Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report – It’s happening

Apr7

I’m sorry but isn’t the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

which begins by saying

“Human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems”

important? Urgent? Shouldn’t Australia do something about it now?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott quotes from My Country:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

Dorothea Mackellar started writing My Country in 1904. Climate change not an issue then, Prime Minister.

Now?

What’s the worst that could happen? Remember that physics teacher? The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See? He’s still going strong.

Lord Deben is the chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, the government’s statutory adviser. He is a former environment secretary and Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal. He writes in the The Guardian reports that the government should committ to halving its emmissions at 1990 levels before 2027.

Australia is aiming for between 5 and 20 percent.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry says costs of inaction on climate change will be “catastrophic”.

George Monbiot finds an allegory in Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People where Dr Stockman must lash out angrily at those who do not believe him, like Cassandra.

And in Australia there’s a gentle, chatty piece in The Age, enquiring about the level of risk we’re happy to live with.

I wish I could roar like a lion.

When does Australia stop digging up coal and start building a new, clean renewable energy industry? Beyond Zero Emissions has a plan ready to go right now. What are we waiting for?

You’ve been wondering what the Blue Man Group think of Global Warming, haven’t you?

I’m roaring like a lady. As much as I can.

Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to the people of 2088

Mar19

In today’s Guardian, an article entitled Climate Change is putting world at risk reports a new study, What we know.

The world is at growing risk of “abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes” because of a warming climate, America’s premier scientific society warned on Tuesday.

In a rare intervention into a policy debate, the American Association for the Advancement of Science urged Americans to act swiftly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and lower the risks of leaving a climate catastrophe for future generations.

These scientists are trying to get past the deniers by not engaging with them, rather, they wish to get on with the job; encourage Americans to get moving to protect life as we know it.

It is not the purpose of this paper to explain why this disconnect between scientific knowledge and public perception has occurred. Nor are we seeking to provide yet another extensive review of the scientific evidence for climate change. Instead, we present key messages for every American about climate change.

1. Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now.

2. We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.

3. The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost. And there is much we can do.

(from the report, What we know.)

Do you think the fossil fuel industry will give up soon?

What did Kurt Vonnegut know about the environment? A lot.

A wonderful website, Letters of Note has a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to the Ladies and Gentlemen of AD2088. Ironically it was for a Volkswagon ad campaign. Ironically because Mr Vonnegut isn’t advocating more cars. It’s well worth a read in full here.

First, he discusses how terrible nature is and then points out that nature just wants to cut a deal with humans. Here’s the deal:

The sort of leaders we need now are not those who promise ultimate victory over Nature through perseverance in living as we do right now, but those with the courage and intelligence to present to the world what appears to be Nature’s stern but reasonable surrender terms:

Reduce and stabilize your population.

Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.

Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.

Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.

Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.

Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.

And so on. Or else.

If we won’t hear it from 2,000 highly trained scientists, if we won’t hear it from millions of activists around the world, then maybe we might hear it from one of the most smart communicators ever. And so it goes.

Watch the AAAS video here!

Continue reading →

Jay Griffiths, Wild

Mar9

One of the people interviewed in Project Wild Thing is writer Jay Griffiths.

She spoke such good sense about children needing to be in touch with nature I sought out her books. The first I’m reading is Wild and it’s fantastic. The language is dense and lush. It’s a jungle of a book; a tramp through fecund vocabulary, an evocative trip into the wilderness of an awesome intellect. She’s our guide to wilderness and our perception of it; she’s a kind of literary David Attenborough.

I have not been so excited about an author scince I stumbled upon Under the Sea Wind by Rachel Carson. Jay Griffiths is another learned, poetic writer exploring the world, seemingly without fear, creating an incredible reading experience for those of us in our armchairs. She delights in language and her lucid explanations of etymology of words in different languages underpins much of the book.

‘The Peruvian Amazon was called a Tower of Babel by early Spanish missionaries. Intended as an insult, it was actually a compliment, testimony to the luminous and tumultuous diversity of jungle languages, not just one tree of knowledge but millions, a forest of knowing. But the Church, the state and the education system together have deforested the human mind, forcing people to speak Spanish and aiding logging companies and others in a corporate land theft. If you take people out of their land, you take them out of their meaning, out of their language’s roots. When wild lands are lost, so is metaphor, allusion and the poetry that arises in the interplay of mind and nature. To lose your land is to lose your language, and to lose your language is to lose your mind … ‘ pg 26 Wild

She begins in Peru, seeking healing with the drug ayahuasca. (Slight detour here by way of a rambling podast – Simon Amstell chats to Marc Maron about his ayahuasca experience.) Jay Griffiths is the sort of person who will get up from the depths of depression, go to Peru with a total stranger and then wander around the Amazon continually drinking a hallucinatory drug untill she gets it right – realises she’s a jaguar – and then heads of to the next section of the book – an obvious flight into remote Canada to hang out with the Inuits. Wild? Certainly.

I’m still exploring her Wild mind and journey as well as looking forward immensely to reading Kith.

Here’s an excerpt on her website first published in the Guardian. She speaks of the horror of controlled crying and the political necessity for it in modern ‘civilisation’ and the need for children to have their own time.

In 2011, Unicef asked children what they needed to be happy, and the top three things were time (particularly with families), friendships and, tellingly, “outdoors”. Studies show that when children are allowed unstructured play in nature, their sense of freedom, independence and inner strength all thrive, and children surrounded by nature are not only less stressed but also bounce back from stressful events more readily.

This all makes such sense to me, particularly because my own child was schooled in an alternative environment at Preshil which, theoretically at least, allowed children freedom to explore their own choices, to develop their own minds and unleash their imaginations. My child was left alone to get on with his own business and although he’s had his fair share of teenage angst I believe he’s resilent and capable, living in another country at eighteen and learning what he needs to know to grow up and get on with the job of living.

Much of Jay Griffiths’s thinking resonates deeply and personally with me. Seek her out, check out her videos and learn from her immediately!

Project Wild Thing – a fun film with a serious heart

Feb27

During the Sustainable Living Festival we called in to see a film called Project Wild Thing. The documentary follows a Dad, David Bond, frustrated his two small children only seemed to like television, as he tries to promote Nature as a viable alternative.

He begins a marketing campaign promoting Nature to children. He interviews experts, including his own mother, about the fact we’ve lost the ability to ramble through wilderness because there’s less places for kids to play, kids are overprotected and there’s computers to keep them absorbed. There are scientists who rate children’s health concerns and advertising gurus wonder what the benefits of nature might be.

Apparently the project began because of a growing interest in what’s been termed the nature deficit disorder. Richard Louv coined that term and was also here for the festival but one can’t be everywhere. Here’s a link to a video about his book, Last Child in the Woods, instead and here’s a picture of his latest book. I think I shall read this one!

Richard Louv’s most recent book.

Research and analysis around the world has proved that people, more importantly, children, are spending much more time inside and hardly any time outside. When David Bond interviewed teenagers they said that wildness was boring. One girl said she never goes to the park near her because lots of people walk their dogs there and dogs can maul you to death. Mind you, when he took a few of them on a walk in the local park they became animated, interested and quickly made a daisy chain.

In a delightful animation, made by the same film makers, a young voice explains we were better off before there were things with buttons to push (at 1:15) ‘They didn’t have the virtual quests, they had, like, the world was their quest.’

The Project Wild campaign really ramps up when the filmmakers hook up with Good For Nothing, a group of advertisers and marketers who donate their time and expertise to workshop ideas. As a result there’s an amazing spread of activity from billboards to flyers and an app giving kids ideas about what to do in Nature. It’s all super!

When I was searching Project Wild Thing for this blog I found an American group called Project Wild. Apparently there’s been many groups formed as a result of Richard Louv’s work. There’s even been attempts at legislation with the No Child Left Inside movement.

What will happen to future generations if kids don’t get outside?

Art Climate Ethics – What role for the arts?

Feb15

Found plastics on Robe beach altered by Victoria Osborne and Philip Millar

I wove these different coloured ropes into this handbag shape as a container for plastic items we found on Robe beach in South Australia.

“Art, nature and I became vital and inseparable companions.” GUY ABRAHAMS: AN ART DEALER’S EPIPHANY

I’ve been working on an adult literary novel called Man of clay for fifteen years. I’m hoping to put it up on this website shortly. In the book a character called Willliam wonders whether to take over his mother’s art gallery, just like Guy did. In the above mentioned article, Guy, the CEO of Climarte, speaks eloquently about art and nature and recommends we go to a discussion called Art Climate Ethics: What role for the arts? So we did.

Found plastics arranged as if stuffed into a toy bird

Plastics found on Robe beach – an homage to Chris Jordan by Philip Millar and Victoria Osborne

And what a wonderful discussion it was. Not only did we get to see Fiona Hall, Mandy Martin, Damon Young and Peter Cristoff but also Chris Jordan.

Damon Young is a philosopher and writer who set his discussion, or provocation, about the Anthropocene Age in a sea of jellyfish.

Mandy Martin is an artist, a painter, who has decided to go for her activism. She doesn’t care if there’s negative consequences. She’s too busy getting her message out in delicious landscapes, colours and textures. She showed us some of her work painted around powerstations and mines. One was called Vivitur Ex Rapto, or Man lives off greed. She told us we are all implicated because of our need for resources.

Peter Christoff is an academic. His most recent book is Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a hot world. He believes the public knows about climate change. He thinks they have had the information but they are angered or frustrated or made helpless by the knowledge of impending doom. Generally, he said, they think someone else will look after the problems some other time. He thinks we have an ‘imagination deficit’. I totally agree with this notion. I think most Australians cannot imagine anything much further in the future than the next footy season. Is that just human nature?

Fiona Hall is an eloquent artist but her speech was marred by her use of arrrr and ummmms … Her work is brilliant.

Chris Jordan is the man behind the shocking images of plastic-stuffed albatross. He’s also made a film about Midway, the island of the albatross, here’s the trailer for Midway. He spoke about the need for a shift in consciousness. Humans must become more radical, as in the word origin from ‘root’. We must go back to our roots. He talked about how our society has placed our thinking in the amygdalla – the place of fear – the lizard part of our brain. Everything humans, particularly the West, seems to do comes from reacting to fear. Like America, rushing off to war for no apparent reason. He believes art has the ability to take thinking out of fear and put it in the limbic part of the brain or our feelings. We need to feel anger and grief because of the loss of our charismatic fauna – ‘artworks of God’ – the sacred miracles of our world. We need to acknowledge our collective sadness, move through the grief and become activists.

Here’s a link to his TED talk which focuses on his Running the numbers work.

We took several bags of plastic bits and nylon rope away from this beach holiday.

Jane Goodall

Jan28

I have very much enjoyed reading this quiet, thoughtful and intimate book. Jane Goodall is such a singular individual. She does such extraordinary things yet seems to take everything in her stride. Strolling through a forest in Africa is apparently easier than visiting a city.

Jane Goodall was asked to deliver a sermon one Saint Francis’s Day in San Francisco. She took as her text Genesis Chapter 1, verse 26: ‘And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ She goes on to explain that:

… many Hebrew scholars believe the word ‘dominion’ is a very poor translation of the original Hebrew word v’yirdu, which actually meant to rule over, as a wise king rules over his subjects, with care and respect. It implied a sense of responsibility and enlightened stewardship.

This brings us to the idea of fiduciary duty. One of the most exciting developments in the environmental movement is championed by a lawyer in Oregon called Mary Wood. She has written extensively about the duty that a government, and future governments, has to look after the people of the land. This includes future generations, the air those people breathe and the water they drink. Clearly it must include the entire habitat and ecology around the people. I went to a fascinating seminar about this at Monash Law, introduced by Ken Coghill. I have to say I didn’t understand very much – I only did half a law degree – but I was greatly heartened by these incredibly intelligent students, lawyers and judges striving to find a way to hold successive governments accountable for the environment. Isn’t that a better way of looking at the word ‘dominion’?

Our relationship with nature

Substack: Searching for Milady

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