Compassion Tune-up - Greta Thunberg's Message to the Music of The 1975

When I'm not here every Sunday morning expounding on my thoughts and feelings around the climate crisis, it's because I'm too depressed to do it. It's been weeks now that I've barely done anything on the climate change front. (Well, I did protest our prime minister's visit to the region!)

But then this came my way and I really wanted to share it with you. Greta Thunberg is both a climate hero and an inspiration to many of us activists — of all generations.

"We must all do the seemingly impossible."

Enjoy the background music of The 1975, and then bookmark this page and come back and come back and come back again, until Greta's message fills your heart, overflows into your arteries, and then seeps from your pores. (One friend I sent it to you responded, "I feel like I need to hear it over and over, to keep the awareness at the top of my head all the time. Change now, today, stop the emissions. Rebel.") "Lyrics" are below.

Here's an animated version!

Greta Thunberg's Speech

We are right now in the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis.

And we need to call it what it is. An emergency.

We must acknowledge that we do not have the situation under control and that we don’t have all the solutions yet. Unless those solutions mean that we simply  stop doing certain things.

We admit that we are losing this battle.

We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed.

But homo sapiens have not yet failed.

Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands.

But unless we recognise the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.

We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.

And either we do that, or we don’t.

You say that nothing in life is black or white.

But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie.

Either we prevent a 1.5 degree of warming, or we don’t.

Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, or we don’t.

Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.

That is as black or white as it gets.

Because there are no grey areas when it comes to survival.

Now we all have a choice.

We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations.

Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

That is up to you and me.

And yes, we need a system change rather than individual change. But you cannot have one without the other.

If you look through history, all the big changes in society have been started by people at the grassroots level. People like you and me.

So, I ask you to please wake up and make the changes required possible. To do your best is no longer good enough. We must all do the seemingly impossible.

Today, we use about 100 million barrels of oil, every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground.

So, we can no longer save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed.

Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.

So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.”

How Do We Cultivate the Courage We Need to Do What's Needed?

A friend sent that quote to me this past week ... a week during which I've been struggling to remain brave in the face of frustrating and nearly overwhelming personal circumstances and still so much nasty gawddamn denial of the climate crisis. Who *are* these deniers? Why are they *so* afraid to be working for a better world rather than the status quo? Because, make no mistake, denial of the climate change emergency is born out of cowardice ... and a shrivelled heart incapable of compassion.

Conformity to "everyone else" is killing us! Conforming to denialist beliefs. Jetting off to lie on some distant beach. Buy, buy, buying to fill some void. Building with steel and concrete rather than wood. Eating industrially raised meat and dairy. Using chemicals on their gardens.

Conformity is killing us.

Globally, crop yields have, on average, started declining. My worst fear (that food security would disappear while people are still arguing that "CO2 is good for plants") is coming true. I need to screw up my courage to a new level. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free."
― Jim Morrison

It's time for material and energy austerity, folks. All the bad things I've been talking about here for TEN YEARS (!!!) are not only happening but increasing, and increasing at accelerating rates.

WE have to get our carbon emissions into decline NOW. WE have to do that. We can't wait for governments anymore.

What if the Green New Deal was designed to be a giant distraction? What can WE be doing? I mean besides the stuff we've been half-assedly doing for 20 years.

We need to be buying nothing but food. We need to work with our neighbours and in our communities to get growing as much food as possible, in as many local places as possible.

Governments need to get their fingers out of their noses and build public transit that works for real people of all ages and abilities. We need to be using energy-dense nuclear power to smelt the metals to build this public transit infrastructure, as well as the renewable energy infrastructure. 

We need to be staying cool using fans and breezes and shade. No air conditioning. 

We need to be doing as little travel as possible by fossil fuel. Staycations instead. Walking and biking instead. Carpooling and public transit at the very least. WE NEED TO START INCONVENIENCING OURSELVES for the sake of the future. And for some crazy reason, in this most-comfortable-ever era in Western human history, it's going to take courage to do that. 

So screw up your courage, do your best to make whatever changes you can make (cancel a vacation, plant some food, stay home more often or walk/ride a bike), but don't be afraid to screw up or be a hypocrite sometimes (the zero-carbon systems just aren't in place yet!).

We all need good luck now (to be honest, we probably need an all-out miracle) but by being as brave as we can be and making these changes, perhaps we can create our luck, and our own miracle. Oh, and don't be afraid to reach out to others for help. There's more courage to be found in numbers.

(With apologies for a rather disjointed post — but we can't let perfect get in the way of good enough anymore. We just have to get stuff done. For encouragement, see my other posts about courage.)

Compassion Tune-Up: An Oldie (But a Goodie), Like Me

Well, I've just celebrated another turn around the sun. I think I'm going to have to accept the fact that I'm not young anymore. ;-) And I think I feel a midlife crisis coming on. 

This new version of a wonderful Joni Mitchell oldie by Counting Crows is an excellent reminder that we don't have to throw out the old to make room for the new in the work we're doing. It's also a sad reminder of how much worse things have become in the last few decades. (This song was released in 1970, and Mitchell is 75 now!) Plus it has prompted me to examine my life, to be sure that I do know what I've got before it's gone.

Here, for your melancholic listening pleasure, is Big Yellow Taxi. Enjoy.

Big Yellow Taxi

by Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise 
And put up a parking lot 
With a pink hotel, a boutique 
And a swinging hot spot 

Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got 
Till it's gone 
They paved paradise 
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees 
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people 
A dollar and a half just to see 'em 

Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got 
Till it's gone 
They paved paradise 
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer 
Put away that DDT now 
Give me spots on my apples 
But leave me the birds and the bees 
Please! 

Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got 
Till it's gone 
They paved paradise 
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

© Siquomb Publishing Company

Faith Rather Than Hope

We "countryfolk" are housesitting for friends and getting an extended "city fix," which is always fascinating. City streets sure are lonelier, especially with everyone checking out their "screens" as they bustle along. But shopkeepers and restaurant servers have been quite friendly (perhaps reflecting back our small-town vibe?).

Hanging in our friends' kitchen is this little sign:

"And faith for the future" ... that's the part that struck me. You know how I feel about hope and hope mongering, where feeling hopeful about the climate crisis is more important than actually doing something about the climate crisis. (If what environmental education guru, David Orr, says is true — that hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up — I figure it's only because it wants to get a tan on its arms.)

But faith. Faith. Doesn't that seem different somehow? The non-religious definition is "complete trust or confidence in someone or something." The moment I read that sign, I realized that I do my work on the climate change emergency with some sort of faith in my heart that ... well, that we humans will at last pull together. 

It could well be too late by the time we get our act together (indeed, it's maybe too late already, given all the warming we're already committed to due to the ocean heat lag ... and all the warming that will be added when we stop fossil fuel burning, since fossil fuel particulate pollution has been masking a certain percentage of the warming to date), but if nothing else, I'd like today's younger generations to know that we finally, after a huge collective forehead slap, "got it" and came together for their sake. 

Still waiting for our collective facepalm

The quote below isn't quite correct. The IPCC has told us that we only have until 2020 to get our carbon emissions into rapid decline if we want to be able to meet our 2030 and 2050 targets (50% reduction and virtually zero, respectively). 

But the sentiment is one that resonates for me. It speaks to the faith that arises when people — listening to the love in their heart, instead of the fear — start doing exciting, courageous work together.

It is true that the IPCC tells us that we have only 12 years to act ... but in the world there are thousands of projects. They do not start from pessimism or optimism, they start with people who choose to follow their heart, and do what they feel called to. Science tells us that it is possible.  — Diego Galli