Global warming brings love swarming

Although it was raining on the way into Granville Island today the sun has already appeared, making its way through the dark gray clouds circulating the city. The uncertainty of today’s climate paints the sky in dark colours highlighting it with streaks of sunshine, some kind of silver lining. But the topic on my mind today seems to challenge every coffee shop discussion or watering hole debate about any positive outlook on the loom and gloom of our planet’s health.

This is nothing new. I first started writing passionately about all of this after reading more about peak oil in Matt Savinar’s book The Oil Age is Over. Subsequent films like The End of Suburbia, Why We Fight, Fast Food Nation and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room further supported these thoughts. I remember how writing those observations a couple years back brought out much discussion, questioning and full out frustration and anger. I was the new doomsayer.

Many people don’t want a change in the status quo – on this side of the Atlantic. Many of us already feel overwhelmed with the responsibilities of work and family in this global economy. This week it was the eloquence of Terry Glavin’s cover story on global warming in the Georgia Straight, featuring Tim Flannery author of the Weather Makers, as well as a documentary we watched last night called Darwin’s Nightmare, which has brought this topic once again to my high-tapping-typing fingers today.

Glavin’s article gave readers a snapshot of our planet’s declining health. From the warmest Canadian winter ever seen to record amounts of water pouring into the arctic seas from melting glaciers, the signs continue to mount. Then there is the story that even most Canadians don’t even know about as British Columbia’s mountain pine beetles and their ferocious appetite, have eaten up a landscape comparable to the size of the United Kingdom. Indeed everything is changing. Where there was cold water now there is warm. Where there were thousands of fish now they are few and far between. Why are these stories still barely heard now, just as they were when people began writing and researching into them over ten years ago?

“Canada’s oil industry has now surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the primary supplier of fossil fuels to the United States. The administration of President George W. Bush, himself an oil man, adopted a strict policy of censorship to see to it that no federal official, not even James Hanson, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, would candidly and honestly explain all those grim global-warming scenarios.”

As I continued reading Glavin’s article I was inspired as his interview with Tim Flannery gave me a hope that was reminiscent of Keli’s aspirations with her film Plant This Seed. With the advent of the information age we have become the overwhelmed age with so many possible personal choices, that we are sinking with indecision. One of Keli’s underlying theories of her film was that “personal conscious action was the key to a sustainable future.” Flannery echoes this same sentiment stating that “personal lifestyle choices and voluntary, individual actions, like getting out from behind the wheels of SUVs and driving hybrid-fuel vehicles instead, can make an enormous contribution.”

Flannery goes on to say that a 70-percent reduction in current emission levels is what is needed to help start the change. To many who feel hopeless this sounds unattainable but the reality is we can make new choices to move into this direction. “Just switching to a hybrid-fuel vehicle and that’s 70 percent right there”, says Flannery.

Last night as I watched the documentary film Darwin’s Nightmare I couldn’t help think about Lavin’s article and Savinar’s book again, was Tanzania a preview of things to come? Said to be the birthplace of mankind, "The Great Lakes Region" is the green, fertile and mineral rich center of Africa. The region is also known for its unique wild life, snowy volcanoes and famous National Parks. At the same time, this part of the world lays beneath the shadows of a looming dark future.

Filmmaker Hubert Sauper tells us of massive epidemics, food shortages and civil wars that have ravaged this area in almost dead silence to the rest of the world. “In the Eastern Congo alone, the casualties of war on each single day equal the number of deaths on September 11th in New York. The hidden causes of such troubles are, in most cases, imperialistic interests in natural resources.”

Just like the story of global warming that can be told through the eyes of so many different affected interests around the world, Sauper states that his film could also have been told through “Sierra Leone, only the fish would be diamonds, in Honduras, bananas, and in Libya, Nigeria or Angola, crude oil. The arrogance of rich countries towards the third world (that's three quarters of humanity) is creating immeasurable future dangers for all peoples.”

Today I simply ask you not to become complacent but instead become vigilant to learn. Do not feel hopeless but spread the word of hope. The learning process is essential not only for personal growth but for the continued growth of our planet. Ask questions and think outside the box. I do not believe that the majority of the world’s citizens are out to destroy the world but I do believe the majority is unaware of their personal contribution to this destruction. This includes you and I. We can change the world.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=17132
http://www.darwinsnightmare.com/

This has been another Observation from the Island.