[TheClimate.Vote] September 16, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Sep 16 09:58:26 EDT 2018
/September 16, 2018/
[still burning West]
*Fire activity picks up in Utah and Colorado
<https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/09/13/fire-activity-picks-up-in-utah-and-colorado/>*
At least five large wildfires are growing in the two states
https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/09/13/fire-activity-picks-up-in-utah-and-colorado/
[USAToday]
*Florence bringing 'catastrophic' flooding, mudslides deep into North
Carolina
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/09/16/hurricane-florence-flooding-mudslides-power-out-north-carolina/1326943002/>*
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/09/16/hurricane-florence-flooding-mudslides-power-out-north-carolina/1326943002/
[PRI's The World - audio and text report]
*Scientists say 25 years left to fight climate change
<https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-09-13/scientists-say-25-years-left-fight-climate-change>*
Livable Planet - PRI's The World
By Craig Miller - September 13, 2018
You can think of global warming kind of like popping a bag of popcorn in
the microwave.
Anthropogenic, or human-caused, warming has been stoked by increasing
amounts of heat-trapping pollution since the start of the industrial age
more than 200 years ago. But that first hundred years or so was kind of
like the first minute for that popcorn -- no real sign of much happening.
But then you get to that second minute, and the kernels really start
doing their thing. And you can think of all those individual pops as
extreme weather events -- superstorms, extreme downpours, high-tide
flooding, droughts, melting glaciers, ferocious wildfires. They're like
the signals that the climate is changing.
And in popcorn terms, "we are in that second minute," says Inez Fung, an
atmospheric scientist at UC Berkeley -- in the throes of a problem we
can now see unfolding all around us.
"Thirty years ago we predicted it in the models, and now I'm
experiencing it," Fung says. "You see the fires in the western US and
British Columbia. And then at the same time, we've got fires, it rained
three feet in Hilo, Hawaii, from [a] hurricane -- that is a new record
at the same time that we have droughts and fires, over 300 people died
in India from floods. We are not prepared. "...
- - - -
All this grim talk might lead one to ask what point there is in trying
to reverse the climate train.
But recently refined climate models suggest that aggressively cutting
emissions could at least blunt the impact of continued warming. It
could, for example, reduce periods of extreme heat in California's
capital Sacramento from two weeks a year to as little as two days. The
snowpack in the state's Sierra Nevada mountains might shrink by "just"
20 percent, rather than 75 percent.
That's the optimistic scenario...
- - - - -
"First thing we have to do as a global community is reverse course
rather sharply," says Collins. "We think it is technically feasible."
Technically feasible, perhaps, but not easy. California, for instance,
has the most aggressive efforts to cut greenhouse gases in the US and
overall, it's working -- total emissions are down 13 percent since 2004.
Still, climate emissions from cars and trucks are on the rise.
"Our cars are literally our time machines," Collins says. And they're
taking us backward.
"They're taking the atmosphere to a chemical state that it has not been
in for millions of years," he says. "Currently, we have as much carbon
dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere as we did five million years ago."
In the space of a little over 230 years since the start of
industrialization, Collins says "our steam engines, our factories, our
cars…they've taken us back five million years."
And Collins says we have about 25 years -- roughly one generation -- to
reverse course.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-09-13/scientists-say-25-years-left-fight-climate-change
[Just mention it]
*Elizabeth Warren leads push by Democrats to force public companies make
climate-risk disclosures
<https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elizabeth-warren-leads-push-by-democrats-to-force-public-companies-make-climate-risk-disclosures-2018-09-14>*
Published: Sept 15, 2018 10:37
The Climate Risk Disclosure Act directs the SEC to issue rules that
require every public company to disclose more on climate change exposure
FRANCINE MCKENNA - REPORTER
Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is spearheading an effort by
Democratic senators to bring a bill that would require public companies
to disclose more information about their exposure to climate-related risks.
The bill, called the Climate Risk Disclosure Act, would direct the SEC,
in consultation with climate experts at other federal agencies, to issue
rules within one year that require every public company to disclose:
• Direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions
• All fossil-fuel related assets it owns or manages
• The effect on the company's market valuation if climate change
continues at its current pace or if greenhouse gas emissions were
restricted in compliance with the Paris accord goal; and
• What strategies are in place to address the physical and
transition risks posed by climate change.
more at:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elizabeth-warren-leads-push-by-democrats-to-force-public-companies-make-climate-risk-disclosures-2018-09-14
[Video w/ Media Matters]
*Media Coverage of Hurricane Florence Leaves Out Crucial Information
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj4pRlk7Nkk>*
TheRealNews -Published on Sep 15, 2018
Analyses of the media coverage of hurricane Florence show that most
outlets leave out the link to climate change and the real dangers the
hurricane presents for creating toxic spills. We speak to Lisa Hyams of
Media Matters for America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj4pRlk7Nkk
*Scientists warned of rising sea levels in North Carolina. Republican
lawmakers shelved their recommendations.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/14/scientists-warned-of-rising-sea-levels-in-north-carolina-republican-lawmakers-shelved-their-recommendations/?utm_term=.b59bdb5c50dd>*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/14/scientists-warned-of-rising-sea-levels-in-north-carolina-republican-lawmakers-shelved-their-recommendations/?utm_term=.b59bdb5c50dd
[from the California meetings]
*'Major shift': Nations face bottom-up pressure to act on climate change
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/09/14/major-shift-nations-face-bottom-pressure-act-climate-change/>*
A California summit of business, city and state leaders ends with a call
on national governments to increase their pledges to the Paris climate deal
By Karl Mathiesen in San Francisco Published on 14/09/2018
Cities, states and business from around the world will call on national
governments to redouble their efforts to fight climate change, as a
summit in San Francisco ends on Friday.
The 'call to action' will ask nations to update their pledges to the
Paris Agreement at a meeting hosted by UN secretary general Antonio
Guterres in one year's time in New York, according to organisers of the
Global Climate Action Summit.
Currently, the collective pledges under the Paris Agreement set the
world on course for a disastrous level of warming.
The emergence of 'subnational' actors in the fight against climate
change comes as UN talks between countries are mired in technical
struggles over the rules of the Paris Agreement they signed in 2015.
WWF's Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, a former Peruvian minister who was on the
summit's advisory committee, said national governments would have "the
wind at their backs" and be able to strike a deal on the rules when they
meet in Poland in December.
If the rules for the deal can be agreed, then attention turns to how
fast countries are using it to cut emissions. Deeper cuts to greenhouse
pollution "really rest on the generation of political will from the
ground up", Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for
Climate and Energy Solutions, told Climate Home News.
Mayors and city officials CHN spoke to said they felt pressure to act on
climate change because they were in direct contact with its effect on
people.
Milanese mayor Giuseppe Sala said the commitments made at his level of
government could drive action higher up.
"If we do something good in a city then the government can be pushed to
copy that," he said. "If I fly back to Milan and I tell the journalists
and people I want to do this and that because I agreed with the other
mayors of main cities of the world, I will be stronger."
The gathering this week, which was organised by California governor
Jerry Brown, saw a host of announcements coming from what participants
dubbed the 'real economy'.
Those included:
- The $20.7bn Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group committed its
business to carbon neutrality by 2040
-Jurisdictions and companies representing more than 122 million
people announced zero-emissions vehicle targets. To back that up,
plans for millions of new charging points were unveiled
-Wales and 9 states, cities and territories joined a global alliance
to end coal power
-Brown signed an executive order to make California carbon neutral
by 2045 and said the state would be launching its "own damn
satellite" to monitor carbon pollution sources around the world.
The summit, as a concept, predates the election of Donald Trump. But
limiting the impact of his presidency was the dominant narrative in San
Francisco. Brown said Trump's roll back of pollution regulations would
lead him to be remembered as a "liar, criminal, fool".
"In the US right now it's not happening at the national level," said Dan
Zarrilli, chief climate advisor in the New York mayor's office. "This is
everyone else coming together to fill that void."
To that end, 3,000 US states cities and business have promised to cut
down on carbon. A report released in San Francisco found current
commitments would bring US emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2025 - the
US Paris pledge was 26-28%.
One of the architects of the Paris Agreement, European Climate
Foundation CEO Laurence Tubiana said the evidence that many cities and
states from around the world felt bound to the climate deal their
governments had signed "in my view is a major shift in global governance".
The various pledges will be uploaded to a UN website, but Tubiana said
there was is "no proper system" of accountability or measuring them
against "counter forces".
"I think that the worst problem concerning this myriad of commitments is
that you don't know how significant they are for the real economy," said
Tubiana.
"Yes, you want to guard against bullshit greenwashing," said Diringer.
But he added: "We can't really create systems to track and measure it
all, you just need to do it… It's too late to create the perfect system."
The summit was dominated by commitments from the developed world. The
mayor of Durban Zandile Gumede told a press conference 60% of her
denizens were without reliable electricity.
She said: "We have not reached the peak emissions and we do not intend
to", but added that she was trying to find a cleaner future for her city.
Outside on Thursday, protesters blocked entrances to the downtown
conference centre. More actions were planned for Friday, organisers told
CHN, to highlight the fact that the conference was only addressing
emissions and not the production of fossil fuels. Much of the anger was
directed towards Brown's licencing of new oil and gas fields as governor.
On Friday, protestors also infiltrated the summit, interrupting a speech
by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
"They are trying to solve [climate change], as long as they are making
money," said Roberto Lopez, a protester who was handing out badges to
delegates as they arrived.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/09/14/major-shift-nations-face-bottom-pressure-act-climate-change/
[Opinion ]
*Polluters should bear a fair share of the costs of responding to
climate change
<https://www.tribtalk.org/2018/09/14/polluters-should-bear-a-fair-share-of-the-costs-of-responding-to-climate-change/>*
By Robert D. Bullard, Sept. 14, 2018
On the one year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey, voters in Harris County
approved a $2.5 billion flood bond measure to protect the area from
future storms. While taxpayers deserve credit for adopting the measure,
the question remains whether they should foot the bill alone.
The oil and gas companies most responsible for climate change and the
increasingly costly and deadly impacts it brings are located in Harris
County's own backyard. Why should they not pay their fair share for
thedamages they knowingly caused
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming>?
A growing number of localities have started to raise this question
through the form of climate liability lawsuits, intended to recoup costs
and establish abatement funds to finance adaptation and mitigation
investments.
In response to those suits, ExxonMobil filed a countersuit in a Texas
state court located near its headquarters in Irving, and mobilized its
infamous network of front groups
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22102015/Exxon-Sowed-Doubt-about-Climate-Science-for-Decades-by-Stressing-Uncertainty>
to undermine any effort to hold the industry accountable.
But Exxon didn't stop there. As a result of the lawsuits, ExxonMobil and
other climate polluters are now pushing a carbon tax in Congress that
contains a hidden provision which would give the industry blanket
immunity for the damages caused by its products.
Exxon's "support" for a carbon tax should be seen as nothing more than a
shrewd maneuver to permanently push the costs of decades of negligence
onto taxpayers.
That hasn't stopped the company and its allies from simultaneously
demanding taxpayers across the country, including those they are
currently suing, pay for the construction of a coastal barrier to
safeguard its refineries from the very climate impacts it caused.
Why? They argue that refineries -- like Exxon's Baytown facility, which
was hit with a $20 million fine for the toxic pollution it pumped into
our communities -- are of national consequence.
These days all one needs to do is turn on the television or step outside
to be reminded of the consequences that come from the oil and gas
industry, and that our present is the very future Big Oil once warned of
in internal memos, but did nothing to prevent.
People in Houston know this better than most. Many of them are still
picking up the pieces from a superstorm that killed 89 people, displaced
30,000 more and caused $126.3 billion in damages. Were it not for
climate change, scientists believe the record rainfall that Houston
experienced during Harvey would have been up to 38 percent lower.
Despite this, the ExxonMobils of the world continue business as usual,
expecting others to clean up their messes. Taxpayers can no longer
afford this double standard. Nor should they have to.
Climate polluters not only knew their product was causing global warming
decades ago, but understood we only had a short window to act. As a 1988
internal Shell memo marked "CONFIDENTIAL" cautioned, "by the time the
global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective
countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation."
The "catastrophic" impacts that Exxon scientists like Roger Cohen and
Shell warned of have arrived. As have the lawsuits that Shell predicted
would come as the American public grew weary of extreme weather events
and came to understand what the industry knew about climate change, and
when.
Those lawsuits and other efforts to recover costs are long overdue.
Climate polluters bear the largest share of the blame for damages caused
by climate change. It should go without saying that they should bear the
largest share of the bill as well.
Disclosure: Texas Southern University and ExxonMobil Corp. have been
financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
organization that is funded in part by donations from members,
foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in
the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here
<https://www.texastribune.org/support-us/corporate-sponsors/?_ga=2.206440083.1620226996.1537029127-2091290102.1537029127>.
https://www.tribtalk.org/2018/09/14/polluters-should-bear-a-fair-share-of-the-costs-of-responding-to-climate-change/
[cough, cough, hack, cough]
*Study: Fire-Filled Future Could Lead To More Smoke-Related Deaths
<https://www.opb.org/news/article/wildfire-fire-smoke-related-deaths-climate-change-warming/>*
BY NPR Staff - SEP 14, 2018
BY ERIN ROSS, OPB
Deaths related to air pollution from wildfires could double by the end
of the century, according to newly published research into the links
between climate change, wildfires and human health.
The study, published Monday in the journal GeoHealth, looked at a type
of pollutants called PM2.5, which can be produced by cars, industrial
sources and fires. In the U.S., about 140,000 premature deaths per year
(roughly 6 percent of all deaths) are linked to PM 2.5. Of those deaths,
about 17,000 are linked to wildfires. By the end of the century, that
number could increase to as many as 44,000 deaths related to wildfire smoke.
"Overall, we're expecting that wildfire pollution is going to be a
larger portion of the health burden," says Bonne Ford, an atmospheric
scientist at Colorado State University and an author on the study.
PM 2.5 are just particulates in the air that are 2.5 microns in size,
which is extremely small. The particles' small size allows them to get
deeper into our lungs than other larger pollutants, where they can cause
short-term and long-term health problems. In this study, the researchers
looked at the amounts of PM 2.5 under two different climate change
scenarios: a middle of the road one and a worst-case one. Then, they
modeled how the interactions of climate, land-use and population changes
would change PM 2.5 concentrations. It is one of the first studies to
take all three factors into account.
Even in the middle-of-the-road emissions scenarios, by 2100,
fire-related pollution would account for more than half of the PM 2.5
over the U.S. each year.
Many of the areas with the largest increase in PM 2.5 don't come as a
surprise: the Northwest and California, for example, are already
experiencing larger, more frequent fires. But this model also showed
increases in pollution over the Great Lakes and other areas. That's
because smoke from fires on the West Coast, in Canada and in Alaska can
drift in the jet stream, spreading pollution far beyond where it started.
The study looked at deaths related to long-term exposure to PM 2.5, but
not smoke's effects on illnesses. Inhaler refills and hospitalizations
for respiratory illnesses go up when the air is smoky. Babies born
during smoky years have a lower birth weight. Right now, Ford says,
researchers also don't know which is worse: long-term exposure to a
little bit of pollution, or short-term exposure to a lot of pollution.
The future might hold a shift from one to the other.
There are some steps that can be taken to decrease the risk of deaths
from wildfire smoke, Ford says. The most obvious is to mitigate the
effects of climate change. Their research showed large differences
between the amount of smoke produced in middle-of-the-road warming vs
worst-case scenarios. It's also important to stay inside when it's smoky
and to make sure air conditioners have functioning filters.
There is some good news. PM 2.5 doesn't just come from fire smoke: it's
produced by a lot of sources, like cars and industry. And those have
been getting cleaner over the last century. Overall, total deaths
related to PM 2.5 are expected to decline in the U.S., particularly in
areas that are already heavily polluted like the Ohio River Valley.
But in places like the Northwest, where wildfires are becoming larger
and more frequent, overall deaths will rise. It's becoming normal to
wake up with a scratchy throat and a post-apocalyptic smoky orange sky.
"We're trained from an early age to smell fire and know that it's a
danger. It's becoming a normal smell," Ford says, "It shouldn't be
something that you get used to."
https://www.opb.org/news/article/wildfire-fire-smoke-related-deaths-climate-change-warming/
- - - - -
[here's the academic study]
Research Article Open Access
*Future Fire Impacts on Smoke Concentrations, Visibility, and Health in
the Contiguous United States
<https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GH000144>*
Abstract
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from U.S. anthropogenic sources is
decreasing. However, previous studies have predicted that PM2.5
emissions from wildfires will increase in the midcentury to next
century, potentially offsetting improvements gained by continued
reductions in anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, some regions could
experience worse air quality, degraded visibility, and increases in
population‐level exposure. We use global climate model simulations
to estimate the impacts of changing fire emissions on air quality,
visibility, and premature deaths in the middle and late 21st
century. We find that PM2.5 concentrations will decrease overall in
the contiguous United States (CONUS) due to decreasing anthropogenic
emissions (total PM2.5 decreases by 3% in Representative
Concentration Pathway [RCP] 8.5 and 34% in RCP4.5 by 2100), but
increasing fire‐related PM2.5 (fire‐related PM2.5 increases by 55%
in RCP4.5 and 190% in RCP8.5 by 2100) offsets these benefits and
causes increases in total PM2.5 in some regions. We predict that the
average visibility will improve across the CONUS, but fire‐related
PM2.5 will reduce visibility on the worst days in western and
southeastern U.S. regions. We estimate that the number of deaths
attributable to total PM2.5 will decrease in both the RCP4.5 and
RCP8.5 scenarios (from 6% to 4-5%), but the absolute number of
premature deaths attributable to fire‐related PM2.5 will double
compared to early 21st century. We provide the first estimates of
future smoke health and visibility impacts using a prognostic
land‐fire model. Our results suggest the importance of using
realistic fire emissions in future air quality projections.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GH000144
[letter]
*My fear for a future of climate change
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/13/my-fear-for-a-future-of-climate-change>*
I have had a long and happy life, writes 90-year-old Anthea Hardy, but
what am I leaving my great-grandchildren?
At last, protest marches against global warming, the most relevant issue
of our time (Report, 8 September). I am over 90 years old and cannot
join one but wish I could. All other questions fade into second place:
Brexit, the gap between rich and poor, even the wars of the Middle East.
We are not even reaching the 2% per annum target and even 0.2% would be
too high. We are faced with escalating catastophies: rising sea levels,
floods, forest fires. I have had a long and happy life but what am I
leaving my great-grandchildren? I feel impotent. No one seems to
question the effects of jet aircraft, of rockets to outer space or the
ever-escalating increase in traffic. As I carefully recycle my rubbish
and take pride in my excellent compost heap, I realise how paltry my
efforts are.
Anthea Hardy
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/13/my-fear-for-a-future-of-climate-change
[Forbes gives advice to storytellers]
*The Big Problem With Climate Storytelling - And How To Fix It
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2018/09/14/why-climate-storytelling-must-change/amp/>*
Solitaire Townsend - Contributor - Sept 14, 2018
"Let's kick this monsters' ass!" roared Harrison Ford at the Global
Climate Action Summit yesterday.
Now, as a girl, Indiana Jones and Han Solo got me hooked on
storytelling, character and yes, fighting monsters. So, the idea of
climate change as monster story hooked my imagination.
But there's a problem.
Because if you review most climate messages in the media, then this
story actually has two acts: man makes monster, then monster destroys man.
It's a grand morality tale which neatly fits a primordial structure in
our subconscious. This plot sings to something deep within us, a tale
we've told since we sat around fires weaving myths in the dark. From
the Minotaur and the crazed Golems of ancient legend to the morality
plays of medieval England and the modern incarnations of rampaging
Godzilla born from a nuclear test, or the AI dystopias of the Terminator
or the Matrix. We learnt this narrative arc in childhood, even if we
only discovered the science of carbon dioxide as an adult.
Climate change isn't presented to the public as plucky rebels against
the empire. Instead climate is told as a Frankenstein story: that with
our avarice and vanity, we have created the horror that will ultimately
defeat us.
The narrative necessity of this climate story is hard to escape.
Throughout this summer of 'hothouse earth', and the decades leading up
to it, this human hubris story has been the basic blueprint of climate
change messaging.
For decades I've advised campaigners, policy makers and businesses to
oppose this narrative, and tell the story of climate solutions instead.
Last year, I asked the global research firm Ipsos to check which
message; destruction or solution, was winning. They surveyed adults aged
between 16-64 across 26 countries asking if they believed 'we can deal
with climate change'?
The results were encouraging, with the majority of us (56%) reasonably
optimistic about solutions, agreeing that we might be able to solve
climate change. And I expected the result showing 20% of people are now
pessimists, who think we have the ability and technology to deal with
the climate threat, but not the willpower to do so. Also, it's worth
mentioning that climate deniers make up only 4% of the global population
(although they are remarkably over-represented in online comments sections).
But one finding was profoundly shocking. The survey revealed that 14% of
people across the world are now what I call 'climate fatalists'; who
believe that humans are doomed. And as we dug into the data, we found
that a staggering number of them are young. Worldwide, 22% of those aged
16-35 believe that it is now too late to stop climate change. In some
countries, the number of young fatalists is even higher: with 39% of
under-35s in India, 30% in Brazil, 27% in Spain and Sweden, and nearly
30% of young people in the USA believing there is no escape from this
monster.
Why does that matter? Considering the severity of the science, wouldn't
these young fatalists be better dubbed as 'climate realists', preparing
for a dystopian future they can't avoid?
None of us can predict the future, but we can see the mess of the
present. /[No, we all can. For///instance for/ the first time ever, we
know of sea level rise.] /Psychologists call fatalism a 'defeatist
performance belief' and claim it's disastrous for mental health.
Fatalistic attitudes dissuade people from trying to improve their lives,
allow anti-social behaviour and even undermine physical health. It seems
this climate fatalism may indeed be fatal to wellbeing, ambition and
action in the young. And it could also be fatal for climate solutions,
because assuming nothing is worth it, means you need do nothing.
Fatalism is the enemy of action. And the climate-Frankenstein story is
creeping into people's psyche, sucking the will to act from them.
Today's tragedy of climate change, with the moral that man is the real
monster, is so narratively satisfying it's become dangerously
believable. For many environmentalists, giving up this story would be a
wrench. Even those who understand the dangerous psychology of fatalism
struggle with their own addiction to the 'it's all our own fault, and we
deserve what's coming' narrative.
I sometimes feel that we are collectively doing everything we can to
make the ending as poignantly noir as possible. It's as if we actually
want the horrifying denouement: the narrative necessity driving us to
fulfil the tragic role.
And we can't replace this climate disaster story with a policy, a clear
argument or a set of facts. We have science, politics, profit and
cultural norms all in tension between the causes and solutions to
climate change. A merging and rippling of factual factors like the rough
surface of an unquiet sea. But below all of that, there is the deep tide
of story. The story must have an ending, it must pass through its
scenes, and our collective unconscious won't allow for anything else.
Only a story can beat a story.
So, what has the narrative power to replace the current plot? Climate
change can't be a comedy, a love story or a rags-to-riches tale. And the
monster of our making is all too real.
But every 8-year-old knows how to kill a monster. Harry Potter knows it,
Dorothy in Oz knows it, Beowulf knows it, James Bond and Sam of the
Shire know it. It's the story that killed Dracula and blew up the Death
Star. At its most simple - it's the hero's journey.
In every group of script-writers or novelists, Joseph Campbell's 1949
tome The Hero With A Thousand Faces is treated as a totemic icon. After
a life dedicated to researching mythology, Campbell set out the
'meta-myth' of mankind. Simply put, this is a journey where courage,
friendship and guile are pitched against overwhelming odds. This
'overcoming the monster' story often works best when a new generation,
the youth, rally against the threat created (or allowed) by the old. You
have told, read and watched this story all your life. The small against
the big. The downtrodden against the overlord. Plucky humanity against
the growing darkness.
If climate change were an asteroid, alien invasion or Hans Gruber type
baddie we'd know exactly what to throw at it (Bruce Willis in all
cases). The narrative wheels would start turning as we slotted ourselves
neatly into a heroic plot track.
This is the new climate story we desperately need. Of overcoming the
odds rather than being overwhelmed by them.
The story starts when we find the courage to believe in something worth
fighting for: holding onto hope even in the face of unimaginable odds.
To say 'I have a dream' or 'it always feels impossible until it's done'.
Then we harness the power of friendship and alliances. We love a plot
twist where enemies become allies. And for climate change, we're going
to need unexpected allies indeed.
And the magic elixir of the heroic story has always been guile. Tricking
the monster, inventing a solution, spotting a fatal flaw and exploiting
it. From Indiana Jones feigning zombiedom in the Temple of Doom, John
McClane taping a gun to his back, or Eowyn revealing her gender on the
battlefields of Gondor. Heroes invent and misdirect their way around
unsurmountable odds. This is the most crucial part of our new climate
story - and we've already found that magical way to trick ourselves out
of the jaws of doom. Electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines are
just the start of the innovation explosion coming from carbon
constraint. Renewable energy is the ultimate cheat of the climate
monsters' plans (not least because our inventiveness is a more
believable ploy than our self-sacrifice.)
We must teach our children this new 'heroes' journey' story of climate
change. And it's not a small story, nor a short one. This is an epic. We
face a gargantuan, enormous and near impossible task. We need our Henry
5th before the battle of Agincourt declaiming, "We few, we happy few",
Frodo holding the ring and nervously offering, "I will take it, though I
do not know the way" and Ripley rising in her rig and shouting, "Get
away from her, you bitch!".
We need swashbuckling daring, bravery and courage, guile and desperate
invention, unlikely friendships and alliances forged in fire.
I invite you to become the hero of this climate journey, rather than a
doomed bit-part player. Instead of grief, we need your grit and bravado.
So that solving climate change becomes the greatest story of the 21st
Century.
[N]ew book The Happy Hero - How To Change Your Life By Changing The
World available now.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2018/09/14/why-climate-storytelling-must-change/amp/
*This Day in Climate History - September 16, 2009
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaAsBjoaj8> - from D.R. Tucker*
September 16, 2009: On MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," former
fundamentalist Christian Frank Schaeffer explains right-wing science denial:
"…[T]he mainstream--not just media, but culture--doesn't sufficiently
take stock of the fact that within our culture we have a subculture
which is literally a fifth column of insanity that is bred from birth,
through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever, to
reject facts as a matter of faith… [W]hat we're really talking about is
a group of people that are resentful because they've been left behind by
modernity, by science, by education, by art, by literature. The rest of
us are getting on with our lives. These people are standing on the
hilltop waiting for the end."
Further, Schaeffer noted:
"You don't work to move them off this position. You move past them.
Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village
idiot. It's as simple as that. And we have to understand, we have a
village idiot in this country, it's called 'Fundamentalist Christianity.'
"And until we move past these people--and let me add, as a former
lifelong Republican, until the Republican leadership has the guts to
stand up and say it would be better not to have a Republican Party than
have a party that caters to the village idiot--there's going to be no
end in sight…
"There is no end to this stuff. Why? Because this subculture has as
its fundamentalist faith that they distrust facts per se. They believe
in a young Earth, 6,000 years old, with dinosaurs cavorting with human
beings. They think that whether it's economic news or news from the
Middle East, it all has to do with the end of time and Christ's return.
This is la-la land.
"And the Republican Party is totally enthralled to this subculture to
the extent that there is no Republican Party. There is a fundamentalist
subculture which has become a cult. It's fed red meat by buffoons like
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other people who are just not terribly
bright themselves and they are talking to even stupider people. That's
where we're at. That's where all of this is coming from.
"And it's becoming circular. It's becoming a joke. Unfortunately, a
dangerous joke because once in a while, one of these 'looney tunes,' as
we see, brings guns to public meetings. Who knows what they do next.
It's a serious thing we all have to face, but the Democrats and sane
Americans just have to move past these people, say, 'Go wait on the
hilltop until the end, the rest of us are going to get on with
rebuilding our country.'"
He concluded:
"Look, in the year 2000 I worked for John McCain, to try to get him
elected in the primaries instead of George Bush. But John McCain sold
out by nominating Sarah Palin who comes directly from the heart of this
movement and carries with her all that baggage. So, he sold out. I
don't see anybody on the Republican side of things these days who has
the moral standing to provide real leadership, or who will risk their
position to do so."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaAsBjoaj8
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//Archive of Daily Global Warming News
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html>
//
/https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote//
///
///To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request>
/to news digest. /
*** Privacy and Security: * This is a text-only mailing that
carries no images which may originate from remote servers.
Text-only messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and
sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote with subject:
subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe
Also youmay subscribe/unsubscribe at
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Paulifor
http://TheClimate.Vote delivering succinct information for
citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously
restricted to this mailing list.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20180916/f4a0a5b7/attachment.html>
More information about the TheClimate.Vote
mailing list