It's Oscar night. La crème de la crème of Hollywood gather for yet another over-the-top display of flitter and flash, yet another disconnect distracting us from owning and acting on the core realities which need to be front and center if we are to achieve radical and sustainable shifts in the way we act in the world.
The Climate Action Hub this evening provides an alternative, an opportunity to participate in authentic actions on our very own "Green Carpet," to step up to the podium and be counted by joining two key climate action campaigns.
Please stay for our program, which tonight highlights some important issues related to global warming, its impacts, and commentary on where we need to be focusing our attention. Plus a few of our top choices for winning entries in the climate change action arena.
Coming June 18, 2015,
Live Earth and the UN are collaborating to bring together 6 billion voices to "to shine a global spotlight on the nations convening in Paris this year and deliver a single message to all leaders - Take Climate Action Now." In partnership with the world's leading brands, NGOs and non-profits, Live Earth will feature 24 hours of events across seven continents, broadcasting across major networks, an unparalleled civil engagement demanding negotiators sign a 'pivotal' agreement at the Paris UN Climate Talks this December.
Organizing for America (@OFATruthTeam) is staging a full throttle push to Call Out Climate Deniers.
OUR NOMINATIONS
TOP ECO STORY OF THE YEAR
Hundreds Of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March In New York City
Here at DailyKos, there were were over 300 posts on the PCM, including a trilogy on the Moment of Silence
OUR OSCAR NIGHT SHORT ENTRIES
Merchants of Doubt
Live Earth: Road to Paris
Imagine There's No Global Warming
Other Highlights
A MELTING ARCTIC AND WEIRD WEATHER: THE PLOT THICKENS
Rutger's Jennifer Francis reports on a "wavier jet stream" as a key factor in worsening weather anomolies.
One thing we do know is that the polar jet stream—a fast river of wind up where jets fly that circumnavigates the Northern Hemisphere—has been doing some odd things in recent years.
Rather than circling in a relatively straight path, the jet stream has meandered more in north–south waves. In the West, it’s been bulging northward, arguably since December 2013—a pattern dubbed the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” by meteorologists. In the East, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the “Terribly Tenacious Trough.”
Why Don't Climate Summits Work?
Blinespot's James Greyson, (a Daily Kos contributor) and member of MIT Climate Co-Lab presents his theory that "radical system change" on a planetary basis is key to adequately addressing global climate change. The Summits, he maintains, fail because they focus exclusively on issues "inside the box," maintaining the illusion that the problems remain manageable while the problem gets increasingly out of control. As a result, climate summits look for solutions within the box while all effective solutions are out of the box and largely unexplored. What would it mean to discard this box so climate talks start to work?
"The six sided box in which climate summits are stuck is defined by the questions they ask," he writes.
James suggests we:
• Reframe global problems as whole system strategy
• Redirect education away from reductionist herd thinking
• Make markets design-out waste from all products in the entire economy
• Reverse the arms race with a simple national accounting innovation
• Rescue ecosystems and ecosystem services worldwide
• Match the stockpile of legacy problems with the stockpile of funds
• Get money supply monetary without rising debt
Government-led climate talks are effective at keeping discussion in the box. Civil society movements could challenge all sides of the box but so far they don’t. Climate movements pursue a quantitative strategy, with vast numbers of well-meaning messages circulated to vast numbers of people with the unintended effect of reinforcing all ‘in the box’ thinking. Opening this side of the box would mean civil society and climate negotiators both crowdsourcing ideas that respond to open “why isn’t this working?” discussions based on rethinking assumptions. In particular, both of the dogmas about economic growth (ie must have it/mustn’t have it) should no longer block the space needed for discussing fast system change.
Follow James on Twitter:
@blindspotting
@ClimateColab
@climaterescue
Zero Carbon, Zero Poverty The Climate Justice Way
A new report jointly researched and produced by Ecoequity (Executive Director Tom Athanasiou is a contributing member of the Climate Actin Hub) and the Mary Robinson Foundationequates the interconnection between international intolerance for use of fossil fuels and climate equity, noting that climate change presents an unprecedented awareness of our 'interdependence, and the interconnection between our ethical responsibility to work towards alleviating poverty and to tackle climate change.
Their key findings:
• There is strong evidence that a rapid and total or nearly-total carbon phase-out will be technically feasible, both for developed and developing countries.
• Economic analyses suggest that a rapid carbon phase-out can be achieved at an aggregate global cost that is affordable, and much less than the potential costs of climate impacts.
• Nonetheless, a rapid carbon phase-out will be very demanding for all countries, especially developing countries, and presents potential risks to human rights.
• Even greater risks to human rights than the risks posed by aggressive mitigation action arise from the profound impacts of climate change, especially if temperature increase exceeds 2°C, which becomes increasingly likely if mitigation is delayed.
• There is good reason to believe that risks posed by mitigation can be dealt with, provided there is an ambitious and fairly shared global effort to achieve a rapid carbon phase-out while preserving human rights, and a commitment to integrating human rights and equity in all national climate policies.
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The Climate Action Hub
The 2014 People's Climate March accelerated civic momentum and successfully pressured world leaders to reach an adequate and just treaty at the December 2015 UN Climate Talks in Paris. But the urgency of this work demands civic engagement in pressuring leaders to #ActonClimate as part of the Pre-2020 agenda prior to the implementation that year of a global agreement.
And that's where we come in.The Climate Action Hub is the fast track on the Road to Paris and beyond featuring the latest news and actions from environmental activists, NGOs, scientists, reporters and Daily Kos bloggers on Sundays at 4:30 PM. The Hub also posts regularly at 8 AM weekdays. We encourage readers to utilize all posts to share related eco news to promote other environmental diaries, and to publicize all mobilizations which #ActOnClimate.
Our 'eco swat team' invites you to inform the community about campaigns in your local communities and here at DK, to email us with story ideas, and to join The Hub to contribute your skills and experience.
It’s 2015! We need all hands on deck!
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