Koala Bear Dream

"Tree With No Words" on Oregon Coast

I dreamed Koalas with human voices asked for a seat at the UN.

The UN said no.

Process Work Institute's CLIMATE FORUM: Is Portland [Oregon] Making a Difference? Jan. 17, 2020

I was glad to attend Process Work Institute's CLIMATE FORUM: Is Portland [Oregon] Making a Difference?, and I hope other cities will follow this format of diverse perspectives, patient listening, and community building. I heard Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, healing song, words of students and high school teachers, authors, local residents, political candidates, business perspectives, and those voicing concerns for refugee rights, climate justice, and future humans and nonhumans. The group of about 80 included those from Siberia, Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Korea. The event began with three minute presentations from Portland Audubon, Pacific Climate Warriors, Center for Sustainable Economy, Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon Yang Gang, and Portland Clean Energy Fund. This was followed by two minutes of sharing from others. 

When it was my turn, I spoke about nonviolent civil disobedient success and three demands of Extinction Rebellion which were greeted with loud applause. 

Dissenting Judge Staton in Lost Case 18-36082 Kelsey Rose Juliana v. USA (Children's Trust Climate Lawsuit Permission to Proceed to Trial Against USA Heard by Case Panel: MURGUIA, HURWITZ, STATON): "In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response – yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses. Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the nation.”

For background, click here.

The above quote is from Lee Van der Voo's Jan. 17, 2020 article in The Guardian.

Interesting this comes the same day CNN reporter Drew Kann wrote "Almost 6 in 10 Americans are either 'alarmed' or 'concerned' by global warming, marking what researchers say is a major shift in public perception of the issue."

It is also interesting Carolyn Kormann in The New Yorker wrote "The judges will take a few weeks to issue their decision," but it took over seven months.  What forces behind the scenes, if any, influenced this verdict?  What forces in land, sea, and sky will result from this verdict? What will future generations say about it?

John Kruzel, writing at The Hill, quoted Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, “The Juliana case is far from over. The Youth Plaintiffs will be asking the full court of the Ninth Circuit to review this decision and its catastrophic implications for our constitutional democracy."

In my opinion judges Murguia and Hurwitz, calling for "the electorate at large" to "change the composition of the political branches through the ballot box" (according to cnn.com reporter Dan Berman) completely ignored the science regarding rate of change, regardless of what they said to media, each other, or themselves in dead of night.

Taylor Perse, writing for eugeneweekly.com, added a quote from Staton's dissent "When the seas envelop our coastal cities, fires and droughts haunt our interiors, and storms ravage everything between, those remaining will ask: Why did so many do so little?"

Nicholas Kusnetz and David Hasemyer, writing for insideclimatenews.org, included a quote by Hurwitz complementing Staton's dissent, "Absent some action, the destabilizing climate will bury cities, spawn life-threatening natural disasters, and jeopardize critical food and water supplies."

Judge Gives New Meaning to "Swiss Bank Account"

Feb. 6, 2020 Update from Leonard Higgins, Valve Turner: "Regretfully, the Skagit County Superior Court granted the Prosecution’s last-minute motion to delay fellow Valve Turner Ken Ward’s [climate necessity defense] trial (that was scheduled to begin on Monday) to sometime later this Spring. This delay comes at a huge financial cost to us, as we have already sunk thousands of dollars into trial preparations, and for the lodging and travel expenses of our expert witnesses."

I missed local English Bulldog Agility Trials because Suz said we needed to see the tax man. I'm sure I'll get over it in a few decades.

On a more serious note, it was great to read Jordan Davidson's Jan. 14, 2020 article at ecowatch.com, "Swiss Judge Clears Climate Crisis Protestors, Says Actions Were ‘Necessary and Proportional’." Davidson wrote "A Swiss court on Monday cleared a dozen activists of wrongdoing and a hefty fine [of '$22,200']  for a stunt they pulled in a Credit Suisse bank in November 2018. [par break] The protestors had occupied the bank and played tennis to demand an end to fossil fuel funding and to ask tennis star, Roger Federer, to end his endorsement deal with the bank, as the AP reported. [ . . . . ] The judge, Philippe Colelough, said the protestors who wore completely white tennis outfits and wigs were justified because of the imminent threat posed by the climate crisis, according to Deutsche Welle."

According to Davidson, Federer responded in a Reuters report, "I appreciate reminders of my responsibility as a private individual, as an athlete and as an entrepreneur, and I'm committed to using this privileged position to dialogue on important issues with my sponsors [ . . . . ] I take the impacts and threat of climate change very seriously, particularly as my family and I arrive in Australia amidst devastation from the bushfires."

This is timely because Valve Turner Ken Ward, tried a third time, will face a "climate necessity defense trial" February 10-14, 2020 in Skagit Superior Court, Mt Vernon, WA. Last year I showed a film about him, The Reluctant Radical, at my college, and posted a link to the trailer. My English 205 students ranked it as one of their favorite films in the course.  Climate Scientist Dr. James Hansen praised the film, "They told him he was crazy, but crazy is sitting idly by as disaster for young people is knowingly locked in." In a previous post I wrote "Professor James Hansen said in his COP25 Press Conference '450 [ppm of  CO₂] is a disaster if you leave it in the air for long because we would eventually lose all coastal cities. The safe level is something less than 350 ppm but we are already at 410 ppm.' [I added] that should be on the front page of each newspaper on Earth."

It was interesting last time Valve Turners received permission to use the "necessity defense," "a last-minute change of mind by [ . . . a Minnesota] trial judge" "acquitted [ . . . ] Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein of all charges," according to Mark Hand Oct. 10, 2018, at thinkprogress.org.

It was reported Valve Turner Michael Foster, a family therapist, is on day 3 of a hunger strike at the start of a legislative session In Olympia, WA, to "fast each day until Gov Inslee calls for a Citizens' Assembly and Emergency Special Session for Climate. It is 2020. Washington emissions are higher than when Inslee took office. Our families won't survive another few years of tinkering around the edges. Cut pollution now or make Life pay forever." I recall Washington Governor Jay Inslee ran for President on a climate platform noted in my post that included "Radiohead - Idioteque" used with permission of Extinction Rebellion.

Mary Annaïse Heglar's "My wish for 2020 [. . .]"

My wish for 2020 is for people to stop asking climate activists what gives us hope and start asking “how can I help?”

— Mary Annaïse Heglar (@MaryHeglar) December 26, 2019

I found this tweet at Olympic Climate Action's blog Hot Off the Wire 1/3/2020, and received permission from Natural Resources Defense Council Publications Director Mary Annaïse Heglar to repost. l previously wrote about Extinction Rebellion Co-founder Roger Hallam's "Emotional and Intellectual Honesty," and saw these strengths in Annaïse Heglar's Twitter page, her climate  manifesto "The Fight for Climate Justice Requires a New Narrative," and sensitivity to national and global communities mostly-silenced in corporate media.

As a reminder, I wrote a climate manifesto in 2014, and posted former Director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Hans Joachim Schellnhuber's idea of creating "a climate passport [or Nansen passport for climate refugees] 'to enter at least about 50 countries']." as he claimed "Rising Seas Could Affect 1.4 Billion People by 2060." Annaïse Heglar wrote in her October 22, 2019 Guernica article "After the Storm -- How Hurricane Katrina and the murder of Emmett Till shaped one woman’s commitment to climate justice," "we never thought we’d see New Orleanians referred to as refugees in their own country. It was as heartbreaking as it was unbelievable."

Annaïse Heglar's comment about "refugees" reminds me of Global Oneness Project's short video "In Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." noting the reality of all humans being "interdependent [, . . . . ] interrelated" and how "we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools." King's quote has taken on greater importance with the climate crisis. 

Annaïse Heglar's comment also fits John D. Banusiewicz's writing for DoD News at The U. S. Department of Defense, citing former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's position on global warming: "food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe." In one of my most-visited posts, "Cornel West's Great Essay 'Brother Martin Was a Blues Man.'" West noted  "But when [ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.] was speaking the truth, he was radically unsettling folk. [ . . . .]  The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, exemplary liberal [ . . . ] pushed Martin aside. [ . . . .]"  Annaïse Heglar's willingness to "speak the rude truth" as King, Jr did, and as Emerson wrote, is in good company in this regard.

In related matters, Elizabeth Kolbert, author of 2015 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, has a great essay in the January 13, 2020 issue of The New Yorker,  "What Will Another Decade of Climate Crisis Bring?"; the January 3, 2020 issue of The Guardian reported "Jakarta floods: cloud seeding planes try to break up heavy rain"; and Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW! reported "Australia is bracing for what is expected to be the worst weekend yet in an already devastating climate-fueled wildfire season that has ravaged the southeastern part of the country, killed at least 18 people and nearly half a billion animals, and destroyed 14.5 million acres of land. As thousands of evacuees fled to the beaches, conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison is facing growing outrage for his inaction on climate and close ties with the coal industry." Regarding the Jakarta, Indonesia "cloud seeding." I wrote about geoengineering on this blog quoting Corey Gabriel, Executive Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Masters of Advanced Studies in Climate Science and Policy: "In the event that geoengineering did cause disparate regional impacts, a regulatory scheme would need to develop that would contain enforceable compensation mechanisms to compensate those who suffer any damages." 

DOCUMENTARY: Climate skeptic examines what scientists know and how they know it (by Verify Road Trip in Dallas, Texas)

Thanks to David Schechter / Verify Road Trip for permission. 

In addition to climate work in Texas, this video focuses on climate impacts in Alaska along with effects on glaciers, salmon, and permafrost experienced by a climate skeptic willing to meet outdoors with scientists. The skeptic, 38-year-old Justin Fain, is a "politically conservative"  honest and curious Texas roofer with a great sense of humor so the video is fun to watch.  

Included are climate skeptic Dr. John R. Christy, Alabama State Climatologist, and climate scientist, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a former Exxon-funded climate scientist whom, in addition to being a co-author on the 2018 Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment, was noted by Neela Banerjee in the Los Angeles Times as "driven as much by the tenets of her faith [as an evangelical Christian] as the urgency of the science" and is committed to "protecting God’s creation and loving one’s neighbors" clearly suffering climate impacts today in Australia, island nations, and developing nations. While I agree with Dr. Christy "climate has been hotter [and colder] in the past," "ice [has] melted there before" and "sea level [has] risen before," my reading shows the anthropogenic (human-caused) argument is still convincing. Reasons include increased rate of carbon release along with increased rate of global heating, unprecedented rate of global heating in the past 2,000 years according to Chelsea Harvey in the July 25, 2019 E&E News and Scientific American, and widely reported current rate of melting glaciers.. 

For example, in the video, Dr. Jay Banner says "The rate of change happening today is 40,000 times faster [. . . than] our past records of CO₂," and journalist David Schechter, informed by scientist Dr. Brian Brettschneider, says "Whereas glaciers might have receded over hundreds or thousands of years, now it's decades." See former climate skeptic James Balog's trailer for Chasing Ice (2,184,698 views as of today).  

I imagine Dr. Christy noting, regarding CO₂, "correlation is not causation" and I am writing about "thousands of years," while he is speaking about geologic time when, for example, according to ScienceDaily, "alligators thrived in High Arctic 50 million years ago." However, as Dr. Andy Dessler in the above video said, and many other scientists argued, skeptics' main competing climate "suspects" of "Earth's orbit," "sun getting hotter," and "El Niño," are easily discredited while, according to Dessler, "CO₂ is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

Native Alaskan Karlin Itchoak, of the Nome Eskimo Community, says "I think we're 10 years behind at least, maybe more [ . . . .] What I'm worried about is by time folks in Texas don't have to question whether or not climate change is happening, we won't be able to reverse it and we'll all just be in survival mode and figure out how we can adapt." Some of my fishing buddies, colleagues, and relatives are serious climate skeptics, but love salmon and fishing, so it would be good for them, and other skeptics, to see this video.