Wednesday, October 09, 2019
What Do We Do Now?
What does an awakened world do
now? Some of us have been awake to the climate crisis a long time,
and more people awaken with every new crisis. The problem is that as
the masses awaken - right now it's the world's youth, with their climate strikes - reactionary forces harden their positions.
For decades now, my sunny liberal friends have pointed to the
political cycle involved here, confident that our time will come.
But time is now at the brink of running out. It is tempting to
summarize the kinds of things that a rational world needs to do to
stop catastrophic climate change before we pass the brink. Alas, the world is not rational, and unless the strikes go viral and we shut
down the whole system, those entrenched reactionary forces -
especially Trump and Bolsonaro - are going to tip the world into
runaway climate disruption.
Because climate change is a
global threat to one interconnected earth system, we need
internationalism more than ever before. A strong network of treaties
and the potential of leading by example given in the Paris Climate
Accord is the only way we will be able to turn back imminent
catastrophe. This accord should have been a treaty, with real
enforceable measures, but the entrenched obstructionism of the
Republican Party in the US forced a different kind of agreement,
relying on the psychology of peer pressure. If the major polluters
were all committed to this approach, it would have a very small
chance of working. The reactionary wave convulsing the world is
either very poor timing, or the death-knell of a failed species.
Eschewing air travel, my hero
Greta Thunberg (photo, above) sailed to New York on a solar-powered sailboat to
boost the school strikes she inspired September 20 and 27, and to
address the UN climate summit September 23. Since she started the
school strike movement a year ago, each strike has grown in numbers.
I attended the strike September 20 in Asheville, NC, along with my
grandsons, aged 13 and 11. About 500 were present, roughly half of
them students. It was organized by Sunrise, and all of the speakers
were young women, mostly from Asheville area high schools. They held
a die-in for 11 minutes, tolling a gong for each year leading up to
2030, which the latest IPCC report gives as our deadline to turn back
the climate beast or lose that possibility forever. Four million
struck worldwide that day, and another two million on the 27th.
Meanwhile, at the Summit, Greta gave her most impassioned, angry speech yet.
But true to its past record, the
summit produced very little progress in advancing the Paris Accord.
Trump blew in for 15 minutes, and had nothing to say about climate.
Greta Thunberg stood just yards away from him, and gave him a
withering stare. Trump chose, instead of addressing the Paris
Accord- from which he has withdrawn our country- to give a speech on
the importance of religious liberty. With the Amazon still burning,
Bolsonaro preposterously denied the fires, emphasizing Brazil's right
to develop as it pleased.
The only progress came from the
business community. At a separate site, 87 businesses, representing
15% of the world's stock market value, pledged to reach net-zero
emissions by 2050 (Amazon by 2040). Unfortunately, these companies
represent only 2% of the world's carbon, whereas the 100 energy
giants account for 70% of emissions (Economist, 9/28).
Led by Michael Bloomberg, the
Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI), pledged to invest $20
billion over the next five years (Economist). However, trillions are
needed, so the main accomplishment of this organization is to model
the attraction of its strategies for removing risk from renewable
energy investments. Overall, the rich nations - with the exception
of some small countries in Northern Europe- are being stingy with
their commitment to helping poor nations leapfrog into a carbon
neutral lifestyle. this is a disturbing and consistent pattern in
face of the climate emergency.
Greta's infective passion is
inspired by science, and she consults with her climate scientist
friends before every public speech, to make sure she gets it right.
But I have often pointed out that we are driven by the limbic system
more than the later evolutionary development of the neocortex.
Accordingly, we are more convinced by the most satisfying story, not
by facts, figures and graphs. In Greta's case, it's her remarkable
story that grabs us more than the alarming facts she cites. She's
deep into the Asperger's spectrum, and this helps her be unshakable
in her ferocious tenacity in decrying the cynical stone-heartedness
of the world's leaders as they refuse to respond to the climate
crisis.
Even the scientists undercut the
rational results of their climate research. A study by Naomi Oreskeset al illustrates the power of social pressure, which "healthy"
individuals respond to (Greta doesn't), which results in scientists
consistently underestimating climate damage. Fearful of the rule of
the mob, the IPCC repeatedly understates its case. So, sadly, the
story-line of 11 years for a global Green New Deal, which Greta
highlights in her speeches, is the result of just this waffling; the
situation is much more dire. Rationalism and the acceptance of
facts, with agreed methods of verification, could have perhaps saved
us from climate doom, but as Schopenhauer pointed out, the mind is a
puny little creature riding on the shoulders of a powerful giant, the
will.
We are not rationalists, yet
radical doubt has propelled us too far to go back to the direct,
childlike experience like the tribal man in Northeast India, who
responded to news of climate change from a fellow villager who had
gone off to college, "Stop talking like that. Dont' you know you
are offending our mother, the Earth? How dare you speak such
slander?" LINK: Dark Mountain. Tara Houska, a Minnesota
Anishinaabe lawyer, points out that 70% of the world's wilderness is
defended by First Nations. In an article on learning to listen to true elders, she remarks, Taking the time to deeply and
irrevocably connect with the earth can take the whole
of a life.
Ah, I ask myself, but are you
awakened to the Earth, even more deeply than to science and climate
statistics? How might this change your behavior? Some individuals
serve as bridges between the native world and modern science. Tara
Houska is one. Robin Wall Kemmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass,
is another. Robin is a Native American with a PhD in ecology who
achieved a hard-earned balance between her native world view and
science. I have heard her speak, and she is a quietly eloquent
defender of the sacred land mentality. Because her faith gives her
leverage over the US evangelical community, Katherine Hayhoe, who is
a member of the IPCC, is perhaps an even more important bridge.
She addressed a full house and a rapt audience at a ministers and
rabbis breakfast in Asheville which I attended a few years ago.
Taking the time to deeply and
irrevocably connect with the earth can take the whole of a life.
I spent the first part of my life being formed in elite institutions
into a scientifically literate citizen, with tools of analysis that
led to a PhD in interdisciplinary humanities. Though I spent time
outdoors, most of my connection to the earth was through fantasy, and
most forays ended in the comfort of home, or at least with a
well-stocked backpack. I have more or less spent the whole of a life
becoming a privileged white man and a highly educated elitist. On
the other hand, I have had a passion for earthcare since the first
Earth Day, and quit academia at the Millennium to dedicate myself
(imperfectly) to educating about climate science and trying to help
awaken others to the global ecological crisis. But
am I truly awake, as I claimed in the first paragraph?
In
the early days, I anchored
each presentation by teaching
some basic climate science.
Later, I would give a quick summary of the crisis, giving the latest
climate news. But what was always the most effective was leading
group interactions around feelings and values in response to these
momentous changes. But I have yet to dedicate to deeply
and irrevocably connect with the earth,
and certainly not given my whole life to it.
Once,
when I gathered Celo Friends Meeting to pray for the safety of the
water keepers at Standing Rock as they faced eviction by the state
police, spirit came upon me and I rose to plead that we all adopt our
local places as sacred, worth defending with every means available.
No, I and my listeners are not natives to this place, where we
displaced the Cherokee. We are a nomadic, opportunistic species, and
I am a European colonialist. As my respected friend/sage Joe Hollis
has said for decades, we are a species who has lost its niche,
wandering uprooted
in our technological play-world. As
Joe says, "We have replaced natural diversity with human
diversity." But setting
a deep intention to honor our places as sacred, and renewing it
daily, is profoundly different from the admonition from some
environmental groups to "do one thing for the Earth each day."
I cast my lot with Greta
Thunberg and the millions of young people rising up all over the
planet. The science speaks loudly, but not loudly enough to reach
the reactionary forces on the rise worldwide. We can only hope
that as the wave of strikes increases, it will finally overwhelm an
over-civilized world which prefers the illusory comfort of
business-as-usual. It is quite probable that these strikes will not
bring enough change fast enough to avoid climate catastrophe, but the
effort has dignity and nobility and courage.
But more importantly, I have
recently connected with Cherokee (Gaduah) elders, and come to
recognize just how sacred is the valley I inhabit, and the majestic
massif overlooking it, the Black Mountains. This land was their
gods. I am humbled by this, and will spend my elder years going
as far into these mountains as I am able, sometimes without
provisions, so that I may listen more deeply. Whatever happens to
global civilization and our species during this sixth great
extinction, the Earth will endure, and so will the gods in this land.
No matter the circumstances, it can take the whole of a life.
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