It's Time to Grow Up

I want to talk with you today about an interesting incident on social media this past week, in which a friend of a friend (a used-to-be trusted term that has completely lost its meaning due to Facebook) totally miffed me by conflating her ideological beliefs with what was actually said in a video that my real friend had posted.

This person called the actions of the character in question in the video "illegal" and "despicable" when the video's narrator (a trusted news reporter) explained that, while shocking, the individual's actions were, in fact, legal. My friend's "friend" said it would be unfair to blame the national organization (which, ironically, no one had even mentioned!) that happens to incessantly lobby for and defend to the death this kind of shocking behaviour when it was this one individual's fault. Even when that one individual was only doing what the national organization has convinced society is completely normal and legal behaviour. 

(To make this story easier to understand, I'm talking about the going-viral video of a 13-year-old American boy (an undercover actor) who tries to buy beer and is not allowed, then tries to buy cigarettes and is not allowed, then tries to buy an adult magazine and lottery tickets and is not allowed -- but then walks into a gun show and easily buys the first .22 calibre rifle he picks up.)

I pointed out to this "friend of a friend" the illogicality of blaming the individual gun seller when what he did is legal and accepted in his culture. I did this by quoting the narrator word for word -- the same words she had heard in the video. That's when she became defensive and wondered why I was picking on her. 

Picking on her? Hmmm, picking on her. Let's see. Because I drew attention to the exact quote in the movie that contradicted her sweeping statement that individuals rather than culturally accepted norms should be blamed? 

I unfriended my real FB friend (sorry, friend!) in order to stop bumping into this woman's comments (this wasn't the first thing she'd said that made my blood boil). Who wants to "socialize" with friends of friends like that? I know I don't. And if you think that makes me narrow-minded or something, well ... here you go (literally).

Her reaction reminded me of three things. First, a crazy spoof video on White Fragility Training in the Workplace (link). "Ooh, you just called me out when I did something racist, but I don't think I'm racist, so you're mean and you hurt my widdle feewings." The article White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, explains "White Fragility" quite clearly and graphically -- as does the going-viral video I mentioned.

Second, this FB person's reaction reminded me of an old movie I watched recently. Gentleman's Agreement, starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire, is the 1947 story of a reporter assigned to write an exposé on anti-Semitism in post-war New York City. Short version? He is blown away by all the different ways he is discriminated against when for six months he pretends he is Jewish. But what really hurts (and I thought Peck did an admiral job of depicting the pain) is the lack of awareness in people around him who don't see themselves as anti-Semitic yet remain silent in the face of it. 

Finally, having to go through the video again to pull out the exact quote to point out how this woman's comment was illogical and incorrect (note: I said nothing about the woman herself) reminded me of all the time that has to be spent by climate change activists, reporters and scientists to caerfully and completely accurately explain and correct wild claims, false information and cherry-picked data spewed by climate change deniers, skeptics, ignorers and delayers. It's. so. wearying. And then they, too, sometimes claim to have their "widdle feewings" hurt.

I do what I do for the sake of the children. My compassion is in short supply these days, so I'm saving it for the children -- of all species. I'm sick and tired of people abusing their adult power in any way that threatens the viability of the climate, the health of the biosphere, and the day-to-day or future safety of the children. If someone's "widdle feewings" are hurt by having some truth, logic or laws of physics pointed out to them, then they can just grow up.

Compassion for the Deniers, Skeptics, Ignorers and Delayers

Finally, there's a reason to feel compassion for those who deny the climate change emergency, ignore it, or simply don't seem to give a damn about those already (and soon to be) impacted.

They fear their own mortality. They are afraid of death. And that fear drives them to hold fast to anxiety-buffering worldviews or "immortality projects" that sometimes act as barriers to sustainable practices.

This is an idea that I've been aware of for a while now (see Janis L. Dickinson's The People Paradox: Self-Esteem Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change). A series of studies by psychologists Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon and Jeff Greenberg "found clear evidence that evoking people's fear of death made them more defensive of their world view, more hostile to foreigners, more willing to lash out violently at people of different political or religious beliefs and more drawn to charismatic leaders." (See also this discussion of fear and the environmental movement.)

Ernest Becker once said, "To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything." The Ernest Becker Foundation (EBF) "seeks to illuminate how the unconscious denial of death and mortality profoundly influences human behavior, giving rise to acts of hate and violence as well as noble, altruistic striving." Indeed, the EBF has a conference coming up entitled Understanding the Violence of Climate Change (Seattle, October 21-23, 2011), which will "explore the close correlation of the denial of climate change to the denial of death."

Here's the question, then. If those who deny, question or ignore the climate change emergency are afraid of death, do those who are fighting to safeguard the future of life on Earth face their own mortality with acceptance or courage? Are climate activists those who have made peace with the idea of dying?

Let me tell you a story. One Sunday, almost 20 years ago, I woke up and told my husband we needed to take a drive. (This is something we never did, and something I never did as a child — my father was a travelling salesman, so taking a Sunday drive was something we just didn't do.)

Because I was so sure I had to do this, my husband joined me to see what it was all about. (I had no clue at the time.) We drove south out of town for quite a ways until I shouted, "Turn left here!" Again we drove for quite a ways until we came to a lovely little campground by a pretty little lake. "This is it," I said. I wandered about in the campground and sat by the lake until I realized this wasn't the right place.

I decided to cross the road, and started bushwacking up a wooded hill through trees and leaves and branches. My husband was following his own path now, so I was alone. I kept wondering what I was there for, what I was going to find.... And then it happened. Something caught my attention, and as I looked over my shoulder, I saw myself — my dead body — lying next to a log in a bed of moss.

A wondrous sense of serenity came over me as I realized that my death will be a gift to the Earth, a returning to my Mother. In that instant, I was no longer afraid of my mortality, knowing deeply and calmly that death is not an end but a new beginning in the cycle of life.

Perhaps that sounds cliché (not to mention sudden) but I made my peace with the idea of becoming compost after I die. And now I fight to protect all life (not just my own) — the very miracle of life — on this planet.

Which has me wondering ... are all climate activists at peace with their own death, and therefore able to to fight for the right of others to live?

p.s. No, that's not me. (I wish!) It's a beautiful photo by Scott Fitzhume from Pixdaus.

1 Day to Copenhagen - Things to Remember

We're almost done together. One more day. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey. I want to leave you with some things to remember....

*****

A large proportion of the people who don't "believe in" global warming are probably amongst the scientifically and ecologically illiterate. For example, about 30% of Europeans and Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth. Keep that in mind when you read or hear denialist drivel online and in letters to the editor and on TV and radio.

Global warming causes climate disruption. It doesn't mean everywhere is going to be warmer all the time. Disruption = chaos, unpredictability in the climate system. And that, along with droughts and some scorching summers too hot for agriculture (leading to crop failures), will be what ruins human civilization (we're an agricultural species dependent on a stable climate), killing our chances of surviving as a species.

*****

Some deniers say things that are just simply bonkers, to wit:

"The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology. But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao."
— Nick Griffin, British National Party, 29 November 2009 in The Guardian

Others are really good at bamboozling people by sounding really scientific. And since a whacking huge proportion of us are scientifically illiterate, we sort of fall under their spell (well, I don't). Remember that they are doing this on purpose, to sway public opinion in order to maintain the status quo so that they don't have to change anything. If they were real climate scientists, you probably wouldn't be reading them because their findings would be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that we don't read.

And then there are those even more evil deniers (the Bjorn Lomborgs of the world) who spew platitudes like safeguarding the future from climate chaos will shortchange all the poor people in the world today. And people fall for that fake sanctimonious claptrap. Remember, never believe anyone who says the poor people will lose out if we spend money now on combatting climate change (they're already losing out) ... the Cybjorns have no intention of giving that money to the poor people or poor nations. Or they would have done so by now, keeping the commitment they made in 1992 when they signed onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

When you read or hear a comment from a skeptic/denier/ignorer/delayer, think money. Think greed. Think investments in fossil fuels. These people have nothing to gain worth gaining, but they don't view it that way. Life as a fundamental value means nothing to these people. Money is everything to them. It's all a game and money is the prize. If you look at what they have to say through this lens, it will usually make sense and their evil will be quite evident.

*****

• The most important number in the world is zero. The most important number in 350 is that zero at the end. Zero carbon emissions. We can achieve that. But it means that any more use of fossil fuels is for helping us get to zero carbon (building solar arrays and wind turbines and public transit systems).
• Hey, just leave the coal and tar sands oil in the ground. It's not like it's going anywhere. Once we've got this whole thing figured out, you can go find it again.
• Global warming is the science of physics. And if you're scientifically illiterate, then you're going to want to go with someone who isn't, like a scientist who studies global warming.
• What's happening to the children in climate-ravaged parts of Africa today will soon be happening to our children. How much do we love the children in our lives?

*****

My husband, now retired, was a family physician for almost 40 years, and a busy one at that! He had to deliver sad news and bad news to hundreds if not thousands of people throughout his career. Never, he will assure you, never once did he have a patient who received news of a terminal illness and shut down, overwhelmed. No, they all fought. They all did what they could. They all did something. Some got better. Many died. But none of them gave up.

I, for one, will never give up, despite the diagnosis — and the prognosis. I love this sacred planet and its children too much. If we're going down, I'm going down fighting for what I cherish.

*****

We have to continue to be the town crier.

— Richard Habgood

We still have a long way to go so we must be brave and of good cheer and keep the good energy. That takes work, too! No point being grumpy about all this — life is too good and not worth spending in a funk.

— Elise Houghton

Instead of shaking our heads at the difficulty of this task and saying, "Woe is us, this is impossible, how can we do this?", we ought to feel a sense of joy that we have work that is worth doing, that is so important to the future of all humankind. We ought to feel a sense of exhilaration that we are the people alive at a moment in history when we can make all the difference."

— Al Gore

Inscribe this single word on your heart:

Compassion

Whenever you are confused, keep heading in the direction that leads towards deepening your love and care for all living beings, including yourself, and you will never stray far from the path to fulfillment.

— Sam Keen

[My note: I would like to substitute "survival" for fulfillment.]

*****

I still believe that compassion will be what saves us. Remember to open your heart and allow yourself to feel the pain of what's happening already in the world and what is to come. Feel compassion for those already losing their lives and their livelihoods, their food security and their water sources, their homes and their entire homelands. Feel compassion for your children and grandchildren, for all future generations, of all species.

And then start writing those letters to your government leaders, attending those meetings, talking with friends and family, learning what you need to learn to counter the lies and procrastination. (Learning is a form of action.)

The world is still in our hands.

2 Days to Copenhagen - Alarmist versus Alarming: What Legacy Are We Choosing?

Alarmist: someone who is considered to be exaggerating a danger and so causing needless worry or panic.

Well, I don't consider myself to be exaggerating the dangers of continued global warming and climate disruption. Only precious time will tell, of course, and I am now reduced to hoping beyond all hope that I (along with thousands of climate scientists) am wrong. Better me than the deniers, cuz if they're wrong, we're up that famous river without a paddle — and no time to save ourselves before we head into the abyss.

So, let's pray that the laws of physics go wonky on us, or that the Americans and Chinese decide to go renewable (dragging most of the rest of us with them) next year, or that all the deniers, skeptics, ignorers and delayers suddenly see the light (or the climate chaos beyond their own backyards) and get all their cronies into action.

*****

Versus alarming. Who's to judge? All our descendants. All future generations. Posterity. Wanna talk about going to heaven or going to hell? Whether you believe in those concepts or not (personally, I've made my peace with becoming compost), I've come to believe that we make our heaven or our hell right here on Earth — and if there's a higher power overseeing this whole grand experiment, then you'd better believe that we are judged by what we leave behind as our legacy: a sort of intergenerational golden rule.

*****

By the way, see that pretty coloured map at the top of this post? It spells the end of agriculture (which spells the end of us, since we're now an agricultural species). It's the first time that climate modellers have been able to predict regional temperature increases given a globally averaged temperature increase. For this map, the global increase is 4º Celsius above the average temperature in 1890.

Why 4ºC when everyone is saying we have to stay below a 2ºC warming? Here's the rationale for a September 2009 conference at Oxford called the Four Degrees and Beyond International Climate Conference:

"Despite 17 years of negotiations since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. Since 2000 the rates of annual emissions growth have increased at rates at the upper end of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] scenarios, presenting the global community with a stark challenge: either instigate an immediate and radical reversal in existing emission trends or accept global temperature rises well beyond 4°.

"The immediacy and scale of the reductions necessary to avoid anything below 4°C, and indeed the human and ecosystem implications of living with 4°C, are beyond anything we have been prepared to countenance. Understanding the implications of 4°C and higher temperatures is essential ...."

So please note that with a global average increase of "only" 4º Celsius (it just doesn't sound like much at all, I know, but consider that the Arctic's permafrost is already thawing with an increase of only 0.78ºC), all the bread baskets of the world — all the prime agricultural areas — will increase 6 to 12 degrees Celsius (yellow to red regions).

Holy flying mother of pearl! If a temperature increase of a measly .78ºC is thawing the permafrost, melting the Arctic summer sea ice (our summer "air conditioner"), destabilizing methane hydrates (those pesky frozen methane deposits along our continental shelves that could move us into runaway global heating if they continue emitting into the atmosphere), acidifying the oceans, killing the coral reefs, desertifying vast swaths of land around the world, causing worse droughts, floods and famines, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. (trying to make a point there), then 6 to 12ºC increases are going to be downright deadly — indeed, exterminatious (just made that word up).

We won't be able to grow food, our water sources (for drinking and irrigation) will dry up, and the heat waves will kill our populations off slowly if nothing else does. How much more do the deniers et al need to see and hear before they start to give a damn for their children's future?

So go ahead: how would you vote? Alarmist or alarming? Remember that it's only alarmist if it's not true. And if we're not sure (and there's still perhaps time for miracles), then surely for the sake of our children and grandchildren, the precautionary principle — rather than our pocketbooks — should be what motivates our actions and choices.

*****

You see, we're already experiencing catastrophic climate changes and we've only reached +0.78ºC. This seemingly small temperature increase could tip us into runaway global heating any time now. Why in heaven's name would we want to "wait and see" and not alarm people when the situation is downright alarming? Be afraid! This is scary!

We need to cut our emissions to virtually zero FAST if we want to ensure a future for life on Earth. Let's have no more talk of 2ºC and 4ºC and 2050 and 2100. Let's get to ZERO as quickly as possible, because life depends on it.

Zero carbon emissions is a legacy worth leaving.

8 Days to Copenhagen - This is Starting to Sound Like a Christmas Song

Come on, sing along!

With only 8 days til Copenhagen, my true love said to me ...

... Obama said he's going

... what's up with our prime minister?

... Al Gore has a new book out

... the Carteret Islands are sinking

... coral reefs are doomed

... oceans are acidifying

... deniers and skeptics are still bellowing

... we're still pumping out greenhouse gases

... and the temperature continues to rise at the North Pole!

10 Days to Copenhagen - Hackers and Deniers/Skeptics, Beware!

We've blown your cover.

All this talk of hacked emails had me daydreaming today about what hackers would find if they hacked into my emails ... snore. They sure wouldn't find much to amuse them.

Instead, I got into the fray a couple of days ago at Grist, when someone named Phil asked, "For God's sake, why don't you folks discuss the content of these emails?"

He was, of course, talking about the hacked emails that skeptics and deniers somewhere will have paid good money for — and in which they are now revelling. I asked Phil to consider (a) that scientists are human beings with human frailties, and (b) that there are far more important things to be discussing. (Like carbon feedbacks, or getting to the Age of Renewable Energy, or going veg to reduce methane emissions and buy us some time in the Arctic.)

However, my husband spent a large part of yesterday going through all the hacked emails (not just the juicy, cherry-picked ones) and he discovered something that no one else is talking about.

Here's what Dr. Peter Carter has to say about the hacked emails:

Of course, the emails are very different in their full context and for sure there are a few (very few) containing emotional content that has no place in professional correspondence. We all know, however, that the email story coming just before the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference is part of an orchestrated campaign to deny the scientific reality of catastrophic global climate change.

The amazing thing that comes out of reading these emails is the steady stream of harassment that our top climate change scientists are subjected to by the aggressive campaign of the skeptics/deniers.

The scientists at Hadley are being continually forced to spend an inordinate amount of their time in defending their science from totally unfounded claims that appear on climate change blogs and get reported in the media. As this is a battle over complex computer models based on masses of scientific research, the climate scientists are at a huge disadvantage to prove that the statements of the deniers on the models are wrong.

The scientists spend a great deal of their out of work time educating public audiences on the climate change facts to counter the denial disinformation campaign. The scientists, as a result of all this, operate under a high degree of personal stress. The harassment includes threats of civil litigation and they are also subjected to personally insulting emails on their work. In other words, there is an aggressive campaign that has been constantly waged for years, against the scientists and the science. I would not be surprised if some of the scientists have been at nervous breaking point at times.

Reading the emails, it comes across so clearly that these scientists are trying hard to protect the future of humanity from global climate catastrophe (inevitable if greenhouse gas emissions don't fall) and the deniers don't care one bit that their campaign has already condemned to death and suffering countless millions of the most climate change vulnerable and innocent. In my mind, the deniers are a bunch of .... Oops.

I have been critical of the reluctance of the IPCC scientists to tell the full extent of the terrible risks that the world is facing. Now I know the reason for their reluctance.

So, take that, you accursed hackers and deniers! We're really starting to find out what a rotten bunch of bastards you are (I'm no longer afraid to say it). How about you having a little compassion for the scientists who are doing their best to help us all understand the grave situation we're in? How about you holding in your hearts some compassion for all the children, of all species, and all future generations? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You don't have hearts.

12 Days to Copenhagen - There's Good Laziness and Then There's Deadly Laziness

If you're the kind of lazy person who sits around watching the grass grow in the yard (or the dust settle on your furniture, depending on the season), then that's a good kind of laziness. You're not burning any fossil fuels, you're not hurting anyone. I commend and encourage that type of laziness. More people should stay put and do nothing more often. Or maybe do a jigsaw puzzle. Personally, I'd much rather play with my hair and think about life than work any day!

But there's another type of laziness that is dooming the future, and that's the laziness of climate change deniers, skeptics, ignorers and delayers. These people are too lazy to learn, too lazy to research, too lazy to find out for themselves, too lazy to ever change their tune (by gawd, they are boring!), and too lazy to give a damn about their children's future.

They just keep pushing the same (usually partisan) stuff. They lack imagination. They never seem to learn anything new. They'll glom onto "same old same old" stuff that suits their purpose (which usually has to do with maintaining a status quo that maintains their wealth and/or comfort and/or worldview), but they don't offer anything thoughtful or compassionate or wise. I read their schlock from time to time, then tear myself away from doing nothing to research their claims (haven't found one to be correct yet). Why can't they do the same?

Too blinkin' lazy. Too lazy to do the research. Too lazy to learn the basic physics. Too lazy to learn how people in other parts of the world are already being impacted. (Google "Carteret Islands + climate change" — can you say climate refugees?) Too lazy to imagine that money might not be everyone's motivation. Too lazy to feel any compassion for the children. (It's not easy to feel deeply.)

Just when you wish they were rocking away in their La-Z-Boy™ recliners, with their children or grandchildren on their knees, they rev themselves up for a little hacking and cherry picking, obfuscating and misleading. Why do they have the energy for that, but no energy for safeguarding their children's future?

It's enough to send me back to watching the dust gather.

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.