I was, of course, doing my bit; holding down my keyboard. Oh, and the farm. Old-timers here know I comment regularly on the NYT, as Greenpa; and WaPo (under an older name I'm too lazy to change). Sometimes folks like what I have to say. And that is the case right at the moment.
The New York Times Magazine is currently running their Climate Issue. That is a section you can reach without hitting a paywall; you can see what they're up to; what the NYT temperament is at the moment. If you're not familiar, they will let you read 10 articles a month free.
On that page you will find an article on How A Warming Planet Drives Human Migration. Whole populations attempting to "migrate" has been a major topic in the past couple years. Is climate change the cause? Almost entirely.
At the moment, my comment is the #1 Reader Pick. (If you should want to add your vote, I would not object.). I'm getting some good comments, too - even no trolls, yet!
I'm going to put the text of that comment here; since I know links and access are iffy these days:
"I was a speaker at the climate change conferences in 1988 (DC) and 1989 (Cairo) - and can tell you that all of this was fully predicted by us, back then. Also water wars and the rise of demagogues and authoritarian governments.
"It was not only predictable; we predicted it. A fantasy scientists often adhere to is that if they can explain the situation clearly, then humanity will of course respond with wise action. Ah, the irony.
"It is NOT that we do not have persons provably able to give good advice and predictions; it is that world-wide, our joint decision making processes are universally broken. We do not have one government of the planet capable of taking significant action.
"We know what to do. We just can't do it. That - is the problem."
I did, after Sandy, say bluntly "WE TOLD YOU SO." This is kind of the same thing; but a bit more polite (I believe in polite - first. Rude when necessary.) Interesting that my rude comment on Justin Gillis' "oh we can't be sure" article - and all other comments, many rude - have been deleted from the archives. But the story is still here.
Interesting today that most of the NYT readers looking at that article have chosen the I -told-you-so viewpoint to recommend. It's not an optimistic one. Which may be an optimistic observation, actually; if we're ever going to get off our collective butts and take serious action, the first thing that has to happen is we have to lose the complacent notion that somebody else will fix this.
Nobody else is going to fix this; government "policy" approaches are crippled, world-wide, and recent elections illustrate how easy it is for policy to be derailed by the next swing of the Perpetual Political Pendulum. The PPP. (Polka Dot Gallows humor...)
The March For Science showed there are still an abundance of sane and passionate humans out there. Keep that in mind. Join them; and remember your Newtonian Physics: momentum - takes Work to stop or alter.
Keep the momentum. Add to it. Act. Because, as one of the many great sign comments from yesterday's march has it:
My husband and I went to a local march - news says we had around 2,000 people, which is pretty good for our area. The march ended at the town common where a sustainability fair was being held and a bunch of different folks had booths sharing info on various sciences. There was a nice kid activities science table (I think some adults were interested too), including exemplars from trees (leaf and branch) and a microscope.
ReplyDeleteThe vendors were mostly what you'd expect - solar, hybrid and Tesla vehicles, electronic assist bicycles, etc. Lots of artists/artisans - creative fabric containers, bags, hand towels and other everyday things made to last longer, soap, GF bbq sauce and energy snacks, essential oils (to support/replace at least OTC medicines), etc.
Living where I do, the local town had their tree warden at a booth as well, and the police were representing with the vehicles and one of the bikes was theirs too.
Here's what stood out for me -- most of the science/information booths, whether on planting trees at the local school (Earth Guardian), making wildflower seed bombs, learning about climate science, permaculture, etc. -- were run by either college students or kids. And by kids I mean some were probably around 12-13 at most, not just high school kids.
And a bunch of colleges students from various science programs were also at the march, some of whom were doing a film project as part of it. UMass has a new college that crosses other colleges to pull together what's needed to better understand what's happening to the planet, including how it got there (geo climate stuff), and to try to figure out ways to deal with what's changing (sustainability, adaptation).
Despite all that's happening, it was heartening that younger people are active on so many fronts. I'll be checking out some of the programs -- maybe I'll be able to take some short courses, maybe I can share my greenhouse project with some interested folks....definitely I'll be promoting the new programs to other people.
We definitely cannot and are not waiting for the big governments of the world to get their acts together.