Tag: Pollution

January 2020, A New Decade To Save Ourselves

Earth, Love it or Lose it, Christyl Rivers, Phd

January 2020 did not begin with much hope. Some people feared an outbreak of WWIII with Iran, Iraq, USA, among other players. Civil unrest continued, the world over. Australia is on fire. The US president is being impeached. An outbreak in Wuhan China will take us God knows where. Politics divide friends and family.

Despair of suffering wildlife and human loss could easily overwhelm any caring person. Floods and famine drive the growing spill of refugees. Birds fell out of the sky, a heating ocean, pollution, and more are daily concerns. This is just a tiny fraction of it. But, don’t despair.

I believe that human hope and optimism is the best tool we have. Yes. Have your sorrowful feelings for scorched koalas and dying wombats. It is important to allow human expression, as it makes us realize what work we need to do. It creates the compassion we need.

More than anything else, unite with those you love. Unite, too, with those you disagree with the most. In finding our common ground we have a much better chance to recreate, and clean that ground, and grow human demand to do better with a burgeoning ground swell of hope.

We all have work to do, from daily waste management to reshaping governments. It is the work that it will take to re-grow a healthy attitude, love for one another, and planet.

Happy 2020, and may you find power in participation of hope!

Does the Carbon Debate Also Tax Your Relationships?

People are very polarized, as you notice each day now. The newest, widening division is about climate.

People are defensive about “man made” climate change because the implication is that we are all guilty. People can’t face the idea of being blamed, and in fact, they shouldn’t.

Certainly, some are more guilty than others, but this is victim blaming. As in the opiate crisis, the many, many dead were judged for their habits, and often, their  “culture” for far too long. Let’s point the finger instead to the dealers.

It is the dealers of the world who profit most, literally, from our addiction to fossil fuels. It was recently revealed that the top twenty polluting corporations of the world not only grow rich on toxic fuel, they are the origin of fully one third of all greenhouse gases spewing into your air each and every day.

Not only that, but they actively played crucial roles in the divide you see today. By undermining the science and blowing the smoke of confusion over public understanding, they have poisoned the well of human discourse, all the while that they poison the planet.

All this denial and all this dirty stuff is the real reason you are afraid to sit down at the table with your Aunt Mary, and racist, Uncle Bob. If you don’t yet realize that racism, sexism, inequality, disproportionate wealth, and climate justice are related, then you just have to talk  even more openly to those whose opinions you cannot yet understand.

The IMF is proposing a higher tax on carbon. But this does nothing to lift up the real victims and give them empowerment. It just seeks to tax those least responsible who are working people dependent on energy to buy all that plastic wrapped food.

Let’s not let them do it. It’s really, really important to our civilization that we unite against the real baddies. And, that’s why you have to keep love and conversation alive at the Thanksgiving Day Table.