If you’re in or near New York City, stop by Union Square, 11AM to 6PM EST on Sunday to check out a gigantic ice installation to raise awareness about ice melt, the darkening of polar ice, and Dark Snow Project, the Citizen science initiative that will be investigating the question this summer. We’ve got a team there and will be live tweeting and blogging the event. Dr. Jason Box has flown in from Copenhagen to attend and be a resource for all. I just got into town myself and will be spending sunday in the park – I checked the climate models, and the weather will be mostly sunny and mid 50s – perfect for a spring outing.
If you can’t make it to Union Square, check and see if there is a showing near you of the new feature by 350.org, “Do The Math”, which will be premiering around the country sunday night. The movie features Bill Mckibben, a member of the Dark Snow team, who I will be joining in Greenland this summer.
If you can’t make anything or be anywhere, you can still text-to-give to the Dark Snow project by texting DARKSNOW to 50555.
When are climate activists going to stop flying in airplanes? Air flight is not sustainable even if you want to subscribe to the fantasy that it’s possible to power industrial civilization for 7 billion people with so-called clean, renewable energy. It’s not just the fuel, of course. It’s all the pollution, and the other non-renewable resources that are finite.
The larger question is when are climate activists going to stop pretending that it’s the big bad fossil fuel companies that are to blame when the real problem is the culture that trains people to be consumers of their products?
When are climate ativists going to admit that in order for any life to survive on Earth, humanity is going to have to drastically reduce our population and curtail our so-called standard of living (or else Mother Nature is going to do it for us)?
The emphasis on blaming fossil fuel corporations is about as productive as the epic failure of the war on drugs – like blaming heroin for drug addiction. It’s the addicts that need to be reformed.
Until activists walk the walk instead of just talking the talk, they are merely providing fodder for deniers who scream “Al Gore is Fat” – Like this idiot!
when are climate activists going to stop pretending that it’s the big bad fossil fuel companies that are to blame when the real problem is the culture that trains people to be consumers
You’re right that it’s the culture that’s to blame. But the big bad fuel companies are a valid target, since they oppose the kind of dramatic shift in focus that is called for. As do those who support them, which includes short-sighted governments which represent a multitude addicted to the nonsense that is ‘retail therapy’.
Our entire civilisation is addicted to both fossoil and ever-growing consumption, and must be weaned off both if it is to survive.
For the record, I have myself sworn never to fly again unless it’s necessary. And I would argue that it is necessary to get people to hard-to-reach (and dangerous) locations so that they can conduct research useful to the overall aim of finding solutions to the problems we face. Asking the participants of studies such as the Dark Snow Project to use surface travel would simply incur further delay in a field that is already riddled with it.
In short: we are the problem, and we have to learn how to become the solution. That road is filled with humps.
There is nothing in my comment that precludes going after fossil fuel companies. I personally go after them as often as I can. The point I was making is that focussing EXCLUSIVELY on fossil fuel companies and their activities – mining, fracking, keystone xl – which is the main stratege of the major climate activists, is only part of the problem…half of the math, if you will.
I also carefully used the word “activists” and not “scientists”. I fully respect climate scientists and their work which obviousy cannot be conducted with the same constraints. You cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs. (I’m very fond of poultry analogies.)
What I’m fed up with is the cocktail-party-circuit celebrity activists who not only refuse to discuss overpopulation and overconsumption and social justice and ecology, but are undermining the credibility of the science that says we must radically reduce the human impact on nature by making not even the simple concession of, say, not flying.
So the problem isn’t that I (as if I were anyone important) don’t want to blame fossil fuel corporations, the problem is that THEY don’t want to blame US (remember Pogo?). Not only do the major “green” groups avoid any criticism of consumption and population (not to mention eating meat, lord forbid Americans be asked to forgo hamburger), but they also won’t challenge the entire oligarchy that conrols militarism, one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases on the planet. Instead you see them cheering because the Navy is experimenting with biofuels, as if that were a solution.
Here’s a terrific article about this sort of issue: http://forests.org/blog/2013/04/essay-what-would-john-muir-say.asp