OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #102, NOVEMBER 21, 2022

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #102, NOVEMBER 21, 2022

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

What can I do as an individual to slow down the climate calamity?  
Union of Concerned Scientists: Science in Action.
David Camfield. Future on Fire:  Ecosocialism.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Climate Change: The bad news is, it’s us. The good news is, it’s us.”  Union of Concerned Scientists, 11-15-22.

We Can Build the Climate Future We Need         Dear Dick, Reading the news, it’s all too easy to slip into a sense of doom and despair, but that’s just what fossil fuel companies, their allies in Congress, and others who want to prioritize profit over people want you to do. They don’t want us to believe the truth: that we have the power to build the climate future we need. What we choose to do still matters. Giving into (or even spreading) messages of defeat actually does our opponents' work for them. Instead, we must fight off the despair by taking action—and helping others do the same.   As one of my colleagues, Senior Climate Scientist Brenda Ekwurzel often says about climate change: “The bad news is, it’s us. The good news is, it’s us.” Let’s focus on the good news and ensure we’re working together to advocate for a better future. —Katy       Science in Action     Do Something about Climate Change Faced with stories of deadly hurricanes, floods that displace millions, and wildfires that destroy communities, it’s easy to forget that our actions CAN make a difference. But it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve created a simple tool that offers up easy climate change actions that you can take right now. Some target the systems at the core of the climate crisis. Some focus on stuff that you control. All of it matters. Check out our new tool, and be sure to share it with the people in your lives: your friends, neighbors, kids, or grandkids.

 

A new book of fewer than 100 pages offers a solid, critical introduction to alternatives to our economic system of capitalism, via  “ecosocialism”:  David Camfield’s Future on Fire.
      But it’ll be no lark, for he makes the case that only a cultural change can stop the warming.  But change this culture?  At my dentist’s I scanned the October issue of Celebrate Arkansas, with a cover photo of stocked shelves.  The inside cover advertised Reese’s Halloween candy; page one advertised the canned drink, “White Claw,” a “hard seltzer” of 5% alcohol.  And the articles are in the same cultural embrace: A Gala to raise money for the American Cancer Society with a notable football coach doing the honors.  A confectionary company’s treats and packaging will provide “a better future for consumers.”  The “Candy and Impulse” company will “help people enjoy life’s sweet moments while saving money and living better.”  Is this 2022?  It could be 1980, or 1950!  Page 3, full page ad from a local jeweler “Celebrating Arkansas’ special moments since 1957.”  P. 5, a “Beer Cheese Dip” “Paired with Miller Lite.”   One page reminds us of hunger in our state, but “we are doing something about it.”   The drumbeat for US capitalism: boom! Consuming, boom! Profit.   Our religion, replete with promises of a fun future, is made a bittybit ethically palatable by a nod to helping ill and hungry people, but no mention of the climate catastrophe beginning to burn and drown the planet.  And we must change our culture within the next decade?   No lark ahead indeed.       --Dick

 

Stop Wars, Contact Legislators, Support United Nations

Ending Wars will slow down Climate Warming in countless significant ways.  Though humanity has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.  Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage.   And the major victim of all is THE CLIMATE.    [Make this one aspect of War and Climate your special action.   Ask your legislators to add environmental damage to the government’s war casualties count.  –Dick]

Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that over the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.

The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding strategies, because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed. 

On 5 November 2001, the UN General Assembly declared 6 November of each year as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (A/RES/56/4).

On 27 May 2016, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted resolution UNEP/EA.2/Res.15, which recognized the role of healthy ecosystems and sustainably managed resources in reducing the risk of armed conflict, and reaffirmed its strong commitment to the full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals listed in General Assembly resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.   MORE https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/11/omni-un-international-day-for.html

Want to become more effective?  Turn your single self into hundreds by committing yourself to an idea already in action or by joining an effective group—and stick with it.  Contribute to OMNI:    https://omnicenter.org/donate/     

End #102