…here’s how YOU can make a difference. Where we stand, what we need to do, the facts in brief, and a ‘recipe’.
First, I invite you to take a look at this 10 minute video, so you have an idea what I mean when I talk about ‘climatepocalypse’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGVTK-AAvw
A video like this needs to be treated with special care and attention. It is the kind of information the mainstream media, public service broadcasters included, unfortunately will never deliver to you.
This video gives you one good reason why you – and all of us – need to get out of our paralysed climate-zombie sleep and begin to do new things we have never done before, such as investing time and money into the creation of a carbon-free society.
Can we do this as individuals? Isn’t that the kind of stuff our elected leaders are assigned to handle for us? To protect our nation? No. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The last decade has shown us the reality of politics: They can’t do it. Democratically elected politicians can’t handle problems at this scale because they don’t think they have the mandate to do what is necessary. They won’t act until it is already too late. Politicians only think three-four years ahead – this is how our political system has been constructed.
So we are facing a crisis of world leadership. Our leaders will fail us, regardless of what they say.
Many of us feel like what we do won’t make much difference. Which in one way is true, but in another way is absolutely wrong. It is just like saying you won’t vote when there is an election because your vote won’t make much difference. If everyone thought like that, you wouldn’t be living in a democracy.
We need realise that we can make a difference, and act accordingly.
Giving up is not an option. We are going to win this fight. When you think about it, this is as dangerous as if a huge asteroid was approaching Earth. Luckily, this is not a huge asteroid approaching our home… 🙂 It is something we can deal with. All we are up against is a bunch of greedy, short-sighted human beings who don’t give a damn about the dangers of climate change because they profit from ignoring it.
Yes, they do have a lot of power and money. But they are still just human beings, like the rest of us, and there aren’t that many of them. They don’t even represent one percent of the planet’s population.
We need to stop waiting for someone else to step in and save us and our planet. There is no time for that. We are quickly approaching dangerous tipping points – this is a planetary emergency, which is also why we all need to get better, smarter, faster and more innovative than ever at what we do – in order to move forward with the pace and magnitude needed.
Where we stand:
• We will no longer accept the inaction of our elected leaders.
• We will not accept their fossil fuel dependent regime.
• We will quite easily create an energy revolution – without any violence, without any tears.
What we need to do:
All we really need to do at an individual level is to wake up and get engaged.
We will say no to fossil fuels whenever and where ever we can.
We will move over to renewables as soon as we can, house by house. We will crowdfund wind turbine farms, we will install solar power on our roofs, we will subscribe to hydro-power solutions. We will look out for the newest technological innovation and discoveries that enhance our options.
We will vote for politicians who are on that same path.
We will talk about what we are doing, openly and whenever and where ever we can. We will explain that we think this planet is a great place to live – and that we want to preserve it for future generations, our own children and grandchildren included.
So – summing up, here is the proposal to what you can do. First a three-step warm-up, which will only take you around 20 minutes, and then a three-step ‘recipe’ for how we solve this crisis:
Warm-up
1) Watch the 10-minute video above about the kind of threats humanity is facing. Mind you this is just one aspect of the dangers of climate change.
youtube.com/watch?v=sRGVTK-AAvw
2) Watch David Suzuki’s Carbon Manifesto speech
climatesafety.info/?p=5034
3) Think.
If you choose to become part of the solution, instead of being part of the problem, then begin to learn more about the issues concerned. Draw your own conclusions. Take action, when it makes sense to you – that is, when you have learned that you are not alone doing this. This is a global movement, and it is growing by the hour, from bottom up.
We are concerned citizens, and we want our children and grandchildren to have a future on this planet. That is what millions of us have in common. What we share is that we want to preserve and protect. We really are neither ‘rebels’ nor ‘revolutionaries’. But as mad as the world is behaving, we are left with no other option but to turn into some kind of ‘citizen heroes’ who believe we can change the world, and who end up doing it because of our commitment to the cause and a strong belief in that this is important. Important is almost an understatement. It is the most important commitment we have ever involved ourselves in. We are going to write history.
The facts
Humans are putting 90 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day, as if it is an open sewer. That pollution traps the same amount of heat on our planet as the energy from 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs going off every 24 hours.
The ‘recipe’
The ‘recipe’ really is quite simple. We do not like the risky game our irresponsible and short-sighted politicians are playing with our common future. We don’t like the sound of ‘mass extinction’, or ‘climatepocalypse’, because we know how simple it is to avoid these terrible prospects. So, what we must do to avoid ‘climatepocalypse’ is:
1) Take a stand and say: “I want to live in a carbon-free society running on 100 percent renewable energy”
2) Begin to take steps that will get you there; join others with the same aim, and inspire others to want to get on board.
Spread the word that it is already officially acknowledged that the transition to renewables won’t cost us more than it will cost us to continue burning dirty and destructive fossil fuels. Keep going! There are more and more of us every day.
3) Know and show that we can do it. Technologies are in place, and they will even get better as we move along. We will reap all sorts of economic and health benefits, and we will avoid that mass extinction which the video explains about.
Also, as long as you live you will be able to look your children and grandchildren in the eyes and say: “When shit hit the fan, we found out what to do. And as you can see, we did the right thing”.
Carole King: “Demand clean power now!”
Published on youtube.com on 7 October 2013.
» demandcleanpower.org/carole-king
The Biggest Topic of All
Peter Lachnewinsky posted the above video in his blog and wrote:
“Please forward this to as many people you know. We are nearing the tipping points of climate chaos. This video focusses on the methane lying trapped under the oceans and land masses. If they are released it could mean a re-run of the Permian Mass Extinction Event 250 million years ago when 95% of all species on earth were destroyed. That is the Russian Roulette our ruling elites are willing to risk in order to maintain the system of power and profits. No other issue is as important as this one.
The state of New South Wales where I live is burning fiercely all over the place as I write this, although it is only the middle of spring. Hundreds of houses have already been lost. While bemoaning the bushfires, at the same time the government is hell bent on increasing coal and gas extraction and exports. Most people themselves still jet all over the world for fun and are proud of their big cars and mansions and wide screen home theatres. Maybe it’s time to stand near the bushfires with signs saying something like: This Is Why Coal, Oil and Gas Must Stay In The Ground.
Organize locally, and globally. Fight the coal, oil and gas corporations to keep the remaining fossil fuels in the ground. This is about survival and changing the whole economic and political and cultural system of perpetual growth, aka capitalism, towards a zero carbon, ecologically sustainable, socially equitable and globally just system where the people themselves decide all important matters, not the ruling elites. Because this system is taking us over the abyss of climate chaos and planetary collapse, it’s got to be: System change, not climate change.
Either we get rid of this system or it gets rid of us.
Changing the default setting
“It’s not in people’s instincts to not eat sugar, it’s not in people’s instincts to train for a marathon, it’s not in people’s instincts to give up using carbon-dioxide-producing sources of energy. We as a society need to help induce people to do what’s right.
That means changing the default setting. That means building public transportation so that it’s cheaper and easier for people to take public transportation to work than it is for them to drive to work. That means reengineering our cities. And that requires collective action, and that requires, well, politicians. The obesity epidemic was caused by political decisions to a large extent, or by political inaction. And I would argue that the climate crisis that we are facing is of the same ilk.”
Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, USA
The Guardian – 20 October 2013:
Saving the planet from short-termism will take man-on-the-moon commitment
JFK’s lunar vision is needed if business is to see the long-term benefits of greening the economy as well as the short-term costs. By Larry Elliott, economics editor, The Guardian
Huffington post – 1 november 2013:
Do the Math: Fossil Fuel Investments Add up to Climate Chaos
“We are facing a planetary emergency: Climate change threatens the world and our collective future. Business and political leaders know this yet they do nothing. Instead they continue to bet on our future and deepen our addiction to fossil fuels. They abdicate responsibility and allow the deadly fossil fuel giants of the last two centuries to continue to stoke the boilers of global warming.”
By Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, and Bill McKibben, author and climate activist.
Published on youtube.com on 19 November 2013. Produced by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and Globaia and funded by the UN Foundation for the launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report.
» See also: The actual probability of Earth going to hell in the next few decades
Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in the film ‘The Great Dictator’, with a splash of modern imagery. Uploaded on youtube.com on 15 July 2011