What should CAP do now?
Here’s a topic for this weekend’s open thread: What should the Center for American Progress do now that it’s clear serious federal action on either climate or clean energy is unlikely to happen for years if not a decade or more?
Last weekend’s Open Thread had more than 200 responses, with its topic,”What should Climate Hawks do now?” And I can assure you I read every one. It is one of the best set of comments in CP’s history and some will form the basis of future posts.
As it so happens, next week I will be participating in a two-day strategic planning session with the energy and climate team of the Center for American Progress, where I am a Senior Fellow. You can learn “About the Center for American Progress” here.
I welcome your thoughts on what CAP should be doing.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Perhaps CAP could bring together research on how we overcome the cultural and psychological straight jacket in which so many voters and political leaders are wrapped that prevents them from being willing to accept a certain set of facts i.e climate change is real and is happening now.
Secondly how do we engage young people since it seems unlikely my generation (the Boomers) are unwilling to take any kind of collective action?
I would suggest two things. First would be an all-out pro-science educational effort. The second would be to set the groundwork by working on a smaller scale than the federal level. Focus on local initiatives in cities and towns, and hopefully this can develop into a groundswell of support. Town by town, city by city, state by state, we can at least begin to make a difference, and showcase the benefits of successful measures so that people elsewhere are more willing to adopt them.
Science is based on truth, coperation, and a
good helping of do it yourself. The message
that the public and private sectors should do
it themselves is important for climate Is about
world wide weather and we like the edible
low hanging fruit at dinner. That business
entities can make better products is a given.
I second # 1&2:
Did not intentionally leave you out Raul M @3. You had not posted yet.
Topic 1.
Have you thought about becoming a Movie or Television Show producer?
And No, I’m not joking. Someone needs to get a non-boring sequel to Al Gore’s movie made that both educates the American public (on climate change) as well as entertains (i.e., is able to make money – so you can get the movie made). Unless you can get the American public behind you, what good are a few boring scientists blathering on about global warming.
Topic 2.
Are Scientists a lost cause and you’ll never get them to improve their messaging to the general public? Namely getting them to quit being so guarded or cautious in their assesments – simply because they are not yet absolutely 100% certain. So, are we doomed to another couple of decades of climate scientists telling us that global warming is ONLY ‘very likely’? So, see topic #1.
Topic 3.
Isn’t California is where it’s at for now? Do you think that you can make any headway at the Federal level?
Well . . .
1. Work smarter (not necessarily harder) and MUCH more creatively. (This is not a critique of the present, and especially not of CAP or CP, but is an honest assessment of what will desperately be needed.)
2. Consider the immensely important role of what we all do in California, over these coming months, not only in terms of how California can benefit, and how the overall climate movement can benefit, but also in terms of how that can help and influence the nationwide and world-wide efforts.
3. Engage people who can help (with understanding, ideas, resources, contacts, whatever)! Understanding science is one thing. Humans are another. Societal change is another (although very related to understanding humans, of course). I’ve been sitting here for three years, posting comments, some of them bad, but some of them good. Hardly a single person has contacted me who is actually a leader in one of the organizations of the movement, or even a junior leader. I’ve been to nearly every event out here and also two big ones in Washington DC. But nobody seems much interested in my thoughts or ideas or efforts except that I should show up to the events. (The next one, I hear, has something to do with seeing art from space?) If anyone (from CAP or from one of the movement’s organizations) finds himself or herself in the San Francisco Bay Area, and wants to get together, just let me know. I’ll even bring the Junior Mints and Dr. Pepper.
4. I don’t understand CAP’s relationship with the present Administration, but there might be some things I would say about what the Administration should do, and how CAP might help prompt and encourage it to do so, if I knew the particulars better.
5. I have lots of very good specific and tactical ideas for the movement, and I’ve included just some of them in previous “Weekend Open Threads” over recent weekends, so I won’t repeat them here.
I’m open, you know where to reach me, I’m in California, and right now I’m off to Starbucks.
Cheers,
Jeff
Dear Center for American Progress,
Can you give us poor heartland progressives some help? And let us help you?
I think The Center for American Progress should be getting out of D.C. and into cities and towns across the country, meeting with citizens to get their ideas and also holding meetings with local groups to find out what they are doing– while simultaneously helping those groups with advice and education. And I don’t just mean the people at the top of the local power/education/information pyramid, either.
There needs to be a strong, face-to-face, real life, real time network. Otherwise, CAP becomes just another top-down organization dispensing information and advice from the beltway that the rest of us are supposed to follow. Perhaps CAP is already doing this, and I’m unaware of it.
When I teach Introduction to Poetry, the AP English refugees are often surprised to find that those from poorer communities, who didn’t go to such good high schools, have just as valid insights and understandings regarding say, a Shakespeare sonnet, as those more privileged. The class discussion becomes richer because more diverse. New understandings emerge. Some of the ex-APers and I were discussing this after class just yesterday.
Signed,
a Midwestern populist curmudgeon
My comment is under moderation again. Sigh.
Hi y’all
Two tiers. One is to continue the education on why some form of carbon pricing is needed. But probably better now to focus on the concept of it and not on one specific version that ended up unfortunately being so divisive within the climate hawk constituency.
Second tier is that if the national government is going to be aiming more towards the happy days energy policy, just invest in technology and everything will work out, there needs to be a critical eye at what they are doing and that like so many things, don’t get yanked off-track, such as happened with biofuels, when ag interests hijacked the policy.
I second 1 & 2. CAP can do the education part, on the lines of my #2 and 3 below. CAP should also organize a counter forum to any Congressional hearings that threaten to turn into a witchhunt or show trial. Contact ALCU and make a connection there so that it becomes a turning point like the Army-McCarthy hearings.
1. On young people, an organization called kids v. global warming kvgw.org is organizing a series of marches for Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011, in DC and around the country. The theme is “I matter” or “iMatter.” They can be contacted through the website, by texting 411 247 to iMatter or through iMatter.com. The idea is for young people to face their parents and ask if they and their future matter or not. Get your young folks involved.
2. Second, I don’t think we should assume nothing will happen for a decade or more. As we saw in 2006, 2008 and 2010, things can change almost on a dime in this country if people get organized. There may well be one or more events that can be capitalized on to accentuate the need for change, like a drastic heat wave or other climate-related disaster, ice-free Arctic, serious ice loss in WAIS or something we don’t even foresee. There needs to be a much more concentrated focus when such events happen drawing the connection to climate change, the risks involved, and the need for action in light of the risks involved and the probability of a repetition of that or worse.
3. I really like the new emphasis on risk assessment and emissions reduction and as a prudent response even if there is uncertainty about the timing and probability of the worst case. Everyone who can be appealed to on an environmental or moral basis already is mostly on board, but talking in terms of risk assessment to libertarians, business people and ordinary parents seems like a very fruitful strategy. Listening to the Koch brothers on climate is like listening to Big Tobacco on smoking.
Putting all these things together, we may make climate a much more salient issue in the 2012 and 2016 elections and get some action sooner rather than later.
what can CAP do. reconfirm the parameters?
1. the ‘safe’ carbon reduction curve will get very steeper
2. miracles (clean cheap nukes, CCS, new groundwater, spontaneous smart growth) are not a plan
3. investment cycles starting now, when it’s cheaper than almost ever, will continue long past ‘oops’ and into ‘omg’
4. pollution is messing up *everything* and that’s no secret
5. direct ownership of energy (thru PACE, bonds, co-ops, etc) feels great
6. job insecurity & the cost of medical care feel like hell
hi raul
On the political front, CAP needs to educate the public about the fact that the Right is going after EPA, a very popular agency. Most people are not aware of this, and are indifferent or biting on the Fox interpretation. The Democrats can use this to their advantage, something they failed to do in the midterms. CAP really needs to draw the line here, and work to strengthen EPA as well as fight off attacks on it. The Democrats still control the White House and the Senate. What are they afraid of?
I also second Joe1347 about the need to develop TV shows about global warming, even if they end up on obscure cable channels. Peter Sinclair deserves funding and infrastructure, and his potential show could be sold to the networks. The History, Weather, Discovery, and even National Geographic channels are now climate wastelands due to the oily paws of people like Murdoch and Redstone. It’s critical that the word gets out in an entertaining way. As this blog has shown, there is certainly no shortage of content, and the whole subject is fascinating and frightening, a lot more fun than tuning in to Lindsey Lohan and Charlie Sheen’s adventures.
A side effort should be weekly treatments of deniers on the Comedy Channel. They actually are funny as hell when held up to the light, since most are blathering idiots or cravenly psychopathic.
I believe CAP should focus on three areas: 1) State and local government programs, 2) public opinion/media, and financing.
There’s a lot of activity at the state and local level and capacity for more. Within this category there are also opportunities to boost innovative ideas such as ISO New England’s Froward Capacity Markets.
Turning pubic opinion around is ultimately critical to getting action at the federal level, and making the media report the science more accurately is key to that. Setting up a media response team to get in front of stories and to immediately take down misinformation would be a good investment of time and effort.
Finally, the major impediment to adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency is first cost, and cost can be mitigated by innovative financing. There’s more to life than PACE — loan guarantees; loan loss reserves, easy to use plug and play templates for commercial and residential loans, etc. are all viable and effective. This area could be dovetailed with the state and local activities by experimenting with different models.
One other idea — kill the notion that decoupling is a solution to anything — it isn’t. Even in California, where there are strict rules, decoupling has been a huge disappointment with studies showing that utilities use unrealistic discounting to understate the available efficiency capacity, getting as little as 10-20% of available efficiency.
I suggest that going forward you put a major emphasis on what the US will have to do, at a practical operational and local level, to adapt to climate change. Given the lack of progress on reducing emissions this would seem to be prudent and necessary but may as a byproduct generate attention that the science has not. Americans need to realize that we are not just talking about the future of the polar bear and small island nations but about extreme increases in the price of food, the flooding of Miami, and massive tax increases and government intervention for infrastructure and dealing with constant emergencies. If some Americans think that the cost of high speed trains and wind energy is too high an economic burden they must be made to contemplate the real cost of climate inaction, something I’ll bet that the the President’s Debt Commission completely disregards. Maybe a dose of reality about the future we likely face will finally prompt some belated action.
The Al Gore thing needs to be done all over again in a much more massive fashion.
Engage in a project to make reliance on clean energy something that people want to emulate.
How about a project to create support for a program to buy up and then shut coal mines and create funds to pay pensions and retraining costs for coal miners?
For some reason the topic is almost never mentioned but when are boycotts going to start?
Now everything we do will be reactive.
By ignoring the increasing changes and extending the time period means the intensity of reaction will be that much greater.
Extensive studies of mummies revel that cancer is a man made disease. Becoming prevalent about the 1700s. Thank you industrial revolution. Yet another reason to GO GREEN.
http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/41997
CAP polled its fans with this same question after the 2004 electoral debacle. The answer is the same now as it was then.
CAP should do what it does best: preparing the intellectual ground for change, like water dripping on a stone. The next crisis will come sooner than we think! And when it comes, we need to have a clear narrative about how and why it happened, and shovel-ready plans for fundamental change. Hey, it worked after 9/11.
In Bush’s second term, we had Katrina and the catastrophic failure of corporatist market fundamentalism. At least the second created an opportunity. The tragedy of Obama’s first term, which will echo through the ages, is the failure to seize the moment for decisive change. The moment has now passed, so now we will need to suffer another crisis. The trick is to be ready when an ice sheet collapses or we have a massive US crop failure, invasive species infestation, infectious disease epidemic, epic fires in the US heartland, exhaustion of water supply in a major US city, a major storm that destroys Houston or Disneyland or whatever, or anything else that might happen that would break through the propaganda and get attention on US cable.
Three more points on climate in particular. First, embrace the Barton hearings. Even with a rigged process, the truth will prevail if the opportunities are used wisely. Second, support executive action, e.g., through EPA and federal procurement (pentagon). Third, whatever happened to Cantwell-Collins? If we can’t build grassroots momentum for sending everyone a check, then what are we. That formula means steamrollering over paternalist corporatist “centrists” in the Senate. That should be easier now that their political path has led to a dead end and their preferred vehicle is dead.
There are 2 memes so ingrained in the consciousness of the American Public that they are going to be very difficult to dislodge. One is the idea that all environmental regulation results in job loss… not popular at any time and very damaging now. The other is that governmental solutions are always inefficient. Again, the current economic situation, especially the amount of debt our government has incurred, makes increased regulation an easy target.
I really want to see more out of CAP regarding the economic risk of non-action on the climate crisis. In parallel, there should be an assessment of the insurance risk for both private sector and homeowners from a failure to act rationally now. One case in point is the effort of San Francisco to develop Treasure Island in the face of SLR. How much of the development cost will go into the effort to offset that risk?
It would seem to me that the major insurance companies would become our ally.
Hi Y’all, boycotts have been going on long
time now.
I’ d like to star( bit part) showing off my putting
paint on a cheap hat that keeps the hat cool
by reflecting radiant heat from above. Sitting
in a rocking just painting all day showing how
the PTA project can make a difference for the
kids and ball players in general. On the porch
keeping my head cool.
I’d focus as much time and research as possible on effective messaging. What framing (for example, hawk/ dove) has the potential to break through psychological barriers and put deniers on the defensive? What framing will overcome the background cacophony and help climate change become the most important issue for progressives? What’s the best way to approach independents and moderates? Which messaging ties together climate and energy in the most effective way possible?
Until we do the actual research and figure out how best to make deniers and polluters look weak and unpatriotic, it’s hard to see how we can focus on the science. I know that’s not very palatable for a lot of folks who view logic and reason as cornerstones of this issue, but it’s more important that we win the fight than that we play by the rules. We’re talking about the future of the planet. If we don’t take control of this issue, and soon, we’re consigning our kids and grandkids to the worst possible existence.
One thing is for sure. What we’ve done so far hasn’t worked. Not at all. It’s time to take the gloves off.
The CAP should look beyond America — the USA has abdicated its global leadership here; it might be more productive to engage other nations than to try to shake the American right out of its “Dark Ages” mindset.
The CAP should start talking to members of the EU and G20, and encourage them to explore potential trade-policy options that would reward states like California and punish states like Texas.
The old approach to solving climate, until this election, was a full bore, short term effort to achieve a policy victory that would get us moving in the sub ten year timeframe described by Jim Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri. Clearly, now, we have failed to solve climate change –we can’t avoid the serious consequences of the problem. So in a way, our only option is to give up the idea that we’ll solve it quickly with new legislation (though I still have some hope for EPA action) and instead retool around a much slower grassroots, civil rights organizing model. While this isn’t going to get us where we need in time, it’s all we’ve got. At the same time, in America, there are multiple huge constituencies queued up with no idea how to support this movement–as one example, I’m on the board of a group called Protect Our Winters http://www.protectourwinters.com that could arguably mobilize 20 million skiers, all with a selfish desire to solve climate, who could become a huge lobbying force. We also have every major snow sports athlete/rockstar mobilized on climate, (Shawn White, Gretchen Bleiler, Bode Miller. X Games reaches 100M TV audience!) but no effective call to action or framework for making a gigantic political statement. I’m describing one, small niche industry–snowsports–so think about all the other constituencies out there–in Colorado it’s skiers, rafters, hunters, farmers, cattle ranchers, all members of climate dependent communities and businesses. These groups now need leadership, entities like CAP that can bring them together in Washington; organize events and campaigns; fundraise, and so forth. What I’m talking about addressing here is the silence after the environmental guru gives the big speech, and then the grandmother in the audience raises her hand and says: “Yes, but what can I do?” And the answers to this question always leave people flat. Write your senator. Sure, good idea, but let’s create the foundation of a revolution, the structure for mass action by all these entities that care. CAP (along with groups like BICEP at CERES) and others are needed to guide, organize, and direct the battle using multiple groups (350.org, the Grist audience, NRDC members) as platoons in the broader war. CAP could organize an annual march on Washington, for starters, and in between organize groups to visit washington and meet with senators and congresspeople, to help beat down the 5-1 fossil to green lobbyist ratio. And it will be effective: when a pro snowboarder goes to DC, it gets press all over the nation. When an oil lobbyist goes to DC, it is not news.
The other day I was discussing Climate Change with two neighbors, one a Vietnam veteran and the other a young, self-described anarchist. The former was sagacious while the latter was of the “whoever yells the loudest is yelling the truth” camp. The comment that caught my attention was made by the Vet who said in his thoughtful manner, “Believing in global warming is not masculine.”
I hadn’t heard that before, but it made a lot of sense to me. I don’t know what anyone can do about this perception, but I think it is a perception many people have.
Everybody please send comments and suggestions about my plan.
I want to organize a pamphlet action just before or during the Cancun summit.
The idea is to deliver a few key messages to make people understand the urgency and importance of climate change. I’m not going to mention how exactly I want to do this in order to have a maximum surprise effect and avoid censorship efforts.
For a long time I’ve thought that there are three basic ideas that need to be highlighted more often in order to get people concerned and mobilized:
1 We’ve known this for a very long time. Much longer than people think.
2 The worst case scenarios are much worse than people think.
3 Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars over the past decades to make us believe there is no problem.
(The solutions are within our reach would be number 4. Through my experience I’ve noticed that smart people who deny climate change in Belgium will always attack renewables. Pushing the solutions is what makes the issue politicized here. And I want the facts to be as irrefutable as possible, so I’d better not mention solutions.)
I would spread these ideas over ten facts and quotes.
The title would be: 10FuckingFacts!
I know, it’s aggressive but that way I’m sure everybody will remember it. There should be a website with more background information about the soundbites in the pamphlet.
I’ve thought of the following facts (I know, they’re not all literally facts, but nobody will pay attention to that.):
1 In 1896, Svante Arrhenius calculated that doubling the atmosphere’s CO2-concentration would raise the global average temperature by about 3 degrees Celsius.
2 & 3 Two of the following:
- 50’s Keeling curve
- Lyndon Johnson 1965: “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through . . . a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”
- Charney report 1979 “A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”
-70’s majority of scientists agree on warming
- other
4 About 250m years ago, global temps rose about 5-6 degrees in about 10.000 years. 95% of species went extinct. (I’m making up the numbers, please correct)
5 According to a recent study by the MIT, the chance that the global average temp will rise more than 4ºC during this century if we continue with business-as-usual emissions, is 90%.
6 James Hansen: ”If we burn all fossil fuels, it is a dead certainty the earth will experience a runaway greenhouse effect, ending up like Venus: no oceans, no life. The Venus-syndrome is irreversible.” (Just paraphrasing, He says it in several talks, interviews and in Storms of my Grandchildren. Does anyone have an exact but short version?)
7 API memo
8 Exxon/Koch/… have given xmillion$ to Heartland, Heritage, AFP, CEI, Oregon Institute, …
9 Quote by Mockton/Ebell/Michaels… Member of the following think tanks:…
10 Half the newly elected Republicans in the US deny that man is causing global warming and almost all oppose measures to reduce emissions.
There would be some more text, maybe on the backside, rhetorical stuff, but this is the important thing: ten undeniable, hard, fucking facts.
What do you think? Will people feel intrigued to find out more? Will they spontaneously start throwing eggs at gas stations? Will they think this is an astroturf effort from the green industry? Will they understand?
I really want to do this. I know it’s not perfect but it’s surely better than worrying, thinking and complaining the whole time…
Don’t be kind in your comments. We can’t waste our time trying to say things without hurting each other’s feelings. I have an elephant skin.
Thank you all very much!
“What should the Center for American Progress do now that it’s clear serious federal action on either climate or clean energy is unlikely to happen for years if not a decade or more?”
Focus on state and local action, of course!
You could look at this issue from an angle that people don’t think much about: What are the relative merits of federal (“top-down”) versus state and local (“bottom-up”) policies from an economic perspective?
Federal policy is generally preferred for “market-wide” regulatory instruments like cap-and-trade, which rely on broad coverage to minimize costs. Under cap-and-trade, if you buy a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle, or install LED lighting, or take other actions to reduce your carbon footprint, then by the magic of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” someone else in some distant land is allowed to commensurately increase their carbon emissions, thereby minimizing their compliance cost.
On the other hand, if the policy objective is not to minimize costs, but rather to minimize emissions (within limits of cost acceptability), then broad-based market linkage is counterproductive. Each regulated industry or economic sector should be induced to reduce emissions to the limits of its ability or willingness to pay. For example, if transportation technology can reduce vehicle emissions at a cost of over $100 per ton and still provide consumers huge net savings on fuel costs, then such technologies should be applied to reduce vehicle emissions without allowing those reductions to simply translate to more emissions elsewhere. Similarly, if a state like California, or a community, business, or individual takes unilateral action to reduce its own emissions, its action should not be nullified by inflexibility of an economy-wide carbon cap.
A basic question that confronts policymakers is this: Should the objective of regulatory climate policy be to (a) achieve a predetermined emission target (or schedule of declining targets) at the lowest possible cost, or (b) achieve the lowest possible emissions at acceptable cost?
The problem with option (a) is that lowest possible cost does not necessarily guarantee acceptable cost. On the other hand, the “hard cap” on emissions becomes, in effect, a hard cap on emission reductions even if allowances are dirt cheap. Option (b) circumvents both of these problems.
Option (a) requires economy-wide coverage (e.g. federal cap-and-trade legislation, with international offsets) to achieve the cost-minimization objective. On the other hand, option (b) is more amenable to a segmented approach (e.g. sectoral policies, state policies) because there is no universal standard of “acceptable costs”. Policies can be more effective if tailored to the abilities and limitations of individual regulatory jurisdictions and market segments.
In either case, the objective is to minimize dollars-per-ton; the only difference is whether you are going to decide in advance how many dollars you are going to spend or how may CO2 reduction tons you are going to achieve.
All groups should ally – there is too much repetition and too many egos getting in the way! The energy should be channeled – and the focus should be sharpened. I’m building my tree costume for next weekend – it’s going to be beautiful! Here’s the copy for the flier I just sent to the printers (minus the pictures) which happens to be my complete answer to the question posed on this post:
Another, even MORE
Inconvenient Truth
“The U.S. soybean crop is suffering nearly $2 billion in damage a year due to rising surface ozone concentrations harming plants and reducing the crop’s yield potential,” a NASA-led study has concluded.
Since the mid-20th century, scientific research has demonstrated conclusively that tropospheric ozone is toxic to vegetation, entering plants through stomates in foliage as they photosynthesize. Naturally occurring stratospheric ozone is beneficial, it protects the earth’s surface from too much solar radiation. By contrast ground-level ozone is formed through complex chemical reactions when volatile organic compounds from burning fuel interact with UV radiation from the sun…and it’s poisonous to all forms of life.
Government agencies such as NASA and the US Department of Agriculture measure annual losses of essential crops such as wheat, rice and soybeans in the billions of dollars from stunted growth and reduced production due to ozone.
But does anybody stop to think what ozone must be doing to long-lived species – trees and shrubs and even lowly mosses – that suffer from cumulative exposure, season after season?
Answer: it’s killing them incrementally – and most tragically, imperceptibly to most people.
The preindustrial level of ground-level ozone was in essence, zero. When it became obvious over fifty years ago that inversions and high spikes downwind of polluting sources were killing vegetation and sickening people, industries very cleverly learned to disburse the precursors. They built tall stacks and restricted some auto emissions, thus reducing much visible smog, and reined in locally extreme peaks of ozone concentration. Measuring isolated high peaks is of course the method they prefer for ozone to be calculated and regulated – and they spend a lot of time and money lobbying and in the courts using bogus science, ensuring the EPA adheres to that standard and not the steadily rising background levels.
Because the VOC’s travel across continents and oceans, over decades the global background concentration has been inexorably rising – causing trees everywhere on earth to die off, and unfortunately most recently, at a rapidly accelerating rate.
That trees are dying is empirically verifiable by a cursory inventory. Characteristic symptoms you can readily locate in any woods, suburban yard, park or mall include stippled, singed foliage; yellowing coniferous needles; thinning, transparent crowns; cracking, splitting, corroded, oozing and stained bark; early leaf senescence; loss of autumn radiance; holes; cankers; absence of terminal growth; breaking branches; and ultimately, death. Why isn’t this simply due to climate change and/or drought? Because, the identical foliar damage is to be found on plants growing in pots with enriched soil and regular watering – and even aquatic plants that are always in water.
The causality is well-documented in published research and just as well understood as the relationship between tobacco smoke and lung cancer. The reticence preventing scientists and foresters from raising the obviously commensurate degree of alarm is suicidal denial of an existential threat. As if the damage to vegetation weren’t enough, according to the WHO, ozone also kills more Americans every year than breast and prostate cancer combined – more than automobile accidents.
When you hear weather reports advising an ozone alert in a heat wave, followed by estimates of deaths attributed to the temperature, it is just another distraction. Ozone kills people, especially those most vulnerable with asthma, emphysema, respiratory illnesses – even athletes exercising outdoors! – and is linked to diabetes and cancers.
When foresters in a revolving door with the lumber industry blame bark beetles for killing trees, that is as inaccurate and misleading as to claim pneumonia killed an AIDS victim. Controlled experiments have proven that ozone weakens the immune system of trees, and debilitates their natural defenses against insects, disease, and fungus. Their wood loses flexibility and makes their branches more likely to break from wind, ice and snow. Their roots deteriorate from acid rain, which leaches essential nutrients from the soil, and makes them more likely to fall over. Mudslides are becoming more commonplace as root systems of perennial plants shrivel, and wildfires are proliferating at an unprecedented rate.
When foresters say that trees are dying from old age, that is a convenient lie. Left undisturbed, most varieties have evolved to live for centuries. When foresters describe forests as in decline, that is a euphemism. They are dying.
What are the implications of a world without trees? Much the same as the parallel acidification of the ocean, which is destroying coral reefs that will lead to a collapse of the entire ecosystem.
Imagine a world without lumber, or paper…without shade, shelter, or habitat for birds and other wildlife…without walnuts, almonds, avocados, apples, pears and peaches…to say nothing of losing the splendid primeval magnificence of beautiful maples, oaks, hemlocks, tupelo, ash and sycamore. All of the species that depend upon trees – including humans – will ultimately go extinct without them.
As billions of trees expire, they are already turning from an essential carbon sink to carbon emitters, driving climate change to become even worse than the worst predictions. And how we will replace the oxygen they produce, to breathe? There is evidence that phytoplankton, the other major producer of oxygen and the base of the food chain in the ocean, has been reduced by 40% – and that they are absorbing ozone as well.
Earth is a closed system, like a closed garage – with a car running inside. The invisible but deadly exhaust fumes are building up and up. If we don’t turn off the engine everything will die, sooner or later. Everyone is familiar with the corporate-funded climate change denial machine. They have waged an even more effective campaign to hide the effects of ozone.
Absolutely, there should be a very high price on carbon. But to focus single-mindedly on climate change from CO2 is a failed strategy. It’s not working! Emissions have not slowed at all! It’s time for those who know better to scare the wits out of people and tell them that what is most urgently at risk is not merely polar bears and exotic butterflies and cities threatened by sea level rise a hundred years off – but dinner on the table and oxygen to breathe, NOW! It’s time not just to tax carbon, but to ration dirty fuel on an emergency basis.
It’s past time that the climate change scientists and activists align wholeheartedly with the environmental activists. The exact same industrial processes and materialistic culture that are causing climate change mainly from CO2 emissions, are also polluting the air, water, and soil…extracting and depleting resources at an unsustainable level…and destroying habitats.
The corporations making obscene profits are united in their efforts to inhibit regulatory intervention, and to control media coverage. We need a movement that is united to remove their influence from all three branches of government, and hold them accountable for climate chaos, environmental destruction and human health costs.
Hammer the following message:
Good climate policy is simply good energy policy.
Clean energy makes everyone healthier, wealthier, safer, and more secure.
Climate hawks are on YOUR side.
Climate hawks want health, wealth, safety, and security for all 6 billion plus of us. We even want a better life for the coal and oil billionaires and their acolytes.
You say you are skeptical, and aren’t sure about climate science?
Why aren’t you at least half as skeptical about the coal and oil companies’ message?
You say that climate scientists are only in it for the billions in research grants?
Why don’t you think that maybe coal and oil barons aren’t in it for the TRILLIONS in annual revenues?
#29 my vote goes to you. Trying to win the war for the hearts and minds of all deniers is a non-starter. What does help to defeat the coal industry in West Virginia, then Kentucky, then Pennsylvania, then Ohio, then Indiana, then Illinois, then Kansas, etc. But start with a meaningful battle that is winnable and will build momentum and confidence to take to coal industry one state at a time. I say that first battle is in West Virginia in the heat of mountain-top removal hell. It just happens that West Virginia is sitting on fantastic geothermal resources. Get the state regulator to organize some licensing of sites that come in direct conflict with coal, and let the two fight it out on paper, in terms of which delivers the most energy, economic benefit and lowest environmental impact. Geothermal cannot lose, and coal cannot win.
First of 2 suggestions: Take the successful people, messaging and lessons from California and use them to take the next viable step in every state you can.
- The No-on-23 campaign brought together the largest environmental action ever in the state and an unprecedented level of business-enviro cooperation. Before that energy fades, get them shifted to an equally compelling action. CAP was heavily involved in this effort (shout out to Araceli) and should know all the players.
- There were 3 key elements to the successful messaging here: JOBS, Clean air, and a very dislikable villian. Note that “climate change” or “global warming” appeared nowhere in the messaging.
- The No-on-23 campaign got out early enough that it became politically and financially risky to support the proposition. Any donations to the Yes campaign were immediately broadcast so that companies felt the impacts right away. By calling out the villians right away, the campaign stopped a lot of other potential Prop23 supporters to go neutral.
For everyone on this thread, identify the next viable step for your state and ask CAP to come and help you with it. If you’re not part of an organization working on that, identify the best org that is and volunteer or donate.
(blatant plug) I believe the next viable step for California is to enact a comprehensive feed-in tariff for clean energy. The legislation my org is proposing (www.fitcoalition.com) will create more clean energy jobs more quickly than anything that’s been considered for hitting the AB32 GHG reduction targets. Everyone who worked on no-on-23 would do well to focus on the important energy bills that will be introduced in Sacramento this year.
An aggressive ad campaign.
Billboards with the NASA GISTEMP data spliced onto the paleo data (done properly of course) and maybe with CO2 levels too.
Billboards with Arctic sea ice loss, Greenland ice loss, coral bleaching.
People need to keep being reminded of what the facts, observations and science are telling us now.
No alarmism, no rhetoric, just the facts, observations and science. What those elements are telling us is is scary enough in itself.
And no need to focus on 2100 either, focus on things that are happening now and which are very likely to occur in the coming decades.
Billboards could also highlight pertinent climate science factoids….make it interesting and “cool”.
My two cents….
A model legislation/regulation/best practices clearinghouse for states and localities. Make what exists accessable and keep developing/adding the cutting edge stuff. Conduct related outreach/workshops at suitable venues (e.g. League of Cities). Track implementation. Facilitate networking.
Scientist-based outreach to state and large municipality legislators. The idea would be to develop a group of local scientists (from within or near the jurisdiction) to do periodic briefings. One point of emphasis would be to go beyond the conservative nature of the consensus assessments (per Michael Tobis’ observation that climate scientists generally think things are going to be a lot worse than they let on to publically). Done comprehensively this would be a huge effort, but it could (should) be piloted first.
A central and continually updated site for climate change “elevator speeches,” including not just the short variety but long ones like Al Gore’s slide show and Richard Alley’s AGU lecture. A useful adjunct would be a real-time exposition of important new scientific results (which could be mainly pulled together from blog posts). Include an indexing of available slides so people can pick and choose for their own presentations. Include a blog for user feedback. RSS for new material.
I want to second some of the points #12 Mimikatz made:
FEDERAL ACTION POSSIBLE – I also think strong national climate action is still possible and maybe even likely if a new approach is used.
The public wants climate action and the GOP have moved to a different position in which they have to show they can do something positive with house leadership if they want to hold on to the house next election. There are already signs that GOP leadership do not want a climate is a “hoax” fight.
My reading of the tea leaves is that a carbon tax and dividend is the most likely to bring GOP on board.
1 — First it is the favourite of many conservative economists.
2 — Second it isn’t associated with Democrats so could be supported as a “new and better” way by GOP.
3 — Third it could be devised so each state keeps its share of carbon taxes and does with them as they wish. This would appeal to states-rights folks as well as defuse the “money drain” worries of high carbon fuel states. Sell as 50 climate incubators. Texans could spend Texans’ climate tax dollars however Texans want…not how DC tells them too.
4 — Fourth a carbon tax is simple to explain and thus have public understand and trust. Cap&Trade, like Obamacare, was just too complex to defend against malicious soundbite attacks.
I think a strong push by CAP to forge a grand compromise of carbon tax around state-control could work with both GOP and DEMs.
RISK ASSESSMENT — Yes! This argument works with many reluctant-to-change folks I talk with. Not used enough so far.
Bottom line is the GOP have won control of the House, but they haven’t changed the physics. The leadership knows that GOP has to address climate before climate changes get more noticeable to voters. GOP also haven’t changed the minds of most Americans who want climate action. And GOP is profoundly unpopular with voters who just wanted change and not necessarily GOP. As Reagan and Clinton years showed, a party taking power at the mid-terms is in a very precarious place. GOP need to show they have solutions for what Americans want…and Americans do want climate action…and climate misery will grow each year.
I think GOP leadership want a lifeline back to climate action that doesn’t show them as “wrong”. Risk-assessment framing supporting a state-controlled national carbon tax could be a winner.
2nd suggestion:
Change the the public discourse strategy in fighting the anti-progressives. Move from “debunking” to “de-respecting”. CAP can give progressives around the country the ammunition to do this.
Progressives seem locked on to the idea that the truth will win. In every debate we just keep coming with more data, thinking that the public will be convinced by more info backed up by more scientists. This clearly hasn’t worked with enough of the voting public.
We sound like the “liberal academic elite” trying to tell Joe the Plumber that he should believe us because we’re smarter than him.
Instead, take a stand for the voter as a mature thinker who is worthy of respect by calling out Republicans, deniers, etc, *not on their position*, but on their *behavior*.
Many of these pundits/tv personalities/politicians depend on their audience to not think for themselves, not look one step deeper beyond the attention grabbing noise.
So, go tactical and hit back every time they say something reprehensible. Show that those people are treating the voter with disrespect, without debating the position.
“Hey, Joe the Plumber, that last thing Glenn Beck said? Glenn Beck thinks you’re dumb, that you can’t think for yourself. 30 seconds on Google will show you he’s lying. Don’t just take my word for it, I know you’re smarter than that – here’s a link so you can make up your own mind”
I’ve always really respected Climate Progress for providing its audience with the links to check on whatever is being posted. CAP can help as a source of credible background information, providing ammunition for progressives to run this “de-respecting” campaign.
Great mates talk of war, climate change
Julia Gillard and the United States President Barack Obama have used their first official meeting as leaders to discuss an exit strategy from the war in Afghanistan and restate a commitment to a global assault on climate change. http://www.smh.com.au/world/great-mates-talk-of-war-climate-change-20101113-17ruo.html
1) Carbon Tax with a refunded dividend. Accept initially that the tax will be small. Be prepared to initially compromise on what it is applied to (for instance, perhaps not gasoline).
2) Border Tariffs on imported goods to reflect carbon footprint, scaled to reflect the US carbon tax.
3) Not support any bill that includes gutting EPA powers.
These are the national issues CAP should focus on. Also, I would advise CAP to try to form coalitions with other groups supporting those positions, from labour and business. In the past two years, expressions of support for a carbon tax have been widespread among the sane center-right and center-left as well as nominally non-partisan energy companies and industrial giants.
The failed bills of the past sessions were notable in their excessive complexity and specific technologies each getting acknowledged. One of the valid criticisms of the incoming house Republicans was that they would prefer smaller bills that don’t try to tackle the problem all at once. This is not a disagreeable development, and CAP should emphasize that any bill that includes gutting the EPA along with other climate or energy provisions, should, according to the Republicans’ own principles, have the EPA’s gutting stripped into a separate bill.
Make supporting specific technologies separate bills. Offer CAP support on specific bills CAP agrees with. DO NOT OPPOSE bills you disagree with on technological, or even, so much, cost, grounds.
Also some advise to Joe: do not give the perception of being anti-nuclear. Although cost criticisms are valid arguments, I advise CAP as a whole to hold its tongue for a bit. Lay low, and try to investigate what kind of coalitions CAP may form, and what coordinated message such a coalition might give, before advocating particular policies on climate.
What has happened so far has failed.
The Real ClimateGate: Getting Over the Nonexistent “Email Scandal” (Part 1) http://www.truth-out.org/the-real-climategate-getting-over-nonexistent-email-scandal-part-165012
Media are finally getting climate change right http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Media+finally+getting+climate+change+right/3816499/story.html
Climate Change Finds Its Way Into Energy Contracts http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202474857441
Since the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the recent US midterm elections, Mr Obama has shelved plans to pursue a price on carbon, as Ms Gillard government’s is doing.
Despite the US setback, both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to reducing greenhouse gases. Mr Obama told Ms Gillard he was looking through the options, given the ”new political realities” in his country. http://www.smh.com.au/world/great-mates-talk-of-war-climate-change-20101113-17ruo.html
Climate Leaders Assess the Future
Most of the newly elected Republican members of Congress have adopted anti-climate positions. Does that mean efforts to address climate change will ground to a halt? This fall, after Congress failed to pass a climate bill, I interviewed 65 professionals involved with climate issues to see how they would answer that question. http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20101112/COLUMN0103/101112044/1148/COLUMN
There are 40,000 readers of this blog and there are several hundred who regularly post. This is a lot of people who could be mobilized.
You have started the open thread as a feature of your weekend blogging. How about we pick (CAP can decide what is best course of action), every week, a particular campaign to participate in that will continue to put pressure on various entities in leadership positions that effect the climate issue?
For instance,
1. Next weekend readers would write letters to Sec. of State Clinton urging the State Department to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement concerning the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would deliver tar sands oil (whose extraction produces 3 times the greenhouse gases as conventional oil) from Canada to refineries in the southern part of the US.
2. The weekend after that we could write letters urging our Congressional leaders to pass the Disclose Act, which would require those corporations paying for campaign ads to disclose who they are. This is in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This decision was disastrous for democracy and makes it more difficult to get climate legislation.
3. The weekend after that we could write letters to the Department of Energy who is reviewing a policy of liquifying coal.
This would allow us to do something concrete, that can be done immediately, and is very doable. It would allow readers to put relentless pressure on US leadership.
If this is not something that CP can do, then there is nothing stopping the regular readers of this blog to do it themselves. If people are up for it I could help put together the issues, along with others who regularly post to this blog. I could take one issue per month and three other regular readers could also take one issue a month. Or if there are 8 people who are interested, I would take one issue every two months. However people would like to organize it is okay with me, but we need to join together and start putting pressure as a group.
Run a campaign entitled, It’s on us.
Few have really tried to tell the American people the truth: if we do not act, now the climate we know will be destroyed. Do they want to be remembered as the generations that saved the world or destroyed large parts of it? No one else can lead this struggle at this time if we do not.
Targeted advertising showing the destruction that will be created in individual states could also be useful.
On a sidenote
Oil firms want money for shareholders. Why not give them that money or the chance to change their shares to clean technologies instead, when reallocating energy subsidies?
No matter how, fossil exploitation must be prevented by all means.
Focus on the regional cap and trade programs. Proposition 23 in California won’t be the last attempt to weaken and/or outright kill climate policy at the state/regional level. Some need to be protected, some need to be expanded, others are just getting off the ground. Many engage Canada and Mexico. The longer those programs operate, the better. States often lead where the federal government lags.
I’d also like to see more effort to raise the voice of industry taking voluntary measures and calling for federal action. It feels like the deniers get all the play (i.e., Koch Industries, US Chamber). There is a void now that EPA Climate Leaders has disbanded (understandable as the EPA is moving toward regulation of many of the companies that participated in the program). Keep them engaged in the fight.
Finally, it’s all about JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Pound away at the economic development potential of a clean energy/low carbon economy and make 2011 the year of the green collar job (props to New York Power Authority President and CEO Richie Kessel for the sound bite).
OT? Car roof rack with solar panels attached
to a charge controller to the batterys would
recharge electric cars. Optional.
A CAP program for technology assessment would direct the focused attention of technical experts and would provide a forum for technical troubleshooting. An example of organization might be the Patent Office’s Manual of Classification. Comments blogged to the monitored narrow technical subclasses should be as inclusive as possible so long as they are directed to science and technology and free of ad hominem abuse. Clean Technica is a valuable contribution to expanding public interest and awareness, but there should be a publicly available database for researchers to consult to find what is presently known and what looks promising to investigate, as well as what technical problems remain. An organized collection of the prior art will be very useful to any inventor. Troubleshooting in this way can also monitor the grant process. The GAO found that DOE, unlike NASA and other technical agencies, has no program for technology assessment. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10675.pdf so it is hardly surprising that energy innovation is still in the Dark Ages.
This suggestion is in line with the comment offered by Dean #11 to keep a critical eye on federal funding. One example would be the CO2 sequestration program, which, on close examination, turns out to be an oil company subsidy in Green guise because the injection in demonstration projects is into depleted oil and gas formations for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The danger posed to drinking water by underground injection of CO2 at utility scale into deep saline formations needs a closer look. The CAP needs to be on the side of Galileo, not the Inquisition, and avoid the battlecry that “we have all the technology we need.”
TT #24 — Civility should not be abandoned, even by the righteous. Screaming louder won’t help find solutions, and would probably harden public opposition. Let’s try to disagree without taking the gloves off. Focusing on the science is precisely the thing we DO need to do.
I think that a coordinated effort between many environmental group (such as CAP,Greenpeace,350.org) to educate high school/ college age kids about the basics of Climate Change should be made. Also, work with local and state governments on renewable energy projects. Lastly, we all need to make sure what we have in place now with the EPA and the regional state coalitions to curb greenhouse gasses are not weakened.
Climate scientist James Hansen recommends Cap and Dividend which benefits the public as a worthy approach to responding to climate change. The urgency of this grows as seen by the example of the world’s most vulnerable Micronesian Island nation of Kiribati.
Climate Change Impacting World’s Most Vulnerable Nation’s Fresh Water: World Leaders at Economic Summit and UN Climate Talks Urged to Act
Preeminent climate scientist and noted environmental leaders speak out on behalf of the Kiribati Nation, calling upon world leaders who will gather this month at the Economic Summit in Seoul and U.N. Climate talks in Cancun to address the issue of water scarcity and its impact on food sources. James Hansen, world renowned climate scientist, Lester Brown, Founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, Rabbi Warren Stone, religious environmental activist who served as delegate at the U.N. climate talks in both Kyoto and Copenhagen and Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, call for bold action to alleviate this and other manifestations of global climate change.
Preeminent climate scientist and noted environmental leaders speak out on behalf of the Kiribati Nation, calling upon world leaders who will gather this month at the Economic Summit in Seoul and the U.N. Climate talks in Cancun to address the issue of water scarcity and its impact on food sources. James Hansen, world renowned climate scientist, Lester Brown, Founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, Rabbi Warren Stone, religious environmental activist who served as delegate at the U.N. climate talks in both Kyoto and Copenhagen, and Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, call for bold action to alleviate this and other manifestations of global climate change.
Dr. James Hansen warned: “Kiribati and the Micronesian Islands epitomize the global warming story: actions now have effects decades in the future. It is now too late to avoid small sea level rise wiping out some Pacific islands, but we can and must avoid wiping out the land and lives of hundreds of millions of people and species.”http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
Rabbi Warren Stone, who will soon be attending a world religious leaders’ Spiritual Forum in Seoul, relayed: “The most vulnerable nations of the world, particularly Kiribati and the Micronesian Islands, are currently facing a severe crisis of water shortages and the resulting disappearance of their food systems. Within decades, many other nations will be facing these same water and food issues. The Micronesian Island nations are the world’s first environmental refugees. It is the moral responsibility of world leaders, both at the Economic Summit in Seoul and the UN climate talks, to act now to protect future generations and the world’s creation from climate devastation.” http://www.templeemanuelmd.org/aboutus/staff/rabbi_stone/
Kathleen Rogers, who will soon be attending the U.N. climate talks in Cancun, urged: “In the absence of a global agreement on climate, our leaders must turn the COP 16 into a referendum on funding to protect developing nations from the disabling and destructive impacts of global warming. Anything short of full funding will seal the fate of not just Kiribati and the Micronesian Islands, but other at risk nations. It leaves the developed nations defending their economies and way of life at the expense of millions of people and species.” http://www.earthday.net/node/63
Lester Brown, Founder and President of Earth Policy Institute stated, “If we continue with business as usual, how much time do we have before we see serious breakdowns in the global economy? The answer is, we do not know,because we have not been here before. But if we stay with business as usual, the time is more likely measured in years than in decades. We are now so close to the edge that it could come at any time. For example, what if the 2010 heat wave centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago? In round numbers, the 40 percent drop from Russia’s recent harvests of nearly 100 million tons cost the world 40 million tons of grain, but a 40-percent drop in the far larger U.S. grain harvest of over 400 million tons would have cost 160 million tons.” http://www.earth-policy.org/
About Kiribati
Kiribati, a Micronesian island of roughly 100,000, sits precariously on the very front lines of climate change. Located in the Pacific Ocean, Kiribati straddles the Equator. The tiny nation is composed of one island and 32 smaller atolls, islets of coral, which circle a lagoon. In 1999, two Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea disappeared underwater. Another of Kiribati’s islets, Tuvalu, has lost its coconuts trees, a major food staple, because the seawater has salinated the fresh water sources. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the sea levels around Kiribati will rise by about half a meter (20 in) by 2100 or earlier due to global warming and that a further rise is inevitable. It will be the first nation of the world to disappear completely.
As Kiribati falls victim to climate change, we are reminded that one of the most urgent issues of our day is access to fresh water. Pacific Ocean waters are increasingly encroaching onto and salinizing the island. Salt water is seeping into the ground soil, destroying both the edible crops and the fresh water table underneath the island that has sustained its inhabitants and all life forms for centuries. The drinking water procured from streams and rains is also becoming salinized. The island people must now either import water and food for their families or become refugees leaving their nation.
The ravages of climate change are already impacting the Kiribati nation in frightful ways. Minister of the Environment of Kiribati, Michael Foon, addressed delegates at the UN Copenhagen talks: “Our children have no water!” How many more of our children will die because they have no access to fresh water?” Jesse Lambourne, a Kiribati native, spoke passionately: “We do not want to lose our homeland; we want to live in our country, our country called Kiribati! They tell us to leave the coast and leave our homeland. If our whole country is coastal area, where do you move? Our land is our spiritual connection to our ancestors, our culture, our memories — we are fighting to maintain our land as a people.”
Lambourne closed with this personal plea: “Help us, help us, tell the world our story!” The Kiribatians offered each delegate a shell necklace from their island and asked that they be remembered.
Hansen, Brown, Stone and Rogers join in response to the Kiribati plea and call on world leaders to act with a sense of urgency and moral purpose. “Remembering Kiribati” means awareness of the larger threats of cultural annihilation that climate change will bring to the most vulnerable. Climate change will present us with the most fundamental moral challenge that humanity faces in our century. It is imperative that we recognized that now is the time to address global water and food issues and develop international management programs. They urge all world leaders to review the technical papers on climate change and water at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/climate-change-water-en.pdf.
1. pick the low hanging fruit, efficiency etc, follow amory lovins ideas for cheap and easy
2. co-op is smart, minimizes nimby, get my electricity from a co-op that built a couple of wind mills and it is both good business and good for you conscience, should be encouraged as a few big electricity producers easily lead to oligopol situations
3. push city authorities for more bike lanes and better public transport, bike lanes probably easiest and cheapest, especially young kids should be encouraged to bike so bike lanes that lead to schools a good idea so parents let their children bike early
Sorry, my post was off topic again.
I wanted to post it last week but didn’t get it ready in time.
As I was away, I asked somebody else to post my text at 19pm CET, so I couldn’t foresee it.
Still, I’m waiting for response.
I’ve had this plan in mind for a very long time and it’s been on hold for months because literally nobody can or wants to help me with defining the content.
If I operate alone, it’s probably going to be ill-performed and counterproductive, if I wait for people’s advice, I might wait for eternity.
Is it that much to ask to read my post and comment on it? Now that I decide to get out of my chair and actually do something…
So please everyone, I really need your help, go check out my comment at #28!
#24 – TT has it right. We need to recognize that the “facts” alone don’t help us. Many of the other comments are premised on the idea that we must convince people we’re right. That’s the traditional approach we continue to take – counter the lies etc. But the media environment we live in doesn’t allow facts alone to be convincing.
What’s the use of presenting facts if we’re arguing based on a frame set by the opposition? The No on 23 Campaign spent most of its energy arguing about “jobs” which is exactly what the the Yes folks wanted. The story should have been about the companies backing the proposition. There was some focus on them by the end, but not in any truly vigorous way. In the end, we were lucky on 23. They didn’t run a solid campaign. But the next one might not be so inept…
How often are we surprised by the attacks sprung on us? What can we do to anticipate rather than just react? Given the broad nature of the coalition, probably not much. But we better assume more attacks will come, probably focused on California, as it’s the last bastion of (or at least the most important symbol of) progressive environmental policy left. If nothing else, count on a news item on Fox every time a solar company needs to fire employees.
So it’s likely that the best we can do is to learn to be better prepared to react. That requires really understanding who’s coming after us and develop a better understanding of how they operate. Better understanding could also help us find ways to frame the argument around them rather than around us…
Comment Some European pamphlet…..
Right idea to intrigue people, get them to think for themself, so don’t be too agressive as then they think you are extreme, also have sources with more info at bottom of pamphlet….
Nobody likes the oil company so show how much they are obstructing, they are not doing it for the public good but for the bottom line, much as tobacco did……
also point out the inertia in earths climate, if we wait until everybody can see the sea rising it will be too late….
you need a good picture, intrigue people….
pamphlet shoud not be bigger than A5, can be folded A4 but more work
that is my ideas, pamphlets are good but think almost everyone who goes to cancun will know much of this, the problem is that their hands are tied by politicians at home…. we need to inform the public not the people that show up in cancun
cap
4. district heating and solar heating is cheap and efficient so should be encouraged
Thanks, Wilmott McCutchen (#52), but I respectfully disagree. We’re facing an extremely well organized, well funded disinformation campaign financed by polluting industries and aligned with conservative political interests. Unless we can figure out a way to drive a wedge between the campaign’s leaders and their conservative constituency, between 35% and 45% of the public will always be diametrically opposed to the science. Since these folks don’t care about the truth – it simply doesn’t fit in with the way they view the world – they’re going to actively oppose us and lend cover to congressional Republicans. Which means that we need to create a super-majority out of the rest of the country – an unlikely event in the near term.
As much as I wish it were true, most people aren’t rational. They do all sorts of things that aren’t in their personal self-interest, including voting for the status quo on climate. If we’re going to be successful, we need to use the absolute best (most effective) messaging and framing to push the conservative rank and file away from Big Oil and their friends. We can’t win if we can’t achieve this, at least not in a time frame that will help us get a handle on warming.
The facts are pretty simple. Climate science is irrelevant to almost half of the country. They’ll never believe us – not when Rush, Hannity, etc. are calling us liars and industry scientists are providing them with a modicum of cover. Unless we can use messaging and marketing to create a new paradigm, we’re toast.
The wonderful thing about the hawk/ dove framing is that it makes conservative leaders look weak. And unlike progressives and liberals, conservatives won’t support leaders who seem weak. It’s not in their DNA. So either we take the gloves off and start fighting the deniers on messaging, or we kiss the world as we know it goodbye. I’m afraid anything else at this point is wishful thinking – including relying on people to act rationally and focus on the science. We’ve tried that for 20 years and it simply doesn’t work.
I believe that there are many people, millions, out there who don’t need to be educated as much as activated. They generally believe the science but choose to stay silent. They have not found the vehicle or vehicles within their collective comfort zones that will allow them to stand and be counted. Open pathways for these people and the tide will change. CAP should use it’s resources to accomplish this.
Based on past successful national campaigns for change, CAP should catalyze a national campaign with multiple components including:
1-national PR and Media campaign,
2-targeted local congressional district and state grassroots pressure campaign through house meetings and other organizing tools,
3-pilot projects on local and state levels,
4- national lobbying of targeted members (with support generated from local h
5-opinion leader campaign in multiple levels and sectors (including religious, corporate, entertainment, environmental and scientific research sectors)
CAP might:
1- convene a national congress of opinion leaders, scientists, funders and activists to agree upon approach and top 3-5 overarching messages so we all– nationally, regionally and locally –are communicating and acting consistently (and do so not based on what Congress might do– but what is the correct stance or we’ll never get where we need to be);
Examples of messaging priority areas (would need pithy short phrases so could be easily remembered and repeated– not what I’ve quickly attempted below!!):
SAFE Future Campaign:
–Secure energy– phase out dirty energy (e.g., no more coal by 2030) and support renewables
–Active conservation — building efficiency measures, transportation efficiency, etc.
–Fiscally smart– provide education, training and jobs for the future
–Environmentally sound– protect nature’s benefits to society including for water, carbon sequestration, flood control, etc.
l
2- Secure buy-in and support from major national foundations and individual philanthropists around the SAFE campaign and get commitment to fund organizations embracing these messages to carry out the program outlined above
3- Identify, fund and promote regional “pilot projects” in each of the priority areas- e.g., carbon farming – with dramatic sequestration benefits as well as soil water retention/aquifer replenishment and biodiversity benefits
4- Communicate through traditional as well as newer media–such as social media– but in multiple sectors so we are not speaking only to ourselves
5- Identify key milestones– results, dates– and know we are in this for the long haul!
We should do:
e) all of the above (and I’m sure below).
These comments are all great, as Joe says. The usual All-Stars include Mike Roddy at #15, Leif (Knutsen) at #20, and Gail Zawacki (Wit’s End) at #30.
Leif at #20 is telling us that cancer is a man-made disease due to all the toxins we’ve unleashed into our environment and bodies.
Gail at #30 is telling us that every plant on our planet is dying either a slow or terrifying quick death due to all our cumulative pollutants. Please re-read Gail’s post at #30. It is a masterpiece of science and writing clarity. I think it is exactly the tone we need, and I also agree with DD (#24) and TT (#57) – but not DDT – that we need to scare the wit’s end out of people if they’re going to get it.
Leif’s appropriate concern about cancer in humans and Gail’s concern about a kind of cancer affecting all plants (that inevitably has to affect all humans) are not about climate change per se.
We need a new concept to discuss all of this, and I feel the best is the Anthro-Earth concept, the idea that Earth is what we inherited, and that Anthro-Earth is what we’ve created. As Mike Roddy and others suggest, a network dedicated to this concept like Discovery, Nat Geo, History with shows, movies, websites, blogs is what is most needed.
Not everyone has to get all this for us to produce the needed change. The Civil Rights movement convinced the intelligentsia that racism was wrong and institutionalized racism needed to be defeated, and it was. We need to do the same with the intelligentsia now, all truly caring, educated people including teachers, writers and communicators of every kind, so that they can educate others.
But without the Anthro-Earth concept (by whatever name), we’re talking about symptoms, not causes.
We need to dig deeper in every way. Please re-read Gail (Wit’s End) at #30.
You should fight against the EPA’s defunding and for its ability to regulate C02. Simple,really.
Over the past two years, we liberals have been playing the short-game of trying to get real legislation passed through congress. This often involves trade-offs, compromises, and accepting “good as we’re going to get right now” bills like Waxman-Markey and Obamacare.
Now that it seems congress will be unlikely to pass anything significant for at least the first half of this decade, we need to shift to the long-game of making the intellectual case for our positions. I would like to see CAP argue for a simple vision of what America could become by adopting a progressive policy agenda and explain why the GOP is standing in the way of that vision. We then need to repeat this vision over and over, especially to young people, so that when the political winds are again at our backs, we have the support to really get things done.
Continue to educate the public about the causes and impacts of climate change. You may be speaking only to the choir but everyone who is listening needs to be kept abreast of how climate change continues to affect us and why.
The deniers have made their cause a religion. Everyone who is a member has to toe the line and repeat the mantras. Eventually this mindless dogmatism will crack and CAP should be actively looking for that crack and mining it.
The most likely crack will be one of their leaders suddenly learning enough to get really worried about our future and blowing the whistle. First is to find a leader who has a history of some intelligent thinking and arrange a one-on-one meeting with a broad-based climate scientist who communicates well. Maybe the first attempt will fail or maybe the first ten attempts will fail with that one person or 9 others, but the strategy should be relentless. The religious faithful will not even listen to non-deniers. They need to hear the truth from someone they trust. Find that person to open that door!
A good start would be to sponsor some sort of non-partisan public gathering of some of those current and former political and financial leaders from Al Gore to John McCain (I assume he is not concerned about another election) to former senator John Warner, Bill Clinton, Perhaps Lindsey Graham, and Rupert Murdoch, who are all on public record as understanding the threat of climate change. It might perhaps also be helpful to have representatives from the Vatican and the orthodox Patriarch there and perhaps a nice display of Margaret Thatcher quotes on the topic.
@anders #58
Thanks for the comment!
I will take it into account.
I just want to clarify that I won’t be going to Cancun.
I want to reach the Belgian public and the ideal timing seems during the summit.
CAP should start promoting action at the state level and at the city level. The last election showed that we can win battles at that level even if we can’t get action nationally.
Getting strong action at this level will make a substantial difference and help give us a strong foundation to take national legislation in the future.
Ongoing business-as-usual on so many fronts is a major disconnect, planning for the future as if we are not in the midst of crisis; everytime this comes up climate change must be part of the discussion otherwise the discussion is of a futile dreamlike reality from which we must awake and act with complete urgency.
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse Lester R. Brown http://www.earth-policy.org/books/wote/wotech1
I second Daron above. If leadership from the top is impossible, facilitate the emergence of leaders from elsewhere.
Going sort of off-topic, but I see the same approaches as more likely in other places, eg Afghanistan — rather than fighting people in a diffuse, unsuccessful way, support the local spots where they want it. Let the results convince everyone else.
A number of good ideas have been advanced by I wanted to re-emphasize what Auden Schendler @26 proposed. At this point I would argue/agree that a civil rights mindset is the best way forward. There are a whole lot of people who are VERY concerned about this issue, but there’s no “connective tissue” to give them a really public way to demonstrate their concern and anger. It would appear that scientists can warn of dire outcomes all they want, but (just like civil rights)nothing will happen until large numbers of people show up in the streets demanding action – only then will politicians and the media gradually start to pay attention. Right now, many have the perception that this is a fringe concern which can be easily written off, perceiving that this view is espoused only by a tiny number of Dirty F***ing Hippies and socialists. 350.org is a wonderful concept, but the “climate actions” need to go beyond putting up a couple of solar panels and move toward putting a couple of hundred thousand people in the street in D.C. I by no means discount the value of technical policy proposals, but suggest that we’re going to make little progress on them until politicians’ and media perceptions of the issue are changed by a string of large “freedom marches” and nonviolent direct action. CAP should act as a catalyst and rallying point for such activity. (The traditional green organizations appear either unwilling to or incapable of undertaking this role.)
Since we’ve got 10 years…
Perhaps we can core some more trees, and archive the data…Go to distant parts of the world and get more data, so that we’re not relying on now lost material from the 70s, or as in the UHI studies in China, ‘stuff we used to have that you’ll have to take my word on’.
John Stewart struck a chord when he decried the corner cutting…We’ve got plenty of time now to get it right in the eyes of those who aren’t also doing the research themselves, in replicatable, reverse-engineered, independent exercises.
@some european.
Pamphlets (or even a small business card) can be useful, especially if they are a means to engage people in conversation. One hint is to make it somewhat modular so one could select the items most likely to grab a local audience. E.g., someone on the coast might be most alarmed by sea level rise, while others might see drought as more of a threat.
Also, end with a call for action, phone numbers for government reps, a local action group, or something.
RE # 67
Steve,
My heartfelt thanks for a suggestion that actually has some value among these many off the top of their heads ideas that wouldn’t amount toa damn.
John McCormick
How about funding a Climate Science course for high school? I have a vision of a course similar to ones now taught in college. It would be an interesting mixture of geology, meteorology, atmospheric science, thermodynamics, chemistry and physics. Students who took such a course would become wonderful young leaders of a new power group in the fight against the climate warming deniers and obstructors.
I haven’t read all the posts so some of these ideas might have been suggested already.
People tend to assume all farmers are skeptics or deniers. It’s not so in Australia and I’d be surprised if it were the case in the USA. Find out what’s happening in agric research and being promoted to farmers to help them plan for the changing climate, and let townspeople know that some farming areas are going to change a lot, and some are probably already changing; and what the local farmers/industries are doing about it. (This would be aimed at rural communities and at those people who relate to farmers, viewing them all as being on the right of the political spectrum – which of course not all of them are.)
There appears to be concern in the USA about free trade (when did the USA ever have free trade?). IMO soon Europe will put up penalties of some kind on imports from countries that are not reducing emissions. Other countries might even follow if they get their acts together. The USA (and Australia) stand to lose export earnings/markets if they don’t behave. This would be aimed at those who have some sympathy with the Tea Party, but who are not hard core.
Agree with forging links with comedy routines and letting them know the facts so they can do more and better spoofs. Television is very good, so are films (movies). This is to keep the issue at the front of everyone’s mind – and to show up the ludicrous nature of deniosaur ‘arguments’.
See if you can use a woman in an up front role (addition, not replacement). Women’s groups here in Australia, particularly rural women’s groups, are highly instrumental (and very successful) in changing attitudes and actions on various previously entrenched matters within local communities.
Encourage / assist a group to set up a central resource centre on climate matters – including lists of contact people/experts on specific topics, speakers, presentation materials, stories/case studies etc. There’s a lot on this site and on the internet but an organised repository for local community groups, professional organisations etc would be of tremendous value.
Finally, you guys already do an excellent job of lobbying and informing. I particularly like the case studies / examples of what is happening in the USA and around the world. So the above suggestions are in addition to not replacement of what you do best :)
Since there were a few references to Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” here’s my two cents:
From: http://climatehealers.ning.com/profiles/blogs/an-inconvenient-failure
Please feel free to repost as needed.
Al Gore changed my life. It was his slide show, “An Inconvenient Truth (AIT),” that stopped me dead in my career track to reverse course and devote the rest of my life to environmental causes. But, now, I have to admit that AIT has failed to sway America. Just when the world badly needed Americans to heed AIT’s message.
The term, “climate change” does not invoke a sense of urgency in the American public. The opposition has cleverly co-opted this phrase by pointing out that the climate is always changing. So, what’s the problem? The rise in temperature does not bother Americans so much. Their A/Cs may have to work a little harder if the temperature gets too hot. But, as long as the utility companies continue to supply electricity into the homes, what’s the problem?
The sea level rise that Al Gore showed in AIT seemed speculative, too far out and too gradual to get people to act now. Americans can always pick up and move if the ocean starts lapping at their door step. Or, if they live in a city, they can always build a retaining wall. Isn’t the Netherlands already way below sea level? So, what’s the problem?
It all seems like so much scare mongering. More intense hurricanes, more heavy downpours, more floods, more droughts, all more of the same natural forces that people have lived with for ever. Even the Arctic melting may not be so dire for the polar bears after all, as they seem to be resourceful enough to adapt their food habits. Besides, the Arctic melting opens a Northern route for shipping and allows the erection of oil drilling platforms in the Arctic to meet the rising energy demands of the world.
So, what’s the problem? At the opening of a recent shale-gas conference, Karl Rove, the keynote speaker said, “Climate is gone!” He assured the attendees that they won’t need to worry that the new Congress will consider any legislation on the environmentally destructive practice of “fracking” to extract natural gas from formations such as the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. There were cheers all around.
On the policy front, the new US Congress seems to want the country to rapidly backpedal on all its environmental obligations. Therefore, AIT has really been an AIF, “An Inconvenient Failure,” at its intended purpose. In hindsight, the failure occurred because of three factors: 1) AIT misidentified the core problem, 2) it mis-diagnosed the root cause and 3) it glossed over the deep cultural changes required to address it.
The Core Problem:
The late humanitarian and scientist, Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University was addressing a roomful of skeptics on climate change in Australia last year. He was asked the inevitable question, “Since CO2 is good for plant growth, what’s the problem with humans emitting CO2 as part of our industrial activities?” Dr. Schneider patiently explained that yes, some plants grow faster with higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2, but other plants don’t. Then, the faster growing plants crowd out the slower growing ones and kill them off, thereby upsetting the balance in the ecosystem and possibly triggering a collapse.
The true reason that climate change is a problem is that it is happening so fast that ecosystems are having a hard time adapting to the environmental changes around them and are dying off. It is hard for trees to pick up their roots and move because New Jersey suddenly has the climate of Virginia. Vast swathes of forests in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado contain dead pine trees due to bark beetle infestation. British Columbia in Canada is projected to lose almost all of its forests over the next five years for the same reason. Nevertheless, climate change is not yet the major reason for the loss of Life that is ongoing on the planet. Human consumption tops the list. Complex Life as we know it, is dying off on the planet, mainly because we’re literally eating it up, directly and indirectly. Humans are perhaps resourceful enough to adapt to climate change, but we cannot possibly adapt to the extinction of Life, the very source of the food we eat.
AIT missed it. One member of Mr. Gore’s non-profit educational organization, “The Climate Project,” wrote me to the effect, “You are trying to save ‘climate through species’, while we are trying to save ‘species through climate’. In the long run, our approach is better because people don’t really care enough about biodiversity.”
Maybe so, but, I disagree that the truth should be packaged for marketing considerations.
When it comes to energy and materials, humans have barely scratched the surface of the Earth. I believe that humans are perfectly capable of developing more powerful technologies to access the “inaccessible” sources of these necessary ingredients for industrial civilization, if need be. But, there is no hidden reservoir of keystone species to revive the ecosystems we destroy. And, it is hard to rebuild ecosystems when you don’t know 95% of the species that were in the ecosystem in the first place.
Climate change is a symptom while the extinction of Life is the true underlying disease that needs treatment.
AIT misidentified the core problem.
The Root Cause:
Since climate change or global warming was identified as the core problem facing humanity in AIT, the root cause was shown to be the fossil fuels that we burn to drive our industrial civilization. But, if the core problem is truly the extinction of Life, then the root cause is also much more fundamental than the usage of fossil fuels.
Indeed, it is our neglect, abuse and insatiable consumption of Life that is the root cause of the extinction of Life. And, the pollution from our fossil fuel burning is still a small part of the reason for the carnage around us, though a growing one. If we truly viewed life on Earth as precious, to be preserved for our own enlightened self-interest since no other planet in our galactic neighborhood has good life-support systems even if we managed to get there en masse, we wouldn’t be so mistreating Life as we do now.
Instead, we view other life-forms to be inferior to us and to be dominated over. The biologist Richard Dawkins once wrote, “Science boosts its claim to truth by its spectacular ability to make matter and energy jump through hoops on command.” In that one sentence, he captured the fundamental axiom of the culture of industrial civilization, that of separation from and domination over Nature.
Domination over Nature is a fundamental axiom in the culture of industrial civilization that drives the separation from Nature as it is not possible to dominate something without becoming alienated from it. And, our “Domination” over Nature is absurd, considering how powerless we are in the face of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts and other calamities. However, with our superior tools and technologies, we certainly have the prowess to dominate over other life-forms, to capture, imprison and kill them at will, to be the bully in the school yard.
But, actions have consequences.
The Way Forward:
AIT mainly focused on the conversion of the energy infrastructure of the world to clean, renewable sources as the panacea for Climate Change. It left the impression that there is little to no change required from the public at large.
However, once we acknowledge that our violence towards Nature is the fundamental root cause of the climactic consequences we face, then the public at large becomes the central actor in determining the course of the planet. All the catastrophic projections in AIT assume that human beings continue to act as they have been doing regardless of the consequences. Therefore, the battle is really over the hearts and minds of human beings. It is the Kurukshetra from the Mahabaratha of our times.
On the one side are the Dominating Earth-is-my-Bitch Types (DEBT), the ones who consider Nature to be just a vast resource pool for their exploitation. Large multi-national corporations such as ExxonMobil, BP, Koch, Rio-Tinto, Peabody, Massey Energy, McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Monsanto and Cargill are the principal DEBT entities. They depend on a compliant, unthinking, unfeeling public to work hard, collect wealth and funnel it back to them so that they can amass it.
On the other side are the Nurturing Earth-is-our-Mother Types (NEMT), the ones who consider Nature to be worth healing from the wounds that we have inflicted from our past exploitations. Grassroots activists such as Ingrid Newkirk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Vandana Shiva and Pres. Evo Morales of Bolivia are the chief exemplars of the NEMT group. They depend on an awakened, thinking, feeling public to reject the products of violence and destruction that is being marketed to them by the DEBT group and vote with their wallets accordingly.
The vast majority of people are in the Bell curve in between, but it is time to take sides. It is no longer possible to condone the actions of the DEBT group as being irrelevant to the continuation of Life on the planet. And, pretend that our consumer choices have no consequences. On the contrary, our consumer choices are the only things that matter. Go small, go local, go organic, go veg and transition to heal the planet.
While the DEBT group has control over the television airwaves, the US government and the halls of power in most countries, the NEMT group has much better organizing capabilities in the internet world. Therefore, I, for one, am absolutely unwilling to concede the battle to the DEBT group and project them the winners for the foreseeable future.
Let’s begin a NonViolent Direct Action against Violence and let’s see what happens. Do these too-big-to-fail multinational corporations, who have turned capitalism into a perverted form of “Bailout” capitalism, really have such a lock on the outcome?
We shall see. Like it or not, we do live in interesting times!
Namaste,
Sailesh.
Go where the emissions are: Make shutting down old dirty grandfathered coal plants economic by supporting more aggressive enforcement of local air regulations unrelated to climate. Strictly enforce mine safety and pollution laws related to mining to make extracting coal more expensive. Support repowering of old coal plants with natural gas (that will drop the carbon intensity of emissions by more than a factor of two) and support displacement of new coal plants with wind generation and cogeneration. In short, focus on stopping expansion of coal usage in new electricity generation and support ways to fuel switch away from coal use in existing plants.
The name of the game is stopping coal use, at least as a first step. And the steps listed above actually will result in net savings to society because we avoid all the nasty externalities from coal extraction and use.
Of course, we’ll need to figure out a way to help the coal miners put out of work by this, but there’s no alternative (carbon capture and storage is unlikely to be practically relevant in the next 20-30 years if ever, and that’s when we need big emissions reductions).
Work with the renewable energy trade organizations to push their agenda. Many of them are creating jobs and should get a decent reception from many of the new members.
Realistically, there is probably nothing you can do. Talking about it and convincing people the threat is real does not seem to be enough. People have stared down the barrel of climate change and decided its nowhere near as scary as the alternative – going cold turkey on fossil fuels.
In 20 or 30 years the mood will change, but too late to do anything about it. The bottom line is – will the world extract and burn all the fossil fuel it can economically lay its hands on? Answer – almost certainly.
My recommendation is for CAP to join forces with other like-minded organizations and work with laser intensity with Common Cause to reduce the corrosive impact of money on America’s politics. The problem-solving capacity of this nation’s democracy will be an embarrasment to the descendents of our Founding Fathers until then, and climate legislation could be our most signficant casulty.
Run ads on TV, magazines and billboards designed to scare and anger people. For example: The Republicans in congress are a threat to your family and the future of the world. They refuse to do anything about global warming mostly because they favor special interests who make money by preventing climate action. Scientists have proven global warming and project bad things if not stopped. Write to your congressman now for the sake of your children.
Cities.
They are a powerful force and they can bridge together in the most unique ways that other political/economic structures can’t.
Pick up a copy of Jeb Brugmann’s book, “Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How cities are changing the world.” I think we can get a lot of ideas from that book and open many new lines of action for Climate Hawks.
When the current feared Federal / State drought in climate action is over in a few years, the pieces can be put together and we can continue. BUT we also will have built a parallel effort based in and among the cities.
We will come out of this whole mess much stronger.
A little OT, but the NY Times just screwed up an otherwise excellent article about glaciers and sea-level rise with a “he said/she said” song and dance routine featuring unnamed “skeptics”.
From http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/science/earth/14ice.html#preview
Global warming skeptics, on the other hand, contend that any changes occurring in the ice sheets are probably due to natural climate variability, not to greenhouse gases released by humans.
And to make things worse, the author of the article goes out of his way to quote John Christy, who has no special qualifications in glaciology. From the article:
John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is often critical of mainstream climate science, said he suspected that the changes in Greenland were linked to this natural variability, and added that he doubted that the pace would accelerate as much as his colleagues feared.
I know that Dr. Romm is getting quite weary of this, but it looks like it might be time to tear the NY Times yet another new one.
I agree with those who consider that we need to start concentrating on cities and states. When the cost savings from inproved efficiency get wider coverage, more will follow suit.
One little nit pick. When a comment has lead to a post how about an acknowledgement. You know the hat tip to Fred.
Screen printed T shirts cost around 2.50 each if you order 1000. Something foot soldiers could wear to get a message across in a non threatening way and let’s people know its ok to be concerned. Send a 10.00 to CAP or Joe and get a shirt. I also check Yahoo mobile news at least once a day. Always the science section. I would like to see if CAP could possibly influence them to put in a global warming section.
Find ways to reach the rational portion of the conservative community. There were two really brilliant things in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” film that are lacking in all the other global warming documentaries that I’ve seen: 1) Al Gore was very circumspect to not insult conservative Christians, and 2) Al Gore pounded away at the moral dimension of the problem (“It is a MORAL issue”). It got through to ME. Conservatives can be shamed into questioning the parts of their ideology that are morally bankrupt.
Go Direct! Much of the purpose of governmental climate action is to motivate industry, commercial and residential to do the right thing to reduce GHGs, adopt more efficiency, renewables, sustainability, etc.
CAP could devote more energy to the private sector to motivate them to (a) do the right thing for themselves and (b) motivate them pressure politicians and others to do the right thing. Some ways to motive then is thru recognition, shame, information and best practice sharing, better coordination, etc.
There are a lot of private sector companies and organizations who state global warming is a major problem and that the US needs to take quick action to slow it. Some examples of organizations:
1. Corporations: “An analysis by the American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE) found that 6,000 companies support energy and climate legislation. The companies employ an estimated 3.5 million workers, represent more than $2.6 trillion in market capitalization, and totaled $3.5 trillion in estimated revenue in 2009.”
http://www.americanbusinessforcleanenergy.org/en/blog/page/businesses_supporting_clean_energy_and_climate_legislation
Collectively, these companies are much bigger than big oil and coal.
2. Insurance Companies: “..more than a hundred of the world’s leading insurers have made a statement…Climate change science underscores the imperative for societies to urgently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions… Raising awareness among the many stakeholders of the insurance industry – including governments and regulators, clients and business partners, business and industry, civil society and academia – about the impacts of climate change.
http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/insurance_climatechange_statement.pdf
3. Health Organizations: The American Medical Association made a policy statement on global climate change declaring that they: Support the findings of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report…will negatively affect public health.
The American Public Health Association stated.. The long-term threat of global climate change to global health is extremely serious … that anthropogenic GHG emissions are primarily responsible for this threat….US policy makers should immediately take necessary steps to reduce US emissions of GHGs, including carbon dioxide, to avert dangerous climate change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Human_health
Many other health organizations agree.
4. Religious Groups: Evangelical Christians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Unitarians: “All are committing time and effort to transforming their buildings and their congregants’ mindsets. Some were slow to jump on this bandwagon because they are wary of government studies and environmental activists. But with several recent studies emphasizing the urgent need to slow climate change, they say they are getting the message out to their followers through Web sites, e-mails, films and Sunday sermons.”
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17760/global-warming
5. Highly Influential People: One example is Bill Gates. He .. announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions.. because he’s committed to improving life for the world’s vulnerable people that he now believes that climate change is the most important challenge on the planet.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010976.html
Other authority figures are retire military. For example:
“Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror”
- Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Allied Forces, Southern Europe
“Climate change is occurring at a much faster pace than the scientists previously thought it could…. Military professionals are accustomed to making decisions during times of uncertainty… Even if you don’t have complete information, you still need to take action. Waiting for 100 percent certainty during a crisis can be disastrous… The US has the responsibility to lead [on global climate change]. If we don’t make changes, then others won’t.” – General Gordon Sullivan, Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff
http://www.operationfree.net/about-us/who-agrees/
Is there a way of converting coal plants to small scale nuclear? The military has been using small nuclear for many years now. They drive nuclear subs less than two miles from my house a couple of times a month here on thr Puget Sound and nobody says anything. Even an aircraft carrier from time to time. If we are going to have nuclear perhaps that would be a cost effective approach.
What should we be doing now?
It is progress, I guess, that realism is finally creeping into a lot of the discussion. By that I mean people are starting to see the possibility of any kind of effective action as slim to none. Earlier many condemned this thought as “defeatist” or “gloomy and too negative.”
But gloomy, negative or whatever, its harder and harder for any sensible person mature enough to face unpleasant facts in this life to conclude otherwise.
Therefore, the question becomes – what is our best scientific conclusion as to how unimpeded CO2 emissions affect our atmosphere and world. Is there a way to survive? Informed scientific opinion varies to be sure. James Lovelock of the UK speculates that polar regions may be habitable as they were millions of years ago when life was forced to flee thereto survive – and survive it did.
My suggestion: Let’s get busy with a plan that assumes nothing – nada – ziltch will be done to curb business as usual CO2 emission. What are the best scientific opinions on how things will unfold and what, if anything, can we do to survive these coming conditions?
Its time to think the unthinkable, as futurist Herman Kahn famously said some time back. Let’s get busy.
Familiarize Americans with the words of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, while reminding them of the Citizens United ruling. In other words, get the people behind opposition to state corporatism.
A documentary movie about the denial PR/disinformation machine also.
Help from Hollywood wouldn’t be hard to find.
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Abraham Lincoln
“One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now. ”
“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth.”
“Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit.”
“We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest is entitled to justice-full, fair, and complete-and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does NOT GIVE THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO ANY CORPORATION.” (my emphasis)
Teddy Roosevelt – 1910 New Nationalism speech
Does anyone know the rate methane is currently being added to the atmosphere from the Arctic Ocean?
The EAARTH MATTERS
“Global Warming is a HOAX!” Trump card….BAM!….game over!
- A doubling of CO2 will cause the climate to warm x degrees.
“Global Warming is a HOAX!”
- Scientist believe there is a high probability that sea levels will rise x feet in the nxt 100 years!
“Global Warming is a HOAX!”
There is no message that can beat the GWIAH meme!
Well, except reality…..I see three things that we can count on:
1. Energy conservation works and can be implemented beneath the radar. Energy is going to get more expensive, rapidly. The past 2-3 years have seen a lull in global demand. As new demand builds (several billion new consumers?) demand will rapidly outstrip supply. So what? you ask. The price of renewable energy is falling rapidly. Offshore wind has enormous potential at low risk (compared to drilling in deep water, fraking for nat gas, coal, nuclear and tar sands!) Photovoltaics has fallen from $4 a watt to less than a $1 a watt in 10 years. In 10 more years solar could be 10 cents a watt! We know how to build net zero energy housing. These are all solutions to AGW without every exposing our cause the “GWIAH” message!
2. The California food production and long haul distribution model will become rapidly unsustainable. Local food production will become increasingly workable. it’ll never be profitable but will become highly desirable. Find ways to support local food production. I personally think that our manufacturing jobs will always go to the low labor cost economies and unemployment will remain high. We need a program to identify people who have the talent and skills to be successful farmers and find ways to support them. (hunger works!)
3. Allow the EAARTH to speak for itself. The changes in climate will always trump the GWIAH message. Allow the changes in climate to lead and we use our precious messaging resources to highlight and leverage. (The corallary is that the worst of AGW is already imprinted on the next several hundred years….even if we could implement every “wedge” at maximum effort it wouldn’t change climate all that much for the seventh generation!)
Our government is dysfunctional if it can tackle hard issues once a generation-if that-this is not good enough. The Senate filibuster must go. The influence of money in politics must be weakened. Can CAP work on these issues?
cold nights bring clear stars,
but i’m still shielded from space.
late fall brain teaser.
See the previous post on C40 cities – there are real actions able to happen regionally.
On the national front I agree with others that the CAP and others should be developing the intellectual framework to support a range of policy actions that will bring progress to climate action.
Put the groundwork in and build bridges with allies in business and regional politics.
#91 dp thanks for the artistic break in all this rationality. Maybe you are on to something we are forgetting. Back when the anti-nuclear movement mobilized after 3 mile island, Peter Paul and Mary wrote a very popular song about renewable energy which seemed to influence the youth of the day. This will undoubtably work today as well, just got to get the lyrics, artists and music right, and let the pop radio channels and culture do the rest.
@some european,
Cancun is in just two weeks time – it’s just about feasible to get a leaflet printed by then but the vitally important issue will be to get everything spot-on. Do not give the anti-science opposition even a crumb to play with.
I like the idea of a Timeline of climate science – who discovered what and when. It goes right back to Fourier, ~190 years ago, which is an effective antidote to the oft-seen denialist talking-point of climate science/GHG properties science being very new fields – they are not.
One thing you could do is to go over to http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php and check out their points.
Cheers – John
An important book which gives a clear indication on how to start positive disruptive change:
Next Generation Democracy
What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change
By Jared Duval (a fellow at Demos, a New York think tank)
November 2010
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781608190669
ISBN-10: 1608190668
http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/books/catalog/next_generation_democracy_pb_669
There should be an outcry for PlaNYC 2020 AD for a net-zero NYC by 2020 AD with monthly emission reductions status reports. This would really get things moving.
Most might say that would be impossible. And, many of the deniers say the same thing about climate change.
But, if you look at World War II this country was able to mobilize on a scale far beyond what was imagined at the time.
New from Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/wote/wotech1
His book Plan B4.0 is available for purchase at this website or free download, and at stores.
Climate Hawk’s BUYcott – a part of the effort to return climate stability to the planet.
Update, Week #2 – Size of group – 5 persons & growing.
What can one person do? Here an answer.
Part 1 – Dirty Oil
77 % of registered voters in a poll, recently, indicated that greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2, should be regulated. Many of these same people, say half, go out every week and purchase gasoline for their cars. I am one of them. This would be approx;
51,000,000 people x 15 gallons/person x $2.75/gallon
equals $2,103,750,000 per week
Or $9,116,250,000 per month (This is USA market, only). That’s billions. That’s a lot of clams. The thing that makes this money unique is that we, who have concerns about global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, have no viable alternative to spending this money, contributing to the success and profits of these particular corporations and the predicted global devastation resulting from AGW.
So, what can one person do? Help to direct this money in a way that can do some good. Rather than boycott a single company, like ExxonMobile, (where all players are mostly bad) pick a single company, maybe the least offensive one, and purchase all petroleum products from that company. Focusing on the supermajors (the 6 major oil companies) this effort would punish five and support one. Billions of dollars in sales, monthly would get their attention. A successful effort would have impact on the target company in terms of environmental policies and decisions. The loss of business to the other 5 would be felt as well. This presents a carrot and a stick.
We would communicate with the target company; explain the program and our expectations of the target company. If our expectations are not met within a reasonable time frame, we will remove our support after a set period of time and move to number 2 on the list. Our expectation is as follows;
1) Stop participating in disinformation campaign and other anti-science behaviors; easy to agree to but difficult to verify.
2) Acknowledge publicly and embrace as a corporation the climate science of Anthropogenic Global Warming and the extreme risks it poses to our country and the entire world. Adherence will be evaluated based on public corporate documents covering corporate planning, etc…
3) Stop accepting US Government subsidies, in all forms, for activities related to, or appearing to relate to, the production of fossil fuels.
The Target: how to choose the least of six evils. Each has come under attach for issues related to AGW. A search on-line indicates that Chevron or Dutch Royal Shell would make a good initial target. They seem to be equally less bad. My personal choice would be Shell. I am assuming that there would be retail outlets in easy reach of a majority of the population.
It works like this;
1. Each person considering participation should communicate with me to get questions and concerns answered.
2. Each participant signs a pledge of participation and change their purchasing habits.
3. The action begins officially when 100,000 persons have pledged. communication with Target Company begins.
4. Participation target; 1,000,000 persons by month 6
5. With each purchase of fuel, send records of purchase transaction (monthly) to effort headquarters and copy to supermajor company of choice.
6. Monthly review of progress.
7. 6 month evaluations of company response with potential re-target decision. Consider expanding to international markets.
8. Repeat 6 & 7 above with double participation goal.
Ideas? Suggestions? Support? This doesn’t solve all problems. I am just trying to help move things forward. Questions and support to dss@stockbridgegreen.com . Come join us. We can make a difference.
I am seeing considerable NIMBY resistance to wind energy projects in the east. The resistance is based primarily on irrational fears. It seems an excellent but not industry sponsored examination of wind power and its impact on the local environment, from noise to light blink would be productive.
Another thing we could be better at is exactly what the deniers do – get organised in online commentary. I’ll give you all an example (heads in vices before reading some of the comments, please!) – go over there and “have your say”! Sometimes those threads can be very lonely places for pro-science campaigners. So, with no further ado:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/14/climate-change-science-email-scandal?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments
Cheers – John
Let’s see a small off grid solar thermal collector
to a boiler to a elec. Generator putting out about
1kw to 2kw. Costing less than $1500.
Or same as above but grid tied and of the
plug and play variety around 2000 dollars.
Some suggestions:
1. Leverage your work with that of others. Team with like-minded entities and use the podium and audience you’ve so carefully built to speak to that stereotypical middle 40% (not the 30% that “get it” or the 30% who never will) that is still “undecided” on the climate problem and solutions.
2. Take your battle to the states and localities, the governors and mayors. Screw DC for now. It’s a bloody mess now, and CAP’s voice will just get drowned out in the nation’s capitol.
3. I agree with any and all of the comments re: taking back the power of messaging from the Voldemorts of the world. Find ways to take back ownership of words like “freedom” and “homeland” and “security.” It’s a war of words, and progressives have really stunk at it so far. Train the media on how to talk about climate change accurately. Train the scientists to talk to the media. Train the meteorologists to interpret climate data more accurately. Train the solar and wind companies to get the message out about job creation. Train the activists to stop sounding like hippies and pinkos. Train the trainers. We desperately need a higher level of sophistication in simply using language to influence thought, which influences action. And you all are perfectly suited to take this on.
4. Do more of your own taped interviews. I especially liked the “Joe with video cam” blog posts of a few months ago. Use original video more often to get across key points: this is about the only way to reach You-Tubey young’uns anymore. And interview people who have something important to say but are otherwise invisible to the rest of us. Interview victims of climate change, and the perps too. Interview Jack Gerard, and if he won’t talk to you, document that and report it. Interview people still living in formaldehyde soaked Katrina trailers. Interview students getting their PhDs in climate change. Interview Alaskans dying a slow and painful death as their land falls into the ocean. One a week would be great.
5. Help your readers write good letters to their elected officials. Make suggestions for the right paragraphs, the right messages, the right people to contact. People will exercise their democratic rights if they get some guidance. It’s not lobbying per se — it’s training citizens to be better advocates for themselves. An example letter now and then, something people could use as a guide or template, could go a long way.
That’s it for now. There’s lots of food for thought here. Many good comments. You have your work cut out for you! And many friends and allies ready to help.
All you have to do is ask.
~ Anne
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1115400&content=music
I am making it my remaining life’s work to create “Planetary Music” which will hopefully help galvanize young and old alike to do whatever can be done locally to turn things around. Download and spread the word…
we make the future,
peace,
Dana
Hi Joe. Your posts and constant updates on climate science are invaluable and I thank you.
As much as I appreciate your climate-scince posts, your political posts (as much as I agree with them) always seem like pissing into the wind. It’s pretty clear any ‘american progress’ from here on out will come despite (not because of) the efforts of the federal and state governments. As such, I think the majoity of focus for any institution trying to effect change need to be addressed towards the individual & community scales. Here are my suggestions:
1. Emphasize climate-science education that community leaders can institute. National newspapers, being large short-term-profit-driven corporations, will defend the status quo as much as Wall Street. It’s naive to expect anything but delayism from them. Screw them. Give me clear posters (like Post Carbon Institute’s ”Oil Age” poster) and concise talking points that I can bring to my high school students and largely-climate-ignorant community.
2. Emphasize the direction American agriculture must take in the climate-challenged future. I’m working on a post for energybulletin.net addressing this, but the jist will be this: industrial agriculture will almost certainly fail catastrophically as the fossil energy becomes scarce & climate change intensifies. As such, an agriculture based on perennial polyculture (in its many forms) will likely be more than just a ‘good idea’ — it’ll be a damn necessity. i.e. It’s the only agriculture that has a chance. Any ‘american progress’ in the future will need an agriculture that works. Emphasizing the key necessities of a climate&energy-limited agriculture would be more than useful. (See Wes Jackson’s work and this article — http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-12/mark-shepherds-106-acre-permaculture-farm-viola-wisconsin — for a good example of what I’m talking about. Basically, it amounts to large-scale implementation of permaculture.)
Keep up the great work — Dan
[JR: Thanks -- and thanks for that image on a Sunday morning.]
Interesting article in the NYT on the melting glaciers, though it still falls into the giving the deniers a voice as if they had facts to back them up:
“Sea-level rise has been a particularly contentious element in the debate over global warming. One published estimate suggested the threat was so dire that sea level could rise as much as 15 feet in this century. Some of the recent work that produced the three-foot projection was carried out specifically to counter more extreme calculations.
Global warming skeptics, on the other hand, contend that any changes occurring in the ice sheets are probably due to natural climate variability, not to greenhouse gases released by humans.
Such doubts have been a major factor in the American political debate over global warming, stalling efforts by Democrats and the Obama administration to pass legislation that would curb emissions of heat-trapping gases. Similar legislative efforts are likely to receive even less support in the new Congress, with many newly elected legislators openly skeptical about climate change.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/science/earth/14ice.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
Steven Leibo, #67:
McCain, Graham, and Murdoch won’t attend. Their financial and political relationships far outweigh any wishes to tell the truth or act about global warming. Warner, maybe, but he’s out of power.
Obama tried compromising and complimenting the old guard. It didn’t work.
1 – Aim for the low-hanging fruit, especially improved energy efficiency. This hits people in the pocketbooks, which is where their emotions lie. The case for increased efficiency is strong from financial, economic and political perspectives. The public can be convinced because it touches them where it matters…and it’s a win-win no-brainer.
2 – Pound on the need for an increase in the gasoline tax. Yes, it is the third rail of politics but that does not keep Tom Friedmann from coming back to it over and over. His arguments, and similar ones, are unrefuted and powerful, especially from a national security perspective This could be the one good thing that comes out of 9-11. No one can deny the connection between our gasoline consumption and terrorism. No one can deny its economic impact on the country. This should be common ground between right and left. But the case is rarely made and rarely makes it into the national conversation. It requires constant discussion to get and keep the public’s attention.
Good work #90!
Squelch Lying! The fact that many politicians, media, etc. blatantly LIE about climate change, health care, taxes and other is a major problem – especially since 30%+ of our population will believe anything from the most dishonest ones. (Yes, there is baggage and sub-conscious motivation to address too)
Does freedom of speech mean a public person can lie like hell no matter how much harm it might result in to US and world citizens? CAP could research all existing methods of promoting honesty in politics, media and other public communications.
There must be some law, agreement, political, journalistic or media code of conduct, FCC rule, threatened legal action or other requiring a good faith attempt to be truthful.
If there isn’t, perhaps CAP could work to encourage such. Some neutral and respected organization (Council of Churches? Nurses Association? Boy Scouts?) could ask all polititans and media to publically sign an honesty agreement. And, another organization should track them.
Also, a third organization could create the Most Harmful Lies of the Week award and announce the winners.
A small thought: how about an inexpensive medallion, gold edge, red white and blue, with the image of a hawk – for climate hawk, or energy hawk – that can be worn either as a lapel pin or a pendant, nice enough for the office, unlike a t-shirt. People could instantly recognize each other, and it would start conversations in a way bumper stickers can’t.
How about retiring this euphemism: “special interests”, referring to beauties like Koch and Tillerman. It sounds too much like Best Friends Forever, and provides cover for chickenshit reporters.
Let’s call them what they are: oil and coal companies who bribe politicians and poison the public dialogue, all so they can make big money for a little while longer. We need a new phrase that captures this truth. For kids, maybe “Monsters from Inner Earth”, since oil and coal come from underground to haunt us, or “Evil Pimps in $3,000 Suits”. Words are eluding me, but you get the picture- I’m sure someone else could come up with something better.
Dan, #111:
We’re all frustrated by corruption and lack of action from DC, but cannot abandon this effort. Local focus will lead to Balkanization, which suits the oil and coal people just fine. Electric cars in San Francisco and Boulder would be called eccentric vanity items, while SUV’s and vinyl/chipboard tracts continue to dominate the more typical landscapes of Oklahoma City, Atlanta, and Phoenix.
Sun Belt cowboys don’t like being told what to do. Instead, they should be punished financially for wasting resources and trapping heat by pricing carbon and removing fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks. That can only be accomplished at the national level.
Wits End @ 116: Perhaps even cast those pendents with a solar focus forge. Lots of metals are meltable at easily accessible temperatures. Aluminum pop cans for instance.
Joe,
Run this thing like a PR campaign. Get together with CAP and figure out target audiences, media markets for them and those best to talk to them. Use theologians, ex and current military leaders, business leaders and climate science specialists to drive home a coordinated message.
Keep the longer term in mind. This is not a one-month or even one year campaign. It needs to go on until substantive action is taken. Messages have to be repeated until they sink in. But the messages can’t be scattershot. They need to build on each other for each audience.
Don’t let outside groups (ie random denier like George Will) get you off track and be reactive. The important thing is to put the deniers on the defensive–stick to your message. Let others deal with denier bloviations.
I’m going to do it! Not solar production (yet)…but I found a local company that will make custom lapel pins and pendants. It’s actually possible to get a bit of verbiage on in addition to the image of a hawk. Suggestions welcome as to design and/or what it should say. “I am a Climate Hawk”? “Be a Climate Hawk”?
I hope to have a few hundred available in 2 – 3 weeks. Email me if you have ideas and/or want to buy one when they’re ready (not sure of the price yet because I don’t know what they will cost to manufacture and ship – but I expect under $15.00).
I’ll put a picture on my blog when it’s done so people can see the product.
witsendnj at yahoo dot com
Arrange for Obama to visit Greenland !
Good on you Gail, (Wits End). OK, no Solar Forge but perhaps you can put a percentage of profits aside for a PV Collector on their establishment. Or help pay for a green power premium for their electric bill. Or pay for the Green Power premium for the energy cost of the product. My power company will accept single month donations or percentage of bill. Our rates are $0.0125/kWh. It cannot amount to that much in the big picture and gives you bragging rights.
Well then they will cost $16!
Paulm, @ 122: Good thought about Greenland. Security would be cheep compared to most trips.
16 conservative towns in Kansas are in a competition to reduce energy costs. Get a national competition going that shows that communities all over the country want to make this happen. The next book will be What’s Right With Kansas
@#104
Great idea – but I think it is the wrong target.
My guess would be Shell would use the extra $ to buy into drilling the Artic or somesuch.
I would recommend sending the $ to some target green energy company that manufactures here in the USA. Hires here in the USA.
I like the idea of keeping track of from whom the $ left and to whom the $ was transferred to. Let’s say I usually buy my gas from BP, and I put forth the effort to reduce my gasoline purchases for one month and I spent $20 less. A company with a great product, let’s say it was LED light bulbs that needed to gear up for mass distribution and reduce the costs. I send them the $20 and you keep track of which company lost the purchase and which company was targeted to win.
This could just keep growing in different directions. Let’s say the next target was a solar panel company. I could buy some LED light bulbs. Calculate the savings for a year and send that $ while reporting I am taking it from my coal using electric company.
Every one of these companies could get a letter (monthly or quarterly) with the totals real people are purposefully removing from them because of their refusal to switch to clean energy.
The more clean green each of us are by buying into the developements of our own products the weaker ALL the dirty companies become until they implode or change over.
If the US inaction is what has stalled COP progress, and if 40 senators are the ones who have put climate legislation into stalemate, and if COP15 inaction has added an incremental $1,000,000,000,000 (Trillion) in cost to fix the problem, then let’s send each of those 40 Senators an invoice for $25,000,000,000 (Billion) — printed on a 4′x8′ sheet of plywood. With a suggestion that BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobile, Koch, Shell and those of their ilk bail them out. That would put a price on fossil fuels that would send a significant price signal and favor innovation in the renewables arena.
How to accomplish this PIE IN THE SKY PIPE DREAM? CAP will find the answer!
In addition, let’s launch a SUSTAINED TRADITIONAL (not internet or email-based) MULTI-MEDIA CAMPAIGN aimed at awakening the ‘red’ soccer moms and ‘red’ scout leader dads who are so busy raising their kids that they have no time to question their ‘red’ Senators and ‘red’ Representatives. Wake up those ‘red’ average Americans in the HEARTLAND and get them to really think about their values vis-a-vis what their Congressmen are doing, and we might tip the balance of the political equation in ‘red’ states which harbor those 40 ‘red’ senators.
Where do we get the money for a multi-million-dollar demographically-targeted traditional BILLBOARD-NEWSPAPER-RADIO campaign? Where’s the money? Ask the people who have money! Here is a partial list of potential willing donors who recently anted up: j.mp/prop23procon and j.mp/Prop26procon
You get the inertia going and I will be first in line to help implement it. My encore career.
Thanks, Joe!
Mike Roddy (117) – the phrase you look for to describe the individuals and corporations who benefit by sucking the life out of our ecosystems is CLIMATE VAMPIRE.
Reading a lot of the comments above is depressing, becasue so many of us still think Washington politicians will do something. It seems less and less likely this will really happen.
It’s as if we’re still at the point where we can only talk to our next door neighbours over the fence, but the Climate Vampires can buy TV, radio, print media ads. They have an unlimited budget, what do we have?
Some good ideas here, but getting a hearing is the problem. Even the internet fails as a way of making truth louder than lies.
I hear Arnie is making climate his big thing when he finishes as GovCal; perhaps he is our best hope.
Anyway, apart from billboards (who pays?), etc – is there anyone in the Graphic Novel field who could do something? Pictures get through to people best.
If you’re feeling somewhat on the subversive side, how about sponsoring multiple screenings of Soylent Green?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Maybe even handout some green crackers at the screening (I’ve heard the taste varies from person to person).
Might be a not so subtle way to get your message out to the public (i.e., that the oceans are dying) and possibly this is the sort of stunt that might catch the attention of the mainsteam press.
CAP should make shadowy non-profit organizations that don’t have to reveal their donors and get lot’s of rich people and corporations to donate to it by pretending it is a conservative group. Then have that organization secretly donate to another shadowy non-profit that debunks the climate sceptics. It solves the money disadvantage that the environmentalists have had for so many years.
CAP should also send lobbyists to Washington to encourage them to
Repeal all oil and gas subsidies (18% emissions by 2050)
Make a renewable fuel standard of 15% by 2020, 50% by 2050 (3%/10%)
Make a renewable energy standard of 15% by 2020 and 50% by 2050 (6%/24%)
Make an expedited renewable energy approval process.
Extend the renewable energy grant program.
Fully fund the Home STAR program.
Mandate cars to have 35mpg by 2016, 40 by 2020, 50 by 2035. (6%/8%/10%)
No more environmental waivers for oil rigs.
Doing the math (it’s not as simple as just adding everything up, the net emissions reduction by 2050 should be 15%+15%+24%=54% emissions reduction just from these simple programs. By mandating 80% renewable energy by 2050, the total emissions reduction is 59%. By mandating 90% renewable by 2050, it’s 65%. But 80-90% will be much harder to achieve support in Congress.
Kota @ 128 – While I selected Shell as the target, the operation takes purchases away from the other 5 supermajor oil producers and lessor producers as well. If enough people participated, this buyer block with purchasing power of billions of dollars would become something the supermajors would compete for. In order to keep the block $$$ they will have to make concessions.
The concept is how to best focus the purchasing power of Climate Hawks who would prefer not to purchase gasoline, but must for now because other alternatives are not currently available at scale.
David Smith (#132): A better “Buycott” strategy may be to cross off the major corporations and let local nodes decide which other small corporations they will support in their area. One could apply this strategy for everything, not just gas purchases. This would support local, small businesses.
Something happens in large corporations that executives begin to do things that they would never dream of doing to their neighbors in their private lives. As quarterly results predominate, the inhuman machine takes over. Perhaps, “Buycott” can be a grassroots approach to trust-busting, something that governments around the world are failing to do.
If this catches fire, we probably won’t need to tally up the receipts and notify the large corporations. They will notice it themselves.
I am in Canada and I am climate activist trained by Al Gore.
1) We need an army of fundraisers.
2) We need to train an army of climate presenters who know the science, economics and social repercussions of not acting on the climate crisis. They shall be given a well tested presentation that is engaging and handson and connects the climate crisis to all crises this planet is facing. The final ask in the presentation will be for people to write letters. This army of presenters must have feedback forms that they give their audiences so they know if they are doing a good job. Get scientific folks. You need the feedback in order to know if you are effective.
3) We need to push both the Clear Act (a.k.a. Cantwell-Collins Bill and Cap and Dividends) and the Carbon Fee and Dividends Act (Citizens Climate Lobby)
http://www.citizensclimatelobby.org/node/398
4) We need to a central database that reports just what is happening on the climate lobbying and carbon-tax front in China. There are good things happening and we in North America are acting like a bunch of babies .. A carbon tax is in the works in China .. Thank goodness!
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/3878
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2262857/reports-china-impose-carbon-tax
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-05/10/content_9826546.htm
5) You in the United States need to familiarize yourself with Canada’s Bill C311- Climate Change Accountability Act .. You are our number one trading partner and this bill is being killed by “conservatives” senators with dollar signs in their heads for the tarsands and oil reserves that lie underneath the Artic Ocean that is about to open up.
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3662654&Language=e&Mode=1
http://www.greennexxus.com/post/2010/04/Parliament-in-Canada-Votes-on-the-Climate-Change-Accountability-Act.aspx
6) Everyone should be pushing the Million Letter March on both sides of the border:
USA .. http://www.millionlettermarch.org/
Canada … specifically address Bill C311 but uploads to Million Letter March too http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=164022403614867
(be prepared to cut and paste that facebook link)
7) We need lots of days of climate action.
On March 8, 2011, I suggest we organize climate rushes on all the offices of politicians who do not believe in Climate change in the spirit of what was done by the suffragettes in Britain in 1907 and repeated by amazing activists in Britain .. watch this video:
http://vimeo.com/8257143
On Mothers Day 2011 be prepared to take part in the The Million Kid iMatter March http://kids-vs-global-warming.com/iMatter_March.html
A strong focus should be on state-based and regional initiatives. This includes getting the Western Climate Initiative off the ground, and strengthening the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Widespread state-based initiatives are an important part of making sure that the US meets its international commitment to reduce emissions by 17 percent by 2020. They will also help to overcome political barriers to a US based carbon price.
After Copenhagen, the world is engaging in a ‘bottom-up’ effort to reduce emissions. After the failure of the Senate to pass federal legislation, the US is also in a bottom-up effort to reduce emissions. If should be possible to get cooperation from the bottom up, and if the world can do it that way (and much of the world is ahead of the US), then the US should be able to too.
1) Convert “cost of mitigation” to “profit and benefits of mitigation”
2) Convert public/political perception of linear planetary response (“reduce emissions by x% by 2050″) to exponential response, and explain that we are on the flat beginning of what may become increasingly vertical.
3) Hammer perverse “fuel” subsidies (nice work so far)
4) Change “Mitigation and Adaptation” to “Elimination and Counter Action”
5) Discuss that even after Elimination of greenhouse gases and trying for 350 max ppm, the ocean may release heat (and CO2?) for a long time. This will be a long journey and humanity must start now.
6) Redefine “energy”
7) Keep up the good work, and thank you for outstanding reporting and analysis.
It will prove impossible to adapt to the forthcoming drought:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/20/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warming-a-review/
The end.
Somehow that message needs to sink in for very many, so that adverting it becomes a goal of almost everybody.
About the suggestion of creating courses on this topic, I began one this semester at the Sage Colleges. Called “The Climate Crisis & the Challenge of Energy Conversion” I believe it has been very successful and plan to offer it regularly. If any of the academics on this site want to discuss this effort please feel free to contact me through my website “Leibo’s World Watch” which comes up alongside my name above.
Cathy Orlando Canada #134:
YES. Thank you so much for some very concrete, not nebulous, actions we can all instigate.
Perhaps if we continue to point out to business what adaption to climate change will involve we will start getting movement on the issue. For example insurance and re-insurance companies may wish to start excluding certain types of properties, businesses etc once they have more information as to what the future looks like. Once that message starts getting out we may create a tipping point in action on GHG emissions.
Might be nice for Joe Romm to do a piece with and on Demos fellow Jared Duval author or Next Generation Democracy, What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change.
The political battle in the US over climate change has now been lost for a decade or more, and time is so short. Democrats –the party we have been pinning our hopes on — have compromised and crumbled, amazingly unable to turn a great victory into a mandate. Australia, Canada –we are not alone in our suicidal wish. As the US fails, there is no reason why other countries will join in any significant globally committed action.
The US –and I must say it, the President –have let the world slide inexorably into climate chaos. The political, the financial, the business, the media establishments have failed notoriously. No amount of scientific evidence, policy arguments, media campaigns or grass roots organizing have proven powerful enough to move the bastions of reaction, ignorance and selfish interest. Concern for the future has been turned into a economists’ maze of deficit arguments. The very future of the earth is of no consequence in political debate. Even most of us good guys seldom talk about the the fate of millions of other species, of climate change as the culmination of human obliteration of other species and ecological health.
The issue as we all must ultimately realize is at its heart a moral one. Literally, the fate of the earth and societies is at stake, and what we do about it is the greatest of moral challenges, both personally and in the realm of politics and world governance.
The upshot here is for climate advocates to forthrightly raise the stakes at evey level of public climate discourse to a question of moral responsibility. Advocacy groups shy away from this. Scientists mostly are quiet, with some superlative exceptions. But we cannot now, any of us, escape expressing the overriding moral imperative of climate action forthrightly. It’s not just about dollars and cents. It’s really about the moral threads that have held in trust the best of human endeavors.
Hope is getting to be a more expensive commodity all the time, but the moral imperative requires hope. For many of us, that hope is vested in the spiritual and the moral. I’m not sure of how the Center for American Progress can grapple with these dimensions. But I think it should at least think them over.
I would advocate for a focus on state-level efforts: maintaining New Jersey’s participation in RGGI and fighting for broad participation in WCI; along with supporting individual state-level policies and highlighting successes.
The political situation in DC is obviously abysmal. The only useful thing I can think of to do there is protect EPA authority. But there continues to be forward momentum at the state level. Fighting policy battles at the state level is a place where real victories can still be won.
I don’t know if CAP can recruit individuals to a momvement of non-violent dissent, but if it can (by developing compelling educational materials and a network of speakers/advocates) that could be something really useful as well.
To Dan #111:
Perennial polyculture sounds great but what is the yield per acre: what size population would it support? Production agriculture is not going away without a major effort at finding better alternatives-are you aware how radical a shift you are proposing? After finishing my PhD I applied to work with Wes Jackson at the Land Institute, when I was young and idealistic-he said he could pay me $100/week. I didn’t think I could live on that, so I went off and did a post doc with the USDA instead.
Don’t get rid of the excess CO2, don’t eat:
This is very alarming because if the drying is anything resembling Figure 11, a very large population will be severely affected in the coming decades over the whole United States, southern Europe, Southeast Asia, Brazil, Chile, Australia, and most of Africa. from
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.81/full
Gosh, many great ideas. I especially like the Wits End suggestion that all climate-concerned groups unite, joining forces to work in unison.
I’d like to add to that comment: what we need to do in unison is all focus on getting President Obama to push the envelope on what he can do to fight climate change as president of one of the most powerful nations on Eaarth.
Gail, we’ll take three “I’m a climate hawk” lapel pins please. Thanks!
So, what CAP should do now is to orchestrate cooperation among climate groups in pushing President Obama to demonstrate the bold leadership that is appropriate and required in order to mitigate climate change.
We are working on a detailed methodology for exactly what the cooperating groups can and should do to immediately exert pressure on US leadership–something that will be doable, effective, and safe.
Following further discussions with key members of the Romm-N-Legions during the next week or two, we plan to publish details here on CP.
To Max #143: My point was that conventional annuals-based agriculture likely won’t even be POSSIBLE to a great extent in the coming decades. Sure, the yields NOW are great, but take away the majority of fossil-fuel-related inputs and throw in some climate-change troubles (hell&high-water) and see what you get then. I’m increasingly concerned that perennial polyculture will be just about the only agriculture that WORKS AT ALL in the future. I am under no illusions that it will feed x billion people — but the sooner we implement it on a large scale, the more people it WILL feed. Trouble’s a-comin’ & I’m just trying to find ways to ease the pain.
i feel so great after reading this thread. what a letdown to come out knowing we aren’t at an actual meeting, and we don’t have ready cash for implementation, or easy access to real organizers & local artists & scientists & demographics & phone lists & training & support & materials & …
in fact when you look at it that way, it doesn’t look like THE #1 MOST IMPORTANT NATIONWIDE BATTLE TO END CARBON POLLUTION AND SAVE THE BIOSPHERE WE NEED has as much importance to the political establishment as a seat in the house of representatives.
i know i’m talking to ‘professional democrats’ who debate among themselves whether to make an effort in every state of the union during a presidential run, and i’m asking them not only to have a ’50 state strategy’ but to operate a permanent organization to aid in quickly fairly respectfully profitably greening the country AS THOUGH IT WAS THE LONGEST, TOUGHEST, MOST AMAZING PROJECT THE COUNTRY HAD EVER ATTEMPTED.
not just a stump speech line, not just an exciting new business opportunity, but something as vital to the future of humankind as those hallowed founding documents in our national archives were, two centuries ago.
and our effort now represents a break from the past far greater than theirs. to declare independence from a king on the other side of an ocean in an age of sailing, what is that, compared to a civilization that can’t exist w/o machines voluntarily unplugging those machines from their best proven, most practical fuels?
surely THEY would have called it crazy. the framers of the constitution. they wouldn’t have just killed to get their hands on the fuels we have today. they DID kill for them, generation to generation. they killed in cold blood to build this country because they saw the future and it was too big to ignore.
our future is a little weirder. what if we all end up robots by the year 3000, what the hell is that? it’s creepy, the same way it’s creepy to think of the sea not having any fish in it, because we killed them. killed them like we wiped out the people who were living here first: for the money.
so yeah, this is a big moment in history, and it needs to move quickly, and magic marker messages on cardboard are just not going to get that done.
G’day,
I think a certain amount of targeted local initiatives would be a good start. I would like to see efforts to identify small to medium cities with dying industry and unemployed people will to make a change in their lives. Probably centered around a rich natural resource.
Specifically I’d like to see a city or rural county in West Virginia turned into a Wind Power exporter. I would like to see an organiziation that would combine organizing at a local level for a new economy with locating sources of capital for them. These little Wind Bubbles up in the mountains could be very effective. Small to Medium decentralized power projects that directly involve, train, and hire local communities to do the work. Give them ownership of the Wind Turbines.
Another way would be offshore wind power in coasal communities or solar power in our sunnier states.
These are winning investments. Perhaps even community fund raising in the progressive world to do this. Why go to big banks or angel financiers? We could fund millions of dollars KIVA style to build Wind Power in Appalachia. If only 100,000 people can put down $25 each, that would be an incredible pool of seed money for a lot of communities. Then at the end we pay everyone back with interest who invested.
In short, Community ownership of green resources on a local scale, Kiva style microfinance to empower the national progressive and green community, and the organization to provide the medium and organizational staff to get this accomplished.
Just one idea.
Cheers,
spiritkas
Is Jeff Huggins still at Starbuck’s ? He’s been gone a long time now.
He was sounding a little underappreciated earlier. If anyone’s passing, could they look in and make sure he’s OK ?
This is an off the wall idea. I’m just thinking out loud. I just read this story about anti-smoking campaigns in the News Scientist:
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‘Gross’ disease images best at making smokers quit
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19725-gross-disease-images-best-at-making-smokers-quit.html
To make smokers quit and discourage others from starting, put graphic images of mouth tumours, cancerous lungs and tar-covered teeth and gums on cigarette packets. That’s the message from countries that have already made these kinds of graphic images compulsory.
“The most effective are the large, emotionally arousing pictures. The grosser the better,” says David Hammond of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and author of a soon-to-be-published international review of the effect of cigarette-packet warnings on cigarette consumption. “Subtle doesn’t appear to work.”
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So, should we push for warning labels on gas pumps? “Warming: the use of fossil fuels is dangerous to our planet. The climate is warming, droughts are increasing, glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising, and the oceans are acidifying because of rising CO2 levels from burning fossil fuels. These facts have been established been rigorous science involving thousands of researchers around the world.” Then you have a picture of … you get the idea.
These could be made into stickers that activists could put on gas pumps. (College kids need something productive to do when not studying!) But, the EPA should be pressed to require such warning labels. Citizens’ group could demand that similar fliers be included with utility bills.
Maybe things like this are being done. Anyone know?
Send a copy of ‘Storms of my Grandchildren’ to every influential person on the planet: politicians, sports people, business leaders, media people, superwealthy people who ususally help fund art initiatives or who are big shareholders of all the major companies in the world, religious leaders, …
I like all of you know that climate change is the most pressing issue of mankind. It is the only thing that really matters in the long run and I support all of your work with both my time, energy and monetarily. I get it but you have to get the following in order to get anything done.
Unfortunately nothing will happen in US climate legislation until we prevent the “Big Lie” techniques and the bribing of our law makers by the fossil fuel corporations.
No amount of education, scientific facts, studies or research will over come the Big Lie. We have to stop the big lie and to do that we need to pass a Constitutional amendment stating that when the Constitution says people it mean living, breathing people and not artificial legal entities call corporations.
The Roberts court has done what they were placed in power to do and they will never reverse Citizens United vs the US. That is the only way the truth will be heard along with a host of other issues that will lead to true the true freedoms we care about.
They now own almost every politician there is. The few truly honest ones like Russ Feingold have been defeated by massive amounts of money and the “Big Lie” and replace with whores for the fossil fuel fools.
Reversing Citizens United will not happen without an Amendment to the Constitution and the truth about climate change will not break free of he big lie until it’s too late unless the Corporations are stripped of their supposed person-hood.
Everyone who cares about the climate and humanity has to get involved with this amendment first. We have to talk about it first, mention it constantly. Before every single article, speech and conversation talk about it first…then move on to climate change.
This has to be the year of THE AMENDMENT. 75% of the public wants it now. We have to focus and do it now. Otherwise you are wasting your time because nothing will happen in time to make a difference.
Given our political system, a majority of the population must be motivated to overcome political inertia and special interest influence. History proves that when “movements” reach critical mass, momentum will carry the day.
Climate change risks are very tangible to CP readers, but not to the general public. A surprising number of ambivalent and confused citizens fall off the fence when they have the opportunity to discuss the issue directly. Enlist people who can grind through the tedium of learning enough about the topic to communicate with diverse audiences, and to patiently address a wild assortment of eccentric “conservative” suppositions. (After a steep painful learning curve, it’s fun.)
Humans are hard wired to fight harder for a team than for an idea, me included. I was initially inspired by a Ben Santer presentation. As I learned more about attacks on his character, I became more determined. (Watching his Pat Michaels TKO at the congressional hearing this week was better than watching the Giants win the World Series.)
Charles Zeller