Click here to read Part I
Consider: Perhaps we humans – especially in the US (our 5% population delivers 19% of global emissions)– refuse to be, decline to be, fully responsible for, and fully effective with, our impact on the physical, natural world. We have been, by default, “committed to” our narrative of growth-at-all-costs, giving us our dilemma.
[Dilemma: A problem involving a difficult, undesirable, or unpleasant choice. (Webster’s)]. And perhaps …. just perhaps …. we have declined to disengage from, or to manage responsibly, our global growth and its global consumers (“let the markets handle it”) …. even if it becomes suicidal.
Think: “Globalization” (what we go-go boys and go-go girls, we men and women, might call “the growth imperative” of almost any kind, any quality, in any direction) delivers a new batch of 400 million new middle class “consumers,” coming to town, wanting and consuming and expending lots of energy, about every 10 to 20 years (current rate)!
In the last 20 years, we have produced more than 400,000,000 (400 million!) new, brand spankin’ new, middle class consumers in China, India, Asia, South America and Africa. They want to “consume” energy – energy, energy, energy – just like we do (and did). (See Thomas Friedman).
And they do.
300 – 400,000,000 new consumers every couple of decades. Hmmmmm.
This magnitude represents a nation the size of America, up and on line, every twenty years (or so) and every twenty years (or less!) going forward. By contrast, the US took 200+ years – 1750 -1950 – to get fully on line as a mature, industrial system (and now we have 300,000,000+ consumers).
So we live in a world where the equivalent of an entire nation of Americans …. 300 – 400 million “consumers” …. is coming on line every couple of decades. China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Latin America, Africa.
What goes up (regarding carbon global heat) does not easily come down (reverse itself).
An ounce of prevention, they say, is worth a pound of cure.
That said, we actually need to be in the “cure” stage, now, even though we are actually denying we need to even be in the preventive stage. Either we intercept/interrupt/impact effectively global warming now (through “cap and trade”, or, more simply, through a carbon tax, i.e., real incentives with real consequences and impacts, now), or, we get to default to the extensive and real physical damage and the human suffering/displacement we haven’t seen in quite a while, likely well beyond what we saw in World War II. It’s just played out on different battlefields.
A Policy Example: Raise the federal gas tax 5¢ a gallon for 5 years. Add a carbon tax to residential heat and commercial and industrial energy use for 10 years. We can also, concurrently, TAX OFF-SET: reduce individual income tax and corporate income tax, proportionately, so that the impact on tax burden is neutral, zero!…. and yet this carbon tax operates as a real on-the-court disincentive to producing carbon.
Like you, I don’t “know” – in any absolute, formulaic sense – what to do. There are no easy maps.
Like you, I would like climate change to go away. I am a good man, have done good things, worked very hard, raised a terrific family, made and make a difference with many, many thousands of people. I would like to go out with a smile on my face, proud, fulfilled, and delighted that I left the planet for my daughter better than I found it.
What’s the likelihood, based on current evidence?
Not great.
“Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking” – Antonio Machado, Spanish Poet
Conceivably, we may already be at too little, too late (see Paul Kingsnorth)– in which case, why not just go back to sleep – just take a nap, a cozy sleep of denial, pretense, resistance.
Defiance: “I don’t wanna and you can’t make me!” Defiance – A masterful, teenage art form.
Or, we could wake the heck up, and take on the “fight”, take on the challenge, take on the global transformation of energy, of people, of working things out …. however each one of us takes it on. We can let go of thinking and defaulting to “do nothing” mindsets. Or we could simply, merely resign ourselves to the physical damage and the human suffering we are essentially insisting on.
It is our call – each of us – 100%.
So – what to do?
1. Confront/discover global warming for yourself. Is it likely, or not? Is it already underway, or not? Will there be real consequences …. physical damage and human pain …. for you? For your children? If your answer is no, do feel free to go back to sleep and enjoy your nap. God speed!
2. If yes, take a stand. What is a stand? A stand could be said to be a full-out, no kidding commitment to a new possibility, to a possible future that simply does not exist now – and will not exist `predictably in any foreseeable way. Recognize, as with having children, this standtaking can be a lifetime commitment.
3. Get in communication with everyone – with people, yourself, researchers, family, friends, colleagues, buddies, rivals, adversaries, “enemies” – begin to discover where they are on global warming and discover where y-o-u are about that. Be willing to consider and notice how unconscious, complicit, “small” or petty you may have been regarding your own “denying” global warming, or in simply having been unwilling to recognize it or confront it. Realize there is almost always an intense emotional pain (intense grief, profound sadness, outrage, anger, disgust, deep fear, fatalism, and resignation) associated with courageously confronting anything life-threatening….let alone WORLD – threatening. You must go through this “emotional confront” to take on the action and thinking that global warming requires. Your attitudes and EMOTIONS must be addressed, confronted, worked through, compassionately (yet straight-forwardly) before you can even attempt to t-h-i-n-k constructively and effectively regarding climate change. It is the emotional upset that prevents people from thinking this through, from working it through, for themselves. You must handle that at the outset by talking it through, thinking it through, “feeling it through”, looking it through with others. It can be very upsetting (at first) and it can be done, even within 3-hours (see www.pachamama.com for their wonderful workshop on confronting how emotionally upsetting global warming can be, and is).
4. Recognize this may take a long time (including the rest of your life). Not that your life will be exclusively about global warming, but it will be a powerful background of concern, voice and action for you – and others around you. It already is. Consider that climate change will probably be with us for fifty, one-hundred, perhaps 200, years. One can commit to deliver one’s impact, of course, that also extends past, beyond, one’s own death … .through setting up whatever relationships, structures, investments, contributions, funds, trusts, foundations that go beyond when you (or I) leave for the planet.
5. Google “global warming/climate change”. Ask yourself:
• What is so, the current reality when looking at facts?
• What is possible?
• What is missing?
• What is next?
6. Speak “truth” (authenticity) to “power” (authority). Practice …. and master …. the practices of exploring global warming – for yourself. This can ask for, take more than everyday courage and integrity.
Courage: To face, deal with, address, or engage with circumstances seen as painful, difficult, or dangerous. Try on truing up to being authentic, real, honest and effective in each moment…. not just with global warming. Start with yourself, your friends and family, then associates and community.
7. Be authentic/Get creative/Ask yourself: “How might I discover and engage with family, friends and the various knowledge professionals in law, medicine, architecture, accounting, in research and government (including the military)…. who could assist us? Who are key people that can assist me, and us? How can I reach out to them? And, follow-up?
8. Simply start (or join) a conversation – a group – to communicate and explore “What is global warming, really?” And, “What actions are effective, really?” How can I/might I get through any personal upsets I may have, regarding global warming, so I can be fully effective with my thinking and my action? How might I use email and social media …. to learn from, to educate others ….? (See The Nature Conservancy; Environmental Defense Council; The Union of Concerned Scientists; National Resources Defense Council; Sierra Club; Pachamama Alliance ; et al.)
9. Discover your ability to get effective with conversations, to ask questions, to listen, to frame/ generate/raise new possibilities, to wonder and inquire, openly; to marshal, test and challenge evidence where appropriate. To speak genuinely.
10. Change, including change that “transforms” (opens up) your inherited world view, is the art of conversation. So is leadership.
One note, regarding urgency: Ours is not a practice life. It is the real deal. Global warming, like life itself, is urgent, fired at us point blank. Human actions have consequences, especially 7-billion human beings armed with the technologies, intentions and expectations we have. We need you to look, really look, for yourself: What is this stuff, “global warming?” What do you see? What do you say?
REFERENCES and RESOURCES:
1. Bloomberg
2. Blair Henry
3. Intergovernmental Panel
4. Social Science Research Network
5. Union of Concerned Scientists
6. Natural Resources Defense Council
7. The Nature Conservancy
8. Landmark Education
Acknowledgement:
I want to acknowledge Andrea Davis, Rosa Leader-Smith, Amber C. McDougall, and Cyreesa Vernon for inspiration, editorial oversight and multiple re-writings; the committed listening of Ken Mandelbaum, Michael Madden, Mark Mauriello, John Redfield, Geneva Smith, et. al.; as well as the 10s of thousands of professionals, scientists, leaders and citizens screaming at us to wake up, and to wake up now!
© Tony Smith
