In the first days of 2007, I went to Nashville for the first time, as did at least three Kossacks I have since learned about. (Two reports here and here.) I didn't go for the music, though it was great, and I didn’t go for the food, though that alone was great enough to make me go back.
I went because I was selected to become one of a thousand people trained by Al Gore to give the presentation he gives in "An Inconvenient Truth." Now, I'm officially part of the Climate Project, an awareness campaign about the climate crisis.
This diary isn't about the training session (which was phenomenal, and had an energy very like Yearly Kos), or about Mr. Gore. Yesterday’s release by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes this diary more salient, and I do give some details about it after the fold... but this is really a diary about me. You see, Gore asked us to figure out where our passion for this issue comes from, and to speak from that place when we talk with others.
To be honest, I have always cared very deeply about things – one of several reasons I like the Daily Kos community so much. I have very vivid emotions in general --- I laugh often, and loudly. I love deeply, and though I consider myself to be laid-back, when I am angry... I seethe. So, it’s a good thing that I’m not angry often. There are, in fact, only two classes of things that have made me angry to the point of violence: when someone I love gets hurt, and when massive suffering is brought upon some group of human beings by another group of human beings (it’s been good to have a punching bag handy these last six or so years).
In high school, I glared at the TV in class, uncomprehending, as I watched a documentary about the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, and found the lack of concern of my classmates unbelievable. In college, I learned about the U.S. government’s nuclear ‘testing’ in the (populated) Bikini Atolls (a sick effort to learn about radiation sickness) and on the way home from class I bought a wiffle bat and beat the hell out of a pile of snow on the roofdeck of my fraternity house in Boston.
Some days, the only way I can function while the Iraq Offensive continues is to force myself to not pay attention.
This is why I care so much about the climate crisis. It goes beyond wanting me and mine to be okay, and it goes beyond a simple calculation of how much it will suck if human civilization as we know it succeeds in destroying itself (Hint: Civilization/(Greed+Laziness)=BAD). Lots of people (Gore included) are motivated by the thought of their children – but I don’t yet have kids.
I care, simply, because I believe that every one of the 6.4 billion human lives on this planet is sacred. It’s as though I can hear the writers of the future history books, pausing, and lifting their pens... waiting to see what the next sentence should be. Waiting to see what happens to all those lives because of our present actions, and inactions.
Usually I hear about these moral crises well after the fact, and all that’s left is to get angry. Each time I have learned about something terrible, I have told myself that if I were there, if I could have stopped it, I would have done anything I could to make it right, and I have never understood the motivations of those in the past who acted differently.
This is one of those moments when it is imperative to give everything I can. Because when you’re me, there is no alternative. I cannot, will not sit by and do nothing when so much is at stake. Ultimately, that is the reason I wanted to become part of the Climate Project.
So the IPCC released part of its 2007 report yesterday, as Darksyde noted. In short, 113 governments agree that climate change is happening, and we are causing it. Old news to many, but there’s something about seeing the facts and figures that makes it all the more real, as, I think, "An Inconvenient Truth" proves. The Summary for Policymakers is only 21 pages, and pretty readable. I dunno if they timed it on purpose to have the climate report come out on the one weather-related holiday in the U.S. :-) A few of the highlights, taken from the treehugger excerpt of the report:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level
Eleven of the last twelve years (1995 -2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850).
Temperatures at the top of the permafrost layer have generally increased since the 1980s in the Arctic (by up to 3°C).
More intense and longer droughts have been observed over wider areas since the 1970s, particularly in the tropics and subtropics. Increased drying linked with higher temperatures and decreased precipitation have contributed to changes in drought. Changes in sea surface temperatures (SST), wind patterns, and decreased snowpack and snow cover have also been linked to droughts.
The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely [<5% likely] that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone.</li>
Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios. In some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.
It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.
Both past and future anthropogenic [human-caused] carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere.
[brackets mine]
As a biologist, I think it’s unlikely that in the worst case, humanity will become extinct because of climate change. The species will survive. But, to quote Commander Adama from Battlestar Galactica, "It is not enough to survive. We must be worthy of survival." The climate crisis is at its heart a moral crisis. We must be worthy of survival.
What I tell people at the end of my Climate Project presentations, is four simple words: "We can do this." And I believe that (Really, I do believe that). We really can fix this. We have the tools and the technology. What we don’t have is an overabundance of time.
We can do this --- but if it is to be done, it must be done together, and soon.
Finally, thanks to Gore and countless others, I think the tide is turning and people are finally listening. My Senator, and one of the true leaders in the Democratic Senate, Barbara Boxer, has started hearings. Global warming is in the news every day. Even my grandmother, over Christmas, expressed concerns.
Really, we can do this. We can fix this before it’s too late.
Further, the question that always comes up is What Can You Do? Well, if anyone wants more info or wants help locating a Climate Presenter in your area to give a talk, go to theclimateproject.org, or feel free to contact me ---- demandcaring at gmail dot com. I also have electronic versions of my handouts on resources and action items – things every single one of us can do – based in part on recommended-diary advice I’ve given around here before.