Is 13 too young for my daughter to decide she doesn't want children?

I’ve always been open with my 13-year-old about the realities of climate catastrophe. She’s the sort of kid who asks questions and initiates difficult conversations. Since the recent UN released a 33-page report summarising the IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) latest assessment, we’ve begun talking in terms of plans for the future. I don’t shield her from the facts. I've asked her whether she’s thought about not having children.

I fear my daughter has harder choices than us to make.CREDIT:

At her age, I wasn’t even aware of the concept of climate change. But she can’t afford the luxury of being blissfully ignorant. Time is running out. She performed in a play last year based on Derrick Jensen’s graphic novel As the World Burns. She’s painfully aware of the possibility that her children and grandchildren will have a harder time being alive. And the band-aid banalities coming from politicians and lobby groups are no solutions at all.

Read the story from the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Katerina Cosgrove - “Is 13 too young for my daughter to decide she doesn't want children?”

Facts haven't worked, so let's try civil disobedience

 

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acts, as solid and irrefutable as they are, have had little impact on encouraging people to act in an effort to avoid climate change and so now it seems social disobedience is the last resort.

And so now we have the Climate Disobedience Centre, which is now formally launched.

Introductory words on the centre’s new page say:

Welcome to the Climate Disobedience Center. We have been quietly telling people about the launch of the center for some time, but today we are excited to launch this website. Please sign up for updates as new content and official social media channels will be rolling out over the coming days. We don't want you to miss anything, and can use your help spreading the word. Now to business! What is the Climate Disobedience Center? The following is a brief overview by Tim DeChristopher and Jay O'Hara.
 

Visit the new Climate Disobedience Center website.

Facts from NASA worth considering

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ASA facts about global warming that are worth considering.

Being mostly graphics, it makes digestion of the information much easier and so simpler to understand.

You’ll find the information here - “Global climate change –vital signs of the planet”.

Is Christie serious, or is it polltical gamesmanship?

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ossible U.S. presidential candidate, Chris Christie, “thinks” climate change is real.

 

However, he is unsure as to what degree humans are responsible.

Chris Christie - is he serious or
is it political gamesmanship?

 

Although there has been some celebration about this apparent change of heart, his caveat about being unsure about humans being responsible, plunges him right back among the deniers.

 

A ClimateProject story - “Chris Christie Makes Big Admission On Climate Change” – illustrates the confusion in Christie’s thinking.

 

It says: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie admitted that he thinks climate change is real and that humans contribute to it at an event in New Hampshire last week.

 

“But Christie, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, also added that he thinks the degree to which humans contribute is questionable, according to MSNBC.

 

“I think global warming is real. I don’t think that’s deniable,” he said. “And I do think human activity contributes to it.”

 

He says climate change is real, lays the blame at the feet of humans and then qualifies that observation.

 

It appears he is playing political games with the facts.

George will help us understand why we ignore an obvious fact

George Marshall - he will help us understand
why people ignore climate change.

George Marshall will hopefully help us understand that the brutality facts will not take us any closer to understanding or addressing climate change.

The communications expert who will be in Shepparton on Monday, February 16, will talk about why people are hardwired to ignore climate change.

The fact is that climate change is here, it is real and it is impacting on the behaviour of all life on earth, and evidence of those facts just keeps piling in.

The latest on the ABC tells us that the “2013 record heatwave 'virtually impossible' without climate change, Climate Council ofAustralia report says”.

So there it is, right before us, not anecdotal and not supposition, but clear unequivocal fact and undeniable evidence that climate change is impacting on our lives and yet many of us have not yet found the capacity to incorporate that reality into our thinking.

George Marshall will speak at Shepparton’s Rural School of Academic Health in Graham St at 6:00pm. The event is being promoted by the Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow, with the endorsement and support of the Melbourne-based Psychology for a Safe Climate and the Sustainable Living Festival.

Graphic will take us through near 'impenetrable' facts

Sometimes a simple graphic can help explain the most complex of ideas.

Climate change is among the most complex things we have ever had to deal with and a collection of relatively simple graphics – “A Day In The Life Of Global Warming” – can help breach this seemingly impenetrable wall of facts.

Facts are simply facts, but will not win the argument

The facts illustrate that humanity is in desperate trouble and if we don’t change our ways many of us will die, prematurely.

That seems unequivocally clear, beyond argument and sound reason for the world to forget cultural differences, bond as one, combine our efforts, change our behaviour and collaborate to mitigate the circumstances that are changing the world’s climate.

That sound simple enough, but it is not working.

Writing on The Conversation, the deputy director at the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University, Rod Lamberts, has said: “Facts won’t beat the climate deniers – using their tactics will”

He says that more facts is not the solution at all, what we need is more opinion, flooding the media and matching the skeptics at their own game.

We are embroiled in a 'David and Golaith' confrontation

The confrontation
of big and small.

Those of us concerned about the unfolding realities of climate change find ourselves in something of a “David and Goliath” confrontation.

The fossil fuel industry, on the face of it, has a seemingly bottomless fund of money, influence because of well-placed people in critical positions giving them the ear of our decision makers and, critically, the unconscious support of a society which has not yet realised the consequences of climate change or how they will have to behave to counter it.

So Goliath towers above David, who stands apparently impotently to one side with few defences with only facts, sound science and an enthusiasm that puts people ahead of profit and a concern that equates humanity’s well-being with the preservation with a habitable world; a world that reflects what has been for some 10 000 years, but which is now being damaged by a disrupted climate.

In a classic David and Goliath confrontation, The Guardian has written in a story headed: “Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change” that the massive spend is aimed at denying climate change science and opposing any action on climate change.

 

What is overlooked by many is that the "David" in this battle have an implacably ally -  nature.

The myths and facts about solar energy

No one thing will mitigate the evolving difficulties of climate change, but solar energy has the potential to play a lead and significant role in easing the world’s troubles,

The concept is loaded with considerable misleading information; information that is pounced up by the fossil fuel lobby to advance its case.

It is worth understanding something about the realities solar power and the story headed: “Myths And Facts About Solar Energy” published by Media Matters for America breach the wall of confusion that surrounds solar energy.

The story begins, “Conservative media have denigrated solar energy by denying its sustainability, ignoring its successes, and arguing the U.S. should simply cede the solar market to China. Yet this booming industry has made great strides, and with the right policies can become a major source of our power”.