Update on the Status of Our Walk

Here is the latest news on what is happening with Pacing the Planet. We've gotten our carts and wagons painted, signs made, Donkeys vaccinated, harness prepared, wagon wheels installed, packing done.

On Monday, September 10, we set out to begin our walk. Egon (10 years old) and I led the two Donkeys (Gemma and Sasha) and our rugged stroller through town and down to the bottom of a steep hill on a gravel lane that would take us most of the 9.5 miles to our first destination, a camp-out at Sever Lake in our Knox County. About a half-hour later, Dana, Simon (4 years old), Tillwyn (15 months old), and another helper appeared at the top of the hill with our pony cart and larger wagon. We call the latter the "Pacing Wagon," and the former the "350 cart," because the pony cart is painted to advertise the social movement for bringing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide back down to 350 parts per million. That movement is spearheaded online at the website www.350.org.

After carefully walking the (rather heavy) carts down the gravel hill, we got Gemma in her harness, and hitched her up to the 350 cart, and I started leading her down the road. This was her second time in harness and pulling the cart. Egon was leading Sasha, and pushing the stroller at the same time. Dana started out by pulling the Pacing Wagon, rickshaw style. So far, so good. The only challenge was that the donkeys were unexpectedly skittish of the sound the wagon wheels make when moving on gravel, so Egon and I had to walk them several hundred yards ahead of the Pacing Wagon.

Around the first corner, our troubles began. Egon was having a challenging time leading Sasha and pushing the stroller simultaneously. Gemma is very good at peacefully towing the 350 cart, but gets impatient when just standing still in the traces. And Dana was falling behind.

The road was just freshly laid with large gravel, and the large (but narrow) wheels of the Pacing Wagon were digging into the rocks as if it were slush. Dana was starting to see stars from the exertion. She and I switched places, and while she led Gemma, I tried my hand at pulling the Pacing Wagon, which was heavier than I had expected, once we had it all packed up. It was very slow, hard going for me, too; a passerby in a car informed us that the entire way to the town of Hurdland, MO, had received new gravel: about 7 miles. We had walked maybe a half-mile so far. Dana was hungry and not feeling well, so we found a tiny bit of shade, and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In the meantime, a gigantic harvester which had come to cut down the cornfield next to us on the road, began making slow passes through the field, sending a shower of dust and corn-stalk fragments billowing around us. We decided that we needed to make some different preparations, called for help, and, about an hour later, got every vehicle, animal, child, and adult back to our house. We felt worn out and morose.

Since then, we have revised some logistical details, and are making preparation for our next attempt within a week, should our newly-ordered supplies arrive. For one thing, we will be sticking to paved roads now, or else, well-packed roads scouted in advance. We will be attaching the stroller (which coverts to a bicycle trailer) to the back of the 350 cart, or not taking it at all. We have ordered a pack-saddle for Sasha, and she will be able to lighten the load of the Pacing Wagon in that way. We've also decided to bring a second tent, and got some warmer sleeping bags, and such items. After all, cooler fall weather is descending rapidly (though, as you hopefully understand, these normal seasonal variations in the weather don't contradict the overall pattern of global warming an climate change).

Probably the biggest change to Pacing the Planet is the formulation of a tighter strategy to our presentations and meetings, at least for this autumn. In the course of our research, reading, and conversations with other presenters on climate research, a clear direction for the first steps in restoring climate balance has come to our attention.

In the eight years (and very possibly as little as five years) that humanity has left to change course on our pollution of the atmosphere with CO2, the obvious necessary step is that we must shut down the coal industry. Coal still provides an unfortunately large proportion of our constant energy source in the U.S.A., and the data is clear that if humanity continues to extract and use coal, then the colossal impact of the carbon load in the atmosphere from that one source alone means that all the "going green," alternative energy, efficiency improvement, and rationing of other greenhouse gas sources won't make enough of a difference to offset the damage done by coal. In other words, coal burning, by itself, will drive us into catastrophic climate change.

So, coal has got to stay in the ground. We need to do this not only for our own responsibility, but to be in a position to credibly leverage China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to keep their fossil fuel sources in the ground, too. In 2011, China was launching a new coal-powered energy plant every month.

A common question we've fielded, as we start to talk to people, is this: if making improvements in our personal lives ("going green") is not enough, what can we do? Shutting down coal is a goal that we can rally around, a clear community effort, and provides a measure of how serious our politicians are about addressing this problem fundamentally, before it is too late (if it is not, already). Even if we're already committed to very bad climate change, we need to stop using coal, so we don't trigger the sudden release of methane hydrates in the ocean, which will likely spike global temperatures to a level last seen during the major extinction event 50 million years ago. That spike, if history is anything to go by, could likely last for 100,000 years. Continuing to burn coal into the 2030s will almost certainly bring us to that point).

As it turns out, the Midwest, and particularly, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois (what the locals call the "tri-state area") is one of the areas most heavily invested in coal extraction and burning. If you looked at the interactive map that I linked to in my last post, you will see that we are surrounded by coal plants and coal mines, within a 150 mile radius. If you pay attention to politics, you are probably also aware that Iowa is a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election, and that Missouri could come into play: partly thanks to Todd Akin's incredible, unintentional revelation of the logic behind the GOP's anti-abortion platform plank, and partly (we hope) if young people in Missouri are made aware of the coal fiasco surrounding them, its relation to this year's devastating drought, and what "business as usual" means for the future of the Midwest.

Therefore, we will be Pacing the Planet in Missouri and Iowa this fall -- and particularly, heading to colleges and universities, where we will be giving presentations on the science, the situation. We want to help young student activists understand the importance of Mitt Romney's campaign embracing a future in coal (not to mention supporting the disastrous development of Canada's bituminous sands oil industry). We're already working on establishing connection with our local Truman State University in Kirksville, MO, as well as the University of Missouri in Columbia (whose Atmospheric Science program is chaired by a notable oil-associated "skeptic" of human-caused global warming). We have our sights on the University of Iowa in Iowa City, as well.

Of course, we are still walking to do something different than the day-to-day routine, to highlight that we can't continue our individual day-to-days, and expect technology or experts to fix this problem for us. They won't, and we will die (and so will a lot of life on Earth) if we continue. We walk because, somehow, walking helps us embody the immense geological time-frames upon which the consequences of our actions now will play out (though the consequences are already starting, and will rapidly worsen, if we do nothing). Walking also helps our imaginations embrace the very different visions of Earth that the past serves up as examples of what our world will look and feel like, as we try to picture change on that scale, with that suffusion into our entire experience.

So, friends, we need more people to walk with us. If you can join us this autumn in Missouri and Iowa, please do! Also, please support our fundraising campaign as much as you can, and pass word of it along to your mailing lists and your contacts. We are so grateful not to be the only ones concerned about this turning point in our dear planet's history, and so grateful for the help and love that have been pledged so far. Please know that, although our departure date has changed, our resolve to walk has not wavered, nor has our enthusiasm and passion to do so.  As our vision has expanded, preparations and supplies have been more expensive than we originally budgeted, so we can use all the help you can send.  And, we're already at 34 percent!  Yeah!

A Valuable Resource

Here is an interactive map, courtesy of the World Resources Institute, that gives detailed information to those of us in the U.S. Midwest about where and how our electricity is being generated, and what is the environmental consequence of those actions. Unfortunately, as you will see, much of the Midwest is still getting its electricity from burning coal.

Power Almanac of the American Midwest (map)

Coal is the number one source of anthropogenic carbon-dioxide, as well as being a major source of mercury pollution, acid rain production, and water-contamination in the area where it is being extracted.

Coal is responsible for about 100,000 deaths per year (that's a conservative measurement). By comparison, Chernobyl, a poorly designed nuclear reactor, caused about 4,000 deaths when it exploded. So-called "slow" reactors do create many toxic by-products with a half-life of thousands of years. However, "fast" reactors can have a 90%+ efficiency (as opposed to the 1% efficiency of "slow" reactors), and therefore create much less radioactive waste, and that waste has a half-life of a few-hundred years, as opposed to millennia.

It is time to reconsider nuclear power (at least on a temporary basis), if we are to immediately end the use of coal as a base source of continuous power in the next few years. Coal, if we continue to use it, will most certainly carry us into the dangerous world of extreme climate fluctuation.

(Written by Gavain U'Prichard)

A Perspective Money Can't Buy

We are developing a Cassandra Complex, we who chime into silence about what we ought to call the Climate Catastrophe. I suppose humans are not biologically programmed to respond urgently to a threat that seems distant. Behind the scenes, the scientists studying our Earth's patterns rapidly revise the outlook in the direction of more severity, and quicker consequence. They are dismayed, surprised, in awe of the snowballing effect. Mark you this: not one -- not one -- study that we've found, in a review of literature from the last four years, has indicated a serendipitous mitigating influence previously undiscovered. All the new discoveries are painting a scene increasingly grave. Like blind men, the scientists have been groping what they thought was the unseen elephant not discussed in our national conversation; what they found they had hold of was rather a dragon.

Indefinite proposals about cleaner energy in the future are not enough. 54 miles-per-gallon vehicles in 2025 is not enough. It is a start; but, by then, we will have sailed far out into the sea of our own peril.

In the absence of answers to my open letter (see below), I am left to muse. Modern people are subject to a back-breaking load of cynical realism. We convince ourselves that there is no hope, and we forget the unfathomable successes that people have accomplished in the past. Since our government is beset by greed and corruption, and bought out by groups who care, each, about their one thing, and only that one thing, we are unsure what it feels like to take a common action, to agree on something.

In short, we have lost perspective of our life here on Earth.  We have the equivalent of a major asteroid heading on a collision course with Earth (as one well-known climatologist put it), yet, instead of being discussed in every living room, barbershop, supermarket, and deli, not to mention the halls of government, only the most dramatic developments -- like the record loss of arctic sea ice this year -- get briefly reported. We are muffled in the soft, suffocating grip of human affairs.

Let's step back a bit. When was the last time you looked at the sky? I mean, really considered it, not just glanced upward and gave the names of what you saw: sun, clouds, moon, stars, blue, blue, blue.

When you stare into the blue, you are looking about 370 miles of atmosphere. A bright object, such as the daytime moon, can be seen, even though it is 225,000 miles away. As night falls, of course, you can see much further: generally, about 17,010,518,400,000,000,000 miles out into space, and 2.9 million years into the past. Compare this with the approximately 100 miles that you can see, in the clearest conditions, looking to the horizon on Earth (on a very open plain), and we might suppose that upwards is where we will look if we really want to get a handle on our lives, find the vantage point from which we can see our existence in context. Indeed, our ancestors, without artificial lighting, did interact with the ocean of the Universe as directly as they fished in the earthbound sea.

But, we moderns are fixated on life, on the terrestrial sphere. Actually, we are indoors most of the time. The EPA estimates that a typical American adult spends 90% of her time inside buildings, and, this year, the Nature Conservancy reported that as little as 10% of American children describe themselves as spending time outdoors every day. The main deterrents to enjoying nature? Heat and bugs. When it comes to considering stars and galaxies, most of us seem to regard them as an exravagant celestial wallpaper, less relevant to our daily lives (even though we are starting to realize how truly odd the whole Universe is) than our ancestors considered them to be (though they believed the starry heaven to be unchanging).

This is true of our thinking about our own sun. For one thing, we’re not supposed to look directly at it. This keeps our gaze level with the ground, and it also makes us compartmentalize our knowing of the sun. On a clear day, for instance, we will note that “it” is hot, that the day is “sunny;” but when was the last time you completely considered the sun for what it is: an enormous star, one million times the volume of the Earth -- a thermonuclear reactor sending a tidal wave of energy out through the solar system, washing over the Earth every single second. The only thing protecting us from roasting under the eye of the sun (and freezing to death in the dark night of near-absolute-zero temperatures), the one thing, is Earth’s atmosphere.

The atmosphere is an absurdly thin veil, comparable to the peel of an apple, and it is a mere one-percent of that atmosphere that creates the Greenhouse Effect which makes our existence possible. These gases constitute less of the air than does O2 that we breathe into our blood, itself only 16% of the atmosphere. It is not surprising, then, when we consider that we are dumping 100 times the amount of carbon-dioxide into the air every year than do all the active volcanoes on Earth, that we can really change the characteristics of that one-percent of the atmosphere. It is a real game of chicken that we are playing. The sun is a massive entity, storming our shores at every moment. We are only lucky that our shelter has been so secure up until now.

Let’s take a further step back, however, and really survey the situation. What, after all, are we who challenge humanity to do something about climate change fighting for? In the future, several incredible events will unfold. About 600 million years from now, the sun will have appreciably increased its radiation, accelerating the weathering of silica rock formations, which will lead to a dramatic decrease in carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere -- to the point that most plant life (and therefore, most animal life) will be unable to survive. Even later, the Earth’s axis of rotation will begin to wobble chaotically, sometimes pointing the north or south pole straight at the sun for millions of years. This, too, will wildly upset what climate and habitat zones remain on Earth.

Finally, in a bit more than 1 billion years,  the sun will have increased its radiance by 10% or so, and this is expected to trigger a runaway greenhouse-effect, due, this time, to water vapor, such that the oceans evaporate totally into space. The Earth will then endure as a dry sphere of stone and metal, until some 7.5 billion years from now, the sun, now expanding into a star form called a “red giant,” engulfs our planet within its corona, vaporizing it.

So, what is the point of forestalling environmental ruin at this point? Knowing what we reasonably predict about the future of the Earth and the sun, and the unlikelihood of our being able to do anything to successfully change that outcome, why not leave the party early? We are triggering an early round of catastrophic global warming, but we’re not “out-of-line,” ethically, with the big picture, are we?

Well, first of all, there are, in fact, methods being designed, on the occasional sleepy Sunday afternoon, for moving the planet out of harm’s way from the sun. However, that is not the reason to fight 21st century climate change.

People sometimes deride environmentalists as trying to keep things precious and perfect forever -- in other words, failing to embrace change. But, that is not in the cards, and not the point. The reason to save life on Earth now is that we’re only halfway done. 600 million years is also about the amount of time that life has significantly populated the planet. There is a quality to life on Earth that is more important than its longevity, and that is its intricacy.

The intricate weave of life, intelligence, and communication on Earth is what makes it possible for us to have a long perspective, to appreciate Deep Time, even though humanity has only existed for a tiny beat of the geological record.  What Buddhists call the co-dependent arising of reality on Earth is only in midstroke, a magical creation, and we are not yet in a position to evaluate its importance.

There is, in short, so much going on here. It is a typically human attitude to both assume that we have the index on the complexity of the orchestration, and also that the significance of this symphony exists (if it does) somewhere in the future. Our planet is bleeding off a signal of life into space, and perhaps into the structure and the meaning of the Universe itself. If we’re going to shut down the transmitter, if we are going to kill the oceans and drive the lands into drought and make the storms unforgiving, if we’re going to bring hell to Earth, let’s be damn sure we’re doing it for a better reason than our forgetting to look up.   

Seeking legal representation

As we count down the final days before we embark on our walk to raise awareness of climate change, we are lining up many logistical details to ensure that we have the safest and most effective journey that we can plan, especially for our three children who are joining us.

Our action plan so far is entirely within the realm of education and advocating preparedness. We do not intend, at this time, to engage in unlawful civil disobedience.

Nonetheless, not every person that we encounter may necessarily feel comfortable with our endeavor, nor with our children's involvement. For these reasons, we are seeking to secure, in advance of our walk, pro bono legal representation for our family, so that we can be prepared, should we meet unexpected legal or law-enforcement resistance to our action.

If you know of a pro bono legal service or individual lawyer who would be qualified to represent us in the jurisdictions where we will be walking, please let us know. We would also appreciate references to anyone who can help guide us in this matter, even if they are not qualified to represent us.

For the first two months, our intended route will take us into Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Pacing the Planet will, to the best of our ability, follow a pre-planned route, be supported by known contacts with lodging and supplies for us. We will be following the Rules of the Road, obeying traffic laws etc. However, we want to be prepared if law enforcement attempts to bully us with threats of child endangerment charges, or some other charge related to negligence.

If you can help, please let us know! 

...because I really want to be "Granny," someday...

I am writing because I cannot sleep, with things I want to say and share with the world, swirling through my consciousness.  I got up to pee, because I am pregnant... pregnant ladies have to pee 3-5 times every night.  But as I said, this time my passion overtook my exhaustion, not allowing me settle back to sleep.

And the internet is down, I find.  So I've opened up the virtual notepad to get some of these thoughts onto "paper" and, hopefully, out of my head for tonight!

Now I've just heard a sound outside...it sounded like someone moving our metal garden wagon...a quiet clanging of the handle being let back onto the siderail.  If that is being caused by a human, it would indicate a strong likelihood that someone has entered our yard through the unlocked front gate, and penetrated the open door of our twenty-foot yurt-dome tent which we use for a bike shed and storage garage for tools and yard stuff.  We have nice road bikes in there, which we've fixed up to be able to be our primary form of transport here at home.  Trailers, Trailabikes, a whole large-families-worth of bicycle fun with reasonable theft-value, for people who would so pursue resell-able items.
 

I keep hearing noises.  Now in the bathroom.  Are the cats super active right now?! The geese just honked, down in the yard.  Three and a half thousand years ago, geese honking alarm in the middle of the night saved Rome from their enemies sneaking up in the darkness.

But I do not have any personal enemies, and if someone is compelled, on this night, to steal from our dome, I think I'm entirely prepared to accept it.  That means that I'm probably not going to run outside in my t-shirt and panties, screaming like a banshee, pulling up my shirt and yelling "WATCH OUT FOR BOOBIE TRAPS!"  We'll see, I have that plan in reserve, if I change my mind. 

Allow me to speak metaphorically for a while, if you will.

I do have enemies, though, because I am a conscious figment of God.  I know the wonder of God, and I know that I am the wonder of God, as are my children, and the cats and geese, and the thief in the dome.  Even my enemies are broken-off crystal shards, who have been violently separated from their larger sacred crystaline origin.
  

My enemies have taken a position of opposition to humanity, as well as to all of the life forms on our planet.  I, being a whole and passionately inspired human animal, will never abide their agenda.  Like predator and prey, we are natural enemies.  If I stood aside in complacency, tolerating rape and plunder, I would be in basic denial of my natural purpose.  I will fight to the death for beauty and truth, and for the right of my children to live and to love.  I will fight to the death against the fate my enemies have been arranging for my children.

Though it seems logically probable that I will lose the fight, and watch my children, as teenagers perhaps, die from critical lack of water or food.  I will know, in that event, that I have done everything I could think to do to create alternative systems and cultural shifts:  I have undertaken countless personal transformations, rising to meet my own sacred wisdom, and leveling up to new heights of personal power...translating my power into action at every noticed opportunity. Knowing that I did everything I could to preserve their lives and freedoms, I will be prepared to accept their deaths. 

Truly, that is my family's trajectory, and we are heading there fast.  And if you aren't yet aware, I bear to you the unpleasant news that your family is facing the same medium-term future.  As we are the makeup of humanity -- the most conscious and widely capable animals on this planet -- we have these enemies in common.  And I'm wondering if you will help me to resist them. 

The enemies are individuals who have "sold their soul," or who have sacrificed their love and devotion to truth on the altar of greed, and in the pursuit of power.  They have also sold the lives and freedom of countless humans, creating foreign wars and playing our brethren soldiers as pawns.  Bless the poor soldiers' souls, whose lives were sacrificed for the greed of Capitalistic domination! 

I accept that they have become my enemy.  I do not mean them any fundamental harm as individual godlettes, but I will stand over their dead bodies, if necessary, with the clear conscience of a conscious human warrior. 

 

When our enemies sold their souls, or, when they turned to the dark side (choose any analogy that makes sense to you), they, too, were knowingly accepting this relationship with us.  For, they know in their deepest hearts their own origin in the magnificence of love and perfection (as we all do), and so they also know, in that core place within, that they have become traitors to God, to the whole of life.

The enemies have taken over our economic and governmental systems.  That is to say, they are at the heads of the largest corporate entities on our planet, the fossil fuel industry, and they have politicked and maneuvered their dollars, so that they are also "wearing the pants" in our government. 

Their systems are built on exploitation, and they shamelessly scour the earth overturning mountains in search of another virgin pocket of nature to rape.  The sacred people of other lands are accepted by our enemy as having only as much value as their existence can contribute to the profit of the corporations.  Many of the world's people are hungry and desperate, but our incomprehensibly rich enemies do not opt to uplift them.  Rather, they "capitalize".

But, if you ask me, the most sinful thing that our enemy does is that they lie.  They use their god-given endowments of charisma and intelligence, or in many cases, just employ the basic human capacity to build a skill, and they learn how to use words to twist reality to their will.  To defeat our awareness of their nature and the ramifications of their agenda, they design doubt-instilling propaganda and pay for the psychological onslaught of advertisements and media coverage of their brain-washing material.

I do not exaggerate, you must know.  They have literature and private workshops which have helped them to learn effective ways to use language to dupe the masses and for the most part, we are standing, stupefied.  We know something is not right, but we can't quite pin down the source of evil, and we are not able to track the speed of the card tricks.  In many cases, we are head down, contributing our strength and leaning our weight into the mechanism of their evil machinery.

 We are, then, the unknowing "useful idiots" (that is their term, not mine) propelling the thriving of our own enemies, yet convinced that we are doing the best that we can for our own families, bringing home the paycheck.  Many of us have not yet developed the discernment to recognize on sight the difference between the dark side and the light.  And most of us surrender that assessment, sheep that we are, opting to shuffle with the herd, unsure where we are being led, but trusting that it is safer and wiser to stay with the pack. 

That is why I say that we will probably fail to defeat our enemy.  And though am doing everything that I can do to know that I have done my part to rescue my children's world, I will fail without your help.

We may look into each others' eyes as we die together, in twenty or fifty years, from the hyper-extreme temperatures and impossible weather patterns which are just beginning their fast track to overwhelming the ingenuity of man...  Though we may share a final moment of mutual appreciation and gratitude, I wonder if we couldn't just cut to the chase, and reclaim our sense of wonder now. 

It is so clear to me, as it is to many people who are already fully invested in this movement to restore the will of good to our species and salvage some balance in the systems of nature, that we need many thousands more people to join our fight if we are to have any real chance in this.  Geologically, this is the very last split second in which we might choose as a species to alter our behaviors enough to divert our collision course with destruction.

 We have five years in which to make these profound changes and after that time we will know our fate, beyond a doubt.  There is so much man-made carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and of course, we continue to pump up increasing tons of it every year, that our planet has become covered by a smothering blanket -- excess heat can no longer escape quickly enough. The life forms (including my yet-unborn child) which have, over the course of millions of years, genetically adapted to this world, will no longer be welcome here.  Burned or drowned, homeless, without drinkable water, or without food, we will all die. 

Yes, even our enemies will be dying with us in these yonder days.  Though they may pay worthless pawns to build fancy bubbles for the richest of them to live in for some period, extending their lifespan beyond ours a short distance, the destruction which they have wrought will necessarily take them down too.  Because, that is how insane is is going to get here.

Or, maybe we should stop them? 

 (written by Dana)

Where Is That Hundredth Monkey?

Eleven years ago, when I was a student at the California Institute of Integral Studies, people there were talking avidly about a phenomenon known as the "Hundredth Monkey Effect." Apparently, a group of researchers were observing patterns of transmission of learned behavior amongst monkeys inhabiting an archipelago of remote islands in Indonesia, islands that had no human population.

In the largest group of monkeys, individuals were passing on a skill (I think it was a novel method for breaking open coconuts), one monkey to the next, and the human observers were documenting the rate at which this education propagated through the monkey society on that island. Then, something very interesting happened.

The people were simultaneously monitoring monkey populations on each of the islands in the archipelago, and they documented that monkeys on different islands were not in contact with each other physically. However, when the number of monkeys who had learned this coconut skill crossed a certain threshold (about 100 monkeys), suddenly the rate of transmission of the knowledge increased dramatically. Not only that, but monkeys on other islands picked up the skill spontaneously, and the knowledge of this skill rippled through the new monkey population at the same increased rate as was being found on the first island.

The researchers dubbed it the "Hundredth Monkey Effect," and hypothesized that there was some sort of long-distance behavioral entrainment occuring, and that perhaps  they were witnessing a window into some non-local reality, where, when a certain threshhold if consciousness is reached, events happen simultaneously in all spatial dimensions.

Bear in mind the Hundredth Monkey Effect as you read the rest of this article. Clearly, if we are to succeed in averting the course we're on for changing the climate, we need such a phenomenon to galvanize our awareness of the true information about this situation, and quickly.

Now, Google's analytics tell me that this blog has had some 500 page views since its inception. That breaks down to a little less than 100 views per new post. I don't know who most of you are, because you are lurking, and not saying anything. I am guessing that most of you are navigating to this blog from Facebook, because that is primarily where we've been announcing developments on Pacing the Planet. Most of the people I know on Facebook are progressive -- not liberal, necessarily -- but people I woukd consider educated, critical thinkers, and willing to change your minds based on new, relevant information. I am about to employ the technique that actors call "breaking the fourth wall," and speak directly to you. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing, and I know that I am skillful at it, but I'm not trying to mimic a blog for general digestion and consideration, like Slate Magazine. I am trying to start a revolution.

A handful of you have contributed money, attention, and encouragement to Pacing the Planet, and I thank you. We are trying to make a difference, together. I know that some of you are praying for us, and that is deeply valued by me, also.

I am now writing to the rest of you, who are reading here, and not saying anything, not contacting us, just moving on, moving on. I am not here to shame you, but I need to understand what your resistance is to taking part.

When Gandhi, who was a thoroughly unassuming man, by all accounts, initiated an action of social change, the eminent relevance and rightfulness of what he was doing inspired millions of others to follow suit with their own lives. For instance, throngs of people joined in the Salt March to the sea, because they clearly needed salt for their daily lives, and the British government was holding the available salt for ransom.

We are putting the final nails in the coffin of god-forsaken denial of climate change, and it is clear that the scale upon which we must move to address this is vast (as one commentator on MSNBC says, it will require a reworking of society every bit equal to the change wrought by the industrial revolution). Yet I am having trouble even starting an active conversation here, on blogger. Why?

Why are friends, why is my family, even, remaining silent? Do you think we're nuts? Are you thinking: "Global Warming can't possibly be that perilous and imminent?" Are you thinking, "At least my family is safe where we are?"

When we started writing about climate change last month, and when we began to plan our walk, I expected that we would encounter resistance...but from denialists. I didn't expect indifference. I didn't expect that friends who routinely posted to my Facebook profile, and followed up on my life, would not say anything, delicately ignore the obvious, as if I'd wet my pants in public.

Again, this is not shaming, this is bewilderment. I know life is complicated. I had a (naive?) hope that my friends and acquaintances from the last ten years would be joining us in this walk, that we would lay down our jobs, our meetings, our appointments, our vacations, and -- like Francis of Assisi -- give all, when all was required. I thought we would eat leaves from trees and drink from puddles before we would participate in the cut-and-dried outcome of the degree of global warming that the experts are forecasting to arrive soon, the consequences being global suicide and genocide. Perhaps we are too embarrassed to stick our necks out? I can understand that: I have a shy demeanor.

Perhaps, you are hopeful that there are things we can do to change this situation without a mass movement. Honestly, I've been combing the research and tracking down the remediation ideas, and I don't think we can make enough difference if we just act from within the scope of our own lives. Consider, for example, the effect that the U.S. is having on Chinese carbon pollution, when we import goods that are made with coal electricity. I wrote about this in the last article. Every day that people pour into Walmarts across this land, we are giving responsibility for the future of our planet to the wisdom (or folly) of the Chinese leaders.

Perhaps, it is just too scary. After all, if you leave your job and your home, how will you take care of yourself. We're so oriented toward thinking that we need to solve that problem ourselves, individually, that if I say to you, "If we join together in this action, the Universe will provide for us," you may think that trust is hopelessly mystical, impractical, and unwarranted. But it's true, nonetheless.

Maybe you already were aware of the deadly serious implications contained in the papers and presentations on our links page. If you weren't, if I happen to be the first person to tell you that this is how it really, really stands, then you have just graduated into a very small world of people who know that, for example, the U.S. has to cut carbon emissions not just by 17% by 2020, but by 40%. You are in possession of detailed information about where the climate is going in the next 50 years, barring human mitigation of our previous impact. It is like knowing that the atomic bomb is going to drop over Hiroshima, before it happens. Except, there is no enemy that makes catastrophe worth it. We are in the Enola Gay, and we are folding 1000 paper cranes. There is only ourselves.

A Visit to 8 Percent in the Midst of Emergency

It has been one month since Bill McKibben's article, “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math” was published in Rolling Stone, and we became activated to do something about this emergency of climate change that life on Earth faces... Something, that is, other than what we'd already been doing, which was to make an example of our home and our lives, showing how to live joyfully, simply, and harmoniously, to have low impact.

As you know, we've decided to walk. What else can we do? We can't go on living our daily lives and pretending that some unseen butler is going to sweep away the mess when we naughty children are done playing with our coal and our petrol engines.

We are in good spirits, for the most part. We are eager to see the beautiful, steel-tired 38” Amish-made wagon wheels that we ordered for our covered Chuck Wagon of Doom, which we will pull like a rickshaw as we walk along. There is some support and encouragement coming from you who read these articles, and the good folks at the Possibility Alliance are hosting the second delivery of our presentation this Wednesday, August 22. They will also be helping us find our way on our journey, introducing us to their far-flung network of friends and contacts throughout the U.S.

Still, there are many paradoxes in this life, now. We close up the projects around our house half-finished, we gift away our waterfowl/foodsources, we consider that the maps show this area will be a desert within our lifetime -- within a decade, maybe, unless we (and others) are successful. Perhaps we were foolish to station here? We hoped we had time to offer an alternative lifestyle example to others. You don't know until you know. And, the end of summer whimpers itself away, the leaves on the trees half-fallen already, the temperatures so fine now, but a missing quotient of life is obvious if you look closely.

Then there are the many people we meet who are disbelieving, who laugh at us, who read bogus science, who think that climate change is a conspiracy amongst climatologists to somehow squeeze money out of carbon taxes that the Republican leadership in this country would make you cross their dead bodies to see.

Yet, there is some good news concerning U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide being reported this week, though you hafta kinda make a picture frame with your fingers to see it. Domestic CO₂ emissions fell by almost 8% in the first quarter of 2012.

That is really neat. In fact, U.S. emissions have generally decreased since 2006, and the period from 2006-2012 has seen about an 8% decrease over our peak emissions level in 2005. The EPA (should Obama be re-elected) is scheduled to begin fully enforcing reductions by 2015, and we are on track to meet the Obama administration's pledge of reducing CO₂ by 17% by 2020.

If only that were the end of the story. It's not. The context does dim the glow.

First, lest anyone is confused, global emissions of CO₂ have risen every year – and the amount by which they have risen has increased every year. In other words, global CO₂ emissions are increasing exponentially.

It is true that the U.S. has reduced its carbon emissions more than any other nation, in recent years. However, at the same time, the portion of China's emissions that are directly due to the manufacture of products for U.S. import has increased every year. So, our economy is effectively sending our dirty work offshore to China. China is not manufacturing these things for its own people. If those carbon emissions were added to our domestic total, U.S. emissions would be increasing, not decreasing.

Second, the decrease in domestic emissions is due to market forces: the cost of currently abundant natural gas has dropped from $8 to $3 per unit, making it a cheaper energy source than coal, wind, solar, and perhaps even hydro-power.

 Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, albeit cleaner than coal, in terms of emissions. However , in the “fracking” process to liberate natural gas, water and sand are forced at very high pressure into the same shale-rock formations where CO₂ is being sequestered underground, capped by the rock that may or may not be fractured. Whether this is a stable arrangement in the long-term is an open question. For now, though, it is encouraging that electric companies are moving en masse away from coal to natural gas, even if natural gas is driving wind farms out of business.

The most troubling context for the U.S. decrease in CO₂ emissions comes, once again, from Professors Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, of the University of Manchester. They have done an analysis of necessary reductions to worldwide carbon emission pathways, backcasting from a cumulative carbon budget that the world must stick to, if we have any hope of avoiding catastrophic temperatures.

By their reckoning, starting no later than 2015, the U.S. has to decrease its emissions by 8% a year, as do other developed, high-emissions countries, like Canada and Australia. This has to be done in tight coordination with countries that are developing their industry, like China and India, who have to make a similar decrease by 2020.

We are, therefore, generally off-target by a factor of 7. Our emissions reductions, while impressive to some degree, are not nearly enough. This is not surprising, because, although industry may be changing to a cleaner fuel, we as consumers are not really making different life choices about how we heat our homes, how and where and when we drive, what plane trips we take, what we expect to have delivered to us.

But then, there is this news about the first quarter of 2012. If that plays out the rest of this year in a similar trend, that would be a 8% reduction in one year. Well... remember that this past winter and spring were unseasonably mild, with very little snowfall. Part of the reduction accomplishment is due to the unusually small amount of fuel consumed in maintaining our internal environments. The figures aren't in for summer 2012, but it is hard to imagine that we stayed on track for an 8% reduction in 2012 as we endured the hottest temperatures on record, and the electrical demand to power indoor climate control was such that New York City, for instance, had to shut down its grid on at least one occasion, so it wouldn't be damaged by excessive draw.

We see that we can do it, though. (Sort of. There is that Chinese import issue.) We can, in fact, put a muzzle on our carbon pollution in this country, so that – even if only for a few months – we were able to point our ship of state toward the only (somewhat) safe port that's left it, on the wild coast of dangerous climate change.