There’s this misconception that when talking about climate, scientists and media should downplay the darker, harder truths because they might destroy “hope.”
I always tell people who say that “you know what’s waaaay more powerful than hope? Survival instinct. What if we let that kick in?”
And you’re so right that this rosy approach to climate breakdown has been a total abject failure.
Like a lot of things these days I don’t think it was ever sincere. It was consumerism and “keep the markets stable” BS dressed up as a messaging strategy.
Which now that I think about it might describe 95% of current US culture.
Pull together effect…it seems that African Americans have done this since we were kidnapped and brought to America. We aren’t doing this for climate change because we are spending our time surviving in a police and prison system. We are getting out the vote. We are going door to door to vaccinate our community. We are protesting the most recent police murder of an unarmed Black person.
Climate activists should pull together like Black people do. You will feel better, I promise.
Bruce Cockburn first released this 40 years ago, but most of what is going on today was known to be inevitable even before then. I had an Applied Physics class in the mid '70s that showed the math and science. Hardly anyone paid any mind, and I've been something of a weirdo anomaly for trying to live as though it mattered ever since. Even if it's too late it's still important to live as though life has value far beyond what can be monetized.
I feel so much grief for what is coming. Civilization is tottering at 1.38 degrees. At 1.5 degrees we are going to start hitting tipping points that will accelerate the chaos. 2 degrees will be unrecognizable. And yet some people seem to think we can « pull back » from overshoot.
I've noticed since starting to write about oil that while its hard to get people to talk about the climate emergency its near impossible to get them to talk about what causes it. The capitalists have succeeded in making people feel shame and guilt for their lifestyles and especially their car dependence without questioning who designed our geographies around cheap oil and almost-free coal and gas. Things that are live political decisions are treated as inevitabilities and things that are inevitabilities are treated like immoral personal consumer decisions. Evil men worked hard to build the petrocapitalist world order, a better world.was once possible. But now that it is built, people will fill up their gas tanks to get to work.
I read a great article once and I wish I had saved it. It was written by an environmental scientist that drove his family absolutely insane doing the utmost to reduce his footprint. He went to extremes and it was driving both he and his family crazy. Then one day he came to the realization that we humans can not destroy the earth, it will destroy us first and it will continue peacefully without us. He still did what he could but stopped worrying about the destruction of the planet.
I also read an article about how pig farmers were breeding "super pigs" in Western Canada that grew larger than the norm and could withstand the harsh western Canadian winters. When the pork market collapsed they released these pigs into the wild where they are now causing havoc.
My dream is to be the last surviving human and giving a super swine a high five and congratulating him/her on a job well done.
I respectfully disagree with the statement that anyone misses the first year of the pandemic. It was a terrifying time. Everyone was highly stressed, frightened and depressed.
Unlike the pandemic, global warming is not treated as an emergency, and governments keep spending and wasting resources on wars. War is the biggest driver of global warming and the biggest cause of pollution. The second greatest is construction.
I grew up with a sense of un-safety and un-comfort. Learned from an early age to watch what I say in public, lest the authorities throw my parents in jail. When we made it to the US, with just 5 suitcases to our family name, I was stunned at the thorough lack of awareness and awakeness. I was nine years old. The country I was born in is the former Czechoslovakia, devastated by decades of Soviet and communist rule.
What I see forming here in the US now, politically, economically, and socially, is a double helix of intellectual decadence and individual resilience — too closely intertwined, unable to split clean without tearing the organism apart. Which side of the family gene pool will win out? I know what the determined realist inside me thinks. In the end it'll be decided by epigenetics.
90 percent of climate change believers don’t understand solar, wind and electric cars are a long way off from replacing fossil fuels , what we can do right now people won’t tolerate, cut energy use in half avoid meat as much as you can.
IMO the issue is simple; change means unpredictability and traveling into the great unknown. Normal means status quo and comfort. Normal also means the the normal people have grown very long necks that allow them to bury their head in the sand. In the end these ostrich people either fry or freeze in the extreme weather or the drown or are blown away by hurricanes or tornadoes. Jessica I appreciate you getting in my face because you always give me something I can do to change our situation. I often get exasperated by the preponderance of walking dead and then I remind myself, “I don’t have to be a victim”. Thanks for the article.
Emergencies get exploited. Always have and always will. Solutions being offered are disguised as green but in actuality they are another power/cash grab. Under the shield of empty ESG promises companies will continue to poison us and this planet. They want to harness the ‘vibe’ and only make cosmetic changes that they can market. When chips are down people will accept anything.
Thanks for this...my senior platform speech as I finished college was about the climate crisis. Most of my family and friends have thought I’m a little crazy. Even my kids just tolerate my “rants.” At least I live in a small urban community that is trying to make a dent. We still have too many people trying to up 5heir “cylinder index.” I’m pleased to see your writing, somehow it dropped out of my email feed.
I will be going to a cookout today, mostly family. I already know that part of the BBQ will feature racks of ribs. I will try not to get into the carbon footprint of beef, cattle feed, and the decimation of the Amazon rainforest, and indigenous people for the industry. I'll try to ignore the person who likes to talk about having bacon on everything. I'll try not to point out the underlying cause of the high cost of food is climate change, when the complaining begins. I'll try not to talk about avian flu. I'll try not to stick my head in my sister's six burner gas oven after I've had a few drinks. Good luck to me... : )
Yeah, I’m in nervous system shock. I have ADHD and need adderall for this sensory processing disorder that comes with ADHD. I’m no crazy and even if I was it wouldn’t matter.
Spot on per usual.
There’s this misconception that when talking about climate, scientists and media should downplay the darker, harder truths because they might destroy “hope.”
I always tell people who say that “you know what’s waaaay more powerful than hope? Survival instinct. What if we let that kick in?”
And you’re so right that this rosy approach to climate breakdown has been a total abject failure.
Like a lot of things these days I don’t think it was ever sincere. It was consumerism and “keep the markets stable” BS dressed up as a messaging strategy.
Which now that I think about it might describe 95% of current US culture.
Pull together effect…it seems that African Americans have done this since we were kidnapped and brought to America. We aren’t doing this for climate change because we are spending our time surviving in a police and prison system. We are getting out the vote. We are going door to door to vaccinate our community. We are protesting the most recent police murder of an unarmed Black person.
Climate activists should pull together like Black people do. You will feel better, I promise.
Bruce Cockburn first released this 40 years ago, but most of what is going on today was known to be inevitable even before then. I had an Applied Physics class in the mid '70s that showed the math and science. Hardly anyone paid any mind, and I've been something of a weirdo anomaly for trying to live as though it mattered ever since. Even if it's too late it's still important to live as though life has value far beyond what can be monetized.
https://youtu.be/4pBsnvRpJlQ
[Lyrics Bruce Cockburn - The Trouble With Normal]
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs Security comes first
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see
It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When the ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and the landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Thank you Jessica🙏
I feel so much grief for what is coming. Civilization is tottering at 1.38 degrees. At 1.5 degrees we are going to start hitting tipping points that will accelerate the chaos. 2 degrees will be unrecognizable. And yet some people seem to think we can « pull back » from overshoot.
I've noticed since starting to write about oil that while its hard to get people to talk about the climate emergency its near impossible to get them to talk about what causes it. The capitalists have succeeded in making people feel shame and guilt for their lifestyles and especially their car dependence without questioning who designed our geographies around cheap oil and almost-free coal and gas. Things that are live political decisions are treated as inevitabilities and things that are inevitabilities are treated like immoral personal consumer decisions. Evil men worked hard to build the petrocapitalist world order, a better world.was once possible. But now that it is built, people will fill up their gas tanks to get to work.
I read a great article once and I wish I had saved it. It was written by an environmental scientist that drove his family absolutely insane doing the utmost to reduce his footprint. He went to extremes and it was driving both he and his family crazy. Then one day he came to the realization that we humans can not destroy the earth, it will destroy us first and it will continue peacefully without us. He still did what he could but stopped worrying about the destruction of the planet.
I also read an article about how pig farmers were breeding "super pigs" in Western Canada that grew larger than the norm and could withstand the harsh western Canadian winters. When the pork market collapsed they released these pigs into the wild where they are now causing havoc.
My dream is to be the last surviving human and giving a super swine a high five and congratulating him/her on a job well done.
I respectfully disagree with the statement that anyone misses the first year of the pandemic. It was a terrifying time. Everyone was highly stressed, frightened and depressed.
Unlike the pandemic, global warming is not treated as an emergency, and governments keep spending and wasting resources on wars. War is the biggest driver of global warming and the biggest cause of pollution. The second greatest is construction.
I grew up with a sense of un-safety and un-comfort. Learned from an early age to watch what I say in public, lest the authorities throw my parents in jail. When we made it to the US, with just 5 suitcases to our family name, I was stunned at the thorough lack of awareness and awakeness. I was nine years old. The country I was born in is the former Czechoslovakia, devastated by decades of Soviet and communist rule.
What I see forming here in the US now, politically, economically, and socially, is a double helix of intellectual decadence and individual resilience — too closely intertwined, unable to split clean without tearing the organism apart. Which side of the family gene pool will win out? I know what the determined realist inside me thinks. In the end it'll be decided by epigenetics.
90 percent of climate change believers don’t understand solar, wind and electric cars are a long way off from replacing fossil fuels , what we can do right now people won’t tolerate, cut energy use in half avoid meat as much as you can.
I really find it hard to believe that 70% are awake.
IMO the issue is simple; change means unpredictability and traveling into the great unknown. Normal means status quo and comfort. Normal also means the the normal people have grown very long necks that allow them to bury their head in the sand. In the end these ostrich people either fry or freeze in the extreme weather or the drown or are blown away by hurricanes or tornadoes. Jessica I appreciate you getting in my face because you always give me something I can do to change our situation. I often get exasperated by the preponderance of walking dead and then I remind myself, “I don’t have to be a victim”. Thanks for the article.
Emergencies get exploited. Always have and always will. Solutions being offered are disguised as green but in actuality they are another power/cash grab. Under the shield of empty ESG promises companies will continue to poison us and this planet. They want to harness the ‘vibe’ and only make cosmetic changes that they can market. When chips are down people will accept anything.
Thanks for this...my senior platform speech as I finished college was about the climate crisis. Most of my family and friends have thought I’m a little crazy. Even my kids just tolerate my “rants.” At least I live in a small urban community that is trying to make a dent. We still have too many people trying to up 5heir “cylinder index.” I’m pleased to see your writing, somehow it dropped out of my email feed.
I will be going to a cookout today, mostly family. I already know that part of the BBQ will feature racks of ribs. I will try not to get into the carbon footprint of beef, cattle feed, and the decimation of the Amazon rainforest, and indigenous people for the industry. I'll try to ignore the person who likes to talk about having bacon on everything. I'll try not to point out the underlying cause of the high cost of food is climate change, when the complaining begins. I'll try not to talk about avian flu. I'll try not to stick my head in my sister's six burner gas oven after I've had a few drinks. Good luck to me... : )
Yeah, I’m in nervous system shock. I have ADHD and need adderall for this sensory processing disorder that comes with ADHD. I’m no crazy and even if I was it wouldn’t matter.