In Glasgow, on the opening day of COP, a press conference will invite COP26 to get real about adaptation as the primary challenge now facing us.
Said Dr. Rupert Read, co-editor of ‘Deep Adaptation’, “To get serious, COP would put adaptation EQUAL to mitigation. Or even maybe first. Because climate chaos is here.”
Defining adaptation then becomes utterly crucial. The session will argue that Transformative And Deep Adaptation is what we need. Any incremental/defensive adaptation should only occur within that overarching frame of seeking to transform our systems, on the basis of an ethics of unity, of us all ultimately being in this together, and to prepare for the worst.
Dr. Read added: “The Earth’s protective systems need protecting, if we are to be able to adapt. But defensive adaptation – merely building higher flood defenses, etc., the kind of approach to adaptation being most vocally put forward by the Australian Government, does not protect the Earth’s protective systems. On the contrary, perpetuating high-carbon systems, it further damages the Earth’s protective systems.”
“Adaptation is the best route to mitigation/prevention/protection too! Because adaptation makes the crisis psychologically real. Unlike the talk of ‘2050’, or even ‘2035’.”
“So there is a virtuous circle: Adaptation, properly defined, supports and includes mitigation. And mitigation makes adaptation feasible.”
The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, #IPCC, report marks an alarming turning point, but its summary message for policy makers misses the reality that stabilizing at 1.5-2°C over pre- industrial levels will fail to preserve a livable environment.
Already, at under 1.2°C, extreme weather and climate tipping points have been reached. The #CarbonSinks that supported a carbon budget are already stressed to the limit. The Amazon, once a major sink, is now a net emitter of greenhouse gases, due to rainforest destruction for animal and industrial agriculture and wildfires. The Arctic is melting fast, releasing methane from peat bogs, tundra, and from under the disappearing ice, whose ability to reflect heat, is also essential.
Even as industrial and fossil fuel interests control political and financial agendas, food security may be the decisive threat that makes policy-makers listen. As people become increasingly aware of the devastation around them, surveys show that a large percentage of the world’s population is now in support of the major changes that are necessary to survive the existential threat of climate change.
Code Red is the highest level of alert, but we are almost out of time to heed it and to reduce human-produced emissions sufficiently to slow down the rising concentration of greenhouse gases, and to preserve the Earth’s essential carbon sinks. Peter Carter, Brian Wright, and Mark Anderson reveal that the IPCC report needs to send a clearer and even more urgent message.
James Hansen and Daniel Galpern at one of our programs at COP-23: Making the Carbon Majors Pay for Climate Action
Please Sign Petition to President Biden
The Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative is an initiative that we have become aware of through our contact with Dan Galpern, who has served as legal and policy adviser to the climate scientist James E. Hansen since 2011.
James and Dan have been frequent guests on our COP programs. Dan is the executive director of CPR Initiative and it is putting together what we feel is a very important petition to urge President Biden to impose rising carbon fees “without delay.”
Please obtain more information and sign the petition at this website: cprclimate.org
Presenting before the US NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
On Tuesday March 9, 2021, along with nuclear expert Paul Blanch, Facing Future’s Executive Director, Stuart Scott, will be defending the public’s right to intervene on matters of nuclear safety. For many years the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has been what is known as a ‘captive regulator,’ acceding to nearly every request for ‘regulatory relief’ from the Nuclear Power Industry (relaxing safety rules or enforcement) while at the same time rejecting nearly every public petition aimed at strengthening the rules, or just enforcement of the existing rules. It is quite shameful to know the extent to which the scales are tipped in favor of the licensees and against public and environmental safety in the US.
In Tuesday’s hearing before the Petition Review Board (PRB) of the NRC, Stuart, Paul Blanch, and Public Watchdog’s Charles Langley will make a strong case in support of two of the numerous petitions submitted by PublicWatchdogs.org, and making the more general case that we’ve got the proverbial ‘fox guarding the henhouse’ in terms of nuclear safety in the US. Additional background information about the petition is available here. There is an extraordinary safety risk involved in the substandard storage of ‘spent’ nuclear reactor waste in the US, both at Southern California Edison’s decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power station and at nearly a hundred other nuclear utilities around the nation. The San Onofre station happens to be adjacent to a popular surf spot, immortalized in the surf-rock song by the Beach Boys, “Surfin USA,” in which San Onofre is mentioned.
But numerous other nuclear power plants around the US use the same substandard canisters manufactured by Holtec International, and similar companies. The plant is located on the Pacific Coast Highway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and is embedded on land belonging to Fort Pendleton, a military training base famous throughout the world for the training sessions held in amphibious landings for both American and foreign troops. This makes San Onofre a legitimate military target for potential missile attack from Asia (think North Korea).
The nuclear waste is stored in 73 twenty-foot-high, thin-walled (5/8”) stainless steel canisters. The engineering of the site does not properly account for risks of flooding, earthquake, tsunami (the site lies in the tsunami zone on inundation maps), enemy attack, or terrorism on the ‘cemetery’ of 73 canisters buried in the ground about 100 ft from the ocean. The result of even one canister being breached or leaking could be a radiation release on the order of what was released at Chernobyl in 1986. Attendance at this meeting by the public and press is strongly encouraged as the nuclear waste issues have remained largely ‘concealed nuclear risks,’ while the actual plant accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima) have received widespread public attention.
“The highly risky way that nuclear reactor waste is treated in the US is quite shocking. It’s the result of a stark and obvious prioritization of the power and financial interests of the Nuclear Power Industry over Public Safety by the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission),” says Stuart Scott.
“We have shown clearly that the NRC is highly responsive to the requests for regulatory relief (relaxation of rules or their enforcement) by the industry they should be regulating. At the same time, they virtually ignore public input. They refuse to consider most public petitions filed, and then reject almost all of the few they even choose to consider. It’s a shame and a crime against the public and future generations, who will bear the growing risk of over 3,200 substandard storage canisters in use around the US.” [For more information on how these canisters are substandard, click here (video).]
“That does not take into account the completely unprotected ‘cooling ponds’ in which so-called ‘spent nuclear fuel’ is left for years until it is cool enough to be welded shut into relatively thin-walled canisters. This flaunting of public safety is a direct result of the increasingly cozy relationship that has developed over the years between the regulators (NRC) and the licensees (nuclear power utilities),” Scott adds in a combination of disbelief and disgust.
Who:
Paul Blanch, registered Professional Engineer, US Navy Reactor Operator & Instructor, with 55 years of experience with nuclear engineering and regulatory agencies.
Stuart H. Scott, the Founder and Executive Director of Facing Future, best known for bringing Greta Thunberg to the 2018 UN climate negotiations in Poland (COP-24) and Dr. James Hansen, the 32-year veteran Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies to COP-21 in Paris in late 2015.
Charles Langley, Executive Director of PublicWatchdogs.org, is a public advocate with more than 25 years of experience in the field of energy law, energy policy, and utility rate-setting.
Registration Instructions: To register click on the Webex link above where you will have the opportunity to register for the presentation.
When:
Tuesday March 9, 2021, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm EST. (Please calculate the local time for you.)
Why:
It is imperative that the press and public attend. For too long the NRC has granted the nuclear power industry nearly everything it has asked for while systematically rejecting even from consideration the many public submissions of informed petitions. Of the 387 petitions that have made it past outright rejection from consideration, only 2 have passed on to being considered, and one of those was from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant itself! Discounting that anomaly, only 1 out of 387 petitions has been granted, and in that one case, ‘no substantial relief’ was provided by the NRC, a finding by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) in a case brought before it in 2012.
If you are a member of the press, we encourage you to publish a small piece about this important meeting even if you are unable to attend in person.
More information and interviews with Paul Blanch, Stuart Scott, and Charles Langley can be requested by email to contact@facingfuture.earth
Epilogue:
The presentations before the NRC were recorded and posted on FacingFuture.TV . Please find them as follows:
Note that the Facing Future Mobile App was decommissioned on Dec. 2, 2021 due to circumstances beyond our control. See here for more information.
We are pleased to announce the release of a Facing Future Mobile App. The App is available for use on both the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. The App acts as a convenient portal to access Facing Future’s content from its YouTube channel and website.
We’d like to thank Bubblr Limited who donated their services to produce the App.
iOS instructions:
– Simply open the App store and do a search for “Facing Future”
Android instructions:
– If you search for “Facing Future”, our App may not appear. If this occurs, try searching for “Newzmine” then click on “Bubblr Limited” and it should appear in the search choices.
We live in a world of our making. A world of impending planetary catastrophe, a world in the midst of the 6th mass extinction of life. A world being heated up and burned down, with sky rocketing atmospheric levels of climate-disrupting carbon and ocean-poisoning CO2 acidification. A world of conflict, constantly at war, mainly over oil. In a world of plentiful food, world hunger is on the rise again. In regions of climate change impact and conflict, 820 million people do not have enough to eat. For the first time in human history, our future as a species is in doubt.
Ethics is the prime disorder and so it should be our prime issue in attempting to rescue the future. I believe we should prioritize ethics as the climate solution, incorporating as priorities within ethics the rights of future generations, and ecological rights of Nature.
People do understand ethics, though to most, economics — the greatest confidence trick — is a mystery.
Small children know what fairness means. There is nothing complicated about ethics. The Golden Rule has ancient origins. Just one short sentence, it is packed with civilization-sustaining wisdom: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Searching for a universal modern human ethic, Albert Schweitzer defined ethics as simply deep respect for all life: “Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil.”
For most of our time as a species on this planet, Respect for Mother Earth (Mother Nature) and all life has been the simple, self-evident fundamental ethic, which Indigenous people worldwide have relied on to live sustainably for thousands of years. By this universal ethic of All Life, trees are standing people.
Today’s greed-driven, profit-focused, credit (usury)-based economics hinges solely on money. Our economy has done away with ethics, twisting the deadly sins into deadly virtues. It is explicitly based on individual material self-interest that leads to individual power (over) — although this is not human nature, which it perverts. It is an evil economics of doom and destruction.
Life and a future are being wiped out before our eyes, which ethically is the greatest evil barely imaginable. Perhaps that is why this annihilation is not being recognized as evil.The enormous energy power of fossil fuels has become the tool of economics, and has driven the obsessive oppressive lust for limitless national and individual power.
Though I cannot find a specific “ethical economics,” we do have better ideas and plans.
Cambridge Economics Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, a leading academic example:
“In the quantitative models that appear in leading economics journals and textbooks, nature is taken to be a fixed, indestructible factor of production. The problem with the assumption is that it is wrong: nature consists of degradable resources.”
The classic Man and Nature: Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, by George Perkins Marsh in the 1800s:
“Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste.”
David C. Korten, American author and former Harvard Business School professor:
“A handful of corporations and financial institutions command an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in an assault against markets, democracy, and life. It’s a suicide economy, [which] destroys the very foundations of its own existence. (When Corporations Rule the World, 1995)
“Our defining gift as humans is our power to choose, including our power to choose our collective future. It is a gift that comes with a corresponding moral responsibility to use that power in ways that work to the benefit of all people and the whole of life.” (Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, 2010)
Stan Rowe, geo-ecologist, environmentalist, research forester, professor of plant ecology:
“A trusting attachment to the Ecosphere, an aesthetic empathy with surrounding Nature, a feeling of awe for the miracle of the Living Earth and its mysterious harmonies, is humanity’s largely unrecognized heritage.” (“A Manifesto for Earth,” 2004)
Richard Douthwaite, British ecologist and economist; co-founder of FEASTA (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability):
The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet, 1992
Today our economics rules civilization irrationally, explicitly denying all human and economic rights to future generations because they are not (yet) living. Economics, pretending to be a science, has usurped the leading position of ethics in civilization; however an ethics for our future must go beyond the rights of humans, to follow the example of the Indigenous peoples.
We have institutions that partner (conspire) to use this irrational perverse economics to exploit, oppress, kill and destroy on a vast scale. They “manage” to subvert all our good ideas and plans. Somehow they must be overcome or radically reformed for our survival.
They are the big investment banking corporations, the extractive industry corporations, and the compliant nation state governments. The banks are consuming our planet. The 35 leading investment banks show financing of more than 2.66 trillion dollars for fossil fuel industries since the 2015 Paris Agreement (attached top 18):
A February 2020 Chase Manhattan research report recorded in great detail the catastrophic destruction of continued climate disruption, but ended up saying there was no alternative to business as usual. The 1992 UN Earth Summit made a bold attempt to reform economics, but the axis of evil prevailed without any real reforms. Through economic globalization, the power of the corporations has increased enormously.
As a medical doctor and life-long student of Mother Nature, one thing I have learned about all life, even on the very smallest individual scale, is that life never gives up on Life. No matter how great the threat or overwhelming the odds to existence, life never surrenders.
There are countless inspiring examples of such great courage, including personal sacrifice, even in the darkest times of human history.
On the 22 of February 1943, a defiant non-violent 21-year-old German student, Sophie Scholl, who was an anti-Hitler activist, made a prophetic final statement before she was sent to the guillotine: “But what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
Today, 26 March 2020, there is encouraging good news. In a major victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the United States, a federal judge struck down permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline, the notorious oil pipeline plan that crosses the Tribe’s ancestral lands.
A federal court found the Trump administration violated the law when it issued permits for the project. Specifically, the Court found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to consider the health and environmental impacts to the Tribe in the event of an oil spill. The climate science is certain. If our species is to survive, there must be no more fossil fuel pipelines built, and the transport of oil and gas by the many pipelines that already exist must be phased out. Our only future is the clean, affordable, endless energy non-combustion future. We literally have no future with any fossil fuels. This is where ethics, economics and science join.
Onward the struggle
Dr. Peter Carter, MD, IPCC Expert Reviewer
Dr. Peter Carter (M.D.) is founder of the Climate Emergency Institute and has served as an expert reviewer for the IPCC. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, with his wife, Julie Johnston, who edited this post.
The face of Greta Thunberg speaking out so clearly and confidently and with such urgency, both gives us hope and alarms us.
We have hope because there are many, among them many young people, who are stepping up to warn us further about the climate crisis and urging us to take action. We are alarmed, because such young people have had to take it upon themselves to lead the clarion call on climate action.
The 30-minute film is meant to be used as a tool for discussion and a resource for knowledge and action.
The impact of climate change is undeniable and catastrophic. The recent and ongoing fires in California and now in Australia are a heartbreaking demonstration of this. The Trump administration has met this crisis by systematically and efficiently enacting an alarming number of regulatory rollbacks, reversing past policy progress and putting our very existence at risk.
Because we are in a crisis and urgent action is essential, Old Dog Documentaries is offering the film FREE OF CHARGE to view and to share.
You may download a 1080p copy (834 MB) of the video made available on this webiste here.
You may also purchase a DVD version of the video here.
If you’d like to help spread the message of this documentary by hosting a screening in your home or community there is more information on the Old Dog Documentaries website here. If you require a higher resolution of the video for viewing on larger screens you can get it here and click on Download where the original version (24 GB) is available. There is also an eFlyer template available in both Pages and MSword format.
You may view the video on ScientistsWarning.TV here.
In addition to this video, Scientists Warning, has produced a video called “Rollbacks, The Menace of Donald Trump” which is a commentary on Rollbacks, An Assault Against Life on Earth and includes a discussion about the urgent need for US citizens to take action by VOTING in the primaries and election in 2020. This program was one of eleven programs that Scientists Warning produced at the 2019 COP-25 in Madrid.
We are two “old dogs” saddened by the suffering we see all around us and moved to take action. Since 1985, we have produced and directed documentary films about the subtleties of individual human experience and the complexities of our collective challenges.
Our political leaders cannot solve the problems of our time. They themselves are too beholden to privileged, powerful constituencies motivated to preserve the status quo. Change must start with ordinary people who understand the interrelatedness of our global community. Ordinary people have the will, resourcefulness, and compassion to craft new solutions serving our common good.
We offer our films as catalysts for this kind of solution— as tools for education and activism in the name of social change. We invite you to watch them at home, show them to your friends, share them with your classes and your community. We are happy to answer questions, provide additional resource materials, and suggest ways of using our films that will support your own efforts to nurture and protect this world we share.
Approximately 2 years after the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity (2nd Notice) was released in 2017 an additional warning in the form of the “World Scientists’s Warning of a Climate Emergency” has been released. The paper opens with “Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to tell it like it is.“
The pdf file of the paper by William Ripple et al. is available as follows:
An opportunity to learn about and understand the term “Deep Adaptation”. The term comes from the paper Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy by Jem Bendell, which has greatly changed the landscape of what we are doing in the Scientists’ Warning Initiative. An excerpt from the abstract of this paper follows; however, the reader is urged to take the time to read the full content of the paper by clicking the link.
A note from Alison Green, a member of Scientists’ Warning’s Advisory Council, about her experience travelling and co-presenting with Stuart to the Foresight Group at the European Commission in Brussels. A video of the actual presentation given on November 5, 2018, follows.
A poem provided by John Doyle which reflects upon his experience.
The post was recently updated to include a “Resources” section that provides more up to date information and links related to Deep Adaptation.
Jem Bendell is a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founding Director of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria in the United Kingdom
The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide readers with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near term social collapse due to climate change.
The approach of the paper is to analyse recent studies on climate change and its implications for our ecosystems, economies and societies, as provided by academic journals and publications direct from research institutes.
That synthesis leads to a conclusion there will be a near term collapse in society with serious ramifications for the lives of readers. The paper reviews some of the reasons why collapse denial may exist, in particular, in the professions of sustainability research and practice, therefore leading to these arguments having been absent from these fields until now.
The paper offers a new meta-framing of the implications for research, organisational practice, personal development and public policy, called the Deep Adaptation Agenda. Its key aspects of resilience, relinquishment and restorations are explained. This agenda does not seek to build on existing scholarship on “climate adaptation” as it is premised on the view that social
collapse is now inevitable.
The author believes this is one of the first papers in the sustainability management field to conclude that climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term and therefore to invite scholars to explore the implications.
A Note
from Alison Green
This past weekend (Nov. 3, 2018), I travelled to Brussels with Stuart Scott at the invitation of John Doyle to speak to the Foresight Group at the European Commission. It was an astonishing meeting, in so many ways.
Travelling to Brussels on the Eurostar was a prelude to it all – we passed the barbed horrors of Calais and could not help but feel the continuing strangeness of seasons that have somehow come to be detached from their archetypes.
We presented to around 30 representatives of the various departments within the EC, having carefully planned the session over the weekend. Our brief? To summarise the ‘journey so far’ and ‘what do we do about it – and how?’
Stuart presented a formidable set of slides covering the journey of ScientistsWarning.org, from the first warning in 1992 to the most recent second warning in 2017. One person remarked that the second warning should have been termed ‘the final warning’. Perhaps that person was right? And then the presentation moved into the evidence base – incontrovertible data on the declining Arctic sea ice density, exponential increase in human population, decimation of wildlife, the terrifying methane problem, drought and food insecurity, wildfires and more. No one could fail to be profoundly shocked by the information set before them.
I spoke about ‘the sense of an ending’ – that as humans, we sense an ending approaching, but we also question the sense of *this* ending. Is this a fitting ending to humanity? For we are surely looking at an ending. And in the face of this, how can we regain some sense of ourselves as part of the incredible phenomenon that is life? I spoke also about denialism, Extinction Rebellion and why it is that we must now consider civil disobedience, and about Jem Bendell’s work on ‘Deep Adaptation.’
We must rage, rage against the dying of the light, and come once more to appreciate all that life bestows upon us. And during that meeting, I sense that that is what happened – people became emotional, tears were shed. One deeply moving moment for me came when one person said, “I no longer feel alone.”
Journeying home to Cambridge and reflecting on it all, I overheard a conversation behind me on the train. Some Australian and Belgian men were talking about the strange summer heatwaves. One man said this: “Climate change – we hear about it but I don’t know if it’s real or not.” Then one of the others said, “it’s always changing.” This was important – here was a group of people, talking about their experiences of strange weather. They know that what they are experiencing is odd, yet no authority has overtly stated that what we are experiencing IS an emergency. And to this small group of people, the hopeless possibility remains that all may come right again. And THIS is why we must demand that the truth is told.
A Poem
by John Doyle
Our attachments. All can vanish in an instant.
They will vanish from us sooner or later anyway,
but abrupt insult is another matter.
Outrage and grief become the new reality.
Use it to alter habits and create new norms.
Extract purpose. Be intransigent
about your new norms rather than merely being disobedient.
Live a life that others will accommodate just to have your company.
Hosting a Scientists’ Warning Presentation:
Our Experience from September 20, 2018
in Ottawa, Canada
By Charles Gregoire and Heidi Brault
Introduction
We hosted and organized a Scientists’ Warning presentation for Stuart Scott in Ottawa, Canada, on Thursday, September 20th, 2018. We hope that sharing our experience will be helpful to others who are planning presentations. Ironically, the day following the talk, the region experienced unusual weather patterns, which were likely induced by climate change.
Steps
We discussed the idea with Stuart after becoming aware of his travel itinerary for the fall of 2018. Stuart was receptive to the idea as he would be travelling to the northeastern U.S. We quickly converged on a date. This discussion occurred roughly around August 28, 2018, about three and a half weeks prior to the presentation.
The next step was to book a room. This proved to be quite challenging as we didn’t have a lot of lead time and Stuart aspired to have a room that could hold 200 people. There were several factors to keep in mind, such as room capacity, location, parking and public transit. After doing some research, we came upon some openings that were relatively expensive ($400-$800 CAD). We continued our search hoping to find something more reasonably priced. By chance we found an opening at the Sandy Hill Community Centre for $150 CAD. The room was relatively spacious with a capacity of 140 people. It was also centrally located, provided ample parking, and was accessible by bus. Stuart has since reimbursed us for the room rental using PayPal.
After paying for the room rental in advance and obtaining a receipt, Stuart went ahead and booked his flights to and from Ottawa. We agreed that Stuart would stay with us at our home in Kanata and he was quite happy to sleep in our carpeted living room using a memory foam camping mat, that we supplied, along with his sleeping bag.
We could now proceed with promoting the event and Stuart promptly sent us a flyer. We decided to use an event planning app called EventBrite. EventBrite allows one to insert an image that shows up in event listings. The image requirements were for a 2:1 aspect ratio. In order to get something up in a timely manner, we simply saved the pdf file as a jpeg and then used a photo editor to crop a portion of the flyer with a near 2:1 image aspect ratio. Later, as the event date neared, we decided to use a tool called “Google Slides” which allows one to edit slides, similar to MS Powerpoint, and setup with a custom aspect ratio. Since the Scientists’ Warning website has a very nice logo, we decided to use it as the primary graphic for our listing in EventBrite.
With the date, time, location and EventBrite in place we then began the long campaign of getting the word out by leveraging our contacts in the community. Stuart had high aspirations of reaching out to dignitaries in the area and we did attempt to contact the Governor General of Canada. Initial ticket reservations were slow and it was somewhat discouraging. At one point we reached out to Paul Beckwith, a local climate system scientist who knows Stuart. Initially, he wasn’t able to help, but as the event date approached, he seemed to come alive with enthusiasm and did much to help us get the word out by putting up flyers and reaching out to his professional contacts. Some of the key groups we reached out to in the area were:
Green Parties’ organizations including: Kanata-Carleton Greens, Young Greens of Canada
Ecology Ottawa
Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Sierra Club
Friends of the Earth
Spiritual Frontiers Canada
Various Offices including: Elizabeth May, Catherine McKenna, Julie Payette, and Mike Schreiner
We also sent invitations to a number of personal contacts.
Although the number of ticket reservations was somewhat anemic at the beginning, most of the growth in ticket reservations occurred 7 to 14 days prior to the event and reached an apex of 44 reservations. We also had to keep in mind that there were a number of events going on during the same week due to the upcoming municipal elections. In addition, we were able to set up an automatic email using EventBrite that would go out to ticket holders two days before the presentation to remind them of the upcoming event.
The other considerations for the event were arranging to provide a sound system as well as recording the event. Because of our experience as musicians, we had these two items easily covered. We were able to use our PA system along with two microphones, one for Stuart and one for audience questions. We set up a static video camera to record the entire event along with a hand-held camera to occasionally rove around the room providing different perspectives. To ensure good audio, a recording device was connected to the “Record Line Out” of the PA system.
We also needed to have an LCD projector with an HDMI port. Fortunately, we were able to borrow one from a friend as these can be prohibitively expensive to rent.
Stuart’s Arrival!
The day before the presentation was busy! We did some grocery shopping and got the house ready, as we would be hosting Stuart for two nights. We also kept track of ticket reservations and also contacted individuals who had already reserved a ticket and reminded them that they could bring a friend. We also re-posted the event on Twitter and Facebook. We were in contact with Paul Beckwith, as we knew that he would want to spend some time with Stuart during his short stay in Ottawa.
Stuart’s flight was scheduled to arrive in Ottawa at 11:19 pm, so we left the house in plenty of time to get to the airport. We were tracking his flight from New York and noticed that it was early. After a short wait, he came through the “International” exit with his big suitcase and backpack. He enjoyed the ride back to our place in our electric car (Nissan Leaf).
Stuart’s arrival in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (Copyright Charles Gregoire, 2018)
Presentation Day
After breakfast, we confirmed with Paul Beckwith that he would be joining Stuart and us for lunch at our place. This gave us an opportunity to get to know Paul, which was great. Stuart was eager to fine tune his presentation for a Canadian audience and got to work right away. Charles had to test the projector and Heidi was keeping track of last-minute ticket reservations.
We had unanimously decided that it would be best to go for an early dinner. We drove to The Green Door restaurant where we all thoroughly enjoyed a buffet-style, organic, vegan/vegetarian meal. From there, we drove to the Sandy Hill Community Centre, where the presentation was to take place. We arrived about an hour before the presentation in order to give ourselves plenty of time to set up chairs, a couple of tables, the microphones, laptop, PA, projector and camera. Unfortunately, there was a very loud noise coming from the vent and a technician had to be called to resolve the issue, but it did get resolved in plenty of time.
Heidi was the official greeter and attendees started arriving about ten minutes prior to the presentation. Most of them arrived at the beginning of the talk, which made it a little bit difficult to keep track and to greet everyone. As expected, there were a few no-shows, but there were also a few people who had been invited, but hadn’t reserved, and we were delighted to see them. Charles, Paul and Stuart focused on making sure the sound system and projector were ready.
Charles introduced Paul Beckwith, a climate system scientist and professor, who has a website and Youtube channel with many pedagogical videos on climate change and its key drivers. Paul introduced Stuart by explaining how they had met.
Stuart gave a powerful 50-minute talk. As the slide projector we had borrowed was an older model with a lower light output, it was necessary to dim the lights to make sure that the audience members could see the slides; unfortunately, this meant that Stuart was not well lit for the video recording; however, the lights were turned back up during the Q&A portion of the evening.
The audience was mainly comprised of people who were already aware of climate change, and a few were most likely already aware of abrupt climate change and the urgency of its consequences. Most of the attendees stayed for the Q&A session, which was thought-provoking and sparked much discussion. In the end, we didn’t have much time to put everything away, but we managed and were very pleased that the event had gone well.
After the presentation, the four of us went out for a snack and some well-deserved leisure time at a local diner.
From left to right: Stuart, Charles, Heidi and Paul (Copyright Charles Gregoire & Heidi Brault, 2018)
The Day After
After breakfast, Stuart played the piano for us for a few minutes – a lovely piece that he had composed. We then drove him to the airport. After two nights in Ottawa, Stuart was off to Boston to visit one of his sons and would have the opportunity to meet with Rob Moir, one of our core team members. From Boston, Stuart would then be travelling to Washington, D.C.
In the afternoon Heidi and I drove out to Almonte, a town west of Ottawa, to return the projector to our friend who had kindly loaned it to us. We had a nice visit and just as we were preparing to head back to our home in Kanata (a suburb west of Ottawa) we received some alerts from Environment Canada on our cellphones warning of a potential tornado and to take immediate cover. So we extended our visit for another half hour after which we decided we should start heading back home.
On our way home we encountered a few heavy wind gusts on Hwy 417 and we received at least one additional alert in addition to the possibility of hail. We observed the skies looked dark and gray to the north of us (i.e. Dunrobin area). Once home we were very thankful to be safely home with our car in the garage. We turned the local TV news on and started hearing the reports of the tornado damage in Dunrobin (4:50 pm), Gatineau, QC (5:10 pm), and then later in Arlington Woods (6:00 pm) in the Nepean area.
Shortly after 6:00 pm the power went out. It would remain out in our neighborhood for approximately 27 hours. We managed to find a few candles and a small LED flashlight, which proved very helpful. Having not had supper we made a few sandwiches. I had an older 12V battery/inverter unit that unfortunately hadn’t been left on charge for awhile and used it to keep our modem going. We went for a walk outside and ended up having to quickly return due to a sudden downpour. We went to sleep significantly earlier than our usual time (being in darkness has a way encouraging this).
The following day we noticed that although the power was still out in our neighborhood, it had returned to small pockets of Kanata. We managed to take our electric car to a DC fast charger where we charged back up to 80%. At the charging station we met another car owner who had driven over from the downtown area to charge due to a power outage in his area. After this we went to a store to stock up on candles and bought a second LED flashlight.
As we drove along we listened to a news conference with the mayor and the details of the devastation to narrow clusters of homes, many of them no longer habitable. The McDonalds and Tim Hortons restaurants had very long lineups and we decided not to wait – instead we took advantage of a vegan buffet at a local Farmboy grocery store in Stittsville, just west of Kanata. We noticed that the traffic was unusually heavy for a Saturday morning – a lot of people were out looking for restaurants, grocery stores and stores that were open. We heard on the news that a lot of gas stations were closed – another reason for the higher-than-normal volume of traffic as people were looking for gas stations.
Later that afternoon a friend loaned us a generator, which we ran for a while to run our fridge, charge our phones, and 12V battery/inverter unit. A neighbour walked over and warned us not to leave the generator unattended since it could easily disappear.
Some nice friends from our refugee sponsorship group invited us for supper (their power had come back on in the middle of the night). We spent a delightful evening with them and were glad to return home late that evening to discover the power was back on. This experience sensitized us to becoming better prepared for an emergency.
Over the next few days, Environment Canada reported that there had actually been six tornadoes. Three of these tornadoes had caused extensive damage in the Ottawa area, with the first tornado touching down in Calabogie, the second in Dunrobin prior to skipping across the Ottawa River to Gatineau, Quebec, and the third touching down in two areas in west Ottawa. Tornadoes four, five and six hit Val-des-bois, Otter Lake and the Baskatong reservoir, all in western Quebec. Paul Beckwith put together three interesting videos about the Ottawa-area tornados (see the following links: Video-1, Video-2 and Video-3). It was interesting that the extreme weather that we experienced had occurred the day after Stuart’s Scientists’ Warning presentation.
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On Tuesday March 9, 2021, along with nuclear expert Paul Blanch, Facing Future’s Executive Director, Stuart Scott, will be defending the public’s right to intervene on matters of nuclear safety. For many years the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has been what is known as a ‘captive regulator,’ acceding to nearly every request for ‘regulatory relief’ from the Nuclear Power Industry (relaxing safety rules or enforcement) while at the same time rejecting nearly every public petition aimed at strengthening the rules, or just enforcement of the existing rules. It is quite shameful to know the extent to which the scales are tipped in favor of the licensees and against public and environmental safety in the US.
There is an extraordinary safety risk involved in the substandard storage of ‘spent’ nuclear reactor waste in the US, both at Southern California Edison’s decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power station and at nearly a hundred other nuclear utilities around the nation. The San Onofre station happens to be adjacent to a popular surf spot, immortalized in the surf-rock song by the Beach Boys, “Surfin USA,” in which San Onofre is mentioned.
But numerous other nuclear power plants around the US use the same substandard canisters manufactured by Holtec International, and similar companies. The plant is located on the Pacific Coast Highway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and is embedded on land belonging to Fort Pendleton, a military training base famous throughout the world for the training sessions held in amphibious landings for both American and foreign troops. This makes San Onofre a legitimate military target for potential missile attack from Asia (think North Korea).
