I’m not sure this is a hill you want to die on, Chris. The climate zealots are basing their religion on models that supposedly forecast millennia long meteorological patterns with unrealistic precision. And these models have been consistently inaccurate as decades pass since the inception of this cult. You and I are not trained in this discipline, and as we’ve seen, the ability to subvert and amplify certain perspectives under the guise of “science” is vey easy with the right financial incentives. Simplistically, the polar ice pack is still intact, yet Al Gore’s net worth has increased about $300 million since he began proselytizing about global warming (despite his predicting Arctic glacier demise by 2015). I’m not saying that anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening. I am saying we haven’t a clue of timing, direction, or magnitude, given all the other non-human factors that affect our climate cycles. Yes, reduce fossil fuel consumption, reduce plastic in the oceans, be thoughtful about rain forest and other habitat preservation; but don’t destroy the already impoverished lower socioeconomic classes by boosting energy and food costs to exorbitant levels because a few true believers are throwing loud tantrums.
Although I agree climate change should not be made so dramatic that one feels your baby won't make it to first grade, however it is a reality that needs to be addressed, and I would prefer to be less dramatic when bringing the issue to the public's attention since it is more likely to alienate them. I think when 97 percent of scientists recognize the reality of climate change it's time to listen and change things. The overall temps world wide since the industrial revolution is up by 2 percent C, glaciers are melting, and water levels are rising. Sea level in the western Pacific Ocean has been increasing 2–3 more then elsewhere , and not to mention China produces carbon emissions at the rate of almost 3 times our own, and 25% of that crap drops off on our west coast. I wouldn't throw tomato juice at a Van Gogh painting and tape myself to the wall, but I did teach it as part of the curriculum in science. They have been talking about the possibility of CO2 emissions affecting temperatures world wide since the industrial revolution began.
Oh glory. I’m old. All this equivocating drives me nuts. So many ecological changes for the absolute worst since I ran around my neighborhood chasing fireflies in the humid summer night as a child. Fools are those who don’t take it most seriously.
It's been heading in that direction for a long time. When I got my degrees in biology no one even talked about climate change, and were pushing you to work in labs or become a doctor and the hell with the environment and to hell with nature. Most of the time they were killing things. Well, in NY anyway, and in JH's and HS, the same was true, but my principal let me teach environmental science because she liked me and to hell with the curriculum. Thank God.
Bravo to you and to your principal. Your determined enlightenment at odds with the prevailing winds are enriching contributions to young minds both in terms of content and modeling creative response to real challenges in spite of the stale, life stealing status quo.
As a radical environmentalist myself the “Look at Me” activism was a big turn off.
Educate. Find solutions. Build coalitions. Get it done. Tamper tantrums on social media are more annoying than me looking at myself in the mirror screaming “How dare you!”
Not surprising China has high carbon emissions - it produces circa one third of the world's products. Here in Australia we can't even produce our own shoe laces any more.
And by the way, earth is heating by 2°Celsius, not Fahrenheit 😊
Also its not percent, it actual degrees. We're only a couple of comments into this report with misinformation and disagreements abounding.
Which brings me to real question of: How does Roger Hallam think there is going to be a (28:22) "systems assembly as a permanent parallel institution selected by sortition selected randomly from the population" to run things...., Yeah, right. Does he think this is going to happen magically? The human race can't set up a sortition to run anything properly--let alone on a global scale. And he wants to pursue it "randomly". The closest thing we have set up like that is the U.N. (which has been worked on and "refined" since WWII and has become totally dysfunctional at this point-- so dysfunctional that George W. Bush said it was "irrelevant" as he illegally invaded Iraq--with no repercussions by his "regime" whatsoever.
I appreciate your efforts Roger, but you don't seem all that lucid in your thinking-- or projections-- for action. The only rational sentence understood was the one about embracing civil disobedience as a public answer to the lawlessness our current "regime" embraces. And that only came in the title of the report. What followed was a big, fat zero. that ( IMO) would only play into the hands of oligarchs, not against.
Yes, the phrase you quote sounded to me like a quasi-intellectual word salad. A "permanent institution" "selected randomly" sounds like the evolution of an ant colony. (Admittedly they do seem to function quite nicely ;-)
I've just looked it up and 2°C is about 35° F. Huge difference, no? I'd forgotten just how much so (Australia made the switch in the 60s so I'm a little rusty on my Fahrenheits) 😊
H8SBAD: "but don’t destroy the already impoverished lower socioeconomic classes by boosting energy and food costs to exorbitant levels because a few true believers are throwing loud tantrums."
Well... I'll keep my tantrums until my A/C bill decreases. Besides, renewable energy is becoming cheaper than fossil energy and eventually, provided the corporations loose their grip on our bribed leaders, the lower socioeconomic classes could benefit also of having a cleaner environment. In my view, science is less vulnerable to bribery than our politicians and therefore I believe in science and admire and thanks the activists that are fighting for our planet.
A good debate, and very civil. Thank you. I posted on the other stream on Substack, and ended up having a thread that went down the rabbit hole with a supporter of the Extinction Rebellion that basically ended up saying that it would be better if Humans were still hunter gatherers living on the African Savana using stone tools. A position that will not be helpful in generating any positive change.
This is a dangerous frustrating message that reflects ignorance of ecology. There is a TON everyone can do and MUST do. Soil serves as a robust carbon sucking machine when all of its ecosystem parts are functioning well. Plants pull carbon dioxide out of the air and uses it to feed biological life in the earth. Soil already removes about 25 percent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions each year this way. If we create healthier soil out of our vast tracts of degraded land we can QUICKLY sequester billions of additional tons of carbon. The Earth’s soils already contain about 2,500 gigatons of carbon and that is three times more carbon than in the atmosphere and four times the amount of carbon in all living plants and animals.
But it isn't just farmers who can restore ecosystem functioning. Everyone who manages a watershed, lawn, park, or school ground can start planting native or drought-tolerant deep-rooted plants, trees, and meadows and thus help heal soil, water and carbon cycles. Both citizens and policymakers have enormous power to reduce both flooding and drought by changing how land is used and this means healing local soil and water cycles. Profound drought and flood are simply not inevitable. Water does not absorb into concrete, asphalt, thin rooted lawns, bare plowed soil, or depleted agricultural soil. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 38% of global land is agricultural, and humans have altered three-quarters of the earth's land surface within the last millennium. For centuries humans have wrecked healthy ecosystems to make urban and agricultural zones devoid of healthy soil and well-functioning water and carbon cycles. As a result, most land on earth does not currently absorb water the way it should.
Getting control of increasingly scary weather dominated by arctic blasts, high heat, drought, and by intense snow, rain and flooding requires reducing our fossil fuel consumption and expanding renewable energy, and but it also requires that we restore natural water cycles, soil health, plant cover, and carbon cycles. This can be done locally and everyone can help. Recreating healthy ecosystems on public, private and agricultural land also increases food supply, food nutrient density, air quality, water supply and quality, and biodiversity.
Poorly managed land has profound public consequences and is one of climate change's most visible yet reversible drivers. Our best food and water security option as we head into a deepening climate crisis is to raise hope and awareness as we quickly transition to ecosystem regenerative landscaping, farming and grazing practices. This requires changed policies for everything from lawns to farms to watershed management. Flooding, drought, food shortages and the dangers of too much carbon in the atmosphere can all be addressed by repairing the complex natural life systems we have so profoundly altered. This is great news but ecology is the least understood of the sciences. Our best hope isn’t protest new inventions. Hope lies in restoring the incredible complexity of natural ecosystems.
You realize that much of what you want to happen can be accomplished if we use civil disobedience and force US government to stop its unlimited wars all over the world including Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, etc. Closing the 800+ military bases and pare down the ships and planes...that would make MORE of an impact than anything I could do.
Oh really? What would you have me do? Sure I can recycle, minimize trips to save fuel, set my thermostat low to save energy, etc. You know most folks already do this stuff. Much of what we do is guided by saving money due to high cost of energy, etc. Considering the US government is the #1 polluter in the world and the #1 warrior in the world with a military budget that is unreal, what individual agency am I lacking here?
You are doing well, Matt. I've taken the same measures to save energy and, of course, my pocket. But another of my motivations is not to betray our future generations by spoiling their planet. The problem is that I know a lot of people that don't care and I believe there are many of them, therefore, to educate and entice them to watch their carbon print will contribute to our common goal and perhaps they would participate in civil disobedience activities to force our government, the major culprit, to change their policies.
Hello Julio. Glad you are doing well and I agree with you. Ironically God calls on Christians to be good stewards of our planet and many of them ignore that command. I always point that out for them when I talk to them. :-)
Yes, but all depends on who reads the scriptures and how. Millenarians must be opening Champaign bottles in anticipation of the end of times. But in general, in my opinion, Religion has always fought against science because every new discovery or invention usually knocks down one of its dogmas. Thankfully, for us, science has always won those battles and now, for instance, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth anymore, man was not created by God in His own image on October 23 at 9 a.m. in the year 4004 BC. and exorcism is not longer used to cure disease.
This aint about recycling or your thermostat. This is about large scale restoration of nature's use of carbon. Learn about soil health and how carbon and water cycles and ecosystems are supposed to work. Then get to work. Attend your state agriculture committee and water shed meeting and advocate to end tillage and expand cover crops. Help end crop insurance and foster regenerative agriculture at the federal level. Petition, teach and get signatures. Do the same in your local park and school board meeting. Get your hands into soil. Plant your yard into a healthy ecosystem. Compost all your vegetable garbage with a worm bin. Volunteer for ecosystem education and restoration work at your local nature center and school grounds.
I agree with you but what about the corporate farms? Between abuse of animals, abuse of the land, the commodification of all aspects of our Earth...this is a business model that has to end. HOWEVER, the farms and the good habits that you advocate for, the Dept. of Agriculture and USDA will stymie. Remember that there is regulatory capture at the Federal level so big corporations determine the polices and procedures. The small farmers cannot afford to meet the regulations hence they suffer. The problem is at the top and until that 'head of the snake' is cut, farming and ecology will continue to suffer.
Huh? The whole premise of this article is civil disobedience. We, collectively, can force the government to change if we have a nationwide strike and/or we march to DC. Remember they are afraid of us and will do everything possible to divide us and make us fight amongst ourselves. If we can come together (left and right) and confront the government, we can bring about change. This is exactly what MLK did and he was killed by the FBI for it.
You say the government is doing everything possible to divide us, yet you wish to come together and confront the government and "force" the government to change. Sorry my friend, you will force the government to do nothing. In fact, centralization of popular efforts toward civil disobedience is a much better strategy AND would be much harder for the government to deal with. The government would love for you and your comrades to march, in a collective manner, on D.C. where they can monitor, record, and ultimately ignore all your actions all too easily,-- and bring to bear any police and military necessary to keep you, and ANY number of folks in liner--should things get even the slightest bit out of control. Recall the actions of a young Army Chief of Staff officer Douglas McArthur when WWI Bonus vets tried, in early 1932, the same tact you suggest above. Military tanks were brought to bear on U.S. veterans and their families then...and (IMO) they would be no less of an option today.
I certainly acknowledge the reality of climate change and taught it for many years. However the tactics used by these people are not to be commended and if anything make people more resistant to it's reality. Exaggerating issues don't help and acting out in ways that are aggressive don't either. The 20 the century was defined as the century of the environment and you would never know it based on the curriculum in schools. Stopping traffic, disrupting people's lives is not the answer, but education is, and now many schools across the country are finally dealing with this issue.
Extinction rebellion is absolutely not exaggerating. It's very disturbing to see the nonchalance about the impending implosion of civilization and the death of billions here at Chris Hedges' Substack. Wake up!
No you wake up. Your rhetoric is a turn off and will only turn people off to the validity of climate change. Your talking to someone who taught this subject and you're talking down to me, which is how you and those like you come across and right there you lose.
No matter what you say you've taught, you are dead wrong that climate change is not an existential emergency. Please look into the subject again for the sake of the world.
I don't lie about what I taught and I have a masters in marine ecology so get it through your head I'm no idiot when it comes to climate change. I just love the way you so called activists who destroy things in the name of climate change, or verbally assault people in the name of climate change , or block traffic, rant and rave in the name of climate change, haven't gotten the point. Things need to change, no question about it, but it is useless to hit people over the head, and sound like doomsday is around the corner. People have been hearing that for decades, no wonder why that kind of rhetoric doesn't work.
Thank you for an articulate articulation of the issues. I don't think that we have even begun to understand the role of say beavers in the ecology, and their impact on retaining water on the landscape. A healthy ecology is complex, with many things we do not understand happening.
Yes, exactly. healthy ecosystems are complex. When they function 40% of fresh water is stored in the soil and ground water levels aquifers and does not end up in the ocean and atmosphere. Water in the atmosphere is also a greenhouse gas, too much is a problem. The greatest complexity of life is under ground in the 500 million to 1 billion soil bacteria and the mycorrhizal fungi, organisms that move nutrients and water into plants and then animals. Tillage and bare soil kills all this and crease massive erosion. Watch if you haven't seen the films on how reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone affected the entire park's lifeforms and waterways, a trophic cascade, watch it. Grasslands need grazers like bison or Elk or cattle, or the grass gets too thick, starts to die, and small mammals can walk through it. We do know a great deal about how to fix ecosystems including food producing agro-ecology. Carbon sequestration through natural processes is real, fast, effective and needs to be understood and widely advocated for.
I spent last summer watching beavers excavate tunnels into the side of a hill in an attempt to improve an underground spring. I was surprised, because it had never occurred to me that beavers would have an interest in ground water and aquafers. I guess I believed that they only used run off because that was all I had ever seen.
Sorry...there is so much more wrong in the world than a 1 degree rise in temperature...And ironically the 'solution' to climate change is more taxes on people to be given to whom? To me Civil disobedience is really necessary to push back against the repression, loss of jobs, endless judicial corruption, corporate takeover of government, and class war foisted on the people.
I respect the idea of a Citizens' Assembly as another way to focus on the problems besetting our world. There are already versions of Citizens' Assemblies (very narrowly defined, albeit) who stalk the halls of Congress or Parliaments - they are the lobbyists paid for by the fossil fuel industries, big mining, big pharma, big tobacco/vaping, the NRA - and so forth. Free to pump money into their pro-Representatives re-election campaigns - so they are no longer answerable to the people - but to major corporations. That's why Citizens' Assemblies - folk appointed by sortition - appeals - though one would have to mandate space within major media outlets for the deliberations to be given airing. And of course - keeping lobbyists away from those appointed - that would need protecting... Roger Hallam spoke clearly in answer to Chris' questions - I found him very impressive. Thanks, Chris. Extinction Rebellion here in Australia has been largely answered by the authorities here as in the UK - garnering it lots of publicity and, I think, generally speaking - sympathetic hearing - even by those frustrated by traffic brought to a standstill!
So very glad to learn about Mr Hallam and hear how he constructs a necessary response to the closed mindedness of the oligarchy. Please have him speak again so more of us can hear him and become inspired. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Elizabeth Heilman, for that message of hope. Have you heard of Viktor Schauberger, the Austrian nicknamed the Water Wizard, who died in 1955 a broken man five days after being forced to sell all his patents to American corporate interests just to obtain a flight back to Germany. He’s the real deal in Ecology, and had an almost mystical knowledge of the properties of water. The PKS or Pythagoras Kepler Institute in Graz in Austria is his legacy.
Expecting earthlings to sacrifice for their young is asking just a little too much. Cars should be required to get 50 miles per gallon now and family should be limited to one child per couple. That would drive the cost of Labor up and the corporate immigrant importers would not approve of that. One thing that I have learned since Trump is that our government is totally bought off, Trump included.
"Humanity is at risk of extinction, and so is everything we have ever created."
Common overclass luxury virtue signaling terrorism.
What it masks is an agenda to kill off much of the population of underclass "ants" as they currently cause negative ascthetic impacts and stress to the overclass.
“Either you are actively supporting civil resistance,
fighting for life or you are complicit with genocide.” How can you be so sure? Science is not an ivory tower of perfect truth; Science is people and people are subject to biases, pressure to conform, career incentives and financial incentives. Scientific consensus is surely subject to the same problems as any other "consensus." Science is never "settled."
And wouldn't it be wonderful if the science is wrong, and we are not doomed? That said, I think we should start taking better care of the earth, not to save ourselves from imminent death, but because its the right thing to do
However I do support your right to protest and to be annoying and crazy. Dissent should not be criminalized, it makes the intellectual landscape richer and more diversified.
There is absolute consensus that climate change is real, worsening and an existential crisis. Can't believe I'm reading comments like yours on Chris Hedges' Substack. I find it deeply troubling, and it makes me even more concerned.
"There is this belief, especially strong in the West, that "the people" will rise up or somehow fight back when a certain level of tyranny or oppression is reached. I'm not speaking of foreign countries — where "color revolutions" are launched on the flimsiest of pretexts — but of domestic dissidents, absolutely convinced that "democracy" works and that governments are ultimately kept in check by the prospect of a popular revolt.
It's a lie.
Look around you. Damn near every single government in the "civilized West" is run by odious technocrats and permanent bureaucracies, with barely any actual legitimacy and no accountability mechanisms left whatsoever. Governments treat their own constitutions as dead letters, and channel the anarcho-tyranny they previously practiced abroad towards their own subjects. The lockdowns happened, and the few who dared protest were smeared and denounced — not just by the governments and their pet media, but by the brainwashed populace at large.
Didn't ANYBODY learn anything from Martin Luther King Jr? Or read Chomsky on effective protesting? These tactics just cause people to decide you're just another fruitcake with nothing to be learned from.
Thank you. I still come away with blurriness about how to move forward. It took me some time to understand the tomato soup, superglue tactic. As an art student I would marvel at the skill of Degas and Daumier, studying and copying the works of art in the National Gallery. The irony at the core of our system of art VALUE worship over the value of life takes a mental shift to see, like seeing a cup or two profiles in a design. Once seen, it is impossible to ignore, yet the need to create remains.
Agreed, and I choose to value more real life than a master piece of fine art. I also love the arts and paint abstracts but I splatter acrylics on my canvases and not tomato soup. Thankfully the Van Gogh's flowers were protected by glass.
Let's keep it simple. First things first and the first thing that must be done is MASSIVE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO PRESENT AUTHORITY. Go to "A Letter to a Generation" at
I’m not sure this is a hill you want to die on, Chris. The climate zealots are basing their religion on models that supposedly forecast millennia long meteorological patterns with unrealistic precision. And these models have been consistently inaccurate as decades pass since the inception of this cult. You and I are not trained in this discipline, and as we’ve seen, the ability to subvert and amplify certain perspectives under the guise of “science” is vey easy with the right financial incentives. Simplistically, the polar ice pack is still intact, yet Al Gore’s net worth has increased about $300 million since he began proselytizing about global warming (despite his predicting Arctic glacier demise by 2015). I’m not saying that anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening. I am saying we haven’t a clue of timing, direction, or magnitude, given all the other non-human factors that affect our climate cycles. Yes, reduce fossil fuel consumption, reduce plastic in the oceans, be thoughtful about rain forest and other habitat preservation; but don’t destroy the already impoverished lower socioeconomic classes by boosting energy and food costs to exorbitant levels because a few true believers are throwing loud tantrums.
Although I agree climate change should not be made so dramatic that one feels your baby won't make it to first grade, however it is a reality that needs to be addressed, and I would prefer to be less dramatic when bringing the issue to the public's attention since it is more likely to alienate them. I think when 97 percent of scientists recognize the reality of climate change it's time to listen and change things. The overall temps world wide since the industrial revolution is up by 2 percent C, glaciers are melting, and water levels are rising. Sea level in the western Pacific Ocean has been increasing 2–3 more then elsewhere , and not to mention China produces carbon emissions at the rate of almost 3 times our own, and 25% of that crap drops off on our west coast. I wouldn't throw tomato juice at a Van Gogh painting and tape myself to the wall, but I did teach it as part of the curriculum in science. They have been talking about the possibility of CO2 emissions affecting temperatures world wide since the industrial revolution began.
Oh glory. I’m old. All this equivocating drives me nuts. So many ecological changes for the absolute worst since I ran around my neighborhood chasing fireflies in the humid summer night as a child. Fools are those who don’t take it most seriously.
It's been heading in that direction for a long time. When I got my degrees in biology no one even talked about climate change, and were pushing you to work in labs or become a doctor and the hell with the environment and to hell with nature. Most of the time they were killing things. Well, in NY anyway, and in JH's and HS, the same was true, but my principal let me teach environmental science because she liked me and to hell with the curriculum. Thank God.
Bravo to you and to your principal. Your determined enlightenment at odds with the prevailing winds are enriching contributions to young minds both in terms of content and modeling creative response to real challenges in spite of the stale, life stealing status quo.
As a radical environmentalist myself the “Look at Me” activism was a big turn off.
Educate. Find solutions. Build coalitions. Get it done. Tamper tantrums on social media are more annoying than me looking at myself in the mirror screaming “How dare you!”
Funny!!!! Today you need a sense of humor otherwise you could nuts.
Not surprising China has high carbon emissions - it produces circa one third of the world's products. Here in Australia we can't even produce our own shoe laces any more.
And by the way, earth is heating by 2°Celsius, not Fahrenheit 😊
Also its not percent, it actual degrees. We're only a couple of comments into this report with misinformation and disagreements abounding.
Which brings me to real question of: How does Roger Hallam think there is going to be a (28:22) "systems assembly as a permanent parallel institution selected by sortition selected randomly from the population" to run things...., Yeah, right. Does he think this is going to happen magically? The human race can't set up a sortition to run anything properly--let alone on a global scale. And he wants to pursue it "randomly". The closest thing we have set up like that is the U.N. (which has been worked on and "refined" since WWII and has become totally dysfunctional at this point-- so dysfunctional that George W. Bush said it was "irrelevant" as he illegally invaded Iraq--with no repercussions by his "regime" whatsoever.
I appreciate your efforts Roger, but you don't seem all that lucid in your thinking-- or projections-- for action. The only rational sentence understood was the one about embracing civil disobedience as a public answer to the lawlessness our current "regime" embraces. And that only came in the title of the report. What followed was a big, fat zero. that ( IMO) would only play into the hands of oligarchs, not against.
Yes, the phrase you quote sounded to me like a quasi-intellectual word salad. A "permanent institution" "selected randomly" sounds like the evolution of an ant colony. (Admittedly they do seem to function quite nicely ;-)
Don't you think that is an insult to ants?
Right-even ants will continue to evolve.
Oh, I live in America and I always do that, your right Centigrade. Thanks.
I've just looked it up and 2°C is about 35° F. Huge difference, no? I'd forgotten just how much so (Australia made the switch in the 60s so I'm a little rusty on my Fahrenheits) 😊
increase BY 2 degrees Celsius - not a translation from Fahrenheit of +2degrees C.
Agree 100%
H8SBAD: "but don’t destroy the already impoverished lower socioeconomic classes by boosting energy and food costs to exorbitant levels because a few true believers are throwing loud tantrums."
Well... I'll keep my tantrums until my A/C bill decreases. Besides, renewable energy is becoming cheaper than fossil energy and eventually, provided the corporations loose their grip on our bribed leaders, the lower socioeconomic classes could benefit also of having a cleaner environment. In my view, science is less vulnerable to bribery than our politicians and therefore I believe in science and admire and thanks the activists that are fighting for our planet.
A good debate, and very civil. Thank you. I posted on the other stream on Substack, and ended up having a thread that went down the rabbit hole with a supporter of the Extinction Rebellion that basically ended up saying that it would be better if Humans were still hunter gatherers living on the African Savana using stone tools. A position that will not be helpful in generating any positive change.
This is a dangerous frustrating message that reflects ignorance of ecology. There is a TON everyone can do and MUST do. Soil serves as a robust carbon sucking machine when all of its ecosystem parts are functioning well. Plants pull carbon dioxide out of the air and uses it to feed biological life in the earth. Soil already removes about 25 percent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions each year this way. If we create healthier soil out of our vast tracts of degraded land we can QUICKLY sequester billions of additional tons of carbon. The Earth’s soils already contain about 2,500 gigatons of carbon and that is three times more carbon than in the atmosphere and four times the amount of carbon in all living plants and animals.
But it isn't just farmers who can restore ecosystem functioning. Everyone who manages a watershed, lawn, park, or school ground can start planting native or drought-tolerant deep-rooted plants, trees, and meadows and thus help heal soil, water and carbon cycles. Both citizens and policymakers have enormous power to reduce both flooding and drought by changing how land is used and this means healing local soil and water cycles. Profound drought and flood are simply not inevitable. Water does not absorb into concrete, asphalt, thin rooted lawns, bare plowed soil, or depleted agricultural soil. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 38% of global land is agricultural, and humans have altered three-quarters of the earth's land surface within the last millennium. For centuries humans have wrecked healthy ecosystems to make urban and agricultural zones devoid of healthy soil and well-functioning water and carbon cycles. As a result, most land on earth does not currently absorb water the way it should.
Getting control of increasingly scary weather dominated by arctic blasts, high heat, drought, and by intense snow, rain and flooding requires reducing our fossil fuel consumption and expanding renewable energy, and but it also requires that we restore natural water cycles, soil health, plant cover, and carbon cycles. This can be done locally and everyone can help. Recreating healthy ecosystems on public, private and agricultural land also increases food supply, food nutrient density, air quality, water supply and quality, and biodiversity.
Poorly managed land has profound public consequences and is one of climate change's most visible yet reversible drivers. Our best food and water security option as we head into a deepening climate crisis is to raise hope and awareness as we quickly transition to ecosystem regenerative landscaping, farming and grazing practices. This requires changed policies for everything from lawns to farms to watershed management. Flooding, drought, food shortages and the dangers of too much carbon in the atmosphere can all be addressed by repairing the complex natural life systems we have so profoundly altered. This is great news but ecology is the least understood of the sciences. Our best hope isn’t protest new inventions. Hope lies in restoring the incredible complexity of natural ecosystems.
.
Dr. Elizabeth Heilman
You realize that much of what you want to happen can be accomplished if we use civil disobedience and force US government to stop its unlimited wars all over the world including Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, etc. Closing the 800+ military bases and pare down the ships and planes...that would make MORE of an impact than anything I could do.
Sure all that’s necessary. But I sense that the there is so much “they” can do is another displacement for individual agency.
Oh really? What would you have me do? Sure I can recycle, minimize trips to save fuel, set my thermostat low to save energy, etc. You know most folks already do this stuff. Much of what we do is guided by saving money due to high cost of energy, etc. Considering the US government is the #1 polluter in the world and the #1 warrior in the world with a military budget that is unreal, what individual agency am I lacking here?
You are doing well, Matt. I've taken the same measures to save energy and, of course, my pocket. But another of my motivations is not to betray our future generations by spoiling their planet. The problem is that I know a lot of people that don't care and I believe there are many of them, therefore, to educate and entice them to watch their carbon print will contribute to our common goal and perhaps they would participate in civil disobedience activities to force our government, the major culprit, to change their policies.
Hello Julio. Glad you are doing well and I agree with you. Ironically God calls on Christians to be good stewards of our planet and many of them ignore that command. I always point that out for them when I talk to them. :-)
Yes, but all depends on who reads the scriptures and how. Millenarians must be opening Champaign bottles in anticipation of the end of times. But in general, in my opinion, Religion has always fought against science because every new discovery or invention usually knocks down one of its dogmas. Thankfully, for us, science has always won those battles and now, for instance, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth anymore, man was not created by God in His own image on October 23 at 9 a.m. in the year 4004 BC. and exorcism is not longer used to cure disease.
Halleluiah!
This aint about recycling or your thermostat. This is about large scale restoration of nature's use of carbon. Learn about soil health and how carbon and water cycles and ecosystems are supposed to work. Then get to work. Attend your state agriculture committee and water shed meeting and advocate to end tillage and expand cover crops. Help end crop insurance and foster regenerative agriculture at the federal level. Petition, teach and get signatures. Do the same in your local park and school board meeting. Get your hands into soil. Plant your yard into a healthy ecosystem. Compost all your vegetable garbage with a worm bin. Volunteer for ecosystem education and restoration work at your local nature center and school grounds.
I agree with you but what about the corporate farms? Between abuse of animals, abuse of the land, the commodification of all aspects of our Earth...this is a business model that has to end. HOWEVER, the farms and the good habits that you advocate for, the Dept. of Agriculture and USDA will stymie. Remember that there is regulatory capture at the Federal level so big corporations determine the polices and procedures. The small farmers cannot afford to meet the regulations hence they suffer. The problem is at the top and until that 'head of the snake' is cut, farming and ecology will continue to suffer.
Here is an example:
https://www.farmtoconsumer.org/blog/2017/07/21/state-meat-processing-regulations-taking-feds-give/
How do you intend to "force" the US government to do anything? Do you plan on becoming dictator?
Huh? The whole premise of this article is civil disobedience. We, collectively, can force the government to change if we have a nationwide strike and/or we march to DC. Remember they are afraid of us and will do everything possible to divide us and make us fight amongst ourselves. If we can come together (left and right) and confront the government, we can bring about change. This is exactly what MLK did and he was killed by the FBI for it.
You say the government is doing everything possible to divide us, yet you wish to come together and confront the government and "force" the government to change. Sorry my friend, you will force the government to do nothing. In fact, centralization of popular efforts toward civil disobedience is a much better strategy AND would be much harder for the government to deal with. The government would love for you and your comrades to march, in a collective manner, on D.C. where they can monitor, record, and ultimately ignore all your actions all too easily,-- and bring to bear any police and military necessary to keep you, and ANY number of folks in liner--should things get even the slightest bit out of control. Recall the actions of a young Army Chief of Staff officer Douglas McArthur when WWI Bonus vets tried, in early 1932, the same tact you suggest above. Military tanks were brought to bear on U.S. veterans and their families then...and (IMO) they would be no less of an option today.
Fair enough. The local protests would be the better option. The government cannot be everywhere at once.
BTW, In my opinion, MLK had the right strategy, but practiced the wrong tactics. In this respect, Rosa Parks was more effective than him.
And who was shot and killed by the FBI? That tells me MLK was more effective otherwise they would have left him alone like Rosa Parks.
I certainly acknowledge the reality of climate change and taught it for many years. However the tactics used by these people are not to be commended and if anything make people more resistant to it's reality. Exaggerating issues don't help and acting out in ways that are aggressive don't either. The 20 the century was defined as the century of the environment and you would never know it based on the curriculum in schools. Stopping traffic, disrupting people's lives is not the answer, but education is, and now many schools across the country are finally dealing with this issue.
Extinction rebellion is absolutely not exaggerating. It's very disturbing to see the nonchalance about the impending implosion of civilization and the death of billions here at Chris Hedges' Substack. Wake up!
No you wake up. Your rhetoric is a turn off and will only turn people off to the validity of climate change. Your talking to someone who taught this subject and you're talking down to me, which is how you and those like you come across and right there you lose.
No matter what you say you've taught, you are dead wrong that climate change is not an existential emergency. Please look into the subject again for the sake of the world.
I don't lie about what I taught and I have a masters in marine ecology so get it through your head I'm no idiot when it comes to climate change. I just love the way you so called activists who destroy things in the name of climate change, or verbally assault people in the name of climate change , or block traffic, rant and rave in the name of climate change, haven't gotten the point. Things need to change, no question about it, but it is useless to hit people over the head, and sound like doomsday is around the corner. People have been hearing that for decades, no wonder why that kind of rhetoric doesn't work.
Thank you for an articulate articulation of the issues. I don't think that we have even begun to understand the role of say beavers in the ecology, and their impact on retaining water on the landscape. A healthy ecology is complex, with many things we do not understand happening.
Yes, exactly. healthy ecosystems are complex. When they function 40% of fresh water is stored in the soil and ground water levels aquifers and does not end up in the ocean and atmosphere. Water in the atmosphere is also a greenhouse gas, too much is a problem. The greatest complexity of life is under ground in the 500 million to 1 billion soil bacteria and the mycorrhizal fungi, organisms that move nutrients and water into plants and then animals. Tillage and bare soil kills all this and crease massive erosion. Watch if you haven't seen the films on how reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone affected the entire park's lifeforms and waterways, a trophic cascade, watch it. Grasslands need grazers like bison or Elk or cattle, or the grass gets too thick, starts to die, and small mammals can walk through it. We do know a great deal about how to fix ecosystems including food producing agro-ecology. Carbon sequestration through natural processes is real, fast, effective and needs to be understood and widely advocated for.
I spent last summer watching beavers excavate tunnels into the side of a hill in an attempt to improve an underground spring. I was surprised, because it had never occurred to me that beavers would have an interest in ground water and aquafers. I guess I believed that they only used run off because that was all I had ever seen.
Musing on our earth in her day 04/22/2023
HOMELAND
This is our homeland:
our neglected earth
that in her lengthy path
has watched us engaged
in endless wars
and we are close to our end
caused by industrial pollution
or nuclear warfare.
This is our homeland:
our mother earth
whose roundness of breast
entrusted upon us
all of her wealth
and that only demands
that when we look over
the spanse of her bowed land
learn that there are no borders
in a generous heart.
Sorry...there is so much more wrong in the world than a 1 degree rise in temperature...And ironically the 'solution' to climate change is more taxes on people to be given to whom? To me Civil disobedience is really necessary to push back against the repression, loss of jobs, endless judicial corruption, corporate takeover of government, and class war foisted on the people.
Nice name.
I respect the idea of a Citizens' Assembly as another way to focus on the problems besetting our world. There are already versions of Citizens' Assemblies (very narrowly defined, albeit) who stalk the halls of Congress or Parliaments - they are the lobbyists paid for by the fossil fuel industries, big mining, big pharma, big tobacco/vaping, the NRA - and so forth. Free to pump money into their pro-Representatives re-election campaigns - so they are no longer answerable to the people - but to major corporations. That's why Citizens' Assemblies - folk appointed by sortition - appeals - though one would have to mandate space within major media outlets for the deliberations to be given airing. And of course - keeping lobbyists away from those appointed - that would need protecting... Roger Hallam spoke clearly in answer to Chris' questions - I found him very impressive. Thanks, Chris. Extinction Rebellion here in Australia has been largely answered by the authorities here as in the UK - garnering it lots of publicity and, I think, generally speaking - sympathetic hearing - even by those frustrated by traffic brought to a standstill!
So very glad to learn about Mr Hallam and hear how he constructs a necessary response to the closed mindedness of the oligarchy. Please have him speak again so more of us can hear him and become inspired. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Elizabeth Heilman, for that message of hope. Have you heard of Viktor Schauberger, the Austrian nicknamed the Water Wizard, who died in 1955 a broken man five days after being forced to sell all his patents to American corporate interests just to obtain a flight back to Germany. He’s the real deal in Ecology, and had an almost mystical knowledge of the properties of water. The PKS or Pythagoras Kepler Institute in Graz in Austria is his legacy.
Expecting earthlings to sacrifice for their young is asking just a little too much. Cars should be required to get 50 miles per gallon now and family should be limited to one child per couple. That would drive the cost of Labor up and the corporate immigrant importers would not approve of that. One thing that I have learned since Trump is that our government is totally bought off, Trump included.
"Humanity is at risk of extinction, and so is everything we have ever created."
Common overclass luxury virtue signaling terrorism.
What it masks is an agenda to kill off much of the population of underclass "ants" as they currently cause negative ascthetic impacts and stress to the overclass.
“Either you are actively supporting civil resistance,
fighting for life or you are complicit with genocide.” How can you be so sure? Science is not an ivory tower of perfect truth; Science is people and people are subject to biases, pressure to conform, career incentives and financial incentives. Scientific consensus is surely subject to the same problems as any other "consensus." Science is never "settled."
And wouldn't it be wonderful if the science is wrong, and we are not doomed? That said, I think we should start taking better care of the earth, not to save ourselves from imminent death, but because its the right thing to do
However I do support your right to protest and to be annoying and crazy. Dissent should not be criminalized, it makes the intellectual landscape richer and more diversified.
There is absolute consensus that climate change is real, worsening and an existential crisis. Can't believe I'm reading comments like yours on Chris Hedges' Substack. I find it deeply troubling, and it makes me even more concerned.
"There is this belief, especially strong in the West, that "the people" will rise up or somehow fight back when a certain level of tyranny or oppression is reached. I'm not speaking of foreign countries — where "color revolutions" are launched on the flimsiest of pretexts — but of domestic dissidents, absolutely convinced that "democracy" works and that governments are ultimately kept in check by the prospect of a popular revolt.
It's a lie.
Look around you. Damn near every single government in the "civilized West" is run by odious technocrats and permanent bureaucracies, with barely any actual legitimacy and no accountability mechanisms left whatsoever. Governments treat their own constitutions as dead letters, and channel the anarcho-tyranny they previously practiced abroad towards their own subjects. The lockdowns happened, and the few who dared protest were smeared and denounced — not just by the governments and their pet media, but by the brainwashed populace at large.
https://t.me/GeopoliticsAndEmpire/35213
Didn't ANYBODY learn anything from Martin Luther King Jr? Or read Chomsky on effective protesting? These tactics just cause people to decide you're just another fruitcake with nothing to be learned from.
Meanwhile, the Biden regime has indicted four American citizens for "weaponized speech".
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-doj-indicts-four-americans?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=115804436&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
Germany has brought criminal charges against its citizens for blog posts that the regime there doesn't like.
There's plenty of precedent for that. Are you surprised?
Thank you. I still come away with blurriness about how to move forward. It took me some time to understand the tomato soup, superglue tactic. As an art student I would marvel at the skill of Degas and Daumier, studying and copying the works of art in the National Gallery. The irony at the core of our system of art VALUE worship over the value of life takes a mental shift to see, like seeing a cup or two profiles in a design. Once seen, it is impossible to ignore, yet the need to create remains.
Agreed, and I choose to value more real life than a master piece of fine art. I also love the arts and paint abstracts but I splatter acrylics on my canvases and not tomato soup. Thankfully the Van Gogh's flowers were protected by glass.
Let's keep it simple. First things first and the first thing that must be done is MASSIVE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO PRESENT AUTHORITY. Go to "A Letter to a Generation" at
https://www.wisebird.com
I wish they spent more time fleshing out exactly what the "social formation" looks like and how it operates and examples of mobilizations.
Also like to know where models of this serious revolutionary formation are happening in the US - sign me up!