Long-term Solutions to Accelerated Global Warming

At right, below "What is a Wedge?," are links to three proposed solutions to our climate emergency, the top being my low-tech and conservation-oriented plan, the next being a tech-heavy plan of a prominent scientist/politician, and the third being the inept Obama Energy Plan. If technology-dependent plans are adopted, by the time it becomes painfully obvious that they won't work, that will be too late. I feel that solutions relying heavily on technology will allow our excessively consumptive ways to carry on, and therefore are doomed to failure because we cannot continue forever on a path of endless growth on a finite planet. Most of the posts on this site explain my ideas in further detail. I think the best solution is right here: Relocalization, not Militarization.

For New Visitors to this Blog
As this is a blog that displays posts reverse-chronologically, if you are interested in starting with my first post, see the Blog Archive at right and start with Climate Change Basics. If you wish to make a comment that disagrees with the causes, or trivializes the severity, of accelerated global warming, then this is not the cyber site for you. Such comments will not be posted. To post your actions, click here.


24 March 2009

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?

16 March 2009

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.

05 March 2009

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.

04 March 2009

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.