Survival first!

THINKING, FEELING, AND LIVING
SURVIVAL FIRST:
IS THE KEY TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

By dougwight on December 6, 2012 in Featured

    

The latest Global-Warming-Burning/Climate Change research is now much more dire and threatening today than reports issued in 2007!  Recent climate change findings from Dr. Jim Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Space Center for Climate Studies, environmentalist and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, and even the usually conservative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), — are all severe and distressing!

     Unlike many others who consider this a “negative fear-mongering” that might detract from our optimism, I’m actually applauding these vanguards. Why?  Because we are not five year-old children who are afraid of the dark!  If a 500 foot tsunami is going to hit our East Coast, I want to know about it ahead of time, not two minutes before it hits.  We Americans have a very bad ingrained habit of wanting to hide our heads in the sand to avoid conflict and dire information by remaining mired in our “comfort zones” hoping bad things will go away by themselves.  Unfortunately, they rarely do, — and, as most of us know, denial is a really crummy way of dealing with critical matter.  Our American denial will not solve our Climate Change crisis because denial never solves anything: Bold courage and actions do!

     Since 2007 I’ve been writing and saying that Global Warming is 101 times worse than the vast majority of our climate scientists have been telling us. And, over and over again, I’ve been asking everybody in sight this salient question: What the hell will it take to wake-up these sleeping-sheep Americans to pressure our Congress to pass significant Climate Change legislation in time?  Katrina didn’t do it and Sandy hasn’t done it, so what the hell will it take people – a nuclear disaster – a U.S. Fukashima? I’m telling you again folks, the 500 foot tsunami is coming our way and you had better wake-up now and get to work on positive solutions – local, bioregional, national, and global solutions if you truly love your children, grandchildren, and Earth! We are most definitely and assuredly on a non-stop, run-a-way-rollercoaster, — heading towards a dead-end-double-crash:  economic and ecological.  We absolutely must wake-up now before we pass an irreversible tipping-point of no return whereby Nature goes haywire.  Conservation biologist Guy McPherson has been making the rounds here in the Pioneer Valley, and his climate news is the same as mine: Very Bleak!  Here’s what he has to say:

      “The [ensuing] environmental catastrophe will likely make the Earth uninhabitable in a matter of decades!” The National Center for Atmospheric Research predicted in January of 2011 that global temperatures are likely, by the end of the century, to cause irreversible feedbacks. McPherson said [poisonous] methane gas [20-26 times worse than toxic CO2] will be released when rising global temperatures trigger melting of the Siberian permafrost [and  the Canadian, Greenland, and Alaskan permafrost], plus the Amazon forest soil and boreal peat.  [As our oceans, which cover 75 percent of the Earth’s surface continue to heat-up, just imagine how hot and insidious things will get when all the methane hydrates frozen in ocean sediment on the bottom get released and bubble-up and out into our atmosphere. This will result in a colossal catastrophe beyond imagination or description].  ‘An ice-free Arctic Ocean hasn’t happened for 3 million years since before there were humans on this planet,’ McPherson said.  ‘It’s ‘horrific’ that politicians, the media, and the general public have ignored the mounting evidence of dramatic natural releases of [toxic] methane such as spontaneous Russian forest and bog fires.’  ‘These [‘climate forcings’] are irreversible’, McPherson said of these natural releases of greenhouse gases that have already been documented.  ‘You can’t put the cap back on the soda bottle once that [toxic] carbon dioxide starts coming out.’”

      Michael Casey, reporting for the Associated Press from Doha, Qatar on 11/29/2012, said:  “An area of Arctic sea ice bigger than the United States melted this year according to the U.N. weather agency, which said the dramatic decline illustrates that climate change is happening ‘before our eyes.’ In a report released at U.N .climate talks in the Qatari capital of Doha, the World Meteorological Organization said the Arctic ice melt was one of a myriad of extreme and record-breaking weather events to hit the planet in 2012.  Droughts devastated nearly two-thirds of the U.S. and western Russia and southern Europe.  Floods swamped West Africa and heat waves left much of the Northern Hemisphere sweltering.’

     ‘But it was the ice melt that seemed to dominate the annual climate report, with the U.N. concluding ice cover had reached ‘a new record low’ in the area around the North Pole and that the loss from March to September was a staggering 11.83 million square kilometers (4.57 million square miles) — an area bigger than the United States.  This dire climate news – following on the heels of a report Tuesday that found melting permafrost could significantly amplify global warming – comes as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggled for a third day to lay the groundwork for a deal that would cut [GHG] emissions in an attempt to ensure that temperatures don’t rise more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) over what they were in preindustrial times.  Temperatures have already risen about 0.8 degrees C (1.4 degrees F) according to the latest report by the UN IPCC.’” [The more Arctic sea ice that melts, the less sunlight and heat can be reflected back out into outer space. The more dark blue ocean we have, the more toxic CO2 will be absorbed into the ocean, which is already 30 percent carbonic acid].

     We’ve already heated-up our atmosphere 0.8 degrees Celsius, which doesn’t sound like much, but actually is because our Earth hasn’t been this hot since 122,000 years ago!  If we go over 2 degrees Celsius, which we’re now on track to do with “business-as-usual”, we’re looking at 30%-70% of all plant, animal, and humans going extinct, — and many climate scientists believe even this may be a conservative estimate. I believe we have until 2020 to achieve something significant.  After 2020 you can stick a fork in us because we’re basically cooked and done, as in “burnt-toast”!

      Five years ago both our Pentagon and CIA said Global Warming was the number one threat to national and world security!  If you haven’t read Gwenn Dyer’s book “Climate Wars” or Clive Hamilton’s book “Requiem For A Species”, I suggest you do.  Their message is cold and harsh, but also encouraging.  Why?  First off, they are giving us the realistic truth as they see it, not some overly optimistic “Pollyanna”, “tell-me-it-ain’t-so-Joe” bullspit! Without the stark truth we won’t have any clarity of understanding and can’t mount a viable campaign of effective and impactful climate solutions. With the stark truth in hand, if we are willing and able to face it, we have a damn good chance of acting now to prevent the 500 foot tsunami from hitting and wiping us out, but ‘We, the people’ absolutely must wake up NOW.  The hourglass has been upside down since the first Industrial Revolution began in circa 1760, but has been severely oscillated since 1970 with human induced Global Warming.  Our Earth’s biosphere is fragile and time is running out.  It’s truly up to us.  God is not going to save us.  We caused this poisonous mess and it’s our responsibility to heal our broken, out-of-alignment relationship with Mother-Nature Earth and clean-it-up before it spirals totally out-of-control.  Mark my words: “Mother Earth will extinct us if necessary to save life on Earth!”

     According to the United Nations and Global Security Initiative, in cooperation with the Environmental Change and Security Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center, abrupt Climate Change is now a matter of international security concern [written in 2007]:

     “Environmental changes can threaten global, national, and local people!  Environmental issues include land degradation, climate change, water quality and quantity, and the management and distribution of natural-resource assets [such as air, water, food, oil, forests, land, and minerals]. These factors can contribute directly to conflict, or can be linked to conflict by exacerbating other causes such as poverty, migration, small arms, infectious diseases, and [population explosion].  For example, experts predict that climate change will trigger enormous physical and social changes [i.e., Katrina, that tsunami that hit Indonesia, and Sandy] like water shortage, natural disasters, decreased agricultural productivity, increased rates of infectious diseases [which we are seeing now with malaria, Ebola, and encephalitis, etcetera], and shifts in human migration.’

      [According to Gwenn Dyer, author of “Climate Wars”, as rising temperatures escalate and increased droughts, floods, and food and water shortages grow, -- hundreds of millions of refugees will be “picking up guns” to cross local, regional, and national borders to “go get me some”.  I predict before this decade is out, we will experience some of these wars.  The handwritings already on the subway walls,…just look at Africa and the Middle East].

     ‘These shifts in human migration [and increased wars] could significantly impact international security by leading to [increased] competition for natural resources, destabilizing weak states, and increasing humanitarian crises.  However, managing environmental issues and natural resources can also build confidence and contribute to peace through cooperation across lines of tension.’  According to U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan (former), environmental security is linked to environmental degradation, resource scarcity, climate change.  Today, these are real challenges that demand a collective response: ‘All of us know there are new threats that must be faced, — or, perhaps, old threats in new and dangerous combinations; new forms of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. While some consider these threats as self-evidently the main challenge to world peace and security, others feel more menaced today by small arms employed in civil conflicts, or by so-called ‘soft threats’ such as the persistence of extreme poverty, the disparity of [unjust] income between and within societies, and the spread of infectious diseases, or climate change and environmental degradation!’”

     I used to write that stopping and correcting Global Warming is all about sustainability, but today I realize there’s a larger, deeper truth here: This issue is all about survival now!  Global-Warming-Burning/Climate-Change is all about survival first.  Without survival there won’t be any sustainable anything!  Without clean, healthy, abundant air, water, food, and renewable energy, there can’t be any survival!  Sustainability is a nice, kind, amenable, Earth-friendly, ‘don’t worry about anything’ amelioration, and that’s precisely the huge problem I have with it.  It keeps us sleeping-sheep Americans in a false belief-state that everything is going to be “okie-dokie” fine when we should already be past that point of self-deception. Our ongoing stupor and Pollyanna optimism fail to compel us towards the critical concern and urgent action that is now required to collectively get the job done. We need to wake-up FAST!

    We must think and feel SURVIVAL FIRST!  “We, the people’ must demand that all coal-fired power plants are phased out immediately in the next three years and replaced with wind and solar, even if our federal government has to help subsidize this most significant of U.S. transformations!  And ‘We, the people’ must insist that our Congress pass significant Climate Change legislation authorizing the creation and implementation of a 100% Renewable Energy Revolution ASAP!  If American corporations and government, plus our American people, stand-up with courage to lead the way, the whole world will chomp at-the-bit to join us.  We must stop dragging anchor and lead the world with courage, creativity, and determined resolve!

     Without 100% renewable energy we can’t survive!  Why?  Because we can not survive without an abundance of healthy air, water, and food, — and only renewable energy can make this possible! With 100% renewable energy, we can build as many ocean-fed reservoirs in arid areas and use desalination around the globe to produce all the clean water we need for drinking and drip irrigation. Think and feel “Survival First” and you’ll get it viscerally in your heart and guts.

     It’s simply not enough to work on local/state/bioregional sustainability only!  It’s not enough because we don’t have the luxury of time on our side to effect large-scale systemic change on a global-reach basis.  Global-Warming-Burning/Climate-Change is accumulating and accelerating every day 24/7 in leaps and bounds, and it is doing so exponentially. This climate-crisis is 101 times worse than we feared in 2007.  It’s really up to ‘We, the people’.  Who else can do it?  We must place incredibly immense pressure on our Congress now.  Let’s do it together. Here’s how:

     I’ve decided to write a one page form letter to each one of my senators and congressional representatives, and I will be sending this letter to each one of them each week of the year after January 20, 2012, when our new Congress begins. Just imagine the difference it might make if they each received 10 million letters each week from concerned Americans?

     Ben Franklin reminds us all “that the government you get is the government you deserve”!  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “If you want me to do something, demand that I do it!” President Obama says he wants to seriously address Global Warming.  Let’s give him the fire-power he needs to get the job done.  If you need help with your form-letter, send me an e-mail and I’ll assist you.  Let’s remember that American ends in ‘I can’.  If I can, and you can, then we can. As the Lakota Indians say, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”

 “Let’s do this thing people!”

Doug Wight, a local Greenfield resident and member of Occupy Franklin County and the Greening Greenfield Energy Committee, is an international activist with an international press badge. Doug can be reached atwellness15@yahoo.com, at www.ethicalwarrioractivists.org, or by calling413-320-3653.