– SOCIAL REPORT –

Recent events around the uber-hyped Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen may be overshadowing the entire Green Movement, and casting a pale pallor of doubt over our entire outlook on the Future of our Environment. The faint silver lining to these looming storm clouds however, is that by now we should all have a much more realistic sense of what we can expect from the political processes and backroom shenanigans involved in addressing Climate Change via the United Nations. What we can also take away from things (after the DanishText leak, and ClimateGate scandals, right-wing Media backlash, etc..) is a more personally resolved understanding of Global Warming, that isn’t dependant on spoon-fed Media pablum for it’s vitality. We might also feel ready to resign any false expectations that we may have placed in the dubious value of Eco-Stunts, Public rallys, citizen marches, internet petitions, and other publicity hungry fabrications built upon good intentions, and amounting to little more than fodder for the Media, and some personal catharsis.

Instead we’re now better prepared to at least accept (if not undertake) an ongoing, and longer-term outlook on the real and genuine grass roots solutions that will be required, long after everyone has flown back home from Denmark and unpacked their souvenirs. Unfortunately, the road map to sustainable change is no less clear now, than it was when we embarked on what we had collectively hoped would’ve been a much more visible and direct route to the more immediate resolutions we’d all hoped for in Copenhagen.

Let’s first consider how we got here, as we re-plot our course towards a more sustainable Future. One where we don’t just wait for politically driven bureaucratic processes to come to the rescue, and somehow reduce one particular (CO2) by-product of an unhealthy civilization. Rather, let’s shelf the idea of simply delegating our environmental responsibilities to representative politicians long enough to consider what would happen if we were to personally hold established Environmental and Ecological principals as our highest standard in forging a better Future for us all

At present, the entire Environmental Movement seems to have been upstaged by the enormous chorus of voices clamoring to have their views heard on Climate Change. Where were these voices coming from?

First, we had the constant din from social malcontents posing as Libertarians or Conspiracy Buffs, who felt that anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW) is a scam, and screamed about their threatened rights as free citizens if Government so much as considered enacting any corrective policy from a central point of authority. Then we had the suppressed grumblings from disenfranchised segments of the Scientific Community who are instantly lumped in with the covert PR efforts Big Oil and Coal companies in a self-polarizing and terminally dysfunctional quashing of proper open debate. Add to this the poorly muffled allegations from the Alternative Press who are still skeptically demanding more substance and peer review for the scientific data behind the well accepted, but now somewhat more maligned, methods of determination behind the AGW “theory”. The result is that we’re left with a really rather fractured movement! One that is now so focused on the dividing and destructive effects of CO2 that it’s seemingly forgotten it’s primary purpose – which we can surely can all still agree upon.

Namely, that we MUST stop using the atmosphere as a free and easy disposal method for all the polluting by-products of our excessive economies and lifestyles!

Instead, while we were still considering the possibility that many of us have been so keen to adopt a clear position on Climate Change, that some of us suddenly realized that we’ve also auto-aligned ourselves with proponents of simplified Groupthink. The type of narrow-minded, politically correct, environmental self-righteousness that offers us emotional placebos (for our sense of otherwise inactive helplessness) but is much better suited for staging ineffective publicity stunts, providing self-gratifying pseudo-political postures, and marching in lockstep behind dogmatic bull-horned chants…Rather than actually devoting itself to digging deep into underlying issues that would actually seek and implement remedies at the level of Cause, rather than simply alleviating the Effects.

So now we’re left with an Environmental Movement that has completely centered itself around a contentious and perilously fractured “Climate Change” issue, and which still labels any discussion (nevermind actual debate!) as destructively dissenting heresy, and vilifies any ideas that are not in keeping with the standard doctrines of Anthropogenic Global Warming. What should have been a strong and united front against the Corporate interests (of Greed and Growth at all costs) which would seek to continue polluting in a manageable system of carbon credits, and the greenwashing value that would be derived to support any loss of profit, has now instead degraded into corrosive in-fighting and name-calling for anyone who wasn’t reading their lines from the same Global Warming handbook.

If we could avoid the need to vindicate our adopted belief systems, or exorcise our over-consuming demons, or assuage a collective guilt complex about perceptions of the Past, perhaps our personal views around Climate Change might fall into a more clear, long-term perspective. Perhaps teh current movement might yet just turn out be another over-sharpened and hyper-publicized cause celebre that isn’t actually prepared to effect real ecological changes beyond it’s core CO2 reduction issue. Even if the Earth shows a temporary cooling period due to (among countless factors) the deep and misunderstood complexities of Climatology, Thermodynamics, Oceanography, Geology, reduced sunspot activity (etc…etc…etc..) would really we want to hedge all of our bets on the results of global temperature charts? Should we risk derailing an entire Environmental Movement (even temporarily) if the empirical evidence behind AGW fails to fully support the premise for Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Even though Climate Change has succesfully raised awareness for Environmentalism in general, in just the short time-span that it would take for the Right-Wing Skeptics to discredit an entire movement based on failures withing the AGW model, that loss in Public faith in teh Scince and Politics of AGW could have catastrophic long-term repercusions! Think of the billions that could be lost on ineffective measures, that could have been better applied during the precious time that could be lost.

Couldn’t the scope of the current Climate Change movement be effectively widened to foster even greater Public approval by admitting fallibility? To openly take into account the varying views on the many deep mysteries, and unpredictable variability, and research challenges behind Climate Science? If we were to somehow embrace the complexities of Nature (rather trying to inscribe them into rigid dogma) couldn’t Climate Change serve to globalize, catalyze, and re-constitute the much larger and better diversified Environmental Movement? Better enabling us to cooperatively adapt to shifting conditions, modify our entire view on Consumption, and perhaps even achieve some truly phenomenal new innovations and long-lasting results for all Life on this planet!

Please. Just stop reading right now though, if you feel that the Climate Change movement is already clearly well defined, offers us realistic and actionable solutions, and is indeed on the right track to saving our Environment. Otherwise, if you’d like to expand your scope of perceptions abit more…You can continue by considering a much wider range of options by first pondering the perceived Impact that the Copenhagen Conference has had on our Environment, our collective psyche, and where we can still go with things once all the accrued airmiles expenses have all been cashed out and claimed.

The more subtle effects of Global Warming

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