[✔️] April 14, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Thu Apr 14 09:14:19 EDT 2022
/*April 14, 2022*/
/[ Dangerous profession, usually unpaid too. Was it because they acted
alone? ] /
*More than half of activists killed in 2021 were land, environment
defenders*
by Ashoka Mukpo on 7 April 2022
--An analysis by Front Line Defenders and the Human Rights Defenders
Memorial recorded at least 358 murders of human rights activists
globally in 2021.
--Of that total, nearly 60% were land, environment or Indigenous
rights defenders.
--The countries with the highest death tolls were Colombia, Mexico
and Brazil.
--Advocates say the figure is likely far higher, as attacks on land
and environment defenders in Africa often go unreported.
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, according to an
analysis by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the international consortium
Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Of the total, nearly 60% were land,
environment or Indigenous rights defenders, and more than a quarter were
themselves Indigenous. Researchers who worked to compile the data said
the high proportion of activists killed while fighting against threats
to community land and natural resources represented a continuation of a
years-long trend.
“Unfortunately, in most if not all of the places where this is
happening, there’s just flat-out impunity for these attacks,” said
Andrew Anderson, the director of FLD.
As was the case in 2020, the deadliest country for human rights
defenders was Colombia, with 138 verified killings — more than a third
of the global total. Mexico recorded 42 deaths, the second-highest
number, and Brazil came in third with 27 killings, 19 of them land
rights defenders.
Anderson told Mongabay that many of the murdered activists were targeted
due to their opposition to dams, illegal logging, mining operations, and
other extractive projects linked to powerful interests in their countries.
“Activists who are working to document what’s happening and challenge
government-driven narratives are at extreme risk,” he said...
- -
“These are our first responders who are responding in a very effective
way to the climate crisis,” Brownell said. “These are our democracy
heroes who aim for transparency and accountability, and are blowing the
whistle on these violations. We have to secure this firewall and protect
them.”
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/more-than-half-of-activists-killed-in-2021-were-land-environment-defenders/
/[ OK, is this PR policy, or is it a boasting opportunity? ]/
*Pinterest Is Turning Misinformation Into Good PR*
The platform banned content suggesting that climate change is a hoax,
emphasizing that it offers more than surface-level home décor tips.
BY AARON MAK - - APRIL 12, 2022
Last week, Pinterest announced that it would be banning climate change
misinformation from its platform, including content that denies the
existence of the environmental phenomenon and humans’ contribution to
it. “Our new policy makes Pinterest the only major digital platform to
have clearly defined guidelines against false or misleading climate
change information, including conspiracy theories, across content and
ads,” a company statement read.
Pinterest, an image curation site that’s often used for interior design
and recipe brainstorming, isn’t a particularly political platform
compared to the likes of Twitter and Facebook. It’s unclear how big of a
problem climate change misinformation was for Pinterest prior to this
new policy. When asked about the amount of climate change misinformation
that the platform has taken down and what it looked like, a Pinterest
spokesperson told Slate, “Our goal is to be proactive. We don’t wait
until harmful content reaches a certain threshold before taking action.
We repeatedly heard from climate experts that climate misinformation,
including climate change denying narratives, is causing real harm by
impeding meaningful climate action.”...
- -
Former employees say that the company hasn’t always been so proactive in
combating misinformation. In an episode of the Slate podcast Thrilling
Tales of Modern Capitalism, some of the first members of Pinterest’s
public policy team said they faced internal pushback for trying to
institute the company’s early policies against vaccine misinformation
around 2018, even though those same policies later earned the platform
good press. “It was a familiar pattern where I would be punished
internally for what I was pushing,” former public policy manager Ifeoma
Ozoma said on the podcast episode, adding that she would face
accusations of being too aggressive that are commonly levied against
Black women. “But then the public praise would be the type of thing that
Ben Silbermann, the CEO, would stand on the stage of an ad conference
and talk about in order to get more advertisers.” (Ozoma has also
accused the company of discrimination. Pinterest denied the accusations
at first, but then apologized for its culture and pledged to make changes.)
One cynical reason for Pinterest’s climate change move: it could be
trying to draw attention to the fact that the platform is a place to
look for green living ideas. In its press release announcing the new
policy, the company reported that it was seeing six times as many
searches for the term “zero waste tips” compared to last year, and that
searches for “zero waste lifestyle” had increased by 64 percent. As with
its previous initiatives against coronavirus and vaccine misinformation,
the coverage from the press has been largely positive.
https://slate.com/technology/2022/04/climate-change-pinterest-ban-hoax-misinfo.html
- -
/[ Pinterest statement should have been issued from day one of business ]/
*Combating climate misinformation on Pinterest*
April 6, 2022 - Company
Ensuring that Pinners find ideas from trusted sources no matter what
type of inspiration they are looking to discover on the platform —from
how they cook, the way they shop, build their home, and how to live a
more sustainable life —is important to Pinterest. That’s why today,
Pinterest is rolling out a new climate misinformation policy to keep
false and misleading claims around climate change off the platform. Our
new policy makes Pinterest the only major digital platform to have
clearly defined guidelines against false or misleading climate change
information, including conspiracy theories, across content and ads.
As part of our Community guidelines on misinformation and
disinformation, our climate misinformation policy removes content that
may harm the public’s well-being, safety or trust, including:
-- Content that denies the existence or impacts of climate
change, the human influence on climate change, or that climate
change is backed by scientific consensus.
False or misleading content about climate change solutions that
contradict well-established scientific consensus.
---Content that misrepresents scientific data, including by
omission or cherry-picking, in order to erode trust in climate
science and experts.
--- Harmful false or misleading content about public safety
emergencies including natural disasters and extreme weather events.
-- All ads on Pinterest always have to comply with our Community
guidelines. Additionally, we’ve updated our Advertising
guidelines to explicitly prohibit any ads containing conspiracy
theories, misinformation and disinformation related to climate
change.
“Pinterest believes in cultivating a space that’s trusted and truthful
for those using our platform. This bold move is an expansion of our
broader misinformation guidelines, which we first developed in 2017 to
address public health misinformation, and have since updated to address
new and emerging issues as they come to the forefront. The expanded
climate misinformation policy is yet another step in Pinterest’s journey
to combat misinformation and create a safe space online,” said Sarah
Bromma, Pinterest’s Head of Policy.
Searches for a greener life are rising on Pinterest. People are
regularly turning to Pinterest to find ideas to incorporate
sustainability into their entire lifestyle as searches for "zero waste
tips" were 6X greater, “recycling clothes ideas” were 4X higher,
“recycled home decor” increased by +95% and “zero waste lifestyle”
increased by +64% compared to last year.*
Tackling issues like climate change or misinformation are complex, and
requires the support and collaboration of an entire ecosystem. We have
partnered with experts including the Climate Disinformation Coalition
and the Conscious Advertising Network to help inform and develop our
policy based on common misinformation themes they’re seeing across media
platforms.
“Climate disinformation on digital platforms is a serious threat to the
public support needed to solve the climate crisis. Pinterest has
demonstrated great leadership by creating a community standard that
includes a definition of climate misinformation, and we will continue to
press all platforms for transparency and reporting on their actions. We
encourage others to take note of Pinterest’s efforts to reduce climate
change disinformation,” said Michael Khoo, Climate Disinformation
Co-Chair at Friends of the Earth.
https://newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/combating-climate-misinformation-on-pinterest
/[ new energy process - highly aspirational - MIT invention ]/
*A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine*
The design could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid,
researchers say.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office
April 13, 2022
Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new
demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40
percent efficiency — a performance better than that of traditional steam
turbines.
The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar
panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons
from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The
team’s design can generate electricity from a heat source of between
1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, or up to about 4,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The researchers plan to incorporate the TPV cell into a grid-scale
thermal battery. The system would absorb excess energy from renewable
sources such as the sun and store that energy in heavily insulated banks
of hot graphite. When the energy is needed, such as on overcast days,
TPV cells would convert the heat into electricity, and dispatch the
energy to a power grid.
With the new TPV cell, the team has now successfully demonstrated the
main parts of the system in separate, small-scale experiments. They are
working to integrate the parts to demonstrate a fully operational
system. From there, they hope to scale up the system to replace
fossil-fuel-driven power plants and enable a fully decarbonized power
grid, supplied entirely by renewable energy.
“Thermophotovoltaic cells were the last key step toward demonstrating
that thermal batteries are a viable concept,” says Asegun Henry, the
Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor in MIT’s Department of
Mechanical Engineering. “This is an absolutely critical step on the path
to proliferate renewable energy and get to a fully decarbonized grid...
https://news.mit.edu/2022/thermal-heat-engine-0413
- -
[ From the Journal nature ]
*Thermophotovoltaic efficiency of 40%*
13 April 2022
Alina LaPotin, Kevin L. Schulte, Myles A. Steiner, Kyle Buznitsky,...
*Abstract*
Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs) convert predominantly infrared wavelength
light to electricity via the photovoltaic effect, and can enable
approaches to energy storage1,2 and conversion3,4,5,6,7,8,9 that use
higher temperature heat sources than the turbines that are
ubiquitous in electricity production today. Since the first
demonstration of 29% efficient TPVs (Fig. 1a) using an integrated
back surface reflector and a tungsten emitter at 2,000 °C (ref. 10),
TPV fabrication and performance have improved11,12. However, despite
predictions that TPV efficiencies can exceed 50% (refs. 11,13,14),
the demonstrated efficiencies are still only as high as 32%, albeit
at much lower temperatures below 1,300 °C (refs. 13,14,15). Here we
report the fabrication and measurement of TPV cells with
efficiencies of more than 40% and experimentally demonstrate the
efficiency of high-bandgap tandem TPV cells. The TPV cells are
two-junction devices comprising III–V materials with bandgaps
between 1.0 and 1.4 eV that are optimized for emitter temperatures
of 1,900–2,400 °C. The cells exploit the concept of band-edge
spectral filtering to obtain high efficiency, using highly
reflective back surface reflectors to reject unusable sub-bandgap
radiation back to the emitter. A 1.4/1.2 eV device reached a maximum
efficiency of (41.1 ± 1)% operating at a power density of
2.39 W cm–2 and an emitter temperature of 2,400 °C. A 1.2/1.0 eV
device reached a maximum efficiency of (39.3 ± 1)% operating at a
power density of 1.8 W cm–2 and an emitter temperature of 2,127 °C.
These cells can be integrated into a TPV system for thermal energy
grid storage to enable dispatchable renewable energy. This creates a
pathway for thermal energy grid storage to reach sufficiently high
efficiency and sufficiently low cost to enable decarbonization of
the electricity grid.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04473-y
/[ Information causes change ]/
*Analysis: How UK newspapers changed their minds about climate change*
By Josh Gabbatiss, Sylvia Hayes, Joe Goodman and Tom Prater.
The past decade has seen a significant shift in the attitudes of UK
newspapers towards climate change, according to new analysis undertaken
by Carbon Brief.
Drawing from a database of more than 1,300 editorials, which are the
formal “voice” of a newspaper, this work examines how the language used
to describe human-caused climate change, as well as renewables, fracking
and nuclear power, has shifted since 2011.
The analysis shows that the number of editorials calling for more action
to tackle climate change has quadrupled in the space of three years,
mirroring a wider increase in news coverage of the topic. Nowhere has
this shift been more apparent than among the nation’s right-leaning
newspapers.
Between 2011-2016 editorial articles in publications such as the Sun,
the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail generally opposed action to
tackle climate change, citing “unreliable” science and “expensive”
environmental policies...
- -
*KEY FINDINGS*
-- The past decade has seen a significant shift in the attitudes of
UK newspapers towards climate change, according to new analysis
undertaken by Carbon Brief.
-- Drawing from a database of more than 1,300 editorials, which are
the formal “voice” of a newspaper, this work examines how the
language used to describe human-caused climate change, as well as
renewables, fracking and nuclear power, has shifted since 2011.
-- The analysis shows that the number of editorials calling for more
action to tackle climate change has quadrupled in the space of three
years, mirroring a wider increase in news coverage of the topic.
Nowhere has this shift been more apparent than among the nation’s
right-leaning newspapers.
-- Between 2011-2016 editorial articles in publications such as the
Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail generally opposed action
to tackle climate change, citing “unreliable” science and
“expensive” environmental policies.
- -
*Editorial database*
Carbon Brief has been running its editorial database since April 2016,
capturing leading articles in the UK press on matters relating to energy
and climate change.
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/how-uk-newspapers-changed-minds-climate-change/
/[ emerging activism ]/
*Scientists Stage Worldwide Climate Change Protests After IPCC Report*
Over 1,000 scientists from 25 countries took part in the Science
Rebellion’s demonstrations last week..
The group, called the Scientist Rebellion, writes in a letter that
“current actions and plans are grossly inadequate, and even these
obligations are not being met.
- -
The Scientist Rebellion members have led several protests before,
including at COP26 in Glasgow, at universities across the U.K. and in
front of the Royal Society, per its website. Last year, the organization
leaked a draft of the IPCC report.
"Scientists are particularly powerful messengers, and we have a
responsibility to show leadership," Charlie Gardner, a conservation
scientist at the University of Kent, tells AFP. "We are failing in that
responsibility. If we say it's an emergency, we have to act like it is."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-stage-worldwide-climate-protests-after-ipcc-report-180979913/
- -
[ here they are ]
*We are scientists, calling for a climate revolution*
https://scientistrebellion.com/
- -
*Our Demands Letter*
The letter below was written collectively by Scientist Rebellion, and
outlines our positions and demands.
If you are an academic or other scientist, you can join over 200
signatories and put your name to this letter using this form or the
embed form to the right of this.
The list of current signatories, as well as references, can be found
below the letter.
https://scientistrebellion.com/our-positions-and-demands/
/
/
/[ Forbes looks for an answer in entertainment technology ]/
*Is Netflix Transforming How Hollywood Approaches Climate Change?*
Marshall Shepherd - - Senior Contributor
Apr 13, 2022
Many people stream Netflix to binge watch their favorite shows or
movies. As a climate scientist, it has been interesting to watch the
impact of “Don’t Look Up.” It is Netflix’s second most-watched
English-language film of all time. However, they didn’t stop with the
movie. They created an entire community to enable engagement on the
climate crises. On April 13th, Netflix continued to flex its muscle in
the environmental and climate space with the release of its
Sustainability Collection. Do these efforts position Netflix as a
climate change and sustainability influencer?
- -
In 2021 Business Insider’s Katie Canales dissected the demographics of
Netflix’s users. While analysts say the streaming service looks like the
typical American profile, Canales points out that typical user traits
include: millennial, earns less than $50,000, and more females (barely),
suburban, liberal to moderate. With 74 million users in the U.S. and
Canada along, according to Business Insider, the service can certainly
reach a lot of people. Only time will tell if efforts like the “Don’t
Look Up” community or Sustainability Collection are actually influencing
things or simply entertaining people.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2022/04/13/is-netflix-transforming-how-hollywood-approaches-climate-change/?sh=f03bbf51b7ae
/[ Some are viewing our condition with acceptance -- collapse awareness ] /
*Just Collapse*
Just Collapse is an activist platform dedicated to justice in face of
inevitable and irreversible global collapse.
- -
Just Collapse advocates for a Planned Collapse to avert the worst
outcomes that will follow an otherwise unplanned, reactive collapse.
Just Collapse recognises that there will be no justice in an unplanned
collapse.
We wish to acknowledge indigenous peoples, the traditional owners and
custodians of the land; and pay respect to elders past, present and
emerging.
*Collapse*
Mass biodiversity extinction, coupled with collapsing ecosystems, and
self-reinforcing climate feedback loops, including out-of-control
methane release, immediately threaten all of humanity and all life on
earth. Collapsologists document that infinite growth on a finite planet
inevitably leads to the transgression of planetary boundaries. Collapse
is the result of exceeding these limits to growth, overwhelmingly by
developed countries.
Transitioning to clean energy and sustainable technologies will push us
even faster and further over planetary limits.
Terminating dependence on fossil fuels will collapse agriculture,
economies and societies, and exacerbate climate change.
The nature and scale of degrowth required to bring us within planetary
limits also meets the definition of collapse.
Collapse is inevitable, but justice is not.
*Justice*
Just Collapse acknowledges that responsibility for our current
predicament predominantly lies with developed nations which have reaped
profits and prosperity from colonialization, extractive industry, and
infinite growth. We recognise that unplanned collapse exacerbates the
violence already enacted upon people and places through these processes.
Furthermore, Just Collapse recognises that the effects of collapse are
first felt by those already marginalised, disadvantaged, and dispossessed.
Just Collapse advocates for a Planned Collapse which demonstrates and
embodies these recognitions.
*Planned Collapse*
The Earth is in overshoot due to the legacy of colonialization, the
continuance of extractive industry, and infinite growth (e.g. energy,
consumption, population). Planetary limits have been exceeded. This is
suicide.
https://justcollapse.org/
/[ good question ]/
*‘I was enjoying a life that was ruining the world’: can therapy treat
climate anxiety?*
Moya Sarner -- 12 Apr 2022
People are increasingly looking for help to deal with feelings of fear,
helplessness and guilt amid the climate crisis. But can therapists make
a difference and is seeking treatment just a form of denial?...
- -
This emotional state includes feelings as varied as fear and
helplessness, guilt, shame, loss, betrayal and abandonment, and it can
take different shapes in each individual. Anouchka Grose, a
psychoanalyst and the author of A Guide to Eco-Anxiety, How to Protect
the Planet and Your Mental Health, says some patients describe staying
awake all night thinking of coral reefs, bush fires and ice caps
melting. Some might “walk into a shop and freak out because they
suddenly see it as it is,” how “all the things in front of you are in
damaging forms of packaging, freighted from goodness knows where,
covered in pesticides”. In her book, someone describes looking at a
friend’s take-away coffee: “It makes me sad and alarmed, imagining
millions of people out there, just like him, with one throwaway plastic
cup, millions of times over every day.”...
- -
The biggest ever scientific study on climate anxiety and young people,
published last year in the Lancet, found that nearly six in 10 people
aged 16 to 25 were very or extremely worried about climate breakdown,
nearly half of them reported climate distress or anxiety affecting their
daily lives, and three-quarters agreed that “the future is frightening”.
All the therapists I spoke to reported seeing a significant increase in
climate anxiety in their consulting rooms. So, can therapy help?...
- -
There is a danger, in suggesting that therapy might help, of
pathologising climate anxiety; turning it into a mental health problem
that needs to be cured – medicated or spirited away with mindfulness or
talking therapy . Many people I interviewed were faced with such
reactions from friends, family, colleagues, GPs, and, occasionally, even
therapists.
This is not how the author of Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis
Sally Weintrobe thinks. “It is important to say that anxiety is a signal
that there is something wrong. It’s a perfectly normal healthy reaction
to a worrying situation. We mustn’t pathologise climate anxiety.
Obviously it can get very extreme – but I would say that government
inaction on the climate crisis is pretty extreme, so it’s hardly
surprising that people are very worried.” What Knapp, James and Perrin
said helped them most was having their emotions validated in therapy –
and understanding that their feelings were meaningful and valuable...
- -
Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist, climate psychology researcher and
board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, says, “I would worry
about people who aren’t distressed – given that this is what is
happening, how come?” She believes that people are using psychological
defences such as denial “as a way of coping and reducing the fear that
they feel”. This can leave the climate-anxious with a sense of
isolation, frustration and abandonment, as others tell themselves, “Oh,
well, the government will save us; technology will save us; if it was
that bad, somebody would have done something,” she says. “Those are all
rationalisations against existential terror of annihilation – and that’s
the reality of what we’re potentially looking at.”
To face this reality is to come out of what Weintrobe calls “the climate
bubble”, which, she says, “has been supported by a culture of uncare, a
culture that actively seeks to keep us in a state of denial about the
severity of the climate crisis”. She explains: “The bubble protects you
from reality, and when you start seeing the reality, it’s hardly
surprising that you’re going to experience a whole series of shocks.”
She prefers the term climate trauma over anxiety because “it is
traumatising to see that you are caught up in a way of living, whether
you like it or not, that makes you a victim and a perpetrator of
damaging the Earth, which is what keeps us all alive”. We are living,
she says, “in a political system that generates a mental health crisis,
because it places burdens on people that are too much to bear, as well
as burdens on the Earth”.
The thing about trauma is that it can reignite earlier, individual
trauma. That experience of coming out of the climate bubble and having
your worries dismissed, of realising that you have been abandoned by
people who were supposed to look after you, can be particularly
triggering. For Weintrobe, this is where therapy can have a role to
play, “in helping people to disentangle what is personal to them and
their own individual histories, from what is hitting them from the outside”.
Perrin describes how speaking to her therapist helped in ways she didn’t
expect. She says: “Having that space to have those conversations and be
honest about how I felt was really valuable. I went into it thinking I
wanted practical advice about how to solve this, but that was not what I
got and not what I needed. It helped me to understand that what I was
feeling was not wrong.” It also helped her to get a better sense of her
anxiety: “I think it might come from feeling lots of things and not
actually understanding what they are.” She still experiences anxiety,
but it doesn’t escalate in the way it did before. “I know that it’s
rooted in something real, and that even if the situation doesn’t change,
the intensity of that feeling can, and will, pass.”
As a climate-anxious pupil at school, James was told that this feeling
was “irrational” by the therapist they saw at the time. It was while
reading article after article late at night that James landed on one
about climate anxiety, and recognised their own experience. They decided
to try treatment again, and contacted Patrick Kennedy-Williams. First,
they say, he told them their fears were valid and rational. Then they
discussed how to get a better balance of climate news by also reading
positive stories about people who are taking action, as well as limiting
internet access on their phone.
This brings to mind how, in her climate-aware therapeutic work, Hickman
draws on her experience, in the 1990s, of treating young people, who
were HIV positive, with about a year to live. A significant number were,
through therapy, “able to change their relationship with their diagnosis
and not just live in fear of death, but learn to live their lives
wholeheartedly, with death as part of it,” she says. They left
relationships that were unsatisfactory, left jobs that they hated, and
“they learned to live their lives fully and with meaning, not in denial
that their lives might be shorter, but that that didn’t have to define
their lives – it was just part of it”.
It is perhaps surprising to hear Weintrobe – a psychoanalyst – say that
while there is a role for therapy in addressing climate anxiety, it is
limited. We need to normalise this distress, she says, but not by
pretending it’s not there, or shouldn’t be. “It’s very perverse that
normalising has come to mean getting rid of anything that’s disturbing.
Can we make it normal that we are very disturbed and bothered by what is
going on, and help each other?” She recommends meeting to talk in groups
about climate anxiety, such as at the climate cafes run by the Climate
Psychology Alliance. Hickman runs psycho-educational groups with youth
activists to address the impact of the climate crisis on mental health,
where they discuss ways to support themselves and each other.
Elouise Mayall, 24, and living in Canterbury, is a master’s student in
ecology and a climate activist with the UK Youth Climate Coalition who
has taken part in Hickman’s groups and workshops. Her climate anxiety
began when she left university and realised how unconcerned others were
– what she calls leaving the “green bubble”. In her 20s, she felt
intense pressure, guilt, shame and anxiety to produce less and do
everything to make up for what others were not doing. After joining
UKYCC, her anxiety started to improve, through being part of a
community. She says that Hickman’s workshops have helped her and her
colleagues to recognise “the emotional strain” of the work they do, and
to learn to rest. They are now far more “mindful of each other’s mental
health”, and people don’t feel guilty when they need a break, so are
less likely to “crash and burnout”.
Mayall has also developed a different relationship with her climate
anxiety. Previously, she says, “I was very dismissive and grumpy about
having it. I wanted to suppress it or get rid of it – I thought it was
an indulgence because people are dying, so why was I fussing around with
feelings?” She felt she should be happy all the time. Now, she
recognises that “it isn’t bad, wrong, or inconvenient for me to have
climate anxiety, because it ultimately means that I care about the
climate crisis”. She uses an ecological metaphor to describe how she
relates to her feelings now: “Biodiversity is important because the more
complex an ecosystem is, the more stable it is, and the more resilient
it is to any disturbances or damage that comes along”. A monoculture,
such as the one Knapp saw from that plane in Borneo, makes for a very
fragile ecosystem; the same is true of an emotional monoculture.
Allowing herself to experience whatever emotions she is feeling,
including guilt and shame, has brought her a kind of emotional
biodiversity, and a more sustainable way of life.
Since starting therapy James has attended a climate cafe, signed up to
workshops, written to their local MP and published articles online to
spread awareness.
Perrin says therapy has helped her support herself and other activists.
She is now researching microscopic algae, and their potential to help us
live more sustainably.
After what he saw in Borneo, and his research into the apocalyptic
impact of climate breakdown, Knapp’s view of the world and of his future
collapsed. He felt betrayed by the government, and despairing of the
inaction of those around him. He became increasingly isolated and, for a
time, suicidal. He found a way out of this by joining Extinction
Rebellion, where friends recommended a therapist. He has since changed
his life, becoming a researcher in air quality and a climate activist,
giving up his beloved Mini, going vegan and making a podcast with fellow
activists about how they cope with climate anxiety and what inspires
them . He hasn’t been on a plane since.
These stories recall a comment from Grose, that the word “anxious” has
two definitions: one can feel anxious due to a nebulous fear, or one can
be anxious to do something – to be willing to act, with urgency.
As I researched this article, I noticed an intensifying feeling of
unease and tension. Last week, the IPCC reported that it is “now or
never” if we are to stave off climate disaster, and the UN secretary
general, António Guterres, warned: “Some government and business leaders
are saying one thing – but doing another. Simply put, they are lying.
And the results will be catastrophic.” I know I need to read the report,
to see the scientific reality of where we are, but I am not, yet, able
to. I am frightened to leave the climate bubble. I tell Weintrobe about
my anxious feelings, and she says reporters often phone her and say, “I
feel overwhelmed, being a climate journalist.” I find her next words
strangely hopeful. “I feel overwhelmed, too. Sometimes, I find myself
lying on the sofa, unable to move because it’s all so worrying. But you
get out of it, and you carry on.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/12/climate-anxiety-therapy-mental-health
/[The news archive - looking back]/
*April 14, 1964*.
Writer and biologist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book "Silent Spring"
galvanized a generation to take environmental concerns seriously, passes
away at 56.
Miss Carson, thanks to her remarkable knack for taking dull
scientific facts and translating them into poetical and lyrical
prose that enchanted the lay public, had a substantial public image
before she rocked the American public and much of the world with
“Silent Spring.”
This was established by three books, “Under the Sea Wind,” “The Sea
Around Us,” and “The Edge of the Sea.” “The Sea Around Us” moved
quickly into the national best-seller lists, where it remained for
86 weeks, 39 of them in first place. By 1962, it had been published
in 30 languages.
“Silent Spring,” four-and-a-half years in preparation and published
in September of 1962, hit the affluent chemical industry and the
general public with the devastating effect of a Biblical plague of
locusts. The title came from an apocalyptic opening chapter, which
pictured how an entire area could be destroyed by indiscriminate
spraying.
Legislative bodies ranging from New England town meetings to the
Congress joined in the discussion. President Kennedy, asked about
the pesticide problem during a press conference, announced that
Federal agencies were taking a closer look at the problem because of
the public’s concern.
The essence of the debate was : Are pesticides publicly dangerous or
aren’t they?
They Should Be Called Biocide
Miss Carson’s position had been summarized this way:
“Chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of
radiation in changing the very nature of the world--the very nature
of life.
“Since the mid-nineteen forties, over 200 basic chemicals have been
created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents and other
organisms described in the modern vernacular as pests, and they are
sold under several thousand different brand names.
“The sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally
to farms, gardens, forests and homes--non-selective chemicals that
have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to still
the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams--to coat
the leaves with a deadly film and to linger on in soil--all this,
though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects.
“Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of
poison on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all
life? They should not be called ‘insecticides’ but ‘biocides.’”
The chemical industry was quick to dispute this.
Dr. Robert White-Stevens, a spokesman for the industry, said:
“The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson’s book, ‘Silent Spring,’ are
gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by
scientific, experimental evidence, and general practical experience
in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides
destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact
that without selective biologicals these compounds would be
completely useless.
“The real threat, then, to the survival of man is not chemical but
biological, in the shape of hordes of insects that can denude our
forests, sweep over our crop lands, ravage our food supply and leave
in their wake a train of destitution and hunger, conveying to an
undernourished population the major diseases scourges of mankind.”
The Monsanto company, one of the nation’s largest chemical concerns,
used parody as a weapon in the counterattack against Miss Carson.
Without mentioning her book, the company adopted her poetic style in
an article labeled “The Desolate Year,” which began: “Quietly, then,
the desolate year began. . .” and wove its own apocalyptic word
picture--but one that showed insects stripping the countryside and
winning.
As the chemical industry continued to make her a target for
criticism, Miss Carson remained calm.
“We must have insect control,” she reiterated. “I do not favor
turning nature over to insects. I favor the sparing, selective and
intelligent use of chemicals. It is the indiscriminate, blanket
spraying that I oppose.”
Actually, chemical pest control has been practiced to some extent
for centuries. However it was not until 1942 that DDT, a synthetic
compound, was introduced in the wake of experiments that included
those with poison gas. Its long-term poisonous potency was augmented
by its ability to kill some insects upon contact and without being
ingested. This opened a new era in pest control and led to the
development of additional new synthetic poisons far more effective
even than DDT.
As the pesticide controversy grew into a national quarrel, support
was quick in going to the side of Miss Carson.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an ardent naturalist,
declared, “We need a Bill of Rights against the 20th century
poisoners of the human race.”
Earlier, an editorial in The New York Times had said:
“If her series [then running in part in The New Yorker publication
of the book] helps arouse public concern to immunize Government
agencies against the blandishments of the hucksters and enforces
adequate controls, the author will be as deserving of the Noble
Prize as was the inventor of DDT.”
Presidential Report
In May 1963, after a long study, President Kennedy’s Science
Advisory committee, issued its pesticide report.
It stressed that pesticides must be used to maintain the quality of
the nation’s food and health, but it warned against their
indiscriminate use. It called for more research into potential
health hazards in the interim, urged more judicious care in the use
of pesticides in homes and in the field.
The committee chairman, Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, said the uncontrolled
use of poisonous chemicals, including pesticides, was “potentially a
much greater hazard” than radioactive fallout.
Miss Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, which
was hearing testimony on the Chemical Pesticides Coordination Act,
and a bill that would require labels to tell how to avert damage to
fish and wildlife.
“I suggest,” she said, “that the report by the President’s Science
Advisors has created a climate in which creation of a Pesticide
Commission within the Executive Department might be considered.”
One of the sparks that caused Miss Carson to undertake the task of
writing the book (whose documentation alone fills a list of 55 pages
of sources), was a letter she had received from old friends, Stuart
and Olga Huckins. It told of the destruction that aerial spraying
had caused to their two-acre private sanctuary at Powder Point in
Duxbury, Mass.
Miss Carson, convinced that she must write about the situation and
particularly about the effects of spraying on ecological factors,
found an interested listener in Paul Brooks, editor in chief of the
Houghton-Mifflin Company, the Boston publishing house that had
brought out “The Edge of the Sea.”
As to her own writing habits, Miss Carson once wrote for 20th
Century Authors:
“I write slowly, often in longhand, had with frequent revision.
Being sensitive to interruption, I writer most freely at night.
“As a writer, my interest is divided between the presentation of
facts and the interpretation of their significance, with emphasis, I
think toward the latter.”
“Silent Spring” became a best seller even before its publication
date because its release date was broken. It also became a best
seller in England after its publication there in March, 1963.
One of Miss Carson’s greatest fans, according to her agent, Marie
Rodell, was her mother. Miss Rodell recalled that the mother, who
died of pneumonia and a heart ailment in 1960, had sat in the family
car in 1952 writing letters while Miss Carson and Miss Rodell
explored the sea’s edge near Boothbay Harbor. To passers-by the
mother would say, pointing, “That’s my daughter, Rachel Carson. She
wrote “The Sea Around Us.”
People remembered Miss Carson for her shyness and reserve as well as
for her writing and scholarship. And so when she received a
telephone call after the publication of “The Sea Around Us,” asking
her to speak in the Astor Hotel at a luncheon, she asked Miss Rodell
what she should do.
The agent counseled her to concentrate on writing. Miss Carson
nodded in agreement, went to the phone, and shortly came back and
said somewhat helplessly: “I said I’d do it.”
There were 1,500 persons at the luncheon, Miss Carson was “scared to
death,” but she plunged into the talk and acquitted herself. As part
of her program she played a recording of the sounds of underseas,
including the clicking of shrimp and the squeeks of dolphins and
whales. With the ice broken as a public speaker, Miss Carson
continued with others sporadically.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/carson-obit.html
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