Bill McKibben, American Idealist, Sours on America’s Ideals

In "The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon," an activist finds flaws in patriotism, faith and suburban life and urges fellow baby boomers to change.

In his writings, his many speeches and bullhorn exhortations, Bill McKibben comes across as one of the least cynical people on the battlefield of public opinion. He's passionate about solving problems others have given up on, about building a better world and particularly about climate change, the issue that has made him the Paul Revere of alarm about our fevered planet.

Growing up, he actually sang "Kumbaya" around a campfire — "always earnestly," he says. He won the Gandhi Peace Award and the Thomas Merton Award. One day, perhaps, he'll win the real Nobel to go with the so-called alternative Nobel, which he's already been awarded, the Right Livelihood Award. As is sometimes said about effective environmentalists, he'll make a great ancestor.

His latest book is a slim cri de coeur about the rot at the base of his biographical foundations. McKibben finds his country, his religion and the suburban lifestyle of his youth to be so flawed that he's ready to divorce much of his past... nyt

Warning

 

An essential connection

	National Book Foundation ⁦‪@nationalbook‬⁩ "Perhaps she sensed that, without it, an emotional connection with nature would be impossible; without it, the environmental movement had no hope." #5Under35 honoree Anelise Chen takes a cue from marine biologist Rachel Carson. | ⁦‪@TheAtlantic‬⁩ theatlantic.com/books/archive/…   5/29/22, 10:22 AM

The Rise and Fall of America’s Environmentalist Underground

This year, one of the last fugitives of the Earth Liberation Front pleaded guilty to arson — at a moment when climate activists are again flirting with radical ideas.

...After decades in which America's environmental movement confined its activities largely to rallies, marches and other lawful forms of protest, frustrated activists have begun taking a more confrontational approach. Younger groups like the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion have blockaded roads and occupied the offices of lawmakers. During the Standing Rock protests of 2016, thousands of demonstrators sought to physically impede construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Tim DeChristopher, a founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, which supports protesters who engage in nonviolent resistance, told me that, in the 2000s, such direct action was championed mostly by a fringe group of anarchists. (DeChristopher himself was sent to prison after placing winning bids at public auctions for oil and gas leases and then refusing to pay.) Now, even staid Washington-based environmental groups, sensing an increasingly unruly mood among their base, have slowly started to embrace more radical tactics. In 2017, the Sierra Club formally lifted its 120-year ban on civil disobedience after its executive director and other senior members were arrested for strapping themselves to a gate outside the White House.

Recently, some climate activists have begun to openly contemplate the possibility — in their eyes, the necessity — of directly sabotaging the infrastructure of the carbon economy. Foremost among them is the academic Andreas Malm, whose recent book, "How to Blow Up a Pipeline," calls for smashing the tools of fossil-fuel extraction as a last-ditch means of averting ecological collapse. In interviews with mainstream outlets such as Vox and The New Yorker, Malm contends that climate activists should give up their dogmatic attachment to pacifism and start to destroy the machines that actually produce carbon. While acknowledging that such attacks might fail, Malm nevertheless argues that the urgency of global warming — in the 16 years since [Joseph] Dibee's indictment, the world has collectively pumped about 500 billion more tons of carbon into the atmosphere — demands new tactics. "I think that the situation is so dire, so extreme," he told Vox, "that we have to experiment."
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nyt

One Way to Do More for the Environment: Do Less With Your Yard

Every year we let more patches of our yard go wild, and every year more flowers appear in the uncut areas.

...I wonder if more people don't try to do better by the environment because they think doing better is too hard, too impractical, too expensive. In truth, you can make a difference with an effort as small as planting milkweed in a pot on a city balcony to provide food for monarch butterfly caterpillars. Making a difference can be as easy as learning to love clover and dandelions. It can be as simple as joining the No Mow May movement, a British initiative rapidly spreading across the United States, or the Garden Club of America's Great Healthy Yard Project... Margaret Renkl

A Sci-Fi Writer Returns to Earth: ‘The Real Story Is the One Facing Us’

Last fall, the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson was asked to predict what the world will look like in 2050. He was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, and the atmosphere at the summit — billed as the "last, best hope" to save the planet — was bleak.

But Robinson, whose novel, "The Ministry for the Future," lays out a path for humanity that narrowly averts a biosphere collapse, sounded a note of cautious optimism. Overcome with emotion at times, he raised the possibility of a near future marked by "human accomplishment and solidarity."

"It should not be a solitary day dream of a writer sitting in his garden, imagining there could be a better world," Robinson told the crowd.'

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/books/kim-stanley-robinson-sci-fi.html?referringSource=articleShare

Can Anyone Out-Plan a Pandemic?

Bill Gates has a strategy to save the world from the next infectious threat. He’s not the first.

...To believe that you need only a plan rests on an assumption that humans are rational creatures who have roughly the same values and priorities as you do, and—even more improbable—that humans are inclined to follow plans of any kind. After all, when Gates laid out a strategy for solving climate change last year, he was boldly going where world leaders had gone many, many times before without success. The United Nations has held no fewer than 26 annual climate-change conferences. The world committed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but failed to meet its goals. The Paris Agreement is seven years old, and the UN itself says we’re falling short. But Gates told me that the plan he offered in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster has already done some good for the planet...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/05/bill-gatess-plan-save-world-next-pandemic/629826/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Agricultural ethics

Speaking of agriculture (see next post)...

An interesting query:

I am retired Professor from Colorado State University. My current interest is agriculture and the ethics of agriculture. The third edition of my book - Agriculture's Ethical Horizon was published earlier this year by Elsevier/Academic Press. I did a survey in 1999 of all the US land-grant universities to determine how many had a course on agricultural ethics. The survey was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (13:229-247, 2000). I repeated the survey but did not publish it in 2012. In 1999 there were 15 courses. In 2012 it had fallen to 9. I'm doing the survey again and write to you because your university specializes in agriculture. I write to ask if you have a course in environmental ethics and if it covers anything about agriculture and if you have a course in agricultural ethics... R. L. Zimdahl

 

Vaclav Smil Says Climate Activists Need to Get Real

Everything You Thought You Knew, and Why You're Wrong

A scientist and policy analyst examines the systems that rule our world, denounces easy solutions and makes the case for uncertainty.

...every fundamental aspect of modern civilization rests overwhelmingly on fossil fuel combustion. Take our food system. Readers of Michael Pollan or Amanda Little understand that it's morally indefensible to purchase Chilean blueberries or, God forbid, New Zealand lamb. But even a humble loaf of sourdough requires the equivalent of about 5.5 tablespoons of diesel fuel, and a supermarket tomato, which Smil describes as no more than "an appealingly shaped container of water" (apologies to Marcella Hazan), is the product of about six tablespoons of diesel. "How many vegans enjoying the salad," he writes, "are aware of its substantial fossil fuel pedigree?"
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A ‘Life-Affirming’ Remedy for Climate Despair

Wynn Bruce's death can teach us that climate anxiety and despair can be channeled into constructive action.  

One effort we support is Scientist Rebellion, a group of over 1,000 scientists around the world. They are angry and fearful of climate change, and have engaged in various forms of civil disobedience including chaining themselves to the White House fence, and covering the Spanish Parliament building with paint the color of blood.

Testimony from these scientists shows people who are radiantly alive, meeting the challenges of the moment Peter Kalmus, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has described chaining himself to a Chase Bank building in Los Angeles last month as "a profoundly spiritual experience — in some way, incredibly satisfying and empowering and hope-giving and life-affirming."

Joining a movement allows us to live for a purpose greater than ourselves, and a collective benefit of a national climate mobilization would be improved mental health. Instead of despair and alienation, we can find a sense of purpose and community in the face of the climate crisis. nyt