"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!