Global warming. Are we going to tackle it with hi-tech or human care and creativity?
Hey, beautiful hot weather here in Perth right now. Like summer!
But it’s autumn now and we’re having a stretch of around 30C degree days. Average for April is 24-27C. I wonder if this will shape up statistically significant to have another month declared “the hottest on record.”
Sound familiar to news in your neck of the woods too? Lets hear you here.
Overwhelming? Annoying?
Climate change, global warming, economic crisis, poverty, over population. PLUS the regular earth quakes, mudslides, floodings and fires…
It’s enough to make you want to get off. Except the only immediate way off is obviously a dead end.
Another way is to dismiss these events as far away, untrue and nothing to do with you. Just play it again Sam!
Yes, it very much looks like all 6 billion+plus human beings alive now are in a pickle. The changes to the atmosphere (yes, I do believe in human-caused global warming) over the last 300 years ago have turned the Industrial Revolution into the “Great Extermination Sensation.”
Doing Is Believing
But there are things we can do. Me. You too. You don’t have to know a thing about building a solar panel or a wind turbine. And, though I recommend replacing your incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent ones, turn your thermostat down and so on, there are more powerful things you can do.
OK, hook off here if you think everything is just fine as it is… For those of you who don’t I have a simple strategy that anyone can do.
Care
“Way back” in 1992, 1500 scientists signed a declaration about ecological decline and called for a new ethic. They said that this new ethic “must motivate a great movement, convince reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant people themselves to effect the needed changes…”.
And in calling for a new ethic they effectively identified it. They said that we must find “a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth (Union of Concerned Scientists 1998). In making this statement these scientists identified an ethic of care, one involving an appreciation of the link between the health of our environment and of our human relations.
From Disability Experience: A Contribution from the MarginsTowards a Sustainable Future
Now ‘care’ is not new. It is a primary ethic in all great religions as well as in some non-religious schools of thought.
When you pet your dog and take it for walk, that is care. But it is Care if you make sure all its doggy needs are met, give it the best food, exercise and shelter. It ‘costs’ you some effort.
It is Care that has you think of others and what they might need, and act accordingly.
Or take your environment.
I’m a member of a local group that has taken our local wetland under its wing. Thousands of plants have been planted in previously degraded areas. Water quality should be improving, or held at bay from surrounding environmental pressures. I saw four Whistling kites the other day!
But it gets even more simple than that. Even to give that person a ring who you know cannot get out much, or call in and let them know you’re around, is a powerful act in learning to live well with climate change and economic challenges.
What? Are you kidding?
Living well with climate change
It is very clear that we cannot refreeze melting ice waters and put them bvack on glaciers and polar caps. We cannot suck the excess CO 2 out of the atmosphere. We cannot magically flip changed environments back to their pristine states of origin.
The impacts of global warming are being felt now and will get worse before they get better – if they will over the next few generations.
But personal, local caring acts can transform a nightmare into a rich life.
A disabled and well world
It’s like a severe permanent disability. You either accept the reality and do what it takes to live your life as well as possible, or you linger, or give up and get off…
Now the trick with accepting is that it is not the individualistic heroism of climbing Mount Everest while blind, or swimming the Channel without legs, or things of that kind (I do take my hat off to those acievements though) that builds a sustainable world worth living in.
Care really is to do with daily attentions, every day, while trying to be being aware of someone else’s need, do this thoughtfully and competently, with that person’s participation.
Care is done with others. Together.
Because survival as a human community, and even living well under the great challenges of climate change, depends on the two-way street of care. Everyone is interdependent. It only takes us to behave according to that important part of our nature to bring about a sustainable world. Even if it is one with vastly changed environments.
Now that’s why Michelle Obama’s digging up the White House lawn with involvement of a local school, to grow organic vegetables, if more powerful than the G20 meeting ever could be.
It is why the Australian government’s initiative on affordable homes for low-income and homeless people, is more powerful than its handing many Australians $900 as an economic stimulus.
Because these things model social Care. Not charity, but building the capacity of caring community spirit. Examples from which each of us can take their queue.
No amount of solar panels or wind turbines can do that. Together with a culture of care however they’re a winning combination.
Still think your individual act makes no difference? Consider that giving, sharing and caring will make you feel like a million dollars. Nothing beats it.
To get a taste of how to learn to act like that, check out my friend Lily on Earth’s site here.
So, any one thing you can do?
Now I’m sure you can think of many smal things you can do with those people and environments within your personal world. Your personal act of care counts. It is actually the only way towards building a great world to live in for all of us.
Talk about it!
Go here to report local impacts of climate change and what people might be doing about it in your neighborhood.
