Our True Nature

You are not a thing.

You are a process.

Every cell, every tissue, in constant flux and turnover.

You drink water. That water becomes, for a while, you.

The air that rushes into your lungs is not the same air that leaves when you breath out. The air that leaves was, just seconds ago, you.

There is no environment that is not us.

Therefore, the Environmental Protection Agency might better be called the the Agency for the Protection of Everything That Flows Through Our Bodies.

Furthermore....

We share this gorgeous planet with other beings, our relatives. 

Who also are not things. 

Who also are processes.

Some of whom regulate processes essential for our own lives. All of whom endow us with beauty and awe and amazement and wonder.

Even if we decided to sacrifice our own well-being, we have no right to sacrifice theirs.

There is a bright side on this dark day for environmental protection.

Through us water has voice.

Through us soil can march on Washington.

Through us air and climate and ferns and porpoises can be mad as hell.

When we fight for our lives and the integrity of our children's bodies we fight for everything because we are everything.

If you want people to believe that climate change is real, talk about solutions

There have been press reports this week about an interesting new study on people's attitudes towards climate change.

In the experiment participants were given one of two factual articles about climate change. Half the participants received articles that ended with "warnings about the apocalyptic consequences of global warming." The other half read articles that ended with "positive messages focused on potential solutions to global warming, such as technological innovations that could reduce carbon emissions"

Here's the interesting part:

"Those who read the positive messages were more open to believing in the existence of global warming."

At first that sounds counter-intuitive -- people become more convinced of a problem when they have evidence that it can be solved? But it does make a certain kind of sense. If a problem is devastating and unsolvable there are all sorts of self-protective mechanisms that help us block the problem out.

I think this study has some interesting implications:

Cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If we  act as though there are no solutions to climate change, our fellow citizens will be more likely to ignore the problem all together, making solutions even less likely to emerge.

And, more importantly, daring to envision solutions and talk about them and implement them, at whatever scale we can, is a self-fulfilling prophecy as well. Helping people see solutions helps them bear the truth of what is unfolding during their lifetimes and opens the way for them to help build solutions, which maybe opens the way for some one far removed from you to accept the problem and create solutions, and so on, and so on.

Pacing

Today I did something I've never done before.

I said that I had done enough, this week, for people and the planet.

Not enough in the sense we all hope for, not enough in the sense of the ONE CRITICAL THING that changes the world and makes everything OK again, but enough in the sense of having done all that my body and my family could tolerate, for now.

After accepting on Tuesday the chance to give part of a keynote address at a sustainable energy conference, writing the speech on Thursday, and giving it on Friday, and then co-leading two workshops at the same conference on Saturday, today I had meant to act on my new found determination to bring my concern about climate change before the media and decision makers.

I learned on Thursday - during a pause in the speech-writing – that Laura Bush will be arriving Monday in the town next door to ours, to make a speech of her own about the importance of protecting our national parks.

And so on Sunday I was going to plan HOW TO MAKE A STATEMENT about the urgency of climate change.

I got a lot of coaching from one of my neighbors, now a mostly mild mannered mother and consultant, but veteran of protests from Rocky Flats to New York City.

I learned her opinion that the odds of asking a Laura Bush a question were slim at best – "why would they want to open themselves up to potentially embarrassing questions when they don't have to?"

Which is too bad, because I had a good question in mind:

"Mrs. Bush, you have spoken here and in other places about your love for your daughters, your love of the national parks, and your concern for the well being of children. I share your same loves and concerns. They have lead me to pledge to do what I can to convince national leaders to enact climate policy consistent with what the latest science tells us is needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Would your family join me in that pledge?"

In my neighbor's opinion standing anywhere near her motorcade with a sign of any sort I'd likely be asked to set my sign down.

Which was also too bad because I had such a good one in mind.

"Mrs. Bush, Loving our National Parks Means Loving the Climate. 350ppm!"

The strategy with the best chance of success made sense once my friend educated me a little bit more. I should gather a group together, and find a place to stand somewhere in the town, but not in the way of the official route. We should bring our signs, and make them big. We should let the press know that thirty minutes before Mrs. Bush's remarks, "local activists will urge Mrs. Bush to act out of her commitment to our national parks by encouraging the administration to take specific actions to avoid the worst consequences of climate change."

It all made sense and was possible in theory.

But when I found myself being short with our seven-year old (who we'd left with friends during all the speech-making and workshop leading) for the second and then for the third time as I sat at the computer and tried to draft a press release and figure out where to fax it, it suddenly became just too much.

Laura Bush won't face my questions or signs tomorrow, though I imagine some of my fellow Vermonters will make their voices heard.

Giving up, slowing down, taking Sunday as a day of rest, didn't come easily. But in this strain that I feel everyday, between living life at a pace that seems to be fast enough to, maybe, get in front of the march to disaster, and living life at a pace that is in itself an answer to that march to disaster, I feel pretty sure that today, for me, and my family, I made the right choice.

I weeded the beans and planted some basil. I helped clean the bunny's cage and played a board game. It took a few hours of turmoil and regret, and (I'll admit it) a little resentment about the obligations of parenthood, but by the end of the afternoon, when the sun came out and the soil was moist with an inch of badly needed rain, I could remember again that doing this work is important, but that it is a job for the long-haul, and that, no matter how urgent it all feels, we need to pace ourselves.

Everyday People

In the course of sharing my reactions to the latest snapshot of the Arctic I've been having some interesting conversations. In one a friend and fellow Vermonter asked: 'help me learn how to convey what everyday people ... and their local governments .. can do [in response to climate change.]

I took her question with me out into the fading afternoon light while I shoveled snow and did chores.

What can ordinary citizens do, both to lessen the extent of climate change and to prepare their communities to withstand the climate change that is already inevitable?

Shovelful by shovelful I came up with quite a list.

1. Don't leave the thinking about how to respond to climate change to the 'experts.' Ordinary people have all the authority they need on this issue simply by virtue of common sense and a stake in the future. Ordinary people are technically qualified to say that it makes no sense to produce more pollution than the Earth can absorb and that exponential growth cannot continue on a finite planet. Ordinary people are morally qualified to say that we shouldn't expect others in distant lands or future generations to bear the consequences of our actions. Ordinary people have the authority to raise questions about the viability of ideas like sun shields in the upper atmosphere or iron fertilization of the oceans.

If you must, find some resources that explain climate science in clear non-technical terms (you might try the Our Climate Ourselves resources page or this climate change simulator), but above all trust yourself. We need the logic ordinary people on the climate change question. We need the logic of grandfathers and teen-agers and home-makers and farmers and workers, the logic of stewardship and the instinct to care for future generations.

2. Trust and speak out of your own authority, but find ways to do so in the company of others. This is a collective problem that began before our births and will not be fully solved until well after our deaths. It is a problem that cuts across all the lines that divide us, a problem for anyone who eats, drinks, loves a child, cares about a community, or a river, or a tree on a city street corner. All sorts of inspiring organizations are emerging to facilitate collective action. Find the one that suits you (or start your own at whatever scale is right for you) and find solace in the way that the tiny drop of your one lifetime joins into the rising ocean of people who are ready for this problem to end. (A few vehicles for collective action on climate change in the US that I am aware of include: Step It Up, 1Sky, and Focus the Nation.)

3. Don't let a new coal plant be built in your community. See this graph if you wonder why. While supplies of oil are declining around the world, reserves of coal are massive. Because the odds of avoiding dangerous climate change if we allow electricity-generating coal plants to transfer the carbon in the coal from below the Earth's crust to the atmosphere are very low one of the most powerful places a citizen can act is at hearings in their region about any plans to build new coal plants.

4. Be creative about what is possible in your own community. Look especially for the opportunities that simultaneously reduce carbon emissions, build community, and buffer your community against instabilities of all sorts that could be triggered in a warming world. Organize your community to insulate the homes of anyone in your community who can't afford or isn't able to do so for themselves. This would decrease carbon emissions from wasted fuel consumption, bring your community together (with everything from pot-lucks and tool sharing to friendships built on the tops of roofs and ladders), and help create the kind of social network that will serve your community in the face of any of the likely threats of climate change, from droughts, to dangerous storms, to heat waves and public health crises. From community to community the opportunities will be different, but I'm willing to bet that all communities will have opportunities to cut carbon emissions while becoming healthier, safer, and more resilient.

I shoveled a long path, and so my list goes on, but I'll stop here for now, with more to come another day.

Inspiring

Like tens of thousands of Americans this past Saturday I participated in rallies calling on Congress to pass legislation to enable the US to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The Step It Up website now has a very moving slide show of images of some of the more spectacular of these events. If you went to one of these events in your own hometown, I hope you left feeling as inspired as I did. And if you didn't attend a rally (or even if you did), you really ought to view the organizers' slide show to get a sense of just how many people are demanding national action on climate change and to enjoy the creativity and good spirit they are employing to demand it.

Highlights for me of the day:

1. Speaking to a large group of elementary school children and their parents and neighbors in Norwich, Vermont, just north of here. I've never spoken to a crowd containing people wearing large polar bear suits, or one in which quite so many helium balloons escaped to slowly drift to the very high ceiling. (What do you imagine is more interesting to a small pod of third grade boys - a middle aged lady talking about appreciating the Earth or the giggle-producing vision of a flock of escaping balloons (even if the balloons are imprinted with the image of the Earth?) Actually I am proud to say that I held my own versus the balloons and against the pull of the extremely well-laden cookie table. Even the adorable two-year old with her belly showing who really wanted to share the stage with me didn't completely steal the show.

2.Sitting with my girls leaning on me from either side hearing our senator Bernie Sanders describe the legislation he's sponsoring along with Senator Barbara Boxer. After answering endless questions from a nine-year-old along the lines of "why did President Bush say that" it was a tremendous pleasure to watch them listen to such an articulate and passionate politician in a room of a hundred or so people. I keep telling them that while global warming is a serious issue, there are adults who care, who are acting, both ordinary people and political leaders. This time the caring and the leading were obvious and I didn't have to say a thing.

3. Coming home from the rally in Norwich to harvest greens for a salad from our greenhouse and to plant a second crop of spinach. Little things – like stepping into that greenhouse from cold, gray, snow-covered April into something that felt more like early June – are what convince me that all sorts of pleasures and luxuries await us in the post-fossil fuel world. We may not receive so many plastic wrapped packages of lettuce from California here in Vermont. On the other hand, we'll get to walk down to the greenhouse and harvest the fresh beautiful heads ourselves, or buy them from a neighbor and support our local economies.

4. Later that day, walking a mile or so with my kids and our Hartland neighbors, their assorted signs and excited dogs, catching up on local news and people's lives, meeting the man who just moved into the house across the road, and realizing that every one of these fifty-five people had set aside Saturday chores and commitments because they care and believe they can make a difference.

Two final reflections about Step It Up Day:

Senator Sanders told the Norwich crowd that our job was to keep up the pressure, to continue finding ways to tell Congress they need to make passing strong climate change legislation a top priority. This was a fun and powerful day, and it also raises a question: what's next?

And, as I look back on the day's events I'm moved by the way that a small group of organizers, by providing an outlet for people to act on what they feel and know, were able to release a tremendous and powerful wave of activity. And I'm grateful that the organizers worked so hard to enable that wave and grateful that so many thousands of people leaped into the opportunity they created.