Re/Action on Climate Protection

How to solve global warming

Stopping "dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate" is the most important problem facing humanity today. Significant action at the local level is one of the major keys.

Disclaimer

Dear Readers: Through this blog I aim to stimulate dialog, information exchange and debate. Opinions and ideas expressed in this blog are my own, and therefore may occasionally differ from those of the Climate Protection Campaign, where I work.

Community Climate Action Plan

In 2006, all the city councils and the Board of Supervisors in Sonoma County, CA, endorsed a community (county)-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 25% below 1990 levels by 2015. An effort is now underway to develop an action plan to reach that target...and beyond.

Climate Protection Conference in Sonoma County

Last Friday, 7/14, the second Climate Protection: Everybody Profits conference was held in Sonoma County, CA. Speakers from local governments, businesses were featured along with a panel discussion of tools and solutions. The keynote speaker was Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection agency. Here is a link to the article on the conference in the local paper. The Climate Protection Campaign presented a "report card" for the County, detailing emissions levels to date, and how far the County needs to go to reach its overall target of 25% below 1990 levels by 2015Download status_report_july_14_06.pdf

Climate Protection in Sonoma County

For the past few weeks, there has been a great deal of activity going on "behind the scenes" in Sonoma County, related to climate protection. The CA state Public Utilities Commission and the utility, PG&E, have been negotiating with local groups to bring an unprecedented array of energy efficiency programs into the county.

Why S-Clusters? How does this help Climate Protection?

How does the s-cluster (sustainability cluster) help with climate protection? The s-cluster is a pattern that is extracted from real world examples of sustainability. One of the characteristics of the s-cluster is that it is zero carbon. An s-cluster provides a product or service, essential to life, without increasing the atmospheric CO2 concentration. The s-cluster allows us to identify levers or changes to existing systems that lower total GHG emissions.

Break from the blog

For about the past week or so, I have taken a break from the blog. It is extremely energizing and challenging to keep up with the level of discourse, and my family time has been suffering somewhat. I hope to get on a more regular posting schedule once the holidays are over. I want to thank everyone who is posting and participating for making this blog work. I think it is becoming a valuable resource, and am looking forward to 2006.

Happy Holidays to all, and here's to reduced GHGs in '06 and beyond!

The Socio-Political Aspects of Climate Change

Over the last few days, we have had a couple of posts that depart somewhat from our usual "nuts-and-bolts" presentation. One post was by author/lecturer/activist Shepherd Bliss, on the visit of Prince Charles to the San Francisco Bay Area. This post provoked several comments on the meaning and relevance of Charles taking a position on climate change. This would be a good opportunity to weigh in on the apparent schizophrenia of the British Government, as well as the mechanisms of advocacy. Part of the mission of this blog is to explore what works and what doesn't in motivating political action.

Along these lines, we also had two posts from the director of Climate Protection Campaign, Ann Hancock. One post is on dependent co-arising which is an alternative way of viewing the mechanisms of political change. The other is on the relationship between activism on the Peak Oil issue, and climate change activism. There is a possibility that these two issues can merge and build a constituency for action. However, problems arise. What should the focus be? What if anything is the driving issue? For more information on Peak Oil, you can start here. Thanks for joining us, and I'm looking forward to hearing your views!

Dave

Dependent co-arising: An idea that helps sustain me

Joanna Macy, a teacher of mine who compared Buddhism and systems theory, introduced me to dependent co-arising.

Dependent co-arising seeks to describe how things happen and change. There is no first cause or prime mover, but instead patterns or circuits of contingency. The factors are sustained by their own interdependence. Things do not produce each other or make each other happen, as in linear causality; they help each other happen by providing occasion or locus or context, and in so doing, they in turn are affected. There is a mutuality here, a reciprocal dynamic.

"Emergence" is the closest concept in systems theory.