Sangita Iyer2013-05-25T19:39:59-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=sangita-iyerCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Sangita IyerGood old fashioned elbow grease.Misinterpretation of The Holy Book Is Destroying Our Natural Worldtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33000082013-05-18T19:46:00-04:002013-05-20T20:56:15-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/"And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." This Biblical quote from Genesis 1:26 has sparked intense debates in the past, as it seems to insinuate that humans should dominate nature. In a published article, The Historical Roots of Ecological Crisis, Lynn White Jr., a prominent 20th century historian posits Judeo Christian theology has been fundamentally exploitative of the natural world, and the impact of this attitude lingers in an industrial, "post Christian" era. He says,
"Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia's religions, not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends."
Although White may have a valid point, his extreme views that blame Christianity for our current environmental crisis have been criticized by many theologians who argue, contrary to such claims the Biblical Scriptures not only promote earth stewardship but also condemn lavish lifestyles that stem from greed and materialism.
Jer. 2:7. I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and you made my inheritance detestable. Luke 12:15,23,34. And He said to them, "Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does life consist of his possessions. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Christians make up nearly 32 per cent of the global population with more than two billion of them on earth as of 2010, according to the Pew Forum on Pubic Life. However, it's mostly right-wing conservative Christians who tend to ignore scriptures that promote stewardship, and embrace quotes that seem to permit human dominance over nature. So, instead of blaming Christianity for the ecological crisis, it may be more prudent to scrutinize the way in which the Biblical quotes are being interpreted and misused, presuming those who do so to be innocent.
As it turns out, humans automatically gravitate towards their inherent biases. Apparently a unit of cultural information passed on from generation to generation is stored in our brain, and manifests as cultural expressions in our society. Similar to the genetic expressions that we inherit through genes, the cultural information is stored as "Memes" - according to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. These memes, or "selfish genes" as Dawson calls them, manifest as mimetic expressions in schools, religious institutions, family, workplaces, and other social and cultural settings.
Furthermore these cultural norms, beliefs and values, become imprinted in human brain, as William Rees suggests in his article "What's blocking sustainability? Human nature, cognition and the denial." According to Rees, repeated social, cultural and sensory inputs from the outside world become ingrained in the synaptic brain circuitry, which influences the individual's perception of subsequent experiences. People then tend to seek out things that reinforce their pre-set circuitries (or preconceived ideas), and when the information doesn't resonate with the internal structures, they deny, discredit, reinterpret or entirely forget them.
Perhaps this could explain how cultural and religious biases about our natural world may have become embedded in and interpreted by the brain, and eventually expressed as aggressive attitudes and detrimental behaviors that incite plundering of the earth.
Another inherent trait, tactical deception, passed down from the primates is also stored in human brain. In an article entitled The Social Brain Hypothesis, Robin Dunbar suggests, cognitively sophisticated mechanisms related to "mind reading" may be linked to social skills, whereas tactical deception is believed to enhance the ability to hold false beliefs. This attribute may be playing a subtle role in the way religious information about caring for our planet is being used.
Tactical deception can be traced back to World War II. In his book "Steps to an Ecology of Mind," Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, social scientist, and linguist, links human deception and the nature of mind to two key events (in his lifetime) -- the Treaty of Versailles and Cybernetics. Announced by the President Woodrow Wilson the treaty offered Germany "soft armistice terms" highlighting 14 points, for ceasing WWI. However, after the war ended, some of the allies refused to honour most of the key points, which enraged the Germans and led to an all-out WWII.
Such deceptive tactics caused by "errors in the thinking and attitudes of Occidental culture" are responsible for environmental degradation, decries Bateson.
"This massive aggregation of threats to man and his ecological systems arises out of errors in our habits of thought at deep and partly unconscious levels. As therapists, clearly we have a duty. First, to achieve clarity in ourselves; and then to look for every sign of clarity in others and to implement them and reinforce them in whatever is sane in them."
The good news is, we can achieve this "clarity" by connecting with our highly evolved neo-cortex, where empathy, compassion, and caring reside, so we can become more mindful of our attitudes towards the earth and make conscious choices. This in turn will hopefully manifest as positive mimetic expressions and change our cultural narratives for the greater good of our planet.
Religion can certainly play a key role in creating a groundswell of collective consciousness and addressing environmental challenges in areas that science may have neglected. Perhaps this unassuming quote from George Bernard Shaw's (1911) play Getting Married holds a secret to effective use of religion for global transformation.
"Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours."
]]>China's History of Exotic Meat and Deadly Diseasestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31758022013-04-29T12:17:45-04:002013-04-29T12:19:17-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak spread from China in 2003, global leaders have failed to tackle the root cause of the deadly disease that seems to have originated from consuming exotic meat. Although it never reached pandemic proportions, globally it infected 8,000 people, and killed almost 800 people including 44 in Canada. In September 2012 a new SARS virus was first reported when a Qatari man and woman from Saudi Arabia were found to be suffering from a strain of Coronavirus, which has claimed 23 lives as of April 28 2013, as the Chinese Premier urges vigilance against the new viral strain.
Tracing back the source of SARS reveals, the Coronavirus made the leap from a nocturnal animal -- Civet Cat -- to humans in the Guangdong (or Canton) province of China in late 2002. A closer look into the evolution of SARS suggests the Chinese Horseshoe Bat, the primary carrier, transmitted the virus to Civet Cats, and these infected cats were sold in the Chinese markets for human consumption.
It's not only wild Civet Cats, but also domestic dogs and cats that are consumed in South China's Canton or Guangdong province, according to Dr. Peter Li, an associate professor of political science at the University of Houston--Downtown. In an email interview he said every year tens of millions of dogs and cats, most of them stolen household pets, are shipped to Guangdong on a daily basis, and of the estimated 130 million dogs in China, at least one third of them could be slaughtered for human consumption.
"The backyards of many of them are butcher sites with blood streams flowing aimlessly into and contaminating the nearby rivers, ponds, and even wells. Since the slaughtering is often conducted in the open space, young children are exposed to dogs and cats whining at the sight of the butcher knife."
Guangdong (or Canton), the fastest growing province renowned for Cantonese Cuisine in China, boasts "exquisite presentation, palatable taste, outrageous and often distorted 'creativity.'" And according to Dr. Li,
"It is this last trait that is troubling people in other parts of China and the outside world. In being creative, some local chefs go out of their way to prepare the most exotic and shocking banquet with "delicacies from the mountains and the sea. The 'creativity' of the Cantonese cuisine is not only ruining China's wildlife, but the impact is also rippling across our planet."
Indeed, China does have a tradition of compassion for nonhumans. Daoism calls for human respect of all life forms, Buddhism detests killing and even Confucianism admonishes against excessive cruelty. So the daunting question is: what went so awry that in the name of economic development, both farm and wild animals are now being treated ruthlessly, even as they're being driven to the brink of extinction? What is the root cause of the animal welfare crisis, especially in mainland China?
Well, it dates back to the pre-reform era between 1949 and 1978, according to Dr. Li and Gareth Davis, in a published article in a peer-reviewed print journal "Animals and Society." Chinese over the age of 50 were subjected to harsh days when each urban resident received just over a pound of meat per month. Furthermore, nearly 30 million people starved to death between 1959 and 1961 resulting from the government's mismanagement of the national economy. Dr. Li says since that era Chinese authorities have been tormented by so much guilt that they've become paralyzed by inaction, and failed to reduce meat consumption.
"What the authorities are obsessed with is political/regime stability. It fears that meat supply disruption could lead to unrest. It believes that people will be quiet if they have meat in their rice bowl. The Chinese government therefore created a system of "strategic pork reserve" to ensure a stable meat supply in the country, like the "strategic oil reserve" in the US to prepare for a temporary shortage of oil supply."
A key aspect of the pre-reform era was loyalty to the party, which was far more important than love for their own parents, as people had to stand by their party against "class enemies". Any sympathy towards the members of the "class enemies" was considered a sign of ideological weakness, and made that person untrustworthy.
"People who went through the pre-reform era have lost sensitivity to the physical and emotional suffering of the disadvantaged group members, i.e., class enemies in the past and nonhuman animals today, besides other disadvantaged humans. I would say loss of sensitivity to cruelty can explain the widespread unethical and cruel treatment of animals in China," asserts Dr. Li.
Meantime, when the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the first generation of Communist leaders, veteran revolutionaries led by Mao Zedong, went through a bitter war with Japan, and their conception of a prosperous China was purely based on materialism and wealth. Human rights, environmental protection, and compassion for animals were not even on the radar screen of policy-making. Mao launched the most brutal "mass killing sparrows" campaign in 1958. He believed that sparrows consumed grain that belonged to people so they deserved death. The entire nation was mobilized into a frenzied sparrow killing madness, as billions of sparrows died under gunshots, fling shots, bamboo poles, or out of sheer exhaustion.
And finally when the reform era dawned between 1978 and 2008, technological advancement took center stage, with technocratic leaders trained in science and technology at national and provincial levels taking over the Chinese government. They were immersed in data, statistics, and growth rate, but hardly concerned about the side-effects of industrialization. Along the way, food became an obsession for the entire nation, and as it stands right now, unprecedented meat consumption of wild and farm animals continues to dominate China.
"SARS should have been a wake-up call for more people. Although it did change the attitude of many in China, it has failed to wake up the majority whose levels of education and awareness was relatively lower. Wildlife eating has continued unabated across the country and in South China in particular. The Chinese authorities have not made efforts to ban wildlife eating out of concern for the businesses dealing in wildlife trade, wildlife farming, and catering businesses."
Clearly, global leaders from all walks of life need to pay close attention to the animal welfare crisis in China that is spiraling out of control, and take steps towards creating stringent international policies to prevent the emergence of fatal diseases like SARS, and protect our natural resources and wildlife before they become obliterated.
]]>Traditional Chinese Medicine: Taking A BIG Toll On Wildlifetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30818132013-04-16T08:18:32-04:002013-04-16T08:19:05-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/"The caged bears with an open wound cut in their stomach for the daily torture of bile extraction woke me up to the shocking brutality to more than 10,000 black bears in China. I could not believe some people in China could be so shamelessly insensitive to the suffering of an animal species."
Candid words from Dr. Peter Li, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston --Downtown, as he describes his own native country in an email interview with me. He has witnessed the plight of the Asiatic Bears that were subjected to the most ruthless bear farming practices, at a rehab center in China. These animals are farmed for their bile juice -- a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) -- alleged to fight fever, cleanse the liver, and improve vision.
To be sure, there is no scientific evidence to substantiate these claims. According to Dr. Li, TCM is based on superstitions and myths fueled by the pharmaceutical industry that has been marketing aggressively by exaggerating the medicinal effects in order to build a positive image.
"There is no scientific basis of the claim that tiger penis (or testicles), seal penis, deer penis, or elephant penis have aphrodisiac capacity. Yet, the effectiveness of Viagra has been demonstrated in clinical trials and in use. The myth of tiger penis being a powerful manhood enhancer has been sustained by the TCM believers. It is only understandable that some desperate impotent males would choose to believe in anything that potentially work."
Perhaps the record profits being racked up by the industry could explain why TCM is so popular. According to China Science News Mr. Wang Guoqiang, Director of China's State Traditional Chinese Medicine Administration said, in 2012 China's TCM was a whopping $60billion (a 410 billion yuan) industry. To quell their insatiable quest for material wealth and gain status-quo the farmers ignore the insurmountable physical and emotional torture these bears have to endure.
In his research paper "Rehabilitating Rescued Chinese Farm Bears," Dr. Li exposes the most atrocious bear farming practices. The bears are subjected to a crude surgical procedure, often by untrained people who insert a catheter or create an artificial fistula in the abdomen, as bile juice is "an alleged cure-all ingredient in TCM." Farm bears tolerate the pain as the fluid is milked out of an open wound up to six times a day.
Even more appalling are the wounds that are intentionally inflicted by the owner to render the bears defenseless. For instance to make bile extraction easier, the farmers resort to cruel practices such as "chopping off the top portion of the bears' front paw fingers or sawing down to the gum level of the bears' front canine."
And just in case the bears have not been traumatized enough, the poor animals are deprived of even the basic necessities of life - adequate food, water, and space. Overall they're exposed to the worst possible environment after robbing them of their rich wilderness. In this graphic undercover BBC video, a bear farmer defends the practice of bile extraction, claiming it to be for human welfare.
Asiatic bears are not the only victims of such inhumane practice, more than 1800 animals are used in TCM drugs. Rhino horns are one of the most coveted wildlife parts, as they are alleged to have aphrodisiac properties. In this report, 15-day old Rhino awaits to be fed by humans, after it was orphaned recently. It's 17-year-old mother who was trans-located to India's Manas National Park in 2012, was found dead with her horn and claws missing on April 3rd. She was the fourth rhino in the park slaughtered by poachers over just two years and the 16th in the Assam region, (India) according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Meantime, such unsustainable TCM practices and illegal trading is taking its toll on the wildlife, pushing many a species to the brink of extinction. This is of particular significance to the global community now more than ever before, as China continues to obliterate its own native and endemic species and turns to the global commons to exploit more. This is leading to extinction of species that lived on this planet for millions of years. For instance, the Yangtze River dolphin, a species that had lived in the waters of central China for more than 20 million years became extinct in 2006. According to a report entitled China Red Data Book of Endangered Animals: Mammalia, of the 400 endangered mammals in the world, 133 of them are in China, and 398 species of vertebrates are threatened by increased human activities.
So amid the fifth mass extinction crisis currently underway, the daunting question is, are the ancient TCM practices sustainable for a planet that houses more than seven billion humans? "Absolutely not" asserts Dr. Li, although he is not too optimistic either about any immediate solutions to dispel the ancient beliefs that are so deep-rooted within the Chinese culture and psyche.
"TCM practitioners and the China TCM Association have been strong defenders of TCM effectiveness. Typically in China, a patient can be treated by Western medicine doctors and a TCM doctor at the same time. When he is cured, both the Western medicine and TCM would claim credits, thus giving the public the impression that both are indispensable cures."
It doesn't help either when a progressive country like Canada with a good track record on animal welfare launches a massive marketing campaign in China to sell seal meat and the most treasured seal oil that Chinese traders crave for. Understandably, Dr. Li's response to Canada's influence over wildlife poaching in China is quite somber, as Canada's own reputation has been tarnished in China over the highly controversial seal hunting operation. He says, since 2010 hundreds of thousands of Chinese protested Canadian intention to market seal meat to China, in addition to letters and petitions that were sent to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing urging the ambassador to tell Ottawa that China didn't need the bloody seal products.
"I am sorry to say that Canadian government is morally inadequate in this regard because Ottawa is stubbornly supporting seal slaughter, a business that benefits the white sealers in the name of protecting the indigenous people's livelihood. What I fear is that Canadian government may use the FIPA opportunity to push for more seal product trade with China. Frankly, Ottawa as a defender of animal protection is suspect."
My next blog will focus on the cultural origins of such profound disdain for animals in China.]]>Canada Could Be a Leader in Anti-Wildlife Poachingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29894722013-04-01T12:24:55-04:002013-04-01T12:24:51-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/carnage of 89 elephants including around 30 pregnant females. The brutal massacre took place in Chad, near the Cameroon border around March 14-15, ironically in the closing hours of the 40th annual Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), where protecting the gentle giants was high on the agenda.
Just a few weeks back authorities had discovered 28 elephant carcasses, all stripped of their ivory tusks, in Cameroon's Nki and Lobeke National parks, and at least 15 carcasses across various locations in Central African Republic.
According to South Africa's 2012 environment ministry figures, 633 rhinos were slaughtered, marking a new annual peak in a country that is home to most of the continent's rhinos. This, even as the slaughter of elephants continued unabated, with 2012 being "another bumper year for the illegal ivory trade," as described by a conservation group TRAFFIC, which monitors global trade in animals and plants.
Fueled by the surging demand for horn and ivory in China -- where the growing middle class population in that country has "disposable income," elephants and rhinos are being poached in record numbers in South Africa.
Another species on the brink of extinction is the tiger. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),
"Every part of the tiger--from whisker to tail--is traded in illegal wildlife markets. Poaching is the most immediate threat to wild tigers. In relentless demand, their parts are used for traditional medicine, folk remedies, and increasingly as a status symbol among wealthy Asians."
WWF is concerned that even countries with strong enforcement of tiger protection laws fight a never-ending battle against poaching fueled by illegal trading, which conservationists estimate is about $20 billion a year. According to Japan Times,
"Wildlife trafficking is a murky, lucrative, violent trade; ongoing, increasingly organized and sophisticated, but one that still remains largely unnoticed. And it is out of control. Interpol rates it on a par with drugs and arms when it comes to scale and the overall market value of the "products" killed, bought, traded and smuggled."
Meantime, the global outcry to tackle shark finning seems to be receiving some long overdue attention, as the insatiable hunger for shark-fin soup is currently causing overfishing of sharks, putting them at risk of extinction. A new study suggests, almost 100 million sharks are killed every year. According to Elizabeth Wilson, the manager of global shark conservation charity Pew Environment Group,
"We are now the predators. Humans have mounted an unrelenting assault on sharks, and their numbers are crashing throughout the world's oceans."
Whale sharks have become part of the shark fin market and one set of fins can earn US$60,000. Yet the fin is just five per cent of the shark and the rest is discarded.
Clearly Asian countries, particularly China, is at the heart of this human induced species extinction crisis. But as the saying goes, "Every crisis is an opportunity", and given that China is aspiring to become a global super power, this is a perfect opportunity for the global community to collectively demand drastic regulations, and impose trade sanctions if necessary, to protect the wildlife.
In a historic move at the CITES 2013, a proposal to regulate international trade of sharks was approved, as the conference wrapped up in Bangkok last month. Under the new regulations, five species of sharks as well as manta rays will now have to be traded under a permit system. According to a statement by the CITES,
"The protected species will have to be traded with CITES permits and evidence will have to be provided that they are harvested sustainably and legally"
Also at the CITES, a major victory for elephants in the war against ivory trade, which claimed 25,000 animals in 2012, as Thailand's prime minister pledged to outlaw her nation's legal domestic ivory trade. Thailand is the key place where illegal ivory from Africa is laundered into products destined for the world's biggest market in China.
Meantime Canada, which is perfectly positioned to enforce stringent regulations, is squandering away a great opportunity to ban the importation of shark-fins (in Vancouver) where Chinese restaurants are still serving shark-fin soup on their menu. According to a recent Vancouver Sun article, although it will consider regulatory changes to block the importation of shark fins from countries that permit cruel hunting practices,
"The Conservatives made it clear, they will not support a B.C. MP's private member's bill which, like a number of motions passed by B.C. municipalities last autumn, is aimed at imposing an outright ban on shark fins imported from all countries."
Surely the Conservative government could have taken a much bolder stance, especially given the recent Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA). Canada has even more power to coerce China into bringing forth sweeping changes to it's treatment of animals and the environment, as the number of Chinese migrants is expected to soar by 2031 according to Statistics Canada. Currently, there are about 1.25 million Chinese living in Canada -- 3.9 per cent of Canada's population, and that number is expected to soar to 2.7 million by 2031, a whopping 6.4 per cent of our population. This could become a political hot button for the government, as Canadians generally are intolerant towards animal cruelty.
In relation to the record number of rhino poaching in South Africa, the environmental affairs minister Edna Molewa has backed a radical proposal to legalize the international trade in rhino horn as a means of neutralizing the black market and saving the threatened species. She said,
"Our rhinos are killed every day and the numbers are going up. The reality is that we have done all in our power and doing the same thing every day isn't working. We do think that we need to address this issue of trade in a controlled manner so that we can at least begin to push down this pressure."
Really? Legalize rhino poaching? Is this the best she could come up with? As global leaders continue to flounder around, fearing the political and economic ramifications, and squander away the opportunities to address the human-induced species extinction crisis, the carnage and barbarism of our precious natural treasures will continue.
In my second part I will explore China's deep-rooted cultural attitudes towards animals, which is apparently fueled by "fear of economic slowdown and a regime stability crisis", according to a prominent Chinese researcher. Stay tuned!]]>Applying Nature's Principles to Creating a Sustainable Planettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29415272013-03-25T11:44:51-04:002013-05-25T05:12:01-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
In his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra says,
Spending time in nature enables you to sense the harmonious interaction of all the elements and forces of life, and gives you a sense of unity with all life.
This esoteric claim also has scientific value, as substantiated in her book Thinking in Systems, in which Donella Meadows explores the interdependence and cooperation between all organisms. She says natural systems are resilient and function harmoniously because they are interconnected, which in turn allows them to respond efficiently to feedback from their surroundings and stabilize themselves.
In contrast, human systems tend to ignore feedback, which makes them less stable. Myriads of human systems, like the social, economic, education, health care etc., exist in our society. Zooming in on one key system, it's now clear that the global economic system was sending feedback through the sub-prime mortgage crisis and related events, but due to poor regulation the big banks and businesses ignored the feedback and therefore the economic system lost its resilience and eventually collapsed (Meadows, 2004). According to the CBC News,
By late 2006, one subprime loan in eight was in default across the U.S. Foreclosures were soaring. More than 20 subprime lenders were bankrupt. And the National Community Reinvestment Coalition estimated that as many as 1.5 million Americans could lose their homes by the time all the damage is done.
Now I'm not an economist, but we don't need an expert to tell us, four years later since the massive economic downturn we're seeing only few signs of recovery.
On the other side of the spectrum our ecological systems are eroding at an irreversible and unprecedented rate, as almost 80% of the world's fisheries are being over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. On the land, every second of everyday 1.5 acres of rainforest are being destroyed forever. Meantime,
Humanity is bracing for water wars in coming years, as states struggle with the effects of climate change, growing demand for water and declining resources.
Evidently, human systems were oblivious to the idea of systems thinking, and consequently unable to recognize the underlying connections between the economic collapse and ecological crisis. You see, human civilization was built on the industrial and scientific revolutions, which ignored the key principle of natural systems grounded in the idea that "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
Making matters worse is the mindless use of mechanistic and reductionist language, which portrays humans as "machines" and "building blocks." This has created deep disconnect not only between nature and humans but also between each other, and more importantly between our own mind and body. Also, the western civilization has been entrenched in objective realities that stem from hard systems approach, which treats people like objects being used to achieve the end results, according to Michael Jackson Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. This approach seems to have created distrust between humans, which is manifesting as disillusionment in our society.
However there is light at the end of the long tunnel. The subtle emergence of Systems Thinking, which fosters interconnections and interdependence between people, seems to be creating a gradual shift in human consciousness. In fact even scientists are beginning to see the value of integrating philosophical views and subjectivity within their domain, although some still remain wedded to the notion of objectivity.
Furthermore, Hindu and Buddhist principles, rooted in non-attachment and impermanence, seem to be resonating in the domain of cognitive science, and meditation has become a common practice in the western society.
Viewing the world through the systems lens, in my view, is necessary to bring forth a paradigm shift in people's attitudes towards nature. Environmental educators and communicators, need to dance with the systems, in order to rebuild relationships, acknowledge our interconnectedness and appreciate diversity. Scientists like Humberto Maturana are encouraging us to take time to develop mutual understanding of each others' realities instead of applying manipulative or persuasive tactics.
To overcome our Cartesian anxiety we need to think systemically, shifting our conceptual focus from objects to relationships, according to Capra in The Web of Life. Only then can we realize that identity, individuality, and autonomy do not imply separateness and independence. Capra says,
The living world is a network of relationships, and the material universe is seen as a dynamic web of interrelated events.
This concept could be invaluable in explaining environmental issues as a network of relationships or interrelated events. However, in order to really engage the public and instil a sense of responsibility we need to explain the impact of these issues using language that reflects care and concern. According to Maturana language enables us to distinguish the consequences of our actions for other living beings; our caring for other people gains presence, and the possibility of responsible action arises. After all environmental awareness must be more than mere familiarity, otherwise people who even vaguely understand global warming may just shrug it off and not perceive it as a threat because they do not understand the consequences.
I believe ecological principles can become the sturdy roots for adaptive systems that we have yet to discover. Just as nature is made up of complex adaptive systems that constantly change, evolve and emerge, we need to keep an open mind about our systems and worldviews. Rather than cling on to them as a static universal truth, we need to be receptive to change and willing to evolve constantly. We need to be fluid like nature, so energy and information can flow smoothly and easily.
This quote from Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimicry Institute pretty much sums up my realities on systems thinking.
The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.
]]>The Online Tool Destroying Climate Denial Mythstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27805712013-03-01T08:25:43-05:002013-05-01T05:12:01-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/Reality Drop" and is akin to an antidote given to patients bitten by a poisonous snake, only in this case it is intended to destroy the toxic global warming myths that seem to be poisoning the minds of people. As the slogan explains, "Spread Truth" and "Destroy Denial" about global warming, the Reality Drop campaign is specifically designed to debunk more than a hundred of the most deceptive myths about global warming with simple and succinct up-to-date science-based climate facts from credible sources.
The "Reality Drop" is a social media tool, fun and easy for anyone in the public domain to register and use. You can use the green and red cards on the home page with the green cards for factual information about climate change and the red cards to expose the denier myths. So, if a climate believer is looking to debunk a myth posted on a blog, he/she can immediately access the Reality Drop tool, and simply click on the red card to retrieve relevant articles. Then the user can simply share the accurate information from the green cards to respond to that blog, or post it on FB or Twitter and "destroy denial" -- It's that simple!
The Reality Drop campaign also has a gaming element to it; the more the denier myths you confront, the more the points you can rack up until you reach the top to become a Chief. You can also score additional points by involving friends and family - a great way to fight climate denial while having fun.
The Reality Drop campaign coincides with the publishing of a recent expose by The Guardian that revealed $120 million have been pumped into fueling misleading and deceptive information by the fossil fuel industry between 2002 and 2010. Former Vice President of the United States, and Founder and Chairman of the Climate Reality Project says,
"Just like the tobacco companies in the '50s, the fossil fuel industry has engaged in a well-funded and coordinated effort to mislead the public about the scientific reality of climate change."
This, despite scientific evidence and an overwhelming number of climate scientists that concur, man-made climate change is happening at an unprecedented rate. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) asserts, "the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide." And according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the year 2012 shattered all previous records in the continental US, beating the previous record year 1998, by a full one degree fahrenheit, a huge leap in temperatures by meteorological standards.
So essentially,
"The Science is settled, the data is clear; not a single scientific body in the world disputes it; the global climate crisis is reality, it's happening now and man-made carbon pollution is responsible. Scientifically speaking the climate change debate is no longer a debate at all,"
The Reality Drop search engines scour the web for climate news then enable people to fight phony climate denier arguments online in real time by providing the correct scientific arguments and exposing the myths. Essentially Reality Drop generates a daily roundup of climate news from around the world and provides immediate access to accurate scientific facts, making it easy to counter misleading quotes from climate skeptics. Maggie L. Fox, President and CEO of The Climate Reality Project says.
"More and more, readers of online publications are leading by steering the public conversation, which is why Reality Drop is both timely and powerful. We hold the media accountable to report the real facts, and we educate our communities about the reality we are facing together."
The Reality Drop campaign was developed in collaboration with Skeptical Science and Arnold Worldwide, and it officially kicked off this morning. Mr Gore said, "Reality Drop provides an easy, intuitive way for people to arm themselves with the facts, educate their friends, family, and networks, and call on the media to report the truth." For more information log on to www.realitydrop.org
]]>How Doublespeak Is Ruining Our Environmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27503332013-02-25T00:47:42-05:002013-04-26T05:12:01-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/ The Guardian reports, conservative billionaires have doled out nearly $120m between 2002 and 2010 to re-define climate messages and frame them in a manner that would cast doubt about the climate science.
This strategy seems to have been effective, at least to some degree, because humans think in terms of unconscious structures called frames, which are connected to the emotional center of our brain, according to cognitive science. The fossil fuel industry seems to be using this fact to manipulate human cognition by misusing language.
"Like any other tool, language can be abused, used not to build but to destroy, not to communicate but to confuse, not to clarify but to obscure, not to lead but to mislead."
Profound words from a retired American linguist Dr. William Lutz, who received the George Orwell award for his Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Speaking. Dr. Lutz spent most of his life meticulously scrutinizing words and compositions, and actively campaigned against misleading and irresponsible use of language in public discourses.
But unfortunately misleading language is precisely what the fossil fuel industry continues to thrive on; surely "Ethical Oil" sounds more appealing than tar-sands oil. It's called "doublespeak" and is becoming all too common in the western society.
Using doublespeak, the Alberta tarsands stakeholders launched a powerful campaign and created the euphemism "Ethical Oil". The campaign was designed to distract the public from environmental and health concerns and shift their attention to national security and societal issues, while undermining credible environmentalists, who denounced tarsands mining.
The campaign "conflict oil" vs. "ethical oil," which epitomizes doublespeak, shaped the debate between oil produced in conflict zones (like the middle east and Venezuela) vs. in a democratic country like Canada, and focused mainly on the differences between the kind of societies that stand to profit from the oil sales. This slideshow in The Globe and Mail's Ethical Oil Campaign highlights the use of doublespeak.
Dr. Lutz would argue, the inflated language in these slides is "deliberately designed to mislead the public, and hide the truth", as typically practiced in the world of doublespeak.
The health and ecological nightmare of tar sands mining is entirely shrouded by the "ethical oil" banner, as the sophisticated language cunningly veils the plight of the giant lakes that became contaminated with 720 million cubic liters of poisonous waste in 2009; it masks the high levels of carcinogenic toxins such as mercury and arsenic that was detected downstream in the Athabasca River; and worst of all it conceals the plight of the Fort Chipewyan communities living downstream from tar sands mines that have seen elevated rates of cancer, and not to mention the 500 birds found dead in one of the lakes in Aurora in 2008.
Doublespeak is based on the nuances between what is said and left unsaid, according to Dr. Lutz. Essentially it obscures language and communication.
In 2012, doublespeak was prominent in Enbridge's messaging of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline to transport tar-sands oil from Alberta to China. In this instance a 1000 kilometer precarious stretch of the Douglas Channel was obscured in a PR video, which portrayed the channel as a much safer route for tankers through BC waters. But the British Columbians caught on to the deceptive tactics and took to the streets, vehemently rejecting the proposal.
Meantime, even as the stakeholders were touting Canada's human rights records, they conveniently ignored the First Nation's Treaty 8, which was signed by Queen Victoria and various First Nations in 1899, is federally protected, and forbids the expansion of the tarsands mine. So in late 2012, a small indigenous community on the edge of Lake Athabasca in Alberta's remote north, filed a landmark constitutional challenge against Shell Canada's expansion of its Jackpine tar-sands mine. Clearly the doublespeak tactic is backfiring, as people are becoming more aware and alert.
In recent years the international voices against the tar-sands oil exploitation have become louder than ever before. In the United States, the pressure on President Obama has been mounting since his re-election, with climate campaigners including high profile Senators converging recently on the White House grounds to denounce the Keystone XL Pipeline (that would transport Canadian tar-sands oil into American refineries). Preeminent climate scientist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute Dr. James Hansen describes the development as a "game-over proposition for climate change".
The tar-sands mining is also drawing unprecedented attention in Europe, with the European Union set to label the so called 'ethical oil' as highly polluting, as it produces 22 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil on average, due to the extra energy required to blast the bitumen from the bedrock and refine it. In response, Canada threatened a trade war over the EU oil-sands ban in 2011.
So, given the overwhelming rejection of tar-sands mining it's clear that there's nothing ethical about the "ethical oil". In fact, it would be safe to say the "ethical oil" euphemism exemplifies the unethical use of language in trying to mask a problem that could have unimaginable ramifications on our children and grandchildren.
The need to remain vigilant has never been greater, as the fossil fuel industry clings on to its doublespeak and desperately tries to defend its public image. Doublespeak is insidious, claims Dr. Lutz; it can infect and destroy the function of language and eventually rip apart the fabric of our society. If left unchecked, we could become so attuned with doublespeak that
"we may even start believing "politicians and industries don't lie but only 'misspeak"; that illegal acts are merely 'inappropriate actions'; that fraud and criminal conspiracy are just "miscertification." Worse yet, doublespeak can become so pervasive that it could become the coin of political realm, with speakers and listeners convinced that they really understand and readily accept it".
Language is our society's bedrock, fundamental to cooperation and harmony, as Fritjof Capra asserts in his book The web of Life:
"An abstract world of language and thoughts can be used to bring forth our world together. The uniqueness of being human lies in our ability to continually weave the linguistic network in which we are embedded. To be human is to exist in language."
So instead of wasting time and money to misuse language and mislead the public, the fossil fuel industry needs to redirect these valuable resources into honestly addressing climate change and provide accurate information. It needs to eliminate doublespeak from its vocabulary and instead look for ways to work with all stakeholders in order to collectively implement the existing solutions to address climate change.
]]>The Higher the GDP, the Unhappier the Countrytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26114482013-02-05T07:43:01-05:002013-04-07T05:12:01-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
We try to control nature and in doing so destroy the very source we depend on for our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. We develop technologies to extract fossil fuel from the deepest parts of the oceans, and blow apart the mightiest of mountains to extract minerals while undermining the integrity of our environment.
We clear-cut trees that purify the air we breathe. In our pursuit to control nature, we even try to tame and train the most powerful and ferocious animals "to obey the masters" and entertain us, robbing them of their rightful place in the web of life. Essentially humans tend to look at nature as a commodity that is meant to be subjugated for material gain and power, and ignore its intrinsic values, and more importantly, our own inherent interdependence with nature.
You see, our economic system which is based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is embedded in a utilitarian worldview that perceives nature as a supplier of infinite resources to be exploited for production, consumption and unlimited growth. GDP is used as one of the primary indicators to gauge the health of a country's economy and measure progress, leading us to believe consumerism creates happiness. However, this mechanistic paradigm fosters linear thinking and creates a conceptual separation of environment, society and economy.
Paradoxically, despite all the scientific progress and material comforts obtained through the illusion of controlling nature, happiness seems like an elusive butterfly, as more miseries are manifesting now than ever before.
Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher said, "If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires." Eighteenth century German philosopher and artist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, said, "A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations." Renowned Indian spiritual leader Swami Chinmayananda who spread the ancient wisdom of Vedanta across the globe said, the root cause of unhappiness is not advancement or material wealth, but rather the "endless desires."
These ancient insights also ring true in the 21st century. In 2012 Global Finance magazine conducted an empirical study to measure happiness in 151 countries across the globe, and produced a comprehensive report called the Happy Planet Index (HPI). Essentially the Global HPI represents the efficiency with which countries convert the earth's finite resources into happiness and well-being for their citizens.
As it turns out, countries with low GDP ranked high in the HPI and had smaller Eco footprint compared with nations with high GDP that ranked low in the HPI and had larger Eco footprint per capita. Costa Rica ranked number one in the HPI with low GDP and smaller Eco footprint compared to one of the world's most advanced countries -- the USA, which had high GDP and a large Eco footprint per capita, but ranked 105 in the HPI; Canada ranked 65 in the HPI, boasting high GDP with a medium Eco-footprint per capita.
In 2012 Jigmi Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan, the first nation in the world to adopt Gross National Happiness said, the world needs to move away from GDP. "The purpose of development must be to create enabling conditions through public policy for the pursuit of the ultimate goal of happiness by all citizens."
Evidently material wealth does not equate with happiness, but instead creates more waste and pollution. So the question is how can we increase happiness while being Eco-centric? Perhaps embracing a more interdependent relationship with nature could influence the way we fulfill our desires and steer us towards the path to happiness.
Kindle Life, a book about spirituality by Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, sheds light on two different worlds embedded in us -- the objective and subjective. The objective world is made up of sense organs and objects, including material goods, people and our interactions with them. This physical realm is easy to comprehend, as here we can touch, hear, smell, taste and see through our five sense organs -- skin, ears, nose, tongue and eyes respectively.
However the subjective realm is subtler, made up of three minds -- emotional aka the ego, intellectual and conscious -- each providing deeper insights. To begin with, when our sense organs come in contact with external objects they feed our mind with stimuli, which create feelings and desires that in turn trigger impulsive responses. According to the Holy Bhagavad-Gita scriptures, "All our sufferings in the world are caused by our own egocentric misconception the consequent arrogance characterized by our ever multiplying demands for wealth and our endless desires."
Seated a level deeper is the intellectual mind that rationalizes and analyzes, giving us the ability to reflect and respond logically to external stimuli. A 2007 Empirical research in the Netherlands reveals the intellect allows "humans to judge life cognitively by comparing life as it is with notions of how it should be."
In this level we become aware of our desires, and realize we have a choice to ignore the desires created by our emotional mind or remain with the dominant status quo. Unfortunately, the intellect is generally divorced from our mind, hence "most of our actions seem to emanate from the realm of the mind and we are misled by feelings instead of being guided by discrimination," (Kindle Life. p. 24). For instance when overcome by emotions we can't think clearly nor use proper discretion.
The deepest realm and the subtlest of all three minds is the conscious. In order to connect with this mind we need to get beyond the egocentric desires and intellectual analysis, and silence the internal chatter. Spiritual leaders warn, although humans want "Absolute Freedom and detest any shackles", unless we discipline ourselves to become still and contemplate, we would be unable to find lasting happiness. Eventually when we reach the conscious realm, we will realize, our desires are the root cause of unhappiness. (Kindle Life, p. 2)
So, taming our mind rather than taming nature to satisfy our insatiable desires for material possessions may be a better path to creating lasting happiness and a healthier planet, as Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth century poet and writer said, "Deviation from nature is deviation from happiness."
]]>Why Dire Warnings Won't Help the Environmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24690472013-01-15T08:27:15-05:002013-03-17T05:12:01-04:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Meantime this past weekend temperatures in Toronto were in the mid-teens; seems like Déjà vu all over again, as last winter, record breaking temperatures were set in many provinces. So I think it would be safe to say that deep down North Americans are feeling a bit unsettled by the whacky weather patterns.
According to a recent survey conducted in Canada for IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., a Regina-based research centre for carbon capture and storage, 98 per cent of Canadians believe climate change is happening, with almost 32 per cent placing the entire blame on human activities, and 54 per cent blaming human activities combined with a small degree of natural climate variation.
Americans also seem to be extremely concerned. A recent report titled "Climate Change in the American Mind" says more Americans now believe global warming is real -- the believers went from 57 per cent in June 2010 to 70 per cent in September 2012. Also, for the first time since 2008, more than half of Americans (54%) believe global warming is caused mostly by human activities.
Ironically, though, despite such dramatic shifts in the public perception of climate change, people's daily actions and habits don't seem to reflect their concerns. How can we explain this dissonance and disconnect?
In a recent interview with Bill Moyers, Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication at Yale University, said:
"As human beings we are exquisitely attuned to what's happening in our immediate environment and what we can see around us and what literally touches us physically."
However climate change is distant in time, space and geographic location, and the impact is felt only in the long term, so people in North America generally dismiss climate change as a problem for small island nations or third world countries.
Another key reason for the deep disconnect is inadequate climate change coverage by the media, which plays an important agenda setting role, according to Dr. Leiserowitz. He argues:
"We've seen that this issue gets just a tiny proportion of the news haul. Of all the stories that the media focuses on every year climate change is miniscule. And in fact, even the environment as a category never gets above say one or at most two percent of total news coverage."
Unfortunately, the problem is compounded, as climate change cannot be seen or experienced immediately, and therefore real life visuals are unavailable for television coverage.
Few would argue with the fact that sights, sounds and images on television newscasts resonate more deeply in the minds of people compared to newspapers articles, giving the television news media better advantage and power in portraying climate change as a crisis of apocalyptic magnitude. Dire warnings such as 'Astonishing' Ice Melt May Lead to More Extreme Winters'; 'The Summer of Wild Weather'; 'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math'; 'Extreme weather on steroids" dominated the news headlines, and reignited climate change discussions in 2012.
But the question is do these dire warnings work? Furthermore, how do these dire warnings impact people's psyche?
Even if well intentioned, and genuinely aimed at bolstering public engagement, psychoanalysts argue, such dire warnings are counterproductive and in fact push people away from the issue even further. In a published report entitled "Fear won't do it" Saffron O'Neill and Sophie Nicholson-Cole present the psychological effects of iconic images, and dramatic sounds and narratives used by the media in portraying climate change. They find that although at first people gravitate to sensationalism, in the long run they become paralyzed by fear, and feel dis-empowered to take any action.
The researchers explain that fear mongering can lead to one of two psychological responses in people -- either try to control the apparent external danger, or try to control the internal fear. If the external danger, which in this instance is the manifestation of climate change, is out of their control, then people will look for ways to manage the internal fear. They do this by immersing themselves in other things and pretending everything is okay, eventually avoiding the issue completely.
Another published study titled "Apocalypse Soon?" by Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer of the psychology department at the University of California, sheds light on the impact of dire messages. Two groups of people were involved -- the first group of undergraduate students was asked to read a fact-based scientific article on climate change with the last two pages describing the dire consequences. In the second study, the American public was asked to view two dire videos that depicted bad things happening to children, and the imminent catastrophe awaiting future generations.
The results shed light on how people's core values and world views are threatened by dire messages. The researchers say:
"People want to believe that they live in a just world where righteous people are rewarded and punishment is meted out to those that are selfish, unjust and unethical. Any messages challenging those views make people defensive and prompt them to reject climate change."
So the question is what emotions may help spur public engagement and action on this very crucial issue?
Dr. Leiserowitz prescribes worry-based messages. He suggests people are more receptive to "worry-based" messages because they worry about so many things in their day to day life -- they worry about the economy, their jobs, family etc. Worry, he adds, gives a sense of hope that something can be done, whereas fear evokes the fight or flight reaction. Even though climate change risks may be perceived as threatening, he says, if people feel hopeful they'd become interested in mitigating the threat.
]]>Will We Learn From Last Year's Tragedies in 2013?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.23924002013-01-01T10:07:35-05:002013-03-03T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/The Web of Life where he argues most of the seemingly insurmountable problems stem from our fragmented way of seeing things, and ignoring the relationships between them:
"the behavior of a living organism as an integrated whole cannot be understood from the study of its parts alone."
Dr. Bob Kull, a Royal Roads University teacher who I interviewed for my master's thesis echoes similar sentiments:
"Everything manifesting in our world is part of a process which is interconnected like the network of roots, whether its financial events social events ecological events, and there's a deep linkage between what's going on in our social system and the ecological systems."
When we look at a tree in the forest it's not just a tree, it's interconnected with everything around it, and grows within an ecological context, so its roots are connected with all the other trees around it, and all the micro rhizomes in the soil.
This emerging worldview called "systems thinking", establishes deeper connections between everything, and recognizes the interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that as individuals and societies we are all embedded in and ultimately dependent on the cyclical process of nature.
Capra says:
"The new paradigm may be called a holistic worldview; seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term 'ecological' is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual."
The systems theorists sum up "systems thinking" succinctly: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." Seeing the world through this "systems lens" could help us identify the deeper linkages between some of the social and ecological events that are still fresh in our memories, as this could provide more clarity in finding lasting solutions.
To put things into proper perspective, in 2012 we witnessed some of the most devastating tragedies, in our social and natural worlds. Violence spiraled out of control with two hate crimes and two shootings in America taking place in a matter of weeks. This past weekend a 31-year-old woman was charged with hate crime after she pushed a 46-year-old man on to the New York subway tracks (who later died), and confessed she hates, "Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the two towers I've been beating them up." The incident came just two weeks after a 30-year-old man admitted to pushing a 58-year-old man on to the Q train tracks at 49th Street in Midtown.
Turning to the two ruthless shootings starting with the one that took place on Christmas Eve, two US volunteer firefighters were shot dead and two more injured as they arrived to tackle a fire, which police suspected was a trap. The 62-year-old gunman, who had served a 17-year jail sentence after being convicted of killing his grandmother, was found dead at the scene, and appeared to have shot himself in the head.
Although these three senseless tragedies must have certainly devastated the victims' families, the Connecticut school massacre strikes at the heart of our social problems, as it involves the most vulnerable in our society -- 20 innocent six- and seven-year-old children. The devastation and sadness facing the families of these 20 children is simply unfathomable, and we will never be able to comprehend what compelled a 20-year-old young man to pull the trigger on his own mother, kill 25 more people and then shoot himself.
As it turns out the shooter may havesuffered from Aspberger's Syndrome, which left him absolutely void of any feelings and he often burned himself with a cigarette lighter to feel pain. So most pundits are questioning why he had not received the psychological help he deserved, and as they continue to analyze and criticize America's mental health care system, another group of people believe the obvious response should be "gun control."
Now, even as these debates continue, how about confronting the fact that the Newtown school shooting in Connecticut is one of the 20 worst mass shootings in the world in the last 50 years, 11 of them having occurred in America? No surprise, when we consider that America holds the world's highest gun ownership rate of 89 weapons per 100 people, according to a report entitled Estimating Civilian Owned Firearms conducted by Small Arms Survey.
So the deeper issue is this: in a progressive society like America, shouldn't people ideally feel safe and secure? However, the reality is, a total of 270 million weapons are currently being stored in American homes. So it begs the obvious question why are these guns allowed in homes in the first place? But some of the deeper questions may reveal a systemic problem that need to be rooted out. Why are people so paranoid? What are they scared of? Why are they feeling so isolated rather than a sense of belonging and connectedness with their communities?
When President Obama called for a change in gun legislation just days after the shooting, a state of panic and paranoia gripped the pro-gun lobbyists, as a defiant National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre hit back, claiming that the media and politicians had "exploited" the tragedy in Newtown, and he took aim at laws designating schools as gun-free zones. Justifying the need to own guns he said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
Doesn't this sound so familiar? The same kind of justification, denial and entitlement is being adopted by the fossil fuel industry lobbyists, as they continue to confuse the public by countering scientific evidence and ignoring the natural catastrophes that substantiate the existence of climate change.
Speaking of natural catastrophes, undoubtedly 2012 will go down the history books as a year that experienced record-breaking extreme weather events. Eery as it may seem, Superstorm Sandy (bearing the same name as the Connecticut school) unleashed its fury in the USA, killed 125 people and caused approximately $62 billion in damages, and drew the same kind of outpouring as the Sandy Hook School shooting; 69 tornadoes, mostly in the mid-western parts of the USA, nine of them killer that caused 40 deaths in 12 states; 2012 also saw the worst drought in 50 years caused by record high temperatures which turned into a tinder box and sparked fires across communities in Colorado.
Canada had its own share of troubles to content with, and although Sandy was catastrophic for the United States, according to Environment Canada, the hurricane was a nasty fall storm in Canada with a $100-million price tag! Oddly 2012 was the third consecutive year that 19 tropical storms developed in the Atlantic basin -- nearly double the norm.
Hot temperatures also dominated the list of major weather stories last year, as Canada experienced extreme heat in its 16th year in a row. Nationally, it was the fourth warmest on record and for millions of people in Ontario and Quebec it was the warmest year ever. With melting comes flooding and 2012 was no exception. In British Columbia, the snowpack was among the deepest measured in years. Soaking rains and violent thunderstorms escalated the flood risk, fought on several fronts along at least a dozen rivers from one end of the province to the other.
Amid these events, a significant discovery from the climate science community linked extreme weather to climate change (in June 2012) for the first time since its origins in the 19th century (in a study conducted by one of the most credible climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City). It has also long been established that the greenhouse gas emissions are caused by human activities, mainly from fossil fuel.
So overall 2012 has indeed been a significant year in relation to our natural and social systems, but the irony is, none of these events seem to have made a dent in the minds of climate skeptics or gun lobbyists, as they continue to cling on to the same archaic paradigms. So what is the deeper problem? What is the systemic issue?
At the root of our current crises is the Cartesian worldview, entrenched in reductionist, mechanistic thinking -- the idea that there exists an objective reality, and it is therefore possible to come to absolute conclusions about this reality. This world view, so eloquently espoused by Descartes, separated the world into subject and object, saying they are independent from each other, creating a sense of separation and divisiveness, while blinding us from seeing the interconnectedness between occurrences -- natural and social.
Given that the Cartesian worldview has fractured our society, perhaps it may be time to look at other holistic perspectives that will create a sense of unity. It seems what worked during the Cartesian era is dysfunctional for a world with seven billion of us, adding to the complexities of an already complex system. Capra says:
"Ultimately these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most of us, and especially our large social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world."
Eckhart Tolle provides a bolder perspective on our current social and environmental crises. He says:
"The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inert psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space."
(A New Earth, P.78).
Tolle also draws parallels between all forms of violence -- violence against each other, violence against other living beings and the earth itself. He says the unprecedented violence is the collective dysfunction of the human mind inflicted on other life forms and the planet itself,
"Destruction of oxygen producing forests and other plant and animal life; ill treatment of animals in factory farms; and poisoning of rivers, oceans and air. Driven by greed, ignorant of their connectedness to the whole, humans persist in behavior that if continued unchecked, can only result in their own destruction."
So the million-dollar question is how do we shake off the stubborn worldviews that are inflicting so much destruction, and transition towards a new paradigm?
No matter what we do, one thing is clear -- we can no longer dress up our social and ecological crises with band aid solutions, we need to use our intelligence and our ability to think, and discern the root causes of our problems. Although this may seem time consuming and demand more resources, this is what is required to produce lasting results.]]>Does "Objectivity" Belong in Newscasts About Climate Change?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23128952012-12-17T17:30:45-05:002013-02-16T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
But does this sporadic coverage and journalistic norm work for climate change?
In an interview for my master's thesis on media coverage of climate change, Bill Hutchison, CTV Toronto's late night news anchor said,
"If you can have both sides given an opportunity to express their opinions, express their arguments in a reasonable manner and you present facts as clearly and concisely as you can -- facts you know to be accurate that are verifiable -- the audience can make their own decision."
However, Joshua Laughren, Climate Change Director at World Wildlife Fund Canada says,
"Balance doesn't mean 50/50. Balance means it needs to be an accurate reflection of the diverging views. So having one climate change scientist and one denier is not actually balanced because that doesn't reflect the 98 per cent of the scientists that believe climate change and one or two per cent don't. That's actually not balanced, that's imbalanced, that's not objectivity -- it doesn't reflect the diverse views of the majority."
To begin with, objectivity fully emerged as a guiding principle in the 1890s, but it was not until the 20th century that it was applied to journalistic work. Journalistic "objectivity" is generally used for fairness, neutrality, factuality, and non-partisanship, but some argue, it excuses lazy reporting. In his book The Sociology of News Michael Schudson says, "The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation."
However, it gets worse when it comes to climate change coverage, and in fact objectivity is nurturing climate denial among those who continue to reject the credible climate science, which is clearly explained in this Climate-Change-101 creative video by the famous scientist Bill Nye.
To put things into proper perspective it's important to understand how the television news production works. Media professionals work in contexts structured by institutional, economic, political, and technological demands to produce stories from source materials that will define the day's news. Of particular importance is the fact that producers have a fairly good sense of their putative audience, and how the story should be told, (Cultural Circuits of Climate Change in U.K. Broadsheet, 2005). Authors Anabela Carvalho and Jacquelin Burgess suggest, the narratives and visual communication in climate change stories generally tend to reflect the producers/ journalists worldviews, as the reporters have an undue advantage of selecting an angle of their choice and packaging the story, regardless of whether the content captures the key points of the research or not. This leaves the audience disengaged with the issue and they tune out.
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Maxwell and Jules Boykoff of the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, did a case study on journalistic norms, which focused on objectivity and balanced reporting (2007), and concluded, "paradoxically, such professional, well-intentioned behavior can actually decrease the possibility of precise, proper and pressing climate-change coverage." The authors claim, by confining themselves to widely accepted journalistic norms the influential mass-media have misrepresented the top climate scientific perspective, which has perpetrated an informational bias regarding anthropogenic (human caused) climate change, and in turn has resulted in public disengagement of the issue.
Here in Canada, Shane Gunster of Simon Fraser University (B.C., Canada) takes aim at the B.C. Media coverage of the 2009 Copenhagen summit in a study entitled,"Covering Copenhagen: Climate Change in BC Media". He says "the vulnerability of journalists might be better directed toward the role that columnists and pundits (and the editors who approve and select them) are playing in keeping doubts about climate change alive and well."
And Discovery Channel Canada General Manager Paul Lewis, whom I also interviewed for my MA thesis concurs,
"Without a doubt the naysayers probably get more attention than they are worth just because they tend to be quite smart about being able to get their view out there because reporters are starving for some sort of balance and most often they go to the same cast of characters over and over again." Brent Cunningham, the managing editor of Columbia Journalism Review, says "Objectivity makes us passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it."
Which is exactly what James Hoggan argues in his book Climate Cover-up -- crusade to deny global warming. He says, the media need to recognize that the goal of every propaganda campaign is to confuse people and sow seeds of doubt. So rather than passively accept deniers views journalists need to challenge them and corroborate their claims through proper investigation, and the media will discover that the deniers are "dedicated to undermining public confidence in the majority view about the risks of global warming."
Richard McIlveen, CTV Toronto's late night news producer, another one of my thesis participants, bluntly acknowledges that objectivity is not working for climate change,
"It's in the DNA of television news to try to get two points of view to try to make it even controversial or give it some heat around opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately it's a bad model for climate change because any serious researcher will tell you that 98 per cent of climate scientists say this is happening. So no -- it's not been a good thing because people want to believe that tomorrow is going to be a better day and if there's any iota of 'oh well! Maybe those guys are wrong OK, we can relax. I tend to believe the guy who's telling me this isn't going to happen and that the world's going to go on as we know it.'"
So given the strong consensus between the media and environmental advocates that objectivity doesn't do justice for climate change how can the news media provide effective coverage of climate change?
Discovery Channel Canada's Paul Lewis says,
"Well I think it's providing context. It's saying here's Joe Smith -- he says that global warming is being exaggerated doesn't exist but he represents a very tiny minority of scientists -- it's just going that extra step but I think sometimes in the rush to get stories turned around quickly and on the air it's forgotten. But over time it leaves a very different impression with people that's not really reflective of the reality."
Lewis believes journalists should receive special training:
"Educating the journalists to allow them to understand how science works, how theories get proven and the incredible amount of the overwhelming research studies that are out there that have proven that global warming exists that's where it starts, that gets infused into the story telling. Journalists are generalists and the science can be very difficult. We are lucky enough in Canada to have an organization called the science media centre which is out there to try and help educate journalists on scientific issues."
CTV's Richard Mcilveen echoes similar sentiments, "If this was my newsroom I'd probably have an environmental reporter. I think that would be the easiest solution -- is to have somebody on the beat or someone with a serious focus on that beat that would then have a list of experts that he or she could call upon on any given day, or about any given story."
]]>Climate Change Has a PR Problemtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22276972012-12-06T14:54:53-05:002013-02-05T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
As it turns out there is broad consensus that the media, public and their leaders should have some level of science literacy in order to appreciate its role in society, and participate in debates about its applications, benefits and limitations (Linguistic Insights - studies in Language and communication, 2010).
However when it comes to climate science the reality is, the vast majority of people find it too complicated as the language is difficult to understand. As a result most people avoid the issue and remain largely disengaged from any meaningful debates or discussions. Bill Hutchison, CTV Toronto's late night news anchor, who has been in the influential broadcast media for over four decades says,
"You've got to realize that most people out there are not climatologist - they don't have that kind of scientific background so you have to be able to tell a story in a way that is understandable to them."
It begs the question whether scientists need to be more pro-active. According to the authors of Linguistic Insights -- Studies in Language and Communication, scientists need to recognize that it isn't enough for them to simply publish their research; they also have an obligation and responsibility to break down the scientific information into simple language, and communicate in a manner that would resonate with people.
What good is scientific research if it can't be used to advance a society? After all, effective scientific communication is at the heart of a successful democracy if we are to assess and influence government policies in relation to the application of scientific knowledge.
In his book The Web of Life, Physicist Fritjof Capra attempts to unpack the mechanistic science by using metaphors to help us understand our physical universe. He says,
"The crucial role of language in human evolution was not simply the ability to exchange ideas, but the increased ability to cooperate."
Of equal significance is the role of the media in disseminating information to the public, as for most people the reality of science is what they learn from the press. According to a published article entitled Testing Public (Un)Certainty of Science, researchers Julia Corbette and Jessica Durfee of the University of Utah suggest, an average person depends on mass media for science-based information, rather than scientific publications.
Surprisingly, even scientists tune into the media for scientific information, as much as they rely on the media to infuse their research into the public sphere. In an interview for my MA thesis documentary "Connecting the Dots...", Climate scientist Dr. Gordon McBean, a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and the Director of Academic Programs & Administration at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), corroborated this research:
"Clearly most people don't sit down and read scientific books in the evening, they don't read the journals. I can tell you very briefly a study we did a few summers ago with one of the grad students who was a medical doctor in training, working for me on this issue of smog and human health. We asked the doctors - and these are medical doctors who you walk into their office and you are their patient in South Western Ontario - do you feel that you have an adequate knowledge of science and medical relationships for smog as it relates to asthma and cardiac patients? And over 50 per cent of them said 'yes', by personal assessment I know enough! The next question was - how did you get that information? The biggest single source was the media. Our doctors are being trained by the media, and so just think the public are being trained even more."
This assertion from a climate scientist should be a wakeup call for scientists in realizing that without sharing their information and building trusting partnerships with the media, climate change coverage will continue to remain ineffective and inadequate. CTV Toronto's senior producer, Richard Mcilveen who produces the late night newscast says,
"The scientific community has to come forward in terms of supplying information and simplifying it to put things in layman's terms and there has to be optimism."
And Discovery Channel Canada President and Managing Director Paul Lewis echoes similar sentiments,
"Just in the same way that journalists need to understand the science, scientists need to understand what the needs of the media are to be able to explain these stories in clear and concise manner. Secondly they need to realize that the media is their friend and not their enemy, and that becoming more accessible to try and sit down and explain the stories to journalists is part of their job."
At least two credible and popular climate scientists have been relentless in their efforts to hammer home the climate change message for the past few decades - Dr. James Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and Dr. Andrew Weaver, Professor and Canada Research Chair in climate modeling and analysis at the University of Victoria (B.C., Canada), also the co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former US Vice President Al Gore.
Dr. Hansen's groundbreaking testimony on climate change to congressional committees helped raise broad awareness of global warming after an unprecedented heat wave gripped the United States in the summer of 1988, which caused severe droughts, destroyed crops, and spread forest fires. He said at the time,
"The Earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements," and "There is only a one percent chance of an accidental warming of this magnitude; the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."
For months thereafter the news made headlines not only in the USA but also around the world, and the public and politicians became actively engaged, but soon after, scientists carried on with their research as usual, while temperatures continued to soar. It wasn't until 2006, almost two decades later, when Mr. Gore presented his award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" that the topic of global warming resurfaced, and then quickly faded away.
It is clear that the media cannot be held solely responsible for climate change coverage but scientists too need to be pro-active in feeding the media with their research in a language accessible to the journalists, so they can put out the information accurately and effectively in the public domain.
In addition to the language issue, another obstacle in the way of media coverage is the information itself, which is usually difficult to extract, as scientists are generally very cautious and protective of their research, according to Thomas Khun, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). He says scientists tend to hoard information and fear sharing it in order to avoid "acrimonious disputes about priority and independence in discovery" which he claims has marred the "normally placid tenor of scientific communication" (p. 760).
Whether or not Khun's claims apply to climate scientists, Dr. McBean bluntly acknowledges that communication is indeed a huge challenge facing the scientific community,
"There's a natural tendency of scientists to prefer not to talk to the media just because it's not a priority and part of it is what we call our rewards structure. A climate scientist in a university as I am will never get any credits for his promotion and is unlikely to get his 10-year salary based on doing 500 media interviews, as the research council gives out funding entirely based on scientific publications. The fact that you are actually able to convey some of that to the media, to the policy makers is interesting but not part of the score card. So our rewards structure doesn't encourage this kind of thing, it basically encourages you to do other things, and to work with the media you have to take time away from those other things."
In the grand scheme of things though the internal politics within the scientific community and their reluctance to share information with the media seem to have caused a systemic failure, and given the deniers an upper hand, as they continue to utilize every bit of opportunity to spew out misleading information, while leaving the public confused and even more disengaged with the issue.
But the good news is even skeptics seem to have displayed a change of heart lately, and ironically this man's involvement with the media seems to have played a significant role in that regard. In an interview with Democracy Now dot org, James Balog, an award-winning photographer talks about how being involved in the documentary Chasing Ice has changed his worldviews on climate change, as he witnessed massive icebergs collapse right before his eyes while filming.
He conceded that he was under the impression climate science was based on computer models, as he couldn't comprehend "it was possible for humans to change the physics and chemistry of this gigantic planet." However, clearly his views has been profoundly reshaped since then,
"I'm really, really, really concerned for my daughter's future. I have a 24-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old daughter and I'm quite concerned that by the time they get to be our age they are going to be living in a world that's so radically different from what we are living in and might not be such a great world. I think they're certain to be living in much more violent extremes of weather with unknowable geopolitical consequences from that. Perhaps agriculture stress, and others, I'm very concerned about the stability and safety and security of the world that my kids will be in."
The verdict is out -- climate change is real, and rather than point fingers at each other, it's about time all stakeholders came together and found ways to engage the public on this very crucial issue. As Khun points out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), today's complex problems require an intelligent and informed debate that is multi/ inter-disciplinary rather than one that engages only those in the specialized fields, otherwise it would end up being divisive in nature and offer no tangible way forward.
For instance there's no reason why economists and environmentalists can't collaborate and exchange ideas (Risk Management for example), or why religious institutions can't (emulate the Vatican), use their pulpit to instil love for our planet earth and its sentient beings that were created by the same God that created us. I don't see why cross-cultural integration won't work; in fact sharing different worldviews and traditional knowledge from the east or the indigenous peoples in the North could well be our saving grace, as it has the potential to enlighten our worldviews and experiences, while providing rich environments to seed new ideas and create intellectual revolutions.
Last but not least and once again, the media and the scientific community need to work together, as the media are constantly looking for stories and the climate science community has plenty to offer. Clearly the two are interdependent on each other and they need to strengthen their relationship in order to provide effective coverage of climate change if we are to engage the public and spur political action before it is too late.
]]>A Call for New Ethics in an Overpopulated Planettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21895552012-11-26T15:04:01-05:002013-01-26T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
However in the past few decades its magnificent golden rays have become harmful to man. The ozone layer, which shields the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays, has seen unprecedented damage. It is a natural sunscreen that protects us from skin cancer, but by the end of March 2011, 40 percent of the ozone in the stratosphere had been destroyed by industrial pollutants, allowing more of the sun's harmful ultraviolet B rays to penetrate through the atmosphere. This has been linked to the increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts and immune system damage.
Had anyone considered the unintended consequences of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) when it was developed in the early part of the nineteenth century? It is evident that human actions were based on the "here and now" and they ignored the after effects of the pollutants, says Hans Jonah in his book The Imperative of Responsibility.
Over the past 250 years, man's actions have continued to alter the Earth's atmosphere dramatically. Thanks to the scientific and industrial revolutions which transformed industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining, and improved the socioeconomic and cultural conditions. Technology advanced in leaps and bounds by the mid-1800s, and by the 21st century, modern medical technologies such as cell biology progressed so much that man had the power to defy age and extend life.
In 1960 the average person lived 53 years, but in 2010 the average human life was extended to 60 years. In 1800 the world's population was one billion, it took 130 years to reach two billion, but within 30 years, by 1960, there were three billion people on this planet. Fast forward to November 2012, and more than seven billion of us are living on earth. The problem with this kind of exponential population growth is that it is perpetuating pollution problems, which in turn is having a detrimental effect on all living beings (see Environmental Ethics by Paul Pojman & Louis Pojman).
But the paradox is, people who have contributed the least to global warming are the ones that are impacted the most. Here again the unintended consequences of rapid technological advances comes under scrutiny, but a more important question is, "Is it ethical to act without knowing the consequences of these advances?" And Jonas questions, did anyone ever consider that in order to maintain the Earth's balance? ("If we abolished death we must abolish procreation as well.") Apparently not!
Technology is transforming the very conditions of human life and is posing an unprecedented threat to the existence of life on this planet. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which recently released the latest Red List of Threatened Species, confirms an extinction crisis, with one-fifth of vertebrate species threatened. The report also reveals that an average of 50 species of mammals, birds and amphibians are moving closer to extinction each year due to the impacts of human activities such as agricultural expansion, logging, over-exploitation and invasive alien species.
Here Jonas' assessment of human actions is fitting -- "the raping of nature and the civilizing of man go hand in hand." In his endless quest to conquer power and success, man is involved in actions that have "opened up a whole new dimension of ethical relevance for which there is no precedent in the standards and canons of traditional ethics." These ethics are anthropocentric, involving direct dealing of man with man, and here "nature is not an object of human responsibility."
Also, the ancient ethics did not consider the power of knowledge to predict the after effects, consequently no one is held responsible for the unintended consequences of man's actions, which are threatening the survival of his own species: "No previous ethics had to consider the global condition of human life and the far-off future, even the existence of the race." It is clear that these antiquated ethics are no longer suitable for an era dominated by modern technology; therefore "the changed nature of human actions call for a change in ethics as well," according to Richard Bernstein in Rethinking Responsibility.
But the question is where do we start? A new ethics of responsibility that rises above the anthropocentric bias of traditional ethics and is sensitive to ecological issues is a first step in the right direction, however, we must also recognize that this alone without political will and appropriate forms of governance will not work. According to a Toronto lawyer for human rights and global justice Dr. Laura Westra, we need to seriously consider an imperative that suggests, "Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life."
In relation to the issue of over population, the ethical dilemma becomes dicey because much of the growth is taking place in the developing world where cultural and religious differences dominate. For instance in India, home to the second largest population on earth, currently there are 1.22 billion people -- one sixth of the global population living on a 3.2 million square kilometer area. Religion is one of the key factors influencing fertility rates in that country. Hindus represent 80.5 percent of the population and Muslims account for the second largest, with the later continuing to grow exponentially. In fact between 1961 and 2001, the number of Muslims increased by 194 percent compared to an overall growth of 134 percent of the country's population. The 'particularized theology hypotheses' attributes the fertility rates to theological matters such as marriage, contraception and abortion.
So with hundreds of cultures and religions, and more than 7000 languages spread across 194 countries the ethical dilemma is how do we address the population issue? We need to be sensitive and recognize that "world views are powerful players in human cultures" and "the contours of moral experience vary across different cultural contexts," according to Dr. Westra.
In the meantime of greater significance is the fact that the "ecological footprint" created by the wealthy in the west and north is disproportionately high. It is a source of oppression and creates multiple harms for the poor of the South & East, as they are forced to sacrifice their resources to support our "six planet" lifestyle, and receive our waste instead through the practices of globalization. According to Dr. Westra, what is lacking here is respect for the integrity of nature and its processes, ethical consideration for both human and non-human creatures and the political will.
Another ethical dilemma is, "Do wealthy nations have the moral right to point finger and blame the impoverished nations for problems they never created'?" More importantly how can we expect the ethical standards developed by the wealthy to be embraced by the impoverished nations, when the choice between feeding their children and protecting the environment is obvious? Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid suggests that man cannot ascend to the level of morality until the basic physiological needs such as food, water and sex are met.
As I walked back wondering how did we get here in the first place, one thing became clear: There are no simple solutions simple and easy solutions to these profound moral dilemmas. Meantime, I will continue to dig deep and explore my own moral philosophies, while sharing my knowledge, and do my part to love and respect nature and its creatures. As I walk through the woods I see a few snails and earthworms trampled to death by man, as one snail crosses my path oblivious to the dangers. I pick up the innocent creature and place it far off the trail, so it may be spared by man's actions. The living world is making "a salient plea for sparing its integrity." Is man listening?]]>Who's the Climate Expert?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21623622012-11-20T10:47:21-05:002013-01-20T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/
However, the media generally tend to portray non-experts (mostly deniers) as experts in climate change, and give them the same amount of credibility as climate scientists, which has been adding to the public confusion of an issue that is already complex.
Here are a few things to consider before obtaining expert opinions:
First, it's important to recognize that those that deny climate change usually have high stakes in the fossil fuel industry, and if they acknowledged that climate change is happening they'd have to act on it, which would mean spending money to make changes. Even more important is the billions of dollars sitting in the oil wells yet to be realized by the fossil fuel industry.
This is of particular significance now more than ever before for North America, as recent reports point to the discovery of abundance of fossil fuel in parts of the USA and Canada.
In its annual report entitled World Energy Outlook 2012 the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests the USA is on track to overtaking the Saudi oil production,
"By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest global oil producer (overtaking Saudi Arabia until the mid-2020s) and starts to see the impact of new fuel-efficiency measures in transport."
Just a week before the IEA release another study in Canada identified huge amounts of oil and gas resources in Alberta's emerging shale industry, implying that a string of recent takeovers and land buys will yield tremendous production gains for some of the world's largest oil companies.
Clearly the North American fossil fuel sector isn't about to slow down any time soon despite scientific evidence that directly links greenhouse gases (mostly emitted by fossil fuels) to climate change.
In an interview for my MA thesis, Dr. Gordon McBean, a climate scientist, who co-authors reports for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), who is also the Director for Research and External Relations at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) said, the fossil fuel industry is becoming smarter in propagating so called "experts" to counter the credible climate science, "who are being thrown into the mix, but don't really have the credibility."
The key question then is, "Is there science to support the climate denier campaign?"
Dr. McBean denies the existence of any such science. He says,
"There isn't anything based on solid scientific analysis and information. There is misinterpretation and misuse of statistics. They'd like to point out that it hasn't warmed in the last ten years. First of all that's incorrect but more importantly it's irrelevant in that sense because climate is a decadal - several tens of years you must look at to see the changing climate and so it's not one year at a time. So we need to look at these things in the right context. The deniers largely pull random bits of information that support their case and ignore or downplay or dispute the evidence that is supporting the issue of climate is warming."
It seems climate deniers will go to extremes and do whatever it takes to trash the climate science. One denier went so far as to proclaiming himself a "Lord" (apparently to buy himself some clout), which was brought to light during a special congressional hearing on climate science at Washington D.C. this past May. In this You Tube video Rep. Jay Inslee cross examines "Lord" Monckton, making him look like a sad witness to an argument that he couldn't really defend, as everyone else other than "Lord" Monckton was a credible climate scientist. Even more amusing is "Lord" Monckton's admission that he never sat or voted in the House of Lords. And yet he continues to call himself a "Lord".
Here's a small portion of the heated exchange between Rep. Inslee and "Lord" Monckton:
Rep. Jay Inslee:
"Lord Moncton when did you start serving in the House of Lords? I notice you brought fraternal greetings from the Mother of Parliaments to Congress to our athletic democracy. When did you start serving in the House of Lords?"
Lord Moncton:
"Sir I have never sat or never voted in the House of Lords as you've probably been informed."
Rep. Jay Inslee:
"Thank you. You've answered my question. You come here, call yourself a Lord, to try to convince the world to ignore something that threatens our grand kids, and you're not even a Lord."
This is the kind of cross examination the media need to carry out, in addition to conducting background checks. Some deniers may hold a PHD degree but not related to climate science, in which case they should be disallowed from pontificating on a topic they have no expertise in.
Unfortunately in the hectic pace of the 24-hour television news cycles some of the deniers' claims go unchallenged, creating room for misinformation in the public domain.
Overall the media have to become more vigilant and search out credible corroboration for everything they read or hear, according to James Hoggan, who recently authored a book, entitled "Climate Cover-up - the crusade to deny global warming". Hoggan suggests journalists should meticulously scrutinize the credentials and potential biases of those who offer easy answers, and in doing so will most often discover that these sources are desperately trying to protect their interests by seeking out information to support their views - even if inaccurate and untrue.
It's called "Confirmation Bias" - which according to the online dictionary "is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true."
Joshua Laughren, the Climate Change Director of World Wildlife Fund Canada, explains why deniers tend to cling on to their biases,
"Acting on climate change means challenging a whole number of deeply held assumptions by certain people. It means there are going to be losers, there are companies and industries that don't do as well under carbon free economy as they would otherwise. So there's a strong push to protect interest. There are countries that would react when it has to change and Canada is one of them. It's a fuel based economy and it's a big change for Canada. So it's difficult. There are deeply held values around free market, around believing that market will solve all problems; that technology is good and we are on an ever increasing path to a higher standard of living; deeply held beliefs in individualism and suspicious about government entities. So when a problem comes in like climate change which says we have to reign in this industrial growth we have to develop big international governance structures --- that makes people very nervous."
Consequently people, especially in the fossil fuel industry, continue to deny although "the science is settled: Manmade carbon pollution is to blame for the climate crisis. We're already seeing the results, with extreme weather happening more frequently around the world," according to a new Reality Drop campaign by The Climate Reality Project, which is about to be launched in a bid to debunk the deniers' "false claims"
An interesting book called "Merchants of Doubt" explores how certain corporations and other vested interests in the fossil fuel industry are supporting a small number of deniers to communicate effectively by providing financial support for media coverage.
This makes it all the more imperative for the media to seek out climate scientists for stories on climate change, just as they feature qualified experts for relevant topics. There's no apparent reason as to why climate change should be treated any differently.]]>Al Gore: Dirty Energy Makes Dirty Weathertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21188982012-11-13T13:16:31-05:002013-01-13T05:12:01-05:00Sangita Iyerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sangita-iyer/24 Hours of Reality: The Dirty Weather Report, highlighting the implications of fossil fuels on our planet's climate, and the need to curb fossil fuel production and consumption.
This comes on the heels of a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) released this Tuesday. In the executive summary of its annual flagship publication, the World Energy Outlook the IEA made the boldest declaration yet,
No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 °C goal", the internationally recognized limit to average global warming in order to prevent catastrophic climate change"
The topic of climate change is coming to the forefront after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the eastern parts of the United States. Speaking of Hurricane Sandy, on bloggingheads.tv, atmospheric scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, an Associate Professor and Director of Climate Science at the Texas Tech University, and author of A Climate for Change -- global warming facts for faith based decisions, said although we can't directly link climate change to the manifestation of hurricane Sandy, climate change has certainly exacerbated the effects of Sandy. So what does this mean?
Well first of all our sea level is currently seven to eight inches higher than it would've been 100 years ago. So when those storm surges come along, they're coming along on top of slightly higher background conditions that add a just little bit to the sea surge. If we're talking about sea surges of 14 feet, seven or eight inches doesn't sound like much. It's just an extra four percent, but four percent is more than zero. So there is some, little part of flooding that would not have occurred were it not for the increasing global sea level.
In addition, according to Dr. Hayhoe, Sandy picked up more energy from the warm ocean water, which has already increased by two degrees Fahrenheit off the coast of the eastern United States.
In the aftermath of Sandy, Gore wrote an opinion piece in The Huffington Post that said, "Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come...We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather."
The unprecedented warming of our planet and the oceans has been linked to human activities caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from industries such as fossil fuel and agriculture. A 2010 summary of climate science by the Royal Society says,
There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation.
And the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever" according to the most thorough analysis (in 2011) of the world energy infrastructure by the IEA. It says the world is likely to build so many fossil-fueled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels.
Just last week the IEA initiated a dialogue with a select group of companies on the energy-security impacts of climate change. Executive Director Maria Van der Hoeven said,
Much has been said about the ways in which our energy system is affecting the climate, yet very little has been said about the opposite: the effects of a changing climate on our energy system. As the IEA's core mission is enhancing energy security, we think it's imperative to jump-start a conversation about this issue ... Our discussions today showed that active dialogue between industry and governments around this issue can improve our future resilience to climate impacts.
Meanwhile, a global dialogue on the urgent need to tackle the "climate crisis" will be the focus of the "24 Hours of Reality: The Dirty Weather Report," which will take place tomorrow and is the second annual online event showcasing how global climate change is connected to the extreme weather events. The entire 24-hour event will comprise live presentations and will be broadcast on the internet from New York City, with "each region of the world, bringing voices, news and multimedia content across all 24 time zones," while also featuring stories from communities around the globe that are moving forward with solutions.
We'll always have to live with bad weather sometimes. But we don't have to live with Dirty Weather. We can make the switch from dirty to clean energy ... and together, we can stop the pollution that's disrupting our climate.