NEW FOCUS FOR CAL CON CON
Decided TODAY Sept 26 2018
FOCUS 1:
INDIGENOUS NATIONS SHOULD BE PUT IN CHARGE OF THE LAND TO SHOW US HOW TO MANAGE IT TO PREVENT CLIMATE CHANGE DESTRUCTION = RETURN LAND/ THEY HAVE FULL OWNERSHIP
-California forests CLEARLY aren’t managed well
-Indigenous Nations managed them differently than modern science
-Science now says Indigenous people — knew better
FOCUS 2:
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FORCED BY ACTIVISTS TO DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
-This is not about trump — the Federal government failed to deal with this before
-We are past incrementalism
-Only radical change will accomplish the goal
-We have 2 years left
-Activists get the word out about how to deal with CC — better than governments
-Young people respond to radical ideas, and are concerned about Climate Change. They will respond to CCC messaging.
DETAILS AND REFERENCES — below photos
DETAILS
FOCUS 1
California’s National Forests are a danger because of mismanagement.
California blames America. America blames California
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article41962989.html#storylink=cpy
“Lamenting “the worst epidemic of tree mortality” in the state’s modern history, Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday sought federal aid to remove dead trees from California forests and called for more controlled burns to reduce the risk of wildfire.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/fiery-rhetoric-california-feds-18m-fire-debt-48516663
“California’s emergency services director has fired off a sharply worded letter to the U.S. Forest Service that said the agency had stiffed local governments $18 million for fighting wildfires on federal lands last year”
“Trump: Environmental laws making California wildfires ‘so much worse’”
California Natives managed the forest differently than California and America.
The forest had lower density and a different type of tree
“Forest and water in the Sierra Nevada 2011”
http://ucanr.edu/sites/cff/files/146199.pdf
“Historically, the unique character of Sierra Nevada forests was defined by its tall trees, relatively mild climate and low forest density” pg 1
“Reducing the current forest canopy cover and related evapotranspiration could also bring forest stands closer to historic conditions where regular fires across the landscape resulted in much lower levels of forest canopy cover than we have today. (Collins 2011)” pg 7
Scientists NOW say — Native people know BETTER how to deal with Climate Change, and modern governments should learn.
“In a way, native lands are better prepared for fire in that they do more fire risk mitigation work on their lands,” said Mary Tyrrell ’97 M.F.S, executive director of Yale’s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry.” — Yale
“From Alaska to Australia, scientists are turning to the knowledge of traditional people for a deeper understanding of the natural world. What they are learning is helping them discover more about everything from melting Arctic ice, to protecting fish stocks, to controlling wildfires.” — Yale
https://e360.yale.edu/features/native-knowledge-what-ecologists-are-learning-from-indigenous-people
“In addition, indigenous peoples interpret and react to the impacts of climate change in creative ways,drawing on traditional knowledge and other technologies to find solutions which may help society at large to cope with impending changes.” _ United Nations
http://www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/pdf/Backgrounder_ClimateChange_FINAL.pdf
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Are the World’s Secret Weapon in Curbing Climate Change” — World Resource Institute
“recognized traditional knowledge as an important information source for improving the understanding of climate change and other changes over time, and for developing comprehensive natural resource management and climate adaptation strategies” — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/indigenous-peoples
REFERENCES:
In addition, indigenous peoples interpret and react to the impacts of climate change in creative ways,
drawing on traditional knowledge and other technologies to find solutions which may help society at large to cope with impending changes.
http://www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/pdf/Backgrounder_ClimateChange_FINAL.pdf
http://www.wri.org/resources/videos/securing-rights-combating-climate-change
“In a way, native lands are better prepared for fire in that they do more fire risk mitigation work on their lands,” said Mary Tyrrell ’97 M.F.S, executive director of Yale’s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt91v4b4dn/qt91v4b4dn.pdf
Since they’re so dependent on the ecosystems which they inhabit, indigenous peoples, besides being the most knowledgeable about the land, are also the most vulnerable to pollution and climate change.
From Alaska to Australia, scientists are turning to the knowledge of traditional people for a deeper understanding of the natural world. What they are learning is helping them discover more about everything from melting Arctic ice, to protecting fish stocks, to controlling wildfires.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/native-knowledge-what-ecologists-are-learning-from-indigenous-people
Study Finds Indigenous Land Management Highly Effective in Combating Climate Change
Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report recognized traditional knowledge as an important information source for improving the understanding of climate change and other changes over time, and for developing comprehensive natural resource management and climate adaptation strategies
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/indigenous-peoples
RECOGNIZING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ LAND RIGHTS IS CRITICAL TO NATURAL CLIMATE SOLUTIONS The Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (DGM) is a global
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Are the World’s Secret Weapon in Curbing Climate Change
FOCUS 2
THIS IS AN AMERICA PROBLEM — NOT A TRUMP PROBLEM.
But we weren’t moving fast enough to catch up with physics before Trump.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bill-mckibben-winning-slowly-is-the-same-as-losing-198205/
Democrats must admit that their previous climate record was also pathetically inadequate. If they wish to preserve the United States in its current form, or perhaps even at all, hardcore climate radicalism must become an ironclad party commitment. when Democrats do manage to claw back power, climate policy is going to have to be aggressive on the order of a total war mobilization to get emissions down in time.
But the thing about Obama’s regulations is that they also were not remotely close to good enough. From 2007 — the U.S. emissions peak, at least for now — to 2014, carbon dioxide output dropped by about 10 percent. Yes, the Clean Power Plan was the most aggressive climate policy in American history, but it is a feeble half-measure compared to the scale of the problem. This is because the supposedly “wonky” elite Democrats have consistently failed to take the implications of climate science seriously. During their huge majority in 2009–10, they halfheartedly tried to pass a cap-and-trade bill that was so punched full of holes it barely would have done anything, then promptly gave up. Even Obama has consistently boasted about his fracking and pipelines record.
http://theweek.com/articles/663506/why-democrats-need-radical-climate-change
Because it’s important to remember that wonderful as he looks in retrospect, Barack Obama wasn’t solving this problem either. In Obama’s time, and with his blessings, the US passed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the biggest producer of hydrocarbons on the planet. — Bill McKibben
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/08/moyers-and-mckibben-time-running-out-planet
The core problem in the international effort to cut emissions is fundamentally the intransigence of the United States: it failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and has played an obstructionist role at subsequent negotiations. Domestically, progress has been just as frustratingly slow. We have no carbon tax, nor any program of robust investment in clean technology.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-radical-approach-to-the-climate-crisis
INCREMENTAL SOLUTIONS WILL NOT WORK — AND THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS DIDN’T DO ENOUGH — WE ARE THE TIME WHERE ONLY RADICAL SOLUTIONS WILL WORK AT ALL FOR THIS
In sustainability circles, we are often told small is beautiful, and slow and steady wins the race; resilience is a marathon, not a sprint, after all. The clichés of incrementalism have a reassuring ring of common sense to them, but what if they are wrong?
https://www.raconteur.net/technology/time-sustainability-get-radical
Debate: Do We Need to Get Radical About Climate Change?
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/debate-do-we-need-to-get-radical-about-climate-change
Why would the capitalist state move to euthanize the fossil fuel industry, that most powerful fraction of the capitalist class? Or put another way, how can the state regain some of its “relative autonomy” from capital? History indicates that massive, crisis-producing protest is one of the most common reasons a modern state will act against the interests of specific entrenched elites and for the “general interest” of society. When the crisis of protest is bad enough, entrenched elites are forced to take a loss as the state imposes ameliorative action for the greater good of society. Clearly, we need to build a well-organized, broadly supported, yet tactically and strategically radical movement to demand proper climate policy.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-radical-approach-to-the-climate-crisis
“For years, environmental activists have told us that we could make progress by tinkering with the status quo”. A livable world achieved through incremental changes may have been possible in the 1980s, but it’s a fantasy now. Meanwhile, the mainstream environmental movement continues to focus on “green” consumerism and incremental change. Got an SUV? Trade it in for an electric car. Don’t use that plastic straw, use this compostable one instead. At best, those actions delay the widespread transformation we need by lulling us into a false sense of security.
https://grist.org/article/courage-and-bolt-cutters-meet-the-next-generation-of-climate-activists/
“SMUG ECO-WARRIORS MAY think they’re curbing global warming with their vegan diets, charged-up Teslas, and rooftop solar panels. But according to Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, we’re barely staving off disaster.”
https://www.wired.com/story/four-radical-plans-to-save-civilization-from-climate-change/
“The real bottom line is that there’s only one way to deal with this, and that is through massive policy intervention. It could be an elegant, simple thing, like taxing carbon a lot, and we’re done. Or it could be extremely complicated, like the Clean Power Plan.”
https://goop.com/wellness/how-to-make-better-decisions-other-stories/
“Radical change urged over 20 years to attain climate goals: institute”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-germany/radical-change-urged-over-20-years-to-attain-climate-goals-institute-idUSKCN1G727L
“The World Needs to Move Faster on Climate Change to Avoid Disaster”
“The Paris Agreement on climate change has provided hope but actions to meet its goals need to move faster”
“Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States (1993–2001); Chairman and Co-Founder, Generation Investment Management, USA, said humanity still has the opportunity to take control of its destiny but it will only happen if more people accept the imminent danger and cost of climate change.”
https://www.weforum.org/press/2018/01/the-world-needs-to-move-faster-on-climate-change-to-avoid-disaster/
“president of Kiribati says there is a need for radical solutions to dealing with the effects of climate change”
https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201761074/radical-solutions-to-climate-change-needed-kiribati
“This Changes Everything has a remarkably simple argument: The environmental crisis has reached a point at which its solution can only be found in the most radical and total overhaul”
“What she hates are the moderates who want to make small, incremental changes, which she believes are totally inconsequential and impotent.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a30060/naomi-klein-climate-change/
There is a growing imperative for responses to climate change to go beyond incremental adjustments, aiming instead for society‐wide transformation.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.384
Bill McKibben: Winning Slowly Is the Same as Losing
Humans and their societies do work best with gradual transitions — it gives everyone some time to adapt. But climate change, sadly, isn’t a classic contest between two groups of people. It’s a negotiation between people on the one hand and physics on the other. And physics doesn’t do compromise. Precisely because we’ve waited so long to take any significant action, physics now demands we move much faster than we want to. Political realism and what you might call “reality realism” are in stark opposition.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bill-mckibben-winning-slowly-is-the-same-as-losing-198205/
Some signs are emerging that societies are initiating some of the necessary transformations. However, these transformations are still in initial stages, and the social/political tipping points that definitively move the current trajectory away from Hothouse Earth have not yet been crossed, while the door to the Stabilized Earth pathway may be rapidly closing
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/33/8252.full.pdf
THERE ARE 2 YEARS LEFT TO GET IT RIGHT NOW
The currently identified contributions to reducing emissions are not sufficient and do not look far enough into the future to realise the overall long-term ambition of the Paris Agreement on their own.
To stabilise the climate requires achieving net-zero emissions globally to arrest the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and bring down the concentration of other greenhouse gases such as methane. The more quickly this is realised, the lower the risks and impacts of climate change — which is why it is essential to grapple with the practical nitty-gritty realities of what needs to change to achieve net-zero emissions as early as possible.
There is a very real danger that policymakers could focus only on the short-term, easier options that can be realised in the next decade or so, and then find that progress runs into a wall because the more technically or socio-politically difficult sectors of the economy have been neglected. page 16
Most pathways for 2°C require emissions reductions beginning by 2020. 22
https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/scenarios/a-better-life-with-a-healthy-planet/_jcr_content/par/textimage_494361683.stream/1475857583070/d58a157055bd08857b92a9fcf7abde59277f6484730ad073ec37524e6f9d092f/scenarios-nze-brochure-local-print-awv9.pdf
The next 2–3 years are a critical window when many of the policy and investment decisions that shape the next 10–15 years will be taken. page 9
https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018/
ACTIVISTS — NOT GOVERNMENTS HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO GET THE PEOPLE MOVING ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND CAHNGE THE DEBATE — OUR INSPIRATION:
Now, five years later, the effort seems to some to have been a failure, at least by the financial measures they laid out. Only a limited number of institutions have divested their endowments, and the stocks of major fossil-fuel companies show little effect.
But in doing a network text analysis of news articles, we found that by other measures the effort has been a success. Exhibiting a phenomenon in the social sciences called the “radical flank effect,” McKibben and 350.org have dramatically altered the climate change debate in the United States.
https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/radical-flank-effect-350/
The McKibben effect: a case study in how radical environmentalism can work
Extreme proposals can shift polarized debates.
The radicalism must be close enough to mainstream views to be bridgeable. Klein’s direct assault on capitalism was a bridge too far — there was no way to translate it into terms that could be adopted beyond the radical flank.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/29/16377806/mckibben-effect
AMERICA DEALS WITH ISSUES WHEN THEY BECOME A CRISIS — WE ARE THERE
“The jury, I think, is in: We’re relying on crises. We hope they don’t occur and pretend they’re not inevitable, whatever they might be.
As a society, we have failed to confront some of the major social, political and economic realities of our time: immigration, globalization, health spending, global warming”
“To resist global warming, fossil-fuel prices must go up — a lot”
“Rather than tangle with these complications, our political leaders have preferred procrastination to action. They create agendas they know are anathema to their adversaries, prompting each side to vilify the other. Politics focuses increasingly on “keeping your base happy,” as opposed to governing.
The seeds of stalemate are planted. Political theater triumphs over policy. Nastiness and polarization increase. Congressional Republicans and Democrats vote along party lines, making bipartisan support for major measures impossible.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-dont-prepare-for-the-future/2018/09/09/cb91cc34-b2c3-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?utm_term=.2441d24195ad
YOUTH ARE BIGGEST SUPPORTERS OF RADICAL SOLUTIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
https://www.realclearenergy.org/2018/09/26/climate_change_concerns_unite_gens_x_and_y_286857.html
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/07/young-people-tackling-climate-change/
https://grist.org/article/courage-and-bolt-cutters-meet-the-next-generation-of-climate-activists/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jun/13/dont-ignore-young-people-were-key-to-fighting-climate-change
