Never Underestimate - Science Moms

I was originally made aware of the importance of climate scientist Kathryn Hayhoe through the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment lecture series in 2019 where they claimed this outstanding woman as one of their own. A Canadian by birth. Hayhoe began her studies here before becoming the Political Science Endowed Professor in Public Policy and Public Law in the Department of Political Science, a director of the Climate Center, and an associate in the Public Health program of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Texas Tech University.

 But never underestimate the power of a woman – and a mom – and also a scientist. She has brought the three together as the lead in a new initiative to help us guide the next generation in the important area of climate change.  After meeting a young mother frightened about the world of the future for her child, Hayhoe realized they had a common situation and concern. Her approach is creative – channel fears into action.  Talk to your family and friends about it – but even more importantly, become an advocate in the places where you have agency – local schools, local governments, churches and local agencies and other levels of government.

 Hayhoe recruited five other prominent women scientists and a funding body to begin a ten million dollar educational project designed to educate and empower mothers – grandmothers like me can also join in. It will pay for advertisements featuring the women scientists that will run nationally and follow with ads focusing on states in the US where climate change is already showing significant effect. It’s a long term project that is expected to last for five years and you can read about it here.  Its website site includes helpful resources and starts the process with outlining myths and facts.

 In a “half the sky” framework, moms matter to politicians and advertisers.  Both can tap into their existing concern for climate change.  What this project gives them is some straightforward ways to act.  Moreover, they will have confidence in the leadership of woman scientists providing them with talking points and the ability to debunk common myths. Among them:

• Climate change isn’t settled science.

• Climate change is a natural phenomenon.

• Climate change is way off in the distant future.

• It might get bad but we can handle it.

• There is still time to address it (but not too much).

 You might check your own response to these statements and see if you are clear on the facts.  Next you can view the resources – some for moms and some to share with their children as well as TED talks. There is a sign up sheet for Americans and a similar one for Canadians and other parts of the world would be useful.

The final reminder is that individual small steps are important – but significant action involves government legislation.  We have to have the right information and we have to urge those in positions of power to act on it in important and positive ways. Exploring these materials is a really worthwhile way to spend some time during our current lock down.

Epiphany

 Some quotations:

 Save me, Oh Lord – for the waters have risen above my neck ( Psalm 69.1)

 From Wikipedia: An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphanea, "manifestation, striking appearance") is an experience of a sudden and striking realization. . . Epiphanies are relatively rare occurrences and generally follow a process of significant thought about a problem. Often they are triggered by a new and key piece of information, but importantly, a depth of prior knowledge is required to allow the leap of understanding.

 And also this: 

Western churches generally celebrate the Visit of the Magi as the revelation of the Incarnation of the infant Christ, and commemorate the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6.

 Some news stories were hard to find on television on Wednesday.  US Congress was no longer dominated by a single party.  Covid 19  hospitalizaed cases and deaths reached the highest numbers ever. There was nothing about Epiphany as a celebration of the visit of the Wise Men until a message announcing a link to a live streamed service at my parish church came via email. I left CNN to attend it online.  With the strains of Gregorian Chant, sung by single alternating voices complying with the rules of public health and an engaging homily, and the noting of the passing of two friends – one far too early from cancer and the other probably only from advanced age - it was a moment of Kairos in a world of Chaos.

 *I lived for three years in Manhattan in the early 60s. My eldest son came into the world as an American by birth.  It is a country I have admired and loved ever since my first visit as a young child. I have been totally mystified by its support of a president who seemed to have no qualifications for office and gained notoriety as a reality TV celebrity who in real life cheated on wives, businesses, banks and taxes. As someone who had inherited milions he was an unlikely saviour of people who felt left out and disadvantaged, but were eager to become his disciples.  But like everyone else I fell captive to news in print and social media that was all Trump all the Time.  His ability to capture out our attention Trumped all.

 I’m not complicit in marching, vandalizing or believing conspiracy theories. But if there is a personal epiphany, it is in realizing how much attention I gave to this person.  I read of a refusal of a sitting president to concede his loss in an election and his many attempts to contest it in the courts with baseless or non-existent claims. I thought that press accounts of correction were enough.  I thought that resignations of colleagues was enough.  I thought that invitations to protest by a sitting president to overthrow the government were disgraceful, but that law enforcement and curfews were enough.  I thought that even though some politicians wanted to engage in spurious theatre without risking the outcome - and a chairman adhering to the constitution was enough.  I was wrong.

 While those who were making those claims, thugs were invading and desecrating the Capitol, urged on to violence by the defeated president, his family members and their cohort. It appears to have been a wake-up call for some members of congress to have a similar epiphany – a sudden realization of what they have supported and how close they came to death – perhaps their own – but certainly that of democracy. 

What happens to a man or woman who runs for office with a view to making the world a better place and then loses any sense of what it true - just to stay in power?  What young person is going to undertake a position of office to risk being spit upon, called unspeakable names or even murdered?  How do you deal with someone using a Bible as a prop after tear gassing peaceful protesters - and then goes on to love thugs and domestic terrorists?

 I’m not suggesting that hanging out at an online church service is the answer.  Religions of all kinds have much to answer for. But however we find it, the sense of  decency and sacredness of places and institutions has to be part of  reality however one can find it.

 And I’m not about to join those condemning the leader of the senate and the vice president and others for finally doing the right thing as too little too late.  Sometimes epiphanies take a lifetime – including my own.  What makes the difference is a distinction between habits – some chosen, but more often learned and assumed unconsciously – and practice, which involves choices.  I along with others have choices to make – in terms of time and energy and focus and determine what I value.  It’s a new day.  

Positives among the negatives

 It’s good to see the end of a year that brought suffering, death and destruction to order, work and the democratic process. In the midst of these it is also good to see some things that had a positive effect on the environment and a chance to change the way we think and live in Canada. We have a new start today.

 A model for climate change

 When we realize the threat we are under, we are not afraid to take action. Unlike our neighbours to the south, we took responsibility for others generally by following the leadership of public health and adjusting quickly.  We could do this in nearly all cases by understanding that this was a collaborative effort that in no way infringed upon our rights. What if we could apply the same energy and commitment to climate change?

 People rediscovered the value of personal action.

 Early in March I was asked if I still had my sewing machine.  I couldn’t remember how long since I owned one and it seemed like two decades.  But two people I know made masks for family and friends and donated them to others.  It relieved the initial shortages that needed to go to front line workers. It also created a world of interesting design and pattern. What if we rediscovered our respect for craftmanship and rewarded it appropriately?

 Governments gave away money

 We didn’t hear about welfare bums and single moms misusing public funds. More of us were among the needy – restaurant owners and staff, musicians, actors and others whose lives were often precarious. We didn’t realize how much we valued their services until they were gone from our lives.  The whole idea of a guaranteed income gained weight. What if we could implement it, drawing on our recent experience?

 Trees are planted in a new way

 We have known that destroying trees is madness.  In a country that already has many covering its footprint, we still try to plant more.  College students have gone into remote areas for years to do so during the summer but it is hard work with limited productivity.  But a company is now producing drones that can plant seedlings at speeds surpassing any human effort. Technological development often harms the environment  What if it could focus more fully on improving it?

We have rediscovered the inner city

 Some of our streets have bike lanes now better protected from adjacent traffic lanes and more bike kiosks have appeared.  I’m lucky enough to live in the fifteen minute walk to everything – grocery markets, drugstores, bookstore, bank, restaurants for dining outdoors or takeout, medical centres and services for eye glasses and hearing aids.  Roadway lanes in good weather have been narrowed to allow for pavement seating and while traffic has to continue, there is less of it.  I’ve filled the gas tank of my car exactly three times last year.  What if we saved these features to benefit the environment?

 Working from home has some advantages

 The dogs are very happy about it – the cats, perhaps less so.  While parents have been challenged to work from home and cope with children who compete for attention and have work challenges of their own, neither work nor schooling has faded entirely. What if we reflected on the strengths and limitations of both workplaces and built some of the advantages into future life?

 Inequities have been laid bare

 Warehousing the most vulnerable, underpaying those who care for them, crowded housing and neighborhoods = all these increase vulnerability.  We know they exist but we have been able to ignore them. For those who are more fortunate – what if we resolve to take on one aspect of inequity to act upon in 2021 even in the smallest of ways?

New Books a New Era

A new administration in the US has meant that new roadmaps are being developed - and not a moment too soon. Visit Yale Climate Connections writer Michael Svoboda to learn more about these new books that will help us all move forward. You can find reviews of the books here.

Anti or Not?

Words matter and how we use them causes confusion.  I was struck by how this works after recently finishing the book, How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi. It made a much deeper impression than Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility. What both deal with at length is denial, something that Canadians as well as Americans must come to terms with, both in their roles as settlers who felt they had the right to steal lands inhabited for thousands of years by first nations people. While slavery is not as large a part of our history as that of our neighbors to the south, we are not innocent in systemic racism in Canada.  Kendi’s book helps us cut through our denial.

 Kendi, an author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in America, recently assumed the position of director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. His book combines his own upbringing and development as a memoire while also making clear argument about the distinction between “not a racist” and “anti-racist”.  It’s not hard to cite the example of a former president, who after delivering unsavory remarks about some citizens of Baltimore then stated he was the least racist person in the world. Our own gut reaction is to say, “Well at least I’m not a racist”.  Kendi’ book is a history of his own journey from racist to anti-racist. He says he used to be a racist most of the time. He no longer claims to be “not racist.

 What is an anti-racist?  He starts with two basic definitions:

Racist: one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea.

Anti-racist: one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea.

 Subsequent chapters take us through historical patterns. Assimilation results when one group suggests that another group is culturally inferior or behaves badly, and thus needs to be improved. Its opposite, segregation, suggests that one group will never improve and therefore should be segregated.  An anti-racist idea is that all groups are equal. He characterizes these opposites as dueling consciousnesses.

 He calls race a power construct with false historical roots, including differences in biology, In early childhood, his teacher assumed that his behaviour was bad and suggested that he should behave like an adult.  The converse is that many black adults have been treated as children unable to reach maturity. The bible starts with the notion that all are equal and then puts a curse on Ham who will forever be a slave. Ethnicity also enters the picture with notions of group characteristics.  Some bodies have been characterized as more animal-like or violent. Some group’s cultures are denigrated as not being really sophisticated. A bad individual becomes the poster child for the whole group.  Colour has created hierarchies within the groups themselves – including both blacks and whites. We ascribe divisions within class, space, gender and sexuality. Racism is always present and it is subconscious. To support his argument, Kendi relates amazing stories from his own life to illustrate it. The task for all of us is to bring it into consciousness.

 The struggle is to be fully human and also to see others as equally fully human. The focus has to be on power – not on groups of people – and on changing policy not on changing groups of people. It has to start with a recognition that we know and admit that such policies are wrong. What are policies that suggest certain groups of people are more dangerous or violent or mentally challenged than others?  How can policies that support such ideas be upended? How can pledges for diversity be replaced by policies for diversity? How can stereotypes based on one person – “black angry woman” be demolished as applied to any group?

 In a recent talk, Kendi cited the book’s chapter called “Failure” as the most important one in the book.  He says that to understand failure to remove racism is related to failed solutions and strategies – and that the cradle of these lies in failed racial ideologies.

These are not social constructs.  They are power constructs.  Current solutions offered to us when we feel bad or sad include reading a book, donating to a cause or marching a time or two.  But as soon as we do that we feel better – oscillating between feeling bad and feeling good means that generally we do nothing at all.

 It’s not a sequential march toward progress.  It’s a back and forth pattern.  It’s not saying “I’m not racist”.  It’s admitting, “I am racist and starting to act in a different way”. It’s not hearing stories and feeling sad about miserable mistreatment of others. It’s about attacking policies in any place and at any level where we have agency.  Education may help individuals but it may not affect groups.

 Resistance does work – it takes a long time, but it has to be constant and focus on ideas and policies.  There are two such policies I learned about in the morning paper that require my resistance.  An app to promote cheating is being used in a local university.  It does not recognize black faces. Whatever its merits in stopping cheating, it has to go.  A first nations community in the north is worrying that the vaccine is not on its way to them fast enough because of small population density, even though their caseload of Covid-19 is much too high.  I can send an email to a policy maker re both situations. It’s paltry as an action.  But I now know about ways to start being an anti-racist – and I can begin. Read this book.

 Postscript: I did send an email to the federal director of indigenous services, after finding him on the government website.  I was thanked for writing almost immediately and my short request to act was copied to three other persons in the department. No reply from the province on the cheating app yet.