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Now is not the time to get depressed about climate change
Jamie Henn of 350 offers a counterpoint to those that say the climate situation is hopeless.
Thu, Sep 23 2010 at 9:11 PM
 7

Related Topics:

Global Warming, Climate Change
Climate Depression

Photo: Blissfully Domestic

George Monbiot's depression is understandable. The Guardian columnist and leading environmental thinker slices through political BS like a sushi chef, and generally ends his insightful pieces with a clear direction for people who want to help make a difference in the world. 
 
But his most recent column, "The Process is Dead," rang out like a death toll for the climate movement. Monbiot rightfully points out that the negotiations seem permanently stuck in deadlock, with the U.S. once again laying demands that China & India first agree to legally binding targets.. targets that the U.S. itself will not meet. This position was once again reiterated at the MEF (Major Economies Forum) in New York yesterday, alongside news that Obama will skip the upcoming COP16 in Cancun.
 
But does that mean it's game over? Hardly. And Jamie Henn of 350.org had a compelling response to Monbiot's Op Ed that should remind those of us in the NGO community why we continue to work so hard on climate policy, and in particular online activism:
 
Dear George,
Your recent column about the death of "climate enlightenment" was a quite a doozy. Let me make sure I got the gist of it: the UN climate summit in Copenhagen failed, the US Senate is ass-backwards, hopes for the climate talks in Cancun are dismal, and environmentalists are ninnies, leaving the planet on a crash course with apocalypse. Does that about cover it?
 
But you see, the closer you come up to the issue, the better it looks. You're right on that expectations for Cancun are low and that endless discussions of LULUCF would put any bureaucrat to sleep. But remember, the process isn't broken because there's a lack of good ideas on the table. It's broken because the big polluting nations, led by the United States, refuse to make any meaningful commitments to... anything. Let's face it, the UN climate process isn't a negotiation: it's a hostage crisis (that reasoning also helps clear up why some countries may have signed onto the Copenhagen Accord: it was Stockholm syndrome).
 
Recognizing the United States as (still) the major hurdle blocking progress should change the way we look at the meetings in China at the beginning of October. The real story in China won't be what's happening at the conference venue, but what's happening at the factories down the road. China is racing full speed towards a clean-energy future, and this October will be a chance for them to show off a bit. That show couldn't be more important (I don't anticipate anything as dramatic as the Olympic opening ceremonies, or Sputnik for that matter, but it still should be impressive). One of the big things that may actually get the US moving is the sense that it's being left behind.
 
Now that we've seen there's a bit of momentum still out there, let's talk about that fight of yours. You think the climate process is dead. Here's why I think you're wrong.
 
 
First off, you've been checking for vital signs in the wrong places. Yes, it sure would have been nice if enlightened governments took the initiative and lead the clean energy revolution on their own. But we always sort of knew that that was -- how do you put it in the UK? -- complete bollocks. As Frederick Douglass rightly pointed out a while back, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." What we need now is the same thing we've needed from the very instant we found out about this crisis. We need a movement. A movement that's capable of dramatically changing the political landscape on this issue. A movement that can expose Big Oil and their lobbyists and make in unacceptable for politicians not to take dramatic action.
 
So let's skip over a lot of your depressing statistics about the failure of European carbon trading (kind of a dodgy system to begin with) and get right down to what I read as the big thesis of your piece: "What all this means is that there is not a single effective instrument for containing man-made global warming anywhere on earth."
 
I think there is an instrument, but it isn't policy prescriptions or solar panels: It's the internet.
 
Read more about 350.org's big web campaign coming up on 10/10/10. Photo from Irish Environmental Network.

 

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Comments: 7
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anonymous
Meme Mine Sep 25 2010 at 5:59 PM

Don’t blame it on sunshine.
Don’t blame it on sunlight.
Don’t blame it on bad times.
Blame it on the CO2 Bogey Man

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anonymous
Meme Mine Sep 25 2010 at 3:55 PM
Every remaining climate changer has their very own special and personal definition of climate change just like bible thumpers did with their personal religion. You arm chair climatologists made a virtue of no evidence just like bible thumpers do and if climate change really WAS happening, we would be talking about it, not debating it's existence because it’s been 24 years of scientists saying it’s real, it’s happening, it’s real, it’s happening, it’s real, it’s happening. Remove the
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climate change factor from the pollution equation and you have just a half century of environmental achievements and a fear of the unknown by ignorant and gullible and naive climate cowards who tried to scare out children. History will not be kind to you environmental neocons. You doomers just couldn’t get past “the scientists all say” headlines enough to see that it’s not a lie to say it’s real because a future climate crisis is still a prediction. So it can’t be proven or disproved. Have you experienced this climate crisis? It hides out mysteriously in remote and far off regions away from my SUV that caused. So ice melts. How does that prove what caused it? If you say my SUV is causing it, it’s not a lie, it’s just a guess, a prediction and a theory. 24 years of long enough for the voters who are now killing this mass insanity. Pollution is real. We get it. Grow some!
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anonymous
Anand Sep 24 2010 at 9:06 PM
Guys, It is taken mother earth millions of years to convert atmospheric CO2 into fossil fuels through a natural carbon cycle. In our consumption rush, we are ready to exhaust crude oil and gas reserves within another 50 years.. In nett effect, millions of years of a carbon cycle will get depleted in 150 years approx. With coal, it would be millions of years of carbon cycle would get depleted in about 400 years max. We know the physics behind green house gases. CO2 goes straight up, often above
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the cloud formations.. and hence the swings in temperature that we see. I am not asking us to go back and ride horse buggies or live without airconditioning. Push for clean energy - there is promise in renewables. Push for more efficient energy - support investments in more modern gas / steam turbines.. Can't get away from them.. but a 10 to 20% efficiency gain means 10 to 20% less emissions. Push for nuclear ... it is a lot safer than you think. Did'nt we drive those small Honda hatchbacks which gave 45 mpg in the 1980s.. give the SUVs a rest. AND PLANT TREES. If we plant 4 saplings a year, especially in a tropical country, we will reverse one year of emissions from driving a car at an average of 25 gallons of fuel a month.
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anonymous
Meme Mine Sep 24 2010 at 6:29 PM
Climate Change Psychology Part Two of Two Too funny! So instead of educating themselves, they just pointed to links to sustain their preconceived psychotic opinion. And the funniest part is, none of them EVER experienced the crisis that the consultants in lab coats said was happening. Despite a clear blue sky and the usual bad weather and almost half a century after defeating the smoggy 70’s, the believers held on to the links and headlines and then sank to the dreaded “belief” in the scientists.
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They surrendered themselves intellectually like goose stepping Greenzis. Note: Scientists polluted the planet with their evil chemicals in the first place I thought. Note: Rachel Carson’s goal was to have combustion produce only water vapor and “homeless CO2”. Note: Saying climate change is real is not a lie because how can you lie about something that can’t be proven, experienced and disproved? If climate change WAS happening, we would be discussing it, not debating it’s very existence after 24 years of failed predictions. Looking out the window and saying where’s the crisis is not narrow-minded it’s intelligent and 24 years of promising a CO2 death to my kids and grandkids wasn’t sustainable.
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anonymous
Meme Mine Sep 24 2010 at 6:28 PM
Climate Change Psychology Part One of Two The remaining believers are psychotic and as they project the emptiness in their lives and a lack of real meaning in their lives to an entire populace., instead of annoying just their workmates and classmates. It made them feel worthy of something and able to believe in trust again. God bless the “scientists”. Bring it up at lunch next time and tell everyone that you are a global warming climate change believer that predicts crisis for the planet’s
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climate. See how many smirks and backs of heads you can count. Try and get a conversation going. And believers were dishonest as they abused that open sewer of untreated information, yes, the Internet. The believers abused the Net by legitimizing with links instead of finding out why the crisis hides up in mountains, on that sinking tropical island somewhere and at distant poles,. Of course the crisis was nowhere near the human believers who caused their little crisis fantasy in the first place. Note: the world DID and DOES still laugh at calling bad weather our fault now after billions of years.
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anonymous
Brakenstrarker Oct 12 2010 at 8:33 AM

1 thing: MELTING ICE.

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anonymous
Rajan Alexander Sep 24 2010 at 11:20 AM
Global warming hysteria, whose gravy train INGOs and environmental organizations jumped into for the last decade or so, has run its course. Climate alarmism is dying a slow and painful death. Here are some telltale signs that it is in its deathbed, grasping for its last breath: 1. Re-branding exercises We live in this age of advertisement where if something isn't working, the first remedy is often to change the offending name. Repeated attempts to re-brand global warming are one of these. Global
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warming first metamorphosed as “climate change”. This worked for some years but such was the gross misuse and abuse of the term that the public soon developed allergic to this term too and thus the desperate search for an alternative term in the last few months. Some alternatives recently floated are “climate weirdness” and “climate disruption “, the last coined by President Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren. Read more: http://devconsultancygroup.blogspot.com/2010/09/for-climate-justice-acti...
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