Environmentalists,
like myself, are often accused of being pessimists because we see what is
happening to the Earth, and, rather than keeping what we see to ourselves, we
tell others; but because what we have to report isn’t a “happily ever after”
story, many people go into shut-down mode and call us doom-sayers. What’s an eco-speaker to do? Lie?
Most
of us in the English-speaking world right now are like Wile E. Coyote when he
runs off a cliff and hesitates in the air, not quite realizing yet what he has
done. Like it or not, humans have
run off the cliff, and I, for one, am wondering what it will take for us to
realize we’re not on solid ground anymore.
Below
is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny selection of news stories from
the last couple of months:
Global Warming Is Already Here
and Could Be Irreversible (1)
Lake Erie is sick. (2)
The
Algae Problem in Lake Erie Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon. (3)
Drought
is real. (4)
There
is a crisis in clean drinking water. (5)
World Faces Water Crises (Global Drought) by 2040 (6)
ISIS, Water Scarcity: Climate Change Destabilizing
Iraq (7)
Drought Is the ‘New Normal’ (8)
Climate and ocean changes are blamed for huge
losses of seabirds. (9)
We’re indifferent to the mass extinction of animals we
are causing. (10)
“Enormous Growth of Ocean Garbage
Patch” (11)
Holy
Sheet! The Antarctic Is
Melting...And It’s Unstoppable (12)
“It’s the
End of the World As We Know It...” (13)
“Global
warming is here, human-caused and probably already dangerous — and it's
increasingly likely that the heating trend could be irreversible....” (14)
So, I
ask again: what is it going to take for us to not only listen, but to do
something? The UN has produced
three wonderful videos of weather reports from Florida, Brazil and Iceland in
2050. Here’s a link: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/sep/11/un-2050-weather-forecasts-stories-climate-change
Why
did the UN do this? To make a joke? To play with our heads? Or to try to get us to listen. To wake
us up. To come together and do something.
Perhaps something REAL, something to slow the catastrophic changes we
are already experiencing and are in denial about how much worse it’s going to
get.
The
People’s Climate March in New York City last Sunday (21 September) drew 400,000
conscientious humans (& Frostpaw, the activist polar bear) marching to have
their voices heard before the UN Climate Summit met on 23 September, also in
New York. The only live media
coverage came from Amy Goodman’s and Juan Gonzales’ Democracy Now. The
march was alluded to only briefly by the big media—CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC,
CBS—which was dominated by news of a new global war with the Islamic
State. Jon Stewart offers fine
coverage of these skewed priorities: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/8q3nmm/burn-noticed
Frostpaw (Environmental Activist),
Getting Arrested at Flood Wall St. Protest
(22 Sept. 2014)
Honestly:
don’t we care about our children at all?
In my
last blog, “Olann’s World in 2050: Food,” I painted a scenario of some probable
food realities in 2050 when my friend Jane’s 2 year old son will be 38. Jane’s reaction opened my eyes to a
sobering reality: she had taken the posting personally, became violently angry
and accused me of ripping the dreams of her son’s future happiness directly out
of her heart. Everything I had written was based on reputable sources, so I got
blindsided by the fury of a willful ignorance.
The same
day Jane called to end our friendship, and quite serendipitously, I tuned into Radio Ecoshock just as the host was
interviewing long time environmentalist, George Marshall, who discussed his
latest book, Don't Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore
Climate Change (NY: Bloomsbury, 2014).
Mr.
Marshall explained that people in climate change denial have a lot of company
when they go into their willful blindness. On a broad social scale—about 2/3rds of the English-speaking
populations around the world—people react to climate change information with
anxiety and distress, anger that there is no clear external enemy to blame
(like the Ebola virus or ISIS or Sarah Palin) and difficulty thinking about it
(in the sense of getting their heads around the scope of the apocalypse we’re
in).
It is
language like that, “apocalypse,” that shuts people down and tempts me soften
my words and lie.
But,
do this for me, will you? Picture a person likely to die of thirst. Here’s a
picture we can work with...pretend it’s a photo grab from Google Earth, so
we’re not sure exactly where the poor suffering fellow is. (Looks like California right now to
me.)
There
is plenty an individual can do:
text NASA to get exact location from a satellite, then get Amazon to
send in a drone with a six pack of Aquafina. Or maybe use Kickstarter to raise
funds to trek out and find the poor guy?
Perhaps get a tweet trending: #dying of thirst. I repeat myself: there is much
individuals can do to solve a problem we can get our heads around.
On the
other hand, the problem with global warming, with climate change is it’s a
problem we can’t get our heads around.
It’s bigger than any of us, and, as Mr. Marshall admits, people don’t
like that.
So,
what’s an environmentalist to do?
Tell a lie? Oops,
sorry. I misspoke: there is no environmental
crisis. My bad. Whatever is going on, it’s God’s
will. He can help us deal with it,
and everything’s going to be just fine.
And if God’s busy elsewhere—like I hear there’s a shake up going on in
the Black Eye Galaxy—well, science...science will think of something.
But before
we generate the funding necessary for science to think of something, first of
all, people need to be informed about what is going on: there is a planet in
the early throes of The Sixth Extinction. Is that negative? Or just a statement
of fact? Secondly, people need to acknowledge what they see: there is life on a
planet suffering from rising sea levels and ocean acidification, while fresh
water availability is decreasing, and what is available is becoming more
polluted, and while all of it is falling into corporate capitalist hands, which
makes fresh water a precious and expensive commodity. Thirdly, people need to
agree to do something about it.
So,
environmentalists like me are bashed by right wing climate deniers like my
former friend Jane as being negative doom-sayers when what there is to say is,
well, unfortunate and does not bode well for the future of life on Earth . . .
and not in the far away future, but literally tomorrow.
It is most
interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that the largest cohort of
climate deniers (according to Mr. Marshall, et al.) is young mothers with children. (Apparently there is a
feeling of security in active denial.)
No wonder then about Jane’s volatile melt down before she asked me what
can be done. “Nothing” is the answer—unless nations of the world agree to make
radical changes literally today, that is, TODAY! RIGHT NOW! However, there is
little to no indication that is happening—though the countries attending last
week’s UN Climate Summit did promise to do something soon. (Promises, promises...) But even then, the best we can do is
slow the inevitable down and learn to adapt to a new reality.
That’s the
gift Jane and other parents like her can give their children: awareness of what is going on in the
world, willingness to learn mundane ways of adapting, working collectively with
others, and behaving with Seventh Generation ethics: making decisions with the
health and wellbeing of future generations in mind—something it would have been
most wise to do a couple of generations ago, before we found ourselves crying
over destroyed eco-systems.
After the
march last week, NPR interviewed Bill McKibben (environmental activist, one of
the organizers of the People’s Climate March, founder of 350.org, and recent
recipient of the Right Livelihood Award—Sweden’s alternative Nobel prize). The interviewer asked what people
should do about the climate crisis.
Bill said, “Don’t be an individual anymore.”
So, what
will it take? Reduce, reuse,
recycle, repurpose are important, but nothing’s going to change where we’re
going till governments all over the globe take action together to stop carbon
emissions, to develop sustainable energy sources, to stop deforestation, to,
and this is most important, promote collective human change. Finally, I ask once more: what will it take? Well, as at least one marcher’s sign
proclaimed, “There is no Planet B," so you figure it out.
3. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/search/?q=The+Algae+Problem+in+Lake+Erie+Isn’t+Going+Away+Anytime+Soon
12. http://www.onearth.org/articles/2014/05/prepare-for-higher-seas-antarcticas-melting-is-unstoppable
Sad; yes, what will it take? how close to the end do we have to get? can we see seven generations ahead and make wiser decisions and not make decisions on profit and greed....
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