Note: The script below is from the author at Manpollo.org
and other
site (on this second site, the author asks for help translating
the topics to Spanish for DVDs, etc.) The script doesn't correspond
100% to the video and still needs checking over.
PART 1
Welcome to “Operation Saturation: On the Threshold.” Have a seat;
your briefing on your mission will begin in a minute. First, I
want to share some good news from the from.
I think we might actually be able to do this. I mean for us--you,
me--to literally change the world around this whole global climate
change thing. We just might be riding the wave of history here.
I know that sounds delusional, but I’m going to share some recent
events that I think demonstrate that--although it is a longshot--it
is also a very real possibility. And, just in case it inspires
you to renewed effort in spreading the word, I’ll also share some
more tools for doing so that have come up since I finished posting
that whole bruising series of “How It All Ends” videos in October.
[By the way: kudos to those of you who’ve actually watched all
six hours--you got stamina.]
Before I give you the updates, keep in mind that what we are passing
on--this viral idea that we are hoping will spread like wildfire--is
not a call to action on climate change. Those have been issued
repeatedly for years, and the body politic has shown itself to
be immune from that virus. The potential here for a torrent--for
real viral growth of this particluar idea--comes from its unique
feature that it cuts through the deadlock by changing the issue
from the typical question of “Is it happening?” to the untypical
question “Can we afford to ignore the possibility?”
So it is not a statement that we are passing along; it’s a question.
And I think that’s partly why the message has done well so far.
Bad News
Okay, so here’s the update. There is really good news, so hang
in there, cuz first we’re going to cover some really bad news.
First up: last summer showed record melting in both Greenland
and the Arctic, on a scale and pace that stunned the scientific
community. When I learned of this, and particularly when I read
the reactions of the research scientists who are familiar with
those areas, I had a sinking sense of “Ucchh, is this it? Is this
the moment that history is going to look back and point to, saying
‘This is where it all started to unravel?’”
See, the reason I’m so agitated about the possibility of catastrophic
climate change is not just the scale of what might happen, it’s
how immanent and sudden it just might be, it’s the possibility
of hidden tipping points and abrupt climate change. The image
that comes to mind is of us industriously striding right into
a mine field, without even breaking pace--we might indeed make
it out the other side unscathed, but with every step, I wonder
“Is this it? Is this it?”” Maybe you can understand why I feel
a little panicky about getting the word out ASAP.
Then there’s an absolutely stunning statement from the CEO of
Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company of Shell Oil, in which he
sketches out two possible scenarios for the future, which he calls
“Scramble” and “Blueprints.” It almost knocked me out of my chair.
In it, he called for all the things that huge multinational companies
are supposed to be against: regulations, cross-border cooperation,
efficiency standards, taxes, and--get this--an effort to transform
our energy economy comparable to the Apollo Project! And the last
thought he leaves with his reader? “Companies can suggest possible
routes to get there, but governments are in the driver’s seat.”
“Oh my god,” I thought when I read it. “Things must be even worse
than I thought.” I mean, for someone that entrenched in the status
quo to say things that radical, really is extraordinary. Check
it out for yourself--the link is in the video description. Next
time you come across someone parroting Michael Crichton, claiming
that global warming is a hoax by scientists to keep the grant
money flowing, whip out this statement and ask them how likely
they think it is that the chair of the 7th largest company in
the world has been so completely suckered.
I also came across two more heavyweight reports from sources contradicting
their normal bias (remember how I suggested we put such things
near the top of the credibility scale in the video “Risk Management?”).
The first study called “National Security and the Threat of Climate
Change” is from a think-tank funded by the Navy, and involved
all sorts of top-ranking retired military guys--the lowest ranked
guy there was a Lieutenant General. (It must have really sucked
for him when the other guys kept trying to send him out for coffee.)
Their assessment echoes the 2003 Pentagon Report that I shared
in the video “Scare Tactics,” but carries more heft, and is more
recent--2007. I’ll let you explore it in detail on your own--link
in the video description--but I’d just like to point out that
when military commanders characterize their conversations as “sobering,”
that should catch your attention. Career military planners aren’t
exactly known for being all that hysterical in the first place.
And the other study, called “The Age of Consequences,” is a collaboration
between two global security think tanks, conducted by a multidisciplinary
team of high mucky-mucks, including not just climatologists, but
also a historian, the head of the National Academy of Sciences,
a Nobel laureate economist, a former CIA Director, a former Chief
of Staff to the President, and a former National Security Advisor
to the Vice President. Not exactly a bunch of environinnies. (In
fact, it looks surprisingly like what I had proposed for a Manpollo
Project, except tiny.)
Their purpose was to [PROJECTOR] “employ the best available evidence
and climate models, and imagine three future worlds that fall
within the range of scientific plausibility.” The report points
out that “the scientific community has been shocked at how fast
some effects of global warming are unfolding. . . . Recent observations
indicate that projections from climate models have been too conservative;
the effects of climate change are unfolding faster and more dramatically
than expected.”
[DESK] And then it goes on in that happy tone to envision three
future scenarios: the “expected,” the “severe,” and the “catastrophic.”
Oh boy did that put a pit in my stomach. I have a sort of funny,
macabre story about that. I was approaching the end of the middle
scenario, the “severe,” which looked way too much like my grid’s
“worst case” scenario--when I read these lines: [PROJECTOR]“The
consequences of even relatively low-end global climate change
include the loosening and disruption of societal networks. At
higher ranges of the spectrum, chaos awaits.”
[DESK] And I stopped reading, thinking “I just can’t take more.
This is the middle scenario! ” Then I thought “No, no, it doesn’t
serve you to shrink from reality, no matter how unpleasant,” and
made myself read the next line, which is what gave the me macabre
little chuckle. [PROJECTOR] “The question is whether a threat
of this magnitude will dishearten humankind, or cause it to rally
in a tremendous, generational struggle for survival and reconstruction.”
[DESK] Yeah, well, we have our answer about how this little piece
of humankind reacted to that picture.
That section goes on to say: [DESK] “If that rally does not occur
relatively early on, then chances increase that the world will
be committed irrevocably to severe and permanent global climate
change at profoundly disruptive levels. An effective response
to the challenge of global warming cannot be spread out across
the next century, but rather must be set in place in the next
decade, in order to have any chance to meaningfully alter the
slope of the curves one sees in the IPCC report. We are already
in the midst of choosing among alternative futures. The onset
of these choices is rapid, and the consequences are likely to
be irreversible.”
[DESK] Uuuuuuuuuunnhhhhh. . .
Can you see I get just a little bit frustrated when someone just
casually dismisses my concerns, saying that I’m over excitable,
or that I’ve been duped by the environmentalists and the liberals?
Recall who wrote this report--it wasn’t the Sierra Club.
And I’m sorry, but I failed you. I just couldn’t bring myself
to read the third “catastrophic” scenario. Not just yet, at least.
I guess in that I’m not a very good role model. I did catch in
the introduction that when the participants were discussing the
third scenario, one of them actually made reference to the movie
“Mad Max,” just like I did in my videos. That’s just yucky. Cuz’
I keep hoping that I am just overexcitable , and so it sucks when
I keep finding credible sources who come to the same conclusions
I did.
Seems like every time we look, the picture is worse than we thought
it would be. So we adjust our expectations for next time. And
when we look again, it’s even worse than that.
But we can’t afford to just roll over. We’ve got to avoid falling
prey to those three stages of denial of environmental problems
that I shared in the video “Your Mission.” Do you remember them?
Stage 1: there is no problem. Stage 2: okay, there’s a problem,
but it’s not us, or it’s not significant. And finally Stage 3:
now it’s too big for us to do anything about. We’ve got to insert
a stage two-and-a-half in there--time to stop dithering and get
off our butts.
And that is what you and I are doing here. Because there is hope.
And that’s what I want to talk about now. I’ve given you some
serious doom and gloom, so now let me tell you about some really
heartening developments in the last couple months.
PART 2
As I film this, it’s been 6 months since I posted “The Most Terrifying
Video You’ll Ever See,” and 3 months since I posted that whole
slew of “How It All Ends” videos. In that time, “The Most Terrifying
Video” has garnered over 5 million views on various websites.
The exact phrase “Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See” gets
over 100,000 hits on Google, and the word “Manpollo”--a word that
didn’t even exist 4 months ago cuz I hadn’t made it up yet--now
gets over 3,500 hits! That all started from me--a Joe Schmoe!
Imagine what can happen if each of you adapts the message to your
strengths and puts it out there in ways I can’t even imagine!
Several websites have sprung up around the videos, including an
amazing community of people collaborating on projects at manpollo.org.
(And I’m getting tired of saying “links in the video description.”
So if I say refer to something, and you’re interested, check the
video description for a link.) Amongst other things, they’re working
on producing a professionally-packaged box set of DVDs of the
videos with bonus features. And every time someone buys the DVD
set, an extra copy is automatically sent to that person’s representative
in Congress or Parliament. There’s a facebook group called The
Manpollo Project, with a subgroup called “Operation Fire Extinguisher”
(which only makes sense if you’ve watch the video “Your Mission”--and
then its hilarious). Someone even wrote a facebook app called
manpollo.
I’ve been contacted by people from all over the world. I get messages
from teachers saying they’re using the videos in their classes,
and messages from students asking for help with those assignments!
I’ve lost track of all the languages that people have asked my
permission to translate the videos into: french, spanish, german,
dutch, chinese, bulgarian, swedish, maybe italian, maybe portugeuse.
(By the way, no permission needed--go for it! You might want to
check in at manpollo.org first, to see what’s already been done.)
I was even contacted by one of the lead authors of the Stern Report!
All of the videos are available for download in medium resolution,
and people are making DVDs on their own and handing them out.
High resolution versions are now out there, too, waiting to be
seeded as BitTorrent files. There are even iPod versions are available
on iTunes!
Mainstream media coverage of the videos--mainly centered around
the success of “The Most Terrifying Video”--was sparked by a blog
on the Huffington Post, which lead to an interview on a Canadian
radio station, which lead to an article in the Toronto Star, which
lead to an article in the Portland Oregonian, which the AP picked
up, and the next day I had two television news crews in my classroom,
resulting in a local TV news story aired that night, and a story
on the ABC National News webcast. Somewhere in there a reporter
from the Christian Science Monitor followed me around for a day,
resulting in an article in one of the most influential papers
out there.
And, while I’ve been contacted by several other media that didn’t
follow through--including a phone call from “Good Morning America”--all
the contacts were very exciting. I did end up for 2 and a half
minutes live on Canada’s version of “Good Morning America,” named
“Canada AM”--which, I’ve gotta say, is a deceptive title, because
it sounds a lot like a radio show, doesn’t it, especially when
you’ve been fielding media calls all day? And, having been interviewed
already by “Montreal 940 AM,” maybe you can understand how I showed
up at the uplink station at 4 a.m. for the live interview, unshaven
and in a t-shirt, only to find it was actually a television show.
Luckily I happened to wear the same t-shirt as in the videos,
so--while I may have been a slob--at least I was an “on-message”
slob.
The videos have been covered by more blogs than I can track, including
being named DeSmogBlog’s “#1 YouTube Global Warming Video of 2007,”
beating out, I might add, the clip of Senator Barbara Boxer layin’
the smack down on Senator James “Global Warming is a Hoax” Inhofe
during Gore’s testimony to Congress. I’m not sure if I get a statue
with that award. I’m still waiting.
Yesterday I was interviewed by an editor for the German version
of Men’s Health magazine, and today I just got done being interviewed
by a crew from an international satellite TV network I’d never
heard of.
I’m told that for a period of a day or so, a story about the videos
and me was featured at the top of the Yahoo homepage. I never
saw it, but judging from the serious kink it put in my graph of
views of “How It All Ends,” I believe it. (graph) There’s the
bump from when the Oregonian story hit the AP wires, for comparison.
As a result of all this hubub, a literary agent contacted me,
suggesting I turn the videos into a book. I said no way man, I
don’t want any more projects, I just want to go back to my wife
and kids. But since then I realized that it’s a way to reach a
whole new segment of the population, and this time I could at
least get compensated for my time, and then donate the rest. Mustn’t
look like I’m cashing in. So I’m working on the proposal for that.
In fact, if you think you would buy such a book, leave a comment
on this video--it would help to show a publisher that there’s
interest out there.
Here’s funny story: I got a letter with a return address I didn’t
recognize, and the envelope had was a little lumpy. Now, because
of my videos I’ve attracted some pretty out there people who feel
very antagonistic towards me, so I was careful. I don’t think
anyone’s going to send me actual anthrax, but who know what else
someone might come up with, so I shook the letter and was careful
as I opened it. It was a very nice card from a woman thanking
me for the videos, and it turns out the lump was my favorite quote
from Edward Abbey, wrapped around two twenty dollar bills! She
told me to take my wife out to dinner or the kids out to a movie!
And I had just been thinking about anthrax. So there are a lot
of selfless, thoughtful people out there. Keep that in mind as
you bang heads with the numskulls. Along those lines, I’m happy
to say that I’ve received way more positive comments than negative
comments this time (the proportions were flipped with “The Most
Terrifying Video). And, interestingly, some of the most persistent,
hardened denialists who had been dogging the comments on “The
Most Terrifying Video” did not move over to “How It All Ends.”
I don’t know whether they saw it as an unbeatable argument, or
whether the “foaming” that I called for in the video “Your Mission”
and executed by a dedicated few Information Warriors did its job,
but it is heartening to know they can be neutralized, and prevented
from influencing casual passersby with their reasonable-sounding
but ultimately flimsy arguments.
And I almost forgot to mention: you know how punishingly thorough
I was in looking for all the possible counterarguments to my main
argument, and then addressing those pre-emptively in the 6+ hours
of expansion pack videos? I was trying to put out there a robust
body of analysis for the world to reference, develop, adapt, and
use. Well, it turns out I did a pretty good job. Within a few
days of posting “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See,” the
“bulletproof” argument in that had been fatally poked full of
holes, due to an assumption I didn’t realize I had.
But as of this filming--and I guess you’ll just sort of have to
take my word for it--I have yet to hear an objection to the argument
I present in “How It All Ends” that I have not already covered
(effectively, I think) in the expansion pack videos. What I’m
saying is--I think they got nuthin’. The only issue that people
are challenging me with that I didn’t already have an answer to
as a result of my research is what one of them called “The Reset
Theory.” You can pretty much guess from the title what that is:
humanity needs to go through a cataclysm in order to be purged
of the traits that got us into this mess. And I’ll admit, I, um,
hadn’t formulated a response to that in the videos.
So that’s the good news. I think it all serves as a sort of “proof
of concept” that demonstrates there is a very real possibility
that we can change the world. So let’s talk about how to go about
doing that.
If you’re like me, all the bad news may make you feel very closed
in, very trapped. Almost everybody feels that yesterday they had
more space, more community, more safety, more opportunity. It
seems we’re up against the limits of growth on a finite planet.
Wouldn’t it be cool to go back to that feeling of “The future
is wide open, limitless?”
I think we can do that, if we allow ourselves to be free to choose
new definitions, like that Hal Harvey quote I shared in the video
“The Solution,” where just realizing that people want light, heat,
and mobility, rather than barrels of oil or kilowatt-hours of
electricity completely opens up the picture of what’s possible.
So if we’re up against the limits of growth, maybe we can sidestep
that by focusing on quality of life rather than more growth.
I subtitled this video “On the Threshold,” because I think we
may be on the threshold of a whole new way. I’m no expert, but
looking at the issue, it sure seems like the crisis of global
warming may change all sorts of things. Not just our energy economy,
but our ideas of community, our governance structures, our political
philosophies, our views of liberty and security, our economic
models.
We are on the edge of the undiscovered country. But that’s not
necessarily good news. On the other hand, it’s not necessarily
bad news, either. It’s just really high stakes news--that the
stakes in the game have gotten much higher than they have ever
been before. So if we want a happy ending, we’d best keep our
eyes on the road. This is not about politics. This is about pragmatism.
So what do you do from here?
PART 3
Well, the main title of this video is “Operation Saturation” because
that’s the image I want to plant in your mind. The goal is to
end up a culture saturated with this idea of risk management that’s
at the heart of my videos, to have everyone thinking through for
themselves this central question: “With the uncertainties and
risks of climate change, is it wiser to oppose action, or to demand
it?” Again and again, polls show that the uncertainty in climate
science is what’s been holding back the general public. This question
fixes that, by dodging the need for certainty.
So there is your simple idea that may save the world: that we
should be talking about risk, instead of about certainty.
The ultimate goal is to eliminate the possibility of that lower
right hand corner of the grid. In my assessment (as always, feel
free to do your own), the situation is likely bad enough that
getting us into column A is going to require massive action. The
only way to make that happen is to spread the demands out amongst
everybody, so that the demands are at a tolerable level. The only
way to do that is policy changes which restructure our energy
economy. And the only way that’s going to happen in time, is if
the people demand it from their policymakers. So the vision here
is bringing about a wholesale change in the culture so that a
policymaker can’t turn around without having a clump of people
in their face, saying “What are we--you--going to do about climate
change?” Hence, “Operation Saturation.”
Now, how do go about saturating the culture? Well, you’re already
familiar with how videos can go viral. If we want this idea to
go truly viral, culturally viral--to break out of the internet
and enter into the mainstream--it helps to think in some detail
about the nature of a real virus.
A virus has no resources of it’s own. All it has is instrucitons--a
blueprint on how to make another copy of itself. So how can it
cause an epidemic? It infects a host and uses their resources,
their experience, their contacts, to make many copies of itself,
[WHITEBOARD: exponential growth] and those copies go on to infect
others, where they do the same thing, multiplying again and again.
The original virus doesn’t need resources, just information, because
it hijacks the resources of its hosts along the way.
That’s how this can work: That’s how we can change the world without
having a huge organization or a massive budget: you “infect” ten
people with the same motivation and information you have, and
each of passes it on to ten more, and each of them passes it to
ten more, and on. As I’ve pointed out before, in just 5 steps,
that’s over 100,000 people who’ve been involved. If that sounds
like a Pyramid scheme or a chain letter, that’s because it is.
Except this one may save our collective neck.
It’s a little tough to talk about this without getting so wound
up about the possibilities that I sound like I’m about to break
into evil genius laughter. I mean, it’s a longshot, but this could
literally be the biggest, most pervasive PR campaign in history,
with zero initial resources and organization. That’s cool to think
about. And it may be our only hope. (That is, besides hoping really
hard that all those eggheads, military brass, and historians are
wrong about the whole thing. Oops, our bad.)
So you’ve been infected with the idea. What you do now is brainstorm:
“What resources do I have, what talents do I have, what contacts
do I have, that I can use to spread this idea?” You guys have
done an incredible job already. So now let’s supersize it, shall
we?
In this amazingly interconnected world of communication, each
of you has so much power. Let me back that up with an illustration.
Remember the kink in the graph caused by the story being featured
on the Yahoo homepage? That single event--that decision by a single
person who was in the right spot at Yahoo --had a huge effect.
That event garnered 50,000 views for “How It All Ends” in a single
day. Fully a sixth of the video’s total views collected over 3
months came in that 24 hours.
And that’s what I want to highlight for you: the power of “multipliers”--people
who are in a position to spread the word widely. So if you find
you are re-invigorated in wanting to spread the word, go beyond
the injunction to simply “forward the video to your friends and
family.” Think big, get creative, brainstorm ways to involve some
multipliers, and get them on board. Lobby people like celebrities,
journalists, executives, elected officials, bloggers, vloggers,
talk show hosts (t.v. and radio), charities, nonprofits, your
favorite actors (write that fan letter that you never have, saying
“I like and respect you so much, I really want you to see this”),
advocacy organizations, think tanks, lawmakers, musicians, “experts”
you see quoted in articles, presidential candidates, producers,
directors, authors, columnists, athletes. Re-post the videos on
other video sharing sites or on Digg or Reddit or Stumble, enter
them into contests, borrow the arguments and make your own videos
with your own spin and enter those into contests. According to
WhatAreTheyWaitingFor.com, the five biggest television political
reporters have asked 3000 questions of the presidential candidates,
and only 6 of those questions have been on climate change. Change
that. Saturate! Think big! I mean, just imagine if this got on
Oprah--BAM!--mission (of changing the culture) accomplished.
As you go about this, it might help to keep in mind what one teacher
wrote to tell me. He said he thinks the videos have gone big because
of something his students shared with him. They told him: “He
asks us to look at the question ourselves, rather than shoving
a bunch of facts down our throat.” So if you refer people to the
videos, maybe don’t say “This guy is right--you’d better listen.”
Instead ask them “Hey, what do you think about this?”
Although at one point I almost took down “The Most Terrifying
Video” because it has a hole in the argument big enough to drive
a Hummer through, I now acknowledge that it might in fact be more
viral than “How It All Ends,” even though that one has a better
argument. Anyway, since “The Most Terrifying Video” now points
pretty directly to “How It All Ends” and it’s expansion pack,
pick whichever one you think is more likely to spread, and use
that one.
Here’s another suggestion: maybe use some of the verbal jujitsu
of the political marketing guru Frank Luntz. There’s a link to
an interesting program about him in the video description. He’s
the guy who managed to change the term “estate tax” to “death
tax,” “oil drilling” to “energy exploration,” and “tax cuts” to
“tax relief.” Perhaps start talking about climate “destabilization,”
or “chaos,” or something better that you come up with. I made
up a word, and now it gets 3,500 hits on google. See what you
can do. For some ideas, I’ve provided a link to a discussion on
manpollo.org that’s got lots of great phrases and taglines.
Get the discussion away from the word “consensus”--because by
some definitions, it will be simply impossible in science--you
can always find someone who is going to disagree--and instead
talk about the “overwhelming agreement” in the scientific community.
It’s a stronger phrase, and can’t be disproved, because no matter
how many dissenting scientists the denialists can scare up, there’s
144,000 members of AAAS who would vote the board members out on
their ears if they made a radical statement that didn’t have overwhelming
agreement from the membership. In fact, that’s exactly what happened
with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
PART 4
AAPG recently had to change it’s official assertion that humans
don’t significantly affect the climate, because the membership
got ticked off at such a scientifically flimsy statement being
issued in their name, and pressured the board. They even made
the board change the name of the award it gave to Michael Crichton
for his novel “State of Fear” from the “Journalism Award” to the
“Media Award.” Funny!
AAPG was the last holdout, so now, as a result of the changed
statement, there is not a single reputable scientific organization
in the world which rejects the conclusion that humans are influencing
the climate. All that’s left at this point to make that claim
are individuals, and think tanks. That is a stunning fact--use
it. Link in the video description.
Along those lines, someone there came up with a really punchy
draft of this text for a flyer. [Show flyer.] You hear people
shouting about it everywhere: (("Global warming!" "Hot
air!")) Cutting through the backtalk seems impossible, so
you ignore it. But nobody's perfect. Could you be wrong? With
the uncertainties and risks of climate change, is it wiser to
oppose action, or to demand action? Everyday people like us must
change our question from ‘Is it going to happen?’ (which we can't
know) to ‘Can we afford to continue to ignore the possibility?’
(which we must know). Are you so sure that you'd bet your family's
lives on doing nothing? Because we only get to play this game
once. How lucky do you feel? Manpollo.org Get informed, and let
it change you.” Man, I get inspired every time I read that.
Here’s chore that needs doing, if you’re interested. You could
produce a more accessible and thorough index to all the “expansion
pack” videos accompanying “How It All Ends.” Right now, if someone
has a particular objection, they have to watch the ten minute
video “How It All Ends: Menu” to find the name of the video that
addresses their question, and then slog through who-knows-how
many parts of that video to find the answer.
As a result, right now the views for each of the expansion pack
videos are only in the pathetic little thousands, compared to
the hundreds of thousands for “How It All Ends” and the millions
for “The Most Terrifying Video.” I think they would be WAY more
accessible if there was something like hypertext document that
someone could look through for their criticism, and then they’re
given not only which video covers it, but also which segment,
and a time index in that segment, maybe even clickable! Cool!
Sounds like a hell of a lot of work. I’m not doin’ it. Maybe split
up the task with others, coordinating through manpollo.org.
Take the message and put your own spin on it. Develop it, mutate
it to survive when resistance to it is developed, or so that it
can flourish in new environments. For instance, find a way to
capitalize on the fact that the scientific models are much more
confidant of the threat of climate destabilization than the economic
models are of the threat economic harm resulting from curbing
carbon emissions, as I detailed in “Risk Management” and “Get
What You Want”
For instance here’s another possible way to frame the discussion:
What would you do if human-caused global climate change were true?
What would you do if human-caused global climate change were false?
Where do those circles overlap? That part surely you could do
now.
That makes me think of something the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell
wrote in that statement I mentioned earlier: “After 2015, easily
accessible supplies of oil and gas probably will no longer keep
up with demand.” That’s not a typo folks--that’s seven years from
now. Climate change or not, we’re going to stop burning it anyway,
soon, because we’re going to run out. How sad would it be if we
hosed our climate in order to eke out just a decade more of business
as usual?
Here are some more seed ideas to take and adapt:
Environmentalists are already on board. We need to expand the
issue; we need soccer moms and good ol’ boys too. So let’s change
the idea that this is about the Environment. This is not about
the Environment with a capital “E,” as in “good for the Environment.”
This is about our environment, with a lower case “e” as in the
totality of our physical setting. This is not about loving your
mother, or wilderness, or living lightly on the land, or being
eco-friendly. This is about what we see, taste, touch, smell,
and hear, and the setting that we depend on to breath, eat, bathe,
drink, and shelter in. This is not about an ethos. This is about
the bed in the saying “Don’t poo in your own bed.”
This isn’t about preserving the earth over time because that makes
us feel good. This is about pragmatically preserving our quality
of life. This is about happiness. “Feel happy?” “Got happy?” “No
happiness in a chaotic climate.”
This isn’t about being Green. That time is done. This is beyond
Green. We need a new word. What’s beyond green? Red, orange, yellow,
green, blue. . . Blue. How about blue? We’re beyond being Green,
we need to be Blue. Get Blue! Code Blue! Better blue than through!
Blue is my favorite color!
If I’ve said anything that offends you or you disagree with,
then fix it. Use that to spread the meme--the viral idea--that
we should be talking about risks, instead of certainty. That’s
what a virus is all about--the weaker versions are replaced by
stronger versions, and the message continues spreading. So take
this as your own, and go for it.
And I want to warn you: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
You don’t have to bike to work and eat vegetarian and recycle
religiously and compost, and sit in a cold dark house before you
can speak to a co-worker about climate change. Make the changes
that you are comfortable with, and then, instead of spending a
bunch of energy making changes you aren’t yet comfortable with,
spend that energy spreading the word. Because the net impact will
be greater if you do so. Decide for yourself, I suppose, but I
think the biggest “bang for your buck” is using your limited energy
to spread the word, so that we get a change in the culture, so
that policy makers are forced to take significant action, so that
massive action can happen without too great of a burden on individuals,
so that we can get the heck out of column B, which is where we
sit now, enacting our daring action plan of simply hoping that
most scientists are wrong or corrupt.
Rosa Parks was an ordinary person whose action in other circumstances
may have gone unnoticed. But the avalanche was already set, and
she happened to be in the right place at the right time when she
took action. She kicked some pebbles down the slope, setting off
the avalanche, and history has traced back an entire social era
to that moment.
Could you be a Rosa Parks on this? Could you be someone who stands
at the nexus of history, unaware of their own significance in
the whole picture, but whose single action might change the course
of the world? Are you the missing piece in the torrent? Probably
not. But, possibly so. The only way to know is to go ahead and
kick those pebbles down the slope. And I know how busy most of
us are, so it’s easy to think why bother if the chance of your
action having significant consequences is so small?
Well, there’s a line from a Dave Matthews song that has been running
through my head since I started this whole video madness, and
which keeps me going when I really feel like stopping: “Did I
do/all that I could?”
So, for me, at least, that’s why it’s worth making the effort,
even if the chances of success seem so small. Because I imagine
how utterly tragic it would feel if the carbon hits the fan, and
I am haunted by that question. “Did I do/all that I could?” When
I read things like that “Age of Consequences” Report, and I get
despondent about the future, it brings me some calmness to know
that if the worst comes does to pass and it’s clear we could have
prevented it, at least I can hug my two wonderful daughters and
say “I am so sorry, sweethearts. But I did all that I could.”
So why not at least try kicking some pebbles? After all, what’s
the worst that could happen?
This
video-article is part of an advanced listening activity for advanced
learners of English. 
The video on Youtube:
