WHAT CAN I DO?
I consider myself politically aware and engaged, current with every significant issue splayed across national tv, computer screens and print media. However, I was shocked and horrified while reading two books on Global Warming recently (and there is nothing else descriptive to call it. Fuck ‘Climate Change’)
The first is Falter: Has the Human Game Played Itself Out, by Bill McKibben, one of our earliest people to raise the alarm of rising carbon ppm in the atmosphere and its consequences on the environment. His predictions are so dire and so immediate I was stopped in my tracks, feeling that suddenly I was actually seeing the doom we are all facing. Consider simply this report he cites from the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology which has concluded that by 2100 the oceans may be too hot to support phytoplankton and their photosynthesis. Phytoplankton has decreased 40% since 1950. These nearly invisible little plants constitute half the organic matter on earth and supply two-thirds of earth’s oxygen.
David Wallace-Wells’ new book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming is equally grim. Folks these are not fun reads. We are so far beyond the save-your-plastic-bags-to-reuse phase of climate correction and we are ignorant of what’s enveloping us. Analytical conversation about it is virtually taboo in major media considering a sin of omission at the level of war-crimes.
Consider, the Paris Accords settled on the notion of holding the rise of Earth’s temperature to 2 degrees, a figure suggested by Yale economist William Nordhaus in 1975. It was simple, sounded safe and effective. In fact 2 degrees is a holocaust. We are currently at 1 degree and grim-reaper hurricanes like Harvey, Irma and Maria are scouring the earth in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and Bahamas. Large sections of California have become incinerated. Thousand-year floods are occurring every two years and as the ice-caps recede EXXON regards the ice-free territory as new drilling opportunities.
New coal plants built since the Paris Accords have doubled the equivalent coal energy output of Russia and Japan, and according to Alan Weisman’s article “Burning Down the House” in the August 15th edition of the “New York Review of Books”, 260 more are on order. Coal-plants! And our elected officials are licensing them.
Wallace-Wells reminds us:
More than half of the carbon exhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has been emitted in just the past three decades…since Al Gore published his first book on climate.
When Exxon’s scientists first presented their conclusions that the burning of fossil fuels was leading to “a green house effect” (this was in 1977), and later when their scientists were unanimous in this opinion, Exxon (Rex Tillerson and senior management) hired the ‘scientists’ from the Tobacco industry who once cast doubt on the link between cancer and tobacco. That “doubt” about global warming, expertly fueled and paid for by the Kochs and Republicans has cost us three decades. When describing the scale of irresponsibility of Executives in the coal and oil industries.
McKibbon observes:
“There should be a word for when you commit treason against an entire planet.”
But here we are.The problems are so enormous that we are petrified of even consider their scale and consequences. Suppose for instance, we needed to cut automotive use in half. Systems would have to be invented (even number license-plates, Mon-Wed-Fri for instance) plans would have to be instituted for ride-sharing, working at home. Perhaps air-conditioners need to be turned up3 degrees and heat turned down 3 degrees to save energy. I DON”T KNOW, but who is discussing it other than scientists and climatologists. These problems are political. In the face of doubt how do we convince people to make sacrifices?” How do we regain control over a completely privatized legislature in thrall to corporate and private fortunes? When 89% of American want something (background checks for instance) and Congress does not implement them, doesn’t it inform us that they are the Congress of the 11% and not the rest of us?
The greed and myopia of these fools are leading us over a cliff. This is as imminent a disaster as world war or plague (though larger in scale) and the analytical silence, the what-to-do is completely absent from major media.
In 2050 (when the phytoplankton can’t photosynthesize) my grandaughter will be 40 and perhaps have children of her own. The question of What Can I Do has become gnawing, insistent, paramount.
Ok, here’s what I’ve tried over the years:
Installed 23 solar panels on my roof.
Charge my Chevy Volt on them and need gasoline only every several months. When my lease is up in February, I’ll buy the small Tesla and be all-electric/solar. (500 HP cars are still being advertised on Television.)
Replaced all lightbulbs as LED’s
Carry (and often forget), sacks for groceries.
Buy local as much as I can.
Have a large garden and consume as much of it as I can.
It all seems pitifully small on review. So, looking to do more, I thought that geting rid of plastic might be something that could scale well. I noticed that nearly all of my healthy food from Whole Foods was coming in single-use plastic containers—berrys, salad greens, herbs, deli foods, bottled water (which I do not buy.) So too does my occasional dry-cleaning. It struck me that perhaps we consumers could diminish production and use of plastic by taking our power seriously and putting Whole Foods, Wal-Mart and Safeway on notice that by a date certain, we would not patronize stores that support the single-use plastic industry.
Water is delicious out of glass bottles which can be recycled. So could Humus containers or Tabouleh Salad. Berries can already be purchased in cardboard containers. I don’t know the math, but given that I’ve read there is currently more weight of plastic in the ocean than fish, I need to do something and I’m looking for allies.
How will we cut down air-travel? Is the Tourist industry (or should it be) extinct? I’m humiliated to realize that a life-long trip to Africa I’ve planned for the fall will expend thousands of gallons of jet-fuel to satisfy my curiosity to see the Mountain Gorillas and the game migrations on the Serengeti. In the face of Global Warming it seems like the most feckless of indulgences.I don’t want to bore my friends to death, but I’d like to get their attention. Some folks I know still insist that all global warming talk is a precursor-plot to tax carbon. It is harder and harder to be with them. I love to laugh and I love this world, but under the umbrella of doom we’ve constructed over our heads, every lovely thing appears as impermanent as a cut flower. Folks, we could lose it all. So I’m suggesting that “What Can I Do” might be a good place to start. Your thoughts? Your ideas for action?