The Climate Mash

"Much of our obsession about knowing in advance what is coming has to do with fear."


  Our favorite subjects for this blog are climate change, energy and civilization collapse. We spend equal amounts of time describing the remedies for these evils — permaculture, ecovillage, biochar, and carbon farming, for instance, because we hold out a sliver of hope humanity still might be able to redirect our otherwise dismal prospects.

Malcolm X said "tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” Much of our obsession about knowing in advance what is coming has to do with fear. We feel insecure about the future. We sense a chill wind blowing, a storm approaching. It is visceral. It is in the zeitgeist. No one has to speak of it, we all … just … know. Can we find a safe place? Can we lay in some supplies? What about our loved ones? What about our previous life, possessions, skills, interests?

But to prepare we first need to know. What are we talking about? Can we know, even in rough outlines? And if we get that right, can we do anything now that would change the outcome to something more to our liking?

That is why we study climate, and write about it, and try to understand. It is a really angry beast at the gates. A hundred thousand years ago it gave us an extraordinary gift, and by delicately, respectfully, reverently abiding within a dance of life and death with that gift, we won an extraordinary, unprecedented run of the perfect global climate for mammalian life, capped by 12000 years of exceptionally good days. And what did we do? We blew it off for an infatuation with muscle cars and motorcycles.

Here then is what we learned about the future in 2014.





Our special thanks for the many who contributed to this report:

BBC News
Bill McKibben
Biochar Bob Cirino
Biochar Solutions
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate   
Blue Sky Biochar
Carbon Roots International
Eoin Campbell / GoPro Camera
Fox News
General Anthony Zinni
General Chuck Wald
General Gordon Sullivan
General Ron Keyes
General Wesley Clark
Global National
Global Observatory
Guy McPherson
Hugh McLaughlin
Jason A YouTube Channel
Jeffrey Wallin
Johannes Lehmann
Josiah Hunt
Kelpie Wilson
Michael Wittman
Mycorrhizal Applications, Inc.
Natalia Shakova
Paul Beckwith
Peter Sinclair
Peter Wadhaus
Rear Admiral David Titley
Right Livelihood Foundation
Rosie Boycott
Stuart Scott, UPFSI
The Biochar Company
Tom Goreau, Global Coral Reef Alliance
Tom Newmark, The Carbon Underground
Tufts University
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
US Biochar Initiative
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn

Comments

Danny C said…
Thank you. And thank you for finishing on the up. We need to be alarmed and hopeful and perhaps between the two we can continue to take action.
Erich J. Knight said…
The military is all about logistics, with Logistics threatened by climate we see all the top brass struggle to get politicians to listen.

If the republicans cannot be swayed by the command general staff of every branch of the US military services, I don't know of any authority that could be successful.
dex3703 said…
Thanks for a great post. Can you provide a list of links to the included videos? I'd like to watch the original presentations too.
Albert Bates said…
Dear Unknown: The Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate videos are indexed at http://bio4climate.org/conferences/conference-2014/program/. The Arctic Methane Research Group press conference in Lima is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YZNgPhJrD8 The archival footage of military people concerned about climate comes from Peter Sinclair's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610
Any remaining YouTubes should be available on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXjzbzYgBYMok4sF4LwLH4A

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