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This is Not Youthful Rebellion. We See the Catastrophe Ahead
Climate change has provoked a war between the generations. Younger members of the government need to choose their side
Lily Kember is 21 years old. Late last year, with 50 other activists, she shut down Stansted airport, in the process preventing thousands of tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. A few minutes before her arrest she told listeners of the Today program: "We're here because our parents' generation has failed us and it's now down to young people to stop climate change by whatever peaceful means we have left."
She was by no means the youngest person who cut through the security fence that December morning - one of her co-protesters was born in 1991. You might conclude something extremely interesting is happening when kids are bunking off school not to play the arcades but instead to risk jail by invading runways to indict an entire generation. Last week it was my friend Leila Deen throwing custard over Peter Mandelson and twentysomethings in Aberdeen getting on to another runway to protest against airport expansion. In the summer 29 others will go on trial for hijacking a train that was carrying coal to Drax power station. Meanwhile in the US 12,000 young people last week marched on the coal plant that provides power to congress to demand that the new president act on his promise to "roll back the specter of a warming planet".
Contrast this explosion of determined political activity by society's youngest voters with the image of Mandelson banging his head on the cabinet table. He was, according to the newspapers, frustrated that some of his younger colleagues had failed to grasp the ineluctable logic of his argument in favor of making Heathrow airport the biggest single point-source of carbon in the UK. The intergenerational gap articulated so poignantly by Lily Kember most certainly exists, and it's getting wider.
Some social commentators have placed this burgeoning carbon movement in the same bracket as earlier social movements populated by young people. They say the Sixties was the anti-war decade; the Seventies saw marches against racism at home and apartheid abroad; if it's the Eighties it must be Ban the Bomb and Maggie Out!; the Nineties was roads and anti-globalization; and the Noughties, this decade, is about climate change. We'll soon be on to something else, right?
Wrong. We're not the Noughties. This isn't the next fad. The naive popular narrative that "every generation has their thing" and that climate is ours - that we're the "Facebook generation" - simply does not hold. This isn't about being disaffected and rebellious without a cause. This isn't about dropping out, rejecting the norm, culture jamming and hacking the system. This isn't even about altruism. It's not just about defending the rights and lives of those who are less fortunate than us, and it certainly isn't about polar bears. This is about us. For the millennial generation the patronising cliches fall apart, because this isn't about ideals so much as hard science and the terrifying reality that what the scientists have been warning us all about for years - those sea level rises, catastrophic droughts and melting ice caps - will now happen in our lifetimes.
So we become angry when we witness the same generation which let the economic system collapse, and that is leaving my generation with an unfathomable burden of debt - Brown and Mandelson and the old men of politics - now knowingly setting us on another disastrous course. We know how this story ends, but not because we've read obscure economic treatises or dense theories from Friedman and Hayek or Hobsbawm and Marx. We know because scientists are providing measurable objective evidence that the high-carbon economic model has an in-built self-destruct mechanism.
The only difference between capitalism in crisis and the climate crisis is that almost nobody predicted the economic collapse, whereas almost every single qualified expert predicted with steady and unerring accuracy the effect that carbon dioxide is having on the climate. Now compare the reactions of our leaders to the two crises. If the world was a bank, Brown would have saved it already. Instead it is my generation, with our taxes for decades to come, which is bankrolling a bail-out that ranks at the bottom of the developed world for its focus on greening the economy. For us it's all pain and no gain.
For us there's no difference between the scant regard paid by President Bush for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the attitude taken by these British baby-boomer politicians who gave us dodgy Saudi arms deals then blocked the inquiry because they value oil over truth. They stole our right to protest outside parliament and now they try to mollify us with sombre talk of "tough decisions for turbulent times" before attacking us for "silly stunts" (as Geoff Hoon did last week) when we get a bit uppity about climate change. Increasingly, as I can testify, his generation even resorts to political policing and legal injunctions.
Yet against this gloomy backdrop emerges what US marketers Eric Greenberg and Karl Weber have called "history's most active volunteering generation" - or "Generation We". Independent of the old ideologies and tribal loyalties that have stained mainstream politics in Britain, we're determined to capture the moment. We believe 2009 can be a transformative year, that the economic crisis presents an opportunity to reject old assumptions just as the ecological crisis focuses minds on the last chance UN climate summit in Denmark in December. The Copenhagen meeting has the potential - more than any gathering of human beings before it - to affect how our civilization develops. This is Westphalia, Versailles and Bretton Woods rolled into one, and it's happening this year.
Some of you who have read this far will by now be sniggering with cynicism, and when this article is published online many of the comments will exhibit a similar scorn. But with respect to the keyboard commandos, we'll take our cue instead from Professor James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies who said: "In the nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and United States, a crisis could be precipitated only by the action of one of the parties. In contrast, the present threat to the planet and civilization requires only inaction in the face of clear scientific evidence of the danger."
So inaction is the greatest threat, and that's why young people are breaking through airport fences and shutting down coal plants. Because rather like the Israeli government building West Bank settlements on land that's supposed to be under negotiation in an effort to scupper a Middle East peace deal, our own governments are creating "facts on the ground" in the run up to Copenhagen - at Heathrow and Kingsnorth for example - which will destroy what hope we have of striking a deal in December. And we won't let them get away with it.
Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, is 39 years old. He is closer in age to Lily Kember than he is to Gordon Brown, and on his desk today sits the Kingsnorth decision which, according to Professor Hansen, has "the potential to influence the future of the planet". Our best chance of arresting runaway climate change, says Hansen, is to rule out new coal plants unless all of their emissions are captured and buried. If Miliband stands up to his older colleagues and demands - on pain of resignation - that the UK, the nation where the industrial revolution was born, the nation with a greater historical per capita responsibility for climate change than any other, will no longer emit CO2 from coal, then we might have found a British politician we can finally believe in.
It's time for Ed Miliband to decide which generation he is with. Ours, or Brown's.
- Posted in
53 Comments so far
Show AllNo sniggering cynicism. Just don't be as dismissive of past generations and "their causes" as you don't want people to be of yours. Being anti-war in the 60s was also not "just" youthful rebellion; but a rebellion against the same root imperialist and capitalist forces that have brought on climate catastrophe. Youth have more time, more energy, less burnout, more vested interest in a planet 50 years future; so youth will always protest more. That much is true. Every generation may focus on the apsect of the crisis at that time most pertinent or pressing or just apparent. That isn't a fad. The environment isn't a fad. Being anti-war wasn't a fad.
Good article: aging 10:49 You are exactly right. Also youth can withstand the hardship of jail and beatings better. And again I remind people; war resisters died to end the Vietnam War. Sea Shepard ain't no fadists either.
One wrong assertion is that no one predicted the collapse of capitalism; I told my two brothers two and one half years ago to pull all their money out of the stock market and banks(many other people knew it was coming).
William Blake predicted the collapse of capitalism 200 years ago.
But of course, he was crazy.
And for the past 200 years anyone who did predict the collapse of capitalism (and they've been legion) was considered crazy. Capitalist economics is what created global warming, the need to generate and consume as much energy as possible from finite resources that result in consequences that would have been predictable many years ago if anyone had cared to pay any attention. But the high energy demands of hypercapitalism override every other concern, especially if those include feminine-sounding things like caring about the environment, future generations, livabilty of the planet itself.
Capitalists only care about short- and near-term profit potential and can't be bothered by wispy notions like the health of Mother Nature. Extending the metaphor, they can't be bothered about the planet's biological health, whether plant, animal or human. We're all just raw material for the realization of their dreams of maximizing profits. As Marx said, and Blake knew keenly long before Marx and many have nown since. What crazy thinking! Crazy wisdom, as Allen Ginsberg understood. Smash the predatory system that has already caused considerable climate disorder and will only lead to unmitigated disaster. We'll never solve the global climate crisis by clinging forever to capitalism.
No, what created global warming was the misuse of the commons by multi-nationals who don't live in the areas they ruin. You can't call that 'capitalism' because a company larger than a government that doesn't govern, simply loots, is more like a monarchy or oligarchy.
well, it's oligarchic, kleptocratic, plutocratic capitalism. In other words, actually existing capitalism, not the textbook, idealized capitalism that hasn't existed for at least 40 years. So yes, I'm afraid actually existing capitalism is the major or root cause of global warming.
but Ephraim, what causes capitalism? And wouldn't THAT be the cause of global climate catastrophe?
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: Wise words. I think we can distill human motivation along tracks of either being pro-life, in the sense of its vast interconnected systems and the basis for their continuity, or anti-life, which is to behold every sacred being, every living entity from every Kingdom on earth, as what it's equivalent can become in terms of paper-based temporal wealth transactions.
Teaching people the transition of natural capital, that which is a requirement of all living beings, into its temporal equivalent, one that serves the fewest for the shortest interval of time, constitutes not only an economic suicide pact.
Take a look at: GIRL WHO SILENCED THE UN FOR FIVE MINUTES ...HEAR TO SPEAK FOR ALL GENERATIONS TO COME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY
Here, Here.
I concur.
The ONLY reason 1960's anti-war and other activism is now seen as a "fad" is because we've had more than forty years of corporate newsmedia & Hollywood depictions of those times.
During the '60's we fought many of the very same issues:
- for feminism
- against racism
- an end to U.S. militarism
- stopping corporate capitalism
- saving the environment
(Yes, it's quite hard to believe now- but the very first Earth Day back
in 1970 was NOT a corporate and municipal sponsored event!!)
We (boomers) are the generation who as schoolchildren, were drilled to evacuate the classroom or hide under our desks to protect ourselves against a Soviet nuclear attack. We had nightmares about nuclear weapons- which had only recently been developed (1945), just a few years before many of us were born.
Plenty of us aging activists have spent our entire adult lives on the margins of society in order to live with a measure of integrity in acccord with our anti-war beliefs. We rejected the selfish, yuppie lifestyles of certain of our peers and have paid a dear price for it, too.
As others have noted here, it is youth who have fifty years of life ahead of them. Youth have the energy (and good health), the time, even the disposable incomes, to take on these causes in a big way.
Aging boomers right now are working two jobs, and simultaneously caring for our young grandchildren AND our elderly parents!
Penelope is as right as rain in the Amazon: "Plenty of us aging activists have spent our entire adult lives on the margins of society in order to live with a measure of integrity in acccord with our anti-war beliefs. We rejected the selfish, yuppie lifestyles of certain of our peers and have paid a dear price for it, too."
Even if the Amazon's only a vestige of what it used to be. This is something the younger generation too blithely asserts today--that all boomers are their problem. As Penelope says, many of us have paid a very heavy price for not buying into the prevailing ethic of capitalism all these years. Some of us have lived on the margins for 40 years. We've done what we could to reverse all the insanity now engulfing the world, but to little avail because we've been outnumbered and undercapitalized. I realized 25 years ago that "the revolution" could never hope to succeed if it depends on which side gets the most funding. And that's how the system defeats us. We can't outspend the reactionary right that isn't concerned with global warming, supports militarism as a way of life, and economic inequality as ordained by God.
We lose every battle because it all comes down to who has the most money to throw at their cause. We must have NUMBERS (of people), not billions and trillions of dollars, because we'll never get that kind of money. If stopping global warming, climate change, desertification, rising sea levels due to melting glaciers and polar ice caps all depends on wheedling corporations to subsidize it, we won't see any end of the slow-motion catastrophe any sooner than we'll see single-payer health care in this brainwashed country.
Ehpraim, you're right on the money, we've allowed the banksters to create credit out of thin air via the Federal Reserve system since 1913. They determine who in the cabal gets the money first and the people get the crumbs -- the ultimate privatization of profits and socialization of losses.
"it all comes down to who has the most money"
Au contraire. We the far left have introduced a NEW currency we call: "chump change". Everyone who's poor has tons of it, and everyone who's rich has none. We the poverty-stricken of the world are now empowered. We can exchange with each other freely because our currency is trusted! Now. Whattya got to trade? Any Peruvians in the house got potatoes?
Sioux Rose
Good points all. Penelope I can identify with much that you share. The point is the fight for a holistic society belongs to all those who value life, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, or race. It is after all about HOLISM... making whole what has been broken, sold off into shards of its former integrated essence. It is honoring the relationships among things, even things that SEEM unrelated, that helps to mend what hath been torn asunder, starting with the split of the atom, a manifestation that remains with us... until the parts are drawn back into some sort of harmonic unison.
Building new and better solutions is possible.
Riane Eisler's "The Real Wealth of Naitons...creating a caring economics' provides a foundation for building a new economic system that honors the most important work of all--caring for humans and the planet.
Whether we're 20 or 50...we need to work collaboratively to build this new system and not get stuck in blaming. We have knowledge and capacity to find solutions that we didn't have in the 1960's....each generation does the best with what it has...and today's internet technology will allow this new generation an asset that--had it been there in the 1960's would've made that generation's influence very different. We are where we are, let's use what we have and work together.
Ann@partnershpway.org
"Lily Kember is 21 years old. Late last year, with 50 other activists, she shut down Stansted airport, in the process preventing thousands of tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. A few minutes before her arrest she told listeners of the Today program: "We're here because our parents' generation has failed us and it's now down to young people to stop climate change by whatever peaceful means we have left."
In ancient times when change came slowly, people consulted a council of elders. Today's youth was raised on the Internet and elders now have to turn to the young to learn the technology and stay informed in rapidly changing times. In short, the youth have become the council of elders.
not possible.
That interweb thingee, although fun and nice, will not and cannot replace face-to-face and skin-to-skin contact in the development of healthy humans. In the end, although it seems useful, inevitable dependence on the internet for interaction, and time it takes from real human and nature contact will detract from our ability to raise healthy humans. Young people will not understand this, (nor will most older ones), not having knowledge of neurophysiology and developmental psychology—not just from books (or 30-word online blurbs) but from a lifetime of seeing them in action. I say this despite being someone who spends a fair amount of time on the net. Read Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection and Last Child In the Woods for some glimpse into human development.
Although the emotional growth of most people of every generation is stunted, (by too many forces to even list here) we still have to have, and do have, a small band of wise elders who are actually elders. Young people have energy, time, undestroyed idealism, conscience and the lack of financial interests to be the grunts, and even some of the generating power and translation, but always, their best ideas and most complete understanding come from people who are older. Marx, Lennon (John), Theodore Roszak, Howard Zinn, Rachel Carson… Depth and wisdom, the ability to really see people (a skill so rare and unmentioned its inclusion here will be mystifying to most people, especially young) and understand in a comprehensive way not just one theory of human behavior but several, in the context of an ecological view of the planet, those are unheard-of in the young. We need each other.
I agree with your efforts, Josh, but you and others of your generation can make an immediate an important impact on the environment by simply refraining from eating mass produced meat and poultry. Factory farming of animals for consumption is one of the greatest current contributors to carbon emissions. For more information, www.peta.com is one of many good resources on the Web. Kind regards, Michele
We have come a long way towards a new future because some have listened to the scientists and our children have heard another message as well. The children of this world will be the ones who find the answers, and it is imperative that our schools reconnect them with their environment and their communities. For the next generations must reconnect if they are to find the innovative ways of overcoming this disaster, while rebuilding national economies in a way that supports a new climate imperative.
If you are a parent and understand that it is up to us to help our children create a new world, then push for programs that interconnect science and school work with the natural world around us. Encourage programs of public service where the children are working within their communities on such things as community gardens, park clean-ups and restorations, working as volunteers in animal shelters and zoos, helping the homeless through outreach programs or food banks, helping the elderly (who can teach them a lot). Create new community interactions where working together new skills can be taught, while teaching children how to apply the knowledge they are learning in school. Get rid of teaching to the test mentalities in our schools, and get back to teaching our children how to reason and think, how to reach out not exclude, encouraging being active both physically and mentally and politically.
Our children have to bear the burden of our blindness to what our leaders were doing, and what we were complicit in helping them do. Our words and our deeds showed us to be fools. Now it is time to listen to the young people. They have known for decades what was wrong, but they had no clear understanding of it because of how we educated them. Now it is time for their innate understanding of the interconnection of all living things to be given free reign, because it may be the only thing that saves this planet. Help them, encourage them, march with them, and support them as they try to correct the errors we made. We owe them that much at least!
"Now it is time for their innate understanding of the interconnection of all living things to be given free reign"
This should read 'inane understanding' not 'innate'.
Understanding global warming requires indeed the understanding of interconnection, living as well as not-living. The causality of global warming is totally misunderstood, misrepresented by fractions with vetted interests, this misrepresentation is reinforced by endless regurgitation, and then used by politicians for their and their corporate cronies' agenda and profit.
GLOBAL WARMING IS A BUSINESS AND THE BIGGEST SCAM our planet has seen.
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php
"Global Warming" may indeed be political and marketing mayhem - but pollution and degraded environment, air, water, and eco-systems is a hard core reality that only the most self absorbed deny. That humanity is at the crux of the problem is a no-brainer. So don't call it "Global Warming" or "Climate Change". Don't call it by any name but what it is - Stupid, Short Sighted, Greedy and Totally Unsustainable abuse of the source of all we need to stay alive. Hopefully when you are done describing it, you will get a clue and do your part to STOP whatever you are doing in your own life that contributes to it.
Defining one's argument by generational attributes limits the effectiveness of the movement. James Hansen was born in 1941 and yet his ideas are worth quotations.
Perhaps in the process of firing off your cannon of discontent, realize not every battle is an elephant and not every defense is glamorous. If there is one thing that comes with age it is the acceptance of loss. We periodically lose battles, some which are enormous, but it is the fool who attacks those they label as whipped dogs of a generation of complacency who quickly loses my loyalty.
So brandish your righteous discontent, but don’t point your weapon at me. Because when it is your turn to be leveled on the playing field as being nothing more than a stupid monkey wrench, you will be looking around for a hand up, and you might find yourself being kicked down by a new wave who doesn’t understand the fight you have put forth and the fight you have left.
I am 38.
We should debate the causes of global warming. So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.
The discussion, the political environmental regulations and the corporate profits they create (like carbon tax), will go down in history as the GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE.
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=313&Itemid=1
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php
Crap. Stop trying to delay and distract us from making the transition to a conserver society.
I am 62 and of the generation that is being blamed for the state of the environment today. I plead guilty. Our generation was the TV generation,we were the first kids raised with TV influencing us. We came of age in the 60's,where many of us protested against much of what is still going on today.We scared the status quo so much they reacted much the same as today. We had Nixon,you had Bush,we started Earth Day,you protested against dirty coal plants in DC.We who were concerned in the 60's still are concerned today. Don't write us off,we can and will help. We are aware of the methods they will use to diffuse and stop you from gathering momentum.They will use any method,ANY, to stop you. They will jail you,discredit you,even murder you! You with help from us can change the disastrous course we're on.It will be a long and arduous climb to the top of the mountain.My generation failed to stem the tide of the status quo.Now it is your turn to stem the flow of greed,corruption,pollution and environmental degradation.Remember the Civil Rights Anthem of the 60's, "WE SHALL OVERCOME"!
I'm in my seventies. I grew up during WW-II, the last "declared" war that the US was involved in. At the time, we hoped we were defeating evil. The UN was formed so that nothing like this would ever happen again. It was to be a forum for the world to sit down and solve problems without the use of arms. Of course the "winners," the Big Five, weren't going to let several hundred smaller nations tell them what to do, so part of the UN was the Security Council, which would pass or reject what the world wanted. Each of them had veto power. It turned into a game. Whatever the CCCP wanted was vetoed by the US. Whatever the US favored was vetoed by the CCCP. The UN accomplished a lot, but it was beholden to and under the thumb of the Security Council. Now, we use our veto to cancel out any censure of Israel, not to mention human rights violations.
The UN could have been a leader in the current crisis of Carbon emissions and global climate change, but has been marginalized again by the powerful, in the main controlled by big business. No green without "long green," is their creed.
I hope the young people of today can hold to their principles and possibly force enough change to reverse or at least stabilize what is going on, though I fear the "tipping point" is far behind us, now.
The earth will no doubt go on, but life may be up to new life forms that develop in the ensuing millions or billions of years as has happened in the past.
It saddens me to see this "beautiful blue marble" being destroyed by stupidity, pig-headedness and greed.
Minitrue, very true, I cry with you, what you point to saddens me too.
The UN - a very good idea - went wrong from the start when it was placed not on neutral/international ground as intended, but in New York - by Rockefeller, no less!
Damn straight, Josh. Timely article.
We're dying here, all of US, a little bit, every day - for fouling our nest, sawing the branch we're sitting on, pissing our pants to keep warm, plus whatever crass metaphor we can mess up.
Many Excellent Posts ------- Corporate-ism has replaced Monarchy and Capitalism determines the speed of the Corporate-ism's consumption.
Argueing Climate Change's cause when attempting to discontinue coal use is a mute point. The world needs to be protected from coal fumes, mining, waste whether coal contibutes to Climate Change or not.
What is the fear of using clean,everlasting energy?
Ask Nicolai Tesla and Amory Lovins...
Where were the kids over Iraq, 9/11, Torture and Gaza.
On this climate issue, the kids are the product of a government education system that have conditioned them to be good comrades, the green movement is a political movement. Here is a prayer allegedely from a US text book (can't confirm it though, hope it's not true).
http://green-agenda.com/gaia.html
"The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel your heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you. Mother Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all your creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth. On behalf of the human race, I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth"
Not that I am against environmentalism and a green earth. And I can say that the US is a far cleaner place than it was in the 60's and 70's when I grew up, there is not as much air pollution (soot, and toxic chemicals) and water pollution (toxic waste, sewage). We no longer explode nuclear bombs in the desert, under ground and in the ocean as we did in the 40's into the 60's. We don't burn leaded gas or use leaded house paint. And we have more forests than we did in the 40's since higher CO2 and warmer temperatures have improved crop yield so we no longer need to cut down trees to make room for land needed for crops. Also, parents do not have 6-8 kids like they used too in the 50's and 60's, so if not for immigration we would have a stable population. And household per capita energy consumption has not increased since the 70's since we have better insulation and more energy efficient cars and appliances.
Of course, if I was a kid and wanted to protect the environment, I would stop those wind farms that kill birds and take up so much space and create noise and use so much concrete in areas that have been spared from this. More on it here.
http://www.sovereignty.net/p/clim/wind-leo.htm
I would not be that concerned over the CO2 that plants eat and that we exhale with every breath. Thats not pollution, even if it does help keep us a bit warmer. I remember the cold of the 60's and 70's and fears we were entering another ice age. It is much more pleasant today, although I guess it has been a tough winter (but thats just weather).
Kids today do not remember the past, they were not there. Except for the fact the government allowed all the jobs that produce things we use to be exported, and help litter other countries with mines, depleted uranium and cluster bombs that we do produce, not to mention the high cost of education and health care, reduced rights, and a terrible economy, things are much better today than the 70's.
CO2 is a diversion from the real problems. There are much better things to protest about.
Inconvenent truth 7:26 The world as a whole is polluting a lot more now than in the past.
Are not coal plants and nukes pretty large concretey type things?
Bird problem has diminished with larger slower turbines; and I would suspect if birds are getting killed it could be prevented tecnologically.
Turbines can be made very quiet.
"The world as a whole is polluting a lot more now than in the past"
Well, we don't own the world, and perhaps only if you consider CO2 as a pollutant. But pollution properly defined is one of the things you have to accept as a price for development, as in China. Once the rest of the world reaches our living standards, they can afford to clean up. But one of the hidden agendas behind AGW is to be able to stop the development of the 3rd world (ala NSSM 200) which will limit their living standards.
"Bird problem has diminished with larger slower turbines; and I would suspect if birds are getting killed it could be prevented tecnologically.
Turbines can be made very quiet."
But you see, have we seen any discussion on regulations for wind farms to do so? Also, not all the noise that is generated comes from the turbines.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/soysal-windfarmnoiseeus.pdf
"Sound generated by wind turbines has particular characteristics and it creates a different type of nuisance compared to usual urban, industrial, or commercial noise. The interaction of the blades with air turbulences around t he towers creates low frequency and infrasound components, which modulate the broadband noise and create fluctuations of sound level. The low frequency fluctuations of the noise is described as “swishing” or “whooshing” sound, creating an additional disturbance due to the periodic and rhythmic characteristic.
A set of permissible limits for windmill noise that can be uniformly applicable over the nation is not available in t he USA. ..... Many countries developed national noise limits applicable to wind turbines.
Specific noise limits need to be developed by considering the characteristics of wind turbine noise. Especially the low frequency sound components and the modulation of the background noise resulting must be considered to represent the activity interference of the wind turbine sound. Adequate criteria to assess the wind turbine sound will greatly help the development of the wind industry by reducing the community reaction based on subjective opinions."
As for larger slower turbines, the slower turbines may operate at speeds less than 30 revolutions per minute (RPMs), but turbine speeds at the blade tips can still exceed 220 miles per hour in stiff winds. Recent studies indicate that birds appear unable to recognize blade presence at rotor tips during high blade speed.
http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/wind.pdf
Incomprehensible Falsehoods:
Stop; you’re killing me!
Wind generators will SAVE birds, as buildings, cars and trucks, com towers, and other artifacts of industrialism kill roughly 10,000 times as many birds in the US as wind‘mills’ do, and that doesn’t even count habitat loss, by far the worst killer of birds. Those numbers are increasing, while wind generator kills are decreasing per generator, and almost none are killed by household-sized generators. Why do reactionaries persist in peddling this oft-disproven lie when in every other aspect of business, religion, politics and life they are busily destroying nature with every tool at their disposal? It doesn’t surprise me at all that coal, oil and nuclear corporations would try to sell this kind of absurdity; but it does amaze me that it has achieved the life of the Hydra. The idea that wind power could cause any more than a tiny, miniscule fraction of a percent of the ecological damage of coal, oil and nukes is ludicrous, as is the concentration of such screeds on wind, to the exclusion of PV, passive solar heating and cooling, and other true alternatives.
This is the third time I’ve seen the concrete thing as a talking point, as if concrete were only used in wind power, or was a toxic waste comparable to BPA, mercury (mostly from coal burning), neonicitinoids, (which are helping to kill bees and much more) or ten thousand other industrial chemicals and processes.
Where they are up, crop yields are up for many reasons, including the destructive mining of the soil, both on farms and in fertilizer and energy mines, and genetic selection for yield and nothing more. It is already causing great destruction, and can’t last. It is the agricultural equivalent of the banking bubble.
Different people believe different things about Gaia; many ecologists and environmentalists don’t believe in Gaia at all; many believe as a metaphor and/or as a perfectly scientific description of a system that accomplishes amazing feats of regulation not explainable by the sum of her/its parts. Don’t try to conflate and discredit all those together by lumping it with the sort of psychologically projected nonsense that makes up all religions. However, personally I don’t see the problem with the prayer. If more people began with that as a practice we’d be far better off than we are now, with the patriarchal 3 brother religions, the Nicene Creed and the like. Religion, science or both, intelligent Gaianism is a huge step forward from most thinking now.
Tree farms are not forests. Tree farms we got lotsa. Forests are becoming rare beings.
The world is a far dirtier place than it was 50 years ago, poorer not just in forests, but in marshes, prairies, reefs, unspoiled tundra, wilderness of all kinds, fisheries, and biodiversity. It’s more permeated with hormonally active plastics, toxic chemicals, destructive noise and radiation of all types, and if a few visible types of pollution have been reduced well that’s good, but it’s no indication things are improving. Pay closer attention and stop saying you’re not against environmentalism when clearly, as little as you understand what it is, you ARE against it.
We absolutely do not have to accept pollution as a price for anything. Pollution of any sort is a sign and signal that we are outside of the loop—that we are ignoring natural law, at our peril. To get China et al. to go along with saving human civilization (such as it is) we will have to help them attain the same type of post-industrial abundance/serenity that we have to strive for—by giving them whatever money and technical help with alternatives they need. It’s not a program to deprive them (again, since when have reactionaries cared about people in the 3rd world?) it’s a program to help the
"almost nobody predicted the economic collapse"
What nonsense. This is the real 'generation gap' - the kids who don't realize that they are fighting the same fight we did (I'm one of the first 'boomers'). That said, it IS up to the young to fight such battles - they aren't encumbered by families, jobs, and other obligations that preclude the kind of actions related in this article. It would be a mistake to think they're all alone - a lot of us have been on that bandwagon before, and it IS all tied to 'predatory capitalism' - known in our day as 'fascism' - don't forget who built Auschwitz and why... IG Farben was a company, and the cheapest labor is SLAVE LABOR. Nazi Germany was but a microcosm of what has happened during 'globalization' - the ultimate fascist wet-dream.
On another aspect - the days after 9-11 when all flights (except certain Saudis) were grounded in the US provided all of us with a CLEAR VIEW of what our planet would look like without air travel. And the temperature gradient told the rest of the story. Pan evaporation says that 'solar dimming' means cooler temperatures - part of the solution to 'global warming' - there are many aspects to this problem, and not all are getting well-deserved inclusion in the debate. Imagine what would happen if we could ground ALL military aircraft, as well as civilian! (Military aircraft - especially bombers - have no other military value beyond pure unadulterated terrorism. Period. And that's the only way bombers have been used since WWII - to terrorize the civilian populations.)
Kids may see the problem, but they're largely unaware of the details - that's why this is an intergenerational conflict - the fight against fascism can never end. It takes ALL of US to stop this insidious monster from destoying the planet - and all human life. Or else we face another mass-extinction event.
snydly
Go get 'em kids!
Here's a short list:
Corporations/legal "personhood"/CORPISB.ORG
War.
Coal/Oil
Internal combustion.
Beef.
Planes and ships.
Propaganda and drugs (legal).
Tricked-out economic system.
Sugar.
The best books on environment I've seen are Incon Truth, Under a Green Sky, and, The Great Ice Age by J L Chapman & others (very scientific).
Good Luck. We old "voluntarily simple" dinosaurs will keep pluggin away.
This generational line in the sand stuff is counter-productive. I am sixty years old, and my entire adult life has been devoted to activism against the system of destruction which rules this planet. Not only have I organized and struggled against the machine, I have lived my convictions through voluntary simplicity and reducing my footprint on the planet. This was never "youthful rebellion" or some fad. It has been a life-long commitment.
While I hope to see the younger generation come out in larger and larger numbers, so far I haven't seen much of it. I continue to do what I can in the meantime.
The answer isn't: "Younger members of government need to choose sides."
All people of whatever age, whether in government or out, need to take sides. Castigating my generation is misguided and divisive.
------
Elohi Gadugi Journal
dponcy; I agree strongly with your post.I'm 66,have not been too active politically,except for a losing battle.vs.Madison Kipp here,and their use of a process that can produce dioxin ,among other pollutants. That said,if it we'ren't for serious health problems [caused by a police beating 35 years ago,I'd be in the streets,trying to prevent what seems to be only a few years away.
It's the old cointelpro tactic of divide and conquer using all srategies available,from false front funding,to informants,and yes murder if the Overlords feel threatened. I'll recommend the movie Matewan again.Well written,well-acted[James Earl Jones,David Straitharn,etc.]. Some things only get worse with "Big Coal". And lest even the few from the right that post on CD think "It's only really those "Hillbillies" that are hurt by MTR: we've ALL had our health attacked by widespread coal burning,and now,it's the whole enchilada at risk.
RLKlevins-Madison
"This isn't about being disaffected and rebellious without a cause."
Be rebellious without a cause. It can be a good thing, because the cause is hidden from you, disguised by your oppressor, the elite. Be rebellious to the hidden oppression, until you are sure that you have exposed/destroyed it all, and then be rebellious to the next batch of oppression that your oppressor, the elite, is cooking in the secret kitchen.
"This isn't about dropping out, rejecting the norm, culture jamming and hacking the system."
There are very legit reasons to drop out of this society. Do it, and reap the benefits. Why not reject the norm? It's pathetic. Why not jam the culture? It's oppressive. Why not hack the system? It is used by the elites to enslave us.
"This isn't even about altruism."
Why not? Karmic feedback is real. You can easily verify this. Where would this society be without the hidden, unsung altruism, solidarity and cooperation among the oppressed?
"It's not just about defending the rights and lives of those who are less fortunate than us, and it certainly isn't about polar bears."
That's very "American" of you... You might apply for a job at the Pentagon! Are you saying you're overwhelmed with the complexity of the problem? Then work up a more abstract concept of it.
"This is about us."
You explicitely excluded the polar bears and all of those beings below your own "class tier". Listen, your "pragmatic", "realpolitik", "focused", approach is doomed. You have to embrace a holistic approach. Suggested reading: Ghandi, M.L.King, Chomsky.
"this isn't about ideals so much as hard science and the terrifying reality"
You've fallen victim to fear, which caused you to throw the baby out with the bath water. Your oppressors, the elite, will exploit that fear and your lack of ideals, and suck you up into their oppression machine and enslave you.
We on the far left, the real progressives, suggest that you get rid of your fears and embrace universalist ideals, then you will see that inclusion of all your fellow beings on this planet is the only approach. It was brave of you to expose your position to criticism. NOW, GO LEFT.
"rule out new coal plants unless all of their emissions are captured and buried"
Mr Garman, can you please shorten that to "rule out ALL new coal plants"?? Let's halt the growth in the destruction of the landscape, the spewing of carbon and general pollutants, and all of the diminishing of the people's political and economic power that results from the proliferation of these undemocratic, centrally-controlled heavy industries.
We're still waiting for some convincing argument for an increase or even a continuation of the current consumption of electricity. People are still burning incandescent light bulbs. The incentive to switch to fluorescent and LED light is miniscule, while the elites relentlessly push increased production capacity.
We aren't hearing any stories in the media about people downshifting their rates of energy consumption. Why not? Could it be that people such as Mr. Garman are more interested in using the crisis to boost their own personal agendas? I want to know what Mr. Garman has done to reduce his own personal ecological footprint.
By the way, we don't even need refrigerators. Good produce from the weekly farmer's market keeps for a week. Put the live herbs in a flower vase. Sheesh! Refrigeration is just another capitalist racket!
Well said...
I will turn 34 next week, and have been politically active since senior year of high school...
I have worked on dozens of successful political campaigns, from starting recycling programs at school, to teaching kids about ecology, to planting native trees and plants and removing invasive species, to union organizing, to door-to-door canvassing and tree sitting to protect lowland old growth in watersheds, to circulating petitions in seven states for IRV and medical MJ, to geurilla theatre at demonstrations at the DNC and antiwar protests, to direct action and getting arrested to protest Al Gore's profitting from Occidental Oil exploration in Colombia that kills indigenous people and polluted the land and water...
I started to feel burned out when some of the "activists" I was working with ostracized me when they heard a "rumor" that I was an FBI informant, typical cointelpro tactic of creating distrust amongst antiwar groups... eventually I came to the realization that resisting the negative aspects of our economic system is only half of the equation, and I would find balance by proactively working to be a part of the growing movement of a new sustainable model of reality... One based on a holistic approach to self, family, community, & ecology... While integrating organic gardening, natural building, appropriate technology, cottage industry, skill-share, micro-lending, auto-didactic education, and voluntary simplicity to begin to free myself from the grip that corporate America has on our perceptions and relationships with time/space, money, productivity, quality of life, imagination, and artistic expression... Everyone in the world have the same basic needs and fears, security, freedom, etc, regardless of what one's political or religious paradigm... We can be busy making this a reality in our own lives, so we can create vibrant communities where we live here and now, that can provide true food security and dignity and abundance that will be the difference in survival if and when the global predatory capitalist system collapses...
Sioux Rose
GM: You give off a more mature vibe than 34, but kudos to you for doing as much as you have. Great work!
Thanks Souix Rose...
And you give off a more mature vibe than someone who only lives one lifetime...
Congrats on completing your book... It is good to read your profound and prolific comments again after your mini hiatus...
Sioux Rose
Thanks, GM, but who's counting (LOL)...
"rule out new coal plants unless all of their emissions are captured and buried"
Mr Garman, can you please shorten that to "rule out ALL new coal plants"?? Let's halt the growth in the destruction of the landscape, the spewing of carbon and general pollutants, and all of the diminishing of the people's political and economic power that results from the proliferation of these undemocratic, centrally-controlled heavy industries.
We aren't hearing any stories in the media about people downshifting their rates of energy consumption. Why not from you, Mr. Garman?
By the way, we don't even need refrigerators. Live produce from the weekly farmer's market keeps for a week in the cupboard. Put the herbs in a flower vase. Sheesh! It's unbelievable the way we buy into these capitalist rackets - and now they're trying to sell refrigerators to 2 billion Chinese and Indians who've done without them for thousands of years! They are trying to EXPAND the planet's unnecessary reliance on fossil energy!!
In the interest of productive work towards solving the problems of the mutlifaceted global crisis we are facing, we don't need generational conflict. Rather we need progressive alliances across generations.
I'm 55. I was born in 1953 in the center of the boomer generation, 1943 to 1960.
For my entire adult life I've worked for progressive causes, both environmental as well as for the rule of law, over the prevalence of war.
It will take all of use who see the multifaceted global crisis and its urgency—progressives—to bring about the individual, institutional, national, and international changes to reverse the trend towards ecocide.
That means new and sustained cross-generational alliances among progressives.
The great value in Josh Garmon's article is calling for generational discussions, as we are doing here among the CD bloggers.
But there is no need for generational conflict.
Progressive members of the Greatest Generation like Howard Zinn (1901-1924), progressive Silents (1925-1942), progressive Boomers (1943-1960), progressive Xers (1961-1981), progressive Yers (1982-2001, Millennials) and progressive Zers (2001+) will need to unite AGAINST non-progressive, global-crisis-deniers, in our quest to prevent ecocide. The change must be a great reversal in our institutions and focus as a world.
The corporate regime, the current manifestion of the cause of the global crisis, must be overthrown.
In its place we need a new progressive regime in the US and progressive regimes elsewhere as well (and Europe is ahead of the US on this). This then will require a progressive, non-violent, constitutional revolution in America. It will be a great quest. And its success is not guaranteed.
But as Josh so clearly said, this is not just a generation's task. That's because in humanity's 50,000+ years on Earth, we now face a MULTI-generational choice: success in bringing about a sustainable global civilization—or ecocide. This choice is stark and it is before us. Numerous studies and films make this choice clear. Now what is needed is knowledge of the crisis and commensurate action-towards-revolution.
For more on the generational theory and dates, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Strauss
To understand the whole crisis, here are two sources:
The UNEP GEO-4 report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7060072.stm
And read the book by Dennis Meadows: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.
EVERYTHING is at stake.
A great frame for this problem was posed by Carl Sagan in his movie script for Cosmos:
FRENCH REPRESENTATIVE
I think I speak for us all when I
thank you for your patience. Myself,
I have one final question Dr. Arroway.
If you should meet these Vegans and
were permitted only one question to
ask of them. What would it be?
Ellie Arroway
Well I suppose it would be, umm, how
did you do it, how did you evolve,
how did you survive this technological
adolescence without destroying
yourself. That more than any other
question is the one that I would
personally like to have answered.
Cosmos Screenplay by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
Wow, a bunch of old folks here, I never knew! I do not wish to diminish the zeal and activism of the young, in fact I am heartened by it. The deeds and accomplishments of my own generation have been enumerated above and I will not repeat them here. I will only add a word of caution.
The system under which we toil is seductive and pervasive. The youth who now take up causes , as did those who came before them, will face increasing and subtle pressures as they take on more personal responsibilities, marriage, children, mortgages, careers, debt, and did I mention debt....Many will peel away from active engagement of a system in need of repair or replacement as they become a part of that system. We shall see, well I wont but you younger folks will.
"In a democracy, the highest office is the office of citizen."
-- Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
There is no global warming. Gore is lieing. He knows nothing about weather. It,s all about money. I,m 68 and have been reading obout weather all my life. I,s the same now as it was 1000 years ago. Don.t let people scare you. Money money money that,s what it,is all about.
HMMM, your 68 years of reading as opposed to an almost universal agreement by the scientific community, a community that has access to far, far more data than do you...who to believe........
While you are, I believe, correct about the money, it is the issue that drives opposition to the facts of global warming in order to preserve a status quo of fossil fuel dependancy and the like rather than, as you assume, drives the call for action against the further emissions of CO2 and methane gasses that are heating our planet.
Senator James Imhofe of Oklahoma has it right: Global warming doesn't exist. Don't worry; be happy and make as much $$ as possible. The earth will take care of itself. We can't destroy the earth! It will restore itself to the Garden of Eden it once was in only 4 or 5 million years after we're extinct. So, relax, enjoy, and vote Republican.