THE LIST OF REASONS for not acting on climate change is long and ever-shifting. First it was “there’s no problem”; then it was “the problem’s so large there’s no hope.” There’s “China burns stuff too,” and “it would hurt the economy,” and, of course, “it would hurt the economy.” The excuses are getting tired, though. Post Sandy (which hurt the economy to the tune of $100 billion) and the drought ($150 billion), 74 percent of Americans have decided they’re very concerned about climate change and want something to happen.
But still, there’s one reason that never goes away, one evergreen excuse not to act: “you’re a hypocrite.” I’ve heard it ten thousand times myself — how can you complain about climate change and drive a car/have a house/turn on a light/raise a child? This past fall, as I headed across the country on a bus tour to push for divestment from fossil fuels, local newspapers covered each stop. I could predict, with great confidence, what the first online comment from a reader following each account would be: “Do these morons not know that their bus takes gasoline?” In fact, our bus took biodiesel — as we headed down the East Coast, one job was watching the web app that showed the nearest station pumping the good stuff. But it didn’t matter, because the next comment would be: “Don’t these morons know that the plastic fittings on their bus, and the tires, and the seats are all made from fossil fuels?”
Actually, I do know — even a moron like me. I’m fully aware that we’re embedded in the world that fossil fuel has made, that from the moment I wake up, almost every action I take somehow burns coal and gas and oil. I’ve done my best, at my house, to curtail it: we’ve got solar electricity, and solar hot water, and my new car runs on electricity — I can plug it into the roof and thus into the sun. But I try not to confuse myself into thinking that’s helping all that much: it took energy to make the car, and to make everything else that streams into my life. I’m still using far more than any responsible share of the world’s vital stuff.
And, in a sense, that’s the point. If those of us who are trying really hard are still fully enmeshed in the fossil fuel system, it makes it even clearer that what needs to change are not individuals but precisely that system. We simply can’t move fast enough, one by one, to make any real difference in how the atmosphere comes out. Here’s the math, obviously imprecise: maybe 10 percent of the population cares enough to make strenuous efforts to change — maybe 15 percent. If they all do all they can, in their homes and offices and so forth, then, well . . . nothing much shifts. The trajectory of our climate horror stays about the same.
But if 10 percent of people, once they’ve changed the light bulbs, work all-out to change the system? That’s enough. That’s more than enough. It would be enough to match the power of the fossil fuel industry, enough to convince our legislators to put a price on carbon. At which point none of us would be required to be saints. We could all be morons, as long as we paid attention to, say, the price of gas and the balance in our checking accounts. Which even dummies like me can manage.
I think more and more people are coming to realize this essential truth. Ten years ago, half the people calling out hypocrites like me were doing it from the left, demanding that we do better. I hear much less of that now, mostly, I think, because everyone who’s pursued those changes in good faith has come to realize both their importance and their limitations. Now I hear it mostly from people who have no intention of changing but are starting to feel some psychic tension. They feel a little guilty, and so they dump their guilt on Al Gore because he has two houses. Or they find even lamer targets.
For instance, as college presidents begin to feel the heat about divestment, I’ve heard from several who say, privately, “I’d be more inclined to listen to kids if they didn’t show up at college with cars.” Which in one sense is fair enough. But in another sense it’s avoidance at its most extreme. Young people are asking college presidents to stand up to oil companies. (And the ones doing the loudest asking are often the most painfully idealistic, not to mention the hardest on themselves.) If as a college president you do stand up to oil companies, then you stand some chance of changing the outcome of the debate, of weakening the industry that has poured billions into climate denial and lobbying against science. The action you’re demanding of your students — less driving — can’t rationally be expected to change the outcome. The action they’re demanding of you has at least some chance. That makes you immoral, not them.
Yes, they should definitely take the train to school instead of drive. But unless you’re the president of Hogwarts, there’s a pretty good chance there’s no train that goes there. Your students, in other words, by advocating divestment, have gotten way closer to the heart of the problem than you have. They’ve taken the lessons they’ve learned in physics class and political science and sociology and economics and put them to good use. And you — because it would be uncomfortable to act, because you don’t want to get crosswise with the board of trustees — have summoned a basically bogus response. If you’re a college president making the argument that you won’t act until your students stop driving cars, then clearly you’ve failed morally, but you’ve also failed intellectually. Even if you just built an energy-efficient fine arts center, and installed a bike path, and dedicated an acre of land to a college garden, you’ve failed. Even if you drive a Prius, you’ve failed.
Maybe especially if you drive a Prius. Because there’s a certain sense in which Prius-driving can become an out, an excuse for inaction, the twenty-first-century equivalent of “I have a lot of black friends.” It’s nice to walk/drive the talk; it’s much smarter than driving a semi-military vehicle to get your groceries. But it’s become utterly clear that doing the right thing in your personal life, or even on your campus, isn’t going to get the job done in time; and it may be providing you with sufficient psychic comfort that you don’t feel the need to do the hard things it will take to get the job done. It’s in our role as citizens — of campuses, of nations, of the planet — that we’re going to have to solve this problem. We each have our jobs, and none of them is easy.
Comments
Again, Pastor McKibben comes forth with his benediction to the carbon-spweing world – well, if 10% of the country somehow becomes ambassadorial monks, all the sewage and the drilling rigs and the molybdenum and the floating plastic islands and the extinct species and the arctic methane bogs and the Thirld World devastation will be canceled, allowing the campuses of the American northest to continue to sell pie-in-the-sky, vacuous carbon visions of happy virtue.
Preposterous – continued pabulum for the easily comforted.
Hey, I understand that this is a just an anticipatroy blast of rational nihilism before the Orion spiritualists take over, but, damn, come on, where’s the realism in following Pastor Bill?
Martin — I have a tip for you. If you want to please the corporate interests you shill for, try spell checking your posts; they make you sound illiterate as well as ill informed.
Thanks, Mike K. – you are right, I should use a spell-check. It’s nice to see someone cares, and I would not want to give you one reason, even if minute, to evade the critique.
As for the rest, you sound desperate – maybe the truths you struggle against are getting too intrusive in your mind.
Spiritualism plays right into the corporate mentality – the opiate not only of the masses, but of the corporate masters.
C02 levels are about to go over 400 – but put your mind on some cleansing green fantasy, and it does not have to be confronted. Retreat to some absurd hermeticism, and the acidification of the world’s oceans ceases to be a problem. Talk about the green economy and scything, and the corporations that so clearly run the world, including the shoes, food, politics, media, and everything else of Mike K, Bill McKibben, and the greenwashing movement, and the rational expectation of ecological collapse become ignorable as the work of trolls and “shills.”
I am happy to endeavoring to help you see the irrationalisms behind the greenwashing “movement” – they truly are a tragedy.
In light of the overwhelming bad news on Global Warming and the fact that we are all stuck in a system bent on profits at the expense of the planet, what to do? Mike – what is a realistic course of action. In that this is clearly a moral and ethical dilemma, it certainly has to be a spiritual one as well.
Both sides have their beliefs rational and otherwise. What is a rational course of action? Attempt to change your own behaviors and use your voice to influence others to do the same? Rant in online comment sections about side issues? Follow Mckibben’s advice and try to push the fossil fuel industry to behave responsibly? Self emulate? What to do? So that one is doing meaningful work for the benefit of the planet and not just “trolling.”
Folks who step outside the box of known things have always been considered a bit odd if not crazy. The early shamans who would go off by themselves and invite visions and experiences beyond the ordinary were often felt to be a little scary and dangerous even. What they brought back to the tribe was puzzling and often threatening to established understandings.
One of the mottos I early chose for myself was an old French one: passez outre (go beyond). I felt instinctively that the established knowledge was too limited and inadequate to the problems mankind was facing. Something beyond our present understandings will be needed if our supposedly rational ideas do not destroy us before we can find it. Does the cultural understanding at present make sense at all? Will it still make sense if we destroy ourselves to the last human? What a price to pay for being safe and sane and right! Is there any guarantee that journeying far into the unknown will save us? No, but another saying has been a mainstay for me: To venture is to risk defeat; but not to venture is to lose one’s soul. (Kierkegaard)
Desperate times require extraordinary measures. Let us explore every possibility. Let a thousand flowers bloom… Science is not the enemy nor spirituality, ignorance and refusal to venture is the enemy.
Martin’s initial comment post appears to me to be incoherent. Is the point of it meant to be that Mr. McKibben’s strategy is insufficient to the cause? I dunno.
I subscribe to an All-Of-The-Above approach to strategy. I’m all for McKibben’s potpourri of rallies and marches, divestitures and civil disobdience actions directed mainly at political change along with the movemement building which might serve that aim. But all of this has its “non-linear” effects, which feed and serve other approaches as well — not all of which are “political” in the usual sense.
My study of the climate emergency (I don’t call it a crisis anymore) has me convinced that industrial civilization–as we know it–cannot be sustained if we wish to sustain a decent biosphere. One of our great tasks must be to show that a very low carbon (and energy) economy is possible, desirable, and conducive to happiness and well-being. That’s essentially an educational project, and this strategic component needs to be folded into the potpourri. We need to really understand that a swift transition to a very low carbon economy would not necessarily lead to poverty and horrors. It is not all “sacrifice” and hairshirts. A very low carbon culture/economy might have as many or more joys as a very high carbon culture/economy.
And the effects of such an educational agenda will also fold its non-linear effects into, and serve, McKibben’s strategy. But this educational component is crucial to any success, I think. People need a happy vision of a low-carbon culture — and it can’t be just images of wind turbines and solar panels–because the energy replacement can only go so far, at least in the near term. And everything depends on the near term.
Final word: We need to address our miserably failed and broken media!
Scott — Ralph Nader wrote a book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us. It was a little tongue in cheek, but it also revealed a blueprint of what could happen if a handful of very wealthy persons would take part in it. My thought now is Only a New Spiritual Movement Can Save Us. I am too lazy to write the book, but I have some of the basic ideas in my head. If there was a groundswell of interest, I guess I could summon the energy to write it, but the poor response to Ralph’s book is a bit discouraging. Hence I stopped holding my breath a ways back.
Scott — Ralph Nader wrote a book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us. It was a little tongue in cheek, but it also revealed a blueprint of what could happen if a handful of very wealthy persons would take part in it. My thought now is Only a New Spiritual Movement Can Save Us. I am too lazy to write the book, but I have some of the basic ideas in my head. If there was a groundswell of interest, I guess I could summon the energy to write it, but the poor response to Ralph’s book is a bit discouraging. Hence I stopped holding my breath a ways back.
Beginning with comment #251 on the Dark Ecology thread I started to sketch some of the characteristics of a real spiritual path. Gary G. also contributed some good stuff on that thread. Check it out.
OOps! double post. my bad. sorry.
James, you are not really trying that hard. McKibben and the baby greens are guilty of the crime of whitewashing the socio-political truth, or “greenwashing,” and no amount of half-breast-beating by Mckibben about his own hypocrisies and stunning failures will atone for the encouragement of pro-corporate, pro-Democrat, foolish self-regard of this crowd, which Orion and grist.org subscribe to.
There was nothing “incoherent” about my post – there is a need to stop the nonsense about “low” this or “sustainable” that while the facts and the numbers mount in the opposite direction.
James R. Martin’s low-intensity “education” program is as laughable as Mike K.’s “spiritualism” – there is no more room on the planet for toleration of reality-avoidance. Yet, there it is, at Orion, at grist.org, on the campuses, in Wired magazine, a privileged monologue about making one’s own nest appear pure, while ignoring all the accumulating carbon and methane and rare earth metals that are being mined underneath our feet, away from our eyes.
Whatever we can “do” about it, we haven’t done, and if you could point me to a nubmer that says it is being done, then we could all be doing that. However, CO2, the acidification of the oceans, the sixth great extinction, the student debt, the corporate financial crimes, the Israeli settlements, the incarceration rates, all manner of social realities all testify to an enormous horror that can not, and should not, be greenwashed.
Where are your consciences?
Martin,
Your posts continue to be incoherent, in the sense that they don’t hold together enough for anybody to understand with any clarity what you’re getting at. Your criticism is not honed or clarified, but scattered and exploding. These posts exhibit the worst of what folks mean when they call something a “rant”. They do not cohere into an argument–or points in a conversation–, they merely spit bile.
I recommend toning down the anger with a few breaths. Then see if you can say something other people can understand.
I’d like to follow up on my earlier, too brief comment about the role of the media in our climate emergency woes.
I’m speaking most especially to the media in the USA, which is where I live. Something is very, very terribly wrong with it. Abysmally wrong. Whether it be print periodical, tv, radio … it is generally guilty of daily portraying a world which no longer exists, a world which is not deep into a life-or-death climate emergency. The same thing can be said of politics and politicians in the USA as well, but let me focus on the media here for strategic reasons. For targeting reasons.
That’s right, I think the climate emergency response movement/s need to target the media in the same way the president was targeted (by a non-violent political demonstration) on President’s Day.
Let’s not get all worked up by the word “target” though. By that word I mean only that we’re directing energy at something — utterly non-violently — like “target audience” or such like.
We need a major national (or international) day of action which puts “The Media” on notice, which hits the streets in numbers and rallies at the door steps of Failure — the Corporate Media headquarters themselves. They do not merely under-report. That’s being too kind and too soft. They deliberately cultivate a weird sense of the world in which Business As Usual seems to make sense. They propagandize for BAU. They mislead and mis-educate. And they don’t even do journalism. What they spew into the world every day is a mirrage, an illusion, a fraud. And we need to call them on it. Publically, en masse.
If only to wake the people up.
Thanks for the note. I too believe that the societies we inhabit will have to massively transform (read implode) before really change will happen. I have not read that Nader book, but will definitely check it out.
Lenny Bruce used to have this routine where he would recreate a dramatic scene from a 30s gangster style movie. At one point a compulsive killer with a conscience would emerge and cry out “STOP ME BEFORE I KILL AGAIN!”. It sort of reminds me of this article. We’re all in the climate killer role whether we like it or not. So I guess we all need a big fat fossil fuel tax to restrain us from our climate killer ways. Then we need to police it.
I get a little uneasy when overpopulation is not headlined in any general solution to our problems. When you are in survival mode 350 ppm CO2 goals seem peripheral to your moment to moment drive to survive. So I like simple solutions that you can stick on a bumper sticker, like:
MORE TREES, LESS PEOPLE!
You may not agree with it but you can’t miss the clear direction provided.
As long as the government does nothing to reign in its use of fuels and all the rest, how can we as individuals ever hope to compete with that level of exhausting pollution. Ever hear of the military trying to become carbon conscious? Not likely.
The US government represents corporate interests without a shred of conscience. The individuals who own and profit from all this are sociopaths who are not concerned at all with the suffering they create.
McKibben’s “solutions” cannot work even if they were implemented. For a carbon tax to work it would have to kill the economy. There is no such thing as a “green” industrial economy. He pretty much admits that when he discusses the embodied energy of his car and bus regardless of their fuel source. And no matter how much he tries to ignore it, if only the USA had a carbon tax, the rest of the world would be very happy to burn every last gallon of gas and lump of coal instead. This is just more feel good posturing with no hope of solving the real problem.
Thor — Then what solution do you reccomend?
Hi Mike K, I’m interested when you talk about writing this book. Do you have an outline, do you know pretty much what you’d want to say?
Thank you Bill, for your incredible inspirational persistence in the face of deafening silence and disheartening inaction, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that our climate is in deep trouble. I don’t know how you maintain your optimism in the face of unending comments like the one on this page, but I commend and respect you for it.
“You’re a hypocrite†is not a reason for anything, or even an excuse. It is an attempted distraction, it is name-calling, like tofu-eating tree-hugger, freedom-stomping socialist, or sanctimonious eco-nut,designed to make the class laugh and the teacher delay the lesson. Teachers know not to let a joker engage them in a discussion on their sincerity, but instead find a way to compliment the heckler.
Example: ‘Thanks for pointing out how hard it is to avoid using fossil fuel. You obviously understand that 95% of our transportation is dependent on oil. So it is a monopoly, and it has a stranglehold on our economy. We have to get government to help rein in that corporate power and give small clean energy businesses freedom to compete fairly.
Americans are inventive, hard working and great business strategists. We have already developed solar and wind technology that makes electricity at no higher cost than traditional power from coal, and our designs for vehicle batteries are getting better and cheaper by the month. Hopefully in the next decade the question will not be how much fuel we are burning but what make of electric car we are using, or what brand of algae fuel is powering the airplane.
To create a new clean energy economy, we need to work together to make the price of fossil fuels include their full costs to society. Citizens Climate Lobby, one of the organizations calling for a carbon tax, recommends the revenue collected be refunded to the public. Then green energy market could expand, out-compete fossil fuels, help our balance of trade, and strengthen our leadership in the world.
More efficient use of energy can reduce our power needs dramatically. Conservation measures in agriculture and forestry can help increase carbon storage.
Joining organizations working for these changes can counter the lobbying done by the fossil fuel industry, and increases the likelihood that our government will make decisions that help us all in the long term.
Check out Citizens Climate Lobby,350.org, and NRDC
I’m with McKibben as far as we can take it but as this article from SkepticalScience indicates simply cutting back on fossil fuel as a singular solution is a bridge too far now. Without CCS(Carbon capture and sequestration) as a major backup we’re cooked.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/No-alternative-atmospheric-CO2-draw-down.html
David M — You are quite correctly aware that population reduction is the key to all our problems. If we do not solve this one, all other issues are moot. With billions of people demanding more, more, more of everything there are no viable solutions to any of our critical problems. Less people will lead to less pollution, lower global temperatures, less resource depletion, more trees, etc.
You are of course right Mike. I don’t include the need for lowered population in every post simply because it would be irritatingly redundant and in this case wanted to put some focus on CCS as an added feature of pushing back against AGW. But to be clear:
MORE TREES, LESS PEOPLE!
TOOLS FOR NEED, NOT GREED!
It’s good to see that we’re all trying to make our points with (blessed) economy of words, but as can be seen thus far, that can have a huge down side, especially for ignorant, ideological ranters and trolls.
This discussion may benefit by considering a few basic factors:
1. “Humanity” is on a timeline extending from our very first socializing around gathered fruits or freshly killed game, all the way to this very moment. Further, history teaches us to keep that time line in mind because poorly considered acts can wreck our future on the time line;
2. History also teaches that Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is an important tool for discovering and prioritizing problems requiring action. Accident investigation, insurance companies, medicine and many others fields use it to our great benefit. RCA can benefit this discussion too, if we exercise due care and caution.
Long story short, my analysis says that corporate money is corrupting our entire system of governance and negatively affecting every emanation from it, including the sources of information citizens require in order to make “informed decisions”. That being the case, as responsible, engaged citizens we must organize to rid our system of corrupting corporate money in order to retake the helm of our ship of state and re-set our course to a healthy, prosperous future. Several organizations (Common Cause, CAF, PFAW, Occupy, etc. are now working on that and we should be working with them.
In the mean time, there are other urgent issues, (*symptoms* of the ROOT CAUSE) that must be taken on concurrently and Climate Change is one of them. McKibben and 350.org are examples of citizen action at it’s best and despite ridicule and cynicism by ideologues, stand a very good chance of raising public awareness to the point of real change in policy at all levels. I strongly recommend doubters to attend a rally and to read the science a bit more before inflicting more hurt on participants -and our collective future.
The same defensiveness crops up on the pro-McKibben comments here, but there is a need to point out that there are folks who tired of the same old hope-and-smoke routines from the establishment greens.
This is not a problem of not thinking hard enough or not listening at the feet of would-be analysis gurus. Whatever was said by the establishment greens here was said back in the 70s, and yet there were a few critics, like Langdon Winner, who warned, within the movement, against delivering the Pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that gets trampled under by social reality, of corporations, business, mining, drilling, money.
Back in the 70s, the Pie-in-the-Skiers thought that “appropriate technology” was going to have us all decentralized, living in pure solar bliss. Then comes the “computer” revolution. Do you sense the theme here? Dangle some new techology or ideology in front of easily-led citizens, and the powers-that-be roll right through, stronger and more punitive.
We are being played for suckers by establishment, corporate friendly greens, who disregard all available evidence to hand the world more folkish rapture. Meanwhile, the planet burns.
The “troll” idiocy is symptomatic – any critic of an established mythology gets deried as a “troll,” allowing the fantasists and the lecturers, the pastors and the easily led to refuse to engage with any criticism.
I have never used the cliche “troll” towards any critic, on-line or in public. Why have comments sections if different sides cannot argue?
Martin — I am curious to know what you would do instead of the green do gooders you deride?
Sure, Mike K – I’ll give your invitation a whirl.
All greens, from the establishment corporate ones like MCKibben, to the anti-civ ascetics, should acquire humility and awe in the face of our insoluable collective predicament, and get off the soapbox and discard the vestments.
Social reality, the basis of which is our inherited supersystem, will shift and aggregate, and it will dictate what we “do,” so we should enjoy the gifts of our precious, magnificent, but awfully troubled lives.
We can recycle, get solar power, drive a high MPG car, eat organic, but only a privileged slice of humnaity is going to be able to afford such a positive, protected life, and all around will be corporate domination, drilling and mining, horrific economic inequality and species extinction.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em,I guess, I would say, in conclusion, but I’ve seen too much psychic disintegration from the drogas, so I’ll suggest you do whatever the hell gets you through our descent into accelerating catastrophe – but never, ever add to the mountain of specious claptrap about how we are going to “change” through our fully corrupt institutional systems.
Ain’t happening, bro – let it go.
Martin — So your formula boils down to: eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die?
Eat within limits, drink in moderation, be merry if you can ignore the pain and the nonsense, for we are on a long, differentiated, but uncomfortable descent.
Not as pithy, I grant you.
Or you could be like McKibben, who ends his latest sermon: “John Kerry is a good man, who could become a great man.”
Martin
“We are being played for suckers by establishment, corporate friendly greens”
Since we all jump to the tune of the government-industrial complex 24/7 whether you drive a car or ride a bicycle with roads and all etc. etc. the opportunity to wallow in cynicism is total.
Even if I find a cave in some out of the way niche in a National Park and go into forage mode I still need the government to keep my little wilderness survivalist cul-de-sac intact.
Even in the open seas which I have some experience with you defer to the big boats and massive tuna fishing interests and even those outlaw entrepreneurs, better known as pirates. There is also the experience of being surrounded by industrial pollution.
So I have no choice but to treat any collection of people under any label, whether it be corporate or otherwise, as finally simply people who presumably want a future for their children. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
If finally the leaders of Exxon realize they are cutting their own throats and they have to start thinking outside the box, then who knows. It’s a long shot but so be it. If a critical mass of folks from the top to bottom of our economic and political ladder are determined to drive us off the cliff then it’s game over.
All I can do is offer some common sense thoughts on what it will take to provide a survival alternative and hope others do to until some inspired synergy actively catches on and maybe then things turn around. It’s better than nothing.
“Troll” is valid shorthand for rude, crude and defeatist diatribe -which I won’t waste more time on.
o pick up where I left off, having invested much time in my advanced age to research the topic, I am convinced we do have a chance to salvage our future *IF” we can galvanize our citizens to act in their best interests. That, in turn depends on communicating the best truth we can muster in such a way that 1. the defeatists and propagandized among us can drop the disinformation; and 2. we all can pick up on the truth and apply it through concerted, energetic action. That’s what the Mckibbins’s of the world are doing right now.
Applying the truth can be really exciting -and dangerous too, as civil rights activists through the ages have found. But hey! -what memories would you rather carry to your dotage… having fought in another tragic war for the corporatists? or fought for something that truly changes the world for something much better?
i like the article, but i wish you wouldn’t say “lame” in a pejorative way. it’s like saying that something is so bad, it’s like that boy over there with polio.
Thanks all….This is my Dr Bronner’s label take: ALL of the above RIGHT NOW : Change paradigm or its goals (Meadows), low carb for me AND everyone, sequestration, spiritual path (with ITS non linear effects too), Tim Jackson (“Prosperity without Growth”), crowd funding solar AND efficiency, Stewart Brand even (GMO, a few nukes but what’s wrong with RMI Reinventing Fire instead?)..whatever we must do to move past the emergency and live within ecological limits. We CAN manage a rapid “elegant contraction”. That’s the new “Progress” As Henry Ford (wow) said “Whether you think you can or can’t you are right”. “LOVE is all there is…” That’s REVOLUTION! And Kropotkin:’It is hope, not despair, which makes successful revolutions.’
So many funny people write articles and comment here.
Scared children imagining planetary crisis under their bed.
Sooper smart ones that calculated how many humans should live on this planet. Playing gods in a virtual sandbox…
Loads of long word intellectual masturbation.
And comissar McKibben in leather jacket, with muzzle of his Mauser pushing those unwilling to fight to the frontline.
RRRRRevolution or death!!!!!
Thanks for the LOL y’all.
I know, I know, we can’t criticize 350.org or Bill McKibben, but in reality, we need other voices out there, and much of Bill’s line ties into supporting the Democratic Party, Obama, et al. This so-called
“Environmental†Movement is funded and now controlled by the fossil fuel industry though the Pew Charitable Trusts (Sun Oil Co) and the Rockefeller Fund and of course by others outside of Big Energy who are all about Big Bucks, Consumerism, and capitalism unfettered.
Upton Sinclair — “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.â€
Read on, read on — I have way too much work to do to answer to the Orion guild of writers.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/03/eco-warriors-might-now-be-propped-up-by-greenie-weenies/
Michael Donnelly’s piece, “As the Planet Burns: Hot Air, Photo Ops and Bill McKibben’s “Greenest†City” is referenced.
Yes Commissar Bill is really a greenwashing sell out. It’s funny when you get into serious subjects, sure enough the super purists show up whose sole purpose seems to be to show that they are purer than everyone else or the writer at hand is some sort of establishment trick baby. It’s so much more fun and safe than going after the actual polluters.
David M — The funny thing was that I had a radio show in Spokane, and Bill came on. He called me “man, you are really dark . . . really.” He was b.s.-ing about Obama and si se puede. We have no real strong out there voice for critical thinking. The same with Van Jones — can’t muster an attack on the attacker, Obama.
You know, I was real dark having on folk like Tim Flannery, David Suzuki, Jeremy Scahill, Richard Heinberg, others from Post-Carbon Institute. Dark because I was looking at the green washing and eco-pornography with a clear eye.
I am not trying to attack Bill as a human, but he is not my spokesperson, and he is not much in terms of the narrative. There are rights of nature, basic rights of the world outside the man-centric Consumopithecus.
In the end, it was more interesting to have on Winona LaDuke and Philip Mote . . . guys like Catching Fire’s Richard Wrangham. There is just more authentic voice coming from them.
Check this out —
http://www.downtoearthnw.com/stories/2011/feb/04/third-age-anthropocene/
Let’s see, either you must play attack dog to Obama or be some sort of authentic poet of the environment to be legitimate.
I’ll go with guy who is mobilizing the folks, who founded 350.org, who is leading the fight against the tar sands pipeline no matter how prosaic and prone to stay on the good side of Obama he may be. Since Obama is inevitably a political animal, whatever his real concerns, I get his limitations and the pointlessness of making him the principal target of one’s spear point.
For some reason this reminds me of the comment of Lincoln’s campaign manager when asked about whether Lincoln’s homeliness would be a problem in his getting elected president. His reply was if Lincoln got all the homely vote he would win in a landslide.
What a choice, man — attack dog or poet! And then intoning Lincoln. We are cooked with this sort of critique!
…excerpt from an 1858 speech he gave in Charleston, South Carolina:
“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Enough of Bill McKibben. Move him over and get real.
Walden, Vermont
In his 2008 book Deep Economy, Bill McKibben concludes that economic growth is the source of the ecological crises we face today. He explains that when the economy grows larger than necessary to meet our basic needs – when it grows for the sake of growth, automatically striving for “more†– its social and environmental costs greatly outweigh any benefits it may provide.
Unfortunately, McKibben seems to have forgotten what he so passionately argued just five years ago. Today he is an advocate of industrial wind turbines on our ridgelines: he wants to industrialize our last wild spaces to feed the very economy he fingered as the source of our environmental problems.
or . . .
ROCKEFELLERS’ 1SKY UNVEILS THE NEW 350.ORG | MORE $ – MORE DELUSION
By Cory Morningstar
Or . . . .
THREE RESPONSES TO BILL MCKIBBEN’S ARTICLE, “GLOBAL WARMING’S TERRIFYING NEW MATHâ€
Global Justice Ecology Project
Or . . .
Karyn Strickler is a political scientist, grassroots organizer and writer. Karyn hosts and produces, Climate Challenge, the first and only TV show in the nation to focus exclusively on the issue of climate change.
When 350.org, whom founder Bill McKibben describes as a ‘scruffy little outfit’, was requested to disclose their financial statements and provide complete list of funders in 2010, they responded via email that they would discuss this via a phone communication. The email communication can be read here. To date, they have not responded further. Karyn Strickler of Climate Challenge Media asked McKibben, in a 2010 interview, similar questions regarding the funding. You can listen to his response in the Strickler interview here:
This “discussion” is degraded by ignorant distortions of fact and willful propagandizing. To pull it back to basics:
* Lincoln is justly regarded as a hero today because of the net effects of his actions.
* McKibben and others of his ilk are regarded as a heros today because of the net effect of his/their actions to educate and mobilize sufficient numbers of us citizens so that we can save ourselves, from ourselves.
* Attempting to negate folks who bring real and enduring benefit to humanity is just plain stupid, regardless of perceived infractions they may (or not) have committed in the past.
* It is truly urgent that we drop the b.s., get smart on the Root Cause issues -and act smart to resolve them before this generation totally shits the bed for future generations.
(apologies for using a rank -but apt, phrase)
The people who back 350.org have chosen it to represent their climate concerns. Let them be, they have made that choice and are not likely to change it. Put your energy into your own solutions if you have any, and quit sniping at other activists. Get off the “we have the only true church†rant, and let others proceed with their own methods.
I’ll stick with my teaching writing and general work with indigenous people’s —
“We suffer the severe effects of climate change, of the energy, food and financial crises. This is not the product of human beings in general, but of the existing inhuman capitalist system, with its unlimited industrial development. It is brought about by minority groups who control world power, concentrating wealth and power on themselves alone. Concentrating capital in only a few hands is no solution for humanity, neither for life itself, because as a consequence many lives are lost in floods, by intervention or by wars, so many lives through hunger, poverty and usually curable diseases. It brings selfishness, individualism, even regionalism, thirst for profit, the search for pleasure and luxury thinking only about profiting, never having regard to brotherhood among the human beings who live on planet Earth. This not only affects people, but also nature and the planet. And when the peoples organize themselves, or rise against oppression, those minority groups call for violence, weapons, and even military intervention from other countries.â€
McKibben, 350.org/1Sky and most all other “big greenies†have rejected the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba rather than unite behind it, in favor of the false illusion of “green†capitalism.
From what I can see McKibben’s basic message is that when it comes to our environmental challenges getting serious requires collective action. He doesn’t require that you follow him particularly, just that you carry the matter beyond the personal.
Paul seems to have more of a follow me approach which looks pretty much like a standard issue class struggle dialectic. He kind of reminds me of Trotskyites I bump into from time to time on various forums. Nothing wrong with that if it offers a useful perspective among many. But like the Trotskyites I have encountered, it seems to exhibit an “only true church” attitude that Mike mentions.
To the extent that I have been exposed to Native American philosophy it seems to be more about a sense of one’s living space, one’s community and the relationship to a spiritual narrative.
Thanks for the personal, historical, existential, spiritual, political reading on me, David M. What a load of babble.
“Standard issue class struggle dialectic.” Whew, you people still parade out those tired, old, irrelevant affronts with tongue in cheek, I hope?
David Swanson, Z-Net —
Monday, February 18, 2013
“Pseudo-Protests and Serious Climate Crisis”
Good reads, even better critique of Van Jones and Bill McKibben:
Sunday’s rally, MC’d by former anti-Republican-war activist Lennox Yearwood, looked like an Obama rally. The posters and banners displayed a modified Obama campaign logo, modified to read “Forward on Climate.†One of the speakers on the stage, Van Jones, declared, “I had the honor of working for this president.†He addressed his remarks to the president and appealed to his morality and supposed good works: “President Obama, all the good that you have done . . . will be wiped out†if you allow the tar sands pipeline.
The pretense in these speeches, including one by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was consistently that Obama has not already approved part of the pipeline, that he is guilty of inaction, that the government is failing to act, that what’s needed is action — as if our government were not actively promoting the use of, and using vast quantities of fossil fuels, not to mention fighting wars to control the stuff.
Van Jones ended his remarks by addressing himself to “the next generation.†And this is what he had to say: “Stop being chumps! You elected this president. You reelected this president. You gave him the chance to make history. He needs to give you the chance to have a future. Stop being chumps! Stop being chumps and fight for your future, thank you very much.â€
Reading these words, one would imagine that the obvious meaning they carry is “Stop electing people like this who work for parties like this and serve financial interests like these.†What could be a more obvious interpretation? You elected this guy twice. He’s a lame duck now. You’ve lost your leverage. Stop being such chumps!
Nothing could be further, I think, from what Van Jones meant or what that crowd on Sunday believed he meant. This was a speaker who had, just moments before, expressed his pride in having worked in Obama’s White House. The fact that this crowd of Obama-branded “activists†had elected him twice was not mentioned in relation to their chumpiness but as grounds for establishing their right to insist that he not destroy the planet’s atmosphere. They would be chumps if they didn’t hold more rallies like this one.
Wait, you might ask, doesn’t everyone have the right to insist that powerful governments not destroy the earth’s atmosphere?
Well, maybe, but in Van Jones’ thinking, those who committed to voting for Obama twice, no matter what he did, and who have committed to voting for another Democrat no matter what he or she will do, deserve particular attention when they make demands. Paradoxically, those who can be counted on regardless, who demand nothing and therefore offer nothing, should be the ones who especially get to make demands and have them heard and honored.
Needless to say, it doesn’t actually work that way.
Our celebrity emperors attract a great deal of personal affection or hatred, so when I suggest an alternative to packaging a rally for the climate as a belated campaign event, it may be heard as a suggestion to burn Obama in effigy. What if there were a third option, namely that of simply demanding the protection of our climate
I think we require folks working in many and various strategic approaches.
Working within the “politics as usual” approach (a.k.a., “the system”) appeals to some. Others find that approach a pointless wasate of time, thinking that “the system” is fraudulent and utterly broken.
Still others see “the system” as fraudulent and utterly broken, but salvagable and workable — if only enough movement is gotten moving within the movement.
Some take a more-or-less anarchistic, direct action approach, wherein the main effort is not to change government policy but immediate, local conditions. These might create ecovillages or other types of low-carbon economic / social relations independent of government policy considerations.
There are many, many theories of soical change afoot, and this is good. And there’s no reason a person could’t give some of their energy and time to several of the many approaches. I, myself, give my time and energy toward a policy change agenda AND a direct action / anarchic approach. But the main thing we need, I think, is an increase of public awareness about this crisis/emergency along with the various ways people are choosing to respond to it.
Too many people burn too many years of stored energy in one year. Reduce population: Rethink one person, one vote. Vasectomies and female sterilization are easy operations, the pill works, too. Years ago, a character in Thomas Love Peacock said, “‘Can’t’ is civil for ‘won’t.’ That’s all.” Find cleaner representives, Al Gore is today fatter than Rush Limbaugh at his fattest.
There’s much to agree with here regarding personal choices. The missing element is the choices Corporate America limits us to obtain. Before you go beating yourself up (or beating others up) over what you or anyone is doing to confront the Climate crisis, be aware that what is being offered in the marketplace is, for the most part, decided in the boardroom.
The greatest culprit, the worst climate criminals are not Joe Sixpack and his beater Ford. It’s the forces who maintain the status quo, the people who labor under the illusion that the bottom line is in the ledger rather than in and around the planet.
I first learned about global warming in college in the 1970’s. I’ve been doing a biking, no jets, recycling, low on the food chain lifestyle since then. A lot has happened, especially cynicism. Its long been understood that the wealthy and their yuppie wanna-be’s would rather off 80% of the planet as their solution to the problem.
The kind of inner revolution necessary to reverse this currently isn’t there simply because most of us lack the knowledge on how to really change other people’s opinions effectively.
Its not about a spiritual change but more about our own psychology – learning how Freudian methodologies have trapped the modern human being into highly confined – nuclear family relationships based on guilt, shame and mirroring. Most of us have wonderful technical skillsets except when it comes to emotional education, which is so in the dark ages, that most of us don’t see the damages we do when communicating to others on things we want or things that we don’t want. What most of us end up getting is exactly what we don’t want because of our lack of interactive skills, especially with those who have no interest in being something else on the gravy train to hell.
We’ve allowed the One Percent to prevail, but not all people’s have, and they are fighting all sorts of schemes coming down the corporate pipeline, including rotten environmental schemes like REDD.
There is a great bunch of folk like Lyle K. Grant working on arts education and sustainability. You know, education to make us better consumers — of art, lit., ideas. We spend so much time working for what? So much time consuming for what?
The state of education in the USA is in deep trouble, and, alas, that would be the last great safety net for humankind to be shredded. We saw the judicial branch get bought and sold. The legislative branch are prostitutes. The executive branch? Come on, shysters and criminals. The Fourth Estate? Missing in action but actually the mistruth factory for the One Percent and Project of Empire. So, education is the last to be ripped up and crushed by the wrecking crew.
You bet we are trapped by the engines of those Lords of War, Prison to Pipeline Privatizers, both the right and the left of the political faux line.
So, the alternative is fight. Make sure that every waking hour is not on the ledger book. Make sure that every nanosecond of our lives is not in Google, tracked by Bezos and plotted by Microsoft. Make sure to not pay thoxe taxes, uh?
Choices — do we play the regulatory game, always fighting the corporation with how much we will allow them to pollute, rip up, plow over, suck away? Cuz that’s our system — being beat by playing the regulatory game stacked in favor of corporations, the CHamber of Commerce, and big business.
James R Martin suggested an education element added to the potpourri, a theme that Roger echoes regarding learning how we are trapped in contexts and frames of reference.
I found myself immobilized by the scale of the problem and decided that I could move myself, and perhaps others by example, through the self-education of figuring out a plan to reduce my carbon emissions. The first piece of that plan is my direct carbon uses. Its not all that I need to change, but I can see its feasible and not intimidating. My thoughts are posted here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xPl-f1M352h2CcZR1QghimKHdPb5Gj-BRA_-BvH07GE/edit
The proactive actions listed so far are admirable, but they are addressing mere “symptoms” of the fundamental pathology and ignoring the ROOT CAUSE ISSUE. Basic Root Cause Analysis techniques, used by insurance companies, fire and crime investigation, etc., reveals the Root Cause Issue in this arena is Corporate Money corrupting our election and legislative processes.
In fact, it’s corrupting our entire system of governance and every emanation from it, including the sources of information citizens require in order to make “informed decisions”. That being the case, as responsible, engaged citizens we must organize to rid our system of corrupting corporate money in order to retake the helm of our ship of state and re-set our course to a healthy, prosperous future. Several organizations (Common Cause, CAF, PFAW, Occupy, etc. are now working on that and we should be working with them.
In the mean time, other urgent issues, (*symptoms* of the ROOT CAUSE) must be taken on concurrently and Climate Change is one of them. McKibben and 350.org are examples of citizen action at it’s best and despite ridicule and cynicism by ideologues, they stand a very good chance of raising public awareness to the point of real policy change. I strongly recommend doubters to attend a rally and to read the science a bit more before inflicting more hurt on activists -and our collective future.
Burning bio-diesel doesn’t cause global warming?
I wonder what would happen if all of us who believe that we must work on climate mitigation (i.e., lessening greenhouse gases) as a society (rather than through individual virtue) were to campaign for a carbon tax on fossil fuels. When are we going to bite the bullet and pay for damaging the climate? It wouldn’t have to be a heavy tax at first – but could make some money to invest in non-fossil development. Would it cause a shift away from oil and coal and gas, eventually? (How many of us would have to volunteer to pay more for using fossil fuels – demand new policy grom governments – before we could overcome resistance from fossil fuel industries?) Would we trust governments to direct such a tax to green investment and transition to new energy systems? I wonder how Orion readers feels about this idea. And thank Bill McKibben for his tireless campaigning to inspire people – and particularly young people – to practical actions for a more sustainable future.
Always missing in the sustainability triple bottom line — equity. Do some of you have any idea about the precarious nature of work, therefore survival in Planet Capital?
You ever check the U6 BLS long-term unemployment stats, or even better, more aggressive stats on technical unemployment?
Do you ever realize that carbon and fossil fuels are the name of the game, and those greenie weenies who want more taxes on fuel, more taxes on water delivery, sewage treatment, planes, trains and automobiles, that they have failed as humans when we look at the rest of the world — 70 percent?
Neobliberalism and the long-ago death of the liberal class has produced magical thinkers, and that’s fine for a Gabriel Garcia book, but we continue to benefit from a world of fossil fuel when it comes to the One Percent and the 29 percent pulling up the One Percent’s rear-end.
We have no health care for all; we have demos and repubes talking about extending work until 80 or 85. We have magical thinkers looking toward nanoparticles as the next big thing. We have all these great thinkers forgetting to work on public transportation BIG TIME, and overturning that personhood status for corporations.
Until we take back and move toward enlightenment, no amount of climate change mitigation or rallies will help the 70 percent of us in already precarious work conditions and with little life lines from the elite and the ameliorating few who believe their rhetoric.
We have a world of soy, corn, GEs and countries like Russia loving the Arctic melt in order to capitalize on open seaways and resource plundering.
Hyrdocarbons. Minerals.
Read Orion when Jensen pens Beyond Hope, or when the community bill of rights are mentioned by Tom Linzey. This rah-rah rallies at the capitol just aren’t doing it.
Believe you, I have been arrested for protesting Bank of America, for Amazon, for all sorts of wars in Central America, and other fine political action. Where does that get us? Fingerprinted and pushed even further to the edge of the world of work, some anchor in community.
Climate crisis? We have a humanity crisis, a media crisis, a crisis of the few who have and the most who have not. We don’t even talk about those tribes and campesinos and peasants, now do we, when yammering about 350 ppm. It’s a world without ice, and Bill knows that, and we have to advance quickly to stop governments and corporations. It’s a huge project, but not one grounded in greenie weenie lingo.
Bill, We are the choir. Time to focus on Big Oil. They need to be brought down.
Condoms for Westerners!
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2013/population-poll-03-01-2013.html
64 percent said that, with the human population expected to hit 10 billion by 2050, wildlife will be adversely affected.
61 percent said they are already concerned about the rate that wildlife are disappearing.
60 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that human population growth is driving animal species to extinction.
60 percent said our society has a “moral responsibility†to address wildlife extinctions in the face of a growing population.
59 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that addressing the effects of human population growth is “an important environmental issue.â€
57 percent believe human population growth is “significantly impacting the disappearance of wildlife.â€
57 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that population growth is making climate change worse.
54 percent said stabilizing population growth will help protect the environment.
The Center for Biological Diversity launched its human population campaign in 2009 to highlight the connection between the world’s rapidly growing population and the effect it has on endangered species, wildlife habitat, the climate and overall environmental health. As part of the campaign, the Center has given away nearly 500,000 Endangered Species Condoms intended as a way to get people talking about this critical issue.
The Center advocates for a number of ways to address population, including universal access and adequate funding for family planning services, empowerment of women, sustainable development, a reduction in the consumption of natural resources and personal decisions that lessen the impacts on wildlife and the environment.
“If we’re going to address some of the biggest environmental problems we face, population has to be part of the conversation,†Karnas said. “These poll numbers show Americans are ready to start talking about population and dealing with impacts.â€
To download a copy of the poll go to http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/population_poll.
Background
Government scientists have highlighted population as key environmental issue in recent months.
In a decision to protect 66 coral species under the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service said population and consumption of natural sources was “the common root or driver†of ocean acidification and other threats corals face.
The Department of the Interior recently released a report on the future of the Colorado River, concluding that, in 50 years, the river that supplies water to 40 million people may be unable to meet the demands of a burgeoning human population.
The U.S. Forest Service issued a report with another grim prediction: that 36 million acres of the nation’s forests will be lost to houses, strip malls and roads by 2050. That’s an area 16 times larger than Yellowstone National Park.
Just mosey over to the Center for Biological Diversity, and download the poll —
64 percent said that, with the human population expected to hit 10 billion by 2050, wildlife will be adversely affected.
61 percent said they are already concerned about the rate that wildlife are disappearing.
60 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that human population growth is driving animal species to extinction.
60 percent said our society has a “moral responsibility†to address wildlife extinctions in the face of a growing population.
59 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that addressing the effects of human population growth is “an important environmental issue.â€
57 percent believe human population growth is “significantly impacting the disappearance of wildlife.â€
57 percent said they “strongly agreed†or “somewhat agreed†that population growth is making climate change worse.
54 percent said stabilizing population growth will help protect the environment.
The Center for Biological Diversity launched its human population campaign in 2009 to highlight the connection between the world’s rapidly growing population and the effect it has on endangered species, wildlife habitat, the climate and overall environmental health. As part of the campaign, the Center has given away nearly 500,000 Endangered Species Condoms intended as a way to get people talking about this critical issue.
The Center advocates for a number of ways to address population, including universal access and adequate funding for family planning services, empowerment of women, sustainable development, a reduction in the consumption of natural resources and personal decisions that lessen the impacts on wildlife and the environment.
“If we’re going to address some of the biggest environmental problems we face, population has to be part of the conversation,†Karnas said. “These poll numbers show Americans are ready to start talking about population and dealing with impacts.â€
Background:
Government scientists have highlighted population as key environmental issue in recent months.
In a decision to protect 66 coral species under the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service said population and consumption of natural sources was “the common root or driver†of ocean acidification and other threats corals face.
The Department of the Interior recently released a report on the future of the Colorado River, concluding that, in 50 years, the river that supplies water to 40 million people may be unable to meet the demands of a burgeoning human population.
The U.S. Forest Service issued a report with another grim prediction: that 36 million acres of the nation’s forests will be lost to houses, strip malls and roads by 2050. That’s an area 16 times larger than Yellowstone National Park.
Dear Paul Haeder,
Whew! How do you live with so much anger about so many things? You’re of course right about all of them, and I imagine that many or most of us here read the things you read, and are aware of and distressed about the things you are. “Always missing in the triple bottom line – equity.†Was that a reply to a carbon tax? (Not a good idea, I guess, IYHO.) So how do we do it? How much could be raised (for example) by a two cent carbon tax per gallon/litre? For starters. How could we equitably let everyone contribute gradually to raising some working planet capital to fix the problem we create every time we step on the gas or eat stuff from the other side of the world or heat a place with oil or use plastic? (How about a plastic tax so we’d use more glass and metal containers? How do we ecnomically favour “goods†and penalize “bads?â€) I am not a greenie weenie (I don’t know if you’re talking to all the posters here), and I don’t think we should tax water (conservation’s a nice idea), and more trains and fewer planes would be good. I’m in an off grid house in Canada where we do have health care, but the conservative government is gradually gutting it. Canadians seem largely too polite to raise a big enough fuss about GMOs (a shame). That would be an important thing to work on together.
How do you solve a humanity crisis? I like Transition towns, in spirit. They invite us to be human. In real places, face to face, talking about real ideas that can be done locally. Real change from the things we don’t like, can’t stand, feel helpless to combat when we’re so small. Only I know that small people who make noise – and have clear ideas – aren’t small. They are brave, and brave is big, and other people take courage from them. And ideas. Memes. Bill McKibben’s good at that. He gives people ideas. Because he’s brave and out there, he gets lots of digs here (I see), but he works on real solutions, and inspires ordinary people to call, together, for real, practical, specific change, something far too rare in this game. Students who call for divestment from fossil fuel stocks will see how campaigns work. That’s big. They will start to see how Capital Planet works, and how they can make some calls that affect it. That’s important when you’re young and didn’t help create Capital Planet – knowing how to undo it. Empowerment. (I just discovered last week that the word “capitalism†doesn’t occur in the Ontario curriculum anywhere in social studies – I thought that was interesting, as a deterrent to inviting students to even have a discussion about the benefits of capitalism in a democracy….let alone critique capitalism as it lets the market decide our future in ways we are unlikely to like.)
Could you give some good examples of how to stop governments and corporations (not grounded in greenie weenie lingo)? That would be very helpful. Good ideas help people work together. If protesting doesn’t work, what do you think does? I think that “yammering†about 350ppm is probably a carefully calculated way to give people a numerical carbon reference point to rally around, and that all of us, tribes, campesinos, or regular North American people are stuck with the same now nearly 400 ppm of our carbon excesses because we still haven’t got it. (I DO wish Bill McKibben & followers would use words or slogans along with “350†for the not-yet-insiders, or it’s a bit like “The answer is 42.â€)
So we have to advance quickly? Which way would you like to lead us? Clarity is needed here if we’re going to try to work together. You’re very articulate, and clearly knowledgeable – What would you invite us to do together? (And please try not to call us names – it’s friendlier, and we’re all trying.)
Hello again Paul,
Biodiversity. Good. Thanks for the site and the poll. Fascinating to see the gaps among US groups in the poll on biodiversity, in how people think population, climate and biodiversity are (or aren’t) related. That’s because we choose not to educate ourselves (formally, publically) ecologically because it would conflict with economic growth. I include Canada in that because we largely have the same economy-trumps-all failing in education (with some small, cautious advances in “the advantages and disadvantages” of climate change, renewable energy, and conserving habitat and species).
I had to see if you were serious about the endangered species condoms – and you were. Now there’s a mnemonic device!! What a way to make a very, very pointed ecological connection.
I have another idea about people anywhere and biodiversity (which is also about climate change, as good plans should be encouraged to be). I recently spent a day scanning the official plans of the four municipalities that are in the region to the west of Toronto where I live. I do word searches in “official documents” for environmental/sustainability content (curriculum is another place to look, count, critique). There are four municipalities in my region. One near Lake Ontario, well educated, upper-middle/rich, prosperous. They have a great, comprehensive sustainability plan. And a team of six people at the town hall to both carry it out and inolve the citizens in greening their town. Towns two and three had lists of small sustainable acts that they “encouraged” local people to engage in, and one had a couple of LEED buildings and an Earth Day celebration. “My” town (I live on a farm, but it’s my municipality) is the fastest growing city in Canada, and had exactly one mention of biodiversity in its 445 page Official Plan – BUT it was actually one people could work on: it mentioned the importance of “biodiversity corridors.” Now, that is a sophisticated ecological idea, and one that people in schools, communities, companies, subdivisions – and of course planning departments could work on IF citizens clamoured for “BIODIVERSITY CORRIDORS” – everywhere. Legally require them in bare, hot, sunny new sub-divisions. Get schools to plant them along fences, companies to plant them along contintiguous property boundaries. Instead of just “treeplanting” – wouldn’t it be more educational to plant “biodiversity corridors.?” Specific, ecologically linking entities that allow wildlife shelter and safe movement? Biodiversity corridors (as wide as possible – nice for walking, cycling, scenery, shade, ever-hotter-summers) address both cliamte and biodiversity concerns.
So, folks, how about taking a look at your town Official Plans (“OPs” they’re called policy-maker jargon) and seeing if there’s any mention of “biodiversity” or “corridors” anywhere. If there isnt’, get it in on the next re-write (every 5 years, typically). If there is, call on the city to start a campaign of acting on it, planting biodiversity corridors with participation from all sectors of the town.
There. An idea for the day!
And thanks, Paul, for the survey and the biodiversity theme.
Your best bet would be to go to Dissident Voice dot org and contact me via the email, paul (at) dissidentvoice (dot) org.
Of course, I have written for many magazines, but check out the Dissident Voice site —
Birdbrain Scheme Is Now Big Idea of the Century?
Part 1: Are “green” goals permanent or a passing fancy?
I too have Canadian roots, and, unfortunately, Oh Canada, is Oh Harperistan!
I was the only US participant in the UBS Summer Sustainability Leadership program in 2010. And I was needed — so many there knew nothing about the 5 e’s of sustainability, nor were they willing to disavow from that book by the Pulitzer Prize winning author on his book about how “Walmart the Greenest Corporation Ever.” Just a lot of eco-pornography.
Green is not the New Black, but if you read Will Potter’s, Green is the New Red, you can see why some of us are absolutely completely reluctant to co-opt ourselves to any middleroad movement tied to Bib Business and Gigantic Fascist Corporation. This is the 10th anniversary of the illegal war in Iraq. And the anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie.
So much work to do, indeed.
http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/handy/ESP171/Birdbain_scheme.pdf
Biodiesel fuels require extensive utilization of oil resources: transport to market: heavy irrigation and hence pumps to pump the water and such things as acquirers dry; lots of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to bring the crop to maturity and then more fossil fuels to harvest and process them. Plugging into electricity is fine , however one must ask how that electricity is produced.
I recently read an interesting article on the utilization of true nano-technology as a potential viable solution to solar production:
http://tech
Txchnologist.com/post/43730365283/new-antennas-could-boost-solar-energy
What I would really next benefit from: is to be walked through how to do this: get my gov’t to put a price on carbon.
It seems that what is missing is widespread understanding of what the operations of civilization have irreversibly done to its life support system. Rapid climate change is only one of the irrevocable deleterious consequences. Running out of many natural resources, including oil, is another. With understanding of what has been done wrong, society is in batter position to address the challenge of powering down.
After 35 years, you wouldn’t believe how many variations on this theme have come and gone. Hell, tens of thousands of activists actually thought there was some hope by creating a complex activist based “Green Party”, but it got coopted by Sierra Clubbers and to a certain extent the magical folk, with their 100th monkey ideas. But that was definitely not the core problem once upon a time. Getting people to work together failed due to Alpha-eco types that had no real clue what what had transpired in Germany and why it wasn’t just about getting Nader or somebody on the presidential ticket.
The core problem was bringing dozens of different issues together under one roof, but as soon as things started to gel, the labels started to fly.. you name it, from red green, to full blown internal power struggles. The COC movement types were hunted down, isolated and left on the vine as the hipsters won the day. The day it was annointed as a party, was the day people who understood should have left or called for it to go back to just a movement organizing project. Not enough people knew the ins and outs of working with diverse viewpoints, let alone natural allies that would have taken far more time to come around to some kind of broader tent, similar to how the main parties function. There was no Internet in those days. You had to meet face to face, a highly elitest process that left those with the biggest travel budget playing too many cards, and not enough people to pull them back, as was the case in Germany. So it failed. Just as online organizing failed due to flaming issues not to mention trust.
By the mid 80’s we knew there was heavy infiltration going on. It was a huge problem. People had to hold together and protect the insane cointel tactics. That stole are cultural keys, and worse made sure nobody had a clue what the buzz was. Its gone now.
The core issue in Germany was anti-nuke direct action, that then broadened out across a large spectrum of other issues. The left clearly wanted it dead, as did the membership based eco groups. They won simply because building communities where real people have other people’s backs rather than young hipsters looking for chicks or nests before daddy’s purse strings run out.
Many of us were moving completely away from every aspect of the system, but got dragged back into it whether we liked it or not. This wasn’t about fearless leader etc. Attempts to educate people then about the historic past, going all the way back to the 1870’s and the workingman’s party rolled off hipsters heads as if the concept was in a foreign language. They were on a divine mission, and of course they won control. If you don’t learn from history, you’re bound to repeat it, etc.
Hell, I watched the first generation by 1985, with scientists concerned resource depletion issues, that were anchored in population issues and corporate agriculture siren going off. The 2nd wave hit with Katrina. It was all supposed to end in cataclysm and worse. Meanwhile NASA insiders had already mapped out where the global energy wars would be taking us by the 2020’s.
My German buddy was right then and still is. Americans are incapable of working things out, simply because there are more freudian agenda’s than there are states in the union, or more put, people hold polite grudges or worse, can’t deal with people that look or act differently than Euro-centric types can deal with in a way that doesn’t end up being just another form of elitist pulpit rattling for the kids that are coming up that are just figuring out they still might not know how to take their diapers off. The movement died when they ran out of fun parties to go to, and was filling up with too many damaged people. Eco-Frat parties were pretty exclusive and still are. Working people don’t have the time to read sermons by college punks. It was a tough battle and we lost, thanks Reagan and a lot of women’s internal nesting clocks taking priority, just as the cost of living made it nearly impossible to sustain a mass movement. We were all gonna stay on the street and do it. Its just that it wasn’t long before hip talking kids started wearing sun glasses, stopped going to meetings and dropped back into the American treadmill. You wanna start off where we failed? Kick the idiots out of the Green Party, Shut it down, and move back to an organizing phase with it. Some of us are too busy these days holding onto other realities, but it would be nice if people saw beyond their own 4 walls and figured out how to open the doors around themselves and realize just how many people don’t have the time, money or energy to play this online talk talk game anymore.
A great report from the former front lines from Roger, who echoes much of what michael Donnelly ahs bravely and persuasively argued about the failed greenwashers in counterpunch.org.
Yet germany is no paragon of greenness. Each coutnry is different, of coruse, and the US inheritance of frontier individuality and corporate rampage is particularly onerous, but Germans are the world’s leading exporters of toxic waste, have terrible unemployment, fractious nativism, corporate domination, and an energy supersytructure headed for the rocks – and still are miles ahead of where the US will ever be.
Having re-read the correspondence triggered by the McKibben article it seems that the attitude spectrum runs from deepest cynicism and defeatism, through disingenuous habitual snipers, to those who genuinely try to understand the issue and act in informed and positive ways to address it.
At risk to my welcome here, the point must be made that most of the opinions are dealing with the many “symptoms” of a core pathology rather than the core itself. That is why our problem seems so elusive and intractable. We tend to latch on to the symptoms because they’re easier to deal with -sort of like taking pain killers to deal with bad teeth rather than learning to prevent tooth decay.
To push that analogy a bit further, we’re suffering the symptoms of “political carries” rather than the dental version, in the form of corporate money corrupting our electoral and legislative functions. The consequences of that are painfully evident in the seemingly irrational behavior of elected officials who act in ways that are at odds with the good of, and will of “We The People”. They are addicted to and dependent on corporate money for their “accustomed way of life” and go to great lengths to ensure a steady supply of it.
To illustrate that point, try a little thought experiment by imagining that we could instantly change to very strictly enforced, publicly funded elections. With that vision clearly in mind, answer these questions:
1. What kind of politicians would lose incentives to run for office?
2. What kinds would gain incentive to run for office?
3. Without the need to spend 60% of their time dialing for dollars, what would elected officials have more time to do?
4. Whose interests would they be better able to serve?
5. What kind of policy changes would become possible?
6. What kind of news and information sources would become possible?
7. (proceed by imagining the implications of your answers above )
I hope this illustrates the difference between Symptoms and Root Causes, and why positive change in Climate Policy -or any other kind, is greatly impeded by the corruption of corporate money and influence. As mentioned last week, there are several organizations working effectively to clean up our elections and they, meaning WE, deserve our energetic participation.
Seabury, there are no, none, zero (0) ” organizations working effectively to clean up our elections.” Effectively? Do you have the ability to turn on the news, looks at the headlines, read the rhetoric? Not a scrap of it presages “effective” politics.
Can you tell me one (1) election that will be an “effective” (as opposed to minor) win for the forces opposed to the corporate order? Keep count now. Wea re not talking about greenwashing Democrats, or small-town green dogcatchers.
“Thought experiments” is a gasbag term – these are just our thoughts, and we have gone over this turf so many, many times, as Roger eloquently testified to .
Hey folks: I appreciate this ‘conversation’- it is more robust than most conversations around climate change. I would also appreciate it if you want to take a look at this article of mine that was published in Huffington Post a few days ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidgoldstein/adult-response-climate-change_b_2832052.html
THANKS!
Right — Lord Stern said he underestimated the climate change findings in his report. This is a political issue, and, alas, politics aren’t local anymore with transnational money ruling the roosts of us all.
More nonsense —
U.S. is cutting funding through National Science Foundation to political science research that does not tied directly into the United States’ economic needs and security needs.
Climate change, a political problem, no?
We are a warring nation with a warring security council and a warring G-8 and G-20. In this country, we have, what, 2,992 counties, and 30,000 incorporated municipalities, and each one is fighting, dog-eat-dog, for every crumb of the neoliberal economic pie.
The green warriors are not, warriors, and far from green, in the truest sense.
We have so many fires to put out, that, be real — the funding 350.org gets is suspect, and, well, the intent is fine. Fine, fine, fine. But to not tackle all the other issues within the framework of the so-called green movement, well, that’s it, now, isn’t it?
We need environmental socialism. All coalescing, and those great pretenders pushed away.
Pause the green crap, though — you know, some green blog hailing the US military’s lead-free bullets or bio-diesel bombers.
It’s a mad-mad-mad world with that sort of thinking.
Finally, those folk that see writing on this comment post as some holy grail of ideas, and all dissenters, or those wanting to poke fun at the faux seriousness of essayists, well, thanks for calling us, what, trolls, snipes, internet stalkers? Thanks for that — more examples to show my budding students in my college journalism and composition classes!
REFLECTION — 10 years we broke international law. The US has no respect for international treaties, then. Here we are now.
The number of displaced persons, both internal (within Iraq) and external (refugees, mainly in Jordan and Syria) ranged from estimates of 3.5 million to 5 million or more, which were directly attributable to the war. Virtually all first-hand accounts blamed violence as the cause of moving, or threats of ethnic or sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods.
The second household survey, conducted by the Hopkins scientists again, was completed in June 2006 and published four months later in The Lancet. Its findings: 650,000 people (civilians and fighters) died as a result of the war in Iraq.
Over 130,000 Iraq vets have been diagnosed with PTSD. Over 250,000 are suffering from traumatic brain injuries. The ongoing costs of caring for veterans is expected to bring the total cost of the Iraq invasion alone to $6 trillion. And vets fight homelessness, sometimes with the aid of Occupy activists who protest to save the homes of vets. Veterans are also experiencing unemployment and medical debt.
David Goldstien is spot on in his sobering HufPo piece, which I recommend to the open minded reader. My own brush with the grim reaper certainly produced a similar shift in perspective.
Denis Frith
“Rapid climate change is only one of the irrevocable deleterious consequences. Running out of many natural resources, including oil, is another.”
Denis I think you missed the point on fossil fuel. Rather than running out we have too much for our own good. Most of the so far unused ff needs to remain sequestered. If we continue our profligate use we are probably headed for climate challenges beyond what we can handle.
Isn’t life about learning and moving forward with new knowledge that we gain each day? We can do so much more if we learn to eliminate waste whether it heat (most HVAC systems are not 100% efficient), or food (what does it take in resources to grow food and how much do we waste), or the fantastic waste of medical resources in our broken health care system. Let’s concentrate on eliminating waste of all resources – money, physical and mental resources so that we have the means to do what needs to be done and still be competitive in a competitive world.
Eliminate waste, fine. But eventually population growth will eat up all that efficiency. Bottom line, if we don’t turn population and economic growth around and find a sustainable way of living we’re in the soup.
MORE TREES, LESS PEOPLE!
TOOLS FOR NEED, NOT GREED!
I keep hearing the word “sustainability” which I like but I have not heard a definition. Can some one help?
Definition of sustainability? How about living off the dividends of your capital base and leaving the base intact. Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs to get more golden eggs faster is the classic metaphor for non-sustainability.
I realize the base can modify up to a limit but there are limits and locating them and staying within in them is a key to sustainability. Population growth is central to the question of sustainability as is climate change, ocean acidification, topsoil loss, various forms of pollution and peak all sorts of things we need.
Get cleaner spokespeople. Goggle Michael Moore and Al Gore. They are fatter than Rush Limbaugh and Hermann Goring at their most swinish. Have the cleaner spokes people talk vasectomies and female steralization. Have spokespeople who in Morman-speak live as well as talk the word or as the old Romans said, Acta Non Verba. By the way, Mr. Limbaugh thought the world didn’t require his genetics. Does it need yours? End all deductions and tax credits based on procreation. “Childhood’s End.” “Anyone? Anyone?”
daviddbutler.lawywer@gmail.com
What power (it appears to extend into the highest echelons of science, all the way to the American Academy of Science and The Royal Society) is so unique and seemingly omnipotent that we are stopped at every turn from discussing extant science regarding the human population? Is there not “cultural bias in science” that ultimately determines the boundaries of our thought, analysis and discourse when human beings are the subject of investigation? Perhaps St. Augustine was correct after all when noting, “Men go forth to wonder about the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vast compass of the oceans, the endless courses of the stars: and yet Men pass by themselves without wondering.”
I like the Augustine quote Steve. Above the entrance to the Delphic Oracle was inscribed Know Thyself, and below that, Nothing Too Much. If only we had followed that wisdom…
What kind of moral atmosphere is possible when people willfully choose to deny uncontested science regarding what could be real with regard to the human species? If people are presented with scientific evidence and say, “Well, I cannot refute what is before my eyes but still, I consciously and deliberately refuse to acknowlege it because it is unbelievable.” In such circumstances is it even possible to speak honestly or honorably of a moral atmosphere? Can there be morality in any meaningful sense without truth, that given to us according the lights and scientific knowledge we possess?
The arc of moral order in the world must follow the ‘trajectory’ of what is true and real about ourselves and the planetary home we inhabit, I suppose.
One way I have seen folks avoid the moral dilemma of too many people is by insisting that our destiny is to populate the universe – for real. So we can just keep pumping them out.
I like that Augustine quote too, although maybe he was part of the problem. Man created in the image of God is arguably part of the reason homo sapiens get a pass.