Canada Worse than US?

Here is an article on how the tar sands industry is killing Canada, in many ways:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/30/canada-tar-sands-copenhagen-climate-deal

One Simple Copenhagen Action

Sorry for the long absence to any of you who kept checking for updates.

Here is a simple thing to do, sign and send a letter to 198 delegates to the climate talks in Copenhagen, compliments of Climate Ark, asking them to do away with any language that allows old forests to be cut and replanted to plantations in any sort of REDD or carbon scheme.

If you are a Facebook or other social network user, please share this action far and wide.

Thanks,
Brien

Watch This Video

My apologies for the tardiness in posting this, but do have a look at Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-2MKVkY5Dk

Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes

See here.

Fertile Crescent 'will disappear this century'

So on the heels of that last post, I discovered this article. And it seems so appropriate to link to it here given what I just shared. The Cradle of Civilization will be uninhabitable by 2100. The irony of this is that it may also correlate to the collapse of civilization itself. As one of my favorite authors, Derrick Jensen, states, "Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels." If there is not a massive worldwide grassroots effort to gently dismantle all these unsustainable human systems, collapse is inevitable, and if the climate scientists are right, it'll be happening this century.

No more beating around the bush on this blog.

If I ever choose to make time for it, I'll be updating some of my early posts with regards to "solutions." Since most of what I proposed will never be accepted by the politicians, and much of that was already compromising on my part, I may as well propose (and clearly explain) solutions that I truly believe in.

Will that be an effective use of my time? Probably not, but it may help me further clarify my position, which will make it easier to discuss all this when the opportunity presents itself. And will expanding a few minds prevent climate catastrophe? Very likely not. But it is a relatively easy task amidst the millions we need, and we may as well do all we can.

Brien

Being Completely Blunt

I said in my last post that I’d come to the conclusion that I can have more effect doing local work than in trying to spread the word and encourage action via the internet. And that is what I intend to do. It may take a while to immerse myself into (or more likely create) a local action group, but once I have something to share, I intend to keep this blog alive (or start a different one) for that purpose, as well as for the previously mentioned intent of sharing action alerts and letter or petition campaigns.

But I’ve also reflected upon my desire for effectiveness and realize I am once again guilty of enculturation, this time the “need” for immediate results, that old instant gratification that industrial civilization has instilled in most of us. I reminded myself that, despite the urgency of accelerated climate change, what I really want will be a long battle lasting beyond my lifespan, if it ever happens at all. The results of my work may not be evident in my lifetime, and I have to come to peace with that. But it is quite difficult to come to peace with evidence that strongly suggests that more than half the life on this planet will perish within 90 years.

What is it I want? As to the title of this post, this is what I wish to make clear: A big part of why I want to be part of a movement that asks for genuinely sane climate policy is that such a movement would actually be asking for the planned dismantling of industrial civilization. And that is exactly what I want. I can’t be more blunt than that, can I?

In an earlier post, I put forward that we all need to redefine ourselves as we redefine our culture. Here is a snippet of one of my shifts: I now define my family much more broadly than I used to. It is not just my ancestral lineage and my siblings and my wife and in-laws and a few chosen friends, my family now includes oaks, willows, buckeyes, manzanitas, great horned owls, acorn woodpeckers, bushtits, quail, meadow larks, yampah, ookow, hound's tongue, needle grass, fence lizards, rattlesnakes, centipedes, millipedes and the hundreds of other species with whom I share this landbase. In fact, as I now see it, this land would not be this land without all those species, so the creek and hills and meadows and mountains are part of my family too. I'm not claiming to be evolved by saying this, but I feel I have been slowly reclaiming my humanity through this process. This is what I wish for all humans.

A number of books have helped me on this journey and for those interested in knowing what resources furthered my commitment to rejoining the community of life, I list a few favorites below. I also list a few movies that deeply moved me.


Books

The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff

According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings — especially babies — require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as...

• constant physical contact with his/her mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business—until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his or her own impulse, usually at six to eight months;
• sleeping in her/his parents' bed, in constant physical contact, until s/he leaves of her/his own volition (often about two years);
• breastfeeding "on cue"—nursing in response to her/his own body's signals.

While it has been over a decade since I read this book, and I only read it once, it is still a book I recommend frequently. One story from the book completely changed my world view, from one of belief that humans were innately flawed to one where they were not. I had never read about or had a relationship with pre-civilized humans before. Thus began my journey to trying to understand what it means to be human. But I didn’t realize it at the time.


Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram

This one is an astonishing explanation of our past humanity. While one chapter is quite academic and almost lost me, the remainder of the book makes for one of the most fascinating reads I’ve ever had. Abrams shows the connections between gaining an alphabet and losing our sensual connection with our physical environment and its community of life. He makes it very clear that human languages rooted in the land resulted in human cultures incapable of destroying that land, while our symbolic and abstract language and views make it far too easy to kill what we most need.


My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization by Chellis Glendenning

Another book pointing out where we came from, and that most of our personal and societal suffering result as a loss of that connection with the natural world. She’s also a fan of Jean Liedloff and shares the same story from Continuum Concept that changed my world.


A Language Older than Words by Derrick Jensen

A very personal and powerful book about abuse, about connection with nonhumans, about our potential as humans. And so much more. This is a hard book to describe, so I’ll share this quote about it from Frances Moore Lappe:
“If any book can help us break free of this culture of denial, this is it…a book that is simultaneously horrifying and uplifting, terrifying and beautiful. I could not put it down.”


Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen

This has to be one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. It is primarily about hate. Jensen explains, with much historical evidence, that our culture teaches us to hate ourselves, our bodies, and the natural world. Tough to swallow, I know, but read the book. You too may find you agree that most of the hatred embedded in our culture doesn’t feel like hatred at all, it feels more like patriotism, loyalty, economic necessity, responsibility, tradition, habit, or progress. This book will likely cause you to reconsider some of your deeply held beliefs.


Endgame by Derrick Jensen

This is a two volume call to action. The first book explains some of the inherent flaws of civilization, and demonstrates that it is not redeemable. His analysis is thorough and articulate, and he shatters many illusions of would-be lifestyle activists. Throughout the book, he asks the reader to find his or her own answers, and the moral arguments made are very powerful. The second book is about resistance and dismantling industrial civilization. I’ve come to realize the paralyzing effects this book had on me. It brought me new friends and spurred lots of personal growth, but I had a false hope after reading this book that took nearly two years to uncover. Nonetheless, I think it is brilliant and inspiring.


Listening to the Land by Derrick Jensen

This was an early work of Jensen and it is a compilation of interviews he had with dozens of environmentalists and writers. It is a great introduction to the biocentric perspective.


Tending the Wild by Kat Anderson

This was another worldview expanding book. It is about the way the first people of California tended to the land, and gives a painful glimpse into the past. Painful because it isn’t the distant past and because so much has been destroyed so quickly. It gave me one of the answers I was looking for: how to live appropriately here on the land. It would have been a great follow-up to Becoming Native to This Place (see below), but I read that one 5 years earlier.


One Straw Revolution by Matsunobu Fukuoka

I don’t own this book, so I won’t quote it precisely, but one of my favorite themes from this treatise on natural farming is that the goal of a farm should be to grow healthy and beautiful people, which is best accomplished by disconnecting from the dominant culture mindset and work ethic.


Becoming Native to This Place by Wes Jackson

When I came to my new home to become a homesteader in 2003, I had visions of a permaculture-type food and herb forest, an olive-lined driveway, a couple acres of grains and cucurbits, a vineyard and five intensive gardens with rotated use. I came with a vision. This book helped me see how inappropriate that vision was. It started me down the path to seeing what was already here, to understanding that this land is not good agricultural land, but it has the potential to provide abundant food, just not the kind to which I was accustomed.
Jackson applies the notion of place to a rethinking of ecological and agricultural policy in hopes that the concept of place will seep deeply into our thoughts and change the way we inhabit the world. When we think of the whole Earth on a local level as a group of loved places rather than territory or resource pools, then we will be headed in the right direction.


Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

When I finished this book, I felt there was only one really important thing to do: defend pre-civilized indigenous cultures from civilization. Of course, that was years ago, and I didn’t do it. Now I know there is lots of important work to be done, but at the core of me, I still feel this as a deeply held belief. Those few humans embody hundreds of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and connection with the land, they are a magnificent source of sane answers to most of our societal failures. In this book, Quinn indirectly shows that through a conversation between a gorilla and a human. A fun and thought-provoking read.


The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith

I started down the path to a mostly vegetarian diet when I was in my early 20’s when I learned about how veal is created. That lead to more reading about disgusting factory farming, unfair and ecologically devastating ranching policies, and so on. By the time I was 26 I rarely ate red meat any more. Once I understood how most shrimp were caught, I gave them up too. Then, as news of fish decline increased, I nearly phased out seafood.
But I never became a purist and felt that “If the meat consumers would just eat less, making it a treat, not a norm, we’d destroy less rain forest and fragile semi-desert and preserve fisheries.” So that is what I did. I knew that the agriculture that brought me the grains and legumes and most of the fresh fruit and veggies was responsible for species extinctions and the death of millions of warm-blooded and cold-blooded individuals every year. But I still felt that, given our bad choices, a mostly vegetarian diet was most appropriate for this era. I have to admit, given the size of the human population, and the fact that billions of acres of previously destroyed land is now farm land, I still think it is worthy of consideration. But like all other facets of my lifestyle choices, which I make for my own spiritual benefit, not to “save the world,” I have to ask this question: What is the best choice for the land? (Or, in other words, as Keith puts it, which choice benefits the soil? Or yet another way: Of all the options, if none is truly positive for biodiversity, which causes the least environmental damage?) For example, when I buy food, I try to minimize the amount of products that come from far away. I try to buy organic, and local organic is best. But I’m not fooled that most of these choices are actually ones that benefit the world. The Vegetarian Myth helped me synthesize all these thoughts, and made it very clear that I do have a better choice here where I live. I eat grass fed meat regularly now. This book dissects three standard reasons for vegetarianism, and has given me much to ponder. If what Keith has uncovered is true, we should all avoid soy products and minimize our grain consumption, in effect turning the USDA food pyramid on its head. The evidence she cites is convincing. Plus, this book is very anti-civ, so the perspective resonates with me. I’m curious to hear what others think!


Running on Emptiness by John Zerzan

Zerzan assumes a lot of his readers, and if you aren’t already somewhat anti-civ, this may be difficult to digest. This collection of essays succinctly captures the “pathology of civilization.” So what can you do with this information? Use it to free you mind, and in so doing, find a glimpse of a freedom that civilized people have long forgotten.


Burning All Illusions by David Edwards

This was a great wake-up for me, making clear that so many of my deeply held beliefs were all part of the illusions of civilization. Illusions? What is more real, a dollar bill or a tree? One is a concept carried out through faith in a human-made system, the other is an integrated and integral part of a living community sharing billions of connections. You won’t find this kind of discussion in this book, but reading it may make you have these kinds of thoughts! Thanks to Andrew for gifting me this book years ago!


Original Wisdom by Robert Wolff

If you are curious what I mean when I talk about regaining my humanity, this book provides a fantastic view into the world of pre-industrial people, who have no need for jobs or electricity or useless gadgetry like the the alphabet! Highly recommended!



Movies

What a Way to Go
Blind Spot
Koyanisqatsi
Earth and the American Dream

Some Great and Helpful Responses

I think I’ve thanked all of you readers who have responded to my inquiry about what you value most, but if I missed you, I’ll thank you now. Thanks to all of you who spent time thinking about my question.

Every response I received inched me closer to the realization that was already brewing internally: it is time to pursue activism that has the potential to yield noticeable positive effects. It is time to focus on my locale. I will still send the occasional post or action alert to ask for support of great organizations or to urge the stoppage of another egregious bill. But I won’t be spending so much time staying up-to-date on the latest climate news, nor will I spend so much energy trying to figure out a way to frame our dire situation in hopes of inspiring more people to action. I’ve realized that metaphor and analogy are concepts of symbolic thought, a product of literate civilized culture, and that in searching for a great metaphor, I’ve been caught in the trap of separation from the real world, separation from that which truly sustains us: the earth. Along those lines of thought, I intend to do a post listing the most influential books I’ve read, and the most influential experiences I’ve had. That will take more thought and time than I will give right now, but when we have a very hot stretch of weather, I may be able to make that a priority. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from any readers with their list of influential books and descriptions of world-view-shaping experiences.

For this post, I’d just like to share some of the responses I’ve gotten, for I think they will be of value to everyone. I’m grateful to have such thoughtful and articulate friends and family. I’ve edited some comments to make them anonymous. If any of you who sent the responses below wish to have your comment removed, please contact me, and I’ll do it.

To the question, “What do you value most?” (which I also implied could be asked “What is your most deeply held belief?”), I got these responses:

• The most important thing to me is resisting the globalized death culture of civilization/imperialism and joining with indigenous cultures worldwide in re-establishing primacy of bioregional specific cultures in reverent relationship to Mother Earth and all life upon her.


• The things I value most are: water, soil, gardens, trees, wildlife, friends of like mind, habitat.


• For me, the loss that most sears my heart is when people are deprived of the right to carry on harmless lifeways they have been practicing for centuries. It could be farmers who are not allowed to sell raw milk because of rules written by corporate "dairies", or villagers who are no longer able to harvest their common forests because of environmental degradation that wasn't their fault, or because the resources are now critically endangered because of short-term-thinking policies, or because of political or military folly. The right to enact the ancient dances of sustenance is often inseparable from the right of ecosystems to remain vibrant and intact.

I know a lot of people would find it offensive or inappropriate to hear the following words coming out of the mouth of an ardent abortion-rights advocate, but I believe the unborn have certain inalienable rights we must fiercely defend. They have the right to the same amount of clean air and water we enjoyed. They have the right to the same opportunities for self-realization and useful work we had; the right to the same ration of beauty and biodiversity. They have the right not to live lives which are the more miserable for our actions. All generations have an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The darkest and most horrifying human crime would be for one generation to decide to seize all it can, at the expense of all the others who are to come.


• My most deeply held belief is that humans can and must learn how to live on this planet with much less damage to the earth’s systems and other species. And I believe we can. If we learn from nature, who is our best teacher, then we do have a chance at change. I don’t believe humans are a plague or alien species, but I do worry that we may be heading towards our own extinction if we don’t change. Care for the Earth. Care for People. Try to equitably distribute surplus to your community.

After reflection I don’t know if this is my most deeply held belief because that might be of a more spiritual nature, but I do believe this is one of the most pressing things I hold dear.


• What I value above all else and what I genuinely crave, is a healthy vibrant and reciprocal relationship and connection with all creatures including the relationship I have with myself.

I include myself in this equation because as a woman* (and especially as a woman of colour) I really feel that the 'pornification' of mainstream culture has meant that I have spent a great deal of my life objectifying myself while being unaware that I was doing so.

Becoming aware of Feminist issues back in the late seventies and then identifying myself as a Feminist in the 80's was what first radicalized my politics. Unfortunately we feminists (as well as anyone who cared about anything worthy) lost horribly as mainstream culture became more and more pornified.

The very toxic and specific ideas of sexuality that have been sold to this culture (and continue to be) has meant that people commodify themselves and their relationships, and that leads to the commodification of everything.

For me the War against the planet is deeply connected to this commodification and misogyny. If we cannot value ourselves then how on earth will we value or stand up for anyone else?


• For me, I think it is connection that I value most.

That includes mostly and most strongly the obvious connection between myself and my family and friends, but when I think about it, It also includes whatever it is that connects me and makes me part of, well, everything. Maybe other words for the same thing are love or spirit.

Maybe that is too obvious and what you are really asking is what am I most connected to. For that if you were to draw concentric circles, in the middle circle would be my children, and my spouse would be in the next one. The next circle after that has a lot of family and friends and this farm is actually pretty near in. Some principles are probably in the next circle: It is important to treat people with love and respect. It is important to use the earth's resources minimally and carefully...

• As a parent, it seems to me, the answer to what I value most ought to be my child. In my case, that is my answer. That’s really a very expansive answer, not a narrow one. Because if what I care about most is my child, then righting the world’s wrongs and improving on what’s wonderful (or at least not further degrading it) is part of my job. There is so much wrong with the world that it’s easy to focus on that. It’s easy to be negative. Too easy. It’s harder to say, OK, this is what I can bite off and chew in an effort to make a difference. No one can fix the whole world, but everyone can make a difference.

So I would like to leave my daughter a planet that won’t continue to degrade at a horrific rate. I spend every day trying to reduce my own carbon footprint (except when I travel, and even then, I’m still conscious of what I buy and what I burn). I try not to waste water, another precious resource in increasingly short supply. I have taught my daughter to do these things, too.

I would like a better education system, a more enlightened mass of people. In my own small way, the messages I craft for my employer’s website and magazine continue to harp on these themes of trying to live in a more sustainable, harmonious way.

I would definitely like better government, which is why I will likely run for City Council next May. I could at least bring a little more enlightened discussion to the current council and maybe get a few more people to think about the impact of their actions (or inaction).

Finally, I want my daughter to be happy so I have to model happiness. This is something that has become increasingly difficult.

So while I know that much of the world is a very sad place, much of it is happy and wonderful and I will live daily in the hope of making it a bit happier and a bit more wonderful. That’s all any one person can do. And it does make a difference.

Time to Write Obama

(For those of you who get my Action Alerts, you've already seen this.)

I've just received a fantastic sample letter you could edit (or not) and send to President Obama (and your representatives, if you haven't already written them).

Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel of CarbonFees.org have done impeccable research once again.

Please read "Why Waxman-Markey Won't Work" at their website: http://carbonfees.org/home/WhyWaxman-MarkeyWontWorkJune-09.pdf.

and then use their sample letter as a template or write your own, but let Obama know that the current legislation doesn't begin to address this enormous problem, in fact it may hasten our demise.

And if you do this, I would really appreciate a note saying you did it. Thanks!

Brien

Sample letter

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is trying to get a sweeping global warming package (H.R. 2454) out of committee this week. And there are a number of flaws, but the most glaring is the use of cap-and-trade. Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel at CarbonFees.org offer a far superior approach.

I cannot stress enough that cap-and-trade is the equivalent of a sub-prime "fix" to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. It is a deeply flawed market-based scheme. If you'd really like to understand this, please read this paper (PDF) from Laurie and Allan.

On their website, you can also find this sample letter:

Subject: Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon-Fees-with-100%-Rebate

Dear Representative:

To date there has been a lot of publicity about the tragedies that can result if climate change is not addressed promptly by a rapid transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy. However, there has been a lot less debate and very little public education on the alternatives for getting our economy to make this transition. Specifically, there has been little news and little debate on the choice between Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon-Fees-With-100%-Rebate.

While many politicians are advocating Cap-and-Trade, I am asking you to become educated about the alternative of Carbon-Fees-With-100% Rebate. Please visit www.carbonfees.org to learn more about the potential for this alternative market mechanism to create the incentives necessary to rapidly transition to a post-fossil fuel economy. In addition, I also ask that you obtain expert input from economists and scientists as well as educating the public about both the urgency of the problem and the factors to consider in making this important choice.
Thank you for your consideration.

And here is an important excerpt from Laurie and Allan's paper sited above:

Given the huge momentum that cap-and-trade has developed, it is critical for every concerned citizen who believes this decision deserves additional scrutiny to communicate with their elected representatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues. . . In addition, some surveys have indicated that many people are afraid of carbon taxes or fees, even with rebates. Our belief is that the issues of urgency, effectiveness, and relative cost to consumers of cap-and-trade v carbon fees with 100% rebate have not been effectively explained to the public. We encourage you to help your friends, families, neighbors and colleagues understand these issues as the most pressing ones we face, even at this time of economic crisis.

Conclusion
While the recent debate on how to rescue the economy has tended to overshadow the debate on climate change, as many people have noted, the economic crisis has provided an opportunity. It has made it clear that massive investments must be made to stimulate the economy. The question is how to make those decisions wisely. Carbon fees with 100% rebate has the advantages of costing the government very little, returning all proceeds equally to everyone to fund continued spending on energy, and creating huge incentives for climate-saving changes. The fact that little government spending would be needed to scale-up clean energy technology would leave more room for any stimulus package to focus on the other necessary measures, such as funding for green-jobs training and a new comprehensive system of efficient transmission lines.

So, because I sent the above sample letter a month ago, and to show my awareness of the Waxman-Markey bill (H.R. 2454), here is the letter I'm sending to my representative.

Dear Representative:

As the likelihood of catastrophic climate change increases with almost every new climate science study released, prompt rapid transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is critical. One excellent part of the solution that has garnered very little public attention is Carbon-Fees-With-100%-Rebate. This approach has three very significant advantages: costing the government very little; returning all proceeds equally to everyone to fund continued spending on energy; and creating huge incentives for climate-saving changes.

While Congressmen Waxman and Markey (and many others) are advocating Cap-and-Trade, I am asking you once again to become educated about the alternative of Carbon-Fees-With-100% Rebate. Please visit www.carbonfees.org to learn more about the potential for this alternative market mechanism to create the incentives necessary to rapidly transition to a post-fossil fuel economy. Specifically, read their 17-page Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Fees discussion paper. In addition, I again ask that you obtain expert input from economists and scientists as well as educating the public about both the urgency of the problem and the factors to consider in making this critical choice. I hope you will then begin urging your fellow Congresspersons to support Carbon-Fees-With-100% Rebate.

Thank you for your consideration.

More Grim Predictions

This from Climate Ark:

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology forecast that global warming's effects this century could be twice as extreme as estimated just six years ago. They found that Earth's median surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100 compared to a 2003 study that projected a median temperature increase of 4.3 degrees F (2.4 degrees C). The new study, published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, said the difference was due to improved economic modeling and data. The paper calls for "rapid and massive action".

I'm searching for a metaphor to which people can relate. If space aliens were slowly filling our atmosphere with a poison, wouldn't the world "leaders" throw everything we have at them?

Or how about this one: If the US was involved in World War III, and the nation needed everyone to conserve all resources, stop unnecessary traveling, and focus on growing as much of their own food as possible, wouldn't you want to do that? To prevent the destruction of our country?

Still not quite right, and the reason is clear: those scenarios present threats from others. I think it is safe to say that most people don't see capitalism, the endless growth economy, and big corporations as "others." I think most folks generally feel all this is necessary to their way of life. That is why I've said before we need to redefine ourselves and our culture.

Maybe I'll return to the psychopathic murderer metaphor, but this time, the murderer is your best friend, someone you trust completely. So Western industrial civilization is your best friend, and he's got a gun, which is CO2 emissions, and he's running around shooting anyone he sees. Do you try to talk him out of it (and get shot in the process) or do you do whatever it takes to knock the gun out of his hands?

Hmmm, that still does not quite capture the situation. It portrays the urgency well enough, but it is maybe too immediate. And it requires a rather natural response. Plus, the threat is only to people, not everything else we need to survive. And, he's only one person. Not a great metaphor, really.

We have all become so enculturated that we don't know how to respond. We don't have a culture that demands genuine democracy with threats of revolution. But that is what we need. Of course we need a few thousand people writing letters and making movies and posting to blogs and raising awareness, but at some point VERY soon, we need to take it up a few zillion notches and start general work stoppages, start taking land away from corporate polluters by use of sheer numbers (let them send ten thousand policemen, we will have 500,000 squatters willing to risk all to save our home).

Too radical for you? Then maybe you could join in on the awareness-raising. Maybe only 3 million Americans could demand sane policies that would lead us toward the kind of paradigm shift we so desperately need. Maybe we need 10 million, who knows, but I'm back to my original phrase: we don't know until we try.

I hope to hear from more of you that you want to make action for climate justice a regular part of your life. It really is more urgent than we've been lead to believe. And there is still a sliver of a chance that it isn't too late.

But inaction will guarantee the death of most life on this planet.

Oh, and if you think of an appropriate metaphor, let me know please!

Boycott Palm Oil

I've known for some time that palm oil plantations were a significant cause of tropical deforestation, so I've been personally avoiding purchasing any product that mentions palm oil on the label (yes, even Newman's Organic chocolate goodies). But after reading an article about the murder of orangutans as a part of the clearing of forests to make room for these plantations, and then seeing these two articles today, I decided to make a public plea: please do not buy any product containing palm oil.

As the second article makes clear, palm oil is present in vast numbers of products and often labeled only as "vegetable oil," in the U.K. at least. I find it hard to believe that the US has stronger labeling laws of any sort than the EU, but the labels I read here usually list the possible suspects in parentheses, e.g. "vegetable oil (soy and/or cottonseed and/or palm)." But now I think it might be wise to just avoid all products that don't say what kind of vegetable oil.

I don't normally ask people to make lifestyle changes, but I can see no morally valid reason for not caring about the fate of our forests, the most diverse communities on the planet, and critical entities in preventing runaway global warming. For today, that is all I can say.

Suggested Actions

• First of all, here is a very fast and simple one. Go to this link about why subsidizing agrofuels is insane, read the letter and send it to President Obama. It is a great letter. [5/1/09: Sorry, that link has now expired, but signing up for action alerts from Climate Ark will ensure you get to see all the upcoming opportunities to voice your opinion.]


• At Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), they have just gotten a network of Outreach Volunteers up and running. You can go to their website and sign up (the webpage includes a list of tools to help volunteers).

The basic idea for an Outreach Volunteer is to help CASSE spread the word about uneconomic growth and the steady state economy. The easiest way to do this is to collect signatures on their position on economic growth, which can be signed online here:
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEPositionOnEG.html

CASSE will be having a conference call on May 6th at noon Eastern, 9 AM Pacific. If you sign up as a volunteer, you'll get more information about that as the date approaches.


• GlobalWarmingSolution.org is the only group I’ve found with a comprehensive, detailed action plan that could work here in the USA and be a model for other countries as well. The plan, wisely named Rosie Revisited, is not as radical as my list of solutions, but is still something I endorse because it is smart and will get the job done. They have a DVD about Rosie Revisited, which is to be released nationally very soon. Once I have seen the video, if I feel it is worthy of spreading around (and I suspect I will), I intend to organize as many showings of it as I can, making each one a fundraiser for GlobalWarmingSolution.org. If you’d like to read Rosie Revisited, it is available in PDF from their website. It is about 50 pages in length.


• With the recent EPA ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are a health threat (finally!), it seems that the Climate Law Institute of the Center for Biological Diversity is well-positioned to make some real strides in using existing laws to curb emissions, They’ve already been successful in forcing ships to comply to emissions rules. The Center for Biological Diversity is one of my favorite groups, as they have a good track record of protecting threatened animals and natural communities, and their alerts make regular letter-writing actions easy.


• Aside from the four mentioned above, I’ve chosen a few other organizations with which to collaborate. I’ve asked to be a local contact for Rising Tide North America (and will talk to the nearest contact soon), which has a link on their page that makes it easy to sign on to the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, which is another easy action to take. I have recently learned of Carbon Fees.org, whose site makes it easy to send a letter to your representative encouraging a carbon fee instead of cap and trade.

And I have only heard back from one of the forest protection groups I’ve contacted (FERN), so I will share that and the other forest info (when I get it) in another post.


Any of the actions I’ve mentioned above that I have done or plan to do can be done by anyone, so don’t hesitate, jump on board and help out. And please share what you’ve done if you are inclined. Thanks!

Better Educated, Revisions Underway

Now that I'm refocusing on this blog and other global warming work, I can report on some of my recent findings. If you've been a loyal reader and read the post about my proposed solutions and their accompanying individual posts, you may want to re-read some of those if this quick summary isn't clear. I am no longer endorsing the REDD program as it is currently used, but could if it were changed to ensure the decisions are made by the forest inhabitants. Here is another, more brief, article explaining some dangers of REDD.

As for biochar, the same caution applies. Done correctly, using only waste products from the local region, it has potential to play a small role. So we ought to employ it. Every little bit helps. But the big boys want to grow mega-plantations of fast-growing, maybe even genetically modified, trees. We need more trees, yes, but we need diverse forests that reach maturity, not ones intended to be clear-cut.

And when it comes to 4th generation nuclear, ugh. If people aren't willing to change, or rather, if there never is enough daring leadership to encourage them to change, so that the only choice is between wind turbines off every coast and along all windy ridges with road access or an occasional 4th gen nuke plant (like five in the whole country), well, I'd have to further educate myself, but for now I think the risk of a few nuke plants (again, ONLY if they were 4th gen) would get my vote. "Even in you own backyard?" I can hear you (and my own mind) asking. What horrible choices! That is why I'm for conservation and low-tech and shrinking economy and negative population growth first.

Which brings up a point. All this research and thinking has made it very clear to me what I believe we ought to be asking for. And just the other day, Dr. Glen Barry, of the Ecological Internet summed it up very well when responding to the announcement that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases "may endanger public health or welfare," a finding that opens the door to future regulation of such emissions under the Clean Air Act:

"We are thrilled to see President Obama dismiss President Bush's years of criminal climate science obstruction, and to rejoin the world of civilized nations making public policy based upon ecological science, and needs of Earth and her humanity. We encourage the President to follow through with rigorous efforts to immediately begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including phasing out the use of coal and tar sands, ending old forest logging, committing further to energy efficiency and renewables, and resisting the siren song of industrial agrofuels."

I'm convinced that we need daily large numbers of people telling their elected officials that unless they endorse the rapid phasing-out of coal mining and tar sand extraction and logging of mature forests, we will work very hard to organize for a candidate who will.

I highly recommend reading "Hoodwinked in the Hothouse," PDF here, which summarizes many of the false "solutions" and why they are so dangerous. We must tell Obama over and over and over that cap and trade is unacceptable, that we'd rather reduce per captia consumption to European levels (about 50% of ours), that subsidizing agrofuels is a horrible use of taxpayer money, and that we want a return to vibrant local economies.

I have contacted 7 or 8 of my top groups and asked about volunteer opportunities. When I have responses, I will post them.

I am also working on drafts of a couple different letters, which I will also share when I have them complete.

So I hope to be posting again in a week or less.

Another example of changes happening MUCH faster than predicted

I found this on Climate Ark tonight.

More depressing news, I know. But on the upside, the EPA says it has the power to stop mountain-top removal coal mining! Now let's see if they really do. A letter to their head encouraging such action isn't a bad idea. If I find one, or get one together soon, I'll share it.

I haven't posted anything yet about my actions/my work on climate change. I have to admit I have been swallowed up by a paid job and by the beauty of Spring and all the gardening it beckons. Most of my climate change time of late has been just reading to stay somewhat up to date with events. And I'm still researching groups, but barely squeezing in time for reading up on them. I do intend to make this a priority after April 20, so expect to see a post about volunteer possibilities near the end of the month.

Thanks for checking in...

Greenpeace on board with ending deforestation

The title says it all. See the last paragraph of this article.

If Greenpeace is publicly pushing for a ban on chopping down mature forests, I'm publicly on board with supporting Greenpeace.

Acceptance AND Action

Last night I read this article, which resulted in a very restless night for me. If you'd rather get my summary than read that link, here it is: We no longer have a six-year window to turn CO2 emissions around. As I've mentioned before, the science of climate change is generally accurate, but the part about when events will occur seem to be unable to keep up with the pace of change: it is all happening faster than predicted. The near-consensus of the the 2000+ scientist who met in Copenhagen earlier this month is that we have passed the point of being able to prevent a 2-degree C rise. If you're up to date on what this means, you see why I had trouble sleeping.

So the tiny sliver of hope I had allowed myself that we might be able to save 2/3 of the Earth's species if just enough people would pressure their governments to set truly sane climate policy in the next year or two has now been bashed. Even if, miracle of miracles, it did happen, the probability that most of the life on this planet will perish within a couple hundred years (or less) is painfully high. I do recommend reading this article from George Monbiot, as he states clearly, that despite this knowledge, our work remains the same.

Instead of trying to avoid the "2-degree world" now we have to try to avoid the "2.5-degree world." Instead of hanging on to the false hope that we might be able to save most species of life, it is time to accept that our fight is now for only the most adaptive of life forms. Fighting for sane climate policy is really fighting for the chance that a small percentage of existing species will be able to survive to the point at which the climate again stabilizes (in a thousand or more years, so the scientists say).

And so, I again begin the path of accepting that this culture is killing the planet and that there is almost nothing I can do about it. This acceptance has nothing to do with the idea of giving up, however. If anything, the more dire the predictions, the more urgent the work becomes. And honestly, the more real it must become as well. Real, as in grounded in the natural world. We have to accept that our species has outstripped the carrying capacity of this planet, that we have been in overshoot for decades now, and that ecological collapse is happening. Accelerated global warming could easily be interpreted as the final message the Earth is sending us to wake up, to reconnect with her before all is lost. So, I may revisit some of my "solutions" and weed out those that really don't belong, like biochar for example.

I do still believe we have a choice in the kind of world we want to pass on. Getting there will require the dedication of tens of millions of people. And I will be honest enough to say that it seems that our parameters for what that world looks like just got narrower. It will be a hotter world, with more desert areas, fewer intact biotic communities and more intense storms. But we can still have clean rivers, vibrant local communities, and a high quality of life (less stuff, more time) if we just look at our situation openly and honestly, and then behave as if all life really matters. But how do we get the governments, and the corporate heads that so control them, to transform overnight?

We have to become a huge and unwavering movement demanding negative economic growth, negative population growth, and a plan for phasing-out most industrial-scale activity. That sounds terribly radical to most folks, I know, but I just can't beat around the bush any longer. I cannot see a more humane approach to this ultimate challenge.

I highly recommend checking in regularly with Climate Ark, as this is a great source of abundant current news on climate change. Maybe even donate to them if you feel the urge.

As overwhelming as the news is, I believe we have to keep fighting for what we can. At some point, we may be fighting for a 3-degree world, which saddens me tremendously, but isn't life worth it?

Squeezing in One More Thing

I’ve taken a little break from this work to do my one paid gig, and the down time has given me a little more clarity about what I’m called to say about this overwhelming subject. I’d like to articulate as clearly as possible that, to paraphrase a favorite author of mine, “we need it all.” Every single act—be it voluntary or part of your job—that serves a genuine purpose in transforming our culture into one that respects all life is needed. I do not wish to belittle any contribution to this enormous task. But I also want to be as honest as I can about the situation we currently face, and I want to ask if all these small steps will be effective in keeping climate change from getting out of hand. Given the limited window we have to reverse CO2 emissions, I keep returning to the same answer: the most effective actions have to be given highest priority right now. If you have thought about this deeply and come to your personal conclusion that the most effective thing you can do is help your community prepare for decarbonizing, then that is what you should be doing to live a life of integrity. I’m drawn to that work, but right now feel convinced we have to take a shot at the international climate treaty being formulated this December. After coming to the conclusion that slowing the destruction of western civilization is critical to the survival of nearly all life on this planet, I have spent much of my mental energy in the last two years trying to figure out what the most effective ways to do this might be. I think we are witnessing and experiencing the answer right now – negative economic growth. As painful as it is for millions of human individuals and families, this recession is the best news the planet has heard in a long time. As I’ve stated before, a system dependent on continuous economic growth on a planet with finite “resources” is a system doomed to implode. Is this recession the beginning of the economic implosion? [The biological one started a while ago.] I think you could find many folks who believe that, but I can’t help but believe that even the most informed are still just guessing on this one. I do believe it is possible, though. If that is the case, then perhaps the most effective work is in transforming minds in your locale to rally around ideas like relocalization and conservation. With this mindset, it is pretty tempting to think, “Politicians and corporations won’t change, so trying to get a sane climate treaty is a waste of effort. The international economic system is crumbling so we don’t have to work at changing it.” But I still find the risk of inaction at the national and international level too great. We’ve only got six years to have in force a global plan to be forever reducing CO2 emissions. Even if emissions slow for a couple of years due to global economic downturn, we still have to have laws that move us away from fossil fuels. And what if a new corporate scheme evolves that allows for a return of economic growth? Without a sane plan in place to eliminate CO2 emissions, we will be back to facing the dire climate catastrophes scientists are predicting.

I guess what I’m saying is we each need to prioritize our actions, and that the most effective actions toward changing climate policy are the ones we need to squeeze into our lives, somehow. Regularly supporting institutions working for sane policies seems to be the most doable action for most of us. So, if you already volunteer weekly to help some of the under-served people or creatures, don’t stop that important work, but squeeze in one more thing. If you just cannot do this, you will have to make the difficult decision of where to put your energy, and this is where individual morality defines us. If you are fortunate to have a paid job that daily benefits a cultural transformation away from the commodification of everything, does that alone satisfy your personal needs for being responsible to the community of life? If so, lucky you! If not, only you can know that, and only you can make the changes to align yourself with your morality. If you see opportunities at your work place to integrate climate change strategies, then that might be a really effective use of your paid time. There are endless ways to organize. I’m not intending to tell anyone how to live his or her life, I’m simply sharing some of the process I’ve gone through in arriving at this current strategy. And I hope that it is beneficial to some readers. And if anyone has ideas for more effective actions, please tell!

To summarize the key points driving this post:
• Incorporating regular effective actions on climate change into your life is the highest priority.
• All current work toward healthy societal transformation is worthy and should be continued, but asking if there is a way to make that work more effective toward climate change, or if there is a way to address climate change through that work is definitely worth exploring.

My next post will share what I have learned about the volunteer possibilities available from some of the organizations doing good work. Stay tuned.

Share Your Letter

This post is the place to share with readers of this blog the letter or letters you have written to your community, to newspapers, to politicians or to civic groups. Don’t worry about length. If we are fortunate to have lots of letters posted here, I’ll break them up into several posts. To share your letter, click on the comments link.

Relocalization Not Militarization

Half of the US budget goes to the military, and this is more than all other nation’s military budgets combined. This cannot continue if we want to have adequate funding to defeat a far greater threat to our security than any band of terrorists ever could be: catastrophic climate change. We need to rapidly redirect military spending to fund a WPA-style program based on low-carbon, human-powered jobs that benefit local communities, both human and nonhuman. Soldiers and the unemployed could be trained in permaculture, silviculture, habitat restoration, human-scale construction, solar heating technologies, bicycle maintenance, greywater irrigation, greenhouse construction and plant propagation, to name just a few of the many options.

The Heart of Genuine Solutions

Part of why accelerated global warming is such an enormous and monstrous threat is because it will result in a radical transformation or termination of civilized societies.

By not addressing it appropriately, we will ensure a vastly different planet that will painfully and horrifically reduce the diversity of life and the number of humans. I find it hard to imagine that the survivors of such a tragedy would not adopt a new world view, one that realizes the partnership humans have with all other life. Whether they did or not wouldn't change the fact that Western industrial civilization would be in ruins.

By addressing AGW honestly and therefore with the energy of a deer running for its life from a cougar (full speed until it is certain we are safe), a new world view will also evolve. Since AGW (and all other affronts to the community of life) is rooted in continuous economic growth, and civilization depends on this growth, what we are really talking about is a profound spiritual transformation on the individual and cultural levels. We are talking about redefining ourselves and redefining civilization itself. None of the approaches to mitigating AGW will be effective if they aren't accompanied by such a spiritual shift. I've hinted at this in my first two posts, but the more I delve into this, the clearer that becomes, so I just wanted to state it outright.

Personally, I feel that I have been on this path for about 15 years, though the foundation was certainly influenced by my mother and others when I was much younger. I admit to a bias toward idolizing oral, pre-industrial cultures, and want to share that up front. Of course not all were sustainable, but when I consider that most of them existed for tens of thousands of years, without destroying the land they knew as home, and then compare that to civilization, which has survived about 8000 years but has left a trail of devastation in its wake, I find it impossible not to posit that those cultures are worthy of emulation. Generally, oral, non-industrial cultures had a lot of characteristics in common. Their entire world view was dependent on their landbase (the biological region and all its life). Their language was embedded in the land, came from the land. Their spirituality was intertwined with the trees, soil, rocks, and all manner of creation. Remove a person from a culture like this and he or she becomes lost, has no words for the new surroundings, and suffers great stress. I think this is who we are still, amazing and brilliant creatures who need deep connection to a landbase, who need cultural continuity and cradle to grave support of other humans. We need to feel at home no matter where we go because we don't go beyond our culture's biotic boundaries. To do so would make us lost. We civilized people are all lost, all homeless. And global warming is the greatest warning the Earth has ever given us that we need to come home.

Share Your Actions Here!

This is the post that I hope becomes a long thread full of other peoples' words and only sprinkled with mine. If you've done something to combat climate change this week, please tell us about it by using the comments button below.

A Scary CO2 Increase

Ice cores reveal the Earth’s natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. The fastest increase seen in the ice cores was of the order of 30 ppm by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years.

We've seen a 30 ppm increase in just the last 17 years. Doing the math, that is almost 59 times faster than any period in the last 800,000 years. We really are in uncharted territory.

Psycopath in the Room
If your experiences and self-education have lead you to understand that the only real hope for a healthy and vibrant planet is to reduce per capita consumption, transition to a non-carbon and low-tech society, reduce the human population, and phase-out international commerce, then you are not alone!

In working to define and propose a policy platform for a grassroots global warming campaign, I have come to conclude that—given our limited time to begin reducing CO2 emissions drastically, as much as I want to push for the kinds of changes mentioned above—our culture is far from ready to accept powerdown solutions, so they will have to be set aside, nationally and internationally, for the time being.

This means local organizing for these wise long-term solutions must continue and accelerate, but right now, to use an analogy I find quite fitting, there is a psychopath in the room with a gun, and we have to knock the gun out of his hands. The psychopath is industrial civilization and the gun, at this moment, is CO2 emissions. For if we don’t get those going in reverse within the next 6 years, all the other great ideas and work will be moot within a hundred years. Okay, I should qualify that statement. If you don’t mind living on a planet that is 1/3 desert, 8-12 degrees F hotter than now, with only about 5% of the current diversity of life still hanging on, then I suppose you could organize all you like for bioregional societies, and be quite successful, as there will be no other choice. And that is the point. Right now, there is a small window of opportunity that will never again return, to preserve most of the current life on this planet for at least a few centuries more. Future people will have to sort it out beyond that, but if we don’t act to reduce CO2 now, all other future scenarios become bitterly bleak.

Should we Aim Lower?

I just found this and wanted to share:

I do not consider it useful to talk about actions that if implemented fully, will still result in the climate problem being only half-solved and therefore be ultimately useless. So to advocate restricting CO2-e to at least 450 ppm (with the hopes of better outcomes), or reducing emissions by 25% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, will at best only delay the inevitable crunch. We need CO2-e to be 300-325 ppm, and >100% emissions reductions (with active geo-bio-sequestration) as soon as possible. Nothing less is going to pull [us] out of the sticky mire into which we are now rapidly sinking.

Professor Barry Brook, chair of climate change, School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Adelaide

If Mr. Brook is right—and given that nearly every year the science finds further threats, I think he is—should we change our stabilization goal from 350 to 300 ppm? And if so, it appears we need to fund olivine sequestration development immediately. But if we could get a ban on deforestation next year (Hah! wouldn't that be great!), as well as global agreement for some of our platform, would that allow for pushing the wide-scale use of this technology further into the future?

I don't know, but I am a fan of the precautionary principle, so my hunch is, "no." Even though it requires mining (though far, far less than is currently done for coal), and it has the potential to be seen as a "fix," therefore fostering the business-as-usual mindset, at some point I have to ask, "How can I not support a locally destructive technology that ultimately results in a benefit for most life on the planet?" We have to lower the CO2 concentration, and the sooner the better. I may have to rearrange the wedges a bit, and move olivine sequestration into the "immediate" camp. But with restraints. Perhaps this technology has to have a cap on it as well, one that corresponds directly to reductions in CO2 emissions. For example, the global treaty would have to ban the funding and use of this technology in any country that wasn't actively enforcing policies that would reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel to meet the country's goal within the global goal. Of course that is way too much climate sense for our current culture to embrace, as it would buck the "unlimited growth" mentality.

The real point of this post is to show that the trend for the developing science on this issue is to prove old predictions were too conservative. Everything is happening faster than expected. See this, for example.

Vehicle Efficiency Wedge

Another no-brainer. Cars should have been made smaller, lighter and WAY more efficient 40 years ago. Lots of support for this wedge abounds, but for the kinds of MPGs I'm proposing, I'm not aware of any group suggesting those numbers. Let me know if you find one, thanks!

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set targets by 2011 for vehicle efficiency of 60 mpg by 2030.


In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned vehicle efficiency laws, with the goal of 60 mpg for all new model passenger vehicles by 2030.


Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• If you have to buy a vehicle, try to find a used hybrid or scooter or motorcycle, or other fuel-efficient option.

Efficiency Wedge

Efficiency - Buildings, Industry & Grid

This is one solution that the Obama Administration is pursuing, but as expected, not vigorously enough. There are also a number of organizations pushing for greatly increased efficiency, like 1Sky, the Post Carbon Institute, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, and others. Some of my solutions below, again, are more idealistic than realistic, but as the economy crumbles, these ideas will become less unlikely. And I just haven't made time for finding the details on improving industrial efficiency or the grid, as these are easy to get behind without knowing much at all. Reducing energy use is a no-brainer. And I'm not using my brain much to go beyond that. Anyone interested in sending some great links or simple info to fill in the blanks below, please do!

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set targets for building efficiency, industrial efficiency and electrical grid efficiency by 2011.


In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned efficiency plan, details of ideas below:

Buildings—
Put a moratorium on new construction until the details of a new building code are worked out and the code is law. Ensure that the new building code:
A. emphasizes local, low-embodied energy materials and salvaged materials,
B. sets a national annual tax of $100 per sq. ft. for any new residence exceeding 1500 sq ft.,
C. ensures that all new homes in the US are built to the German passivhaus standard (which requires no heating system),
D. requires all new buildings not needing shading from trees have either solar PV panels and solar hot water systems on their roofs or have no electricity or water heating devices. (Does away with code requirements for electricity and running water and puts into law that trees are more valuable than electricity generation.) Timescale: comes into force by 2015.

Introduce a building section of the Green New Deal, with two primary actions:
A. Re-train builders. As a major component of a Green New Deal, delivering jobs as well as carbon cuts, the government will immediately launch training schemes for tens of thousands of specialist builders, insulators, window-fitters, plasterers and decorators. Timescale: comes into force by July 2009.
B. A home improvement scheme like Germany’s, but twice as fast. Every year between January 2012 and 2020, 10% of homes will be fully insulated and fitted with good windows or secondary glazing, at state expense. Landlords will have a legal obligation to join or lose their right to take tenants. Announce that when the scheme is complete, gas and electricity bills will be subject to an escalating tax: the more you use, the more you will have to pay for every unit.
Timescale: pass legislation this year or next, begin implementation January 2012.

[Thanks again to George Monbiot for many of these ideas.]

Industry— [more research needed]


Grid — [more research needed]



Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Add insulation, efficient windows and weatherstripping if you can afford it.

Biochar Wedge

Biochar, done to minimize any release of GHG gasses, requires an oven, so it is a techno-fix. And it requires tilling the soil, but only once. As I understand it, there is much need for more R&D, but the potential for this seems worthy. However, growing crops just to burn them is a market-driven scheme and will have a net deficit to our world. Biochar, if done small-scale for local use, and using only agricultural waste, could play a small role in sequestering carbon, but I doubt it would ever amount to even one wedge. If you get behind this, here is a starting point for donating.

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to research and develop small-scale biochar for local use instead of carbon capture and storage technology.


In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned biochar research and development plan. In the US Farm Bills of 2007 & 2008, Biochar research received funding. That is a start.


Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Talk to people about this, get them on board and vocal!

Population Wedge

Population Reduction

Now here's a hot topic. And many non-profits stay away from this, even ones pushing for fairly sane climate policies. I was told by one that pushing for human population reduction will unfairly put the burden on women and people of color. I'd say that totally depends on how it is implemented. There has to be a program that educates and empowers women, so that they have control over their lives. See Population Connection. When women are given choices, they generally choose to have fewer children.

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set targets for stabilizing, then reducing human population, and expects them to initiate a plan for this by 2012.


In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned population priority plan, clearly showing the relationships between population, women’s rights, carrying capacity, overshoot and climate change. Set a goal for stabilization by 2015 and an annual 3% reduction in place by 2020. Insist on tax breaks for having no children, and extra taxes for any family choosing to have more than two after 2013. Heavy funding for women’s rights and sex education will be needed.


Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• If you want children of your own, consider adopting. If you cannot afford that option, consider foster-parenting, which can lead to adoption.
• Work/donate to alleviate poverty and educate women, particularly in non-industrial nations.

Conservation Wedge

This is a huge topic. At its core, this is tackling the revered "American Way" of over-consumption and mountains of waste. While there are climatically more important aspects of conservation, like using less electricity and driving less, basically every single purchase supports the use of fossil fuels. So this list is pretty long and, again idealistic. But the idealism is grounded in the obvious: we need a healthy planet for us to be healthy, and our entire culture is based on the consumption of finite "resources."

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set up a system of carbon rationing or a Cap and Dividend program. Each nation is responsible for their historical share of carbon emissions, those that have polluted most have to cut the most. For example, the USA, with about a quarter of the historic share of global carbon emissions, would need to cap its emissions much lower than they are today, while, say Haiti, could probably increase emissions for a few decades.

In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned carbon rationing or Cap and Dividend schemes. Timescale: a full scheme in place by July 2010.

• A Green New Deal plan that heavily favors low-tech, human-scale, and local projects, particularly urban and suburban community gardens and greenhouses, local mass transit, bicycle lanes and bicycle repair shops.

• A ban on the sale of incandescent light bulbs, patio heaters, garden floodlights and many other wasteful and unnecessary technologies. Allow no fridge or freezer with an energy rating below grade A++ and no other appliance rated below grade A be sold or manufactured. Introduce a stiff “feebate” system for all electronic goods sold in this country. The least efficient are taxed heavily while the most efficient receive tax discounts. Every year the standards in each category rise. Timescale: fully implemented by end of 2010.

• Ban the new construction of electricity generation plants that use fossil fuel, current nuclear technology or dams.

• Create a carbon tax that is revenue neutral, meaning, for example, that as the carbon tax increases, income or sales taxes decline, or maybe it replaces the income tax for all households under $90,000 AGI. See the Carbon Tax Center, and support them.

• Abandon the road-building and road-widening programs, and spend the money on public transport and a national high-speed rail system between existing Interstate highway system lanes when possible. Timescale: immediately.

• Remove all subsidies for polluters, especially GHG emitters, and instead shift this money to re-train the loggers and factory workers losing jobs (in forest conservation and riparian rehabilitation, for example). Pay people to clean up and restore the natural environment. What a great use of tax money!

• Freeze and then reduce US airport capacity. While capacity remains high there will be constant upward pressure on any plan the government introduces to limit flights. We need a freeze on all new airport construction and the introduction of a national quota for landing slots, to be reduced by 90% by 2030. Timescale: immediately.

• Legislate for the closure of all out-of-town superstores, and their replacement with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use a staggering amount of energy (six times as much electricity per square meter as factories, for example), and major reductions are hard to achieve. Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5% of the energy. Out-of-town shops are also hard-wired to the car—delivery vehicles use 70% less fuel. Timescale: fully implemented by 2020.

• Create a national vehicle excise tax for the most polluting cars, with a range of $500 to $5000 a year. Use the money this raises to:

• a. Start closing key urban streets to private cars and dedicating them to public transport and cycling.
• b. Increase the public subsidy for bus and train journeys. Oblige the bus companies to sign contracts providing a wider range of services. Give us integrated low-carbon transport, in which buses are scheduled to meet trains, trains and buses carry bicycles and safe cycle lanes connect with each other across entire cities.
• c. Train thousands of new bus drivers and public transport operators. Create bus lanes on all the highways and start moving bus stations from the city centers to the highway junctions, to enable bus travel to become as fast and efficient as car travel. Link them to city centers and the aforementioned rail system with dedicated bus lanes.

Timescale: Pass laws this year, begin work in 2010; completed by 2020.

• Create tax breaks for not owning a car. Timescale: pass law this year, effective 2011.
[Many of these ideas are adapted from George Monbiot.]


Easy Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Start the new culture of responsible living by doing everything you can to minimize your destructive impact on the planet, but don’t let this personal transformation get in the way or detract from the more immediately important work of pressuring all levels of government to address global warming as if it was World War III. I have gotten into the habit of asking myself if each purchase or trip is really necessary, and I’ve gotten good at discerning which justifications ring true and which don’t. It isn’t that hard. If you really care about birds, never buy a cell phone again. If you really don’t want to support war and the systemic rape of women and children, never buy another cell phone, DVD player, computer, digital camera, video game, or new vehicle. Ditto for diamonds, and any chocolate or coffee or tea that isn’t fair trade certified.

In other words, educate yourself about the atrocities hidden in every product you buy and your desire to buy will greatly diminish.

• Shop at thrift store/second-hand stores.

• Eat locally as much as possible: support farmers’ markets, grow a garden or join/start a community garden, join a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm

• Use public transit and bike as much as possible

• Don’t take any trips by personal auto, plane or motor vessel that aren’t necessary (you’ll have to have ask your own morality about what “necessary” means)

• Set your thermostat down to 60 or lower in the winter (wear sweaters) and up to 80 or higher in the summer

• There are so many ways to conserve, maybe I should send you to websites all about this: Riot4Austerity, US EPA, The Nature Conservancy, WA State DOE, Sharon Astyk.

Soils Wedge

No-Till Farming

Tilling the soil accounts for 6% of anthropogenic GHG emissions. Reducing the amount of turned soil will be a good thing, for this and many other reasons. So far my search hasn't been thorough (let me know if you find a better link!), but these two groups are working toward this approach: The Climate and Energy Project, a project of The Land Institute, and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, which belongs to Duke University.

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set up a system of removing subsidies for all conventional tillage and passing those on to no-tilling farming practices, nationwide.


In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned scheme for transferring subsidies to only no-till practices

• A Green New Deal plan that heavily favors low-tech, human-scale, and local projects, particularly urban and suburban community gardens and greenhouses.


Easy Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Eat locally as much as possible: support farmers’ markets, grow a garden or join/start a community garden, join a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm

The Forest Wedges

Deforestation and Reforestation Platform

Deforestation accounts for about 20% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions. A plan to quickly phase-out the destruction of mature forests is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to make a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, with the added benefit that for every mature tree saved, that is about 20 seedlings that won't have to be planted. While I have read that reforestation and curbing deforestation are often discussed at international climate meetings, I have yet to find any organizations specifically calling for the creation of Global Forest Preserves. The closest I've seen is the REDD program from the UCS (see link below). I also have been unsuccessful in finding anyone lobbying for tree planting as part of a "green" economic stimulus, but what could be greener than planting millions and millions of trees?

While many of the solutions below are more idealistic than realistic, if you find any groups rallying around any of these strategies, please let me know. What is politically impossible now may not be in the coming years. The Boreal Songbird Initiative, while not specifically oriented toward climate change, does have protection of the Boreal as the primary goal. Other groups working to save mature forests are FERN and the World Rainforest Movement. SinksWatch does the important work of publicizing abuse of tree planting carbon sink schemes, as many have been monocrop plantations that are social and environmental disasters. And the Turkish group TEMA has a "Plant 10 Billion Acorns" project!


International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Sets up an international fund that creates a system of Global Forest Preserves that are stewarded by the indigenous tribes of the region, and belong to all of humanity, that will pay the nations with tropical forests to not clear any more forest, and pays them more to reforest land that has been clear-cut. The Union of Concerned Scientists has done a study of the costs of reducing deforestation, and when compared to the recent financial bail-outs, it is a pittance; effective immediately (January, 2010).

• Bans clear-cutting of forests worldwide. China actually did this a few years ago, and primarily for economic benefits, they have a ban on deforestation still.

• Agrees to implementing programs within the next two years that encourage or reward planting of native (or appropriate non-native) trees on a massive scale. [Green New Deal, unemployed get trained as land stewards and paid to grow out and plant trees]

In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• the international policies above.

• A Green New Deal plan that heavily favors low-tech, human-scale, and local projects, particularly restoration of endangered habitat and riparian and wildlife corridors.

This Green New Deal program should train persons according to interests when possible, but the options will be determined by the locale. Examples include: greenhouse construction, greenhouse production/propagation, silviculture, bioregional ecology, land restoration, picking up litter, bicycle restoration and repair, installation of storm windows and other energy efficient products, bus driving, high-speed rail construction, solar cookers, solar air and space heating, small-scale biointensive agriculture, permaculture, etc.

• A moratorium on logging, until a national land stewardship code is in place, and ensure that this code follows as closely as possible the traditional techniques of North America's first people, who managed North American forests sustainably for 10,000 years. It should be illegal to cut healthy mature trees or to use poisons for weed control.

• Local ordinances that address climate change and biodiversity loss. For example: local building code that encourages the use of local materials, puts a limit on house size (or at least taxes that increase exponentially if new construction exceeds 1200 square feet for houses), increase development taxes for all new construction, puts a moratorium on the sale of old-growth lumber (unless it is salvaged), etc. Repeating an earlier idea: Start a non-cyber global warming action group in your neighborhood or town. Organize to put pressure on local governments to reframe all local ordinances with climate change and biotic diversity as focal points (a mature forest has far more value to the planet—therefore us—than any amount of money a few corporations could make from its despoiling).

Easy (or maybe not-so-easy?) Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Stop all subscriptions to magazines and newspapers that don’t directly inspire you to protect the planet
• Stop buying paper towels and napkins and tissues; use cloth instead
• Re-use all one-sided paper
• If you have to buy paper products, find ones made from 100% post-consumer recycled content, this includes toilet paper
• Don’t use paper plates or buy drinks or take-out food in boxes; take your own mug/bottle and reusable food containers
• Use salvage lumber instead of buying new; if you must buy new, try to find FSC lumber
• Don’t buy any books or other paper-intensive products that don’t have any truly meaningful value to you
• Don’t buy wrapping paper for gifts; if you must wrap, use salvage paper or reusable cloth
• Take your own cloth bags when shopping
• Eat less beef and less soy, unless you already get those from local sources
• Don’t buy new furniture or flooring or other wood-intensive products that aren’t necessary; second-hand stores and salvage yards may have what you need
• If you buy biofuels, buy only from sources that make them from waste vegetable oil
• Urge not only governments, but also wealthy individuals to fund the reforestation of vast areas. UNEP has a “Plant a Billion Trees” program. Join it and/or fund it.
• Support and fund as many groups as you can that have preservation of forests and vast areas of wilderness as their primary function. See the five above and also consider The Foundation for Deep Ecology.

Proposed Solutions - Overview

2ºC warming takes us into uncharted territory for any time during the existence of Homo sapiens on this planet.

In the first post I tried to show how urgent this situation is, but now I’ll try to put it as succinctly as I can: if we cannot force our governments to implement drastic, war-time-speed policies by the end of 2010, the chances of our descendants having to endure a living hell before the century is over, and maybe as soon as mid-century, are VERY high. The chances of the extinction of 90% or better of all species are VERY high. The chances of a huge (greater than 50%) decrease in human population due to famine and water scarcity and war by century’s end are VERY high. As a 2003 Pentagon report states, “Humans fight when they outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment. Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid.” This is why more resource wars seem inevitable.

Most people today are aware of global warming, but few feel the immediacy of the situation, even those with young kids—kids who will experience most of this century. I’m afraid part of the reason for that is that the threat, to date, has affected few of us in the wealthiest nations, and that the predictions keep putting the really scary stuff at mid-century or later. But ask the people of Iraq if resource wars haven’t started already. Ask the people of Sudan if famine is a distant fear. Ask the polar bears who can’t find the ice shelves anymore. Ask the 100 or so species that went extinct TODAY if the apocalypse has started.

Because carbon, once released into the atmosphere, takes hundreds—and some say more than 1000—years to be reabsorbed into plants, animals, soil and water, we know that even if all emissions stopped today, the Earth would need a few centuries to recover. We also know that the oceans take much longer to absorb heat than does the air or land masses, so the oceans will likely continue to heat for hundreds of years more, but at a very slow pace. A pace to which marine life can adapt. Basically, this is what we need to do, stop emissions tomorrow.

Okay, we can’t. But if we make plans to stop increasing them by 2015, then actually follow through with that and quickly begin reducing them, we have a shot at reducing the rapid rise in GMT this century. We have a shot at not letting things get out of control. There’s no guarantee, with chances looking to be less than 50-50, but that is better than the alternative.

Before I get into solutions, I thought I’d explain some acronyms and equations which will be used. Some may be repeats from the first post.

GMT = global mean temperature
GHG = greenhouse gas
CO2 = carbon dioxide
CO2e = carbon dioxide equivalent, which is used by some scientists to indicate that all the GHGs in the atmosphere, combined, are equal this CO2 concentration
AGW= accelerated global warming
BAU= business as usual
GtC = gigaton of carbon, or a billion tons of carbon
GtCO2 = a billion tons of carbon dioxide
1 GtCO2 = 0.27 GtC
1 GtC = 3.7 GtCO2
IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


Solutions

Researchers at Princeton came up with a wedge idea for tackling how to propose solutions for replacing or substituting the current technologies that produce GHGs. Many others have adopted this idea because it does help us see the options more clearly. A wedge is a reduction of 1 billion tons of carbon (GtC)/year at the end of the period (in the first case proposed below, 20 years, 2010-2030). We’re at 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide (8.1 GtC) emissions a year — rising 3.3% per year — and if my math is right, we have to average below 8 billion tons CO2 a year for the entire century if we’re going to stabilize at 350 ppm by 2150 or so. We need to peak atmospheric CO2 concentrations around 2015 at 400 ppm, then drop emissions at least 90% (below 1990’s level) by 2030 to 2.5 billion tons CO2 (.68 GtC), and then go to near zero net carbon emissions by 2050.

What seems to be the most realistic assessment to date for how many wedges need to be employed to reach 350 ppm CO2 by 2150 comes from Joe Romm of Climate Progress. He says we need 8 wedges by 2030, 10 thirty-year wedges (2030-2060), and “a whole lot more after that.” [Note: If we could do 14 wedges by 2030, we’d have a shot at getting back to 350 ppm this century.]

The 2007 IPCC reports state clearly that economic and demographic growth are the fundamental drivers of global climate change. For this and many other reasons grounded in my morality, I believe the solutions need to be lifestyle- and policy-focused, not technology-heavy, as are most mainstream proposals.

This is what the entire planet must achieve:
2010-2030 — 8 wedges
• 2 wedges of forestry — End all tropical deforestation. Plant new trees over an area the size of the continental U.S.
• 1 wedge of soils — Apply no-till farming to all existing croplands
• 1 wedge of conservation, reduced per capita consumption of everything
• 1 wedge for population reduction (have to reduce by 1.7 billion people—or more with the decreasing footprint—to get a wedge)
• 1 wedge for biochar (charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass, used as a soil improver and carbon store), replacing nitrogen fertilizers. [5/21/09: I have serious doubts about this and would now recommend another wedge for conservation.]
• 1 wedge for efficiency — buildings and industry
• 1 wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars 60 mpg

2030-2060 — 10 wedges
• 1 more wedge of forestry —Continue ban on deforestation. Plant trees over an area the size of the continental U.S.
• 1 more wedge of soils — Continue no-till farming on all existing croplands
• 2 wedges of conservation, reduced per capita consumption of everything
• 1 wedge for more population reduction (another 2 billion below today’s level; down to 3 billion, which may be approaching a sustainable level)
• 1 wedge of fourth generation nuclear (Why? See this.)
• 1/2 wedge for menhaden restoration
• 1 wedge for olivine sequestration (though the mining aspect is disturbing)
• 1 wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars 80 mpg
• 1 wedge of reducing vehicle use to half of today’s average annual miles traveled
• 3 wedges of efficiency — one each for buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 15 to 20 million GW-hrs.
• 2 wedges of concentrated solar thermal – ~5000 GW peak
• 1 wedge of solar photovoltaics (PV)— 2000 GW peak [or less PV and some geothermal, tidal, and ocean thermal]
• 1/2 to 1 wedge of wind for power — half- to one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines

You’ll notice this totals up to 16.5 wedges for the 2030-2060 period. That is because we need to try every acceptable option, and any of these could be moved ahead if there is a significant movement behind them. In fact, all of these (and others) could be shuffled endlessly, but I’ve laid them out according to my preference, as I realize this has all been an exercise through which I figured out a sane climate platform, but one that will never be accepted in this political/societal climate. I also list more wedges than needed because those institutions with most clout are touting existing nuclear technology, coal with carbon capture and storage, and/or biofuels. None of these are acceptable to me. If a sensible climate movement develops this year, we will need to show that there are lots of acceptable options. I'm not excluding all technologies, obviously, and was surprised to learn of a promising nuclear option—thorium molten salt reactors, also referred to as 4th generation nuclear (see link above), which has far fewer dangers than existing nuclear plants and the waste is only radioactive for 300 years—but we would need to fund R&D for this right away to get them online by the 2030's. The only reason I recommend this is that these reactors can use old nuclear waste as a fuel, therefore removing that nightmare from our world forever. Aside from this and the solar and wind technologies, if we have the will for it, a low-tech or no-tech approach is all the better. If a citizen-backed climate movement demands more than enough wedges of carbon reduction, it will be less difficult to dispel the need for the most dangerous and damaging technologies. So demanding a plan with 25 wedges by 2060 seems reasonable. Besides, if we did all 25, our chances of avoiding runaway warming get better than 50-50.

Here is one sample of the enormity of our challenge, from Joe Romm:

EFFICIENCY: Just one 20-year wedge of efficiency requires, by my rough calculation, every country in the world doing as much efficiency in five years as California did over the last three decades — and then repeating that again, again, and a fourth time. And that is no mean feat, since California had to change its utility regulations, adopt aggressive building codes, train lots of people in every aspect of energy efficiency, and have a very smart, very well-funded Energy Commission pushing, funding, and fine tuning this.

Personally, I’d love to see 4 wedges for forestry, 6 for conservation, 1 for population reduction and 1 for efficiency, all by 2030. No need for lots of new technology and production. Pay people to plant trees all over the world. It is a cheap fix, and as good as work can be. Relocalization would be the buzzword everywhere. But since we aren’t going to convince too many governments with that plan—and it is quite unrealistic—the longer list above is my current best shot that might be acceptable to the average citizen. It certainly won't be acceptable to the corporate heads that run industrial civilization.

So here’s the plan. Pick a wedge or two that you really want to promote. Read the associated ideas for each wedge at the links to the right and find other research. Think of more ideas and share them with this blog. Come up with a personal plan of action. Share this site with everyone you know, and share your plan with supportive friends. Encourage everyone you know to make climate change policy a part of their lives. Volunteer regularly for organizations fighting for sane climate solutions, and donate money to them if you can. A list of my recommended groups is on the right.

Remember, while local actions are good, and lifestyle changes are critical, the primary focus is to be effective in changing policy on the state and national levels. Unfortunately, we don’t have time, with this issue, to try to win over every municipality. That will come later, either because the national leaders are on board or because the global system is crumbling before our eyes. With the bold declarations on climate change coming from the Obama administration, we may never have a better opportunity than right now. And realistically, all we have is right now, as each passing day takes us closer to the point of no return.

There are already lots of organizations working to influence the House, the Senate and the US representatives to the International Climate meeting in Copenhagen in December. Since the Copenhagen meeting is intended to set the next "Kyoto Protocol," it is critical that some sensible solutions get included.

I spoke with a grassroots organizer who has been working full-time on climate change for four years now and he felt that it wasn't too bold to guess that 1% of the US population would support the kinds of "radical" solutions I propose. What if, by the end of the year, 1%, or 3 million of us, were actually working weekly to promote these sane solutions? That would make us the biggest grassroots movement in US history, but even if we were very vocal and active, would that still be enough to get a global agreement, with national laws to match, that meet our criteria? I suspect not, but we can't know that for sure until we try.

Here are a few ideas of what we can insist our governmental leaders do:

This December at the international climate meeting in Denmark:
• Create and agree to a worldwide treaty with a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions, that cap and trade will not work. (For 20 years the “green” climate agenda has embraced two insidious beliefs that are rooted in market fundamentalism: Deficit spending is always bad for the economy, and we should “let the market decide” our energy future. The result has been repeated political failure, skyrocketing emissions, and stagnation of energy technology.)

• Adopt the low-tech platform we are proposing, with the following details being critical:

Strategies put into this treaty must include short-term and long-term approaches.

Short-term (the first 8 wedges above, for the period 2010-2030)

Effective immediately (January, 2010):
• Create an international fund that will pay the nations with tropical forests to not clear any more forest, and pay them more to reforest land that has been clear-cut. Create Global Forest Preserves that are stewarded by the indigenous tribes of the region, and belong to all of humanity. The Union of Concerned Scientists has done a study of the costs of reducing deforestation, and when compared to the recent financial bail-outs, it is a pittance.

• Ban clear-cutting of forests worldwide. China actually did this a few years ago, and primarily for economic benefits, they have a ban on deforestation still.

• Each signatory must agree to implementing programs within the next two years that encourage or reward:

• creating a carbon rationing program and/or a carbon tax
  
• planting native (or appropriate non-native) trees (not mono-cropped!)
  
• no-till farming on all existing croplands
• reducing per capita consumption of non-essential items
• population reduction
• small-scale biochar production for each locale, with the aim of replacing nitrogen fertilizers
• efficiency improvements for buildings and industry
• vehicle efficiency increases, with a goal of 60 mpg for all new cars by 2030
• capping economic growth at 0.1%
• creating policies for new building construction that emphasize use of local materials, efficiency and passive heating and cooling
• phasing-out the manufacture of wasteful and unnecessary products and technologies
• keeping one parent at home
• banning mountain-top removal coal mining and construction of new coal power plants
  
• creating low-tech production jobs appropriate to local communities
• improving and expanding mass transit systems
• investing in clean energy technologies
• removing all subsidies for polluters, especially GHG emitters

Long-term (wedges for 2030-2060)

Agree to assess the benefits of all immediate actions on a yearly basis, and to adjust all agreements based on the scientific consensus and public support of the international community.

• Commit to planting trees over an area twice the size of the continental U.S. by 2060
• Continue no-till farming on all existing croplands
• Create a plan to restructure each nation into bioregional societies, and greatly reduce global trade
• Remove all subsidies for international corporations and remove laws which protect corporate heads from lawsuits
  
• Plan for the phase-out of commercial airlines
• Come to consensus on a population stabilization target and a year by which it is to be reached
• Make vehicle efficiency such that all cars get 80 mpg by 2060

I know this list is highly unlikely to get accepted, heck, I can't even find existing organizations working toward half these solutions, but if we had a few million privileged first-worlders demanding this, some of the language might get in there. Why not ask for the world we want, instead of starting with major compromises? The red suggestions above are the ones I suspect would receive the most objections by the status quo. But it is far past time to change the ways and mindset of our society. We have to accelerate the transformation, and we have to start now. We will never know how things might have turned-out if we don't try.

So, to reiterate and clarify some things you can do:

Decide where you want to put your energy, your heart, for the next year or two. Then jump! Volunteer and donate to the groups doing the work that most resonates with you. Send the above ideas and more to everyone you know, and all of your elected officials and local newspapers. If you have friends or contacts in Europe, get them on board with this, then get commitments from them to be part of the people’s delegation at the December climate meeting in Copenhagen. The planet doesn't need people flying to Denmark from all over the world on its behalf, it needs our friends in Europe to represent those of us in other continents.

Use at least half of your free time spreading the word about this issue, and talk to strangers about global warming.

Start a non-cyber global warming action group in your neighborhood or town. If you just can't get on board with a national or interational campaign, organize to put pressure on local governments to re-frame all local ordinances with climate change and biotic diversity as focal points (a mature forest has far more value to the planet—therefore us—than any amount of money a few corporations could make from its despoiling). Or organize to become a “Transition Town.”

Ideas for the proposed wish list of wedge options will be coming in the next few posts, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading all this!
Brien