Big fossil fuel corporations, all vigorous MultiEarth fundamentalist entities, have been doubting and denying that Earth’s changing climate is happening. Or if it’s happening, it’s not caused by humans. Or if it’s caused by humans, don’t worry we’ll take care of it.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are organizations of scientists and environmentalists. The consensus of science (97% of scientists globally) has joined environmental groups in describing ever more details of how Earth’s changes in climate are happening, changing bug and animal patterns, contributing to extinctions, and caused by humans. Scientists have moved beyond their conventional role of reporting facts as dispassionately as possible. Driven by the nonaction of governments and denial of many MultiEarth corporations (who often bad-mouth scientists), scientists have moved to conveying the alarm that Earth is ringing and calling for us to wake up and act.
So, for example, a report from the largest association of scientists in the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), came out in March, 2014, that included this statement: “As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do, but human-caused climate risks abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes.” In this assessment they are joined by NASA, the US Nat’l Academy of Sciences, the US Geological Survey, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) plus their counterparts in the UK, Europe, and elsewhere.
In between the doubting, denying corporations and the scientists-environmentalists reports and activism are the rest of Earth’s 7.2 billion. Most accept at some level that climate change is happening BUT DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. Here at the OneEarth Project we think about it. A lot. Are we maladjusted? We’ve discovered that the more we think about it, the fear that despair will overtake us gets pushed aside the more we see that the MultiEarth Complex is immature, inferior, and an illusion. To see OneEarth living as a move to maturity and the full expression of who we are as a species can become exhilarating. Gosh, I so want all OneEarthers to connect! The energies of transformation have just begun.
Recently, Nick Cohen, British journalist, wrote about the deniers, the doubters, the scientists, the environmentalists, and the masses, and concluded: “I am no better than them [meaning the masses]. I could write about the environment every week. No editor would stop me. But the task feels as hopeless as arguing against growing old. How can you persuade countries to accept huge reductions in their living standards to limit (not stop) the rise in temperatures? How can you persuade the human race to put the future ahead of the present?”
Someone tell Nick Cohen to connect with OneEarth. Please.
The report of the AAAS, “What We Know,” includes much that we can do differently. They really hope we will. I’d rather be maladjusted with the AAAS than adjust well to MultiEarth patterns.