Another neverending story (Aah, aah, aah)… Neverending story (Aah, aah, aah)…
I was at this joint Harvard-MIT conference on climate change.
The speaker, a world-renowned scientist and climate activist, was going on and on about the devastating effects of climate change to living beings and our habitats.
A new record for Arctic ice loss…
More frequent droughts = water crisis = food shortage = security issue…
Sea level rise
Coastal erosion
Wetland inundation
Bad news for biodiversity
transform old beliefs before it’s too late…
After a lengthy lecture, the scientist concluded with a dire warning: global temperatures to rise up to 5 degrees Celcius in this century! This could make Earth, our only home, inhabitable.
“And that, my friends, is a possibility based on decades of scientific research,” he announced, “And now if only Justin Bieber will tweet what I had just been rambling on here…”
The stunned silence that ensued knocked me out of my sweet daze. My brain overheated sometime during the talk, driven into a fritz after being bombarded with all the graphs and zeroes.
Hey you! XOXO JB
I looked around me for the first time. The auditorium was filled with expressionless men and women in monotonous suits. I immediately regretted my Cirque du Soleil inspired getup. What was I thinking? Oh, right, I wasn’t.
I slumped lower in my chair. How rude were these so-called members of the intelligentsia to not even have the decency to fake a laugh. The man is important, people, fake a laugh!
At last a guy dressed like Zorro standing by the exit door began slow-clapping. He was probably one of the organizers so…
Surprisingly, the crowd followed, applauding politely.
Mary, my seat mate, climate activist, grandmother and proud New Yorker, turned to me and whispered, “That last part needed clarifying, don’t you think?”
I shrugged.
Poor esteemed scientist. Poor Bieber. Poor audience. Poor Zorro. Poor Grandma Mary.
The scientist’s punchline fell flatter than Kansas (and to think that Kansas is flatter than a pancake).
I felt bad for him because he wasn’t being mean. He simply wanted to drive home a point. But how to get through to an already dour crowd?
I cry the tears, you wipe it dry…
Also, Bieber could probably rep for the youth (see above pic for proof) and their myriad of equally relevant issues but climate change?
If a tree fell in a forest and nobody was around to hear or see it fall, the question is… did the tree really fall?
Shifu, student of Oogway the turtle, from Kung Fu Panda will perhaps meditate intensely on the matter and upon receiving the pertinent visions from the Valley of Visions, conclude, See the tree fall, you will. Hmmmm.
But for the rest of us too busy snap chatting every mole on our faces (sadly, I have 7), that would be a resounding hell no!, complete with dramatic side-eye.
In the same manner that if I had tweeted and nobody bothered to read it, did I really … tweet?
Full of shit, you are. Hmmm.
I imagined our esteemed scientist’s panic welling up as he scanned the sea of nameless faces in the packed auditorium. Pallid faces indicating an illegal amount of time spent indoors (libraries, laboratories, dark karaoke rooms…). Sullen faces indicating a gross abhorrence to social media, which may or may not be due to severe unpopularity (25 followers or less on twitter, instagram) yet are too self-righteous and/or cheap to purchase followers “that automatically retweet and favorite” from the third world.
How then will his breakthrough Nobel prize winning scientific works, which he dedicated his whole lifetime achieving, see the light of day, be known, change the world? It was as if he’d never discovered anything at all!
“Can you blame him?” said the man with severe buck teeth sitting next to Mary. “The scientist must have thought, why waste time on this bunch of nobodies who would just probably go straight home and talk to their cats…”
What a harsh thing to say. “Well I don’t have a cat,” I told him indignantly, “Never had a cat and will probably never have a cat, so… er instead I would just sort of strike up a conversation with my walls…”
Bucktooth walked away sad.
You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK.
Professor Tim Weiskel
Dr. Bill Moomaw
When you attend the Global Climate Change class of Tim Weiskel and Bill Moomaw, the concept of Grassroots Global will be introduced to you right about mid-semester, with the following brain teaser:
Question: What happens when your (cough) LEADERS are co-opted by (wink, wink) special interests?
Answer:
A. Public confusion
B. Deep-seated outrage
C. Pervasive distrust in government
D. All of the above
E. Nothing. Nothing happens. Duh!
F. Honest, hard-working citizens will start licking glazed donuts in donut shops as an act of nonviolent civil resistance
F!!! I screamed internally, thrilled at the prospect of having my way with J.CO’s Alcapones in plain sight without being typecast as a dough-nerd.
“D, All of the above”, I answered calmly with a reassuring smile as my professors nod in approval.
Coward.
Grassroots Global
The climate change fight began pretty much like my favorite Mom and Pop shop: small, local, friendly place where everybody knows your name.
But soon and inevitably so, it grew and grew and grew into this hyperlinked supersonic movement of cosmic proportions.
I wish I’d been there when the founders started assembling the great climate plan, but I was too busy slaying mean girls (read: cool, popular etc.) at my Chinese Grade School as Empress Dowager of the Chinese Checkers Club (read: chubby, sweaty, lisping…).
One of the founding members of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change– a group of scientists assessing climate change), used to fondly reminisce about the early days when no one had even heard of such “progressive” labels like global warming and climate change. They would present their empirical findings at the US Senate, for instance, and simply get a Huh? Whaddup? from policy makers.
Today, politicians can no longer feign innocence when pressed on climate issues even if they want to, lest they end up in some late night talk show’s proverbial Oh cwap! list. (We will miss you Jon)
I guess the auspicious confluences of people and events allowed those tiny pockets of actions to evolve into the powerful global climate movement that it is today.
Thanks to the many dedicated and selfless individuals, politicians, entrepreneurs and visionaries.
Fearless and ingenious scientists.
Tireless and passionate celebrities, make it especially hard to look away…
But as the climate movers and shakers conquer the global battlefield — which is only fitting for a cause with universal implications — what then becomes of their communities where it really all began?
When you don’t want to face the reality of climate change you…
A new record for Arctic ice loss…
More frequent droughts = water crisis = food shortage = security issue…
Sea level rise
Coastal erosion
Wetland inundation
Bad news for biodiversity
transform old beliefs
before it’s too late…
Tim Weiskel, who introduced (and perhaps even coined) the term Grassroots Global has precisely this challenge to the climate movement: maintain grassroots approach while pumping up global appeal.
Let the real not suffer for the ideal.
Interesting times, as the grassroots global crusade moves forward to secure its rightful place in humanity’s unceasing evolution.
See you!
P.S.
This video just popped up on computer screen at work. I pressed play thinking I’d watch for only two seconds before clicking X, don’t have time for stuff like this after all. Ended up staring at screen until video finished.
Never seen anything so disturbing in recent years, well except for that video of a boy eating his grandmother’s heart after butchering her, but this one is truly bizarre on a whole other level.
After watching the clip, I fell off my seat laughing.
Wonder why Johnny Depp still has to resort to such gimmickry.
I mean who doesn’t watch Pirates of the Caribbean anyway?
P.P.S. Excited for COP21. See you!
Cheers!