A Christmas Compassion Tune-up — No child should ever cry on Christmas

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve, with just a few minutes left till midnight. I spent the evening with friends sharing a lovely dinner of potato pancakes (in honour of Hanukkah), cranberry sauce and warm winter salad, then watching a favourite movie.

Despite what's going on in the world, I still believe in my heart of hearts that the greatest way we could solve the climate change crisis would be to feel compassion for the children with the future we're bequeathing them. 

So my holiday gift for you this year will be this compassion tune-up. It's a song I've only ever heard once on the radio — a few years ago — (they don't play this one in malls and elevators) and it had me sobbing while doing my sit ups. 

At this special time of year for so many of us, let's remember to count our blessings. I count you as one of mine.

No Child Should Ever Cry On Christmas

by John Oates

sung by Hall & Oates

Father Christmas, Mother Mary
Bless the Child on this, His day
Round the world are so many families
Not enough to eat but still the faith to pray
 

Let the Holy star above
Shine a silver light of love
And turn this world around 

 

[Chorus]
No child should ever cry on Christmas
No child should ever be afraid
No child should ever cry on Christmas Day 

 

Come the morning
Toys and laughter
Yeah that's the way
It's supposed to be
Then all the mornings
Ever after
Bring us hope and joy and harmony

 

Let the Holy star above
Shine a silver light of love
And turn this world around 

 

[Repeat Chorus] 

 

Let the Holy star above
Shine a silver light of love
And turn this world around 

 

[Repeat Chorus]

Has Peace Become Clichéd?

A simple float in a Santa Claus parade. People-powered. Colourful. Creative. Collaboratively designed. A globe with a dove sitting upon it. Peace on Earth. Literally and symbolically. Lovely, right? Nope.

Head honcho says: "Peace on Earth is trite."

SIDEBAR ===

I remember when Christmas was the most special day of the year! The week before Christmas was magical. Then I went off to school and Christmas began to take up the whole month of December, in the way that Earth Day has spread to Earth Week and now, in some places, Earth Month. 

That never bothered me. The days became more and more festive as the month went on. 

Nowadays, though, the Christmas season begins the morning after Halloween. (I suspect some window dressers are up all night changing the display!) And Black Friday? What's up with that? I think it must be called Black Friday to commemorate all the tramplings, including deaths, that occur the Friday after the American Thanksgiving. (See Greening the Holidays at School for more.) 

I know it's all about wringing more shopping out of shoppers. I understand the economics of it. I don't condone the economics, but I understand the feeling (and, I suppose, the reality) that Christmas buying will carry many retailers through the rest of the year. But sometimes, it just serves to make us all the more grinchy. 

END OF SIDEBAR ===

Could that explain someone — a newbie environmentalist with a lot of chutzpah and influence — forbidding "Peace on Earth" on a Christmas float because it's "trite"?

This must be someone who doesn't know that the world's militaries (with the US military in the lead) are the leading burners of fossil fuels on the planet. This person must not understand how incredibly destructive wars and conflicts (and illegal invasions) are to the human victims, but also to other species, and the land, the water, the air and the climate.

Happy Green Christmas

It's not easy being a climate change activist at this time of year. (Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year in Canada, and because it's become quite secular, practically everyone celebrates it or has to deliberately try not to.) Everybody wants a break from the climate change bad news.

So I'd just like to tell you about our gift to the world, and then I'll wish you a happy holiday with beloved family and friends. Oh, and please, if you really "must" eat the traditional bird with your Christmas meal, at least say thank you for the sacrifice it made.

My husband is now a member of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, a virtual think/action tank based in the UK. For the last few weeks, he and I have created their website, edited their package of urgent information on the Arctic methane emergency (which was put together by eminent Arctic researchers, scientists and engineers), had it printed (on FSC paper), researched the contact information for every head of government in the world (well, we might have missed out South Sudan, the newest nation), collated everything, addressed and licked over 200 envelopes, and stunned the folks at our local post office when we walked in on Christmas Eve morning with boxes and boxes of these envelopes to mail.

And now that project is done. Phew! Feels good. In a world where more and more people who shouldn't be are having green Christmases because of global warming, the governments of the world will no longer be able to claim ignorance of the climate change emergency.

As I send you love and compassion ... may your day be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be the right colour.

Climate Change Extravaganza!

EXTRAVAGANZA: from the Italian stravaganza, meaning extravagance.

1. a musical or dramatic composition or production, as comic opera or musical comedy, marked by a loose structure, a frivolous theme, and elaborate costuming and staging.

2. any lavish or opulent show, event, assemblage, etc.

I attended a Christmas Extravaganza last night with my hubby (who protested the whole time, but secretly enjoyed the tribute to Motown) and three friends. My friend, Shelley, when they started singing White Christmas, whispered in my ear, "We should do a climate change extravaganza!"

So, the seed is planted. I am now searching (so please send them in!) for songs, dances, stories and jokes about climate change that we can work into a vaudevillian show. Can you picture it?

• I'm Having Nightmares of a Green Christmas
• Stop! In the Name of Life
• I'm Singin' in the Cyclone, Just Singin' in the Cyclone
• Don't Worry, Be Hungry
• Tsunami Safari

Okay, I've got it started. I'll need you to contribute your ideas. Auditions for the singers, dancers and musicians will begin in July. Anyone want to contribute their skills in choreography and musical arrangement?

Folks, the Cancun climate talks proved that the whole international climate scene is a complete and absolute farce. Why not carry on the theme?

By this time next week, another Christmas season will be over. Life, at least in the Western part of the northern hemisphere, will quiet down for a few weeks (til the next opportunity for a consumer orgy — Valentine's Day). What better time to put together our Climate Change Extravaganza? I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Best Wishes for an Excesslessly Festive Season

The Brussel sprout Christmas tree
that becomes dinner

I have to admit, I enjoy the holiday season, and always have. Won't apologize for that. I think it's because I have a much younger sister and found myself enjoying keeping the Christmas spirit alive for her as she was growing up. 

We're still a fairly tightly-knit family, and it's still a special family time for us, though we've had our share of Hollywood-style Christmas dinner dramas, for sure. My heart definitely goes out to those who don't like this time of year due to family problems, loneliness, poverty or illness.

But when I read that the average North American (adult?) will spend $800 this holiday season, my first reaction was to almost throw up. My second reaction was to question the source. My third reaction was to laugh. 

That's because the joy in my gift-giving stems from spending next to nothing! I love finding things around my home or secondhand gifts at our local thrift shop (where all the proceeds go back into the community) that are perfect for each person on my list. Then I wrap them in newspaper, decorate the packages with drawings of holly leaves, and celebrate spending next to nothing. And this year, many of my loved ones have a donation to relief work in the Philippines in their name.

Thought experiment. When the climate change $#@! hits the fan and we have to go back (cuz we haven't moved forward) to a pre-consumeristic economy, and all the new "stuff" is no longer available, and most people are desperately trying to grow their own food (like in the olden days), what will gift giving look like then? How long could the circular economy (of regiving) survive? Just something to think about.

I hope the holiday season is lavishly kind to you in spirit this year — without material excess.

Blessed be.

The Rebel Jesus, by Jackson Browne

Summoning the Courage to Speak Our Minds (and Hearts) on Climate Change

Hannah and Rachel from Birmingham
getting their brave on!

As part of my introduction at our Break Free from Fossil Fuels presentation in Victoria (British Columbia's capital city, not the state in Australia) this past week, I talked about how often I find myself lowering my voice when I'm talking about climate change in a public place such as a restaurant. As I do this self-censoring, I chastise myself for being a coward at the same time that I'm rationalizing that I don't want to upset others.

Well, as so often happens in this world, synchronicity kicked in and the very next morning, an article on self-silencing around climate change came across my desk. In it, Chris Mooney for the Washington Post outlines research done by Nathaniel Geiger and Janet Swim of Penn State University. It turns out that I'm not alone. A lot of people self-silence when they think others aren't as concerned about climate change as they are. The researchers found that:

"[P]eople are often afraid to talk about climate change with their peers [let alone near strangers in a restaurant!] because they wrongly think those peers are more doubtful about climate change than they actually are. This incorrect perception -- which the authors dub 'pluralistic ignorance' -- then makes people fear that others will think they're less competent [or unkind, in my case], and thus, view them with less respect, if they bring up the subject or talk about it."

Reading that reminded me of the year we discovered on Christmas Eve that we hadn't been invited to a traditional Christmas get-together the next day. I was able to laugh it off (made for a very relaxing holiday!), but my hubby was more bemused than amused when the only explanation we could think of was that we'd talked about climate change at the previous year's Christmas dinner. We're pretty sure other friends have shunned (well, dropped) us because we have a lot to say on the topic of the changing climate. 

Certainly I've had friends suggest that I not be so negative (hmm, well, um, the end of most life on the planet will certainly give jellyfish the chance to flourish ... how's that for positive?), or not be so emotional (we seem to have chosen a path to extinction, ho hum, pass the peas ... is that better?). Have you seen my article on this topic in Alternatives Journal? Love in the Time of Climate Change. (Not my title -- I wanted to call it Can Deep Green Climate Change Activists Have Friends and Find True Love?)

When I speak to educators and other audiences, I often underscore the necessity of summoning our courage and compassion to becoming heroes for today's children -- and all future generations -- of all species. I hadn't registered that the simple act of speaking about climate change to others and speaking up about it in front of others is actually an act of courage.

Since I read that article, I've got my brave on and have started fighting back against the deniers (who are still around in full force despite the sheer weight of the evidence of climate chaos from around the world) by calling them out in the comments sections of online articles about climate disruption. They're often so irrational, so lacking in compassion, or so just plain wrong that it's not at all hard to respond to them. 

In other words, one doesn't have to be a climate scientist to counter the deniers, one just has to be a person who understands, as Greenpeace Canada's Laura Yates does, that "climate change is the most urgent threat humanity has ever faced." She wants to "be part of the generation that listens to the science, moves away from fossil fuels and begins the clean energy revolution." I'm a lot older, but so do I!

Just remember to talk compassion for the children and the world's most vulnerable who are already losing their lives or their livelihoods, their food security and water sources, their homes and entire homelands. You can also mention the precautionary principle, thinking like an ancestor, and how you'd like to leave behind something other than progenycide as your legacy. Let's all start speaking up on climate change!

When Good People Think Positive Thoughts about Very Bad Situations

Post Durban, a young Canadian member of parliament, Justin Trudeau (whose father was a very colourful prime minister in his day), made the news this week by swearing at Canada's minister of the environment — right in the House of Commons! (Woke a few people up, I'm betting.) His outburst has created quite the commotion in this "I apologize if you step on my toes" country of ours.

To be fair, our environment minister IS a hypocrite of the first degree when it comes to the climate change emergency. Peter Kent, when he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), researched, wrote, directed and narrated a 1984 hour-long documentary entitled The Greenhouse Effect and Planet Earth. (Watch it here.) To wit, here's the show's description:

There's weather, and then there's climate. Weather patterns come and go, but forecasting has become much more accurate through improved meteorological techniques. Climate change is harder to predict. But, as the CBC's Peter Kent shows in this 1984 documentary, it's happening. Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere have been steadily rising, and by the year 2050 the average global temperature may rise by five degrees Celsius due to the greenhouse effect.

So, if Kent knew all that back in the mid 1980s and, after recently becoming Canada's Environment Minister, embarrassed us all at the climate change talks in Durban, then it would be quite fair to call him a hypocrite. Mr. Trudeau simply expressed it a different way, that's all.

Pundits have been asking (here and here ... but do come back, okay?) when we're going to start following suit. When is our sense of outrage going to boil over?

But I have to ask: What sense of outrage is that? I was at a Christmas party the other night and stayed late to talk with four women that I like and respect a lot. One knew nothing about climate change, one knows a lot and stayed quiet, and two talked about the importance of positive thoughts, even in the context of global warming.

Positive thoughts? POSITIVE THOUGHTS? I was having negative thoughts just thinking about positive thoughts!! How are positive thoughts going to safeguard the future for the children? Since it was a Christmas celebration, I too stayed quiet. Since then, I've been trying to figure out if they're onto something. But I think this is what I've decided:

If a child runs out in front of a car, it is not a negative thought to run after them. If someone is having a heart attack, it is not a negative thought to call for an ambulance and perform CPR. If 1% of the world's population is ruining the future for all life on Earth, it is not a negative thought to call them on it and try to correct the situation. I mean, what is the "positive thought" about the end of life on our beautiful, precious planet? And how can thinking positive thoughts change anything?

Maybe I'm a quantum physics illiterate (it's always struck me as a cop out, or selfish and self-absorbed somehow), but with 1% trying to suck every last drop of fossil fuel out of the ground and burn it up for profit, and most of the 99% either struggling to get by or watching TV to avoid the pain of the spiritual emptiness they feel, that doesn't leave very many of us to EXPRESS OUTRAGE!!!!

In other words, I'm with Justin Trudeau. If we don't start calling a spade a spade, and a piece of sh!t a piece of sh!t (that's Anglo-Saxon for hypocrite), then we will never garner enough outrage, political will or even interest in the climate change emergency.

So, yeah, I've decided that being real, feeling real, expressing real is more important than being nice and thinking positive thoughts (I've equated those two: nice and positive; if you can explain the distinction to me, I'd love to hear it).

My compassion is reserved for the children, and for those who are sick or on the streets or caring for others while working two jobs. The rest of us should be learning all about the climate change emergency and GETTING REALLY MAD!

p.s. We lost a giant this weekend. Vaclav Havel died in the Czech Republic. I'll leave you with one of his quotes. Though it might seem to contradict what I've just written, it doesn't. Lies and hatred can be concealed by niceness, while truth and love can come out in righteous anger.

Vaclav Havel: "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred."

Economic Solutions to Climate Change — A Boxing Day Round-up

Boxing Day. December 26. The day after Christmas. Day of consumer frenzy. It's as good a time as any to look back on the year and summarize all the great economic solutions we've suggested that no one has implemented — yet. So, grab a vegan eggnog, sit back, and replace those post-Christmas blues with some post-Cancun we-still-haven't-done-a-freaking-thing-about-climate-change blues.

There are lots of common sense ideas for fixing our economic system that no government has had the audacity to take on. For example:

1. Let's end subsidies to fossil fuels and the meat industry. Wham! Huge impact, practically overnight. Every parent and teacher knows ... if you keep rewarding negative, inappropriate behaviour, that behaviour will continue. Let's extinguish the two greatest causes of greenhouse gas emissions by not rewarding them anymore with subsidies.

2. We need to start subsidizing perpetual (renewable minus biofuels [no more burning] = perpetual) energy technologies. Rewarding good behaviour is one way to ensure it continues. (And since governments will be saving billions by no longer subsidizing the oil, gas, coal and livestock industries, why not re-invest that money where it will do some good?) Wham! The very next day, investment in green industries sky rockets!

3. We have got to start taxing carbon. Period. Wham! Overnight change in our relationship to carbon-based fuels and lifestyles. And none of this lily-livered 2¢ per litre of gasoline. A tax on carbon has got to hurt. (Remember, we have to stop rewarding destructive behaviours.)

4. We have to change the corporate charter. Let's just make it illegal (around the globe and across the board, to ensure a level playing field) for companies to externalize social and environmental costs. Period. Wham! Huge difference practically overnight. The law would be simple: Pay social and environmental costs before determining your profits. You'd better believe that shareholders would force companies to pay attention to lessening these costs.

5. Let's outlaw grotesquely, obscenely, insultingly huge incomes. Really, has the world become a better place as the wealth of the top seven richest people in the world has reached around $250 billion? No. As the rich get richer, the future looks bleaker. So, let's threaten to cap incomes and Wham! that would bring back tithing, charity and compassion in a hurry. You know, make them cool again. Bill Gates has made a good start ... but he's not even the richest guy in the world anymore.

6. It's time for a Global Green Fund. All the money we churn into militarism needs to be churned into a global fund for helping the most climate-change-vulnerable nations. After all, we're all in this together (the atmosphere knows no borders), and any coming wars will be climate/water/food security related — and held at bay by financial compassion on the part of those nations who are hit by climate catastrophe last.

Anyway, there's a few talking points for your New Year's Eve party this Friday night. The more we talk about these things, the more we turn them into possibilities!

Talk to you next in 2011. Here's hoping for a new year filled with compassionate climate change solutions!

Why Aren't We Talking in Big Graphic Terms?

Earth Hour got lots of coverage last night on the news. I think the television media love it because it's so graphic — offering great visual "bites" (akin to sound bites) of lights going out at famous landmarks around the world. I'm sure the execs of big corporations like Earth Hour, too, because they know we'll all be back to normal the next day.

And now we just have to worry about all the energy we use the other 8759 hours of each year!

Why are we still — after 40 to 50 years of knowing what we're doing to the planet — not talking about the grand gestures that could actually have a longlasting positive impact? Why are we still so afraid to say that what we've been creating over the last 50 years (a world economy based on greed and consumerism rather than generosity and community) has to crumble (aka be smashed) and fall like the Berlin Wall (note visual bite)?

And why are we still not saying that we need to build from that rubble (note graphic bite: Phoenix rising from the ashes of the Burning Age) something brand new — the Golden Age of Renewable and Perpetual Energy? No more fuels! Of any kind! No more burning!

It's like that scene from A Christmas Story (the BB gun movie), where the kids leave their friend outside at recess, his tongue frozen to the flagpole (nice visual bite, eh?). "Has anyone seen Flick?" the teacher asks upon noticing his desk empty. All the kids start their usual "Who, me? Nope, I haven't seen him" kind of denial, looking away, whistlin' a nonchalant tune. Nope, nope, I refuse to be involved. (Perhaps the best ever denial scene on film.)

Our denial is billions of times worse — deadly, in fact. "Who, me? Nope, I don't see any problem. Global warming? Are you nuts? We had snow this winter!" Yet still we (I mean we who understand the threat posed by the climate change emergency) don't ask for what we need, or paint great and wondrous images of what our new world could look like.

Try it though. Ask people not to turn out their lights for one hour, but to imagine a world of lights powered by the sun, by the wind, by the energy of the Earth's core. Ask them to picture of world where no one owns "energy" (ah, it's no coincidence that the word "power" has two different but certainly intertwined meanings) — no fossil fuels to fight over, no more wars (if we can get there before the wars over water and food begin). Ask them to see in their mind's eye how much safer, cleaner and healthier this new world will be. How much more peaceful and equitable.

Let's start painting the picture of the transformative changes we need. Until we start dreaming big, asking big, demanding big, we probably aren't going to get the big changes, the complete conversion, that we need.

Stand Up for Science!

Fascinating. A week in the United States, San Francisco, both before Christmas and before the Electoral College decides on the new president.

I can report that yes, the "T**** effect" is a real thing. Emboldened jerks are saying rude things to women, visible minorities, anyone they think might be an immigrant. The waitress in our favourite restaurant told us a story that ended with her suggesting to one particular table of jerks that unless they were of Native American heritage, they too were immigrants. (She was an "immigrant" from New York City.) Apparently they had a hard time wrapping their brains around that. And yes, people south of the border are wearing safety pins to signify that they're a safe haven if things get ugly.

We were attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, one of the largest meetings of scientists in the world, where my hubby, Peter, presented on the planetary climate change emergency. (It was called Climate Golden Age or Greenhouse Gas Dark Age Legacy?)

The highlight for me, besides the opportunity to meet and dine with some wonderful online friends and fellow climate change activists, was the Stand Up for Science rally at noon on day 2 of the AGU conference. (You can see Peter in the bottom left corner, below, and our friend, "Earth Doctor" Reese Halter, in the top row in red.) 

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2016-6-november-december/green-life/these-scientists-are-fighting-for-our-future-we-need#6

Several scientist-speakers, well known as brave souls to climate change activists, called on their colleagues to speak out against a politicization of science that is increasingly dangerous for the planet.

We ALL need to become CLIMATE HEROES for the children of all species and all future generations — but scientists have a particularly important role to play in helping the rest of us pluck up our courage through knowledge and understanding.

Science is definitely under attack. The US has a president-elect who is gearing everything up (Exxon CEO for Secretary of State, anyone?) to continue burning fossil fuels at any cost, when the science says we need to get to zero carbon emissions by mid-century if we want to ensure a future.

Let's stand up for climate change science and scientists, folks. After all, we don't quibble with gravity. Then why do so many of us doubt the physical law that pumping more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causes it to retain more heat?

UPDATE: Here in Canada, things are getting better for scientists.

A One-Handed Post About All Hands on Deck

Have you ever heard that expression, "Be careful what you wish for, for you might get it"? Well, I got what I made the mistake of "wishing for" ... I said too often that I was busier than a one-armed paper hanger (an old saying of my dad's), and that I needed a break from all the busyness.

I fell this past Thursday morning and broke my wrist — on my non dominant side, luckily. So today's post is being brought to you (slowly) by my right hand, while the left one looks on forlornly from its cast.

Two hands are definitely better than one, especially as holiday preparations approach (I've bowed out of Christmas festivities for this year) and as a huge writing deadline looms (hunt and peck typing is so slow). It's incredible how helpful that second hand is!

But it's got me thinking of what we could accomplish on the climate front if we put our 15 billion hands together.

Actor and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn once said, 

"As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others." 

So that still leaves us with billions of hands that could and should be helping to safeguard the future for those who aren't "old hands" yet.

Which reminds me of another important quote when it comes to climate change leadership. 

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." — Thomas Sowell (an economist whose views I don't appreciate)

Anyway, my holiday wish for you this year is that you have / find /take a few moments to truly appreciate the strength and the power of your two hands ... to wrap around loved ones, to help others in need, to write letters and create protest signs, to grow food and prepare it and share it, to create the future and hold the fate of all the children, of all species.

May your hands be your gift to the world.

173 Days to Copenhagen - That's 25 Meatless Mondays!

Thanks to Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono and the city of Ghent in Belgium, it's now okay to talk about going vegetarian to combat climate change.

While Ghent (a lovely city of canals and old buildings) is going meatless on Thursdays, McCartney and his gang are suggesting Meatless Mondays.

So, for all the carnivores and lazy omnivores reading this, here's my list of easy ways to go veg on Mondays.

EAT BEANS: beans from a can with maple syrup — so Canadian! — or mustard or veggie wieners, lots of different kinds of beans, from cans or otherwise (get yourself a stainless steel pressure cooker — beans cooked from scratch in 20-30 minutes!!), Spanish white beans with pesto sauce and salad on the side, mmmmm!

EXPERIMENT WITH GRAINS: many of us grew up on spaghetti and white rice ... now try bulgar wheat (tabouli salads rock), couscous, amaranth, quinoa, millet, kasha or buckwheat, different rices (red, black, wild) from around the world — just go nuts in a health or natural foods store! Put them in jars on open shelves and they become a work of art.

JUST GO NUTS: yup, if you give up meat you get to eat nuts, lots of them, expensive ones! Brazil nuts, pecans, cashews, hazlenuts, almonds — and not just at Christmas or holiday times; try fancy nut butters, too — if they seem expensive, just remember that you don't devour the whole jar at once, and they're taking the place of expensive meats.

EAT LOTS OF SALAD AND PIZZA: you can't go wrong with salad and pizza (unless they pile on the cheese — simply ask for light cheese or no cheese) ... when making your own, go crazy with toppings: nuts, seeds, artichoke hearts, olives of all kinds, even in/on your salads.

GO "ETHNIC" (unless you live in Greece, Greek food is considered ethnic elsewhere): let's try this ...

• Greek = Greek salad, vegetable shish kebab, spanikopita, dolmades, artichoke hearts with lemon sauce


• Indian = raita salad (yogurt with cucumber and spices), vegetable curry, dal (a lentil stew), and rice


• Mexican = bean enchiladas, Spanish rice, salsa, guacamole


• Asian = pad thai, stir fries with tofu, broccoli with black bean sauce (buy lots of "ethnic" sauces for times like this), sushi, teriyaki or tempura veggies, fried rice

Need I continue? If you're not already vegan or vegetarian, please try Meatless Mondays. The Earth, the Future, and the Children of All Species (especially the ones you don't eat) will thank you.

Happy Halloween ... It Doesn't Get Any Scarier Than This

Just a bunch of scary stuff for you this week, in honour of Halloween. (Wouldn't want to take our minds off the whole climate change emergency just cuz of a fun little holiday, now would we?)

Here's a very good movie called Last Hours. Scarier than heck, but presented in calm, soothing tones. Kinda creepy how that works.

*******

A couple of thoughts. I was reading an online article called How to Get People to Give a Damn About Climate Change and wanted to comment: "Really, all this is moot. Who cares what the public knows, understands or believes? It's governments that have to make sweeping changes …."

And then I thought, "Oh yeah, wait. The public votes in governments! Now I get it." (When people ask, "What can I do about climate change?" I often respond, "Help create the political will for the government to do something about it.")

There was a comment below that article: "It wasn't long ago that German scientists had a 100% consensus that eugenics was an excellent policy."

"Ah," I said to myself, "that could explain the IPCC's phobia about policy." (Did you know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change refuses to say whether all this warming and climate chaos is dangerous?)

*******

Guess what? I discovered (rather belatedly) why Canada's last Environment Minister, Peter Kent, lost his job! "You don't have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and we need to address it." Oh my, what a way to get fired by Not-so-Prime Minister Stephen Burn-It-All! Harper. 

The (okay, almost year old) article that I read reported Kent as saying "he talks to his U.S. counterparts on a 'more than monthly basis' and there's a general consensus that it's an issue that has to be addressed. 'We would ignore it at our peril.'" Which kinda proves my point that governments know exactly what's going on ... and they're ignoring it at our peril. 

*******

Did you know that there's a Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change? Me neither. But yup, there is. Retired Bangladeshi Major General ANM Muniruzzaman chairs it. And here's what he said about the climate change emergency and global security: 

"When I was a major general in Bangladesh’s military, my job was to avoid conflict while planning for the worst-case scenario. And, from the perspective of the military, the consequences of global warming constitute the worst-case scenario. 

"When I meet with my colleagues at the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change — generals and admirals from around the world, all with career-long experience in military planning and operations — I am struck by the similarity of our concerns. All countries of the world are experiencing changes that are destabilizing communities and increasing security concerns. Diseases are spreading, wells are drying up, storms are smashing cities and destroying crops, and rain is either a distant memory or an acute danger.  

In global security circles, we often speak of the 'international community.' Climate change is the ultimate global challenge and global threat, and the global community must meet it together. We cannot have our separate attitudes and plans."

*******

And I'll leave you with something that isn't scary. Once Halloween is over, it'll be November. And you know what that means, right? Yup, Christmas carols in shopping plazas! (Okay, maybe that is scary.) So here's a new idea. An alternative gift registry, where you sign up to let loved ones know what you don't want to receive (sort of). Anyway, have some fun exploring whether this would be useful in your life. SoKind Registry. Their motto is More Fun, Less Stuff. It's a project of The Center for a New American Dream, so to be honest, I don't even know if it'll work for the rest of us. If not, let the idea start to inspire some fun gift-making between now and the holidays. 

Earth Day Musings 2013

Earth Day Canada poster, 2013

Earth Day 2013 is tomorrow. I used to be a huge fan of Earth Day, organizing events wherever in the world I found myself at the time. But then, I used to be a huge fan of Christmas, too. The sheen has worn off a bit. 

So, as my Earth Day gift to you, here's a selection of random ramblings.

*****

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. — Joseph Campbell

Ha! How many of us even think in terms of Nature anymore? Years ago, when I was in an ineffective relationship (did I express that delicately?), I read every self-help book about love that I could get my hands on. One author suggested that women should try to match their breathing to the rhythm of their husband's breathing. I tried that (I was desperate!). I nearly suffocated. It was a horrible feeling. The strategy made no sense! But I love the thought of this ... matching my heartbeat to the heartbeat of the universe. The First Nations drumbeat here in Canada is said to be the heartbeat of the world. This Earth Day, let's listen for the heartbeat of the rest of Nature, of this Earth, of our Universe.

*****

Dave Roberts at Grist wrote an article the other day called "None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use." In it, he said, "The notion of 'externalities' has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs."

Roberts goes on to summarize a report by "environmental consultancy Trucost on behalf of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) program sponsored by United Nations Environmental Program." The results are shocking, but not a shock.

"Of the top 20 region-sectors ranked by environmental impacts, none would be profitable if environmental costs were fully integrated. Ponder that for a moment. None of the world’s top industrial sectors would be profitable if they were paying their full freight. None!"

People who don't get that we need a radical, transformative, complete revolutionary overhaul of our economic system just don't get it. Paul Hawken (quoted in this article) puts it this way: "We are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP." And we think we're soooooo smart.

*****

The Ecological Society of America (ESA), representing 10,000 ecological scientists, made a recent statement that's quite pertinent. They believe that as the world attempts to recover from the latest financial crisis, there's an opportunity to "rebuild the economy for long-term sustainability. The key, these scientists say, is to take natural capital—ecosystem services such as clean water provisioning—into account.  Because they lack a formal market, many of these natural assets are missing from society's balance sheet and their contributions are often overlooked in public and private decision-making."

The ESA has laid out four strategies for moving towards sustainable economic activity:

• Create mechanisms to maintain ecosystem services
• Require full accounting for environmental damage
• Manage for resilient ecosystems
• Enhance our capacity to predict the environmental costs of investments

You can read more about their statement here.

*****

A friend who's an investigative reporter made me want to throw up with her latest article. Guess what? You know those tar sands pipelines I've been protesting against? They're a red herring. The "rich people" have been buying up rail capacity and that bitumen is shipping by rail. Needless to say, I'm more than a little miffed that I allowed "them" to "keep the greenies busy in the bushes," as another activist friend used to say. 

Here's a quote from Cory Morningstar's latest piece, in Counterpunch:

Barack Obama is a charismatic smokescreen for the oil industry. Utilizing his charisma, he safeguards his toxic neighbor to the north, Canada, protecting it from US public scrutiny. For its part, Canada has quietly played a vital role in tar sands expansion via rail utilizing the corporation Canadian Natural Resources Ltd board of directors, which includes Gordon D. Griffin, former US Ambassador to Canada (1997-2001), director of CIBC, Transalta Corp., Canadian National Railway, and registered US lobbyist for Nexen Energy Inc., part of Syncrude.

For a moment, try to imagine the progressive greens if this same scenario was unveiling itself under the (Republican) Bush administration. Organizations such as 350.org would be having a field day. Yet, with a Democratic administration and a Black American president in the White House, the dominant left organizations have never found it so easy to protect capitalism and white privilege via strategic discourse. The native peoples who live on much of the poisoned land and endure much suffering, are used for beautiful "Stop KXL!" photo-ops all while oil mining, refineries and fracking continue to flourish and expand at an unprecedented rate. 

An important question that must be asked is this: Why do people continue to believe that NGOs such as 350.org/1Sky that are initiated and funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Ford, Gates, etc. would exist to serve the people rather than the entities that create and fund them? Since when do these powerful entities invest in ventures that will negatively impact their ability to maintain power, privilege and wealth? Indeed, the oligarchs play the "environmental movement" and its mostly well-meaning citizens like a game of cards.

*****

Well, what can I say? Despite a century of Mother's Days, people still abuse their mothers. And despite decades of Earth Days, people still abuse their Mother Earth. So there's not a lot of good news these days, and my ramblings aren't very upbeat. Nevertheless, I hope you can find some time today or on April 22 to contemplate whatever blessings the Earth still affords you. Happy Earth Day, my friends. Let's try to make the Earth happy, shall we?