Take care! :)

I am born and raised in MB, although I have longed to move to the West Coast since 1986. Yet I am still here due to various life circumstances. I often envy people (like you) who have been “free” to make moves at whim. I have never had that option. Maybe someday.

How are you liking Port Alberni?

I took a look at your blog, some very good posts there too. Seems we see a lot of things eye-to-eye.

And yes, that does really make me feel despondent. It is denial, and it is apathy. Just going to the grocery stores and seeing that the majority of people cannot even trouble themselves to bring a reusable bag with them (or, if only a few items, carry them out in their hands) makes me feel very down. If people are too apathetic to make the effort for something that is that easy, that simple… how can we ever hope to deal with the bigger problems, the ones for which the actions required are much more complicated, or more challenging?

Jackie

I also fear we’ve reached that point where all of the news just falls on deaf ears. Even catastrophic events that could be – and probably are – climate change related don’t seem to have much of an impact anymore (denial perhaps?).

It’s very hard not to get despondent in the face of such apathy, don’t you think?

On that subject though, keep up the good work. Nice blog.

Gareth

Good article. Funny, your blog was advertised on my wordpress page as a blog that wrote about similar topics. I also write about global warming/climate change, but my investigation has brought me to a vastly different conclusion. Regardless, I like your attitude, “I think it is my responsibility to know. And I also think that, if I see something bad that is going to happen, that I can prevent, it is my duty to take action to prevent that thing. ” I think it is very fulfilling to learn everything we can about the world and share it with other people.

In my opinion, climate change fatigue has indeed set in, but I think it is because the problem is not as big as it once was thought. On top of that, there were a few high profile climate scientists doing shady things. I think that also turned a lot of people off. I have not followed the climate debate for some time now.

Mark

It is really sad that you and your fellow citizens aren’t “buying it”. Unfortunately, American citizens are so heavily marketed to, and so heavily lobbied by corporate and government interests, that I know it is really hard for you and your fellow citizens to get hard facts and unbiased information. (Not just about climate change, but about scores of other global issues). Which is why the USA is the main exception in the developed world regarding understanding of anthropogenic climate change.
e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat
and
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/climate_change
(I don’t think that there is really any other country in the world that thinks there is any “debate” about climate change any more).

Sadly, the USA is such a TV-driven, sound-byte oriented society now that you just need one high-profile celebrity or politican to spout off something, and people go around repeating it as if it were fact. (Michelle Bachmann’s big screw-up this week is a classic example, spouting crap about something she later admitted she has “no idea” about – but by then the damage is done, millions of Americans heard her spout off this “fact” on national TV, and didn’t stick around to hear the aftermath: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/bachmann-no-idea-hpv-vaccine-causes-mental-retardation-175201246.html).

I am not sure how much of a science background you have – but I’d really suggest that you get to a university library and read scientific journals. Not magazine articles by writers who are trying to say something about (whether for or against) climate change – but the actual technical articles published in respected international journals. Because that is where the data are.

Most everything else – what you read in the newspaper, or see on TV, or hear a politician say or a company CEO or spokesperson say – is not facts. It is someone with some ulterior motive, selectively using (or misusing) parts of the data to convince the public of whatever message they are trying to push. But if you go to the scientific journals – then you will see the data, the facts – and, instead of repeating a message that someone has told you, you can come up with your own conclusions, based upon facts, and not upon hearsay.

I know you guys think you’re all land of the free and all of that… and I know that it is hard to see a point of view from the outside, when most Americans never even leave their own country (only 30% of Americans even have a passport!) and so never get exposed to anything other than the rhetoric fed through the whole American marketing/political system. But the more you can try to get out of that, try to get access to information, facts, data – and not just opinions being thrust at you, I think the more it can only benefit you guys, both as individuals and as a nation.

In any case, as I noted in this post, I think it’s pretty unlikely we can actually do anything about it at this point. But I still think that going to the source of the info, to primary scientific data, is really important for anyone who is going to venture an opinion.

What can I say? Yup…

Seems the most pressing issue in most countries now is “jobs” which means they need to stimulate “growth”…. which is the opposite of sustainibility and equilibrium. Like their leaders can’t (or won’t) see that the environment is greater than the economy and all that… it is not a competing issue, it is the greater over-riding thing that supports all life.

I recently moved from Tofino to Port Alberni (reasons why in my blog post: http://jacquelinewindh.com/2011/05/25/breaking-a-connection-goodbye-tofino/). Tofino is one of Canada’s hugest tourist destinations, marketing itself as this green and environmental venue – when really that is all image. It is a poorly planned community, with all decisions ultimately driven by profit-oriented developers, it wastes its natural resources, it pumps its raw shit directly into the ocean… I could go on…

Port Alberni is considered to be a redneck town, formerly prosperous due to natural resource extraction (loggin and fishing), but undergoing a bit of a slump right now. However, it does at least have a stable community, which means that there seems to be some actual thought for the future in the planning going on here. And, now that you remind me, I seem to remember hearing that Port Alberni has signed on to being a transition town. So thank you for reminding me about that – I will look into it.

But I think my main thing is that I really don’t feel like trying at these things any more. I am at the stage where I recognize that I (we) are fighting a losing battle. (Strange to call it a battle, when the combatants from the “other” side are mostly ignorant of the issue, so unaware that they are battling…)

So, once one recognizes that they are doomed to lose the battle, what should one do? Continue to fight, on principle, knowing that it won’t affect the outcome? Or just say “screw it, I might as well just go enjoy the time I have left, driving and using resources and flitting around the globe?”

That’s kinda where I am at.

But the point is that most people who are doing “something” are actually doing very little on the big picture. They are “conscious” of climate-change (how could you not be, these days?) but they do not know the details of the magnitue of it, the pace of it, and the inevitability of it given that our global society functions upon the principle of Growth.

I think people are marketed to far too much (and they let themselves be!), and they also take the easier route. If marketing tells them that signing a few Avaaz petitions, and bringing back their plastic grocery bags to be recycled, and buying a few BS carbon-credits that means trees were planted somewhere so they can still go driving/flying/boating, means they are doing their bit for the environment, they accept that. Rather than face the reality that we cannot keep living the way we currently do, and face some hard decisions about difficult, real, changes that they woul dhave to make to their lives.

I agree that the corporations are an evil driving force in this. However, corporations are doubly driven by people: by the people who run them (most of whom have families themselves, but seem to believe that they are so rich that they will be able to buy their own survival in the coming disasters) and by the people who support them, consciously or not, by buying the products.

It is great that you and a few other people live lives of extreme non-consumption. But, in a way, you are living in a bit of a sheltered environment out there. I don’t mean to put down how you live – I really respect it. I just mean that it is not remotely reflective of how the majority of our 30 or whatever million Canadians live, or 300 or whatever million Americans live, or of how billions of Chinese and Indians and South Americans aspire to live.

And I guess that is why I am so pessimistic. For the most part, I live pretty extremely low-impact (although I totally acknowledge that my occasional international plane trips totally negate the low-impact living I do for most of my year). But a handful of people living extremely low-impact lives makes no meaningful difference in the midst of the millions (or billions) of under-informed people who aspire only for growth and increased affluence.