Compassion Tune-Up: How Hot Will It Get in Their Lifetime?

How how will it get for a child born today?

Every time I turn around, I read or hear "two degrees." Two degrees this, two degrees that. Two degrees has wormed its way into our climate-changed brains as though it's a goal or a target we're aiming for, instead of a temperature rise we don't want to go near.

The Independent: "A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures [is] the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change ...." 

The Conversation: "Two degrees [is] the temperature rise we need to stay under to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change ...." 

European Union: "Limiting Global Climate Change to 2 Degrees Celsius" 

The Guardian: "... the agreed 'safety' limit of 2ºC."

I've talked before (here and here) about the ill wisdom of setting 2ºC as some sort of guardrail, especially when we've got a bunch of yahoos driving the global go-karts. "Guardrail? Yeehaw, let's go for it!" Considering what's happening already with only an additional 0.8ºC of warming, how could anyone wish 2ºC on their progeny and descendants? 

Having said all that, if one recognizes the catastrophic danger that continued global warming poses, then one might find The Guardian's interactive How Hot Will It Get in My Lifetime? of use as a compassion tune-up. For example, here are screenshots for my birthdate versus the birthdate of my beloved niece. This helps me see that it's all inexorable without a huge push for zero carbon emissions.

Warming in my lifetime (click on image to see the whole graph)

Warming in my niece's lifetime (click to see the whole graph)

On current emissions trends (which show no sign of slowing, let alone stopping), when my niece reaches my current age in 2048 (and I'm in the ground or in deep decline), we'll have blown past the 2ºC "guardrail" and will be heading to over 6ºC of warming. 

By the way, here's how I look at that best-case lower limit of the range of warming. If emissions keep rising and the global temperature keeps going up, then there is no "best case." It's just a matter of the speed at which we're committing this greatest of crimes against humanity: progenycide.

56 Days to Copenhagen - We've Got to Feel the Pain

We shared dinner the other night with favourite friends we hardly ever see and their beautiful, smiling baby boy. And the topic of conversation finally came round to climate change. (We talked about everything else first — the kids, my job, his job, her job, but when it came round to my husband's work, well, he spends 18 hours per day on climate change!)

We admire these people a lot. We think they're lovely. They are very "with it" intelligent people. We love their kids.

But (and "but" is a dangerous word, I know) they don't get that hope is not an action verb. They're still convinced that knowing the truth will shut people down. "Action is our only hope," I try to explain to people (meme alert!).

They think that people "with hope" are more likely to do something. But what's happening in the world is not bearing this out. Hope gives people a false sense of security. And then they change their lightbulbs and go back to watching TV!

Besides, there is no hope. The climate crisis is currently hopeless. For most life on Earth. And that includes us, though you wouldn't know it by our blasé reaction.

We MUST get our greenhouse gas emissions falling within a year if there is to be any hope of safeguarding the future for our friend's wonderful, smiling little son. And that is going to take a whole lot of people — voters, consumers, citizens, young people, parents! — thinking the painful thought that their children might not have a future worth living, and then demanding leadership from our leaders. This means allowing themselves to feel the pain, feel the fear, feel the despair and hopelessness and impotence, and THEN getting angry enough and agitated enough and empowered enough to do what needs to be done for the sake of their children.

At that point, it will be clear what they need to do.

127 Days til Copenhagen - The Most Important Number Is (drum roll please) ...

0. The most important number in the whole world today is zero, Zero, ZERO! That little "0" at the end of 350. That most fascinating of numbers that came to us via the Medieval Latin zephirum, which came from the Arabic sifr. That most amazing of numbers that came to us, if I understand correctly, from the Hindus of India, who recognized around 200 A.D. a mathematical representation of the concept of no quantity. (It had not occurred to earlier civilizations.) And that most useful of numbers because it allows us to represent any other whole number of any size. 

Isn't it funny that the number "zero" had to be invented? Does that mean that human beings have never been very good at limiting themselves? (Although it has been pointed out that zero is not the same as nothingness.) But I'm not a mathematician and I digress.

Today, I would just like to quickly point out that we have to get used to the notion of zero carbon. We have to embed that term (which is shorthand for zero greenhouse gas emissions) in our brains and emblazon it on our Tshirts.

We have to get everyone talking about zero carbon. It has to become a big, hairy audacious goal of every human being on the planet. And it has to be the objective we keep in mind as we develop all the fantastic renewable energy technologies that will safeguard life on Earth.

So, for starters, here's a little instruction in zerodom (pardon any errors of syntax or little accents not showing up):

• Dutch: nul koolstof
• 
  
• French: zéro carbone
• 
  
• German: null carbon
• 
  
• Italian: zero carbonio
• 
  
• Portuguese: zero carbono
• 
  
• Spanish: cero carbón

146 Days - Why Joe Romm Needs to Get Some Perspective

Climate change blogger Joseph Romm (a good guy who's on our side) is slamming Dr. James Hansen in the blogosphere these days.

First, I should mention that anybody who messes with Hansen messes with me! (Just so we're clear where I stand on this.)

I don't want to go into details. In fact, I don't even want to send you to the original postings and the spinoffs.

I just want to say this. James Hansen understands the climate change emergency far better than almost anyone else on Earth, and certainly (it is now obvious) better than Joe Romm, who (I will grant him) deeply understands American political responses to climate change.

I've written about this before — we enviros seem to have a penchant for critiquing our own, even those who know more than we do. So, when James Hansen says we desperately need a carbon tax, Joe, don't disagree with the man. When he says that the new Waxman-Markey climate change bill in the USA isn't enough, don't disagree with the man.

When you say, "I have previously explained why W-M takes us sharply off of the BAU [business as usual] emissions path over the next decade, probably reducing coal use more than 25% by 2020," please understand that cutting coal use 100% by 2020 is one of the few ways we've got to save the future.

We must get all our fossil fuel emissions down to zero. Say it with me. ZERO. Z-E-R-O. That's zed (zee to you Americans), ee, ar, oh.

Not "42% emissions reduction by 2030." Not "an 83% reduction by 2050." We must reach zero fossil fuel emissions fast, or we risk losing it all. (And I'm talking that really big ALL!) Indeed, any target that isn't zero is not a serious target.

The perspective that Joe Romm is missing is the global perspective. He's so caught up in the American scene that he's forgetting Hansen's global view. And it's not pretty.

So please, sure, be proud of your Waxman-Markey legislation, but don't go braggin' all over that it's going to save the world. It just isn't, because it doesn't talk about getting to zero fast.

It doesn't consider all the people all over the world already impacted by climate chaos. And it does not come from that place of compassion that asks, "What do we really need to do to safeguard the future, for all the children, of all species?"

155 Days to Copenhagen - A 2 Degree Threshold? Why 47 Signatories Have It All Wrong

Kate Sheppard reported on the 1st of July at Stop Global Warming.org and on The Grist that a coalition of 47 environmental, scientific and religious groups have written to President Obama asking him to "pursue a goal of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius in upcoming international meetings."

Here's what the letter actually says: "Failure to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius will have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable nations and communities and will dramatically increase the need for adaptation in the future."

And here's what these 47 groups fail to grasp. Reaching anywhere near a 2 degree C global average temperature increase will be a death sentence for Life on Earth. We do NOT want to get anywhere near +2 degrees.

And here's why. Right now, we have about 0.8 degrees C of warming and we already have serious carbon feedbacks (methane release from thawing permafrost and destabilizing methane hydrates in the oceans, plus meltdown of the Arctic Ocean summer ice).

Once you get positive carbon feedbacks, you risk runaway global heating. So at +0.8 degrees, we're already gambling with extinction. And that's without the at least 0.6 degrees of warming in the pipe.

350 is a boondoggle and 2 degrees is insanity. The only target we and President Obama should be focusing on, aiming at and working for — because our children's lives depend on it — is ZERO. Zero greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.

Why water down that message with dangerous talk of 2 degree thresholds?

170 Days - Compassionate Climate Change Solution #6 Get Ready for Alternative Transportation

Are you old enough to remember when flying was still special? I am. And I have a dear elderly friend who is old enough to remember when nobody took airline flights. They stayed home, walked, or took the wagon (or the sleigh in winter).

Getting to zero greenhouse gas emissions means changing how we do things, and one of the most interesting things we're going to change is how we get around. No more "I popped to Los Angeles for the weekend" or "I'm heading home to see my family in Australia for the holiday."

Nope, people are going to start living where they're born. And vacationing close to home. What a concept!

In the meantime, here are ways to get ready for the alternative forms of transportation that we should all be calling for:

• Get fit. Think about transportation for a moment. Have our legs (at least in the developed nations) truly become vestigial, like our appendixes? Have cars replaced our legs, like prosthetics? Let's start using our legs again, by walking and bicycling. If we start young, or get back in shape and then stay in shape, we'll be able to walk to our graves!
• Take a Hundred Mile/Kilometre Vacation. A change is as good as a rest, so you don't have to go far to go on vacation. Become a tourist in your hometown. Swap homes with a friend across town. Stay in a local fancy hotel or theme motel. Want to go further afield? Take a bus or train, a bicycle path or a subway to the end of the line. Get off. Explore.
• Join the Slow Movement. Just slow down. So what if dinner isn't eaten til 8 pm? Don't head out to insert-name-of-fast-food-joint here (on your prosthetic, fossil-fuelled wheels!) because you're tired after work or can't think of what to cook right away. Relax. Take your time. Say no to commitments that will make you rush through dinner. Or start out earlier and walk and talk and nibble.
• Learn to love staying home! Sleep on your balcony or in your guestroom or backyard. Make your home cozy. Get to know your neighbours. Plant a garden and enjoy watching it grow. Literally ... take a cup of tea into the garden every day and see what's changed. It's a delight! Take up a winter hobby that creates something (embroidery, woodworking, gourmet cooking) — spending more time at home does not mean spending more time watching TV. Volunteer at a local food bank, hospital or seniors centre (that you can walk, bicycle or bus to).

The point is that times are changing and we have to get ourselves weaned off fossil-fuel dependent forms of transportation. Why not start now while it's a fun challenge? Oh, you don't think this will be a fun challenge? Well, as my friend, visual essayist Franke James, says, "Do the hardest thing first!" (She got rid of her SUV altogether.)

197 Days - Support for Zero Emissions Comes from an Unlikely Place - Reader's Digest!

Someone put a copy of the April 2009 issue of the Canadian edition of Reader's Digest in my mailbox at school — I suppose because I'm the "green teacher" there.

I didn't open it up until today, and what did I find on page 71? An excerpt of an interview in the Indian edition of Reader's Digest with one of the most influential men alive — Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

And what did Pachauri say in India that our news media in the West did not pick up on? Exactly what we've been trying to communicate for months! He was asked whether it's possible to reverse global warming. Here's his response:

"Theoretically, yes. You will really have to bring down your emissions to below zero and find ways by which you can absorb existing carbon dioxide. Technologically, that's entirely possible."

Pachauri isn't asked how quickly we have to get to zero emissions, but he does explain something important:

"If you look at projections for the future, even if we were to stabilize the concentration of atmospheric gases today, climate change will continue for several decades." He explains that it's mainly the developed world that is responsible for current global warming: "You are not dealing with today's emissions. It's the cumulative effect of emissions over time, for which developed countries are responsible."

That means that today's emissions — our greenhouse gases, emitted today knowing full well that we are killing the future — haven't had their impact yet. That safer, cleaner, healthier, more equitable and more peaceful world of renewable energy looks good right now, doesn't it?

So my action today is to get Pachauri's response out there, first on my Climate Primer webpage, next on the Climate Change Emergency Medical Response homepage, and then on various listserves. People around the world have to hear and understand that ZERO is the only viable target, the only target that will give us a chance at safeguarding the future.

Spread the word. And the word is "zero"!