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Climate Change Primer

This climate change primer gives teachers what they need to know about global climate change, and offers resources for teaching it.

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Why Do We Accept Schools as Prisons?

Today is a quintessential September day. Sunny, not too hot, soft breeze, the light just right.

It's also the second full day of the new school year here in Canada, and once again, our children have been gathered up and imprisoned by those places we innocuously call schools.

I went past several schools today while doing my errands (I teach part-time), and I saw big green fields, parking lots filled with cars -- and no children.

Seriously, what are we thinking? Can we honestly rationalize locking kids away indoors for 5 or more hours, several days every week, for most weeks of the year, and call that an education for life? Real life?

Practically every excuse one could give for keeping students indoors for all their lessons (except maybe team sports like football during physical education) would be fatuous.

We continue to teach children that the natural world is not a valuable partner in their education.

What is it we're afraid of? Why don't we use our schoolyards as an extension of our classrooms? Just go outside. Just go. Take the kids. Make it an experiment. Create your groundrules for further excursions after your first trip outside. See how the children behave. Do a walkabout of your schoolyard. Find some things, some areas to explore, to observe over the course of the year. Find out what your students find of interest.

You could spend a whole year just observing and studying the squirrels in your playground, or the trees or other plants at the fringes. You could do all your poetry study -- reading, writing, reciting -- outdoors in a special spot in the schoolyard. Math doesn't need to be taught indoors. Nor does social studies, science, art, music or another language.

Especially on quintessentially beautiful days, please, take your kids outdoors!

89 Days Left til Copenhagen Talks - "Climate Change Now Has a Name and a Face"

This is my last compassionate climate action blog on this website. I'm moving it over to http://blog.greenhearted.org/ so that we can focus on greening the heart of education here, and so that you will find it easier to comment on Compassionate Climate Action posts at the other site. I hope you'll visit both blogs from time to time.

*****

As summer is now unofficially over here (most Canadian children head back to school today), it's a great pleasure to share this education-related compassionate climate action with teachers and non-teachers alike.

Lauren McClanahan is a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, USA - quite close to where I live. In her quest to help her student teachers understand the climate change emergency, she called on the voices of students in a small village in Alaska.

In Educating Heather, McClanahan explains how she found a way to connect the hearts of her students to the climate change crisis.

No doubt my preservice secondary education student, Heather, is familiar with the topic of climate change. Everywhere we look, we see media coverage. But there still seems to be something missing. There still appears to be a disconnect, for my preservice teachers, anyway, between what they read about online and what they see in their day-to-day lives. And this has huge implications for their futures as public school teachers. One way to address this disconnect has been to put a face to the topic of climate change. By connecting all of my "Heathers" to students who live in places where climate change is having actual, observable effects, a topic that was once only theoretical to many of my students becomes real.

She explains that her students believe themselves to be "green," but when it comes to the catastrophic changes happening in the Arctic, her students just don't see them.

The "First Person Singular" project she undertook gave voice to thawing permafrost, disappearing fish stocks, changing migratory routes, and an unravelling subsistence culture that is thousands of years old.

I won't say too much more. The article is beautifully written and evocative. Please read it!

And let's start looking for ways to help people really see and hear what's happening to those already impacted by climate chaos in the most climate-change-vulnerable regions of the world.

3 Months Until Copenhagen - Happy Labour Day: Climate Activists in the Workplace

September 7 is Labo(u)r Day in Canada and the United States. (Anywhere else?) It's a reminder of the importance - and rights and responsibilities of working people.

So here is my Labour Day post, dedicated to everyone who works for their money! May you (we) all find a powerful way to make our work and our workplaces part of the solution to global climate change.

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Doesn't it feel strange to be sounding the alarm on an emergency that seems so far away (for some of us) and so, well, not urgent - yet?

Where I work, people's eyes sometimes glaze over when I talk about global climate change, the way mine would if someone started talking about, say, rocket science, or stock market statistics.

But we're not "crying wolf," as they say. We're talking about a vast, growing, picking-up-speed planetary emergency that will impact all life on Earth. Which is why I was glad - and inspired - to read about a new workplace based climate initiative in Australia:

The Australian Conservation Foundation is working with 3000 workplace activists to encourage climate friendly behaviour in workplaces and homes by setting weekly tasks and targets.

According to the press release, activists will also lobby politicians for strong policies to create up to one million new clean energy jobs, and urge Australian leadership at the Copenhagen talks in December.

"Union members want to be part of the solution to climate change. We can make a big difference in our workplaces - from universities through to hospitality and manufacturing - and we will also be at the forefront in urging our political leaders to adopt a strong and decisive set of policies to cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions and create clean energy jobs," said Australian Council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow.

"If we do not take a lead on climate change action we will miss out on a global market in low carbon technology that is already worth $6 trillion."

Check out Union Climate Connectors for more information, and to get inspired about organizing the same sort of campaign where you live and work.

91 Days to Go - At the Mercy of Marketers, Advertisers and Designers

Several commentators, including my recent guest blogger, believe that global warming and climate change are not the problem, but a symptom of our problem.

I can't disagree. But I do point out that we no longer have time to correct the underlying problem. We must tackle the symptom (overheating of the planet) head on, or lose the patient.

I read a fascinating article the other day, however, about the marketing of a new TV show that pretty much proved to me that there is no hope of saving the "patient." All the time, money, energy, and creative talent going into the marketing of just this one show could have moved the climate change campaign so far ahead, I almost cried.

The North American public is being completely manipulated by "marketers" with no sense of responsibility to the greater good. We are being entertainized, consumerized and commercialized to death - nay, to extinction!

So I was gladdened to read today of a book by Canadian designer, David B. Berman, called Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World. I recognize that marketers and designers aren't the same thing, but both professions are built on manipulating our perceptions. Says Berman:

"The largest threat to humanity's future just may be the consumption of more than necessary. We are caught up in an unsustainable frenzy, spurred by rapid advances in the sophistication, psychology, speed and reach of visual lies designed to convince us we 'need' more stuff than we really do."

The book review continues:

Those involved in advertising, branding and marketing have a responsibility to be part of the solution because "designers are at the core of the most efficient, most destructive pattern of deception in human history," he writes. "Designers create so much of the world we live in, the things we consume and the expectations we seek to fulfill. They shape what we see, what we use and what we waste."

Collecting ads from around the world, Berman wonders out loud (as I have, about climate change)

what could be done to eliminate AIDS if Coca Cola's marketing ability could be brought to serve health in rural Africa.

Along with going vegetarian, I think another quick way to become part of the climate change solution is to stop watching TV (and reading ad-filled magazines, newspapers and websites), to stop allowing ourselves to be bombarded with advertising and "programming" and numbed to the climate change emergency and the climate chaos already happening in the most vulnerable parts of the world.

92 Days to Copenhagen - Explaining the Connection Between Going Veg and the Methane (and Nitrous Oxide) Menace

With the help of GreenHeart Education's climate change research analyst, I have been working to understand the importance of methane emission reductions in our fight to safeguard the future.

There is no question that stopping the emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (or N2O, which comes from burning fossil fuels, from chemical fertilizers, and from manure, which forms ammonia, which converts to N2O in the atmosphere) will give us the most reward for our efforts.

Because the eating of industrialized meat is a huge producer of methane and nitrous oxide emissions - and because what we put in our shopping carts and our mouths is something that we have total control over - I will continue to strongly suggest lowering meat consumption / going vegetarian as the most important compassionate climate action that individuals and families can take.

And as spiritual leader, Supreme Master Ching Hai, points out, the more people who go vegetarian, the more time we give ourselves to get to zero carbon emissions. "Stop killing animals, stop producing meat, stop eating meat," she advises.

Okay, here's the science of this issue (please see The Green Grok if you need more information):

• Even though CO2 has caused more warming over the long term, reductions in CH4 or N2O emissions will provide a lot more climate relief in the short term than reductions of CO2.
• This is because reducing methane emissions by one ton is equivalent to reducing CO2 emissions by 25 tons; thus, its CDE (carbon dioxide equivalent) is 25.
• Because its carbon dioxide equivalent is 298, reducing our emission of nitrous oxide by one ton is the equivalent of 298 tons of CO2. So almost 300 times the bang for our buck!

The above figures are based on the 100 year global warming potential of the greenhouse gases.

If we use the IPCC's global warming potential figure over 20 years, the benefit of reducing methane is even more dramatic.

• Over 20 years CO2 is 1, methane is 72 and nitrous oxide is 279.

So 1 ton of methane emissions prevented = 72 tons of CO2. Each ton of nitrous oxide prevented = 279 tons of CO2. Nitrous oxide emissions last in the atmosphere for 114 years and so these emissions must stop - because they are so persistent and cumulative.

I really hope that explaining this science and math to people will help them understand the climate-change-fighting power of going veg, switching just one habit.

After all, it's not that we're asking people to stop eating altogether. We're simply asking them to make a dietary choice that is delicious, nutritious, healthier (do it right!), cheaper, more fun, definitely more compassionate, and a gift to their children's future.

So the case for closing down the livestock industry is overwhelming - it's a matter of our survival. If slaughtering and eating other animals does not stop, humanity is dead.

93 Days Left - Upcoming International Climate Action Days

September 21st - GLOBAL WAKE-UP CALL TO WORLD LEADERS

Avaaz is pulling out all the stops. A stunning 96% of over 100,000 people in 182 countries said YES! to a day of wake-up events in public places all over the world to make leaders sit up and listen.

The world's presidents, prime ministers and other heads of state are gathering at the United Nations on 22 September 2009, at the invitation of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, for a summit on climate change.

Avaaz says, "We have to show a massive public demand for them to sign a fair and binding deal in Copenhagen. Thousands of simultaneous events [on September 21] will give us a unique chance to seize the attention of world media and of leaders everywhere."

Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy of Denmark, said that September's high-level summit is a time for political leaders "to be forced into the crunch issues" of climate change, identifying these as financing for adaptation and mitigation strategies.

She added that the meeting is the "last chance" for political leaders to "push for unity in Copenhagen, thus setting the cue for negotiators in December."

So, start dreaming up ideas for your own wake-up call to your elected representatives on September 21st!

And if you can help Avaaz fund the wake-up call, please click here.

October 24th - INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION

350.org (I still wish they were ZeroCarbon.org, but they didn't ask me!) has 100 countries signed up to take climate action this fall. They are sponsoring a huge day of global events on 24 October 2009 to ask for progress on climate change that gets the planet back to 350 parts per million of CO2 (which is still too high, but better than where CO2 levels are now: nearing 390 ppm and rising).

But numerous countries still have no events registered. Visit the 350.org Action List to see if your country has one or more events listed. If not, just contact 350.org for advice on how to get something going.

Let's get behind these two growing international campaigns to sound the climate change emergency alarm. Do something in your local community or country on September 21st and October 24th. Do something simple or complex, radical or safe, imaginative or tried-and-true, but do something!!

94 Days and Counting - Welcoming an Economic Depression (A Guest Post)

With thanks to Remi Charron, a concerned father and expert in solar homes and sustainable housing, for this post:

• Climate change poses a serious threat to humanity and other life on Earth. The world needs to come together and drastically reduce, if not eliminate, its greenhouse gas emissions in short order. This monumental task will require global collaboration like we have never seen before.
• However, if our focus is simply to eliminate global warming, humanity and the world will still be in great peril. Why? Global warming is simply a symptom of a bigger problem.
• Humans have unleashed a cancer on our biosphere and it has metastasized, with global warming being only one of a number of tumours. Others include deforestation, increasing fish stock collapse, the extinction of over 70 life forms per day, collapse of global fresh water supplies, etc. They are all related; it is one big cancer.
• Here's a definition of cancer:
  • A class of diseases in which a group of cells displays uncontrolled growth (beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).
• Some say that humans themselves are the cancer that plagues the Earth. However, we are part of Nature; we are as natural as the birds and the bees. But we have become a group of cells in uncontrolled growth.
• In my mind, it largely stems from our current need to have sustained economic growth. The model of continual growth the global economy relies on treats natural resources and the environment as externalities in infinite supply, and puts a huge value on money.
• In reality the concept of money is made up. It is simply a bunch of 1's and 0's and coloured paper going from one hand to another. Nature and its natural resources are real. That is where the real value lies.
• Stopping the spread of the cancer - indeed, curing it - requires the global economy to shrink and shrink and shrink, until humanity can once again be in balance with Nature.
• Is growth possible? Yes, as with the definition of cancer, cells can grow within normal limits. But we have grown way beyond those limits, and need a period of sustained economic contraction to return to a healthy balance.
• Current politicians have limited or no money to stop global warming, yet easily find trillions of dollars to slow or stop a recession. The challenge is to get the world to embrace a sustained depression and find a way to spread the hardship so that we can remain happy and upbeat, while coming out at the end better off than we started.
• What we face cannot be fixed through technology, but requires a whole new mindset.

95 Days to Go - Belly Fat and Climate Change

Is it just me? Or is everyone online being harangued by internet advertisements promising us a flatter stomach?

"1 Tip for a Flat Belly"

"1 Rule to a Flat Stomach: Obey!"

I'm sick of seeing flubby tummies and skinny tummies. Enough already!

My aggravation, however, finally got me wondering whether anyone out there has discovered this "one rule" - and whether we could use this tactic to save the Earth, the future and the children of all species.

My thinking went like this. Whoever is behind the Flatter Stomach ads is paying to advertise - so we know they must be making money from these ads. Which means that people are clicking on them, and presumably buying something from the advertisers.

Why aren't we using similar tactics? After all, we can promise a much thinner body if people follow this one tip: keep pumping out the greenhouse gases and agriculture will be over, leading to starvation and famine and nice lean bodies.

Oh, I don't know. I get so annoyed to think that people care more about the size of their tummies than climate change. Heck, at least they could be as concerned about their children's future as about their stomachs, no?

We who are working on climate change are doing something wrong, but I cannot put my finger on it. Please, send in your insights.

Before I am finally driven to click on that ad and "obey" the "1 tip" for ridding myself of my cuddly tummy.

96 Days til Copenhagen - Go Vegetarian, Cut the Methane, Save Yourself and Your Children

An online correspondent wrote (thanks, Remi!), wondering how we're going to effectively cut methane by getting the world to go vegetarian when we can't even get people to go veg in order to stop world hunger.

He raises a good point. People who eat meat out of habit or superstition also don't tend to consider the impacts of their diet on the environment (pollution and resource depletion), on others in the world today (grain going to feed cattle and other livestock animals instead of fellow humans), or on future generations (our Western meat-focused diet is a huge contributor of methane and other greenhouse gases).

What if we presented the choice this way: Would you rather voluntarily cut back your meat consumption to virtually zero in the next year thereby giving the world a fighting chance of safeguarding your children's future, or continue eating meat, ensure a future of climate chaos and hunger for your grandchildren, and have your right to meat eating taken away from you by force in the not-too-distant future?

There will come a time (probably not soon enough, sadly) when governments will suddenly start doing everything they can to mitigate global warming. Since livestock is such a huge contributor, it will one day be seen as an easy way to reduce our GHGs.

In North America, we often cite the success of anti-smoking campaigns, but their "overnight" success took decades. We don't have decades to make this huge social change.

Why not just look on it as a sacrifice we have to make for our children - one that is a lot better for us than going to war, and one that can actually be quite fun and delicious.

Or am I dreaming?

97 Days Left - It's All About the Methane (GO VEG!)

American President Bill Clinton's campaign team, back in 1992, made famous the line, "It's the economy, stupid." More and more, it's looking like we should borrow it for our climate emergency action:

IT'S THE METHANE, STUPID!

It's not the easiest of math. The heating effect of methane over its 12 year lifespan in the atmosphere is about 100 times stronger than the heating effect of the same amount of emitted carbon dioxide. But then the methane breaks down into water vapour, ozone and CO2 - all greenhouse gases - and can carry on emitting heat for hundreds of years longer.

The physics of methane heating (like the physics of global warming), however, is simple. Put more methane into the atmosphere, the atmosphere heats up more.

And keep in mind that we are emitting all these greenhouse gases constantly, so they are accumulating in the atmosphere.

Since so many human beings seem to be overwhelmed by the idea of safeguarding the future by lowering our CO2 emissions, what about if we focus for the next two years on just one thing: stopping our methane emissions?

And what if we (the people) focus on just one way to do that: not eating meat?

What if? There is some scientific conjecture that if globally we stopped eating meat as quickly as possible (within about two years), we could still save the day - and the future.

Here's a Meat Free Petition I have signed and am happy to support.

And this Meat Free Monday Canada site explains the background to the Meat Free petition.

Please think about this. We're going to have to get our carbon dioxide emissions down to virtually zero - but that can be a slightly longer term feat. Right now, let's see what we can accomplish by being more compassionate to the other animals we share this planet with and going vegetarian or, better yet, vegan.

98 Days to Go - We Have the Heart of Hitler ...

We must face up to it. We are Hitler.

We are the doctors who performed unspeakable experiments. We are the scientists, engineers and architects who designed and built the .... We are the teachers who said nothing as we watched children disappear from our classes.

We are the soldiers who were "just doing their jobs." We are the neighbours, the citizens, the nation, the world leaders who turned a blind eye.

We are ALREADY murdering hundreds of thousands of people every year due to the ravages of climate chaos. We have ALREADY condemned millions more - along with most life on Earth - to a future with no future.

We have been so profoundly trained to only care about ourselves that we are blithely going along with this second holocaust, not questioning it, not taking any responsibility for it.

Why did Anne Frank's diary touch the hearts of countless millions of readers? Was it because she was a child? Or was it because it only came to light after the slaughter - when knowing didn't have to compel action?

Why do we seem so incapable of responding to the climate-change-innocent who are already suffering terribly? How is it that we can continue to live with obscene prosperity (damn The Secret), knowing that our wealth - the Western lifestyle that we so blithely accept without question - is killing 30,000 children per day because they don't have enough to eat?

Why, how have we allowed ourselves to be so blinded to the fate of these children, of our children?

Every day that we don't feel deeply for our brothers and sisters and children, that we don't demand a change, that we don't stop slaughtering animals and eating meat, that we don't implore our leaders to lead us away from climate catastrophe, we are no better than Hitler.

P.S. I do not, for one moment, say this lightly. It hurts so much to know this, to understand the science, to bear witness to the suffering in Africa and the Arctic and the Pacific island nations and now major world cities that are running out of water - and to see no movement towards an agreement in Copenhagen that will get greenhouse gas emissions to virtually zero to safeguard this beautiful planet for my niece, my stepsons, and my grandchildren.

Compassion MUST go hand in hand with courage. We must be brave, damn it. Courage is feeling the pain, the fear, and doing the right thing anyway.

Courage comes via French from the Latin cor meaning "heart." And, it turns out, the French word "courage" replaced the Old English ellen, which meant "zeal, strength."

Perhaps it's zeal and strength that we're missing. Maybe we're all numbed and flabby from our two-dimensional lives spent sitting down, in front of screens.

Please, could we muster a little zeal, strength, compassion and courage?

99 Days Until Copenhagen - 5,000 Generations

Over at Climate Shifts, I read a passage in a post by Chris McGrath that took me aback.

We commonly think of our children and grandchildren [in order] to appreciate the consequences of our present actions but as our present emissions of fossil fuel will continue to affect the atmosphere for over 100,000 years, we should appreciate [that] the decisions on climate policies today will affect the next 5,000 generations of humanity and beyond.

Five thousand generations! Why, the Iroquois only demanded that we think of the next seven generations. And we can't even do that. This EuroAmerican culture of mine flatly refuses to make any sacrifices for anyone, including our children.

Alas, if we don't turn this climate change emergency around fast (via some Obamaesque miracle? some compassion and emotion in the negotiating halls in Copenhagen? someone winning Richard Branson's $25 million prize for a technology that sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere?), there will, within a lot fewer than 5,000 generations, be no future generations of human beings.

The jellyfish, I hear, however, will do just fine when we're gone. Until it gets too hot for them, too.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS! Making Every Day Count by Joining Forces with Avaaz

Only 100 days until the Copenhagen climate talks. I'm not the only one noticing that time is tck, tck, tcking away.

Global campaigning organization, Avaaz, is asking everyone whether they should "pull out all the stops this month to beat climate change," making climate change their concerted focus for the next four weeks, until the next UN Summit in September.

I definitely voted YES, and hope you will, too.

Here's an excerpt from their message:

Avaaz is considering a massive, network-wide push for a "global wake-up call" to world leaders on September 21st. This would be the biggest organizing effort we've ever done, aiming to bring our whole network out (peacefully!) to the streets, ringing alarms, holding massive rallies in major cities, and gathering to send wake-up messages from schools, homes, and public squares. From all these places, we would flood world leaders with phone calls, and the actual sound of these millions of voices would be recorded, condensed and presented to heads of state at the UN climate summit in New York the next day.

If we do this, Avaaz will spend the next 4 weeks almost non-stop on it, and it will take hundreds of thousands of us joining efforts to pull it together -- hosting and attending events, reaching out to our communities, using all our creativity and dedication. This is an important decision, and we need to make it together. From now until September 21 -- should we do it?

Here's the link for voting YES (it would be silly of me to supply the link for voting no): VOTING YES TO A SAFE CLIMATE

By the way, here's what their petition to world leaders will say:

We call on our leaders to go to Copenhagen and sign a global climate treaty that is:

AMBITIOUS: enough to leave a planet safe for us all.

FAIR: for the poorest countries that did not cause climate change but are suffering most from it.

BINDING: with real targets that can be legally monitored and enforced.

I wrote and suggested that their campaign also include a focus on

ZERO: carbon emissions, since zero is the only target with any hope of safeguarding the future.

COMPASSION: for all those already impacted by the ravages of climate chaos (since those who aren't affected yet are still being total jerks about pretending it's not going to impact them or their children).

I hope you'll take a moment to vote YES in Avaaz's campaign. They're a good organization that can really get things done.

101 Days Left - Where Should We Focus Our Action - and Compassion?

Our actions, as one species (well, one dominating culture), are foreclosing on the future. We know we are doing it. We are tracking and recording, in ever-increasing detail, how we are doing it.

Wouldn't it be easier to just stop doing it? No, for innumerable psychosocial reasons, which I hope to some day understand, we ... must ... perpetuate ... the ... status ... quo ... even ... if ... it ... kills ... us.

Is that karma? Pride? The height of hubris? Addiction? Or just plain stupidity?

At this point, it doesn't matter! Those of us who are serious about safeguarding the future must get on with it.

There are so few of us that we have to focus our efforts and our compassionate actions. What focus will give us the most "traction" as I've heard it called ... the most "bang for our buck"?

Here is a list of possible targets, and the role that compassion could play:

• investors - People are pretty attached to their money, but don't understand the connection between economics and planetary destruction. Do we have time to gently explain to people that investing in the transition to a renewable energy economy would be the greatest gift they could ever leave their children?
• climate scientists - People don't become scientists because they are brave, outspoken or community-minded. But today, climate scientists must start telling the truth - which is something they are trained to do. Do we have time to evoke the hearts of climate scientists and encourage them to become the heroes of our age?
• government leaders - Our politicians do not have the courage to do the right thing and risk losing the next election. How can we encourage them to become heroes for the future? Do we have time to create non-partisan or multi-party coalitions that will promise not to punish governments that do the right thing (for example, bringing in a carbon tax)?
• educators - They make movies about brave teachers. The rest of us did not go into teaching because of our courage. So what will convince educators that they have the right, as well as the means, to stand up for their students and demand a climate-safe future for them?
• CEOs of corporations that are destroying the future - CEOs of banks and oil companies etc. are people, too. Can we form circles of compassion around them, explaining that we know their predicament, while encouraging them to break the rules of their corporate charter, put life before money, and do it all for their children and grandchildren?
• children and youth - You know how I feel about this, but my mind is changing. With deep honour for their right to a childhood, I am starting to believe that only a radical revolution by the young people of the world will melt the ice in the hearts of their elders.

Any to add? Where should we focus?

102 Days to Go - Forests: Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don't

"What will we do in the future without wood? The end of the forests has come."

- The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability

Another of those eerie twists of email fate: two messages about forests and their role in combating in climate change came in yesterday - one happy, the other immediately cancelling it out.

THE HAPPY ONE

The World Agroforestry Centre, based in Kenya, has discovered through detailed satellite imagery that although agriculture, particularly in thedeveloping world, is often associated with massive deforestation, almost half of all farmed landscapes worldwide include significant tree cover.

The press release from UNEP says: "This is the first study to quantify the extent to which trees are a vital part of agricultural production in all regions of the world. It reveals that on more than 1 billion hectares - which make up 46 percent of the world's farmlands and are home to more than half a billion people - tree cover exceeds 10 percent."

Dennis Garrity, the Centre's Director General, says "The problem is that policymakers and planners have been slow to recognize this phenomenon and take advantage of the beneficial effect of planting trees on farms. Trees are providing farmers with everything from carbon sequestration, to nuts and fruits, to windbreaks and erosion control, to fuel for heating and timber for housing. Unless such practices are brought to scale in farming communities worldwide, we will not benefit from the full value trees can bring to livelihoods and landscapes."

Trees on farms are useful in several other ways:

• fertilizer trees improve crop yields and enhance soil health
• fruit trees enhance nutrition
• fodder trees feed livestock
• timber and fuelwood trees provide shelter and energy
• medicinal trees provide remedies
• other trees provide globalcommodities such as coffee, rubber, nuts, gums and resins
• trees also contribute to erosion control, water quality and biodiversity

Garrity goes on to say that investment and developments in agroforestry over the next 50 years could contribute to the alleviation of climate change, removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (Poor Mr. Garrity doesn't realize that we don't have 50 years.)

THE SCARY ONE

In a 24 August 2009 Associated Press article, Beetles, Wildfire: Double Threat in Warming World, by Charles J. Hanley, it becomes very clear that bad things are happening much faster than good things. (I think we'll need a new word for this phenomenon.)

The vicious circle of warmer weather allowing more insects to kill more trees in the boreal forests around the northern hemisphere, which then absorb less CO2 and add to carbon emissions through wildfires, is worsening year by year.

On the southern edge of the Siberian forests, warmer, drier weather is stifling regrowth of burned-out areas, turning them to grasslands.

Are we looking at peak wood? An Armageddon of insect-infested, burnt-out landscapes? What have we wrought? "The end of the forests has come."

103 Days til Copenhagen - Are the Children Demanding Enough?

UNEP's Tunza International Youth Conference on Climate Change ended on 23 August 2009 in Daejeon, Korea.

Youth delegates pledged to keep global warming high on the international agenda. "Climate change is the greatest threat we are facing in the 21st century, and many countries are vulnerable. If we the children and youth don't act now, we cannot be sure there will be a future for us, for future generations. We want to make sure that future generations will inherit a better place to live in," said 22-year old Jessie James Marcellones from the Philippines.

Regional Action Plans covering Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and West Asia, include:

• Mobilizing youth for the upcoming UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen
• Reaching out to other environmental groups, especially during the 21-25 September Climate Week
• Educating others on campuses, in school and among churches, sports teams and more
• Letter-writing, phone banking, visiting officials to "Seal the Deal"
• Social networking through the Unite for Climate, Facebook, Twitter and other e-fora, and
• College campaigns and tree planting initiatives.

Okay, I'll admit that I was hoping for something more radical from this group. Something like:

• The youth and children of the world will start disobeying their parents if we don't see positive movement at the upcoming preparatory talks. And if we don't get a just and effective climate treaty in Copenhagen, we will start rampaging through the streets. It will not be pretty. But it will be a whole lot nicer than what you older people are leaving to us.

I was, however, very happy to read the following:

Seventeen-year-old Yaiguili Alvarado Garcia, from the Kuna indigenous group in Panama, expressed the need for adults to hear and listen and understand why the young need their support. "There are a lot of indigenous cultures that are losing, because nobody wants to hear what we want to say, what we know about Mother Earth, and it is frustrating for us because we have so many things to share and the world doesn't listen to us. There are many things we asked the governments to do and we know it is hard, but we want to work with them, we just want to make a better place for the children, for the animals and plants. It is about time we stop thinking just for us and think also for other beings that cannot speak for themselves. It is time to stop being selfish."

"This global youth and children gathering under the Seal the Deal Campaign is the largest international gathering of young people this year advocating for climate change action. Their voices will and must be heard because they will inherit the outcomes of our actions," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [my eco-hero].

105 Days Until Copenhagen - 2Years4LifeonEarth Solutions

Here are more solutions to the problem of climate change apathy or ignorance that we came up with during our Sunday brunch (see yesterday's post). You'll notice a distinct "Sunday" feel to some of these suggestions.

"What can I do, now that I'm aware of climate change?" is a common lament.

• Well, what do people do after they've had a spiritual conversion? They change their behaviour (start going to church), learn (read the Bible), and raise their awareness (take Bible study classes). They accept being told how to act (for example, the Ten Commandments). Can we create something like this - only for global rather than personal salvation?
• Talk it up. Ask people to talk about climate change with their friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, strangers, fellow club members. Talk is action when it's spreading the word.
• Pray. (Why not, eh? It's not exactly an action verb, but it's got more force behind it than hoping.)
• Start imagining a world without fossil fuels. We must have a revolution to renewable energy. (Otherwise, back to the caves and thatched huts with us!)
• Realize (is realizing an action????) that we're creating a mass extinction of life. This despite the fact that we depend upon biodiversity. We are pushing thousands upon thousands of species of plants and animals to extinctions - and it looks like our species is going to be among them. START THINKING LIKE A SPECIES! START FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL!
• Think like an ancestor. We've been so lucky as a generation - between world wars, lots of economic prosperity (at least in developed countries). It's time to burst the bubble and understand that we're killing the future and committing progenycide.
• Insist on massive public spending to kickstart this revolution to a renewable energy economy. If we willingly go into debt for war, why not go into debt for life? That would be a debt that future generations will be grateful to pay off.
• Protect carbon sinks! (First, learn about carbon sinks and why they're vital.)
• Protect the remaining rainforests and coral reefs. Insist on them being protected, damn it!
• Get emotional! Get angry! How can we talk about pissing away the future of our species and the beauty of life's diversity without getting emotional???
• Insist that environmental and social health costs be internalized in our economics. Enough of externalizing environmental and social health costs so that WE have to pay for them with our health and our lives and the future of our children and grandchildren. Let the corporations or their shareholders or their consumers pay for them.
• Understand that our goal must be 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible - if we're to save the future. We can't wait til the last minute.
• The only hope is action. If you love your children/grandchildren, you will become part of the solution.

104 Days to Go - Celebrating Our Local Food Traditions

I spent yesterday at my community's wonderful little fall fair. I convened the Children's Agriculture section, and was delighted to see so many people appreciating the children's produce and educational projects on food growing.

It wasn't until a lovely German tourist came through the displays and mentioned that there is nothing like it where she lives, near Frankfurt, that I realized the power and importance of our fall fair tradition.

Small-scale farming and organic gardening connect us to the past, connect us to the earth (and the Earth), and connect us to future generations. Celebrating the fruits of our harvest helps people understand where their food comes from.

And since agriculture depends on a stable climate, and the stability of our climate is already deteriorating, it would be good for all of us to appreciate what we've got before it's gone.

As the Arctic summer ice disappears, the whole northern hemisphere is losing its summer "air conditioner," so weather is becoming hotter in some places and more unpredictable in others.

I grew tomatoes in pots on my sunny deck this summer, and midway through one of our extremely rare heat waves, I started adding up how much water they were getting. I was shocked! If my few tomatoes needed almost 100 litres per week, how much water must our food producing systems use? (I've since started using grey water on my tomatoes.) Yet our fresh water is one of the resources most at risk due to global warming.

We don't have a clue how much things are going to change and how bad they're going to get (because they certainly aren't, despite the hopeful protestations of certain commentators, getting better nearly as fast as they're worsening), but in the meantime, let's find ways to honour our food growers and support them as they try to adapt to the changing climate.

106 Days to Copenhagen - Two Years for Life on Earth

Two Years for Life on Earth was the working name that my husband and I gave our campaign to save the world, based on this quote from Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in November 2007: "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

Had a yummy and thought-provoking brunch amongst like-minded and like-hearted people a while back. Thought I'd share with you this eclectic list of thoughts on and solutions to the climate change emergency.

• Wayne: "I don't have time to save the world" is a common lament. How do we get people to see that there's really no time (left) for anything BUT saving the world? (How about "30 fewer minutes a day of watching TV to save the world?")

  Peter: "The answer is spiritual. The power that's needed to change things is spiritual." Others felt that the word "spiritual" puts many people off (funny what we get used to, eh?). Amanda uses "heart" to signify this realm.

  The Greenland shaman, Angaangaq believes "We must melt the ice in the hearts of man." JJ: "Will it take global warming to melt the ice in the hearts of man?" (Not aimed directly at males, of course!)

  Wayne: "We need a unified purpose with foreseeable, integrated solutions" (cultural, technological/engineering, economic, psychosocial, "spiritual")

  Actions - scale / incremental / small steps (JJ: do we have time for small steps, which should have been happening 20 years ago?)

  Amanda: short-term changes versus long-term changes.

  The Pope is calling for personal ecological conversion.

  Krishnamurti said:
  You have to change.
  You have to change completely.
  And you have to change now.

  JJ & Amanda: Venn diagram (Science + Spirit) became a triple Venn diagram: the overlapping circles are Heart/Spirit, Thought/Understanding, and Action.

  • 1. HEART/SPIRIT
    • denial/fear --> courage, sacrifice out of love, creativity, hope springing from action

    2. THOUGHT/UNDERSTANDING

    • learn the carbon cycle, learn about energy and combustion, learn about global warming and climate change
    • become ecologically literate
    • search for engineering "systems" that work

    3. ACTION - (see tomorrow's post)

  In the centre of our triple Venn diagram is TRANSFORMATION.

107 Days Left - Ignorance is Blissful ... and Deadly (Is It Time for Sanctions?)

I feel as though I've stumbled into a parallel universe and am now looking at this world through a two-way mirror.

This sense of otherworldliness (or perhaps it's theatre of the absurd!) comes from knowing so much (some days it feels like too much) about the climate change crisis that is upon us, all the while watching so many people go about their daily lives as if nothing has changed.

When I do meet or hear from someone who "gets" what's happening to the biosphere, it's a bit of a surprise (albeit a pleasant one).

But it shouldn't be this way. We are so connected to the giant library we call the internet. They say that four billion people have cell phones - they can't be doing all that talking and not talking at all about climate change, can they? And bless them, the mainstream media are doing a better job of talking about the climate emergency than the vast majority of scientists and government leaders are. There ought to be more people talking about this issue.

But most, it seems, would rather be ignorant - and blissful. And dead (whether figuratively or literally).

Here's a real bugbear of mine: I reckon that if one has the technology and time to comment on an online article about the issue, then one has the technology and time to research the science of global warming and climate change. But I see so much ignorance there, too.

I used to think, "Oh, poor sods, they just aren't scientifically literate enough to understand." But for too long now, those of us who take the time to read what the scientists are discovering, and who have the compassion to note what is already happening due to climate disruption in other parts of the world, have refrained from criticizing the lazy and ignorant (stupid and selfish?) people who take the time to make unhelpful comments like the ones I read in online Comments sections.

Perhaps taking climate change into the "moral arena," as suggested by Al Gore (and others such as Tutu and Leape), could include social sanctions and moral outrage against those who continue to promote progenycide by sending in comments to online discussions of this issue that are out-of-date, ignorant of the science, and completely without empathy for present and future victims of climate breakdown.

Indeed, where is the moral outrage surrounding this most disastrous of messes our leaders have ever got us into? Why do we cry for inquiries into tiny, inconsequential scandals about sex or money (or sex and money) but remain mute to the complete bungling of the climate change emergency?

Why is there no sanction? Are we that afraid that we would have to sanction ourselves in the process?

108 Days to Go - Safeguarding the Future Isn't a Question of "Either/Or"

Safeguarding the future should be, must be, a "Yes, and..." proposition.

But in the last 24 hours, I've read of two situations where two authors duke it out because they can't see that they're both right, and that life isn't all about either/or. Life offers a series of alternatives and possible solutions.

In the first example, Peter Ward declares that James Lovelock's Gaia theory is responsible for encouraging a set of fairy-tale assumptions about the earth (he probably means the Earth), and is determined to puncture them with his new book, The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?

See the either/or that Ward sets up? He purports that if he is right, then Lovelock must be wrong. But this planet is more like the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses - a spectrum ranging from those who give life to those who take it away - than the Old versus New Testament either/or proposition of the warring and vengeful Jehovah versus a compassionate and merciful Jesus.

Why must our view of the world be either life-giving or life-taking? It's so obvious to the rest of us that it is both. As a friend so aptly put it, "Why do white Western guys have opposing theories instead of complementary, inter-meshing, completing ones? Nature creates, nature maintains, nature destroys."

In another example, George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth go at each other in a series of letters published 17 August 2009 in the Guardian, under the heading Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse?

Monbiot and Kingsnorth seem to be arguing about whether to do nothing or do everything possible, whether to let the climate crisis take its course or try to "stave it off."

Again, it's all about either/or. Gentlemen, please. (Maybe this is a Western white male thing?) Sure, it might be good fodder for the newspaper, but except for the very beginning and the very end of life (you're either born or you're not, you either die or you don't), the rest of living here on this planet is not about either/or. It offers a range of possibilities and alternatives.

Not only that, but at no time do you mention that compassion might play a role in this "fight," as you call it. (Though Monbiot does suggest that losing billions of people through doing nothing is a little harsh.)

Alas, my point is that every time we think in terms of either/or, let's explore what's in the middle - all the possibilities between the either and the or.

109 Days til Copenhagen - Where Will You Live?

My husband has been studying computer modelled projections of which parts of the world will be habitable the longest, under a global warming of several degrees.

Tonight at the dinner table, he was explaining to our niece that a big factor in her decision about where to go to university should be where she can safely put down roots, learn to grow food, and live out her days in an overheated world.

That's a lot for a 17-year-old to think about! What a thing to have to ask young people to do.

But if we don't ask them to think about their "adaptation" to global warming and climate change, then we'd better be mitigating like crazy to make sure they don't have to adapt.

And for what it's worth, if we allow the global average temperature to go too high (well, it's already too high - since we're seeing carbon feedbacks already - but you know what I mean), then most species on Earth will not be able to adapt. We simply won't survive.

My niece and I are having fun this evening, so I don't think she was traumatized by the discussion, but it's sure got me thinking about where I'd like to be when the climate you-know-what starts hitting the fan in my part of the world.

P.S. I don't want to suggest places that people could start heading (areas that will continue to get precious rainfall, for example), but I have heard (as I've mentioned here before) that people with money are starting to buy up land in those areas. If you're concerned, please do your own research.

110 Days Left - Ideas for Impassioning the Climate Talks at Copenhagen with Compassion

On 11 August 2009, Grist ran Climate disobedience: Is a new "Seattle" in the making? by Mark Engler.

It's an interesting article that's got me thinking about civil compassion (rather than civil disobedience). You know, protest-y type events, but where people simply teach and preach about love for our children and grandchildren and compassion for the rest of life on Earth.

So, very quietly (don't want word to get out or photo albums could be slammed shut all over the world), here's my best (so far) idea for the protests and "civil compassion" at Copenhagen in December.

Let's get photographs of all the children of all the climate negotiators and all the world's leaders (I already have photos of the children of Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper) and anyone who will be participating at the talks.

I know that my heart goes out to all the children of the world, but I doubt that hard-nosed politicians and bureaucrats will so easily have their deep inner sources of compassion tapped into. But seeing the faces of their own children and grandchildren hung on walls, flashed on screens and stuck on T-shirts might help them realize who they are negotiating for - or whose future they are negotiating away.

Sure, it's a tame idea. But tame isn't necessarily lame. And since we have to do absolutely everything we can, let's not throw out any ideas that stand a chance of moving even one heart - that one heart could turn out to be our greatest climate hero.

Writing the names of the children and their home country on all the photos will help people match hard-hearted (or is it cowardly?) negotiators with the real-life faces of the young people whose future they are willing to trade away.

Thoughts? Is it workable? Any other ideas for getting some compassionate action into the Copenhagen climate talks in December?

111 Days Until Copenhagen - My Own Predictions for the End of the World

I'm sure you've been hearing or reading about all the "prophecies" that say our world will end on 21 December 2009.

Well, I think the Mayans and others are out by just a couple of days. I believe the world as we know it will start to end on 18 December 2009, the last day of the Copenhagen climate change "talks."

My prediction goes like this: Between now and 7 December 2009, very drably dressed people, chosen for reasons most of us will never fathom, will feel they are doing important work together as "The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention" and other such committees and working groups.

But these drably dressed people will not, in their endless talks and thoroughly boring negotiations, ever put the survival of life on Earth at the top of their agenda and at the centre of their discussions.

They will talk about what their country wants, needs and "deserves" and they will not budge.

They will (bless them and damn them, for they will be complicit in the greatest evil ever) let life on this precious, miraculous planet go to hell in a handbasket.

All because they will not bring themselves to see past their invisible borders and their small-minded economies. They will not bring themselves to talk of their children and grandchildren, and the gardens they love, and the animals that bring them joy. They will not share stories and photographs of the beautiful sacred places in their lives. They will not wear their hearts on their sleeves nor put what they love on the negotiating table. They will not represent humanity and they will not speak out on behalf of life and the children of all species.

On 19 December 2009, the end of the world will have begun, because our climate negotiators, in their drab grey suits, will have negotiated their way to nothing.

And then it will be too late to try again. With colour. With verve. With life! With heart and soul and love and compassion. With tears and heartache and some small offering of regret to our children and all future generations.

P.S. In the hope that my prediction will not come true, I send out this request to the dozen or so women who wore bright colours at the latest climate talks in Bonn, Germany: Please speak out! Stand up! Take a stand! Dance on the tables! Wake your co-negotiators up! Save the world! Please!

112 Days to Go - Yikes, Back to Climate Frustration

Well, it's back into the climate fray in an effort to get some compassion and action and compassionate action happening long before December's Copenhagen climate talks.

I figured out today - when confronted with all the latest bad news on the climate change front - that one of the reasons I loved my week of Nature Daycamp is that I could leave climate change behind. I was working with kids too young to be worrying about it, and so for one week, I didn't either.

What a rude awakening this morning when I started checking my climate-related emails again. For example, here is a little compendium of quotes from Mr. Yvo de Boer, current executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:

• "...a climate deal in Copenhagen this year is simply an unequivocal requirement to stop climate change from slipping out of control."


• "So with only 15 days of negotiating time left before Copenhagen, negotiations will need to considerably pick up speed for the world to achieve a successful result at Copenhagen."


• "...if we continue at this rate, we're not going to make it [get an agreement in Copenhagen in December]."


• "It [Copenhagen] must revolutionize international cooperation to combat climate change."


• "...serious climate change is equal to 'game over'."

Scary, eh? I must admit, I cried when I read Mr. de Boer's angst and warnings. This is the most important gathering of the human tribe ever, and people are treating it like a pissing match. And believe me, pissing will not put out this fire!

(The other scary thing is that Mr. de Boer feels he must say all this with a level tone of voice. What if he actually started to sound the panic alarm with some panic in voice? What if he were more picturesque in his choice of language? What if he called for compassion from the government leaders and negotiators he is working with? People didn't buy into the consumer culture because a reasoned voice told them once or twice to do so. Our EuroAmerican Western culture bought into our destructive way of life because our whole audiovisualsphere was jammed with lively jingled commercials and brightly coloured advertisements. Over and over again. Constantly. Please, could we not take a leaf from the other side's book?)

113 Days to Copenhagen - Maybe Adults Need Nature Daycamp

Day 5 and my Nature Daycamp is over. What a wonderful week!

I've just remembered that several years ago, I did weekend workshops for adults not unlike this past week's Nature Daycamp. The adults who attended raved about their experiences and their learning. I remember one highly educated woman admitting that she'd never understood how trees worked until that weekend.

Perhaps that's what the world needs: more adults getting dirty in the woods. New rule: Grown-ups should not be allowed to rule the world unless they have made Nature's Perfumes, played Tickly Prickly, gone on a Gallery Walk, and listened for Nature's Symphony.

I just made that rule up, but imagine the difference it could make! People who actually love and appreciate the rest of Nature would be making decisions based on the needs of "all their relations" ... not basing them simply on what will make more money.

The Cree Prophecy

Only after the Last Tree has been cut down,
Only after the Last River has been poisoned,
Only after the Last Fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that
Money Cannot Be Eaten.

114 Days Left - It's Easy for Kids to Be Green

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, while wearing my It's Not Easy Being Green Kermit T-shirt, I got to experience the look on a little girl's face when she held her first ever frog this morning. "That's the first REAL frog I've ever seen!" Mady exclaimed.

It's how we started our 4th day of Nature Daycamp, a day that was focused on visiting the "secret pond."

It was the tiniest little frog, quite cute, and very still at first - and then it leapt into my knapsack, to everyone's amusement.

After making "scopes" from juice cartons and getting our magnifying glasses and plastic jars ready, we finally hiked to the pond where the kids loved discovering more frogs, dragonfly nymphs, and a water boatman or two.

I think a lot of us forget that many, if not most, kids in North America these days don't get the chance to visit ponds and marshes and forests and wild beaches. We did those things as part of our everyday lives when we were children, but it's a special privilege nowadays.

I'm so happy to be providing that opportunity for a dozen little ones this week. I really think these children will grow up appreciating the gifts that Nature gives us.

What a concept, eh? Maybe all those CEOs of banks and fossil fuel corporations didn't get to go exploring when they were kids!

115 Days Left - Nature's Rainbow

Another wonderful day of Nature Daycamp (well, except that I sprained my ankle middway through the day - but the kids were great, finding me walking sticks and carrying my bags).

The highlight for me today was our time at the edge of a marsh, one that is protected from the sea by a berm but which is brackish/salty on the beach side and freshwater on the far (land) side. The kids and I thought this was pretty nifty.

After our Magic Spot time (a quiet time for reflection and writing or drawing in small journals), I did an activity with them called Nature's Rainbow. I'd found great paint chip collections at the local hardware store, and gave each group one of these brochures.

The kids had never thought about how many shades, tints and hues of green there are in the world! Especially in a marsh in mid-summer. Wow. It was grand watching them point out all the different greens (and a few oranges, reds and yellows) to their partners.

If you are ever at risk of losing faith in humanity, take a young person outdoors, have some fun together, then focus their attention and watch them connect with their true Mother. It will be an absolute delight!

116 Days to Copenhagen - "Everything Has a Heartbeat!"

With apologies to those who aren't really "into" kids, I'm pretty focused on them this week because of our Nature Daycamp.

Working with these wonderful youngsters is like a tonic after months and months of focus on the climate change emergency.

Today we visited the forest. We sat and talked with the birds, played Camouflage, did an activity called Hug a Tree (with uproarious laughter). But my favourite activity was giving each pair a stethoscope to listen to the "heartbeat" of a tree. The best moment of the day was when Isabela came running back to tell me, after doing some experimenting on the moss and the rocks, that "everything has a heartbeat!"

Can you imagine a world where every human being, of every age, recognizes that the rest of Nature is living and breathing? We would treat everything as kin, just as the aboriginal peoples did.

And, I'm betting, we would remain childlike in our sense of awe and discovery in the world of our natural neighbours.

Tomorrow we're going to the secret pond!

117 Days Left til Copenhagen - Kids and Rain (Why Was I Worried?)

I awoke very early this morning to the sound of heavy rain on the roof. I felt sick to my stomach. Sure, we need the rain. It's been a hot, dry summer. But on the first day of Nature Daycamp? Why here? Why today?

Well, I needn't have worried one iota. Children love rain and they love getting wet (when their parents aren't telling them to stay dry). And they love the ocean, which is where we spent several hours today - in the rain.

I must remember to trust in children, to trust in the joy, excitement and fascination they still experience when face to face with the elements.

Tomorrow's Nature Daycamp will take us into the forest, face to face with trees and soil. I'm looking forward to it, rain or shine!

118 Days to Go - Falling Prey and Losing Confidence

Tomorrow I will start a five-day Nature Daycamp for children aged 5 to 12. It's something I should be excited about. Yet I'm anxious. Why is that?

My whole professional career - until now - I have revelled in opportunities to introduce youngsters to the joys of the natural world. At university during my education studies in outdoor and experiential education, I focused on sensory awareness when all my classmates were either athletic (and focusing on physical pursuits in the outdoors) or science majors (focusing on biology and ecology).

I do not have a scientific mind. I have had to work very hard to understand the science of climate change, and I feel confident in my knowledge of the fundamentals. But somewhere along the way, I have lost confidence in my ability to pass on my love for the rest of Nature.

Is it because I feel I need to "know" all the science we'll meet up with in the woods and at the beach? Or is it because I'm nervous about wired kids getting easily bored by the speed of the natural world? Whatever it is, I feel I am casting my fate to the wind.

Perhaps, then, it is the angst from my life as a climate activist pervading my work with children - and I don't like it one bit.

So tonight, my compassionate climate action is to take care of myself, treat myself gingerly, and trust in the wisdom of my friends and neighbours of other species. And then to relax and have fun tomorrow!

119 Days to Copenhagen - What Is the Public Feeling?

Another day of email conundrummy (I just made that word up).

First a message that the American Psychological Association (APA) is offering climate-change-related workshops, hosted by Psychologists for Social Responsibility and Earth Circles, at its annual conference:

Climate Activism for Psychologists: From Psychological Paralysis to Community-Based Action

and

Confronting Eco-Anxieties & Promoting A Healthy Eco-Identity in Clinical & Academic Work

My response to the listserve was this:

It would be interesting to hear from psychologists on this listserve about the prevalence / pervasiveness of "psychological paralysis" and "eco-anxiety" stemming from climate change.

I live in a small community where people just keep working - or travelling, golfing, fishing, sailing, watching TV and living their lives as always - so haven't seen evidence of these maladies.

Out there in the big, wide world, are there lots of people feeling overwhelmed by climate change?

Cuz I gotta tell ya, I'm not seeing anyone amongst my family, friends or community members (both geographical and interest-based communities) suffer psychologically because of climate change.

Except my loved one and me. We rage, we despair, we swear, we sob. My eyes well up with tears at the thought of what we're doing to the children in Africa. My husband weeps when he hears yet another tale about the fate of our beloved orca whales.

But we are very, very alone in this. We have one friend who feels it deeply. We know a handful of other activists who are doing good work but don't seem to feel it deeply (or at least, don't share that with us). Where is the paralysis and eco-anxiety?

Sure enough, the very next message announced an article by Andy Coghlan entitled "Consumerism is 'eating the future'" in the New Scientist of 7 August 2009.

In it, Coglan quotes Marc Pratarelli of Colorado State University at Pueblo in the USA:

"We have our heads in the sand, and are in a state of denial," he says. "People think: 'It won't happen to me, or be in my lifetime, or be that bad, so what's the point of change'."

Pararelli is ... pessimistic. The only hope, he says, is a disaster of immense scale that jolts us out of our denial. "My sense is that only when the brown stuff really hits the fan will we finally start to do something."

So which is it? Psychological paralysis? Or sleepwalking through the climate emergency?

Four Months til Copenhagen - Wind Power Cancelling Itself Out?

In a strange twist of email fate, I received two completely opposed messages one after the other in my inbox yesterday.

The first one was: "Wind-generated electricity finally feeds BC's power grid" (BC stands for British Columbia, the Canadian province in which I live). I felt some momentary pride (with a large splash of What took us so long?), until I read this next one:

"A wind farm is not the answer," in which all pro-renewable energy environmentalists are lumped together into a category of people who only care about "gigawatt hours, parts per million of carbon, peer-reviewed papers and 'sustainable development.'"

Talk about deflation.

This article from The Guardian by Paul Kingsnorth has some excellent points in it - only it's all too late. He says of a huge wind farm in Shetland, UK:

Does this sound very "green" to you? To me it sounds like a society fixated on growth and material progress going about its destructive business in much the same way as ever, only without the carbon. It sounds like a society whose answer to everything is more and bigger technology; a society so cut off from nature that it believes industrialising a mountain is a "sustainable" thing to do.

It also sounds like an environmental movement in danger of losing its way. The support for industrial wind developments in wild places seems to me a symbol of a lack of connectedness to an actual, physical environment. A development like that of Shetland is not an example of sustainable energy: it is the next phase in the endless human advance upon the non-human world - the very thing that the environmental movement came into being to resist.

Dear Mr. Kingsnorth: We have tried. We have failed. You're right, it's not nice that we have to mar the landscape with huge wind turbines. But remember that old saying, If you can't beat them, join them? Well, we can't beat them, but we might be able to steer them into a zero-carbon future.

If giant industrial windfarms will save the future of our species and innumerable others, then I'm not going to stand in the way. Where were all the wind farm protesters all these years when we were trying to fight Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Money? It's too late to fight "Big Wind" because we MUST get to zero carbon and we MUST invest in renewable energy to do it.

It appears that there aren't too many of us willing to make sacrifices or change our lifestyles for the sake of the children. So, we'd better give people what they want. With a twist of lime, but without the carbon please.

121 to Go - The "Other" CO2 Problem: Ocean Acidification (Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid)

From a Macleans.ca article by Nancy Macdonald.

Scientists ... say the oceans are facing a terrifying new threat that will affect the entire marine food chain: the water is slowly but surely becoming more acidic.

More than 80 per cent of the heat generated by climate change and a third of all carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere winds up in the ocean. That carbon dioxide - a whopping 118 billion tons - is not innocuous, as scientists once thought. When it dissolves in briny seawater, it produces an acidic molecule known as carbonic acid (the same substance used in soft drinks). Seawater pH is now between eight and 8.3 in most areas, 30 per cent lower than in pre-industrial times....

In 1998, before the issue had hit even the scientific radar, oceanographer Joanie Kleypas was at a Boston conference with top U.S. biologists. With access to early experimental data, she was doing "back-of-envelope" carbon calculations relating to ocean pH when, "all of a sudden," she realized the math was spelling a potential marine disaster. She was so shocked by the magnitude of the problem that she ran from the boardroom and threw up in a nearby bathroom. The geological record is "terrifying," she says from her Boulder, Colo., office at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The last time the ocean's pH changed anywhere nearly as rapidly was 55 million years ago in an event oceanographers call the "Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum," or PETM, and there was a mass extinction of calcareous organisms. Now "we seem on track to do in about 300 years what PETM did over 3,000 years," says Debby Ianson, a climate modeller with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans [in Canada].

While sea grasses and jellyfish will thrive in a more acidic environment, marine organisms with calcium carbonate shells likely will not. Indeed, shells and mollusks start to dissolve within 48 hours in seawater as acidic as the oceans are projected to be by the end of the century. So does coral - which is already suffering the impacts of global warming, local pollution, overfishing and habitat destruction. Battered by so many stressors, coral reefs, which are home to 25 per cent of all marine life, will almost certainly disappear, robbing fish of the crevasses and critical refuge from the awaiting "wall of mouths," says Simon Fraser University biologist Nick Dulvy. Some 20 per cent of all coral reefs have already been destroyed, including a full 80 per cent of all Caribbean reefs, while another 50 per cent teeter on the brink....

It's early days yet, but the acidification process is happening 10 times faster than previously believed, according to the latest science....

Ocean acidification is "essentially irreversible" during periods measured in mere decades, according to Britain's Royal Society.... In geologic terms, a quick change occurs over 10,000 years, but the acidification of the oceans appears to be happening over a period of 50 to 100 years.

122 Days Left Until Copenhagen - Transforming Our Worldview Is Not Part of APA Report on Climate Change

Just read about the report from the APA Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change, presented this week (August 2009) at the American Psychological Association meeting being held in Toronto.

From the press release:

Scientific evidence shows the main influences of climate change are behavioral - population growth and energy consumption. "What is unique about current global climate change is the role of human behavior," said task force chair Janet Swim, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University. "We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act."

Despite warnings from scientists and environmental experts that limiting the effects of climate change means humans need to make some severe changes now, people don't feel a sense of urgency. The task force said numerous psychological barriers are to blame, including:

• Uncertainty - Research has shown that uncertainty over climate change reduces the frequency of "green" behavior.


• Mistrust - Evidence shows that most people don't believe the risk messages of scientists or government officials.


• Denial - A substantial minority of people believe climate change is not occurring or that human activity has little or nothing to do with it, according to various polls.


• Undervaluing Risks - A study of more than 3,000 people in 18 countries showed that many people believe environmental conditions will worsen in 25 years. While this may be true, this thinking could lead people to believe that changes can be made later.


• Lack of Control - People believe their actions would be too small to make a difference and choose to do nothing.


• Habit - Ingrained behaviors are extremely resistant to permanent change while others change slowly. Habit is the most important obstacle to pro-environment behavior, according to the report.

First, it strikes me that this report is proof that Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Money and all their climate change denying minions have employed the services of some pretty hot psychologists, who did all this research years before the APA subcommittee did theirs. The denialist movement has done an excellent job of planting and propagating uncertainty, mistrust, denial, complacency toward risk, a lack of belief in the power of one, and an increasing sense of entitlement to burn as many fossil fuels as we damn well want to burn (which is habit-forming).

However, this report does not touch on the most important barrier to change: we do not see ourselves as connected to the Earth and the rest of Nature. Indeed, we do not see ourselves as part of Nature at all.

If we're going to safeguard the future, we must transform our worldview, reconnecting ourselves to that which gives us life - the Earth's biosphere.

Visit GreenHeart's Barriers to Sustainability and Environmental Learning and Action for more information on this major barrier.

123 Days to Go and I'm Getting Depressed - Why Are Climate Bullies So Ignorant?

I know I shouldn't do it, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I go online and look up a recommended article on climate change, and then I read the comments.

I should not read the comments. Please, do not let me read the comments anymore!

The comments are almost always posted by ignorant climate bullies who spew lies and age-old denier "sound bytes," and almost always get away with it.

Tonight, I and all the people who care about the Earth and the future and the children were called "crazy zealot left wing enviro-Nazis."

The anonymity of the web has created an ugliness that is really starting to sadden me. I am going to have to stop reading these things in order not to lose total faith in my species.

The worst of it is their sheer numbers. If the bullies commenting on just this one article are any indication, we are well and truly doomed.

There's none so blind as those who cannot see from behind their huge egos.

And how did we become so dichotomized? And why are "they" so loud and ever-present and crude and nasty and heartless, while the people who care are so few and so quiet?

I suppose it's because they've learned not to read the comments sections of online articles about climate change!

Now, since this is a blog about compassionate climate action, I am going to try my very best to send out some compassion to these people - may they learn that the threat to fear is the one hanging over their children's future, not the people who are trying their best to do something about it.

Hugs all around. It's scary times.

124 Days to Copenhagen - Life Without Agriculture

I've discovered that some people who at least are thinking about the climate change emergency are perhaps thinking the wrong things.

Apparently there's a belief out there that we're going to end up back in a feudal system, whereby today's rich people become tomorrow's rich people, and the rest of us become peasants, serfs or slaves. Our toil (rather than oil) then becomes the engine of that feudal society.

The big problem with that prediction is that the feudal system was based on agriculture, but climate change is going to do away with agriculture. If we don't make the transformation to a renewable energy / zero carbon economy fast, then that climate stability that allowed civilizations to flourish (because of agricultural surpluses) will disappear, leaving us basically back in the stone age, if not gone.

The grim irony is that the deniers like to tell their audiences that we environmentalists would have us all living back in the stone age, when it's their foot dragging over at least two decades now that will lead to a climate holocaust and then a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for any that might remain.

It's the physics, folks, pure physics. We're still pumping more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They warm the atmosphere, heating up the surface of the planet, which includes the oceans. If we don't stop very soon and start going in reverse, this will mean disaster for agriculture, disaster for our food security, and disaster for our children's future.

125 Days Left - We Have Become Nature Voyeurs

I live in a beautiful seaside place where we get to see killer whales go past from time to time. Orcas are magnificent animals, and over the years, we've had some very moving experiences with them.

This morning, the rocks by the beach were covered with human animals, waiting to catch a glimpse of these powerful black and white creatures. As we watched the orcas spyhop and blow and slap their fins, I heard someone say, "It's like the paparazzi here, with all the cameras clicking."

And that's when it struck me. In our culture, we tend to "do" Nature, like voyeurs or like athletes, rather than experiencing the rest of Nature as parties to it, as a part of it.

It reminded me of a teenaged tourist about to go off on an Africa safari in Kruger Park, South Africa. "Dad," she complained to her father, "if you've seen one giraffe, you've seen them all."

Actually, no. Spend any time with giraffes - or any other creature on Earth - and you will soon see all the differences between individuals within species and between species that seem quite similar. But we have to take that time.

Part of safeguarding the future is going to entail a slowing down, a rebonding, a relearning of the ancient connection between all living things.

And the longer we just sit, observing our neighbours of other species, or falling asleep in the sun, or chewing on some grass, the less we're driving about spewing greenhouse gas emissions!

My husband and I have been greeted - eye to eye - by whales, have sung to whales, have watched whales push a sick pod member to the surface, have witnessed a baby whale nursing. We would have missed the privilege of all these fantastic shared moments had we not slowed down a bit and gotten past the notion that Nature is a "show" that starts when we get there and ends when we leave.

126 Days to Go - TV Shuts Down Our Compassion, Music Opens Our Hearts

I sat yesterday morning in a waiting room with a big screen TV showing reruns with the sound muted. As someone who doesn't watch TV at home (who doesn't even have a TV at home), I was stunned by the violence. Absolutely stunned.

I don't get to watch TV very often, but when I do, I make sure to avoid the violent shows. Why this TV was tuned to such gore at 10 a.m. was beyond me, and I tried not to watch but kept getting drawn in by the flickering light. (Television takes the place of campfires in our psyche.) Anyway, I realized that as long as people in our culture spend their "free" time watching TV - and especially this desensitizing violent schlock - we don't stand a hope of becoming a compassionate species.

I came home and dosed myself with my favourite ecospiritual music. Music has the power and potential to open our hearts. I'd like to share one song with you.

Earth Mama, aka Joyce Johnson Rouse, sings a brilliant and moving song on her Under the Rainbow CD. It's called Love by Design, and it was inspired by the now famous question of green architect and designer, William McDonough:

• How do we love all of the children,
  of all species,
  for all time?

Earth Mama's chorus in this song is

• How do we love
  all of the children
  of all species
  for all time?
  How do we leave
  room in the future
  for the creatures of every kind?
  How do we love?
  Love by design...

She goes on to sing

• As the world gets smaller still,
  we must find the hope and will
  to share the world we build
  with children yet to come.

It's not often that songs mention future generations. This song is an important reminder that everything we do, every choice we make today, is going to impact the future of life on this planet.

It's a vast thought, and one that opens my heart to the possibilities of loving by design.

127 Days til Copenhagen - The Most Important Number Is (drum roll please) ...

0. The most important number in the whole world today is zero, Zero, ZERO! That little "0" at the end of 350. That most fascinating of numbers that came to us from the Medieval Latin zephirum, which came from the Arabic sifr. That most fascinating of numbers that came to us, if I understand correctly, from the Hindus of India, who recognized around 200 A.D. a mathematical representation of the concept of no quantity. (It had not occurred to earlier civilizations.) And that most useful of numbers because it allows us to represent any other whole number of any size.

Isn't it funny that the number "zero" had to be invented? Does that mean that human beings have never been very good at limiting themselves? (Although it has been pointed out that zero is not the same as nothingness.) But I'm not a mathematician and I digress.

Today, I would just like to quickly point out that we have to get used to the notion of zero carbon. We have to embed that term (which is shorthand for zero greenhouse gas emissions) in our brains and emblazon it on our Tshirts.

We have to get everyone talking about zero carbon. It has to become a big, hairy audacious goal of every human being on the planet. And it has to be the objective we keep in mind as we develop all the fantastic renewable energy technologies that will safeguard life on Earth.

So, for starters, here's a little instruction in zerodom (pardon any errors of syntax and little accents not showing up):

• Dutch: nul koolstof
• French: zero carbone (accent on the "e" in zero)
• German: null carbon
• Italian: zero carbonio
• Portuguese: zero carbono
• Spanish: cero carbon (accent on the "o" in carbon)

128 Days Left - Language is Everything

Why is it that the environmental movement still hasn't managed to come up with the compelling language about the climate change emergency that will stick, will teach, will upset, will move, will transform, will melt the ice in the hearts of human beings?

Why do we let "the other side" use all the evocative terms while we talk about temperature increases and emissions levels, which are, frankly, boring if not completely incomprehensible to most people.

Anyway, this rhetorical question came about after a conversation with a like-hearted spirit today and this observation:

People will always listen to what they want to hear. The trick is getting them to hear what they don't want to listen to.

Does that make sense?

Here are my suggestions for helping people want to listen ... and hear.

1. Use picture language. Most people in this culture are visual learners, and anything that creates an image in the mind's eye is more powerful than mere concept language. Metaphors and analogies work well.
2. Use story. Human beings have evolved as storytellers and story lovers - probably based on our thousands of years of sitting around campfires. Stories stick in our memory. Because we have an innate sense of story, we're able to retell them (even if we don't get the details right, which happens quite often).
3. Make it personal. People need to hear themselves in the story. Climate change isn't just an emergency for Africans and Pacific Islanders. Our agricultural systems in the developed world are starting to fail - and most of us wouldn't last a month without someone else's food stocking the shelves in our local grocery store. (Personal enough?)
4. Make it emotional. So many people think there's no place for emotions in the field of climate science. But emotions are what move people, or touch. A little bit of passion helps open minds and hearts. Do not be afraid to show genuine emotion (this isn't about manipulation). Be real. Share your fear, for example, or your despair or longing. How can we talk about the possibility of ending life on Earth in a matter-of-fact way?
5. Be honest! In some ways, that's the same as showing emotion, but it's more than that. Scientists, for whatever seemingly misguided reasons, decided early on not to tell us the whole truth about climate change. But if people don't hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, how will they come to understand what we're up against? Our capacity for hearing bad news knows no bounds (else newspapers would not sell) - we must trust that people will know what to do once they have the opportunity to grasp the truth.

Do you have any other ideas for how we can better communicate the urgency of the climate change emergency to people?

129 Days to Go - Where Has All the Music Gone?

I don't think I'm alone in believing that music played an important role in the era that gave us the civil rights movement, women's liberation, and the environmental movement (in North America, at least).

So is it just because I'm older now? Am I missing out on a whole generation of music about saving the world, stopping climate change, and fighting climate inequity and injustice?

Or is the music lacking ... and that's one of the reasons we're just not getting into peoples heads - and hearts?

Well, better late than never, I just discovered Take Our Planet Back, by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. (He's the fellow who did Yes, We Can for Obama.) He debuted it at Al Gore's January 2009 Green Ball.

So, here it is, with lyrics below. Please pass it on. Let's create a soundtrack that we can listen to when we're old and crotchety and proudly say, "Yup, we did it. We beat that global warming and saved the world. We stood up and took our planet back!"

p.s. Does this song resonate for you? It's pretty, but my sense is that we need one that we can all sing along to.

Calling all the leaders to lead us out the hole
Asking all deceivers the things I want to know
If we're so technological
Why're we still burning oil?
'Cause I got a car you plug into the wall that's faster than a GTO
We shot for the stars, put rovers on Mars, make planes like UFOs
So why are we borrowin' money from China to buy oil from the Gulf and destroyin' the world?
Now that's got to change

(Chorus x3)
We'll stand up
We'll stand up and take our planet back
You and me
Talkin' 'bout we
Talkin' 'bout we
Talkin' 'bout

Calling all the citizens
Citizens of the land
Ask your politicians
All these questions
If we fight another war on terror
Why aren't we fighting for the environment?

We spend a billion dollars on wars in foreign lands
But nothin' on education
Nikola Tesla turned the Niagara Falls into energy way back when
And we're still burning coal
When you can make electricity with solar and wind

Now who's getting played?
You and me
And who's getting paid?

(Chorus x3)

I'm askin' all the citizens to take action
Take action and take back the government
Tell the government to start taxin' pollution
Makin' laws 'cause that's the solution
It should be against the law to make pollution
So if they make products that do what the other products do
But they didn't pollute, what are you gonna choose?

130 Days to Copenhagen, and the news just keeps getting worse and worse

Here is an excerpt from
A FOREWARNED FUTURE
by Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service
25 July 2009

• Thousands of people pour out of Manhattan onto the waiting armada of ships. The "October Surprise" has hit with a vengeance -- a massive hurricane has flooded and paralyzed New York City.
• Dozens of world leaders watch the disaster unfold beneath them as they are airlifted from the United Nations General Assembly that had just convened on the banks of the now overflowing Hudson River.
• "I guess the problem was that we counted on this not happening, at least not yet. Most scientists assumed the worst effects of climate change would occur later in the century," the president of the United States writes in his diary. "The culmination of disasters, needed cleanups, permafrost melting, lower agricultural yields, growing health problems and the like is taking a terrible toll, much greater than we anticipated 20 years ago."
• This presidential diary entry is, of course, fiction. But its inclusion in the 120-page November 2008 report by the National Intelligence Council, a Washington security think-tank, illustrates a grim and troubling reality that is causing worry in such diverse places as the Pentagon and British Defence Ministry, major aid agencies, the United Nations and, of course, among environmentalists.
• Real life 21st century threats due to climate change -- massive flooding, droughts, population explosions, massive migrations of uprooted and desperate people facing life-threatening food and water shortages -- have made "climate security" a buzzword that now extends far beyond the war rooms of western capitals.
• The trepidation is very real that this will be the driver for war on a scale we have yet to see on this planet, bringing tension to stable parts of the world, making the tense places worse.
• Don't dismiss this as military-driven paranoia: the alarm is being sounded by non-military actors -- United Nations agencies, leading philanthropists, the World Bank, as well as major international aid agencies that have always strived to maintain a healthy distance from the world's military establishment.

Remember, folks. The opposite of fear is complacency. There is nothing wrong with fearmongering when there is something to fear. Monger away! The sky is falling, or at least, filling up with carbon. And of every five little carbon dioxide molecules you release, one of them will still be up there in 1000 years, continuing to heat the planet beyond the capability of life to survive.

Unless, of course, we take action to demand action, as Greenpeace is suggesting in their new You-Turn-the-Earth campaign! If you haven't written to the leader of your country lately, please take 7 minutes and do it now.

For the Earth, the Future, and the Children of All Species.

p.s. See the rest of the article here.

131 Days Until Copenhagen - If... Then... (The Saga of Melting Arctic Ice and Drought in Texas)

Remember that old expression, If the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he would have caught the rabbit?

Well, I'm starting to wonder....

If the Bush Administration hadn't chosen to keep spy satellite photos of melting Arctic ice top secret, maybe Texas wouldn't be going through the horrifying drought it's experiencing.

Maybe, just maybe, those photos would have ignited concern about climate change across the United States and around the world. And then maybe, just maybe, we'd all be doing something about it.

My heart goes out to the Texans. For a generation and a nation that has never gone without water, this must be a very frightening time for them.

And once again, there but for the grace of the Universe (and a few years), go I (and you, too). Arctic ice is the air conditioner of the northern hemisphere during our growing season. No Arctic ice = no growing season due to drought and scorched earth. (By the way, have you heard? Those with money know this and have started buying up agricultural land in the southern hemisphere.)

Let's hold in our hearts that many people and places in Africa are already far worse off than Texas, where they can no longer water their lawns but still have water to drink. The devastation to the crops in Texas this summer might, however, give them some compassion for the plight of Africans already impacted by global climate catastrophe.

p.s. Why were they spying on the Inuit in the Arctic anyway?

132 Days Left - The Art of Revelling in the Gifts of Summer

Today, my compassionate act is (with apologies to those of you living in the southern hemisphere) to revel in the wonderful gifts that a warmer-than-usual summer is bringing to my part of the world.

One of the definitions of "revel" in my dictionary is "to take intense satisfaction" and that's what I'm doing these days!

The irony is that the word comes from the Latin rebellare meaning to rebel. In a sense, revelling in Nature's gifts these days is an act of rebellion - against the twin tyrannies of technology and narcissism.

I am revelling in Okanagan Valley cherries, the plumpest and sweetest I have ever tasted! Each one is two juicy bites' worth.

I am revelling in the early sweet corn, eaten on the back deck in the shade, with butter and salt. (Corn is the only thing I put butter and salt on, so this is a delicious indulgence.)

I am revelling in my late peas! The first I planted were eaten by rodents. The second peas I planted were roughed over by marauding deer. I finally ate my first peas today.

I am revelling in shade. As the planet heats up, I am appreciating the coolness provided by the trees around our home. I'm sure we'll be trading shady comfort for sunny growing space before too long.

I am revelling in the little tomatoes that are ripening in my one sunny spot. Any day now, I'll be popping my first tomato of the season, and it will be heaven on Earth.

I revelled last night in a giant thunderstorm that watered the garden and had me grinning with joy at my memories of jumping in puddles as a child.

I am revelling in warm summer nights. I grew up with sultry evenings in central Canada, but here on the west coast of Canada, we usually have to put a sweater on as soon as the sun even thinks about going down. This is quite new for us, and I recognize that it's probably not a good thing. (The reason the heat wave of 2003 killed so many people in Europe is that the temperature didn't go down at night to give people respite from the heat.)

So I am revelling because I don't want to be so caught up in the climate change fight that I forget to appreciate what it is I'm fighting for.

Thank you, Summer, for all your gifts.

133 Days to Copenhagen - Three Upcoming Climate Change "Opportunities" for Youth

I'd like to share these three upcoming initiatives that youth who want to have their voices heard can participate in.

1. UNEP Tunza International Children and Youth Conference on the Environment

   UNEP is sponsoring the biggest ever children and youth gathering on climate change in South Korea in August, to call for real action at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

   Although the "real" participants have already been selected, there seems to be an opportunity for virtual participation at a Global Town Hall on 20 August 2009 that will use state-of-the-art technology to link the gathering to hundreds of other young environmental leaders around the globe to agree on a message to deliver to world leaders.

   The Seal the Deal! Global Town Hall will be facilitated by the Washington-based nonprofit Global Voices, which has pioneered the use of technology to convene large-scale deliberations to impact policy making.

   For more information, see the UNEP Tunza International Children and Youth Conference on the Environment website.

2. Climate Neutrality with Honours - Climate Neutral Network

   Universities are joining the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), an initiative led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to promote global action to de-carbonize our economies and societies.

   The first universities on board are the pioneers among hundreds of universities, colleges and other academic institutions worldwide that are taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote "greening" of their campuses and invest in low-carbon research and development.

   UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner [quickly becoming a climate hero in my eyes!] said: "The Climate Neutral Network was inspired by a simple idea that a transformation to a low, even zero emission future is a learning process. It is therefore fitting that universities from all over the world should join this global networking platform and help make the best knowledge on climate neutrality available to all."

   For information, visit the Climate Neutral Network.

3. YouthXchange E-Bulletin Seeking Contributions

   The next e-bulletin of YouthXchange will focus on Youth and Sustainability. Everyone is asked to send their comments, stories and ideas to the YXC team at youthxchange@unep.org. Check out the YouthXchange website, which they call "a training kit on responsible consumption." It's posing some serious questions and challenges to get people thinking about their consumption patterns.

134 Days to Go - Al Gore on why youth (and honesty) are so important to this movement

"I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."
- Al Gore

(Note to Al: It's because they, and we, have allowed ourselves to be chained to our technologies. The greenies are too busy blogging to block bulldozers - and that's the last time I'll use alliteration like that, I promise.)

The thing to remember when Gore talks about the American civil rights movement in the video below is that global climate change has a deadline. And I mean deadline.

This video is in honour of all the youth who are doing more than their share to wake up the world to the climate emergency.

135 Days Left - The Kids, Always the Kids (A Guest Blog)

Today's post is from Lou Grinzo, a new online friend from The Cost of Energy, in response to my suggestion that some compassion towards all the children could go a long way.

*******

I had a chance to present to 10 classes at a local middle school on the topic of electricity generation. I talked about conservation steps they can take, which fuels we use here in the United States, and how much CO2 each emitted.

I was shocked by the determination of these kids. Their teacher had already covered a lot of ground with them on climate chaos, so they had at least a rough idea of how bad CO2 emissions are. And they were NOT going to listen to some old guy like me telling them it was a tough problem. They wanted me and all the other clueless, can't-work-an-iPod-and-don't-know-Facebook-from-a- hole-in-the-ground adults to get the heck out of the way so they could fix it. NOW!

And this all happened even before I apologized to them. I told them that my generation had really screwed up the planet, and that we were leaving them with a gigantic mess to clean up. The look on their faces was amazing. I guess they're not used to adults apologizing to them.

The one thing they couldn't get their heads around was why things had gotten this bad, and why we (meaning the people running the planet) hadn't started doing a lot more about it 20 or 30 or more years ago. I tried my best to explain that a lot of the emissions, starting with the Industrial Revolution, happened before we realized what we were doing. And by the time we figured it out we had built so much of our economy around burning fossil fuels, and there was so much money involved (as in buying politicians), that it became impossible to make large scale changes until things got really bad - like now.

I came out of those days exhausted and invigorated, saddened and hopeful. I think I learned a lot more from them about our future than they learned from me.

Fix this for the kids. And they are all our kids, whether they carry our DNA or not.

Thanks, Lou. I know what you mean.