Discuss: When Words Fail

Lots of good responses thus far. I have to agree with those who do not think using the number “350” is going to do much good. Quite frankly I do believe that nothing is going to stop anyone from their private path until there is nothing left - no oil, no water, no food, NOTHING! I teach school and the majority on the staff in my school refuse to believe there is a “real” problem. They are convinced it is all a big scare tactic to make the oil companies even wealthier than they already are. They are convinced this will all “turn around” like it always has in the past. They do not see that things this time are not like they have been in th past. In the past the earth caught a cold and got over it. This time the earth has been diagnosed with terminal cancer but most people are still in denial - this cannot be happening - we will get over this too.

Susan Willis stated it quite eloquently and succinctly: The freight train is roaring downhill out of control and we are all living in a trance.

Some of us do see what is happening even if we do not fully understand the scope. We want to do something and we are doing what we can but we don’t know what else we can do. We feel helpless, one hand is tied behind each of our backs. We look for leadership and find it sorely lacking in all departments. Our leaders are at loss as to what to do.

Bill Tyson made an excellent point when he asked a question regarding what will happen if the sea level rises 25 feet. “How many thousand -million square miles flooded? Billions displaced? Trillions indebted?”  We need to put these numbers - with graphic pictures (pictures speak much louder than words)out for all the world to see and to feel. This is what we all need to know. It will not be enough to ride our bikes to work or change a few lightbulbs or even to learn how to grow some of our own food. If billions of acres of land become flooded and billions of people are left homeless and must flee to safety elsewhere those little things that we are trying to do today are not even a drop in the proverbial bucket. We are all in this together, global warming and population explosion, water and air pollution, destruction of forests - I could go on and on - these things are happening to each and every living organism on this planet and they are happening at a rate no one ever expected. This is the freight train and it is already out of control. What are we going to do to stop it before it wreaks total destruction of all life on planet Earth?

While the 350 number may seem an inadequate symbol at the moment, we have to start someplace, and it is just such simple devices, repeated endlessly, that eventually resonate with people. Any Madison Ave. advertising executive knows that.

For some entertaining “messaging” on the subject, listen to Eliza Gilkyson’s latest album, “Beautiful World”, in particular the songs “Runaway Train” “Unsustainable” and “The Party’s Over.” Go to http://www.elizagilkyson.com.

Like Bob Tyson, I agree with Bill McKibben about the problem of finding the right metaphor, story or image to wake the public up about this crucial moment in time. And while I empathize with Susan Willis that we must ACT NOW and stop intellectualizing the issue, I also find that there are otherwise wise, caring, thoughtful folks everywhere who simply don’t see what the issue is, how this mysterious “Global warming” in any way will impact them. In other words, they have no “reason” or motivation to act. And unless a person feels a personal stake in an issue, they will NOT Act. 

I’ve heard statements like, “Oh, it’s hot today. Must be global warming. Thank God; I hate the cold,” or “these (fill in the blanks: tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc.) are simply Mother Nature’s normal cycles.” I shudder when I hear these statements. I think it is vitally important that we make this real in a way it is obviously not “real” to the majority of people. 

Part of it is the yawning disconnect that our society has with Nature.  When you are a true observer and engager with nature, you organically learn how interconnected everything is. Yes, it matters that bee hives are collapsing; yes, it matters that polar bears are endangered; yes, it matters that glaciers which have been around for thousands and thousands of years are now melting at alarming rates.  And YES, it’s all connected and we are a vital thread in that weave.  I don’t know how to best teach this, though I try with my poetry students, I’ve tried while raising my own son.

But the time is NOW for us to act.  What is the compelling story, the story that will touch someone’s heart and make the stop thinking about the damn price of gas (the obvious answer to that one being: stop driving your car!), to stop imagining that this world is simply about the one, the individual and to start thinking that every part of this remarkable natural world, including humans, plays a role in keeping every other part of the web intact, healthy, alive, growing.  The Native Americans knew this.  Where do we find the new story?

Sadly, I believe it’s too late to save the world we live in. However, in the long run, the world will be just fine, but I don’t think that our species will. After all during the Carbonaceous period, CO2 levels were at 6% of the atmosphere and life thrived.

Old timers here in Oklahoma say the Panhandle is hotter and drier then it was during the Dust Bowel..We thought of using little Christmas lights to spell 350 so airplanes could see it..I have to step up wearing my Polar Bear suit around town.If Senator Inhofe could be defeated Oklahoman’s would be a lot better off..I will do more chalk art.Buckminister Fuller’s grandson said on “Democracy Now” we should remember Bucky for stressing the importance of what one person can do..Jean

Small point of correction (Post 12, John Weiss):

During the Carboniferous Period, CO2 levels were similar to what they are today, or if anything a bit lower, while atmospheric oxygen levels were quite a bit higher.

Life indeed thrived between glacial lowerings and raisings of sea level, especially in broad continental-margin swamps, leaving the deposits of coal now mined, for example, across Appalachia.

On the other hand, this thriving life might or might not interest, or be compatible with, a world ‘as we know it’ since it was dominated by ferns and bugs. Large ones.

“Susan Willis stated it quite eloquently and succinctly: The freight train is roaring downhill out of control and we are all living in a trance.”

I haven’t always lived in Kansas, and in fact, volunteered at the Ecology Center in Berkeley in 1970.  We had a chance then, I think.  We were dismissed as doom and gloomer.  Maybe we had the science wrong, but there was a gut/heart feeling that we were on to something.  That the consumer culture was going to ruin things for generations of living beings. 

All the naysayers now need to participate in an experiment.  What if we are right and by drastically changing our ways of living we can turn it around.  What if we are wrong and changing our ways of living make the world a healthier, greener, sweeter place.  Either way is a winner.  When LA had terrible smog, I couldn’t leave my parents house and bicycle when I visited from Montana.  And they didn’t SEE it.  Now, it is less smoggy and they realize it was worse then.  Something changed (though you still shouldn’t breathe out there).  When the Chinese regulate vehicles for the Olympics, they will see a change, will they demand keeping it up?  Do you remember the beautiful skies after air traffic was grounded after the trade towers, etc.  I was in Denver, and it was beautiful, no streaks no haze.  The two days previous were bad. 

I don’t think that having a new cute website will help.  I think visibly living lightly might.  I think images of not the scariest future might help, if we can get them ‘out there’.  Subtle things that people don’t want to see changing.  I don’t know.  Maybe I am crazy.  We are the problem.  So only we can be the solution.

I do appreciate that we have to “start somewhere” and I applaud most of what Bill McKibben writes. I am afraid I am completely ignorant of what any Madison Ave. advertising executive knows as I am a school teacher and not a corporate executive.