I feel the call, I feel the urgency, but I also feel constantly confused about just what I can do. I mean, I recycle, I'm sparing with the energy I use at home (although I could probably take less hot showers), I don't drive my car very often (public transportation to work is pretty good), I just recently signed up for a program where a good chunk of my electricity is going to come from wind power. I have progressive politics, I vote Democrat. These are all the small first steps that you begin with, but I strongly feel like I want to do more and I don't know how. I would actually like to become more politically active, but I'm not sure how to do it. The family I grew up with is pretty apolitical, and so I've never had anyone model for me just what political activism looks like. I recently wrote a letter to my senators for the first time, I've begun signing petitions, I'm trying to become more politically aware by educating myself more deeply on, for example, who the senators are and what they stand for. But is this enough? Am I missing something? Am I a person who just sits at home reading political blogs and getting upset and doing nothing about it, because it sure feels that way. I want to act, but I don't know how.
If anyone has advice, I'd appreciate hearing it, because I'm very much at the stage of trying to find my way.
Very striking, Nate. This is totally scary in every way. To all the a-holes who say that humans aren't having any effect on the environment, kiss my a**....
That fractal photo is, like, major cool, dude! Seriously.
As for what to do, what to do... I'm with Angela:
I, too just do what I can. I recycle, although I end up throwing out a lot of glass bottles because the recycling bin the council put in beside the regular rubbish bin (while cutting rubbish collection down to once a fortnight rather than every week, the cheap bastards, that's what I pay my council taxes for, you cretins...)won't accept glass bottles - don't know why - and I don't see the sense in having to drive several miles, thus adding more carbon to the atmosphere, to the nearest recycling point. Glass at least is inert and won't hurt the planet as much as the emissions from my car, but it's annoying nonetheless.
I'm cutting down as much the electric energy as possible that I use, but my home is an 18th century miner's cottage and only has a woodstove for heat in the winter - I do burn a bit of coal as well, I'm afraid, because wood just doesn't get hot enough. If I owned the house, or had the money, I'd convert to something more ecologically friendly. But people on a budget shouldn't have to freeze because they can't afford solar powered central heating.
Since I work from home I don't drive my car very often but public transportation here is not only sporadic and unreliable, it's more expensive than petrol. The government has been systematically gutting services to the north of England, particularly the countryside to 'save money' (i.e., not cut into Londoners' pockets). Come this September, I'm starting a supplementary course at a local college, where you'd think the bus service would be good. Think again.
I, too, have progressive politics, I vote primarily Democrat, although I do try to know WHO I'm voting for rather than just lock-step WHAT. Haven't seen much other than Gore that inspires much hope in me, in the US or the UK, frankly.
My family was always highly political, for which I'm proud and grateful. I've been an activist for over 30 years. But at this junction in time, I have no choice but to think about myself for the next couple years - finish Uni, get a job teaching, make enough money to pay off some debts. Like most people, I have personal concerns that too often take precedence over more global ones.
But take heart, Angela. You're doing everything right. Sometimes just being aware and doing what you can to make others aware is doing a LOT. Little things do matter. I still have a photograph I took of a group of about 20 young primary school kids pushing a man in his car UP a hill - individually, they were helpless. Together, each doing their little bit, they made the impossible happen.
And as my grandmother used to say, if you're breathing in and out, you got no worries. If you stop breathing in and out, you got no worries, either. 
Did I mention that I grow most of my own food during the summer and only buy local produce in season? That's a biggie, if you think about it... How much carbon comes out the ass of a jet to get that tomato or cucumber grown in Morocco to you in January? You can live without tomatoes or cucumbers for a few months, honest. You might also get into foraging wild food - great walks, and it's amazing how much strange and delicious stuff is growing right under our noses. Dandelions. Stinging nettle. Stuff that grow in vacant lots, even. I stood in a wild garlic patch by our local woods and breathed in the smell - heaven! Tastes good in a salad, too.
The human race collectively boasts about being the smartest species. The British have a saying, 'too clever by half.' I think it applies here.
Pollution, global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer and other ill effects are the result of the twin evils of overpopulation and industrialisation. While our species continues to grow beyond sustainable levels, most other species are in decline, and many face extinction. We have a relationship to the planet that is positively parasitical. In every generation there are more people, with each individual taking more from the planet.
This is not breaking news. Thomas Malthus' famous Essay On The Principle Of Population came out in 1798, positing that war and famine were the inevitable outcome of unchecked population growth. The Limits of Growth, published by the international think-tank Club of Rome, was published as a clear warning in 1972. This led many rationalists to propose a zero population growth (ZPG) policy, with predictable opposition from 'pro-life' religious organisations. God's Biblical admonition to 'Go Forth And Multiply' should have had some limiting clause. The lack thereof must inevitably lead to the direst of all possible consequences.
Hi brother Nate
Ex-Army Schofield Barracks Oahu Hawaii former northand west shore surfer, admirere of all things natural, 35 years in the field of meteorology and study of climate science.
what can we do - We can lean, no, scream at our so called leaders. We can learn and then re-educate espeically our fellow country men and woman about CO2 and what it's doing to us. How it is invisible. I only wish it were like soot colored black to get a visual range so we could see global warming now 388 PPM's and rising.
I'm most shocked at how Met's are so far behind the curve when these are the people who deliver the daily weather and are most believable, yet many or most are not yet convinced that there is even any warming. It's folks in Climate and Earth Scieneces that actually see the forest from the trees while the Meteorologists are taught narrow conservatism like engineering good in math great focus but have ZERO BIG PICTURE! They seem to strive for being ignorant becuase they are quite "mathie".
I give my science an D, but its these people that need mostly to get up to speed like the rest of the world.
RealClimate.org
We need to reduce our emissions of CO2 NOW!
God's Biblical admonition to 'Go Forth And Multiply' should have had some limiting clause. The lack thereof must inevitably lead to the direst of all possible consequences.
SadButTrue | Homepage | 07.06.06 - 9:59 am | #
True that. Growth isn't a good in and of itself. You know what growth without a limiting clause is generally called? Cancer.
Nonny Mouse,
Thanks. Your post helped a lot.
I too, have personal concerns that I need to deal with. I'm a grad student, and I was pretty much completely out of the loop during the whole academic year. I didn't even know about Katrina until some days after it broke. As a grad student it is very, very easy to bury your head in the ground and concentrate on nothing but your field. At the end of the summer I decided to get caught up on the news, and then... wow. It kind of hit me all at once. Now I'm definitely paying attention, but my own personal stuff is getting less attention than it should. I really need to work on a 20-page paper and I'm not. (On the issue of the imagination/mental imagery and its relationship to issues of truth and reality in medieval literature, specifically in Chaucer's Legend of Lucrece and Lydgate's Troy Book: Paris' vision of the goddesses and Helen, and the political implications thereof, for those who are interested). I seem to have a problem striking a sane balance between the two.
The tip about local produce is a very good point; that is something further I can be doing, especially because there's a good farmer's market here. But does that mean I need to give up frozen berries during the winter? I love the berries.
And I also agree that the fractal picture is way cool!
Never let it be said that Nate isn't or never has been deep...
I'm glad you posted this. The evidence is clear that global warming is here. I just don't understand why the Right insists on making this a political hot topic issue. If 100% of the scientists say we are having an effect, why are some still debating that this is not real.
Btw - since you have been diving all over the places, have you noticed that some of the South Pacific Islands are underwater now?
Angela - oh, wow. You got me beat on esoteric subject matter. I'm currently working on a 3,000 word essay on 'applying the contemporary feminist theoretical approach to literature to illuminate our understanding of the 19th century novel 'The Story of an African Farm'. Blech. Just for fun, I've managed to squeeze in a 11th century quote in langue d'oil from an obscure Provencal chanson and a footnoted quote in French from a book I'm pretty sure nobody else in Britian has a copy of (without translating either - let's see how much of a sense of humor my tutor's got!)
Keeping a sense of balance isn't that hard, really - I'm sitting in abnormally high sweltering heat, writing utter and complete useless bollocks so that I can get a decent job and maybe be able to afford that solar panelling I hanker after, while watching the absurdity that is the American political system self-destruct. It's all madness. You just do what little you can because doing a little is better than doing nothing, and hope for the best.
Great video---we were just in Hawaii....what a beautiful state---Just saw Al Gore's movie and read the book so I'm totally motivated to do more, but very disheartened that so many people don't believe scientific data and consider it debatable "opinion." Since seeing "An Inconvenient Truth," I'm driving less, encouraging everyone I know to see the movie or read the book, and am looking for ways to become more of an active environmentalist (while still keeping my job, feeding my family, etc). By the way, a friend who happens to be a distinguished professor in forestry at the University of Minnesota(he's published research related to plants and CO2, and teaches a course in climate change) told me Gore's movie is 99% accurate. It doesn't get much more true than that!
Thanks for bringing attention to this important issue, Nate.
I've always been an environmentalist at heart, but I find there are always ways to improve our actions and become more aware of their effects.
I'm looking to become carbon neutral, the latest environmentalist buzz phrase. It's not that hard actually.
One thing I am trying to pay a lot more attention to these days, and for multiple reasons, is where my money is going. Spending money at the gas pump vs. spending it at a local business that produces something out of recycled materials, for instance.
We need to get really creative in order to make the difference we need to make.
How could the reef have been wiped out so quickly?
Any chance that the Heraclitus itself may have unwittingly introduced a biological agent picked up at a previous expedition, one that either caused, triggered or predisposed this reef to such a quick and catastrophic demise?
Moving post Nate. Its indeed time to move from surprise and emotion to practical actions by ourselves, our companies and governments.
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