Two major gaps

The primary gap is that people do not get that global warming is now a global emergency with a short timeframe, and that in terms of trends this also true of other ecological issues.

Climate scientists such as James Hanson assert that we are in a global emergency is because we have already reached tipping points, such as the warming of Siberian lakes (which are now releasing methane) where natural processes will accelerate planetary heating independent of human activity.

So a crucial point of change is to devise vehicles whereby people will realise that we are in a global emergency, and we should respond accordingly.

The second gap is that few people realise - or are willing to accept - that our whole economic system is organised to make global warming worse. Advertising promotes excess consumption of things people don't necessarily need or even enjoy. Increasing production requires more energy - most of which comes from power plants that release greenhouse gases. As economist Ross Garnaut is reported to have said, "Economic increase would be a good thing if it were not for its effects on the environment.”

So we have a Great Contradiction between economic increase and ecological sustainability. It is true that energy use can be dramatically reduced by applying advanced methods of integrated industrial design as described in Amory Lovins Natural Capitalism. However energy increase, not energy use reduction, is currently the major policy thrust, and policy in this regard is driven by the perceived need for increased commercial activity.

So the point of change here is for people to understand how our whole system is currently organised to increase global warming. Chapter 4 of Evolving a World That Works has a set of diagrams that a facilitator can go through step-by-step to enable people to see the connections.

Given our debt loads, concern for mortgage repayments and economic aspirations, the prospect of slowing the economy is really threatening to many people. Indeed, it is not even mentioned in major policy considerations. Reference is always made to the importance of maintaining a thriving economy. Hence the relevance of my joke in the previous post.

A third knowledge gap, more optimistically, is that there is reason to believe that advanced methods of organic farming, combined with 'biochar’, a method of producing and burying charcoal, have the potential to rapidly pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, and thus pull us back from the brink of global warming.

For this to work would require in a national commitment and investment on a scale similar to what happens when nations go to war. In other words, governments do not rely on market forces such as carbon credits, but pay farmers directly to have the work done.