Monday, September 30, 2019

How Could I Have Been So Blind?

Photo of Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016 from CBC
 A Book About Oil

I am happy to report that I have finished Project X and sent it in. In the process, I did a lot of reading on topics related to the paper. One topic area that I read quite a bit about was global warming, and the climate change that is a consequence of global warming. This issue is something that I have been educating myself about for the past year.

I read the following book, Oil's Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming  -- In Alberta, and in Ottawa, by Kevin Taft, written in 2017. Taft was an elected MLA of the Province of Alberta from 2001-2012, so he had an inside view of the impact of oil companies on government. He has a PhD in Business and is an expert in public policy.

Although he is writing about a heavy topic, the book was fascinating to me because I lived in Alberta during part of the period he writes about. He describes how the big oil companies in Alberta, which are extremely wealthy, strategically used their money and power to influence politicians, researchers, and the public in order to bring in a national energy policy that favoured the fossil fuel industries and also to suppress information about the effects of fossil fuels on global warming.

I was shocked. I know that sounds naive. I knew the big transnational petroleum companies were bad actors, but I hadn't really understood the range of tactics they have used to protect their right to amass wealth from oil (even though they knew about global warming) and to undermine democratic processes. Right in my own country. (Really naive, right? Ongoing wars in the middle east over oil, etc.)

 I asked myself: How could I have been so blind about global warming? As a person who cares about the environment, how did I not know about global warming and its terrible consequences a long time ago? Rephrasing Greta Thunberg’s anguished question – why didn’t I personally start taking action a lot sooner?

Taft says that scientists made the public aware of the risks of global warming and the relationship of global warming to the burning of fossil fuels as early as 1965, confirming fears that had been voiced more than a century ago. I myself heard of global warming decades ago (but not as early as 1965 – I was just a little kid then). So here’s a list in which I have tried to reconstruct my thought processes, excuses, and misunderstandings:  

A List

1. Ever since I was born, there have been a series of terrible things going on in the world; like the cold war and the threat of a nuclear holocaust that could wipe out humanity; the threat of overpopulation that would strain our planet beyond its capacity to support us all; terrifying diseases like AIDS, Mad Cow Disease, Ebola, and necrotizing fasciitis; and awful wars. In spite of it all, my own life has been good, and life for many people around the world has gotten better (overall poverty has decreased; international agreements have been made about weapons proliferation, population is still increasing but at a much slower rate than in the 1980s, etc.). Somehow, each of these possible doomsdays has turned out better than predicted, so far. So, the problem is that I have become COMPLACENT. A news stream of constant crises made me numb to them. Global warming seemed like just one of many crises.

2. “They” will look after it. Like a child looking to my parents to take care of the things that were too big for me to manage, I looked to powerful others – the government, the scientists, the United Nations, and so on to fix the big problems of the world. For the most part, I believe that our democratic system has worked quite well, and great progress has been made in lots of areas. But I have gradually come to understand that THERE IS NO THEY; THERE IS ONLY WE. That is to say, our elected officials, our scientists, our diplomats, and so on are just regular people like you and me. Yes, they might have specialized skills and be extraordinarily talented. But they can’t make the big changes needed to change course on global warming alone. All of us need to contribute.

3. What’s so bad about the climate warming up, I remember asking myself. After all, Canada’s winters are awfully cold, and the summers can be quite short and cool. Maybe we’ll have nicer summers, and the winters won’t be so bitter. Maybe we’ll have a longer growing season. Wouldn’t that be good for agriculture? WRONG! I was thinking about it in a too narrow way, about how it might affect me in the small region where I lived. I didn’t think about people dying from heat waves in areas further south, or realize that the rapidity of the change in climate would make it hard for plants and animals to adapt, or recognize that altering the Earth’s temperature would result in extreme weather events like wildfires and floods. In fact, over the last 30 years, throughout northern parts of Canada where I used to live, the forests have been devastated by the spruce budworm and the pine beetle, forest diseases that have been caused by big corporations planting a forest monoculture in combination with the climate having changed to warmer summers and warmer winters.
Photo of the City of Calgary Flood of 2013 from The Calgary Herald
4. When I first heard about sea levels rising, I didn’t take it seriously. How could a few inches cause a problem for anyone? Surely no one built their houses that close to sea level? See number 1 above – another example of COMPLACENCY, combined with ignorance. But now we know that whole island countries will be lost to the rising oceans, and that many of the great cities of the world are built on river deltas and are threatened by flooding.

5. Lack of, or distorted, information. Throughout my lifetime, I have witnessed environmentalists being looked down upon, scientists being muzzled, and media giving a lot of airtime to people who have no credibility and who state ideological positions for which they have no evidence as if they were facts. It is hard to know what to believe when scientific evidence is scorned, and lies are touted as facts. One example from Alberta when I lived there was that the petroleum industry re-labelled itself as “the energy sector” and oil and gas as “clean energy” even though there was nothing clean about it. So, on global warming, I took a “wait-and-see” approach. I have research skills and I had access to a university library. I could have gone and done my own research. WHY DIDN’T I EDUCATE MYSELF?
Image of the 2013 flood in High River Alberta from The Calgary Herald
6. Another factor is that I worked within a system where a culture of overwork was normal. Eleven and twelve hour workdays were normal. I didn’t have much time or energy left to focus on anything much except my family and the basics of life in the hours when I wasn’t working.

7. Too many problems and too little time. This relates back to #5 and #6. There are so many things to educate oneself on. Is this fair trade coffee? Does this water bottle have BPA in it? Is gluten bad for you? Was this clothing made in a factory that condones human rights abuses? What are the main recommendations of the reconciliation report? Did these eggs come from a factory farm where the hens were confined in cages? Is this detergent phosphate free and is phosphate the only problem with detergent? Is gasoline with ethanol added better or worse for the environment? How much exercise a day does a person need to maintain a healthy heart? Is one glass of wine a day good, or is it better to drink more, or less, and what about alcohol other than wine? Is it worse for the environment to use cloth rags that you launder or to use paper towels? Are genetically modified foods dangerous or not and are they safe for the environment? Is high fructose corn syrup worse for you than other sugars? What is Canada’s policy on refugees seeking asylum? And I could keep on listing questions like this for pages and pages. It is easy to see how global warming could get lost when there are so many important things to care about. A person is tempted to pick one or two causes and forget about the rest. The sense of overwhelm leads to a kind of learned helplessness. BUT IF WE DON’T HALT GLOBAL WARMING, NONE OF THE OTHER ISSUES WILL MATTER.  

8. I have always voted, and educated myself about my voting choices. But I always thought of myself as a not very political person. I felt distaste for the name-calling and empty talking points of politics. It seemed that whatever politicians promised on the campaign trail, they went and governed in the same old way after they were elected. I became cynical about politics. But now I am beginning to see that engaging in our democratic system is one of our best ways of making a difference on global warming. The big transnational corporations certainly aren’t going to change their ways on their own; they are too busy lining their pockets to the detriment of the rest of us. VOTING FOR A POLITICAL PARTY WITH A STRONG ENVIRONMENTAL PLATFORM IS IMPORTANT. And along with voting, it’s also important to be fully engaged in the political process – to donate to parties that have a strong environmental platform, to volunteer to work for those parties during campaigns, to write to elected officials, and to consider running for office oneself.

 Looking to the Future

I could kick myself around the block a dozen times for being so slow to start learning about the threat that global warming and climate change pose to our planet and the survival of our civilization. It brings me to tears whenever I think of the overheated world that my grandchildren, and everyone’s grandchildren, are going to have to live in. But there’s no point in looking backwards and blaming myself. The best thing I can to is to take responsibility for my choices now and throw my efforts into practical actions that will make a difference on climate change. We have a narrow window of time of about ten years to shift the possible outcome of global warming to something bad that we can live through from something really bad that humans might not survive. FOR THE SAKE OF OUR GRANDCHILDREN, AND EVERYBODY'S GRANDCHILDREN, LET'S TAKE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE NOW. 
 


26 comments:

  1. This is a well-written thought-provoking post. I'm with you on #1. Same here. I have no solutions per se to this problem other than to acknowledge my own complicity in the problem and do better in the future. That's all any of us can do, but for some people even that'll be too much of a burden, won't it?

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    1. Thanks Ally. Yes we are all complicit, although thank goodness for those few individuals who have spoken out all along, like David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Rachel Carson, and Al Gore. And in our own defence, the big oil companies have spent a lot of money larding the news media with false facts.

      Jude

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  2. Hi Jude! Good for you, or any of us for that matter, for waking up! I think you point out so many of the reasons that we all, well, at least those of us who are now awake, didn't catch on sooner. It's similar to why I smoked cigarettes so long and then suddenly (thankfully over 25 years ago!) I quit. But people are amazingly creative about how they can ignore something for years. Hopefully this issue is finally becoming so noisy (thanks to Greta and others like her) that people are waking up everyone. I have great faith in humans generally and once they do wake up, they are capable of tremendous change. Hopefully we are at that tipping point. ~Kathy

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    1. Kathy, it is interesting how one outspoken person, like Greta Thunberg, can serve as a lightening rod, bringing to our attention an issue that has been simmering beneath the surface of our consciousness and galvanizing us to act. I feel sad and ashamed that we have left it to the children to finally speak out clearly.

      By the way, I apologize if anyone reading this post experienced weird formatting. The power went out last night when I was writing it, so I finished writing it in a word processor then pasted it back in when the power came back on. This morning I noticed some errors that I tried to fixed on my iPad, and lost all the formatting for the post. I've fixed it now and hope it's ok.

      Jude

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  3. Hi Jude. I love how you laid out all the reasons so many are just waking up to the fact that we are in a crisis. I think many of us can especially relate to #1 and #2. I am amazed and saddened to know that many people still have their heads in the sand: "it's a hoax" "there have always been changes to the climate" "it's too overwhelming to think about it, so I won't" etc. Hopefully when people wake up and are willing to do the hard work required, it won't be too late.

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    1. Hi Janis. It is really overwhelming to think about it. It’s like standing on the track watching a freight train bearing down on you and being frozen in terror. Except everyone you know and love is standing there on the track too, and no one is quite sure what to do. So you all stand around on the tracks watching a bunch of idiots (who are also on the track with their backs to the train) who keep saying “there’s no train” and wasting everyone’s precious time with their lying and antics. We don’t have enough time left to waste any of it.

      Jude

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  4. Hi, Jude - Thank you for this very powerful and informative post. Like the commenters above, I am sickened that so many are still in denial about climate change. I completely understand (and share in) the reasons for waking up to this issue slowly. But denying it and refusing to wake up escalates the world dangers so much further.
    Congratulations on completing Project X. I know that it will be well-received and make a difference!

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    1. Thanks Donna. A lot of the people who are the loudest deniers are the ones who have profited from the fossil fuel industry, or who have been bribed by/ elected by oil dollars. Or at least that was how it seemed to me when I lived in Alberta. But they and their descendants live on the Earth too. What do they think they’re going to do when the Earth becomes uninhabitable — take all their oil profits and and fly off to Mars? (I’m feeling just a little angry.)

      Jude

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  5. Wow - a great post, Jude.

    I remember David Suzuki on the Nature of Things back in the 70s as the first voice I heard beating the drum about environmental damage. I'm horrified that 40+ years later his dire predictions have been coming true .. and still there are those who prefer to buy into the lies of the deniers.

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    1. Thanks Joanne. Yes, David Suzuki has been a consistent voice alerting Canadians to the consequences of our current path. The organization that he founded, the David Suzuki Foundation, offers multiple ways for people to get involved.

      I spent this morning reading through the key platform points of all of the six federal parties, especially comparing their environmental and social justice proposals (as the two areas are interconnected). I think that it is really important in this upcoming election to not bring in a party that is in climate denial, or that wants business as usual when it comes to fossil fuels.

      I also read through the entire platform and budget proposal of the Green Party.

      Jude

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  6. I identify with all of your points. An addition here to point 5 is the BBC’s ridiculous idea of “balance” which means they sometimes give as much airtime to climate change deniers as to evidence based science. People talk about “saving the planet”. The earth will survive in some form (unless we manage to blow it into smithereens, not necessarily unlikely 😟), we as a species might not. Sometimes I think the planet would be better off without us, but that’s defeatist!

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    1. Hi Anabel. Yes, that is a ridiculous media policy. I am happy to say that Canadian journalists are finally moving away from that polarizing approach. It is obvious that there are many more sides than two to every complex problem. Also, when something has been shown to be the case beyond a reasonable doubt (e.g., the Earth is round; human caused climate change), there is no justification to go dig up a flat Earth proponent or a climate change denier every time the topic is discussed. We have wasted far too much time on the pointless question of whether there is climate change, which has deflected us from discussing the much more important topic about what to do about it.

      As for letting humans die out and leaving the Earth to the cockroaches, that just seems way too cynical.

      Jude

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  7. A great post, Jude and congrats on completing project X. I like your looking forward to the future and what practical actions each of us can take to make a difference on climate change.

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    1. Thanks Natalie. Are you back home now? I think history is important because it provides context for the problems we are embroiled in today. But overall, my personal tendency is to look forward. What practical actions can we do now to achieve a better future?

      Jude

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  8. Hi Jude,
    Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...we have all had our heads in the sand. And it took a 16 year old to wake us up.
    Complacent is right. We have to get involved, and get involved now as our window is quickly closing.
    I hate politics, and I hate the nasty rhetoric and name-calling and sleazy operations that it has become, particularly here in the US. We've got to stop that. If we don't start working together our grandchildren will be the ones experiencing the consequences of our complacency.

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    1. Thanks so much for your comment. I agree with every one of your points. A very sad thing about having allowed politics to slip into nasty rhetoric and name calling is that it gives good people pause when they think about running for office themselves, because who wants to plunge themselves into that nightmare? Just when we most need honourable citizens to step up to run as our representatives, we are likely to get more bullies and power-seekers who thrive in that milieu.

      Jude

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  9. This an extremely well reasoned and detailed analysis of the traps too many of us have fallen into. Humans are terrible at dealing with problems that do not effect them directly. Since climate change has not changed "my life" then I don't need to worry. I assume others will deal with it.

    As you say, complacency is a major problem, but so is accepting the premise that those in leadership positions will ultimately do what is best for all. At least in the U.S. that is clearly wrong.

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    1. Hi Bob. I appreciate your insight. Over the past year as I have learned more and more about climate change, I have felt increasingly terrified and despairing. The turning point for me was reading (or trying to read) the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that came out in October 2018. (The IPCC reports are available online for everyone to read.) That report skips the rhetoric and details the scientific facts about the broad-ranging aspects of global warming/climate change and presents models of possible outcomes from best to most likely to worst scenarios.

      As the year has gone along, it is clear that we are not meeting emissions targets and things are unfolding to be worse than the report predicted (e.g., with glaciers melting faster, whales and polar bears starving, and fisheries collapsing). It is not an exaggeration to say that human civilization will collapse during our grandchildren’s lifetime unless we change course over this next ten years.

      For my own part, I have realized that there is no longer time left to wait for someone else to fix it. One of the actions I am taking is something beyond my comfort level. I have joined a political party that has a strong environmental platform, and have been volunteering several hours a day in the campaign. Our Canadian federal election is two weeks away on October 21. Thankfully, many Canadians say they are voting with their heart this time, and we are seeing a “green wave” in many parts of the country. It is still likely that a traditional party supported by corporate dollars will win, but electing more Members of Parliament who will speak to environmental issues can hold them to account.

      Jude

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  10. Strong post, Jude! As I read through your essay, I kept thinking that you shouldn’t beat yourself up so much, as you were aware of global warming (which is a start) early on and you’ve been making a difference in the last year, if not longer. But, maybe one needs to beat oneself up in order to come to the realizations you point out so well here.

    It’s up to all of us to inform ourselves and to make a difference. I just wish that the rich and influential corporations didn’t have so much power. And, we’re all pretty familiar with fake “facts” these days. I can only imagine the frustrations and helplessness of all those scientists and environmentalists all those years, when the real facts were being discarded!

    Can you tell us a bit more about where you submitted your paper to and what its purpose is?

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    1. Liesbet, the chapter will be in an academic book on the social responsibilities of universities, considering that universities are, in themselves, a kind of corporate entity. An academic colleague whose expertise is in ethics and leadership proposed the book and is editing it. My chapter considers the critical role of teaching, and beyond that questions whether corporatization is a good path for universities to go down.

      In it, I examine the way our society has set up a largely unregulated global economic system that has allowed large transnational corporations to make huge profits without paying the true costs for the “resources” they use, or take responsibility for the environmental and social damage they do. In my paper, I argue that global warming and climate change are largely a consequence of corporate actions and corporate irresponsibility. Because the fundamental role of universities is to contribute to the social good through research and teaching, we can put our hopes in universities to help turn us away from run-away global warming and environmental and social disaster. But insofar as many universities have adopted corporate management values and practices and allowed wealthy corporations to influence their research agendas and teaching, universities will not be able to uphold their social responsibilities.

      That’s the brief version of my chapter!

      Jude

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  11. Thanks for the explanation and summary, Jude. I truly hope that, based on your findings and chapter, universities WILL think twice about "blindly" taking over the way other corporations work/think (or take advantage of their power and money) and that those universities will put different, meaningful plans in action and attempt to make a difference when it comes to global warming and climate change!

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    1. I hope so too, Liesbet, and I know many wonderful university administrators, researchers, teachers who are working very hard to make a difference. However, it’s complicated. Huge corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes, and they also have persuaded various levels of governments to divert public monies to themselves as subsidies. As a result, governments have less funds for infrastructure, and government funding of universities has dropped significantly over recent decades, especially in the USA, but also in Canada. Therefore, it is easy for cash starved universities to be tempted by corporate dollars, which, of course, come with strings attached.

      Jude

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  12. Exceptionally interesting and important information, Jude. I suspected “something” was going on to influence the results. One of your sentences gave me goosebumps and resonated with me. “A news stream of constant crises made me numb to them.”

    Your #2 paragraph and the concept of labelling and re-labelling: "Climate change" versus "Global warming", "clean energy." I just finished listening to a podcast I would highly recommend. Tristan Harris on The Tim Ferriss Show. He reinforces how there is no “They.” He also talks about “persuasive” wording and changes in wording. He reinforces and emphasizes a lot of what you are saying in your article.

    I know you are exceptionally busy, Jude, and podcasts may just not be your thing:) I absorb podcasts on my commutes.

    I also feel overwhelmed and helpless many times. Yet, individuals can make a difference in many ways such as educating ourselves and voting for parties who can make a difference moving in the right direction. Thank you for sharing a thought-provoking article.

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    1. Hi Erica. It can seem so overwhelming, especially when we know that some of the worst culprits are using a lot of money to influence the information that we hear on the news and read through our online media. But I do have faith that, overall, most people want to do the right thing and are willing to work hard to make the world a better place. I agree with you that individually each of us can make a difference by making many small changes (carpooling, eating less meat, not wasting food, refusing plastic packaging, lobbying for policy changes for example to protect salmon), and by working together collaboratively, we can make the bigger changes that will shift our climate change trajectory. I agree that voting for parties and candidates that have a strong environmental plan is one important step.

      Jude

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  13. Wow, this is powerful and so well written. I found myself nodding throughout every point, Jude. Over the last year, I have become quite environmentally aware and trying to help in my own little ways etc it may help, it may not. I wish I had understood years ago, what was happening, but as you say, Life takes over. It truly is the whole world that needs to open their eyes and listen to the scientific knowledge. It beggars belief that still leaders aren’t making environmental issues priority. A fabulous post Jude, the whole world needs to read it!

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    1. Hi Sam. Thanks so much for your comment. Changing things always begins with taking the first step. As more and more of us take steps to change our individual behaviours, I believe a groundswell of environmental change will begin. Clearly, one person refusing one plastic bag is not enough to change society, but millions of people refusing plastic packaging, and opting to use transit more instead of driving, and choosing to vote for political parties that are committed to strong emissions targets, and demanding that local governments make green energy options available and affordable, creates a movement. I believe that all of us together can make a solution possible through democratic action and engagement. The barriers we need to overcome are complacency, passivity, and being gullible to corporate propaganda.

      Jude

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