{"id":2196,"date":"2019-12-12T04:02:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T04:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-hiltner-english-ucsb-edu-v05.pantheonsite.io\/?page_id=2196"},"modified":"2020-01-04T14:08:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T14:08:05","slug":"2196-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/2196-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CLIMATE CRISIS 101 – old"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Santa Barbara, Thomas Fire<\/a><\/p>\n

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CLIMATE CRISIS 101<\/span><\/p>\n

(A.K.A. ENGLISH 23)<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Climate Crisis: What It Is and What Each of Us Can Do About It<\/p>\n

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(Jump down to Table of Contents<\/a>, Syllabus<\/a>, or Lectures<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Preface<\/a><\/p>\n

I just stumbled on this page. What’s this all about?<\/p>\n

This long webpage contains a university course on the climate crisis. It is a complete course and completely open to the public. Although the only way to receive university credit for the course is by taking English 23 at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), it is nonetheless possible to access all of the material for that course on this page, free of cost.<\/p>\n

Why is English 23 also called Climate Crisis 101?<\/p>\n

Although the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, as well as the URL and podcast, associated with this material are all called \u201cClimateCrisis101,\u201d the UCSB course that this is all based upon has the designation \u201cEnglish 23.\u201d Sorry for any confusion – as this is hardly an ideal situation – but this is how UCSB designates its courses. Nonetheless, Eng 23 is a 101 (i.e. introductory) course on the climate crisis. Why not stick with the name \u201cEnglish23\u201d throughout? The simple fact is that it\u2019s hardly a descriptive name. Actually, it\u2019s not even a little descriptive\u2026 So, in order to make the course immediately recognizable to an online audience as an introduction to the climate crisis, it is also known as “ClimateCrisis101.”<\/p>\n

Course Overview and Approach<\/p>\n

In one sense, the climate crisis is being caused by a rise in atmospheric CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases. Science can address this cause. However, approached in another way altogether, this crisis is being caused by a range of troubling human activities that require the release of these gases, such as our obsessions in the developed world with endless consumer goods, cars, certain food, lavish houses, fast fashion, air travel, and a broad range of additional lifestyle choices. The natural sciences may be able to tell us how<\/em> these activities are changing our climate, but not why<\/em> we are engaging in them. That is a job for the humanities and social sciences.<\/p>\n

In this course, we will see anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change for what it is and address it as such: a human problem brought about by human actions. Thus, will be taking a long hard look at these actions and how they are culturally constructed. In other words, we will be exploring why we do what we do, even when these actions are disastrous for our planet and our species (along with most other species on the planet).<\/p>\n

While this largely academic question is interesting in its own right, the course is also meant to be deeply personal insofar as we will be looking at our own actions and how they impact the planet and climate. Moreover, we will not just be considering our individual actions, but also forms of collective climate activism. Becoming engaged and active, whether simply by voting or by becoming a committed climate activist, is of paramount importance if we are to mitigate this crisis.<\/p>\n

Lecturer<\/p>\n

The course lecturer is Professor Ken Hiltner<\/a>, who wrote and recorded all this material. Whenever something is written in the first person (i.e. “I believe that…”), it is Ken’s voice that you are hearing. In addition to the University of California, Santa Barbara, Ken has taught at Harvard, where he received his Ph.D., and at Princeton, where he served for a year as the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University\u2019s Environmental Institute (PEI).<\/p>\n

Is this course only for UCSB students?<\/p>\n

As the title suggests, this course is for anyone interested in the climate crisis, what it is, and what each of us can do about it.<\/p>\n

Unlike a traditional lecture series, each of the primary installments here is short and to the point. They take the form of YouTube videos that are usually less than 10-12 minutes in length (though the “deep dive” videos, which comment on the online class discussions, are longer.) For the most part, you can view them in any order that you like, though, as they are clustered in short playlists around certain themes, some videos reference others in their particular playlist. Still, feel free to poke around and watch anything that catches your eye in any order that you want, as no video here is a prerequisite for any other. This strikes me as a more interesting – and potentially far more effective – way of experiencing material than sitting through a prescribed sequence of hour-long lectures.<\/p>\n

Why does this course take a humanities approach to the climate crisis?<\/p>\n

As noted above, the climate crisis can be seen as a human problem brought about by human actions. In addition to seeing the problem in this way, the solutions<\/em> to this crisis that have the greatest potential impact also center on human behavior (i.e. cultural norms) rather than just technological innovation.<\/p>\n

According to Project Drawdown<\/a>, which is the most comprehensive plan ever put forth to reverse global warming, the #1 thing that we can do to roll back global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions does not involve wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, or any sort of similar technologies.<\/p>\n

Instead, what is required is a cultural change regarding food: we need to waste far less of it and to switch to largely plant-rich diets. Doing so will result in a staggering reduction of 137 gigatons of CO2 or equivalent gases.<\/p>\n

In comparison to this reduction, globally shifting from fossil fuels to electricity generated by photovoltaic (solar) panels will roll back less than half this amount of emissions. The adoption of electric vehicles? Far less than ten percent. We should, of course, work on exploring a variety of technologies to help reduce our emissions, but it is important to keep their relative impact in perspective.<\/p>\n

Worldwide, agriculture is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, yet between 1\/3 and 1\/2 of all the food that we produce on this planet is wasted. Regarding the switch to a largely plant-rich diet, the same amount of greenhouse gasses are released in producing one pound of beef as are released in producing thirty<\/em> pounds of lentils, also a great source of protein.<\/p>\n

I know, changing how we eat doesn’t sound nearly as sexy as a self-driving electric car, but it would nonetheless be ten times better for the planet.<\/p>\n

On a similar note, the #2 thing (according to Project Drawdown) that we can do to roll back GHG emissions is also a cultural issue that is a far cry from technology.<\/p>\n

We need to educate more girls (which dramatically curbs population growth, as the more education a woman has, the fewer children she has) and promote family planning (globally, there are roughly 85 million unintended pregnancies every year). These two things together would roll back 103 gigatons of GHG emissions.<\/p>\n

Why is population so important? Sixty years ago, the global population was about 3 billion. At the time of this recording, it is 7.75 billion. By 2050 it will be approaching 10 billion. The simple fact is that this many people are profoundly taxing the resources of our planet. Hence, reducing the population of our species is one of the main things that we can do to mitigate the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Taken together, these two cultural changes regarding food and population can take us nearly a quarter of the way to where we need to go to get GHG emissions under control. Note that very little is needed by way of technology here, as the necessary changes can be made right now by both individuals and a range of groups and institutions.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that these changes will be easy. Indeed, it is arguably far easier to change cars (such as by making them electric) than to change people\u2019s actions. Nonetheless, we need to seriously roll up our sleeves and address the climate crisis as a human problem in need of human solutions.<\/p>\n

Although I have great respect for the sciences, science- and technology-based solutions to cultural problems like the climate crisis are rarely sufficient in themselves. The simple fact is that they often fail to attend to the root cause of problems of this sort.<\/p>\n

This course will focus on these root causes.<\/p>\n

One of the things that I find interesting about this approach is that it returns (to echo a 1960s phrase) \u201cpower to the people.\u201d In other words, you do not need to be a specialist in climate science or lithium battery technology to make a dent in the climate crisis. Instead, anyone can make a meaningful, indeed crucial impact on the climate crisis, either through personal action or collective activism.<\/p>\n

This is a discussion-based course involving over 800 students<\/a><\/p>\n

Traditionally, much of academia has taken place behind closed doors. Even though we are now in a connected age, this is still the case at many universities. At UCSB, for example, most online class discussions take place behind a password-protected wall in a Drupal-based online area known as “GauchoSpace.”<\/p>\n

As far as I am concerned, this is problematic. There is no reason to keep this material from the public – especially given the urgency and severity of the climate crisis. Consequently, anyone who is interested can follow along with our class discussions – even years from now, as this course archive will not be taken down. Fee free to invite friends or family to check out our online discussions.<\/p>\n

Given the size of the class (860 students) and the fact that every student will be making three groups of ten (30 total) comments, literally millions of words of commentary and discussion will be created by this course and archived.<\/p>\n

How does this work in practice? Traditional lectures can be seen as a kind of broadcasting. As only the lecturer talks and everyone else listens, knowledge travels in just one direction, not unlike a radio broadcast. In contrast, during a lively discussion ideas are transferred back and forth as many people can take an active part.<\/p>\n

Admittedly unusual – and certainly experimental – we will be using the comments in this class in order to facilitate a discussion involving the more than 800 students in the class. In order to do so, we will be taking a decidedly different approach to flipping our classroom. (Incidentally, I have long been intrigued by this general approach: I flipped my first classroom back in 2012-13 at Princeton University.)<\/p>\n

Unlike a lecture, in a traditional discussion-based class the instructor generally both transmits information and helps students make sense of it during the class period by way of a class discussion. In other words, part of the time the instructor delivers information by lecturing and part of the time there is a class discussion over what has been said by the instructor and others.<\/p>\n

In contrast, in a flipped classroom, students first encounter the information prior to class, usually through an online source. Class time is then given to working through this material, often by way of discussion. This allows for more time to discuss the material and work through it in other ways.<\/p>\n

See the next section on the deep dive lectures for more on this discussion-based approach.<\/p>\n

“Deep-Dive” lectures<\/p>\n

This course employs an admittedly experimental variation on the now traditional approach to flipping a classroom outlined immediately above.<\/p>\n

Prior to class, students will have already watched (or read) the day’s material and commented on it, as well as – and this is important – commented on what their classmates had to say. All commenting will be done on YouTube and hence will be completely public. During the class session, Ken will jump into this discussion by reflecting on particularly helpful comments, which he will be projecting onscreen.<\/p>\n

Ken’s responses to these comments will be recorded as individual sessions. After the course ends, they will be uploaded to YouTube as “deep dives” into the material with the comments onscreen and Ken’s reflections as a voiceover. For example, if you would like to consider the climate crisis as a generational issue (which a cluster of five of the primary lectures take up) in greater detail, as well as see what informed students think about this important issue, the five accompanying deep-dive videos will provide additional food for thought.<\/p>\n

Ken will similarly reflect on student reaction to the assigned readings and course films. These deep dives on the course readings and films will also be uploaded to YouTube after the course ends.<\/p>\n

In this way, everyone in the room will take part in the discussion, which is a dramatic increase from a traditional discussion section. In a traditional discussion section, assuming that it is particularly lively, perhaps just 30-40% of students participate regularly. An excellent discussion leader can push it to perhaps 50%. This, of course, means that half of the students are not participating in section. In our approach, however, everyone<\/em> will be taking part in the discussion – which, in this case, will be over 800 people.<\/p>\n

Moreover, as a student will have time to consider his or her written comments, they may well be more thoughtful. Consider the dialogue that one encounters in really good fiction. One of the joys of reading such a conversation comes from the fact that it is often just too good, with phrases and retorts chosen just too perfectly, to have been spoken in real-time. And it wasn\u2019t, as the author had the benefit of time in writing and revising it into a polished form.<\/p>\n

In transitioning from the spoken to written word, students have the same luxury with their comments in this class. When we put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) we have time, even if just a few moments, to reflect. Consequently, while they may read like the transcript of a spoken conversation (as does the dialogue in a novel), our online discussions are potentially more thoughtful and precise.<\/p>\n

Finally, because online comments are a form of social networking, the format is familiar and quickly embraced by students.<\/p>\n

By using this admittedly unusual approach, not only will the primary lecture material be preserved online, but all of the considered and thoughtful class discussion surrounding it will be archived as well.<\/p>\n

Attend, read, watch, or listen. The choice is yours.<\/p>\n

A note to my students: even though you are encouraged (and in some cases required) to encounter this material in additional ways, attendance at lecture is mandatory!<\/em><\/p>\n

There are four ways to encounter the material for this course.<\/p>\n

1) Attend<\/em> the course lectures. This is the ideal approach, as students not only systematically encounter all the course material, which they are tested on, but their thoughts and questions are responded to during the lectures.<\/p>\n

2) Read<\/em> what is on this page. Below you will find complete transcripts for all the primary lectures for the course. Hence, this page is not only book-length; it is in fact a book.<\/p>\n

3) Watch<\/em> the videos of the lectures on YouTube, which are accurately closed captioned in English for greater accessibility. The goal is to also closed caption them in Spanish and Chinese.<\/p>\n

4) Listen<\/em> to the audio podcasts, which aggregate together all of the talks for a particular lecture. Note that the audio podcast series will not begin until after this course is taught for the first time.<\/p>\n

This multi-pronged approach is designed to blur and challenge the distinctions between a book, a classroom experience, and an online experience.<\/p>\n

Accessibility<\/a><\/p>\n

Why take the above four approaches to disseminating essentially the same material? While everyone potentially benefits, this multi-pronged approach also makes the course material more accessible to a range of individuals with varied abilities.<\/p>\n

For example, with this approach you need neither hearing nor sight to fully access all the course materials, as it can alternately be read or heard. During the “deep dive” videos (which will also be available as audio podcasts), Ken will narrate what is onscreen in order to make the material accessible in audio form.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of the text on this page is twice standard size (24pt) in a font recommended as an option for print disabilities<\/a>. For the highest contrast possible, almost all letters are black and appear against a solid white background. All text is clustered together in large blocks separated by, rather than embedded with, images for added clarity.<\/p>\n

Since there are just six of these large text bocks, it would be a relatively simple matter to cut and paste them into a text editor in order to convert them into a specialized font, such as Open Dyslexic. Apologies for not building this functionality directly into this site, but, given that this is a living document and being continually updated (see below), it presents a somewhat daunting challenge. Nonetheless, I am working on it.<\/p>\n

In addition, using a varied approach to presentation gives everyone potentially useful options, such as the ability to easily listen on the go to a number of short lectures on the same theme collected together into a single audio podcast.<\/p>\n

If you are an educator using this material, the large font on this page is a particularly good size for projecting it onscreen for a class.<\/p>\n

Doesn’t posting this material online make the actual class redundant?<\/p>\n

It is useful to pause and to reflect on why we give university credit for coursework. Credit is not given for simply showing up for class. Instead, students are graded on how well they have understood and mastered the material. Even if someone were to explore all of this online lecture material, the instructor would be in no position to evaluate what they had learned. Such evaluation is essential for accreditation.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that someone studying this online material could not master it well enough to receive an “A” in the actual class. Indeed, the goal of posting everything online is to offer such a person everything necessary to attain that level of proficiency.<\/p>\n

It is also the case that the course subject matters here. If this were a course on something like a computer language, having university accreditation would likely be of significant value in seeking a job. However, understanding the climate crisis is different. True, having accrued four credits for this course could play a role in obtaining an undergraduate degree, but the reason that someone would take this particular course<\/em> is presumably because they want to learn more about what will likely be the most significant issue of this century – and one that will have a profound impact on his or her life.<\/p>\n

In this sense, whether you receive credit for taking this course is – given the urgency and severity of the climate crisis – far, far less important than learning about this issue.<\/p>\n

This is also a moral issue for me. Anyone who is interested should have access to this material. Again, it might be different if the subject at hand were something like Renaissance poetry, but it seems to me that there is a moral imperative in making this material open to the public. Given that fossil fuel interests are working hard at spreading disinformation about the climate crisis, everyone needs to have unrestricted access to reliable information on this crisis.<\/p>\n

Is this a MOOC?<\/p>\n

Although it might be possible to convert the approach explored here into some sort of graded<\/em> MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), it is by no means the objective – and certainly not at all necessary in implementing the approach. Moreover, making it into some sort of a paid course, and in the process restricting access to this material, strongly goes against the spirit of this approach. At the risk of repeating myself, as everyone on the planet is experiencing the climate crisis, everyone should have complete access to credible materials relating to it.<\/p>\n

This is living document<\/p>\n

Unlike a print book, this page is regularly being updated and expanded. In this sense, it is somewhat like an academic preprint<\/a>; however, with the understanding that a print version will not be forthcoming. I welcome input from my students and colleagues, as well as the public, in improving it.<\/p>\n

As a living document, if you would like to cite from this page, you should note the date of the reference. Alternately, you could archive and reference a copy of this page from the day that you are citing it by way of the Internet Archive<\/a> (a.k.a. “The Wayback Machine”) and reference that URL.<\/p>\n

Navigating this page<\/p>\n

In the upper right corner this page is a “hamburger menu” – i.e three horizontal lines that bring out the site menu. (If you are at the very top of the page, you will have to scroll down a little to make it appear.) If you click the burger, a menu will appear. Click “Climate Crisis 101” and you will be able to quickly navigate to the major sections of this page. While it would have been possible to duplicate this functionality with a permanent sidebar, this approach keeps it out of the way until needed.<\/p>\n

In addition, once you scroll down a little, in the lower right a faint box will appear with a small chevron in it. Click it and you will immediately be taken to the top of the page.<\/p>\n

A note for teachers<\/p>\n

The material on this website may be of particular interest to educators, as the course videos and podcasts may be useful in flipping a classroom. In fact, as noted above regarding this being a discussion-based approach<\/a>, this course is designed around a flipped classroom.<\/p>\n

Seriously, why does this page look the way that it does?<\/p>\n

See the above section on accessibility<\/a>. It’s also time for a confession.<\/p>\n

I love getting lost in a good book. Lost in a sea of words, just words on a blank page. (As I am a scholar of the written word, this probably comes as no surprise.) Of course, there is nothing wrong with feeling the same way about a page rich in images, like a graphic novel, but I personally find the look of words alone against a stark backdrop familiar and inviting.<\/p>\n

In her Thinking With Type<\/em>, Ellen Lupton succinctly – and wonderfully – observed that \u201cTypography is what language looks like.\u201d In addition to considering what written language is doing, which is what I do for a living, I am fascinated (“mesmerized” might be a better word) by what it looks like. The fact that I am dyslexic may play a role here.<\/p>\n

While this fascination began decades ago when I was a child who read far too many books, and continued into adulthood as I collected far too many books, I have grown to enjoy the look and nuance of digital text even more. Perhaps not surprisingly then, I find long scrolls of crisp Helvetica text pleasing.<\/p>\n

Apologies in advance if you don’t like this look, as I realize that it flies in the face of a good deal of contemporary web design and the fact that pictures can indeed add interest to a page. Hence, you may find it just plain boring. Still, since I have no desire to monetize this site with ads or to promote anything here, I hope that you enjoy the luxury of this minimalist approach.<\/p>\n

To answer the above question in another way, with this page I am offering up an interpretation of how a book (which this is) can look and act as we enter the third quarter of the 21st century. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way claiming to be a web innovator, as there is hardly anything new here. Rather, this approach simply strikes me as an interesting way to bring a book to the world.<\/p>\n

The accompanying YouTube videos and audio podcasts, where this material is also presented (and which can be viewed and heard directly from this page), are part and parcel of this approach to bookmaking. As I noted above, this approach to bookmaking is designed to question the distinctions between a book and classroom and online experiences.<\/p>\n

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Greta Thunberg, climate activist<\/a><\/p>\n

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Table\u00a0 of Contents<\/p>\n

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Preface<\/a><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/a><\/p>\n

General Information<\/a><\/p>\n

Weekly Schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 1: The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth<\/a><\/p>\n

Week #2: The climate crisis as a local, burning issue<\/a><\/p>\n

Week #3: Denying the undeniable<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 4: Front only the essential facts of life<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 5: Making waste (of the planet)<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 6: The Green New Deal<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 7: Drawing down the climate crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 8: Communicating climate change, through words and actions<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 9: Can the climate crisis make us happy \u2013 or at least see need to be happy?<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 10: TBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Specific Information<\/a><\/p>\n

Sections<\/p>\n

Note, this page contains 1) the text of each talk, 2) a video of each talk, which can be viewed directly from this page, and 3) and an audio podcast that aggregates together all of the talks for that lecture (i.e.\u00a0 the six lectures that comprise the Climate and Generation can all be heard as a single audio podcast).<\/p>\n

Lectures on Specific\u00a0 Issues<\/p>\n

Climate and Generation<\/a><\/p>\n

The climate crisis as a generational issue (Introduction)<\/a><\/p>\n

1) How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime<\/a><\/p>\n

2) Why the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting<\/a><\/p>\n

3) What a new generation can do to mitigate the climate crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

4) Can one generation do what previous generations failed to do?<\/a><\/p>\n

5) What the Boomer generation knew about the climate crisis – and when we knew it<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading List<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

The Uninhabitable Earth<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

2\u00b0C: Beyond the Limit, Fires, floods and free parking<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/em><\/p>\n

Walden<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Waste Makers<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Course Films<\/a><\/p>\n

Minimalism<\/em><\/p>\n

The True Cost<\/em><\/p>\n

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Extinction Rebellion Protest<\/a><\/p>\n

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Syllabus for English 23, \u201cThe Climate Crisis: What It Is and What Each of Us Can Do About It\u201d<\/p>\n

(a.k.a. \u201cClimateCrisis101\u201d)<\/p>\n

General Information<\/a><\/p>\n

About this syllabus<\/p>\n

This is the official syllabus for Eng 23 for the Winter of 2020. For general information on the class, see the above Preface<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note on the syllabus for people not taking English 23 at UCSB<\/p>\n

If you are not enrolled in the course, you still might find this syllabus of interest, as it structures what may otherwise be a confusing array of online material. Although it is possible to randomly watch the course YouTube videos, this syllabus not only provides a systematic way of approaching them, it also offers links to additional course material (such as the primary readings, which are all available free of cost online). In addition, it should be possible to watch all of the course\u2019s YouTube videos directly from this page – even if YouTube is not available in your country<\/p>\n

Course Format<\/p>\n

The format of this course is highly unusual and more than a little experimental. Given that we will be taking up what may well be the most important issue of the 21st-century, our discussions of the course material will be public, involving the more than 800 people in the class.<\/p>\n

Contact Info<\/p>\n

Lecturer: Ken Hiltner. Office Hours: MW 1-2pm at the Coral Tree Cafe. He\/His\/Him. Always “Ken,” never “Professor Hiltner.”<\/p>\n

If your last name begins with A-K,\u00a0 your TA is Celeste McAlpin-Levitt (mcalpin-levitt@ucsb.edu<\/a>). Office hours: Wednesdays, 3-5pm in South Hall 2432D. She\/Her\/Hers.<\/p>\n

If your last name begins with L-Z,\u00a0 your TA is Sydney Lane (slane@ucsb.edu<\/a>). Office hours: Fridays, 9-11am in South Hall 2607 in the L&E (Literature and Environment) room. She\/Her\/Hers.<\/p>\n

Course Grades<\/p>\n

1) Midterm: 25% of course grade, 50 questions, Scantron format.<\/p>\n

2) Final exam: 30% of course grade, 50 questions, Scantron format (not cumulative).<\/p>\n

3) Attendance at all lectures: 15% of course grade, taken via i>clicker beginning the first day of class. Given that there are 30 classes, each unexcused absence thus reduces the total course grade by 1\/2 %. You receive attendance credit for UCSB holidays: January 18 (MLK Jr. Day) and February 15 (Presidents’ Day).<\/p>\n

If a student is found to be in possession of another student\u2019s i>clicker during polling, the devices will be confiscated and both students will be reported to UCSB\u2019s Office of Judicial Affairs.<\/em> Please check your attendance online after each class. More on attendance below<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4) Commenting on course material. (See below for details on how the online commenting works.)<\/p>\n

A) Comments on readings: 10% of the course grade<\/p>\n

B) Comments on films: 10% of the course grade<\/p>\n

C) Comments on short lectures: 10% of the course grade<\/p>\n

Note: you will therefore be making a total of 30 YouTube comments, 3 per week for the 10-week term starting in week #1 (i.e. 10 comments on the course readings, 10 comments on the films, and 10 comments on the short lectures).<\/p>\n

Each comment thus counts for 1% of the course grade. See below for more on comments and for the extra credit policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Course Requirements<\/p>\n

1) All texts are available online (see each week below for links).<\/p>\n

2) All films are available on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast) or YouTube.<\/p>\n

3) i>clicker. Note that the actual i>clicker device must be purchased; the i>clicker phone app will not work<\/em>. Please register your i>clicker on GauchoSpace as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

4) Large Scantron forms (the red, letter size forms that are 8.5\u201d x 11\u201d) for midterm and final exams.<\/p>\n

Honors Section<\/p>\n

Email Ken with your reasons for wanting to join the Honors Section by midnight of the first day (Monday) of class. Note that the Honors Section will meet on Wednesdays at 1pm, starting in the first week.<\/p>\n

Cellphones<\/p>\n

Silence and put away your cellphone before lecture starts.<\/p>\n

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Weekly Schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Please note: <\/em>You may well find the weekly readings and films more interesting if you first watch Ken’s YouTube video introductions contextualizing them. Then, after doing the readings or watching the film(s), you can return to Ken’s video to comment. In order to make initial viewing more convenient, clicking on the below links to Ken\u2019s YouTube videos will cause the video to pop up on this page. You will, however, need to go to YouTube to make comments.<\/p>\n

Week 1: The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is \u201cThe Uninhabitable Earth<\/a>\u201d by David Wallace-Wells, which is a July 2017 article that appeared in New York Magazine<\/em>. An annotated version, \u201ccomplete with interviews with scientists and links to further reading,\u201d of this article is available here<\/a> in case you are interested.<\/p>\n

Note also that Wallace-Wells is scheduled to speak in downtown Santa Barbara at the New Vic on March 6th as part of UCSB’s Arts & Lectures<\/a> series. Ken is also working on getting him to speak directly to our class.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in reading more of what Wallace-Wells has to say on the subject, the book that came out of this article, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming<\/em> (Tim Duggan Books, 2019), is very interesting.\u00a0 <\/span>If you are not sure if you want to read the entire book, in February of 2019 New York Magazine<\/em> published another article by Wallace-Wells adapted from the above book entitled \u201cThe Cautious Case for Climate Optimism<\/span><\/a>.\u201d In it, explains why he is optimistic about the future – something that he failed to do in the original 2017 article. More recently, Wallace-Wells published a followup article entitled “We\u2019re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future \u2014 and It\u2019s Not as Bad as It Once Looked<\/a>” in December of 2019, which is well worth reading. <\/span>After the book appeared, Wallace-Wells gave a number of interviews in Rolling Stone<\/a>, Vox<\/a>, The Atlantic<\/a>, Vice<\/a>,<\/em> and elsewhere. <\/span><\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading the \u201cThe Uninhabitable Earth,\u201d please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on this introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary Before the Flood<\/em> or An Inconvenient Sequel<\/em> according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen Before the Flood<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams from Netflix<\/em>, as well as can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen Before the Flood<\/em>, please instead watch An Inconvenient Sequel<\/em>, also available on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

3) Since we will be considering each in class, feel free to watch both videos.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching one of the above films, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing both of them and comment on this video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched. However, if you have already watched Before the Flood<\/em>, please feel free to reference it in your comment on an An Inconvenient Sequel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lecture videos:<\/p>\n

Please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:<\/p>\n

1) “The climate crisis as a generational issue” (Climate and Generation, Intro)<\/p>\n

2) “How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime” (Climate and Generation, #1)<\/p>\n

Lecture assignment<\/em>: after watching the above lecture snippets, please comment on YouTube on “How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime.”<\/p>\n

Week #2: The climate crisis as a local, burning issue<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

<\/a>Please read \u201c2\u00b0C: Beyond the limit<\/a>\u201d which is a December 2019 article in The Washington Post<\/em> by journalist Scott Wilson. Note that this article is based on \u201cThe Post\u2019s<\/em> analysis\u201d of temperature rise in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties since 1895. According to the explanation of \u201cMethodology\u201d at the end of the article, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forms the basis of this study. However, there are no pier-reviewed corroborating studies support the conclusions that undergird this article regarding the above-mentioned temperature rise. This is not to say that Wilson is wrong, but simply to make you aware of this potential issue.<\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading \u201c2\u00b0C: Beyond the limit,\u201d please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on this introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch the documentary Fire in Paradise<\/a><\/em>, which is an October 2019 episode of the long-running PBS series Frontline<\/em>. It currently streams for free directly from PBS.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching Fire in Paradise<\/em>, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on this video (link).<\/p>\n

Lecture videos:<\/p>\n

Please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:<\/p>\n

1) \u201cWhy the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting\u201d (Climate and Generation, #2)<\/p>\n

2) \u201cWhat a new generation can do to mitigate the climate crisis\u201d (Climate and Generation, #3)<\/p>\n

Lecture assignment<\/em>: after watching the above two lecture snippets, please comment on either one or the other (the choice is yours) on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Week #3: Denying the undeniable<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

Please rCan the climate crisis make us happy \u2013 or at least see need to be happy?o an including page 59) of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/a>. This entire book is available as a free PDF. Please also read the webpage introducing the book (here<\/a>) and the first dozen or so of the Amazon reviews of the book (here<\/a>). Note that this is a principle text denying the climate crisis published by a fossil fuel affiliate (i.e. it will attempt to convince you that scientists are not sure whether the climate crisis is happening or not – let the Reader beware!).<\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading the selections from Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/em>, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on this introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary A Climate of Doubt<\/em> or Merchants Of Doubt<\/em> according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen A Climate of Doubt<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams for free directly from PBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen A Climate of Doubt<\/em>, please instead watch Merchants Of Doubt<\/em>. It is up on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

3) Since we will be considering each in class, feel free to watch both videos.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching one of the above films, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched. However, if you have already watched A Climate of Doubt<\/em>, please feel free to reference it in your comment.<\/p>\n

Lecture videos:<\/p>\n

Please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:<\/p>\n

1) “Can one generation do what previous generations failed to do?” (Climate and Generation, #4)<\/p>\n

2) “What the Boomer generation knew about the climate crisis – and when we knew it” (Climate and Generation, #5)<\/p>\n

Lecture assignment<\/em>: after watching the above two lecture snippets, please comment on either one or the other (the choice\u00a0 is yours).<\/p>\n

Week 4: Front only the essential facts of life<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is Chapter 1 of Henry David Thoreau\u2019s 1854 classic Walden<\/em>. A PDF is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading Walden<\/em>, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing the opening chapter and comment on his introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things<\/em> or the alternative films listed below according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen Minimalism<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams from Netflix<\/em>, as well as can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen Minimalism<\/em>, please instead watch both of these two short films on Youtube: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy<\/a> and The High Price of Materialism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3) Since we will be considering each of them in class, feel free to watch all the videos.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching the above film(s), please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers all of the above films, you only need to comment on the film(s) that you watched. However, if you have already watched Minimalism<\/em>, please feel free to reference it in your comment.<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 5: Making waste (of the planet)<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is Chapters 2-7 of Vance Packard\u2019s classic 1960 study of consumerism: The Waste Makers<\/em>. A PDF of the entire book is available online<\/a>. (You are only required to read Chapters 2-7.)<\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading the The Waste Makers<\/em> chapters, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on his introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary The True Cost<\/em> or \u201cThe Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion\u201d (from Patriot Act<\/em> with Hasan Minhaj) according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen The True Cost<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen The True Cost<\/em>, please instead watch The Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3) Since we will be considering them each in class, feel free to watch both films.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching one of the above films , please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched. However, if you have already watched The True Cost<\/em>, please feel free to reference it in your comment.<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 6: The Green New Deal<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is the Green New Deal<\/a> (i.e. Resolution #109 of the U.S. House of Representatives, 02\/07\/2019)<\/p>\n

Reading assignment<\/em>: after reading the Green New Deal, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on his introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Films:<\/p>\n

Please watch \u201cThe Green New Deal, explained<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cWhy you still don\u2019t understand the Green New Deal<\/a>,\u201d which are both short VOX<\/em> videos, as well as \u201cA Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>.\u201d All are on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching the above three films, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link).<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 7: Drawing down the climate crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

<\/a>This week\u2019s reading are the first 25 approaches from the \u201cSummary of Solutions<\/a>\u201d from Project Drawdown (i.e. “Refrigerant Management” to “Concentrated Solar”). Please go to each of the 25 pages and read the summaries (which are just two or three paragraphs each), as well as the \u201cImpact” statements on the sidebar. Note that if you find this material of particular interest, you might enjoy the book that came out of this project: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reading assignment: after reading the above, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing this material and comment on his introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Film:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret<\/em> or Wasted! The Story of Food Waste!<\/em> according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen Cowspiracy<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams from Netflix<\/em>. A DVD can also be purchased from cowspiracy.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen Cowspiracy<\/em>, please instead watch Wasted!<\/em>. It is up on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

3) Since we will be considering each in class, feel free to watch both videos. They are each interesting, though in different ways.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching one of the above films, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched.<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 8: Communicating climate change, through words and actions<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is the chapter on “Communicating Climate Change Science<\/a>” (Chapter 8) from the book Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions<\/em>, which is a University of California publication.<\/p>\n

Reading assignment: after reading the above, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing this material and comment on his introduction. (link)<\/p>\n

Film:<\/p>\n

Please watch either<\/em> the documentary Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution<\/em> or Tomorrow (Demain) according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen Being the Change<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently can be rented for a relatively modest fee from Amazon.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen Being the Change<\/em>, please instead watch Tomorrow<\/em>. It is up on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.<\/p>\n

3) If you have already seen both films, please watch one again. The choice\u00a0 is yours.<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching one of the above films, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video (link). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched, though you are free to watch both.<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 9: Can the climate crisis make us happy \u2013 or at least see the need to be happy?<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s reading is<\/p>\n

Film:<\/p>\n

Please watch\u00a0the documentary Happy<\/em>\u00a0according to these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1) If you have not seen Happy<\/em>, please watch it. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently can be rented for a relatively modest fee from Amazon.<\/p>\n

2) If you have already seen Happy<\/em>, watch it again. It is even better the second time. Seriously!<\/p>\n

Film assignment<\/em>: after watching Happy<\/em>, please watch Ken\u2019s video on YouTube introducing it and comment on his video (link).<\/p>\n

Lecture video:<\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

Week 10<\/a><\/p>\n

TBA<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Attendance<\/a><\/p>\n

Attendance accounts for 15% of the total course grade. Hence, just showing up for class is probably the easiest thing that you can do to help your grade.<\/p>\n

Ken is NOT responsible for attendance<\/em>. Please email your TAs regarding any questions about GauchoSpace grades.<\/p>\n

Attendance at all lectures is required and will be taken throughout each class via i>clicker, beginning on the first day of the first week of class. Thus, you need to have an i>clicker device or app by this date. You need to register your i>clicker on GauchoSpace as soon as possible. Note that i>clicker polling will take place near the beginning, during, and near the end of every class. You must answer 75% of the poll questions for the day to receive your attendance points. You will not be eligible for make-up attendance for answering less than that.<\/p>\n

If a student is found to be in possession of another student\u2019s i>clicker during polling, the devices will be confiscated and both students will be reported to UCSB\u2019s Office of Judicial Affairs as an incident of academic dishonesty (i.e. attempting to alter the course grade). Please note that both students can be charged for academic dishonesty.<\/em> Hence, this is not something that you want to ask a friend to do (or agree to do for a friend).<\/p>\n

For the first week of class, if you do not have an i>clicker but are present in lecture, see your TA before you leave the lecture hall so that she can manually marked you present. If you were on the waitlist and were added to the course, please register your i>clicker with Gauchospace as soon as possible. Your attendance will be updated to connect your past attendance (which was recorded) with your newly registered i>clicker. This turn-over might take a day or two. Please contact your TA if your attendance grade is not accurate.<\/p>\n

Starting in week #2, the only way that you will be eligible for make-up attendance is if you a) prove that you were in lecture by seeing your TA before leaving the lecture hall and b) your i>clicker malfunctioned or there was another emergency that caused you to leave the lecture hall. TAs will NOT be giving make-up attendance to students that forgot their i>clickers at home or do not yet have one.<\/p>\n

You will be eligible for make-up attendance \/ an excused absence in the event of family or health emergencies, religious observances, athletic commitments (note provided), and work or government obligations. Being out of town for any other reason, does not count as an excused absence and you will not be eligible for make-up attendance for that day.<\/p>\n

Commenting<\/a><\/p>\n

Note: see the above Preface<\/a> for a general introduction to how commenting works in this class.<\/em><\/p>\n

General notes on comments<\/p>\n

Each week you will be making three separate comments to the course YouTube channel (ClimateCrisis101<\/a>). You need to comment on the 1) reading, 2) film, and 3) Ken’s short online lecture(s) for that week, beginning in week 1.<\/p>\n

All commenting should be done on Ken\u2019s YouTube videos,<\/em> which will be posted at the beginning of each week. Note that if a film that we are screening appears on YouTube, such as Hasan Minhaj\u2019s \u201cThe Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion,\u201d DO NOT comment on this video directly but rather to Ken\u2019s commentary on it. Only comments made to Ken\u2019s YouTube videos will be credited toward your course grade.<\/p>\n

Please visit this syllabus weekly, as links for Ken\u2019s new videos will be added at the beginning of each week. In order to simplify things, you could also subscribe to the course channel on YouTube: ClimateCrisis101<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Note that all course readings and videos are available from the first day of class. Hence, feel free to work ahead. However, you will not be able to make a comment on the reading\/film until comments open on its assigned week.<\/p>\n

You have seven days to make the weekly comments. The links for the weekly readings will become active at 6am of every Monday morning. You must comment by 6am the following Monday to receive credit for the comment.<\/p>\n

Approximately half of your YouTube comments should be made to a comment made by a fellow student<\/em>. Since comment are made to YouTube, you are able to see what your classmates have written. Reading through them can be a thought-provoking experience, as it can give you the opportunity to see the sorts of reactions others have had. (This might also help you assess your own work, as you can see how much time and thought that your classmates are giving to the assignment.) As you no doubt know, online discussions are not only possible, but are often particularly thoughtful, as we have the benefit of time in making our replies well considered.<\/p>\n

One of the goals of this class, even though it is very large, is to encourage meaningful discussion, both with the instructor and among students. Hence, half of the time you should be respond directly to a classmate on YouTube. Because of a culture of anonymity, the Internet can sometimes be an unpleasant and nasty place. Please be not only thoughtful with your comments, but respectful as well, offering only the kind of constructive comments that you yourself would like to receive.<\/p>\n

Note that, as Ken\u2019s YouTube videos are open to the pubis, there may be some comments that will not come from your classmates. As there is a very active community of climate change deniers on YouTube, do not be surprised if you encounter vitriolic comments.<\/p>\n

Feel free to reply to someone’s comment to your comment. In fact, all such replies will be considered extra credit and will be taken into account if your final course grade is close to the next grade up. For example, if your final grade is an 89%, it would normally be a \u201cB+\u201d However, if you have a number of extra credit comments, you TA, solely at her discretion, could raise the final grade to an \u201cA-.\u201d Regardless of how many extra credit responses you have amassed, jumps greater than the amount of this example will not be made.<\/p>\n

Getting graded on your comments<\/p>\n

Please cut and paste all of your comments into a single text file.<\/em><\/p>\n

1) Prior to the Midterm, your TA will send you login info for a Google Drive folder. Please upload a PDF of your above mentioned file with the comments for the first five weeks<\/em> by midnight Sunday of week five.<\/p>\n

2) Prior to the Final exam, your TA will again send you login info for a Google Drive folder. Please upload a PDF of your above mentioned file with the comments for the last five weeks<\/em> by midnight Sunday of the last week.<\/p>\n

Your TA will provide more information on the above as we get closer to these deadlines.<\/p>\n

Comment FAQs:<\/p>\n

Couldn\u2019t I skip watching the videos and get someone to do the comments for me?<\/em> Perhaps, but this would be a recipe for disaster, as you will be tested on all the videos on the exams. So, since you have to watch the videos anyway, why not share your opinions? It is perfectly fine if you disagree with the reading, film, instructor, or your classmates. As the climate crisis will likely be the single most important issue of your generation, sooner rather than later (i.e. now) is the time to engage with it. Also, instructors can use a web crawler to look for repeated comments and phrases, as well as other inconsistencies, including stylistic, in comments. Having someone else do your work is a form of academic dishonestly and will be immediately reported to UCSB’s Office of Judicial Affairs.<\/em><\/p>\n

How long should a comment be and what form should they take?<\/em> A comment should be as long as necessary to make your point(s). A paragraph or two is generally sufficient. Please make specific references to the text\/film\/short lecture in order to make clear that you have read or watched it in its entirety (and not just a portion or a trailer in the case of films). The purpose of this assignment is to expose you to a range of thought-provoking material that can make a real difference in your life. Consequently, your comment should contain your thoughts and feelings on the material. It is perfectly fine to express an emotional response.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
\n

Extinction Rebellion Protest<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Lectures<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Climate and Generation<\/a><\/p>\n

(Listen to this section as an audio podcast)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

The climate crisis as a generational issue (Climate and Generation, Intro). Watch video.<\/p>\n

Across the planet, the youth are rebelling!<\/p>\n

This probably comes as little surprise, as you may well have heard of Greta Thunberg, the Sunrise Movement, and are likely aware that their generation is more than a little concerned about the state of our planet and its climate.<\/p>\n

The fact that they are<\/i> now rebelling should come as little surprise either. For decades, we kept telling yourselves that we needed to change the reckless way that we were inhabiting our planet – not for ourselves, but, as we kept saying, for our children.<\/p>\n

Well, we didn’t. And those children, who weren\u2019t necessarily even been born at the time, are now here – and coming of age. And they\u2019re upset that we didn\u2019t adequately address this issue decades ago. Let\u2019s be honest, they\u2019re pissed, really pissed – and rightfully so. We are handing them a planet that is well on its way to becoming uninhabitable, certainly unwelcoming, for our species.<\/p>\n

If you look at the circumstances surrounding the climate crisis (which, as we shall see, are more than a little unusual), the emergence of a youth rebellion at this moment in history, from this particular generation, was almost inevitable.<\/p>\n

In the next five segments of Climate Crisis 101<\/em> we will be considering the generational aspect of the climate crisis and why people of my generation failed to act \u2013 and are still, even now, not adequately acting.<\/p>\n

Which means that the responsibility for sweeping action now falls to new generation coming on the scene, that of my students. Consequently, as far as I am concerned, the youth movement is a very good thing indeed. We should all, for the sake of our planet, welcome and do what we can to support it.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>
\nHow the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime (Climate and Generation, 1). Watch video.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

It\u2019s true. The climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime. Contrary to what you may have heard or thought, for the most part the climate crisis was not slowly caused over centuries by many generations of human beings, but rather in a single lifetime. Which means, of course, that the people who largely caused this problem are still alive – and still making it worse.<\/p>\n

I want to talk about how this happened. Not the mechanics of how greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere, but how this was allowed to happen<\/em>, why no one stopped it – and why, even today, we are not doing nearly enough.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear at the onset that I am confident that it is not too late to act – there is<\/em> still time – though, as we shall see, the solution to the climate crisis that I am going to propose may seem\u2026well\u2026radical.<\/p>\n

The circumstances that made the climate crisis possible (perhaps even inevitable) are striking – and more than a little unusual. Even though we have been bringing about this crisis for quite a few decades now, to many people along the way it really did seem that there were few consequences to these actions.<\/p>\n

This was largely because of an unusual time delay that challenges and confuses our ordinary temporal perception of cause and effect. It is important to understand this issue, as it can help explain our decades of inaction – as well as suggest how we can finally, adequately, and quickly mobilize. Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

If you pour a quart of oil down a storm drain, the consequences will soon be obvious, as it can quickly contaminate as many as a million gallons of water – it\u2019s true. Release a billion times that amount of CO2 into the atmosphere (carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis), and there will be little impact, anywhere on earth. Hence, it may seem that there is little need to worry about the wholesale dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere. For decades, we kept telling ourselves that there wasn\u2019t much to worry about.<\/p>\n

But, there was<\/em>. If you keep releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere (which we did), the impact will be felt everywhere on the planet, but there will – and this is important – there will be a significant time delay before the consequences are felt<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I would argue that this time delay played a major role in bringing about the climate crisis – without it, I doubt the situation would have gotten anywhere near this far. The delayed impact also set the stage for an extraordinary generational split on the climate crisis that is now revealing itself across the planet.<\/p>\n

In order to understand how all this works, imagine that you could indulge in some sort of self-destructive behavior, say cigarette smoking, but without any consequences, whatsoever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You could smoke three, four, even five packs a day without significantly harming your health – every day for your entire adult life – no strings attached.<\/p>\n

Ok, imagine one string: while you would suffer none of the consequences of your actions, your children would suffer them all.<\/p>\n

Cancer, heart disease, emphysema, stroke – you get the idea. They wouldn’t have to wait for the symptoms to show up later in life, they would experience them from birth onward.<\/p>\n

And, not only your children, but your grandchildren – and, moreover, every subsequent generation of your descendants for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another twist, if enough people did it, then not only the descendants of the smokers, but every child born on the planet for the next few hundred years<\/em> would suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n

We are by no means talking about a majority of human beings here. Not half, not even a quarter. If just one in eight people on the planet did it, this would be enough to make every child born for hundreds of years suffer for their entire lives.<\/p>\n

One last twist: not only would subsequent generations of human beings suffer for hundreds of years, but all life on the planet will be profoundly impacted, from the heights of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. Thousands upon thousands of species would suffer, many would go extinct.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is not a thought experiment. This is how anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change works. The abused substance in question is not tobacco but fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

During one lifetime people enjoy, dozens<\/em> of subsequent generations suffer.<\/p>\n

I know: I keep saying just one lifetime<\/em>? Isn’t it true that our fossil fuel addiction goes back hundreds of years?<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right. In fact, I have written about the first true fossil fuel economy to emerge on earth, which was 400 years ago in Shakespeare’s London.<\/p>\n

But let’s look at CO2 in the atmosphere. Although there are a number of other important greenhouse gases (some that you may have heard of, like methane, others that you likely haven\u2019t, such as HFCs – both of which we will be taking up in future segments), CO2 is the most significant greenhouse gas and hence an important benchmark.<\/p>\n

For the whole of human history, indeed even before there were modern humans, before there were Neanderthals, CO2 in the atmosphere has held at about 280 ppm.<\/p>\n

Then, something happened, something big. A few hundred years ago people started digging up large quantities of fossil fuels. When burned, they released CO2 into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

By 1959 (I’ll explain in a moment why I picked this particular year), CO2 in the atmosphere had risen to 315 ppm, a rise of about 35 points.<\/p>\n

If it had stopped there in 1959, it is likely that the consequences for the human race would have been, relatively speaking, minor. But it didn’t stop there.<\/p>\n

In fact, it continued to rise – dramatically. During the year that I am recording this (2019), CO2 in the atmosphere reached 415 ppm. So, in the past 60 years CO2 has risen by 100 points. That\u2019s three times more than it rose in the preceding centuries. (It would in fact be much more, except that our planet\u2019s oceans have absorbed a quarter of the CO2 that we have emitted – with grave consequences, which we will be taking up in future segments.)<\/p>\n

1959 has particular significance for me: this was the year that I was born.<\/p>\n

Let’s just pause for a moment to reflect on this: three quarters of all the CO2 – the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis \u2013 three quarters of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by human beings was put there in a single lifetime \u2013 mine. Three quarters of it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, even thousands of years, dozens of subsequent generations are going to be impacted by what we have done. Generations of people, animals, fish, insects, plants – every living thing on earth.<\/p>\n

Recall the little twist that I added with my example of smoking. I stipulated that not everyone would need to do it for everyone on the planet to suffer. This is how the climate crisis has unfolded on earth.<\/p>\n

A quarter of all the CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by one country, my country, the United States, even though Americans constitute just 4% of the world\u2019s population. If you add in the countries of Europe, as well as Russia, in the past 60 years these countries, which during this time formed the bulk of what we called the \u201cdeveloped world,\u201d have been responsible for nearly two thirds of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, even though collectively these countries are home to just one eighth of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the poorest 3 billion people (\u201cBillion\u201d with a \u201cB\u201d – and that\u2019s approaching nearly half of the world\u2019s population), the poorest 3 billion people on the planet contributed just 5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, a pretty insignificant amount.<\/p>\n

Pause on that<\/em>: the extraordinary role that one out of eight people on the planet played in the climate crisis, in a single lifetime. For the most part, these people are still alive. For the most part, each day they are still doing exactly what they did to bring about this crisis.<\/p>\n

That last point is particularly worrisome, as my lifetime is not yet over. Life expectancy being what it is, I will live another twenty years or so. If we continue on like this, CO2 could rise another forty points, to 455ppm, in what would have been my lifetime. In other words, in the next 20 years human beings (principally those in the developed world) could put more CO2 into the atmosphere than the human race did for the whole of our history up until the time that I was born.<\/p>\n

In contrast, nearly half the planet\u2019s people had virtually nothing to do with causing the climate crisis, yet generations of their children will also suffer. And let\u2019s be honest, suffer more than children in the developed world, as all the wealth that our fossil-fuel economy has given us will, at least initially, likely help insulate the developed world from the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Pause on the injustice of that<\/em>: the wealth and power that the developed world has amassed, which has principally come from our fossil-fuel economy, will help protect us from the worst of what we have done, while the rest of the world will suffer all the more for it. In future segments, we will be taking up this subject, climate justice, in detail.<\/p>\n

Never<\/em> in the whole of human history has one group impacted the planet and its life to anywhere near this degree. It\u2019s not just unprecedented, it is altogether mind-boggling<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the following segments, I want to propose a solution to at least help mitigate this crisis. The course of action that I am going to suggest is radical. But I see no other course, as little else will likely work.<\/p>\n

For now, I want to end with an apology, from my generation to the newest generation emerging into maturity, that of my students. There are, no doubt, better people than I to deliver it. The power brokers in the fossil fuel industry come to mind, as do the politicians that still support them, even now. However, we may be waiting quite a while for their apology.<\/p>\n

My generation should be \u2013 and I am \u2013 ashamed of what we have done. We have left you with a planet on its way to becoming largely uninhabitable, certainly unwelcoming, for our species. What\u2019s worse, rather than correcting our mistakes, we have raised you and the generation before you to keep making the same ones. Instead of teaching you how to live sustainably on this planet, we have done just the opposite. Sadly, as you may have inherited our fossil fuel addiction, many of you may now, like us, be in the habit of casually abusing our planet, our home, Indeed, you may even have trouble imagining a sustainable way of life.<\/p>\n

I wonder, I wonder how history will remember my generation\u2026<\/p>\n

All that I can say is that I am sorry and that some of us in my generation are with you in this fight – and will be as long as we have breath in us.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
\nWhy the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting (Climate and Generation, 2). Watch video.<\/p>\n

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In the previous segment, I noted that climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime, mine. Today, I would like to address the question of why we\u2019re not acting. As it turns out, this is arguably a generational issue.<\/p>\n

First, allow me to quickly recap what I noted during the last segment:<\/p>\n

Three quarters of all the CO2 (that’s carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis) was put into our planet\u2019s atmosphere in the 60 years of my lifetime. Most of it was put there by the developed world. In contrast, the poorest half of humanity had virtually nothing to do with bringing the climate crisis about – though they will suffer the most.<\/p>\n

An unusual time delay is partly responsible here. For decades, massive amounts of greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere, seemingly without significantly impacting the global climate. Many people, ignoring the warnings of scientists, simply didn’t believe that doing this was a problem, as the consequences of our actions had not yet caught up with us. Now that they are quickly arriving, coming to grips with what we have done is\u2026well\u2026difficult. It really is mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

Mind-boggling for everyone, but, in a certain way, especially for my generation in the developed world: those most responsible for this crisis. How can we even begin to come to grips with what we have done?<\/p>\n

Is it surprising that many of us are in a state of denial? Deep, deep denial.<\/p>\n

We hear a lot about denial of the climate crisis nowadays. Usually this refers to theories that are advanced, often by or for fossil fuel interests, that in some way deny that the climate crisis is happening, or deny its severity, or that it is human-caused, or something of the sort.<\/p>\n

To many people, these attempts at denial sound pretty outlandish, as they fly in the face of reason and the facts. However, to some individuals, those who are themselves in a state of denial, often deep denial, they provide a way out: a way to not face up to what we have done, as what we have done borders on the unthinkable.<\/p>\n

Is it at all surprising that those in denial would question the truth?<\/p>\n

Of course, since before I was born, scientists have been alerting both the public and policy makers to the problem. Perhaps not surprisingly, those in denial often lash out at these messengers. You may have heard some of them. They can sound something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all, I have lived all my life without seeing any significant consequences from the burning of fossil fuels. Sure, there have been some pretty bad storms and crazy weather lately, but there have always been bad storms and wild weather. Who’s to say that they were caused by human action? Scientists? Who’s to say they’re right? Maybe their instruments are wrong. Maybe their theories are wrong. Maybe their computer models are wrong. Maybe this hasn’t been caused by human beings at all. Maybe it’s just the natural cycles of climate. Maybe it’s sunspot active. Maybe, maybe the scientists are corrupt. Maybe they’re part of some insidious global plot to undermine democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know, this can sound pretty silly. However, all of these theories denying the climate crisis have not only been advanced, they have all gotten significant traction with certain segments of the public: often, those in denial. Incidentally, and perhaps not surprisingly, denial of the climate crisis is most common in the developed world – which, perhaps not surprisingly, largely brought about the crisis.<\/p>\n

Even if individuals in my generation move past denial, there is the real danger of delay, climate delay. In other words, if we come to grips with the fact that the climate crisis is upon us and that we have caused it – and hey, that\u2019s a lot to come to grips with – then how should we proceed? Slowly, with caution? Or decisively, as time is of the utmost essence?<\/p>\n

Simple answer? My lifetime was the time to have acted. The six decades that I have lived was the time to have acted. The time for successful climate intervention is now receding quickly; we simply cannot delay any longer. As we shall see throughout this series, we need to fundamentally rethink and change the way that our species relates to this planet – and we need to do it now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Although different in a variety of ways, climate denial and climate delay can result in the same thing: Nothing. Inaction.<\/p>\n

There are three groups that should be particularly and profoundly upset about all this.<\/p>\n

First, the half of the world\u2019s population that had a minimal impact on CO2 rise, yet will suffer its consequences the most.<\/p>\n

Second, let\u2019s not forget all non-human life on earth, who hold no responsibility for CO2 rise. They will never know why this is all happening, yet are suffering and dying en masse already.<\/p>\n

The third group is the children of the people who did this. In speaking to my students, I am for the most part speaking to this group (although, as they hail from all over the world, some of my students come from places that did little to bring about this crisis). While many of this group may have benefited from the fossil fuel economy, they largely had no choice in the matter. After all, parents do not generally decide whether or not they are going to buy a McMansion or gas-guzzling SUV based on the input of their children.<\/p>\n

This last group is also in many ways currently leading the worldwide revolt against the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Because my generation has not acted, I am speaking to this younger generation. Not only in the classroom, but here, as I imagine you as the principal audience for this prerecorded talk.<\/p>\n

The problem is that my generation is still largely in power across the planet.<\/p>\n

Consider the U.S. federal government. The average age of Congress is around my age, 60. The Supreme Court is nearly ten years older, pushing 70. And, of course, Donald Trump was the first person ever elected President of the United States in his seventies. We could continue with state and local governments (the average age of a Governor is early sixties), but the story is much the same, as it is in the corporate world. The average age of a CEO of a major corporation is 56.<\/p>\n

Of course, it does not necessarily follow from this that my generation cares little about the climate crisis. Unfortunately, polls reveal that this is in fact often the case.<\/p>\n

A recent poll by Yale and George Mason Universities asked voters what will be the most important issues for them in the upcoming 2020 presidential election. Among my generation, so-called \u201cbaby boomers,” global warming ranked number 18 out of 29<\/em> as an area of concern. Instead, the leading issues were the economy, healthcare, and Social Security. Other concerns ranked ahead of global warming included terrorism, immigration reform, and border security. The generation after mine (so-called Gen X – basically people who are now in their forties through mid-fifties) did not rank global warming much higher as an issue of concern: for them it is 15 out of 29. Finally, the generation before mine, people the age of Donald Trump and older, ranked it lowest of all: 23 out of 29 .<\/p>\n

It’s not that these folks necessarily deny that anthropogenic climate change is taking place. According to this poll, 70% of registered voters in the U.S. now believe that the climate is changing because of human action, which is up from what it has been in recent years. While this might seem heartening, the problem is that the climate crisis, although now increasingly acknowledged as real, is just not much of a priority for many people. Sadly, as this poll reveals, this is<\/em> a generational issue: the older you are, the less urgent you will likely find the climate crisis. People forty and above just don’t see this as very important, at all.<\/p>\n

In many respects, this is hardly surprising, as these older generations lived their lives largely without seeing the consequences of their actions because of that strange time delay – which lasted for decades – that we took up in the previous segment.<\/p>\n

But perhaps polls aren\u2019t all that revealing, perhaps the generation in power has been acting, has been lowering CO2 emissions. After all, isn\u2019t that what the Paris Accord signed at COP21 is all about? Didn\u2019t the nations of the world agree to limit global temperature rise to a reasonable 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)? In fact, they did agree to this.<\/p>\n

The problem is that global temperatures have already risen by two-thirds this amount, by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. When did all this happen? You guessed it: principally during the six decades of my lifetime.<\/p>\n

Not only are CO2 emissions on the rise, but they are – astonishingly – rising far more quickly now than when the Paris Accord was signed. At that time (2015), CO2 emissions were rising at less than half a percent per year. Last year (2018), global CO2 emissions rose by a staggering 2.7%. That’s five times as much as when the Paris Accord was signed<\/em>. In case you\u2019re wondering, even though there had been a lowering trend in the U.S., 2018 was well above the world average with a 3.4% increase.<\/p>\n

Simply put, during my lifetime we (and by \u201cwe\u201d I principally mean the developed world) have been dumping vast amounts of CO2 other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each and every year – and every year we have on average been dumping significantly more than the year before. As last year proved, we have by no means been slowing down since the Paris Accord was signed.<\/p>\n

How far off are we from the target of the Paris Accord? The goal is to reduce emissions to between 80-95% of the levels that we had thirty years ago<\/em>, back in 1990, back when I was thirty.<\/p>\n

So, no, the people in power are not sufficiently addressing this issue – not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

What, then, do we need to do to keep this crisis from becoming even worse? In the next segment, I will be taking up this question – and offering a radical answer.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
\nWhat a new generation can do to mitigate the climate crisis (Climate and Generation, 3). Watch video.<\/p>\n

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In the previous two segments, I noted that even though the climate crisis was overwhelmingly brought about in a single lifetime, mine, my generation sees the problem as a low priority and, consequently, is doing little to mitigate it.<\/p>\n

In this and the next segment, I want to suggest an admittedly radical solution whereby the next generation can avert the worst of this crisis<\/p>\n

Just to recap, allow me to repeat what I said in the last segment: \u201cThree quarters of all the CO2 (that\u2019s carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis), was put into our planet\u2019s atmosphere in the 60 years of my lifetime.\u201d Ironically, for the most part the people who currently wield power on the planet are from my generation. And for the most part, they are not sufficiently addressing on this problem – not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

I think of myself as a scholar-activist. In the previous segments I have been talking to you principally as a scholar (and teacher), laying out the facts, explaining the situation. When I\u2019ve done this in person, students often ask me what they should do, what action<\/em> they should take. I am going to respond to that question now as an activist, by suggesting an action.<\/p>\n

Here it is, my radical suggestion. It, and what follows from this point onward, is spoken for my students (and your generation):<\/p>\n

You need to take control of this planet – or at least set your sights on that goal – and you need to start now, today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You cannot wait for the normal course of events, which would bring you to power when you’re my age, or nearly so. As we shall see throughout this series, this situation is simply too urgent for that. You do not have decades. You do not even have years to act. You need to act now, in the upcoming months to have as much impact as is possible. The future – and by that I mean sustaining a reasonably habitable earth for human beings – depends on it.<\/p>\n

Sadly, you cannot wait for my generation to act, as we have had decades to act, but haven\u2019t. In fact, as I noted in the last segment, during our watch we continued to make this situation worse and worse<\/em> every year. And even now<\/em> we see this as an alarmingly low priority.<\/p>\n

In suggesting that you need to take control of this planet, I do not mean to suggest that human beings should take control of even more of the earth. Our species already controls over 80% of our planet\u2019s landmass. I am simply suggesting that that control needs to be transferred to a generation that grasps the enormity of this crisis – and will thus hopefully be better stewards of this planet.<\/p>\n

Also, let me be very<\/em> clear, when I suggest that you take control of this planet, I am not in any way implying that you resort to violence to do so. Seriously, violence never solves anything. And, fortunately, throughout the developed world that principally caused this problem, democracy is for the most part still working reasonably well – though, as we shall see in future episodes, fossil fuel interests and others are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to subvert it.<\/p>\n

The 2018 U.S. midterm elections can be seen as a proof-of-concept of what can be done. A month after the youngest woman was ever voted into Congress, she co-introduced the most sweeping U.S. legislation ever to address the climate crisis: the Green New Deal. The fact that she did this in her twenties is not, I think, coincidental.<\/p>\n

Throughout this series, I am going to suggest a number of things that you can do to help take control of this planet. These will range from activism to engineering sweeping cultural change through decisions that you make on where you live, how you get around, what you eat, what you wear, the stuff you buy, etc.<\/p>\n

However, political change is of central<\/em> importance, even on the local level. You may trade your car for an e-bike (a great thing to do), but if your local politicians are committed to car infrastructure rather than bicycle paths, you may have real trouble getting around on that bike and even be unsafe sharing overcrowded roads with cars.<\/p>\n

In short, one of the simplest, quickest, and most effective things that you can do to work toward taking control of this planet is to vote – and to urge five of your friends to do the same.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a particular urgency in doing so that is worth noting, as my generation is leveraging democracy to its advantage and interests, which is away<\/em> from the climate crisis and toward things like Social Security and healthcare. How is this happening?<\/p>\n

In the aforementioned 2018 midterm election, voter turnout in the U.S. was generally up. In the case of 18 to 29-year-olds, it was way up, having increased more than any other age group, as over a third voted. This is great, undeniably. However, the problem is that two out of three<\/em> people over the age of 65 voted. As a group, their voting power is thus twice as great as the youngest generation of voters, simply because they are voting twice as much. My generation is not only effectively in control of this planet, we are significantly leveraging that control – two-to-one in the case of political power, which is all important – and which is, of course, exercised through voting.<\/p>\n

It is not my intent is to cause generational discord. Moreover, I am not echoing the 1960s adage that you should trust no one over 30. I am, after all, delivering this message at twice that age. And there are plenty of people in my generation and even older, including politicians, that are deeply committed to addressing our climate crisis. Al Gore and Bernie Sanders, both in their seventies, come to mind.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the bald fact is that we will be dead and buried when you will be dealing with the worst of this. We haven’t and simply won’t significantly suffer in our lifetimes. However, you will. Though we brought about the greatest catastrophe ever caused by human beings on the planet, the climate crisis wasn\u2019t really much of an issue for my generation, as paradoxical as that may sound. This is arguably largely because of the time delay that I elaborated on in the previous talks. Even today, as polls reveal, it is still not much of an issue for my generation. It will, nonetheless, likely be THE defining issue for you, and for many generations after you.<\/p>\n

Is it even possible for your generation to take even partial control of this planet? Frankly, I am not sure. However, I am decidedly of the \u201caim high\u201d camp when it comes to tackling problems. Even you do not succeed at this incredibly ambitious goal, you may still have a profound impact.<\/p>\n

Consider the last great youth rebellions in the U.S., which occurred in the 1960s and \u201970s. True, political power was not transferred from one generation to another at this time. However, these youth movements, which in many respects had their center in colleges and universities, were able to exert tremendous political pressure that ultimately resulted in significant cultural and political change.<\/p>\n

This not only included the ending of the Vietnam Conflict through the withdrawal of American troops, but also a range of additional cultural changes, such as for civil rights. Especially for people of color, for women, for the LGBTQIA community, we live in a better world because of the youth rebellions of the 1960s – though, of course, still hardly a perfect world.<\/p>\n

The simple fact is that, as a result of these rebellions, America was in many ways fundamentally, profoundly changed – for the better.<\/p>\n

Even if you do not succeed in taking even partial control this planet, you can have a profound influence on the older generations. Interestingly, you are uniquely positioned to do so.<\/p>\n

A recent study found that, when its comes to promoting \u201ccollective action\u201d on the climate crisis, one of the most effective approaches is \u201cchild-to-parent intergenerational learning\u2014that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents.\u201d (source<\/a>) Simply put, you need to teach your parents by communicating to them the horrific severity of this problem. You need to explain to them how important this is for your future, the future of their (as yet unborn) grandchildren – indeed the future of all your family\u2019s descendants. By taking this direct, personal approach, your generation can have enormous influence on the generations in control of this planet.<\/p>\n

Throughout this series, we will be looking at a range of approaches, such as child-to-parent intergenerational learning, that can allow you to have greater control of the destiny of the earth, our species, and the life with which we share this planet.<\/p>\n

I know that I have left quite a few questions unanswered here, such as just how much my generation knew about what we were doing. I will take this question up in a future segment, but the short answer is that we knew more than enough to have been prompted to action. After all, the modern environmental movement emerged at the moment, shortly after the time of my birth, when we could have largely averted the worst all this.<\/p>\n

The most pressing question, however, is what you as a generation can do to undo what my generation has done. I will be directly addressing this question in the next segment, as well as throughout this series. In fact, this series centers on this question.<\/p>\n

Simple answer is that, in order to help moderate the climate crisis, we need to fundamentally reinvent Western culture, especially consumer culture and the belief that happiness is to be found in things (it obviously isn’t), a culture that we have now sold to the entire world, much to the detriment of our planet. This is not a big job, it\u2019s an almost unimaginably huge undertaking. But it must be done. Because my generation didn’t do it, this job now falls to you.<\/p>\n

Thinking back to the 1960s in the U.S., I am reminded of a speech by Robert F. Kennedy where he noted that \u201cThere is a Chinese curse which says \u2018May he live in interesting times.\u2019 Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is probably not actually a real Chinese curse, but what Kennedy noted was correct. While he lived in a time of \u201cdanger and uncertainty,\u201d it was also an extremely exciting, creative time. Out of his era, with all its strife, came a better world, precisely because it was not just more of the same, but a bold charting of a new future.<\/p>\n

And yet, by comparison, it was arguably not nearly as exciting, with as much room for creativity, as the time in which we now live. Echoing Kennedy, I would argue that ours<\/em> is \u201cthe most creative of any time in the history\u201d of humanity. The challenge, at once both frightening and exhilarating, is to create a new world.<\/p>\n

I open my most recent book, which is on the challenge of writing a new environmental era and moving forward to nature (in other words, moving forward to a better relationship with the earth), with a quote from Tennyson\u2019s wonderful little poem \u201cUlysses.\u201d Allow me to repeat it here, to you:<\/p>\n

\u201cCome, my friends, \u2018Tis not too late to seek a newer world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the next segment, we will take up the question of how to begin.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
\nCan one generation do what previous generations failed to do? (Climate and Generation, 4). Watch video.<\/p>\n

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What can I do to help?<\/p>\n

This is one of the most common questions that people ask me regarding the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

In response, I often launch into a discussion of voting, activism, and things of that sort. However, many people are asking something different with this question. They want to know what they can do right now, today. Since human actions brought about the climate crisis, they want to know what sort of actions, personal actions, can help grind it to a halt.<\/p>\n

In other words, they are asking how best to live their lives in order to avert climate catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Although this is certainly a big question, I have a number of suggestions that can help make a start. Usually, I give five or so. Amazingly, these five things can cut your climate footprint in half or even more.<\/p>\n

How is this a generational issue? I have noticed that people of my generation tend to respond very differently to these ideas then do my students and their generation.<\/p>\n

This generational difference is more than a little important, as it it reveals one of the truly daunting challenges that we face, which is the subject of this segment.<\/p>\n

First, let me quickly articulate five things that can Americans can do to dramatically reduce our personal climate footprints. Then we can move to the two very different generational responses to them. (Incidentally, you might find these interesting in their own right. In future segments, I will be taking each of them up individually in detail, along with a range of similar suggestions.)<\/p>\n

1) Transportation. For the average American, owning and driving an automobile accounts for around a quarter of our individual climate footprints. Hence, if you trade your car for mass transit, a bike, or walking shoes, or some combination of these, you will have done the earth (and humanity and the rest of the life on the planet) a huge favor.<\/p>\n

2) Housing can account for another quarter of your climate footprint, especially if you live in a large suburban or rural home. Move to a micro-apartment or certain co-housing communities, and you can greatly reduce another big chunk of your climate footprint.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the good news for both transportation and housing is that there is a simple way to approach both: move to a city. City living can mean dramatically less car use (in Manhattan, only one in five people commute to work by car) and generally smaller, more efficient housing. Many cities have made major commitments to mass transportation and bicycle use, Portland and Vancouver are excellent examples, as well as micro-apartments, such as New York\u2019s adAPT NYC program.<\/p>\n

3) Waste less food and eat a largely plant-based diet. Food production is the second largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet. Yet, we waste between 1\/3 and 1\/2 of the food that we produce. For Americans, much of this happens at the consumer level. Meat is another problem. Producing a pound of beef emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as producing 30 pounds of lentils, which are also a significant source of protein.<\/p>\n

4) Have no more than one child per person. In other words, a couple should have either two, one, or zero children. When I was born (1959), there were just under 3 billion people on the planet. There are now 7.7 billion. By mid century, it will be near 10 billion. The planet simply cannot sustain this many human beings. We need to reduce our global population.<\/p>\n

5) Re-think your relationship to stuff. For example, the average American purchases over 60 items of clothing each year<\/i> (not including socks, underwear, and other incidentals). Nearly everything we buy has a climate footprint. The solution: for a start, buy less, keep what you have longer, and consider preowned options from places like thrift stores.<\/p>\n

(By the way, these last three suggestions – regarding food, population, and our appetite for stuff – are related. While it might seem that a swelling human population is the principal threat to our planet, we need to always keep in mind the relationship of population to consumption. As it is home to just 4% of the world\u2019s population, the United States would seem to be pretty insignificant environmentally. However, as I noted in a previous segment, 25% of all greenhouse gases that human beings have put in the atmosphere were done by this tiny population, in part because we have a voracious appetite for meat and all sorts of stuff. So, we can\u2019t just think in terms of population: we must also consider the emissions of each person. In the future segments, we will be taking up this issue in detail.)<\/p>\n

In any event, if you do these five simple things, you may well cut your climate footprint in half, perhaps even to a quarter or less of its present size.<\/p>\n

Now, for the generational responses.<\/p>\n

Over the years I have heard a range of different responses to these suggestions from my students and people of their generation. There are two in particular that I hear more than all others. They sound something like this:<\/p>\n

1) \u201cIs that it? Just doing these five simple things can make that<\/i> big of a difference?\u201d (It can!)<\/p>\n

The second response often goes hand-in-hand with the first:<\/p>\n

2) \u201cNot only doesn’t this sound very bad, in many ways it actually sounds pretty exciting, even desirable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, moving to a place like Portland or Vancouver (or a less expensive urban option) and living without a car can sound pretty appealing. Perhaps far more appealing than life in a cookie-cutter suburb, shuttling around in a minivan or SUV. Since many of my students have at least toyed with the idea of becoming largely vegetarian or vegan, switching to a mostly plant-based diet may be enticing for a range of additional factors, such as the ethical treatment of animals. And very few of my students are thinking about having large families. Regarding stuff, many of them are frustrated with our consumer culture and perhaps already visit thrift shops or have been intrigued by movements like minimalism.<\/p>\n

So, all this doesn’t sound so bad and, in fact, can seem pretty desirable.<\/p>\n

Although we are often told that adapting to the climate crisis will mean that we will need to make do with less and live drab lives of deprivation, this is not<\/i> generally the perspective of my students – not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

However, when I list these five things to people of my own generation, the response is often quite different. As it turns out, I primarily hear two answers from them as well. They often sound something like this:<\/p>\n

1) \u201cThat sounds positively horrible! I love my car, and the freedom that it gives me. I’ve worked hard all of life for my house, it is incredibly important to me. And I enjoy the fruits of my labor; all the things that I now deserve as a result of all that work. Instead, you want me to live in a tiny, cramped apartment or with a bunch of other people in co-housing, to get around by bus or on a bicycle, to eats lentils for dinner, and wear somebody\u2019s used clothing? Could you possibly be serious?<\/p>\n

The second response is also pretty common:<\/p>\n

2) \u201cThis is a direct assault on the American way of life. We should be able to live where we want to live, drive what we want to drive, eat what we want to eat, wear what we want to wear, buy what we want to buy, and, of course, have as many children as we please. What you are suggesting sounds like communism, totalitarianism, or something of the sort!\u201d<\/p>\n

To these folks, the changes that I outline not only suggest a decidedly unpleasant and drab existence, it comes at the cost of what are actually posited as freedoms.<\/p>\n

Throughout this series you’ll hear me cite statistics and quote papers, but let me be clear, what I am relating here is my personal experience. And it is admittedly skewed. My students are a select group. The majority of them are from California, a very progressive state, or are progressive thinking international students, they will soon to be college educated, and they are likely more than a little drawn to environmental issues, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking my classes. In contrast, every now and again I run into members of their generation who hold very different views than I am relating here. I once had a student tell me that he “wanted everything that my parents had – and a whole lot more. I want it all!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, experience has taught me that the generational divide that I am outlining here is real. And, as far as I am concerned, more than a little worrisome, as it suggests that the generation currently controlling our planet has been crafting and settling into a way of life for decades now that is, quite simply, an environmental nightmare. What\u2019s more, my generation likes it<\/i> – and often recoil from change almost instinctively. As my generation has shaped our modern world more than any other, many in this generation are actually proud of what was accomplished – and seemingly comfortable with it.<\/p>\n

While it may seem that my generation simply inherited its behavior and practices from previous generations (and in some sense we did), we significantly innovated and often outrageously supersized them in a way that was disastrous for the planet. Take housing, for example.<\/p>\n

In 1950, shortly before I was born, the average size of an American house was just under 1000 square feet. Today, the average size is over 2500 square feet – more than two and a half times larger, even though American families are now considerably smaller. And of course, as with so many things American, bigger is often perceived as better. Hence, if you can afford it, the ideal home is often much larger. One in five new houses in the U.S. is now, in fact, over 3000 square feet in size. One in ten is a McMansion, at over 4000 square feet. In contrast, a traditional Japanese home, which housed families of four or more, was one tenth that size at 400 square feet.<\/p>\n

Housing is just one example of how American lifestyle has grown more and more environmentally disastrous during my lifetime.<\/p>\n

The light at the end of the tunnel is, as far as I am concerned, the generations that will supplant us.<\/p>\n

Had my generation prepared the way, you would be faced with a far less daunting challenge. For example, if we had already written cars, big houses, meat, and the love of all sorts of stupid stuff out of your lives, mitigating this crisis would be far easier. And not just with respect to these particular issues, as this would have made clear that we can indeed change our lives and lifestyles. In a general way, it would have underscored to this new generation coming on the scene that the way of life that we are handed at birth can be changed at any time.<\/p>\n

In short, our example would have made clear to you that is possible to effectively make sweeping and profound cultural changes. That would have been a lesson of inestimable value. Sadly, it is one that my generation never learned. Hence, we could not, did not, teach it to you.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s to be done now? If you hope to effectively mitigate our climate crisis, you need to embrace sweeping change. Throughout this series, we will consider specific ways of doing just that.<\/p>\n

In the next segment, I want to address the question of what my generation knew about the climate crisis and when we knew it. Although interesting in its own right, this is an important issue to take up, as understanding why my generation failed to act on what we clearly knew was an impending environmental catastrophe on a global scale can hopefully help keep your generation from making the same horrific mistake.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
\nWhat the Boomer generation knew about the climate crisis – and when we knew it (Climate and Generation, 5). Watch video.<\/p>\n

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In previous segments, I drew attention to the fact that the climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime, mine. I also noted that an unusual time delay is in part responsible here, as the consequences of our actions were not felt at the time but are only now catching up with us now, decades later.<\/p>\n

This raises a crucial question: did we see this coming or not? In other words, did we know that our actions would likely bring about a catastrophe on a global scale that would threaten the very future of our species?<\/p>\n

Short answer? Yes, for over fifty years, we clearly feared that this was going to happen. And by \u201cwe,\u201d I mean not just scientists, scholars, activists, and policymakers, but the average person on the street in the U.S. knew and was very worried.<\/p>\n

In order got understand what we knew and how, let\u2019s focus on the two principal greenhouse gases, CO2 (carbon dioxide, which is released during the burning of fossil fuels) and methane (which for the most part is emitted by the beef industry and while fracking for fossil fuels).<\/p>\n

With respect to CO2, if, 50 years ago (in the early 1970s), you asked the average American if we needed to end our reliance on fossil fuels by the close of the 20th century, the answer would very likely have been a decided \u201cYes.\u201d Moreover, most people feared that failure to do so might well result in an existential catastrophe for the human race. In simple terms, in the early 1970s most Americans feared that if we did not quickly ween ourselves off of fossil fuels we would risk the collapse of our civilization, possibly as early as the beginning of the 21st-century.<\/p>\n

With respect to methane, many people in the the U.S. and the developed world by the early 1970s, as we shall see, knew that meat consumption was an environmental disaster.<\/p>\n

In short, most Americans in the early 1970s knew that if we didn’t ween ourselves off of fossil fuel’s and meat then we were flirting with a global disaster of unprecedented scope, likely beginning early in the 21st-century. The interesting thing is that this concern was not directly related to climate change.<\/p>\n

I will explain this unusual state of affairs directly, but first I want to specifically address what<\/i> we knew about how CO2 would impact the global climate – and when<\/i> we knew it.<\/p>\n

As a colleague of mine at UC Santa Barbara, John Perlin, has recently argued, Eunice Foote, notably a woman<\/i> scientist, was the first person to suggest that increased levels of atmospheric CO2 would result in global temperature rise. This was, astonishingly, in 1854.<\/p>\n

Flash forward a century, in 1956, shortly before I was born, physicist Gilbert Plass published an article entitled \u201cThe Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change,\u201d which noted that we could expect global temperature to rise significantly in the 20th century as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Using computer models, which were just coming on the scene at the time, Plass predicted a global temperature rise by the year 2000 that has proven to be pretty accurate, all things considered.<\/p>\n

In less than a decade, in 1965, the President\u2019s Science Advisory Committee, which is housed in the White House, produced an important report entitled \u201cRestoring The Quality of Our Environment.\u201d After being presented with it, President Lyndon Johnson made reference to it and the problem of rising CO2 levels in a speech to Congress.<\/p>\n

Here are just a few lines from that report:<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the year 2000 the increase in CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climate changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, yes, we knew about this problem from nearly the beginning, in the sense that scientists and policymakers (including the President) were alerted to the issue at the point when it was emerging as a significant global problem – right around the time that I was born.<\/p>\n

During the past 60 years, the problem has, on and off, emerged as a significant political issue. Nathaniel Rich has, for example, outlined how, starting in the 1970s, a decade-long effort almost resulted (according to Rich) in binding treaties that would have reeled in global CO2 rise. (source<\/a>) It is also now clear that fossil fuel companies like Exxon have known about the problem in great detail for decades, starting in the 1970s. (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

However, it can be argued – to be honest, I have heard it argued quite a bit \u2013 that the public (i.e. the average person on the street) really did not know about the impending climate crisis. To people of my generation, this can be a comforting stance, as in many ways it lets us off the hook. In other words, yes we did something that has proven to be environmentally disastrous, but we had no idea that it would be a problem.<\/p>\n

This is an important issue to address. My goal is not to cast blame on my generation, but rather to see our story as a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n

The simple fact is that we absolutely did know that what we were doing would be disastrous. Although not with respect to climate change, we nonetheless knew that we were setting the stage for a worldwide catastrophe by the early 21st-century. And yes, if you would have stopped and asked any random American on the street at that time, they would have almost certainly have told you that they knew – and were worried, perhaps very worried.<\/p>\n

Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

In 1956, the same year that Gilbert Plass published his article on \u201cThe Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change,\u201d M. King Hubbert, a geologist working for the Shell oil company, introduced his theory of \u201cpeak oil.\u201d Hubbert noted that every year we were pumping more oil out of the ground than the previous year. Eventually, he theorized, this trend would end as we began running out of oil. He predicted that this year of \u201cpeak oil\u201d would be right around 1970. After that, the trend would reverse, as we would then be pumping less and less oil out of the earth each year as worldwide reverse were depleted.<\/p>\n

Almost like clockwork, in the U.S. oil production started to decline in 1970. Consequently, we began relying more and more on imported oil, especially from the Middle East. In 1973, Middle Eastern oil producers put an embargo on the export of their oil to the U.S. for political reasons. This sent shock waves through America, as we were suddenly found ourselves running out of oil to heat our homes and gasoline to power our cars. As you might imagine, the cost of heating oil and gasoline soared.<\/p>\n

This was the first \u201cenergy crisis\u201d of the 1970s. Another would follow in 1979. The average American was profoundly, personally impacted by all this, as there were, for example, long (in some cases very long) lines to buy gasoline because of the shortage. And then there was the price: the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the United States in 1970 was $.36 per gallon. By 1980, it had tripled<\/i> in cost to $1.19 per gallon (source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Consequently, most Americans not only knew about peak oil in the early 1970s, we knew that, as a consequence, we needed to quickly weaned ourselves off of fossil fuels. This resulted in the first mad dash in the U.S. away from fossil fuels and toward the development of renewable energy sources. By the end of the 1970s, the President, Jimmy Carter, was putting solar panels on the White House.<\/p>\n

So, even though many Americans had not heard of global warming 50 years ago, nearly everyone knew that we needed to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy – and knew that we needed to do so quickly.<\/p>\n

With respect to methane released during meat (principally beef) production, thanks in part to an internationally best-selling book in 1971, Diet for a Small Planet<\/i>, the concept of \u201cenvironmental vegetarianism\u201d became widely known at the time. This is refusing to eat meat because of the harm that it does to the environment, as opposed to not doing so for other reasons, such as the ethical treatment of animals. Consequently, even though meat production had not been linked to climate change by the early 1970s, most Americans knew that eating meat was deeply problematic environmentally.<\/p>\n

In short, fifty years ago, in the early 1970s, the average American on the street may not have known about climate change, but they definitely did know that we needed to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and meat, and that we needed to do it quickly. If we didn’t to this, all indications were that we would bring about global catastrophe by the early 21st-century.<\/p>\n

We knew what we had to do, yet we didn’t act on this knowledge.<\/p>\n

We often talk about how important knowledge is, but, as this example proves, it is not as powerful as we might think.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowledge is power\u201d is an often repeated, popular phase. In spite of its simplistic appeal, the problem with this statement is that it is just plain wrong. Knowledge is not power – not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

Let’s say that millions of people are in possession of a profound and important piece of knowledge. For example, that our earth could sustainably feed billions of human beings, if we all would only eat a largely plant-based diet – something that the bestselling book Diet for a Small Planet<\/i> made clear in 1971. Just having read it in a book, and thus being in possession of this knowledge, is not enough. In this sense, \u201cknowledge is knowledge\u201d – and little more. It’s hardly power.<\/p>\n

For it to become power, we must act<\/i> on knowledge.<\/p>\n

Hence, a more accurate formulation would be \u201cif acted upon, knowledge is power.\u201d And it wouldn\u2019t hurt to throw in a cautionary addendum: \u201cif not acted upon, knowledge is power squandered.\u201d<\/p>\n

The knowledge that I have been addressing in this talk was largely squandered.<\/p>\n

Coming when it did, fifty years ago – when global greenhouse gas emissions were just beginning to skyrocket – this knowledge regarding fossil fuels and meat had the power to change the world, to save the world. Instead, it was mostly ignored. This crucial, extraordinary knowledge never became power.<\/p>\n

In the case of the few people who acted upon, for example, the knowledge that a largely plant-based diet could be enormously powerful – environmentally, politically, ethically and in a host of additional ways – they were often marginalized, even laughed at.<\/p>\n

For the sake of our species, our planet, and all the life that we share it with, we cannot<\/i> afford to let this happen again.<\/p>\n

We need to act, and to act now, in response to what we know. At the risk of repeating myself, knowledge is power only<\/i> when acted upon. Otherwise, knowledge is power squandered. Let my<\/i> generation be a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n

The activating of the power latent in knowledge has a name that derives from the word \u201caction\u201d: \u201cactivism.\u201d Even if the extraordinary action takes place in a particularly mundane way – such as at the dinner table, or by taking the bus rather than a car – it can nonetheless be powerful climate activism.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Camp Fire, viewed from space<\/a><\/p>\n

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Readings<\/a><\/p>\n

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Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

As far as I am concerned, nearly every university course in the humanities needs to have at its core a group of readings. This course is no different. The good news is that you do not need to purchase any of them, as they are all available online, free of charge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why read these texts?<\/span><\/p>\n

Each in its own way provides an interesting insight into the climate crisis. Not only what it is, but what we can do about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Some like Henry David Thoreau\u2019s Walden<\/i>, published in 1854, and Vance Packard\u2019s The Waste Makers<\/i> – which is\u2026well\u2026as old as I am – have nothing to say about the climate crisis. Yet, both writers seriously questioned the lifestyle choices that have profoundly exacerbated this crisis. Unfortunately, we largely ignored both writers – though there is still time to act on what they had to say. <\/span><\/p>\n

Others, like \u201cThe Uninhabitable Earth\u201d by David Wallace-Wells, look squarely at the climate crisis and its future – and what the future may hold if we do not respond to the crisis, immediately. <\/span><\/p>\n

Still others, like Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/i> have been generated by fossil fuel interests in order to cause us to doubt that there even is a crisis. The goal is not necessarily to convince us that the climate crisis does not exist, but rather to raise doubts in our minds about its nature and severity so that we will be slow to act, thereby allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual for as long as possible. While this might be good for their bottom line in the short term, it would be disastrous for the future of our planet. <\/span><\/p>\n

Having read all or most of these texts, you should have a better idea of what the climate crisis is – and what each of us can do about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

The Uninhabitable Earth<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In December of 2015, 196 nations of the planet Earth agreed to to do their best to keep global temperature rise \u201cto well below 2 degrees Celsius\u201d from a preindustrial baseline. This was at the 21st annual session of the Conference of the Parties, also known as COP21. The agreement reached has become known as the \u201cParis Agreement.\u201d What\u2019s more, these nations agreed to also \u201cpursue efforts to\u201d limit the temperature increase to just 1.5\u00a0 <\/span>degrees Celsius. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sounds good, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that the global temperature has already risen by two thirds that amount (1 degree Celsius from preindustrial levels). What\u2019s more – and worse – the United States, which is second only to China in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, has since withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and the rest of the nations involved have only promised<\/i> to reduce emissions, as the Paris Agreement has no enforcement mechanism. <\/span><\/p>\n

In less than two years after the COP21, the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change appointed by the United Nations to study the climate crisis) released a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 \u00b0C<\/i> that suggested that a 1.5 degree Celsius rise could happen in as little as 11 years (just ten years from the time that I am recording this) and almost certainly within 20 years if major cuts on global greenhouse emissions were not made immediately. Since we are not yet taking the necessary steps to make these cuts, a 1.5 degree rise seems inevitable and 2 degrees likely. <\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as the IPCC Report made clear, even a 1.5 degree rise would have profound global consequences – and a 2 degree rise would obviously be still worse. <\/span><\/p>\n

But what sort of consequences would we be facing if we fail to stop global temperature at 2 degrees, which now seems entirely possible, if not in fact likely? <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the question taken up by David Wallace-Wells in July 2017 New York Magazine<\/i> article entitle \u201cThe Uninhabitable Earth\u201d. Wallace-Wells has, incidentally, subsequently written a book with the same title and published as followup article entitled \u201cWe\u2019re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future \u2014 and It\u2019s Not as Bad as It Once Looked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2017 article lays out the consequences of climate change if we do not act quickly and decisively. Wallace-Wells explains: <\/span><\/p>\n

This article is the result of dozens of interviews and exchanges with climatologists and researchers in related fields and reflects hundreds of scientific papers on the subject of climate change. What follows is not a series of predictions of what will happen \u2014 that will be determined in large part by the much-less-certain science of human response. Instead, it is a portrait of our best understanding of where the planet is heading absent aggressive action. It is unlikely that all of these warming scenarios will be fully realized, largely because the devastation along the way will shake our complacency. But those scenarios, and not the present climate, are the baseline. In fact, they are our schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n

While many authors focus on the impact of 1.5-2 degrees (Celsius) of global temperature rise, Wallace-Wells rightly notes that such a small rise in temperature is a best-case – and at this point probably unlikely – scenario, especially as human activity has already warmed the earth by 1 degree Celsius. With this in mind, Wallace-Wells takes up the question of what the earth (and our lives) would be like with a 2-4 degree Celsius rise – which is where we are headed if we do not act quickly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Uninhabitable Earth\u201d generated quite a bit of controversy, as many people (including some climate scientists) thought that he was being too alarmist. However, as Wallace-Wells makes clear in the above quote, he is portraying just one possible future. He notes that it is unlikely that all of this will happen, as humanity will at some point hopefully wake up and act. However, if we do not, Wallace-Wells paints a picture of where \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d (BAU) will take us. <\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, because a number of individuals have questioned the scenarios that he lays out, Wallace-Wells has also created an annotated version of the article where he notes and responds to the objections. <\/span><\/p>\n

A few questions for thought: <\/span><\/p>\n

1) Is Wallace-Wells too alarmist? While his objective seems to be to startle us into action by laying out what the future could hold if we do nothing, does he risk doing the exact opposite by incapacitating us with fear? There is certainly quite a bit of doom and gloom in the article. Expressed another way, how did you feel, or what did you want to do, after putting down the article? Did you feel prompted to action? Or did you simply want to cry? <\/span><\/p>\n

2) Regarding the above question, does taking an alarmist tack risk alienating certain readers? Climate change deniers and skeptics frequently refer to people who are trying to alert us to the dangers of climate change as \u201cclimate change alarmists,\u201d as they characterize them as trying to frighten us into action. As an obvious alarmist in this sense, Wallace-Wells fits into a category that some people might summarily dismiss. <\/span><\/p>\n

3) Wallace-Wells focuses on a number of specific consequences of climate change, including Heat Death, The End of Food, Climate Plagues, Unbreathable Air, Perpetual War, Permanent Economic Collapse, Poisoned Oceans. Which did you find the most compelling and worrisome? Why? <\/span><\/p>\n

A final thought: some people might be quick to dismiss Wallace-Wells as he is looking forward to an uncertain future. However, a quick look to the recent past makes it hard to dismiss Wallace-Wells as simply an alarmist. At the close of 2019, journalists Sarah Ruiz-Grossman and Lydia O\u2019Connor published an article on \u201c7 Numbers Show How Dire Climate Change Got This Decade<\/span><\/a>\u201d (meaning the twenty-teens). Allow me to end by repeating them:<\/span><\/p>\n

1) The past five years were the hottest ever recorded on the planet<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened this decade<\/span><\/p>\n

3) Six Category 5 hurricanes tore through the Atlantic region in the past four years<\/span><\/p>\n

4) Arctic sea ice cover dropped about 13% this decade<\/span><\/p>\n

5) Floods with a 0.1% chance of happening [i.e. a one in a thousand chance of happening] in any given year became a frequent occurrence<\/span><\/p>\n

6) There were more than 100 \u201cbillion dollar\u201d climate disasters, double from the decade before<\/span><\/p>\n

7) Meanwhile, we pumped a record 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

“2\u00b0C: Beyond the Limit, Fires, floods and free parking”<\/a><\/p>\n

If you asked most people a decade or so ago what they thought that the consequences of global warming would be for California, they would likely have mentioned sea-level rise. After all, with over 800 miles of coastline and roughly two thirds of its 40 million people living in coastal counties, it seemed as if flooding was the greatest danger to the state from the climate crisis. <\/span><\/p>\n

As it turns out, it\u2019s not. <\/span><\/p>\n

The problem, having to do with temperature rise and corresponding wildly unpredictable weather and environmental conditions, has really hit home for Santa Barbara and the surrounding area. <\/span><\/p>\n

As the Washington Post\u2019s<\/i> article on California\u2019s changing climate makes clear, <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSince 1895, the average temperature in Santa Barbara County has warmed by 2.3 degrees Celsius, according to The Post\u2019s analysis. Neighboring Ventura County has heated up even more rapidly. With an average temperature increase of 2.6 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, Ventura ranks as the fastest-warming county in the Lower 48 states.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWarming here already has exceeded the threshold set in the 2015 Paris climate accords, which President Barack Obama joined and the Trump administration has promised to leave. The agreement concluded that average warming worldwide should be held \u2018well below\u2019 2 degrees Celsius to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences \u2014 but it already has warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With such extraordinary temperature increase, all sorts of impacts follow. For example, fires are now a reality of life due to dry conditions and lack of rain. The 2017 Thomas Fire at Santa Barbara, at 281,000 acres, was the largest wildfire to date in California in modern history, though it was surpassed in size by the Ranch Fire less than a year later. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is not an isolated problem, as \u201cA quarter of California\u2019s 40 million residents now live in high-risk fire zones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not just fires, as the article reveals, what California locals call \u201cglobal weirding\u201d has resulted in strange midday temperatures soaring to 115 degrees Fahrenheit followed by sudden cooling, which resulted in deaths of livestock animals and scorched orchards. <\/span><\/p>\n

Something startling happened while I was writing this short lecture snippet.<\/span><\/p>\n

I penned the above paragraphs, which explained that California would likely experience far more than just sea level rise as a result of climate change, on Christmas morning, 2019. My plan was to come back the next day and finish this lecture. <\/span><\/p>\n

But that night my phone flashed with an alert that a rotating storm cell was off the coast of Santa Barbara and that the city needed to immediately brace for a tornado. Everyone was advised to take shelter in the their homes and \u201cmove to an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building and avoid windows.\u201d While a tornado did not hit Santa Barbara that night, the National Weather Service confirmed that one touched down in the nearby Ventura harbor that was generated by a different storm cell. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, if you are in another state or part of the world, this may not seam like a big deal. But the central coast of California is one of just a few true Mediterranean climates on the planet. The Ancient Romans had a name for this sort of welcoming climate, they called it locus amoenus<\/i> a \u201cpleasant place.\u201d For over two thousand years, people across the world have wistfully pinned for such a perfect pastoral climate, with none of the temperature variations and various storms that most of the planet experiences. <\/span><\/p>\n

While a handful of small tornados have been recorded over the past hundred years in the Santa Barbra area, they are extraordinarily rare and generally insignificant. That two rotating storm cells capable of generating dangerous tornados formed during one storm is exceptionally unusual and perhaps unprecedented. <\/span><\/p>\n

I mentionable this because it underscores that climate change will likely produce a range of consequences that, like these tornados, may well be altogether unexpected. This is not to fault the predicative computer models produced by climate scientists, but rather to underscore that in addition to the sort of things that we can model and expect, like protracted drought conditions that set the stage for wildfires, there may be a range of others that we just don\u2019t see coming. <\/span><\/p>\n

And this is not just limited to the physical consequences of climate change (like droughts, fires, and tornados), but even more so when the human implications are taken into account. California produces almost half of fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the U.S. If there is significant change to the climate of this region, it could have profound consequences for the food supply and security of the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The climate crisis is not only here. The climate crisis has now come home to California. <\/span><\/p>\n

Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/em><\/p>\n

Walden<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Henry David Thoreau\u2019s 1854 classic Walden<\/em> is a fascinating book that has been read very differently at different times.<\/a><\/p>\n

Walden<\/em> recounts (in literary form) Thoreau\u2019s experience of living a rustic life on the shores of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. In the second half of the 20th century especially, readers were fascinated by Thoreau as a proponent of a back-to-nature lifestyle. The idea of leaving our overly mechanized lives behind in order to live simpler lives closer to nature fascinated the 1960s generation, some of whom actually built wilderness cabins and communes in emulation of Thoreau. He also played a role in inspiring books such as Into the Wild<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, Thoreau can also be seen as the great grandparent of the modern minimalist movement, as he famously reduced one of Walden\u2019s<\/em> core messages to a two-word imperative: \u201csimplify, simplify.\u201d This is arguably Thoreau\u2019s most useful message for the 21st century.<\/p>\n

In this sense, Thoreau did something altogether extraordinary (arguably far more extraordinary than living in a semi-wilderness setting) – yet, nonetheless, something all of us should arguably do at some point in our lives: He stepped out of his regular routine to ponder the sort of life that he considered worth living. In practice, he took a couple of years of his life to, as he puts it, \u201cfront only the essential facts of life.\u201d He wanted to strip away all the stuff and crap surrounding him to find the meaningful life under it all. Among other things, he considered housing, clothing, and food.<\/p>\n

Distressed by his neighbors, who even in the 1850s were building increasingly lavish houses, Thoreau pondered what would be the simplest dwelling possible for a single person. His answer? A wooden version of a single-person tent, with a floor just big enough for a bedroll. To keep things simple from the start, he proposed recycling a used railway storage box, which could be purchased at the time for a dollar, for the purpose. Ultimately, he settled on a larger structure, which at 150 square feet may seem lavish by comparison but is nevertheless about the size of an average garden shed (which his cabin at Walden Pond resembled).<\/p>\n

When Thoreau turned his attention to clothing, he railed against the fashion industry, which even then was centered in Paris, for encouraging us to buy into fleeting trends: \u201cThe head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler\u2019s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.\u201d Because \u201cevery generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new,\u201d clothing was (as it is even more today) being discarded as unfashionable when it was still quite usable. To simplify things, Thoreau suggested not giving in to the whims of fashion. Instead, own just a few pieces of sturdy clothing and, for good measure, \u201cbeware of all enterprises that require new clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

With respect to food, Thoreau made repeated appeals for the simplicity of vegetarianism: \u201cI have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.\u201d As early as Walden<\/em>, he also rejected imported foodstuffs, like coffee and tea. His last work, unpublished in his lifetime, was a celebration of local and seasonal wild fruit, which he extolled as superior to their imported counterparts, such as oranges and bananas that were being shipped into U.S. ports (like nearby Boston) by way of sailing ships.<\/p>\n

In general, though he was certainly given to his share of philosophical musing, throughout his life Thoreau repeatedly drew his (and our) attention to the most basic of our day-to-day needs, which, he provocatively argued can be satisfied far more simply than we usually imagine.<\/p>\n

But Thoreau did something more, something bigger and altogether extraordinary: he challenged us all to ponder the role that we were given at birth. This has profound environmental implications.<\/p>\n

Think of life like a play, a theatrical performance, that has been scripted for you. When you were born, you stepped into a role<\/em>, exceptionally intricate, that was written long before you were even conceived. For example, where you would live, how you would get around, what you would eat, all this was spelled out for you, in detail. It’s not that you weren’t given some latitude in playing the role. For example, you could choose the car that you wanted and could afford. However, you could not easily choose to forgo having a car – not if you wanted to play the role successfully (i.e. be seen as a success<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Like many generations before, my generation lived the life scripted for us. In that sense, we did not take up Thoreau\u2019s challenge to reconsider the life written for us. What\u2019s worse, in many ways ours was an over-the-top performance in the role, as we did so many things bigger and more outlandishly. For example, in dramatic contrast to Thoreau, we live in houses that are 2 1\/2 times larger than those of our parents (which, incidentally, were already six times larger than Thoreau\u2019s cabin on Walden Pond).<\/p>\n

The new generation coming on the scene, that of my students, cannot live the life scripted for them, as this would be environmentally disastrous. To some, this will be frustrating, perhaps enormously so, as the pressure to conform to that role (which comes from a thousand directions in our culture) can be pretty intense. Even little things, like forgoing a car and meat-eating, can be met with a backlash from those, happily living the scripted role, who see this as a threat to that way of life.<\/p>\n

If you happily accept the role handed to you, this might be especially frustrating. Yes, the generations that came before you had lots of things that you will not have. Let\u2019s face it, we had awesome amounts of stuff. However, it is not at all clear that any of this made us happy. Indeed, it has arguably done just the opposite.<\/p>\n

In any event, what this new generation needs to do is to take up Thoreau\u2019s challenge and reconsider and rewrite the script. This can be seen as an opportunity \u2013 a huge and exciting one. However, it is also an enormous challenge.<\/p>\n

So, my question is just what do you make of Thoreau and his challenge to an overly bloated life? Given that he is responding to life in nineteenth-century America, imagine what his reaction would be to our consumer world. Is Thoreau onto something, should we all \u201csimplify, simplify\u201d?<\/p>\n

As usual, I will select a number of your comments and respond to them in a future episode.<\/p>\n

The Waste Makers<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Have you ever wondered how, why, and when Americans became rampant consumers? As consumerism has a profound environmental and climate footprint, it is worth pausing on this question and its history.<\/p>\n

In one sense, unchecked consumerism has been going on for a very long time. In my course on literature and the environment, we read a blistering attack on consumerism by the English writer Sir John Denham from nearly 400 years ago. And he is hardly the first. However, in the U.S., consumerism really ramped up in the seventy years separating us from the Second World War.<\/p>\n

Radical cultural change is it interesting phenomenon. Once it has taken place, we often quickly adjust to the new normal. To people born into a changed era, it generally doesn’t seem unusual at all, as it is all that they have ever known. The new normal is simply normal.<\/p>\n

However, people caught in the middle of profound cultural change have an interesting vantage point, as they can see the changes particularly clearly – and hence often react to them strongly.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, as consumerism really took off in the U.S., journalist Vance Packard was a particularly keen observer of the change in American culture. Immediately after that decade closed, Packard published a best-selling, scorching indictment of consumerism entitled The Waste Makers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While Packard was not an environmentalist per se, and Rachel Carson\u2019s Silent Spring<\/em> (which in many ways inaugurated the modern environmental movement) would not be published until two years after The Waste Makers<\/em>, from the title onward the book focused on consumerism as a culture defined by the production of waste – which is obviously environmentally disastrous. Although Packard didn\u2019t take up industrial waste, he focused in on the fact that American consumerism was quickly evolving into a waste machine.<\/p>\n

Although we don’t often think much about it, as the words suggests, \u201cconsumerism\u201d is the process of consuming<\/em> stuff and eventually discarding what we have consumed as waste. Packard drew attention to the fact that Americans were increasingly being encouraged to both consume more stuff and to discard it more quickly.<\/p>\n

Born in 1914, Packard matured during America\u2019s Great Depression. Hence, \u201cnormal\u201d to him meant consuming something as completely as possible before discarding it. A jacket, for example, might be worn for many years, even though it would become frayed and need assorted repairs along the way. However, the \u201cnew normal\u201d of 1950s consumerism meant that we would keep a jacket a fraction of that time, discarding it as soon as it went out of fashion – which the industry that produced it made sure that it quickly did. If you look carefully, you can see the early roots of fast fashion here.<\/p>\n

While the garment industry arguably pioneered this model of discarding what is entirely usable but no longer fashionable – which is why we call it the \u201cfashion\u201d industry – Packard drew attention to the fact that all sorts of additional industries were jumping on the fashion bandwagon.<\/p>\n

The automobile was a prime example. The ubiquitous car that Packard grew up with, Henry Ford\u2019s Model T, famously came in just one color (actually, that’s a lie marketed by Ford, but that’s neither here nor there) and didn’t significantly changed much over it’s 20-year production history. In contrast, taking its cue from the fashion industry, in the 1950s automobile mobile manufacturers were significantly changing cars every two or three years in a successful effort to sell more and more cars – and in the process create more and more waste.<\/p>\n

But is this as bad as it sounds? Aren\u2019t the needs of individuals and corporations arguably both served when they provide us with stuff? The problem is that time and time again corporations have chosen their needs over those of consumers, often with a horrific results. Let’s look at an example.<\/p>\n

Since the 1920s, scientists have known that there was a link between smoking cigarettes and cancer. By the early 1950s, the American public was alerted to the problem through series of articles entitled \u201cCancer by the Carton\u201d in the Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em>, which was an incredibly popular magazine at the time. By the end of the 1960s, all cigarettes sold in the United States were required to have a prominent label informing consumers that \u201cCigarette smoking can cause lung cancer and heart diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing that they were selling a poisonous substance that was, moreover, addictive, what did the tobacco industry do? Did they, horrified at what they had done, apologize to the public and immediately stop? To the contrary, they doubled down, denied the science, and did everything they could to continue profiting from extraordinary human suffering for as many decades as possible. Even today, when a successful campaign has significantly reduced cigarette smoking in the United States over the past few decades, even today half a million people in the U.S. die every year from smoking. Smokers, on average, die ten years sooner than nonsmokers. (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

But, wait, it gets worse. In 1987 – 35 yers after the articles on \u201cCancer by the Carton\u201d made Americas aware that cigarettes killed – the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched its Joe Camel advertising campaign for its for Camel cigarette brand. Four years later, an article in the Journal of the AMA (American Medical Association) revealed that this cartoon camel had become nearly as recognizable to six-year-old children as Mickey Mouse. One third of all cigarettes illegally sold to minors by this time were – you guessed it – Camels.<\/p>\n

Astonishingly, the tobacco industry got into the business of making consumers out of children. As unbelievable as it may sound, the goal was to addict them to a poisonous substance that would take 10 years off their lives – all in order to keep profits up.<\/p>\n

Are all corporations as evil as the tobacco industry? No, of course not. Nonetheless, this is in instructive example, as it reveals that, unchecked, corporations have been willing to do extraordinary things in the name of profit. Even knowingly kill people, by the millions.<\/p>\n

As the publisher of The Waste Makers<\/em> notes, it was \u201cAn expos\u00e9 of \u2018the systematic attempt of business to make us [into][ wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals\u2019\u2026[and]\u2026how the rapid growth of disposable consumer goods was degrading the environmental, financial, and spiritual character of American society.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am curious what you make of The Waste Makers<\/em>. In particular, what do you think of the various types of planned obsolescence that he outlines? He also weighs in on an issue that I took up in discussing the film The True Cost<\/em>: just who is responsible for out obsession with consumer stuff that is wreaking havoc on our planet? Is it us consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?<\/p>\n

Incidentally, Packard continued writing books for some time. Like The Waste Makers<\/em>, his last book, published in 1989, is arguably as timely today as it was then: The Ultra Rich: How Much Is Too Much?<\/em><\/p>\n

As usual, I will select a number of your comments and respond to them in a future episode.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n

Santa Barbra, Thomas Fire<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Course Films<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

While I am a specialist in the written word, I really like films. Don\u2019t get me wrong, a writer can be incredibly expressive, but a picture \u2013 and in some cases, even better, moving pictures \u2013 add something entirely new to the equation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, even though I am not a fan of listicles, I have put together a list of my top ten environmental films, along with alternative or supplemental suggestions for most of them. And, for good measure, I have thrown in a quick list of ten more films that you might find interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a variety of different ways, these films all take up the climate crisis. <\/span><\/p>\n

Some take up the job of introducing the sheer breath of the problem, while others focus in on specific aspects of the crisis. Some lay out the problem, while others offer up solutions. Some take a somewhat detached stance, while others are far more personal, introducing us to the people who are rolling up their sleeves and doing something about the crisis. In some cases, these people have made radical changes to their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not all these films are perfect. Some even have major flaws, like Cowspiracy<\/i>, which greatly exaggerates the impact that a switch to largely plant-based diets could make. Why, then, recommend such a film? Every one of these films made me stop and think – and taught me something new. <\/span><\/p>\n

Just watching these films will likely give you better understanding of the climate crisis and what people are doing about it than most Americans have. This is not to say that it would not be useful supplement screening these films with a range of complementary readings. Consequently, I also have created a top-ten list of environmental readings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look at it this way, in the same amount of time that it would take to binge watch a single season of a TV show,\u00a0 <\/span>you can get an interesting window into the climate crisis – and what we can do about it – just by watching these films.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the Flood<\/em> or An Inconvenient Sequel<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could know the truth about the threat of climate change \u2014 would you want to know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the question posed by the National Geographic film Before the Flood<\/i>, which features Leonardo DiCaprio. It is a great question that throws down the gauntlet to potential viewers, as hitting the pause button would obviously answer with a decided \u201cNo\u201d – although, presumably, you would not have even purchased or clicked on the film if you did to what to know the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what is the truth and, as a filmmaker, how do you present it in about an hour and a half? Keep in mind that we are not taking up how to present one aspect of the climate crisis, such as wildfires or climate migration, but the whole shebang, from the fact that Miami is now flooding on sunny days to the disturbing fact that fossil fuel interests are spending millions of dollars trying to convince the public that the climate isn\u2019t even changing. <\/span><\/p>\n

The approach that the film takes is interesting and arguably effective. You introduce the audience to a protagonist, DiCaprio, who wants to know the truth about the climate crisis and sets out to find it – in this case, by traveling the world in search of answers. Along the way, he talks with people as diverse as as Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Elon Musk, and Dr Sunita Narain (The Director of India\u2019s Centre for Science and Environment, who really takes the U.S. to task in the film for failing to lead in the crisis). <\/span><\/p>\n

In a sense, DiCaprio acts as a surrogate for the viewer, who also wants to know the answer to the question with which I opened: \u201cIf you could know the truth about the threat of climate change \u2014 would you want to know?\u201d If you answer \u201cYes\u201d by not hitting pause, then buckle in, as you and DiCaprio are embarking on an epic, whirlwind journey. Incidentally, the climate footprint for all this travel and production was, according thot the filmmaker, \u201coffset through a voluntary carbon tax.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This general approach is, incidentally, used by a range of environmental films, from Gasland<\/i> to Cowspiracy<\/i>. In Gasland<\/i>, Josh Fox\u2019s family receives a letter from a gas company wanting to lease their property to set up a fracking operation on it. Knowing little or nothing about hydraulic fracturing, Fox then sets out on a journey for answers, with you, the viewer, along for the ride. Similarly, in Cowspiracy<\/i> you and Kip Andersen embark on a quest to learn about the environmental impact of eating animal products. (A little trivia: DiCaprio, who has long been a committed climate activist, was an executive producer of Cowspiracy<\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Are Fox, Andersen, and DiCaprio really as uninformed as their onscreen personas appear? Probably not. Still, what do you think, is this an effective rhetorical device? <\/span><\/p>\n

In Before the Flood<\/i> the approach is notably somewhat different. Unlike Josh Fox in Gasland<\/i>, DiCaprio\u2019s online persona is not professing ignorance of the situation. He hardly can, as early in the film he draws attention to the fact that in 2014 he was appointed as the UN climate ambassador. Still, he acknowledges that, since he is hardly an expert in the climate crisis, he still has much to learn. He then sets out to learn it, with viewer in tow.<\/span><\/p>\n

In both of his \u201cInconvenient\u201d films, Al Gore takes an entirely different approach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gores 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth<\/i> was a phenomenon. Although it is not in the top-ten highest grossing documentaries of all time, it is number eleven. Partly on the merit of the film, Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with 1500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Gore received half, the scientists split the other half).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A good deal of an An Inconvenient Truth<\/i> was given to establishing Gore\u2019s credibility. No, he is not a scientist, but he has been working on the climate crisis since the 1970s. He also works with a range of climate scientists. In short, the film hopes to make clear that you should listen to him, as he is presented as the right person to deliver this message. In Gore\u2019s 2017 followup to An Inconvenient Truth<\/i>, aptly named An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power<\/i>, the filmmaker takes largely the same approach by working to establish Gore as an internationally recognized expert. <\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, early on in Before the Flood<\/i>, DiCaprio wonders if the UN did the right thing in appointing\u00a0 <\/span>him as their climate ambassador. As he baldy puts it, \u201cI mean to be honest they may have picked the wrong guy.\u201d If you have watched Before the Flood<\/i> and An Inconvenient Sequel<\/i>, I am curious to hear what you think about these different approaches. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of the reasons that the iconic An Inconvenient Truth<\/i> did not make my list of best environmental films is that a great deal has changed in the fourteen years since its release. For example, while Gore was correct in asserting in the film that climate change played a role in exasperating Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that divested Florida and Louisiana, killing 1,200 people, scientists now have a much clearer understanding of how this works. And, sadly, there have been a rage of horrifying storms since Katrina, like Superstorm Sandy and hurricanes Mathew, Harvey, Irma, Michael, Maria, and Dorian. <\/span><\/p>\n

An Inconvenient Sequel<\/i> also takes on the job of introducing viewers to the politics lurking behind all this (which Gore, a former vice president for two terms, is obviously in a position to know a good deal about), including visiting a Texas city with a Republican mayor who firmly believes in renewable energy. The film also introduces the viewer to the COP 21, where the Paris Agreement was signed, by taking us there with Gore. Another little piece of trivia: after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, an An Inconvenient Sequel<\/i> was edited to include Donald Trumps\u2019s announcement that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement – along with Gore\u2019s response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the Flood<\/i> and An Inconvenient Sequel<\/i> are different films with very different approaches, they both take up the formidable job of communicating the breadth of the climate crisis to viewers in about an hour and a half. I am curious to hear what you think of each – or both, if you have watched each and are thinking about the two of them together. <\/span><\/p>\n

Minimalism<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

One of the films that was in the running that I did not select as one of my top 10 (or top 20) was the 2009 film No Impact Man<\/em>. There is, however, an interesting scene in the film where the title character, no impact man Colin Beavan, has a discussion with his toddler daughter about consumerism. As he explains to her, a consumer desiring to make environmentally sound purchases is faced with an extraordinary job, as this can require a great deal of research. In an effort to short circuit all this, Beavan suggests simply consuming less, a lot less.<\/p>\n

It’s a simple idea. So simple in fact that even a toddler can apparently understand it. In a certain way, it also forms the basis of the response to consumerism known as \u201cminimalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one sense, minimalism is hardly new, as most human beings throughout history have probably gotten by with the bare minimum, or nearly so, needed for life. Even today, for a broad swath of people across the planet, this is likely still true. But what we were talking about here is voluntary<\/em> minimalism. Relatively wealthy people who could buy lots of stuff, but choose not to for environmental or other reasons. In that sense, minimalism is a First World solution to a First World problem.<\/p>\n

In America, at least as early as the nineteenth century, people began amassing stuff as consumer culture began to build momentum. One of the earliest critics of this phenomenon was Henry David Thoreau who, I think, can rightly be considered one the great grandparents of American minimalism, as he pondered the bare minimum necessary for life – and then acted on what he learned during his relatively short Walden experiment.<\/p>\n

<\/a>In recent years, minimalism has emerged as a cultural movement designed to counter rampant consumerism. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, featured in the film Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things<\/em>, are two leading proponents of the minimalist lifestyle. As this film makes clear, one of the interesting aspects of minimalism is that people are not necessarily adopting this lifestyle for environment reasons. As Millburn and Nicodemus explain on their website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cMinimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we\u2019ve built our lives around. Real freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many people believe that responding to the climate crisis on a personal level will mean we have to do without quite a bit, which means that we will have to live drab lives of deprivation. What I find intriguing about minimalism is that this group of individuals voluntarily has decided to do without quite a bit because they they believe that this is a better way to live. This was also Thoreau\u2019s message. Intriguingly, after experimenting with a life of minimalism, Thoreau, Millburn, Nicodemus, and many others have all confirmed that this is indeed a better life.<\/p>\n

So, is minimalism an important response to the climate crisis? One thing to consider is no impact man Colin Beavan\u2019s assertion that simply consuming less is enough. It would be great if it were, in fact, this simple, However, seemingly similar products and practices can have very different environmental footprints, especially when you consider the energy used to make them, their useful lifespans, this sort of materials of which they are made, the conditions under which they are manufactured, and so forth. Hence, it is not enough to just consume less: we need to make sure that we make the right decisions when we do consume.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, although Minimalism<\/em> is not an environmental film, per se, living a minimalist lifestyle can have significant environmental impact. I am curious to hear what you think about the film. Is minimalism a viable and meaningful option?<\/p>\n

While minimalism is a great start, a number of theorists have been considering the next step. Two such thinkers are Juliet Schor in her book True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy<\/em> and Tim Kasser in The High Price of Materialism<\/em>. While both books are well worth reading, New Dream has conveniently put together two short videos that nicely introduce both works.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, New Dream, formerly The Center for a New American Dream was, as their website explains<\/a>, \u201cfounded in 1997 by a group of forward-thinking activists and philanthropists who sought to draw greater attention to the links between individual action, social justice, and broader environmental impacts, and between excess materialism and negative impacts on human well-being, including children\u2019s development.\u201d<\/p>\n

InTrue Wealth<\/em>, Schor in many ways takes a minimalist approach. However, minimalism, from Thoreau through to modern minimalists, has largely been a personal choice. Schor considers what if an entire society took up a similar approach by adopting a new economic model, what she calls a \u201cplentitude economy.\u201d The idea is simple, people would work less (maybe a lot less, like in Sweden, where the workweek is 30 hours) and hence have more time for things that would make their lives better and more rewarding, like growing some the their own food and other DIY projects. They would also have far more time for activities that would make them happier.<\/p>\n

In short, Schor\u2019s message is that while personal changes (of the minimalist variety, for example) are obviously terrific and absolutely necessary, we also need to think in terms of larger system change, involving the sort of economic and political change that she recommends.<\/p>\n

Tim Kasser\u2019s The High Price of Materialism<\/em> (both the book and the video snippet from New Dream) considers the impact that materialism, in the sense of ramped-up consumerism, has in our lives. It is not a pretty picture, as materialism makes us less happy and more anxious, depressed, and selfish, for a start.<\/p>\n

Again, I am curious to hear what you think. Can we maximize minimalism (so to speak) by to building our society and economy on less materialistic values? Would this indeed be better for us and the planet? Could we actually make this happen? In other words, could we get enough people to go along with it to actually re-invent our materialist culture?<\/p>\n

As usual, I will select a number of your comments and respond to them in a future episode.<\/p>\n

The True Cost<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

As the film The True Cost<\/em> makes clear, in the developed world, we consume an extraordinary amount of stuff. And its not just clothing, but all sorts of stuff. From small stuff like smartphones to big stuff like cars. Incidentally, my country, the United States, arguably leads the world when it comes to consuming all this.<\/p>\n

Environmentally, this is a double edge sword, with each side cutting both people and the earth.<\/p>\n

First, all this stuff is made of natural resources. A smartphone, for example, is made of dozens and dozens of different materials. Some of them, like the lithium used for the battery, cause significant social and environmental problems through their mining, which directly harms workers (including children working in mines), as well as the environment by contaminating air, land, water, etc.<\/p>\n

Second, making stuff requires an enormous amount of energy, which in turn emits greenhouse gases. The manufacturer of an automobile releases at least a dozen tons of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases into the atmosphere. Some luxury SUVs are responsible for three times as much (35 metric tons).<\/p>\n

So, just who is responsible for all this? Is it as consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?<\/p>\n

A variety of corporations and their advocates have long argued that we consumers are the problem. After all, they just make what we want. If we didn’t want it, they wouldn’t make it, and there wouldn’t be a problem. So, it sounds simple enough. If we are to believe them, we consumers are to blame.<\/p>\n

But are we?<\/p>\n

Something to think about is that corporations have long been in the business of making consumers out of ordinary people. Ideally, insatiable, rampant consumers. It sounds a little like The Matrix<\/em>, but corporations are in the business of making us into the beings that serve them best: consumers. Unfortunately, neither we nor the earth are much served by this enterprise. To the contrary, it can be incredibly detrimental to our species and our planet (as well as all the other species with which we share the earth).<\/p>\n

In order to help explain all this, please allow me to repeat a story that I included in my most recent book on Writing a New Environmental Era [and] Moving forward to Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Quite a few years ago, while visiting friends, I noticed that their young daughter, who was six or seven at the time, was watching TV. Glancing over from time to time, it was obvious that the show was geared toward young girls. What caught my attention were the ads. Most were selling what you would expect: toys, sugared breakfast cereals, a local theme park.<\/p>\n

One ad, however, was another sort of beast altogether. It was for a major cosmetic corporation, showing models having fun on a Caribbean beach. It repeatedly cut to scenes of them applying makeup, which they were having a frolicsome good time doing. Realizing that this ad was running on a show pitched at young girls, I waited to see how it would end. Were they really trying to sell lipstick to six-year-olds?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, they weren\u2019t. The ad was not designed to sell a particular product, but rather to sell a brand that makes a broad range of products. It was really just sixty seconds of young women made happy by cosmetics (well, made happy by a particular brand of cosmetics). So, were they trying to get six-year-olds to switch to their brand of eyeliner? If they really were trying to sell cosmetics to young girls, you would expect that at least some of the models would have been children. Why where there instead just young women onscreen?<\/p>\n

After thinking about it, the frightening answer hit me like a ton of bricks. This cosmetic company decided that they needed to make more than just cosmetics. Astonishingly, they had also taken up the business of making consumers.<\/p>\n

First, they present girls with images of happy and appealing young women. Next, they cut to the source of the happiness: applying and wearing makeup. There is no suggestion that young girls themselves should be wearing the makeup; instead, it is held up as an essential part of what it is to be a woman.<\/p>\n

It may take a decade or more, but by repeatedly and subtly suggesting to girls that the road to womanhood is paved with cosmetics, a generation of consumers is created whose very sense of self (in this case their gendered self) depends on the products on offer. With so much at stake – indeed, the fragile, emerging self-identity of a human being – the desire to have, and fear of being without, the product becomes extraordinarily important, as it is presented as an essential part of a happy and successful adulthood.<\/p>\n

Although we may think that industries exist to serve us by providing all sorts of appealing consumer goods like cosmetics, it is arguably the other way around: human beings exist to serve these industries. Human consumption is what empowers them. An enormous amount of care and attention is thus given to fashioning human beings willing to work long hours making disposable income so that these industries can thrive. (It really does sound a little like The Matrix<\/em>, doesn’t it?)<\/p>\n

Today, the project has been profoundly ramped up, as girls and young women are themselves recruited to help create this new generation of consumers. They do so by first cultivating a following on social media. Once a trendsetting young woman has a sufficient number of subscribers on YouTube, she can monetize this achievement by, for example, selling cosmetics on her channel. In this sense, the project comes full circle, as the trendsetter herself was arguably fashioned by the cosmetic industry for this role. Ironically, she may see having been conscripted by the cosmetic industry as a great personal achievement. Maybe it was, as girls and young women are certainly encouraged to look up to individuals of this sort.<\/p>\n

Of course, all sorts of industries are in this business and it certainly doesn’t just involve girls and young women.<\/p>\n

The film The True Cost<\/em> shows us the ugly underside of this consumption machine, which is disaster for both us and the planet and especially for the people making our clothes. In terms of clothing, the average American purchases over sixty new items of clothing every year, not including incidentals like socks and underwear. Thus, although we consumers are seemingly the ones that benefit by this, it is the corporations selling all this stuff that really profit. Our job is to buy, briefly wear, and then dispose. And repeat. And repeat. While The True Cost<\/em> focuses on the fashion industry, this ramped up consumerism impacts all sorts of products.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, 150 years ago Henry David Thoreau desperately tried to convince us of the truth about all this when he argued that the goal of the clothing industry was \u201cnot that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, at the risk of repeating myself, \u201cjust who is responsible for all this? Is it us consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?\u201d Thoreau certainly thought that industry was principally to blame.<\/p>\n

I am curious what people make of all this. Do you agree with Thoreau? Having been given a glimpse inside of the fast fashion industry by The True Cost<\/em>, what is your response? While this film is about the fashion industry, are other industries now following suit? In other words, in addition to fast fashion, do we now also have things like fast consumer electronics?<\/p>\n

The episode of Patriot Act<\/em> on \u201cThe Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion\u201d provides an interesting supplement to The True Cost<\/em>. Although it doesn’t shockingly take us inside of the fashion industry, as The True Cost<\/em> did with the scenes from the Rana Plaza disaster, this Patriot Act<\/em> episode nonetheless makes, it seems to me, an effective critique of fast fashion. However, what I find particularly interesting here is the format. At one third the length of The True Cost<\/em>, quite a bit has to be crammed into this episode, yet it does not feel rushed. And, of course, it manages to make us laugh out loud in spite of the horrific subject matter.<\/p>\n

To me, this episode of Patriot Act<\/em> raises an important question: how should we go about informing the public of issues like this? A full length documentary is a traditional – and I would argue nonetheless great – approach, but it is not without its shortcomings, as it may not attract a huge audience. So, should we be experimenting with other ways of getting the message out, like the biting comedy of \u201cPatriot Act\u201d? Any other ideas for spreading the message?<\/p>\n

As usual, I will select a number of your comments and respond to them in a future episode.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Copyright 2020 by Ken Hiltner<\/p>\n

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