Notes: March 3 – Climate Change & Inequality

Penny U poses questions as springboards for conversation. Its principal content comes from all who attend.

Edward Wolcher and Anne Focke introduced the overall topic and context, and then artists Buster Simpson and Laura Sindell posed a question for discussion.

The question: A catalytic image?

Today we face two major crises at the same time: climate change and economic inequality. The roots of both are deep, and we are very slow to actually do anything about them. How can we raise awareness that these crises are heating up? What image would be catalytic? Is there an icon for climate change?

"Image" is not meant just to be visual. It could be expressed as metaphor, story, or symbol. We seem to have international symbols for many things, like recycle, but Buster and Laura searched without success for a symbol for climate change.

After everyone introduced themselves and the topic and question were posed, about 30 people sat around six tables to imagine a catalytic symbol or story and to consider what traits it should have. At each table one person agreed to take notes, and many ideas were captured. The images that emerged are collected in a separate post (see "Catalytic Images" [link?]). What follows are notes on the rest of the discussion.

What kind of image do we want?

•     Beware "gloom and doom!"  It doesn't get us anywhere. We have to shift to a positive approach. Provide a challenge more than a threat. Don't start an argument; ask for active participation. Draw on positive rather than negative impulses. The image should be aspirational and for all, not just for progressives. We have to look farther out than the next day. What is a doable challenge?

•     We need a call to action. We need to change belief systems that seem to be entrenched. How do we change a belief or culture? Especially among people who are determined not to accept it? Louise has found that when she issues a call to action, she doesn't try to change the deniers, she asks them to help her with something specific, like with the financial records. Amy Snover, a research scientist with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, says climate deniers can hear "flood prevention," but they can't hear "climate change."

•     What is our polestar? What is our guiding principle, our collective success?

      We need a tool to communicate, we need to create an instrument of social change. We need to remember that symbols can be corrupted.

•     What keeps us motivated? How do we want to feel? How can an image interact with life style choices – a range of life-style choices? What affects you directly can change your behavior.

•     The values embodied in the image need to be grounded in community.

•     We should hold on to aesthetics as an issue for dealing with climate change.

•     A cinematic image might be better and more compelling than just one static image.

General discussion

•     Summarizing is hard. Issues around climate change are hard to summarize because there are so many, and things are changing so fast. Everybody is behind where we need to be.

•     We need a green plan, not just a visual image, says Mark Jacobson at Stanford. How can changes actually be made? He and his colleagues have created a 50-state roadmap for replacing coal, oil, and natural gas with wind, water, and solar energy. <http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/fifty-states-renewables-022414.html> This will cost us jobs, but the green economy provides job growth. By very conservative measures, millions of new jobs are possible. Oil money could be invested in wind farms.

•     Capitalist system needed. We will need a scale of intervention that can only be possible with resources from the capitalist system. Indeed, capitalism is what feeds us now, especially given how many of us are there are. If we're looking for alternatives, government is a static creature; it can't move quickly. Thomas Piketty advances the idea of a global tax on capital, saying it's what will overcome inequality.

•     Many ways to be involved, and from many fields.  <Riskybusiness.org> takes stock of "the economic risks of climate change in the U.S." Another example is the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild, an association of building professionals and homeowners interested in ecologically sustainable building.

•     Too late? Should we worry whether it's too late to make a difference? We shouldn't, one table argued. Americans always look for excuses not to get off the couch.

•     The consequences of climate change won't be equally distributed.

•     Two participants whose home is Thailand believe the consumer is the problem.

•     People are distracted by modern life. Social discipline has diminished. Corruption is on the rise. Does utopia mean the planet survives?

•     Terraforming was also mentioned, which means, literally, "earth-shaping." From an online definition: It is the theoretical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography, or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the biosphere of earth to make it habitable by earth-like life.

•     "Maybe Picard (Jean-Luc) had the right idea."