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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Life's a bitch when polls go wrong

One gets the sense that things seldom go right for Bill McKibben. Life's a bitch and then you die but when you are suffering from stigmata even life's pleasant deeds can be agonizing. As for instance going to church. "I went to church and cried. Then I got back to work" writes McKibben at Think Progress. And the tears just do not stop!
This afternoon I sobbed for an hour, and I’m still choking a little. I got to Copenhagen’s main Lutheran Cathedral just before the start of a special service designed to mark the conference underway for the next week. It was jammed, but I squeezed into a chair near the corner. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave the sermon; Desmond Tutu read the Psalm. Both were wonderful.
But my tears started before anyone said a word. As the service started, dozens choristers from around the world carried three things down the aisle and to the altar: pieces of dead coral bleached by hot ocean temperatures; stones uncovered by retreating glaciers; and small, shriveled ears of corn from drought-stricken parts of Africa. As I watched them go by, all I could think of was the people I’ve met in the last couple of years traveling the world: the people living in the valleys where those glaciers are disappearing, and the people downstream who have no backup plan for where their water is going to come from. The people who live on the islands surrounded by that coral, who depend on the reefs for the fish they eat, and to protect their homes from the waves. And the people, on every corner of the world, dealing with drought and flood, already unable to earn their daily bread in the places where their ancestors farmed for generations.
Is this jerk menopausal? Who knows but then things went really bad. In a recent post at MSNBC McKibben encouraged the climate scientist of the world to go on strike.
So at this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports. In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more. Work with what you’ve got. We’re a quarter-century ahead – when you deal with the trouble we’ve already described then we’ll tell you what’s coming next.
Yes, that would serve us right! They warn of impending peril and all the world does is nod.
Then McKibben asked his readers what they thought. "Do you see climate change as a threat to your life or well-being?"
NO. Well at least 83% see it that way. That was the poll result when I did the screen capture. You may check the progress here.

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