This week we’ll be heading a little more to the theory side, with one exception: BP oil spill top-kill.  You’d almost have to live in a hole in a ground to have missed this, but be sure to keep an eye and an ear out for more status updates today.

So Now To The Theory

This great article explores the relationship between globalization and sustainability in terms of environmental carrying capacity.  This makes sense – it’s what competitive advantage is all about.  But I don’t remember Adam Smith mentioning the ecological ramifications.

The Powerful Vagueness of Sustainability discusses sustainability as a systemic process guided by our best science, instead of as a scientific absolute.  Another advantage of a deliberate “vagueness” or openness about the details is that it encourages creativity.  However, I would argue that this creativity must be guided by strong and clear principles if it is to result in effective and meaningful solutions.

The New York Times Freakonomics blog covered an article in Rolling Stone (if anyone has a link to the original article, let me know?) about how corporate buyers are purchasing farmland to capitalize on food shortages and other potential effects of climate change.  Fascinating, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it.

Finally, Racialicious gives us an insightful discussion of racial considerations in the sustainable food movement.  In my opinion, this is a must read and a must think about.  Also, I’m a huge fan of the gummy bears.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Fortunately, I’m pretty good about backing up my computer on a regular basis.  Even if it was a hard drive failure and I can’t rescue any of my data, I didn’t lose too much.  When your biggest complaint is that you lost a blog post… that’s a pretty undramatic computer failure.  What I’m saying is back up your computers.  Go do it right now.

Instead of rewriting what would have been today’s post, I’m sitting on hold with tech support.  So in the meantime, I thought I would share with you the Bill Gates’ TED talk about carbon neutrality that I posted about last week.  Like most TED talks, it is definitely worth taking the time to watch all the way through.

(If you are having trouble viewing the video in RSS or e-mail, click here to watch.)

Happy Wednesday to all of you, and come back Friday for The Transition Handbook giveaway.  (Unless this computer dies too, in which case I’ll be forsaking technology and going off grid to live in a treehouse.)

According to the Transition approach, the most important step to building community resilience is relocalization.

localize: 1. To make local. 2. To confine or restrict to a locality.

re: 1. Again: rebuild. 2. Back: react. 3. Used as an intensive: refine.

Relocalization is the reverse of globalization.  Rather than having goods produced across the country or even across the world and transporting them into your community, relocalization calls for increased production of local goods.  Communities where goods are produced locally or regionally are more resilient to fluctuations in oil prices as well as disruptions in the wider economic system.  It doesn’t matter if gas is $10/gallon if you dinner is coming from your backyard or just down the street, or at least it won’t hit you nearly so hard.

One of the primary areas addressed by Transition is food production, which is understandable.  Life goes on without new video games.  It doesn’t go so well without food.  Food production hits us where it hurts.  Proposed steps include the development of community and residential gardens, local markets, and replacing ornamental landscaping with edible foliage, or plants that can be used for textile production or construction.  In addition to food, The Transition Handbook mentions other important aims of localization such as energy systems, transportation, and medication and textile production.

Why Peak Oil Solutions Aren’t Climate Change Solutions

The Transition approach to relocalization clearly demonstrates how a peak oil response is not necessarily a climate change response.  For instance, they include a photo of a residential firewood pile.  The caption suggests that resilience can be measured in part by how much seasoned firewood is available in a community.  And yes, a good supply of firewood is a local, resilient solution for home heating in the face of an oil shock.  But from a climate change perspective, billions of people heating their homes with wood is not a solution if it is not paired with carefully designed and sustainably managed forestry programs.

Similarly, in the process of relocalizing the food system, climate change requires us to preserve existing forests, and not reallocate forests, wetlands, or other natural carbon sinks to food production.  Transition proposes that land currently being used for car-related infrastructure such as parking lots be repurposed to strengthen the local foodshed.  However, we have to remember that relocalization by itself doesn’t automatically address climate change.  If relocalization is to address climate change, it must do so through deliberate systemic design.

Local Currency

To be honest, this is where Transition kind of lost me.  But it is an important step in their plan and, as such, deserves mention.

Transition proposes the creation of a local currency that can only be used in the community.  This new currency has a fixed exchange rate with the national currency and can be used just like standard money at participating vendors.

I can certainly understand the goal of keeping money within the community.  According to a principle called the local multiplier, a dollar spent within the community generates $5-14 for the community.  Anywhere from $0.60 to $0.80 of every dollar spent at a big box store leaves the community immediately.  Who cares?  Schools, fire departments, and any civic services that are funded through local tax dollars care.  It will also affect the local unemployment rate and general community wellbeing.  Creating a local currency keeps money within the community.  One of the interesting (read: geeky) parts of the local currency plan is that each bill is tracked to see how many times and where it was spent.  I’m sure the results would be fascinating and informative.

One of the reasons I struggle with the currency part of the Transition plan is that I don’t buy that we need to completely disengage from the global economic system (although here’s a compelling argument that we do).  Certainly moving towards completely self-sufficient local and regional economies is one solution.  But I don’t think it’s the only one, and possibly not even a preferable one.  There are some advantages to ‘competitive advantage.’ And this is probably a cultural bias, but local currencies seem confrontational to me; a strategy not likely to foster cooperation on a global scale.  And I think we really do need cooperation (or at least international development of best practices) at a global level.

Local in a Post-Oil World

Most importantly, Transition’s concept of relocalization is based on “powering down” – designing for a post-oil world.  Bringing everything closer to home means less oil consumed in transportation costs, certainly.  But Transition also looks at building local solutions that do not require oil.  Privately owned generators for electricity are a local solution.  Residential solar would be a local, post-oil, and therefore resilient solution.  To apply a “Transition lens” to localization, it can’t just be local, it also has to be post-oil.

So… that was a lot.  What do you guys think?  Is local a solution to resilience?  Is local a solution to climate change?  Does it have to be local?  Is relocalization the solution or only part of the solution?  Other thoughts?

Also, because Transition is so much fun, I’ll be giving away my very lightly used copy of The Transition Handbook.  Not sure what day yet, so be sure to check back .

Related Posts:

• Transition: Resilience
• Transition: An Introduction
• Hyperlocavore Book Club: The Transition

But I didn’t miss something big that happened at last week’s TED Conference, where Bill Gates stood up and argued that climate change is the biggest issue we face today.  And, more importantly, that the only target which is acceptable for success is zero emissions by 2050.  That’s right.  ZERO.

Worldchanging’s Alex Steffen (who was at TED *envy*) argues that this was the most important climate change speech of the year. Steffen goes on to discuss the Gates Climate Equation – CO2 = P+S+E+C – what it means, and how he would modify it.  Worldchanging has since published a counterargument by Joe Romm (he runs ClimateProgress.org – we love them).  Both analyses are incredibly insightful, and I didn’t find them to be necessarily contradictory.  Romm argues that we need to focus on accelerating the deployment of existing clean energy technologies, not on research and development of new technologies.  Steffen argues that the merit of the speech is in the vision, but also criticizes Gates’ articulation of the equation and the way forward.

Not having seen or heard the TED speech, my biggest complaint is about the sound bite we’re hearing: Gates’ quote, “We need energy miracles.” What is either omitted from most articles or buried below the fold is that Gates went on to say that energy miracles would be a result of massive investment in alternative energy research and development.  In other words, we need miracles that can only be a result of tremendous effort.  That second part is what he was really calling for, not the miracles – the hard work.  (According to Gates, similar ‘miracles’ include the microprocessor and the internet.)

What needs to be reported much more broadly (in my opinion as the primary headline) is that Gates drew the connection between the work that his Foundation does now – fighting poverty and disease – and climate change.  Gates recognizes that if we don’t figure out climate change, the challenges presented by poverty and famine will be insurmountable.  He knows it, and he stood up and said it in front of everyone.

So yes, I do think that Bill Gates gets climate change.  And while I don’t agree with everything he said – such as his inclusion of nuclear energy in his proposed clean energy portfolio – I do love that he is now in the game.  Because whatever you may think of him, it’s hard to argue with the fact that he’s a game changer.  Gates has tremendous public and financial clout, and a very different and much wider audience than most of the people currently working to address climate change.  So when he stands up and declares that climate change is the key issue and redefines the metric for success in such a dramatic way, it is a really big deal.  It will be interesting to see who was listening.

If sustainability was the buzzword for 2009, resilience is it for 2010.  That was my thought at the beginning of the year, and I was excited to hear that other people were thinking it too. (It’s always nice to have outside confirmation that you’re not just babbling gibberish.  Or at least if you are, you’re not doing it alone.)

Part of the reason the Transition Initiative focuses on resilience is the peak oil PLUS climate change equation.  On the climate change side, you may hear some discussion about resilience, but they probably don’t call it that.  They are probably calling it “adaptation,” and it’s probably used in discussions about how developing countries and particularly “at risk” communities are going to survive the impacts of climate change.  They are also most likely discussing it in terms of how many billions of dollars successful adaptation will require.

The peak oil types talk a lot about resilience, but frequently omit societal and global solutions to climate change.  As I mentioned in Transition: An Introduction, not all responses to peak oil address climate change.  However, most of the responses to peak oil are fundamentally about building resilience.

What Is Resilience?

resilient: adj. 1. Marked by the ability to recover readily, as from misfortune. 2. Capable of returning to an original shape or position, as after having been compressed.

The first definition is most relevant to discussions of community in terms of peak oil, climate change, and transition.  (Although I am intrigued by the connotations of the second definition as it pertains to civic planning – developing the “shape” of communities in a way that fosters sustainability and resilience.)  Resilient communities are able to withstand and recover from shocks to “the system.”  “The system” can be the food system, the energy system, the distribution system for basic consumer necessities, or pretty much any other system you can think of.  Resilience is also measured by a community’s capacity to respond and adapt to rapid change.

Shocks can take many different forms.  From oil shocks to natural disasters to health crises to terrorist attacks, resilient communities will be more effective at responding to and recovering from these events.

Why Do We Care?

“Civilization is only three meals deep.”

“We are always nine meals away from anarchy.”

Whichever way you say it, the idea is the same.

The Transition Initiative addresses resilience on all levels, but particularly compelling are their arguments about food security.  Food crises hit us where it hurts.  Cold snaps, trucking strikes and rising staple crop prices are present-day examples – we’re talking within the last couple years! – of how fragile our food system is.  Highly centralized (a very small number of large companies dominate grocery store retail), but spread over a great distance (the average meal in the US travels 1500 miles to reach your plate), it takes very little to jeopardize our food security.

The Transition Initiative is based on the idea that these kind of changes could happen more quickly than our systems can adapt to them.  If oil prices spike, making food significantly more expensive to transport, we may not have the decades needed to establish alternate shipping methods or the technological advances to fuel trucks with something other than oil.

Have you ever been to a store at the beginning of a blizzard?  Remember the empty shelves?  If all the trucks stopped running tomorrow, where would you get your food?  What about clothing and other basic necessities?  How would you heat your house?  How expensive would oil have to get before you could not afford to drive to work, or have to choose between putting gas in your car and buying increasingly expensive and scarce food?  Transition proposes that the answer to these concerns is the development of resilient communities.

So what do you think?  Is resilience an important consideration in the face of volatile systems?

More on Transition:

• The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins
• Transition Towns Wiki

Related Posts:

• Transition: An Introduction
• Hyperlocavore Book Club: The Transition Town Handbook

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamsjung/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

An interesting phenomenon of the human mind is that the better we understand something, the worse we get at explaining it.  We also become less capable of understanding that others do not share our knowledge.  Lately I’ve found myself mentioning Transition Initiative concepts, only to be met by the blank stares of my family and friends.  Oops!  I guess Transition sunk in more than I realized – the Curse of Knowledge in action.  In a deliberate attempt to counteract the Curse of Knowledge, I’ve decided to do a short series of posts on the basics of the Transition Initiative, as well as some of the continuing dialogue about Transition and how it fits with other visions of a sustainable future.

What Is Transition?

The Transition Initiative is an organized response to the dual threats of climate change and peak oil.  It is important to distinguish between the two issues and their associated solutions, because many of the solutions proposed for climate change would not address the issue of peak oil, and vice versa.  Transition is designed to confront both problems simultaneously, and argues that they must be addressed in tandem if we are to move confidently into the future.

What Is Peak Oil?

By now most of us are familiar with the concept of climate change, and even the term “anthropogenic global warming,” or the understanding that human action is responsible for the changing climate.  But only occasionally do you hear mention of peak oil in discussions of climate change policy or activism.  This is a little surprising, as the two issues are fundamentally connected.

Peak oil refers to the moment when global oil production is at its maximum.  From that point forward, we will be able to extract decreasing amounts of oil at an increasing cost.  This cost can be financial, technological, or environmental.  The costs begin to climb, quickly and (theoretically) irreversibly.  Some experts believe that we have already reached peak oil, and are now accelerating on the downhill slope, slowed only by inaccurate inflation of stated oil reserves and natural short term market fluctuations.  In other words, the people with the oil know we don’t have enough, but are lying both to keep things stable and present a strong front internationally, and markets have little up and down blips while they generally trend in whatever direction they’re headed.

Why Transition?

As I mentioned, the Transition Initiative approach was created to address climate change and peak oil together.  Hopkins argues that not only does addressing the two issues separately generate ineffective solutions, but that they actually may be more compelling motivators when addressed together.  Climate change asks us to change.  Peak oil forces us to change.

A Transition Initiative is designed to address the future through a localized message of community empowerment.  The goal is for communities to work together to develop in such a way that they will be resilient to future economic contraction and/or crisis.  This resilience is created through relocalisation, reskilling, regenerative efforts and a few other “re’s,” which I’ll babble about in more depth over the next several weeks.

In the mean time, what do you think?  Should we be worried about peak oil now?  Are climate change and peak oil more effectively addressed separately or together?

More on Transition:

• The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins
• In Transition 1.0 (video)
• Transition Towns Wiki
• Transition United States

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecolabs/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

… even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy…

The call to action was admirable.

Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy.  Germany is not waiting.  India is not waiting.  These nations — they’re not standing still.  These nations aren’t playing for second place.  They’re putting more emphasis on math and science.  They’re rebuilding their infrastructure.  They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.  Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.

But then the details, oh…the details were horribly wrong.

And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.

And the call for the climate change legislation was woefully insufficient (and vague).

And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

As were the limited emissions targets announced this morning: 28% by 2020 from a 2008 baseline.

It’s been a turbulent year for me, and there are many things I miss about living in Washington DC.  The State of the Union address helped with that.  President Obama gave us a clear picture of what clean isn’t.  But this is a chance for cities around the world to become an example of what clean is.  Wherever you live, now would be a good time to engage locally.  Help build a brighter, truly competitive, honestly sustainable and clean future for your community, for your city.  Because it looks like it’s up to us.

Here it is – dinner: (I promise there’s a reason for the detailed breakdown that follows.)

Plate Contents

Organic salad:

• Mixed greens
• Carrots
• Celery
• Snap peas
• Annie’s Goddess dressing (this stuff is so good!)

Homemade chili from the freezer:

• Ground beef (don’t remember the source on this – it was purchased a long time ago.  possibly ammonia beef – I’m trying not to think about that.)
• Canned tomatoes (probably organic)
• Green peppers (always organic because they’re on the worst veggies list)
• Onion (local and organic from the co-op)
• Beans (mixed bag, maybe organic?, cooked with half water and half homemade chicken stock)
• Spices

The portions fulfill my primary meal criteria of the last several years: less meat.  As you may or may not have heard, one of the most powerful changes an individual can make in their own lives to fight climate change is to eat less meat.  Conveniently, eating less meat is also good for your health and your wallet.  So the fact that my salad is huge and my bowl of chili is tiny gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Especially considering that I bought and prepared the chili for someone else, so this is really someone else’s leftover chili.  It’s not quite “free meat,” but it’s pretty close.  (Like how my head just rationalizes that away?)

Happy about the meat, I examined the veggies and stopped short.  Well shoot.  None of these things are in season here (I don’t think?).  None of these things are local.  They’re all organic, but industrial organic is its own animal these days.  Suddenly my dinner looked crummy to my consciously directed eye, because local and in season are also goals of mine.  I’m not leaping into being a locavore, but I’m moving towards it gradually and in an overly researched fashion.  Hopefully by the time the hubby gets home I’ll have the local thing figured out in a way that will make sense for both of us.

The thing is, I’ve read a lot about vegetarian and vegan diets.  And I’ve read a lot about locavore diets.  But I haven’t come across… well, anything at all about the two combined.

So here are my three new food questions as of last night:

• Is it feasible to eat both a locally sourced and a vegetarian or vegan diet, particularly in climates where there is a definite winter?
• If you are eating locally, is it even necessary from an emissions standpoint to eat a vegetarian diet?  Is it the nature of meat or is it CAFOs that make eating meat so bad for the planet?
• How does it balance out?  Non-local vegetarian or veganism versus locavore meat-eater?  (I am asking in terms of emissions only.  Clearly other issues such as community resilience and ethical treatment of animals factor into the overall equation.)

Anyone out there know the answers?

1. American citizens have an abiding faith in technology, more so than any other country in the world.
2. Americans don’t believe in climate change.

Individually, each of these facts is unremarkable.  But together, they pose an interesting question about how we handle science in our society.  I have been musing about some of the possible explanations for this apparent contradiction.

Perhaps it is that we don’t understand science, so we are skeptical.  Of course, we don’t understand the science behind how our television works either (at least I don’t), but we know that it turns on when we press the power button.  Most of the time.  So even if we don’t understand it, we have faith that it’s going to work when we need it to.

Or, as I hear echoed time and again, could there really be two Americas?  The first America has faith in technology, believes in climate change, and theoretically hopes that we will be able to build a bright green future thanks to technological innovation.  And the second America doesn’t believe in climate change, evolution, stem cell research or any other science?

I don’t buy it.  I don’t buy it because it doesn’t work.  You cannot lump the vast range of views about science and technology into two simplistic groups.

After all, climate deniers still use computers and drive cars.  They still go to the doctor, take prescription medications, get flu shots, and treat their cancer with chemotherapy.  This is all science.  This is all technology.  And they believe in it.  They have faith in it.  They trust the science, scientists, and engineers behind all of these things.  Likewise, many people who understand the science behind climate change do not believe there is a technological solution to the problem.  Some even advocate a large-scale re-adoption of older methods of production and distribution that are not dependent on current technological developments, much less future advances.

But the question is, if not through a theory of two Americas, how can we describe the apparent contradiction between these two statistics?  Because it does seem that there should be some connection between the two.  And it is fascinating that on both sides of the aisle, there seems to be among non-scientists (laymen, really) an inclination to pick and choose which science we are going to believe in and which we will blatantly disregard or actively deny.

Struck speechless just in time for Wordless Wednesday.

These symptoms are almost identical to caregiver’s syndrome. The Psychologists for Social Responsibility did not list exhaustion (which is a primary symptom of caregiver’s syndrome), but I wouldn’t hesitate to wager that activists and concerned citizens around the world are there already.

And it’s not just climate change.  Sustainability activists of all kinds are living this reality on a daily basis.

Therefore, it’s becoming increasingly important to realize that sustainability isn’t just about the outside.  The outside matters, but you count too.  Because you won’t be able to help anyone if you succumb to global caregiver’s syndrome.

Here are five quick and easy ways I’ve found to boost my energy and my spirits when life is getting to be too much.

1.  Turn Off The News

“But I need to stay informed!” you protest.  You are sufficiently informed.  You’re so informed it’s making you feel like crap.  Turn off your TV.  Shut down your computer.  If you must rationalize it, tell yourself that your news-free time conserves energy.  Just turn it all off!

2.  Go Outside

Did you know that vitamin D deficiencies are commonly associated with depression and anxiety?  Our bodies synthesize vitamin D from sunlight.  Go outside and get some.  And while you’re out there, take a breath of fresh air.*  You might as well take advantage of that while we still have it.

*”Fresh” may vary based on your geographical location.

3. Cut Yourself Some Slack

Remember that you can’t do it all.  We live on a huge planet with over 6 billion other people.  We are facing the greatest innovative challenge in human history.  You cannot do it alone (and you will not have to).  The world doesn’t gain anything when you beat yourself up for being one person.  In fact, it stands a lot to lose if you pummel yourself into a state of guilt-ridden apathy.  So give yourself a damn break.

4. Give Yourself Some Credit

I know that some days, the little stuff you do doesn’t seem like it makes any difference.  One person couldn’t possibly matter all that much.  And isn’t incrementalism just an excuse to make ourselves feel better about our excessive lifestyles?

Stop it.  Give yourself a little credit.  Making lifestyle choices that reflect your values does count for something, and directing your consumer purchasing power towards greener alternatives is a necessary first step.  If everyone in the U.S. were to take those same little steps, we would reduce our overall emissions by 8.5% – that is no small reduction.  Remember that we are all connected, and little ripples can turn into big waves.  Give yourself credit for moving in the right direction.  We can’t take giant leaps forward if we’re all facing backwards.

5.  Talk To Hopeful People

Cynics are a dime a dozen.  At least 75% of the people I talk to on a daily basis think that it can’t be done.  “It” ranges across the board – getting out of debt, getting good grades, finding a job, dealing with major global issues.  Stay away from those cranky people!  Don’t hang out with downers.  Take a break from the consistently negative people in your life.  And then go find people who share your convictions AND believe that something can be done. (Fellow sustainability nerds can find a bunch of positive people hanging out at Worldchanging.)

The problems that we face are complex.  There will not be any easy answers.  We are embarking on a marathon of activism, engagement, and change.  You have something unique and valuable to bring to the table, and we’re gonna need you for the long haul.  You won’t be able to play your part unless you first take care of yourself.

What are some tricks that you’ve developed to prevent global caretaker’s syndrome?  What helps you keep going?

To anyone who has been paying close attention to the climate change discussions, this announcement is not surprising.  It has been clear for quite some time that the Copenhagen conference would most likely not result in a comprehensive climate agreement.  In fact, it would have taken a political miracle.

Then What Does It Mean?

First, this announcement will most likely change the tone, and possibly the quantity, of mainstream media coverage of the Copenhagen conference.  Without the drama-factor of a binding agreement, Copenhagen could become just another blip in the pre-holiday blur of consumerism and gingerbread flavored lattes.

Second, it was already uncertain if President Obama would be attending the Copenhagen summit.  Obama stated that he would travel to Copenhagen if countries were “on the brink of a meaningful agreement.”  For those in the know (see above), this meant he was unlikely to attend.  And now?  It is even more unlikely.  This is extremely unfortunate, as his presence in Copenhagen would have gone a long way towards signaling (both at home and abroad) that the U.S. stands ready to move forward on this crucial issue.  Obama’s attendance would be meaningful.

So, What Now?

Now, we keep moving forward.  We keep drawing attention to the climate change issue in whatever way possible.  Leave comments and write letters to the editor when you see mainstream media covering this issue constructively.  Don’t stop talking about Copenhagen with each other.  In fact, talk about Copenhagen even more.

And contact the White House.  If you’re tired of hearing that (I know I am), too bad.  Do it anyways.  Tell the Administration that climate change is a priority and must be treated accordingly.  Impress upon them that President Obama’s presence at the Copenhagen summit is vitally important to our future, environmentally and economically.

And finally, don’t give up hope.  Yes, this is bad news.  But it is bad news that we expected to hear.  So brace yourselves and keep moving forward.  21 days to go.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/ / CC BY 2.0

Yesterday, I was struck when the preview came on my TV and I heard Danny Glover’s voice ring out through my living room:

“Today, we are one family.”

I stopped short.

It struck me because I don’t need a global apocalypse to recognize that all the people on this planet are one family.

The thing about climate change is that I will be okay, at least at first.  The weather may change, my food may get more expensive.  But I am extremely privileged; I will not go hungry and I will not lose my home.  In fact, most of us in developed countries will be able to adapt to the initial effects of our changing climate.

The thing about climate change is that it is people in the developing world who will be hit the hardest.  Those who are already the poorest.  Those who already struggle in ways that most of us cannot begin to imagine.  We will turn up our air conditioning as they begin to starve.  We will be inconvenienced.  They will become climate refugees.

The thing about climate change is that it is our mess.  The development and consumption of the “global north” are the reason that atmospheric CO2 levels are heading steadily upward from 387ppm.  And they are going to spiral upward yet, as we continue to consume and as people in developing countries strive to raise their own standard of living.

Climate change is our problem.  But they will be the first to pay the price.

I think it is here that “us” and “them” must end.  Because if they are my family, then I can no longer rationalize myself away from them.  And it becomes unacceptable to ask them to pay with their lives for my privilege.

Yesterday, as I sat on my couch and heard those five words, I felt hungry.  I was hungry because I was taking my turn fasting in support of the Climate Justice Fast hunger strike.  During my two-day fast, I learned a little bit about hunger.

I began to understand that we don’t grok hunger.  We may talk about hunger, say we are hungry, but very few of us ever go a day without food.  Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for us to discuss the potential human costs of climate change.  Because it’s not going to be “us.”  It’s going to be “them.”

Even a two-day fast doesn’t begin to resemble the kind of hunger that millions of people face every day.  Climate change is going to make that so much worse.  And hunger will be just one of the human costs of this environmental disaster.

The opportunity is ours.  I think that it’s time for us to be one family.  And it’s time for us to seize this moment, because our family is already paying the price for our choices.

It was in this state of internal equilibrium that I heard about Climate Justice Fast and the hunger strike undertaken by hundreds of people around the world in the days before the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen.  On November 6th, the Climate Justice Fasters began a hunger strike that is scheduled to last through at least the end of the Copenhagen Summit on December 18th.

The Climate Justice Fasters have been labeled by some as extremists.  I can say honestly that I understand this point of view.  I would not classify myself as an extremist.  I am a researcher and a questioner.  I am, at heart, a bit of a skeptic.  If anything, I am too cautious in making assertions about what I believe, and I probably think for far too long before I act.  But I also perceive that the we live in extreme times and are confronted by extreme circumstances.  Given our current reality, I often feel that my moderate, measured action falls short.  Which is one of the many reasons that I admire the Climate Justice Fast hunger strikers, and the fact that they are taking action proportionate to the degree of threat that climate change poses to civilization as we know it today.

It is out of this admiration that I am joining a small group of people who will be participating in a rotational solidarity fast for the length of the Climate Change Justice hunger strike.  Each of us will be fasting for a small number of days and will be writing and/or speaking out about climate change during that time.

At the Climate Change Fast press conference in Barcelona on November 6th, a woman from Zambia spoke out.  She said she was touched that people from northern countries would voluntarily go without food to draw attention to this issue.  But where she is from, people are already going without food and even starving because of climate change.  (Press conference video – longish, she speaks at 20:25.)  Climate change is not a future issue.  It is a here issue.  It is a now issue.  Faced with the extreme reality, Climate Justice Fast’s hunger strike ceases to be extremism.

Our little group’s commitment of mini-fasts in solidarity with the Climate Justice Fasters greater action is but one small step in raising global awareness of this issue as Copenhagen approaches.  But it is a step, and a scalable one at that.  The more people who are involved and engaged, the better.  So if you would be interested in joining our group and helping us collectively fast, write and speak-out in support of the Climate Justice Fasters and their mission, please either leave a comment here, or hop on over to the initiatory post on Greenfyre’s blog and let him know you’d like to participate.  He will also be posting updates written by each of us as we take our turn and lend our voices to the cause.

(My first shift is this Thursday and Friday, the 12th and 13th.  I may attempt my first video post.  But only if everyone promises not to make fun of my hair.)

For more information about climate change, check out:

• 19 Simple Ways To Start Thinking About Climate Change
• Climate Change Is Just Like Raising Baby Mice
• Ten Climate Change Terms Everyone Should Know

All in all, it was a good event with a good turn out.  There were two 350.org walks organized in Olympia, and one attendee that I spoke with said there were about the same amount of people at the other walk as well.  (Hopefully not just the same people at both events!)

We were so fortunate to have nice weather for the first time in days.  A beautiful day to be marching!  I was glad to be able to participate in one of the 5,000+ Climate Actions around the world.

And Now, Some Pictures

There was a fish.

A big fish!

And a long, beautiful banner.

We drew on the sidewalk and hung signs to show where we had been, and where the water would be.

We marched with the fish below the capitol building.

And, at the end of the march, we were met by the band. (They were with us throughout the march as well.)  There was music and dancing, a nice time was had by all.

What did you do for International Climate Action Day?

Cryptic?  Maybe.  But it shouldn’t be.  It is time for everyone to know what 350 means.  And that’s what October 24th, the International Day of Climate Action, is all about.

What is 350?

350 is the magic number.  350 is the line we have to get back to – or below – right now!  Enough mystery?  Here’s a nifty video put together by the folks over at 350.org, the brains behind the big day, and the launching point for Climate Actions taking place around the world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For those of you at work or on slow internet connections (I know there’s at least one of you – Hi Mom), 350 is the “safe” level of CO2 in our atmosphere, measured in parts per million (ppm).  At 350 ppm, we will avoid catastrophic, runaway climate change.  Right now we are at 387 ppm.  We need to get back to 350 as quickly as possible.

What You Can Do

For the next few days, we have an addition to this blog.  Oh, look at that in the sidebar!  A neat new widget from 350.org.  All you have to do is enter your zip code to find out about Climate Actions taking place near you.

Pick one.  Go to it.  Talk about it.  Tell your neighbors.  Tell your friends.  Bring your children and explain to them what 350 means.  Talk to them.  Ask them what they think.

And afterward, keep thinking about it.  Write letters to your political leaders.  Keep talking to people.  We only have a couple of months before Copenhagen.  Let’s do everything we can to make the most of it.

(If you are reading this somewhere other than my site, you can go directly to 350.org to look up Climate Actions near you.)

(Oh, and “350 or bust!” is going to be my new – okay, my only – bumper sticker.  Let me know if you want one and I’ll see about getting some printed.)

But as I was skimming through some of the posts, I noticed something.  It’s something I’ve also noticed in almost every article I’ve read about sustainable agriculture.

There’s a big pink elephant in the room, and it’s growing exponentially each year.

Meet My Elephant.  I call him “Population.”

There is much to read about fighting climate change, from the very small (eat less meat, turn off the lights) to the very large (complete overhaul of the transportation and energy infrastructure).  The same goes for sustainable agriculture, where it seems that battle lines are now being drawn between advocates of old techniques and those that trust in new technology.  In many of these debates, the elephant is mentioned offhand.

feed a population of 10 billion people…

mitigate increasing carbon emissions – rapid development, rapidly growing populations…

The wording changes, but underneath all these conversations is the knowledge that  in the future, we will have to address the same problems we have now, but for many more people.

I’m not advocating government population control policy or saying that everyone should stop having children immediately.  But I do wonder why we’re not talking about this more.  Especially when there is one easy and affordable thing we can do that will make a dramatic difference.

Educate Girls

If we want to reduce our population growth, the easiest thing we can do is educate girls.  This means that if we want to fight climate change, if we want to reduce poverty, if we want to be able to feed our population more effectively – we need to educate girls.

I’m not really sure why we can’t seem to talk about the elephant in the room.  (Do any of you know?)  But it seems like even if we can’t talk about the problem, we should at least be able to start talking about one of the solutions.

Superman said that he would really like to take advantage of some of the available tax incentives for alternative energy construction.  He then mumbled something about being able to afford more squeaky toys.

Shoxy was still a little hung over from partying too hard last night.  But she did agree with her brother that conserving energy can make a big difference.

Unfortunately, neither of them had any answers on how we are going to solve the problem of climate change once and for all.  It is a complicated issue, and by the time I had gotten this much out of them, they were on to more important things (mind-controlling the refrigerator door and saving the world from backyard squirrels).

The truth is that my dogs are going to be gone long before we see any cataclysmic effects of climate change.  In fact, they probably won’t be impacted by climate change in any measurable way.

But my mother will likely be around long enough to see the beginning.  Barring unexpected tragedy, I most certainly will be.  And my children, if I have them, will see the full consequences of the action – or inaction – that we take today.  Climate change is not an issue where we can afford to adopt short-term policies.  It is absolutely imperative that we educate ourselves and make long-term decisions based on the big picture.  If we don’t get climate change right, nothing else is going to matter.

But the dogs are right – climate change is a complicated issue.  And part of the problem we have is that people don’t understand it.  In a way, simple information is needed to start thinking about complicated decisions.  Because, believe it or not, you can start thinking about climate change and climate change policy without being a scientific or political expert.

To that end, I have compiled a list of resources – some simple, some not – to help anyone who wants to start learning and thinking about climate change.  And, even better, I’ve assigned them all a difficulty level.  Because no one likes being given the molecular structure of mercury when you were just trying to figure out if it was cold enough to need a coat.

1 = EASIEST  5 = HARDEST

Background Resources

(1) 10 Climate Change Terms Everyone Should Know – My glossary, helpful to understanding anything else you read about climate change.

(1) The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See – The best thing on climate change I’ve ever seen.  Especially good viewing for those of you who don’t believe in climate change.  Not a video of polar bears on melting icebergs.  However, there are smiley faces.

(2) Pew Center Global Warming Facts and Figures – Some nice scientific and statistical basics.

(3) Pew Center Climate Change 101 – This is an incredibly thorough intermediate collection of resources.  Part of what makes it a 3 in my book is that the complete document is fairly long.  This is not a bite-sized overview of climate change.  However, they have broken it down into useful sections.

(5) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports – Much of the core scientific data on everything to do with climate change.

U.S. Legislation

American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454)

(1-3) Wikipedia on ACES – Useful shorter summary of the legislation, congressional process, and public debate.  Includes tables that break down required emissions reductions.

(4) Summary – I’ll admit it.  This is the one that I read.

(5) Full Text – You’re ambitious, I tell you, ambitious.  Very impressed.

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

(1-4) A variety of Summaries - In a variety of sizes to suit your fancy.

(5) But for those brave souls interested in working their way through all 821 pages, here is the full text of the bill.

Copenhagen, December 2009

(1-3) UN Climate Change Conference Homepage (Denmark) – A great collection of event info, up to date news, and blogs.

(2) Copen-Bloggin’ – The ever informative folks over at Mother Jones provide consistently good coverage of climate change issues.  I have been particularly enjoying the Copen-Bloggin’ posts as December closes in (look for “Copen-Bloggin” in front of the post title).

(2-4) UNFCC General Page – Some general info, press releases, etc.

(5) UNFCC COP15 Info Page – Current draft proposals going into COP15. 

Twitter Tags

I didn’t give the Twitter hashtags a difficulty rating.  You never know what you’re going to get with Twitter, but if you want to indulge in a few different discussions about climate change, this can be a good place to start.

#BAD09 – Blog Action Day ’09 official twitter hashtag.  10,000+ bloggers around the world talking about climate change today.
#aces – Relating to the American Clean Energy and Security Act tag.  Still often used to discuss climate change legislation by some people (like me) who have fallen behind and don’t know about the next hashtag.
#CEJAPA – Relating to the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.
#climatebill – Yet another one. (The one thing that bugs me about Twitter hashtags is the lack of consolidation. With only 140 characters, you’d think we could agree to use just one.)
#climate – Any and all tweets related to climate change more generally.

And finally – next week, on October 24th, is the International Day of Climate Action.  This doesn’t have a difficulty level.  Anyone can participate and everyone needs to.  Because climate change really matters.  To all of us.  So please go to the website, sign up, and get involved.  It’s just one day, but one day can make a big difference.

Tomorrow, October 15th, is Change.org‘s Blog Action Day ’09.  This year, climate change is the issue at hand.  Over 6,500 bloggers have committed to devote tomorrow’s post to climate change.  They’re not all environmental and political bloggers either.  Parenting bloggers, financial bloggers, hobby bloggers, professional bloggers — this is an international movement to raise the level of awareness and education about an issue that affects each and every one of us.

So if you’re a blogger, hop on over to Blog Action Day ’09 and join the cause, just for a day.  If you’re a non-blogger, keep your ears and eyes open tomorrow for climate change conversations all over the world.  And be sure to stop back here to find out what my greyhounds have to say about climate change.

(I assure you, it’s going to be very deep and profound.)

The idea is that if a whole bunch of people get together, they can make a big difference, even if it’s just one day a week.

But can one day a week really change the world?

Big v. Small

There seem to be two main schools of thoughts on sustainability, green development, environmental activism, and the whole “eco scene.”  It is a battle of big change versus small change.  Will change happen on a global scale because of macro-level changes, such as the development of a global climate change agreement?  Or will it happen because of a near infinite number of micro-changes: a grassroots swelling of people abandoning their cars for other modes of transportation, eating less meat, installing solar panels on their houses, changing their light bulbs, and encouraging green companies with their investment and consumer dollars?

My guess is that real, lasting change is going to involve a combination of both big and small.  But #EcoMonday is important because, on a personal level, little changes happen one day at a time.

What Can You Do?

I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time worrying about not doing enough.  The world has some pretty big problems right now, and in the face of that, I feel fairly insignificant.  And there is a lot of pressure in environmental circles to do everything you possibly can to make a difference, right now, all at once.  Abandon your car!  Get your house off the grid!  Eat only organic food!  Eat only local food!  Eat only free-range, hormone free meat!  Eat no meat at all!

There is a level of desperation to this – notice all the exclamation points – a feeling of all or nothing.

Fact: Most Of Us Can’t Do It All

Going cold-turkey may work for some people.  But from diet to personal finance to exercise to kicking an addiction – anything that requires us to change our habits – the consensus seems to be that gradual change is more sustainable.  Crash diets never work.  You just end up crashing off the wagon.  Enacting a spending freeze often results in an even bigger shopping spree when your willpower gives out.  And how many times have you resolved to work out seven days a week only to find yourself back sitting on your butt in front of the TV?

Massive change is hard.  Small changes are easier.  When you give up because you’re burnt out, you lose the war because you set yourself up to lose the battle.

Change Doesn’t Exist In A Vacuum

“But it’s not enough!” you say, “One small change can’t be enough.”  Make one anyways.

You’ll find is that awareness is contagious.  It doesn’t just turn off.  If you choose to be aware just one day a week, you’ll start noticing those things the rest of the time.  It will happen – without trying, without worrying, and without adding to your overall stress level.

Maybe you’ll find yourself paying more attention to environmental news, or you’ll reach for the recycled toilet paper instead of the usual brand.  Or you might end up liking some of your new vegetarian dishes so much that you eat them all the time.  If you start paying attention just a little, change will happen without you even realizing it.  And it will be lasting change, because it occurred gradually and sustainably, no burning out needed.

Change Is Contagious

If you are open about it, your small change can affect more than just you.  You ordered a Caesar salad for lunch, but asked for it without the chicken.

“No chicken?” says your coworker.

You explain that you don’t eat meat on Mondays, because it is good for the planet and for your health.  Next week your coworker opts for a salad instead of her usual burger and sends her kids to school with PB&J instead of turkey.

Ideas can go viral in the real world too.

Fact: Lots of Small Changes > One Person Doing It All

The average annual carbon footprint of a North American is 20 tons of CO2.  If one person goes completely off the grid, theoretically their carbon footprint would be very close to zero.

On average, one meatless day reduces your carbon footprint by 6.6lbs/week.  If just 6,680 people abandon meat for one day, they will have a greater impact than one person going completely off the grid for a year.  In one day.

Now I can understand that 6,680 people may seem like a lot, but in the era of social media and Web 2.0, 6,680 people is a drop in the bucket.  Twitter has over six million users.  Facebook has over 250 million.  6,680 people is nothing.  And giving up meat for one day a week is a pretty small change.

Make Just One Small Change

So get started.  Read a book about the environment or food.  Subscribe to this blog.  Or that one.  Or this other one.  Start learning about things.  Start thinking about things.  And then do it.  Pick a change and do it.  Bike or take the bus to work one day a week.  Give up meat on Mondays.  Go to the farmers market one day a week.

And don’t worry about the fact that it seems small.  Big changes start small.

Photography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lafattina/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 / http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/ / CC BY 2.0

In the meantime, Owen’s gloomy assertion of will power may not be true.  In a similarly gloomy straw poll, Reuters concludes that people are unwilling to make radical lifestyle changes that will help the environment.  However, the poll found that people are more likely to make fundamental life changes for altruistic reasons than they are for financial reasons.

So how does that work?  People are willing to make little changes, such as recycling, for altruistic reasons.  Other small changes, like using compact flourescent lightbulbs, have financial advantages in addition to being environmentally beneficial.  But few people are going to become vegetarians because it will save them money, even though it will.  It takes a greater calling to stop eating meat or give up your vehicle.

This means that Owen’s assertion may be incorrect and fundamentally changes the discussion on incentivizing global change from the ground up.  While financial incentive programs may be sufficient to motivate incremental change, they will not be enough to bring change on the level required to avoid disastrous levels of environmental decline.  Fundamental change on a global scale will be the sum of individuals changing their lives for the greater good.

At the heart of this equation lie education and mechanisms.  People need to be educated on the issues at hand.  And once they are convinced, the mechanisms for action must be clear.  As mentioned today on TreeHugger regarding a new iPhone application that helps buyers choose organic produce, no one wants to “read through a scientific article at each produce bin.”  Global interrelation is all shades of gray, but we must begin to break down information on sustainability into bite size chunks, or the battle for the masses will be lost.

We also must fundamentally reevaluate our understanding of motivation, because some changes can’t be bought.  Some changes happen because you believe in them.

In Living Sustainably in the City, we heard about the importance of cultivating personal sustainability… personally.  Each of us is different and our solutions will be as unique as we are.  And that’s okay – in fact, it’s a good thing.  Who wants to live in a world where everyone is just like they are?

Michael Renner discussed how social and economic hardship affect environmental choices from the consumer side.  A commenter pulls climate change policy into the discussion as well.

On Monday, I got totally jazzed about this ‘Eco House.’  Wouldn’t it be great if we could head that direction with all new construction?

Then another installment in the debate about the definition of our word of the day:  “Sustainability” As More Than a Political Buzzword (Plus, doesn’t their simulation software look like SimFarm? I loved that game!)

And we had part two of What Are the Barriers to Mass Adoption of Sustainability.  I missed part one back in June, but both are excellent.

Then we had a bunch of news spam regarding the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Annual Review.  Companies moved around.  Moved up.  Moved down.  Press release central.  Greenwash central.

Midweek I fell in love with this baby cow.  Mike Peterson’s story isn’t half bad either.

And finally, we have the will but we lack the skills.  That is, the will to be self-sufficient is held back by a lack of homesteading skills in the UK. I suspect we share that problem here in the U.S.  Except me, because I totally know how to butcher my own cow. (Not really.)

Instead, it is about a baby mouse, which is what I spent my afternoon doing.  Because that’s just how my life goes.  The garden will still be there.

Mice are near and dear to my heart.  In third grade, I found in the school library an amazingly thorough book on the care and feeding of mice.  In the breeding section was a beginning walk-through of Mendelian genetics and coat coloration, which fascinated me in spite of the fact that I barely understood a word of it.  What third grader can resist “heterozygous” and “alleles”?

I was in love.  I prepared a presentation for my parents about why I should be allowed to get a mouse; how I would care for it, how much it would cost and how I planned to pay for it.  They relented, Ned joined the family, and thus began many years of multi-colored mice and chicken scratch Punnetts squares.

So today, when I discovered a baby mouse writhing under a clod of dirt in the compost pile I had just demolished, I did not hesitate to nestle it in my sweatshirt and put it in the car.  I called my mom and asked her to Google whether baby mice need kitten/puppy formula or raw goat milk (the former, or human infant formula).  In the background, my grandfather said, “You can’t keep mumble mumble… diseases!”

Oh yeah.  Diseases.

It’s not that I didn’t know that wild mice have diseases, or that I forgot momentarily that this little creature could be carrying all sorts of ick that I don’t want in my house.  But I hadn’t thought about it, because this decision wasn’t about a mouse and disease.  Like so many things, this was a question of risk.

Baby Mice Are A Risk

You are at risk every day.  When you drive your car, you’re taking a risk.  (Accident -> dying)  Eating at a restaurant, risk. (E-coli -> dying)  Just getting out of bed is a risk. (Falling down -> maybe dying?)  But staying in bed is a risk too!  (Lack of exercise, obesity, dehydration, your skin growing into the fabric of your sheets -> dying!)  There is absolutely nothing you can do to escape the fundamental risks of being alive. (Except dying.)  So a big part of life is determining your personal relationship with risk.

In order to figure out where we stand with risk, we have to weigh and measure the potential reward and the potential cost of inaction.  I drive my car and, most days, I don’t even think about the fact that I am risking death.  Base jumping: not okay for me on the risk meter.  Skydiving: okay, but maybe not once I have kids.  Riding horses: okay.  Rollerblading: not okay – it’s not fun enough to be worth it!

It’s a very personal thing.  For my grandfather, bringing home a potentially diseased baby mouse is not below his risk threshold.  But I am young and healthy.  I have good healthcare.  And if I didn’t bring this mouse home, it was as good as dead.  I brought her home.

Which brings me to one of the most important risk scenarios facing us as a planet: climate change.

Climate Change = Diseased Mice?

If you haven’t seen it already, I beg you to take nine minutes and thirty-three seconds out of your busy life and watch this video.  There are white boards and smiley faces.  It’s good and funny.  And it is vitally important.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Climate change is also a matter of risk.  A matter of measuring the risk of action with the cost of inaction.  Is not taking action on climate change worth the risk?  What does your risk meter say?

For me…

Climate change?  Not okay.  Baby mouse?  Okay.

Unfortunately, at this point, all the opinions are just reduced to a lot of noise. When everyone is standing around in a room yelling at the top of their lungs (healthcare town hall meetings, anyone?), not a lot is said. And while everyone comes away feeling like they’ve said their piece, are you really saying it if no one is listening?

I worry that the debate over some of our most important issues has been reduced to auditoriums, chat rooms, blogs, tweets, status messages and sometimes even dinner tables of yelling. And lately the debate seems particularly fear-based, with little regard for facts, data or logical reasoning. From grandma-killing death squads to climate change legislation hammering the last nail in the coffin of American manufacturing, it’s become a question of who can find the scariest thing and yell it the loudest. And that, perhaps, is the scariest thing.

This noise is something that doesn’t contribute to the actual discussion of the issue. Fear mongering, inaccurate assertions, or rehashing things that are no longer relevant or have already been resolved – these are all noise. Even things that once were meaningful or emotionally compelling can be reduced to noise through redundancy. I am sorry to say it, but I have seen five too many photos of polar bears on melting icebergs this week.

So what are we to do with that. How do we stop the noise? How can we foster a meaningful conversation in the face of all the yelling.

I have no idea, but this is what I’m going to try:

• I am not going to be a yeller. I will try my best to contribute in a constructive and meaningful way, or I will keep my mouth shut.
• I will not be noise. I will not tweet noise, I will not Face Book noise, I will not fill anyone’s RSS feeds or inboxes with noise.
• I really will try to be reasonable. I know there are far more than two sides to every issue, each with its own valid arguments. We gain nothing by ignoring each other’s points.

I truly believe that we can return to a constructive dialogue about the problems that we, as a country and a world in jeopardy, face. But it will take everyone jumping on board and committing to reducing the noise and stepping up the dialogue. The only way any of us will be heard is if we shut up and listen for a while.