ThinkPint2

My story narrative came to an abrupt halt as I learned more about the Alberta Tar Sands; the Canadian government; the Keystone pipelines and other pipelines in process in North America; and what the First Nation people in Canada had been doing for years trying to stop the production and movement of so-called dirty oil. And dirty it was. I read the 1000-page tome of Daniel Yergin entitled The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power as soon as it came out in 1990. This hardly prepared me for understanding the Alberta Tar Sands in 2014. This was an entirely different animal with different consequences.

For Greta’s story line I needed to make a decision of just where the world’s temperature would be by 2064. Would it 2, 4, or 6 degrees higher Celsius by the time of this story. I was getting much clearer on the consequences for Greta for each alternative. The June 2014 data from the National Climatic Data Center was, “The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for June 2014 was the highest on record for the month, at 0.72°C (1.30°F) above the 20th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F).”

In the back, actually the front of my mind, was the nagging thought of what was I doing to make it a 2-degree Celsius story, which is destined to happen by the gases already in existence in the atmosphere, rather than 4 or 6 that might happen. I decided a little more action on my part was necessary rather than writing. The research, though, was key to understanding. YouTube and Google and I became even better friends. I learned what Dr. James Hansen had been doing since 1988 and his more recent efforts to ‘do something’ to avert the crisis, switching from doing science only to trying to influence policy. I watched many more videos from experts. I was to the point I could do the lectures, at least some of them.

What could one person with a stuffed duck do?

I started to engage, some would say push, friends. I got two interested in the stories and videos of the sinking Pacific islands of Kirabati. One said the President of Kirabati was her hero. Understandable. I personally thought an Arctic elder was remarkable. Her name is Shelia Watt-Cloutier and every one of her videos was inspiring. I awaited her 2015 book on The Right To Be Cold. The pre-publication blurb said this.

“The Right to Be Cold is a human story of resilience, commitment, and survival told from the unique vantage point of an Inuk woman who, in spite of many obstacles, rose from humble beginnings in the Arctic community of Kuujjuaq, Quebec—where she was raised by a single parent and grandmother and travelled by dog team in a traditional, ice-based Inuit hunting culture—to become one of the most influential and decorated environmental, cultural, and human rights advocates in the world.

“The Right to Be Cold explores the parallels between safeguarding the Arctic and the survival of Inuit culture—and ultimately the world—in the face of past, present, and future environmental degradation. Sheila Watt-Cloutier passionately argues that climate change is a human rights issue and one to which all of us on the planet are inextricably linked. The Right to Be Cold is the culmination of Watt-Cloutier’s regional, national, and international work over the last twenty-five years, weaving historical traumas and current issues such as climate change, leadership, and sustainability in the Arctic into her personal story to give a coherent and holistic voice to an important subject.”

I encouraged another friend to read Bill McKibben’s book, Eaarth, and she was so impressed she was going to buy copies and give it to friends. Good. Another friend asked if I thought I had to save the world, to which I replied, “no, don’t take yourself too seriously, no one else does.” I did think, though, that one or two people, if I caught them at the right time and did not go overboard like an evangelist, would give a listen for a minute, the elevator talk, if you will, which hopefully would inspire more from them.

The Alberta Tar Sands, though, is where the metal hit the road. After writing about the Pacific Islands and the Arctic I conceded in my mind many islands would go under and the Arctic ice cap would melt and there would be major fighting for resource rights in the Arctic by several nations by 2064.

By researching the Alberta Tar Sands I began to understand perfectly that here is where we have to do something if we are serious about this. Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen said it this way in a 2012 New York Times op-ed piece.

“If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

“Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.”

My research of James Hansen turned me back to research I had completed on the Climate Recovery Ordinance in our very own town of Eugene passed in late July 2014. The Ordinance, championed by Our Children’s Trust, was based on Hansen’s scientific assessment of what had to be done to get back to 350 ppm CO2. I didn’t even understand that when it was passed. Where was I?

I was just a woman with a stuffed duck and a 350.org t-shirt sitting in the audience. Now I knew more.

Suddenly all my circles were coming together: 350.org; Our Children’s Trust; James Hansen; reading hundreds of articles; watching dozens of YouTube videos. I was to the point I could say with some confidence, I tried hard and I understand some of it. But then I looked at the hours and hours I had spent to get there and realized my friends, bright though they be, did not have the time to do the same thing.

It appeared neither did Congress. Science is science; politics is politics.

I became more confident of using the judiciary as the way forward. Forget Congress, even though I want to see passed the following: Yes to Carbon Tax; Yes to Incentives to Renewables; No to Keystone; and No to subsidies to Fossil Fuels. Will it happen, I don’t know. Congress is beholding to fossil fuel companies. My faith in Congress being able to do anything is slim. Other nations were doing better than we were. More renewables. More regulations. They had more agreement that climate change was real, and we were still dealing with that one on the table; that is, convincing people it was real and caused by us.

Back to the judiciary for the U.S., I thought.

To that end I learned more about Our Children’s Trust and how I could support their efforts which are legal in nature. As one of their instructive videos pointed out…there will some judge, a decider of law, some place who will rule for youthful plaintiffs having the legal right to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate. The judiciary will define the action that the other two branches of Government are not doing.

I could see myself more involved in these legal efforts than chaining myself to a pipeline so it would not be built in Nebraska or elsewhere, although I admired tremendously the people who are doing just that. Or the First Nation people in Canada taking Healing Walks to intervene in tar sand production. Or…I could go on and on, movements were building. Was it just that I was looking in that direction, or was it really occurring because that was where my attention was focusing? Was I being too hopeful we really could come to grips with this before tipping points?

I made arrangements for my stuffed duck to participate in the People’s Climate March in NYC on September 21, 2014. Could this March be a game changer, poised right before the UN Climate Summit on September 23? The goal of the summit was described as follows:

“The Secretary-General is hosting the Climate Summit to engage leaders and advance climate action and ambition. The Summit will serve as a public platform for leaders at the highest level – all UN Member States, as well as finance, business, civil society and local leaders from public and private sectors – to catalyze ambitious action on the ground to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience and mobilize political will for an ambitious global agreement by 2015 that limits the world to a less than 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature.”

I knew the Summit was important, it had to go well for future efforts to go well. Both the President of the U.S. and China had committed to be there on September 23, 2014. If this was effective, then the conference in Lima in December 1-12, 2014, would go better which was the build up to the important conference in Paris 2015 or the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) as it was more officially called which would be November 30-December 11, 2015.

This was the road we had to follow to approach a 2-degree Celsius world for Greta.

The People’s Climate March on September 21, 2014, in NYC was coming closer, those who were passionate about this issue were doing a lot. I tried to find methods to engage those who were not so interested to become involved and feel an investment in something that is vital for their future. I was reminded in my effort of a quote from one of the cli-fi novels I read which seemed to fit most situations.

The protagonist in the novel is a climate change scientist and this quote from the book.

“She approved of his mission and loyally read climate-change stories in the press. But she told him once that to take the matter seriously would be to think about it all the time. Everything else shrank before it. And so, like everyone she knew, she could not take it seriously, not entirely. Daily life would not permit it. He sometimes quoted this observation in talks.”

I did not think about climate change all the time; but I did take it seriously and felt since I did understand it, I had some responsibility to do something while I still could. It was finding the effective actions, that was the key for me. I knew there was no one answer to effective actions. Until then I would keep muddling on the best I could.

Really, who could get upset with an older woman with a stuffed duck. And if they did, what would they do anyway, other than ignore, which, on this issue, they might be doing anyway. Thus, I could not lose by doing more.