climate change 4.0

Here's a short history of our global approach to climate change.

Climate change 1.0 = before 1979 

Climate change 2.0 = 1980's to Paris 

Climate change 3.0 =  IPCC conferences

Climate change 4.0 = Pope Francis ecumenical, good language, Drawdown, ++

I'll put some details about each of these at the end of this blog.

Language

We need to change our language on climate change, and we need to stop 40 years of waging a 'war on climate change'.   As if declaring war on nature will result in some sort of human victory.  

Here's an excerpt from a recent climate change conference:
  "... avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible. And focus instead on what is happening and how unusual it is—and what it is costing communities.  That was a main takeaway at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting this month, where top meteorologists and environmental scientists from around the country gathered to hear the latest research on record rainfall and drought, debate new weather prediction models and digest all manner of analysis on climatic mutations.

I'd take it once step further and focus on real actions:  how communities are RESTORING and REGENERATING our natural systems.

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 The last 40 years of climate change discussions have been led by mostly white males, and let's face it most of them are into sports, war, violent video games, etc.  White (mostly conservative) males still make up over 65% of elected offices, a majority of news and media editors, etc... 

Now, let's look at some common phrases used in describing climate change issues:

• (are we winning...) the war on climate change
• depletion, deforestation, destabilization
• the advance or retreat of... rivers, forests, deserts...
• destruction, panic, be afraid - very afraid of what's going to come...
• Treaties, accords, pledges (gee, is the earth our enemy that we need to negotiate with??) 

and then there's the subtle obfuscation of the issues: 'We need solutions, we can solve this...'  as if earth is something we can solve!

Paul Hawken and Drawdown

Paul has been an upbeat eco-entrepreneur since the 1970's  and he's still rockin' it.  His latest project Drawdown,  presents  100+ things we can do to reverse CO2 levels by 2045.  Contrary to what all the pop media, climate mafia, most every single climate change pundit (yes, that includes Bill McKibben ++), we CAN REVERSE the rise of CO2 levels in our lifetimes - if only we had the political will power to launch a Manhattan style project.

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and now, for the rest of the story.  Backcasting 

Climate change 1.0 = before 1979 the greenhouse gas (GHG) effect was prevalent, we almost did a 180degree reversal then!  almost... 

  One of the most fascinating articles I've read in the last 20 years was the NYTimes article 'Losing earth' (up for a pulitzer prize).   It's a behind the scenes look at what transpired in Washington DC between 1969-1979 when we almost actually reversed CO2 levels.  It reminded me of 'who killed the electric car'.    Then came 'inconvenient truth' and a nobel prize for Al Gore's powerpoint slide show.  This put climate change front and center in our discourse. 

Climate change 2.0 = 1980's to Paris accord.  It started with the Brundtland commission, that introduced the concept of sustainability. It then moved on to Rio in 1992, then the Kyoto accord of 1995. I lose track of all the other climate conferences every year - Cancun, Copenhagen, Bonn ++ .  A major update occurred in 2012 (in Rio again):  called Rio+20 - and it was a sham that precipitated my mind change on the value of all these conferences.   Rio+20 basically admonished the world for not doing anything good about 'fighting' climate change and that we (IPCC) insists the world listens to us and starts changing their habits.  Oi! Ve! Not only is the IPCC a group think and out-of-touch, fear mongering mafiaso, it's also a spoiled little brat!  Oops, sorry for my non-PC adjectives... Here's an excerpt about the IPCC: 
Since 2010 the IPCC has come under yet unparalleled public and political scrutiny.^[117] The global IPCC consensus approach has been challenged internally^[118][119] and externally with the 2009 Climatic Research Unit email controversy ("Climategate") an important (but not sole) threshold.^[120] It has been deemed an information monopoly with results for both the quality and the impact of the IPCC work as such.^[118][121]

On the VERY good side: in 1987 we did something amazing -  the Montreal protocol.  Within a couple years we noticed an eminent global threat, worked together and solved it - well, mostly solved it.  It started with the enlarged ozone hole in our atmosphere that threatened our thin protective layer and we discovered that CfC's caused it, so 200+ countries agreed to ban CfC's (spray cans, refrigerants, etc) and Walla! the ozone hole closed up (sort of).  but sadly the montreal protocol has been the rare exception! 

Climate change 3.0 = Paris accord and the IPCC climate 'mafia'.  I remember getting an email from a friend after the Paris Climate Change conference passed a resolution that presented the world with a solution.  The title was 'We did it'.  It reflected the misplaced optimism that a piece of paper signed by 200+ countries was actually going to change something.  As Rio and Rio+20 showed us, it's the ACTIONS afterward that are important. We have yet to see any real actions on a global scale.  Optimism, promises, accords and treaties are useless unless they are implemented and verified. 

Climate Change 4.0 = Pope Francis Ecumenical of 2015 calls out the world on it's profit greed, materialism, throw-away culture,  consumerism etc. 

excerpt: "  he’s taking aim at a whole swath of the development and environmentalist community, including aid organizations and governments. Throughout the encyclical, he slams what could roughly be called “technological solutionism,” when “life gradually becomes a surrender to situations conditioned by technology, itself viewed as the principal key to the meaning of existence.” It’s a somewhat obtuse reminder that the pope is neither a liberal activist nor a technocrat intent on finding simple solutions. His encyclical is a sermon, not a white paper, and he’s comfortable criticizing do-gooders and multinational corporations in the same breath.

Yeah - you go Pope Frank!  ... he pinpoints the solutions to each one of us: 
 the actions and intentions of one person seem so small, so morally irrelevant, in the context of all of creation. But this is exactly what Francis calls for: “profound interior conversion.”

Having been raised a Catholic, I have subconscious and Freudian issues with the Pope's call that each of us take the Eucharist and have our sins forgiven.  But I am optimistic that perhaps the Christians have better solutions than politicians. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------real concrete actions:  I just got an email from the Drawdown project announcing the 2019 Eco-Challenge.  Here's what the winner of the 2018 eco-challenge did:

In Spring 2018, 512 students and staff from Asheville High School in North Carolina won last year's Drawdown EcoChallenge. Their goal was to have every Environmental Science student on campus be able to identify, communicate and practice concrete actions that reverse global warming.

During the 3-week challenge, this team travelled 2,892 miles by carpool, bike or bus, ate over 2,282 meatless, vegan, local or zero-waste meals, and saved over 7,000 pounds of CO2. They also contacted 782 public officials and spent over 568 hours learning about climate solutions. Asheville High School set the bar high for this year's challenge, and with over 3,500 people registered so far, we're off to a great start!