[LINK] Surviving Climate Change

[jore]

On 24/01/2015 12:50 PM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> The Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and
> Security appear to agree. They have advanced the hands of the
> "Doomsday Clock" to 3 Minutes To Midnight". This is in response to
> "... unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race resulting from
> modernization of huge arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable
> threats to the continued existence of humanity" ...

I saw this too. In terms of the climate change element, I thought it was
ridiculous. I'd say the time is something more closer to 5 minutes
*past* midnight, in that many cumulative non-linear positive feeback
loops have already been set in motion since at least the 1980s that were
locked in then and are having profound impact now (say, for example,
exponential release of methane). Yet we power on as usual, still
pretending the real problem is coming. And forget that, we still don't
*act* even if we *do* pretend the problem is still imminent rather than
long-been-proceeding.  I guess a 40-something year time lag can make
complacency easy (along with having an entire culture for company), but
that's the point---we need to fucking do something.  It means we all
need to make sure that we will do whatever it takes to stop this culture
from killing the planet, right now. Our dooms day clock for this is also
5 minutes past and the sooner we stop sitting around deliberating and
actually get to work, the better.

What can you do? Something, anything, as much as you can do using your
skills and uniqueness. We need it all.  And I'm not talking about on a
personal level---because that's clearly insufficient and there are
aren't any personal solutions to social problems. (No amount of
greenwashing or personal consumer choices can get us out of this mess or
change this culture.)  I'm talking about all of us here taking what we
know about this---and clearly many of you know the problems well on an
academic level---to stop this culture from killing the planet. Do as
much as you can. We need it all. Badly. And we---of all people---have
this responsiblity because we know the problem, which means we should act.

And the last to this is, the real difference is not so much what you do,
but a difference between those people who do something and those people
who do nothing. Which one are you?

-- PostScript

A possibly helpful starting point for interest:

http://thoughtmaybe.com/earth-at-risk/
Tagline:  /"Earth at Risk/ documents the first conference of the same
name convened in 2011 by featured thinkers and activists who are willing
to ask the hardest questions about the seriousness of the situation
facing life on the planet today. Each speaker presents an impassioned
critique of the dominant culture, together building an unassailable case
that we need to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the
poor, and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. Each
offers their ideas on what can be done to build a real resistance
movement—one that can actually match the scale of the problem. To fight
back and win. Literally, the whole world is at stake."