What do I believe in?

As mentioned last month, I'm standing up to say I am extremely concerned with climate change, and I'm going to step up and do even more to try to make a difference. Perhaps it's the lawyer in me, but I'm always hesitant to start acting on something unless I can establish the underlying facts of the situation, and recognise high level principles for taking next steps.

Basic facts

These are the basic facts that shape my response:

1. Greenhouse gases (GHG) get their name because they trap heat and heat the atmosphere, just like a greenhouse. GHG include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These gases can naturally be released, but are also released by human activity. For example, carbon dioxide is released by the burning of fossil fuels, and methane is released by cattle and rotting food waste in landfill. These gases can be naturally absorbed, for example, by plants through photosynthesis.
   
2. Humans are the cause of a significant increases in GHG since at least the late 1800s, when the industrial revolution began. Over the last 250 years or so, human activity has intensified, resulting in increasing activities that release GHG (eg burning fossil fuels and increase agricultural and livestock production) and increasing activities that remove those living things that absorb GHG (cutting down trees and rainforests).
   
3. Intensified human activity means increased global temperature over a shorter period of time. This might seem slow or gradual to everyday human perception, but is significant from a historical perspective. Any change that occurs too quickly makes it hard for living creatures to adapt and evolve. Changes that might have previously happened over thousands of years will be compressed to centuries or decades. Hotter temperatures mean more extreme weather events.
   
4. Concerns about climate change is not new. In fact, the first concerns were raised as early as the late 19th century, and has grown during the 20th centry. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988. That is over 30 years ago.
   
5. The IPCC, based on scientific evidence, says we need to keep temperatures from rising no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial temperatures. This requires us to reduce 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. 

Overarching principles

With the above facts in mind, here are the main principles around which I will take my individual actions.

1. Principles and evidence based decision making - As may be apparent from the above facts and this list of principles, it is extremely important to based any action on scientific evidence and principles. Even deciding to not take a particular action should be based on scientific evidence and principles. Otherwise, decisions will not be factually sound or consistent with the overall outcomes that you want to achieve. Understanding principles behind a decision is really important, because when faced with the same facts, different principles might result in different (including completely different) actions. 
   
2. Precautionary principle - One of the fundamentals of environmental thinking is the precautionary principle. While it has many different expressions, I take this principle as meaning that taking an action to protect the environment should not be postponed because there is a lack of full scientify certainty about the threat to the environment or what should be done.  That means that where there is sound evidence, but not full certainty, we should take a precautioanry approach, err on the side of caution, and take that protective step anyway. The environment is too precious to waste. While I believe that there is full scientific certainty about human induced climate change, this principle could nonetheless be useful for those who may be on the fence. It is like insurance - you know there is a risk there, why take the chance?
   
3. Equity - This is where divergent views might show up. I believe that we should try to be equitable in our actions, and that includes our response to climate change. What does equity mean? It means giving all stakeholders an equal footing on the most significant aspects of life, noting the systemic and individual differences in standing and opportunities of each stakeholder. So this means protecting the environment, because it does not have a voice in human decision-making. It means thinking about those who are more vulnerable to climate change, who might not have the voices to be heard or the resources to respond to climate change in the same way I might. It means thinking about future populations, who do not have a say in what we do now but who will be living with the consequences of our actions. And it means thinking about how I should act, acknowledging my privileged position and understanding how I act can be part of influencing other people on how they act.
   
4. Taking responsibility - I did not make a conscious decision to cause climate change. I myself did not cause climate change. There are so many other people, from all over the world and all over different time periods, that have contributed to climate change. But nonetheless I have a level of responsibility. I am reaping the benefits of a world developed through agricultural production and the industrial revolution. I enjoy conveniences from fossil fuel energy and a global supply chain. Even if I enjoyed none of those things, don't I have a responsibility to the rest of the world, or to future generations, to do something about a problem that I know about?
   
5. Collective action - On that note, and as mentioned in my previous post, while I can only truly have power over how I act, I acknowledge that my own personal actions are not enough to make a difference. Given the global and structural scale of the problem, there needs to be a global and structural response to climate change. So although I can only take personal action, that personal action should always be contributing to collective action somehow, because it will only be through collective action that we can create global and structural changes. This does not mean that all my actions need to be part of a collective action, but it is recognition that individual action is not enough. A mix of think global, but act local. Having said that, individual is still worthwhile, at the least because it does has some small change, and at it's best, personal action not only demonstrates my own personal capacity to change but could also act as a means to influence others to change.
    
6. Think and act positively - Despite all the doom and gloom of the facts and narratives presented to us, we must still think and act hopefully and positively. Without hope, there is futility and little or no drive to think big and take action. Without positivity, we will often lose many others who we aim to bring along with us.

With the above facts and principles established, I will next move onto the first action I will take ... and it involves putting money where my mouth is.

A new normal

I woke up to a new year, a new decade, and a new normal. The skies were cloudy orange, unlike the ordinary Canberra I knew. No, this was the smoke from the bushfires surrounding the Canberra region. This was a smoke signal from a scorched earth, fuelled by extreme weather conditions, prolonged drought and even more prolonged inaction. It was the apocalyptic nightmare that many climate scientists had been predicting.

Waking up to outside smoke once or twice might remind of out in the woods and waking up to a burnt out bonfire. But waking up to smoke day after day, with no clear end in sight, means something entirely different. With the end of year holidays ending and new years resolutions percolating, waking up to smoke puts you in a heightened reflective mode.

There's a point when you cannot watch the news anymore. Cannot watch the devastation to the environment, to communities, to animals and to other humans. The harsh realities outside your home forces you to retreat inwards. You reflect on your feelings, your ambitions, your plans for the future. And how that future must include climate change adaptation. Those rose-tinted dreams you harboured as a kid are now tinged by the deep red morning, afternoon and evening sky of bushfire season. The time has come and I am anxious and frightened. At the end of the day, we are of this Earth, and we belong to it. When it cries out, we also cry out. Both because of the pain of the Earth and because of the impact it will have on us.

Like the extremely dry landscape that have fuelled the bushfires, my feelings have been building up for a long time. It's been there since I first heard of the warnings about climate change over a decade ago. It's built as I waited for broader government action, as I watched a government call it the greatest moral challenge of our time, as I watched om as any meaningful, collective action destroyed by politicking across successive Labor and Coalition governments, and other vested interests. It's built as I've stood by, seeing this inaction manifest in my own life. This is the textbook definition of negligence, at all levels.

And like the bushfires themselves, when the conditions converge and a spark is lit, all that fuel is ignited into a roaring phenomenon. In the face of scorched earth,  we must act. In this world, we still have agency and can still decide how we want to act to respond to this threat.

We can do so in many ways. I only have control on how I will act, but I know that individual action alone cannot resolve this, and collective action is also necessary. Challenges as big as this need a response just as big. Individual actions will not work in isolation. But individual, personal actions still contribute in many ways, at the very least to show that we have some sense of control over our actions, and at the most to show and inspire hope that if we can change our individual actions, there is hope for change.

For me, the first step is always reflective and declaratory. I will no longer be a quiet Australian. Having reflected on all the information before me, I declare that I am living in a climate emergency, and that I will stand up and try to do something about it. I have been taking steps over the years (such as reducing my energy usage, composting, cycling to work), but I can always do more. We all have a duty of care, and we have all been negligent to some degree. The time is now to reflect and to respond. I cannot respond to everything all at once. I can only take one step at a time.

For the remainder of this year, I will document each month something that I have done that I think has contributed to our response to climate change. It will be a mix of individual action, and contributing to collective action. It's the only way I can stay sane and believe that I am contributing something meaningful, something productive, something effective, to save this scorched earth on which I stand.

Less Impact Men.

It's been a big week for the environment, with Earth Hour last weekend, the International Panel on Climate Change releasing its latest report and policy summary, and the International Court of Justice ruling in Australia's favour and ordering that the Japanese Government cease its scientific whaling scheme because it breached the International Convention for the Regulation on Whaling by not being carried out for a scientific purpose (summary here). I've been recently writing ICJ case summaries for the online resource A38, and in particular environmental cases like the Case concerning pulp mills on River Uruguay and the Case concerning the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project. To me, the ICJ has always been reluctant to make major findings against countries, so this is the first time in the environmental context that it has so emphatically declared and ordered injunctions against a country. It's so invigorating to see such outcomes!*

Given this, I thought I'd begin doing my own bit for the environment, starting with publishing this post on No Impact Man, the documentary I watched recently at the Social Change Film Festival. This documentary follows one year in the life Colin Beavan and his young family as they try to lead a carbon neutral life in New York City. Each month they alter something out of their lives to reduce their carbon pollution - transportation, food, electricity, cleaning products.

Like Money & Life, the other documentary I watched at the festival, it was pretty inspiring seeing Colin (and especially his hesitant wife, Michelle) challenge themselves and adapt to a better way of living. They persevered in the spirit of 'let's just give it a go', and if certain things did not work out (like replacing their fridge with a naturally cooling, sand-lined pot), then they could go back. Unsurprisingly, despite some resistance from his wife at first, she enjoyed so many of the changes over the year that what started as an experiment became a lasting way of life.