Undiplomatic

António Guterres came to the job as Secretary of the United Nations after, among other things, serving as the Prime Minister of Portugal. Usually such leaders learn to be diplomatic. As Bill McKibben observes, he abandons when it comes to talking to fossil fuel providers on climate change. Here are some examples:

“We must end the merciless, relentless, senseless war on nature.” He adds

• We need disruption to end the destruction.

• No more baby steps.

• No more excuses.

• No more greenwashing.

• No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.

• Your core product is our core problems.

Among his fellow straight talkers are Pope Francis Al Gore and McKibbon himself. But my local daily newspapers didn’t join them this weekend. There were marches all over the world, including Toronto asking for the end of fossil fuels. The morning news today contained nary a story nor a photo in print or on screen. Our own party leaders seem not to be undiplomatic - but silent. It’s small wonder that the young roll their eyes at us,

Innovation

I’m off for a two day planning session where a consulting team will be meeting with the people who will later have to implement the proposed strategy. It was fortuitous that I read of an innovation lab that had some effective ways of measuring how much change people were ready for. You can find more about the Center for Youth Ministry here. Much of what they are saying applies to any organization dealing with change.

These were the things they are measuring on a continuum to try to assess how ready a group or organization is for change. In each case, the word on the left means not ready and the one on the right indicates readiness:

The mindset:

Fearful ______________ RISK RESPONSE ___________________Hopeful

Closed ________________INPUT_________________________Open

Survival ________________VISION ___________________Fulfilling the mission

The Structure:

Closed ________________ENVIRONMENT________________Playful

Bureaucratic____________COMPOSITION ___________________Adaptable

The Relationships

Isolated_______________CONNECTIVITY __________________Interwoven

Suspicious_________________BONDS ____________________Trusting

The Habits

Delaying _______________IMPLEMENTATION _______________Enacting

Reactive ________________Experimentation _______________Proactive

Good food for thought here for any organization. The Center offer testing and analysis which could be useful in a range of situations.

Report Card

The Parish Agreement 2015 was the best one to date on climate change. I still remember the enthusiasm of one person I know on his return from the COP Conference compared to previous ones he attended. There is a great story in the book, Not Too Late called “How the Ants Moved the Elephants in Paris”.

The Climate Vulnerable Form was formed in 2009 and composed of the countries who stand to lose the most from climate change. While rich countries wanted global warming limited to 2 degrees centigrade, in the long term, it meant that the vulnerable would still lose their right to food, health, shelter, and water. They asked for an increase of 1.5 degrees. Everyone would have to work on carbon reduction - and the largest countries would have to work better and faster. One hundred countries had supported them, but the recommendation hadn’t made it into the proposed final goal.

The CVF broke into action - having the Eiffel Tower light up with the the goal “1.5C” and a statement read into the record, which ended , “The parties which stand in the way of recommending a sound decision base on the information available will be remembered by the children of today for the failure of Paris, and we will shout it to the rooftops.” Eventually even Saudi Arabia chimed in and agreed.

It is now 2023 and heading into the next COP conference soon. The most recent report commends what has been done. We can take a minute to rejoice that the rise of greenhouse gases as slowed. In 2015, we were then on track for a rise of 4C degrees if we did nothing. Then we have to face that it is not enough. By 2100, we had reduced the pace to 3 degrees Celsius. Many countries have made promises - largely still on paper. If these are followed through, the predictions are a rise of 2-2.4C by 2100. That takes us back to the fears of the CVF as the real scenario.

The Climate Action Tracker has been created to measure our progress. SCroll down on the tracker to find out progress. Here are Canada’s for the year 2050:

• Our policies and action: Highly insufficient. We’re contributing to a future 4 dgree world

• Our target: almost sufficient for a 2 degree world

• Our target against taking our fair share - insufficient for a less than 3 degree world

• Financing climate change - Highly insufficent.

  Our overall score: Highly insufficient.

  Get angry if you like. But act. Elect people who support the right policies and get the right people on the bus. Keep the wrong people off it. This applies anywhere you have a say - with government, with corporations, in communities and community groups. We have voices. We need to raise them.

Doing it Right

The Washington Post recently published an article about a poll that asked the best ways for our individual actions to tackle climate change. It states that most of us get it wrong.

These were the items in order that people polled in the USA thought were the best ones:

• Installing solar panels

• Recycling

• Driving an electric car

• Taking fewer plane trips

• Using a heat pump for air conditioning an heating

• Choosing an electric stove over a gas one

• Living in a smaller house or apartment

• Not eating meat

• Driving more slowly

• Not eating dairy

I wanted to see how I scored.

• Estimating the value of recycling: I do it, but I know that most of the things discarded end up in landfill. I’m trying to reduce my use of plastics by paying more for containers in glass, but I still have far too much garbage. I live in an apartment with a gas stove installed so I can take no credit there. I drive slowly in town only and not often, though the grandchildren borrow the car for trips Nevertheless, the experts say these are not climate solutions in any case, and they don’t make much difference.

• The best steps were flying less and cutting out meat and dairy. I win on the first flying only twice since the end of 2019 - but I lose on the second two = perhaps I eat less of both than previously, but that is more a factor of age than choice. The article says, “Project Drawdown estimates that if three-quarters of people around the world adopted a plant-rich diet by 2050, they could avoid the release of more than 100 gigatons of emissions.” What is noticeable here is how small individual actions have a huge collective impact - but they do have to be collective.

• The winner for both the experts and the people is solar panels. I don’t have a choice on that one personally, but I can be an advocate for them.

• Some of the other items are proportionate to size. If everyone did an energy audit and responded. there would be some true benefit.

• Our most important action is at the ballot box to vote for climate friendly policies and monitor them in between elections. I get a B plus, I guess, for writing to the premier of Ontario to protest his opening up environmentally protected land for housing. Our combined protests have at least led to the firing of a chief of staff and a resignation of a cabinet minister. Our task is not over.

But neither is our need to reduce our carbon footprint when it is one of the largest in the world. Every choice we make enhances that world or diminishes it.

Violence as Protest

I read a story this week about a young man being arrested for defacing a famous painting in Canada’s National Gallery. He was protesting Climate Change and picked a painting by the famous Canadian painter Tom Thompson as the image shows here.

I find it troubling to see a public protest - even an individual one- resorting to violence. When the man did this, he knew that there was protective glass covering the painting and assumed he would still be arrested, but not guilty of actually damaging it. But would any other youthful protester know the whole story and simply imitate the practice with lasting consequence. My guess is that this will not please the visual artists who spread the message of climate through displaying depicting of the tragedies of our human impact on the natural world.

I’m more impressed by those who use non-violent methods - though some of them risk arrest as well. A young woman working as a barmaid in New York travelled to Standing Rock to support the Lakota people in their opposite to the Keystone Pipeline. The experience prompted her to run for the US Congress and Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez won the election to become the youngest person ever to be seated there. From there she went on to sponsor the Green New Deal in 2019, her first year of office. It took a while to for that bill to succeed but finally much of the best of it was incorporated in more recent legislation and passed.

The young man wanted to attract attention to something worthwhile - but how it is done also counts. I hope he learns to have bigger dreams of how he will change the world.