faulker083

Climate Change has grown so ominous that individuals cannot have much of an impact on necessary solutions. (I know, this is environmental heresy.) However much a single person dedicates their lives to living sustainably, he or she cannot effect addressing this particular crisis unless a large percent of the population is also engaged. With seven billion people (9 billion by 2050) who need food, energy, transportation, and waste removal, a relative few are not going to change the environmental footprint of humanity’s effect on Climate Change on a level and speed that will matter. We have squandered too much time dragging our feet, too much time listening to folks offering to make the Climate Change crisis magically disappear with lies and denial. But collectively in the form of cities around the world we can play an important role in what Michael Bloomberg describes as an alliance of cities. Our new alliance unites 600m city dwellers in fight against climate change  Cities are huge...

Nostalgia is the remembrance of what was once possible. But I don’t feel nostalgic about not addressing Climate Change earlier. I feel impatient. We have wasted valuable time prevaricating on Climate Change action. This crisis has gotten significantly worse. We are hurtling dangerously close to our inability to avoid the worse consequences of planetary warming and I suspect we will be held in contempt by those who come after us much like those who either ignored or in some way contributed to slavery. The Civil War could have been avoided had important warnings been heeded. 30 years ago scientists warned Congress on global warming. What they said sounds eerily familiar  It was such a different time — and yet, the message was so similar. Thirty years ago, on June 10 and 11 of 1986, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works commenced  two days of hearings , convened by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), on the subject of “Ozone Depletion, the Greenhouse Effect...

I have joined many rallies* on Climate Change, including the greatest yet, the People’s Climate March in NYC in 2014. I’ve experienced them all as warm and welcoming, but also extremely passionate displays of concern.  I have helped put together a number of these rallies. But over time I’ve come to question the usefulness of rallies on Climate Change as a worthwhile vehicle for engaging the public on this existential issue. The downside of making a lot of noise on divisive issues is that the silent majority tends to feel alienated from the rowdy-looking crowds, plus it encourages the media’s tendency to only frame important issues through adversity or public spectacles. Neither our economy nor our media seem capable of properly framing Climate Change so the public actually understands what’s coming at them. Traditionally, rallies have been very effective vehicles for change. Women’s rights were greatly advanced by rallies. The abolitionist movement, LGBT rights, and many more soci...

On Wednesday June 1 st , folks from all over New York State came together in Albany to insist that our legislators get with the Climate Change program. While a couple of us were waiting to speak to our state senators on the fourth floor, hundreds of activists were thundering through the halls of the state capitol building demonstrating for the New York State Climate and Community Protection Act on the third floor. From our perspective, the rumblings below portended a profound escalation in the public’s resolve to get their representatives to vote for “Good jobs, frontline justice, and healthy communities through 100% clean renewable energy”. ( NYRENEWS.org )   At that moment (about 3PM) none of us knew whether the NYS Assembly would pass A10342 , the purpose of which is “…is to enact the "New York State Climate and Community Protection Act" to address and mitigate the impacts of climate change in New York.” ( 1 ). So a few of us wandered over to the Assembly Chamber where me...

Given the planetary impact of dangerously quick climate temperatures rising around the world due to human machinations, I suspect there are precious few examples in the past to guide us forward. We are in trouble in a way we never have been before. Civilizations have come and gone over the span of human existence but the entire species and all other species on the planet haven’t before been placed in jeopardy by humanity’s collective attitudes towards our life support system. (Of course, we are always under the threat of mass annihilation by nuclear proliferation but that crisis is not due to the behavior of everyone—just some bad players and some crazy national policies.) Furthermore, we will have to address all our major existential problems—nuclear proliferation, Climate Change, pollution, overpopulation, overconsumption, the loss of biodiversity and much more—at the same time. This is why Climate Change is the mother of all problems. Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock talked about m...

Consider completing Rochester, NY’s Climate Change Action Plan  survey . This plan will affect how our local government addresses Climate Change . Your input into this process is vital. Critical to addressing Climate Change are our local community governments because they set the rules, enforce the rules, maintain our infrastructures, educate the public on issues vital to our way of life, and prepare the public for clear and present dangers. The City has been working on shoring up its own clean energy and transportation in the first phase of addressing Climate Change and now it’s moving to the second phase: Our community’s role. Many local groups have been a part of the process to complete the second phase where much is being planned to address the local consequences of Climate Change and engage the public on this issue. Climate Change is affecting our lives now and it will increasingly affect our children’s lives. Please take a moment and fill out this survey on the Climate Action...

After twenty some years, the Paris Agreement finally created a framework in which most of the world leaders agreed that Climate Change is human-caused, it’s happening, and our global temperatures must be kept to a 1.5C increase over pre-industrial averages. But the Paris Agreement isn’t official yet and it doesn’t have much legal teeth. What we have is a bottom-up (voluntary) mechanism to address Climate Change and if we squander this time by continuing business as usual we are lost.  A 4C or 6C world would be unendurable. To jumpstart Paris activists created Break Free to increase the pressure to address Climate Change and engage the public. Break Free  is a series of 23 mass actions demanding to keep fossil fuels in the ground (#KeepItInTheGround) in 12 countries on 6 continents. Actions have already started all across the globe.  May 4-15, 2016: A global wave of mass actions will target the world’s most dangerous fossil fuel projects, in order to keep c...