400 ppm (from My Blogger Blog)

Sunday, May 12, 2013

400 ppm

This week, the Mauna Loa Observatory reported an incredibly terrifying measurement; we are now living at a time where the carbon dioxide levels have reached 400 ppm.  This means of course that we are failing at curving or addressing climate change.  Our world has not experienced this level of CO2 concentration in a very long time. 

Of course, if you were to look outside, life seems ok in America. People are blissfully going about their day. Where I am today, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. Most people didn't pay attention to this noteworthy piece of news.  And yet, I am personally dismayed and confused.  I want to quit my job and do something directly related to inspiring climate action, and simultaneously push to start a climate adaptation company, because i'm losing faith in our ability to get anything big done without a lot of people having to significantly adjust their lifestyles due to the coming consequences.  AND get everyone else on the planet to do so too. 

Every second that we spend not working on climate action is another second wasted. But, I don't know what to do: the rest of the world depends on money.  I have to pay my rent. I have to pay my student loans. I have to pay my credit cards. I can't just quit and leave.  I'm sure other people are in the same situation, and many have it worse. 

Maybe the problem is too big?  Maybe the words we've been using are inaccessible to most people?  Climate change is so polarized now that people shut off as soon as they realize they are talking about it.  and, what's worse, we haven't successfully and collectively succeeded in getting just one ask, or breaking it into pieces to get one ask for all the several different elements that are linked into a climate system. 

I know a lot of people have put a great deal of thought into how we can get the most people to participate without getting everyone on the planet to participate.  I really do think Amory Lovin's book Reinventing Fire is one roadmap that we could follow.  Sandalow also put some thought into a wedge technology theory many years ago.

we need action and we need it now, or a lot of people will be more than just "inconvenienced" - a lot of people are going to become sick, ill, impoverished, or displaced, or worse.*  There's no one to blame for this situation but ourselves.  I'm willing to take my share of the blame.  Are you?




(*This is what I mean: sick when disease vectors change and bugs carrying diseases start to flourish in new areas, ill when heat waves last for days and not enough water is available due to the drought, impoverished when they can't pay the insurance they'll need on their homes because they are in flood plains or near large brush fires, displaced when they can't drink the water on their islands, and then have to go live in an entirely new country which is the reality for those in lowlying islands and spaces, like the Maldives, the Mariana Islands, Manhattan, the Netherlands, worse when natural disasters strike and many casualties are lost due to the increase in intensity of storms)