Resilience Helps Us Get Through

The Origin of the 12 Year Timeline

The 12 years in which we have to act started in October 2018. From Inside Climate News Aug 27, 2019

What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 11 Years) Really Mean?

“The number began drawing attention in 2018, when the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report describing what it would take to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal of the Paris climate agreement. The report explained that countries would have to cut their anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, such as from power plants and vehicles, to net zero by around 2050. To reach that goal, it said, CO₂ emissions would have to start dropping "well before 2030" and be on a path to fall by about 45 percent by around 2030 (12 years away at that time).”

Resilience Proposals

Read the paper:

“Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy” – Jem Bendell – an occasional paper from the Institute of Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria, UK – July 2018. Prof. Bendell raises the specter of how to adapt…

“the deep adaptation agenda of resilience, relinquishment and restoration can be a useful framework for community dialogue in the face of climate change. Resilience asks us “how do we keep what we really want to keep?” Relinquishment asks us “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?” Restoration asks us “what can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies?”

Project Drawdown and Available Technology

“The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world“

"Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming" – ed Paul Hawken – Penguin Books – Apr 2017.

But how we manage investments has an effect too, see:

"Did Project Drawdown miss a crucial climate solution?" – GreenBiz, Sasja Beslik – March 2018

Land Management issues are also important, see:

"This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth" - Jedediah Purdue - Princeton University Press – Sept 2019

Clean Disruption & Cost Curves

YouTube presentation by Tony Soba presented by the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) shows how cost curves will drive transition to EV and solar power + storage for most energy needs.

https://youtu.be/2b3ttqYDwF0

Published on Jun 9, 2017

Stanford University futurist Tony Seba spent the last decades studying technological disruptions. He argues that the Electric Vehicle, battery storage, and solar power, along with autonomous vehicles, are a perfect example of a 10x exponential process which will wipe fossil fuels off the market in about a decade. TonySeba.com – RethinkX.com

He is the author of several books, including most recently “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030”, and “Solar Trillions: 7 Market and Investment Opportunities in the Emerging Clean-Energy Economy”

Tony Soba spoke in Boulder, Colorado, where he was awarded the 2017 Sunshine Award by Clean Energy Action https://cleanenergyaction.org.

Effecting Social Change

Succeeding Social Movements

Making a change isn’t easy, so understanding important factors as described in:

How Change Happens – Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t – Leslie Crutchfield, Wiley, 2018. can be important. Briefly the six factors are:

1. Turn grassroots to gold: let local leaders lead
2. Sharpen your 10/10/10/20 = 50 Vision: push for improvements in local and state levels
3. Change hearts and policy: the change sought is the new normal, the message connects.
4. Reckon with adversarial allies: face intra-field challenges, put egos aside, focus on a common agenda
5. Break from business as usual: work with sympathetic businesses to change internal policies
6. Be leaderful: find balance between “leaderless” and “leader-led”, work through networks and systems and be organized.

Spiral Dynamics, Leadership and Change

Understanding the different dynamics of human society and how to identify eight levels of thinking models that are demonstrated by individuals, organizations and societies will help us develop approaches to effecting change and solving people problems. See:

Spiral Dynamics: mastering values, leadership, and change – Beck & Cowan, Blackwell Publishing, 1996. See https://spiraldynamics.org/ for more info and resources. See summary at http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/espiritualismo/Beck-Cowan,Spiral%20Dynamic-2.htm

Tipping Points for Social Change

If reported societal tipping points exist, we can get an understanding of the effort needed.

Recent research from University of Pennsylvania suggests 25% of participants need to be on board before large scale social change happens. See Damon Centola, 7 June 2018

https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/research-finds-tipping-point-large-scale-social-change

Then there’s the 3.5% rule (to topple dictators for example) discussed in My Talk at TEDxBoulder: Civil Resistance and the “3.5% Rule”, 4 Nov 2013, see:

https://rationalinsurgent.com/2013/11/04/my-talk-at-tedxboulder-civil-resistance-and-the-3-5-rule/

Brain Biases that Get in the Way

Changing minds is hard as King reports tell us:

“Cognitive biases that ensured our initial survival now make it difficult to address long-term challenges that threaten our existence, like climate change.” - Matthew Wilburn King, 8 March 2019:

The original report is at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190304-human-evolution-means-we-can-tackle-climate-change

Training & Simulation

Climate Interactive offers a suite of tools to help model policies and strategies to fight the climate crisis. These models EN-Roads, C-Roads and ALPS through a combination of games and workshops educate participant in systems shaping our world.

“As John Sterman says, “Research shows that showing people research doesn’t work,” so we create experiences for people to use our tools with their peers to enable deeper understanding of the systems shaping our world. This approach comes from MIT Sloan School of Management where these types of interactive exercises are used to train top business leaders. Our workshops and games have been used with a wide range of audiences from heads of state to middle school students.”

https://www.climateinteractive.org/

From the World Climate Simulation website:

“The World Climate Simulation is a role-playing exercise of the UN climate change negotiations for groups. It is unique in that it uses an interactive computer model to rapidly analyze the results of the mock-negotiations during the event. All the materials and tools for World Climate are available for free and many are available in multiple languages. We encourage you to organize a World Climate Simulation yourself.”

https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/world-climate-simulation/

Volunteering Skills

The power of good interpersonal skills can probably not be overstated. Some of us are blessed in these skills more than others. Being welcoming may be one of them. Hearing more about taking a skills inventory (perhaps a guided self-reflection) with the aim of doing better could be useful. Are there books on 'Becoming Charismatic'? A quick Google search found https://www.success.com/10-ways-to-become-a-more-charismatic-person/ So there is lots of advice out there. Not sure on how to assess the quality tho'. This almost suggests we should find and assign the right person to do the volunteer engagement.

See https://www.success.com/10-ways-to-become-a-more-charismatic-person/

Social Discount Rates

What are they and what does it mean for climate crisis fighters?

From GRIST: https://grist.org/article/discount-rates-a-boring-thing-you-should-know-about-with-otters/

From Forbes: [#3bc013e66bda https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkobayashisolomon/2019/03/27/climate-change-investing-discounting-the-future/#3bc013e66bda]

From the Center for Climate and Energy Studies: https://www.c2es.org/document/discounting-the-benefits-of-climate-change-mitigation-how-much-do-uncertain-rates-increase-valuations/