It seems to me that the topic ‘Climate Change’ is the elephant in the room. People don’t want to talk about. It’s just too gloomy for social gatherings.
I have an antidote. It’s ‘Project Drawdown’. The Project Drawdown website is a window to a world of knowledge that helps you understand the beast and ways of defeating it.
When I read about the billions of dollars allocated for repairing damage, and building resilience against flooding, I despair. Our efforts seem puny against such a huge monster.
As I write, 189 homes have been destroyed or damaged in my beloved Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Likewise, my brother and his wife, who live 100km further north, are on evacuation alert.
View from my brothers front door
21 August 2023
The only good thing to be said for the Canadian wild fires is that they are a wake-up call. The same applies to the fire storms in Greece, Italy, Spain, Maui, California and other places too numerous to mention.
Likewise, the floods in Auckland, East Cape, Hawkes Bay and Nelson are events that would not have occurred had we not piled, into our atmosphere, CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide, causing a 1oC temperature lift. Other catastrophes may have occurred, but not those ones, and not as severe.
Yet, had you lived in Britain in 1940, you would have felt similar grief about the imminent German occupation. At that time, there was nothing surer, than the country was going to be invaded.
Likewise, for the three decades after World War Two, nuclear holocaust seemed inevitable.
When I was in my twenties, the Black Forest was going to die due to acid rain.
None of the above, occurred.
Precious few airmen, fortunate to be in receipt of superior aircraft (Just in the nick of time, the Spitfire was replacing the Hurricane), and aided by uncommonly good weather for dog fights, beat off the mighty Luftwaffe.
In 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev met with Ronald Reagan in Iceland, and they agreed to rolling back their respective nuclear arsenals.
Industrialists on both sides of the iron curtain controlled their sulphur emissions. Acid rain stopped. And the black forest recovered.
In the 1970s, talking nuclear Armageddon was a great way to stop getting invitations to parties.
Talking climate catastrophe, these days, is even more effective at making you a social outcast. Both are equally gloomy, but because we’re all culpable, climate change is an even more malodourous topic. We could blame the arms race on others, but not so, the burning of fossil fuel. We’re all addicts.
What to do? You could try not thinking about it. That eases the discomfort, but doesn’t contribute to a solution.
Or we could get informed.
If the latter sounds more like your style, check out: https://drawdown.org/about . This is the website for an organisation called ‘Project Drawdown’.
Their mission is: Help the world stop climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
I could not possibly explain Project Drawdown’s reason-for-being better than they do themselves. So, here’s their manifesto:
Advance Effective, Science-based Climate Solutions and Strategies. We do the science no one else does to cut through the noise and find effective “whole system” solutions and strategies for stopping climate change.
Foster Bold, New Climate Leadership. We inform, inspire, and empower business leaders, investors, and philanthropists to take bold, new positions, act more strategically, and rapidly bring climate solutions to scale.
Promote New Narratives and New Voices. We work to shift the conversation about climate change from “doom and gloom” to “possibility and opportunity.”
The Project Drawdown website is the product of concerned, capable people, who have come together to tackle the monster in calm, considered ways.
The quality and clarity of the content is a joy to behold.
They don’t ask you for money, and you don’t get annoying adverts popping up.
I thought I knew a thing or two about climate change, but through reading Project Drawdown’s content and watching their tutorials, I am gaining a sense of what will be effective at taming the beast.