It’s Time to Get Angry
It’s time to get angry. This is what John Kerry, not exactly the most extreme guy, is saying to us. Is it the best solution?
This is what Kerry told advocates of climate legislation recently:
“I want you to go out there and start knocking on doors and talking to people and telling people this has to happen. You know, if the Tea Party folks can go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God’s sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they’re being killed and our planet is being injured by what’s happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That’s something worth getting angry about.” (emphasis mine)
As part of my Bachelor’s thesis in sociology and environmental studies, about 6 years ago, I studied the history of the environmental movement in great depth. Since then, I have been keeping my eye on things, on the bigger picture, as I work in different fields — natural and organic foods, city planning and sustainable development, alternative transportation, and, now, online journalism with a green tint.
The underlying question, consistently, is: “How do we avoid, or — worst case scenario — deal with, huge environmental collapse?”
The issues have only gotten bigger (see: Global Warming in the Arctic — Much Worse than We Thought!, Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster than Ever and Oceans Absorbing CO2, Preventing Climate Change — Good, Right? No). But we seem to be going down the same road consistently, despite all the amazing efforts of people trying to turn this car around (and transform it into something green-friendly). The environmental movement, perhaps bigger than ever, still seems on the brink of failure.
How do we achieve the dream of a livable world for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Soft and Hard Environmentalist Approaches
There are those who think that greens have to tone it down, compromise more, cooperate with the opposite side more, and take the approach of Judd Law’s character in “I Heart Huckabees” in order to achieve success environmentally. Some of this may be true.
There are those who think the enviromental movement needs to get back to its roots more, focus on grass-roots activism and Greenpeace-style activism, make the most noise that we can and grab the media’s attention with public, eye-catching action.
Along this line, Kerry said, “We just have to take a page from who brought us the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act. We’ve been doing this before, and we just have to get back to basics and make it happen again. It’s called being active and not letting up.”
Some of this may be true.
It is really hard for anyone to nail down what is actually needed, but this may be the way to go. The following are other things to consider.
Climate Change & the Media, Today
Climate change was a major issue in the public eye for a short time, but now “only 57 percent of Americans think global warming is happening, down 14 points from 2008, and only 47 percent of Americans [think] global warming is caused mostly by human activities, down 10 points.” Part of this may be due to the fact that only 1.5% of media stories were dedicated to climate change and the environment in 2009, but there are other factors as well.
Apparently, we are supposed to avoid mentioning math when reporting on climate change because it turns people off and I read somewhere (can’t find the link) that the public is getting tired of the doom and gloom stories. Why? Well, it all just gets too detailed and too accurate, perhaps. Nonetheless, what is the lesson? If you are sharing information with non-involved people, it might be best to stay away from the tedious details and catastrophic language (but that always depends on the person you are talking to and the context of the discussion). But I think this may also be part of the problem — if people don’t want to evaluate the validity of a claim and they don’t want to hear that the world we rely on to survive is on the brink of collapse, we get the type of false media coverage discussed below. I think you should state clearly, as Kerry did above, that our habits are killing people and degrading the livability of our planet already. Additionally, I don’t think you can say enough what Obama stated in his State of the Union speech recently, that there is “overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.” If people want to get into the details, have it ready for them. People need to at least hear that the science is strong.
Ironically, the public trusts the wrong experts — weathermen rather than climate scientists — when it comes to climate change. Unfortunately, weathermen are in just about the worst position to evaluate climate science. Recently, people were especially eager to say that global warming wasn’t happening and maybe even “global cooling” was, but the sad truth is that isn’t true (see: Not Cold Everywhere and Addressing “Global Cooling”). If you’re going to fight for climate legislation, exposing the difference between weather and climate may be an important task.
Overall, the basic fact is, the media shares information and claims that have no scientific backing all the time as an equally weighted argument to the true climate scientists’ findings and statements (keep your eye on Joe Romm’s blog, Climate Progress, for constant debunking of completely untrue claims shared by the “status quo” media).
Despite all of this, there is actually broad public support for a climate and energy bill, a very conservative pollster recently let us know. Because of its ability to give us energy independence, good health, American jobs, and accountability for businesses and corporations, people support it.
So, what to do next to make it happen?
How Does a Democracy Work?
One problem with democracy, is that the population is responsible for everything — directly or indirectly — but the population is not well-informed on everything. Additionally, democracy requires involvement, and a lot of people just don’t want to be involved.
The bottom line is, we don’t have strong government action on climate change yet because the industries (oil, coal, auto) that would be hurt by it have a dispraportionate influence on our government.
Our national security is even in a very vulnerable position because of our addiction to oil (much of which isn’t coming from our friends), which only the oil industry really benefits from.
The status quo media isn’t interested in looking into things deeply and carefully enough to report the truth. So, much of the population remains ill-informed.
If we want to create change, just as Kerry says above, I think we have to go out there and get active. In whatever area we live or work in, we need to start sharing the truth about climate change and showing people at the same time that climate and energy legislation will create “energy independence, good health, American jobs, and accountability for businesses and corporations.”
The proof is there, but actually, most people don’t even care to find the proof. So, just tell them. If they want the proof, send them to me.
Get active & spread the news.
Help environmentalism of today live up to its history.
Related Stories (not linked above):
1) What is a Global Citizen? Are You One?
2) Who Wants a Climate & Energy Bill? 83 Leading US Companies
3) Google Earth Climate & Rainforest Tours
Image Credit: tibchris via flickr under a CC license
[...] Read more of this story » [...]
[...] Read more of this story » [...]
Yes, you are right. It is time to get angry. Angry with environmentalists, politicians and scientists who prescribe a solution of shaming and guilt and akin to hitting someone with a big stick as a punishment (cap and trade carbon emission scheme). Shame on you.
The majority of people of this world did not invent power plants, car or, planes. We use them because they became available to us. And we were told everyday that all these things are good. Now you want to take our toys away, like we are bad children. We did nothing wrong. We are innocents. We are children – children of this planet. We are a part of nature, not exclusive from it. Nature is more powerful than any of you. Let’s see you create something the size of a universe with its own energy source.
Shame on you for trying to scare the community and it’s time someone put you back in your place.
I am agreed with that we are addict to oil from which only oil industry getting benefits. Most of the people are not aware of the cilmate situation.
I agree it is time to get angry. Angry ate the Politicians who are trying to ride the global warming scam for every dollar they can. And angry at the environmentalists who still have not used a correct piece of science. And really angry at the environemtalists for killing so far a Billion people on this planet.
steveig: a cap&trade bill (as initially proposed) would not punish people. it would make polluting companies more accountable, create a more livable world for people (even if you dropped the climate change issue altogether), create More Jobs, and help America from falling beneath China, Europe, and others in the global economy.
also, you are exactly right, we are all part of nature and the universe that creates us is more powerful. i think it will respond to our actions in the appropriate way — consider what that would be if you were Nature.
Eve: give me a an article showing that global warming is a scam and i will give you one debunking that with more complete evidence.
try not to make your claims on ideology, but get into the details of it
Sorry Zach, All of the ground-based temperature data used by the IPCC is hopelessly compromised, “adjusted”, “homogenized”, or otherwise fudged in a way that always shows false warming. Only the RAW Satellite temperature data is now reliable.
Click my name and it links you to a new report by 2 meteorologists. You will be hearing A LOT about this report as it will set the tone for this debate for many years to come.
I used to be a Green Party Candidate, and I have a long background in Applied Sciences. Phony, rigged pseudo-science pisses me off. Read the report and LOOK AT THE PICS and you will see what I am talking about. An IPCC temperature station located above a barbeque pit. And another at the end of a runway being blasted all day by jet engine exhaust. I’m not kidding bro’. I wish this wasn’t real, but it is.
I wish the 111 page report by Meteorologists Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts had some flaws in it, but it makes a rock-solid case for global warming fraud. I now have to re-evaluate my position on all this, because it looks like global warming was faked. I used to hate skeptics, but D’Aleo and Watts woke me up.
Peace from Canada
[...] Stories: 1) Who’s More Powerful than Obama? 2) It’s Time to Get Angry 3) Who Wants a Climate & Energy Bill? 83 Leading US [...]
Zachary,
Of course the cap and trade ETS will punish people. You don’t think the polluters are going to absorb the extra cost of buying credits, do you? They are going to pass these extra costs onto the consumer in addition to the conversion costs of going towards greener technology.
I think that Nature has already responded with the claims of Global Warming being caused by anthropogenic CO2, by cooling the planet down since 2006. Professor Mojib Latif, an IPCC eminent scientist has now published a report that says that we are in for a mini ice age for the next 20-30 years. How can that be if the theory of Global Warming is correct? And we are not talking about weather (short term) here, but climate (long term).
And I can’t believe that you have posted a comment on where America fits in the global economy. So does that mean you don’t really care about the environment, but more on the financial viablilty of America. So, is this why you want the ETS? Creating a new market to keep the money churning around.
steveig: i’m only on here for a brief second, so don’t have time to address the first & third part yet, but will have to come back to them later.
for the second part, this is exactly the problem with the way media covers climate science. Latif does not say that. here is an article addressing exactly that issue, “Exclusive: Dr. Mojib Latif sets the record straight on what his work says about global warming and what it doesn’t say about global cooling,” http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/14/science-dr-mojib-latif-global-warming-cooling/