Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Climate Crisis: What Would it Look Like to Do Everything We Can Imagine?
Climate change is big, the biggest problem we've ever faced as a nation. In March, British economist Nicholas Stern said that inaction on climate change could cost the world one-third of its wealth. Last fall, the Global Carbon Project reported that world carbon emissions have risen and are in line with scientists' worst, most catastrophic scenarios for climate change. Bill McKibben has said, "If we're to have any chance of heading off catastrophic temperature increase, we have to do everything we can imagine." How big are our imaginations? What would it look like to do everything we can imagine?
As Congressional leaders and the coal industry try to tell Americans what is and is not possible to do to protect our communities from the disasters of climate change, Obama needs to call on all of us to put our hands and our imaginations to work. It's critical to have solid federal policy on climate change. But it's also important to imagine what will become possible as we tackle this challenge. And it's important for everyone to pitch in. That's the only way we'll solve a problem this large.
Obama has already ignited our imaginations, shaken up our sense of what is possible, and gotten us to consider the scope of the problems we face and our roles in solving them. In his November victory speech, he said, "I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for 221 years-block by block, brick by brick, callused hand by callused hand." He has brought people to his team like Van Jones, who ask us to consider the climate crisis as a vast opportunity to create green jobs: We'll need millions of people to get to work, tackling the enormity of building a whole new sustainable economy. And for months Obama has been airing ads calling on us to serve our communities. It's a start.
But there is more to do.
In the 1940s, the Roosevelt Administration called on Americans across the country to pitch in to the war effort, collect scrap metal, plant victory gardens. There was a "Don't Travel" campaign to get people to conserve gasoline and tires for the war. And the country came together behind a common cause and mission. The people who weathered this national crisis have been called the "Greatest Generation."
We have an opportunity to rise to greatness again. The crisis we face today is even larger than what our grandparents confronted. And it will take all of us planting our own gardens, conserving fuel and electricity, putting solar panels on our roofs, transforming our neighborhoods so we can walk and bike instead of drive, greening our buildings, and learning to save, recycle, and reuse.
Solutions will come from the grassroots, but it's not enough to leave climate change to a handful of volunteers. And it's not enough to leave a problem as dire as climate change to Congress alone. Obama needs to call on all of us, at every level. Our new president has more innate ability to inspire than perhaps any leader we've witnessed in decades. We've seen him call us to our best. It's time for him to do it again.
The most important thing Obama can do is unite us in a common mission: to do everything we can imagine to fight climate change.
- Posted in
30 Comments so far
Show All"The most important thing Obama can do is unite us in a common mission: to do everything we can imagine to fight climate change." Now that's funny. Its like fighting the wind. We must now learn to take nature as it comes. It does not matter what the cause of climate change is. Adaptation is survival.
Nicely stated. Obama is taking us down the exact opposite road the sentiments of the article asserts. There is a little thing that first needs to be crushed to achieve the elevated norms this writer hopes for and that is first getting beyond a fantasy called "clean coal" which Obama is pushing on behalf of his handlers in the coal industry. I urge everyone to read Big Coal by Jeff Goodel which tells the egregious truth about coal and why it will never be clean, and how it is diminishing climate change because it represents the most used source of energy on the planet. People like this need to get beyond their noble sentiments and start educating themselves on the facts.
"Climate change is big, the biggest problem we've ever faced as a nation."
Sorry, the biggest problem you will ever face is death. After this comes The Judgment. You're not going to "save the planet." You can't even save your own soul.
Climate change a big problem? I LIKE climate change! That's why I relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area :)
"Sorry, the biggest problem you will ever face is death. After this comes The Judgment. You're not going to "save the planet." You can't even save your own soul." Sorry I can't help myself on this one. Death is not a problem to be solved. Its not even a problem in the subjective. Simply a stupid fact that we all face. Stupid in the sense that we get all worked up over it and some even swear that there is some kind of Judgment involved. That is funnier than the concept of someone or something judging your soul. Isn't there something in the "good book" as opposed to something called a "bad book," that says something about judging and being judged?
Maybe in your world.
de Saint Exupery once said, "Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal, or a window opening on something other than itself."
Henri Amiel noted, "The process of life should be the birth of a soul. This is the highest alchemy, and this justifies our presence on earth. This is our calling and our virtue."
If you fear death, you will fear to live life fully.
hmmmm... in my years of work with a hospice organization I came to respect and admire most those who admitted their fear of death. They were most often the ones who I think lived full lives. I met very very few people who could deny fear of death, and those people often seemed self-sedated in ways that I did not find admirable. Often those who denied fear of death verbally showed it in extreme ways non-verbally and had a more difficult time with the process of dying.
From my own rather extreme experiences of death (at least extreme for this culture) I have found that the normalization of death in one's experience is often mistaken for a lack of fear of death. But I don't think they are the same, nor should they be. I think those in whose life death is normalized tend to appear to, or want to, live life more fully. This is not out of lack of fear, and may actually be because of it... or at least because they know that death, while potentially the beginning of something, is most certainly the end of this.
Only an anti-capitalist, pro-parecon movement can effectively address both the causes and symptoms of global warming.
Licking Obama's balls won't get it done.
--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com
good that that disgusting idea won't help, because as you may have noticed, it was not suggested. great diversion, though. congratulations.
but widely circulating pictures of someone licking Obama's balls might
Hey, windup doll, we've missed you! Usually you sqwauk your prerecorded parecon message on health-care threads--seems you're diversifying.
Why don't you learn how to type more than one sentence in English? Right now, you seem to be confined to the following:
"The only way to solve _____________________ is through parecon." (Fill in blank with issue du jour.)
"PareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconParecon
pareconPareconpareconPareconparecon . . . ."
By the way--did you know that your Infallible Pope Michael Albert urged people to vote for the prowar John Kerry in 2004 and to vote for the imperialist/corporate stooge Barack Obama in 2008?
"PareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconPareconpareconParecon
pareconPareconpareconPareconparecon . . . ."
Quel idiot!
On the subject of doing everything we can, here's an idea: Let's stop drone bombing and white phosphorus incinerating of poor hapless countries that have done NOTHING to us, and use all those billions of dollars saved to convert to clean energy sources in this country, and in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as a form of reparations to the civilians whose communities we have destroyed.
The drones and the private armies are practicing for the time when things go down here. They are ready to declare Marshall law ala 1984 and Big Brother will be watching you. You know who I mean by "they" and "they" will not allow chaos to happen. "They have control now and will do anything to keep it." Good Luck.
All the things that are suggested above with regard to what is needed to stop global warming are necessary, but are not sufficient.
They won't stop development in China or India from building coal plants, for example, or stop Brazil from building giant hydroelectric projects which destroy hundreds of thousands of square miles of productive tropical lands, converting them into carbon dioxide sources instead of sinks.
Without developing a technology that is UNIVERSALLY capable of supplying enough electricity to replace that produced by the coal plants that we need to close, as well as to supply the additional electricity that can be used the transportation system to replace declining oil, there is no way we will be able to adequately feed, house, and clothe those who will survive into the next decade.
Fortunately, the idea for such an energy source has been conceived, patented and tested on a small scale. It is the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, is easy to build, inexpensive and the energy source that powers it is available almost everywhere. You can read about it at http://vortexengine.ca
The environmental movement could save itself a lot of time, money and trouble by uniting behind this technology and demanding its rapid development and deployment (not expensive or time consuming).
Alternatively, the movement can continue to spend much of its time and effort, p*ss*ng into the wind, an activity which it seems to enjoy so much, and ultimately fail to achieve its objectives.
I really don't like the "China Argument"
A great plan would be to do everything we can, then SELL those things to other countries. The rest of the world face most of the problems that we do locally. And they want the same benefits (not just warm fuzzy ones, but profitable ones). If it's more cost effective for an american, than it will eventually be even more cost effective for a chinese (they import more oil, gas and coal than we do)
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in 2006 that animal agriculture adds more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than all the cars, planes and ships in the world combined.
From the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture: Livestock produce 130 times more urine and feces than the human population of the U.S. The livestock waste is not processed through a sewage system. It seeps into groundwater. It pollutes lakes and rivers.
You don't have to wait for congress to do something. You can start with your next meal. Go vegan.
I love this factoid- but what's bigger than agriculture- industry and power production.
I wish more organizations would at the very least mention that - because of the way the vast majority of animal farming is currently done - reducing or eliminating meat consumption would reduce greenhouse gasses significantly. It seems to me there is a resistance to bringing it up becuase talking about what people eat is so personal and so often emotionally charged. I also think that people who do eat meat don't want to appear hypocritical in letting people know of the environmental consequences of meat-eating. And perhaps many are also very attached to meat-eating and don't want that threatened. These are not excuses, but observations.
Nontheless, any person who is committed to reducing Global warming must be honest and spread the word about the connection between meat eating and greenhouse gasses (via forest destruction for grazing, animal transport, fertilizer use, as well as direct animal offgassing, etc.). That's not the same as telling people what to eat or not to eat. It's just laying out the facts and it's up to individuals to make the choice. And it's true that local, small scale animal farming does not carry the same destructive effect as large-scale animal farming. But the vast majority of meat consumption is not from tiny local organic farms.
Also...just like there are many environmentalists who still drive cars to SOME degree while continuing to work for the necessity of decreasing fossil fuel use, there is room for people who eat some meat to have the courage (and bypass the guilt) to share the information about commercial meat growing and greenhouse gasses, because it may reach people who are able and willing to reduce or elimiate meat eating.
Jared Diamond lays out what will likely happen on a global scale in his book "Collapse," where he discusses civilizations that excessively intensified their local environments to the point of disaster - cultures like the Polynesians on Easter Island or the Norse in Greenland. This has happened numerous times before - it just has never happened on a global scale. Yet.
Luckily it is not all bad news - Diamond identifies cultures that wised up in the nick of time - like the Japanese who had nearly deforested all four of their major islands by the 15th/16th century time frame. They pulled back from the brink of disaster, but only just barely.
Which type of culture are we? I grow increasingly pessimistic that we are the latter - instead, I become more convinced that we are not going to have the wisdom to prevent disaster - there is no sign that I can see that Obama, or the Chinese, or India, or anybody else are willing or able to take the drastic steps that will need to be taken. Obama can't even get Gitmo closed - how is he ever going to pass major climate change legislation? We are going to have to hit a wall.
I expect humanity will survive - we are much too clever and pernicious a species to ever be completely wiped out - anymore than rats will ever be driven to extinction - but the fraction of the population that comes out on the other side of the collapse will likely be facing a wretched existence. They will be like the natives found on Easter Island by the Europeans a couple of centuries ago - scraping out a meagre and ugly life amidst the ruins of an ancient and nearly forgotten civilization.
What were the islanders thinking when they cut down their last tree? Diamond's haunting question.
It occurred to me that as far as generation of electricity is concerned there will probably be a world wide shortage, resulting in brown-outs because we can't agree what method to use. This may not be all that bad. We will be forced to conserve. We will cut down on heating, cooling, drying our washing, and any number of things we now take for granted.
My local electric co-op is positioning itself for time-of-day pricing of electricity. The most efficient use of our power generation system requires a lessening of use from 4pm to 8 pm and an increase from midnight to 6am. This will be done with high prices in the evening and cheap power overnight, perfect for heat storage systems or electric car charging.
"Obama has already ignited our imaginations, shaken up our sense of what is possible,"
That's the great self-deception, the "race card" it's called. A black man as US President plays well all over the world. Meanwhile, nothing fundamental changes. Skin color doesn't matter. Eventually the perception that change has occurred will be seen as imaginary and Obama's rhetoric will prove as hollow as any white politician's.
the enviro crisis is a greater challenge than the financial crisis. Obama has no solution here. He defers entirely to Bernanke and Geithner and the interests of the wealthy. The enviro crisis is vastly more difficult than the health care crisis. Obama has no solution here. He defers entirely to the insurance companies and carries on his private filibuster against majority opinion. He can't get out of Iraq, nor even close Guantanamo, and these are tiny issues compared to the enviro crisis.
Our way of life has created the problem of climate change. To fix the problem we have to change our way of life from top to bottom. Michelle Obama's White House garden is in its symbolic way, a better solution than any of her husband's tepid "green economy" initiatives that lack the funding and the urgency required to make any difference. We are all best advised to make the changes necessary on our own in the very core of our way of life: we should change the way we eat and work to guarantee the viability of the food supply of our localities. The local food movement is the most important because most fundamental change we can make in our way of life.
The climate crisis is a monumentally huge problem that requires visionary solutions. Don't look to Washington for leadership. Obama and Washington, DC, are part of the problem because they are dedicated above all to the preservation of the status quo. Washington is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate interests and Obama is their servant.
The American people have no visionary leadership. We are on our own.
Grassroots International has posted a Food Sovereignty curriculum.
This is not yet a household term but should become one.
http://www.grassrootsonline.org/news/articles/brazilian-activists-weigh-us-environmental-policy
the green box on the right of the page is a link to the curriculum.
I have imagined specific methods of generating 2 cent/kwh solar electricity, getting biofuel down below $1/gallon, safely dropping transit prices to 20 cents/passenger-mile, and much more. Fossil fuels wouldn't have a chance.
I can also imagine a government that inherently operates with less corruption. Wouldn't that cure global warming even with existing technology?
Finally I can imagine ways to handle many international disputes without wars. Talking may not work on insane leaders, but it tends to usually work on the sane people around that leader.
what would happen if Obama stood up and said,
henceforth, throughout the land, free electricity for vehicles.
and then went to work building green power plants and a smart grid?
Catalogue
These are the birds we let disappear
These are the mountains we shaved to the level
of all spoiled streams
these are the waters we filled with the mountains we shaved to the level of all spoiled streams
This is the last sand dune that sank beneath the rising sea
This is the last sunset we saw before the disappearing stars
These are the stars we used to float beneath
the stars we drew the stories of our gods on
You do not remember them children
but truly they were there
I was told the story by my grandmother
before she was taken away for the safety of the money holders.
This is the last bear in the place we once called a park.
Parks were the places we wandered after the places we wandered
were paved for our pleasures
These are the pictures of those who were tortured
for our safety.
If you look closely enough you will see the small face
of one of your ancestors.
These are the frogs that sang in spring.
I am told it was a sudden sound
out of the final frosts down in the pools of snow melt in the woods
when there used to be woods
and lady slippers.
Don't laugh. Flowers were named such things and they stayed hidden
at the base of the last pines that the diseases did not devastate.
This is the last picture of ice
under the musk oxen and the caribou. Hard to imagine
such inhuman things, isn't it children? Yes,
take off your masks to get a closer view
I'll turn the purifier on high. Can you believe
there was such a thing as the turtle?
It will take a lot to picture such a beast in your backyard
but they say they laid their eggs in the sands
that used to frame our continent.
The same places we would go to taste the sun
before we became the people of the perpetual haze.
Now, your assignment for tonight is to imagine stars;
write stories of flickering lights all across the firmament.
Lie on your backs before you sleep and dream:
this is what our world once was
when you could swim in a river, can you believe it?
and dance in a field, and the trees were legion, renewed themselves endlessly
and we were something we called free.
Climate change will not be stopped. Obama and crew are doing everything that they possibly can to get the economy growing again. Which is the exact opposite of what it would take to alleviate global climate change. Consumption would need to be reduced worldwide. Global population growth needs to turn negative. None of that will happen by choice. It will only happen by force of circumstances. It will happen...by force of mother nature. The lifestyle of the Amish is probably similar to what would be best for the earth. The U.S.A. could not support the current population in that lifestyle because it requires fertile land. Even if enough food could be grown in that manner, it could not be transported by wagon to the people in say Phoenix. And even if it could...there would be no reason for people to exist in Phoenix. And without air conditioning?
Nope they aren't going to Save the Earth. They aren't going to save the world. They can't even save themselves from themselves. Myself, I am already dead. Sometimes I think I was born dead to this world? All propechy does state there is a Final Judgment. That's Jesus's job not mine. It isn't my job to judge anyone.
According to Prophets of many people this is how this world will be in the construction of time that leads from beginning to end. Jesus returns in Revelation 19. From the description he & those with him will be rejoicing over the destruction of Mystery Babylon that is an utter abomination before Creator. Sounds like some kind of party, huh? May not be everyone's idea of a swell party, but it sounds like one to me, but I am rather strange.
So here's what I am going to do about all this world's problems, absolutely nothing. Just going to pay my bills, obey the law, & render unto Caesar what is Caesar as this is Caesar's world.
Today is just another day closer to my journey being completed through Caesar's world. Just another day to me of living upon Creator's earth.
I am happy being nobody & nothing.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Wonderful poem Bobv. I tell people birds may not know anything of history. They may not know there was never a time when there were telephone & electric lines in this land, or cars, or concrete parking lots, or as Jethro Bodine said, Cement ponds.
A young woman who claims to be a genius said to me by email is, I know were both from a certain state.
I said, no, I am from my mother's womb, I am not from any State, city or Nation. I said to her, step back 1000 years in time & the State you claim to be from isn't even here so that State only exists in your mind, not mine.
I said if you had said you are from your mother's womb I would have given you a little credit towards being smart, but she didn't seem to even know where she was from. I wonder if she even knows how far her ancestory stretches back through time to the First Eyes.
Who can look back through time to see the sunrise through the eyes of First Eyes?
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Until population growth is curtailed, starvation and related suffering will only worsen despite relief efforts. Other environmental reform measures are secondary by comparison.
Americans have a mandated duty to assist the third world nations in their pursuit of ecological friendly development, while surviving the conditions resulting from the global warming and pollutio-- for which we bear much responsibility.
The environmental reform measures thus far pursued by this president may be encouraging--albeit far past due. However, until the radical right and special interests, who have successfully blocked family planning and other cruial environmental measures, are detoothed, these vital reforms can never be achieved.