What is the Call to Action on Climate?
The topic for this weekend’s open thread comes from Climate Hawk Auden Schendler, Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company. He wrote on Grist:
Today I got a call from a rock concert producer. “We care about climate. We want to get the audience to act. What is the call to action?” This is a deceptively simply question, but it’s also THE question of our age. Meanwhile, I’ve been asked “what should I do?” by audience members, by seatmates on the plane, but nonprofit heads, by pro athletes.
And the answer has been blown–and continues to be blown–by the best of the climate crusaders. Gore blew it after Inconvenient Truth when the film listed a bunch of personal actions (he did include writing your senator) that won’t add up to much in the absence of policy action. Most nonprofit action lists blow it: drive your Prius, change the bulbs. Even those who don’t blow it, and know that this is about getting policy in place, and now after the election it’s about grassroots mobilizing and reaching policymakers with a message that supporting climate action is OK, even those groups blow it because “write your senator” really isn’t cutting it either. Maybe too few people are writing effectively, leaning too heavily on boilerplate sign-ons. Maybe they’re overwhelmed by the fossil fuel industry’s money. But it’s not cutting it.
So I’m asking you: when you give your talk, or host your concert, or talk to friends, or go home to your family: what is the call to action? I’ve had a stock answer that I’ve used, but I’m not sure it’s good enough. My answer is that you need to become a civic actor with the biggest club you can find. How? Get a bottle of bourbon, sit down, and think deeply, preferably with a friend, about what your biggest lever is. Obviously, if you’re Obama, that’s easy. You need to mobilize the nation on this issue. (He’s not doing it.) If you’re a senator or a policy maker, it’s easy too. Advance legislation. But what if you’re an average citizen? I believe even the most average of the average citizen has a big lever they aren’t aware of. Even if you’re a grandmother stuck at home, you can HAND WRITE a letter to a senator or a corporate leader. That’s easy. But most people have even bigger opportunities: a chance to join a town council, for example, or a planning and zoning board. From there, you could change building codes, or put in place a carbon tax locally. (Both have happened in many towns throughout the US.) In my area, you can run for the board of the electric utility, and drive them towards greener power. But people don’t do either of the last two options, typically, because they are so godawful boring and hugely time consuming. But that is just the point: solving climate is going to hurt. It’s going to be painful. And it won’t be sexy. Being on the planning and zoning board of Nowhereville is going to be living hell. Dumb people are going to hold forth for half an hour at a time. Other people are going to repeat what the person before them said for ten minutes at a time. You’ll be there for hours every session, with green brain fluid running out of your ears. It won’t be nearly as much fun as going dancing. But you’ll move the ball forward in ways you never imagined possible, you’ll be a real footsoldier in the most important war ever fought, and you’ll drop that crippling feeling of powerlessness you carry around with you like a stone.
Ok, that’s my best effort. But what is yours? What’s the call to action on climate, for the average person? How should the rock concert organize itself to best activate the audience? Do they all target James Inhofe with text messages, and make it so well known that they’re targeting that climate trog that it gets national press? Do they get Jim Hansen or Bobby Kennedy to speak? What do they do? What do we ask of the average citizen? During the civil rights movement, what was the call to action?
I agree with Auden the people need to become a civic actor with the biggest club they can find. But FIRST they need to become informed on the subject and be able to rebut standard arguments of the disinformers and the disinformed — CP and Skeptical Science are a good place to start. And if you want to change the culture in your company and lead the way toward sustainability, you should start with Schendler’s must read book: “Getting Green Done.” I also think people should green their own home, not because it will solve the problem by itself, but so they can see how cost-effective it is.
What do you think? What is the Call to Action on Climate?
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Michael Y says:
December 4, 2010 at 8:06 am
Here is a great Wonderfest Lawrence Livermore presentation on climate and climate geoengineering. Really cogent and informative. Many very good insights.
http://fora.tv/ 2010/ 11/ 07/ Wonderfest_2010_Dare_We_Try_to_Engineer_Earths_Climate#fullprogram
Once upon a time “adaptation” was off-limits because it seemed to create a moral hazard and allow for continued climate damage. Geoengineering is now in that rhetorical position.
The questions need to be answered: Under what conditions would we support geo-engineering? Total loss of the arctic? Loss of 10% of species% Loss of 20%? 50%? 3 degrees forecast? 5% forecast? Melting of permafrost? Loss of glaciers?
Most of the readers here would agree that even if we shut off all CO2 release TODAY, we would still see many of the above effects. So, is it time to move on geo-engineering?
Michael Yaziji
I believe the key thing for most people is simply to keep having conversations about the issues. For most of us life is busy and stressful and we don’t have time or energy to think about difficult, complex problems – easier to ignore them and hope they go away. Keep informing people, keep them aware of the implications of inaction and the positive actions they can take.
Changing your own lifestyle is also surely essential (if you haven’t already done as much as you need). How can you ask others to take action if you haven’t already done what you can yourself? (Note to ‘developed’ countries in Cancun….) Don’t expect to be able to make the right decision every time, but make the effort to find out if the changes you make are meaningful and don’t keep doing the things that will have the biggest impacts just because it would seem too big an adjustment in your life.
Worth a listen: BBC R4′s Now Show, with a great piece on climate by Marcus Brigstocke about two-thirds of the way through:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7f9v
Keep at it, relentlessly – and above all make sure you are right – attack the misinformers with vigorous accuracy. Apart from anything else, what they are hell-bent on is encouraging the people to burn up our fossil fuel resources as fast as possible, to the extent that they will start running short before other technology is in place to even part-replace them. If there’s a threat to our economies, that’s where it is – and therefore be sure to spell out who is encouraging people to take a collision-course towards that threat.
Cheers – John
Best thing I’ve read all week. And not that Chomsky wasn’t good, it’s just so damn hard to listen to – grating, critical, and not very upbeat to say the least. I am ok, I just know that THAT tone is not going to fly for the masses. No this speaks to me. Perhaps because I’m sipping and thinking, Maker’s Mark after a dental surgery, but hey…
the reflection is necessary, as noted. Been thinking about this way too much myself – have been giving a bit too much apparently on the career front in this direction (volunteering at green project startups since 2006) and feel qualified to comment..I am committed to furthering a global green economy, and I guess that is where it comes down to for me. Was lucky enough to meet a Nobel-prize winning economics professor guy by the name of Muhammad Yunus. Plenty of wisdom out there but for me Yunus’ statement three years ago still holds: “Social businesses are the solution.” Whatever we are doing in the socioeconomic day-to-day, the typical business-as-usual operation, HAS to have a significant and legitimate “for-benefit” component (and not in the cynical, standard-marketing-spiel, greenwash-slick capacity). Jobs, commerce, BUSINESSES, that are sustainable – will be the engine. Yet the transition…that’s where the call to action gets more difficult. Honestly, the first thing to “fix” in terms of what is going to drive the awareness and education plan forward, because we are all so misguided, is the media. As tired as that might sound, it is the vehicle for collective understanding that must be fixed before we can really move the ball forward. Do not underestimate the power of mass media, and the commercial interests that drive the message, who controls the general narrative so-to-speak and all that. It really does matter, and as Wikileaks has pointed out, it is extremely off-kilter. We are just in the dark on too many things. Politics overriding science on climate, food, health etc ad nauseum. And so I think Derrick Jensen’s advice, and perhaps Chomsky’s too – it is really about forming an anti-empire, anti-domination, pro-collective movement…that isn’t socialist in any central power evil capacity, but perhaps democratic socialist and looking out for each other in a “hometown security” sense (to address the core of potential criticism), and it really needs to deal with the mutual interests of everyday people and not corporate interest, whatever that next step action may be. It has to be rooted in a greater good. And it needs to be conversational, not aggro pointing the finger, blame-gaming, but based on the simple intention of mutual interest and common good. Yes, write, call, and meet with neighbors and people in your region through meetup or whatever gets the dialogue moving forward with intelligent, everyday people who need to reconnect with a basic democratic practice that has been ignored by too many for too long. Democracy is not a spectator sport. That would be my call to action. Democracy is not a spectator sport. “Hope is not comfortable or easy” as Chris Hedges has said. And those people in office. We are paying them. We the People get to tell them what to do. That is democracy. Lobbyists be damned. Media and campaign finance issues are first on the chopping block here. The people need accurate information to be effective as a collective. And the special interests need to get lassoed. We get to choose. Democracy. Use it or lose it.
This I believe to be an appropriate action at this time in America. People, all people who have a concern about Global Warming need to Identify themselves and express their concern, publicly. I believe that this can be done very simply.
They only antidote for all the money and the powerful interests against our cause in the Houses of Congress is millions of people identifying themselves and expressing their concern, publicly. Go to http://www.stockbridgegreen.com/stepone.html , The proposed simple action is explained in some detail.
Explaining facts and convincing others is obviously not working so well. Finding the people who already have it in their hearts, or a glimmer of it in their hearts, but haven’t crossed the threshold to action. Provide an action that absolutely everyone can accomplish (activist and Non-activist alike), strength in numbers.
Complete this step and many other things will become possible.
Its not what you say, its what you do.
I strongly agree with the cited article. However, I strongly disagree with your “but first” comment. I takes time to go from newly joined to leader of a group. There’s plenty of time to self-educate. But the one thing that we can’t do is delay any longer. Get involved! Get in position!
Excellent piece, in that it is open about what not to do, and how people who care still blow it.
1 Keep it simple.
2 Recognise reality, which is that stabilising at 350/400/450 (wherever) is going to be painful, because it simply isn’t true that we have all the technology we need at a price that is painless, and we (West) don’t control what emergers will do (which is grow)
3 Don’t be alarmist, by which I mean stressing extreme impacts a century in the future, or pointing at every disaster and saying I told you so.
4 Tie climate (CO2) actions to something else that makes sense.
5 Recognise that the largest emitters (in quantum) and the fastest growers of emissions are the developing world, because that’s what they want, energy and electricity.
6 Recognise that the way it’s been tackled so far has had no material impact on decarbonisation.
7 Don’t blame it all on bogeymen like Big Oil and Big Coal – the Chinese are expanding emissions just fine without them.
8 Tie climate (CO2) actions to something else that makes sense.
Repeat 4 and 8.
What’s the call to action? Inasmuch as it can be identified as any single thing, I believe it is what David Smith describes as voicing your concern, publicly.
That can be done in many ways, of course — as others in the thread have pointed out. Hand-write letters to your senator and representative; e-mail the editor of the local paper; get on blogs and shoot down the resident “skeptics” as politely as possible; maybe record a “perspective” talk for the local public radio station.
Want more? Join a book-reading club and get them to read and discuss books on climate change. There are plenty to choose from. (On that subject, Joe, you ought to post your own list of recommendations.) More about this below in another message.
Of course, giving lectures is helpful, for those who are good at public speaking. I’m not; my personal bent is to work with the hands. Given the resources, I’d love to put together an off-the-grid house. Here in Silicon Valley, once upon a time, we had the Homebrew Computer Club where hobbyists met and showed off their creations. It was where Steve Wozniak showed off his prototype for the Apple II. Something like that could make a contribution to clean technology.
If there’s a pioneer of personal clean-tech in your community, get to know them and — with their permission — talk them up to the locals. They’ll probably be eager for the attention.
Very discouraged right now.
“It’s too late” 2:14 into it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WKyRHDFKEXQ
We don’t have enough scientists doing measurements and modeling to keep up with the observed changes.
Evidently we don’t know if we’ve past some significant tipping points.
It’s hard to call to action when there are so many waffle words in the dialog ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’, ‘could’…
Maybe something focused… where the evidence is heartbreaking: get plastic out of our kitchens.
I don’t know how it is in your part of the world but in Australia the cold snap in Europe is getting much more coverage than the Russian Heatwave and Pakistan Floods combined.
Picking up on Chris’s theme in #7, part of the “voicing your concern, publicly” would be attending some of those meetings Mr. Schendler mentions above. Only very few people can actually sit on such panels, but many more can show up to the public meetings and express their support for green projects.
Tax carbon not income. It is a short easy slogan. To give it some nuance, income taxes should be cut and a GHG emissions should be taxed or priced through a cap and trade scheme. The tax cut will need to be progressive since lower income people pay a higher percentage of their income on energy. Conservatives have always hated income taxes, partly out of petty greed, but also because they are a disincentive to investing or working harder. A carbon tax would be a disincentive to wasting energy and polluting. This could be done with state income taxes or with local sales and property taxes being reduced for a higher tax on utilities which could be done progressively; that is a higher tax rate for higher usage. So, local activists can act locally while thinking globally. But the bumper sticker slogan should simply be “Tax Carbon not Income!”
Voicing one’s concern is a great suggestion. But I would tweak the idea a bit to call for voicing of one’s positive vision of the future we want to live in. By asserting our desires for a future, for example, that includes walkable cities, efficient public transportation, fresh and locally grown food, human-scale technologies, etc., we can mobilize people who have a shared vision, regardless of how they feel about climate change.
For young people, the call to action should be enact the vision you have for the future you want to live in, and you can start by choosing to live as close as possible to where you work or go to school. Being able to walk or ride a bike to work has positive repercussions that extend in all directions and far outweighs changing lightbulbs.
#10 (RD): That is interesting, but not surprising at all, unfortunately. Here in Norway, the cold snap is not just first page news, some of the major papers spend the entire front page, every single day, on the low temps.
No mention of the extremely warm temps and rain in the northern parts of the country that sits well north of the Arctic circle. Ironically, the cold temps are in great part caused by the warming of the Arctic and low ice cover, but they will make it incredibly hard to make the average European realize that the globe is actually heating. The weather pattern is a dream come true for the deniers.
I mentioned global warming to my doctor – figuring that a healer might help in some way. And so whether it applies to me or to the planet the steps to health are:
1. Diagnose
2. Adapt
3. Mitigate
4. Repeat
As to specifics – sorry – there is too much to do. To whine about it is not an action step. However abandoning any stupid behavior is certainly prudent at anytime.
I have no problem with Schendler’s list of local political activities, but this won’t do much on its own. Fossil fuel companies are OK with mass transit in Portland and solar in California, since they’ll still sell plenty of oil and coal in the rest of the country. Its main value will be to slowly permeate awareness over a wider area, which is too limited a result in view of the problems we face.
This country has become Balkanized, enabling a divide-and-conquer strategy by Peabody and Exxon. As long as they continue to bribe Congressmen and control mainstream media outlets they will be able to block a price on carbon, and keep their subsidies and tax breaks, too.
The “people” in charge disrespect most global warming activists. The oil and coal crowd have succeeded in guaranteeing big markets for their poisonous products for at least 15 years, and probably much longer. They think they’re smarter than we are, in addition to being more ruthless (something they take pride in).
Guess what? That means disaster, because Chinese, Australian, and Indian coal and utility oligarchs will have been provided with cover, helping us hurtle toward 43 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year in 2030.
Time to go on offense:
1. Institute national product boycotts, and establish a national clearinghouse to make the proper evaluations. RAN was able to do this successfully with Citibank and Home Depot a few years ago, but they appear to have run out of gas- green organizations have a tendency to get big and complacent, and lose their killer instinct (if they ever had any). We can forget the more mainstream green NGO’s. Dirty corporations have planted members on their Boards, and made donations. If RAN doesn’t wake up, a new organization may be required.
2. Just as Howard Dean did in the 2006 elections, go into the enemy’s home turf. That will mean street demonstrations in Dallas, and relentless campaigns to expose obviously corrupt Senators in red States like Wyoming (Barrasso) and Kentucky (McConnell). Throw them off balance through invading their territories with the truth. We will have allies in Casper and Lexington, where there are big health and watershed problems from drilling and mining.
3. Don’t be afraid to disseminate scientific studies that foresee a chaotic and dessicated future, based on even less than BAU. Most Americans still think a few degrees of warming will be pleasant and fecund. Who cares if Rush calls you an “alarmist”? Call him an ignorant asshole, and move on with the actual facts.
4. Take a moral stand as well as a scientific one. There has never been an issue this consequential to our survival, and more people should show outrage as well as concern. When it comes to those standing in the way- Koch, Exxon, McConnell, Peabody, the US Senate- name names.
5. Institute lawsuits against public endangerment, for mercury and SOx poisoning and watershed destruction as well as CO2 emissions. CBD, the best at this strategy, needs to send its lawyers out after bigger targets, not just local developers who are endangering species. Our plant and animal ecosystems are already being compromised by global warming, and it will get a lot worse.
6. Don’t give up. Anyone who studies and understands the evidence is likely to become obsessed. Use this as inspiration, since there will be defeats and hardships along this path, too.
Who is the most influential person you know who respects you and listens to you (and who isn’t totally into climate change activism)? That’s the person you need to educate. You may well need to start with basics. For me and my daughter, the basic questions are listed below. Two categories: the science and the solution. Don’t push too hard. Give them time to absorb the information they didn’t know. Listen to them; give real answers to their questions. You will likely need to get more education along the way and learn new ways to express your understanding.
The science questions include:
- What is a greenhouse gas (and what isn’t, and why)? How does a greenhouse gas work?
- What are consequences of increased CO2 in the atmosphere? (What is the “settled science”?)- CO2 is natural and abundant, how can it be pollution?
- How are the oceans acidifying? How serious can this really be?
-How can adding a hundred or so parts per million of CO2 (that’s only 0.01%) to the atmosphere cause the changes we see and changes that are forecast? How do we know the forecasts, the “models,” are any good?
- Why is the Arctic sea ice melting more and more each summer and Antarctic sea ice expanding each winter? What happens when Arctic sea ice melts – why is this bad?
- Like really, how serious can all this really be?
- How come individual events (Tennessee flooding, Amazon drought, Russian heat wave) are not specifically identified as absolutely being caused by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere?
- Are humans the cause of this? How many gigatons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere from burning coal, gas and oil for heat or electricity; other industrial activities; deforestation; and agriculture? How much is released from natural sources (oil seeps, “natural” forest fires, animals breathing)?
- What increases atmospheric CO2 and what decreases atmospheric CO2? Basically, what is the global CO2 budget? What does being “carbon neutral” mean?
- What does “positive and negative feedback” mean? What are the positive and negative feedbacks associated with global warming? What are fast and slow feedbacks?
- How can water vapor be a more important greenhouse gas than CO2, and yet be considered a positive feedback of CO2 changes?
- Why is Norway having record cold weather, and why did Washington, D.C. have record cold weather last winter, etc.? How can this fit in with global warming theory?
- Why do they say “CO2 increases follow temperature increases during recent ice ages”? (This and other “denier” and “sceptic” questions.)
- Has runaway global warming ever happened in the past? Why? How did global cooling get the Earth back to the current temperature range?
- Why has runaway global warming not happened during the past million years?
The solution questions?
- What should I be doing? (The more carbon neutral your personal carbon budget is, the more likely your advocacy will be heard and not scorned. Energy efficiency generally saves money, too! Paint your roof white or in a colored UV-reflective paint. Write real letters to your representatives in government – local, state and federal – engage them, write short hand written letters every month or two – that’s maybe five letters a month, you can handle it. Make sure they know the science.)
- What should I be advocating? (Start with knowledge of the science. Then, government policies must promote carbon neutral and carbon negative outcomes. Local power companies must shift “green”-ward – gas over coal, solar and wind over gas. City planning must shift toward mass transit and energy efficiency, and “growth” is only sustainable when it leads to significant energy efficiencies – downtown apartments with green spaces are more efficient than 5-acre house lots; bike lanes which cannot be driven on by cars are more efficient than added lanes on a major road; carbon-neutral industry is more green (sustainable in the long run) than carbon-positive industry. Agriculture must shift toward carbon negative practices – for example, adding biochar to soil improves the soil and prevents carbon from getting back into the atmosphere. States must shift tax policy away from carbon positive outcomes and toward carbon negative outcomes. Schools must teach science! Our federal government must remove all subsidies and supports from high carbon industries and support research and development into green technologies and carbon sequestration, and otherwise support dollar-efficient green employment. International agreements must make every nation accountable; it is reasonable for those who dump the most carbon into the atmosphere (both per capita and in absolute terms) to do the most to clean it up. Internationally sanctioned trade policy can reign in countries who don’t do their part. Support international diplomacy – the military industrial complex is a huge CO2 polluter.)
Just like with your friend, treat your government representatives with respect. Educate them step by step. Make sure they fully understand both what you want them to do and why they should want to do it.
Once your “influencial friend” is on board and advocating solutions to these real problems, I’ll suspect you’ll discover your own influence and effectiveness increases.
I forgot one:
7. Put together a plan to buy a media company, that would include a TV network. It would make money, because Hollywood activists like Damon and DiCaprio would appear for free, and the truth is not being told elsewhere. Include nontraditional but entertaining talents like Peter Sinclair. Hire Rachel Maddow and Chris Hedges as news anchors. Keep the budget low, in anticipation of reduced ad revenue from the auto and consumer junk corporations. Buy bandwith if the price of buying an existing network is prohibitive. Sue FCC if they put up roadblocks.
October 2010 – 3rd warmest October on record:
Global map:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=10&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=10&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
NASA Data set:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Mike @ #13 – I support your Idea for converting the Income tax, or a portion of it to a carbon consumption tax. If it would cause no net increase in overall tax receipts it might work, though anything that causes people to consume less energy would be opposed by you-know-who. I’m going to put “Tax Carbon, Not Income” on a sticker. It will be ready in a couple of days.
Steve #14 – Good comment, It is important to stick as closely as possible to AGW issues if you want AGW legislation. There is an enormous range of environmental concerns. Only a fraction of these directly impact global warming. The rest tend to dilute the focus. Positive messaging and giving people something to go towards is absolutely necessary. Will people into locally grown food or human scale technologies support AGW legislation and make the sacrifices necessary for the transition? Not necessarily.
Revenue-neutral carbon pricing: Conservatives like it because it’s revenue-neutral, and everyone should like it because it reduces carbon emissions. There’s even a terrific example that deserves much more press: the carbon tax in British Columbia, passed by a right-of-center government. In 2012 it will hit $30/tonne CO2, or about $0.30 per gallon of gasoline… awesome!
George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, and More to Come
I agree with a great deal of what Auden Schendler says in the post, and this is a great topic for an open thread. I agree that one way of expressing the answer, or at least an important part of the answer, is as Auden says, “My answer is that you need to become a civic actor with the biggest club [lever, means of influence, etc.] you can find.”
I also agree with David Smith, Chris Winter, and also Steve Zavestoski, that people should identify themselves publicly, and express themselves publicly, and also (as Steve says) voice not only one’s concern, but also one’s positive vision. Of course, these comments are all interrelated and similar.
Individuals can’t stay in hiding. We have to identify ourselves (in daily life) and express ourselves in ways that can help.
George Orwell wrote,
“We have sunk so low it has become the obligation of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious!”
Looking at matters from a generational standpoint, I also think that this quote from Dylan Thomas is a great one, and we baby boomers should keep it in mind . . . from Thomas’ classic poem (and there are recordings of him reciting it, and I’d highly recommend listening to one):
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
As the weekend progresses, I will offer a few more specifics, including what I think the rock concert producer should do, specifically. I would be wanting to give this advice to Bill Graham himself today, if he were still alive, but unfortunately not.
Be Well,
Jeff
Poor Australia -
Locust swarms cross Murray River, heading to Melbourne
The voracious insects crossed the Murray River, south of Swan Hill, yesterday in swarms stretching up to 25km wide, according to the Department of Primary Industries.
Melbourne residents are being warned the locust swarms on the way that could ruin gardens, damage cars and disrupt road and, potentially, air traffic.
The biggest swarm was six times the size of the previously biggest swarm to hit Victoria this year and was seen on Thursday around Hay and Conargo in NSW.
Experts have predicted locusts – with numbers estimated in the trillions – to migrate to Melbourne this month, with the possibility they will swarm.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/locust-swarms-cross-murray-river-heading-to-melbourne/story-e6frf7kx-1225965738694
e) all of the above. . .
This is like asking new parents “What’s the call to action of parenting” as if there’s one simplistic answer to that. Instead you devote your entire life to being the best parent you can be, and you do everything mentioned here and more.
Like parenting, you put your entire being into this; like parenting, you do the best you can every moment of every day; like parenting, you make mistakes, but not for lack of effort or caring; like parenting, you receive precious little thanks and even less validation from society, but you do it because it is mandatory, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have, and it’s exactly what you want to do.
Like parenting, you’ll die without knowing how it turns out – simply knowing you did your best is all that matters.
In parenting the key first step is to take a deep breath – without bourbon or any other self-medication – and commit one’s being to this.
In the case of climate, you take a deep breath without self-medicating and say “I’m going to understand all I can about climate change and all related human impacts.” Then you say, “And I’m going to communicate what I know about climate change in every way I can, including in conversation whenever appropriate with everyone I meet, including family and friends (although with those closest to us a strong statement made with authority occasionally at key times is probably better than constant nagging, and don’t let the issue distance you from anyone).
If you make this commitment you’ll be led to know everything to do every moment of every day. Like prayer, this is not a one-time deal, but a constant orientation to the North Star.
Imagining that there’s one simplistic call to action is like imagining that writing one letter, doing one thing to your house or helping organize or serve on a single demonstration or planning board is all there is to do as a citizen or parent.
We need it all, and we need it all now – and it all starts with understanding, so reading everything you can here at Climate Progress is the best place I can imagine to start.
Mike Roddy (#17) and Tor B (#18) – Great answers that we can refer to again and again.
Most of all, Mike Roddy at #19 – EXACTLY! This is what we’ve been talking about here. If Joe is open to growing Climate Progress, to me that’d be the best way to do what you suggest, which to me is exactly what most needs to be done.
And as evidence that great minds think alike, you mention Chris Hedges as a co-anchor and I just spoke to him about this on Wednesday, when I strongly suggested he read Climate Progress.
Mike, you’d be the perfect person to organize this and we need you, Gail (Wit’s End), Richard Pauli – come to think of it, all of us that were at that epic dinner in Seattle last summer (kind of a secular Last Supper).
I’m in for the vision, writing, speaking, producing and content part – let’s go!
Years ago there were some psychological experiments, part of a series on conformity, done on how people reacted to minor crises. The long and short of it is that a single person on a doctor’s waiting room who experiences the room filling up with smoke immediately goes to seek help. But most of the time a person sitting with 4-5 others waits to see what everyone else will do, even to the point of tearing up as all the rest (confederates) seem unconcerned.
Talking to people about climate change is a very good idea, because it reinfiorces their feelings that something is probably wrong. I bring it into conversations all the time. I make the point that what scientists have found since Al Gore’s movie is that things are happening much, much faster than they had anticipated and that the disasters we are now seeing are a result. Most people understasd, are even reassured in a way that others notice, are concerned, want to do somethnig. So that is step 1.
Step 2 is collective action.
But what kind of collective action? One thing in the works is a Mother’s Day March (the iMatter March) being organized by Kids v. Global Warming. This is to be a march in DC and local marches around the country by youth and the people who care about them and their future. The idea is for kids to look their parents in the eye and say “do I matter?” and for kids to dedicate themselves to the motto “live as if the future matters.” This is going to happen, and people can organize marches in their local areas. Then the idea is to build on the marches and organizing campaign to pressure leaders. I may be old, but I still believe that one thing democratic governments fear is people in the streets.
Further, in our talks with people we need to pay close attention to framing. Both the term “climate hawks” is good and also “climate security” as a goal, that is, a world that is not so unpredictable that we have constant chaos. Most people have not thought through what rapid climate change means in terms of inability to plan and cope at every level–individual, family, community, nation, world. It ties climate change to things like food security, dependable water supplies (a major issue here in CA), and even national security. We need to paint the deniers as the kind of gamblers and fantasists who brought us 2 ruinous wars and the financial crisis, rather than rational people planning for upcoming challenges and natural disasters.
Finally, regional and state action of a kind others have described is needed. If all else fails, perhaps the Pacific states and the Northeast and its allies need to go their own way to an even greater extent than they are already doing, as China and other countries are doing now as well. I can really foresee emigration out of some of the arid and coastal sunbelt states as things get worse.
Lots of good suggestions. I’m going to suggest, yet again, that a very smart move would be to try and launch a Transition Town initiative where you live. It accomplishes many things. Not only does it raise awareness of critical issues like Global Warming, it seeks to collectively create communities that are resilient in the face of Global Warming, Peak Oil, and economic contraction.
Someone mentioned Derrick Jensen’s call for creating an anti-empire. Well Transition Town is quite literally the “How To” manual to accomplish that. It is also profoundly subversive of the “inverted totalitarianism” that Sheldon Wolin so effectively argues we are increasingly subject to.
Visit http://www.TransitionNetwork.org to get started.
Let me also add that I see lots of excellent ideas already posted, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention this, yet again.
More thoughts about reading and discussing books: the book circle/book club approach.
It’s true that reading non-fiction books is not as much fun as a John D. Macdonald mystery, say, or Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
(By the way, I looked at the New York Times bestseller lists to find a current suggestion for that second title. The top five titles on the latest hardcover fiction list all made me think of climate change.) ;-)
Then again, it’s always fun to tear apart a book like The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming by Christopher Horner. At least, I enjoyed it immensely. And this could be a good way to educate people about the “skeptical” camp.
But I’d start with something like Storms of My Grandchildren because most people are likely to know who James Hansen is.
Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
James Hansen
New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009
320pp HC 978-1608192007
http://www.amazon.com/Storms-My-Grandchildren-Catastrophe-Humanity/dp/1608192008
If there is no group locally, it may be possible to join one online. (And it’s easy to join the reviews and discussions on Amazon, where deniers often “bad-write” books like Hansen’s in organized efforts.)
Understanding Moderation
As an aside, may I ask, what is it that causes some comments to fly right through and others to be held up “awaiting moderation”?
I submitted what is shown (on my screen anyhow) as Comment 22, and it is still “awaiting moderation”, even as four comments have been posted and cleared after it.
I’ve re-read it to make sure that it doesn’t include any bad words, and that it doesn’t call for any proximate and immediate boycotts against any specific commercial organizations that might get upset, and that it is polite, and that it doesn’t violate any Constitutional amendments, and even that it doesn’t have any spelling mistakes, as far as I can tell. (Admittedly, I didn’t put the word ‘please’ in it.) So am I on some sort of “must moderate” list, or is moderation sort of a chaotic random activity, or (please help me understand)?
To be clear, it’s not the “speed” that I’m asking about: I understand and appreciate that people are busy. But, my question is about the ordering. As far as I can tell, it seems that some comments go right through, and others are held up, for reasons that I can’t quite follow. (Am I late on my payment to Comcast, perhaps?)
Thanks,
Jeff
Thank you Auden! Though it should be obvious, this recommendation is the one that is absolutely indispensable. It is also the one seldom mentioned. The very first thing to do is to is use our personal democratic right and power to communicate frequently with all our governmental representatives on global climate change which is the issue of all issues of all time. These letters could be made open by publishing them on a blog or Facebook, but the letters must be first written and they must be sent. Peter Carter.
Extremely Active Atlantic Hurricane Season was a ‘Gentle Giant’ for U.S.
“According to NOAA the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends tomorrow, was one of the busiest on record. In contrast, the eastern North Pacific season had the fewest storms on record since the satellite era began.”
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101129_hurricaneseason.html
My concern is that we climate hawks may be preaching to the choir too much. So let’s also emphasize (many politicians already are) that:
1) Reducing fossil fuel use increases energy security which mitigates the need to go to war for oil. Preventing nuclear war has to be our most important priority. Who would disagree?
2) Reducing fosiil fuel use improves air quality. If you have an asthmatic child, air quality is your most important priority.
3) Reducing fossil fuel use helps develop a clean energy workforce which increases jobs and makes the U.S. more competitive in the global economy.
To sum up: “different strokes for different folks”.
At a local library, I stumbled upon some new titles that look promising. The most promising, recommended by Bill McKibben, is:
GREED TO GREEN
Solving Climate Change and Remaking the Economy
Charles Derber
Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2010
978-1-59541-812-6
http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9781594518126?id=4801611937297
Derber is a fairly prolific author, and many of his titles look worth reading. Another author’s title worth looking at is:
BE VERY AFRAID
The Cultural Response to Terror, Pandemics, Environmental Devastation, Nuclear Annihilation, and Other Threats
Robert Wuthnow
Oxford University Press, 2010
978-0-19-973087-2
http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780199730872?id=4801611937297
The jacket mentions Freud’s idea that the response to danger is denial. It says, “In fact, Wuthnow writes, the opposite is true: We seek ways of positively meeting the threat, of doing something—anything—even if it’s wasteful and time-consuming.”
Some ideas I’ve had on this sort of thing.
1. Psychology experiments have shown that if you tell someone that their belief is wrong, they will paradoxically be morel likely to believe it anyway. As such, there is some re-framing required for deniers. So, for example, if you were to try to make a case for action to, say, a Representative in a coastal district in Texas, you probably shouldn’t start talking about climate change- odds are they’re loyal to the oil industry, since that area is a major conduit for supply in the U.S., and there’s a lot of money flowing. Instead, talk about ocean acidification- it’s not as politicized, and can’t really be blamed on anything else *other* than increased carbon- and it will drastically affect another one of this hypothetical Rep’s constituencies, the fishing industry. Be pragmatic- the end goal isn’t to prove that climate change is happening to these people (because they probably wouldn’t believe it even if you did), but to reduce carbon emissions. Heck, this strategy as already sort of worked with the king of deniers, Rep. Inhofe, who has apparently been a backer of providing clean cookstoves to the developing world because he’s concerned about indoor air pollution.
2. As with 1, appear to agree with your opponents at first. If they say cap-and-trade will kill industry, go ahead and list out all the weaknesses (increased energy prices, etc)- and then immediately start pointing out how much more superior another solution (cap-and-dividend, or carbon tax, or what have you) is (I like the “Tax carbon, not income” suggestion mentioned above). Again, reframe the argument.
3. Start coalition building. There are a lot of industries that will suffer from climate change- fishing, farming, the medical field, tourism, just to name a few. While finding common ground may be difficult (especially amongst groups such as the fishing industry, which is usually suspicious of environmentalist concerns), it will provide much greater political pressure.
4. If there is enough money available (through donations and patronage), go ahead and hire a PR firm. The polluting industries use them plenty, but there’s no reason we can’t, either.
Don’t get discouraged- remember, at one point, citizen action and pressure was sufficient to not only ban alcohol in this country, but have that ban *enshrined in the Constitution.* You’d be amazed what can happen when enough people get organized.
8 Roddy Campbell: See:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/20/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warming-a-review/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.81/full
“Preliminary Analysis of a Global Drought Time Series” by Barton Paul Levenson, not yet published.
Under BAU [Business As Usual], agriculture and civilization will collapse some time between 2050 and 2055 due to drought caused by GW [Global Warming].
Sorry, but you can’t truthfully say that the collapse is a century away. Saying that the big problem is a century away just gets the answer: “So let them deal with their own problems.”
what’s the call to action.
because energy supply is a big capital expense, i don’t think focusing on it right now when most everybody is in ‘saving’ mode is the right approach.
we can also shut down coal plants via demand reduction.
region-wide energy efficiency projects should be measured two ways:
1. in small units: money saved per household, per business, per government building, etc.
2. in large units: coal not burned.
figure out how much electricity needs to be conserved — via smarter use, not a starvation diet — to turn off a coal plant operating in the state.
target a coal plant. give people working at that coal plant priority access to jobs in the energy efficiency effort. use some of the cost savings to pay off the plant’s investors. then put up a big sign on the side of the state building with a silhouette of that coal plant, filling it with green leaves until the facility’s service are no longer needed, thank you very much, good night.
what’s the slogan? something like “save energy, throw away coal.”
i’m sick of hearing how “people need to hear this or that” to be reassured.
a real project with measurable progress toward a real goal is its own reassurance.
—
mike #13: “tax carbon not income” may be better as “tax pollution not income”
what’s the call to action.
because energy supply is a big capital expense, i don’t think focusing on it right now when most everybody is in ‘saving’ mode is the right approach.
we can also shut down coal plants via demand reduction.
region-wide energy efficiency projects should be measured two ways:
1. in small units: money saved per household, per business, per government building, etc.
2. in large units: coal not burned.
so:
figure out how much electricity needs to be conserved — via smarter use, not a starvation diet — to turn off a coal plant operating in the state.
target that coal plant. give people working at that coal plant priority access to jobs in the energy efficiency effort. use some of the cost savings to pay off the plant’s investors.
then put up a big sign on the side of the state building with a silhouette of that coal plant, filling it with green leaves until the facility’s service are no longer needed, thank you very much, good night.
what’s the slogan? something like “save energy, throw away coal.”
i’m sick of hearing how “people need to hear this or that” to be reassured.
a real project with measurable progress toward a real goal is its own reassurance.
—
mike #13: “tax carbon not income” may be better as “tax pollution not income”
13 Mike: “Conservatives have always hated income taxes, partly out of petty greed, but also because they are a disincentive to investing or working harder. ”
Wrong. 90% taxes on incomes over $1 Million would make them keep their money IN their companies to avoid giving it to Uncle Sam. It worked well just after WW2 when times were very good. Don’t believe the lie.
Letter to the Editor: Newspaper subscribers do NOT own computers. Don’t send a letter to the editor with a bunch of URLs. It won’t get printed. Use your 250 words describing what the URL says. ONE URL at the end is permissible. Example that got printed:
“Political Astroturf [fake grassroots political movements]
The Tea Party is the creation of Koch Oil Company. ["Koch" is pronounced "Coke."] The Koch brothers, David H. and Charles are worth $21.5 Billion EACH. You probably never heard of Koch oil since they don’t have retailers of their own. 5 years ago they set up a front-creating organization called Americans for Prosperity [AFP]. Koch hired a political operative named Tim Phillips to generate fake grassroots political movements. Fake grassroots political movements are called “Astroturf movements.” The tea party is completely under the control of the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers stay hidden behind AFP. AFP [Americans For Prosperity] is an organization of political operatives paid for by the Koch brothers.
AFP also set up a number of other astroturf groups to work against working people while pretending to be or represent working people. AFP under Koch also set up astroturf groups to tell you lies about Global Warming [The “Hot Air Tour]”, Global Warming legislation [energy "tax": “No Climate Tax”], unionization votes [“Save My Ballot Tour”], oil drilling [“Free Our Energy”], and the stimulus plan [“No Stimulus”].
Taki Oldham infiltrated an AFP meeting with a concealed camera. The movie Mr. Oldham made shows David Koch in charge of the AFP meeting where they talk about how well the Tea Party is working in carrying out the agenda of the billionaire Koch brothers and in frustrating ordinary Americans. The video is at:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/14/video-proof-david-koch-the-polluting-billionaire-pulls-the-strings-of-the-tea-party-extremists“
“What is the Call to Action on Climate?”
I would make it mandatory to ban all gas guzzling cars from downtown.
Hey Joe,
I’m wondering what you think of staging a massive protest at the White House? Somehow organize high-profile people like yourself, Al Gore, James Hansen, as many celebrities, climate scientists and normal people as possible and we all march to the White House and put ourselves in a position to get arrested.
Maybe I’m wrong but Obama is the most powerful person in the world on this issue. Creating a large amount of visible pressure on Obama to do something seems like our best chance at reaching him. It’s his responsibility to attempt some kind of action to create a habitable world for Sasha and Malia.
Another advantage to this is that it could unite many different people (McKibben, Gore, celebrities, scientists) under one banner.
Considering human civilization is at stake I think it makes sense to try every action available and this seems like a pretty good way to create leverage.
I know James Hansen has done something like this recently but it was barely noticed unfortunately. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/27/james-hansen-arrested-wit_n_740887.html
Thanks to everyone for some great ideas and thanks to Joe for letting us have our say.
Understanding the opposition – We refer to many in this group as Deniers, but this identifies a strategy and not an intent or objective. Denying science is a means to an end, only. Their purpose is one of obstruction, to make sure nothing changes. They might be more aptly referred to as “Do Nothings”. Denying or disagreeing is the right of any person. Doing nothing is lazy, slothful, selfish, irresponsible,…not positive attributes.
A call to action should embrace this, I think. Its not only about the science and knowledge and understanding. People act based on emotion supported by rational though.
Another association – “denialist” is a little like “nihilist”. From Dictionary.com – Philosophy, an extreme form of skepticism; the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth. I know it’s a little bit of a stretch.
The “call to action” needs to be simple and powerful – something like:
Keep hitting hard with the facts that the actions to “fix” climate change are exactly the same actions we need to take to have a thriving, globally competitive economy.
Tell everyone that the people speaking out against a green economy are the ones who want the status quo: those making money from a carbon-based economy and the puppets and shills who are their minions.
Edward @ 36 -
Commodity people are talking the price of rice tripling in the next 18 months.
I also agree with the comment: Go onto the enemy’s home turf.
We need to quit preaching to the choir and get the message out into the places where people only listen to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
Strengthen the ties with organized religion – let all the Christian fundamentalist preachers convince their flocks that climate change is real and we need to do something about it now ’cause God wants us to be stewards of the earth. And, anyone who says otherwise is walkin’ with the devil!!
To Richard Brenne, #23: on another post you asked me for the sources concerning the estimate of the 6-12 degrees rise in temperature by the end of the century. Actually, now I have 2 sources…
I’ve been reading this new book which is very, very scarey! It almost makes me throw up (literally) at times! It’s called “Climate Wars– the fight for survival as the world heats up” by Gwynne Dyer. It’s based on interviews of various experts– climate scientists, anthropologists, military people, economists, etc.
I’ll quote a little, but please bear in mind that the whole book is like this (scarey!) “Like a Stephen King novel… you can’t put it down.” — G. Magazine. (Unfortunately, this book is not fiction!)
“… there is another issue in terms of feedback, which has to do not with carbon dioxide sources but (with) carbon dioxide sinks. This has to do with the fact that about half of the carbon dioxide sink is in the oceans. This is the absorption of carbon dioxide by the water and its utilization by the algae. What’s happened is that because we’ve planted winter wheat and changed the land cover, vast amounts of iron-rich dust no longer drift out over the ocean, and algae requires iron-rich dust. So, 30-40 per cent of the algae (has) gone over the last several decades, say the NASA overheads; and, also, because of the carbon dioxide absorption into the water, the water is turning into carbonic acid, which is further killing the algae. The bottom line is that the estimates now, from recent measurements, are that about half of the carbon dioxide uptake in the oceans is gone.
So, there are several mechanisms all producing much faster warming, much more intense warming in terms of these feedback cycles, not included in the IPCC estimates. These effects then cause even further evaporation (and water vapor is a greenhouse gas) and, also, further changes in the ice. If you take all these feedbacks into account, the estimates appear to be that by 2100, instead of 2 degrees or so Celsius rise, with a maximum of 6 degrees, it looks like a possibility of 6 to 12 degrees. At the 4-6 degree-plus range, all the ice eventually melts, and if all the ice eventually melts, we’re looking at a sea-level rise of , instead of one to two meters, about seventy to eighty meters. Plus, (these kinds) of temperature changes would change the ocean-circulation patterns and end up with much of the oceans going anoxic– very low oxygen content– which would then promote bacteria which produce hydrogen sulfates, and these would rise and take out the ozone layer, and also make it somewhat difficult to breath. This is by 2100.”
— Dennis M. Bushnell, chief scientist, Langley Research Center, U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Any call to action will be mute without MSM on board. Anybody know big wigs in MSM?
Sorry for the “downer”! We can no longer comment on the other site (World on a Precipice or whatever) and wanted to get this information to you.
‘Climate wars’ claims disputed
New research challenges idea that global warming will drive civil unrest.
The idea that climate change might be a trigger for social disorder, population migration and conflict has an impressive pedigree. The link was mooted in a 2003 report for the Pentagon on the national-security implications of climate change; by the Stern review on the economics of climate change, prepared for the UK government in 2006; and in the United Nations’ post-conflict environmental assessment of Sudan in 2007, which suggested that climate change was an aggravating factor in the Darfur conflict.
But is there real proof of a link between climate change and civil war? http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100908/full/467145a.html
I think both is true, depending on the stage and action taken to adapt and emission path.
The leading post and the comments that address it provide perhaps the most useful information that I have read in my 2+ years as a CP reader.
While CP has undoubtedly provided some great leadership on climate change, I am concerned that far too much time is spent within this community on unorganized blogging and commenting with no clear call to actions that yield significant, measurable progress.
Indeed, the name of this blog is “Climate Progress”, but how can we measure the actual progress generated by all of the activity here? How does CAP Action measure the return on the dollars that they devote to CP? Toward this end, here are some modest suggestions for improving the CP user interface to facilitate and measure the outcomes of user interactions with the CP website.
1) Limit the text field on the comment submission form to 20-30 lines. Doing so will require commenters to first summarize their points into an abstract so that readers can quickly assess the potential utility of the information.
2) Provide a second field called something like “Supplementary Information”. This will provide the space for commenters to elaborate on the points highlighted in the initial brief comment(abstract). The website could then be modified to automatically provide a link to this supplementary info when the comment is posted. Perhaps this could be presented in the way the Joe’s blog postings are truncated after the first paragraph or two, with a link that says “More”.
3. Provide a 3rd field called “Proposed Objective and Action”. Filling in this field could automatically generate a new task in an issue tracking system such as Jira http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/?gclid=CLyZ2IXF06UCFSg1gwod9TZukQ Interested persons could then use this second web environment to organize their actions and track their progress in achieving the objective, with the benefit of of providing Joe and CAP with a means to measure the effectiveness of CP in catalyzing real progress in GHG emission reduction.
I know these suggestions may be a bit geeky and perhaps a challenge to implement, but I do think that the CP reader base is ready to evolve to the next level to organized action within this space.
Thanks.
[JR: Too geeky, I'm afraid, and not practical. I will be discussing building a grassroots movement in the coming year, but one can't do it in the comments section of a blog.]
I think it’s very important for people to understand that the fuel companies and their allies have been waging a very deliberate campaign to confuse the science. If people understood the amounts of money being spent it will help them recognize the profit motive for lying. That’s why I have requested a permit to demonstrate at the Koch Brothers convention in Rancho Mirage in January. Anyone who wants to be a climate zombie and hand out leaflets is welcome!
I also think the climate hawk image is going to become iconic. Lapel pins are in the works and should be ready next week. This will allow climate hawks a quiet but visible way to state their position and hopefully open up avenues for conversations with others who are less aware of the threat.
And of course I write letters and make phones calls. The most important thing I do is try to get people to recognize that the “other” greenhouse gases that produce toxic ground level ozone are a threat to human health and also, not just trees and the ecosystem that depends upon them, but all vegetation, which happens to be at the bottom of the food chain.
Even Gavin seems to be partially recognizing this as a useful strategy!
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/02/schmidt.climate.science.policy/index.html
Great post. It’s getting easier to convince people that AGW is happening and its serious – thanks to the cascade of extreme weather events happening now which just seem to be and will be getting worse.
Some one said it’s what you do not what you say. Very true. I can’t tell people to cut back on their co2 emissions and then go on a holiday 1/2 way around the globe. So that’s done now.
One good side effect to that is people realize that you are serious and that hey, may be they ought to have a closer look at the problem if that guy is sacrificing his holiday trip. And of course you are reducing emissions!
Every time you turn that hot shower on, drive your car you are warming up the planet if your energy is fossil fuels. With the population where it is and growing, we have to switch to zero as soon as possible. Gross Domestic Emission (GDE) has to be effectively zero.
Paulm says, “Great post. It’s getting easier to convince people that AGW is happening and its serious – thanks to the cascade of extreme weather events happening now which just seem to be and will be getting worse.”
I noticed this too the other day when speaking to a die hard conservative. We talked about different topics and he always had a strong opposite opinion. We talked about energy technology and he was pro nuclear. Then at last i made a few comments on the weather and climate change. I was prepared to get one of the typical denier arguments but not this time! I made a few statements about the climate and the grim outlook we face, then about the NAO and current outlooks and he was just listening and agreed.
Here is my list of 8 things you can do to help climate change that I teach my university students:
1) learn and keep on top of the science of climate change
2) learn to trust credible sources (like the IPCC for science) – don’t trust vested interest sources – be suspicious of slick websites – learn to be a critical reader.
3) follow the policy and politics of climate change
4) do your own personal “carbon makeover” to lower your carbon footprint
5) speak up – write your elected representative – get active – tell others & family especially
6) learn about climate impacts and how we may all need to adapt at some point
7) think of this as an intergenerational issue that will go on for decades – act accordingly for future generations
8) Consider a career in climate change or the environment at some point in your career.
Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when “we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn’t know what to do about it”. But once the second world war was under way, “everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday … so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose – that’s what people want.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
First, it’s not about what YOU can do; it’s about what WE must do collectively.
So yes, use the CFLs or LEDs; make your home more efficient, buy a Prius or a Volt or a Leaf, install PVs if you can, eat vegetarian or as low on the food chain as you can. It’s all good, it’s necessary, but NOT sufficient.
We need politicians who believe in science; who believe governments must and CAN act to collectively cut GHGs. At the end of the day, it’s about policy and we must elect politicians who will support action that will lower GHG, cut our dependence upon oil, and usher the US into the 21st Century economy.
john atcheson says, “So yes, use the CFLs or LEDs; make your home more efficient, buy a Prius or a Volt or a Leaf, install PVs if you can, eat vegetarian or as low on the food chain as you can. It’s all good, it’s necessary, but NOT sufficient.”
… switch to an energy company which supplies renewable energy. Switch your webhost to a company which runs their server with renewable energy. If more people switch, more projects get under way and more renewable resources are build. Vote the party in your country which promises the tuffest clean tech path. Lobby your district politicans to ban cars from downtown. Do not buy from companies which do not care about the environment. Try to not buy stuff from exotic countries – try to buy local, support your area.
No one has heard of the Cancun talks..so I am going out in my Polar Bear suit,standing on the corner of bust intersections w sigh”Stop Global warming”and wave at People.I did the same thing when the talks at Bali were taking place(in lieu of being able to go).A reporter came up and asked what was I doing….so one media person was a little more informed.The National Conference for Media Reform will be in Boston this time April 8-10..too far for me…I do not think there was one presenter there to talk about global warming other years…Well Van Jones was there…..I hope someone will sign up for a session re GW
Oh my god, as much time as they spend getting
dressed and ready to go out I was certain they
would have thought to clean up after themselves-
too bad but such is their energy policy.
Climate change mitigation is decades too late and will never happen. The availability of easy energy has thrust much of the world into living conditions the population can’t escape, and attempting to reduce energy consumption to meaningful levels would drastically upheave people’s very existence. They can’t change their way of life, and they won’t even try. A nation’s success relies on its perpetual economic expansion, and perpetual economic expansion relies on ever increasing consumption of fossil fuels and raw materials. What country would try to downsize and risk ruining its economy?
It’s time to face the sad reality that climate change cannot be stopped. Accepting this, activists can focus their creative energy on preparing for the worst. In concert with the devastating consequences of global warming will be “peak everything.” World population will continue to expand, and that expansion will drive increasing demand for dwindling fossil fuel and raw material reserves. Wars will erupt, and the once mighty industrialized nations, most on the verge of bankruptcy, may be in for some very rude awakenings. Future military “strength” may lie only in the threat of using nuclear weapons. But pushing nuclear buttons would surely represent acts of suicide, because retaliation would be assured.
Industrialized nations around the world must realize that economic expansion cannot go on forever; contraction is inevitable. It would be in the best interest of all nations to plan for downsizing. It is time to accept the possible devastating consequences of global warming and start determining what realistically can and should be done.
Preparing for the inevitable makes more sense than chasing after impossible dreams.
The human race is on a glide path to self-extinction and we have a President who’s too busy with other matters to galvanize public opinion on the need to tackle climate change now.
Perhaps it’s time to organize a real (not a virtual) march on Washington to demand that the President use his bully-pulpit to educate Americans about the reality of climate change.
(my suggestion to convert coal plants to negawatts in a civic fundraising-like model has a big hole in it, which is that domestic banks (known to lobby the government occasionally) are financing the creation of a coal export market. the solution i think is to convert many US banks to vertical vegetable gardens.)
That call should be focusing on the effects of climate warming 20-50years from now, not in 2100.
I say this because I am convinced that we will probably not get past 2020 at the rate extreme events are currently happening. And these effects are more than apparent now by everyone to see. And they are already devastating for many.
People can easily focus on this, much more so than in 90yrs time. And they will be very motivated when it is put into a 20yr context.
Teddy Roosevelt said “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
I just returned from a Maryland Citizens Conference on Offshore Wind Power in Annapolis. There were outstanding speakers from all branches of Maryland government, environmental groups, labor organizations and industry. They disclosed the following:
The entire Mid-Atlantic shelf stretching from New Jersey to Virginia is a huge wind resource and enthusiasm is building to exploit it. Delaware and New Jersy are racing ahead. Google has agreed to provide financial support for an extensive high voltage direct current trunk which can bring the wind energy on-shore and provide it to many of our east coast population centers.
We need legislation in Maryland that will ensure a long term market for the energy after the wind turbines have been completed. This is the main thing that will provide certainty in the marketplace.
To get this done will mean time spent contacting members of the House of Delegates and the Senate and talking with them about the advantages of wind power for our state. It will mean collecting signatures on petitions, making phone calls and coming to rallies.
The amount of clean energy that could be generated in this way could be very significant. It could replace many coal fired power plants. I think each of us must look around and find opportunities like this that are there and act on them.
The tasks we find will not always be easy and often not very glorious but it is these little tasks that will ultimately bring about change. The alternative is to sit and curse your fate.
It is such a key point that denial and distraction is intentional and heavily subsidized.
A few great links for discovering some mixed motives of deniers are:
– http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch
– http://desmogblog.com/slamming-the-climate-skeptic-scam
It’s a nice habit to look into the background of any climate commentator. Sometimes it is even entertaining.
I’m sorry, but that would be a pathetic spectacle, provoking yawns from the public at large and hoots of derision from the fossil fuel stooges in the right wing press.
This is a modern propaganda war. Winning it will require sophistication far beyond carrying signs on the Mall in Washington, D. C.
What would you say if activists against passive smoking saw nothing wrong with their personally smoking 5 packs a day in a kindergarten classroom. What if they also laughed at the notion that they should cut back on their own smoking?
Many climate activists are acting like their own climate pollution doesn’t actually matter to them. Until we do what we ask others to do, fence sitters won’t jump.
It is what you do, not what you say, that moves people.
My previous comment on this post was the first one I’ve ever had removed from this blog.
Why is it that the biggest climate polluters are the first to claim they don’t need to cut back? Seems to hold true at both personal and national scale.
What should people do? Quit burning fossil fuels.
If you don’t want to do it alone, then push for laws to make it too expensive for others to burn lots of fossil fuels. But don’t expect success if nobody is willing to do it.
@ #62. AdamR: I called for a march on Washington to convince President Obama to use his bully-pulpit to educate the American public about the clear and present danger of climate change. The demonstration would be held in front of the White House, not on the National Mall.
john atcheson #58, you seem to be holding out hope that a politician will force voters to do something that even the most concerned folks seem unwilling to do themselves. How is that working out?
Why would a politician risk their job when climate activists aren’t even willing to risk small changes to their lifestyle to live as they say we must?
Isn’t it possible that the reason politicians aren’t acting is because there just aren’t enough voters who are acting like climate pollution matters enough to take any personal risks?
I’ve been listening for years to climate activists saying what your personal carbon footprint is just doesn’t really matter. And for years the politicians have behaved the same way with our nation.
Clearly just pushing politicians to pass laws is proving to be insufficient.
The answer to the question is: stop burning fossil fuels.
Most of the posted comments are things we are already doing, or know we should be doing, or are vague, or difficult to do. Coincidentally, I had been thinking about what I could do that would have a larger effect than just lightening my own carbon footprint today, when I received the current issue of On Earth, the publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which contained a story about the CoolSchool Challenge. This is an award-winning program originating in Redmond Washington that has spread to 80 other schools as far away as Dubai. The group trains teachers and has online materials to use, both for secondary and eyementary schools. It involves creating a school program with the following goals:
*Educate young people, and by proxy their families,
about climate change and everyday actions they can
take to reduce their local and global impact;
• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other
greenhouse gas emissions in and around schools;
• Encourage student leadership and empowerment;
• Develop a community of teachers and students working
together to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions;
• Foster a new generation of environmental/air
quality advocates.
The idea is to organize students to conduct an energy audit of the school and make recommendation on ways to reduce energy consumption.
The website reports that $22,500 was saved on electricity bills at one participating school.
school. Not only does it save energy and money for the school, but it motivates and trains a generation of students and their parents to conserve energy.
I thought that I could call–or better yet–visit the schools locally and try to interest them in the program. Perhaps they are all aware of it, but, even then, they might just need a push. It seems to me to be an very do-able project, easy to undertake and with a significant energy saving possible. I thought it would also be possible to email others to see if they would also participate. Since it is not a great imposition and offers a feeling of great accomplishment, it might be some thing we could convince others to participate in as well.
barry: “I’ve been listening for years to climate activists saying what your personal carbon footprint is just doesn’t really matter.”
maybe time to switch medications. like this one here, fills your ears with squid mating songs, really lovely once you get used to suckers as percussion. or this one! great chinese poets talking about barbra streisand while falling down an endless hole. oh and here’s a quadruple amputee with chainsaws for limbs pushing a lawnmower in a glass-recycling plant, i guess that’s a fetish thing. pretty much anything, take your pick.
We should look for an effective, catchy, moving organizing principle/slogan to drive a popular movement about preventing climate change. This means something with the power to move people similar to “Nuclear Freeze”, “Tea Party”, Hell no we won’t go”, and the one that was by far the best during my lifetime, “I have a dream.” So far, it just isn’t there for climate change. I don’t have one, of course. Like most people I am better at noticing that something is missing than at supplying it. But there are some directions for thoughts to go such as, for example, the “Spaceship Earth” idea or the analogy with Apollo 13. As I remember it, they had to improvise a way to clear the air in the Apollo 13 command module of carbon dioxide just to get the astronauts back to earth alive. We could ask why bother to worry about handing a crushing national debt to the next generation when we are also handing them an atmosphere that is out of order. How about, “Repair the Air?” We could suggest that the fossil fuel industry is operating under the principle of “I have a scheme.” So come on, all you clever people. Run with some of those or something else. But you can’t have a popular movement without a popular idea to organize around.
espiritwater @ 43 -
Hansen’s “Monster’s Behind the Door”.
Roger @ 62 -
I am 61 , and I have followed this stuff a long time. I’m afraid you are correct, and that the thinning of the herd will not be “planned”.
Hell, I posted a story here yesterday about trillions of locusts moving toward Melbourne. Nothin’ says thinning a herd, like trillions of locusts in clouds 25 klicks wide.
NetZero PlaNYC2020 building new engines for civilization
Many folks have posted great comments above—some much more actionable than others.
What is the call to action for people who want to help? Well, Obama has said that he will make dealing with energy and climate change a priority in 2011. This is a welcome start.
Now, to paraphrase FDR, all we climate hawks need to do is go out and make him do it! This is the call to action: Figure out a way to put pressure on Obama to be a real leader.
How can that be done, practically speaking—without inconveniencing anyone too much?
It can’t. So, it’s time to get up to speed on actions that will have some teeth in them. We are working on one such idea, Plan C, but want to do some refinements before posting it here.
Warm regards,
Roger S.
I agree with Badgersouth.
One of the things we need to do is to convince Obama to use his bully pulpit to inform misinformed Americans about the reality, seriousness and urgency of climate change. What’s stopping him? Speak out Obama!
What’s the call to action? It’s to call Obama every day, until we hear him say, “Climate change is real. Climate change is serious. We need to deal with it now!”
Here’s the White House number, 9 to 5, M to F: Area code 202-456-1111.
Mike Roddy #17 – the funniest comment yet:
6. Don’t give up. Anyone who studies and understands the evidence is likely to become obsessed. Use this as inspiration, since there will be defeats and hardships along this path, too.
Edward #38:
“Preliminary Analysis of a Global Drought Time Series” by Barton Paul Levenson, not yet published.
Under BAU [Business As Usual], agriculture and civilization will collapse some time between 2050 and 2055 due to drought caused by GW [Global Warming].
Edward – that precisely sums up what I meant in my comment #8 point 3. I’ll go and look at the piece, I’m always amused by the deadly precision of BPL’s forecasts on RC, but I can’t really believe he forecasts a collapse of civilisation in a 5 year bracket in 40 years time, does he?
Joe,
We need to influence politics/politicians. Politicians care most about being re-elected. After the succes in California, we should at the first possible interim election for a senior state offical, focus on that election and throw full weight/funds againt a climate change denier so he/she will loose. Go all out and make climate change an/THE issue. It must make politicians clear that they are risking their political lives if they keep denying. We must focus on one or two of these symbolic elections and gain momentum from there.
Politicians must think it is in their opportunitic interest to act on cliamte change. It may not be nice, but it is the way to win. In California the claimte hawks put out the gloves (see Schwarzenegger) aan they clearly won. Learn fron it and capitalize on California.
It might even influence the new congress.
The EAARTH MATTERS
58 Billion (with a B) tons,,,humans generate in excess of 58BT of CO2 every year and emmissions are rising faster than anyone predicted in the worst case scenario.
It took the Europeans 500 years to overwhelm the “new” world. The destruction continues; what remains will slip away unnoticed. The illusion of control falls.
Call to Action: “100 Miles of Mirrors” – because a 100 mile by 100 mile square of Solar Thermal Power mirrors with 16-hour storage is all we need to completely replace coal for powering our electric grid 24/7 – its a catchy call, and its true also for China, India – and Europe (via 100 Miles in the Sahara, transmitted by cables under the Mediterranean).
Also, how about a call for forming a group called “Republicans for Science”? This would be a good first step for speeding up the arrival of the necessary day when the Republican Party will accept that the world is round vis a vis climate change. This group would be comprised of Republicans who already accept that the world is round, and the mission of the group would be to help the rest of the Party come to their senses before its too late, both for the climate and for not getting shut out of the New Green Economy.
Immediate and intense investment in human capital starting with the massive migration of the labor force to a highly progressive organized labor taking on the mantle as civilization’s moral authority rapidly reducing the cost of living through dramatic investments in food production, housing, health care, transportation and education; and, social and environmental justice.
Human capital is by far the most potent force in that battle against climate change.
Barry @ 69 % 71 – We think alike. We should start a zero non-renewable energy assciation. Full members have successfully stoped using fossil fuels, period, including but not limited to transportation & electricity. All renewable sources are available. There could be levels of associate menbership levels for commitment to try, 1/4 of the way there, etc. Consumer products and work are particularly problematic.
Being part of a like minded group would help me make the transition. I’m sure there are others who feel the same. Barry, are you trying to attampt guitting fossil fuels or are you just appling logic to a complicated situation?
Maybe such a group already exists. In order to be successful it would have to be done in such a way that others would be willing to repeat.
It’s what you do, not what you say. Stopping using fossil fuels is so horribly inconvenient. On the otherhand, ..
This is a totally spontaineous thought, but the issue troubles me deeply. Why not just do it. If we could be successful, others would follow.
Rapid migration to a highly equitable low-material throughput and emissions society and economy through rapid reduction in the cost of living.
Personal near net-zero transportation vehicles costing less than $2,500 US is one technological innovation which would help dramatically achieve this; among many other simple highly-beneficial innovations.
Great NPR/BBC today report on psychology of engagement of global warming urgency; TV weatherman, etc.
A call to action:
Go green everywhere.
Followed by a strong caveat — No green-washing.
Some have pushed back against me on the green message, but the business community has adopted this message — and they know a lot about advertising. It’s the quickest and most effective way to talk about all this, I’ve found.
We are a consumer nation, and we are a democracy. To me, that means the ultimate power in this country is the individual. I believe that those of us who get climate change and the urgency of needed action must push the green message and actions in every aspect of our lives — from our places of worship to our schools to our choices of transportation to the places we shop to the offices/public chambers of our elected representatives. And we need to do it in the most public and most private settings, relentlessly, positively, negatively, whatever works in whatever setting.
I have been experimenting with all kinds of messages and actions for my community — and it is ALL working — and it is spreading across my state and the nation. I believe the people are with us on this one. I really do. We just need to lead and show that what they can do. In every aspect of our lives.
I believe that the individuals who are growing more and more concerned are sitting in corporate board rooms, in corporate executive suites, in business cubicles, in our stores, in our homes, stuck in traffic on our roads, reporting on local stories. I think this country is ready for a call to action in every aspect of our life. Go green everywhere.
And one last comment on the notion that Gore blew it with the actions listed at the end of his movie. One of the actions was run for office if those in office are not doing anything. Well, that is what I did — and it was on my mind because of Gore’s movie. Each of us needs to be deeply engaged in the political sector — advocate on the issues at every single public meeting (I love when people show up over and over), join your local Democratic or Republican or X party, volunteer for campaigns, run campaigns, run for office — or find a climate hawk candidate and make sure he/she wins and then hold him/her accountable.
A call to arms – We are the Titanic, a marvelous modern creation, deemed “Unsinkable” but with a fatal flaw. For the watchmen on the forward mast, the Iceberg is just coming into view. We must turn the ship or perish.
In our case, we can turn the ship. We know what we must to do, but we hesitate.
An awful lot of people are spouting off here in their own way but its solutions that are required or else a lot of the worlds poor are not going to survive this century.
Joe Romm postluates many solutions every day here and its gonna happen especially as the IEA tellus that easy/conventional peak oil was reached in 2006 so now that the rear view mirror is falling away we do not really have a choice unless politicians will stop trying to persuade us with progress for the meaning of life. However, this meaning of life paradigm has been around for 60 years now since the end of WW2 and it worked spectacuarly for the west and now for the new tiger economies of 2.5 billion people it coming alive.
We really need solutions big time
@ #66. Fred Teal Jr.: Thanks for attending Wind Vision 2010: Maryland’s First Citizens’ Conference on Offshore Wind Power!
Attending events like this is part of the solution. And over 300 attended the conference yesterday in Annapolis, Maryland.
Here’s what we like to say at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN; http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org) when asked, “What’s the call to action on climate for the average person?”:
Get informed, get connected, get organized and get active!
1. Get informed. As Joe says, we need to know the issue. At our conference we boiled down the four main benefits of offshore wind power as we see them: jobs, stable electric prices, energy independence, and a healthy environment/climate. Repeating important points like these when writing or meeting with your representatives is helpful.
2. Get connected. Join a local group or groups that are working on action at the local, state, national, and international levels. For example, at CCAN, we just had a big conference to promote offshore wind for Maryland and in October we mobilized activists in the MD/DC/VA areas in support of 350.org 10/10/10 events (Joe Romm spoke at the event our grassroots organizer, Keith Harrington, coordinated at the White House).
3. Get organized. We’re all incredibly busy, but if we organize among groups in an intelligent way and we organize our own time effectively, we can really make a difference.
4. Get active. There are plenty of opportunities for action. It’s a matter of staying connected with active groups and being ready to take action when it’s helpful.
Finally, for each campaign we have 3 main goals:
1. Get Big.
2. Get Visible.
3. Stick with it.
We did a great job at 1 and 2 yesterday. Check out a couple hits including CBS Baltimore http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2010/12/04/md-conference-to-promote-off-shore-wind-power/ ,the Annapolis Capital http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/env/2010/12/05-27/Groups-push-for-offshore-wind-energy.html ,and the Columbia Patch http://columbia.patch.com/articles/howard-county-environmentalists-rally-for-wind-power-in-annapolis . Each of that features stories of local activists getting involved.
This conference was sponsored by 5 state environmental groups and the United Steelworkers. A truly blue-green alliance.
As the main post says, a lot can be done on the local level. Many important decisions can be made in city, county, and state governments that move the ball forward for clean energy and efficiency. The more of us plugging in, the bigger we’ll get, the more visible we’ll be, and the more successful.
Ultimately it is the state public service (or utility) commissions that are responsible for approving new electric generation. To fulfill our emissions reductions goals or renewable standard laws, we will need utilities to purchase power from renewable generation projects. In 2008 Massachusetts passed a law requiring their utilities to satisfy a small portion of their load with renewable generation. Now Cape Wind has a long term contract, in addition to a federal permit: financing and permitting are the two main components to getting offshore wind farms up and running.
That’s why we’re asking the Maryland General Assembly to support legislation that will require public utilities in Maryland to satisfy a small portion of their load with offshore wind power. Promoting this resource makes smart policy for Maryland (for jobs, stable prices, energy independence, and our climate).
Lester Brown, of the Earth Policy Institute, noted at our conference yesterday that Scotland has a renewable energy goal of more than 100% (meaning they’ll be exporting renewable power) by 2025 – http://ecolocalizer.com/2010/09/29/scotland-aiming-for-100-clean-energy-by-2025/ . We can do this – in Maryland, we could generate the equivalent of two-thirds our power by installing windmills in shallow waters off our coast. But we need to get started somewhere and show that clean energy truly works and it works big.
Our next big step in Maryland is to stick with it through the 2011 General Assembly in Maryland (January-April) to make sure our legislators realize this important job creating, environment protecting opportunity. If you live in Maryland, I hope you’ll be getting informed, getting connected, getting organized, and getting active. We’ll need you on board to win!
Energy down the drain… BUT sucked back out at a profit in BC.
http://www.canada.com/technology/Vancouver+flush+with+savings+from+sewage+heat+project/3922379/story.html#ixzz176bPwghL
Typos and all. I believe they meant $0.087/kWh not $87/kWh, etc.
RE # 91
Pete best, you always get to the point.
“We really need solutions big time.”
Yes, big solutions that will cost big dollars regardless of how much enviro and energy efficiency groups argue mitigation will not be expensive, etc.
The near future will be very expensive, in terms of higher food costs, insurance rates, and certainly gasoline and diesel costs as China and India ramp up their race to the middle and upper class lifestyle we Americans worship.
Note: I once heard an interview with a US cattleman salivating over the fact Chinese have discovered the taste of hamburgers. I concluded that is the next step towards expanding hunger in third world countries as global wheat and grain reserves are translated into hamburger buns and cattle feed.
US deficit is finally coming front and center. Projections of debt as a percentage of GDP is, without any doubt, going to be unsustainable after 2015. Despite the lunacy of repugs and complacent Dems, the stuff will hit the fan when lenders get the real sense the US might default. Thus, their interest rate demands will go up rapidly. The world will be facing a PIGS-US. No amount of American pride and boasting our super-powerness will prevent higher borrowing costs. Print more money? Sure. For a while, until inflation starts eating the rest of our federal budget such as federal debt service.
All this higher fuel, food and cost of living will translate into serious cuts in every program related to energy R&D and renewables deployment if the fed has anything to do with those expenditures (fed discretionary spending and renewables subsidies.
Auden Schendler asked: “What do they do? What do we ask of the average citizen?”
Pay more taxes for starters. Cut fossil fuel and pork barrel farm subsidies to rich absentee landlords for starters.
In other words, the call to action has to be pointed at a much larger agenda than just climate change. It has to include the whole nine yards. If America cannot quickly solve its fiscal problems, it will never get to the real challenge of solving our energy use problems.
We Americans have such a struggle getting real on just about any issue facing us. The world of creditors are going to change that and we can not go to war with our bankers.
Any good news here? I can think of the kroch brothers taking a big hit right in their fat portfolio. Maybe.
John McCormick
Solution #1: Kill Coal in the USA. Start by driving a stake through its heart in West Virginia. How? Insist that the geothermal resources in the state be developed. This will effectively block coal mining in most areas and outcompete coal power in the market as power plant operators are forced by the EPA to scrub their emissions for mercury, sulphur and more. Geothermal resources in West Virginia were recently found to be attractive in a re-study of the temperature data from old wellbores. These temperatures have been systematically underestimated for various reasons. Because natural gas prices are historically low now, the shale gas drilling activity will likely fall in the near future and there will be tens of drilling rigs looking for work in the area. We just need a group of 3 competent geothermal site developers to sketch up the project development plans and get the necessary capital on board. For an intro to the issue, see
http://www.brighterenergy.org/17912/news/geothermal/west-virginia-offers-18gw-geothermal-potential-study-says/.
Solution #2: Cut the balls off of Big Oil in the USA, so they cannot procreate their business. How? Push for stronger and stronger incentives for the very most fuel-efficient vehicles, and punish gas-guzzlers harder and harder, essentially banning them from the inner traffic of all major cities. Push car makers to stop producing the gas guzzlers altogether, either by lobbying your elected official or the EPA and the DOT directly. For those of you looking at buying a car who read this, go for the absolutely most fuel efficient choice you can. Used or new hybrid. New plug-in hybrid. New electric. Ride a bike or an electric scooter if possible. Car pool, save more fuel. Once the aggregate effects of this strategy are expressed in lasting, reduced fuel consumption, and that this trend can snowball as more and more consumers choose the ultra-efficient vehicle model, this will be the end of Big Oil as we know it.
What’ll You Do Now, My Blue-eyed Son?
I’d like to try to address the rock concert producer’s question directly, starting with a theory that’s more broadly applicable to where we are in the climate change movement. This will also be a respectful and humble “call to action” – a plea! – to Bob Dylan, from a life-long fan.
In his great post, Auden asks, “Do they all target James Inhofe with text messages…?” In my view, targeting Inhofe with text messages, shouts from the concert audience, or even (as Monty Python might suggest) “farts in his general direction”, will do no good—especially at this stage of the movement and especially from individual audiences, but also in any case. The movement is still a baby, nascent, and needs to develop itself, find itself, gain adherents and voices, discover cooperation, and gain critical mass. Rather than targeting the “other side” just yet, we need to appeal to—and make pleas to—people who can and should strengthen their voices on the side of the future of humankind, future generations, other species, life broadly speaking, love, and the ideals we once said we had. In other words, at this stage, rather than targeting Inhofe with text messages, we should be making pleas to people like Bob Dylan. Let’s find and develop our voice and voices. As Grace Slick sang, “pick up the cry!”
In a sense, this is also related to what I see as one of the benefits of the recent 350.org work-day, 10-10-10. What it didn’t do was shake the world. (Honestly, I don’t think it had Rex Tillerson quaking in his boots.) But what it did help to do, I think, is to strengthen some of the bonds between many of us, i.e., people in the movement.
In my plea to Bob Dylan, I’m going to quote some of Dylan’s own lyrics that are so great, and so well known, that I won’t even bother to stop to mention the titles. The rock concert producer ought to know these songs or else learn them quick. Also, I should say that I’m a huge fan of Bob Dylan and have seen him many times, starting long ago. So, I’m offering this plea with complete respect and hope, not at all as a criticism.
Dylan sings,
“Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?”
Of course, the associated issues we face today (climate change, other environmental issues, intergenerational injustices, population and overconsumption, wiping out other species, and the whole general damn mess!) are huge! And “something” is only barely beginning to happen—yet much more NEEDS to happen. In important ways, “something” needs to happen but is still hesitantly waiting to happen. To be sure, Mister Jones doesn’t know it, yet. And Mister Jones doesn’t want the change. But Bob Dylan himself must surely know it. Change is needed, and voices are needed, and people who don’t get that risk becoming the Mister Joneses themselves, or at least their unintentional enablers.
Dylan sings,
“How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?”
These are the questions that all baby boomers must ask ourselves, and people from all generations ask of each other, and these are also the questions that Bob Dylan should ask himself (a humble plea on my part) in light of the present-day issues.
Dylan sings,
“Who killed Davey Moore,
Why an’ what’s the reason for?
‘Not I,’ says the referee,
‘Don’t point your finger at me.
I could’ve stopped it in the eighth
An’ maybe kept him from his fate,
But the crowd would’ve booed, I’m sure,
At not gettin’ their money’s worth.
It’s too bad he had to go,
But there was a pressure on me too, you know.
It wasn’t me that made him fall.
No, you can’t blame me at all.’”
This is, of course, one of the great condemnations of passivity and excuse. But it applies to many of us, presently. We are sitting by the sidelines, too much. Given the immense potential for people like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joan Baez, and many others to get (much) more involved and vocal, together, and to help bring many others on board, they (and we) shouldn’t just be sitting around like the “referee”, watching and wondering what to do as bad stuff happens. I, for one, don’t want to be in the position of having to say “I could’ve stopped it in the eighth, … but the crowd would’ve booed.” No way. And I don’t think we want to say that about our generations, in the end.
Allen Ginsberg (who Dylan knew well) wrote this:
“I had my chance and lost it,
many chances & didn’t
take them seriously enuf.
Oh yes I was impressed, almost
went mad with fear
I’d lose the immortal chance,
One lost it.
Allen Ginsberg warns you
dont follow my path
to extinction.”
(Allen Ginsberg, excerpt from ‘After Lalon’)
And in his great essay, ‘Self-Reliance’, Emerson wrote:
“. . . but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none.”
So then, I’d appeal to these great lyrics, from ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’:
“And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’,
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
Heard then thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.”
Those lyrics capture the request: Will Dylan go “back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallen’? (Please) Will he sing his song loud and “tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it”? (Please)
And here, perhaps, are great lyrics that reflect where we ALL are, from Dylan’s ‘What Good Am I?’. With all respect, and he must certainly already know this, they apply to him too.
“What good am I if I know and don’t do,
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you,
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky,
What good am I? . . .
What good am I then, to others and me,
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied, must I not wonder within,
Who tied them and why, and where must I have been?”
Regarding the entire baby boom generation, including Dylan and me and millions of others, I think these words are also calls to action, from Dylan Thomas’s amazing poem, ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
So in my view, it’s not quite time for individual people or individual concert crowds to target (figuratively, so to speak) the other side. Instead, it’s time to build the voice, cooperate much more, build critical mass, and get people on board who should be on board. Too many people are too silent. Some of the people with the most potential influence (and immense at that) are not on board yet and not exercising it. We should be making pleas to them.
In ending, a few relevant clips: The first is a recording of Dylan Thomas himself, reciting ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’. It’s a “must” for those who have never heard him recite it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i12PSzFu5E
Next is a great video of Dylan (only slightly scruffy) and Joan Baez (angelic as always) doing ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ in 1976:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3995250297882568860#
And I include this next one for somewhat personal reasons: Here’s a photo and recording of Neil Young and Bob Dylan, doing ‘Helpless’ and ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ at the SNACK benefit concert in the old Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, in 1975, which was the first time I saw them, way back when:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sDGTZRdQdw
So—in case this hasn’t been clear—my thought to the rock concert producer (and his crowds, the artists he works with, and so forth) is to try to bring key, vital, inspiring, meaningful, influential voices on board as part of the movement-building effort, as “step one”. Let’s build a foundation for future very big stuff. Don’t waste time with text messages to Inhofe. What if, in the not-too-distant future, when critical mass can be had, we can have Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Jim Hansen, Bobby Kennedy, Joan Baez, Jane Goodall, Jane Fonda, Neil Young, Susan Sarandon, Bill McKibben, James Cameron, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, CS&N, Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Yarrow and Paul, Joe (of course) and others try to resuscitate the baby boomers, remind us of the ideals we claimed to have, help us express what needs to be done, and also bring life (with younger artists) to the younger generations whose futures are at stake?! To be clear, I’m not talking about a one-day TV-ized thing. No way. Instead, I’m talking about a deeply sincere, prolonged mass-movement road show, a revival, a pilgrimage, a coming-to-life thing.
Anyhow, sorry for length. Now it’s time for coffee and waffles.
Be Well,
Jeff
(PS, later today, if time allows, I will try to quote John Lennon on such situations.)
Re #96,95,94, A political battle needs to happen between fossil fuel companies vs renewable ones and nuclear for that matter and how to carve up energy supsidies into the future, for presently fossil fuels get plenty of subsidy and tax breaks in order to scope out new ventures and keep these fuels cost effective. Without some kind of price being put on emitted carbon then can renewables ever compete?
For the subsidies to swing the other major requires some major government shift but its proably too much for the economy to swallow.
Adding to Earlier, A Quote From John Lennon
(This should be understood in the context of what Lennon meant by it, and in the context of the present issues and my earlier comment regarding thoughts to the rock concert producer, and Bob Dylan, and etc.)
John Lennon …
“Our job now is to tell them [the people] that there is still hope and we still have things to do and we must get out there and change their heads and tell them, ‘it’s OK, we can change it.’
It isn’t over just because flower power didn’t work. It’s only the beginning. We’re just in the inception of revolution. We’re just in the beginning of change.
And they’re [many young people] all apathetic because they’re young and they think, ‘oh, it didn’t work today, so it’s all over.’
We must get them excited about what we can do again.”
– John Lennon, from “The U.S. vs. John Lennon”, a great DVD that I’d recommend to anyone
Who is responsible for the action against wikileaks? It seems more important to fight freedom of speech than climate change?
National Security Threats are Anti-Science and Denial on the web. As long it is more important to DDOS the truth, everybody lose.
If the civilization wants to survive, we need more people like Julian Assange and less people like Cheney or Palin.
Wikileaks needs all the helps it can get. After all the secrets are revealed the world is ready to unity and fight climate change. Everything else seems to fail so far.
Stop with action against Wikileaks and Assange!
So far Wikileaks censors sensitive cables and offered to work with the US government.
Sp far the reputation of the US is not damaged, even the opposite is true.
Wikileaks seem to even support some of the US agendas.
HOW STUPID IS THIS ADMINISTRATION???
The biggest and most unexamined messaging botch around climate action is the one repeated by Schendler in his post that effectively says:
“The world’s biggest emitters don’t need to act unilaterally because their individual emissions are tiny relative the whole problem. Instead the focus should just be on a policy solution that includes everyone and is sufficient to solve the problem.”
Where have we heard that before? I know, the GOP about America, the Canadians, the Australians, the tar sands, every coal plant, deniers and delayers everywhere, factories, industries, Big Oil, China. You name it.
Seriously, how do climate activists expect to get from the mantra that “insufficient unilateral action by big emitters is not important” to the goal of “getting big emitters to act unilaterally”, which is the focus of almost all the climate campaigning I see (ex: USA cap&trade)?
Schendler recommends we talk to, and work with, politicians and local boards and utilities to get them to cut back unilaterally. I’ve done lots of that and my experience is they all love to say “we are just a tiny player in a global sea of carbon and we don’t want to act until everyone else does.”
Why is it wrong to ask the world’s biggest emitters at the personal level to cut back unilaterally…and yet imperative that we ask the world’s biggest emitters at the factory, industry or national level act unilaterally? Does anyone think this messaging is working? Not me. It’s a joke.
If the only answer is a policy that covers enough emissions that it is sufficient to stop climate threats, then back off on coal plants in your state or even climate laws at the national level. They aren’t enough.
I have to put my head in a vice every time I hear some of the world’s top tier emitters saying that it doesn’t matter what the world’s top tier emitters do unilaterally. And some actually scratch their heads because they can’t figure out why big emitters aren’t acting unilaterally like they want.
Massive messaging botch.
Christopher Yaun says: 58 Billion (with a B) tons,,,humans generate in excess of 58BT of CO2 every year and emmissions are rising faster than anyone predicted in the worst case scenario.
Considering that the United State’s national debt is $14.5 Trillion (That’s Trillion with a Capital T!) or $14,500 Billion, 58 Billion tons may appear quite insignificant to Americans, the biggest greenhouse gas emitters. Perhaps this can be put this into better perspective. Assuming that the average person weighs 150 pounds, the total weight of the world’s 6.5 Billion population would be less than one half Billion tons or less than one percent of the CO2 the world emits annually. Put another way, humans emit CO2 greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each day roughly one half their weight. Each day! From another perspective, the average human emits more CO2 into the atmosphere each day than he or she can lift. That’s fifty or sixty or seventy pounds of CO2 greenhouse gas per person each and every day of the year! One pound of CO2 occupies about 8.2 cubic feet at sea level, sixty pounds occupy 492 cubic feet, the volume of a box roughly 8 feet on a side, and 58 Billion tons would occupy 951.2 Trillion cubic feet or 6,462 cubic miles.
The world has more than 800 million cars and light trucks on the road and is producing over 60 million a year. Not much chance that CO2 emissions will be declining much in the near future.
David Smith #86, I can see how such a website might be of value to some if you could create legitimacy around it.
But my main point is that excluding emissions reductions by the world’s top tier emitting individuals is a self-inflicted messaging botch by climate activists.
The messaging disaster is that it draws an imaginary line dividing categories of global top tier emitters. Then it says those below the line don’t need to act on their unsustainable, oversized emissions until everyone else does.
Even worse, the messaging says that acting unilaterally is a distraction from what you should be doing, which is to get those above the imaginary line to act unilaterally.
So where is that line drawn? Supposedly at a point where those below it are such small emitters that changing their emissions won’t solve the problem.
But the reality is that definition places everyone, including the USA and China, below the line of non-action.
There is literally nobody in the world who controls enough emissions that shutting them down completely would even come close to being sufficient to solve the climate crisis.
Every decision maker can easily say:
* my emissions are too small to solve the climate crisis
* another group X has bigger emissions
* I don’t want to act until everyone else does
* what I do is vitally important
Geez, many climate activists say that about themselves even.
Everyone fits under this imaginary line of “not needing to act unilaterally if your emissions cuts are insufficient to solve the climate crisis.” Everyone. Every nation. Every industry. Every coal plant. Every megatonnage individual.
Either top tier emitters need to actively take steps to reduce their emissions to sustainable levels because they emit too much…or they don’t.
If only policies targeting a full solution are actionable, then push for a globally binding policy on a sufficient amount carbon pollution…and ignore everything else.
Arbitrary invisible lines (that happen to exclude yourself!) are not going to be a foundation that will support needed climate action.
The message needs to be: If you are a global top tier emitter any level then you need to cut your dangerous and unsustainable emissions quickly. If you want to make it less painful then organize to get policies in place to make it easier.
Joe, I mostly agree with your closing line: “I also think people should green their own home, not because it will solve the problem by itself, but so they can see how cost-effective it is.”
But what is missing is the essential point that people should do it because the globally high emissions from our homes in North America are incompatible with a safe future.
Being a high emitter carries with it a responsibility to lower those emissions. Period.
If we leave that message out we provide every high emitter in the world a free pass to do nothing until a global deal is in place.
This is part of a presentation I’ll make tomorrow at a Catholic high school Green Club.
High School Activism
• Take personal responsibility to cut energy use and reduce your carbon footprint in your personal lives at home, school, work, in your car, etc. It will save money and the environment:
- turn off unneeded lights, computers, unplug chargers when not needed, use CFLs, wash a full load of cloths, use a cloths line
- turn down the room temperature (saves natural gas)
- cut water use, especially hot water
- minimize drinking water from plastic bottles (costly, take considerable energy, PET)
- reduce consumption, reuse (ex. tote bag to stores), recycle, compost
- eat less meat
- drive for fuel efficiency, gradual starts, coast, plan your trips, car pool, drive less, pick a FE car
• Activism at school and church
- Green Club activities, stay informed
- Ask administration if your HS has an energy efficiency plan – lights, heating, A/C, window and insulation upgrades, efficient temperature settings, (grants and free advise are available), use bio-degradable products in cafeteria, bathrooms
- Encourage environmentally sound practices at school – ask students to sigh a pledge to get their buy-in, circulate a petition to encourage a reluctant administration
• Activism in the Community (Power of a high school student. Speak up!!)
- Stores, restaurants, offices – suggest to managers they might re-consider temperature settings if to high or low, more efficiency lighting, or if a big company, send an email to the company
- Political activism: email your governor, state and federal senators and representatives with somethinf as simple as a 3 sentence message, “I’m a high school student. Please do all you can to slow global warming. Please do this for me and my children and grandchildren.”
- Email a letter to the editor with a more detailed message
• Show appreciation for those who do the right thing.
• Tie climate (CO2) actions to something else that makes sense.
Roger 62 and Colorado Bob 75:
I reached the same conclusion you did a few years ago, i.e., climate change mitigation will never happen. But, you know what? I can’t bring myself to tell the younger generation that it is hopeless. My only hope is that I am wrong.
@72 – John Ward
Great idea of introducing climate change into the curriculum. This has worked in our town. The local 9th grade science class asks the students to do a room by room, appliance by appliance energy audit of their own homes. It has been an eye opening and inspiring experience for many here.
The students are asked to make recommendations to their parents about the best ways to reduce their carbon footprint.
RICHARD SEQUEST @ 107:
it’s a crap shoot. maybe we can only win by rolling 7 or 11.
so we don’t roll?
and we’ll be telling our kids,
and they’ll pass that logic on to THEIR kids, and humanity will come to nothing.
BARRY @ 104:
“Being a high emitter carries with it a responsibility to lower those emissions.”
first, please accept my apology for the phantasmagorical snark earlier.
second it seems like you’re overcounting the ‘you first’ contingent — however influential they may be — unless you’ve drawn the personal carbon cuts line down at people’s waist somewhere?
third there is a very strong hierarchy of emissions in any society, in any area. tens of millions of americans live w/ limited means, using limited resources, and are NOT GUILTY.
NASA study find Earth’s lakes are warming
PASADENA, Calif. — In the first comprehensive global survey of temperature trends in major lakes, NASA researchers determined Earth’s largest lakes have warmed during the past 25 years in response to climate change.
“The lake temperature trends were also in agreement with independent surface air temperature data from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. In certain regions, such as the Great Lakes and northern Europe, water bodies appear to be warming more quickly than surrounding air temperature.”
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=446
If anybody thinks they can solve this problem by doing things to save money they are delusional. We are talking about changing a fundamental aspect of our culture, no, our created physical world.
These things around your home that save money help energy companies by lowering demand for expensive peak loads. They raise public awareness, but they obscure the truth, that there is going to be a lot of heavey lifting done by all of us to get this done.
We are going to have to work hard, be creative and spend money, sometimes our own, but the value gained will be everything; life.
If everyone would stop selling change with the concept of “saving money” we would be one step further along the pathway. Real change is always expensive. But we must do it anyways.
Sometimes Washington leads and sometimes Washington follows. This may be one of those times when Washington will follow. I think we have to face the potential that for the next decade or more Washington will not be the policy leader on climate change. That leadership will come at the local and state levels. I’m seconding Auden’s call for getting involved in local politics. There is a shortage of candidates for elected office and appointed boards and commissions. Too few people show up for public meetings. States and localities have and can continue to take a leadership role on climate change. If we care about the issue, we have to take time to do something about it.
dp (#109) I agree that there is a growing number of people who are taking responsibility for some of their climate damage because they realize it is too high and unsustainable. That is great.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that there is a self-defeating and totally-inconsistent MESSAGE that is being actively promoted by a large number of climate activists (and piles of delayers and deniers) that says a whole class of globally top tier emitters should not focus on their unsustainable carbon levels. Auden Schendler post above is a classic example of this MESSAGING.
This MESSAGE further says that it is a distraction to focus on your globally top tier climate damage levels.
The reasoning of this MESSAGE is that focusing on carbon cuts that are too small to be “sufficient” to affect climate directly takes away energy from working on policies that will cut “sufficient” carbon elsewhere.
The reason this MESSAGE is a total botch is because every single source of GHG on the planet is “insufficient” to make a difference. I can’t overstate this enough. And I can’t tell you how often unsustainable emitters at all levels refuse to act because of this MESSAGE. I get it all the time from all levels of government, industry and individuals that I talk to. I’m totally sick of it. And it drive me nuts when climate activists pig pile on the primary “do-nothing” MESSAGE.
Here is a simple example: the Canadian Tar Sands.
As Hansen and other climate scientists are quick to point out, we can not dig up and burn the world’s unconventional oil and hope to have a secure and safe climate.
But here is the MESSAGE that tar sands folks are using incredibly effectively for years:
-1- our emissions are insufficient to make a difference. Canadian tar sands “do-nothingism” always starts with the fact that they are just one tenth of one percent of global GHG.
-2- others have bigger emissions. “Do-nothingism” continues with “Even if we shut down the entire oil sands and threw hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, less than a week later, China would replace any reductions of CO2 with growth of their own.” Or, “There are individual coal-fired plants in the United States that emit [about the same]. That is just one single power plant.”
-3- we don’t want to change until everyone does. Oh, god the endless foot dragging of how they need to be part of a national strategy which can only happen in harmony with a USA strategy which won’t happen until we have a globally binding, verifiable treaty which nobody will sign.
-4- what we do is vitally important. You could quote mine for months on why tar sands are the heart and soul of Canada and crucial to keeping people housed and happy. You will learn that it is unCanadian to consider capping their emissions.
There you have it. A globally top tier emitter using all the exact same arguments to duck under the invisible line of “do-nothingism” that many climate activists are busy promoting. Head in vice time.
And I take great exception to climate activists going on a condescension spree as they promote the MESSAGE of a magical “do-nothingism” line that so many of us fight against constantly to try to get GHG progess at the local and regional level.
The MESSAGE from climate activists has to be: “If you are a globally top tier emitter you need to cut your emissions. Period. What you are doing is unsustainable and dangerous. If you want help, organize to get policies passed to make it easier.”
If you don’t like that message then at least be honest and consistent and say nobody should cut emissions until we have a globally binding deal that is broad enough to cover enough global carbon to be sufficient. Because that is what the “do-nothingism” MESSAGE leads to.
I’m not sure who advanced this concept of unilateral action and who should do it, but it is a perfect strategy for emitters who don’t want to change their ways. 1) adopt the policy, 2) wait for government to do something, 3) go to the halls of government and make certain that no legislation will pass. 4)emit happily for decades. Again, a perfect strategy.
It is everyones responsibility to reduce emissions. No one is exempt. I believe that one of the reasons this cause has not succeeded to date is that most everyone is full of ideas about what someone else should do to solve the problem. Good luck with that.
Whew! So many “Call to Action” suggestions; so little time! A few observations:
First, I agree with Joe that becoming informed is critical, and reading CP is the best way.
Second, given our current situation, with climate tipping points nearby (if not here already), we need a call to action that has the potential to ‘change the game’ for the climate movement in a visible way, and in the next two years, before things get worse. What we have been doing, while admirable, hasn’t been producing progress at the rate we need. If anything, we in the US seem to be going backwards. So, we need fast results.
Third, we need a call to action that “everybody and their brother” (meaning family and/or friends) can easily participate in, without taking a ton of time. Most of us have full-time responsibilities beyond saving a livable climate and we need to take care of such things as putting food on the table today. So, we need something easy to do, doable by a few people, not too time consuming, and able to produce fast results.
Fourth, given the way the MSM often tend to play down run of the mill climate activism–not wanting to antagonize their large, status quo-loving advertisers–we need a call to action that produces results that aren’t too easily swept under the carpet.
Fifth, we need a call to action that fits the seriousness of the situation. We are talking about large numbers of people suffering and, yes, dying—through hell and high water–starting now, and in ever increasing numbers over time, for a long, long time to come! Hyperbole notwithstanding, I believe food shortages will hit the US this decade.
So, with no offense intended toward the above ‘call to action’ commentary, I find few that meet the last four key criteria. Most of the suggestions have been made before. Many are currently being tried. And, we are going backwards in the United States.
Kudos to Gail (#53) for kicking off an in-your-face stand against the Koch brothers, and for taking the ‘climate hawk’ lapel pin from the idea stage to the pin stage in a matter of weeks! I have an order in for a number of pins, and I suggest everyone click on “Wit’s End,” #53 above, to get yours. This is the kind of results-oriented activism that I admire.
Also, thanks to Jeff (#’s 97, 99) for his insightful ‘commentomes.’ It’s true that one lasting value of rally-type events, such as 350.org’s 10-10-10 Day of Action, has been the personal bond that develops among fellow humans that “get” the problem, and are willing to ‘get off’ the keyboard to do something about it! (Thank you again, Joe, for speaking, along with Jim Hansen, Lester Brown, Rick Piltz and others, at the “White House Work Party” that we helped to organize in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on October 10th.)
In closing, we are working on a call to action that we think fits the last four above criteria. We are still in the process of collecting and incorporating some offline suggestions, including some from Jeff and Gail. We are hoping to share the idea soon—probably after Cancun. Ideally, other climate groups, much larger than GWEN, will be ready, willing and able to help us take it from the idea stage to the action stage early in 2011.
Roger @ #115 – I think this meets all your requirements, go to
http://www.stockbridgegreen.com/stepone.html
Barry (113 and other posts): I don’t follow how you see my post as saying that “top tier” emitters shouldn’t focus on their emissions. I didn’t say that. My take has always been that businesses or entities of any sort should pursue emissions reduction, of course. And a key, but often unstated, reason to cut emissions (other than obvious climate benefits) is that when you ask others (congress, corporate partners, trade groups) to do the same, or to support policy, you have credibility. Nobody is saying “don’t cut emissions, just work on policy.”
I recently read that Obama doesn’t do as much as he should about GW because if he did, he would have a revolution on his hands (too many ignorant Americans). Well, I’ve got news for him; there are a whole lot of us Americans who DO get it and we’re angry as heck! Maybe that’s the point: we need to show him that we do “get it” and threaten a revolution unless he does something about it. Maybe WE are the ones at fault because we’re not making our feelings known!