Record heat raises climate fears
As Britain enjoyed the warmest 27 October since records began in 1880, experts warned that a pattern of extreme weather events is beginning to provide hard evidence that the climate of the world is changing.
Pt. 2 of the WorldChanging interview with Bruce Sterling
In getting certain world leaders to be responsive to the increasingly obvious, we can’t seem to get past legacy issues (e.g. George W. Bush ignoring Kyoto because it would "cost jobs.") What should the average person, or at least the citizen change agent, be doing at this point to support both mitigation and adaptation?
I don’t want to be a big cynic about this, but really, at this point, who WANTS George W Bush to get all interested in climate change? Sooner or later, that guy poisons everything he touches. He’d probably start a highly secretive and utterly disorganized "Department of Greenhouse Security," where Bechtel apparatchiks took over abandoned army bases to install leaky nuclear power plants in dead of night with extraordinarily-rendered, off-the-books, union-busting labor. Would that help? If he fought the Greenhouse in utter sincerity and with all his might, would he win?
George Bush doesn’t care about Kyoto and "jobs." The American right’s loathing for Kyoto is strictly a nationalist, anti-globalist, unilateralist power issue. They don’t want Kyoto inspectors dropping by to double-check Exxon-Mobil’s emissions; they figure they’d show up in black helicopters, with handcuffs and guns. Because that’s exactly how they themselves would behave, if they had the chance.
I don’t believe in "average people" doing anything. People ought to support mitigation and adaptation within their own line of work, no matter how un-average that is. I mean: if you’re butcher, baker, ballerina, banker, or a plumber, envision yourself as the post-fossil-fuel version of yourself, and get right after it. We’d be best off struggling to create some kind of Solidarnosc-style entirely alternate society, for a 1989-sized across-the-board upheaval. So, just, well, stop co-operating with the status quo. Stop collaborating. Stop being afraid and stop feeling helpless. Just stop all that and start living by entirely other means.
Be glad for any scrap of choice you’re offered. The UN expects 50 million people to have their lives entirely uprooted by environmental mayhem — EVERY YEAR. That could be you or me. You’re worried that a hybrid car costs more money? People in Key West are standing on the roofs of drowned cars.
Our best hope is to "collapse upwards."
Prince Charles call to fight global warming
Prince Charles today said climate change was the "greatest challenge to face man" and should given greater priority in the UK.