OUR MASS IMPERATIVE: SEE. ACT. INSPIRE!

Watch this 6 minute video of ecoSanity.org Founder, Glenn MacIntosh's presentation on the URGENT GLOBAL EMERGENCY and SOCIAL INJUSTICES posed by the devastating impacts of climate change at the 2008 Green Living Show in Toronto, Canada. Then read on for more essential information.

OUR DISEASE

Revised: Sept./2008 - Dad was
a smoker; Mom, a food (and cream!) enthusiast. Fair to say, their choices, habits and thought processes had long-fated the likelihood of their aged illnesses and framed the declines of their eventual endgames.

As any of us might have done in their places, faced with difficult options, my parents experienced phases of denial, delayed action, questioned medical prognoses and often resisted recommended treatments.

Having embraced too late the realities of their predicaments, Dad succumbed to esophageal cancer and Mom to chronic kidney failure after difficult, prolonged struggles.

What's this happy stuff got to do with the environment, you ask?

For decades the world has lived with, and SO FAR survived (knock wood), the ever-present danger of nuclear war and/or nuclear disaster. But the IMMINENT THREAT posed by climate change is a GLOBAL ILLNESS GREATER THAN ANY CHALLENGE HUMANITY HAS EVER FACED BEFORE.

It's a perfect storm that has, for the most part, gestated unseen. The immediate impacts - the kind we are best wired to react to - are well disguised as anomaly. The harsh realities are often denied in favor of political-economic agendas, the media's disproportionate thirst for conflict and the comfort we get from calculated, fossil fuel industry-funded 'uncertainty' and 'debate'.

Watch this 2-part video of Harvard Professor, Dan Gilbert, speaking about the psychology of global warming.
PART 1 below. Click here for PART 2.

One analogy compares what Al Gore refers to as the climate crisis to a supertanker that takes a lot to gain steam, but then becomes very difficult to turn or slow, let alone reverse.

Unlike a supertanker, however, the advance of climate change toward a global average temperature increase tipping point (wrongly promoted by governments and most environmental organizations as +2 C or more, when it has in fact been shown to be +1.5 C OR LESS! - read about NASA's James Hansen's conclusions and Climate Code Red's conclusions) is now RAPID and, if surpassed, a phenomenon called feedback loops would threaten EXPONENTIAL AND IRREVERSIBLE ACCELERATION - WELL BEYOND SURVIVABLE EXTREMES, WELL WITHIN THE LIFETIMES OF TODAY'S CHILDREN!

That's right. At present, the world's atmosphere is on course to reach a state of UNSURVIVABLE EXTREMES WITHIN THE LIFETIMES OF TODAY'S CHILDREN and the only plausible response that MAY be able to prevent the WORST, CASCADE IMPACTS in time is...

IMMEDIATE, RADICAL, RESPONSIBLE, GLOBAL ECONOMIC REVOLUTION.

As outlined in the essential book, Climate Code Red, THIS REQUIRES THE WORLDWIDE REJECTION OF 'BUSINESS AS USUAL' IN FAVOUR OF AN URGENT INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION OF A STATE OF GLOBAL EMERGENCY TO ALLOW FOR A 'GREATER THAN WWII-LIKE' GLOBAL MOBILIZATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE (more about this in the section OUR OPTIONS FOR SURVIVAL further down the page).

ecoSanity.org was born out of the realization that WE ALL SUFFER FROM A COLLECTIVE ILLNESS: the homocentric, human-first way we've CHOSEN to think and live (as opposed to ecocentric, environment first) and our resultant ECO-GENOCIDAL and - if continued - soon-to-be MASS-SUICIDAL, global economic system.

The way we see it, not only do the dominant economies of the world encourage WASTEFUL, RAPACIOUS, INFINITE EXPANSION and RELENTLESS, PATHOLOGICAL CONSUMPTION, they absolutely REQUIRE these characteristics in order to thrive.

Which would all be fine, except:

1. IT IS UNSUSTAINABLE because our planet's resources, oceans and atmosphere have limits (See: Global ecosystems 'face collapse').
2. IT IS IMMORAL because, with 50% of all greenhouse gasses contributed by only 13% of the world's total population, the way we (rich nations) have CHOSEN to live, KILLS the people of the poorest, undeveloped nations - THOSE LEAST REPSONSIBLE FOR THE PROBLEM AND LEAST ABLE TO COMBAT OUR SHAMEFUL, NEGLIGENT, ON-GOING RELEASES OF GLOBAL HEATING EMISSIONS.
3. IT IS INSANE because, despite all of these facts, we continue to do it and will be sure to join the MILLIONS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE (OR MORE!) WE MAY HAVE ALREADY CONDEMNED TO DEATH, NOT TO MENTION SPECIES WE'VE ALREADY CONDEMNED TO EXTINCTION, UNLESS WE TAKE IMMEDIATE, AGGRESSIVE ACTION TO REVERSE OUR NEGATIVE IMPACTS - FAST!

And even then, the hard truth is, there are no guarantees.

OUR DIAGNOSIS

You know those big government reports by that group called
the IPCC? That's short for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their summaries read like all the bad stuff out of the Old Testament, but without ANY of the drama!

2,000 scientists concluded there is (at the very most) a mere 8 YEARS within which to SLOW, STOP AND REVERSE our ACCELERATING emissions in order to attempt to avoid that
+2 C (BUT SHOULD BE 1.5 OR LESS!) tipping point we mentioned.

8 YEARS!

Sound bad? The reality is, the IPCC reports have numerous severe and misleading limitations, especially as reported in most mainstream media:

• The reports are mandated and revised by government policymakers who toil to soften, re-state and omit content according to their individual agendas
• Their conclusions are based ONLY on what was ABSOLUTELY PROVABLE science OVER A YEAR BEFORE the release of their first report - MORE THAN 2 YEARS AGO (December, 2005)
• RECENT STUDIES that suggest things are actually 2, 3, 5, 10 x worse than the IPCC reports state, depending, are NOT INCLUDED
• The language and graphs about potential consequences used in the reports are purposely unclear, needlessly confusing and difficult to interpret
• The IPCC reports had to represent a 'consensus' (which was only agreed upon after numerous bouts of tense 'negotiation') and its agenda was only to advise of alternatives that would suit our present, deeply problematic global economic system
• Statements made by the report Chairs are much more urgent and dire than those stated in the official report(s)
• They do not incorporate the effects of carbon feedback loops - processes caused by global heating that lead to greater, increasingly accelerated and IRREVERSIBLE CONVECTION OF THE ATMOSPHERE BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO CONTROL!
• Conclusions are not characterized in terms of risk aversion, only in terms of adaptation and mitigation

The IPCC reports are A DANGEROUS AND MONUMENTAL UNDERESTIMATE OF THE STATE OF WORLD CLIMATE AND THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF ITS RAPID, HUMAN-INDUCED DECAY.

So what does that leave us with?

A TERMINALLY FLAWED document of  INCORRECT TARGETS on which the richest, most powerful, most morally culpable governments of the world are wrongly basing their NEGLIGENT, UNIFORMLY INADEQUATE RESPONSES.

OUR PROGNOSIS

Unlike the IPCC reports, this aesthetically enhanced graph based on an original by the Met Office, Hadley Centre DOES incorporate estimates of carbon cycle feedback loops and the projected estimates of global average temperature rise over land suggest that things will get MUCH HOTTER, MUCH SOONER.

CLICK ON GRAPH TO SEE CONSEQUENCES OF PROJECTED TEMP. INCREASES
Source: Click here to see source graph(s) and info from the Met Office, Hadley Centre

2100 indicates an alarming potential of +8 C - HELL ON EARTH!

2080 shows at least +6.4 C, when almost all life on the planet, including most humans, would be exterminated - (Global Warming: The Final Warning).

In 2070, at +5.4 C, world food supplies run out.

NOTE: Climate extremes will have direct, negative impacts on people and the environment MUCH SOONER than this average temperature timeline indicates. At present, WORLD AGRICULTURE IS ALREADY IN DECLINE (See item 1 below). FOOD PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND GENERAL SURVIVAL WILL BECOME INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT AND PROBLEMATIC LONG BEFORE THESE DEADLINES.

As if all that doesn't sound bad enough, numerous recent studies and analyses have already rendered the specific findings of the IPCC reports COMPLETELY OUT OF DATE.

1. HUMANS FAILING THE SUSTAINABILITY AUDIT

   With its GEO-4 report, the United Nations tells us that MOST ASPECTS OF THE EARTH'S NATURAL ENVIRONMENT ARE IN DECLINE; and that the decline will affect us...in some pretty important ways.




2. ANTARCTIC'S 'FULL SINK' ALARMS SCIENTISTS

   The journal Science reports an "alarming" discovery that the Southern Ocean around Antarctica (15% of the global carbon sink - and the world's biggest) is not only already full of carbon dioxide, but it has been COMPLETELY SATURATED SINCE THE LATE 1980's.




3. SUDDEN MELTING IN ANTARCTIC SEEN BY SATELLITE

   NASA has observed that AN AREA THE SIZE OF CALIFORNIA MELTED from persistent 41 degree summer temperatures and then re-froze.




4. IMPACT OF MELTING SNOW AND ICE DIRE: U.N. REPORT

   A recent United Nations report says BILLIONS OF PEOPLE face dramatic risks and changes to their livelihoods if snow cover, sea ice, glaciers and permafrost continue to melt.

   This includes the imminent threat of bubbling, Siberian methane (at least 25 x greater influence on heating than CO2) being released into the atmosphere from melting permafrost and new estimates indicate that the quantities emerging from these thermokast lakes is up to 5 x higher than previously supposed.




5. ARCTIC SUMMERS ICE-FREE 'BY 2013'

   Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 MILLION SQ KM, the smallest ever extent in modern times. Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.

   "Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC. "So given that fact, you can argue that maybe our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."




6. THE METHANE TIME BOMB

   The first evidence that MILLIONS OF TONS of Methane, a greenhouse gas 20 x more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists...

   Many scientists fear that ITS RELEASE COULD ACCELERATE GLOBAL WARMING IN A GIANT GREENHOUSE GAS POSITIVE FEEDBACK where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane...

   At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, COVERING SEVERAL TENS OF THOUSANDS OF SQUARE KILOMETRES, AMOUNTING TO MILLIONS OF TONS OF METHANE, said Dr. Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves."




7. U.N. LEADER ON GLOBAL WARMING: WE NEED U.S. LEADERSHIP

   The leader of the United Nations did not pull any punches. "If we take action now, it MAY not be too late," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in an interview today in the garden of U.N. headquarters in New York. His "may" gave this correspondent pause. His words were clearly carefully considered.

   When this reporter pointed out that some scientists are writing books and saying in public that they believe this crisis is so serious that if humanity goes on with business as usual -- not significantly cutting overall greenhouse gas emissions -- it could seriously lead to the COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION, EVEN IN THE LIFETIMES OF TODAY'S CHILDREN, he replied:

   "I think that is a correct assessment. People say that action should have been taken yesterday. If we take action today, it may not be too late."




8. GLOBAL WARMING 'IS THREE TIMES FASTER THAN WORST PREDICTIONS

   A study published by the US National Academy of Sciences shows that CO2 emissions have been increasing by about 3% a year during this decade, compared with 1.1% a year in the 1990s.

   MUCH FASTER THAN EVEN THE HIGHEST SCENARIO OUTLINED IN THIS YEAR'S MASSIVE REPORTS BY THE IPCC - this suggests that their dire forecasts of devastating harvests, dwindling water supplies, melting ice and loss of species are likely to be understating (we suggest, GROSSLY UNDERSTATING) the threat facing the world.

   The same article mentions another study by the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center that shows that ARCTIC ICE HAS DECLINED BY 7.8% A DECADE over the past 50 years, compared with an average estimate by IPCC computer models of only 2.5%!




9. THE EARTH TODAY STANDS IN IMMINENT PERIL

   ...and nothing short of a PLANETARY RESCUE will save it from the ENVIRONMENTAL CATACLYSM OF DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE. Those are not the words of eco-warriors but the considered opinion of a group of eminent scientists writing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.




10. THE RICH WORLD'S POLICY ON GREENHOUSE GAS NOW SEEMS CLEAR: MILLIONS WILL DIE

    "Our governments have set the WRONG TARGETS to tackle climate change using outdated science,
    and they know it." "...our governments appear quietly to have abandoned their aim of preventing dangerous climate change. If so, THEY CONDEMN MILLIONS TO DEATH. What the IPCC report shows is that we have to stop treating climate change as an urgent issue. We have to start treating it as an INTERNATIONAL EMERGENCY." - George Monbiot




11. THE PERILS OF PLAYING NICE

    In shooting for the political mainstream, the climate movement has shot itself in the foot, argue David Spratt, policy analyst with Carbon Equity, and Philip Sutton, Director of the Greenleap Strategic Institute, in this excerpt from their new book, Climate Code Red: The Case For Emergency Action.

    Ken Ward, an environmental and communications strategist and former deputy executive director of Greenpeace in the USA, believes that the people who lead ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS PLAY A CRITICAL PART IN RECONSTRUCTING THE ISSUE AS A CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY EMERGENCY - ONE THAT TAKES US BEYOND THE POLITICS OF FAILURE-INDUCING COMPROMISE.

    With the rapid loss of the Arctic summer ice cover, Ward says that the opportunity for these leaders to adjust their position is narrow, and this is due, in some part, to THE DELIBERATE DECISION, A DECADE AGO, BY ENVIRONMENT ORGANIZATIONS TO DOWNPLAY CLIMATE CHANGE RISK.

    He says: "[They did so] in the interests of presenting a sober, optimistic image to potential donors, maintaining access to decision-makers, and operating within the constraints of private foundations, which has blown back on us. By emphasising specific solutions and avoiding definitions that might appear alarmist, we inadvertently fed a dumbed-down, Readers Digest version of climate change to our staff and environmentalist core. Now, as we scramble to keep up with climate scientists, we discover that we have paid a hefty price."

    For those who have, in the past, downplayed the risks, changing position is now a matter of urgency, because WHAT NOW NEEDS TO BE DONE IS NOT INCREMENTALLY REASONABLE. The desperate measures required to advance a functional climate-change solution at this late date, says Ward, "CAN ONLY BE CONCEIVED AND ADVANCED BY INDIVIDUALS WHO ACCEPT CLIMATE CHANGE REALITIES AND [WHO] TAKE THE LESS THAN 10-YEAR TIMEFRAME SERIOUSLY".

    He believes that we will need to actually confront the terror of the situation before we can come to a real solution. "WE ARE NOT ACTING LIKE PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS WHO GENUINELY BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD IS AT RISK. THEREFORE, WE CANNOT TAKE THE MEASURES REQUIRED, NOR CAN WE BE EFFECTIVE LEADERS."

Not an ideal situation, is it?

And we haven't even touched on the insanity of extreme deforestation, ocean acidification, soil depletion, dwindling fresh water supplies, the threat of mass extinctions, intangibles like the proliferation of disease(s) or something as unexpected as a massive bee die-off, for instance (pollination).

I'm sorry to say, there's plenty more where these came from in the SEE: Essential Articles section of this website.

Watch this 9 minute clip from Call of Life produced by SpeciesAlliance.org.

OUR OPTIONS FOR SURVIVAL

All of this begs the questions: What is sanity? And what would be a reasonable response to this unprecedented challenge?

FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO SEE IT, science has revealed that it is very likely OUR CHILDREN WILL DIE FROM SOME IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

Given the rapidly advancing threat of a tipping point cascade, IMMEDIATE, AGGRESSIVE REFORMS ARE IMPERATIVE.

Nothing less than a RADICAL, RESPONSIBLE REVOLUTION in our socio-political economics can curtail CATASTROPHIC IMPACTS.

As outlined in the essential book, Climate Code Red, THIS REQUIRES THE WORLDWIDE REJECTION OF 'BUSINESS AS USUAL' IN FAVOUR OF AN URGENT INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION OF A STATE OF GLOBAL EMERGENCY TO ALLOW FOR A 'GREATER THAN WWII-LIKE' GLOBAL MOBILIZATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE.

We must:

1. Initiate a global shift from rampant fossil-fuel addiction to clean, renewable energy

2. Work toward a 100% reduction in carbon emissions as soon as possible

3. Maximize investment into research, development and implementation in order to figure out how to remove what is already dangerous, excess carbon from the atmosphere and attempt to return to safe, pre-industrial carbon concentrations - FAST!

Watch this 3 minute video summary of Al Gore's challenge to repower America from wecansolveit.org.

We can no longer continue as we have, each in pursuit of our dreams, pleasures and indulgences at the expense of future generations and the planet.

The concept of economics, people and the environment in that order MUST BE REVERSED TO PRIORITIZE THE ENVIRONMENT FIRST, then people, then economics.

Until this happens, until the planet and other living creatures have rights, there can be no effective or sustainable solution and polite efforts spent toward lesser goals would DOOM US TO OBLIVION.

There's NO TIME for small thoughts; NO PLACE for war, suffering, greater inequality.

Both collectively and as individuals, HOW WE CHOOSE TO LIVE AND HOW WE CHOOSE TO BEHAVE TOWARD OTHERS; what Gore refers to as our "moral imperative", IS EVERYTHING.

There MAY BE a brief, RAPIDLY CLOSING window of opportunity to prevent the worst outcomes, but QUICK, BOLD ACTION is essential to attempt to buy time in order to maximize the potential possibilities of whatever hail Marys might be implemented to help slow or reverse the epic process that's been set in motion.

Our critical, moral imperative is to do all we can to inform the uninformed and jolt deniers out of their fear in order to affect a greater collective understanding of what's happening and minimize mass suffering.

And if we are to attempt to preserve THE HABITABILITY OF ALL LIFE THAT REMAINS ON THE PLANET, each of us must become inspired to grow into more impressive people with higher standards for ourselves and our behavior. Each of us must strive to discover a greater appreciation of our responsibility as STEWARDS TO ALL OTHERS AND ALL OTHER LIVING THINGS.

In short, each of us must EVOLVE - FAST!

OUR LEGACY

As any of us might have done in their places, faced with difficult options, my parents experienced phases of denial, delayed action, questioned medical prognoses and often resisted recommended treatments.

This is an URGENT CALL TO ACTION for each of us to learn the basic science, spread the word like a virus, organize and mobilize to inspire IMMEDIATE, RESPONSIBLE, EXPANSIVE ECOLOGICAL REFORM ON A MASSIVE SCALE, WORLDWIDE.

Every imaginable effort must be made -- RIGHT AWAY -- to warn and educate people about the unparalleled threat and rapidly intensifying GLOBAL EMERGENCY of climate change.

We must ALL GET INVOLVED. We must ALL SPEAK OUT. We must ALL DEMAND CHANGE.

Our planet won't wait for us to save it, ourselves or those we love.

Glenn MacIntosh
Founder: ecoSanity.org
With thanks to Kindred Defender, Dr. Peter D. Carter, M.D.