Siloed Thinking, Climate, and Disposable People
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- Published on Wednesday, 12 December 2018 03:08
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1720 ... December 12, 2018
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Siloed Thinking, Climate, and Disposable People
Judith Deutsch
Thinking in siloes about the climate and about our planet's people puts us at risk of increasing climate disruption and massive loss of life. This year the climate meeting, COP24, is in Katowice, Poland, from December 3 to December 14.
These international meetings were set up by the United Nations and led to the Kyoto Protocol, calling for a 6%-8% greenhouse gas reduction below a 1990 baseline by the end of 2012 and aimed to keep warming to 2C above the 1800 baseline. At this time, emissions continue to rise precipitously. The climate meetings are consistently plagued by evasive goals regarding emissions reduction and temperature targets, and by delayed funding for poorer nations.
Several years... ago I attended a meeting of major environmental organizations, brought together by the Climate Action Network to hear the results of a survey conducted on how to best inform the public about climate change. The consultants advised giving people something they can do, focusing on what they directly experience, and being positive. Climate solutions should be contextualized as lifestyle choices with a promised reward such as more free time; money back from carbon tax rebates; harmony with nature; and a society of high tech living based on "clean energy." Glenn Greenwald describes how American leaders get away with murder and much else through a positivity of "moving forward" and leaving out the past. Paul Jay of the Real News Network speaks with alarm about the infantilization of the public when "we need to tell people the whole truth about the urgency of this historical moment... The existential threat of the current moment." What sets British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn apart is his treating people as adults. He talks about wars, climate, nuclear weapons.
