CLIMATE EMERGENCY ANTHOLOGY #3
MAY 26, 2026
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, Ecology, and Democracy
What’s at Stake: OMNI’S CLIMATE BOOK FORUMS ON CLIMATE CHANGE began in 2006
late in the story. (Prof. James Hansen had warned Congress in 1988 of the dangers
that could arise from rising temperatures.
The UN created the IPCC in 1999.)
From its beginning we enjoyed the advice of three climatologists: Dr. Robert McAfee (Ph.D in Climatology from
U. of Melbourne), Prof. Malcolm Cleveland (Geology Dept, UAF), and Prof. Art
Hobson (Physics Dept., UAF); and the participation of more than a dozen concerned
citizens (including Lolly Tindol, Gladys Tiffany, Shelley Bunaiuto, Dick
Bennett). The forums consisted mainly
of reviews of recent books. OMNI’s
Climate Emergency Anthologies began in 2019, edited by Dick Bennett. A main issue regarded naming: warming,
disaster, catastrophe, calamity, chaos?
Already climatologists had chosen catastrophe (or its synonym calamity),
with the fossil fuels industry and its political tools in the Bush
administration preferring no suggestion of change or if pressed, warming,
though this label, once explained offers no comfort to exploiters. The fossil fuels industry delayed an accurate
label for the urgency at least a decade, part of their criminal denial, which
was also a subject of published books discussed at the forums. And the leading scientific body studying
climate--the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (estab. 1999)--was cautious
in its earliest “assessments” in announcing its most dire conclusions believing
understatement best served the search for truth. Its Sixth Assessment, however, presented their
full conclusions. OMNI’s 2024 Emergency
Anthology (#2) presented articles published from 2019 to 2024 in which the
urgency is not in doubt. This 2026 #3
anthology opens with a discussion of why it took the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) so long to employ the strong, accurate
word: catastrophe (or among many climatologists: emergency
or chaos).
CONTENTS
Language Again. Calamity?
Apocalypse?
Mark Hertsgaard. “Americans Are Not Nearly Alarmed Enough
about Climate Change.”
Drew
and the crew at 198. “3 years and counting.”
Special
Feature
David
Spratt and Ian Dunlop. “What Lies
Beneath: The Understatement of Existential
Climate Risk” and discussion by members of
OMNI’s Climate Forum members.
Andrea Mazzarino. “The
All-American Ravages of Extreme Weather.”
Huiting
Hsu. [Global
Scorching?] “The last generation.”
Dick Bennett. “Speechless?
More on language of climate scorching.”
“Climate change and the Pacific Islands: ‘When the land
disappears, we will all disappear’.”
Dick Bennett. Awareness
of Our World Ending. From Wordsworth to Marx
via to Naomi Klein and John Bellamy Foster.
Foster. The Ecological Revolution.
TEXTS
[Some of the links might
not be entirely up to date, but those that I have tested lead to further
understanding and useful actions. I
have changed added some signposts and changed some important words and phrases to
bold, but I have also deleted most of the visuals. –D]
CORRECT LABEL?
I asked a geologist
friend which label was best—change, catastrophe, emergency, or? Is the following at least roughly true? Too
early to say? I haven't seen a study yet of the usage. Here is his reply. D 1-1-20
Malcolm
Kent Cleaveland Dec
31, 2019 (7 years ago). to me, Art
Dick,
Hard to say. "Catastrophe" and
"emergency" certainly are accurate. Most people have no idea
how close we are to catastrophe. The Australian government, world's
largest exporter of coal and led by a climate denier, is facing a catastrophe
on top of/partially created by, an epic drought. Serves them right, they
elected him. Read an item about sea surface temperatures around Tasmania
exceeding 2 deg C above average, wreaking havoc with marine ecosystems and
threatening some species with extinction. But we all know that
"climate change is a Chinese hoax".
In Antarctica, Thwaites Glacier is being undermined by warm water
and could accelerate/disintegrate catastrophically with an ultimate effect of
raising sea level up to a foot, especially if the subsidiary glaciers that
Thwaites holds back destabilize. Combined with super energized storms,
that could destroy quadrillions of $$$ of infrastructure. Paleoclimate
shows that there have been abrupt big changes in the past and we are not
prepared, mentally or physically, if it happens now.
Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Ph.D. LTC
USAR (Ret.)
Professor Emeritus of Geosciences
University of Arkansas – Fayetteville
Mark Hertsgaard. “Americans Are Not Nearly Alarmed Enough
about Climate Change.” The Nation
(July 18, 2025).
Americans still don’t comprehend how imminent, dangerous, and
far-reaching the threat is—and journalists are partly to blame.
Last Thursday, CNN ran a story that
inadvertently underscored the fact that most journalism is still not getting
across the full truth about climate change. Harry Enten, CNN’s polling
analyst, displayed Gallup data showing that 40 percent of Americans are
“greatly worried” about climate change. But this 40 percent is “the exact same
percentage as [were worried] back in 2000,” he pointed out, “despite everything
we see [today] on our television screens, our computer screens…the hurricanes,
the tornados, the flooding.”
“Americans aren’t afraid of climate change,”
Enten concluded. “Climate activists have not successfully made the case to the
American people.”
Perhaps not, but neither have most journalists.
The extreme weather events Enten cited have gotten extensive news coverage, but
most of that coverage did not make the climate connection. As we noted last month, “In the summer of 2024, for example, when
record high temperatures brutalized outdoor workers, withered crops, and
worsened hurricanes, only 12 percent of US national
TV news segments mentioned climate
change, though its role in driving such extreme heat has long been
scientifically indisputable.”
Anthony Leiserowitz, the
executive director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said
Yale’s latest survey found that only 29 percent of Americans are “very worried”
about climate change—a remarkably low number, considering that climate change
is already killing people and devastating communities around the world and
threatens much worse if left unchecked.
“I constantly make the point that only 29 percent are very worried, when
it should be 100 percent,” Leiserowitz told Covering Climate Now. “This
reflects [climate change’s] lack of salience for most Americans. There are many
who are not deniers, but do not adequately understand the risks, that the
impacts are here and now, and the urgency of action.”
These numbers also shed light on The 89 Percent Project that CCNow and dozens of news outlets have been reporting
this year. The project is grounded in a cluster of scientific studies finding that 80 to 89 percent of the
world’s people want governments to “do more” about climate change. . . .
[Mark Hertsgaard is an American
journalist, the co-founder and executive director of Covering Climate Now. He
is the environment correspondent for The Nation, and the author of seven
non-fiction books, including Earth Odyssey and Hot: Living Through
the Next Fifty Years on Earth. Wikipedia. Hertsgaard has been an essential source of knowledge
to me about climate. The Nation has been my
indispensable companion for navigating the USA for several decades. –D]
“3 years and counting.” Drew and the crew at 198
Methods <drew@198methods.org> Jul 22, 2025. me is running out
Today, July 22, 2025, the Climate
Clock ticked below 4 years. That means we are running our of time to limit
global warming to 1.5°C. And to be perfectly honest, we are simply not going to
slash fossil fuels and climate changing emissions enough in the next 3 years
and 364 days left to protect our future from the deadliest, most expensive, and
cruelest impacts of climate change.
Many of us are taking action. Across the world, communities are building
the solutions we need to protect people and planet, and fighting for climate
justice. We're participating in the global day of action Sun Day on
September 21 [2025] to highlight those solutions. If you're interested
in learning more about Sun Day and plugging into the organizing, join a call tomorrow
evening at 6pm ET / 3pm PT with bill Mckibben and Third Act.
But not everyone is working toward a safe future. Fossil fueled fascists
and corporations are running out the clock. They use money, power and
disinformation to delay action and block progress. They must be named, shamed,
and held accountable. That's why we'll also be participating in a global day of
action to hold billionaires accountable on September 20, sign on your
organization if you're
interested in participating – and join a mass action this week in San Francisco
and next week in New York City challenging the financiers of climate chaos
(more info below).
Wells Fargo funds fossil fuels, genocide and the war on immigrants. Along
with our friends from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, we’re taking mass direct
action to shut down the bank’s global HQ. We'll paint a mural on their plaza
and take nonviolent direct action together. Join us at Wells Fargo
Global HQ, 333 Market Street, San Francisco, Wednesday, July 23rd at
830AM PT and RSVP here for details.
Then, from July
28-Aug 1, Gulf South climate leaders are teaming up with migrant
leaders from the Global South to confront the Big Oil billionaires whose way of
life is a threat to our communities, and our world. We will be taking action to
stop the Big Oil billionaires who are financing environmental racism from the
Gulf South to the Global South, and are cashing in on the destruction of our
families and our democracy. Join us in New York
for an Art Build July 28, a march and rally July 30, and an action at Citibank
Headquarters on August 1.
This Climate Emergency
Day, we encourage you to ask: Who is running out the climate clock? And take
action both to support the solutions and those who Act On Climate in time, AND
name and shame those who Running Out the Clock. You can share these posts on
social media to spread the word – or make your own. Use the hashtags:
#ActinTime #ClimateEmergencyDay &/or #TimeToEndFossilFuels and tag us and
@climateclock.world for shares and reposts.
Share on Facebook Share on Instagram Share on Bluesky Or make your own using
this toolkit.
Thanks,
Drew & the 198 methods to #ActInTime crew
Sources:
1.
https://www.198methods.org/2025/06/24/trumps-big-ugly-bill-is-no-day-in-the-sun/
4.
https://www.stopbillionaires.org/Yre receiving this email because you're awesome,
a www.198methods.org
To OMNI's Climate Book Forum (2006-), 1-29-20
[The following will
interest everyone who participated in OMNI’s Climate Book Forum. But its relevance will be appreciated by all
who are studying the history of climate change and the struggle to control it. Art sent us a major essay on the politics of
warming that I urge all to read. My computer messed up and eliminated the
division markers (same with you?), so I have restored the beginning of the
Foreword and Introduction and put a few lines in bold. The argument
in the Intro. was not new even in 2017; many of our books have warned the same
(that the IPCC reports have understated the danger). This essay makes the
case emphatically, and it possesses particular relevance to OMNI's CBF, for in
our knowledge we are responsible for telling the truth to the public.
We deserve to feel
glad for having adhered to our scientific sources and to UAF’s motto:
To Advance with Truth as Our Leader. Another interest in this
conversation is its illustration of one aspect of OMNI’s climate
leadership. Back to Art. –Dick]
Yesterday I sent you a link
to a free 40-page book “The understatement of climate risk.” Some folks
tell me the link doesn’t work for them. Here is an alternative link that does
work:
https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf Art
WHAT LIES BENEATH:
THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK BY DAVID SPRATT & IAN DUNLOP. 2017.
| FOREWORD BY HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER . 2018 RELEASE Published by Breakthrough,
National Centre for Climate Restoration, Melbourne, Australia. First published
September 2017. Revised and updated August 2018. BREAKTHROUGHONLINE.ORG.AU
FOREWORD INTRODUCTION RISK UNDERSTATEMENT EXCESSIVE CAUTION THINKING THE
UNTHINKABLE THE UNDERESTIMATION OF RISK EXISTENTIAL RISK TO HUMAN CIVILISATION
PUBLIC SECTOR DUTY OF CARE ON CLIMATE RISK SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTATEMENT CLIMATE
MODELS TIPPING POINTS CLIMATE SENSITIVITY CARBON BUDGETS PERMAFROST AND THE
CARBON CYCLE ARCTIC SEA ICE POLAR ICE-MASS LOSS SEA-LEVEL RISE POLITICAL
UNDERSTATEMENT POLITICISATION GOALS ABANDONED A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION
ADDRESSING EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK SUMMARY CONTENTS 02 04 08 09 10 13 15 18 21
22 24 25 27 28 30 34 36 38 39 40 What Lies Beneath 2 DRAFT ONLY
FOREWORD BY
HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is a professor of
theoretical physics specialising in complex systems and nonlinearity, founding
director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (1992-2018) and
former chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change. He is a senior
climate advisor to the European Union, the German Chancellor and Pope Francis. What
Lies Beneath is an important report. It does not deliver new facts and
figures, but instead provides a new perspective on the existential risks
associated with anthropogenic global warming. It is the critical overview of
well-informed intellectuals who sit outside the climate-science community which
has developed over the last fifty years. All
such expert communities are prone to what the French call deformation
professionelle and the German betriebsblindheit. Expressed in plain English,
experts tend to establish a peer world-view which becomes ever more rigid and
focussed. Yet the crucial insights regarding the issue in question may lurk at
the fringes, as this report suggests. This is particularly true when the
issue is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of
analysis may become useless. This dilemma notwithstanding, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
bravely perseveres with its attempts to
assess the multiple cause-and-effect relationships which comprise the climate
problem. After delivering five fully-fledged assessment reports, it is hardly
surprising that a trend towards “erring on the side of least drama” has
emerged. There are many reasons, both subtle and mundane. Let me highlight just
one of each. Firstly, the IPCC is stricken with the Probability Obsession. Ever
since statistics was established in the16th century, scientists have tried to
capture the complex, stochastic behaviour of a given nontrivial object (such as
a roulette wheel) by repeating the same experiment on that object many, many
times. If there was a set of well-defined outcomes (such as the ball ending on
the red or black of the wheel), then the probability of a specific outcome was
simply the number of experiments delivering that outcome divided by the total
number of experiments. This sounds reasonable, but can we even imagine applying
that approach to global warming? Strictly speaking, we would have to redo the
Industrial Revolution and the greenhouse-gas emissions it triggered a thousand
times or so, always starting with the Earth system in its 1750 pre-industrial
state. What Lies Beneath 2 What Lies Beneath 3 DRAFT ONLY Then calculate the
averaged observed outcome of that planetary experiment in terms of mean
surface-temperature rise, global biological productivity, total number of climate
refugees, and many other variables. This is a nonsensical notion. Of course,
climate scientists are not trying to treat the Earth like a roulette wheel, yet
the statistical approach keeps on creeping into the assessments. How many times
did the thermohaline circulation collapse under comparable conditions in the
planetary past? How often did the Pacific enter a permanent El Niño state in
the Holocene? And so on. These are valuable questions that can generate
precious scientific insights. But we
must never forget that we are in a unique situation with no precise historic
analogue. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now greater,
and the Earth warmer, than human beings have ever experienced. And there are
almost eight billion of us now living on this planet. So calculating
probabilities makes little sense in the most critical instances, such as the
methane release dynamics in thawing permafrost areas or the potential failing
of entire states in the climate crisis. Rather, we should identify
possibilities, that is, potential developments in the planetary make-up that
are consistent with the initial and boundary conditions, the processes and the
drivers we know. This is akin to scenario planning, now being proposed for
assessing climate risks in the corporate sector, where the consequences of a
number of future possibilities, including those which may seem highly unlikely,
but have major consequences, are evaluated. This way one can overcome the
probability obsession that not only fantasizes about the replicability of the
singular, but also favours the familiar over the unknown and unexpected. As an
extreme example, the fact that our world has never been destroyed previously
would conventionally assign probability zero to such an event. But this only
holds true under steadystate assumptions, which are practically never
warranted. Secondly, there is the Devil’s Advocate Reward. In the magnificent
tradition of the Enlightenment, which shattered so many myths of the ancient
regimes, scientists are trained to be sceptical about every proposition which
cannot be directly verified by empirical evidence or derived from first
principles (such as the invariability of the speed of light). So, if a
researcher comes up with an entirely new thought, experts tend to reflexively
dismiss it as “speculative”, which is effectively a death warrant in the
academic world. Whereas those who criticize the idea will be applauded,
rewarded and promoted! This phenomenon is evident in every seminar, colloquium
or learned-society assembly. In turn, this means that scientific progress is
often driven from the periphery, or occasionally, by eminent personalities
whose seniority is beyond doubt. This does not at all imply that hypotheses
need not be vindicated in due course, but out-ofthe-box thinking is vital given
the unprecedented climate risks which now confront human civilisation. In
conclusion, one should not be overly critical of the IPCC, since the scientists
involved are doing what scientists are expected to do, to the very best of
their ability in difficult circumstances. But climate change is now reaching
the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented
action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.
Therefore, it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who
do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf. Unfortunately for
us, the wolf may already be in the house. What Lies Beneath 3
What Lies Beneath 4
INTRODUCTION
Three decades ago, when serious debate on
human-induced climate change began at the global level, a great deal of
statesmanship was on display. There was a preparedness to recognise that this
was an issue transcending nation states, ideologies and political parties which
had to be addressed proactively in the long-term interests of humanity as a
whole. This was the case even though the existential nature of the risk it
posed was far less clear cut than it is today. As global institutions, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was established at the Rio Earth Summit in
1992, were developed to take up this challenge, and the extent of change this
would demand of the fossil-fuel-dominated world order became clearer, the
forces of resistance began to mobilise. Today,
as a consequence, and despite the diplomatic triumph of the 2015 Paris
Agreement, the debate around climate
change policy has never been more dysfunctional, indeed Orwellian. In his
book 1984, George Orwell describes a double-think totalitarian state where most
of the population accepts “the most flagrant violations of reality, because
they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were
not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By
lack of understanding they remained sane.”1 Orwell could have been writing about climate change and policymaking.
International agreements talk of limiting global warming to 1.5–2 degrees
Celsius (°C), but in reality they set the world on a path of 3–5°C of warming.
Goals are reaffirmed, only to be abandoned. Coal is “clean”. Just 1°C of
warming is already dangerous, but this cannot be admitted. The planetary future
is hostage to myopic national self-interest. Action is delayed on the
assumption that as yet unproven technologies will save the day, decades hence.
The risks are existential, but it is “alarmist” to say so. 1 Orwell, G
1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four. A Novel, Secker and Warburg, London. 2
CommunicateResearch 2017, ‘Global Challenges Foundation global risks survey’,
ComRes, 24 May 2017, . 3 Randle, MJ & Eckersley, R 2015, ‘Public
perceptions of future threats to humanity and different societal responses: a
cross-national study’, Futures, vol. 72, pp. 4-16. A. . . . . . . . . https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf
REPLIES FROM Shelley, Lolly, Art
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shelley
buonaiuto Jan
29, 2020, to me, Alberto, Art, Aubrey, Gladys, Jeanne, Joyce, Lolly, malcolm, Marvin, Peg, Terry, George |
Just read it. It’s a quick read since
there is a lot of repetition, basically
That the IPCC reports ignored feedback loops
in projections and so seriously underestimate risks. It gives examples. I’m
glad I read it to get this sobering perspective but it is
.....well...sobering.
|
lolly tindol [Lolly died last year,
too suddenly for adequate celebration of her many talents. She devoured books and led our committee
in forum after forum. She was a tour
guide across the country, known for her wide historical and anthropological knowledge. She was a successful Ozarks hill farmer who
canned her own vegetables and fruits. She was a lifetime wife and companion, and
good friend to countless. She is
missed. –D] |
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to Marvin, me, Alberto, Art, Aubrey, Gladys, Jeanne, Joyce, malcolm, Peg, Shelley, Terry, George |
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I find that I react
viscerally to documents like this. To think that the US Congress is wasting its
time on a show impeachment trial and a despicable man who they allowed to be
elected president and all that entails, instead of doing what it should to protect
The People and the Earth, is beyond outrageous.
I've forwarded it
to several people, some who may join CCl and then also to the NEPA Coordinator
for the Ozark Ntl. Forest, Mike Mulford. He's the guy Kent Bonar, Naturalist
for Newton County Wildlife, and I complain to when they do another corporate
type thing to our forests.
Looking forward to
seeing you Sunday. Shelley and I are taking Kent, our Naturalist and presenter,
to lunch at 11am at Arsaga's at the Depot if anyone wants to join us (if
there's room) before our CCBF at the
Art
Hobson
Thanks Dick. Your note is perfect.
I hadn’t actually planned on reading the entire essay, but your letter
persuades me that I should. Peace - Art
WHAT
FOLLOWS IS BROADER CULTURAL CRITIQUE
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They have made their point perfectly clear in
the impeachment trial, Lolly…Trump’s not guilty because he considers his
personal interest in the public’s interest. There’s a blindness and lack
of conscience that is hard to understand or know how to reach or counter, and
is incomprehensibly embraced by 30% of the population. Naked brutal self
interest, glorified by Ayn Rand (the power elites’ darling), the symptom of an
epidemic of narcissistic personality disorders among those in power, appears
now to be used as defense of corruption. They are circling the wagons…if
it’s good for them, then it’s good for the public. Capitalistic and political
corruption is good for them…as for the rest of us, we’re not in the circle….but
it’s somehow still good for us, especially if we are white supremacists and
racists, misogynists, sexists and xenophobes. The hordes of refugees their
policies or lack of policies create will be met with increasingly brutal and
sophisticated military technologies.
Just to concur…yes, this causes a visceral
reaction.
I just keep working on the issues and hope
Bernie or any Democrat running except Biden gets elected and that it makes a
difference….and that McConnell and the Senate get a real comeuppance. If we can
count on any shred of our system to actually work to address the urgency of
climate change, while the minds of most people are so dreadfully asleep.
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to Coralie, Abel, shelley, lolly, me, Alberto, Aubrey, Gladys, Jeanne, Joyce, Malcolm, Marvin, Peg, Terry, George |
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Hi
friends -
I totally agree Shelley. My thoughts:
This country has always (since about 1650) had
a virulent 30-40% minority who favored slavery, guns, business, weak
government, the rich and powerful, military force, white people, fundamentalist
religion, and US dominance.
Read Jill Lepore’s excellent new one-volume
history of America, These Truths. One of her themes is America’s
compromise with the southern states on slavery, during the constitutional
convention. She summarizes this compromise with the observation that,
following the Declaration of Independence, the nation faced two challenges.
It only won one of the them: The war for independence. It
lost the other: the war to free blacks from slavery. We are still
paying for this compromise. The founding fathers made a huge mistake on
slavery.
Or read about the “Borderers,” also called the
“Scots-Irish,” who formed the dominant American culture during the century
leading up to 1776, and is still the basis for our dominant backward
conservative attitudes. For an entertaining brief essay read Joe
Bageant's https://bageant.typepad.com/joe/2005/01/drink_pray_figh.html, . Or read former Senator Jim Webb’s
book “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish shaped America.” Other
good books: J. D. Vance “Hillbilly Elegy,” Arlie Hochschild
"Strangers in Their Own Land."
A narrow, bitter, racist, conservative,
fundamentalist, minority culture reigns in America. These attitudes are
far more prevalent here than in Europe. This group elected Trump and
protect him today in the Senate. We must defeat this group in
November—but this won’t be easy. However, the problem is much more than
political, it is a deep, centuries-old American cultural failure. There
are signs of change. To my mind (I know many will disagree), the most
hopeful of these is the rejection of religion by increasing percentages of
Americans, especially the young. Another is the rise of
environmentalism, especially recent popular concern about global warming.
Two other hopeful developments are the peace movement and the increasing
political power of women--developments that need to strengthen further in the
future. One goal: all governments should be about 50% female.
Another: Male/female equality of eduction. This kind of
culture-oriented politics can save the nation, and the world.
I’m copying two new people who should be on
this Climate Book Forum list.
Cheers - Art
lolly tindol to shelley, Art, me, Alberto, Aubrey, Gladys, Jeanne, Joyce, Malcolm, Marvin, Peg, Terry, George, Coralie, Abel
Thanks, Shelley and Art, for this thoughtful conversation, am so
in agreement with you both. And Art, a
personal thank you to you---you helped me make a leap of understanding that was
already internalized just not put into words: I asked you the following
question when we had first met, finding that you were an atheist, my question
was "Could you say the word 'sacred?' " Your answer was
"no." Admiring your intellect and my own desire to attempt to embrace
all beliefs in an accepting circle of compassion, I realized if I had asked you
can you say the word "respect" or "honor" you would have
said yes. Anthropology was the minor in my graduate work, and having traveled a
lot as a child and now as an adult (tour director with an upscale company,
speaking other languages), I recognize so many notions of spirit in the world.
What Native Americans see is a spirit in everything, be it a tree, the wind,
dirt, a worm. I love the thought of that aliveness, a shared value with indigenous in New Mexico that I've worked with
for years. So I can say "spirit" and I can also say equally
comfortably "we're all carbon particles from the Big Bang." (That
last one is from you, Art.) I remember as a young grad student studying Henri
Bergson in a French class, a grand French philosopher from the early 20th c. He
called it "elan vital." That vital thread that connects everything.
So, one of my favorite sayings is "we're all in it together" (whether
we like it or not!) Too much that we
call "religion" is dualistic, legalistic, retributive justice
oriented rather than restorative justice, lacking in compassion and acceptance.
And when I see evangelicals embracing Trump's lack of ethics because his
actions might bring on the Apocalpyse/Armageddon, I have another visceral
reaction. The sad thing is that he represents a class of society that for their
lack of action, may in fact be the last straw r/t an inhabitable Earth. Thanks for the article that started this
conversation.
CATASTROPHE
OR EMERGENCY? Language to Action.
While all
OMNI Forum members were engaged in learning about climate and becoming informed
citizens our country so keenly needed, some were reviewing the books, and some were
making connections in and surrounding of climate. Jeanne introduced us to writings by renowned
feminists. Philosopher Coralie was
writing another encompassing book. Environmentalist
Aubrey related our Forum to NW AR streams and forests. Communications professional Marvin was
making an illustrated lecture. Laboratory
scientist Alberto was introducing books we might never have heard of. All
were recommending books.
Bibliographer
and reviewer Dick Bennett was also contacting
organizations by which OMNI might share in resisting the planet-threatening
climate dangers increasingly more imminent.
For example, I wrote several women’s organizations about OMNI’s Book Forum,
believing that they possessed an undiscerned and undeveloped power to stand
against population growth. One, Population
Connection, stood out for already publishing articles in their magazine by that
name in relation to family planning and rising global temperature, and increasing
population. To meet the urgent need, PC
has expanded its capacity to help nations understand the importance of family
planning in reducing population and heat.
Please check out our release on the topic here: https://www.populationconnection.org/population-connection-launches-project-highlighting-effects-of-population-growth-on-climate-change/
Sign Up to Help Stop Climate Change. As
the United States’ leading grassroots organization seeking to stabilize global
population through education about population challenges and advocacy
supporting U.S. investment in voluntary domestic and international family
planning programs, Population Connection will launch a project aimed at
illuminating the link between empowering women and girls and addressing population
growth and climate change. www.populationconnection.org 2120 L St. NW, Suite 500,
Washington DC 20037
Andrea Mazzarino, “The All-American Ravages of Extreme Weather.” 
TOMDISPATCH (October 27, 2024).
If you want a headline to set you back a little
when it comes to our planet and our future, try this
one from the British Guardian: "Global water
crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years."
Yes, new studies show that crucial heavily populated areas of the world,
including Europe, are increasingly at risk. As New York Times climate
reporter Somini Sengupta wrote
recently, "Ten countries, including the United States and China,
produce nearly three-fourths of the world’s most irrigated crops, including
sugar, wheat, and cotton. Two-thirds of these crops face what the World
Resources Institute called 'high to extremely high levels of water stress.'”
And with the weather growing ever more extreme globally, thanks to climate
change, all of this is only expected to worsen significantly in the decades to
come. In fact, by the middle of this century, it's predicted that
up to half of all food production could be at risk.
Of course, it's been known
for years that, on a planet growing ever hotter, countries that are
home to one quarter of the global population will be at increasing risk of
running out of needed water supplies. And mind you, that growing reality goes
with a world of increasingly extreme water events, including both fierce
droughts and sudden,
massive downpours that can lead, as in Europe recently, or
in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton here in the United States, to
extreme flooding events made twice
as likely by the overheating of this planet.
In that context, let TomDispatch regular Andrea
Mazzarino consider the rural world she now inhabits, an America whose farms
have fallen from 6.8 million in 1935 to just over two million today, even as,
until recently, farm output had
tripled. However, under ever greater pressure from extreme weather events
like Helene and Milton, farm yields are finally beginning to fall and store
prices of foods, as every politician in America knows, have risen. In fact,
thanks to extreme
weather, from oranges in the U.S. to olives in Europe to rice in China,
crops have begun to fail and, if the latest studies are accurate, all of this
(and store food prices, too) will, in the years to come only worsen as the
planet grows warmer yet. Now, let Mazzarino take you to an increasingly
imperiled rural America on a planet growing hotter by the year. Tom
“
How Long Before This Storm Turns Political?
What's at Stake in 2024 -- from (My) Rural America”
By Andrea Mazzarino.
Images of homes that
collapsed under mudslides or
falling trees,
waterlogged farms, and
debris-filled roads drove home (yes, home!) to me recently the impact of Hurricane
Helene on rural
areas in the southeastern United States. That hurricane and the
no-less-devastating Hurricane Milton that followed it only exacerbated already
existing underlying problems for rural America. Those would include federal
insurance programs that prioritize rising sea levels over flooding from heavy
rainfall, deepening poverty, and
unequal access to private home insurance -- issues, in
other words, faced by poor inland farming communities. And for millions
of rural
Americans impacted by Helene, don't forget limited access to healthcare
services, widespread electricity outages,
and of course, difficulty getting to the ballot box. Case in point: some 80% of
North Carolinians under major disaster declarations live in rural areas.
Given that Helene’s human impact was plain for all to see, what struck me was
that significant numbers of headlines about that storm's devastation centered
not on those people hardest hit, but on the bizarre conspiracy theories of
extremist observers: that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
is funneling tens
of millions in funds and supplies meant for hurricane survivors to migrants,
that the Biden administration has been in
cahoots with meteorologists to control the weather, or that Biden
and crew actually planned the storm! One of my personal favorites came from a
neighbor I encountered at the post office in our rural Maryland town: we don’t
have enough money for FEMA rescue operations, she told me, because we're
funding Israeli healthcare and housing -- a reference, undoubtedly, to the tens
of billions of dollars of bombs and other aid this country has sent Israel’s
military in its war in Gaza and beyond.
Click
here to read more of this dispatch.
Following are AVAAZ’s plans for 2 important
conferences in Oct. 2021. HOW DID THEY
WORK OUT?? [AVAAZ an example of excessive
sky is falling language? But if we are
on track for a global temp rise of 3 degrees C.?--D]
Huiting Hsu. “The
last generation.” Avaaz. Jul 20, 2021.
Dear
friends,
This
isn't global warming anymore. It's global scorching.
Our world is hotter now than any time in recorded history, unleashing a
firestorm of heatwaves, megadroughts, and acidifying seas. We are shattering
the temple of life, with a million species on the edge of extinction.
Within 50 years, 1.5 billion people could be forced to flee
temperatures as hot as the Sahara desert -- already 20 million are forced
to run every year. We're living
through one of the greatest upheavals of life on earth, and it's caused by a
global rise of just 1°C. We're on track for 3°C. Just imagine the hostile
and desolate planet our children will inherit.
But here's the most important bit: We CAN still turn this around -- we
may be the last generation who can. The next five months are critical.
World leaders will hold two major UN summits, where momentous decisions on the
climate and extinction crisis must be made. It could change everything -- or
nothing. It means we only have 150 days to shake our leaders into
action, radically grow our team to overpower the fossil fuel army,
supercharge massive marches, and get the world behind our courageous plan to
save nature.
Earth can't wait anymore. This is one of the most important times to be
alive on this fragile planet, because it all hangs in the balance. We have
to give it everything we've got, and just a small weekly donation from each of
us will make an almighty difference. If you've ever thought of
donating, do it now and let's fight for the future of our world:
The UN Biodiversity Summit will happen in October, and aims to
end the extinction crisis with bold new protections for nature. And then just a
few weeks later, the global Climate Summit is our best chance to secure new
commitments to avoid a climate catastrophe.
It will not be easy, but there is reason to hope.
Almost all the world's biggest economies have now pledged to end carbon
pollution by 2050 -- and the pandemic has shown that bold, systemic
changes can happen far quicker than anyone dreamed. Humanity is learning
that everything on our beautiful planet is intimately connected.
But this is an emergency and pledges aren't enough. We need real,
decisive action -- and that will take absolutely everything we've got over the
next 5 months. Here's the plan:
· We'll
massively scale up our team of media and policy
experts, researchers, and organisers to pressure governments to sign a bold new
deal to save nature;
· We'll bring
brave indigenous leaders to the summits, ensuring their urgent call to
protect life-giving ecosystems is heard loud and clear;
· We'll
publish bombshell reports and shine a glaring media spotlight on the
shady lobbying tactics of the fossil fuel giants; and
· We'll help
organise historic marches, ensuring our leaders know the world is watching.
The
threats we face are no longer just serious; they are a matter of survival. We
can't miss this moment: Earth needs a powerful voice as leaders decide the
future. A tiny regular donation will make an incredible difference to
what we can do together -- chip in now so we can be deafening:
In the battle to save our world, there is no certainty; only opportunity. And
together, our years of marching, protesting, and advocacy have helped create
the golden opportunities ahead. Together, we are changing the world -- and I am
now more hopeful than I've been in a very long time. And hope is power. The
power to rise and fight and charge like never before. Because it's clear that
when we come together, all 66 million of us, our movement is capable of the
most extraordinary things. This moment demands nothing less.
With fierce hope and determination, always,
Huiting, Mike, Chris, Marigona, Adela, Fra, Camille, Alis, Mouhamad, Bert and
the whole team at Avaaz
More information:
Canada
is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans (the
Guardian) Leaked
UN draft report warns of accelerating climate devastation (Aljazeera) 3
billion people could live in places as hot as the Sahara by 2070
(World Economic Forum)
Dick Bennett. Speechless? More on language of climate scorching.
One of the functions of words is to enable us to be less
ambiguous, more exact, less vague, more explicit in describing and
understanding our experiences. It’s part
of our efforts to be more truthful in conveying the diverse particularities of life.
The label disaster
has been widely recognized as inadequate to describe global warming, and catastrophe and calamity would be more
accurate. The Inuit have some 50 words
for snow; the Scots, apparently, 421, depending upon how you define “word” and
“lexeme.” So surely we need an at least
equally precise vocabulary for making distinctions among the kinds and degrees
of ruin. We are a long way from
achieving that. An erupting volcano is a
disaster for the nearest town overrun
by lava, in contrast to the covid 19 virus that swept the world in
2020-21. What shall we label a new
pandemic? A crisis? A catastrophe? The Spanish flu of 1919 killed an estimated
50 million people: what word for that? A
calamity? What name (or names) is proportionately
accurate for coronaclimate? But it was eventually managed by vaccine, when
the warning word must be replaced?.
If you combine
climate, when happening simultaneously, what word in the English language will
be adequate? What name (or names) is
proportionately accurate for coronaclimatenuclear war? Emergency? Didn’t Biden use that word for the
pandemic? Is it adequate? Better
would be chaos? Apocalyse?
But what shall we call chronic, ceaseless coronaclimatewars, as
described by Andreas Malm in Corona,
Climate, Chronic Emergency? And then add population growth.
The development of
the precise vocabulary for snow itself took thousands of years, and continues
(although snow is disappearing), so I expect with great hope our lexicographers
are now busy collecting a dictionary for pandemics and climate change and wars.
. .and rapid population rise. We do
need it. For how can we think without
words to particularize our extraordinary variety of experiences?
What other words
have you heard or seen? What words would
you add?
Dick
I sent the above to a Mullin’s Reference Librarian and here
are her suggestions.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/phn.12866
· https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10980-021-01212-y
· Gilder, Andrew, and Olivia
Rumble. Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Global Climate
Change Responses. South African Institute of International Affairs,
2020, www.jstor.org/stable/resrep28366. Accessed 13 Apr. 2021.
· "Japan Hosts Int'l Talks on Post-COVID
Recovery, Global Warming." Jiji Press English News Service,
Sep 03, 2020. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/wire-feeds/japan-hosts-intl-talks-on-post-covid-recovery/docview/2439667808/se-2?accountid=8361."Japan Hosts Int'l Talks on Post-COVID
Recovery, Global Warming." Jiji Press English News Service,
Sep 03, 2020. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/wire-feeds/japan-hosts-intl-talks-on-post-covid-recovery/docview/2439667808/se-2?accountid=8361.
· Selby, David, and Fumiyo
Kagawa. “Climate Change and Coronavirus: A Confluence of Crises as Learning
Moment.” COVID-19 in the Global South: Impacts and Responses, edited by Pádraig Carmody
et al., by Ciarán Cannon, 1st ed., Bristol University Press, Bristol, 2020, pp.
17–28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18gfz7c.9. Accessed 13 Apr. 2021.
States News Service. "PANDEMIC
LEXICON". States News Service, August 3, 2020
Monday. advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:60HT-NTC1-DYTH-G0RX-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed April 13, 2021.
“Climate
change and the Pacific Islands: ‘When the land disappears, we will all
disappear’.” Editor. Mronline.org
(7-21-21).
Climate change is already leading to rising sea levels,
threatening island and coastal communities and devastating food security and
access to fresh water. Long-term drought and changes in weather patterns are
causing hunger and destroying farming land.
Originally published: Green
Left on July 13, 2021 by Susan Price (more by Green Left) | (Posted Jul 20, 2021). Agriculture, Climate Change, Environment, HealthAustralasia, Australia, New ZealandNewswirePacific Islands
. . .Another method
rich countries are using to downplay the severity of climate change is to
ignore its consequences, or try and pass them off as “natural” events.
Climate change is
already leading to rising sea levels, threatening island and coastal
communities and devastating food security and access to fresh water. Long-term
drought and changes in weather patterns are causing hunger and destroying
farming land. By the middle of the
century, it is estimated that as many as 200 million people worldwide may be
displaced as a result.
Yet, rich
countries have responded to this humanitarian disaster with lock-down and
lock-up measures to try and stop vulnerable people trying to flee. The poorest nations with the least
resources–which have had the least to do with the climate emergency–are being
left to deal with humanitarian problems.
Climate-related
displacement is still not considered to be an important global issue. The
United Nations (UN) Charter still does not recognise climate refugees–those who
cross international borders to find safety–let alone internally displaced
persons due to changes in the climate. . . .
MORE July 20, 2021 |
Newswire
Dick. Awareness of
Our World Ending. From Wordsworth to Naomi
Klein, to Marx. [Some of you know I was a professor of 19th
century British literature.]
It’s not a new
experience, but rather timeless and universal.
The elegy has a venerable history.
We need a literature of loss today, perhaps more than ever before. The
suffering of change is a main theme of the early poetry of William Wordsworth’s
Lyrical Ballads and The Prelude (1787-1800). He
wrote about pathetic and tragic people, about anguish and loss, about
murderers, crazed widows, desperate beggars, betrayed women. Simultaneously he struggled with the
contradictions between his republican hopes in the US and French revolutions
and periods of despondency caused by the events of reactionary, unjust, unequal
realities in England and France.
We live in a more
imperiled world, as the rising temperature deranges our atmosphere, our
weather, our lives, and converges with ceaseless wars, spreading fascism, increasing
population, increasing inequality, and old and new pandemics. The difference
with Wordsworth’s world seems to be that unless we respond totally and quickly today
we won’t merely continue the ancient inequities and suffering; we will be
extinguished. Are there elegies for that today?
And beyond the elegiac, What does Wordsworth’s
life suggest to us in such possible extremity of loss? Among the various ways he explored, to
discover the future he yearned for, was the creativity he had experienced in
childhood and in poetry, until gradually he found his own way, his
individuality, and his poetry of political radicalism, a way for all. Is
there a literature for that today?
(Publisher’s
description) The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet is a
2009 book [17 years ago] by Foster that argues the ecological crisis
stems from capitalism's expansion, proposing an "ecological
revolution" as the only solution, drawing on thinkers like Marx, Malthus,
and Carson to address issues like climate change, resource depletion, and
environmental justice. The book synthesizes a Marxist critique with
ecological concerns, advocating for a radical shift in humanity's relationship
with the planet, with examples of this revolution seen in global movements,
particularly in the Global South.
Key
themes and arguments
- Capitalism
as the root cause: Foster links the ecological crisis to the inherent
drive of capitalism for endless expansion, leading to irrational
exploitation of the planet.
- The
need for revolution: He argues that a fundamental, revolutionary
change in human-nature relations is necessary, not just reform.
- Metabolic
Rift: A central concept is the "metabolic rift," which
describes the disruption of natural cycles caused by capitalist
production, a theory rooted in Marx's work.
- Scope
of the crisis: The book covers major issues including global warming,
peak oil, species extinction, water shortages, and hunger.
- Hope
in action: Foster finds hope in emerging ecological movements and
experiments, especially in the "periphery of the world system".
- Synthesis of thought: He
integrates a wide range of thinkers, from classical political economists
to contemporary environmental activists, to build his argument.
Following is from Foster’s
preface to the Persian-language edition of The Ecological Revolution,
translated by Mohsen Saffari from Cheshmeh Publication in Iran.
The Ecological Revolution:
Making Peace with the Planet was first published a little more than ten years ago in April 2009, at a time when climate
change had already been recognized as a pressing global issue for over two
decades, but when there was still hardly any realistic discussion of its
connection to capitalism or of the immense ecological and social revolution
that would be required to overcome the Earth System crisis.
In order to understand
the historical gulf separating that time from our own, it is useful to refer to
the account provided in Naomi Klein’s
2014 book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the
Climate. Klein, one of the leading figures in today’s global
climate movement, recounts that April 2009 was the “precise moment when
I stopped averting my eyes to the reality of climate change.” She attributes
her awakening to an encounter that month with Angélica Navarro Llanos,
Bolivia’s socialist ambassador to the World Trade Organization. Navarro Llanos
convinced her that global warming was by far the most pressing and momentous
issue of the twenty-first century, and that any attempt to address it would
also require vast, radical changes in human society.1 Still, few people in spring 2009 saw the true seriousness of
anthropogenic climate change for the world economy, or the existential crisis
it entailed. Although the planetary emergency arising from fossil fuel
combustion had been spelled out for decades by the world scientific consensus,
what was still generally lacking was a deep understanding of how this was
related to capitalism as a system of accumulation.
Indeed, in 2009 there
was still a widespread belief even on the left that the United Nations climate
negotiations in Copenhagen that year would take the necessary steps to
begin to resolve the climate crisis. However, such illusions regarding the
system were to be stripped away in December
2009 with the total collapse of the climate talks. As Klein recalled: “I
have come to think of that night [when the complete failure of the Copenhagen
negotiations became apparent] as the climate movement’s coming of age: it was
the moment when the realization truly sank in that no one was coming to save
us.… It really is the case that we are on our own and any credible source of
hope in this crisis will have to come from below.”2 The problem of course was that all the
talk about limiting climate emissions had proven to be so much hot air as long
as fossil capital reigned unchallenged
within the world economy. Either the peoples of the earth would organize to
fight for solutions going against the logic of capital accumulation, or the future would be one of unending
catastrophe—even a kind of exterminism—on the planetary level.
OMNI CLIMATE
URGENCY, EMERGENCY ANTHOLOGY #1. DECEMBER
17, 2019. https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2019/12/omni-climate-emergency-newsletter.html
What’s at Stake: Naming/Labeling
and the Year 2019
[8 years ago]. A few years ago the usual reference to a
warming world was “global warming” or “climate change.” Last year “climate catastrophe” or “climate
calamity” were gaining prominence. And
now 2019 “climate emergency” claims precedence. Brenda Looper in her column in the NADG (“Weighty Words,” 12-11-19, 7B)
wrote about this rapid evolution of the language used to describe the increase
of atmospheric temperature and its dire consequences: “The Oxford Dictionaries blog
notes: ‘The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression shown
through usage evidence to reflect the ethos, mood or preoccupations of the
passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.’
The expression that did that for 2019, it
said, was ‘climate emergency.’” Most of the articles in #1 were published in 2019, but several cite some of the numerous earlier
articles.
OMNI CLIMATE
URGENCY, EMERGENCY ANTHOLOGY #2,
October 30, 2024. https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/10/omni-climate-urgency-emergency.html
END OMNI CLIMATE URGENCY, EMERGENCY ANTHOLOGY
#3.
