"You're making yourself a nuisance."

“Today, activists participated in the Solutions COP21 event in the Grand Palais in Paris, where official corporate sponsors of the COP like Engie, Renault-Nissan, Avril Sofiprotéol lavishly spent to present themselves as those who can solve the climate crisis. Indigenous leaders, people representing frontline communities whose land was wrecked by these companies, and local climate activists have voiced their side of the story in front of several stalls.

They were forcibly removed by the police, heavily present on the site. Several activists, coming from around the world, were arrested.” 

-350.org December 4th, 2015

Mobilization during the Paris talks is becoming more and more critical. In the defence of front line communities, we are compelled as an international movement to come together and fight on behalf of the demands made by those who are overlooked.

As I’ve mentioned before, and as we all know because we grow up in a time where racial and economic inequalities still shout and scream out for solidarity, there is a beacon of hope in the idea that we still live within representative democracies. Those democracies are actually meant to encourage peaceful intervention and civil disobedience when injustices are occurring, meaning it is not only the right, but the duty for members of so-called “free societies” to provide the cornerstones of visible and ongoing civil rights movements that protect the rights of people at home and elsewhere, if the cause is great enough. 

So, here we must stress; Where an international conference seems like a tidy solution, that our elected officials and the most powerful voices of industry have come together to do the “right” thing to ensure a 2 degree cap on emissions and an economic climate where markets will follow accordingly, the reality is that the drivers behind changing policies are not adjusted to properly deal with poverty, where climate changes pose the greatest threats. That is the stark bad news bear. 

The climate justice movement is coming from a forceful bottom-up approach to rights reclamation for all peoples so that they may live in dignity with their land, water and sustained livelihoods. This has to happen alongside and in opposition to existing political frameworks, and the UNFCCC knows this, and actually needs it. Heads of state inside the negotiating rooms are more willing now to accept that the world is changing, and change with it, but they represent only a portion of the catalysing forces for equity and lowered emissions. So, even if this conference counts as a huge signifier that there is an emerging green economy that will eventually prevail and an acceptance that we are "in this together", the global free trade agreements that discourage dissent and carbon industry leaders that refuse to keep it in the ground are huge threats. Hence, the emergence of an organised climate justice movement.

In his first essay on civil disobedience, Ghandi said, “None of us had to offer any defense. We were pleading guilty to the charge of disobeying the order…” The willingness to accept penalty is based on something so central to the philosophy of civil disobedience. Violating pernicious laws is justified if the existing hegemony violates our inalienable right to live in dignity. 

When Hurricane Katrina wailed against the Gulf of the Unites States in 2005, the whole world was confronted with images of black and working class residents in the Ninth Ward clambering on roofs and on floating debris and the atrocious conditions inside the Superdome. That moment highlighted something that is so often overlooked at home in developed countries. People of colour and poor communities are seen as disposable. In the United States it is finally, in 2015 (!!!) becoming agreed that policing and incarceration of black Americans is actually a thriving industry. This is a fact that is amplified on the world stage, for Gulf Coast residents in United States, for the First Nations Peoples living alongside the Canadian tar sands in Northern Alberta or the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota, for the Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu and Nauru, and for centuries across all of Africa and Latin America. If you are poor, if you are indigenous, if you are a person of color, your rights are easy to silence through powerful use of force, through illegitimate dispute settlement mechanisms, and by the money to be made from ripping up your backyard. 

The political-economic system that has let this continue internationally is so dark. It's like sci-fi, or paintings of the four horsemen or someone who smiles wringing the a kitten's neck. And trade has everything to do with it. Right now there is something happening that affects us all, but that we don't really want to talk about having anything to do with climate change, though it is CENTRAL to the ineffective stalling seen by the most powerful political and economic stakeholders. And it is this:

The proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, referred to as The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as well as its companion, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are expected to be finalized in 2016. The economic barriers between the members of the agreements are already extremely low because they are included within the World Trade Organization (WTO), but now member states want to decrease them even further. And oh the surprises we are in for! More joyous unfettered trade, and more commodities and more sticky plastic residue everywhere is enough to put a smile on all of our faces, especially right before Christmas time to really get that economic engine jolly-humming and red faced like Saint Nick himself. I mean, yes, though the TTIP aims for an agreement that may create millions of new paid jobs and a focus on a renewing the business sector between members, and glowing reviews in an assessment by the European Centre for Economic Policy Research that expects GDP growth upwards of 120 Billion Euros by 2027, we might be biting off a little more than we can chew, or even fit in our mouths (Trade.ec.europa.eu. 2014) But Isn't that devilishly exciting!?

No. It's just fucking terrifying. 

Here at COP21, TTIP and TPP has not been touched much though the very nature of the agreements commit to amping up trade and consumption of fossil fuels, as well European imports of the stuff from North America. And where agricultural markets are at risk of becoming the highest emitting industry in the world, with a 76% increase in global meat production predicted by the year 2050 and more intensive soybean and maize plantations, meaning the highest emitting industries are being fueled to grow instead of scaling back. The pork being raised in China is linked to the soybean being grown in Latin America, while Canada will import more US dairy and on and on it goes. What also presents additional assaults on consumer (aka human) rights is that under TTIP, buy-local initiatives, as well as green-purchasing programs are seen as "trade-distorting" and discriminatory. This systemically derails democratic institutions that serve to protect local production of food and against the privatisation of fresh water through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism that would be introduced upon completion of the agreements. And, get this! Companies will now be allowed to sue governments if their policies result in profit loss. Now, this is a huge deal, and one of great consequence for the environmental justice movement because it means that unelected corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments, and they are also the ones who are employing the courts that try them. 

ISDSs exist already, and they have lead to huge injustices and a cycle of anti-democratic cases around the world. Businesses are not just in the back pockets of government, they have ballooned out of control and are now more powerful than government, ready to put them on trial for dwindling quarterly reports. They continue the deregulation of fossil fuel industries responsible for degrading people everywhere, and keep us hooked on carbon. En-couragable!

Paris is the playground where this relationship is playing out. So, sooner rather than later we may agree there is a really hard pill to swallow when it comes to the environment. Manpower is now necessary to legitimize and strengthen advocacy groups and the demands of exploited people everywhere who don't stand a chance in the courts of unelected corporate figureheads. It is hard to admit that we have a say, and that if we stand idly by we are complicit with a system that can only thrive through continued mass exclusion of people and their right to livelihoods everywhere. It is harder still to believe that these are demands that must be made, and what can sometimes appear to be a movement lacking in continuity, it in fact represents the most important civil rights issue of our time. To say it is not a human issue, a race issue and a poverty issue is to stand on the side of mass segregation and violent oppression. 

Change does not happen overnight, and we must beg for forgiveness for our inaction on these issues for so long. Our material wealth, our symbols of success, our appetite for exclusivity shadows us and must be now be brought to light. We aren't even being asked to give up our successes, our innovations or to live without high quality goods and social services. The real challenge is providing support and solidarity to those on the losing end in what can now officially be considered a global economic battleground. This is not a call to arms for an extreme global red wave, but it is about the redistribution of wealth, and a sensible acknowledgement that we do not want to be a bunch of fatties that defend our right to consume more than the rights of others to stay alive. 

And, no, nothing will be achieved by alienating our communities through a yawning guilt trip about decreasing individual consumption, but for goodness sake can we not take the time out of our day to pause. To pause and reflect on the casualties of this system. To pause and see the opportunities for a better world. And to give ourselves just one second to think about what a broken earth we are delivering to the next generation. It is but sweet denial to know that we benefit greatly from this system of economic free trade when others do not. It is terrible dinner conversation, it makes for a really uncomfortable series of eye rolling, a harmony of “there have always been poor people, there have always been armed conflict, there have always been powerful oligarchs… Nothing can change that.” But the truth is the rise in a global social network of civilised, educated and organised individuals are in fact changing that through what Paul Hawken refers to as a "planetary immune system." And if it is encouraging to see the movement as represented by the greatest thinkers of our time with pins on their lapels, as supposed to the disheveled portrayal of protesting drifters with dreadlocks and devil sticks, then so be it.

The face of the climate justice movement is changing and boy has it ever been in need of a makeover. To look away now is to beg coal in the bottom of our stockings for the rest of time. Therein lies the big fat truth, there are physical and human limits to an economy that intends to grow indefinitely, and it's only possible to be all "that-was-just-the-wool-over-my-eyes!" until you are confronted with those limits. If we are honest when we say that Black Lives Matter, that we are Idle No More, that poverty is a killer, then we must put ourselves in a position where we defend the poor, black, brown, blue and purple people who are are already dealing with climate calamities in both the global North and South. And then, to accept the penalty for being part of that defence. 

*

“A true “ecological debt” exists, particularly between the global north and south… In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future.”

-Pope Francis, 2015 Ecyclical on Climate

Shortcuts make Long Delays - Now is time for the Great Leap

During COP21 there are run-off events organised to draw attention to the issues that will be strategically overlooked inside the conference headquarters. Today, the team behind what is being referred to as an “open source toolkit” gathered in the 11e Arrondisement, where just over two weeks ago the massacre happened inside the Bataclan concert hall. Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, Maude Barlow and other Canadian politicians behind The Great Leap Manifesto stood in plenary to mobilize a grassroots critical mass that is both ambitious and feasible, enough to pressure international policy through local community activism.

The Manifesto is a comprehensive document signed by more than 150 influential Canadians and published during the last election. It's spreading around the world and being formed to fit local networks - Its relevance to the entire climate justice movement is clear and comes with specific reccomendations;  Putting the rights of first peoples to govern their own land and new local green energy systems. The need to end subsidies to fossil fuel companies. The imperative to increase taxes on the world’s largest corporations and wealthiest individuals. Democratization of transport and clean rail systems from coast to Canadian coast. It also suggests that the implementation of carbon taxes must be done quickly and effectively.

Most relevant to what is happening at COP was the manifesto's take on carbon storage. The unanimous agreement that CCS is not the right step if governments are serious in their move towards renewables made the biggest impression on the crowd today. Treating carbon storage like the answer to our climate woes leaves potential solutions behind, and doesn't recognise the systemic change that is happening through bottom-up activism where small communities are fighting for their lives to survive against the development model that put them at the bottom in the first place.

Since the birth of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Rio 23 years ago we have seen what consequences the carbon based economic model have had on this planet. The Great Leap Manifesto describes steps that can be taken to leap, not saunter, into a justice based green economy. The speakers took stage and criticised new trade agreements like TTIP (The Transatlantic Trade and Investor Partnership) , TPP (The Trans Pacific Partnership) and their quietly implemented dispute settlement mechanisms as ones that favour corporations over government. The notion that our elected officials, trade agreements and even international institutions like the UN are here to help must be brought into question. If the UN Conference of the Parties in Paris, like the ones before it, allow their largest national energy producers to sponsor the events then why are we not discussing that conflict of interest? Naomi Klein asked: "If having big energy companies continue to lobby international conferences reserved for scientists and government not be seen as a threat to the integrity of an agreement, I don't know what is."

It’s like inviting a bartender to an AA meeting.

The larger conflict that has arisen from having big oil and gas in bed with policy starts at the state level, where it becomes impossible to divorce itself from its most industrious partnerships and keep emissions reductions promises at global summits. The outrageous, and definitively inconvenient truth that to truly tackle climate change would mean that countries would have to keep 80%, if not more, of their known oil reserves in the ground is a threat that the fossil fuel-based economic model cannot deal with. I mean let's be honest, what sane industry would agree to have itself be regulated and chopped when the deregulation of its business practices are exactly what allow it to thrive?

Keeping the polluters at the negotiating tables means no matter the outcome of this COP compared to the 20 talks before it, it will still hold the same vested interests central while omitting the real solution: an overhaul of the carbon/commodity system that got us here in the first place. It is exactly the simplicity behind this self-referential design that makes it so frustrating. It is very hard to permeate those with the most wealth and power with responsible and radical ideas on climate change, even though we all know we can't go on the way we are. 

As leaders negotiate our fate at Le Bourget, it can also be difficult to come to terms with the fact that commitments made by the end of COP21 will continue to be reliant on the idea that CO2 emissions are economic externalities, so any solutions to that problem will only be generated within the same economic paradigm that drove us here. We are making no attempt at questioning what human and environmental costs are inherent to a carbon based economy as the starting point. It is exactly this dissonant reaction to our warming climate that dismantles the greatest opportunity to make radical changes to top-level policy - the only kind we can now afford if we hope to save the planet.

The objective of the COP21 members to limit the planet to a 2 degree warming is indeed not enough, though we desperately want it to be. Also... Remember when African heads of state stormed the UN floor in Copenhagen in 2009, expressing that 2 degrees would still be climate suicide for their continent? Remember when the president of the Maldives said that 2 degrees would be a death sentence to Pacific Island nations? The idea that certain nations must be sacrificed so that we can continue to exploit their resources with impunity is unacceptable and embarrassing, and that is what should come first on the agenda for the rest of the conference.

Pressure on governments to solve this crisis using technofixes is really just a fancy way to sell pie-in-the-sky solutions and does not acknowledge the need to keep carbon in the ground. And though "Net Zero" emission goals sound like something we all want, they actually end up championing more and more carbon capture & storage (CCS) solutions as well as sci-fi tech ideas like SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering), or Ocean Fertilization (which involves dumping iron fillings into the ocean that would cause plankton booms to capture carbon dioxide) and other large scale infrastructural eco-projects. And that's not to downplay the rise in cheap solar and wind technologies, which are capable of mitigating climate damages, but we know we are running out of time, and the delegates inside the conference know it too, but are still deflecting. The LEAP Manifesto makes sure to address that continued ownership and dominance by energy conglomerates, rather than locally derived clean energy initiatives will not get us out of this mess. 

It's like there's a terribly rusty whirring fan that keeps interrupting nice dinner conversation around COP21 but no one tries to turn off because there's a sign beside it that says "Do Not Turn Me Off". Admitting to the fact that we’ve been terribly wrong and that we've impoverished countries through exploitative mining and petroleum projects for way too long is also hard to bring up at the negotiation table, especially when we can't hear our own voices other over the whir. If we can't ourselves admit to self-serving collective behaviour, or exhibit some self restraint at the carbon buffet table, then how can we expect our leaders to make more selfless decisions. I know I'm mixing metaphors.

No individual actor, no head of state, and no one single carbon entrenched CEO will demand to be punished and regulated for their own maniacal behaviour and that is the real challenge in Paris. Governments that can't stop pumping more and more carbon into the atmosphere, while congratulating themselves on innovative mitigation strategies should be considered criminals at this point. It is criminal because heralding technological supremacy over nature is where all of this started. The promotion of carbon capture schemes and net zero emissions goals is like the Teslas electrical car solution, it remains beautiful and beneficial, but only for the very rich. These all end up being discussed as tangible strategies at COP and this is how the biggest polluters are jury and judge when sentencing their own climate crimes, and how they are able to continue to weasel out of making uncomfortable concessions.

Those on the front lines of climate change have watched the destructive forces of industry stomp around in their backyards for far too long, and it is unjust that the same communities must face the worst effects of rapacious business practices. This is not a waiting game, Paris. Admit that it's already happening to most of the people on this planet and stop the corrosion of your governments by the oppressive lobbying by big oil and gas.

It's simple. We demand real change.

Birmingham City Jail in Paris, France

"I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta, and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

-Martin Luther King, Letters from Birmingham City Jail (1963)

Today in Paris the world has come together for the UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP21).

As heads of state begin their opening statements after over 700,000 people hit the streets around the world yesterday for global climate marches, the Paris talks can now be considered the largest global convening of policy makers, scientists, advocacy network representatives and indigenous rights groups in world history. 

After the terrorist attacks on November 13th, news reports of increased tension has played out in the media, dominated by instances of extremism arising out of a horrifically complex Syrian battleground and the history that lead to calamities in the entire region. The tragic overflow of millions of migrants into Europe and the Islamophobic reactions to a relatively small group of extremists represented by the Paris attackers, has become the convoluted and dangerous platform for increased militarisation and fear-mongering, in Paris and abroad. We know this is getting messier, but what we failed to recognise in Paris today is what the November attacks have to do with climate change and the impact of this event on COP21 is still unsure. 

As increased offensives were launched in Syria, the relevance of the climate summit seemed, to some, like it may be lost amidst growing ideological tension and perceived terror threats. When the largest climate march to take place in Paris on Sunday was cancelled, over half a million restless marching feet were told to stay home for security reasons. And as the French government has rallied a forceful defence against ISIL or DAESH or (whatever we're calling them now) with support of NATO members, increased security at home within the French capital seems to a majority of people like an appropriate measure taken to preserve public safety.

What is being overlooked in this discussion, at its earliest stages, is the natural right of civic society to congregate over issues of great social concern, which climate change is now finally accepted to be. When hundreds of peaceful protesters defied the municipal ban on congregating yesterday, police found themselves provoked by the new and multifaceted face of the environmental justice movement, where civil disobedience is now as ripe with well rooted pacifists as it is with green fisted, and black-clad anti-capitalist agitators. Those who came in defiance to Place de la République created a human chain to stand up to the injustice of climate change, but the real issue of injustice they were rallying against was that they were told to not to be there at all. That they would be arrested, that what they were doing was illegal. Amidst the great hope that a binding treaty will rise out of these historic talks, the fear of being persecuted for acting in solidarity is being overlooked in Paris today.

Direct action of this nature is imperative in the fight against ecological oppression and injustice, and if the integrity of non-violent campaigns is to remain strong (and to succeed) how can a ban on marches be seen as anything other than a silencing of dissent? Regardless of what safety measures must be ensured to protect traumatised French civilians, the real or perceived threats after the November attacks must not be used as grounds for fear mongering or the undeniable legitimisation of new twists on a familiar ol' timey story of police-state oppression.

The will of the French government to halt people congregating on the sidelines (yet, centrally) to such an enormous event is strong, and shortsighted. It does not accept that people may choose, with collective autonomy, to gather around the most pressing issues and draw attention to them. It is this type of reaction to terrorism that risks breaking up the forceful drive of coalitions that want both peace and climate change to be seen as the top priority for world leaders who are at this moment, in this city, for these two weeks. It is also a stifling knee-jerk reaction to real threats, one that elicits fear and fails to reflect the real attitudes of the public. It is handicapping momentum, decreasing the visibility of a growing global movement. But, what appears most unjust is to try to halt the agency of a collective and justify doing so for the safety of that same group.

Like Martin Luther King made clear in Letters from Birmingham City Jail (1963), instances of civil disobedience occur to draw attention to injustices that may not be locally perceived or committed, and those who gather themselves do so cognizant of the interrelatedness of injustice in all communities and states. The wisdom of MLK when he notes that "whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea." stresses this and scolds any government that bans protests during crucial moments of global change because THAT is an infringement on the rights of all men and women. Today in Paris we can feel the ghosts of the the French Revolution and the echos of the Enlightenment alive and getting louder.  The civil rights movement that still must demand racial equality from its elected officials is more pertinent now than ever. The guiding forces that sought the same legally embedded rights of racial non-discrimination to all people, have now evolved into the environmental justice movement, where we are all equal under the same biosphere.

Though the criticism of violent agitators is a legitimate one; "an emergency state is a police state!" chanted loudly during the confrontations at Place de la République yesterday, requires more than honourable mention, it must stand alone as a message to any government that denies its citizens their right to gather freely. 

FACTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Let's just quote NASA directly shall we...

"The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.

The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2 Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of years, not in millions or even thousands."

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

IS THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE IMPORTANT? WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN PARIS?

Some information on the upcoming UN climate talks in Paris relevant to our planets common future... 

http://newsroom.unfccc.int

This is a helpful, updated site to get we, the public, informed on the universally dire climate changes that are decreasing our chances of survival as a species on a beautiful bio diverse planet. Currently we are at at high risk for; extreme weather events, ecosystem and livelihood collapse, toxic build up in our environments, loss of populated coastlines, vulnerability of the worlds poorest people and the inability for future generations to survive on planet earth. The social consequences of new population dynamics in a warmer world will be; increased conflicts, mass migrations, disease and starvation.

Now, we are inundated daily with piecemeal information about the state of our planet that we try to become informed about. We are told that individual acts of terrorism in city squares are the threats we must rally against. Fear mongering oligarchs tell us that the economy is weak, and this is a threat as great as any. We hear about threats to our value systems, threats to democracy, threats to the free flow of information... But in reality, what greater challenge, what more obvious threat exists than the decline in all the living systems on earth that offer to sustain our human lives?

Foreshadowing has clearly not been dark enough on these issues, especially for those of us in rich developed countries, where the buffer of wealth and infrastructure has blinded us to the consequences environmental changes are already having on historically exploited and impoverished populations around the globe.

It is important that we become well acquainted with these issues as they will blindside us, very soon. And though we have been warned, I am fearful we will not act in time to keep our planet below the catastrophic 2•C warming level. And then she's finished, that's it. And pardon me, I do not want to live on a sweltering post-apocalyptic orb at all... I prefer the crazed and naïve environmentalist fantasy of a future where kids have at least some food in their stomachs (dirt soup does not count) and where air is fresh enough to breathe and water is free for all of us to drink of. Just the basics really. 

We have the information, and with it we must be compelled to engage and influence policy in any way possible and not continue to act the way we are. We must learn how to live with less and we must teach each other real skills to increase our adaptive capacity. Do anything to help local non-profits, write letters, sign petitions, use your voice to stand up for species without one, and most obviously become an advocate for fellow human beings who are screaming, yet systemically silenced. Wouldn't you hope you would have an advocate if you were going through hell to survive? 

We (all of us) need a binding agreement in Paris following the failures in Copenhagen (etc.!) and the hope that there can be a better framework that parallels the severity of these interlinked issues. We need a treaty where governments are legally accountable to meet reduction targets post-Kyoto, or else we're totally fucked.

ACKNOWLEDGING NEUROPLASTICITY AS CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGY? I

And if so, what does that even mean?

It's not even the biggest news in the world according to the biggest news in the world. Shit, climate change is getting less attention than the Jenner family and the iWatch and not only that, it is generally left to simmer and steep rather than boil over in the collective mind's eye. It all just seems TOO much to think about.

The question I would like to ask is:

What is the role of our brains in all of this? How are our minds trained to avoid the issues that require quick and adaptive decision-making skills? 

In an age where it is both socially and politically acceptable that powerful dimwits head continued attacks on the scientific community, we have become most comfortable surrounded by irrationality. Dismissing data and overwhelming evidence of human-caused global temperature rise hints that perhaps the general public is collectively re-training itself to mistrust empirical logic. This is a compelling and concerning feature of a hyperconnected era in global development. Are we cognitively betting on the failure of the Enlightenment? 

I

In 1958, German economist and sociologist Max Weber attributed the security of a state and the legitimacy of its governing bodies to a collective acceptance of three different types of authority. Our minds are trained in remarkable ways to deal with legal-rational, traditional and charismatic power held by organisational and individual leadership. According to Weber, this eventually shapes our systems of rule, our bureaucracies and individual access to information. The degree to which we trust governing authorities is also the degree to which we participate in new forms of democracy. So, it is no wonder that more distrust in government leads to less participation in it.

Today, we see a shift in all forms of government, as political structures are increasingly embedded in global economic processes, and vice versa.  Since the meeting of commercial and financially enterprising delegates at Bretton Woods in 1944, The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund continue to define how to deal with the foreign procedures of fixed exchange rates and reserve currencies. Reconstructing cities and their infrastructures after the second world war spearheaded the development Project that paved the way for the modern market economy we know today. Theoretically, development and free markets would rectify imbalances in trade, and the world would become a more peaceful, unified place as trading partners were established. Keep in mind, disregarding environmental activism has a long history, and during times of organisational overhaul was seen as inconvenient finger wagging, standing in the way of deliciously unfettered growth (Civicus, 2006). 

By looking at the role of financial institutions and lobbying organisations in modern democracies, it is obvious that legitimate power has become corroded. Those involved in policy decisions do not have the authority that is required to exercise force and control access to information, and this has created a modern society that is vulnerable and malleable. When systems of administrative and judicial rules are disintegrated, it makes it even more difficult to define urgently needed new organisational parameters around scientific data. 

II

Over the course of the last century, we have not only altered our trading abilities and our governing structures, but we have altered the beautiful ecological diversity of our planet to a literal point of no return. Expansionism has theoretically improved our quality of life and centralised power in a good way, but by putting such confidence in institutions we have decreased our ability to think critically on livelihoods and then follow up with direct action. Ideological considerations aside, humanity continues to internalise the established forces of modernity as fragmented, but also somehow irrevocable.

I'm unsure, but I see a small beacon of hope that we can improve our adaptive capacity to climate changes, and this hope exists in new literature on neuroplasticity and grassroots social change. Neuroplasticity recognises that the brain is a dynamic organ, able to change its neural pathways as a result of changes in behaviour and environments. Dr. Norman Doidge points out in The Brain That Changes Itself (2007) that acknowledging the brains ability to change may be fundamental in achieving social change necessary today. The unsound belief that a modern market economy is the only acceptable governance structure (and justification for everything following in its wake as necessary sacrifices for continued economic growth) is a fallacy. The neurological and reflexive process of questioning hegemonic power can be paralleled to rejecting biological determinism, because it is now well understood that society re-shapes itself according to its social and physical environments. Our mantra of a post-WWII political economy that yields unlimited growth forever is dysfunctional and highly irrational, even in the mind of a child during his or her 3rd grade math class. If we want the peace of mind that comes from knowing our civilisation isn't headed for the hyperbolic cliffs of humanity, we may need change equivalent to a geo-political lobotomy.

 III

To avoid anxiety we allow ourselves to skim over a complex myriad of problems included under the umbrella issue of global warming. Get a drink. Don't bring it up. Buy a snack and a pair of shoes and sohelpmegod don't bring up politics, social justice or the environment at the dinner table. In addition to this paralysis, it's not helping our self defined case as "most innovative species of all time" that we are stalling more than ever as calls to arms by scientists and human rights activists increase exponentially.

Re-framing discourse around environmental change as a social justice issue is crucial leading up to the UN Climate COP in Paris this fall. New discourse must focus on communities who are not buffered by wealth, meaning most of the people on the entire planet, and who are already feeling the effects of climate change. Holding the innovative spirit of capitalism as central to climate talks is to abandon the reality that poor lives matter. This dismissive and criminal attitude has become the hallmark privilege of living as a rich person in a developed country.

Adjusting our attitudes and strengthening new ways of thinking would be part of what it takes to create a more concerted effort to globally alleviate devastating conditions that people live under. The sanctity of neoliberal individualism is at risk if adaptive defences were built for people living far away, people that we may never meet. As we see the number of refugees explode in an unprecedented global migrant crisis our minds are triggered to acknowledge how terrible our empathic adaptive capacity is. Looking to the future, when hundreds of millions of people are on the move from places made unliveable due to resource depletion and ecological collapse, what ideological walls will we build then?

The environment and livelihoods will only be taken more seriously than the wealth of nations if we collectively refuse to accept business-as-usual economic and non-ecologically centred policies. As we see it now, leaving it all up to our "elected" officials is terribly ineffective. The need to assemble organisations comprised of reasonable and accountable climate change referees is crucial in the reflexive process of social change. Take the drought in California this summer as an example of this. Water shortage this extreme is not a cyclical rendition of seasonal drought as much as it is foreshadowing for how slow we are in our understanding of the processes that directly affect us.

"How much more California will warm depends on how high global emissions of greenhouse gases are allowed to go, but scientists say efforts to control the problem have been so ineffective that they cannot rule out another five or six degrees of warming over the state in this century. That much warming would probably turn even modest rainfall deficits into record-shattering droughts."

-NYTIMES, AUG 20 2015

Robert Keegan (1994) explains that the challenges we face when sorting through the data of climate change are essentially cognitive challenges. From a psychological perspective, Keegan looks at human and childhood development, and “In Over Our Heads” explains that modernity, and processes of globalization contain too many variables for us cognitively understand and process. It is also argued that we are in a transitional stage as individuals where established organizations and technology cannot keep up with new data, so we're getting more and more screwed. The process of going from the socialized mind, to the self-authoring mind means going from being told what to do to deciding how to deal with unexpected outcomes as individuals. As we deal with these complex post-modern problems, a transformative mind is required to question our own assumptions and become more reflexive in our approaches to globally intersecting issues, especially in regards to climate change.

There is a heavy amount of literature emerging on neuro-plasticity and this can be related back to the literature on learning-in-action as described by Donald Schon in the 80's. The move away from technical rationality towards more reflexive decision making may provide part of the solution to some of the conflicts of interest mentioned above. When individuals and and practitioners are able to store skills and competencies based on experiential knowledge instead of running on a slippery treadmill of avoidance, is the only chance we have at confronting climate change, and more generally, issues of development, poverty and social change. 

Or maybe it's all just a fringe environmentalist hoax, and there's no need to worry after all.

RANTS OR NOT

Well hell. 
 

Saw Bernie yesterday in Downtown LA.

This man is talking candidly to the people of the United States, and taking this country by storm. Publicly funded, using honesty as a tool for much needed revolution in the United States, he is on the right side of history, fighting social injustice for 40 years.

This man advocated for civil rights in the 60's, with gay marriage in the 80's, and his track record shows he is for the poor, for women (and the right for us to control our own bodies thank you very much), for minorities, for children, for health care, for job creation. He is endorsed by Black Lives Matter, the National Nurses Union, by Bill McKibben, by Noam Chomsky.

He is for veterans, for our gay brothers and sisters, FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. If you have never been in engaged in politics before, this is someone who you need to wake up and pay attention to. Bernie Sanders is not going anywhere because we are all so sick of business as usual, sick of costly wars, crumbling ecosystems and unaccountable billionaires taking it ALL. We're all sick of white cops killing young black men, or this country having incarceration rates higher than any other country in the world, with no focus on rehabilitation only on the booming business of throwing even more young black men in prison. We're tired of banks "too big to fail" and Cold War rhetoric that still make the "redistribution of wealth" sound like dirty words.

And a big fuck off to those small minds still buying into corporate tool kits, dying to get rich while the poor in this country and the rest of the world are not able to feed their children. Or if you are a misogynist, if you think it's ok for women and the poor and Mother Nature to be treated with disrespect, then won't you please just off yourself now. And also for everyone's sake, stop trying to imitate the pimping qualities of modern oligarchical tyrants by begging for your own bloated wallets. S'garbage.

I am so excited that, there can finally be a figurehead for such a diverse set of issues. With forceful eloquence, Sanders is adamantly talking about putting the needs of people before anything else.

Fuck yes Bernie, and thanks for bringing it up.