Some facts

One of the problems with climate change is the Omnivore's Dilemma: there's so much info out there, so many different perspectives on the best response, and the facts of climate change so scary, that I'd rather put my head in the sand most of the time.

Here's some of what I know:

Natural Gas:

• Natural gas is not a sustainable solution to our CO2 problem.
• Natural gas, when burned, emits less CO2 than oil or coal, which is good.
• The human 'production' of natural gas, however, especially fracking, releases a lot of 'waste' methane into the atmosphere.
• Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
• Most methane in the US comes from natural gas and coal extraction, transport, and processing. Most is not from agriculture as is commonly expressed.
• Fracking, an industry growing too fast for regulatory agencies to catch up, is a dangerous, polluting process. Water is a much more important resource than fuel, and fracking threatens our water supply. 

Nuclear Power:

• Nuclear power is potentially a sustainable solution to our climate change problem.  
• Nuclear power plants emit no CO2 directly, but mining, shipping, and processing uranium emits some. 
• Nuclear waste remains dangerous to most life for a duration from a few days to a few million years after its creation.
• Nuclear power is very tempting as an interim solution, and I'd be willing to support this option as an absolute last resort. It's dirty, dangerous, and non-renewable, and it's not guaranteed to take us into the 22nd century due to limited uranium supply. 

Tar Sands:

• Extremely destructive to local and distant ecosystems. 
• This extraction method is so energy intensive and dirty that the mere desire to extract oil using this method is a red flag that extraction companies are getting desperate. 
• Again, the fuel obtained from this source is so not worth it that we're better off using no fuel at all than this stuff.
• Most tar sands oil, like most of our coal, would be exported to other countries. Destroying our land and many north americans' livelihood solely for financial gain. 

Geo-engineering:

• While many of us really do believe that a technological solution to climate change will be found before things get too bad, this is extremely not likely. 
• Bill Gates and Richard Branson, among others, have been pumping money into this for over a decade, and they've got nothing.
• However, if we don't mitigate climate change soon, the powers that be will talk most of us into believing that geo-engineering solutions are our best hope.
• The most widely supported geo-engineering solution is dimming the sun. Spraying sulfer into the stratosphere to block some of the sun's energy would keep some heat out of the atmosphere. In addition to turning our sky from blue to yellowish, this 'solution' doesn't help the acidification of the oceans due to CO2 absorption, and it will also lead to changing climate and weather patterns. I am truly disturbed and nauseated that there are smart people out there actually promoting this idea. Another short-sighted, short-term 'solution'.

Renewable Energy:

• A conversion to renewable energy sources would not be easy.
• Manufacturing renewable energy systems uses fossil fuel mining, transport, and production techniques.
• It would take A LOT of renewable sources to balance our current energy needs. 
• It has been calculated that the world could run on 100% renewables definitely by 2050 and perhaps as early as 2030 (Stanford study).
• Renewable energy power supplies would have to be distributed and not centralized. This lends itself to local energy self-sufficiency and small scale, local economies. 
• This is the best option for us and the future of the planet. We should all get behind this now, but it needs to be done right, with a commitment to minimal environmental and social impact.

Free Market Capitalism:

• Any system that puts the needs of the 'market' above those of people and other life is wrong.
• Moving to sustainable energy sources is not economical, and it therefore is not going to be supported by the development of so-called market solutions.
• Capitalism, on a local scale, isn't a problem. It's the dissociation of resources, producers, employers, and consumers at the heart of the global market dissonance.
• Capitalism, as we do it, has a serious flaw - it neglects to consider natural systems and life itself as capital to be valued as an end in itself. Instead, these are viewed as sources of income, cogs in the machines that churn out money, means to an end. 
• The idea that we need energy solutions healthy for human and non-human life that satisfy the needs of the market too is a faulty premise; the needs of human and non-human life should be valued above all. 
• An economic system that continues to jeopardize the well-being of human and non-human life is not an ethical or viable economic system.
• (Don't assume that criticism of capitalism means I promote socialism.)

Values:

• Our best hope is for us all to stop justifying polluting ourselves, our environment, and other life. Nothing is worth the damage we're doing.
• We need to develop courage to pull our heads out of the sand and face the facts.

A little bit

A lot of people care enough to want to do something, but we don't know what to do. We can make better choices about what we buy, what we throw away, how much we consume. Those things help a little bit, and on the scale of one person, those little bits add up to a lot. But on the scale of civilization, those little bits add up to just a little bit.

"Every little bit helps," they say. But it helps only a little bit.

When I was 9 or 10 I read an illustrated Bible for a few weeks. The story of Moses going to talk to Pharaoh comes to my mind a lot. God wanted Moses to go to Pharaoh and ask for freedom. Moses said, "but what will I say?" And God said in response, "don't worry about it, I'll speak through you."

I loved the ease of surrendering to that trust, that the right words will come when I need them. And I surrender to that trust now too. Then it was God speaking through me, and now it's the beauty and verity of my values.

I value honesty, trust, and integrity. I value community, compassion, and freedom*. I value clean air, clean water, and healthy food.

If I'm acting from my values, any bit I give will make a difference. Usually just a little bit of difference, but maybe sometimes a big bit.

* I mainly mean ontological freedom, freedom from any constraints on our ability to be.

Hubris

It's hubris (and conditioning) that leads us to believe that we are the chosen ones, that any negative impact on life and our world is justifiable so long as we can point to a benefit to humanity. It's hubris (and conditioning) that leads us to believe that this way we do things is the best way to do them. 

It's also hubris (and conditioning) that justifies our belief that we can save the world, this pale blue dot. As if we are in charge, guardians of "a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena" (Carl Sagan). As George Carlin points out: "it's arrogant meddling, it's what got us into this trouble in the first place."

Geologically, Earth will be fine. Geologically, the Earth will continue spinning for the next 4-5 billion years or so, when the Sun's expansion puts to an end her time as a planet.

But rocks aren't what many of us are interested in protecting. We're interested in protecting life, and as far as we know, it's the only life the universe has.

Hubris: me and my bottom line are worth the collateral damage of clean air, clean water, and a thriving biosphere.

My cup of tea

When teaching students about engines and energy and power, talk invariably turns to great cars. What I try to get across to my students, though, is that if a great ride is measured only by acceleration and speed, then we're severely limiting the pleasure possible from the experience of driving.

I'm sitting in my seat here holding a cup of hot tea and enjoying the warmth it spreads through my core. There's so much sensation to this feeling, so much pleasure, and I wonder if there's even more...

So I think about the gas I burned on our stove to heat up the pot containing the water. This gas, American or Canadian produced and transported, is older than the oldest dinosaurs (probably), about 300 million years. Way back then, as now, the sun was up in the sky pumping photons to earth, where the photons were powering plant and algae growth. Those plants died, fell, and decomposed, and gravity and those 300 million years turned the sun's photons into natural gas.

Let there be light. 

So the heat in my belly from my cup of tea began its life in the thermonuclear furnace of the sun itself a very long time ago. And the physical sensation now has intellectual, emotional, and spiritual partners. 

There's more to all of our experiences, if we just look and feel. 

History knocking

The abolition of slavery in the new world depended "on a transformation in moral perception." 

It began with people being "willing to condemn an institution that had been sanctioned for thousands of years and who also strove to make human society something more than an endless contest of greed and power." (Davis)

We are the privileged ones, by birth and opportunity, so let's stand up and declare an end to exploitative, extractive, polluting business practices that sacrifice human health and well-being to satisfy avarice and arrogance. 

There is no "acceptable price for...depriving today's children their right to live in a world teaming with the wonders and beauties of creation." (Klein) This comfort we've found, these petty problems we deal with, are nothing compared with the plight of our fellow human and non-human life.

We sit on thrones of material complacency and squabble over conceptual differences while the world burns and her people thirst. All it takes is a willingness to be free from the constraints of ideological individualism and narcissistic self-gratification.

I want to see the masks of self-deception, spirit-deprivation, and distracting materialism come off.

Halloween masks

We can often tell who is wearing the mask. If someone puts on a sheep mask and still waddles and quacks, you know he's a duck. 

Last week a mask of "innocence" was taken off Exxon Mobil. Knowingly contributing disastrous amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere for over 30 years and funding a movement to deny the basic science of human-caused climate change, this and other extraction companies don't have our best interests in mind. Most of us really do know this, but we pretend the mask is real. That the humans running these companies really do have hearts. That they wouldn't continue to drill if it weren't really safe. That the market will self-regulate and provide the solutions we need when we need them. 

Our Halloween masks aren't the scariest ones that we wear. When you become aware of your masks, take them off so we can be with you as you are. When you see others wearing masks, request that they take them off so we can be with them as they are. 

And most importantly, quit deluding yourselves with dangerous ideologies just because they're wearing a too obviously false Messiah mask molded with currency bills.

A super PAC worth my willingness

I "care" a lot. 

Initially this "caring" showed up as an anxiety that there's a grim future out there for my kids and that I'm powerless to change it. I hung out in anxiety for about six months. 

Then I got that my fear was solely the result of a negative fantasy of the future, and that the fear helps me avoid being responsible for doing something, an excuse to avoid being uncomfortable. 

This week while talking with students I referenced climate change denier Ted Cruz and the super PAC donation of $15 million by a couple billionaire brothers who frack in Texas.* I said that if I were offered $15 million to deny climate change that I would do it too. I don't really know if I would. Probably. Maybe not?

It's now not out of fear that I am taking actions for the future. I may screw up as a dad and yell too much or boss too much or guilt too much sometimes, but I will squeeze myself through whatever ontological obstacles arise between me and giving everything I've got for a family, community, society, and world worthy of the purity of heart, mind, and body of these holy creatures I get to call my kids. My comfort isn't worth selling out on that. 

I "care" a lot. But caring doesn't create a brighter future. Actions do that. 

*  http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/25/politics/ted-cruz-wilks-brothers/. Fracking, an example of extreme extraction due to its immediate impact on the environment and human water supplies, is a "cleaner" option than oil because natural gas emits half the CO2 of other fossil fuels. However, fracking is no transition fuel because it unavoidably releases waste methane into the atmosphere, which is a more potent green house gas than CO2.

Why I want to write

Instead of writing tonight I'm going to distract myself for 20 minutes on Netflix and then go to bed. I don't know what to write.

But I know why I want to write tonight.  

I want to write tonight to connect a bigger, necessary movement with your life. I want to piece words together in a way that leaves you impacted: moved by the scars our way of life leaves on us, our families' future, the rest of life on the planet; inspired to act to fulfill on a vision for a different kind of future. 

But I dont know what to say to cause that. If you were more poor, or if you were more directly impacted, like if you lived in the Niger delta, in southern Louisiana, downriver from the Alberta tar sands, in smog-filled Beijing, or downriver from open pit mines in West Virginia, it might not take as much effort. 

Here, where we are, our lives are less connected to the plight of our own and other species. At least on the surface. We are, of course, still deeply impacted, much more than we've been educated to acknowledge. 

We in middle class America can relate much more with Carl Sagan's pale blue dot than with poor brown people. The pale blue dot is where we hike, what we see from airplane seats, what we watch on Discovery. 

But it's also what we breathe, it's what we drink, it's what we eat, it's where we live. I'd rather all of us have clean air, clean water, and poison-free food than cheap air fares and high tech gadgets (and I love cheap tickets and Apple products). 

So I'm going to watch a show now and hope that inspiring, effective words come more easily tomorrow. 

A resurrection into heaven

I don't believe there's a heaven we can reawaken into after our bodies die. But I do believe in death and rebirth and that there's a heaven waiting for us.

If we give up our lives for the sake of what's right, they will be saved, we will be born again. The heaven we're called to is always in our midst. Right here, right now.*

A friend Nate** gave a sermon on the resurrections we go through during our lives, the death of old ways of being and our birth into new ways of being. An angry father becoming a father with compassion and patience. A self-focused kid becoming a generous friend. Ontological transformations of individuals...and societies.

That's all this takes.

We only need be willing to give up the view we've been born into, that this is the way, this is the only way, this is the ordained way. There's another way.

I had a great talk with my dad today, and I told him that I'm now seeing that there's another future really possible for us, one worth fighting for, and that we're the ones to get us there. It's not the likely future given our trajectory, and it's a bright one, a good one.

I told him I don't know what that future looks like, and he called me on it. Sure you know what it looks like, at least mostly, he said. And he's right.

Clean air, clean water. All people healthy and satisfied. Communities thriving together. Life respected and free. People treating each other as they'd like to be treated.

What if the heaven we've learned about isn't a place, but instead a state of being? What if the arrival time isn't after physical death, but as soon as we're willing?

It just takes a resurrection, and that begins with a willingness to see that this destructive life we live is not the only way.

* Matthew 16:25 and Luke 17:21.
** Here's a source of writings, art, and blog posts by Nate and his friends called the Ecotheo Review, "Enlivening faith and ecological communities through writing, arts, and education."

We are the someone

I was posting another environmentalist article to Facebook tonight, hoping to open more eyes to our global dilemma. And again I felt that lost feeling from not really knowing what to do next. 

Having two little boys at home, I love that they need me. My wife and I have trained ourselves and them to have confidence to figure things out, but I still love to be needed, and I love fulfilling their needs. 

The scientists and engineers we hope will solve the problems for us, the politicians we hope will sustain us through transition, the teachers who always had the solution to the tough problems, the God who has given us free will and skills to survive, the mommy and daddy who were always there for us before, none of them are coming. 

No one is coming. 

We are the someone we've been waiting for. We are smart enough, creative enough, thoughtful and generous and compassionate enough, and if anyone gets us out of this, it's us. 

For years I've been feeling stuck, like I'm at the edge of a canyon with my kids, about to be pushed off the cliff by industrialization. And I know there's a new world just across the canyon, obscured by a hazy lack of creative vision, but there. And I have been desperately looking around for a bridge that should just be there. 

There's no bridge to the other side. We've got to build it. 

This blog is an organization of my training and skill building. We are going to build a bridge.