Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite American holidays. I've been fortunate enough to have some very memorable Thanksgivings, in some great places and always with amazing people. Thanksgiving is one of those select American inventions that arose not for profit, but for something we practice far too rarely, reflection. Aside from industrial turkey farmers and Macy's, for most people it's about being with family and friends, eating, relaxing, reflecting on the growing season and all the hard work over the course of the year, and thinking about the coming winter. It's really so much better than Christmas for so many reasons that I'm not going to get into.
I'm really writing today because I have a very positive message. I'm reflecting today on how thankful I am to know so many people who have made sacrifices to advocate for social and environmental justice. These things are so politically unpopular because our society measures accomplishment with money. Advocating for social and environmental justice has more to do with passion, patience, and listening than it does with money or ideology. I've been fortunate enough to live and work with some passionate people who have given up quite a lot in their personal lives or have given up freedom or material profit to do this.
Sometimes we get discouraged because we are few and most people don't understand why we do what we do. Most people think we are crazy and many people think we belong in mental institutions. We can't give up because there is too much at stake. We have to keep focusing on what we have in common rather than our differences. We have to keep encouraging each other and to show others why this work is so important. More and more people understand why it's important every day. It's not easy, but we still do it. We have to be self-critical. To all the people I know that have dedicated their lives to advocating for marginalized people or for the environment, I really want to say thank you to you all. I'm thankful that you exist because you all keep hope alive. Please, pass this message along!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Did climate change cause Typhoon Haiyan?
Did climate change cause Typhoon Haiyan? - Features - Al Jazeera English
Finger pointing is the most popular action for the people who are feeling powerless to do anything to help the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. We've seen the typhoon being used to the political advantage of certain people and people blaming developed countries for causing climate change and consequently the most intense tropical cyclone to ever make landfall. We've really seen people say just about anything, and most of it is just out of frustration about the lack of preparedness for this disaster, the powerlessness people feel to get aid to people fast enough, and our need to have a reason why this typhoon happened in the first place.
First let's look again at some of the stories that have come out this week with people assigning blame to others. We saw Nederev Sano, chief representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Talks in Warsaw, blame climate change for the typhoon. He called for nations to collectively take action on climate change. He was careful not to assign blame to any specific countries or even on developed countries. He acknowledges that it is every countries' responsibility equally to act on climate change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/world/asia/typhoon-in-philippines-casts-long-shadow-over-un-talks-on-climate-treaty.html?hp&_r=1&
We also saw Stuart Varney commend Australia for backing out of talks for climate reparations to developing countries affected by climate change.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/13/foxs-heartless-response-to-the-philippines-call/196882
We saw a police chief who reported to the media that he estimated the death toll to be more than 10,000 removed from his post. Obviously a political move and punishment for "leaking" the severity of the situation to the international media. We will see if he gets his job back when the death toll surpasses 10,000.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/11/14/philippines_death_toll_police_chief_who_provied_10k_estimate_ousted.html
We've also seen NGOs and foreign military be able to deliver aid where the Philippine government has been too slow.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/typhoon-haiyan-devastation-slows-aid-efforts-2013111573115466504.html
Let's put this natural disaster in perspective. Here are the deadliest natural disasters in world history. As you can see, as bad as Yolanda was, it doesn't even make the list. In today's media age, we are seeing spectacular and graphic imagery of the destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll
The Philippines is actually very lucky that Yolanda did not hit Manila. Manila is extremely vulnerable to flooding as we have seen in 2009 and 2013, and wind damage would have been catastrophic. We would be talking about hundreds of thousands dead. It is unfortunate that the people affected are on relatively small and remote islands. They have no way of getting aid they need from other islands. It is one of the reasons that the Philippines is so disaster prone. If the country was connected to the mainland, we would be seeing aid arrive much sooner.
Typhoon Yolanda cannot be directly attributed to climate change. We are seeing increasing evidence across the board that the frequency of extreme weather events is indeed increasing. The likelihood that these events might occur at any given time is increasing. Climate change simply increases the likelihood that weather events are more extreme. Typhoon Yolanda was so strong because of the extremely warm water in the Philippine Sea. Because the worldwide human population is increasing rapidly, it is becoming more likely that people are going to be affected by extreme weather events. Read for yourself. If you can't see that it's happening and that human activity is accelerating the greenhouse effect, you should probably get out and make some of your own observations.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130905-extremeweatherandclimateevents.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/23/climate-change-carbon-emissions-ipcc-extreme-weather
It is ludicrous and hypocritical for people in the Philippines to be demanding reparations from the governments of developed nations. Developed nations are the people sending most of the food, clean water, and clothes that the typhoon victims need to survive right now. People don't have these things right now because most of them were living in unsustainable situations that were completely dependent on fossil fuel consumption before the typhoon happened. Many of these people have practically no direct connection with a land base for subsistence. The people that were living sustainably with a connection to a land base and do have clean water and food are now being forced to give it to others that don't have it. The Philippines is a net importer of food and has serious issues with clean drinking water, a recipe for a real disaster.
Developing countries subsidize fossil fuel consumption just as much as developed countries. Corporate welfare exists everywhere. It's a problem that stems from a culture of carbon consumption, a sense of entitlement, and exploitation. All countries are equally at fault for holding future generations hostage with unsustainable practices and for making so many people so vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Typhoon Yolanda is just the tip of the iceberg. We really haven't seen anything yet. We are talking about the likely possibility that 2 billion people will be displaced this century. We really don't have any time left to point fingers. It's a massive number of climate refugees that will be extremely desperate for survival. Yes, it is madness.
Finger pointing is the most popular action for the people who are feeling powerless to do anything to help the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. We've seen the typhoon being used to the political advantage of certain people and people blaming developed countries for causing climate change and consequently the most intense tropical cyclone to ever make landfall. We've really seen people say just about anything, and most of it is just out of frustration about the lack of preparedness for this disaster, the powerlessness people feel to get aid to people fast enough, and our need to have a reason why this typhoon happened in the first place.
First let's look again at some of the stories that have come out this week with people assigning blame to others. We saw Nederev Sano, chief representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Talks in Warsaw, blame climate change for the typhoon. He called for nations to collectively take action on climate change. He was careful not to assign blame to any specific countries or even on developed countries. He acknowledges that it is every countries' responsibility equally to act on climate change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/world/asia/typhoon-in-philippines-casts-long-shadow-over-un-talks-on-climate-treaty.html?hp&_r=1&
We also saw Stuart Varney commend Australia for backing out of talks for climate reparations to developing countries affected by climate change.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/13/foxs-heartless-response-to-the-philippines-call/196882
We saw a police chief who reported to the media that he estimated the death toll to be more than 10,000 removed from his post. Obviously a political move and punishment for "leaking" the severity of the situation to the international media. We will see if he gets his job back when the death toll surpasses 10,000.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/11/14/philippines_death_toll_police_chief_who_provied_10k_estimate_ousted.html
We've also seen NGOs and foreign military be able to deliver aid where the Philippine government has been too slow.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/typhoon-haiyan-devastation-slows-aid-efforts-2013111573115466504.html
Let's put this natural disaster in perspective. Here are the deadliest natural disasters in world history. As you can see, as bad as Yolanda was, it doesn't even make the list. In today's media age, we are seeing spectacular and graphic imagery of the destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll
The Philippines is actually very lucky that Yolanda did not hit Manila. Manila is extremely vulnerable to flooding as we have seen in 2009 and 2013, and wind damage would have been catastrophic. We would be talking about hundreds of thousands dead. It is unfortunate that the people affected are on relatively small and remote islands. They have no way of getting aid they need from other islands. It is one of the reasons that the Philippines is so disaster prone. If the country was connected to the mainland, we would be seeing aid arrive much sooner.
Typhoon Yolanda cannot be directly attributed to climate change. We are seeing increasing evidence across the board that the frequency of extreme weather events is indeed increasing. The likelihood that these events might occur at any given time is increasing. Climate change simply increases the likelihood that weather events are more extreme. Typhoon Yolanda was so strong because of the extremely warm water in the Philippine Sea. Because the worldwide human population is increasing rapidly, it is becoming more likely that people are going to be affected by extreme weather events. Read for yourself. If you can't see that it's happening and that human activity is accelerating the greenhouse effect, you should probably get out and make some of your own observations.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130905-extremeweatherandclimateevents.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/23/climate-change-carbon-emissions-ipcc-extreme-weather
It is ludicrous and hypocritical for people in the Philippines to be demanding reparations from the governments of developed nations. Developed nations are the people sending most of the food, clean water, and clothes that the typhoon victims need to survive right now. People don't have these things right now because most of them were living in unsustainable situations that were completely dependent on fossil fuel consumption before the typhoon happened. Many of these people have practically no direct connection with a land base for subsistence. The people that were living sustainably with a connection to a land base and do have clean water and food are now being forced to give it to others that don't have it. The Philippines is a net importer of food and has serious issues with clean drinking water, a recipe for a real disaster.
Developing countries subsidize fossil fuel consumption just as much as developed countries. Corporate welfare exists everywhere. It's a problem that stems from a culture of carbon consumption, a sense of entitlement, and exploitation. All countries are equally at fault for holding future generations hostage with unsustainable practices and for making so many people so vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Typhoon Yolanda is just the tip of the iceberg. We really haven't seen anything yet. We are talking about the likely possibility that 2 billion people will be displaced this century. We really don't have any time left to point fingers. It's a massive number of climate refugees that will be extremely desperate for survival. Yes, it is madness.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Redefining Wealth and Poverty with an Older Language
Wealth
and poverty are terms that we
should
redefine to be seen in terms of the richness of the relationship to
the organisms of a land base. This is the only truly sustainable way
to define wealth and poverty. Real
wealth
is only developed through a sense
of responsibility
to
communicate
with nature, and to understand its
universal language.
People
should shed
their cultural shells and re-acknowledge
that this universal language exists, then attempt to understand it
and speak it. Once one observes this language being used and begin to
acknowledge its existence apart from the culture of domination, one
will feel the immense weight of the universe on one's shoulders. The
knowledge will follow that this is the most important idea that
humans can ever know. It
is something indigenous people have known for thousands of years.
They have had this knowledge, and at the same time have seen the
surge of industrial civilization.
As
humans, our written and spoken languages and religions are not
universal. They are our cultural inventions and are not understood by
all creatures. They preoccupy us with a focus on an inability to
communicate with other organisms, including other humans, when we use
these tools. We should focus on reconnecting
with indigenous organisms by acknowledging
and speaking the universal language of nature, something we all have
the capacity to understand and speak. The
longer we devalue indigenous knowledge systems, the more difficult it
will be to collectively rebuild this dialogue.
Although
poverty is a complex issue when analyzed using the lens of industrial
civilization, it
develops when people collectively
attempt
to discard a dialogue or a symbiotic relationship with other
organisms. This
can happen despite
of the fact that so many other organisms are attempting to have a
relationship with humans. In
our written
and spoken
languages,
the idea of wealth or poverty stems from the domination
of living things with quiet voices. It
is expressed in monetary terms, a language nature does not
understand. Exploitation
by dominator culture (a term coined by Riane Eisler) and the
associated use of its language has suppressed the dialogue with
nature that undoubtedly propelled humans to be the most capably
adaptive organism the earth has ever known. It
is the reason for the spectrum of variation we see across the people
of the world, and we are foolish to think we are exempt from it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)