- iaindryden1
20x20x20 = !?!
He was adamant. “Anything goes, the Planet is suffering, look at ALL the climate disasters!”
I had to think for a second, “Yes, action is needed, but to stop ambulances speeding to hospital is to target the victims, not those who….”
“You, me, WE need to change our life styles NOW!” “Exactly, but this motorway blocking is putting people against action because it’s disrupting their lives.” “Bull***t,” and he turned from me.
My mind went back to 1998 and a valley in the Pyrenees I was researching for a third book in a series. Europe wanted to tunnel a highway through to Spain, but this exceptional valley, a National Park, had the last few French bears, it also had several unique ecology pockets and a special mountain culture, and locals rose up against the idea. A well meaning man spread the word and extreme activists came from across the continent to build tree houses, dig tunnels and park their caravans without thought, soon locals wanted nothing to do with the unruly protest and Europe won.
I said, “Better target the politicians, the oil companies, the oil lobbyists at CoP.”
He stuck his finger up and walked away.
I called, “Global Warming is happening, there’s no use talking, we need immediate action. But not this sort….”
“F*** you,” and off he went. Interesting, hefty friction between two people deeply concerned about the climate. Divide and rule. It’s what Europe did in La Valley d’Aspe in 1998. It’s happening now at CoP27. And it’s happening in our quaint little Somerset street.
But he’s right, the trouble with climate change is that few really believe in it. We believe in consumption so we’re addicted to buying things, but we can’t all see the connection to global warming. That the majority don’t see this means we can’t do anything about it. So we buy electric cars, which is barking up a bad tree - why not less polluting hydrogen engines? The job of those who know that Climate Change is the biggest problem mankind has ever faced, is to ask everyone who thinks like them to nudge everyone they know to nudge onwards and start a chain reaction.
Think about this - 20x20x20x20=3,200,000.
If twenty of you read this blog and convince twenty more, it only takes two more retellings for 3,200,000 people to have been moved, now multiply that by twenty and a country will have been touched.
3,200,000x20=UK’s population of 64,000,000.
Do it over three more times = the world’s population!
That is what nudging twenty people in the right manner could do.
There we are, we’ve seen the maths, now act with gentle, concise wisdom.
What we believe is malleable. Show people that in the 1990s oil companies started a disinformation campaign against the well established facts of climate change (do you recall that I almost went to monitor Arctic melting in 1996). Tell them (sweetly) that at today’s CoP meeting in Egypt, there are more oil people attending than those representing countries suffering from Climate Change. Hopefully those you nudge will get the picture and they’ll nudge onwards….
Our politicians are the last people who will act, Greta is right, they’ve been talking for 30 years. Blah blah blah. Since the day they started talking, more CO2 & methane has been emitted than in all the years prior to that date. Look at the graphs.
Today’s CoP27 are aiming for 1.5C by 2050. If we continue emitting methane and CO2 at current rates, in just 9 years the world will have warmed to that 1.5C limit. Yup. That is the way it is. Having seen what current rates (of 1.1C) are doing to the world’s climate systems, imagine rising to 1.5C in 9 years!!!
The climate is at a VERY dangerous tipping point NOW, not next year, not next decade. We must change our values, we must live less consumptive lives.
The major CO2/methane emitters are our travel, heating and food. Methane is almost 100 x as destructive as CO2, and animals politely burp it out, so it is really effective to eat less meat, OK lamb if you must, (=1/3 as much methane as a cow) or free-range chicken, and eat mainly local and mostly veg…. Plus fly less, walk/cycle more.
Time has almost run out, really. If we don’t change drastically, it has been calculated that humanity as we know it has only two generations left… The last generation will face dreadful disaster each day. Do we really want our grandchildren to suffer unimaginable catastrophe regularly? To say nothing of the millions of species great and small….
Gloomy, yes. But that is how it is.
We just have to change.
Nudge, nudge x20x20x etc.