Social Change or the End of the World

Recently I decided to watch the Democratic debates, not because I am a Democrat, but rather I believe our country is in a crisis and I wanted to hear what creative ideas are being suggested to resolve the crisis.

As I mentioned in my second book The Reality We Create, in order to hear new information, it is important to suspend one’s preconceived ideas and beliefs, what I call your point of view. Suspending one’s point of view does not mean giving it up, it just means while listening to another you set aside that internal voice that is judging and critical.

So that is what I did (to the best of my ability) while listening to the debates but after the debate, I noticed I had a sense of disappointment, which is what I wanted to share with you.

First a couple of comments about the format. When I was a kid, I would stay with my grandmother for the summer. So, every week my grandmother would make me watch the TV show Queen for a Day with her. The way it worked women would share these difficult circumstances they were dealing with in their life and my grandmother was crying at some of the stories. The audience would applaud after each woman shared and based on an instrument the show had called the applause-o-meter, the women who got the loudest applause would win. The applause was based on how moving her story was. The show gave the winner some relief with her difficulties.

The debate reminded me of the applause-o-meter. I am fairly intelligent; do I need the audience applauding if a candidate makes a good point? No, I don’t, I can make my own decisions about what is pertinent for me. It was not clear to me why an audience was there in the first place, did the network decide that we needed help in sorting out good points?

Finally, there were anecdotal stories. A candidate is given 45 seconds to respond to a fairly direct question, why then is a candidate going to use some of that time to share a story and then in some instances do not answer the direct question.

However, the debate format was not what created my sense of disappointment. To better understand my disappointment, let me share my view of the crisis our country faces. In October 2018 a report was published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It found that global warming could still be held to 1.5°C, or 2.7°F of warming relative to pre-industrial levels, especially if: Net human-caused carbon dioxide emissions decline by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, and reach “net zero” by roughly mid-century.

What this means in everyday language is we have about 12 years until 2030 to act on global warming or face a threat to humanity’s survival. This does not mean at the end of the 12 years boom, lights out. What it does mean is that we really have no time– global warming and environmental destruction have already started and within this time period it will be irreversible if nothing is done.

I am sure for some of us global warming is not the most important concern in an upcoming election year. However, what if you accepted that we have a 12-year window to get our act together, so to speak, or face severe consequences to our life and lifestyle. Where would your priorities lay?

Whether you accept global warming or not, I think all of us would agree that environmental change is occurring, some of which are man-made. To name a few:

• The Arctic ice caps are melting faster than expected which is putting many arctic animals in peril.
• Many places in the world are experiencing extended drought conditions and some cities around the world are actually running out of water.
• California has experienced numerous fires due to drought.
• The National Park Service has been allowing Nestle (the candy company) to purchase millions of gallons/days from California National Parks for Nestle to bottle in plastic bottles for resale.
• Nestle is buying up water rights around the world for bottling and resale.
• Relaxed standards on carbon emissions by the EPA.
• Many US cities municipal waters are contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals.
• On the East coast, there have been numerous floods due to heavy rains.
• Parts of Miami are flooding due to rising seawater.
• A large portion of the Gulf of Mexico is dead to marine life due to agriculture fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi River. The fertilizer causes algae to grow to deplete the oxygen in the water which then kills marine life.
• Parts of our oceans are clogged with plastics that extend for miles.
• Dead whales have been washing ashore dead from starvation due to their stomachs being full of plastics.
• The cocktail of pesticides—insecticides and fungicides used in agribusiness is endangering insect life. Almond growers in Southern California which are heavily dependent on water irrigation, are also dependent on honeybees for almond pollination. These growers are now having problems keeping the bee colonies alive.
• Starting with the tobacco industry, corporations have piloted a disinformation strategy in the 1950s to protect their profits against science pointing to a link between smoking and cancer, and since then, we’ve seen copycat campaigns for fossil fuels, pesticides, foods, and plastics.

Let’s get back to what I found disappointing about the debates. In each debate, less than 10 minutes was allocated to climate change. I understand that to some degree the time allocated was set by the questions the moderators asked. If you accept, as I do, that climate change has already started and people’s lives are already being affected then this brings in a level of urgency to the crisis, which was not apparent in the debates.

But let’s identify the real elephant in the living room. Having been through a number of presidential campaigns, I know that during the campaign there are always promises made, bills that will be enacted within the first 100 days, executive orders signed, but once in office, it is business as usual in Washington.

The business-as-usual scenario involves a deeply divided Congress which is heavily influenced by corporate and Wall Street lobby efforts. One thing that is very clear now is corporations do not have an incentive to protect the environment, their incentive is to maximize profit for their investors or owners. Some corporate owners now control vast amounts of money and resources while millions of people exist in substandard living conditions.

From this viewpoint consider these obstacles in trying to avert global warming and the existential threat to humanity.

• How likely is a Congress dominated by partisanship to allow the needed environmental changes?
• How likely are corporate lobbying efforts to be used to water down laws or encourage politicians not to support legislation?
• How long will it take to build out the needed infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions?
• Finally, the understanding that this is not solely a US problem–it is a global problem meaning the time required to negotiate agreements with all countries and then how are those agreements monitored for compliance.

The point here is that these are formidable barriers that could take years to implement. The reality is that we have a diverse array of choices before us in terms of how soon to make emissions cuts and how significant and costly they are, or we can continue with the business-as-usual approach.

I often see this business as usual approach played out in people’s lives regarding their health. My passion is helping people to take their health back into their own hands. Many times, that can be as simple as helping someone understand how the foods, they are eating can drive the disease process or heal the disease process.

However even when people understand the simple dietary changes that need to be done for their health, they don’t do it, they don’t make the change. Years later, when they end up with a chronic disease condition like cardiovascular disease or Parkinson’s, they don’t understand how that could have happened to them and typically assign it to bad genetics. This is the same state we find ourselves in with the environment – every action matters. Every year matters. Every choice matters.

Here is an example from my life to better make this point. Yesterday I got up early to do a bike ride. It was a beautiful cool morning with the scent of flowers and fresh-cut grass in the air. In the moment of the bike ride, there was nothing for me to do other than breathing and pedaling. For many of us, our life is like the ride, you are present, life is good and nothing to do or change.

Yet all of us know at some level that we are interdependent and interconnected with all life on the planet. I know that if the bees are not healthy that it affects the apples, cherries, and almonds I enjoy. I also know that the excessive plastics in the oceans affect all marine life, not just the whales that it is killing. Finally, having traveled to other countries, I know that water quality and lack of water are substantial issues for many people on the planet.

For many of us, our life is good, and it is difficult to understand the concept of interrelated and interconnected, meaning it is difficult to feel the urgency of climate change. But it is the same situation as the people who don’t make the dietary changes to improve their health. And you know what that consequence is and we can quibble about whether the consequence is existential or cataclysmic, whether you can’t go swimming at your favorite beach due to plastic trash, or your neighborhood is flooded due to severe storms or your city’s water supply is polluted due to industrial contamination.

The next decade will determine how bad climate change gets — but we do have the power to avoid the worst-case scenario, assuming we understand the urgency and act on the magnitude of the task at hand. What is your choice?