My writings - and those of others.
Disasters
Over the last few weeks I was preoccupied with a convoy of trucks. Now most if the news focuses on tanks and rockets and brave people dying. It’s easy to forget the longer term damage now coming to haunt us, that doesn’t care about how we mess up with trucks and tanks. It deals with how the practices of the first world will affect the two thirds who never enjoy our privileges and now will suffer even more. We have never come to terms with the reality that the planet has a one way irreversible journey and forgetting that impacts our own future - but not fairly. Those who already have the least will suffer the most.
The latest IPCC report still offers a sliver of hope. It’s hard to predict that the first world, already so arrogant and sure of its privilege will suddenly show remorse and change. Our track record isn’t good.
The report is immense in scope - 34,000 studies produced by more than 1,000 researchers and scientists and endorsed by 195 nations. There are things we can agree upon. Here are some of the things to recognize:
Half the world’s population is short of water at some time in the year
One out of three suffers from heat stress. That will grow to 50 or 75% if we fail to act.
A billion people living in coastal areas will be exposed to flooding by 2050
Much farm land is gradually becoming incapable of sustaining crops. A million children in Africa alone could suffer from stunted growth.
Wild animal habitat reduction is causing animals to move and become extninct
We don’t protect land, fresh water and oceans. Instead of carbon capture, we are sending more into the atmosphere.
While the poor suffer most, the first world isn’t escaping. The health of the planet affects us all - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. As the season of Lent begins, we need to grieve our losses, but not stop there. It’s incumbent upon all of us to act individually, corporately, nationally and internationally. The planet isn’t the stage set . The heart of stone must become a heart of flesh.
Deep Time and Deep Work
“Deep” is in and these two terms will yield results when you Google them or check them out in Wikipedia as I just did.
Google says this:
Deep time" refers to the time scale of geologic events, which is vastly, almost unimaginably greater than the time scale of human lives and human plans. It is one of geology's great gifts to the world's set of important ideas.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
“Deep time is a term introduced and applied by John McPhee to the concept of geologic time in his Basin and Range (1981), parts of which originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine.The philosophical concept of geological time was developed in the 18th century by Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726–1797); his "system of the habitable Earth" was a deistic mechanism keeping the world eternally suitable for humans. The modern concept shows huge changes over the age of the Earth which has been determined to be, after a long and complex history of developments, around 4.55 billion years.
The DeepTime Network tries to come from a broad perspective, though it doesn’t have an emphasis on geology and might benefit from more references to it. I created a map of the main components of the perspective just to provide a big picture view.
When you Google Cal Newport, you go straight to the book order site loved and despised by all. Deep Work is the title of a book by Cal Newport. Wikipedia tells us this about him.
“Newport coined the term "deep work," in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016) which refers to studying for focused chunks of time without distractions such as email and social media. He challenges the belief that participation in social media is important for career capital. In 2017, he began advocating for "digital minimalism. In 2021, he began referring to the role email and chat play in what he calls "the hyperactive hive mind".
I’ve read the book and it has some useful advice for a curious and distractable person like me. I’m also currently participating in a DTN course that attempts to prepare leaders in to use the new cosmology.
Much of its framework depends on the writing and teaching of Thomas Berry, a Passionist priest and a cultural historian who pondered the impact of culture and religion on our attitude toward the environment. He called as early as 1978 for a New Story that incorporated the learnings of science and religion. The purpose was to create a new spiritual framework for all institutional forms that included the entire universe story into religious and cultural history – especially those of the West. Later he framed this as a journey, a sequence of non-reversible events. To follow through would have a profound impact on education, government, law and world religions themselves. The assigment went far beyond simply learning about other faiths through social gatherings, study groups or visits to places of worship, but getting down to the business of saving our common planet together.
Berry’s impact on his graduate students was immense and his teachings have found an impressive home at Yale in the Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology. There are solid resources there which come for free to all who are interested. One of the aspects I admire is their thoroughness. There is a continuing relationship with world religions. In contrast the DTN is going more in the direction of creating a new one – for the spiritual but not religious. Some of the participants are RC nuns, who have every reason to distrust their hierarchy. Much of the energy of some has a stamp of Berry’s teaching. He was willing to spend lots of time teaching them and they were good students. But other participants may be enthusiasts of their own individual spiritualities that used to be called New Age – and which Berry warned against.
I find it really interesting to spend time in worlds unlike those of my former not-for profit one or my institutional church one. At times I have to draw back a bit from endless new processes and their acronyms so much loved in America. Any workshop attender has been there. The temptation is to go down rabbit-holes of suggestions to explore that sometimes are a waste of time – though at least I would not say, dangerous. I’m starting to become impatient as to how many websites suggested by participants are focusing mainly on sales and donations even with a url of .org. My own .url is a leftover from the days I actually did have a business.
There is sometimes a tendency to think in such courses that a quotation substitutes for a entire body of learning. Understanding and absorbing any worthwhile body of work must be gained through serious study. Such a body of work is not like a short poem – a very good one does have the capability of creating a universe of its own. Some sessions on life long learning are coming up. I have some good track record in that area - long life a t least - of longer duration than the presenting academics. We’ll see how they relate to deep time and deep work.
A New Start for our City
The City of Toronto where I live has spent the last five years addressing climate change:
In 2017 the City Council unanimously approved a long term climate strategy to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and improve health - also considering economic and social well being.
Two years later in 2019, the council declared a climate emergency. Emissions were 38% lower that year than they were in 1990.
On December 15, 2021, the Council Approved the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy. It includes the following goals for 2030:
Homes & Buildings
All new homes and buildings will be designed and built to be near zero greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings will be cut in half, from 2008 levels
Energy
50 per cent of community-wide energy comes from renewable or low-carbon sources
25 per cent of commercial and industrial floor area is connected to low carbon thermal energy sources
Transportation
30 per cent of registered vehicles in Toronto are electric
75 per cent of school/work trips under 5km are walked, biked or by transit
Waste
70 per cent residential waste diversion from the City of Toronto’s waste management system
Identify pathways to more sustainable consumption in City of Toronto operations and in Toronto’s economy
City of Toronto Corporate Goals
City of Toronto corporate greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 65 per cent over 2008 base year
All City Agency, Corporation and Division-owned new developments are designed and constructed to applicable Toronto Green
Standard Version 4 standard achieving zero carbon emissions, beginning in 2022
Greenhouse gas emissions from City-owned buildings are reduced by 60 per cent from 2008 levels; by 2040, City-owned buildings reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions
All City-owned facilities have achieved zero waste
Generate and utilize 1.5 Million Gigajoules of energy from biogas
Approximately 107,700 tonnes CO2e per year are reduced through Organics Processing with Renewable Energy and Landfill Gas Utilization
50 per cent of the City-owned fleet is transitioned to zero-emissions vehicles
50 per cent of the TTC bus fleet is zero-emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from food the City of Toronto procures are reduced by 25 per cent
It includes a directive to everyone.
The suggestions in this short video may not apply to everyone directly - renters for example - but even here, tenants associations can play a role. Most of the suggestions are actionable by families and bring participation down to the local level. Cities are where we live and work. They are also the places where we have the most impact on local policies. I commend all local councillors - and especially two who send regular newsletters I have signed up to receive. I’ve met in person with both on occasion. In the amount of noise in the news, it’s good to go back to local sources and see that citizens can have an impact.
Roles
Though all the news is focused on COP26 today, I’m going to back up to an article in the Globe and Mail this past Saturday which has some important implications for all who write and read. Viviane Fairbank, in her essay, An Inconvenient Truth, argues that we have to review what science is and does and how those who write and read about it need to respond.
She starts by looking at the relationship of weather events and climate models, Most of us are aware of weather - especially when it affects us directly. I live in an old apartment building which is too hot indoors and have to check the temperature outside before I leave it because there can be large differences. We also are aware of disasters like heat and fire in Lytton BC, referenced yesterday by the Canadian Prime Minister at the climate conference. Our common understanding of climate is regional or seasonal. The author makes the case that the understanding of scientists and their models is a different one, spurred on exponentially now with the advantages provided by super computers. When they try to connect the two, weather events and climate change - they speculate about event attribution - how changes in climate might have an effect on specific events. They look at long term patterns of 30 years or more and combine findings from land, sea and ice and even more.
Journalists like event attribution because they think it will influence our behaviour. The scientists are less willing to go there quickly, even though they know it can have a positive effect. Not all scientists agree about the models and this is where trouble can start and it relates to the readers’ understanding of science - usually gained from our high school study experience. It showed up as well during COVID19 when changing reports suggested to some that the news must be fake. Any uncertainty around climate change being caused by humans gives opportunities to discredit findings and allows those benefiting from fossil fuels to sow distrust of all science.
Fairbank takes us back to high school. but before that she deals with the question of whether science is seen as objective - an argument we frequently hear. Science itself is in the midst of a battle about that. There is also a danger that we simply accept the science that lines up with our current beliefs. We underestimate the power of tweets. Her estimate is that 25% of the ones denying climate change are produced by bots - software programs that perform automated, repetitive, pre-defined tasks. There are far more transmittals of skepticism that statements by professional scientists. Scientists become conservative in estimates to avoid being harassed with endless questions from journalists. That creates doubt.
Back to high school. We were told that scientists start with a hypothesis and then test it with experiments. If the results were consistent, the hypothesis was confirmed and became fact. Nevertheless scientists work in an explorative fashion. Research often does not produce conclusive results. That doesn’t prove it wrong so much as it reveals the complexity and need for continuous learning. The models have to be as good as possible. What makes the difference is time. If a model is consistent with what happens over a number of decades, it is safe to assume that there is a degree of accuracy. As time goes on there are also many more factors coming into play. Scientists take time to do their work and don’t make public statements lightly. That’s when the deniers pounce.
Fairbank quotes French philosopher of science Bruno Latour on scientific truth - “not by some world shaking fool-proof demonstration, but by the weaving together of thousands of tiny facts, reworked through modeling into a tissue of proofs that draw their robustness from the multiplicity of data, each piece of which remains obviously fragile”. Scientists are not value free. but their choices inform what they study and care about.
Both pandemics and climate change provoke strong reactions. The risks of a pandemic produced very different responses of acceptance and denial - but we learned pretty quickly what the consequences were. Five million deaths worldwide is both shocking and informative and the feedback has come pretty quickly. The risks of climate change are immense but longer term. Thomas Berry understood them well as early as 1978 when he commented, “The destiny of humans cannot be separated from the destiny of Earth.”