Over at the Yale Environment 360 (E360) Blog, a January 23, 2017 post by Bill McKibben asks just bluntly if it is already too late, and the dystopia of a damaged planet with no means of reversing the reactive systems in place is just something we have to accept with the election of Trump. He repeats the often-stated bad news that predictions from as far back as 1989 were too conservative and it seems now the pace of climate change has accelerated: "Already, only 17 years into the millennium, the planet is profoundly changed: half the ice missing from the polar north, for instance, which in turn is shifting weather patterns around the globe."
In a post-election panel at Georgetown Law, Vicki Arroyo stated something the Yale post acknowledges as well, namely that it has already been so very hard, and the interests so very much entrenched, that for climate lawyers and scientists pushing harder and harder is what they have always done. Would that hard work and the need to convince others were the whole picture. Instead, there is a new horrific world of Steve Bannon and alternative facts to contend with.
I just learned today that on the campaign trail, Trump actually told drought-stricken Californians that there was no drought. If the autocrat truly can say that black is white and wet is dry as we experience what is actually happening, we could be truly lost. As Christian Schwägerl wrote in October 2016 for his Yale E360 opinion post on "How the Attack on Science Is Becoming a Global Contagion," there are many recent examples, which he lists, of attacks on science and a resort to pure ideology to create a narrative of opposition between environmental concerns and the nationalism that is growing in the U.S. and Europe.
He does not mention the implications of Trump's attempts to convince some voters in California that a conspiracy to save a small fish created an unnecessary drought, and by implication, destroys jobs, etc). The implications are that there is a narrative that many of us need to counter, and it should be done strategically, pointing out that fisherman have jobs, that some jobs will be lost by environmental destruction, and of course the small fish is not the end of the story but a link in a chain.
If at least the children can learn this science, we may have hope. We will have to contend with De Vos and the whole army of ignorant billionaires, but we must do it. I just refuse to believe it is too late, even if I have to accept the science that we have ushered in a new planetary era.
In a post-election panel at Georgetown Law, Vicki Arroyo stated something the Yale post acknowledges as well, namely that it has already been so very hard, and the interests so very much entrenched, that for climate lawyers and scientists pushing harder and harder is what they have always done. Would that hard work and the need to convince others were the whole picture. Instead, there is a new horrific world of Steve Bannon and alternative facts to contend with.
I just learned today that on the campaign trail, Trump actually told drought-stricken Californians that there was no drought. If the autocrat truly can say that black is white and wet is dry as we experience what is actually happening, we could be truly lost. As Christian Schwägerl wrote in October 2016 for his Yale E360 opinion post on "How the Attack on Science Is Becoming a Global Contagion," there are many recent examples, which he lists, of attacks on science and a resort to pure ideology to create a narrative of opposition between environmental concerns and the nationalism that is growing in the U.S. and Europe.
He does not mention the implications of Trump's attempts to convince some voters in California that a conspiracy to save a small fish created an unnecessary drought, and by implication, destroys jobs, etc). The implications are that there is a narrative that many of us need to counter, and it should be done strategically, pointing out that fisherman have jobs, that some jobs will be lost by environmental destruction, and of course the small fish is not the end of the story but a link in a chain.
If at least the children can learn this science, we may have hope. We will have to contend with De Vos and the whole army of ignorant billionaires, but we must do it. I just refuse to believe it is too late, even if I have to accept the science that we have ushered in a new planetary era.
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