A Lack of Concern

Bill McKibben’s End of Nature was “the first book for a general audience about global warming.”

It was only after I began reading the book that I became aware of its publication date. 1989. It was quite the unpleasant shock when I realized that individuals like McKibben were already spreading warnings of climate change before I was even born, and yet it is still a prominent environmental issue, exasperatingly viewed as “indeterminate” by the general public.

Yep. This is science.

I’m both mortified and incensed that my earliest “education” of climate change was media-hyped blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow. I feel as though my community and society have failed me. 1989! And yet it was only after entering college—20 years after The End of Nature—that I was finally offered serious discussion about a global issue that will most assuredly impact the rest of my life (especially according to Bill McKibben). 

My copy of The End of Nature was reprinted in 2006, which is once again almost 20 years after the original publishing date. The fact that this book could be successfully reprinted only supports the frustrating admission that climate change remains to be a relevant, escalating issue that has been—and continues to be—exceedingly neglected.

“Despite a few international conferences and grand declarations, we’ve done next to nothing to stem the flow of carbon dioxide that fuels global warming.”

Earth Fest in Uptown Park

Miami University just recently held its annual Earth Fest celebration in Uptown Park on Saturday, April 18th. The weather was beautiful and so was the turn out. A variety of local environmental entities, such as the Butler County Stream Team and the Parks and Recreation Department, offer information and activities to Earth Fest attendees, both Oxford residents and Miami students. This very Conservation Biology class hosted a booth for the Miami Monarch Project—a student effort to bring awareness to the plight of the monarch butterfly.

Events and efforts such as these are effective ways to combat the “nature disconnect” issue that is outlined in an article by Nalini M. Nadkarni. Nowadays, people are having “more virtual rather than actual experiences,” Nadkarni argues, which causes individuals to rapidly develop disconnect with the natural world. It’s up to the scientists (or at least science communicators) to repair this nature disconnect experienced by the general public.

The Need For Collective Change

Bill McKibben is a brutally honest man, who admits his basic function in the world is to “bum people out.” The majority of his lecture, “The Education of an Unlikely Activist,” consisted of information and revelations that are difficult to accept. But there is no sense in avoiding the facts, McKibben points out. The scale and pace of “what’s going on” needs immediate attention to avoid making a bad situation worse. 

What’s going on? Climate change, of course.

Bill McKibben is co-founder of the global climate movement “350.org,” The number, “350,” refers the safe limit (in parts per million) of carbon dioxide allowed in Earth’s atmosphere. Today, the world is above 400ppm of CO₂. With that sense of urgency, McKibben helped create the “350” group in 2008. “We had no plan, we thought we’d just go out and organize the world around climate change.”

And why not? The unsustainable behavior that resulted in a 1^oC global temperature increase and pushed humanity out of the Holocene epoch has “set us on a path to raise it 7 to 8 degrees higher in this century.” McKibben warns that these increasing temperatures will decrease the world’s grain production and raise the sea level. 

“Can you imagine the impacts?” McKibben asks, “On development, public health, war and peace?” This question strikes at the core of any environmental scientist, whose field of study has always been interdisciplinary, with strong social implications.

McKibben uses the nation of Maldives as a prime example of the negative social impacts of climate change. As an island chain in the Indian Ocean, the highest point of Maldives is 1 meter above sea level. McKibben shows the audience a picture of three small children from Maldives holding up a “350” sign. “In the future, those girls will probably become refugees for something they didn’t do.” 

To me, that is the worst aspect of current global environmental issues: the disparity between the sinners and the sufferers. Those who are the least responsible for instigating climate change are those who will bear the brunt of its consequences.

People consider activists as “radical” individuals. But McKibben explained that organizations like "350" actually have a rather conservative demand: they want to maintain an Earth similar to what most other humans have had the chance to live on. 

If the demand is so reasonable and the consequences so great, then why is nothing being done about climate change? 

McKibben answers, "The scientists have done their job and presented society with their well-reasoned warning. The engineers have done their job and developed various alternatives to fossil fuel energy. What prevents us from acting is the failure of our citizens."

The time is past for individual efforts. Personal choices to eat vegan, drive electric cars, or install solar panels will only do so much now. “Physics wanted us to start 25 years ago.” Today, we need a collective effort. Together, citizens need to actively stand up against corporations and demand change from the government—to move away from fossil fuels as a society. 

Protests, such as those asking for universities to divest in fossil fuels, may seem dramatic, but we are running out of time to do anything but be active and become activists. 

Deliverer of Gloom and Doom

Dale Jamieson, a professor at NYU, visited Miami University
as part of the Anthropocene Lecture Series.

"Climate change is the most difficult problem that humanity has ever faced,” Dale Jamieson solemnly informed the audience at his Anthropocene lecture “Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed and What it Means for Our Future” hosted at Miami University.

Indeed, most of Jamieson’s lecture was solemn; it was laundry list of past human failures in regards to our changing planet. I felt a furious humiliation as I read the 1970s headlines that Jamieson displayed: “Scientists Fear Climate Change” or “’Wait & See’ May Be Too Late.” There was a sick understanding in the audience that these past examples mirror the headlines of today—almost forty years later.

Never an “It” but Rather a “He”

Only fifty pages into A Sand County Almanac, and I am persuaded that all issues of conservation could be solved if life mandated that every soul read the revelations of Aldo Leopold.

The talented writing in A Sand County allows the reader to progress smoothly, but even more effectual is Leopold’s fondness to personify nature. 

Leopold turns nature into a neighbor—one with motives and cognition—to which people can relate to on a human level.

Never is an animal an “it” but rather a “he” (I’ve yet to witness a “she” but given the decades in which Leopold lived, I’m willing to let this one slide).
The choice of a human pronoun, paired occasionally with a human occupation or behavior, goes a long way to invest the reader into the affairs of Leopold’s “tenants.”

Turning Our Words into Action

“Should scientists become advocates?”

I have heard this question several times throughout my education. Where is the line between remaining objective and having an agenda? Should scientists promote their research findings if they draw critical conclusions? The answer, I found, is no.

We do not need scientist-advocates. We just need more people like Janisse Ray.

As part of the Anthropocene series at Miami University, Janisse Ray shared her insights as a writer, naturalist, and activist in her lecture “Being Human in Wild Times.” To me, this gifted speaker could have been singing—her words were as musical as lyrics. The message of her lecture was just as mesmerizing.

Ray believes the idea of the Anthropocene is a “dead end” and represents hopelessness. Tackling the country’s environmental mess will require characteristic American traditions: “courage and open-mindedness.” Individuals need to find the courage to do their part: to walk when they can, to buy green when they can. We all need to find the courage to live sustainably.

“Big problems require small solutions.” –Mahatma Gandhi

Feeding 7 Billion People Is A Problem

No one needs a gas-guzzling, planet-killing Ford F-150. Hell, no one really needs a Prius. Hypothetically, everyone could use mass transportation or—even better—their own legs. But people need food. There’s no getting around that biological requirement.

The real problem is growing that food for seven billion people.

As a part of the Anthropocene lecture series hosted at Miami University, Wes Jackson, the founder of The Land Institute, was invited to explain “the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture.”

To summarize an interview of Jackson on sustainable agriculture, he stated, “I’m not optimistic, I’m hopeful.” And that is hope is what Jackson shared—with me, at least—by introducing the idea of domesticating the perennial grain.

Jackson began his lecture by pointing out how feeding a growing human population is a problem. He identified “land use” as the second greatest emitter of greenhouse gases, a large contributor to global climate change. Additionally, the portion of land use devoted to agriculture emits an equal amount of greenhouse gases as that of transportation. And here I was griping about Fords!

And that’s the point, isn’t it? All throughout intermediate and high school, students like myself were given the standard example of transportation as a GHG culprit. Agriculture has seemingly flown under the radar because—let’s face it—it’s food. It’s our food; it’s our food’s food (speaking of livestock), it’s now even the gas tank’s food.

These excuses are a problem. So what do we do?