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Restless
Winter
By Lucia Green-Weiskel
I always imagined climate change as a futuristic event, one that
would be clearly marked when it finally arrived. I always
thought we were safe as long as we didn’t one April morning
discover something like the silent spring Rachel Carson
described in her famous book. But the future is now and instead
of a silent spring we have restless winter.
On the phone the other day my mother, who runs a small organic
farm in rural New England, was telling me about the ducklings
that hatched on New Year’s Day. Temperatures dropped
dramatically and not one of them made it beyond a week. She’s
not sure if the confused mother duck will lay again in the
spring. After the mildest winter on record, her maternal clock
is out of whack. A farmer knows that the winter is when things
stand still. Ticks and other pests die off during the deep
freeze. Any Vermonter will tell you that maple trees need a
period of dormancy to produce the sap that makes maple syrup.
Things can go seriously wrong when the apple trees start budding
in February. In some cases, these problems can wipe a farm out
completely.
The weather has been restless, too. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
which decimated much of the Gulf Coast, struck terror as people
realized just how destructive nature could be. There are
increased incidents of both draughts and flooding, wrecking
havoc for farmers from the US Midwest to rural China.
But recent winters, and especially this winter, have been even
more restless. Many northern cities and towns are reporting that
flowers have been blooming all winter. For the first time ever,
there was green grass in Moscow in late December. Pet food
distributors in the UK can’t move bird food off the shelves
because customers claim birds are eating berries which are still
on the bushes. After hibernating at least 5 months out of each
winter for as long as any one can remember, bears in Bulgaria
and Spain stayed awake this year.
There has always been some sort of grassroots activity afoot
related to saving the earth. I can remember in particular stark
warning signs and ground swell movements. Earth Day 1990, Ben
and Jerry’s Peace Pops (ice cream treats which promised to give
1% to the environment), the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols where
for the first time representatives of countries sat down with
one another with the specific aim of addressing the issue of
climate change and coming up with a solution which would require
collective participation.
More recently there was Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth – which
instead of registering as a dull topic by a defunct politician
inspired astounding ticket sales -- lines around the block at
cinemas across America -- and an Oscar nomination. Further, it
is now to be introduced as part of the normal secondary school
curriculum in Scotland and England. More recently there was the
Nicholas Stern Review, which told us “our actions over the
coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to
economic and social activity … on a scale similar to those
associated with the great wars and the economic depression of
the first half of the 20th century.” In February 2007 a UN
report said it is “very likely” that human activity is
responsible. So why aren’t we further along in the process of
dealing with this problem?
In a recent posting at Monbiot.com, George Monbiot explains that
politicians have been so slow to draft legislation that would
usher in the green technology people are demanding that big
companies – the traditional arch-enemy of environmentalists -
have beaten politicians to the chase. Tesco and Wal-Mart offer
organic produce. Marks and Spencer’s has promised to become
carbon neutral. The slowness of the political establishment has
left the door open for corporations to take advantage of new
green demands. Monbiot says what we are witnessing is more of a
democratic failure than a market success.
One doesn’t necessarily need to view climate change as Mother
Nature’s descent into some apocalyptic, system-wide collapse in
order to be worried about the current trends. Climate change
will mark a major shift, and as with any change, it will bring
new leadership and new ideas. It will require a different type
of response. Different groups will coalesce around the specific
challenges raised. Alternative approaches to legislation and
governance will move out of the periphery and into the center.
New technology will prevail, and the designers of it will
leverage themselves in the business community. The important
question is this: In the new landscape whose interests will be
served? Those of corporations or those of the people? Those of
the stockholders? Or those of the stakeholders? (Aren’t we all
stakeholders? – even the stockholders?)
In this sense, the Wall Street Journal’s famous “winners and
losers” framework sadly is not totally off the mark. For those
of you who don’t know what I am talking about, the editorial
pages of the Wall Street Journal have long advocated that global
warming is not a disaster, but an opportunity. There will be
winners (the landlords of East London may soon discover their
property has become prime ocean-front real estate) and losers
(um… renters in New Orleans’ 9th Ward.) However, the Wall Street
Journal’s optimistic take doesn’t take into consideration that
the deciding factors are not likely to be benign. As one might
expect from the way in which human affairs work, class will
decide who wins and who loses.
We are vulnerable -- more than we have been told -- but not
because we are going to melt under an apocalyptically scorching
sun. Our fears should not be limited to the accelerating rate of
species’ extinction or the visions of reconfigured coastlines.
We should concern ourselves as well with the question: Who will
get to structure our social response to inevitable climate
changes? Who will have their say?
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