an attitude that condemns all future generations to climate hell?

I know which side I come down on, but I'm just wondering, because it seems things are a little skewed in my community these days. (I won't call individual climate change denialists "selfish bastards" anymore — even though I didn't actually name anyone. They don't like it. Too close to home perhaps. Nor do others. Apparently, being nice trumps integrity and truthfulness and caring about the children. But it doesn't mean that the entire denialist campaign isn't made up of them. What kind of adult is it who puts their own creature comforts ahead of the needs of children for health and safety and security? And I'm a bad person because I called someone a name? Sheesh!)

It's pretty obvious to me that most people don't realize how grave the threat of the climate change emergency is, nor how profoundly their (grand)children's lives will be impacted. If they did, they wouldn't be upset with me for calling a spade a spade. They'd be railing against those who spew misinformation and continue to drag down any possibility of political change in the right direction.

Now, just to be clear about which side the truth lies on ... a new study shows that "global warming is real." Contrary to what my local climate change denialist is sharing in print with my community ("Average temperature appears to have slightly declined over the past decade," he tells his readers — which doesn't include me anymore. Wrong.)

Though not yet officially peer-reviewed or published, the authors of this study are sharing the preliminary results together with the programs and data set "in order to invite additional scrutiny as part of the peer review process."

Robert Muller, a known climate change skeptic, and his team (the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, sponsored in part by the Koch Brothers, deep-pocketed climate change denialists extraordinaire) headed up the project. Here's what he has to say about the results so far:

"When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate."

Please remember that I take no delight when climate change denialists are proven wrong. I wish they were all right! I wish global warming were all a hoax and a myth. I want to wake up from this nightmare. But that's not going to happen. "Global warming is real." It's only getting worse. And it's the children who are going to suffer.

Because it's real, we've got to get going on solutions. And because it's real, you're either, to borrow from Dubya, for the right of future generations to a safe and stable climate, or you're not. Which makes you a selfi ... no, wait, I said I wasn't going to go there anymore.

*******

So, which tombstone would you want for your gravesite? Can you guess which one I want for mine?

Cognitive Dissonance, Diffidence, and Dissidence

Last week on this blog, I called a local climate change denialist a selfish %$#@!. I think the "selfish" epithet is clear enough: an old geezer who refuses to make any dents in his greenhouse gas emissions to benefit the children and all future generations is just plain selfish.

But two friends thought that I was somehow being hypocritical by using the term "bastard." Now, I'd assumed that most of us know, understand and use the second (slang) definition of the word: a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person.

So I see no hypocrisy, nor any problem, in calling a spade a spade ... especially these days, when so much is riding (future of life on Earth, anyone?) on the compassion we must muster for those more vulnerable to the ravages of the climate change emergency. In my world, to flatly refuse to make even the slightest sacrifice for the sake of the children — and then to splatter that mean-spiritedness all over a newspaper page — makes you a %$#@!. And a selfish one.

*****

My friends' reactions got me thinking about cognitive dissonance: the state of conflict or anxiety that arises from inconsistency between one's beliefs/attitudes and actions, or from holding conflicting ideas at the same time.

For example, these friends know that the world is teetering on the edge of demise. Yet, they couldn't picture themselves calling a selfish %$#@! "a selfish %$#@!" on a blog. "What if a child reads it?" asked one. Um, that matters why? Changes things how? (Hey, if a child reads my blog, he or she is going to know that at least I stick up for the children and their right to a future!)

Anyway, that made me think of a new term. Cognitive diffidence: mental shyness or inability to trust; lack of intellectual self-confidence. Sure, if you hadn't spent a whole day researching and rebutting the denialist's published bullsh!t, you might not feel you have enough evidence to call someone a selfish %$#@!. But I did spend a whole day, so I do have enough evidence!

Then I remembered another friend's recent typo: cognitive dissidence. Pretty good one, eh? I'm coining that phrase as intellectual dissent, or mental protest against official policy. Yeah, that's what I'd like to see! A whole lot more people mentally protesting against national, international and multinational policies that are keeping us on the road to hell. And then, in order to get rid of their cognitive dissonance, people will have to DO SOMETHING about what's going on in the world. With courage instead of cognitive diffidence.

Think about it, 'kay? I might be onto something here!!

In Response to a Global Warming Denialist's Drivel, Untruths and Outright Fabrications in My Local Paper

You know, the most labour-intensive part of responding to denialists is that they can say (and seem to get away with saying) whatever they want with impunity (using, by the way, hollow aphorisms repeated ad nauseum in the internet's echo chamber by other denialists who refuse to see what's happening around the world or just don't give a damn about others).

But the scientists and others who are trying to explain the science always feel they have to make sure that every single tiny little weeny detail is backed up with references — or the likes of the mean-spirited old codger I'm responding to here will jump on it, using more flippant nonsense gleaned from denialist blogs and websites.

Here, then, is my detailed response, even though I would rather have spent my time on doing what's right for the children of all species. (But then, maybe this constant recorrecting is what's called for to ensure them a climate-safe future….)

1. Some warm periods in the last 12,000 years were warmer than today?

It is now generally accepted by paleoclimatologists and other scientists that the Medieval Warm Period (or Medieval Climate Anomaly), from 950 to 1250 A.D., saw some regions slightly warmer than today's warmed world, but it was not a global phenomenon like today's global warming is. For more info, see the composite graph below and http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1579/0044-7447-29.1.51.

2. An ice age in the planet's near future? No, sir. Not if we continue adding heat-radiating greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. According to the laws of physics, that is.

3. We're far past the days of scientific consensus on whether man-made CO2 is actually responsible? Actually, the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) came about as the weight of more and more evidence showed that humans are causing current warming with their increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. For more info, see http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm. ("There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one.")

4. "Global warming" has given way to "climate change"? And the insinuation is ...? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988. Perhaps you were trying to say that warming the atmosphere leads to changes in climate, which is correct.

5. Average temperature appears to have slightly declined over the past decade? No, the temperature trend is still upwards (with 2005 and 2010 tied as the hottest years on record). For more info, see the NASA graph (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) below, or http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html.

6. Prompting scientists to "hide the decline"? Talk about something taken out of context! One email, written by one climate scientist, has been skewed so many different ways, it's farcical. He was talking about an anomalous decline in northern tree ring growth starting about 1960, not global temperature. For a better explanation, see http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm.

7. I always like to hand it to denialists when they've got something right. Computer projections aren't always correct (when compared to observations). Unfortunately, for the most part they have failed to predict how quickly the warming and other disturbing trends are actually happening. However, "surface temperature observations are well within the range of model projections," "the observed rate of sea level rise is at the upper limit of the IPCC's projected range," and "the end-of-summer extent of Arctic sea ice is plummeting far more rapidly than … IPCC models predicted." For more info, see: http://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-4-observations-match-models.html.

But to say that "every computer prediction of global warming from warming enthusiasts shows smooth upward curves in temperature, not declines, or fluctuations" is sheer fabrication. (See NASA graph in #5 above, for example.)

8. As greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have increased (we're over 390 parts per million of CO2 right now, and we started at 290 in the pre-industrial era), global average temperature has increased. So to ask "Why then, if CO2 has continued to rise, has our temperature not followed suit like it's supposed to?" is disingenuous at best, because temperature has followed suit.

9. "Could it be that computer models are deficient in raw data input?" Climatologists actually study and know about "the myriad of factors that affect this world's climate." Really, they do! But no, they probably can't include every single one in every single climate projection model. But, for example, they now know that temperature increase over the last three decades cannot be attributed to solar activity. For more info, visit http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm or watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sf_UIQYc20&feature=player_embedded.

10. The writer stopped being puzzled long ago about "why weathermen can't even successfully predict next week's local weather accurately." That's nice. But he also — as denialists often do — seems to be confusing weather (day to day changes) with climate (which is all about long-term trends).

11. "Over the past few years governments have bowed to the political pressure of environmentalists concerned over greenhouse gasses and they've passed new regulations and taxes aimed at reducing CO2 emissions." Yes, and thank goodness for that! Tragically, not nearly enough of this has happened. It's been suggested that a $300 per ton tax on carbon would help turn the economic momentum around almost overnight, heading us toward a safer, cleaner, healthier, more equitable and more peaceful zero-carbon economy. But who's fighting that? Yup, the denialists.

12. "However, when it comes to the facts of proposals for those reductions including Kyoto, Copenhagen, and others, the political/environmental machinations regarding CO2 are shown to be nothing more than a surrealistic smoke and mirrors show." Ah, speaking of dense fog. The surrealism actually lies in the miniscule response of governments to the greatest threat ever to face the existence of the human species. It creates cognitive dissonance for people ("I hear it's an emergency, but I see my leaders doing nothing about it"), which in turn leads to even less political will to do the right thing for our children.

13. "I want to make it clear, I am opposed to pollution." That's nice. But the writer then goes on to say "However, CO2 is not a pollutant…. Without it, plants would die and stop producing the oxygen you and I so appreciate…." Why can people who appear concerned about pollution not understand that if you trap enough CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the result will be deleterious? Just like the impacts of pollution. No one wants to take all the CO2 away! We just want to get the emission and concentration of it down to levels that won't lead to global warming and climate disruption. (Am I allowed to say "Duh!" yet?)

14. I'm going to ignore his nasty rhetoric about China and India. Yes, they're developing. And if we'd kept the promise we made when we signed onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change back in 1992, they would all be developing in zero-carbon — or at least carbon neutral — ways. So to blame them now is really mean. (Enjoy your daily shower while you can, sir. Water will soon enough become so valuable, you won't have that luxury.)

15. And what's with throwing in a complete red herring critique of the UN's Agenda 21? Because the world is urbanizing (over half of us now live in cities, and the percentage is growing all the time), Agenda 21 suggested "sustainable urbanization," NOT a "protocol for the urbanization of the planet." Sheesh, dude. You sure are grasping at straws!

16. Then he accuses people who understand the climate change emergency of "manipulated, exaggerated, fear mongering, child scaring, doomsday scenarios." Let me take each of these in turn:

Manipulate – This is what denialists do to data that shows global warming due to increased CO2 emissions actually exists; it's called "cherry-picking" and we know they do it because they keep accusing the "other side" of doing it. (This is a psychological defence mechanism called projection, which involves taking one's own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people.)

Exaggerate – The sad part of this accusation is that we're NOT exaggerating! Overheating the oceans and the atmosphere really could devastate the habitability of this planet!

Fear mongering – People call us alarmists, but you're not an alarmist if you're raising the alarm about something that's alarming! We're not creating needless worry or panic — though we wish we were! (Do you see worry or panic anywhere?) Fear mongering is the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. But we're not using fear, we're telling people the impacts of continuing to burn fossil fuels — and those impacts are scary.

Child scaring – This is a low blow, designed to turn people against anyone who actually cares about children and their future! I never talk to anyone younger than 12 (or a mature 11 year old) about climate change (and most of them don't care anyway, just like their parents). If younger children ask me, I lie and tell them there are lots of adults looking after the problem for them. I hate having to lie. And, frankly, I hate people who are quite blithely blighting the children's future by living their own lives with no sense of responsibility toward the future.

Doomsday scenarios – My gosh, but were it not so! But if the shoe fits the scenario .... The end of life on the planet is, well, pretty doomy and gloomy. A diagnosis of cancer is doomy and gloomy, too, but doctors have to tell their patients the truth nonetheless.

17. And now the writer shows both his true colours (one of his compatriots once told me that Canadians would rather die comfortable than live uncomfortable) and his lack of understanding and imagination for solutions to the climate crisis. "Until then [until someone can show him how changing our EuroAmerican lifestyles will actually make a significant difference*], I plan to continue showering in the mornings, keep driving to work in my gas dependent automobile, buy food from here, there and everywhere, fight carbon taxation, and keep wondering how we're all going to stay warm, without carbon, when winter inevitably comes."

* And I suppose he's never heard of solar power, passive solar, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal (for all those showers he thinks he needs), wind power, tidal power, wave power, geothermal energy? Nope, guess not. All he can picture doing is what he's always done: burn, burn, burn.

I know, I know, this is a blog about compassionate climate action. But my patience and my compassion wear very thin with people like this. *

* I have censored my own anger. Apparently people who would condemn the children to a future of deadly climate instability for the sake of their comforts today can't handle being called a selfish $#%@!. Hmmm, let's check this on the scales of justice: destroying life — being called a name, destroying life — being called a name. I rest my case.