Manufacturing Climate Change Crises
March, 2021
So, the other day I realized, for various reasons, humanity had not yet grasped the situation concerning climate change / global warming, at least not to the extent required to design and initiate a change in course. I arrived at this unfortunate and for me provocative conclusion after recognizing the markers needing to be in decline are in fact growing in intensity and scale. We have not turned a corner and continue to trundle on apparently oblivious to the consequences. If we were more aware and motivated our efforts to curb CC/GW would be having an impact. So far our efforts have been decidedly inadequate. It is as if we are drinking and driving too fast getting a high from being drunk on the fast pace of growth. Collectively, we are an accident waiting to happen and true for most accidents, they are preventable.
The evidence confirms our folly: CO2 (currently sitting at 418.3ppm on March 5, 2021) and other Green House Gases continue to rise at an accelerated rate and are now at levels not existing for over a million years; storms are more intense and larger in scale; Arctic, Antarctic and glacial ice is melting rapidly; temperatures continue to rise on land, in the seas and around ice; evidence is growing suggesting the Atlantic currents are in for a shake up; and by our very limited and inadequate response so far the juggernaut of CC/GW will not be stopped any time soon let alone slowed down.
Why are we not doing more to slow down and indeed to stop CC/GW? The short answer lies at both ends of the continuum in the laps of our leaders and in our own. It will take everyone to turn this around before we cross over the threshold of no going back. More specifically, the reason for dropping the ball so far lies in the messaging. Humanity has simply failed to take notice of the dire warnings and have accordingly been reluctant to change habits and ways of doing as required to turn this thing around. The messaging has been mixed, often misleading, too esoteric and not sufficiently demonstrable for both decision-makers and the general public. I came to the conclusion it was past-time to manufacture climate change / global warming crises, to initiate a wake-up call, to kick everyone in the you know where to get attention. Then I realized two things in quick succession: we can’t willingly go around and manufacture crises putting people and environments at risk of injury or worse; and then I realized we were already out there manufacturing crises in our race to grow, prosper and attain the good life. So what can we do to change, to reshape the message and achieve some real prevention/mitigation of a spectacularly unacceptable rate of increase in CC/GW?
Well, aside from kicking people where it really hurts, I put together some suggestions to which I am sure many more could be added. The key is to begin doing at all levels of society and to be allowing more development on wetlands, as the Ontario government seems to be doing, is certainly not in my list.
Most important we need to ensure consistent messaging at all levels of society saying CC/GW is real, degrading consequences in our environments and settlements are inevitable and the severity of those consequences will be lessened only by actions taken now by everyone to prevent greater levels of CC/GW.
The messaging must contain realistic hope saying we can transition into an exciting altered state of organization, ways of doing and expectations more consistent with the limitations on our world, the only one we have.
The messaging must be understandable in everyday language.
There are many consequences to arise from CC/GW and efforts must be made to demonstrate them widely and in easily understandable, but also provocative ways. Design and distribute these demonstration projects online and in the flesh as it were. A couple of suggestions: in coastal communities where sea levels will be rising, set out markers (posts or maybe park benches on stilts or sculpture) to indicate water levels at one foot intervals of sea level rise; create computer models and make them widely available showing the consequences of sea level rise with time projections. To date this information is not widely available nor visible nor relevant to the general population.
A real crisis (flooding, wildfire, drought and so on) can be devastating for those affected. They may or may not connect the dots between crisis and CC/GW. Efforts need to be made to show the connections are real. Extreme weather events that can be explained only by reference to CC/GW must be so identified.
We can anticipate inevitable consequences in our settlements. Planning and new development must take those into account so adjustments can be made now for the changes which are bound to happen. Waiting for the crisis is too little, too late and expensive in a variety of ways. We can try to dam or berm or levee lands against sea rise, but my gut and forecasts/modelling tells me there would be limited success as infrastructure and coastlines disappeared under the surges. A better option would be to begin settlement relocation to higher ground.
It is one thing to identify potential crises associated with CC/GW, but to avoid them requires adjustments in the causes. Part of the solutions bucket must involve our choices and behaviours as individuals and across sectors, but that will require investments and not all are in a financial or knowledge position to make the changes necessary. It will be essential for governments alone or in association with large and small entities and individuals to create the necessary opportunities to make the changes required. This may involve revised legislation or putting up funding for programmes of adjustment.
While the internet is a wonderful technology for exploring all sorts of ideas and information, it is somewhat chaotic in that there are so many sites of information about CC/GW not all telling the same story in the same way that is easily understandable. We need a world library dedicated to CC/GW to collect and disseminate and in other ways make available information to all ages pertinent to the phenomenon of CC/GW and its prevention.